Like the title already says, I will have to return home by force this Saturday. Because of the coronavirus, EF has decided to send all exchange students home without any exceptions. A few days ago, Karen — my Local Exchange Coordinator — tried to encourage us exchange students to go home. On Wednesday night she facetimed all Wylie exchange students and tried to convince us that time, since before that all of us had decided to stay. She was soooooo rude to us and she intended to scare us into leaving. Even the Italian girl, who usually is the teacher‘s pet, was upset at Karen. But nevertheless, me and my fellow exchange students didn‘t give in and were determined to stay.

The next day I received an email in the morning from EF, saying that they will force us to go home and the first flights would be on Saturday. I rushed out of my room and asked my host parents if they are actually sending me home and my host mom said that she had just received a call from Karen. I was really sad about it. We woke up Ximena and we spent about 20 minutes crying together.

I then posted on Snapchat that I have to go home and three friends asked if they could see me in person before I leave. So I went to their houses to say goodbye and Michelle even wrote me a really cute note <3

In the evening I hung out with my my host family and my host dad even returned from Mexico so we could spend Friday together.

From the seventh to the fifteenth of March, my host family and I went to Miami for spring break. I was really excited although my host sister unfortunately didn‘t come with us since she was on a band trip. We got up early on Saturday and left the house at 8 o‘clock. Next, we drove to the Landrum‘s house to pick them up, since we traveled together. An hour later we were on our way to New Orleans, where we spent our first night. The trip to Miami takes a total of 19 hours, so we didn‘t do it in one day. In the car we watched two movies; „knives out“ and „jojo rabbit“, which were both really good movies.

After arriving at the hotel in New Orleans, we went to the famous Bourbon Street to get the full New Orleans experience. There were tons of people dressed up, some in very unflattering clothing, meaning too small clothing. On Bourbon Street it‘s a tradition that women flash the people on the balkonies and receive mardi gras beads in exchange. Most women of course didn‘t do it and received beads nevertheless. But I did see one woman that did flash everyone, and the weird thing about it was that her 2 little kids AND her parents were present when she did it. The people on the balkonies started throwing tons of beads at her and one of them hit me when I was passing her 😂. Then we started looking for food. We decided on going to a place that had some sandwiches and hotdogs, hoping that it would at least be edible. Turned out it wasn‘t. I ordered a hotdog and as soon as I took a bite, the oil just started squirting out of it …..

Afterwards we went back to the hotel. We were 6 people traveling together, so we had two hotel rooms, one for women, one for men. So I shared the room with my host mom and Adriana. We had only two beds, so we had to decide who got a bed on her own and who had to share. To sort it out, my host mom ripped a paper in 3 pieces, marked one with „lucky bastard“ and we all drew a paper. Adriana won and she wasn‘t exactly celebrating modestly 😉

The next day we continued our trip, but wanted to have breakfast first. We just wandered around New Orleans and found this great New York restaurant. It was very small and dark, but the food was soooooo awesome. I had cannoli pancakes and I could eat those all day long. Everybody liked the food and my host brother especially liked the meatballs that this restaurant is famous for.

After breakfast we went back to the car and drove all the way to Orlando, Florida, where we spent the next night. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant not far from our hotel. Despite missing my sister so much (ly Mena), I got along pretty well with Luis and Nathan, besides the brotherly teasing of course 😅. Back at the hotel, my host mom, Adriana and I did the same procedure to figure out who gets her own bed, and again, Adriana won!!!! She‘s always so lucky 😄.

The next day, we conquered the last part of our trip and finally arrived in Miami. The weather was really cold and it was windy…..there goes my beach vacation….

After putting all of our stuff into the apartment that we had rented, we went for a walk in Miami and got some groceries, which wasn‘t very pleasant, since people started going crazy because of the coronavirus. But I can‘t complain, we got everything we needed. Our only problem was getting back into our apartment, since the elevators were overwhelmed with people and our apartments were on the 28th floor. But after a few…….many minutes we finally fit into an elevator.

