 I know I have been pretty bad on my journals and I apologize for
that but this journal covers everything from December to March. This was my
first birthday which I celebrated away from my family and friends back in India,
well not really because I had my family and friends here. So I was participating
in a play at a theatre in my town and I was Santa. Right after the play ended
and I came out of the dressing room. My counselor and my 1st host family and my
next host family showed up with cake, gifts and started singing birthday song for
me I was really touched. It was really nice. After that I moved to my new host
family on the day of my birthday, they were really nice to welcome me and when
my host mom asked me what do you like the most to eat I was so confused that I
said McDonalds. So we ate McDonalds as my birthday dinner. When I told this to
my counselor he laughed. I really like my room and the house. But before we got
to know each other better the Disney trip was the next weekend.
So I left for my Disney trip in December this was the time
when the friendship bonds between exchange students started getting strong.
We were there for 4 days but it rather felt a month long trip. Our Rotary
chaperones were great. We visited the biggest 4 parks in Disney (Epcot,
animal kingdom, Hollywood studios and magic kingdom). It was an awesome
trip. I was with everybody in the span of those four days and I truly got to
know a lot of them. It was beautiful out there it felt like a whole
different world. I was with everybody but if I have to name some people who
I really got close to on this trip they would be of course Guro - she lives
in the same town as me - and Gui, Tatti, Marina, Malte, Sampsa, Carolina,
Vinny, Vinisius, Rea and Dani with whom I was singing and dancing all around
in Disney. Then on the last day at the dinner Mr. Al Kalter showed up with
Disney shirts - it was amazing with a Mickey at front and names of all the
exchange students who were there behind it. It was definitely a trip to
remember all my life!
After the long trip at Disney, we all got home and got
ourselves ready for back to the normal life (which is actually not normal
because we are in different country but we are all used to it now). So my
new host family had 2 host brothers one is 8 and the other is 20 and a host
sister who goes to college in UF but currently is in Australia for a
semester in college there, my host mom and my host dad. I love all of them,
they all are real nice. My host mom is a Rotarian and she is just like a mom
to me - she will tell me what to do when, and even ground me for not writing
the journal pretty much like my mom in India. My younger host brother John
is just like my sister in India I love to play with him, throw some
football, and the stuff which a brother does with his brother. I have never
had an elder host brother and it's pretty fun to have someone of just kind
of your age but a bit older who can guide you to the right direction. My
host dad loves cooking and cooks dinner every night. I love the food that he
makes. My personal favorite is fish, I never used to eat fish in India but
the fish he cooks is just so delicious!
CHRISTMAS
I had my very first Christmas in America with them,
actually it was my first Christmas ever. I am a Muslim and we don’t used to
celebrate Christmas in India. It is not like I had never heard of it before.
Of course I had heard about the snow, the Santa Claus, the gifts, the
stockings hanging on the fireplace, and everything. This was my first
experience of it. So on the Christmas Eve we all went to my host
grandparents house had a wonderful dinner with them and opened a bunch of
presents there as by my family tradition. I got a McDonalds gift card as I
loved it too much from my host grandparents. Everything was just the way I
imagined it except the snow (oh well it's Florida!). But it was beautiful
lights everywhere on the houses. After the beautiful dinner we went home and
me and John put some cookies and milk by the stockings on the fireplace.
Then John went to bed and me and my host mom went to church for the late
night service, it was just amazing. Then me and my host mom went home and I
got to be Santa with her this year and I helped her with putting the gifts
and filling the stockings, the best part was I got to eat the cookies and
the milk. Next day in the morning we all waited for everybody to get up to
open the gifts, rather my host brother John woke me up at 7 because he was
too excited to open the gifts and see what he got. I got a lot of stuff like
a watch, some tree ornaments to take back to India, lot of candies, etc. The
same weekend me and Guro went to my counselor Mr. Tom’s house and had
Christmas dinner with him and his wife, exchanged our presents with them. I
love my counselor, his wife, my host family and Guro.
