My exchange in Canada

My three-month stay in Canada started on January 29^th. I had to be at the airport in Frankfurt early in the morning, at 7:30 a.m. After an eight-hour flight, I landed in Toronto. I spent two days there with my organizer´s group. We visited the Niagara Falls and the CN-Tower, the landmark of Toronto. We had an amazing view from the tower. The other day we went ice skating and visited the famous Hard Rock Café. In the evening of January 31^st we took the plane to Halifax, Nova Scotia. My host father Scott and my host mother Marcy picked me up there by car and we drove to Fall River, which was my home for about three months. My host sister Kyah and the two dogs Roxy and Luna were waiting there for me. The two older host sisters no longer lived at home. They are at university. Of course I was a bit tired due to the time difference, even though we had already spent two days in Toronto and I was happy that we didn’t have school for a few days, because of very strong snow storms and more than 60 centimeters of snow. So I was able to get used to the new situation a bit. On the first weekend I drove with my host family to my host sister´s two-days Ringette tournament in Moncton, New Brunswick. Ringette is a famous female sport on ice in Canada, it´s a bit like ice Hockey but with a different kind of “racket”. We stayed there overnight in a hotel. After a few days the school finally began. The school was only about five minutes away from my house. I had to go through a forest and then I was at Lockview High School. On the first day, there were so many new impressions. Unfortunately, my first period was Biology, my least favorite subject of all. That’s why I switched it with Fitness leadership three days after. I had the subject combination of English, Math, Fitness Leadership and Drama. Fitness Leadership is basically doing workouts in the school gym. The school day in Canada begins at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 4p.m. Every period is one hour and 15 minutes. The school system in Canada is quite relaxing and the choice of subjects is significantly more diverse than in Germany. They don’t have the class system in grade 10 anymore. They use the course system like in the “Oberstufe” in Germany. That was good for me because as a result I could meet more new people and make friends. We didn’t write as many classtests, but we got more marks than in Germany, which thus were less relevant. For example, homework or things you did during the period. An exception is Math we had lots of Unit tests there. First I was afraid of writing exams in a different language, but after I got a 100% in the first test all my worries were gone, in the end I got much better grades than in Germany, even in English. I was warmly welcomed there and quickly made contact with other students. Above all, I became friends with other international students, especially I became best friends with a Mexican international student(Diego). Another important part of my exchange was my French host sister (Noemie). The reason, why I did not mention her in the beginning was that she did not come to my host family until the end of March. I got along with her very wel. We also became best friends. We also often did something after school because in the afternoons you usually don’t have any homework to do. Sports are very important in Canada. Almost everybody there goes to a gym and plays ice hockey. I also joined the Badminton Club and the International Club, but for me it was hard to get into many After-School-Clubs, because lots of these take place in the summer or are supposed to be for students who live in Canada or stay there longer than three months. Unlike in Germany, the shops, cinemas and everything that has to do with leisure were very far away and hard to reach on foot. The bus stops were also so far away so that you would have had to drive there. Overall, Canadians are much more focused on cars. Everything is done by cars, even small distances. The food in Canada is not as unhealthy as people think in Germany. Canadians don’t just eat French fries or other things that make you fat. In our host family there were always vegetables etc. and the food was very tasty. After these three month I’m still in contact with most of my Canadian and international friends. I am going to meet in the holidays with my French host sister and my German friend(Liv).

In a nutshell, it was an amazing experience which I would recommend to other students. Of course there are also hard times but you have to enjoy the good moments to make it an unforgettable experience and to find friends for your whole life.

Christopher Schneider (10s), veröffentlicht am 16.6.2024