“Canada is like the US, only better’ – this was one of the first things I was told after landing on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. And during my exchange semester at Ballenas Secondary School, I came to find that this was pretty much the truth.
Ballenas Secondary School (BSS) was almost like you‘d imagine a typical highschool: yellow school busses, a wale as the school mascot, big classrooms with small desks, daily public announcements through the speakers (including a very unfunny joke of the day), and, of course, a football and hockey team, and a musical theater club complete with a whole stage. People got to school with their venti starbucks cups in hand, doordashed Mcdonalds right in the middle of class, or just didn’t show up at all.
School started at 8:50, which was very comfortable compared to 7:40. Canadian Secondary schools are not very challenging, which is reflected in the time table: the same four subjects every day for an entire semester. As an exchange student, I was free to choose the courses I wanted. I ended up with English First Peoples, focusing on Indigenous Culture in Canada; Studio Arts, Woodwork, and Drama class, where we had to write and perform our own play as our final project. Apart from an occasional essay or learning a script by heart, I never had much work to do outside of school, so I was able to spend a lot of time with my friends and host family.
BSS is also a very popular school for exchange students, causing me to make friends with people from countries like Japan, Spain, the Philippines, Taiwan, Mexico and many more. Of course there were a lot of German speaking students as well – so rest assured, I didnt forget my mother tongue while being in Canada.
My host family consisted of my host parents, two host sisters slightly younger than me, a host brother who’s about my age, and my 13 year old host sister from Spain. They were the nicest family I could have asked for, and with seven of us in the house, it never got boring.
As I lived about 20 minutes walking distance from the sea, my friends and I spent a lot of time relaxing on the beach, playing beach volleyball, or going swimming when the weather got warmer. Apart from that, we often went to the gym, the mall, McDonalds (our second home) or hiking on the weekends. Sometimes, we’d also visit the mainland for a day in Vancouver, also called Canada’s version of San Francisco.
A big part of the exchange was also going on trips with our fellow exchange students. We got to experience Canadas beautiful wild life when going wale watching, where we saw seals, sea lions, orcas and humpback wales. We also went surfing, visited British Columbias capital Victoria, had an outdoor trip at campbell river and much more.
I am very grateful for being able to get an insight into so many different cultures – First and foremost Canada, with its nice people, beautiful nature, big pick up trucks and root “beer”. But through meeting people from all around the world, the biggest lesson I learned is that no matter the language or whether we’re from America, Europe or Asia, we are all not as different as we think.
Evelyn Feltes, 7C