Tuesday was our first full day in Miami. We woke up around 10 am, ate some breakfast and then decided to go to the Everglades and do the alligator boat tour. The ship for the tour was small, only about 15 people could fit. We got ear plugs to protect our ears from the loud noise of the boat and off we went. The channels were narrow at first and we saw some alligators just lying at the shore, taking advantage of the warmth of the sun. After the narrow channels there was an area with shallow water but a lot of space. The captain sped up and the boat was going so fast that it was hard to breathe. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the experience. After 30 minutes we stepped on land again and watched the little alligator show that the place provided. We all sat on benches near a small fenced area with some gators and listened as the staff talked about the animals. The man in charge of this also showed us a scorpion and a toad, which he tried to convince people to kiss in exchange for a prince 😂 …nobody did though.

After visiting the Everglades, we went to a Cuban restaurant and got dinner, followed by taking a look at south beach. There were a lot of college kids at this beach and all of them were really closely together…. corona paradise. While we were walking along the beach, Adriana and I talked about the poor bathing suit choice of some people. There were so many girls wearing wayyyyy to small bikinis and apparently fishnet shirts are trendy now 🤷‍♀️.

On Wednesday we finally went to the beach. Before that we got some food at a nearby restaurant though, which filled me up like crazy and made me feel really stuffed. We arrived at the beach around noon, but besides big lizards and coconuts, there wasn‘t too much to see there. The sun wasn‘t even shining, which was why I didn‘t apply any sunblock, which turns out to be a bad idea later. Despite the cloudy weather I lay on my towel and hoped to still get a little tan. Meanwhile, my host brother, 17 years old being mentioned, started digging a hole in the sand. The whole day!

After a while I was bored and decided to walk along the shore, accompanied by my host mom and Adriana, who also wanted to take a walk. When we were about two miles away from where we left our stuff, the clouds vanished and the sun started shining. It was beautiful but at this point I started to regret not having applied sunblock earlier. I burnt my thighs, arms and chest a little bit but it never hurt or peeled, which I‘m very thankful for.

After the beach we went to a little mall at the port in Miami, where we ate dinner at an Italian restaurant. The food was really good and we had a lot of fun. After a while one of us noticed a young woman at another restaurant, who never took a single bite of her food, but instead took millions of selfies with it. We were watching her for a long time and she really didn‘t eat her meal, she only took pictures with it haha…

On Thursday we went on a speed boat tour. We had to leave all electrical devices on land, since the whole purpose of the speed boat was to get wet. We were instructed to sit really closely to each other so we wouldn‘t fall off the boat. Our captain was really cool and told us a lot of interesting things about Miami and the houses that we saw. Apparently a lot of celebrities have a second house in Miami and all of them cost several million dollars. It was really impressive but I preferred the part when out captain sped up the boat and tried to splash us by turning abruptly. Looking back, the speed boat was probably my favorite thing we did in Miami.

Next, we went to a place called „little Havanna“, an area affected by Cuban culture. The buildings looked really cool, the domino park on the other hand was a disappointment. We thought it would be this huuuuuge park with all kinds of dominos to play with, but in reality it was only a little space where old people met and played domino. In the evening we ordered food from a Chinese restaurant and played a few rounds of poker. I had never played before but my host dad explained me all the rules and I didn‘t do too badly for the first time.

Dave, the dad of the Landrum family arrived on Thursday night and he immediately proposed that we should go snorkeling on Friday. Now the thing is that I don‘t really like swimming and my host mom and Adriana agreed with me. So only the guys went snorkeling on Friday, while us three went kayaking. Due to our low weight, Adriana and I had to take a kayak together. My host mom had one for herself. We rented the kayaks for one hour and the guy at the rental showed us a route on the map that we could complete in that time. Now after only a few minutes, we couldn‘t agree anymore what channel we should take next to stay on our route. I eventually gave up and we went the route my host mom told us to go. It lead us into a really narrow channel, narrow meaning about 5 feet distance between the tree branches. Adriana and I were ahead of my host mom and couldn‘t see her because the channel was very curvy. After a while we were wondering what took her so long and yelled if she was okay. All we heard as a response was laughing. Assuming she was alright we continued out path. But after another few minutes we then decided to turn around and look where she was.

