At the beginning I was scared and did not want to come here, because I did not want to let my family, my friends and my football team for a whole year. However, as you can imagine, I ended up accepting the situation and today I do not regret taking this decision.
I came here with my parents 5 days before starting the European Class (which is a project of the Städliches Stiftgymnasium Xanten), and they stayed with me one week. Maybe that week was for me the hardest one because I felt sad knowing that they would go and I would be here “alone”. But luckily I have a very warm and friendly hostfamily and that made everything easy.
We live in a town called Lüttingen which belongs to Xanten and it is 10 minutes away by bike from Xanten. I go every day biking to school with my hostbrother Bastian and his brother who was last year member of the European Class too.
In my class there are three foreign boys: a Bulgarian a Serbian and me. There are also four foreign girls: a Latvian, an Italian, a Turkish and a girl from Montenegro. There are two German students for each foreign student, so we are 21.
All the subjects are in English except for German and Physics (which was optional to choose). So far we have done three written exams (in English, Maths, and German) which have lasted for 90 minutes. Apart from that I also decided to join the “FCE” lessons which are a kind of preparation for the First Certificate Cambridge Exam and I think that they are very helpful.
Bastian plays football in SSV Lüttingen so I started playing football there too. I had to wait three matches until I could play, but now I have played three matches and I have scored two goals. I am very integrated in the group and they are all very friendly and nice. Most of them go to the same school so when I am in the school playground I am usually with them.
At home (San Sebastian) I play tennis and do athletics so I wanted to do so here. Fortunately some of my teammates play tennis or do athletics, and thanks to them I also do both activities here.
Another thing that I like is that we do a lot of actvities with the students in the European Class. For example next week we are going to go to Bonn from Monday to Thursday to know more about de European Union.
To summ it up I would say that so far, the European Class is being a greatful experience which I am enjoying and I hope that I will be able to say the same at the end of the year.
In the Last Photo I am with my two hostbrothers (in the right side Bastian and in the left side Yanick my second halfyear hostbrother)
Santiago Gabilondo (European Class scholarship, Xanten, Germany)