NEW YEARS
This was by far the best new years of my life so far. I
love my Rotary district and all the exchange students in it. Rotary planned
us our New Years party at an exchange student’s host family’s house. But the
best part of it was we had a reason another than just the New Years to
party. Before the party the Rotary planned us a wonderful opportunity to
work at a homeless shelter. We worked there and helped them with cooking
food. We were a big group so we were divided in two sub groups one group
took turn to help in kitchen and the other had a guided tour of the shelter.
We all were amazed how much those people do for homeless people without
gaining lot of money. It felt good helping there. After we all were done
cooking we helped serving the food and some of us even went and talked to
some of the people there. After that we all went to the house and had some
delicious barbecue. It was a huge house with everything in it. There was a
game room with video games, pool table and a ping pong table and it had
swimming pool and a hot Jacuzzi and they even had a karaoke. We all spend
our time doing all of the above and when it was almost midnight we all
walked to the doc and saw the fireworks it was beautiful. Everybody was
talking to their host families their families back home, friends. Wishing
everybody they know to have a happy new year. It felt awesome to be there. I
want to thank Rotary for this wonderful experience. In the morning Al Kalter
showed up with some Christmas presents for all of us. He had bought some
pins from Disney for us. He always comes with some presents for us. He’s
really nice, we all love him.
SCUBA
I started taking scuba classes in January; it was
something really different and new for me I enjoyed it. Me, Guro, Summer (a
girl from my school) and Greg, a random guy, took classes together. We
learnt the basics in the swimming pool like how to buddy up? And how to use
the scuba gears. Our instructor Kathy is a nice lady and an awesome
instructor. She was really nice with us. And finally after some sessions in
pool we all went to spring close by for our first dive ever - it was a
beautiful place called devils den. It was really hard the first time but it
got easier with some time. At first my ears were hurting so much that I
thought they were about to pop up and fall out but it got better after some
time. It was an amazing and weird feeling looking around and see that we can
breathe under water and look around. We swam a bit and saw some fishes. I
tried chasing one but it was hard. Fishes swim really fast. It was really
good to try something new and cool like that.
Everything was going cool with my host family. My host
sister was home after her first semester. She was going to leave for
Australia in February so I had some time to spent with her too which was
nice. We watched some shows like one tree hill and secret life of teenager.
I was so amazed to find myself in these girly shows. I got to know my host
brothers well and as well as my host mom and host dad.
SEA CAMP
Before going to Seacamp we went to a dolphin centre where
we sawed the instructors training dolphins to perform different stunts. We
even learnt there that if you kiss a sea cucumber you get 4 years of luck. I
did that. I don’t know if it’s true or not but I just did that for fun. This
was going to be our last trip with all the exchange students in Florida all
together as after this all the trips were going to be the paid trips and
everybody were going to go to different trips out of the 4. I never thought
I would be so attached to all the exchange students before coming here. We
went to Seacamp down in Florida Keys (they are a bunch of islands in the
southern most part of Florida). Seacamp was located at a beautiful spot
right on the ocean. We all had 3 random roommates and we kind of lived in
dorm kind of buildings. We were also joined in the camp with a bunch of high
school students from Key West. They all were really friendly and became our
friends too. Like one of them is going to come and visit me in spring break
too. We had instructors down there and were divided in groups for the whole
weekend and they had planned stuff for us to do. We had bonfire the first
night we got there. They had given different topics to different groups
based on the ocean. Like my group had a topic of coral degradation. We all
were given these topics to present a presentation in front of everybody in
the summit on the last night.
So this was not all fun trip it was a fun and learning
trip. We snorkeled in pool on the first day just to see if everybody knows
how to do it and then we went in the ocean and snorkeled in there to look at
the corals to learn how they look like and general information for our
topic. Then just for fun we had nets and we were allowed to catch fishes. I
and my buddy tried to catch some but fishes were hard to catch. Then I and
my buddy Clara (Brazilian exchange student) caught two crabs it was fun! The
next day we had dance and some practice session to prepare a presentation.
