I loved homecoming. The whole thing. For me and other exchange students, Homecoming will be a highlight of our whole year. Spirit Week was fun and the football game was exciting, especially because we won.

The dance was also wonderful. It was so much fun to first take photos with my friends, then dance with them and finally go out to eat with them at Denny’s for the first time. It was my first trip to Denny’s. The night was just like all the high school movies I’ve seen. 

This year was my first and last time I could go to Homecoming we don’t have anything like that in Germany. It would be difficult to do Homecoming in Germany because we don’t have any school sports teams or mascots, so we don’t have a really solid school community.

For me, Homecoming shows so much school spirit that we don’t have at my school in Germany. Our structure is that we are usually only at school in the morning, so that we can still do sports or other things afterwards. I don’t know which principle I like better, because in Germany you have a lot more time for homework and activities outside of school. In America, most things are organized by the school, and you have a better school community. I would like to take the tradition with me to Germany because it would be a great enrichment for everyone back home. 

The only week where we have people who are dressed up is during the end of the school year, and only the people who are finishing school for the year are allowed to do it. The only school dances we have are a winter dance, which is just for the older students, and then a prom for the graduating class and their families.

But none of that compares to Homecoming.