Our day started pretty early at about 4 am and we were all so excited! We met at the "Messplatz" at 5:30 am. At around 6 am,when our bus arrived, it took us to the Frankfurt International Airport, where we stayed for about 4 hours. At about 12 our plane took off. Most of the guys watched movies or read some books. When we flew over New York and saw the skyline for the first time, the people actually realized that we were in America now and freaked out! The time took so long to get to our exchange partners but after all costum checks, the Americans greeted us with posters, flags and their families. After the arriving we went home to our host families in North Brunswick. We ate a bit and met each other later again for our first american football game and the raiders won! Our day ended in the middle of the night, very jet-lagged. Let's get the adventure started!

(Caroline Grausam)

On Saturday many of us went to Point Pleasant Beach. At first we were at the beach and touched the Atlantic Ocean. Then we went to the Aquarium and met Robbie's adopted penguin. After that we entered the Fun House. There were mirror mazes und different funny and scary rooms. When we left the house all of us were hungry and we ate burger and pizza at Tiki Bar. The food was delicious and we enjoyed sitting together. Finished eating we went walking along the promenadeand passed an ice cream store where we stopped to buy a soft ice with sprinkles. In the evening some of us went to "Field of Terror". We started with the Hayride for which we had to wait 1 1/2h. Even tho it was really scary, we had fun. After eating something we went into the corn maze which was even scarier. There were dressed up people who jump scared us all the time. This evening was really fun and a good warm up for Halloween.

(Yvonne Wöhr)

On Sunday Kayla, Kelsey, Yvonne and I went to Moe's for lunch. We ate some delicious mexican food there. After that we drove to a football game of Kayla's dad in Asbury. He is the trainer of the under 13 team. It was really cold and we lost. After that we went to a 'Bavarian Biergarten' with Kayla's family and friends. The food was not really good and on the currywurst wasn't even curry. There were also funny spelling mistakes in the menu as Spezialitäen, Schwienshaxe, or our 'typical German' Flammchuchen. It was a very nice day and we enjoyed it.

(Emelie Walther)

Our first day at an American High School.

I woke up at 5:30am and couldn’t sleep anymore. I was so excited to visit an American Highschool because I’ve seen and heard so many things about it for example that there are lockers the students can use (HSM). School starts at 7:36am for whatever reason and ends at 2:12pm. In school we were in different class like biotech or German. It was fun and the classes are really interesting, the teachers are so relaxed about anything, not like in THG but some are still cool. The lunch break is very different compared to our in Germany. They have a hall with many tables that’s for having lunch but me, my exchange partner, Robbie and his friends sat on the floor to eat our lunch there, seriously on the floor. It was still pretty cool because every American is so excited that we’re here and so they are talking to us every opportunity they get. You meet many people and they definitely will like you because you‘re a German. So when school ended Robbie drove us home and we stayed at home for one hour because we were going after school to Keylas, another American exchange partner. We stayed there for dinner and it was so good. America is so cool and the food may be not that healthy as in Germany but if you're on the next exchange just try everything. It’s worth it! My first day of school was so nice. I met so many people, I experienced so many things like seeing things that’s in common in typical High School movies and of course there’s a big football field and that’s a cool place!

(Toni (Hoang) Nguyen)

Today on Tuesday we went to school just like yesterday. The Germans met in their own homeroom but after a few minutes the fire alarm went off. Every class went outside on the football pitch. But it was just a fire drill so everybody went back to their classes. Most Germans visited German class to answer some questions. Later the day there were two emergency alarms that meant, someone was injured and had to be picked up, so we were not allowed to leave the room to not disturb the doctors. In the afternoon, we went to Kevin's partner Paul where we played volleyball, table tennis and with an American football ball on the street. After that, some of us went to Five Guys to eat burgers and fries.