We found my host mom standing on the roots of a tree, her kayak flipped over and the paddles floating several meters away from her. She told us that her kayak had got stuck and when she tried to push herself away from the trees the kayak flipped and she fell into the water. Now the problem was that at this moment she was taking pictures, so her phone had fallen into the water. She was unable to save the phone. Adriana and I helped her get on the kayak again and we continued our odyssey. My host mom was the only one that had taken her phone with her and considering that we were lost, the loss of the phone seemed more dramatic. The sun was burning and I was so scared to get a stronger sunburn. There was no way that I could have covered up or have gotten out of the sun. We were lost, but luckly we found another couple of kayakers that after a while somehow helped us to find our way back. We spent a total of 2.5 hours on the kayaks, but when we arrived back at the kayak rentals, they told us that we had made it back in time 🤷‍♀️.

Afterwards we went to a restaurant and got lunch with the guys. They told us the snorkeling was beautiful but they couldn‘t deny that we definitely had a better story to tell. In the evening we watched a movie together and ordered pizza. It was really cosy and I enjoyed it a lot.

On Saturday morning we left the apartment and drove all the way to Mobil, Florida. We were on the road the whole day, since we made our drive back in two days instead of three. On our way there we watched „uncut gems“ and „black panther“. Besides that we didn‘t really have anything to do, so I mostly slept during the drive.

Sunday was the almost exact same thing as Saturday. We just drove from Mobile all the way back home to Texas. On the way there we listened to songs about traveling and when I suggested the song „Roads to Rome“ from a Swiss band, everybody seemed to like it 😉

At about 6 pm we got back to Wylie. We dropped off the Landrums and went home. Looking back I really enjoyed Spring Break and I‘m glad we went to Miami.

On Valentines day, Jacob and I wanted to go to a gun range so I could shoot a gun for the first time in my life. It’s been on my bucket list for a long time, so I was thrilled about finally checking that box off. Also, I thought it would be a really creative plan for valentines day. Arriving at the gun range, we were told that we couldn’t rent a gun under the age of 21. My boyfriend and I being 17 and 18, we couldn’t go shooting that day. We went bowling instead, which was fun but the disappointment about the changing plans still showed its presence.

The coming weekend was a three day break, meaning Monday was a free day. Jacob knows somebody that owns guns and even does competitions, which gave Jacob the idea to ask him to take us to the gun range, so we wouldn’t have to rent. The following Monday, we went back to the gun range, meeting with his friend’s dad, Mr William, that brought his guns and was willing to teach us all about safety and how to properly shoot.

At the range, we ran into another problem. Since I am 17, I needed a note from my parents, allowing me to shoot a gun. I thought it wouldn’t work out this time either and that my real parents needed to write the note, who were fast asleep on the other side of the world. But it took a turn for the better. The guys at the range said that my host parents sending an email is enough to let me sign in. Thus, I texted my host parents and asked them to send the email. After waiting for a moment and taking a look at the safety instructions, the email had already been received and printed.

I signed in, put on the hearing protection and the glasses (so the shells can’t hit the eyes). Then we entered the actual range. It was extremely loud and I winced each time somebody pulled the trigger. The three of us were on lane 11 and there were people shooting on the lanes right next to us, about a meter away. For me it was a little too loud, so I also put ear plugs in. With this extra protection it was a lot better, and I could finally focus on something else than pressing the ear protection against my ears.

The safety instructions were pretty simple:

1. The gun is pointed to the front at all times
2. We always treat the gun as if it’s loaded
3. Keep your finger off the trigger if you’re not ready to shoot

The pistol we shot was a 9 millimeter, I can’t recall the exact model. Mr William loaded the pistol and shot a few times and then (not loaded) showed me how to properly hold the gun.

Afterwards he put ammunition in and handed me the gun. I was really scared of the first shot, but when I finally pulled the trigger, it was a really nice feeling. Quite overwhelming, but cool.

As a whole, we spent about an hour at the range and I shot approximately 15 times. After the 9 millimeter, we also shot with another pistol that was a little smaller, but also easier to hit the target.

Shooting a gun was something I always wanted to do, and now I finally crossed it off my bucket list. I‘m glad I did it and I really cherish that opinion. Jacob said he‘d also take me to shoot with a shotgun before I leave, but that…… I‘m not sure about that yet.

