APRIL 27, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A3
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German students get American experience
By DEREK WILEY
Of the Keizertimes
A group of 20 German
high school students only
spent three weeks in Keizer
but they saw and did more
than some McNary students
who have lived here their en-
tire lives.
“I talked to a girl here who
had been here her whole life
and never been to Mt. Hood,”
said Sarah Horsch, a German
student who had traveled to
New York, Switzerland and
England before coming to
Oregon.
As a group, the German
students went to Portland,
which included going to a
museum, Multnomah Falls
and a Trail Blazers game.
They went whale watching
in Lincoln City and toured
Willamette University and the
state capitol in Salem.
What else they were able
to do depended on the host
family.
“Some of us have the jack-
pot host family and some of us
not,” said Niklas Weise, who
along with Isabel Zhou, got to
take a weekend trip to Seattle.
“Seattle was something I
really wanted to do so I asked
my host family,” Weise said. “I
wanted to experience as much
as I can. It was the America we
expected.”
In Seattle, they saw the
KEIZERTIMES/Dsrsk Wilsy
Tosnty studsnts from Stuttgart, Gsrmany spsnt thrss ossks at McNary High School, obssrving classss and sxploring Orsgon and Washington.
Space Needle, Gum Wall and
Pike Place Market.
“It’s pretty but I imagined
it bigger,” Zhou said of the
Space Needle.
While most of the students
were at the Trail Blazers game,
Zhou went to a Camilla Ca-
bello concert with her host
family.
“It was really spectacular
for me,” she said.
Some students went to Sil-
ver Falls State Park.
While shopping at Cabela’s
and Walmart, they saw guns,
which aren’t so accessible in
Germany.
“In Germany, it’s illegal to
have a gun,” Paul Burger said.
“You need a license and to get
the license it’s very diffi cult, so
really nobody has it.
“They (Cabela’s) had pink
guns that you could give to
their smaller children. They
see it as more of a toy and a
funny thing but for us in Ger-
many it’s a weapon, not some-
thing funny.”
“It’s so normal for everyone
here to just take a gun out and
for us it’s very exciting to just
touch it or just look at them,”
Weise said. “It made me a bit
afraid.”
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The food was better than
they expected.
“I’ve changed my opinion
on American food,” said Weise,
whose favorite was Chipotle.
“Before I came here, I thought
it was just fast food and I will
defi nitely get fat.”
“We only had McDonalds
and Burger King (in Ger-
many), that’s not the good fast
food,” said Horsch, who pre-
ferred Wendy’s and Jack in the
Box.
“The Mexican food is way
better than we have it,” Burger
said.
The students also enjoyed
their meal at Cracker Barrel in
Tualatin.
At McNary, they got to
make their own food in culi-
nary arts class, cooking shrimp
and soup.
“That was so delicious,”
Weise said.
The students also read lines
and learned sword fi ghting in
a theatre class.
They watched lacrosse and
baseball games.
“I really like baseball be-
cause it’s different,” Zhou said.
“We don’t really have it in
Germany.”
The German kids found
the entire American school
experience more relaxed.
They don’t have WiFi in
their German school and
aren’t allowed to use cell
phones.
“The school is very dif-
ferent, like in the High School
Musical fi lms,” Weise said. “The
teachers are friends with the
children.”
Burger even witnessed a
teacher high fi ve a student.
“You couldn’t imagine that
in Germany, he said. “You’re
not scared of your teachers but
it’s very respectful.”
Since the German students
go to a bilingual school, they
take biology, history and ge-
ography in English, a language
they begin learning in the fi rst
grade. The students also speak
French and have the choice to
learn Russian.
They left Keizer on Thurs-
day, April 19.