Welcome Days NYC

After what felt like an endless flight, my travel group finally arrived in New York. Unfortunately, the flight wasn't the only thing that was quite annoying because as we got off the plane, we were greeted with a 2-hour queue for passport control. Those who know me know that my passport photo doesn't resemble me at all anymore. Consequently, my passport control took twice as long as everyone else's. Once that was done and luckily, every suitcase arrived, we went outside and were greeted by former exchange students with music and taken to our bus that drove us to our camp. That meant another 1 1/2 hours of bus ride... We had been awake for over 24 hours and traveling without food for 10 hours. Our mood reflected exactly that, which the EF supervisors didn't quite want to acknowledge.. Of course, they were very nice and of course, it was only polite of them to ask us questions about ourselves, but it was just annoying... Once we arrived at the camp, we got our rooms. Mine was actually quite nice, I didn't expect that, and 2 hours later, we finally got (FIRST) food. The food at the camp was really good and diverse throughout the whole time, I always looked forward to it haha. After eating, I went straight to sleep, some people in my group were so motivated to participate in the activities but hell no, not me!

The next day, we were divided into groups with people who flew to approximately similar states as me. That's where I got to know 2 boys and a girl from Norway, Holland, and Germany. I still keep in touch with the two boys and one of them has actually become a good friend. We had a lot of fun together, even though those games by EF were quite silly, we made the best of it and in the end, it was always funny. We even learned typical US dances.

The next morning, we already went to New York. OMG, I love this city! Everything really looks exactly like in the movies, if not even better! The buildings were truly impressive. However, I have to say that New York is just a city. By that, I mean that I would never just go on vacation in NY, it's just not really something new, nothing that amazes you as much as, for example, the breathtaking view when you stand on a mountain in Austria and feel completely free or the other world you see in Egypt, which is the complete opposite of Germany. It's simply just a big city. A beautiful city, but just a city. Unfortunately, we didn't have much time, so we only saw a few places, but in my opinion, it was enough. I actually imagined the center of NY to be bigger, to be honest. Maybe that doesn't sound so positive now, but it was an unforgettable day! By the way, we drove there in a yellow school bus, which I thought was really cool at first, but believe me, those things are not as comfortable in the long run as you'd think... In the evening, we had a kind of farewell party. My first party without alcohol here haha. It was already annoying because all the exchange students agreed with me haha. That was the last evening I saw my friends, in hindsight, it's much sadder than it was then. Everything was new, none of us could realize that we wouldn't see our friends for a year, just like we couldn't realize at that moment that we might never see each other again. Those were my first days in a summarized version. I thank everyone I met for this great short time. I wouldn't have thought that you can have so much fun together in such a short time, as if you have known each other for years. Kisses to all of you!

And so my journey began...