My Canadian life

I was an exchange student in Canada. I stayed  in Langley, a town next to Vancouver, for three month. I lived in a townhouse in a nice area with my hostfamily. My hostfamily consisted of Lynn (hostmother), Karnel (hostfather) and Aiden (hostbrother). They also got two pets. Ranger (a dog) and Maverick (a cat). This was the place where I would spent the next three month. The first time I really realized, that I`d an exchange was at the airport. The last time hugging my parents, going through the security check alone and then my flight already started. The flight directly into the adventure. To be alone wasn`t as bad as I thought. When the plane landed at Vancouver Airport, I was overwhelmed. I din`t know, where to look first. From this point on everything took it`s course. I was picked up by the organisation and they drove me to my new home. Seeing the people that I`d live with for the next month the first time was weared. But from the first moment they welcomed me with open arms. I had a great room, they decorated it and it was cosy and warm. That gave me a feeling of comfort. The next two days I had time to get to know my homestay. Then my first school day: The first day was just an orientation day. All the new international students came and the school gave us some information. The other internationals came from all over the world: Italy, Brazil, Japan, Germany, Spain…it was a good day. Everyone was nice and open. we went out for lunch that day. After this everything went fast. The next I already went to my Canadian high school. After one or two weeks I had already built up a life there. I joined after-school clubs, made friends and hung out with them after school. The school had a big selection of out-of-school clubs. From ultimate frisbee to hockey they had everything I tried many things. At the end I just joined the track and field club, the badminton club and the dance club. I had training on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I always liked it. I met many nice people at the clubs and at the end we did our hobby together. What was every day life like. My day started at 6:40. I got ready for school and at 7:38 the school bus picked me up at the nearest bus stop to my house. The bus just stopped, to pick up some other students and took the fastest way to school. I always arrived at 7:50. I had fifty minutes before school started. That wasn`t bad because the school had a breakfast buffet in the morning. So I met my friends and we ate together. At 8:40 we started to walk to our classes. The school system in Canada was way easy. The student have, like we do, two semesters. Per semester they have to choose four subjects. After the first semester, the subjects will change. I chose food studies, PE, drama and english compositions. My subjects were very easy. I´d the choice between every subject they offered, but only because I was a short-term-student. If the students stay longer than three month, they must enrole into more academic courses. The day was divided into A-block, B-bloc, C-block and D-block. This changed every day. Sometimes the day started with the B-block, sometimes with the D block…we always had two blocks before lunch. Our lunch brake was thirty minutes long. Sometimes I stayed with my friends in school, sometimes we went out to eat. After lunch we had our last two blocks. The school ended at 2:50pm. Mostly I did`nt go home after school, but when I wanted to, I had the opportunity to take the school bus directly back to may house. I didn`t go home often after school. Most of the time I met my friends an d we hung or went out for something. Before that we went together to the out of-school-clubs. As you can see, school was very easy. We didn`t write many test and we got a lot time for homework. The students were also allowed to use their phones and to listen to music in the lessons. The Canadiens were quite open. When I started talking to them, they didn’t ignore me or answered my questions cold on the contrary, they were friendly and showed interest. I met my best friends there in Food Studies. They showed me some cool places, introduced me to their friends and they helped me with my English. We were always together and used our time as good as we could. The school sometimes had fun activities where I had the chance to participate in with my friends. One thing they had was for example A fashion week. The whole school dressed up in themes. One day we all came in pink. They also had a cowboy day. I really liked it because everyone did it. I always liked to plan the outfits together with the others. My friends often took me out for dinner to typical restaurants that i shouldn’t miss out and the must do ´s in British Columbia. I came around a lot. Because of them the time was as good as it was. Over the time I got very close to the people I met there and I made friendships for life. I visited some cool places. Some were more touristic, some were more like secret spots. Some of them I visited with my hostfamily and some of them with my friends. My friends took me to wonderful hikes, food places, activities like golf, a jump-house, festivals… My three best tourist places I saw were:

1. Overall Vancouver ( I visited many places in Vancouver like the biggest mall there, the hotel Where all the famous people stayed, the rose garden, english bay and Stanley park where we went biking…)

2. Victoria ( My hostmother took me there over a weekend. It was beautiful. She showed me around and we had a great time. I saw so much.)