(Charlotte Hägele)

Today we visited Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We met at 7.36 at our homeroom, the library, and arrived after an one hour bus ride at the Liberty State Park. After we bought our tickets and got through the security check, we went onto the ferry Miss Liberty. During the drive of about 10 min we enjoyed the great view onto the skyline of NYC. Our firsts stop was Ellis Island, where we had an very interesting audio guide through the museum of the immigration into the US. After we had lunch and met our new friend Gerry the seagull, we went back to the ferry and drove to our final destination, Liberty Island, the home of the Statue of Liberty. On Liberty Island we took a lot of pictures of the gigantic Statue of Liberty and climbed onto the pedestal from where we had a great view. After we bought some souvenirs and food in the very expensive stores at the feet of the statue we went back to our bus, that drove us back to the high school. We ended this very cold and windy day by watching the soccer game of the girls team from the high school.

(Tobias Schworm and Kevin Lohrer)

Our third day of school started as usual with a meeting in the home room. After that we went to different classes, for example German or Maths. During our lunch we went to the school store and everybody bought a “Raiders“- Hoodie to remember our time in the North Brunswick Township High School - the best school ever! In our last session we had gym. There were many differences in comparison to our school. There was, for example, no teacher who told them how to play so they just played for fun.

School finished at 12:03 and after that we could go to an interview with a news reporter. She asked us general questions like what we think about the exchange and if we are enjoying it - and we definitely do! After school we went to five guys, a burger restaurant in North Brunswick. When we arrived at home we finished the cakes for our two birthday girls, Veronica and Karina, and prepared the basement for the party. At 6pm all the exchange students came to celebrate our birthdays and we had a lot of fun. We sang funny songs, ate pizza, cake and snacks, danced and just hang out.

At the end of this exhausting but wonderful day we went to bed and were looking forward to going to NYC tomorrow!

(Veronica Antonov and Natalie Knörnschild)

On Friday morning all of us Germans with our partners met at the school to go to New York City with the school bus. After two hours we arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where we got two hours of free time to see whatever we were interested in. We saw paintings, photographs and sculptures of Egyptian, Chinese, European or Native American Art and a lot more things. The museum was huge so we couldn't see everything and sometimes we got lost and didn't find what we wanted to see but in the end we all found each other again and we continued our walk through the Central Park. In the park we took a few pictures and went on to the Time Square in the middle of high skyscrapers with a lot of traffic and crowded shops everywhere. We saw the famous big screens with advertisements and lights on the skyscrapers and we got another hour to buy things in shops or eat something at the Time Square. On our drive back at 4:30 pm most of us were very tired and slept on the bus. After we took a short break at home we met again at Paul's to celebrate his birthday in the evening.

(Adriane Engel)

Sat/Sun 27/28 October 2018

I got up at 10 am because we stayed at Paul’s place up until very late. We all chilled all day at his house and at 5 pm we went to an Asian restaurant where they cooked right in front of you. After that we went to a Halloween party.(Jannik Kamm)

We had to wake up at 5:45 am because we participated in a run to support the awareness of breast cancer. We were there at 6:10 am and helped setting up the run. At 10 am the run started. We ran the colour run which means that we got thrown at with colour while running. We were there till 11:30. In the evening we went to a concert with rappers like Juice WRLD, Lil Uzi Vert and 6ix9ine.

(Leon Tabbuso)

The day started like each other normal school day. Everybody went to school for the first lesson, in which all the German exchange students met for the home room in the library. After some information about the next days given by the German teachers, everybody got picked up by their exchange students for the normal lessons. The rest of the schoolday wasn't special except the 5. lesson where a couple of invited students and a few german students participated at an information-meeting about a lot of events in the next few months. At 2.12 pm the school day ended, so everybody went back home. At 5 pm, nearly everyone drove to six flags, a amusement park for "frightfest". It's an event where the whole park is decorated with Halloween stuff and a lot of actors got dressed in Halloween costumes to scare the visitors and probably take pictures with them. The most of us started with riding the highest and fastest rollercoaster in New Jersey, the "Kingda Ka". After this, the group split in three smaller groups. One group went into a corn labyrinth, the other went for some rollercoaster rides and the third group stayed at some restaurants and shops. At 10 pm we all met again at the entrance to get picked up or to drive back home on their own. All in all it was an amazing and interesting day with a lot of new impressions from the United States.

