After 17 hours of travel, I arrived Armidale Airport (a city located midway between Sydney and Brisbane) on April 20. I was picked up by one of the Round Square Coordinators and the Housemother, and then they drove me to the school. NEGS is pretty close to the airport. It only took 5 minutes to reach the school. Once I stepped into the boarding house, the students were so nice and welcoming; they all came to me and introduced themselves. I realized that I am not good at memorizing new names and recognizing new faces. It took me more than a week to exactly know the people around me! The first week was really challenging for me–adapting the new environment and people, and also adjusting the jet lag. Imagine NSW is 17 hours ahead of California, isn’t it crazy?

NEGS is quite different from Athenian. NEGS is a day and boarding girls’ Christian school, and it is situated on a gorgeous 50-hectare campus. It has a mix of old and new heritage listed buildings. The whole school has about 300 students. In Athenian, majority of the students are day students; on the contrary, that’s the minority here. There are 3 boarding houses and each house consists about 50-60 students. As a traditional school, a uniform is a necessity. At first I felt really awkward to have it on, but now I am already used to it. The students in general need 3 uniforms for summer and winter: an everyday-wear uniform, a “walking out” uniform, and a sports uniform. Also, our hair has to be tied up with a hairband that matches our hair color and a navy blue ribbon. Furthermore, teachers are called by a title along with their last name, which makes the atmosphere more formal.Surprisingly, there aren’t many international students here. Most of the students are from different parts of Australia. Besides me, there are two exchange students from India this term. Divya, on the left hand side, is from the Daly College, and Tiya, on the right hand side, is from the Vivek High School.

The classes I am taking now are English, Math, Biology, Geography, PE, Music, Visual Arts, IT, and Christian Studies. Due to the large number of classes, sometimes we do have 6 classes a day. To be honest, that is super tiring. The length of each class is about the same as Athenian, but they don’t have a five-minute break in the middle of long periods!

This is my daily routine:

•     7am                        Wake up
•     7:45-8:15am         Breakfast
•     8:30am                  Advisory (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only)
•     8:45am                  Classes begin
•     11-11:15am          Morning tea
•     12:05-12:50pm    Chapel (Thursdays only)
•     1-1:50pm               Lunch
•     3:20pm                  School day finishes
•     5:45-6:30pm         Dinner
•     6:30-8:20pm         Study hours
•      9:45pm                  Lights out

NEGS is famous for its equestrian and they have a professional team. Qualified students will be able to compete in the North West Equestrian Expo, it is best known as Coona. The equestrian center at NEGS covers a large area and has well-facilitated arenas and stables. An equi-skills class is available for interested students. Initially I wanted to join the class so much, but unfortunately, it was full. What a pity!

April 25 is the ANZAC Day–a holiday to commemorate the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) on the Gallipoli Peninsula during World War I in 1915. That day, a lot of schools in Armidale, including us, put on the school uniform in participating the marching. We all paraded along Faulkner Street towards Central Park, where the main commemoration service was held. It was interesting to get to learn about this event as I have never heard of it before.

One weekend I stayed at Hilary’s house. She is my exchange partner and so she will be going to Athenian this coming August!

On Saturday afternoon, she had a netball game at Lynches Road Netball Courts, and so I went with her. She told me that netball is the most popular women’s sport in Australia. It was exciting to cheerlead at the side and was great to see other schools competing in another courts. On the next day,

Hilary and her family brought me to the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, one of the famous tourist attractions in Armidale. We spent the afternoon there having an enjoyable picnic in the lovely weather. I am glad to spend the time with them because they are such a wonderful family!

In my first few days, I realized the Australians love to spread something on toasts for breakfast and that is the Vegemite. It is a popular spread in Australia made from leftover’s brewers’ yeast extract. Whenever I made new friends here, their very first question would be, “Have you tried any Australian food yet like Vegemite?” So I gave a try one morning.  Well… I don’t really like it. It tastes salty, bitter, and malty… just weird to me. Aside from food, Australia is famous for its kangaroos and koalas too.  We rarely see them in Armidale, but luckily I saw a bunch of kangaroos on top of a hill one random day. I am still hoping to see koalas!

