Foreign exchange student Maren Kolb of southern Germany cherishes her time in the United States. “I miss my family because I realized it’s so far away, but I enjoy my time here,” she said. “I’ll see my family again, but I only have one year here.” Kolb is from a small town near Heidelberg. She received a scholarship to be an exchange student and is staying with Rich and Dory Ecker of Kimball. In Germany, Kolb took English classes for five years. She went to an all-day school that ended at 4:45 p.m., but had fewer tests and no homework. The classes weren’t the same every day. Different subjects were studied one to five times a week. She had English about three times a week. She’s been on a one-week exchange to London before, but always wanted to go somewhere for a longer period of time. “You’re part of the family and the country; you go to school and stuff,” she said. “You see so many things and learn so much about people.” She arrived in the United States in mid-August and will stay throughout the school year. “In school I learned Oxford English and here it’s different.” Kolb was amazed to see how much land there is with so few houses between towns. “I knew that before, but to see it and experience it is so different,” she said. Kolb is experiencing and learning many things during her stay. One thing she didn’t expect was how patriotic Americans are, with flags displayed or posted in windows of houses and businesses, and on cars. “I hadn’t really seen that before,” Kolb said. In Germany, one would never say they are proud of their country in general, she added. They would say they are proud of something more specific. “One kid in school (in Germany) wore a shirt that said ‘I’m not proud to be a German.’ That’s something the Nazis would say,and you don’t want to be compared to that,” Kolb said. From what she heard about the United States from Americans or other friends that had been exchange students she expected a few things to be different. “People told me it’d be really ‘cliquey’ with the smart kids in one group and the hip-hoppers in another,” she said. “But, it’s really open-minded and I haven’t seen any racism.” Another thing she found to be false is that host parents are stricter than German parents and that what young people say isn’t important. “It’s not like that for me,” Kolb said. “They’re (host family) all really, really nice people.” Kolb has gone to Valleyfair, on a boat trip on Lake Geneva in Wisc., to the Mall of America and to the State Fair with her host family. “Just seeing what Minnesota is like [at the fair] was cool; everything was on a stick, and I saw my first cheerleaders.” One of the things she misses the most is the bread that’s available in Germany. “All the bread [here] is soft and squeezy,” she said. “In Germany there’s a mass of different sorts of bread. It has a harder crust and tastes totally different.” While she was surprised how much fast food people eat, her favorite food here is granola bars. She also loves to eat hot-dish and corn-on-the-cob. The candy and sweets, however, are sweeter than she’s used to. Plus, she was surprised to see so many milk products without fat. Another thing that surprised her was how many school sports there are. In Germany there are only club sports that meet once or twice a week. Kolb played volleyball this fall and will participate in the one-act play and softball this spring. Since more students are in sports and there’s more homework, people here don’t get together after school. “In Germany I see my friends after school,” she said, “but here you see your friends on the weekend.” Kolb is enjoying experiencing a new culture. “[I want to] get to know a lot of different things and be more tolerant of new things,” she said. “Just really being part of it and getting to know customs and my host family and friends.” She also wants to travel while she’s here. For her exchange program they spend the last weekend of their stay in Washington, D.C., but she also would like to go to San Francisco and Hawaii. While she has skied in the Alps and has tried snowboarding once in Austria, Kolb said she might want to learn to snowboard here on smaller slopes. Although she is experiencing many new things and has noticed many differences, it’s the experience as a whole that she enjoys the most. “You can’t really pick out all the little things,” she said, “but there are a lot of things, altogether, that make it special.”
