If someone would ask me to describe my experience I think I would choose three words to summarize it: “The American Dream”; I know it could sound basic, but that is one of the many reasons for which I chose to leave Italy and to live in a completely different reality for ten months.

I could list at least ten reasons for which I decided to live this new experience, but two of the most important are for sure the culture and the willing to prove yourself: the first one means to live with a completely different family from what you are used to, to go to a school where they use a very different system of teaching and to get used to a different routine from yours,  the second one means to prove to yourself that if you want to and if you are willing to push yourself you can do anything you want. 

The day before living Italy I remeber feeling very excited, but at the same time scared because I didn’t know what was actualy going to happen after arriving in the USA. I left Italy on the 15th of August, and once I got to New York I spent three days there, one day in Philadelphia, and one in Washington D.C, with other exchange students from 10 different European countries; these 5 days called “Orientation days”, where organized by my organization and I think they were a very usefull way to get used to the new  language and to visit new places at the same time. My favorite city from the three we visited was absolutely New York, we went for a walk through the trees in Central Park, we took a boat and saw the Statue of Liberty, we went shooping in Times Square, we went up to the higher floor on the Empire State Building and we tried our first “American fast food”. After the orentation days we all went to the airport and took a plane that would have taken us to our new home for that year. I arrived at the Airport of Cincinnati and my hostparents were waiting for me with a huge “welcome poster” made by their grandkids; I remeber beign very shy at first and I was afraid of saying someting wrong, but since the first day they made me feel like  I was their  real kid and I was a real member of the family;  everyone was very kind and courios in knowing about it, even at school everyone was friendly and they would treat me like “the news” everyone was talking about.

The day after I got to my host family, I went to school to choose my schedule and to do a tour of structur ; the school system in the US is very different from the one we have in Italy, I had the oportunity to choose between at least 50 different subjects, in which there were subjects like scolpture, wood carving and cooking classes, there were also different levels for every subject, for example  I was in the AP Calculus class that was the higher lever for math classes; I would take the yellow bus every morning at 6.50am, school would start at 7:40am and it lasted until 2.30pm; the day was divided in 5 periods, lunch time, and a “special period” that only my school used to do, it was called “pride” and it was a 25 minutes class where you could go to every class you wanted and talk to your teacher about something you didn’t understand or something you needed help with; for me it was very bizar to have a friendly relationship with every teacher in the school, everyone would treat you like a friend or even a family member, teacher used to bring food to school during Hallowen, Christmas or Sant Valentine day, in my opinion this was one of the biggest difference in the school system and in the approch to the teaching they used.  The school spirit was another big difference I noticed. In October I also went to the “Homecoming dance” with some of my friends and it was like living in a movie, everyone was dressed up and having fun.

There were also a lot of extracurricolar activities  like cheerliding, football or basketball, but also tennis, swimming, or the reading club; I was part of the swimmig team and I think that decision was one of the best I have ever made while I was in the US, it was really hard to train six times a week and to have a competition almost every Sunday, but it was for sure worth it; beign part of the team was like being part of a big family, everyone would help others in need, the coach was really friendly and easy to get along with, and there were also a lot of competition in the team, and that helped me to push my self and try my best even more.

I can’t even describe how much this experience changed me, not only physically but also mentally; I learnt that there is another prospective to a lot of thing, and everything is seen in a different way in every country of the world; Only now that I am back in Italy I understand that I miss everything about what I learnt in the US, especially my host family, which is now my second family on the other side of the world.