Beginning of Summer

School is (almost) over. The fortunate seniors’ last school day was May 18th, the day of prom, while us underclassmen still have half a week of exams to go before enjoying the sunshine outside. It is going to be great to be done with school and have plenty of spare time to do whatever. I am planning on making the beach my home the next weeks.

Friday was the Seniors’ graduation at the school. It was weird seeing everyone in their cap and gowns knowing that they won’t be attending SAHS next year. I am sure they are all relieved to be done and ready to go to college or on exchange next year. Congratulations everybody! We celebrated Orion Saturday with a party at our house, which was a lot of fun. Brennan, Julien, Will, and I went kayaking while the sun was going down. I still can’t believe how beautiful St. Augustine is!

Prom here was so much fun. I met up downtown with a quite large group and we made sure to take a bunch of pictures before eating at Yamato. Prom was very much like homecoming except that prom was only for seniors and juniors, which made it that much more fun (no offense freshman and sophomores). I have finally become used to the American style of dancing, which took quite a while.

I almost stepped back into another time in my exchange when I went with the Paxtons (my first host family) to North Carolina. It was an absolutely amazing weekend consisting of lots of relaxation, playing pool, jet skiing, tubing, and homemade ice cream. It was really nice spending a long weekend with everyone again. The lake is such a beautiful place. I really want to go back and visit!

Julien and I celebrated both our birthdays with a party at the fountain of youth. Balazs brought water balloons to the party so we all ended up being soaked. It was lots of fun!

Our final exchange student get together was in Fernandina beach. It was great to see all the other exchange students again. Throughout the year, we have all become one big family. Miri (a girl from Japan) and I stayed at the same host family from Saturday to Sunday. Great experience to tell a new family about how it is to host and maybe create the possibility for them wanting to host in the future. The two younger girls in the family were so nice! Besides from all meeting up one last time, the purpose of the weekend was to prepare us for going back to our countries. It was weird already having to talk about that – the feelings regarding that subject are so complex. I am trying just to live in the moment and enjoy my time in Florida. It was quite hard leaving the weekend, since we had to say goodbye to those, who are not going on the West Coast trip.