High School :: Community :: Traveling

My life can be divided into “before” and “after”. You ask what is the break point? Well, it is…..a year in Vegas…..Yes, yes, the same Las Vegas, NV also known as the gambling capital of the world or as the Sin City.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read a letter from American Councils – my host family lived in Vegas.

Actually they still do. And you know what is unusual about them? – Everything!!! I was expecting to live in a family of 2 people – “mom” and “dad”. I did, but in my host family there was no “mom” and the “dad” was really weird.

Another girl from Ukraine, who happened to live almost next door, had a great family, and at the beginning I was a bit jealous. She lived with “mom”, “dad” and even with a “sister”. But I bet her parents weren’t as frank and cool as my “dad” was!!!

Tom Jaramillo, or as I’m used to call him – Tommy, had already taken 10!!! foreign exchange students and I was the 11th one. But …the first one from Ukraine.

During first weeks we had really hard time understanding each other. But the time went on and I learned more and more slang words, which were regularly used in Tommy’s everyday vocabulary.

Tommy loved to talk for hours and I usually was the one he talked to. He also couldn’t survive without reading his “paper” (newspaper) every day – and I really hated that. I was crazy about architecture and would rather spend entire day designing smth than reading all articles in the “paper”. Besides I watched news every morning, so I knew the major events that happened in the USA and world. Every time I preferred to stay home rather than going to Denny’s (that’s where my “dad” went every day to read his ”paper”) Tommy was getting really upset, so I tried not to miss our daily activity.