On the 9th of February, my boyfriend celebrated his 18th birthday. I was invited to his house for lunch with his family. So I had to get up earlier in the morning, lunch was at exactly 12. Like my host family always says „white people ear early“ 😂. But the reason why I had to get up early was that I kinda procrastinated getting Jacob a gift. I had planned to buy him something on Saturday, but that day we had a barbecue with the Landrums to organize our trip to Miami during spring break. So I didn‘t have time on Saturday, meaning I had to be creative next morning. I decided to bake him a „Zopf“, after all, Americans like food…..a lot of food.

Arriving at Jacob‘s house, I met some of his cousins, aunts and uncles. We ate hamburgers and cake, then played a few games with DOMINOS (no, not the pizza place). After a while his relatives left and his parents even told him to do homework. I called my host parents and asked them to pick me up, since it was so boring. On the way back home I told my host dad how sad it was that he celebrated his 18th birthday only with family. My host dad then had the idea that I could invite him to go bowling in the evening, so he could at least spend some time with his girlfriend on his birthday. I liked the idea and Jacob did too when I texted him about it.

At about 6, Jacob picked me up and the two of us went to Main Event, a place that offers bowling, laser tag, pool, etc. I really liked that evening, especially because I won 3 times, no kidding. I hope he enjoyed his 18th at least a little bit.

That much I can say: I WILL have better plans for my 18th birthday next May.

Last Friday and Saturday another debate tournament took place at Flower Mound High School and I presented my informative speech for the first time. Besides debate, the «debate» class also offers speech events. There’s interp events, oratory, impromptu and informative. Every student in debate has to compete in a speech competition at least once a year and informative speech sounded the best to me.

For speech events, we have a coach, Vaughn, who graduated a few years ago from Wylie High School and now teaches students how pick topics, cut speeches and present the pieces. About 2 weeks ago I had signed up for the tournament at Flower Mound, or how we call it, Flomo. I hadn’t had a piece at all, but I really wanted to go to that specific tournament, since it was a 2 day tournament and the last before natquals (national qualifications). So after school, with the help of Vaughn, I had decided to do an informative speech about studying abroad and the coming weekend I would spend day and night, finishing my 10 minute speech, memorizing it and creating the visuals (boards).

So on Friday before lunch, we left Wylie High School early and went to the tournament. We had a typical American school bus driving us to our destination and on the way there, we stopped for a quick lunch. Me and Deborah, who has helped me soooo much with my info, went to Chick fil a, my favorite fast food chain in the US. After eating, we spent another 2 hours in the bus. We actually had a great time; we talked about music, hobbies and goat yoga (yes, yoga with goats). After about one and a half hours, we finally arrived at Flomo and gathered in the cafeteria. My round started at 9 pm, so I had about 6 hours left before it was my turn. I was really glad about that, since I hadn‘t had it fully memorized and it gave me a few hours to do so. I mostly sat in the cafeteria and practiced, taking little breaks talking to others tell them to „break a leg“ before they went to their rounds.

The time actually passed really quickly and I started heading to my room. Thank god that Deborah had her round at the same time in the room right next to me, so we could wait together, and that helped me a lot to calm down.

I was last speaker in my round. This means I presented my info as the last of 6 people competing in the room. The first speaker was a girl talking about vaccinations. She had a voice that reminded me of a broadcaster, which really intimidated me, but she was very nice and her title „let‘s do shots“ made me like her even move 😉 The next speaker was a Chinese girl informing us about learning Mandarin. She was really good and at that point I got even more scared. Third was another Asian, talking about automation in jobs, who was ALSO really GOOD. So after the third speaker I knew I was doomed because I was expected to make third place in that room, but the three first speakers were all clearly better. But it got better, since speaker 4 was a filler and didn‘t have a fully speech, and speaker 5 had a speech that was too short to place. I was speaker 6 and it was the first time I actually performed my speech in front of people other than my friends. I accidentally skipped a part of the speech, but I think the judge didn‘t realize since she was a so-called „mom-judge“, meaning a random mom judging the speeches because the tournament didn‘t have enough experienced judges. After I finished I saw that Deborah was right in front of my door. Her round had ended sooner and she was watching me through the little window in the door. She helped me carry the stand and the boards and told me that we only had one round today and that the next round would be on Saturday. I was pretty happy with my first round, but definitely wanted to do better the next day.