3. A hockey game ( Canada is famous for hockey. I had the chance to see a game in one of the biggest stadiums there named Rogers Arena. We got VIP tickets from the company where my hostfather was working and we had a great view of how the Canucks, that’s a very successful team in Canada, played. It was a great day that i will never forget.)

I had a good relationship with my hostmother. We got along very well. We talked much, we cooked together, we did movie nights, she took me to places and we often went out for dinner. I loved to spent time with her. She always had time when I wanted to spent time with her but she also gave me a lot of freedom. She really wanted to get to know me and to build a friendship. She supported me for example at the Vancouver sun run, which is the biggest 10km run of Canada. She came with me to the start and later I saw her clapping and waiting for me at the end. It was a successful race. To put it in a nutshell, one can say that this trip gave me many new experiences and memories that I will keep for ever. I would do everything like that again. I met wonderful people, did new things that I wouldn’t have dared me to do before and I needed to put myself out there. Even when it was scary in the beginning, at the end it was all worth it. I will definitely go back to see all the people I met there again and I can’t barley wait for them to visit me. Everyone who has the chance to do an exchange but isn’t sure, just do it! You wont regret it. This was just a small insight into my Canadian life. There is so much more to tell but this is for another time.

Lia Smolka (10s)

veröffentlicht am 3.7.2024

Spanienaustausch - Familienwochenende

Alles fing am Samstag an. Wir sind um ca. acht Uhr mit unseren Austauschpartnern nach Emmelshausen gefahren. Dort sind wir in den gemieteten Sprinter eingestiegen, den ein Freund von uns gemietet und auch dann gefahren ist. Nun sind wir nach Koblenz gefahren und haben dort noch vier Leute eingesammelt und sind dann letztendlich nach Köln ins Aqualand gefahren. Wir haben Tickets gekauft und hatten dort lange Spaß. Zwischendurch sind wir dort eine Pommes essen gegangen. Wir sind viel gerutscht und sind schwimmen gegangen. So gegen 16 Uhr sind wir dann wieder raus und sind in Richtung Koblenz gefahren. Dort haben wir wieder Leute ausgeladen. Daraufhin sind wir nach Pfalzfeld gefahren und haben am Mc Donalds geparkt und haben dort etwas gegessen. Danach sind wir nach Hause gefahren und haben ein bisschen Pause gemacht. Am Abend haben wir Pauls Geburtstag im Jugendraum gefeiert. Dort haben wir gefeiert und es gab Pizza. Irgendwann spät sind wir dann wieder nach Hause gefahren und sind schlafen gegangen. Am nächsten Morgen haben wir reichlich deutsch gefrühstückt. Danach haben wir etwas entspannt und sind zusammen mit den Austauschschülern zur Loreley gefahren. Auf der Fahrt haben sie die Fähre kennengelernt. Dort sind wir Sommerrodellbahn gefahren und haben danach die Aussicht genossen. Am Abend sind wir in die Baumhöller Mühle essen gegangen. Ich habe ein leckeres Schnitzel gegessen und sie haben deutsches Essen kennengelernt. Später sind wir wieder heim und sind Fahrrad gefahren und ich (Paul) habe ihm ein bisschen das Dorf gezeigt und unseren Trail.

Paul und Jannik (Klasse 9c)

Veröffentlicht am 30.6.2024

Spanienaustausch - Mittwoch

Am Mittwoch, den 19.06.2024, war der letzte Tag unseres Austausches mit Spanien. Im Laufe des Schultages nahmen wir an verschiedenen Aktivitäten teil. Das Programm startete ganz normal um 8:00 Uhr mit Unterricht. In der dritten Stunde hatten wir dann einen Workshop mit Frau Rompf, bei dem wir viel über die EU lernten. Nach einer weiteren Unterrichtsstunde besuchten uns Menschen von der Rhein-Mosel-Werkstatt. Zuerst erfuhren wir etwas über die Special Olympics, bis wir danach selbst mit den Athleten verschiedene Sportarten ausprobieren konnten. Zur Auswahl standen Basketball, Fußball, Badminton, Volleyball und Cornhole. Zum Abschluss hielt Herr Zerwes noch eine kurze Rede und verabschiedete die spanischen Austauschschüler/innen, die anschließend ihre Zertifikate erhielten. Nachmittags hatten wir dann die Möglichkeit, selbst noch etwas zu unternehmen.

Mia Graef (9a)

veröffentlicht am 30.6.2024

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