Another US Adventure

Last year Herning Gymnasium's inaugural group made the journey across the Atlantic to study at Edmonds Community College, just north of Seattle, for 2 months. And this morning at 445am, I stood in the Billund Airport waving goodbye to our second group making that same journey. They will be in Seattle until I go to pick them up at the end of November ....just after they get to experience a real American Thanksgiving! 


I have spent a lot of time with these students in the past several weeks, talking about all those special "American" things that they need to know before arriving, and I loved each moment of it. Just like last year, when I told the class about the lack of "knife use" at the typical American dinner table (as compared to the Danish style) and about the flat sheet that most American beds have on them, I cracked up at their reaction. 

They had the same reaction as last year's students did and the same reaction (in reverse) when I moved to Denmark. Isn't it funny how we get so used to the way we normally do daily kinds of things that when we hear how it's done somewhere else, we think it is SO odd! 

This video was made the night of our Family Orientation Meeting, just before the trip. The students had a task in their English class to write a speech about their interpretation of the American Dream, and from all 28 speeches, Ebru's was selected to be shared in front of all the families. She did AN AMAZING JOB and we were all so proud of her! I hope she discovers some of the things she talked about in her speech while she is in the US. 


I am so excited to read this group's blogs about their experiences and see if there are some common strands between the 2010 group and this one. They are so lucky to be able to experience something like this----it really is an adventure of a lifetime that I think ALL students should be able to have at some point in their education.