Rotary Youth Exchange 2013/14: PROM

Prom was probably the thing I have been looking forward to my whole exchange. People say a girl can't wait for two things: Her wedding and her Senior Prom. I am not a senior, but I kind of felt like one, because I won't have another one, as we don't really have "Prom" in Austria.

Preparation:
It took me forever to find a dress. Like two posts ago or something, I put on some pictures of dresses I tried on. After all the thinking and everything we drove up to Iowa City again and my wonderful host mum had the genius idea of going to that one store called "Von Maur". We looked through and picked some out and then I tried them on. The first one was absolutely stunning - it looked like a princess' dress! Sadly it was $460 so I couldn't afford it and I also wasn't sure how I would get it back home, because it was so poofy. I finally found my actual prom dress and it was actually pretty cheep too, so it was perfect!

I got my nails done before prom. My host sister Kayla and her friend Lauren and I drove to the mall and got them done. Kayla's and Lauren's looked so pretty and then mine? They were awful! So when I came back my host mum and I drove to Walmart to get some nail polish remover for fake nails so I could take the nail polish off without removing the nail. I painted them myself the day of prom and they looked so much better.

The Date:
I didn't have a date to prom. Everybody I considered going with was already taken and I guess I am just too picky and always over thinking to go with a random person.
My friend Mikayla and I both didn't have a date so we decided to go together.

Prom:
I had to get up at 8:30 to drive to a friend's house with Kayla, where my friend's cousin did my hair. It was really beautiful. It was in a bun and had a braid on the side of my head. I can't do anything with my hair - I even suck at doing a ponytail - so the money was wisely spent on that. I did my make-up though, because I don't really trust people with my make-up and I also don't like when people touch my face.
After taking pictures with my siblings, we split up into our groups. It was just Mikayla and me in our "group", because we thought it would be awkward to be in a group and then being the only ones without a date. We took pictures together and then drove to the school for the Grand March.
Grand March is practically this: You just walk down in the decorated gym with your date and people take pictures of you as you walk down and pose.
I didn't do that, because I felt awkward walking down there without a real date, so I watched it. I have to say a lot of the dresses were so pretty, but then some were just really weird.
After that we had time to go out for dinner until 9pm. Mikayla and I just went to her house where her mum cooked a meal for us and we hung out with her twin sisters until it was time for us to go to the dance.
The dance was pretty cool! At the beginning there were not many people, so it was kind of boring, because nobody was really dancing, but the more people were coming, the better it got. For the slow dances I just went out to the water fountain and then waited until the slow song was over.

After Prom:
At midnight the dance was over. We all drove back home to get out of our dresses and into fluorescent cloths. We were supposed to be back at the school at 00:30am. There we checked in and then three busses drove us to the bowling alley where "After Prom" started. After Prom is when you go to the program planned after the dance until four in the morning and it should prevent teens from making foolish decisions (because it's Prom Night).
We bowled and ate and just had tons of fun until about 2am.
At that time we all jumped on the bus, which brought us back to school. A hypnotist waited for us there, ready to hypnotize some of us. It was probably the funniest thing I've ever seen in my whole entire life. I balled my eyes out!
When everything was over, my sister, some other people and I drove to another friend's house and had a sleepover. By that time I was exhausted like hell and went straight to bed.

All in all Prom was different than I expected, but it was a lot of fun! It is one thing that I will never ever experience in my life and I am glad that I got to do it!
A special thank-you-shout-out to my mum Dawn for being so patient with me (I couldn't decide about the dress until the last minute. Then we had to alter it and get my nails fixed and everything)! I love you!