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Rafa

2011-12 Inbound from Ecuador

Sponsor: Rotary Club of Riobamba, District 4400, Ecuador

Host: Rotary Club of St. Petersburg, District 6950, Florida

Rafa's Bio

Hola a todos.

My name is Rafael( Rafa), I am 18 years old. I was born in Riobamba-Ecuador, and I have lived here all my life. Ecuador is located in South America, and is well known for its beaches, mountains, and its great diversity of flora and fauna, and also because here are the amazing Galapagos Islands. I studied all my life in Jefferson High School, and I recently graduated from high school in May 2011.One of the things I miss most is the life of the school, but the good thing about all this are the memories of my friends and teachers who last a lifetime.

I live in my house with my dad who is a surgeon, my mom who is a nurse and my older sister Belen who is recently just graduated as an architect, and also my dog Friday. In the high school I like math, physics, chemistry and drawing. I like being with my friends at lunch to play sports and things like that. In my free time I like listening to music, practice sports and one of the things I like to do is go out with my friends to parties.

And now I am here in St. Petersburg Florida for one of my best years of my life and I decided to be an exchange student because I think this is the best opportunity to meet a country, its culture, its people, language and much more. I accepted this challenge because I needed a change in my life and this is the best opportunity for that change during a year full of good experiences every day. This year I want to take every opportunity to the fullest, learn about American culture, learn English and above all be a better person every day. And for that reason I say to all exchange students enjoy the most this year

Thank you ROTARY for giving me this great opportunity in my life, because this will be the best year of my life.

Journals

Monday, November 07, 2011

Now are about two and a half months since I came to Florida specifically at this amazing city called St. Petersburg. There are many things that have happened during this time and one of the most exciting was when I had the orientation weekend with all the other exchange students. It was very interesting and fun because we had time for presentations, to play games and also we had a little party with music and lot of ice cream. Then in the next week I started the school, the first couple of days were a little difficult for me because I did not know anyone in the school and also for the language. But now things are really much better with new friends, with interesting classes and other fun things like football games. One of the things I like much about school is that you can choose your courses, so you can learn many things from painting or drawing also American history and ecology, which are some of the classes I am taking.

The school is one of the things that help you so much to learn better English everyday, and also your host family. When you become an exchange student your desire is to have a good host family, and I was fortunate enough to have an excellent host family because now I feel really like a member of this family. With my host family I have done many fun things, I have visited some places, I have gone to some football games, restaurants and much more. One of my favorite restaurants are Checkers, Taco Bell and WingHouse, I like this restaurant not only for the food but also for the girls who serve in this place, they are really hot. Another thing that surprised me was the easier way of doing things here, and one of them is baking one, two or three pies ( one of my favorites is apple pie), also a cake and my favorite chocolate chip cookies.

One of the best things I like to do on the weekend is get up late, eat a good breakfast, go to see a movie, at night get into the pool and also play scrabble with my family, because it is a good way to learn new English words. The fishing day we had with all the exchange students from my district was fun as well as Halloween where I also wore a costume and with some friends went through all the houses in the neighborhood asking for candy, that was something very American.