• 

• 

After all the kids from my school were out of their rounds, we gathered outside to find our bus. As always, one girl was missing and we spent another 30 minutes on looking for her. After finally getting everybody on the bus, we drove back to Wylie High School, where my host dad picked me up. I got home at around midnight, so I went straight to bed to have energy for the second part of the tournament on Saturday.

The next morning, we left Wylie High School at 7 am and went back to the tournament. My second INFO round started at 9 am already, so after arriving at Flomo, I had to find the room immediately. This time, I was third speaker. When the judge unlocked to the room, I directly saw that she was a college student, which was good news for me. My speech contains a swear word, so depending on the judge I should skip that part, but a college student is typically more open to that and will not subtract points for that. The first speaker was the Chinese girl again, the one that was already in my first round. So I knew that she would beat me, but the other speakers weren‘t as much competition. There was a guy doing his INFO about accents, which I thought was really interesting. He was British in my opinion very likable. There was another girl talking about manspreading, which I personally thought was a very unnecessary topic and I really didn‘t like her performance. Some guy talked about gentrification and another one about the roman empire. My speech went a loooooooot better than the last one and I felt really accomplished afterwards.

I was done by the time it was 10 am, so I had a lot of time to spend at that school before we would go home. I went back to the cafeteria and sat down at our table. After a while we got our ballots back, which showed how the judge voted in each round. In Friday‘s round I got 4th, as expected. In Saturday‘s round on the other hand, I got third. It made me really happy and the other speech kids said that the judge of this round was very experienced and gave me some great tips on the ballots. So obviously, the Asian girl beat me again, but what made me kinda upset was that the girl talking about manspreading had also beat me…..

I didn‘t have anything to do the rest of the day, since I didn‘t break (being first or second in a round and getting to semi-finals). So I went to watch a round of HI = humorous interpretation. It‘s a speech event where the participants act out a funny sketch, lasting 10 minutes. When I entered the room and saw all the people doing that event I saw two of them that I thought looked like funny people, and as I watched all the performances, I was exactly right. The two people I had expected to be funny were the only ones having a good piece and presenting it in a funny way. One of them were about a guy bringing sperm to school after the teacher had asked the students to bring a living organism for biology class. The other funny sketch was about a Russian teacher and the girl doing that sketch was spot-on with her accent.

After that, I met up with Michelle, Christie, Madison etc from the debate team and we spent some time on the couches they have at the school. Flower Mound is a really rich school, so the campus was awesome! We met some people from other schools, one of them Conner, who quite caught Madison‘s eye 😂. So later when Deborah, who as always, had made it to finals had her round, I went to watch it for support and also so I wouldn‘t have to witness Madison making a move on that debate guy, haha.

Deborah won the finals and everybody was so happy for her. On our way back to Wylie, note it was already 10pm, most of us took a nap and decided where to go for team dinner. After every tournament we go to a fast food restaurant and have dinner together. We decided to go to Panda Express. Once we arrived at Wylie High School, everybody was looking for a ride to the location, so my host dad agreed to drive 3 other girls to Panda Express also. Team dinner was pretty torpor, many left early and the remaining people were really tired. To top it off, the food wasn‘t that good in my opinion. But at the end of the day, this tournament was a really good experience and I‘m glad I participated.

I didn‘t have much time to write blog lately, but the current circumstances allow me to take some time for it in class. This morning the teachers announced that a student died last night for a reason that is not yet confirmed. He was a footballer, therefore popular and almost everyone in school knew him, so we‘re not doing any work in my classes. I‘m currently in debate and the atmosphere in the classroom is legitimately despondent, so here I am writing a quick summary about Christmas Eve and New Year‘s.

