A letter of Pamina Hofstätter from USA

On the early morning of August 4th, 2008, I left Austria to make a student exchange in the States. This adventure started with a 5-day orientation camp in New York City. We were a group of 90 exchange students and went sightseeing, shopping and even spent an afternoon at the beach. We experienced the Times Square at night, walked down 5th Avenue, were captured by the view of the Rockefeller Center, visited China Town and enjoyed Central Park. After my flight from New York to Indianapolis had been cancelled, I happily met my American family one day later than planned.
Now, I am living with my host(grand)mother Alyce and Andras (Andrew), another exchange student from Hungary. Our hostmom is doing her best making our exchange a success - she is taking us places in town and also farther away - we`ve already been to Detroit, Michigan and this weekend we are heading for Chicago, Illinois.
School here is pretty different: I am enrolled in 12th grade of West Vigo High School. The first week was pretty confusing as I was totally lost in this rather big building with all those new faces. By now, I`m used to it: Every day of this trimester, I have the same schedule: English, Cooking, Spanish, Drawing, and Student Newspaper. Classes last 70 minutes and after 3rd hour, we have lunch in the cafeteria. About 700 students attend West Vigo - sounds a lot but compared to other American schools, it is not much at all. School is much easier here and I have good grades. Although I haven`t had any Spanish before, I am in Spanish 2 and even a little bored. I like it though, as well as I like my drawing class and writing and laying out for our student newspaper called "The Viking Voice" which is published every two weeks.
I am on the volleyball team and whenever we don`t have one of our several games, we practice. The team has been practicing all summer and joined it shortly after I had arrived. During my first week on the team, which was before school had even started, we practiced 5 hours daily - my arms were swollen and spoiled with bruises. By now I`m used to it; I play in every game, have fun and I`m glad I pushed through - too bad that volleyball season is already over. By the very end of the season, it happened to me that I sprained my ankle which keeps me from starting taking classes at the ballet school in our town.
I am fascinated by the open-mindedness of the people here and their school and sports spirit. Most people play sports and attend games, in particular American Football. After every football game at home, there is a mixer in the school cafeteria - that is what we would call a disco. There are often events at school which are a lot of fun.
I am happy I made the decision to come here - I am making the experience of a different culture, improving my English, having fun and finding friends.
 
See you in January!
 
Regards,
 
Pamina Hofstaedter, 7a
 
 
If you are interested in being an exchange student (what I can only recommend), visit www.into-exchange.com

our house	Alyce, Andras and me	skyline of NY and Central Park seen from Rockefeller Center
shopping in 5th Ave, NY	halloween: trick or treating with some friends	football game
serve	2 other exchange students and me in front of our school