Erfahrungsberichte - USA

Reisebericht von Carlos

Gastland: USA Austauschjahr: 2016/17

Hello future exchange students, I´m Carlos, 18 years old and I was in America for 10 Months in 2016/17. I’m now back for 10 months and I still have almost daily contact with my host family. I´m going to visit them in this summer and we already planned many things we want to do, really exciting to see them again. I was in beautiful California and miss all the beautiful landscapes and the nice and open-minded people there. Also, to experience the new culture and places with friends and host family. It was just an overall wonderful journey and most likely be remembered as the best year of my life. The first couple school days where rough because you don´t know anybody and you may struggle with the language. Furthermore, after everyone asked you where you from and other questions like that, is the first hype around your person over. The most important thing, in my eyes, is to get over yourself and go up to people and have a small talk or meet up for lunch. Another thing which helps a lot is to join a sports team or a club in school, because through that you get to know people who have the same hobbies as you do. So, there kind of already is a connection. Soccer is what helped me to find my best friend. The school was pretty good to handle. I had a block schedule, that means I had four period days. We called it blue and gold day where we had 4 classes each. The Gold and Blue days switch every day. After the school day went to the school sport and I tried everything that was possible. Moreover, I practiced with the Basketball-, football-, volleyball- and Baseball team but at the end I sticked with soccer. That was a good decision we won the league title for the first time in school history and we made it to semi-finals in Cif. I got honors like Mvp but mainly had a great time and I met good friends. So that was awesome. Outside of school I often meet up with my best friend, our favorite places where the beach or Disneyland. We always had a good time together, for that to have you must be open minded, and always say yes. I even went out with my friends when I didn´t really wanted to do anything or when I thought I don’t want to do that. A great example for that is they asked me if I want to go to a church camp with them. At the first moment I thought no way I´m going to do this but then I remembered that I did this exchange year not only to learn the language but also to experience something new and do stuff I would normally not do. So, I went with them and we had an absolute blast. The camp was up in the mountain and besides the worship we had a lot of free time. During that time, we would hike up the mountains, play football or other games against the other churches and tell stories at the camp fire. What I want to say with that is Step out of your comfort zone and you will have incredible experiences. Besides all those experiences I did the coast to coast tour with STS, which brought my journey to a perfect end. During the coast to coast tour you visit fifteen states and what you see is just beautiful like the Grand Canyon or the white house in Washington DC. Moreover, we also did a lot of fun things like rafting or swimming at really cool spots. The exchange year was just an amazing experience where you can take a lot of from besides the language, you will grow as a person and you find a second home. So just do it. That was mine experience have your own! Have fun at your journey.