It’s hard to believe that I’m already halfway through my exchange. I am pleased the fantastic memories I have already made. I am looking forward for another four weeks at NEGS and a week in Sydney afterwards. I hope the best is yet to come!

 

 

My final few days in India are upon me now and I can’t believe I’m heading back to the U.S. The time has flown by. It does feel like I’ve been here for many weeks, because I’ve had so many experiences and gotten so used to living here, but at the same time it feels like my exchange should not yet be over. I feel like I haven’t experienced enough–and maybe I never will. There is so much of the world to take in, and even two months is short when faced with a new country.

My new host family (my old host, Tiya, left for exchange five weeks after I arrived in India) took me to an Indian wedding during my first weekend with them. We went for one day of the reception. Attending an Indian wedding was something I was really looking forward to on my exchange, and it was so much fun. I borrowed my outfit and jewelry from my host family. For shoes I wore a pair of juttis that I purchased in Kasauli. I loved getting all dressed up. The area for the reception of the wedding was decked out in strings of lights that glowed through the night.

At the wedding itself, there wasn’t much to do, but I was never bored—I spent my time looking around at all the beautiful outfits. Stretching around the reception were endless counters of food, from all different regions, being prepared right there. My host Shamshir and I ate tons of Chinese food and pasta, and I even managed room to try a few bites of several different desserts. The entire experience was so much fun for me. I’ve never been to anything like that before, so I’m so happy I got the chance to go for the reception while I was here in India.

We visited the Taj Mahal at the beginning of May. As someone who prefers cold weather, the heat was difficult to bear, but the Taj Mahal was beautiful. The symmetry, architecture, and detailing on the mausoleum was incredible, and it has been standing for hundreds of years.

Upon entering the mausoleum, we had to don shoe covers, and photography was not allowed inside. Our guide told us later as we circled the outside that the four towers standing out from each corner were not built straight, but instead leaned slightly out. This, he explained, was so that if there were ever a severe earthquake, the towers would fall outward, and not damage the Taj Mahal. It was made to withstand time, and it has; due to its worldwide fame, it’s well taken care of. The dead lying within surely didn’t imagine that the mausoleum would someday be a tourist site when the building was created to last a long time.

After exploring the grounds, entering the building itself, and seeing the tomb, we left. We went straight to buy huge bottles of water before we looked around at items for sale, and eventually headed back to the car.

The new school year started six weeks ago. In school, my closest friends are Harnoor, Nandana and Japun. We often hang out after school. Sometimes we go to the mall here, Elante, and consume vast amounts of pizza, while other times we just watch How To Get Away With Murder. I’m going to miss everyone so much when I leave in a couple of days.

This past week, the weather hasn’t been as hot, and it even rained. When I heard the thunder I rushed outside and stood in the rain for a good 15 minutes. Then my host mom and I went on a walk through the rain as it slowed and finally stopped. We made our way down the street and through the row of parks. Though it wasn’t a big thing we went out and did, it was one of my favorite experiences. I wish the rain would come back.

I’ve had so much fun here, and everything seems very normal to me. I can’t imagine going back to the U.S. right now—I’m not ready to leave. I’m so glad I got to have this experience. I think when I get home I will realize more fully the truly profound impact of exchange, and how much I have grown and changed while here. I’m so happy to have had this opportunity and experience.

 

Hello from Thailand! I just finished my third week at the Regent’s School in Thailand. Man, the time has flown by really fast. Thailand, as you can probably guess, is much different than America and my school is much different than Athenian. My school is in a city called Pattaya, which is a pretty sleazy city. There are strip clubs, prostitutes, and a lot of hardcore drug use. Fortunately, there is a well-secured fence around my school so no knuckleheads can get in. At my school, we are required to wear a tie every single day and we call our teachers ‘sir’ and ‘miss.’ This is much different from Athenian, where I can wear whatever I want and I can casually say “Hey April” to my teacher instead of “Hello Miss”. Although I understand that they are trying to teach respect and everything, I feel there is a large divider between teachers and students. It seem like the students are hesitant to ask the teacher a question, whereas at Athenian I know that every student is comfortable asking a question. Other than that I think the school is fantastic. Everybody is so smart and very nice. At Regents, there are four different houses, or families: red, blue, yellow, and green. Every week we compete for different prizes and bragging rights. It is really fun and it ties the whole school together.

