FogHorn June 22, 2017  - Caroline Gossart  - Adventure of My Life

 

Caroline's first host family was John and Larkin Evans. Her memories with them include trips to Carmel, her birthday in San Francisco, the pumpkin Festival, Thanksgiving and Halloween. She felt they made her part of their family. She described for us the fact that Half Moon Bay High School was different from her private high school in Belgium… It was ... almost fun. She loved the town and she loved the fact that in this small community everywhere she went she was welcomed as part of the community. She was particularly proud of the award that she earned for her achievements in learning English. As we could all attest, her English proficiency was just excellent. While at the high school she participated in tennis, cheerleading and on the swim team. She entered the year with a goal to "just do it". That's why she was a member of the cast in the high school musical and she performed a Michael Jackson piece at homecoming. She says that her year created not just new friends, but forever friends.

 

Caroline spent four months with her second host family and that included trips to Washington state, Los Angeles, skiing in Utah and participating in a bridal shower and wedding and the best Christmas ever. She had her own stocking to hang on the chimney. She said she felt like she had been a part of that family since forever.

 

Her third host family, family included four host sisters and a dog like her family dog in Belgium. She loved being in a big family, living in ocean colony (OMG) and her experiences included a concert, confirmation and surfing.

 

Caroline acknowledged her Rotary family. She attended virtually every Rotary meeting during the course of her exchange year. She acknowledged Mitone as the best counselor of all time. She participated in Rotary sponsored events at the Pumpkin Festival, Santa Cruz, Bear Valley, Yosemite and more. Other highlights of her year included going to Alcatraz, visiting the Derby Theater (the Oscars) touring Pixar Studios, going to Hawaii, New York and Washington DC.

 

Caroline's next chapter. On July 22 she starts at the Universite de Namur medical school in Belgium. She had aspired to get into Stanford, but that did not work out. (Stanford's loss, but to her parents financial benefit). Carolyn says that she changed and grew and became more responsible and more outgoing and that she was looking forward to sharing with her parents her Half Moon Bay life.

 

Caroline kept referring to this is the greatest year of her life. She seemed to believe that the future could not match up to this past year. But we know that her year was a great year because she put herself out there and "just did it" with unflagging optimism, a positive and bubbling personality and genuine affection for everyone that she came into contact with. We know that she will approach the next chapter in her life with the same kind of energy and that she will have many more "best year of my life"s