Robert : First, it was hard to get used to the american pronunciation. I needed about one month to get used to it and understand better. Then, after 2 or 3 months, I got pretty homesick. But I have a great host-family to help me to handle it.
I : What are the things that surprised you the most about Dublin ?
R : It was pretty much different than what I expected. For example, I thought the town in itself would be more "compact", or in other words, less spread out(nothing was in walking distance). That can explained by how much they use their car. There are also an incredible amount of drive-thru fast-food businesses, bank, grocery store, ... That was pretty awesome ! The weather was also quite different than what I expected ( I didn't think it would get so hot)
I : How was school different from school in France ?
It was really different ! I was mainly surprised about the way the class-rooms looked. These little bitty individual tables, the absence of windows, the speakers in each room, the daily schedule, the small number of courses you take(4), the school-food, the guards in the hall, all the pictures and stuffs hanging on the wall of the class-rooms, the sport (you choose if you want to do it or not, and you choose whatever sport you want to do), the sport teams of the school (Raiders) (we don't have any specific team for our school in France, you just have to take sport, and you do a lot of different ones, according to what the sport-teacher tell you to do : basket-ball, soccer, swimming, javelin, discus, running, volley-ball, hand-ball, high-jump, length-jump, etc ...), well, here are some difference with my french school.
I : What were your favorite activities here ?
R : Well, I enjoyed a lot visiting interesting sites and towns of Georgia with my host family. I went in Okefenokee Swamp, Macon (mall, restaurants, indian mounts, movies, batting cage, ...) ), Atlanta (Underground, Coke museum, Braves game ...), Savannah (River Street), Perry (rodeo), Hawkinsville (harness race), Americus (fishing), ... I played Baseball a lot with my host-brothers. In France, the most popular sport is undoubty soccer, we don't play Baseball over there. I also discovered this wonderful sport here and, as a matter of fact, I quickly became a fan of it ! I swam pretty often in my host-family swimming pool too. It is neat to have a swimming pool with a weather like you have in Georgia !
I : What were the most valuable things you learned while you were here ?
I think this experience gave me the opportunity to improve english skill a lot, and to discover the south-american culture. I also learned a lot of slang, but it ain't that valuable !
I : How did technology help you in your exchange ?
R : I was glad to be able to use the Internet at home and at school, to communicate with my family by sending E-Mail. This is really cheaper than if I would have to call them in France !
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