El Camino

Today Patrick drove Piper, Celia and me to DA and there we got into the two cars! 5 others and me drove in the car with Mr. Costa and we made one quik break for using the bathroom! On the way I read a lot and we listened to good music/ with the soundbox or I by myself with headphones 🙂

We arrived at the Dali Museum and it was so overwhelming how good he painted his pictures. Dali dealt with so many diffrent topics and in the beginning a docent told me something about his sister (in his first years of career he had painted her a lot) and showed me a picture of his own painting inspired by Dali. I went on with reading the texts and I got the phone of Mr. Costa because my phone is to old for installing the app – I never had this situation that my almost 4 year old phone is too old! For me it works as in the beginning 🙂 So I learned more about these interesting pictures through the audio files! I think it’s so great that Dali dealt with so many diffrent topics – about his own history, the history of some countries and often the whole work. I loved standing in front of his pictures that said so much and were so detailed that it’s hard to imagine. There was also really nice Virtual Reality Glasses where I could move in the picture and that was really interesting! In the end we walked around in the garden and made some pictures 🙂 ✨

After checking in in the hotel we drove to the beach. There we swam around, walked, collected shells and we saw a beautiful sunset! ✨✨✨

After a shower we had a delicious dinner at a restaurant in Downtown – shrimp pasta and a really good salad with grilled vegetables and french fries. And now we’re going to bed. 🙂

My absolute favorite: The lobster telephone!

Such an amazing day is coming to an end. Sometimes I wonder if I dream this the whole time but it is reality and I try to appreciate every single moment in this ‚reality dream‘! 🙂 ✨🦋

Today was a little bit more relaxed and I’m very thankful for slowing a bit down this one day! After my oatmeal (here very special almost everyday with peanut butter – it is better here) Patrick took Piper, Celia and me to school.

My first period I spend with all other German students in the German class of Mr. Barnes where we continued working on the project we made for the sponsoring from Munich. It’s about Douglas Anderson and Sophie Scholl and Marla and I work together with 3 other DA students!

The second period Piper and I had dancing. It was really impressive how good they performered and how hard it also was for them because they jumped around! After that we watched a video about mental health especially mental ilnesses and how to deal/recognize them. It was really interesting and I think it is important to talk about such a topic in school! After lunch we had acting in the third period. There everybody had to practice their monologues and some students presented them to the class – again, it is so crazy how good some are and how they fit into their roles and how many emotions they gave their characters. In chemistry Piper had a new teacher and the students presented all something about „Moles“ and it was cool to see how everybody presented it diffrent and with which art they presented it! 🙂

After school Piper went straight to soccer. Because of early release she had 4 hours soccer practice today and Sarah, Celia and me picked Celias siblings up and her younger sister was so cute and talked a lot and it was nice to have a conversation with her 🙂 They came home with us and we talked and snacked a little.

Then I went for a long walk with the dogs – 6 mile walk to the nearest bridge over the St.Johns River and back. Masie and Moxie were so sweet and enjoyed the whole time as I did! It was so relaxing and calming to walk past the trees with the spanish moose, the nice neighborhoods, the parks and the big beautiful River 🙂

At home I showered and Piper came home – starving because she moved so much so we made dinner together and talked for a while 🙂

Now I will prepare all for tomorrow! I’m very happy that today was calming and I got regain energy and it is so nice to live in this family because it feels like one – not like as mine in Munich but as a diffrent family with diffrent characters – all so kind and wonderful ✨✨

I woke up at 6:30 a.m. dressed up and packed all my stuff. Then we had a good breakfast at the hotel and everyone ate as much as they could because in the Universals food is really expensive! We left the hotel at 7:50 a.m. and had a 20 min drive to the Universals where we paid 30$ just for parking and everybody (reduced price for students) a little more than 100$ for their tickets. But it was worth it!

While I was walking by this huge buildings I was reaally overwhelmed and it is impressive how much work is behind every building. After a short meeting with our teachers we had 10 hours time to get our way through this big space! 🙂 First Ana, Annemarie and I went to the Diagon Alley. It was so impressive to just jump into the world from Harry Potter because all stores and also the dragon on the roof top of Gringotts became alive. We walked through many stores and everything seemed as in the movies and it was so impressive to me how good the things became reality out of the literature.