One thing that I found very hard in the first few days was making friends. As sad as it sounds, I hadn’t really made any new friends in 4 or 5 years because I have known all of my friends at Athenian for years. So my first few days here I had just kind of forgot how to make friends. At a couple of times I realized how awkward I was being and laughed to myself. But all is awesome now. I have met almost everyone in the grade and I have a hilarious group of friends that I hang out with every day.

I live on the top floor of the boy’s boarding house with a few other guys. My two best friends are Tony, from South Korea, and Nikita, who is from Russia. They are both very nice and hilarious. They are also the ones who picked me up from the airport. I think the school day schedule is a lot better than Athenians. We either have 1 to 3 classes in a day and each class is 80 minutes long. Breakfast is at 8 and lunch isn’t until 1, so I am always starving when lunch rolls around. After school there are always plenty of activities to do. I have tried my hand at cricket and rugby, both not going the greatest, but it is fun to do nonetheless because it’s clear that nobody is judging me or expecting me to be good.

Above is a picture of part of my school. There are over 1,000 students, so it is quite large.

My first week here I got to visit Thailand’s countryside, and I found out that Thailand’s countryside is awesome. After a half-day of travel I found myself in a beautiful floating village that was just amazing. The people living in the village have been untouched by commercial society and I think that is really special. The lifestyle they are living just seems so simple. They live day to day by selling to each other and buying from each other.

The next week I had the chance to visit some really cool buildings and statues that have had a rich and meaningful impact on the history of Thailand.

In the upcoming weeks I will be going on a few trips. I will be going on a night safari to see unique Thai animals, I’ll be riding an elephant a few miles to a river to then wash him, and I will also be going on a trip through the jungle. The only complaint I have about my exchange so far has been the humidity and the bugs. It has been a solid 90 to 103 degrees every day and I usually call it a good day when I go to sleep with less than ten new mosquito bites. Also, I was using the restroom and a foot-long lizard scrambled underneath the door and ran around my feet and the toilet until he ran out again. But those are minor things that I am willing to deal with if it means that I can ride an elephant through a jungle.

Overall my experience here in Thailand has been amazing. I would definitely recommend other students come here if they are willing to leap out of their comfort zone.

Looking forward to my next few weeks here.

Alex Rowland

I arrived in Germany three weeks ago and time has flown by so fast. I am attending Schule Birklehof Boarding School and I absolutely love it here. Here in Germany, so much is different from Athenian and America in general.

Everyday, I have one to three classes, which gives me a lot of free time to explore the village—Hinterzarten—and the school surroundings. Since I don’t really speak any German, I am primarily taking English-only classes. I am in year 11 here and I generally have more freedom than the grades beneath me.

I wake up anytime between 7:00 to 10:00 in the mornings, depending on what my schedule looks like for the day. I board at the school and share a room with a girl also named Nadia. I’ve been getting along with her really well. Our room is beautiful with an incredible view of the Black Forest.

Lunch is at 1:15 every day and, as a surprise to me, it is an extremely formal affair. Everybody must attend and there is arranged seating. Once in the dining hall, you must stand behind your chair until someone rings the bell, wishing you a good appetite. The meals always consist of three courses—appetizers, main course and dessert. You are only able to leave the dining hall if you have been dismissed by another bell ringing following announcements.

After lunch, I almost rarely have any classes so it gives me free time to hang out with the many friends I’ve made here. Contrary to my large fear of going on exchange and not making any friends, everybody here is so extremely friendly. Upon arriving my first day at Birklehof, students were also arriving back from Easter break. I met Lena an hour after I settled in and she introduced me to so many people that night. I felt truly welcomed into this community and I am so grateful for all the amazing friends I’ve made here. I have been lucky enough to not be experiencing any homesickness or large culture shock. Being in Germany honestly feels like home to me, and it’s truly incredible here.

Freiburg is a large city, close to Hinterzarten and is about a 30-minute train ride. I normally go there on the weekends with my friends. We walk around the beautiful parks and we shop. Freiburg is south of Hinterzarten and is beautiful in its own way. It does not look anything like San Francisco but looks old and charming with its own unique style.

My love for Germany and Birklehof seems infinite and I never want to leave.