Dance was fun. But on the last night in the summit I couldn’t stop my
emotions and while trying to thank Rotary for that, tears popped up in my
eyes. I was shocked that I cried because I was going to miss some of those
exchange students who I was not going to see after this. I was amazed that
spending this little time with all of them had brought me so close that I
even cried for them. Almost all of the exchange students cried that night -
it was a touchy night. Then next day we all went to Key West for a short
period of time. We were giving some free time to shop and do whatever we
want. I went to Hard Rock Café and got a shirt for myself. And then we all
left. It was an amazing and emotional weekend. And this is when I decided to
go to Hawaii. I was only going to go to the west coast trip but after
thinking that I won’t see the people who are going to Hawaii and not west
coast after this I asked my dad in India and he understood me and allowed me
to go. I was so happy and I really love my dad back home.
February had lots of going on. I had the Hawaii trip from
20 and before that I was going to go to New Orleans with my host family for
Mardi Gras from 10 to 17. So yes, February had a lot going on. American
Football has become a big part of my life, I mean I just love that sport.
And the national championship was in this month which they call Super Bowl.
The final was right before we left for New Orleans and New Orleans won it.
NEW ORLEANS
When my host mom told me that I get to go to New Orleans
for Mardi Gras with them I was totally blanked. I mean I had no idea what it
is, but when I asked them and my friends at school I was like, “how did I
never knew that?”. I was so excited to go after what I heard about it. So
finally the day came and we took off for a long car journey. Finally when we
got there we lived in my host dad’s cousin’s house (she was in one of the
floats in those parades too). For those who don’t know what Mardi Gras is,
is a Catholic holiday when the people who live in New Orleans get to
participate in different kinds of parades and these parades have a lot of
different floats. This is a tradition that has been going on for a long
time. It was introduced by French people to the people in New Orleans. There
are 3 times more visitors at this point of time in New Orleans than the
number of people who live there. People on this floats throw different kinds
of beads at you, every float has a special bead of something with it. It’s
called the best catch, if you catch the best catch of the float it’s really
good. Like one float had a show decorated with sparkles and stuff written
all over it. We got there early so before the parade started we went and saw
the New Orleans downtown and the big aquarium there. It’s a beautiful city
but some parts of it have still not been completely recovered from Katrina.
The parades started the next night; it was freezing cold.
I had 3 jackets and gloves on. But all this cold went away when the parade
started and it was just amazing. There were different school bands in
between each float and my hands got warmer when I caught those beads flying
from the floats. The other big thing was New Orleans had won the Super Bowl
so there were people everywhere singing the New Orleans teams songs and it
was just awesome. There were many and many floats which were designed as the
winning team New Orleans Saints. In one of the big parades they had the
coach of the team and the star player Reggie Bush on the float. Sean Peyton
the coach was running down on the streets with the Super Bowl trophy,
everybody were running up to it to get a chance to touch it and I did the
same too and guess what, I did it. I touched the Super Bowl trophy! I was so
pumped after that, that I texted everybody on my phone telling them that I
did that - everybody were so jealous of me. It was a fun night. I also had
some traditional food of New Orleans. I truly loved it. This was a week when
I got to stay with my family here and know them more and just have good
times with them. As my counselor says,” you are here to have fun and gain
different experiences - make the most of it”.
After a short 3 days at home I was packed and off to
Hawaii!!!!
HAWAII
I decided to go after the Seacamp as you read above so
none of the exchange student knew that I was going except Guro. I thought it
would give a sweet surprise to everybody. And it started from the JAX
airport as Marina, Laurenz, Tatti, Ida and Juline saw me at the airport.
They all were shocked and Marina and Tatti came running towards me and
almost tackled me down to the ground. I guess they were happy with my
surprise. After that everybody at the airport was just staring at me it was
funny. People were asking us if everything was alright, it was funny. After
that short brief moment we went to different gates I was flying alone and
they all were flying together differently. I was just thinking when rest of
everybody sees me how are they going to react. So I flew to Atlanta and sit
on my seat and Gui walks up to me and he said, “What are you doing here?”
