My American experience
During the last school year I wasn’t studying or spending time with my classmates and friends, but I decided to live the year in an alternative way: going to America; but let’s start from the beginning. In April 2015 my dad told me that there was an opportunity to spend the 4th year of high school in America and at first I declined, because I was a bit scared of leaving my friends and family to join a “world” that was completely new to me, but when I went to talk about this project with the people that organized it they convinced me by saying that this experience would change me and opened my mind, and it actually did. Unfortunately I was one of the last students that joined the exchange program, so I didn’t know where I was going untill the association contacted me the 2nd September, telling me that i was going to go to South Lyon, a city near Detroit in Michigan. I packed all my bags fast and I left on 7th September from Venezia.
When I got to the “New World” my host family welcomed me the best way they could: we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch; that wasn’t exactly the best lunch I had ever had but I couldn’t tell them because I didn’t want to make a bad impression, so I just ate all those burritos (in my opinion they were disgusting). The family that hosted me was composed by James, my host father, Jenna, my lovely host mother, Colton, my 16 year old host brother, and Rebecca and Tracy, my grown up host sisters who didn’t live with us. My host family’s house was huge: 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a big swimming pool. I had a room all for myself and I thought it was cute and comfortable, because I have never had one in Italy. During my ambientation period the family, treated me like a guest in their house, but the more the time passed, the more they stopped treating me like a guest and started thinking of me more like a part of the family. As a part of the family, Colton and I split all the housework Jenna told us to do, like washing the dishes or taking out the trash and we got along together this way, even if neither of us did want to do those things.
The day after my arrival school started and there I met a lot of new interesting people: the first day was fast and frenetic because it was a “half-day”, characterized by 30 minutes lessons, so no one really noticed me and I met only a few people; but the day after, all the school heard about the new Italian exchange student, and suddenly they were all over me, asking a lot of questions that I couldn’t understand because they literally ate all the words they said. The more I spent time with them, the more I could understand the way American English works, so I could adapt to their way of talking. In my opinion, the school in Michigan is built in a weird way: each semester the student has to choose 6 classes that he will repeat every day 5 day per week, until the end of the semester. For example, I had Chemistry, Gym, American History, American Government, American Literature and Geometry that I had to repeat every day of the semester. Lunch (30 minutes long), started at 12 o’clock and it was a great moment in which I could talk and enjoy spending time with all my new friends.
One of the bad aspects of America was that all the cities are “made for cars”, because all shops, restaurants and fast food places are very far apart and you can reach them only by using a car; this was very frustrating for me because I couldn’t reach my friends on my own and I always had to disturb Jenna, James or Colton for bringing me there.
However, in America I had a lot of great experiences that I will never forget: I took part to bonfires, and I also had many occasions to see my friends at Football games, Basketball games and Volleyball games! Sport is very important in the school life, and as a part of that system, I decided to join the Athletics team, in which I ran the 400m, 300m hurdles, 110m hurdles and I also tried pole vaulting; I had so much fun!
During school breaks, my family took me around the country and we shared some wonderful memories. We went to Florida at first, where we visited Disney world, then we flew to New York, a city that impressed me particularly for its lights and skyscrapers, and last by we drove to Las Vegas, where I didn’t really do much because of my age, but I did still have a great time.
I had so many great experiences in America that couldn’t even be described in a million pages, but the only thing that matters is how deeply grateful I am towards my host family, who showed unconditional love to a kid that isn’t part of them, helping him become more mature and creating with him a bond that could never be broken.
Venturini Edoardo
