See ya // Hello!

I'm here with the Rotary Club, so I have to switch families. Rotary usually wants the foreign exchange student to stay in 2-4 families. Because my american rotary club couldn't find anyone in school/ town who wants to host me, they told me at the beginning of January that I will probably stay in the same family the whole year what was totally okay for me.

Another foreign exchange student from Norway who goes to my High School, told me in the middle of January that she knows a teacher from our school who is interested in hosting me. So I talked to my Organisation and they were making an appointment to meet them. Two months later  I could finally move. So I was staying in my old host family about 7 months and in my new one about 3-4 months.

SEE YA

Since we had a snow storm on Thursday, we didn't have school on Thursday and Friday. 

I started packing at Thursday, because I wasn't sure if we would have school on Friday. So I had the whole Friday to spend time with my host family.

I had Breakfast with my little Host sister. I was baking German Bread (my pen pal sent me that. Btw thanks again! <3 ) , so my little host sister and I ate it with raspberry jam on the next day. It was really good and even my little host sister who doesn't like eating knew things, liked it.

Then I was watching a movie with my little host sister and after Dinner the whole family was playing board games together.

MOVING DAY

After I cleaned my room I brought all my stuff downstairs.

The picture below shows all my stuff I had to move. Well.. I really don't know how to get that stuff home with the plane !!!

Since I didn't switch schools or something, I didn't really have to say goodbye to my old host family. It was more a "see you soon" than a "goodbye". 

A few last pictures in my old home.

Maverick and I

my little host sister Saige and I

At 11 a.m. my new host family picked me up. My two host families said hey to each other. Chris, my new host mother was petting the dog ( she loves dogs a lot ). 

First we went to a Mexican restaurant called "Tequilas" for lunch. Before we were heading to my new home, we went groceries shopping.

Lunch at Tequlias

NEW FAMILY, NEW HOUSE, NEW TOWN, NEW EXPERIENCES!! 

My new host parents Chris and Kurt are sooo nice! I felt like a part of the family from the first moment on. 

Chris is a special education teacher at Middletown High School. In America teens who need a special education, can choose if they want to go to a special, private school or if they want to go to a normal, public High School in a special education class. Chris is also volunteering to work in the dogs shelter (sowas wie n Tierheim), so she goes there and walks or teaches the dogs.

Kurt has his own company, so he works in his office at home. If he doesn't work for his company, he likes to work in the house. For example at the weekend he built a new railing for the stairs.

 They have 5 "children". None of them lives at their house anymore. One son lives in Texas, the other son lives in Hawaii. They have three daughters: Jenn and her husband live about 30 minutes away from our house and have two children (Mara is 5 years old and Andrew is nearly two years old), Amy and her husband live in Odessa, that's about 10 minutes away from our house. They have a son called Carsen who's about the same age like Andrew.

Chris' and Kurt's third and youngest daughter Melissa is in Rome for a semester right now, so I didn't meet her yet. I think she's coming back in April, so I will meet her soon!

Steak Salad

After about two days staying in my new host family, I already learned a lot of new things. My favorite new meal is called Steak Salad. It comes from the area around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where my host parents lived before they moved to Smyrna, Delaware.

Stella playing with the ice cubes in my drink

Although I'm not the only kid in this house. We have three dogs and three cats. The dogs are called Echo, Wyatt and Ellie, but they like to call them their "poppies". Echo gets special food, because he has cancer. 

Wyatt doesn't like to go out in the rain, because he nearly drowned when his actual hometown was flooded and his owners left him behind. Chris and Kurt knew that they would have given Wyatt back to his owners if they came back to get him, but they never came. 

Echo and Wyatt are dark brown mixed with a little black and Ellie has really shiny black fur.

Stanley and Lucy

But my actual new best friends are the three cats!

Lucy loves to play in general but she's in love with fighting with my hair. She has grey, white, red fur. If a cat has 3 colors in its fur, we say in Germany  that it gives you luck.

Stella looks like a tiger and loves to get petted. She also loves to play with the ice cubes in my drinks.

Stanley is black and white and has really long, pretty fur. He likes to lie with the other cats and to lick their fur.

Burger at Way Back

Yesterday we went to "Way Back". It's a Burger Restaurant in Smyrna. I had there the best burger I ever ate.

sun rise

This here is the view on the way to school. 

My new home town Smyrna is about half the size of Middletown, but I think that Smyrna is a lot prettier than Middletown. 

We live a little outside of town, so it's a little more "on the country". We are surrounded by trees, so it feels a lot more natural than in a normal neighborhood. Behind our house, there is a forest and a pond. Chris feeds daily the deers. So sometimes we have about four deers in our back yard! This wouldn't be possible in Germany.

________________________________________________________________________

Thanks again to my old host family for hosting me!! I had a great time there and I really enjoyed having sisters. Thank you for everything!

Girly Weekend

On Saturday Shirin and I went to the Christiana Mall for Shopping. It was really fun and we found out that we have nearly the same taste.

  For lunch we went to the Chinese Restaurant that's in the Mall. We had Rice and Fried Chicken with sweet sour sauce.

