Day 5: Hiking/Walking at Pontevedra Beach 𝘎𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘢, Chick-fil-A, short nap, Bolles School and Lego Master

I woke up around 7:30 a.m. After breackfast we talked a little bit and then Patrick went to work. Sarah, Molly, Margot, Piper and I picked up Cassey and drove to an area called Guana at Pontevedra Beach where we went on a hike with friends from the family! That was Ms.Caroline the woman who babysitted the Lynches for years and her kids Jack and Gorgia. They have a really close relationship and the kids of her were so cute! Jack was running around with Margot and Molly and in the beginning his shoes looked white and in the end they were brown 🙂 Gorgia was sitting in the stroller (in the end with Molly :)). It was really fun and the nature here looks so diffrent than in Munich!There were a lot of interesting things: an old vessle of a sailing ship, many diffrent birds and a „banana spider“. And we ate cake pops, yummy!

For lunch we went to Chick-fil-A, the most popular fast food store in the US everybody likes! The chicken nuggets and the fries were very tasty! Then something really unusually happen: An employer of Chick-fil-A gave us 2 milk shakes for free and that’s very uncommon here! I just took a small zip because I was full but it was a very nice suprise!

Because I was a little tired I took a 30 min nap and then facetimend my parents and there were talking with the hole family and I was very happy to see them and tell them how glad I am to be here! I gave them a house tour and it was so cool to show them all this!

Then Patrick came home from work and took us to the Bolles School Campus where Margot and Molly had track and field lessons. It was funny to see how enormous and huge this private school was with many cool places to go there. But I’m glad that I go to my public school in Munich and get more sigths of the world than the rich people in this (I would call it so) „gated community“ because they never learn there how lucky and privileged they are and how happy/satisfied they should be!

But for me as a guest it was really nice to see the whole campus and walk around there! Molly and Margot did soooo good and the sunset was amazingly beautiful! ✨

Their logo does look like that from the school my best friend Nele is in Oregon, Baker City!

So many Olympics went to Bolles?!? And one where at the olympics in my Olympic village in Munich too!

I love the trees with the moos, it’s so special!! And look: I stood in front of a yellow school bussss!!! 🙂

The sunset was extremely beautiful and Patrick, Piper and I watched Molly and Margot practise and we played with a ball Piper found! ( I was really excitee because I took my cirst steps on a real football field)!

At home I felt a little sore throat but Sarah had made the best chicken soup and I got a „sleepy tea“ and so I’m feeling better now. And we watched the cool series Legomasters together where pros build Lego statues based on a theme and in this episode they built „Kitty palazes“ 🙂 Hopefully I’ll have a good night sleep!! 🙂

It was such a wonderful day with so many new sides of the life here and I’m so grateful that I have the chance to experience all that! 🙂

Day 4: My first lift at the gym, huge ice cream for 4$ and soap water trampoline & Ted Lasso

Today I stood up around 8:30 a.m. I teached Margot and Molly how to knot bracelets and they both did so well! Then I ate a proteinbar with Piper! I also prepared me a oatmeal and the size of the milk and the oat box was so huge! 🙂 After that we drove to the gym with her dad and meet Casey there. I lifted weights the first time in my life and it was so much fun 🙂 I tried out some new things and it was really interesting! I lifted 75 pounds/34 kgs for backsquat and it was such a nice atmosphere there because everyone was motivating each other!

After lunch Piper and I went for a walk with the dogs and walked around the neighbourhood! Then Molly and I knotted bracelets again. Molly made brownies that tasted very good! And after that Patrick (Pipers dad), Sarah (Pipers Mom), Molly, Piper and I drove to a paint ball place where we picked up Margot! Piper and I walked around a little and talked about huricans and alligators – it’s funny because for them it is totally normal and they got used to it and for me from Germany it seems so uncommon and dangerous! And Sarah gave me really cute flowers!! 🙂

After a nap back home Piper and I went to her friend Audrey. On the way were so many trees with moose and it seemed so fantastical to me! At her house we picked her up and went to „Whits“, an ice cream shop in the neighbourhood, and I got the smallest one of ice cream but it was sooooo huge! The portions here are soooo big and there cheaper than in Germany. But Piper is rigth – so we Germans don’t have to pay for our health care! Then we did a soap water trampoline party and as you can see in the photo – it wa sooo funny and I have to do this again.

The swimming in the pool after it was soooo cool and fun and it was so warm! 🙂 Piper and I walked back home and the hole family sit outsixe in the garden near the fire pit! After that I took a shower, had some dinner and now we’re going to watch Ted Lasso together, one of the favorite series from my host family! 🙂

It was such a nice day and it was really cool to experience the allday life weekend with Piper and my hostfamily 🙂

Day 3: American Breakfast, mall, cosco and the biggest pizza I’ve ever got

Today I woke up and streched and make a bit of yoga. After reading a book and knotting my bracelet a little bit, everybody woke up. Margot made a fire in the yard and I tried the tasteful grapefruits out of the yard.

Then we had a typical American Breakfast: Pancakes with maple syrup and bacon! That tastes really good!

We rode with the car to an outdoor mall (which means that the stores are not in one big mall, instead there just all big halls of one store and there stand next to each other) and searched for a homecoming dress for Piper and bougth her new soccer shoes in one really big sport market! My host family also showed me the hiking and outdoor shop REI and it was really cool in there and sooo much to see!

