Matteo schiaretti - One Year in Charlotte, NC
Last year I lived away… I lived in the US.
When I was at the second year of high school I decided that I wanted to spend sometimes away from my city, my country, and even my continent. I wanted to learn and understand how is life somewhere else. So, when I was at my third year in high school I started to ask around and I found an association that give the opportunity to spend one year in another country. This association is Intercultura, or for the rest of the world, AFS. But it’s not as easy leave the country, I had to take a few tests, an interview with the volunteers and decide the place where I would have loved to go. So my first choice was New Zealand, but the only possibility was six months; I was not sure about it. I thought again about it and finally I changed my mind: my first pick became US, for one year, the second one was New Zealand, but only for six months, and the third one was Netherlands, for one year.
I had to wait for a long time, something like three or four months, and finally, sometimes around end of March, begin of April, I got a letter in the mail… it said that I was accepted for one year in the US. I was so excited! But here started a bunch of other things to do, like weekends away, meetings, and a lot of bureaucratic stuff to fill out.
Than the day came… was the 10th of August and was the last time I had seen my Italian family. But I was not scared, I was happy and I couldn’t wait to meet my new American family. I had to wait a pretty long time, I flew from Rome to London, than from London to New York, but due the weather we landed in Boston, we waited there a few hours and then took off again for New York. There I lost my other fly to Charlotte, and so I had to spend a night there and leave the day after. In this way, sometimes around the 14th of August I got to Charlotte, I spent one night there and then I met my new family.I was really tired, but I remember that moment perfectly: I saw my mom coming in from the door and I couldn’t even turn around that she was already hugging me. Was pretty cool. There I also met my dad, Michael, and my younger brother, Tanner. My mom name is Sabrina. At home there was my older brother, Sawyer. That day we stayed at home, in Charlotte. But the day after we were already heading to the mountains, to my grandma house, in Hendersonville. There I met my grandma, Mimi, and I discovered that one of my dad’s job was to grow a vineyard, right near my grandma house.
One week after I got there I started the school. I met a bunch of friends since the first day, and day after day I realized how easy the school in US is. I really felt like I was going back to elementary school, because teachers really help you and follow you in every single thing you do. They also don’t give too many homework and there are only multiple choices tests. The school is also divided in two semesters; you can take four classes for each semester. The first one I took a couple of easy class, as Physical Education Racquet Sports) and Drafting, and a couple of hard one, as Physics Honors and English III (American Literature). Than the second semester was just a little bit harder, I only had one easy class, Theatre, and the others were Chemistry, US History and Pre Calculus Honors.
As I said school has negative things, as the classes are easy, but at the same time there are also positive parts. The high school is only four year longs and the college is four year only too. So people get married at 24-25, as soon as they are out of college, they don’t live at home like in Italy until 30 or so. Another good thing is that high school doesn’t take too much time after school, and pretty much everybody work after it and use this money for gas, clothes and everything that is outside the house. In this way guys learn way quicker than us how to use money and how is working for real.
Sport is also a very important part in high school. Sports are almost as a job, because they take a lot of time; every day after school and sometimes the weekend too. While I was there I played three sports. During fall, as soon as I started the school, I run Cross Country. I had practice every day, from 3 to 5, in a park near the school. Then I had to take the bus, go back to school and walk home. During the whole fall I got back home pretty late, around 5.30 or so. And thinking that in my house supper time was around 6, was really late. I also use to come back home after dinner sometime, because I used to hang out with some friends after practice. In this way my American mom got mad really quickly, she talked with a volunteer of the association, and he told me that I had to change my way to live there or my mom would have send me out of the family. So I changed my routine, and I was going to practice and meetings still, but I wasn’t hanging out with my friends after that anymore.
Luckily fall went over pretty fast, and winter came. Cross Country was over and I started play rugby. I only had two practices a week and the game on Friday night or Saturday. I started to spend more time at home, and hanging out with my school friends. But sometime I also spent days at home, doing nothing all the day long. So I decided that I needed to start another sport. In February I decided to run, so I asked to the Cross Country coach, coach T, if I could run just three days a week instead of everyday because I was playing rugby still. So I did that until March, then I just run every day. 
For an Italian exchange student is pretty easy meet new friends, because as soon as someone heard where you come from, everybody want to meet you. In this way I met a group of friend at the begin of the school year, but a bunch of times I was too busy with sports, family and other stuff to hang out with them. Only at the end of the year, around the begin of May, I really started to hang out with them. I hung out pretty much every day with a couple of good friends, and every weekend we were doing something different with other friends. Then, the end of the school come, and I was out with my friends every day all the day long. I was not even sleeping at home anymore, a bunch of time I simply slept in someone else house. And my American mom gave up on keep up on what I was doing and where I was; just because were my last two weeks in the US. While I was there I went visiting some really nice place. I visited Atlanta, GA, for new year, than I went to Daytona Beach, in Florida, for spring break, and the week before leave I went on vacation with my family in an amazing house near the beach in Oak Island.
The 28th of June I left the US, and, with a very long trip, waiting two days in Washington, I got back home in Italy the 2nd of July.
The experience in the US was something really special. I learned another culture, another language. I met a bunch of people not only from the US, but from all over the world. Now I have another family. It’s really worth to go one year away because the whole bunch of stuff that you get back is priceless!!