Our first Ride was in the Gringotts bank where we first walked through the whole building and it looked exactly as in the movies! Then Ana got a shocking Email from the hotel- I had forgot my passport there (I didn’t even wanted to bring it with me but before the outlet mmall yesterday I put it out because I realised I had it with me…) . So I called our teacher and she told me that everything is alright and that we will get it later on the way home. I honestly felt bad because everyone had to drive an extra route because of me but on the other hand I’m very glad that they found the passport this early and my teachers weren’t angry! So we went on the Gringotts Ride and that was so much fun and the technology behind every hologram was fantastic! 🙂

After that we went to London Kings Cross Station and took the Harry Potter Express to Hogsmead as in the movies it was really impressive and it looked exactly the same!

At Hogsmead we walked through the village and it looked with the snow on the roof tops really magical and the Hogwarts castle + walking through it + the ride inside – crazy fantasic! ✨✨ We walked through the Island of Adventure part and then took the Hogwarts Express back to the other part of the Universals.

There Annemarie, Ana and I did the Fast and Firous and the Transfomers Ride. Both were rides from series I’m not so familiar with but that was not a big problem and I enjoyed both rides 🙂

We met Mr. Costa and Mrs. Kaindl and Mrs. Kaindl and I wanted to ride the biggest red rollercoaster there but as we waited the attraction was interrupted by the weather (too much wind) and so Annemarie and I walked a little bit around and got something to eat (the „Brezn“ in the US can not be compared to the German, especially Bavarian ones! ). And we took the Revenge of the Mummy Ride which was soooo much fun! First we thought it wasn’t a rollercoaster so we were really surprised when our wagon suddenly fall backwards and then had a lot of high speed and good curves – all in the dark 🌑! 🙂

With Mr. Costa and Mrs. Kaindl we rode the Hogwarts Express back to the Islands of Adventure where we stood in line for 95 min to get on the Hagrids Ride – my personal favorite of all rides, it was soooo much fun, magical, fantastic and really worth it! ✨

Our last ride was the Spiderman Ride and as an end of such an overwhelmingly wonderful day it was perfect! 🙂 ✨✨✨

So we had to say goodbye to the Universals and left it at 6 p.m. 🙂 On the way to the hotel I felt bad because everyone was stopped by me but my teachers said that’s alright and so I got my passport in one minute at the reception and was so happy about it! 🌸

After that we drove home and had a break at PandaExpress where I got great noodles, greens and Orange Chicken (for what PandaExpress is famous for) for dinner and it was delicious! 🙂 I ended up in a conversation with my teacher about politics all over the world and the US in general which was very interesting!

Sarah and Piper picked me up at DA and welcomed me so sweet and drove me home! Then I just went straight into bed (I write this article one day later)! 🙂

It was such an amazing day and the Universals showed me how important having fantasy is. Because it sourrunds us in our allday life but we don’t notice it as in the Universals because it is not what we see in real life but it is what we can imagine and we have so many ways to it – books, series, movies… The list goes on and on – what for a wonderful day! ✨:)

Today I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and Sarah drove me to school. We began our ride to the Kennedy Space Center at 7:50 a.m. and it took us 2 hours till we were there!

Everyting was really overwhelming and big 🙂 We started with a bus tour to the Apollo/Saturn V Center! We saw one of the first rockets of the world and had a very nice introduction to the KSC (Kennedy Space Center) from our bus driver. At the destination we saw two videos about the NASA and the way to the first moon landing. Then we had time to walk around by ourselves and there was an impressive rocket laying on the ground of the whole hall. We took great pictures in front of a green screen with astronaut clothes on. After that we had our lunch break outside and enjoyed the sun! 🙂

Here all rockets are build and the building is as big as 3 Empire State Buildings! 🙂

Back at the Main Visiting Point we got 3 hours to walk around by ourselves! First Annemarie, Ana and I went into the Atlantis Shuttle Center and watched a movie about the story of the first space shuttle and one moment later we stayed in front of it and could admire the Shuttle in real life.

In the Gateway we had the chance to stay in a simulator and we went on a trip to mars and that was sooo much fun!

In the impressive rocket garden we called our parents (and I called my grandma too) to show them around the visiting area and it was nive to see them again. – By the way I think it’s so crazy that we can connect from places all over the world: My mom and my cousin called us from Italy, my grandma from her city near Munich, my dad from Munich and me from the KSC! – That’s impressive! 🤗✨

In another building we saw the mars rover and other roboters and that was really interesting too see – they weren’t worn out or anything like that after their missions and that was really interesting!

