Hello Everybody!

Nice to meet you!
My name Hannah Purner. I'm 15 years old and I'm from Innsbruck, Austria.

I created this blog to share my experiences. Many people told me that they want me to write emails and to keep them informed about how my exchange is. So i thought it would be a good idea to make an "online diary" where I will post photos and texts. I hope you like it and excuse my mistakes :)

As I love traveling I wanted to go on an exchange. So in February I started to fill in an application for the "Rotary Youth Exchange". Time passed and I checked my emails everyday waiting for the acceptance to come. And finally! On the 07th of April an email arrived saying that I'm officially a Rotary Exchange Student in Iowa!! I was so happy that I jumped around the house, half laughing and half crying, because I was so surprised.
I took part in the first "Rotary Orientation Meeting" in April which took place in St.Pölten. I was so excited and I felt a little bit strange, because I didn't know anybody. But this wasn't a problem. As soon as I entered my room I met four girls who were really nice. During the three days of the meeting I made many new friends for life. We created a new group on Whatsapp and wrote messages all day long. I don't know what I would have done without them, because we helped each other a lot.
On the 23rd of May I received an email from one of my host dads. He told me a lot about the exchange, Iowa, my other host family ect. I contacted my other host family - The Horak family. They are really nice and I am so happy to have them.
Then I booked my flight and applied for my Visa. The application was really nerve-stretching! I think it took my about 1 1/2 hours to do it and I had to answer silly questions (for example: something like "Are you somebody who trades slaves?" - oh my gosh, NO?!). After this process I had to phone the Consulate located in Vienna to find a date for the interview (this call cost me 32€!!!) and in June I travelled to Vienna. Everything went pretty well and I met two girls who were applying for the Visa, because they were going to the U.S. to be au-pair girls.
There was another big event in June: We had a second "Orientation Meeting" in Salzburg. The day before the meeting we (some other exchange students and I) had a little party. It was really cool to meet all the other exchange students the next day - it was a lot of fun!

It's August now. I will leave in 9 days and I'm super excited! I really can't realize that I will leave soon. I will leave my family and my friends for one year to have the best time of my life. Until now I have met so many wonderful people from all over the world! Even I have never met some of them I love them all, because we share the same experiences. We're a bit like a big family with 18,344 members (including rebounds). If you need help, you go to our Facebook group, post it and within a few minutes you get an answer and tips. I'm so happy to ba a part of this big community.

I'm happy that Rotary gave me this big chance!!