(Joshua Wiedmann)

Today our day started pretty early. We met each other at 7.20 am in our high school and started the drive to Philadelphia. We drove for 1.40h and finally arrived! First we went to the national constitution centre where we stopped at Starbucks to get a bit refreshed after the long drive. Then we went to the national constitution centre to see the exhibition Hamilton and watched a movie and a theater play. After that we went directly to the independence hall, where we learned a bit more about how the States got independent. For Lunch we had the famous "Philly Cheesesteak" in Reading Terminal Market. It's a hall with a huge variation of food! After lunch we went to the "One Liberty Observation Deck", were we had a great view of Philadelphia. We spent an hour in there and went to catch our bus that took us back to North Brunswick. A day full of new impressions came to an end.

(Carolin Grausam, Pia Damiani, Janine Pilasch)

One of the most exciting days we've all been waiting for has finally arrived: Halloween! Our day started off as usual. We had Homeroom and went to class with our partners. After first period us Germans took the school bus to Linwood Middle School here in North Brunswick, NJ. We were welcomed by many 5th to 8th graders and their teachers. Mrs. Mehalick led us through the school and finally to her German class where the students of Linwood Middle School got to ask us many questions about our lives in Germany and more which was super fun! They were all really cute and friendly to us. After three classes of German we took the bus back to NBTHS where we had one more period left for the day. After school we went home and got ready for Halloween. We all met at Kelsey’s house at around 6pm and went trick or treating after taking many nice pictures of us in our costumes. Everyone was ready to give us candy when we were ringing their doorbell which was awesome. People were actually walking around the neighborhood all dressed up and happy. I guess experiencing Halloween in America should be on everyone’s bucket list. It is definitely a must! We got to experience it and we're all more than happy about that. After trick or treating we went back to Kelsey’s house where we then had a bonfire. We played guitar and sang and enjoyed the rest of the night. Probably one of my favorite days so far!

(Pia Damiani)

Today was our last day in high school what’s really sad because all of us love the school and we enjoyed our time there. After our final period we went to “Taco Bell” in East Brunswick. It was very delicious! At 5 o’clock we met in school for our sports night. Everyone was invited to play soccer, basketball, volleyball, table tennis and badminton. Of course we ordered pizza and had a lot of fun! At 8:30 we were picked up and went to BJ’s, a supermarket where everything is big sized and Target, another supermarket that is like our Kaufland in Germany. It took us more than one hour to buy our favorite American Candy. When we finally arrived at home we started packing our bags for tomorrow- Washington D.C. !

(Natalie Knörnschild and Veronica Antonov)

We had to wake up at 5:30am, which isn't that unusual for me because I wake up on 5:50 on school days. We picked up 4 other German students and together we drove to the train station. Our train was 27 minutes late and after it arrived we had to travel for approximately 3 hours. After we arrived in Washington we left our stuff at our hotel, the District Hotel, because we couldn't check in yet. After that we went to the capitol by foot. The first thing we did there was watching a film about the history of America. After that we had a guided tour. The tour was really interesting and I learnt a lot of new things. We left the capitol and walked to the next bus stop. From there we took a bus that drove by all the memorials, including the Korean war veterans memorial, for which Janine and I had to prepare a presentation. For the next two hours after getting of the bus we could do what we wanted to. We went shopping and visited a few places to get something to eat. At 8pm we started making our way back to the hotel. All in all it was a very cool start of our time in Washington.

(Leon Tabbuso)

Our second day in Washington DC started with a delicious breakfast at “IHOP”, the international house of pancakes. We enjoyed delicious pancakes in all variants. After that, we met at our hotel to walk to the metro station and drive take the metro to the national mall. There, we had a lot of time to visit a few of the interesting museums about History, space and air or nature, or to enjoy some food at one of the small driving shops at the sidewalk. Later in the afternoon, we met again to drive with the metro to Georgetown, where we had some time to go shopping and get some snacks. We finished our day with a great meal at Shake Shack.