Then everybody in the plane were staring at us. The biggest surprise was
going to be for Gui, Marina and Tatti and they had already got in even
before we reached Hawaii. And the coincidence was that Gui had a seat right
besides me in the flight. We both were really pumped for Hawaii. But it was
a long journey, we all were so excited it felt as if it took us forever.
Finally after getting there we went to the best hotel ever, it was on the
beach. We had our introductions with the other exchange students from
Pennsylvania. And after 2 days it felt like we knew them for forever. It’s
so funny that all the exchange students understand each other so well. The
most shocking thing that I came to know in Hawaii was not about Hawaii. When
I started hanging around with those other exchange students at first I was
bad at remembering all of their names so I asked the exchange student Victor
name of his other friend from same district and he said he doesn’t know. I
was taken aback - I was like, are you serious? Then when I got to know more
- these people before coming to Hawaii had just met once at the orientation,
that’s it, and I was so shocked because out here we had trips like
orientation, St. Augustine, Halloween party, Disney, New Years and the
Seacamp trip and that was the time when I realized that RYE Florida is
something special. They do something special for us. I mean the best part of
this year has been know the people from Rotary and the exchange students.
I would want to take this opportunity and thank everybody
involved with RYE Florida for making this year the way it is for us. I
really mean this from bottom of my heart and I know all the other exchange
students in Florida think the same.
Well back to Hawaii it was the most beautiful place I have
ever seen in my life. Belo USA the organization that we went from had the
best of possible arrangement for us, the chaperones were great and John
(Rotary chaperone) was nice too. Hotel was awesome, the food was awesome and
the places we visited were beautiful. The new things that I did there are I
went snorkeling and swam with turtles in Hanauma Bay, the most beautiful
place I have snorkeled ever. I learnt how to surf, it was amazing. We even
went to the famous ‘Bubba Shrimp’ from Forrest Gump, we learnt the Hawaiian
dance and I even won a prize for the best dance. We climbed a volcano and
saw a view of the whole city of Honolulu. We went to some theme park which
had different traditional shows and shops from all the islands of Hawaii. We
went kayaking to 3 different islands. We went to a place where the waves
were so high that even professional surfers couldn’t surf and so much more.
The two best things about this trip were: First was
obviously that in this small bunch of 39 exchange students I can promise you
that I will never forget any one of them in my life or this trip to Hawaii
it was by far the best trip of my life!!!!. And I promise you one day I will
visit all of them in their home countries. Second thing was TSUNAMI!!!! Was
our last night when the tsunami alerts started coming. I was woke up by my
friend as his mom from Germany called him to ask him if he is safe. At first
I thought it was joke but then he turned on the TV and it was real. I went
and checked on everybody and everyone was up and everybody were scared I
just didn’t knew how to react to it. I was laughing at a time and I was
scared at once then me and Laurenz went and woke up the chaperones and then
they figured out everything that it was going to hit at 11 so we will be out
before that and anyways it was not going to hit us because we were at the
opposite side but just for precaution we woke up early and went somewhere
high and close to airport and we all reached home safe. But it was just a
different feeling that we can say now we survived the tsunami and we were
there.
This is it for now. School is going great, everybody is
preparing for prom. All the weekends seem so busy now. Something is always
going on every time either it’s either me trying to go and visit some
exchange student or they are trying to come and visit me. We all want to
spend time with each other now and just have fun for the last 3 months we
are here for. Then it’s my family back in India who are coming here to visit
me in May. So much to-do. It feels like I got here last month - time is
flying!!! I promise you that from now I will write my journals every month.
All I want to say is thanks a lot Rotary - there are no words to explain to
you how grateful we are to you for making our year so wonderful.
“SHUKRIYA” (it means thank you in Hindi). |
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