Hi everybody,

I just had to say good bye to my second host family, the Kosters, on monday. I really apprechiate what they did for me. Thank you very much.

Right now I am staying with David Long (Enricos second family) because the one which was supposed to host me has their daughter from Britain over. But it's really awesome here at Davids place and we have a lot of fun so I don't mind it. I can just say that Enrico was lucky to get such a family. Thanks David and Terry for hosting me a couple of weeks until I meet my final family.

A lot of stuff happened since my last report. Actually I am kind of embarrassed that I have written just two by now. I was planning to write one before I went on the Rotary Eastern Adventure which I will tell you later about. But I had to take my exams earlier because due to that trip I missed them and that occupied a lot of time. I am sorry for that but I promise to take my report writing more serious from now on.

First of all Enrico and I went with our counceller Steven Dillet and his wife to Nassau. Nassau is the Capital City of the Bahamas and it is quite crowded with a population density is 2,600 people per square mile. We went and visited Atlantis, a beautiful, huge hotel which is designed to look like the old sunken town where it got its name from. It has huge aquariums, water slides and fake relics which make it look quite authentic. We spent most of the day there just walking around, looking and of course going on those huge slides. There was one where it literally takes just 4 seconds to go down because it is so steep. Later during the day we went and looked at some forts which where build during the colonnial time of the Bahamas to protect the cities from foreing armies and especially pirates. Steven also showed us different historic buildings, places etc..

Unfortunately we had just one real day in Nassau because we went on a weekend but it was still an awesome trip. Thank you very much Mr. and Mrs. Dillet for such a great weekend.

One or two weeks later I got the opportunity to see Grand Bahama's harbour. Peter Koster, my host dad during that time, and his company offer a tour around the harbour on one of their ships to a group of college students every year and Enrico and I were allowed to join them. We saw giant container and cruise ships and dry docks. It was pretty interesting to see the harbour at least once.

Finally it was time for the big Rotary Eastern Adventure organised by Bill McMurray Travel Service. Enrico, more than 100 other exchange students and I got to see Washington, New York, Boston, Auburn and Niagara Falls. But first of all the great rotarien John D. Aquino hosted Enrico and me before and after the trip again. We had, as usual, a lot of fun and a great time especially after the trip. I left his house and flew from Fort Lauderdale to Columbus on the 14th of March were I met all the other people who were on the trip and some old friends such as Kwang from Thailand and Isabella from Brazil who we met on our earlier trips such as Disney World and Seacamp. I also got ot know some German people :-).

On the next day we started our journey to Washington D.C. where we saw all the war and the Lincoln Memorial and the National Monument. The memorials were very impressive and I liked the Lincoln the best because it is just so huge and nicely built. During the next two days we visited a lot of museums including the National History Museum with a lot of skeletons from Dinosaurs etc., an art museum where I saw "The Thinker", american indian museum and National Air and Space Museum Annex which had a huge amount of different airplanes and even a whole space shuttle. But the best was when we saw the white house and the capital building which are always shown in movies. I also saw some signs from demonstrators in front of the white house.

After Washington we headed for New York and saw Ellis Island, the immigration museum where I tried to find out if anybody from my family has ever migrated to the USA but my last name wasn't even there, from no one which means that I don't have any far relations in the US. Mhh wahtever. After that we went to the Statue of Liberty which appeared small compared to what you see in the movies. In movies it seems to be gynormous but if you see it in reality it is less impressive but it still symbolizes the values of the USA which is ,for sure, great to visit. Later the day and on the next one we visited Time Square and had a lot of free time walking around and going shopping. Enrico and other Braziliens found a Brazilien restaurant and trust me Enrico was so happy that he couldn't stop smiling. He came to me and said: "Max if you don't like the food give it all to me I will eat it". But I did eat it and it was delicous, I real difference to the fast food we had most of the time.

New York is huge, the traffic, the people, the prices, everything there is big, it takes forever to go somewhere by car, as soon as it rains you see hundreds of umbrellas rushing through the streets and everyone of them is trying to poke you in the eye and you always bump into persons. You walk, turn around for a second and when you turn back there is a person right in front of you with whom you crash. Even when I made sure that there was no one before I turned around it still happened to me. That was quite annoying. But instead of what I was told the city was pretty clean.

On our way to Boston Bill McMurray (the guy who organizes these tours and who went on the trip himself what I didn't expect) had a special surprise for us which turned out to be just another museum for which he earned a lot of uhhs and mrrrhs. It was a couple of real battle ships and even a German submarine in which you were able to walk around and explore it yourself.

In Boston we just walked around and went shopping again but the town itself is very beautiful. It looks pretty much like a old European city and it was windy and freezing. Some people actually saw snow for the first time in their life during the trip. Because some other people and I were fed up with going shopping we explored the city a little bit and sat in a McDonalds for a couple of hours until it was time to go back. We hang out with the best chaperones ever, Sharon and Jackie.

At the end we went to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Auburn which is a piece of US history and spirit and to Niagara Falls which were impressive. If I imagine that some people jump down there in a barrel I know that those people are rather stupid but still brave.

After we came back from that awesome trip Enrico and I stayed at Johns house again for a week of vacation down in Florida. It was really great. But all good things have to come to an end (the bad ones as well) so I had to go back to the Bahamas but I hope I can come back to the Florida for the Rotary convention because I am part of the District so let me go Joe.

I will see everybody soon,

haltet die Ohren steif!