Thursday, September 25, Day 13

I started my day as usual with a coffee to go. The American coffee honestly isn’t the best I’ve ever had, but my host mom gets up every morning to bring me one from the nearest coffee shop. That small act of kindness always makes my day. Once, during my stay here in Wakefield, my host sister took me to an event where we had to get up at 4 in the morning and even then, my host mom went to get me coffee. By now, I’ve kind of grown to like that coffee anyway, and I know I’ll miss it.

The weather didn’t really cooperate today. We had actually planned to do the historical Black Heritage Trail tour, but it poured really heavily. Our teachers realized that the weather had kind of ruined the experience for many of us, so they came up with a solution: those who really wanted to do the tour could still go, but there was also the option to head to a coffee shop to warm up for a while. I was completely soaked, so I sadly passed on the tour and went to Dunkin’ Donuts instead. We got some more coffee, hash browns, and bagels, which I’ve become a huge fan of since the start of my visit.

After we had warmed up for a little while, we went to the Museum of African American History. There, we learned about the history of Boston’s Black community, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries. It was fascinating to hear about the role the city played in the fight against slavery and how important places like the African Meeting House were for abolitionists and for building a strong community. One of the highlights of the visit was an AI version of Frederick Douglass that you could actually ask questions to. He would respond with answers based on his speeches and writings, which made it feel like you were really having a conversation with him. It was such an interesting and creative way to connect with history, and it made me think about how powerful his words still are today. Overall, the museum gave me a much deeper understanding of African American history in Boston, and I’m really glad we got to experience it.

We went back to Wakefield a little earlier than originally planned because the weather was still pretty unpleasant, and our host families picked us up. In the afternoon, I had made plans with my friends to visit a place my host sister had recommended called Jordan’s. It’s honestly a bit difficult to describe. At its core, it’s a furniture store, but there’s so much more going on there that it almost felt surreal. Besides all the furniture, there was even a movie theater and a ropes course inside, which is such an unusual combination for me. To top it off, there was also an amazing ice cream shop where I tried a delicious ice cream sandwich. I really enjoyed the whole experience. Even though the weather wasn’t great today, we managed to make the best of it, and the day still turned out to be really fun.

 

Wednesday, September 24, Day 12, Entry 1

We started our journey at Boston harbor at 10 a.m. where and when we boarded the whale watching boat. To reach the area where whales could be observed, we had to ride the boat for one and a half hours. Sometimes, the sea was a little bumpy.

Then, finally, a humpback whale appeared out of the water. And then there were more.   

Most people gathered at the railing to capture that moment with their smartphones or simply witness the whale with their own eyes. We saw the whales feeding. To do this, the whales had to come to the water surface to catch some air, so many pictures could be taken.

Based on the patterns on their skin, the whales can be identified individually. Minke as well as fin whales also made their short appearance. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take a picture of them.

After four hours of being on the whale watching tour, we had some free time, which we spent exploring the city of Boston.

 Tuesday, September 24, Day 12, Entry 2

      

Today started a bit gloomy because it was raining, so the mood wasn’t very high. But deep down we were excited anyway, because on our weekly schedule it said we were going whale watching.

When we arrived at the harbor, we saw some seals swimming in a tub. They were really cute. Before getting on the boat, our teacher gave us motion sickness pills. After we took them, almost everyone became drowsy and some even started napping, bent over the tables. 

After about an hour on the ocean, we finally saw the whales. They were eating and diving, and it was really amazing to watch. The rain didn’t stop us from enjoying this incredible moment.

In the evening we had dinner at Dave’s Hot Chicken, which our host parents recommended. It was very spicy but also very delicious. It was a perfect way to finish this rainy day in Boston.

    

Tuesday, September 23, Day 11

Today we went on a trip to Plimoth. Our way to the museum was very special, because we rode there and back on a typical American school bus. It was an interesting experience. The bus was very loud, and it was kind of scary because there weren’t any seatbelts and the ride was very bumpy.

 

Eventually, after a longer ride than expected due to traffic, we arrived at the Plimoth Patuxet Museum. We got to see how the Wampanoag and the early English settlers lived and how they got along. The accent of the English people was funny to listen to, and it was interesting how they pronounced certain words. Some Swiss students got to take part in a marching exercise with some of the actors on the site. They did a great job and got the hang of marching quickly. Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic again on our way home.

 

In the afternoon, my friends and I went to Wingaersheek Beach. We had a little picnic and even went for a short swim. The water was so nice and refreshing. After our dip in the water, we immediately changed into warm clothes and headed back home to enjoy a delicious dinner.