On the 24th of December, all we did all day was cleaning the house due to my host mom wanting to impress our guest we were expecting that evening. So after wiping the floor, scrubbing the sink and polishing every metal in the house, we were finally ready to welcome the Nagles family and my host dad‘s mom and sister. It was about 7 when we ate Tamales, a traditional Mexican dish that I‘ve grown to like a lot! And to my surprise, my host parents made mousse au chocolat after my dad‘s recipe. After having dinner, we played some games my host mom had prepared. The main reason for those games was to get the time until midnight to pass quicker, since in Mexico gifts shall not be opened before midnight. The first game consisted of the same principle as beer pong. We had plastic cups and tried to throw little bells into the cups and the winner could have one of the small gifts prepared for those games. The second game was all about sucking a marshmallow through a straw and then running form one plate to the other with it. The third game involved a lot of little chocolates and oven gloves. The goal of the game was to unwrap as many chocolates as possible in the given time of 10 seconds. Most of us didn‘t even get a single one unwrapped but my host mom did better and won the challenge. The fourth and final game is a little more complex to describe. What we needed for the game was two dice and a lot of candy wrapped inside of different layers of plastic wrap. So it starts out as a huuuuuge ball with this candy inside and one person in a circle of people starts unwrapping the foil, getting access to the candy falling out, while the person next to them throws the dice until rolling the same digit with both dice. When that happens, it‘s that person‘s turn. It was a funny game and the fact that my host mom also put money between the candies made all of the kids more competitive.

Once we finished the games, it was midnight and we started opening presents. Apparently unwrapping gifts works a little bit different here in the US. Everybody just gathered their gifts and started opening one after another in just a matter of seconds. It was a little odd in my opinion but whatever…

I got my host mom gloves for weight lifting, my host dad a book, my host brother a figure he uses for his favorite game dnd and for my sister a gift card for her favorite art supply shop „Michael‘s“.

After the gifts we just talked some more and most of us fell asleep on the couch. Our guests finally left at 3 in the morning. On the 25th we didn‘t really do much. We got some fast food at Sonic and then watched Family Guy, so it was a lazy day.

New year‘s Eve wasn‘t too special. We had planned to spend it in Mexico with all the relatives but due to the flu we stayed at home and didn‘t go to Mexico. In the evening we all gathered on the couch and watched a movie. A few minutes before midnight we stopped the movie and turned on the radio. It‘s a Mexican tradition that before midnight, there‘s 12 bells ringing every few seconds and for every bell you‘re supposed to eat a grape. We didn‘t turn on the right radio channel, so we just stuffed the grapes into our mouths before it was midnight haha…

After clinking glasses and wishing everybody a happy new year, we finished the movie and went to bed.

A few days later, my host family helped me cross one thing off my bucket list. It was a Saturday and we went to a mall in Dallas for rather affluent people. After walking coming to the conclusion that we can‘t afford anything anyway, we went to eat at Hooter‘s. I‘ve always wanted to visit a Hooter‘s but was pretty disappointed with it. The food wasn‘t that good and the the girls serving the food definitely didn‘t look like the one on the commercials. I expected supermodels in their skimpy uniform, but instead, they looked like your typical girl from next door, wearing a random outfit (some looked like they came from the gym). Like I said, it was pretty disappointing.

The last Friday was the last day of this semester and like in all other schools, there was no real class going on. Our principal Mr Montgomery organized a field day. The word field day is a very open term, so I will run you through the day so you can get an idea of what our field day was like. In the morning we had to go to school but didn‘t have any class. First period we just stayed in our classrooms and played silly games, second period after the announcements students were released and there were different events to attend in school. For instance, there were video game tournaments in some rooms, movies were shown and in the cafeteria students could get free snacks. Me and Jacob went to the robotics room (fun story: I was the only girl in that classroom) and played minecraft with some nerds. We stayed there for about an hour and then went across the street to the movie theater to watch the new star wars movie. First, we got some snacks from Kroger to smuggle into the theater. Then, we went to the theater. The seats were extremely comfortable, which was good since I slept through half of the movie.

After star wars ended, we left school and went to some stores to buy the last christmas gifts. It was only about 2 in the afternoon but nobody was at school anymore because the school doesn‘t take attendance anymore. While shopping, I started to kinda feel bad, which turned out to be the beginning of a cold. I didn‘t wanna eat anything, so we went to Smoothie King instead. In the evening, I had two parties I was invited to; Natalie‘s birthday and a Christmas „party“ with debate. Both of it was at the same time but naturally I went to the debate gathering, since that‘s where I know more people. I asked Ximena, who was also invited to the birthday party, to bring Natalie the gift I originally bought for her and at about 7 o‘clock my host dad drove me to the debate „party“.

I arrived a bit late, so everybody was there already. We played some UNO and another game about silly laws and had some soda. The whole thing took place at Justin‘s house. He has three dogs, which are extremely adorable. My favorite one was called Ringo, he was a very big dog and kinda reminded me of a Berner Sennenhund. So as you can tell by that statement, I was mostly petting dogs that evening.

