Seraina goes abroad: My first week

I'm really sorry, but the last week I was so busy, that I havn't found a moment to write a new blog entry...It happened a lot!

So I'll start at the beginning:
friday morning (6. Sep.) I had to say goodbye to my family. At this moment I didn't realize that I saw them the last time for a quite long time. With 5 other Exchange students, I got into the plane and then we took off to our first destination; Washington DC. After the immigrations, we met our YFU Staff and the other Exchange students from Germany. 7 hours we had to wait until we could continue our jouney to Chicago, where we spent the night. All were really tired from the long trip. The next morning we went to Chicago Airport to complete our jouney by flying to our final Destination. Two german students and me got with a really small plane (I think about 20-30 seats) to Saginaw, Michigan, where our families were waiting for us.

My luggage

Me at Zurich Airport

over the sea

Chicago by night

Chicago Airport

My host famly:
My hostmom (Sheri), my hostsister (Elise), my two hostbrothers (Greg and Geoff), Geoff's wife (Jenn) and their daughter (MaKenzie). My hostsiblings are all college age or older. So Sheri, Elise and MaKenzie waited at the Airport for me and after we got all my luggage, we went together with another family, who also took an Exchange Student to a Restaurant for dinner. At home, I just put away my suitcase and then I went quite early to bed. Sunday we filled out the formulars for School and I watched my first footballgame on TV! Sheri tried to explain my a bit, how it works, but I didn't remember anything..

Monday was my first school day! We picked up a girl who lives near our house and then we went to school. For the registration we needed my passport, so we returned home and got it. The second time we forgot our documents and then finally we were done. The counselor of the school introduced me to every teacher and I started with my second class; English Literature 11. I undertood nothing of the book we were reading and I also didn't like the teacher. So the next morning I went to the Guidance Office and I could change it into Introduction to Photography. Much better! All the other teacher a really nice and friendly!

My schedule

So as you see on the schedule, I have the following classes this Trimester: U.S. History, Introduction to Photograpy, Spanish 3, Band and Algebra 2.
This week I had already 5 Tests. A few of them were just small ones (called quiz) and the other ones were normal tests. I really like band but the Problem was, that neither a Cello nor a piano is practical for marching.. :)
So I will learn a completely new instrument: the trumpet!

My trumpet

The last week we always went on the field to practice marching with the coordinate sheets. It's quite complecated, but I'm getting better and better. :)

After school I practice diving in the swim&dive Club. I started Wednesday and on Thursday I had my first competition (here they call it 'meet') in Bay City, but I just did 2 dives instead of 6. It was just to get a bit the Feeling for it. The Problem is, that our Swimming pool can't be heat up for the next few weeks, because something is broken, so it's really cold. But that's always the Problem by diving; you do your dives and then, when you get out of the pool until your next dive, you're freezing! Yesterday I did two more dives. Because I don't get my competition suit yet, I just take my practice suit.

Now at the Weekend I'm more or less just relaxing. On monday I will have my NWEA Test in maths and last week I had it in english. You have to get a certained score, of course I didn't get it, so I just have to improve next trimester by 4 ponints and that's definitely possible, because then I have more vocabuary and understand what they want from me.. :)

I will upload some pictures from diving and my arrival soon, but they are still on the camera from my hostmom..