The Connection

Ask Simon Kroger what surprised him when he first got to America, he laughs and says: “When the guy kept refilling my glass with soda and it was free.” He is going to miss that very un-European custom when he returns to Hamburg.

“When I came here, I thought it would be like Europe,” Kroger said about his arrival in Arlington last fall from Hamburg, Germany. “But it wasn’t at all like home in many ways.” Kroger, a 17-year-old exchange student at Yorktown High School, travelled here under the auspices of the Youth for Understanding (YFU) program. “For one thing,” he said, “People in the U.S. thank each other all the time. They talk openly to each other, even to total strangers who are standing in line at McDonalds. They are more social, more interactive. When I first got here, people were asking me: ‘What’s up?’ all the time and I thought I had to answer the question because they really wanted to know what I was doing.” Now he knows that’s just a conversation opener, not a request for information.

Simon catalogued the many differences between life as a student in Hamburg and life in Arlington. He noticed right away that people here dress differently — more casually — flip flops and shorts. He thought it odd at first because at the same time, Arlingtonians were clearly able to afford nicer clothes. Then he realized it wasn’t like Germany, where what you wear and how much effort you put into your hair matters more. There are no school sports in Hamburg; school is just for academics. Here, it is a large part of the school experience. Although Simon could not get on the soccer team here because the coach didn’t know him and exchange students aren’t often chosen, he managed to play Ultimate Frisbee and club ice hockey. He fell in love with the latter sport, especially being able to play at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Ballston. He wants to play it back home if he can. The fact that Arlington high schools have swimming pools amazed him, as did the well equipped gym and the library.

“The width of the streets, the bigness of everything, the greenery everywhere”, Kroger said, smiling, “When I got here last August, I felt as though I was in an American movie: it was just like on the big screen.”

Another major difference for Kroger was the intense school spirit he found at Yorktown. Here, students wear Yorktown sweatshirts and are proud of their school. He was amazed at the difference in youths’ attitude towards teachers. Arlington high school students are more respectful of teachers, and the profession is more valued than in Germany, where the teaching profession is viewed as “what you do when you can’t do anything else,” Kroger said. A large part of the reason, he thinks, for the respect students feel for teachers here, has to do with the way students are evaluated. Fifty percent of the grade in Germany is the “participation grade ” or how much you say in class. This opens the door to some students currying favor with teachers and being graded up for it. But at Yorktown, Kroger smiles, “Some kids just sat in the back of the classroom and said nothing: they weren’t given poor grades as long as they did the work.”

Kroger said he didn’t choose Arlington, but he is glad YFU chose it for him. He said he might not have enjoyed being out in rural Minnesota where there is no public transportation. Arlington offers both greenery and urban access. In Germany, he was free to go wherever he wanted: the subway and bicycle are the most common forms of transportation in Hamburg. He doesn’t ride his bike in Arlington because the bike paths don’t seem as safe as in Germany. He prefers the separation between road and bike path so that there is less risk of a driver hitting a cyclist. He isn’t even sure Americans are aware of cyclists the way they are in Germany, and noticed there were a lot of people who drove with cell phones to the ear and might not notice a bike.

Kroger said he felt lucky to be housed with his Arlington host family, the Flemings. He was impressed that his host mom, Alexa, was so easy to talk to and was at home a lot because she is a journalist. He learned to love rock music because of his host family. And the Flemings? They have hosted foreign students three times for a year, and four times on shorter mini-exchanges. Alexa Fleming said she believes her family gets as much from having a student live with them as he does. People ask her how she could bring another teenager into her house, as if it were odd … but for her family, living with these youths “has bumped us out of complacency. Simon brought something different to each member of the family and helped all of us look at things from different angles. We get way more from these kids than they get from us. They’re a gift we have given ourselves.” Her son Garrett says Kroger is like the brother he never had.

As for family customs, Kroger said in Germany you sit together every night and eat dinner together. Not so much in the U.S., where people’s schedules don’t always allow for that and one grabs dinner sitting on stools around the kitchen island. In Germany, he could stay out later and drink beer legally at age 16. Here, he is expected home earlier and isn’t allowed to drink. But that’s OK, he says. He doesn’t drink to get drunk like many American youths seem to do. That didn’t stop him from joining in the family debate mid-way through the year about how late the curfew should be … on the later side.

“So many Americans,” he said, “could benefit from doing the same thing because they don’t know much about life outside the USA. Personally, though, it’s also a bit of a reset. You can be whoever you want and grow as a person, because no one knows who you were back in Hamburg.” He for instance, played handball for seven years in Germany, but not at all here. It also gave him a great perspective on his country, and a more neutral view of both Americans and Germans, “without so many judgments.” His mother, who visited him last week after spending the year apart, noticed the difference in Simon immediately: he too became more outgoing as a result of his time in Arlington.

Kroger said his school in Arlington was a lot more diverse than in Germany, where there were some Turkish students and one African-German. That said, he said in the U.S. there was “a lot of buzz about blacks versus whites, especially during the time of the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri and ‘Black Lives Matter’ demonstrations. People talked about race more than they would have in Germany.” There is more separation here, he feels, between people of different ethnicities, with many cliques being ‘just Hispanic” or ’just Black.’”

There were many similarities between young Germans and young Americans: both play a lot of video games and enjoy XBox and PlayStation, but Americans are very interested in Twitter whereas Germans are more into WhatsApp. Everyone has a phone, but iPhones are more common here. Soccer is the most important sport in Hamburg, but here the stadium for a DC United game was barely 25 percent full. Food in Germany is more organic and whole grain, whereas here, it’s pretty unhealthy and might be genetically modified, which never happens in Germany.

Things he will take back to Hamburg? Love of hockey and rock music, more respect for teachers and social openness, lifetime friends with his host family. A couple of hockey sticks. A lot of great memories. His advice for exchange students: Definitely do a sport, stay busy all the time, and go to any events you can like concerts, sports events. Try new things. Push that reset button. Kroger’s picks for Arlington? Thai Noy Restaurant in Westover, Chipotle, Joe’s Pizza, McDonalds and …. refillable drinks.

To get involved in an exchange program see www.yfu.org.