Argenta Oreana High School - Pilot Yearbook (Argenta, IL)

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“Why did you become a foreign exchange student and leave your family for a whole year?” This is a question a lot of people are asking me. Well ... I had met some exchange students in my school in Ger- many and talked to them. They told me about the experiences they had. So, I thought that it must be very great to meet different people, to live under different customs, to speak a foreign language and to make new friends. There are so many differences between the two countries one would never think of. You get another picture of a country if you sec it, than you have if you only hear or read about it. To many Germans, the United States seems perfect and out of reach. People think that all Americans arc very rich, because their cars are so big and that they are all very smart, because they are the mightiest nation in the world. They have to be very athletic too, because they get all the prizes in the Olympics. On the other hand, they have a dangerous life, because the newspaper says that there are 8 murders in Chicago everyday; and in California so many people never come back from their trips they took with LSD. This is all very impressive, but it is not true. However, the Americans are so much like the Germans. They very often think the same way and have the same ideas. Their life-standards are the same too. Actually different to me is school, and food. To start the last one, “food” ... it is really very good!!! Early in the morning it starts al- ready with bacon and eggs or pancakes that surprized me the first time I had it. We would have this kind of food for supper. We have a hot lunch with cooked potatoes always, which I dislike a lot. Hamburgers, fried chicken, jello, and corn were new to me and 1 like them very much by now, but I still can't decide to eat Pizza or peanut butter. Even the smell of peanut butter drives me crazy. There are six hundred girls in our school and only male beings are some teachers. This is sometimes very boring and 1 think with boys it would be more fun. Teenagers in Germany like to do the same things teenagers over here do. They read books, go swimming, have dances, and listen to Beatle records. It might seem funny, but Germans just love to wander through the country. Sometimes we make long trips even overnight. Bike trips are popular, too. We ride pretty far away and stay overnight in so called youth hotels, which are instituted just for young people doing these kind of things. It’s really lots of fun. Since I am here, I have gone through a lot of things I have never done before. I think it is a great experience to be a foreign exchange student. I will always remember my stay in the United States and all the nice people here, and I hope that I'll get to come back sometime. 4