Differences between my home country and the United States

This post is not to judge any culture, anyone or anything. I want to share my experience about how I see this country and what's the difference to where I'm from. Don't take anything personal, this is based on my experience here in general. 

#1 Cars/Public transportation:

The cars here are so much bigger than the cars in Switzerland. When I saw my host family's car here in Fresno at the airport for the first time, I was like OMG ARE YOU SERIOUS? IS THAT YOUR CAR? ITS HUGE! And they were like 'yeah, it's just a normal car'. About 95% of the people here don't use public transportation like trains and busses, they take their cars to get everywhere & tbh I understand. It's difficult & expensive to travel here. Most of the people I know have never been in a train or bus and most of them also not in an airplane. 

#2 Politics:

Okay, as we know a new president got elected & the people in Europe, especially Switzerland are not happy with Trump at all. However, many people here are happy that Trump won, and I get why but I'm not sure if he was the better choice. People in the United States have a different imagination of how the politics here should work. Honestly, I didn't really care when Trump won, because I feel like they're both stupid.

I can see why people here like Trump more, he has never been into politics, people here think that he is "just a normal person" (who has many towers made out of gold, lol) but Clinton is evil. There is a lot of gossip that doesn't reach Europe. Publissity wants Europe only to know certain things about the candidats and they reached their goals. 

#3 Food:

I'm pretty sure that all you guys think that food in the US is mostly fast food, which means fried, fat, sweet,...

That's actually true, but I know that there are people who cook fresh stuff like vegetables & things like that, where I live it's different. We have a lot of Mexican food and we heat up a lot of things in the microwave or we go out to eat.

Tbh I gained a lot of weight because of that, but the food tasts amazing. And also you get free refill for Soda and free water everywhere, and for me that makes sense. 

#4 Geography skills:

Okay, I don't want to sound mean, but Americans have a lot of trouble with geography. I feel like for most of them it's just the United states and the rest of the world is like a really really small place without civilisation and stuff. I got so many dumb questions & people still think Sweden & Switzerland are the same. "Do you guys have cars?", "Is there WiFi in Sweden" (tbh I'm not sure, not Swedish tho), "Do you have water over there?" 

Once I was looking at an America map & a girl came up to me, putted her finger on the state of Nebraska & asked me if that's Switzerland.

I think you should have your own opinion about that, I think it's pretty sad.

#5 School:

Americans have 12 years of school, Swiss people have 9. Here I'm in 11th grade and at home I gratuated after 9th grade. For me, the school here is much easier than in Switzerland, even English class is not hard. It depends what classes you take, my classes are like medium hard. Everyone picks their classes by themselves, that's what I like here, but you have different people in every period, which makes it harder to make friends. 

#6 Religion:

Many people here go to church every Sunday morning. My host family doesn't, but my host siblings go to youth group sometimes. I have many mormons in my school, where I'm from there are not many religious services.

#7 Shopping:

In my hometown, I took a train & I was in Basel after about 20 minutes, then I went shopping in the streets there. In America, there are basically almost just malls, there are only a few stores downtown. Malls are much easier because they have parking lots & since you have to drive a car to get anywhere, it's much easier in a mall & you have basically all the stores you need in one mall.

It really matters how you look, what clothes you wear and if you wear something more than once a week in school, I think that sucks.

#8 Houses/rooms:

The houses in America are really nice, but it depends where you live. There are not many apartments & if, then in really big cities like Los Angeles or Vegas. The rooms are decorated really cute & most families have their name printed on the walls. They have seasonal decoration & planners on blackboards & stuff like that. It is kinda important how your house looks like. 

The dorms are also really cute, most people have little lights over the windows & the bed matches with the colour of the rest of the room. Americans hang up all their clothes with hangers in their closet. 

Most teens have a TV with netflix in their room, some don't. 

#9 Social media:

Basically all the Americans have a smart phone or a tablet. The adults all keep in touch with other family members that live far away with facebook. There are people who are about 80 that use FB or IG.

The teens have Snapchat & they snapchat everything. Even if it's just *I had chicken for dinner*

I think it's surprising that younger kids who are about 6 have their own tablets, they have netflix oder games on it & some also have Instagram. People do not use Whatsapp, they use iMessage instead, which means 99% of the people here have an iPhone.

Americans watch a lot of TV, they mostly watch Football or Baseball games or shows on Netflix. 

There's wifi almost everywhere, in many cafe's like Starbucks or in trains you have free internet which makes it really easy to get connection if you don't have a deal with at&t or horizon or something.

#10 People:

I think Americans are way more friendly than Europeans. They are way more open and for example when you're at a train station, people come up to you and ask if you need help, they hold the doors, they say 'hi' to each other and stuff. But they forget about you, once they talk to you and on the next day they don't even say hi to you at school. They are more open but it's not like that you are friends with them from then on. In Europe that's kinda different. 

As I already said, I did not want to judge anyone, it's just my point of view and I love both countries and cultures. I recommend a visit to the United States or especially California to everyone, it is really beautiful and totally different to Europe. And I also recommend Europe to the Americans, I promise, you're gonna love it.

BTW: Don't miss my last blog update down here, it's about Thanksgiving.

update #12 Thanksgiving/Sacramento Trip

days count: 130
On saturday morning of last week, our Thanksgiving break started. Actually for me it started earlier because I didn't feel good and missed school for a few days. I went to my host siblings soccer games in Bakersfield. In the evening I was invited at my IEC's house, so we had a really nice dinner there. On sunday, I decided to visit Selina, one of my friends from home, at her host family's house in Rancho Cordova, near Sacramento. On monday morning I took a really early train, which drove to Stockton. There I switched on a bus which took me to Valley Station, Sacramento. 


