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My junior year of High School we were giving the opportunity to
write an essay about what friendship means to us and what the city of
Webster means to us.
The winners of the essays won a free trip to Germany! There was 7 of us
who wrote essays, but they could only pick 5.
Alexa Volesky, Tyler Hagen, Kelli Mammenga, Kelsea Chapin and myself were
chosen. There was 3 Germans that were also chosen, Yasmin, Nicklas, and
Steffen.
Alexa and I stayed with Yasmin and her family, Kelli and Kelsea stayed
with Steffen and his family and Tyler stayed with Nicklas.
The time I spent in Germany was amazing! I learned soo much more about
their culture and the way they live. We did many fun activities and
visited new places everyday.
One thing I quickly found out is that Germans don't care for sleep, they
like to go go go all the time! Which was only bad somedays :) Every
night we had a meal at a different familys house.
The food was different yet still very good! At nights the kids got to hang
out alone which was my favorite part of some of the days!
We got to know eachother fast and it was alot of fun.Although we had only
stayed for 10 days, i felt like i had known them for my whole life!
Saying good-bye was very hard and everyone was choked up. The only thing
that kept me from bawling was knowing they were coming to America soon!
When they came to America it was fun to see South Dakota through their
eyes. I also learned some new things I didn't know about South Dakota
before, while showing the Germans everything.
I loved showing and telling them everything i knew about SD. It seemed
like they really enjoyed their time as well! They time flew by soo fast
and before i knew it was time for them to leave :(
There are no words to explain how sad i was, I didn't know if i was ever
going to see them again. I said good-bye like it was the last time i
would see them because for all i knew, that could have been the last
time.My experience was so incredible, i would go back and do it all over
again in a heart beat!
*Below are some pictures of my time and experience with the
Webster-Dewangen exchange. Some of them are quite small but if you click
them, they will enlarge!
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