Lisa Vianello

Italy

What are you going to miss the most about America?

“I am gonna miss all the friends I made this year and American high school. School in my home country is really stressful and harder so I will miss going to school without being stressed for tests. I will kind of miss drive-thrus because we don’t have fast food, and mostly car rides with my friends listening to music. “

What is your favorite memory from your exchange year?

“My favorite memory is my vacation in Florida with my host family and friends. Going to Florida was my dream and I had so much fun. My favorite Kickapoo memory is the Glendale football game, I loved going to the football games and that one was really fun.” 

What is one thing you’re looking forward to the most when you get home?

“ I am looking forward to seeing all my friends and family again and getting back to my life. I am sad about leaving because I will never live my American life again, but I am also really excited to see my group of friends again and spend with them my Italian summer.”

Johanne Jorgensen

Denmark

What are you going to miss the most about America?

“What I am going to miss most is definitely my friends! I have had so many great experiences and so many absolutely amazing moments with them. I am used to being around them 24/7, and suddenly we are going to be 5000 miles away from each other.”

What is your favorite memory from your exchange year?

“I met my best friend over here, and for the past eight months, we have basically been together every day. She made my year amazing over here, and she also is the one that the majority of all my memories are with (and the best ones for sure!). She has taken me out to see so much of Springfield, eat American food, even small things like buying me Starbucks (which I never have had before coming here..), and inviting me into her family! Big shoutout to Avrey Hurshman – I love you! “

What is one thing you are looking forward to the most when you get home?

“What I am most excited about is definitely seeing my family at the airport! I can not wait to see them again after ten months. I am also really excited to see my friends back home! I have been facetiming them over the past nine months, and seeing them in real life again is going to be amazing! And of course, most important of all, being able to buy, and drink alcohol again! “

Side note: Legal drinking age in Denmark is 16

Ruth Carrera-Gonzalez

Spain

What are you going to miss the most about America?

“My friends and host family for sure, I don’t know what I am going to do without them. Also Andy’s, they better open one in Spain soon.”

What is your favorite memory from your exchange year?

“My trip to Florida and The Driver Era concert. Also one November night I went with my friends to downtown and we just sang songs at the top of our lungs.”

What is one thing you’re looking forward to the most when you get home?

“Seeing my friends and eating real food.”

Daniel Rioseco

Chile

What are you going to miss the most about America?

“ In the time I’ve been here I’ve met many wonderful people, either Americans or other inter exchange students or immigrants, that have made this experience as wonderful as it is, I strongly believe that an experience like this is not necessarily about what you have done, but about with whom you shared this experiences and with whom you shared the journey. So I would say that what I’m going to miss the most about America is the people I’ve met here”

What is your favorite memory from your exchange year?

“I would say that my best memory from this year is the first student meeting, at that moment we all got to meet each other and even we had a great time, getting to learn from our different life experiences in our own country and we got to make friends from places all around the world that we’re going through the same experience, a thing that made us fairly close, we got to play many different fun games where we all connected no matter our nationality, race, etc. which was a very beautiful thing to experience and a memory that I will keep for the rest of my days “

What is one thing you’re looking forward to the most when you get home?

“Well as I said before I believe that good experiences are conformed in a great part by the people that you met or shared the experience with, so what I’m looking forward the most about returning to my own country is to see all my friends and family, to hug them and shared stories about what we’ve done during the year, to hang out or just enjoy each other company, because I believe that the most important thing in life is not money, fame, success or anything else, but people, because at the end of the day what does it matter if you have everything but you don’t have someone to share it with or to make you company?”

Sayed Mohammed

Bahrain

What are you going to miss the most about America?

“I’m going to miss everything, even the sunrise and the sunset, I met a lot of amazing people and a lot of these people are my friends now. I’m going to miss Kickapoo so much, it is the best school I’ve been to. I’m gonna miss the best class at the school that broadcast Journalism. “

What is your favorite memory from your exchange year? 

“When I gave my teachers a picture of each other in a frame and wrote a letter to them with their names spelled in Arabic, it was a very touching thing. Perhaps this might be sad, but it is a wonderful memory for me. “

 What is one thing you’re looking forward to the most when you get home? 

“Firstly, I’m looking to see my loved ones and share all the good stories with them. I’m planning to finish my high school and get my diploma. then come back to the US to finish my college. “