Today is the 9st November and before I had never the time to write this. So now the last half day of America, the flight back, returning home and my review about this exchange:
I woke up at 6 a.m., washed my face and brought my suitcase and my backpack downstairs after brushing my teeth. Then I talked for the last time with my host family and soon we had to say goodbye to each other. It was unbelievably hard and I can’t explain how bad I felt leaving. I gave Piper and my whole host family each one letter and I gave them all one bracelet because I wanted to give them time they had given to me 🙂 ✨
The best thing about saying goodbye was that Piper and we could say to each other that we will see each other „soon“ again and we gave us a pinky promise to that and crossed our pinkie fingers for that! 🙂 ✨✨✨
Ms. Kaindl drove me to CrackerBarrels, an American diner, where we met Mr. Costa, Aleks and Marla. I ordered myself my last American Breakfast: pancake tacos – pancakes filled eith bacon, egg and with hash browns casserole and maple syrup! That was very tasty and culinary a very good end of this trip ✈️✨
We drove to the airport were we checked in and after checking in the suitcases we went through the security. We had some time left at the JAX Airport where we talked about our amazing trip. Then we took the plane to Charlotte.
There waited for the plane home for 4 hours. We bought the last American candies and I ate 2 protein bars before my sugar level increased and so I made a quick workout at the airport (jup, that’s me: don’t care what other people think of me!) and this made my positivity rising for a little bit. Then we hung out in our group and soon we stepped into the airplane and were on the plane back to Munich. I watched „the Bookclub“ and listened to some music. After dinner I tried hard to sleep but it wasn’t easy but I got a few hours of sleep. 😴
We arrived in Munich at 6:30 a.m. and we waited together for our suitcases! But I couldn’t help but notice that I was smiling and that my smile was there after hugging my parents and their sweet welcome and on the way back home. But it was only one part that I was happy to see my family again – I began to realize what for unbelievable amazing three weeks I had experienced. ✨✨
Now five days later after arriving I slowly understand and recap that this all wasn’t a dream and that it was reality and I saw this all in real life. I’m realizing that I had this wonderful host family, the best I’d ever imagined. I’m realizing that I stood at the bottom of rockets and the space shuttle in the Kennedy Space Center, I walked through the whole diagon alley, visited Hogwarts, Gringotts and rode a lot of rides in the Universal Studios, I was in a glass bottom boat and in a kayak at Silver Springs where I saw alligators, turtles, birds and Manatees and dived in another spring in this big State Park, I visited St.Augustine, I swam in the ocean of the Golf of Mexico, watched the most fabulous sunset there and had wonderful moments everyday. 🙂 ✨✨
I’m realizing that I was at the Homecoming Dance, saw my first football game, stood in front of a big size American truck with the biggest pizza in my hands, ate „small ice cream“ at WHIT’S in a size that is huge at home, lifted the first time in the gym (34 kgs), went on hikes through the completely different nature than here, went through enormous shopping malls (I just say Cosco) and bought so beautiful sport clothes (shorts, skorts,…) there, ate in famous fast food restaurants like Wendys or ChickFil’A, had the best American Halloween ever with an inspiring pumkin carving before, tried to not fall at the soap water tampoline game, watched all the performances of DA students that were overwhelmingly good, I took a lot of walks with Masie&Moxie, I was in the supermarkets Target, Publix, WinDixie and even stayed in the big gas station Buccees, had this passport drama and met so many kind people. :)✨✨
I am realising how blessed I was to had this amazing hostfamily where all were like real family members for me. I am realising that I experienced their allday life, met a lot nice friends of them and now we share so many memories together: The evenings where we watched Hamilton & TedLasso or just chatted and ate together as a family, Taco Tuesdays, painting the front porch, the whole weekend at the JAX beach where I watched the beautifulest sunrise and the airshow, where we did a biketour, ate really good sea food, celebrated Margots birthday, ate delicious fruits and swam on the other side of the Atlantic. :)✨✨✨
There are many diffrences about the lifestyle and life in America compared to Germany and I’m for example happy to have the possibility again to use the public transport or my bike but I also realised that many things are very similiar. And the people that I met in JAX and on our trips were very kind and open minded. For sure there are diffrences between the cultures but I think it is more about seeing how other people live rather than valuing what is the best or worse. 🙂
I can’t explain how thankful I am that this was reality and not just a dream. Now I can tick off this point from my bucket list with the most beautifullest pictures in my mind and especially my heart. I also think that it is fantastic and really crazy that in my youth it is normal to communicate with people all over the world through our phones and then have the ability to see them in real life – through exchange programs. And I’m very grateful that this dream became true and I saw everything I read in books or saw in series/movies by myself. It is so wonderful that our school gave me the oppertunity to make this exchange and that our teachers organized it so well and even drove us on all our trips! 🙂 And it was encouraging and fascinating to see that I can understand a language and that I can communicate with another language.
My thankfulness for my hostfamily, especially Piper and this whole exchange is so huge that I can’t explain it with words. I just know that I learned so much about a culture, a language, a country, a state and espacially about the people. And the fact that on every part of the world there are wonderful people who often exist without us knowing. I experienced so many diffrent things in 3 weeks as I never had in my whole life before – and it wasn’t overwhelming, it was just wonderful and that I will never forget this!✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨
A great trip Johanna! Thanks for sharing your experiences! Big hug!
Uncle Benedikt