It’s been 3 months since I boarded my plane to America in Zurich with the intention of coming back in six months and I have to say, it doesn’t feel like it at all. I think that’s because – apart from five days of school – I experience and see an incredible amount. In the first few weeks I visited two museums. The Museum of Fine Arts is one of the largest museums in Houston and consists of nine buildings. Of course, I only saw a small part of it, but I was thrilled by the paintings, which belong to the Impressionist and Renaissance art styles. I discussed a lot with my host mother about what the artists wanted to express with their paintings. A picture says a lot about the artist’s values and the way he lived.
One of the coolest things I’ve experienced so far is definitely a baseball game. Since this sport is only half as popular in Switzerland, it was completely new territory for me. I had already played baseball a few times at school, but my host mother still had to explain all the rules and playing positions to me first. The stadium, which stands in the middle of downtown Houston, was filled with people. Everyone was wearing an Astros jersey (the name of the baseball team) and carrying nachos or a beer in their hand. I was warned that baseball can be boring because you don’t always hit a home run, but I found the game super interesting and the Astros even won.
Since our school has a football team, I have also been to one of these games. In my opinion, it’s more boring than baseball. This could be mainly because football has a lot of rules and I don’t know any of them and the players were almost always lying on the ground. Luckily, that wasn’t the case all the time in the games we saw on TV. Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun and the “school spirit” that you always see in American films was also there.
In addition to attending my host sister’s favorite musical, which was incredibly good, I also had “Homecoming” in September. In the so-called “Spirit Week” the school uniform was for once not welcome. We should come to school every day dressed according to a theme. “Inside out” (Disney film with the emotions) and “Throwback Thursday” (dressing like in the 80s) were particularly fun for me and almost the whole school took part. On Friday there was the “Homecoming dance” for which I had to get something stylish to wear. Unfortunately, the evening wasn’t as great as I expected because the implementation of the “Sneaker Gala” motto wasn’t the best choice and there was hardly any atmosphere. However, thanks to my friends, I had a fun and memorable evening.
In America you don’t have as many holidays as in Switzerland. Nevertheless, we had two days off from school in October and used our long weekend to visit Disney World in Orlando. These five days were the most strenuous and at the same time most eventful days I have ever experienced. For me, most of what I saw and experienced there was unimaginable. Disney World consists of four parks. In each park there were different rides and Disney film themes such as Star Wars, Snow White, Winnie the Pooh or “Beauty and the Beast”. Apart from the heat and all the queuing for the trains, I had the time of my life. I think the “Epcot” park was the coolest because we were able to go through different countries. Each country was structured the way it looked, with the main sights and of course the typical food. My host family and I have made it our mission to eat something typical from each country. Such as sushi in Japan, crepe in France or fish and chips in Great Britain. But we had to give up halfway through because it was just too much. To my surprise, the employees who worked there were all from the relevant country and also spoke the local language. Accordingly, I was able to talk to our waitress in the beer garden in Germany in German. Back in Houston, the preparations for the “Little Women” theater, which I helped with, continued. It was a really great experience to be at a theater and see how the whole thing works.
And not soon after, Halloween was just around the corner. I have never celebrated Halloween myself and was therefore very curious to see how Americans celebrate this tradition. The weekend before Halloween I was invited to a party where everyone dressed up and we painted pumpkins. I carved pumpkins with my host family, which was incredibly fun and nice to look at afterwards. On Halloween itself I went on the “Trick or Treat” tour with friends. It was really like in the movies where you walk from house to house and you either get the sweets directly from the residents or you can take them out of a huge container in front of the house. I was worried that we might be the oldest, but there were also many older than us. What shocked me the most was that some parents actually drove their children from house to house so they didn’t have to walk.
The most recent thing that has happened here so far has of course been the election of the new president and parliament. In my school it was almost a taboo topic and no one really dared to bring it up. But as you drive through town, you see signs in many front yards that say either Harris Walz or Trump Pence. Thanks to my “government” lessons, the debates and rallies that I followed with my host mother, I had a relatively good overview of the situation. For a European who grew up with a completely different form of government, it was almost unimaginable how the elections worked and, ultimately, impossible to predict who would ultimately be elected. The last few days before election day were very tense and only this topic was present in the media.
But the day after was completely different. I talked to my friends almost all day about the election results and noticed a lot more about who voted for whom and why. On the one hand, there was disbelief and outrage. Still others celebrated the results.
In any case, this time was very exciting and I am glad that I was able to experience it.
Soon we will celebrate Thanksgiving and enjoy a week of vacation. Despite the temperatures still being summery for me, it’s already Christmas in Houston. The shops, streets and houses are colorfully decorated. My host mother has already put up the plastic Christmas tree.
I’m really looking forward to everything that has to do with Christmas and am grateful that I can experience my favorite holiday in “American style”.