In the universe theater we heard a woman talk about KSC in general and then about the next events and departures from rockets there! 🙂 🚀

At last we saw the movies in the heros and legends building which was basically the Hall of fame of astronauts from the NASA and the biggest achievements. ✨✨

We rode to the hotel and here we have a very nice room to stay!

After a short break we went again to an Outlet Mall and I got a really good seafood bowl there 🦐 🥣 ! As you can see there was a beautiful sunset, the shops weren’t crowded, the dinner was nice and I’m sooo happy!

And we got free cookies at Publixxxxxx 🍪

This day was so amazing and I saw a lot of interesting things and it all seems more like a dream than reality! ✨🤗

I woke up at 7:15, sat straight up, jumped out of bed and ran straight to the beach. I can’t describe how beautiful this sunrise was! 🌅 I think even the pictures can’t get it right but there beautiful! 🙂 I collected shells and enjoyed this moment and tried to keep this memory sooo safe in my heart! I saw 3 dolphins and many pelicans and I’m very impressed by this cool animals Florida offers.

After that we had breakfast: Pancakes & Sausages (with rosemary :))! And we sang a birthday song for Margot, she turned 12 today! Then we went to the beach and set up the place for our tent and walked near the Pier to a hotel where we rented bikes. The bikeride to the Neptune Beach was really funny and it were about 7 miles! The palms and the whole area looks so diffrent compared to Germany and the weather was so nice! I also got two books in a free library what is really cool because we don’t have as much as English books in bookstores as in America – logically :). On the halfway we had a very tasty lunch in a restaurant called ‚Sliders‘ and I shared a really good seafood plate (oysters and shrimps) with Sarah and Piper – and a corn meal that ws great two! 🦐🐚

We also saw a lot of dragonflies at the beach, I think the name is really cool for this insect! ✨

On the way back we drove a part on the beach and that was a lot of fun! And we drove our bikes next two one car where two pilots from the Blue Navy sat in! 🙂 ✈️️

We returned to the beach and watched the impressive huge airshow again. I called my dad, my sister, my mom and my grandma and I was very happy to see them all! I also spend a part of the Airshow in the ocean and there the airplanes seemed even nearer! 🙂 After it finished I stayed in the ocean with Molly and her friend Rosy and we were just jumping in the waves and diving and had a lot of fun 🤿 – we gave each other mermaid names 🧜‍♀️ After a swimm in the pool we got a last time in the water and then I said goodbye to the JAX Beach and we returned the bikes to the Hotel and drove back home. We snacked on the way really good Bretzels and Doritos – Piper drove so well! 🙂

Home I went for a walk to the river with Maisie and Moxy and then we had Steak, salad, potatos and cake as dinner which was soooo good!

A wunderful weekend is coming to an end and I’m so glad that I can experience this all here! 🙂 I packed my bag for tomorrow and even if I’m 1 1/2 week here it seems so unbelievable wonderful for me that this could be real ✨✨🌊🌊

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘦

𝘔𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘴

𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 3 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘩 𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦! 𝘚𝘰 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺: 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦! 🙂

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘳

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 🏖

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸

First I woke up in the morning and saw the last part of the sunset from the balcony of our rented flat! Then we dressed up and Sarah made so good pancakes with their favorite pancakemix! After writing the blog from yesterday we walked to the beach (just stairs down and then 100 m :)) and built up our tent there. Then I went for a short walk with Piper to the Pier and back (the shells here are so pretty, I have to collet some tomorrow).

Margot, Molly and I colored the sand and Molly turned into the beautifulest mermaid! 🧜‍♀️

At 12 a.m. Margots birthday party started and we had some pizza 🍕! At 2 p.m. the ‚Air Show‘ began and till 4 a.m. there were airplanes all over the sky. They were from the Navy and it was so huge and impressive! I loved it and called my parents and showed them this crazy experience. It only happens once every two years here and this year it was at the beach! It was soooo cool!

Margot got her birthday cake and presents and we had a lot of good fruits! I snacked them the whole day and especially the strawberries are soooo good here! 🍓 I really love them because they taste so sweet and their from here!

