Maddy’s August Report

Maddy is certainly enjoying her exchange year. Read below.

I really believed this month was going to be the hardest of exchange so far because

1-         I was leaving my amazing host family that I’d become comfortable in and moving in with a new family that seemed great but none the less different

2-         I was moving onto year 11 with all my friends but didn’t know if school would be stricter and give me stress.

But I have now found out it has all taken the opposite effect that I thought it would be

1-         My new host family is a lot like my old family in Australia and so I fit in here amazingly well, I speak and understand German ok so we don’t have the language barrier again.

2-         Moving into year 11 was sooo simple because I’m in the same classes as all my friends, I’ve met new amazing people and we don’t have 10 hour long days anymore the max would be 6 hours.

So really I have no stress at all! I’ve gotten to the part in exchange where everything is right and perfect.

On the 3rd August was the day I was leaving my old family and moving onto my next, I’d cleaned out my room and packed my bag, I was nervous! We were just about to drive away when I realized I’d forgotten to say goodbye to the dog, I’d kept strong that long, saying goodbye to everyone but when it came to saying goodbye again it suddenly hit me that I was indeed leaving this amazing family, so a few tears leaked out and that sort of set off everyone, my host mum even started crying! When I arrived at my new host family though, as soon as I felt my new host mum give me a hug that was full of love and warmth I knew I would like it here. On the first day we went cart driving, which was a lot of fun. Over the past few weeks I’ve really gotten to know my new family, I’ve become close with my 2 host siblings and we’ve had a lot of fun together. For a family day we all drove to Oldenburg for a shopping trip, that was a very nice bonding experience, I’ve been to Bremen twice and discovered it’s a wonderful place to go shopping! September and part of October is going to be a month of travel for me because my parents from Australia are coming to Europe, so I will be travelling to Amsterdam and meet them there, from there on we will catch a train to Paris and meet my last host parents there, we will stay in Paris for 4 days then ride back to Holland and catch up with family there, then drive back to Wilhelmshaven in Germany and show my parents around where I live for a few days, THEN they will head off to the north of Germany and hopefully meet up with Nici (our exchange student from Germany) while at that time my host family are taking me with them to a Spanish island for a 2 week holiday!!!!! I AM SO LUCKY! THANK YOU SO MUCH ROTARY!