The trip took really long, about 9 hours and I was by myself, so there were some pretty scary moments. 
When I finally got to Sacramento, Selina's host dad picked me up and took me to his family's house. 

<3

Most of the time, Selina and I were just chillin' & talking or watching TV shows. We walked the dogs and she cut my hair and stuff. On wednesday, we went shopping because on friday was 'black friday' which means everything is on sale because of thanksgiving. We already went on wednesday because it was already a lot cheaper and we knew that the malls would be crowded on friday. We actually bought a lot, also like christmas presents and stuff.

On thursday, it was finally Thanksgiving. We got up pretty early to get ready for the party. We drove about an hour to Yuba City, first we went to Selina's host mums family's house where we stayed for about 2 hours. We did eyeshadow by ourselves and saw how they made turkey and just the typical Thanksgiving meal. After that, we went to her host dad's fame's house. Selina teached me how to play a song on the piano and I'm actually thinking about taking piano lessons at home because I love it. We
ate Thanksgiving dinner & honestly I was really full because there was a lot of food and I tried almost everything. Especially the desert was really nice,  there was pumpkin pie, apple pie, cheesecake, cherry cake, muffins, everything you could think of. After dinner we were playing a game called "Clue" or something, it was funny. We got home pretty late and I booked my train back to Tehachapi then because I realized that all the train connections on all the other days were horrible. 

So yesterday morning I left Sacramento, which by the way is a beautiful city, and I got to Tehachapi at about 8 PM. I got a ride to the Valley station up there at like 10:30 AM so I had to wait by myself at the train station for 2 hours and it scared the heck out of me because there were many weirdos.
When the bus finally left, I had to switch on the train to Bakersfield after 1 hour and after 5 hours in the train I had to wait for the bus to Downtown Tehachapi. My host brother picked me up there with his new car that he got yesterday and we were playing some fun games on his xbox when we got home.

Today we decorated the house for christmas and made some cookies. I'm really excited for christmas season.


Since Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks, I want to thank my family back home who makes all this possible for me. I want to thank my friends here & back home for supporting me through all this and I want to thank my IEC & my host family for helping me & giving me the oppertunity to be part of them. 


I am part of the EF High School Exchange Year Student Ambassador program, so for those who are interested to do a year abroad as a foreign Exchange student in the United States, England or Ireland, it's your turn to sign up for that now to become a part of the class of 2018. Get out of your comfort zone and visit an EF information meeting in your city.  https://www.efswiss.ch/de/highschool

update #11 - Veteran's day/Six Flags

days count: 118
Last thursday, all the periods were shorter than usual, only 45 minutes. That was because we had our Veteran's day Assembly. Veteran's day is a day where the whole country thinks about all the men that fight for this nation in wars. Some soldiers came to our school and told us about their stories, some of them were really sad. I think it was really good that we had this assembly because those are really important people that we should honor.

On friday night we didn't do a lot, but on Saturday we went to a birthday party of my hostsisters friend. She turned 14 and they made a party with nachos and brownies & ice cream & stuff. We were jumping out of the window on a trampoline and talked and watched TV and just fun things. 
The highlight of the weekend was the EF six flags magic mountain trip on sunday. My IEC (=International Exchange Coordinator) picked 4 of the exchange students in Tehachapi up at about 8 and we got to Valencia at about 9:30. The other exchange students were from Denmark, Sweden & Austria. There, we met exchange students who live in Bakersfield, Lancaster, Palmdale, Santa Maria and other places in the L.A. area of California. Six flags is my favorite amusement park ever. There are only crazy & terrifying rollercoasters, which is amazing if you love this kind of rides. There are different topics like Batman. super man, avengers but also unique things. My favorite roller coaster was called X2 and you're kinda like laying on your back when you're in your seat & then they start making a count down but they just randomly start. Then your head is down and you go threw loops and yeah I don't remember 'cause I hit my head about 30 times I guess, but it was awesome. The batman ride was also really fun. 


Another ride that I liked was the free fall tower which is about 120 meters tall. You can see whole Valencia & part of the Mojave desert which takes place in Death valley, that's where I live in too.
In the park I was hanging out with Nadja, she attends my high school but her hometown is in Denmark, and a girl from Switzerland, she lives near Zurich. 
After some rides we wanted to get food but it was really expensive in the park, so we asked our IEC (=International Exchange Coordinator) if we can stop at in n out burgers on our way home, so that's what we did.

By the way, I became part of the EF High School Exchange Year Student Ambassador program, so for those who are interested to become an Exchange Student for the class of 2017/2018 it's your turn to sign up now. Visit an information meeting in your city http://www.efswiss.ch/de/highschool/

update #10 - Halloween

days count: 106
Guess what guys, I went trick-or-treat on monday!! 
It was seriously amazing! There were so many decorated houses, the streets were crowded of families that took their kids to trick-or-treat and I just loved it. I wanna celebrate it like that every year. My little host brother did it with a bunch of other kids his age and they had hilarious costumes, like skittles or elsa from "Frozen." I was dressed up as a bee and usually we did not plan to trick-or-treat because we had a party at a friends house, but then they realized that this might be the only time int the life of exchange students that we could do it so they took us to a place where many houses were decorated and it was a just insane.
This was just a mini update, sorry for that.. School's getting busy because there are only two weeks left until Thanksgiving break and next week is Veteran's day, which means no school. After Thanksgiving break there's one week until the Finals and then there's winter break already, so I'm almost done with the first half, omg can't believe it..
Today I joined the Prom organization club, I'm seriously so excited!

<3