Today I stood up around 7 a.m. and made my favorite breakfast – peanut butter oatmeal with apples – and enjoyed it! Then I packed my bagpack and swimming bag 🙂
Patrick drove Piper, Celia and me to DA and Molly to Fishweir Elementary School as every day and there we changed car and Mr.Costa drove my group and me to the Silver Springs State Park.
First we made a glass bottom boat tour there and that was so impressive and the clear water is so gorgeous – it seemed more unbelievable beautiful! The captain showed us all springs of Silver Springs and many were also used for filming a lot of movies. ✨ We saw many turtles, water birds like the „snakebird“ and also one Manatee! I had my delicious cheese cucumber bagel as lunch and then we put a lot of sunscreen on for the next activity – a kayak tour!
Aleks and I shared one and I sat in the front and she in the back. On our way we saw many turtles, again many interesting birds, one Manatee really near to as (and this time it was even bigger!) and I saw my first alligator in real life 🐊! 🙂 ✨It is so interesting how diffrent the animals here are and it was soooo exciting to see it all so near!
The end at Silver Springs were the Juniper Springs were we were able to swim and dive to a spring under water! 🙂 The water was so clear (!) and about 22°C warm and I loved staying in there for a bit – they also had little fish I knew from Italy that nibbled on our feet. ✨
On our way back we stopped at a gas station because we needed to use the bathroom but the toilet was broken so we had luck that the next gas staion was only 100 meters away! At 6:25 p.m. we arrived at DA and Sarah and Piper picked me up – Piper drives so good! We had a very delicious vegetables soup for dinner Sarah had made and wonderful homemade bread! 🍞🍲✨🤗
JAX Skyline in the morning
The view outside the window
Glass Bottom Boat Tour
Kayak Tour 🛶
Even if it is hard to see, this is a picture of an alligator 🐊
And look at this beautiful Manatee ✨✨ 🙂
Juniper Springs✨🦋
I also tried the „fantastic fudge“ a non typical sweet from Sarahs sister – it was really (!) sweet and for my taste a little too sweet but it was definitely worth it trying because it tastes very special and is unique! It also looks like parmesan 🙂
On the way home I sat in the car with Mr. Costa and the other students and we listened to a lot of music. When they played „Ich war noch niemals in New York“ („I’ve never been in New York“) I felt such a strong emotion deep in my heart: With this exchange one of my biggest dreams is coming true and I appreciated every moment of this day and this whole trip until now. It was a feeling of gratefulness and happiness that was so overwhelmingly wonderful that I think I will never forget this moment ever again. And I can’t explain how happy I am that this all is reality and not longer a dream✨✨✨🦋🦋🦋:)
