OLD ORCHARD BEACH — Instead of walking the halls of Old Orchard Beach High School, graduating senior Cierra Albert has spent the past year in another country immersing herself in another culture.

Albert is spending a year with a host family in Krassolzheim, Germany, through Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange, a scholarship program jointly funded and administered by the governments of the United States and Germany.

Albert traveled to Germany in early August last year and will be there until July 6.

In a telephone conversation earlier this week through online communication service WhatsApp, Albert said when she came to Germany she spent her first month in the country in Hamburg at an intensive language school. She opted not to use a tutor, and though she found many people know English, she asked them to speak in German to help her learn.

“I came to Germany not knowing the language and now I have a good level of fluency and feel comfortable speaking the language,” she said.

Though Albert hadn’t initially planned on going to Germany, she’s known for a long time that she wanted to study abroad. In preparation for her year abroad, she had to arrange her schedule so that she could get the necessary credits to graduate on time from Old Orchard Beach High School, Albert planned her classes carefully and took a social studies class last summer. She has also taken an English class online while in Germany in addition to a full load of classes at a local high school where she is staying.

“Looking back on that, it’s a little crazy,” she said, but studying abroad was a dream of hers. It will also be good preparation for the future, as she plans to go to college in the fall and study international relations.

Although Albert is auditing the classes in Germany, she is still doing homework and taking tests so that she can learn as much as she can. One class that she found particularly interesting was a political class.

Albert has also been keeping busy with extra-curricular activities. She had her mother send her clarinet and has been playing in the school band. She has continued some of her other hobbies including singing and running and also decided to do something new and took a dance class.

Although much of life in Germany is different from life in the Untied States, there have been a few things about the experience that have reminded her of home in Maine, said Albert, like the small village she is staying in and the small school system which has about 650 students in grades five through 12. At school, she has gotten to know some of the younger students after giving a presentation to the sixth grade.

She has become very close to her host family, Albert said, and quickly became a member of the household, where she has a host sister who is 18 and a host brother who is 15. She said her host family owns a vineyard and she got to help with the grape harvest.

“It was really special that I got to experience that,” she said.

She went on a ski trip to Austria with her host family. Without ever skiing or snowboarding before, she learned how to snowboard.

“There were huge mountains that made Sugarloaf look tiny. I’m really excited to take this skill back to Maine,” said Albert.

She’s also been able to try new foods, like potato pasta called spatzle and crouton -filled potato dumplings. Other foods that stand out are pretzels and bread.

“The bread is amazing here. It’s literally the best thing in the world,” said Albert.

Though the food has been delicious, she does miss burritos, she said.

And most of all, she misses her family and friends. She has not been able to go home over the past year due to the program rules, though her family has visited her.

Albert said one of the things she had to prepare herself for was not participating in her high school graduation and celebrate all her hard-earned achievements with her friends. She said her mother will be accepting her diploma for her at Sunday’s ceremony and she will go out to pizza with her host family.

Albert said she’s had an amazing year full of great experiences but she is looking forward to coming home later this summer.

“Home is home, no matter where you are in the world,” she said.

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be reached at 780-9015 or by email at egotthelf@journaltribune.com.

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