Xoxo

Nadia Khawja

I arrived in Chandigarh, India six weeks ago. At that time everyone was just finishing their final days of exams, before a three week break followed by the new session. Exchanges who come during this time are told to come at the beginning of this break in order to participate in the class-wide treks and tours that happen annually; however, this year, due to swine flu, no one is traveling and the trips were canceled. This meant that I had time to settle in and meet some people before I started school, which I think was great. I had time to adjust to a new house and a new school separately, instead of being hit with that all at once.

A little over a week after I arrived, my host family took me to a British-built hill station called Dagshai. The hills were less hot than Chandigarh, and the environment with the trees and cooler air felt a lot more like California. While there we visited the local jail and museum, the church and the animals behind it, and an old cemetery filled mostly with graves of British army officers and their families. Though many tombstones had originally been ornate, thieves had broken off most of the marble and materials of value over the past couple of centuries, leaving the graves looking very old and worn. In some places, the base of the gravestone was barely visible—the entire rest of the stone had been stolen long before. Under the arch where there once was a gatekeeper’s house, there was only dust and pieces of broken tombs.

School didn’t start till April, so in the meantime I hung out with my host family. We played board games, watched TV, and went to the park in the evenings to walk around or play badminton. We took two more trips to the hills. First to Kasauli, where we shopped for a bit and I purchased some juttis (traditional North Indian shoes). Later, the weekend after school began, I went with my host family to Barog station on the Kalka-Shimla railway (which is a UNESCO world heritage site). By this time the weather was getting hotter, and even the hills were warmer. The train had just left when we got there, so we walked a little ways into the tunnel before setting off searching for the half-tunnel on the other side of the hill. The architect of this tunnel messed up his calculations, and the two sides didn’t meet in the middle, so one end goes nowhere into the hill. Though unsuccessful in finding it the abandoned, unfinished tunnel, we got to walk up the hill and explore.

The school I am going to is very different from Athenian. Every day there are eight classes (counting clubs in the morning, when they can choose an activity) and each class is forty minutes long. They don’t have a lunch break in the same way we do. Around 11:00 is recess. Many kids bring some food to eat at this time, or buy ice cream, iced tea or popcorn from school. At 2:00 classes end and most days I take the bus home then to eat lunch. Thursdays and Fridays are long days when we attend afternoon clubs and the school day ends at 3:30.

Within grades, everyone is in a section. Except for recess, clubs, library, yoga, etc., all your classes are held in one classroom. During the day you stay in your classroom with your section and the teachers come to you. After 10^th grade, the nationwide board exams are held and students have to choose a stream to continue on with. In 11^th and 12^th the students will only take certain classes—for example, they can choose to pursue only social sciences.

Though it is a very different school, everyone has been very nice to me. There aren’t any other exchange students right now. I attend all my classes and have gotten to know a lot of people in my section. Outside my section there are also several other students whom I’ve talked with a lot, either because they are friends with my host or because they came over and said hi.

I can’t believe that I will only be in India for a short few more weeks. Perhaps it’s because school only started three weeks ago, but two months in another country does not sound like a long time any more. I feel like I’ve been here for such a short time and it keeps passing so quickly. But I’m going to make the most out of whatever time I have while I’m still here.

 

My exchange has flown by so fast. It feels like just yesterday that I arrived into a whole new environment. With two weeks remaining, my time at Gordonstoun is starting to come to a close, which is unfortunate because I just want to stay here forever.

The exchange community consists of about 20 students from all different reaches of the world. We are all extremely close, as we can all concur on the different customs and norms of British people.

As an exchange, the coordinators like to take us on trips to visit different aspects of the Scottish land. We took a long train trip into Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, where we visited the Scottish parliament. We watched the council in session debating on topics big and some seemingly small. We also visited the dungeons where we learned about the torture and suffrage that the prisoners had to endure when captured. Ooh the pain, I would not have wanted to cross the wrong path with those people! We also went to Loch Ness, which is a huge lake where the mystical Lochness monster supposedly lives. I called it Lake Loch Ness, for which I was quickly corrected. Loch refers to a lake in Scotland so the additional lake was unnecessary, but they all found it funny. There are stone castles all over Scotland, most built in the 15^th century, which have been destroyed by raids and then rebuilt–or just left to decay.