We also did a white elephant, which is a type of gift exchange. Everybody brings a gift and then draws a number, the number determines the order in which people can choose gifts. Number one starts and can pick any gift and unwrap it. Number two then either chooses a new gift or steals number one‘s gift. If a gift gets stolen 3 times, it‘s frozen and whoever‘s got it at that moment gets to keep it. This way, everybody ends up with a gift.

I brought a big, fluffy pillow for that exchange and not trying to brag, but it got stolen many times, so it froze. What can I say, everybody likes fluffy pillows. Some of the gifts were inside jokes, such as a beheaded baby doll that somebody found in the debate room or just simply a stone wrapped in paper. I ended up with a few face masks and hand sanitizer, so I was alright. Gretchen on the other hand (my bf‘s sister) got the doll that was meant as a joke and was very upset about it ;(

At about 10:30 pm, the hosts decided that the party had to come to an end, so we all called our parents and waited to get picked up. After the event I was obviously very disappointed, since that is not how I expected a „party“. My host dad even agreed that it lacked alcohol and thus was boring. So yeah, concluding, the debate gathering sucked. And unfortunately I found no trace of real high school parties like in movies. Everybody here says that high schoolers here don‘t attend parties and then get to experience it for the first time in college. I‘m kinda glad now that I‘m not an American teenager……

On Thanksgiving I slept in until like 10:30 am and then had breakfast with my host family. Afterwards we had to clean the house like crazy because we were expecting guests and my host mom claimed the house looked dirty (I think it didn’t). So after cleaning bathrooms, rooms, living room, garage, kitchen, floors, etc, we went to Walmart in order to buy some snacks. Please note that it was already 6 in the evening at that point. So in the meantime my host mom was preparing some sides. She had prepared the turkey some time earlier.

When we came back from Walmart, my host dad’s mom and sisters had already arrived. A little later the Nagles family arrived. They are the same family that shared the cabin with us in Oklahoma just 2 days prior to Thanksgiving. Two cousins of Ximena and Luis also showed up but I didn’t have much to do with them. They were quite a bit younger and didn’t talk too much. Ater everybody had arrived, we (the kids) went upstairs (where the couches are) and played some UNO. It was quite fun but only two rounds later my host mom called us for dinner.

After dinner we went upstairs again and played some cards. At some point everybody started playing an instrument and it sounded horrible, so I started with an English assignment. At about 11:00 pm, our guests were already leaving and we got ready to go Black Friday shopping. We took Simon, one of the Nagles kids with us because he wanted to buy some device on black friday. We went to several stores but mostly stayed at Fire Wheel (an outside mall). Ximena and I got some fluffy socks at one store and then we got jeans at Macy‘s. 25 dollars instead of 60 is quite a good deal. The only pain was to find a pair of jeans that fit me though 😰. But I finally found a pair that I‘m obsessed with now. When we were done with shopping it was about 2 am, so we went home and went to bed.

The next morning, I asked Jacob if he wanted to go to a mall in Dallas with me, since I needed some christmas gifts and everything was 50% off. His parents first prohibited it, but then gave in. So we went to that mall and I got a „slightly“ inappropriate sweater with a really funny phrase on it. Afterwards Jacob dropped me off at home and I was surprised to find the house empty. Turned out my host family also went shopping again. Only about ten minutes later they called me and asked if I wanted to joing them for dinner at a place called Wiener Schnitzel. I agreed and they picked me up for dinner. This restaurant was a joke though. It looked like one of these places where you expect to get robbed while you‘re in there. And not only did the room look shady, the food was also mediocre. And it didn‘t even serve schnitzel!!!!!!!

After dinner, we went to a schoe store to look for new shoes for Ximena. It took quite a long time because she couldn‘t decide between two pairs of shoes. At the end of that day I was so tired that I immediately fell asleep at home.

After the first night in the cabin I was still extremely tired. Everybody went to bed at about 2am and one of the Nagles brothers snores! I wasn‘t the only one that felt that way, so that day we really didn‘t do anything. We mostly stayed at the cabin and played some games. In the evening, we made a fire outside the cabin and after it got dark, we all sat around the fire and played some games and chatted. Then it got too cold, even around the fire, so we all went inside. The following round of UNO was really fun, but afterwards the guys started playing nerd games, so Ximena and I went to bed.

