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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2017
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MY EXCHANGE-STUDENT
YEAR ON THE COAST
German student chronicles her stay
By LIA WILLENBROCK
For The Daily Astorian
R
OSBURG, Wash. — It all
started about two years ago.
I was coming home from
school and my parents asked
me if I still wanted to go to America as
an exchange student.
I had been interested in that since I
was a little girl. My main reason was
always to get to know the country I was
born in. You see, both my parents are
German citizens, but I was born in Cali-
fornia while my dad was working in the
United States. We moved back to Ger-
many when I was very young.
So, of course, I was very happy
for the opportunity to go to the United
States. Back then we didn’t know about
the diffi culties that would wait for us
along the way.
We thought that my U.S. citizenship
would make things a lot easier. In the
end, it was the biggest issue. We con-
tacted several exchange programs, but
they refused to take me because of my
dual citizenship.
After we fi gured that out, we looked
for a family that could take me as a pri-
vate exchange. Because my parents
lived and worked in the United States
for four years, they hoped they might be
able to place me in a friends . But none
were able to host .
One day, my dad contacted a former
classmate, Ed Hunt, whom he remem-
bered from his student exchange in the
little town of Lyle, Washington, 30 years
ago.
My dad asked him through Facebook
if he would know a family that could
take me as an exchange student for a
year. Ed replied, that his family would
be happy to take me. Pretty soon there
was a Skype meeting . It was the fi rst
time that I saw my future host family. To
my mom’s surprise the family Hunt was
still willing to take me, and Ed’s old-
est daughter even offered to share her
room. We Skyped several times before
I traveled to the U.S. My family took
this as an opportunity to visit the states
again. We did a wonderful tour across
the country until they dropped me off in
Washington State.
At the fair
It was a warm summer day when I
arrived at the Wahkiakum County Fair to
meet the Hunts for the fi rst time.
Naturally I was very nervous at the
beginning. But Lindsay and Grace, Ed
and Amy Hunt’s two daughters , just
integrated me right away. I got to lead
cows around at the fair — until that
day I didn’t even know that was possi-
ble. I had, over all, a couple great days at
the fair with my host family. I also met
Grandma and Grandpa Nelson: During
those days I would spend a lot of week-
ends over at their house.
Let’s look at
diff erences in
US-German
experiences
Sports, location
a part of deal
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Ed Hunt/For The Daily Astorian
When I imagined a village, I imag-
ined a small group of houses in one
place. That is what German villages look
like. Villages in the U.S. instead can be a
lot more spread out. So I was really sur-
prised when I saw the house of my host
family. It was a beautiful blue house in
the valley. The part that surprised me
was that they were no houses around it.
I fi gured out the advantage of the big
fi elds that surrounded the house when I
fi rst went on a horse ride. There’s no bet-
ter feeling than to lay on a horse’s back
in the fi eld and look into the blue sky.
And then the rain
Soon cross country at Naselle started
and with it came the rain. It seemed like
it would never stop raining again. Even
though Lindsay warned me about the
weather in their area, I couldn’t imag-
ine it would be that bad. I wasn’t use
to having sport seasons, because, my
entire life, I did sports all -year around. I
thought it was great, so I could try a big
variety of sports.
Cross country began before school,
so when school started, I knew a couple
of people. Every week, my host family
would go to the football game at school.
It was great. There were so many people
supporting the team, and after a while I
even understood the rules.
School systems
The American school system is a lot
different than the German school sys-
tem. What I liked a lot about the Amer-
ican school system , was that you have
the same classes every day. That makes
it easy to remember the people and the
classrooms you need . I quickly found
friends and a table at school lunches. I
thought it was so great that there was
freshly cooked breakfasts and lunches
at school .
As the days got shorter, Halloween
grew closer and closer. Trick or treat-
ing was one of my personal highlights
of that holiday, and, of course, the spirit
week in school. The hallway decora-
tions amazed me. It was so fun to set the
whole thing up.
When I’m already talking about hol-
idays, I want to mention Thanksgiving,
as well. It is another U.S.-specifi c holi-
day that I didn’t know from home. We
had Thanksgiving dinner over at Grand-
ma’s house. She prepared all the amaz-
ing food that is traditional to the holiday.
The whole family got together and that
was so nice.
The fall started to slowly turn into
winter. Basketball season had begun.
I’d never played basketball before, but
See EXCHANGE, Page 2C
ROSEBURG, Wash. — In
Germany, Lia and her class-
mates only attend school until
1 p.m. Differences between
Germany and life in Rosburg,
Most days of the week, most
kids are home by lunchtime.
Her brother ,Jonah, attends a
school that includes classes on
Saturdays.
• To get to school, kids ride
the regular transit buses and
walk. These buses can some-
times be pretty crowded. She
liked American school buses
because she was able to have
a seat every day and the bus
stopped at the end of the
driveway.
• Sports are not part of the
school. Lia and her broth-
ers back home are involved
in karate, tennis and football
(soccer). Lia was a regional
champion in karate before
coming to the U.S.
• The distance between vil-
lages is much farther in the
United States and the villages
are structured differently.
• Cars are bigger and so are
the parking spots.
• The package sizes of gro-
ceries are much bigger.
• School vacations are
more frequent, but the sum-
mer vacation is shorter.
• The Christmas tree
doesn’t go up until Christmas
eve and presents are opened
on the 24th in the part of Ger-
many where Lia lives. Pres-
ents come from an angelic fi g-
ure known as Christkind, not
Santa Claus. The Hunts tend
to get their tree right after
Thanksgiving and keep it until
New Year’s Day.
• Lia’s student exchange
to the United States was 30
years after her father’s student
exchange in another small
Washington state town – Lyle,
Wash., in 1986.
Like her father, Lia earned
her driver’s license in Wash-
ington state. She’ll be eligible
to drive in Germany when she
turns 18.