18th October - Meeting the principal 

This day was our first complete day in Oklahoma. After all of us got some sleep, we went to Norman North High School, our exchange partners' school. First our exchange partners took us to the German classroom, where we got the first instructions for our day from Dana Rex (the German teacher). After that we got to meet the principal, Dr. Kristi Gray, and some American students. Dr. Gray welcomed us at her school and said she was glad to meet all of us. 

After she had left, the students wanted us to get into groups of 3 to 5 people, so that they could give us tours through the high school. The first things we learned about were the Physics classrooms and the school's own news studio, which they use for spreading important information inside the school. We followed our tour guides through all the typical hallways and many different classrooms and could see that it looks exactly like in the movies set in high school with the lockers, the light, and the people there. It was interesting to see the center for the performing art, which is a big hall with a stage and many seats in it, the football field and the gym. The school in Oklahoma is much bigger than the DBG. It has about 2700 people in it and its spreads out over a huge area. The students there also taught us about their mascot, a wolf; you can find it everywhere in the school but mostly combined with the colors green and white (that are the official colors of Norman North High School). After an hour of walking around we went back to the German room for our exchange partners to pick us up. 

From there on, we were in the same classes they were in. Everyone has a different timetable, so the German students were separated into different classes. I went to Physics, German, Orchestra and World History. It was fun to compare the subjects in the USA with those in Germany, because we don’t have Orchestra, Choir or Drama as real classes. We were all stunned by the friendliness with which we were welcomed at school and had a great and fascinating time. 

After school finished, my exchange partner and I got picked up and we got some drinks for the drive to the Oklahoma State University (which is the college of my exchange partner's sister). We went there for the special homecoming everyone was working for. After getting there my American family and I went around campus and looked at all of the buildings and sorority houses. The week before homecoming, the students (especially the freshmen) needed to work on a kind of paper walls which you also could see there. The sister of my exchange also showed us around in her sorority house, which we all enjoyed very much. Everything of this was new to me because we don’t really have something in Germany we can compare homecoming to and seeing what college is like over here was a great experience. Having seen the whole campus, we decided to drive home. 

After a one-hour drive, we finally met the whole exchange group in the cinema. We planned on watching the Joker all together, so we had reserved tickets, and everything worked out great. Everybody had good seats and afterwards we talked about the film. After an incredibly long, eventful and truly magnificent day we all headed home and slept.

Comparing the USA to Germany everything on this day seemed a lot bigger than at home.