One weekend I went on a three day winter skills expedition to the Cairngorm mountain range about two hours away from the school. The mountains were rocky and barren slopes, different from the Sierras that I am accustomed to back in California. In a group of about 15 boys and girls we scaled peaks, learned how to maneuver ice axes and crampons to save ourselves from sliding down the ice, and worked transceivers in case of avalanche. We also all enjoyed toast with butter, jam, and tea. After hiking for 6 kilometers, resulting in many painful blisters, with 70 mph wind gusts, it was a great way to connect and have a laugh with new people in different years and acquire new mountain skills. This trip was also the first time I have ever been professionally filmed. Gordonstoun is in the process of creating a BBC original series highlighting special aspects of the school. During the skills trip, our every move was documented. It is bizarre to have a camera constantly in your face and I cannot say that I liked it all that much. At first I was completely nervous about being broadcast all over British television, but after a while we all learned just to act natural. I am now excited to watch the final product.

Gordonstoun supports an international week in which different activities such as cultural dance lessons, candle lighting ceremonies, and food all took place and enhanced our world perspectives. Scottish dancing is unique, and I am fortunate to have had a taste of it during the Burns night. Robert Burns was a Scottish poet, most famous for his hymn of Auld Lang Syne. We celebrated him by singing and dancing, called reels. Imagine bagpipes and violins playing a hippity hoppity quick tune, and students and teachers all dancing, spinning, and clapping together. It was a particularly enjoyable experience.

Another one of my highlights is my cookery class. We meet once a week to prepare various foods, from chicken pot pies to Scottish rock cakes, and learn about the health benefits that go along with food. I think that Athenian would benefit with investing in a similar class, as it is popular here and is pretty vital to know basic food preparation skills.

As part of the Gordonstoun experience, I participated in a seamanship course. Seamanship is learning how to sail eight-person boats, all complete with tacking under two minutes, tying sail knots, and considering all the weather elements for safety. It was a cold business as we wore bright yellow hard plastic coverings with school-bus-looking rain boots (or what they call wellingtons here) and gloves. But nothing was going to keep the northern Scottish winters from shivering us to the bone.

I have been at Gordonstoun for a while now. I really look forward to the remainder of my time here with my new Gordonstoun friends and family. It is truly a unique and special place.

Jerry Lin is at Salem School in Germany

Guten Tag! (Good day) I have been staying at Schule Schloss Salem on exchange for more than a month. Going to Salem is definitely the best decision that I made for myself. At first, I was really nervous about the school because I don’t speak German at all. After few days I realized I should not be worried about the language problem because everyone here can speak English really well and everyone is willing to help you when you need it.

There are two education system in Salem which are Abetour and the International Baccalaureate (IB). About two thirds of the students are in Abetour, which is taught fully in German, and the rest of the students are in IB program, which is where I am in Salem. Salem is a really international school. There are more than forty nationalities at the school, which is a really diversity environment. Most of the students at Salem board, which is the reverse of Athenian. I really enjoy boarding here because you can spend a lot of time with your friends after school and also meet some new people.

The class schedule is pretty similar to Athenian, but every class is a long period and each subject only meets two or three times a week. The break between classes is half an hour long, which is different than Athenian. The reason for the long break is because sometimes students need to travel from the Spetzgart campus to the Harlem campus, which is a ten minute drive. The other reason is we have a second breakfast after our first lesson and students need the thirty minutes to finish their breakfast. You will never get hungry when you live at Salem because there are five meals a day: early breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner.

During the week, we can take a bus to a nearby town where we can see a movie, have lunch and shop. Lake Constance is next to the town. It is the biggest lake in Germany and separates Germany and Switzerland. One of the weeks was festival week, when people dress up and dance in the town. One tradition is setting up a tall tree in the middle of the town and letting the kids climb up the tree. There are different prizes depending on how high each kid can reach.