I swam the first time at the other side of the Atlantic and compared to the water in Portugal and Spain it was soooo hot/ about 24°C! 🙂 Everytime I’m in the ocean it feels like I’m little Johanna and it’s so funny jump around the waves and just enjoy every moment near and in the water 🌊🌊

Until now (5.30. p.m.) my whole day was sooo great and I loved this Saturday because it just feels like summer and I’m very lucky to be here with just such a good family 🙂

Later we’ll go to the Downtown Beach Area and just walk around here at the beach! From our balcony we can see the sea and I love to be around the ocean this whole weekend ✨✨

I also saw so many animals for the first time in real life: dolphins in the morning and so many pelicans over the whole day! Here is a picture from the pelicans (even if the quality is bad) :

After a shower I fell even better and because we (all girls) forgot to take their hairbrush with them, I brushed my hair (for the first time) with a fork and it worked out way better than I thought! 🙂 – and the best part: I felt a little bit like Ariel 🧜‍♀️✨

Then we went for a walk… 🙂

And with the dark coming we ate „the best fried chicken“ from Publix with such a nice salad! Then we went again to the beach in the dark and had a lot of fun there 🙂 Now we’ll watch a movie about the US Navy ‚Blue Angels‘! We saw them today at the Airshow ✈️️

I got up as normal around 7 a.m. and made myself the breakfast I eat here and in Germany under the week (oatmeallll)! Then we went to school and first we had Algebra and it was funny for us that Pipers class had to shorten every term in maths and we often just use calculators. So there head/brain calculating is much more better than ours. After that we had Musical Theater and we were impressed how good some students performed! I can’t describe it here because that’s something you should see in real life – it is crazy how good DA students are in their art (and how the teachers find always something to improve, I mean that’s their job but for us it’s crazy!).

In the lunch breack there was the club rush where all clubs of the school stood outside and wanted to get new people for their clubs! 🙂 It was really interesting to see how other students try to make the school a even better place. Then Annemarie went to us to Thester History and I like this subject and the teacher because the script we’re reading is so interesting and meaningful. And this lesson is really relaxed! In the last lesson we had English with Mr. Barnes and I read my English book I brought there.

At home I went for a short walk with the dogs and then Piper and I began to prepare for Homecoming. It was so cool to do this together and I loved the atmosphere in the house, the excitement, the photo shooting in the house and the music we listened to in the car with the sunset on the horizon – unbelievable! I gave Piper a self-knotted bracelet as a gift because we were going to Homecoming together!

Then we arrived at the Homecoming Location, the Glassfactory. It was a big hall and the decoration was huge and beautiful and everybody looked so dressed up and good! The music wasn’t really my taste but that was okay! We danced, took pictures and found out who the Homecoming queen and king were. It was a impressive thing to experience and I liked a lot! 🙂

At 10 p.m. Abby’s mom drove us to the White Lie party from Pipers friend. It was a nice place to stay and the atmosphere was good! At a White Lie Party everyone writes a lie about themselves on white shirt/paper. I wrote „I hate hiking“ because I actually love it!

Then Abbys mom picked us up and took us to her house where Sarah waited for us and took us the house at the beach they’ve rented for the weekend. Standing on the balcony and watching the big waves of the Atlantic reminded me on Anna (she’s sailing across the Atlantic with Thor Hyerdahl) and especially how lucky I am to experience this adventure right here at such a beautiful place with so many nice people that already feel like family 🙂

What for a wunderful day! 🙂

The room where we have lunch everyday at DA (Douglas Anderson School of Arts) 🙂

What a typical American classroom look like!

The club rush

And now the homecoming pictures:

🙂 🙂 🙂 ✨✨✨✨✨

Unfortunately I didn’t sleep well this night and I still got a sore throat, cough and a running nose so I had to make a decision: Because of the next days will be so full of events and trips I wanted to stay at home and rest so I’m healthy for that all. So I texted my teachers, my family and friends that I would stay home! I slept almost the hole morning till lunch and after that again. The dogs always slept beside me and kept an eye on me the hole time 🙂 In my no-sleeping breaks I read the English book (‚See you‘) I brought with me from Germany. That is funny because I got it from a free library and Sarah told me that the Lynches were one of the families who had their own free library in their front yard in ther old house!

When everyone was getting home I felt so much better and that rest was exactly what I needed today! I was so fit again that I took the dogs on a walk to the St.Johns-River and a park again and that was really fun! 🙂 After that I took a shower and felt so much better. Piper and I went to her hairdresser and we chatted so nice. We talked about languages, France, French (his favorite city is Paris and I told them about my France exchange last year) and especially learing them 🙂 It was so interesting to talk as three for the hour and after that Pipers curles looked sooo good and she’s definitely ready for homecoming tomorrow!

