If you were in the United States for the first time and wanted to get to know the whole culture, what would you do?

I have been in the USA for over a month now and have already experienced so much.

My adventure began on July 24 with the flight from Hamburg, Germany, via London to New York. It was a little bit frightening to fly without adults, but I flew with a large group of other exchange students who were all in the same situation.

In New York, I had Welcome Days from my exchange organization Education First. Me and other exchange students from all over the world stayed for three days in New York, we learned to solve problems and tackle some challenges we’ll face during our exchange year. We had a lip sync battle and went sightseeing in New York. It was fantastic and the time went by far too quickly.

Then it was time to fly to my host family and I was so nervous, but I flew with other exchange students who were just as nervous as I was. When we landed, I met my host sister Maya, who was from Sweden. It was strange going with our host parents because I only met them online and now I live with them.

In the week and a half before school started, I went to a pool party, chose my classes, went to Target and Walmart for the first time and ate at Taco Bell. It was all so cool.

I was so nervous on my first day of school. In Germany, I always knew people when I first came to a school and now I didn’t know anyone and had to communicate in a foreign language.  Everyone was very friendly and I immediately found people to sit with for lunch.

The school is so different from Germany because there are different schedules every day. In Germany, we mostly have all our classes with the same group of people for several years. Also, the teachers don’t have their own rooms, but each group has its own.

After the first few days of school, I was very tired because of all the speaking and listening to English, but slowly I got used to it.

After starting school, I went to an American mall for the first time. I also went to Gator Country Adventure Park, where I could feed alligators. It was so funny. When I was at Buc-ee’s, it was very special because we don’t have anything comparable in Germany. I ate at Crumbl Cookie, at Whataburger and Raising Cane’s – the typical places every exchange student wants to eat. I went to a pep rally, a football game, a baseball game and went homecoming dress shopping – the typical things we see in movies.

In the month that I have been here, I have gotten closer to my host family and my host dogs.