(Kevin Lohrer and Tobias Schworm)

On Sunday morning we went to Starbucks to have breakfast and tidied up the hotel rooms because we had to leave the hotel until 10 am. After we were ready to go we went to the White House and saw the huge building with many security guards around it. After we took a few pictures we walked to the Washington Monument where we started with our short presentations about the different memorials. Two or three of us had prepared some information about one of the eight memorials which are placed on the National Mall. We walked through the park and saw each of them with some background information from different students. It was interesting to see all the different things that happened in the past and the memorials were very impressive. In the afternoon we ate something at a food mall and went back to the hotel to pick up our luggage. After we took the metro to the train station we left Washington DC and got back to our host families in New Jersey.

(Adriane Engel and Yvonne Wöhr)

A lot of the Germans slept very long because we were still tired from the weekend in Washington, D.C. Then, after breakfast, many of us went to the outlet mall "Jersey Gardens" to get some really cheap clothes and souvenirs to bring over to Germany because the weather was so bad, it rained all the time. After arriving at home, we all got ready for the "early Thanksgiving" in the evening. We celebrated it at Robbie's house and everybody had fun and ate a lot of special Thanksgiving food like stuffing or mashed potatoes. All in all it was a nice and happy day with the other exchange students.

(Joshua Wiedmann and Toni (Hoang) Nguyen)

Our day started later than usual. The students have a week off now so we all get to sleep more, which is awesome. It was raining all day. Some people decided to go to Shoprite or Target to get candy to bring back home to Germany. We got all kinds: Nerds, Reeses, Hersheys, Sour patch kids and more. American candy is probably the best candy. The exchange group decided to meet up at around 5pm to go bowling at Bowlero. Bowlero is a really big and new Bowling alley here in North Brunswick. We stayed there for about 2 hours before we went to Zach's House. We talked about literally everything, ate and enjoyed one of our last real meet-ups, which is really sad. But we're all looking forward to our next two days here and what comes after.

(Pia Damiani)

On Wednesday we went to New York City for one last time. We met at the Rockefeller Center for ice skating. It was so much fun! After that we went to 5th Ave and to the Empire State Building. The view over New York was amazing. In the evening, we ate at a Bavarian Biergarten and the food was pretty good. It was nice sitting together and enjoying the time with each other. After that, everyone went to see the 'Stomp' dance, a theatrical performance in the East Village. They created rhythms with many different objects, people normally wouldn't play music with. It was very impressing.

(Emelie Walther)

The day started pretty early today. Me and my exchange partner Jasmine drove to Rutgers. Rutgers is a huge college here in New Brunswick. Her sister Jenna is currently studying there and she had no classes in the morning so she took her time to show us the college and it's five campuses. The college itself is huge and students take the bus to go to a different campus. They have shops and many stores where you can get food like subway or even a Starbucks too which was pretty cool to see. After showing us Livingston Campus we even had lunch at the one dining hall on that campus which was really delicious. She also took us to her dorm room at the end. After our visit at Rutgers we went home and got ready for the Farewell party we've all been waiting for. Well, not really actually. We had Mexican food which was really good, especially the guacamole. Herr Schmoll showed the whole group of students and parents videos that the American students had to edit for the party. They all turned out really good! Then we looked at some pictures of the exchange and many people already started tearing up a little bit. At some point many of us lost it and actually started crying. We managed to calm down a little bit eventually and went to Robbies House where we watched 'the Grinch' in his basement.

The whole day was packed with many emotions. I guess no one is really ready for tomorrow.

(Pia Damiani)

Our last day in New Brunswick began with a delicious breakfast at Omega's. Almost all of us were there and enjoyed the last hours together.

After that some of us went to Target to buy some American candy to bring home to Germany for their family and friends. When we had bought all the stuff we wanted, we went to see some friends we made that weren't part of the exchange. It was nice seeing them again to say goodbye. Then some of us went to Wendy's with them. As the time came to say goodbye we got a little sad already because we realized we really had to leave now. After some more stressful minutes of packing we went to the airport.

When saying goodbye to our American exchange families, almost all of us cried. It was really hard to say goodbye because we knew we may never see them again.

Our flight back to Frankfurt was on time so the journey home to Pforzheim went well and without any major problems.

(Yvonne Wöhr)