Beside schoolwork, there are also a lot of activities at Salem. Monday afternoon is call the service day, which is similar to community service hour in Athenian. There are a lot of services you can choose from, such as: filming team, theater tech team, Round Square. I chose GAN (Global Action Network) because the service is fully in English. The fun thing about my service is we are organizing a “prom” for Salem, but instead of guys asking girls to prom we are letting girls ask the guys. The biggest event in this semester is the fashion party. I found it similar to a Halloween party because everyone dresses up as whatever they want: rock star, zombies, spider man…

Another special experience is taking the train in Germany. I was invited to my friend’s house in Mannheim, which is a big city in the mid-west of Germany. I had to transfer two to three times to get to my final destination. It is not easy work. I was told that the train is late most of the time, which will affect your next train you are trying to catch. A lot of times the train is delayed by half an hour or more, and my train was also delayed by forty minutes. I was lucky that my friend traveled with me so that he can translate the train information, because a lot of time the information is only spoken in German. I got to my final destination an hour late but at least I got there safely. I had a great weekend in Mannheim. ​

 

 

Greetings from Gordonstoun! I have been in the land of the Scots now for two weeks. It has already proven to be so unbelievably unique and different from anything I have ever experienced before. The flying alone was a sixteen-hour adventure filled with sick babies throwing up on my neighbor’s lap, extremely short layovers where the security man thought that I was dangerous and searched my bag for quite some time, and finally arriving at school jetlagged and not knowing a soul.

I am staying in Plewlands House, as Gordonstoun is primarily a boarding school. I share a room with two lovely girls, Gina and Dana, who both have wonderful Scottish accents and love to chat all hours of the night and day. Plewlands houses 70 girls total, from all high school ages and from all areas of the world, but mainly the UK and Germany. Students address their teachers and housemistresses by their surnames rather than the ‘casual’ first name that many people like about Athenian. I do think that people with accents just have a way of sounding more polite and formal.

There are two other girls’ houses and nearly every weekend there are inter-house competitions. I played squash, a popular sport here at Gordonstoun. It is played in a four-roomed court with a small racquet and an even smaller rubber ball that is hit against the walls and back again. It is a complicated game. The scorekeeper actually had to change the rules for me and my opponent because we were obviously unexperienced and probably would have been playing for ages because neither of us could really hit the ball where it was supposed to go. My house won, which was very exciting, and resulted in a victory brew, or feast of junk food where British people call American chips crisps and French fries chips. (Although British and Americans all speak English, the English that people speak in the UK is different.) I also learned how to play netball, or tried to play. When the ball was passed to me I took off running down the court with the ball, which is completely wrong, but allowed for a lot of laughs.

Every day I wear the school uniform and I am thankful that our school does not have one. Wow, is it uncomfortable. The uniform consists of a scratchy and oversized blue sweater (which here they call a jumper), a white polo shirt, black flats, and a wraparound skirt (that I was wearing backwards with the pleats in the front and for which I received a huge laugh). I also wore a kilt for the first time, as they dress traditionally for their Sunday chapel. A large difference from Athenian is that Gordonstoun has chapel/church every morning. It is a powerful time as people, both faculty and staff, get up and talk about world events and everyone sings hymns to the accompaniment of an organ.

A major difference here instead of Athenian is the weather. It is constantly cold, either snowing or raining, and of course muddy, so rain boots are a must. Since Gordonstoun in located in the northern area of Scotland, the daylight hours are short and it seems like the day is always in a continuous dawn or dusk. I miss California’s warm temperatures and not having to wear two pairs of socks and puffy jackets all the time.

Although I did feel a bit homesick at the beginning, for the most part what I can make out so far are all positives. I cannot wait for another nine weeks with my new family.

Xx (kiss kiss, is a popular way to end conversations over here on media),

Kenna

My last couple of weeks were very busy! I mainly focused on spending as much time with Jacqui and my new friends as much possible before I left. My last weekend staying at Jacqui’s house was spent so perfectly. We got up at 5:00 am, drove out to the Koppies (flat, rock formations similar to mountains) and hiked to the tallest one. We watched the sunrise from the top and had breakfast. Later that weekend, her and her dad decided to surprise me and take me on a helicopter ride across the “bush” (South African Savannah). It was my first ride in the helicopter, and I got to get a bird’s eye view of all the animals that they had on their lodge. I also had pap for what would be the last time.