At home we had such a good dinner, Sarah and I have definitely the same taste :)! JAX Jaguars are playing today in New Orleans and we’re watching that game while doing some other stuff done 🙂

I am so happy that I’m almost healthy again and that the restday was such a good decision! I’m really looking forward to tomorrow because it’s Homecoming and it’ll be sooo exciting! 🙂

The view of my window is soooo good!!!

Today Sarah drove us to DA and there we were able to experience a normal school day like our exchange partners have 5 days a week.

First Piper and I went to „Algebra“ were they studied about a topic we had already in Germany.

Then we went to the „REP Course“ were the students from the Theater Musical basically performing songs from musicals in front of the teacher and the class. It was so impressive for Laura, Aleks and me but in the end the teacher wasn’t satisfied with the performances. From our standpoint it was really hard to understand his professional critics because for us it seemed really good!

After that we had lunch breack and hung out at the lunch area in and outdoors and met also other friends from our exchange partners.

The 3st period we had „Theater History“. My class is reading ‚Cat on a hot tin roof‘ a very interesting story about a family with a big farm and who will get it when the grandfather dies. It was so interesting to sit in this lesson because the teacher was really relaxed and let us do whatever we want. But for me it was very cool to follow the lesson where they read a part of the story aloud! 🙂

In the last period we were again in the class of Mr. Barnes and finished the last part of the Halloween story in the Italian catacombs. It is funny to see how difficult this „old English“ is for us to understand because of some words in it we don’t understand.

Celias (a friend from Piper we always drive to school with) mom drove us home and there we had a little snack and rested for a little bit.

Then I wanted to take the dogs for a long walk while Piper would go to a class in the gym. The whole way to the bridge over the St. Johns-River went well and was really cool with both dogs. But was a walk without adventure: Moxy got something into her foot and I was not able to get it out alone so I called Sarah because I wouldn’t force Moxy to went the whole way back home with it! So Patrick picked us up and drove us the 2 miles home again where I met Piper again 🙂 There wasn’t something bad in Moxys foot and Patrick got it out in less than one minute 🙂

We all rested for a little bit and after that we had dinner together and I teached Margot how to play „Maumau“ what is basically the same as Uno just with other cards (I brought some with sights of Munich) 🙂

Today was a great day and I experienced what a normal day here would look like. Even if there are some differences it reminds me of my allday life in Germany! It was so cool to learn more about that today and to share that day eith my host family I’m so grateful for! 🙂

This is Mollys Halloween costume that cames today! She was so happy because it has arrived!

Housetour – where I live

My room, or exactly Margots room where I stay while I’m here 🙂

Our big kitchen

The hole living area

Our porch

The huge back yard

And what the whole house look like 🙂

I love this whole house – it feels like a home! 🙂

After waking up I ate my oatmeal with an apple and packed my lunch in! Then Patrick drove Piper and me to DA and there I met all other exchange students and Mrs. Kaindl, Mr. Costa and Mr. Barnes! With three cars we drove into the direction of St. Augustine. I sat in a car with Janna, Annemarie, Anna and Mr. Barnes drove us! We stopped at Bucc’ees and it was the hugest bus station I’ve ever seen!

Then we drove to the parking place (I’ve never seen such a big and beautiful one) and got tickets for the Fort Castillo de San Marcos. That’s a fort near to the Matanzas River and we had a beautiful view over the harbour of St.Augustine and at the horizion we saw the Atlantic. This fort was actually the first city of the United States and was very long spanish!

We spent less than one hour in the tourist street of St.Augustine and I got 2 wunderful stickers for 7 $ 🙂

Then we went to the Outlet Shopping mall and stayed there for almost 2 hours! I bougth a very pretty Columbia Fleece that looks soooo beautifulllll 🙂

When I came home I took the dogs (Maisey and Moxie) for a long walk around the neighbourhood which was pretty fun! Baby Kitty was really cute because she followed us the hole way long :)!

Then friends from the family came over for „Taco Tuesday“ and this dish was soooo tasty! The friends from the Lynches had been to Germany so we chatted a bit about it and they got two sweet children who where at our house too!

It was such cool day and it was so interesting to see the first city of the US and get to know the historical backround! I’m really looking forward to tomorrow where I go to school with Piper 🙂 I’m so happy to be in this host family because it seems like home :)! ✨📌