Monday, September 22, Day 10 

Today was a day I have been looking forward to for quite a while. Harvard day! Walking through the gates and entering the campus felt surreal. I think we all felt excitement as we tried to take it all in while walking around the grounds. The red brick buildings were all very impressive and beautiful.  We got shown around by a man who had studied at Harvard more than fifty years ago. He had some very interesting things to say. 

 

.      


For lunch we were joined by a special guest, a previous student of Mrs. Stefanovic', who is doing part of her master's at Harvard. It seems crazy to us that someone who went to Gymnasium Leonhard has managed to make their way into Harvard. She explained to us how she applied, told us about her business and law course and what her thoughts were on the different universities she has attended. We all listened eagerly and she was then asked many questions by us. I think the conversation left us all thinking about our future and maybe also inspired some us. In these pictures you can see some students manifesting their return to Harvard. 

 

          

Our last stop in Harvard was the Harvard Museum of Natural History. We visited an exhibition of flowers made completely out of glass. They were made so that people at Harvard could use them to study and do research on flowers. The flowers looked so real and it is hard to imagine how much time and skill was used to produce these replicas that can easily be mistaken for the actual plants. 

To end the day, me and some of my friends went to a mall, for a proper American experience. We didn't buy much but it was fun looking around and trying on silly things. We also tried some cinnamon pretzel bites, which were delicious.

  

 Saturday and Sunday, September 20/21, Day 8 and 9, entry 1

We got the chance to sleep in today, which was very nice because we had to get up pretty early throughout the whole week, and we didn’t feel any jetlag anymore. Unlike on weekdays, we had a large and stress-free breakfast.

After breakfast, we went to the Galvin Middle School to play basketball and soccer. Today was actually the first time getting somewhere on bike, and I thought it was a cool alternative to getting dropped off every day. At 2 p.m. we got lunch at an Asian restaurant in downtown Wakefield. 

We then had to head back home as we had planned to go to an amusement park called Cannobie Lake Park. The park is located in the state of New Hampshire, so it took us about 30 minutes to get to the scream fest. We had a lot of fun, and I thought that the park displayed a great mix of a Halloween theme and rollercoasters. At 11 p.m. the park closed, so we headed back home and went straight to bed.

Entry 2

  

This weekend was really nice. On Saturday, we had brunch at a typical American diner, the kind I had only ever seen in movies or TV shows. That made it a pretty cool experience.

Afterwards, we prepared and decorated the house because our host parents had planned a “fiesta.” They are from Guatemala and Chile, and since both countries had just celebrated their Independence Day a few days earlier, it turned into a family gathering. There was music, lots of delicious food, and overall it was a really good time. To end the evening, we watched the live concert of the Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny, who is really popular worldwide, on TV. 

On Sunday, Ada and I went shopping with our host brother and our friend Alice. His mother is so sweet, she drives us everywhere we want to go. We went to Cambridge and visited a thrift store called “The Garment District”. It’s a pretty big store with lots of great second-hand clothes. Ada and I bought Levi’s jeans that looked practically brand new. After thrifting for quite a while, we walked to Boston and spent some time there before our host mom picked us up. 

Finally, we went to the beach with our friends to watch the sunset and have dinner together. It got late, so we headed back home since we all had to wake up early the next day to start our second week here in the Boston area.

Entry 3

Today is Sunday, September 21, 2025 and I had to wake up at 4:45 in the morning to go to Senior Sunrise. We went to the beach to see the sun rise and took some fabulous pictures. For me this was really special because even though it wasn‘t a mandatory school event most of the Seniors showed up and had a good time together, which I think would be different in Switzerland.

At noon, Nelia and her host sister‘s family picked me up to go to Gloucester. I fell asleep in the car because I was so tired from my early morning but it was definitely worth it. It was a beautiful beach with a good view on the ocean. We were reading and enjoying the ocean breeze even if it was a little chilly. It made me sad that we don’t have anything like that in Switzerland. But maybe it makes the whole thing more special. My host sister came to pick me up after ,work and we got ice cream at her favorite place where she used to work. When my host sister and me drove home in the evening. she told me that she is so used to having a beach near by and that she couldn’t believe how special it was for me.

In the evening, we made a fire in her garden to make S’mores. It was actually my first time eating a real S‘more and I was very excited about it. They tasted delicious even though I burned my marshmallow. 

Entry 4

The weekend was finally here! I had been looking forward to it the whole week because I knew that we (my hostsister, her bestfriend and her exchange student) were going to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The father of the bestfriend was driving us through the beautiful fall-landscape of New England. When we arrived, I was impressed by the huge museum. When we entered we couldn‘t decide where to go first because there was that much to see.