The last week of school went by extremely fast, and before I knew it, I was saying goodbye to every grade besides grade ten. It was overwhelming to know that I wouldn’t be seeing these kids all at the same time ever again. One of the hardest people to say goodbye to was Reneilwe. Her and I were inseparable on my stay and practically became sisters. We promised to visit each other and then I was off. Lucky for me, I would get to spend one more week with Grade 10. I spent the first few days at the Getaway Show, where I got to represent Stanford Lake College at a huge adventure fair and talk to prospective applicants about how I saw Stanford as an exchange. I was really grateful to have a chance to give back after all the great experiences that I had at Stanford.

Then I headed off to the Grade 10 Tour with the entire grade. We got to spend an entire week touring Johannesburg by day and enjoying fun activities and meals at a really nice camp. I was really lucky to be able to share so many moments with my classmates on the last week of exchange. We got to go to the tallest building in Johannesburg, visit SABC studios, visit the Apartheid Museum, ride rides at Gold Reef City, and visit Mandela’s old jail cell and home. I learned so much about what makes up South Africa’s history and the different perspectives on it. Johannesburg had been one of the cities that I had gone in and out of without having a chance to actually spend time in it, so this tour was a nice treat for me. As a class we played sports, and team activities, and by the end of the week I had bonded with so many people. The last night of the tour, also the day before my flight, the camp hosted a bonfire for all the students. The next morning I said my farewells and cried some more. I knew I would really miss Stanford, but I had so many memories and pictures to hold on to.

I spent my last couple hours with Jacqui and her family going out for a nice breakfast. We ate, talked about all the memories that I made in South Africa, and even started discussing how I was going to come back within a couple of years. All I could think about was how excited I was to have Jacqui come stay at my house in the fall and how much I wanted to repay her for one of the best summers that I would ever have in my life. Thank you so much to Athenian, the Knott Family, and Round Square for giving me everything I could have ever wanted on exchange and more!

 

What I learned on exchange

1. Bring Uggs to Armidale – You will wear them all the time! Honestly, I brought shorts too. Don’t bring shorts; it’s way too cold to wear them, even in the dorms.

2. Stay in the Dorms – If your school has a dorm, take advantage of it. I didn’t have an exchange partner, so it made it way easier to make friends. Even if it gets tiring for you to socialize constantly, just do it. You’ll learn a lot of new things about yourself when you’re surrounded by people.

3. Live in the Moment – Try disconnecting from back home for a week, or even more. My Whatsapp stopped working two weeks before exchange ended. I only had Skype in the end, which I used to chat with my parents twice a week, because of the time difference. In a way, it was nice to be disconnected. I was able to focus on the people in Australia rather than the technology.

4. Use Dorm Time Wisely – You’re going to have a bunch of spare time. Download a bunch of movies before you go. Every weekend in the dorms, we would all get together and watch movies all day. Order out. Try the local food joints.

5. Socialize with other Exchanges – It’s always interesting to hear what others have to say. I learned South African slang, French sayings, and Omanian practices. French-British accents sound so cool. And it seemed like every South African is gorgeous. I also learned how to eat Indian food properly from the Omani.

6. Armidale Slang/Aussie words

• Bloody – Very
• It’s Alright – You’re welcome
• Barbie – Barbeque
• Bloke – Guy
• Bogan – A kind of hippie
• Rubber – eraser
• Joggers – Running Shoes
• Biscuit – Cookie
• Jumper – Sweater
• Tuning – Flirting
• Feral – Hippie
• Maccas – Mcdonalds
• Hungry Jack’s – Burger King
• Lollies – Candy

7. Homesickness will happen – And it happens often, depending on the person. You will get homesick. I thought I wasn’t going to become homesick, but it did happen. Every two weeks, I would wonder why I was on exchange, that maybe it was a mistake. I would begin to think that maybe I didn’t have any friends and being around dormies was completely pointless. It faded away after two days, at most.

8. Pack light – I packed four sweaters and two pairs of jeans. If you have uniforms, you barely need any clothes. It also helps with the weight of the bag. My bag was overweight (the airport guy made me pay for it too).

9. Prepare your speech on the plane – On the way to your exchange destination, you are really reflecting about what exchange will be like. It’s a long flight, so you might as well get some work done anyway.

10. GO GO GO on exchange – I cannot emphasize this enough. Even if you don’t want to go, GO. I didn’t want to go, but I loved it. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, just go. It’s a great experience.