My Trip Across the Ocean

My summer before my senior year of high school I was hand picked along with a handful of other students in my German class to have the privilege to travel across the ocean and spend three weeks with a German exchange family. Going to school with the students who were a part of the trip as well as living with them and their families as well as immersing in the daily lives of how they live. Since the beginning of middle school, I took German because the language always fascinated me. Along with the hope of being able to travel to another country in six years made the hard work staying in German class all worthwhile. For $2,800 I had the best experience of my high school career.

The preparations for the trip took half of the school year, with picking a partner for the exchange as well as going over the rules, such as what would be expected of you in a classroom, living with a new family and much more. The time was slowly counting down before we boarded the bus to Canada. Each meeting with the group would make us more excited, learning what we would be doing while there. Understand that there was freedom that we did not have in the United States as students who were sixteen and seventeen years old as well as how their daily lives were different than ours. We we told a very important lesson from our teacher who would be coming over with us and that was, we should not live this experience through a lens; put your phone down and live in the moment because a lot of us will not have another chance to be on an exchange such as this one.

Meeting my host family at the airport as soon as we got off the plane was very quick, there was no time before I was rushed into a car and we drove an hour away from Frankfurt, to the new home I was going to live in for the next three weeks. Once there I met my entire host family, my exchange partner had one sister whom was younger and one brother who was older. Their dad was Italian and her mother was German, they had a cat who just wanted to be cuddle and the town that they lived in was small, yet felt like home. None of the other Americans that I was on the exchange with lived in my town so I had to adjust quickly to being on my own in this new setting. My host family was very kind with me when I first got there. Understanding that I was tired from the long flight as well as speaking English around me so that I would understand. My host mother was an excellent baker, and when I first arrived there was a beautiful cake that laid on the table that we ate later that night before dinner and when we woke up for school in the morning. The routine was just the same as it was in America. School, homework, sleeping, dinner and family time and then off to bed. My host family made me feel at home in Germany which I appreciated. .

Although there was much fun to be had in Germany there was also a looming sense of homesickness. For myself that was the first time that I had been away from my family for a longer period of time and a very long distance. Where being a completely different time zone made it hard for me to communicate with the people back home in the states. However, even though I was only there for three weeks and homesickness took over for a week or so there was so many things to do to keep busy in Germany. Eventually there was no time for me to worry about what I was missing in America because I did not want to miss what was happening in front of me.

Through my time in Germany there was simple adventures taken such as exploring fields or the town, grabbing food all together at this middle eastern restaurant and even heading down miles and miles of farmland to end up at the beach. At this beach there were horror stories of dead animals heads in the lake to catch els and famous celebrities peeing into it. Our trips were not all simple like those, taking trips as a whole group to climb through trees on a ropes course and even into neighboring cities to explore and see what they have to offer. The trips opened a new light in the cities of Germany and from town to town there was much that differed.

The fourth of July is of course an American holiday and as such the German exchange students had not celebrated it before. Us being the good partners that we were, gathered everyone at the beach where they took us a couple of times, and all brought food. My host family and I made deviled eggs which they had not had before, but with home grown eggs they were so fresh and nothing like the ones that you would get from the local store here in the states.

Going home was one of the hardest tasks I had to do, even though throughout those three weeks I had become homesick and missed America there was a beauty and a

rhyme I learned to grow into in Germany. Simple things such as taking the bus home after school or figuring out the trains to hang out with friends, family dinner each night, sun bathing in the backyard, playing with ducks, walking to the next town over and exploring fields. The little things that were in Germany that someone who was on a tour bus would miss. The at home living style that you would not get any other way then being put right into the middle of it. The goodbyes at the train station where the hardest. Telling yourself that you would not cry when hugging the people that became your family for three weeks. My host mom was the best second mother I could ever ask for and my exchange family was one I’d love to be a part of. From their crazy stories to our random movie nights and attempting to quiz me in German there was so much laughter that flowed through them. I will forever be thankful for the time that I spent in Germany and I cannot wait until I can go back to visit.