Irishtown-Summerside -
Raika Wernecke and Anne Kockmeyer love the cold and the snow, so they thought Newfoundland and Labrador would be a great place to spend the school year abroad.
The two German exchange students may have to wait a bit longer for the western Newfoundland winter to get into full swing, but will bide their time enjoying the new cultural experiences they have been taking in every day.
Wernecke, 16, is from Leichlingen, Germany and has been living with Amanda Murrin and Jamie Byrne in Irishtown-Summerside since September. Kockmeyer, 17, hails from Menden and has been residing with Mary Catherine Kawaja and Brian Sheppard since the start of the school year.
They are both studying Level 2 but attend different schools, with Wernecke enrolled at Templeton Academy in Meadows and Kockmeyer going to Corner Brook Regional High School.
Christmas was the latest experience which proved to be quite different than home for the girls. For instance, the traditional custom in Germany is for kids to open gifts on Christmas Eve instead of waiting, as they do in North America, for early Christmas Day morning.
"It was interesting to see how excited all the kids were and how they actually wanted to go to bed that night because they would open presents the next day," said Wernecke. "Most other days, they don't want to go to bed."
The other major difference surrounds the family dinner on Christmas Day.
"Everyone here has turkey," said Kockmeyer. "In Germany, everybody cooks something different on Christmas Day, whether it is duck or chicken or fish."
While Kockmeyer comes from a smaller family that does get together for Christmas, Wernecke's larger family is spread out all over the country and they try to get together about a week before Christmas Day for a big party.
The German observation of Christmas tends not to go as far beyond family as the North American celebration does, according to the exchange students.
"We don't go for visits so much," said Wernecke. "Here, we went from one house to the next and visit everyone. We might just go to our grandparents' house for supper or something like that, not house to house to visit everyone."
Long before Christmas arrived, one of the first cultural differences noticed by both Wernecke and Kockmeyer was the school system. In Germany, students may study as many as 11 courses and could finish classes at different times each day of the week. In Newfoundland and Labrador, they like how so many extracurricular activities are school-related.
"That there are so many clubs and things you can do at school besides school is something different here," said Wernecke. "In Germany, if you wanted to learn how to play an instrument, you would not do it at school."
The girls have also been involved in plenty of activities outside of school, including youth groups, art groups and outdoor pursuits groups. They have also been working with My Newfoundland Adventures, a local eco-tourism business, and have already done some winter rappelling off the Capt. James Cook National Historic Site overlooking Corner Brook.
They are now looking forward to the full onset of winter so they can go skiing, snowshoeing, snow-kiting, dog-sledding and snowmobiling.
"At the moment, I don't like the weather so much," said Wernecke, as she looked out the window at the pouring rain. "I hope for the snow to come."
