friday june 22, lisa is leaving

i had to stand up at like 9 o'clock. i slept at lily's house with katie and them. cause katie gave me the ride to the airport. yeah so thomas, lily, pedro and katie came with me to the airport. the flight was on 1.30 but as always it was like on hour later when the flight finally started. it was excited for chicago but also sad leaving my friends. :( well but i still left for chicago and i'm having a great time! when i arrived at the airport i had to take a taxi into the city and to the street where noemi and peter live. that's the family i'm staying with, there good friends with my family and are actually from switzerland. sebastian another guy from switzerland was there too just to visit chicago, like i do too. the dinner was already up and noemi the mother is famous for her good food what i was super excited for :)) it was delish!! yeah so after my travelling day i was very tired and went to bed quickly.

thursday, 21 lisa's last day.

katie and i alway talked about a fancy thursday. we wanted to surprise our friends with a delicous dinner with fancy clothes and everything. but it never really happened what was not normal for us. BUT it was not too late on the last day of my exchange year!! it was just soo awesome! all our close friends came over to lily's house and we had our fancy thursday, as a goodbye for me and just to celebrate our friendship. it was great. we had shrimp pasta with a good salad and olive breds with mozarella and basil. mmmhmm. now pictures of that fabolous day: (i'll put some more pictures up later, promis!)

more summer.

Summer

Graduation!!

crazy how fast it went by.. the graduation is over, the speech went well and sober grad was fun!!

on thursday evening, katie came by my house and she helped me with the speech. i was so glad because i'm not a pro at writing speeches in a foreign languages. so we wrote the speech until like two o'clock at night and woke up super tired in the next morning. but we had to get up to get ready for graduation. i had to show my speech to the principle of the school, just to make sure that i'm not going to say any inappropriate things :) it was reaally nervous for the speech because i knew that there's going to be alot of people.. but then when it came closer i wasn't that nervous at all, i felt like it doesn't really matter if i screw up because i'm never going to see those people again :))

all in all, i am so glad that i was able to join the graduation. it was amazing. it was exactly how i saw it in the movies. and then in the end after we moved the tassel, a big firework went off and the music started. tears were running in alot of eyes.

uu i was so excited when i saw my old friend devin, i remember him promising that he's going to come to our graduation. he moved away a while ago. and yes i kept his promis and showed up. i was so happy about it!!

after the ceremony was over, all the senior met in the cafeteria to get ready for the sober grad night. it's a night to "safe lifes". because normaly all the seniors would party hard and of course drink. and that's where the accidents. so sober grad night is a night organized from teachers and parents. and they really make it worth going. they rented a whole gym with pool, indoor pool, jumping castles, dancing, poker, aloot of food, volleyball, tattoos, games and alot more. everybody had a chance to win something. i won a toolbox and a camping chair. lol i gave the toolbox to chris, my hostdad for fathersday and michelle got the camping chair. the hard part of sober grad night was that it lasted until six o'clock in the morning!! but they had soo much stuff to do that you didn't even get tired.







graduation practice week

well, lisa is graduating just like every other senior in kelseyville too. but since i'm a exchange student, i have to do a speech. aaaah and i don't know what to say!! i think i'm gonna ask my dad to help me ;)
i'm at katies house right now, we're having a chill time because we're already out of school .  the only thing we do is practice graduation in the morning, and then we're free for the rest of the day. yesterday we waited for our friends to get out of school and then we went to the middletown dam. it is soo nice there and good thing, not alot of people know about this place. and today, lily, argelia, katie and i are gonna go to santa rosa to get some stuff we need. katie needs a dress for graduation and i reeaally need some summer shorts. i've been wearing the shorts recyled from my mom's jeans which are totally holey.:)

i found a a perfect text who describes my feelings.. it was on katarina's blog, who is also an exchange student. :

"A year has passed and now we stand on the brink, of returning to a world where we are surrounded by the paradox of everything and yet nothing being the same. In a couple of weeks we will reluctantly give our hugs and, fighting the tears,we will say goodbye to people who were once just names on a sheet of paper to return to people that we hugged and fought tears to say goodbye to before we ever left.

We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends.
We will go back to the places we came from, and go back to the same things we did last summer and every summer before.
We will come into town on that same familiar road, and even though it has been months, it will seem like only yesterday.
As you walk into your old bedroom, every emotion will pass through you as you reflect on the way your life has changed and the person you have become.
You suddenly realize that the things that were most important to you a year ago don't seem to matter so much anymore, and the things you hold highest now, no one at home will completely understand.
Who will you call first?
What will you do your first weekend home with your friends?
Where are you going to work?
Who will be at the party Saturday night?
What has everyone been up to in the past few months?
Who from school will you keep in touch with?
How long before you actually start missing people barging in without calling or knocking?
Then you start to realize how much things have changed, and you realize the hardest part of being an exchange student is balancing the two completely different worlds you now live in, trying desperately to hold on to everything.
all the while trying to figure out what you have to leave behind.
We now know the meaning of true friendship.
We know who we have kept in touch with over the past year and who we hold dearest to our hearts.
We've left our worlds to deal with the real world.
We've had our hearts broken, we've fallen in love.
There have been times when we've felt so helpless being hours away from home when we know our families or friends needed us the most, and there are times when we know we have made a difference.
Just weeks from now we will leave.
Just weeks from now we take down our pictures, and pack up our clothes.
No more going next door to do nothing for hours on end. We will leave our friends whose random e-mails and phone calls will bring us to laughter and tears this summer, and hopefully years to come.
We will take our memories and dreams and put them away for now, saving them for our return to this world.
Just weeks from now we will arrive.
Just weeks from now we will unpack our bags and have dinner with our families. We will drive over to our best friend's house and do nothing for hours on end.
We will return to the same friends whose random emails and phone calls have brought us to laughter and tears over the year.
We will unpack old dreams and memories that have been put away for the past year.
In just weeks we will dig deep inside to find the strength and conviction to adjust to change and still keep each other close.
And somehow, in some way, we will find our place between these two worlds.
In just weeks.
Are you ready?