Interview to the Exchange Students in the Newspaper

Interview to the Exchange Students in the Newspaper

Our exchange advisor told us that he has arranged a meeting with a local newspaper from Bergisch Gladbach. The purpose was to interview the exchange students from his agency, which were us. The topic was us and our stories. Although this was in the very beginning from the exchange year, you will find a few interesting ideas; keep reading!

This post and many more are related to my Exchange Year in Germany from 2008 to 2009. In this country I lived with various host families and learned German too. Click in the link below to read more.

https://www.voyagellama.com/blog/exchange-about-germany

What is an exchange student program?

The exchange student program is an experience about going to live the culture of a foreign country. Usually you have to be between 15-18 years old and live in a native family. This trip could take from 3 months to 1 year. You can read about this topic in my blog post.

Meeting the local newspaper

On August 19 of 2008 I went with my other exchange program mates, Caihong from Taiwan, Sand from United States and me, Juditova from Ecuador. The place of the meeting was Bergisch Gladbach. This town was to the right of Cologne, in a few minutes away using the S-bahn (Rapid train in German), after my german classes.

Picture of a sample S-bahn. Respectfully borrowed from Wikipedia.

The Interview to the Exchange Student Group

Since I didn't speak much German at that time, Sand was my interpreter. When I got to the interview, we introduced ourselves cordially and sat down. Our interviewer was a woman called Agatha Mazur from the newspaper Kölner Stadt Anzeiger. You can learn about this journalist by visiting her on her website and social profiles.

She asked us (the exchange student group) about our countries, our decision to come to Germany and of course, our opinion and experiences. I don't remember all of them but I have saved a copy of the newspaper.

What I liked

To sum up, I said that Germany was a beautiful country, for its architecture and cities. The trains and trams was one of the features that I loved the most; they didn't exist in my country (at least, not well established). The food (like the German breakfast with Mettwurst) was delightful. I didn't mentioned that I LOVED beer because my exchange advisor was nearby.

Mettwurst. Respectfully borrowed from Wikipedia.

What I didn't like

What I shared was something I noticed right away: the germanic tribes do not show smiles right away. This behavior was cold for me and I interpret it as if they put a barrier in front of you. This does not mean that they are mean, unsocial or rude. It is just their way of behave.

After the Interview to the Exchange Students

Once our meeting ended, we thanked her for everything and viceversa. I took a picture with her just for remember the moment later.

The article were posted on the newspaper issue on August 29 of 2008. It went viral and I became very popular… just kidding.

Our exchange advisor invited us all to have ice cream. When I saw that I received an ice cream with a glass cup, of all colors and flavors, I couldn't help but smile at him with an immeasurable smile translated into a “Thank you.” That was a nice gesture on his part. Because the refined ice cream was a bit pricey, I always abstained and decided just to go for the ice cream cones.

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