In the Shop that is called: "Urban Outfitters" , they had so pretty turntables (Schallplattenspieler), that I had to take a picture.

March 1st  ///  Shirin's Birthday

Shirin is my German friend here in the USA. She is here for the 2nd semester and she's my friend since the first moment I saw here. We have the same sarcasm and the same humor and we fit so perfectly together. She is the only friend here in the USA who is actually doing stuff with me. We are hanging out a lot together. She is in two of my classes (us history and French4). The bad thing is, that I'm not supposed to talk so much German here...
But anyways, she is my best friend here!

 Like me, she had her sweet 16 here. Her host mom got her this cute birthday cake :

Actually we were planning on going "lazer tag" playing, but because our friends were canceling for it, because the roads were in a bad condition, we were just watching a movie after we ate cake.

 For Dinner we went to Applebee's. It's a really good restaurant. I ate cheese noodles with chicken. The waitresses there were singing happy birthday for Shirin. She thought it was embarrassing, but I thought it was pretty funny.

New Schedule & FFA Week

Okay it's pretty late for this post, but because I'm still going to switch classes, I waited for it till now.

My new classes are:

U.S. History
Math 3 Honors
Horticulture
French 4

Okay so I actually hate History in general. But our teacher is teaching really really good, so I start to like it a lot. It's so interesting and I would like to learn more about it.

The thing with my Math class was sooo complicated. First I was in Math 2 Honors, but that was very easy. The stuff they learned in that class, was stuff we learned in Germany two years ago!!
Then they made me do a test, so they could find out what math level I was.
Then they put me in Pre-Calculus honors. That's a Class for pretty smart Seniors. I really tried hard, but it was just too hard for me. They already did a lot of thing that I haven't learned yet, so after a few weeks, I switched out of it.
Now I am in  Math 3 Honors. That's actually a class for Juniors. I think this class is okay for me, but it's a little easy. But it's the best math class I've been in yet.

Horticulture is also called Plant Science. So it's a science class that reminds me a little at Biology. I love the people in the Class and so the team is really good. They are all so nice and I enjoy this class a lot. The teacher is really nice and chilled.

After I had French 3 last semester and I loved my teacher there, I decided to take the French 4 Class. It's a pretty small class, but I really like the people there. They are all so nice and my teacher is making a really fun lesson.


FFA WEEK

 FFA is a agriculture club from my school. Everyone who is either in Plant or Animal Science, is automatically in FFA.

Lauren and I. Lauren is a really good friend. I'm also sitting with her at lunch.

On Monday we had to dress up, because we were giving the teachers little gift. We put treats in yellow and green paper, so it looked like corn. 

The second day was for students, so some of the FFA members were giving treats to students at lunch.

On Wednesday there was a pancakes and waffles brunch for the FFA members. That was my waffle:

On Thursday we were actually supposed to go Bowling, but the roads were in bad condition, so they canceled it. Was actually pretty excited for it, but well..


I can't really remember if there was something special on Friday...
But we made flowers corsages. This here is the one I made.

Valentine's Day

I didn't expect anything on the Valentine's Day, because usually it's just an usual day for me. 

But in America it's a bigger thing than in Germany, so Coffee and Donuts from Dunkin Donuts were surprising me in the Morning.

  I also got some cards and little chocolates. My little host sister was writing me a really cute card. It made me really happy.
Even if it didn't work out very well with Saige and me at the beginning. She is now a real little sister for me. Sometimes annoying, but most of the time I really enjoy it a lot to have her. We are kinda "hanging out" a lot lately. She is talking a lot with me.

The Day after Valentine's Day, I got a really cute post card form my mother. Thanks for that!:*

I also made "Faslandsküchla" for Dessert. It's hard to describe, but I think we could say it's our german "Donut". It's the same dough and you bake it in fat. But there's no hole in it, and just put sugar and cinnamon on top of it.
We it normally around carnival time.

preparing to make Faslandsküchla 

ready to eat 

Cheerleading Seniornight

I don't really have a lot to tell, that's why I didn't post anything for so long. Winter goes on. It snows a lot and it's freezing cold. So I'm sitting a lot in my room.

I think we didn't have school at 3 days and about 5 times we either had two hours later school or we went home from school 2 hours earlier.

Because it's the beginning of March now, I'm really hoping that spring will finally come!

Since the middle of February, the Winter sport season is over. After every season, there's a senior night for the sport. For Basketball and Cheerleading it was on our last home game.

At a Senior Night the Coaches call the Seniors and they walk normally with their parents through a "tunnel" that the cheerleader make. Because I am a foreign exchange student and this is my one and only year at this school, they counted me as a senior. So I was walking through the "tunnel" with my coach, because my host family didn't have time to come.

 Also because it was the last game, JV and Varsity Cheerleaders were cheering together for both teams. I like that more, because then our team is a lot bigger. If the team has just 5 members, you can hear every single one and if the team has about 20, you can hear the whole team. 

 Also the seniors got a gift from their coaches.

our last game

the actual gift I got from my coach. I was so happy about it!

The cheer squads

I also got cupcakes! 

Our coaches were also reading these papers that we had to fill out in front of everyone.

I also got cute Middletown Balloons