After that we went into the big shopping mall Cosco and I’ve never seen such a big supermarket before! You can buy literally everything there and everything is soo big! Just look at the picture where Molly has this 3 pound bags of sweets in her arms, everything is there like that 🙂 We had our lunch there and I’ve never ate one pizza slice that just fulled me as one meal because it was sooooo big!! I also got two skort (skirts for sport with shorts underneeth) for 26$! Compared to Germany that’s really cheap and when we got home I tried them on and was soooo happy that I got them and one other shorts (for 8$ for sale in the Urban Fitters) 🙂 And in the Cosco there were many samples where you could try food for free!

Then we hang out the evening with one of Pipers friends from her childhood. First we brougth her parents to a foundraising party with the theme „80es“. After that we walked through the neighborhood and to the St.Johns-River. In the picture I’m almost crying because I was laughing so hard because I’ve never got such a big pizza in my life as you can see in the picture & and I’ve never been in such a big truck like in the picture!

We drove around and that was interesting bdcause I ride my bike with friends in Germany. It was really cool because we talked a lot about how thankful we are to live our lifes and we have many characteristics in common. For example we all love to move our body and work out! So tomorrow we want to go to the gym together but now I’m pretty tired so I’m going to bed! 🙂 But it was such a cool and nice and impressive third day :)!

Here you can see how funny our evening went! Casey (name of Pipers childhood friend) just got on one spaghetti top!

Day 2: First day in Highschool & first football game

My day was soooo exciting!! I woke up (first I cuddled with this sweet cat) and nobody from my family was awake so I woke them up and we eat breakfast togehter! Then we drove to DA (Douglas Anderson School) and we started our school tour in the artirum and went to so many impressive places 🙂 The theatre is soooo big and all students perfrom so well! We went to the cinematic arts studio and there we had the „code red drill“ and it was a bit scary. Afterwards we watched other students perform in the music theatre class and that were so impressive songs from musicals!

Before we had lunch we went to a concert from a part of the orchestra and it was really great! The atmosphere in the theater history class was so cool and the last period we had English with an old text about italian catacombs! 🙂

Home we ate a snack (they do have tasty vegetables here, the tomatoes are really good and the chip bags are almost 10 times bigger than in Germany ) and prepared our selfs for the football game. The clothes theme was „pink“ so we put on pink clothes and went to Wolfson Highschool and I saw my first football game and it was soooo exciting! The music, the cheerleaders, the game and so many nice people, it was overwhelming impressive and cool!

Then we ate dinner at home and now I’ll went to bed! 🙂

Day 1: Flight to Jacksonville

I stood up at 5 a.m. and said goodbye to my sister and my mom. My dad and I drove to the Munich airport. There I met my class and my two teachers. I said goodbye and my first transatlantic flight started! I watched two movies and knotted a bracelet. We arrived to late in Charlotte, so we have to take a fligth four hours later and now I’m waiting with my friends!

But i did my first step in Americaaaa!!!!

Let me introdruce you to my „America stuffy“ Bonnie, my younger sister Laura gave it to me as a gift this morning!

At some point we were so tired that we just laied on the floor of the Charlotte airport. But the flight from Charlotte to JAX went very well and I slept the whole time.

My hostfamily welcomed me soooo nice and right now I’m laying in my bed in their beautiful big house with such a friendly and familiar atmosphere. I’m really excited what the next days are gonna be like, but now I just have to sleep because I’m really tired! 🙂

Day 20: Santiago – Memmingen – Dachau – München

We woke up at 5:40 a.m. and packed our backpacks. Then we had our breakfast and went to the busstation. There we met Laura and Frank, friends who once lived in Munich. Frank told Martin the first time about the Camino several years ago. And Johanna and Laura were good friends in elementary school. It was only luck that we met and we also took the same airplane at 10:25 a.m. to Memmingen from Santiago de Compostela. Now we are in the train to Pasing. We will visit the grandparents from Johanna and Laura in Dachau soon and our mom will take us home after dinner. We are really looking forward to meet them 🙂

Day 19: Finisterre & Santiago

We stood up at 6:30 a.m. and had our breakfast together. Tyehen we went a last time to the harbour and said goodbye to the sea and coast. After that we took the bus to Santiago. We decided to go to the pilgrims mass again and there were more people than the first time this year. It was a really nice mass and at the end we saw the Botufameiro swinging. Laura saw that for the first time and for all of us it was a highlight of the day. After going into the supermarket we ate good Churros. We had lunch in the parc of Seminaro Menor and Laura drank KAZ and we stored it in a shoe. In Germany we have the word „Käsefuß“ (German, means stinking foot) so we joked it is the liquid out of our feet.

We met Saya for one hour again and we walked with her to the busstation. One part of our dinner was a tortilla big like a pizza and it was really good.

Day 18: Lires – Finisterre

We stood up at about 7am and said goodbye to Saya, the very nice japanese pelegrina we ate with yesterday. She made photos while we were going. We hadn’t any breakfast so we were really thankful for a bar where we could donate how much we wanted to pay. And there were dogs and cats and Laura didn’t want to go away from the cat so we had to wait a long time till she had enough from petting. After about 14km we arrived at Finisterre and we ate at the bar Etel & Pan Burgers and it was very tasty, this was also a recommendation from Saya.
Now we’re sitting at the end of the world (cape Finisterre) and it’s about 1 and a half hour before sunset and it looks really beautiful and gorgeous.

Day 17: Muxia – Lires

Today we walked about 14 km from Muxia to Lires on our way to Finisterre. There were many ups and downs, cute little cats, hens and chicks, wind power plants and Eucalyptus trees. We downloaded the gpx tracks for the Camino Finisterre for Laura and Johanna. Then Laura walked on her own most of the time. At noon we arrived in Lires and checked into our Albergue. Then we saw many fish and herons (Fischreiher) on our walk in the afternoon.