My American Life in California
Artikel - My American Life in California
I remember my get-to-know phone call with INTO one year ago. I was very nervous and still not sure if I should make this step and go to a different country for half a year. But then they sent me the application, I started to fill it out and suddenly I realized there was no going back. I always thought I would have so much time until I left but time went fast and all of a sudden, I was standing at the airport with a big luggage, and I was waving goodbye to my family with tears in my eyes.
After a long, tiring flight, I arrived in Torrance where I would spend the next 6 months. Torrance is a city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in LA County, California. It has a population of 143‘600 and it is around two miles away from the beach.
In the beginning, everything was different for me. I was not used to this big city life, more to a small-town life surrounded by nature. There were so many houses and you had to drive an hour to get into the woods. Also, the daily life and appreciation of my host family were completely different from my original family. In short, I had the typical culture shock. But after a while, I got used to all the new stuff and I started to like the place I chose.
I went to West High School, a really big school with around 2‘500 students. On my first day of school, I was a bit overwhelmed. The school was huge and I had trouble finding my classrooms. They also have really weird rules like not walking on the campus during classes without a campus pass. The school is surrounded by a big fence, so if you want to leave school during the day, you need to get an off-campus pass and go to the office to get permission. Frankly, I thought my friends were joking with me but they did not.
In the first few weeks, it was hard to get in touch with American people, because everyone was leaving the class straight after the bell rang and nobody noticed that I was a new student. It was always me who started talking to them. What incredibly helped me was track and field. Since I’m doing track in Switzerland, I also joined the track team at my High School. I got to know amazing people, who introduced me to their friends. After some time it wasn’t hard anymore to talk to people in my classes, since I knew them from track.
Track was using a big junk of my time, because we had practice every day and competitions at the weekends. It was so much fun to hang out with friends between races but at the same time, all the practices and competitions were physically tiring and exhausting.
In my free time, I sometimes visited tourist places around Los Angeles like the Hollywood Sign, Walk of Fame, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica… When the weather was good, I spent time at the beach and since the waves got really high sometimes, it was so much fun to be in the water. Everywhere at the beach, you can find volleyball pits so you never get bored there. There are also many little coffee and surf shops by the beach where we also went over and over again. I went on hikes with my host family and friends, we did bonfires and hung out a lot at a big mall. Right by the school was a boba shop and seven-eleven where everybody was hanging out after school. Therefore it was a good spot to get to know new people.
My last days were planned up to the last minute. It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone, a lot harder than the goodbyes in Switzerland to be honest. Suddenly, I was back at the airport in Zurich and was welcomed by my family and friends. It felt so unreal to be back, as if this exchange semester was just a dream. These 6 months went over so fast and I couldn’t believe it was already over.
I’m very grateful that my parents and INTO made this all possible for me, because I had such a good time and I learned a lot through all the experiences. It was 100% worth it and I recommend it to everybody.