by Daniel Wingeleit, visiting German student
One of my first thoughts as I arrived in Great Barrington was: “I hope that my family will be nice.” This was my first time traveling to America and I was really nervous. After I got past the Immigration officers, I met our exchange teacher, Frau Wirth, who was waiting in the arrival hall. Then Ari drove us three hours to our destination: Great Barrington. Everybody was really tired so the atmosphere on the bus was quiet.
Great Barrington was smaller than I expected, but nice, although I couldn’t see much because of the darkness outside. That was when I met my host family: Lydia, Bob, and Will Danz, who were friendly from the first moment to the last. Even though I was happy to meet them, all I wanted to do was go to sleep.
The first morning in America wasn’t different than mornings in Germany. I got up, took a shower, and had breakfast. Only the scenery and the language had changed. We arrived at the school and our first lesson was with Frau Wirth. We had to translate a text because she wanted to see how good our English is. There were many red corrections on the sheet when she handed it back to me. The next lesson was with Mrs. Siegel: math. She was teaching information we Germans had never heard of before so it wasn’t easy for us to follow.
As the weeks passed, my grades in German and math got better and better and that made me happy. Every day during recess we went to Dunkin Donuts and bought Boston Creams. We didn’t have any seminar in the first week and instead we took tours to the Norman Rockwell Museum, Bash Bish Falls, and Bartholomew’s Cobble.
On the first Monday we played on the school’s soccer team against the Buxton School. On the next day during the ride to soccer practice, a heavy bag fell on my head and cut me. I had to go to the hospital to get a staple in my head. During the second week, we had seminar with Mr. Oelhaf. The time ran away and we were at the end of the third week and my German friends had to leave.
The next three weeks went too fast, too! And now the end is near. I made a lot of good friend here and with one I fell in love. In the spring, many of these new friends will come to Munich and I will be really happy to see them again.