It’s been my dream to study in the U.S. ever since I was a little kid. My dad and uncle both studied here and told me stories about how fun it was for them. I really am so thankful to be here. 

The process of getting to Iowa was a lot. Back at home, in Latvia, I applied to be a foreign exchange student on a website called “Flex.” I had to write three essays and then do doctor’s check-ups, fill out papers, get a recommendation letter from my teachers, and do an interview. There were multiple stages of this, and I had to write five essays in total. 

Traveling to the U.S. was also a long process. I had 4 flights: from Latvia to Germany, Germany to D.C., D.C. to Chicago, and Chicago to Iowa. We had a lot of layovers so we spent over 30 hours traveling. I traveled with a friend from home, a foreign exchange student at Ankeny who I stay in contact with.

A big difference between Latvia and America is that everyone’s super friendly here. Everyone’s like, “Hey, how’s your day?” Where I’m from, no one really does small talk. Another huge difference is how young kids can drive here. In Latvia, you start driving with a parent at 16 and by yourself at 18. I think that driving younger is great; I wish we had that in Latvia. 

Schools here are completely different than they are at home, so that’s taken some getting used to. In Latvia, you go to school with the same 30 people for nine years, which is elementary through middle school. When you finish middle school, you have to apply to get into a high school. Sometimes it’s hard to get into a high school; some kids don’t even get accepted. I went to Gymnasium, which is a more advanced school that has a lot of math. Other schools do more handwork, so they’re looking for people who know how to do that stuff. 

I’m involved in several activities here at ADM. I play volleyball and want to play tennis in the spring. I’m also joining speech. Latvia has some after-school activities, but it’s not that common for kids to join them because we really just focus on school. School ends at 4:15 and then we go home and do homework.

Through this experience, I guess I want to become more independent. I’ve always had my family to help me and now I’m doing everything alone. I try to stay in contact with my family but it’s hard because of the eight-hour time difference. When I get home from school, they’re sleeping, so I can only really talk to them on weekends. I also want to improve my English during my time here. 

So far, I’ve liked this experience a lot. My host family’s amazing and I honestly haven’t gotten homesick at all even though I’ve already been here two months. I’m not really looking forward to going back to Latvia. I like it here.