The next day, I got up at around nine and we all ate breakfast together. Afterwards we went hiking. The nature was beautiful, but the „hike“ only took like 2 hours.

After the hike we went back to the cabin and turned on the TV. We watched Family Guy, American Dad and then The Big Bang Theory. Basically everyone was watching the show for a few hours and then Ximena and I went to bed around 11pm, while all of the guys played their nerd games until 2am, and then made noise when entering the bed room 🙁

Wednesday was the last day of our Oklahoma trip and we left the cabin at about 11:30. On our way home we saw the University of North Texas, which is one of the universities which Ximena is interested in. So we drove through the campus and looked at some buildings. It‘s a nice campus, but after seeing Cambridge last year, it looked really empty and plump.

Back home, my host mom did a face mask and hair mask for me. It‘s really cool to have somebody that knows stuff about hair and make up. I don‘t know yet whether it worked or not because it shows its effect a few days after the treatment.

Afterwards I went to my boyfriend‘s house for dinner. This time his mom picked me up, because as I found out, Jacob was busy preparing the food for his family. During Thanksgiving break, in his family each kid has to make dinner once, so when it was his turn, he invited me <3 We had steaks and potatoes, which was really good and I found it soooo cute that he invited me to try his stake. After dinner, we wanted to watch a movie. I suggested Suicide Squad, but Jacob‘s mom insisted that her kids were not allowed to watch movies like that. I like his mom, but that‘s really weird (her kids are 15 and 17). Jacob‘s dad on the other hand said if we really wanted to watch it, we should claim the TV and do it. He said that the females in the family constantly watch romance movies and that everybody else should get the TV occationally. But in the end we had to settle for Mamma Mia II, since my boyfriend‘s sister refused to watch anything else. But in the end it was a nice evening 🙂

The time has finally come for school to take a step back and give us a break; Thanksgiving break. It’s the first vacation this school year and I think we, students as well as teachers, really deserve it.

Saturday, I went to a scouts meeting with my boyfriend. He’s very engaged in Boy Scouts and has been a member forever. He is an eagle scout, which as I’ve been told, is the highest rank you can have. The event yesterday was in honor of two scouts that received the title «eagle» and pledged to live the life of the eagle, or something like that….

Taking place at a church, the event was incredibly religious, which to be honest, kinda bothered me. I prefer speeches where not every third word consists of god, jesus or faith. But it didn’t take too long, so it was okay. Afterwards we stayed for the food and Jacob talked to some of his friends. To my surprise, everyone seemed to know who I am and even the country that I’m from…. Haha.

We left the building shortly after and went to an outlet mall. I was kinda cold, so Jacob said we could check some stores for fuzzy/fluffy sweaters. Since I liked the idea of fluffy clothes, I really liked his suggestion. We checked a lot of stores, but most of it was overpriced, so it took a while until we found something. One store had a great selection and good pricing, but when I wanted to pay for it, their card system rejected my card. I didn’t feel like trying too many times and stores that are that badly equipped don’t deserve the money anyway, so I left the store without buying anything. After finally finding something, Jacob and I got dinner and then watched a movie at my house.

Sunday (today), we headed to Oklahoma. At about noon, we left home and drove 2 hours north to a cabin in Oklahoma. After a short stop at Bucky’s, we arrived at the cabin and I’m telling you, the view here is BREATHTAKING.

The family that’s staying with us wasn’t there yet, so we decided to get food at the casino close to the cabins. The casino we visited is the biggest in the US (yes, bigger than the ones in Vegas). We had dinner at an Italian restaurant inside the casino, which was pretty good.

Afterwards we got back to the cabin and after a while we decided to go to Walmart and get some food for the cabin. Me and Ximena got some warm sweaters and even matching pajama pants :)) afterwards we watched a movie and waited until the second family arrived. They are family friends and the couple has two sons; Daniel (17) and Simon (15). They’re nice as far as I can tell by now, and at this moment, both families are sitting at the table with me. The parents are mostly talking in Spanish, and the guys are playing a game (that is complicated and therefore I don’t understand). I will probably go to bed soon.