Eine Zeit im Ausland zu verbringen ist immer eine bereichernde Erfahrung. Vincent Matz, S1, war im vergangenen Schuljahr für zweieinhalb Monate in Australien. Hier ist sein Bericht, den er für seine Austausch-Schule in Adelaide geschrieben hat:
I, Vincent Matz, am taking part in the 2008/2009 Hamburg to Adelaide exchange and stayed with my exchange partner, Tom Bryant’s family for ten weeks.
About 100 German students took part in the exchange this year. They go to different schools all over Adelaide. Australian students will come over to Germany from November 08 to January 09.
I arrived in Adelaide on the 17th of February after a 30-hour flight. I have already seen lots of places in and around Adelaide. One day, for example, we went to a wildlife park in the hills and at Easter I learned surfing at Victor Harbor. That was great!
There are lots of similarities between Tom’s family and mine. Our interests are roughly the same as well so I really enjoy staying with Tom’s family.
At school I have had lots of new experiences and I made friends very quickly.
CCSS is quite different to my school in Germany: It’s much bigger and has nearly twice as many students as my school. The biggest difference between German and Australian schools is that in Germany very few schools are private schools and even fewer expect wearing a uniform.
Until year eleven you can’t choose your subjects so everybody has the same basic knowledge.
Apart from that, we unfortunately don’t have Outdoor Ed supervised study lessons so all the homework has to be done in our free time. That’s a pity.
One big event of my journey was to go to the Outback with the other German students. We went to Coober Pedy, we saw (and partly climbed) Ayers Rock, walked through Kings Canyon and stayed in Alice Springs, where we learned about Aboriginal culture. It’s so impressive! We traveled all the way by coach to get the experience of being in the middle of nowhere for more than ten hours. Nevertheless, after eight days of desert I was happy to be back in civilization again.
Now, when we have holidays, I can enjoy my last days here in “Down Under” and relax a bit, until I go to stressful German school again on April 24th.
I’m already looking forward to come back to Australia! Maybe one day I’ll study at the university here in Adelaide or maybe return for a holiday, but I will come back, that is clear!
Vincent Matz