The museum seems to be organised differently than for example the art museum in Basel, because it is organized not necessarily by era or style but by galleries, meaning by the owner of the art pieces shown in that gallery. That meant that you could find a Noguchi sculpture almost right next to a painting from the 18th century. What I liked the most was „the little dancer of fourteen years“ statue, which you can see in the picture.

After we had a delicious lunch we went to downtown Wakefield to get ice cream in a really old ice cream shop, which looked like one you could see in the movies.

 

In the evening we went to a party of friends of my host family's, we had a lot of good food and were playing some fusball, ping pong and billiard in the basement.

On Sunday, I had a rather chill morning, just reading and falling asleep again, because this whole week was despite (or because of!) all the exciting things we did, really tiring. In the afternoon, we went to the Garment District, which is a huge secondhand store. In the evening, we cooked dinner together and went to bed early to be ready for another exciting week.

 Friday, September 19, Day 7

It takes our class about 40min, including grabbing some coffee and a short bathroom stop to get from Wakefield to Boston. That’s how we do it every morning and that's how we did it today as well. But that, of course, was not our highlight of the day.

After a ride on the T and the bus, we arrived at JFK library where we ate lunch with a beautiful view of the ocean in perfect weather and then entered the amazing building and looked at the exhibition.

After visiting the musuem, we walked along the shore to get to the next metro station, took a group photo and spent the next 1.5h walking through Boston individually. I bought a shirt, saw a Raising Cane restaurant, sat in a park and finally went into a Target before taking the train back to Wakefield. 

After a short break at home, we finally went to an American football game! Even if I didn’t really get the rules; to me it just looked like a few teenage boys fighting with each other and one of the players even got hurt. “If we go down then we go down together” is the motto here so all the other players knelt down out of respect until the injured player stood up again. But the atmosphere at the game was great and there were cheerleaders and dancers which made the whole experience feel like a scene straight out of a Highschool movie.

Thursday, September 18, Day 6

Today, September 18th, we boarded the Commuter Rail (of course after our daily stop at Dunkin' Donuts) into Boston again, this time without our American hosts. The plan for the day was to explore the Freedom Trail. In Boston Common, where we started the tour, we saw a squirrel with no tail (I think that probably was my highlight of the day). I really like that there are so many squirrels here in Boston. For the people here this seems normal, but I get happy every time I see one.

      

We started walking along the Freedom Trail and learned a lot of new facts about American history. We walked a lot and saw many different parts of Boston. At the end, we even climbed the Bunker Hill Monument. The climb was really exhausting, but at least (and at last) we got a nice view of Boston at the top.

For lunch, we went to a place called Sweetgreen. I can recommend this restaurant to everyone. We actually went there the other day as well. They have a big variety of salad ingredients that you can choose from.

Wednesday, September 17, Day 5

Today we started the day by visiting the State House in Boston. 'We' meaning both the American and the Swiss students together.  The big golden dome was really impressive and it made me think of our State House in Bern. It felt special to walk around such an important building. One of the most impressive parts of the building was the Hall of Flags: There are 351 all in all, each representing Massachusetts`cities and towns (it took us a while to find Wakefield). 

In the afternoon, we went on the Duck Tour. It was fun driving through the city and then suddenly going into the water with the same vehicle. The tour guide was super loud the whole time, which was kind of strange but also made us laugh. After the tour, we stayed in Boston for a while, just walking around and enjoying the city. The mix of old streets and busy life gave it a nice vibe. Overall, it was a fun and interesting day with lots of little moments to remember.

 

Tuesday, September 16, Day 4,  Entry 1

Today was our second, and last day at Wakefield Memorial High School. I spent the day shadowing another WMHS student and went to all their classes. This way, I got to attend different classes than yesterday, such as culinary and algebra which were very interesting and different to the classes we have in Switzerland. During our free period we toured the school, which was something that I didn't get the chance to do yesterday. During that period we also went to the school gym and learned how to throw a football! On the picture, we were in Spanish class playing Kahoot reviewing a topic that they had started that week. In every classroom, they have the American flag hanging on the wall; every morning during the pledge of allegiance they stand up and face the flag to show respect to the people who fought in the military.

After school, I rode the yellow school bus for the first time. I couldn't believe that it looked exactly like I had seen it in the movies. On the way home, my host sister explained to me that the school bus driver is very spontaneous with the routes that he takes; he never takes the same route, but at least he stops everywhere that he needs to. The experience of riding the bus was very interesting since the driver seemed to be having problems with the gas because he was driving very funnily. The bus itself was very loud and there were a lot of younger high schoolers, who were all chatting very loudly and moving around. The seats were surprisingly narrow and you didn't have a lot of leg room, but it was so much fun to have this authentic American experience.

In the afternoon, my host sister, another student and I walked downtown to look at the town. We went to Wakefield library, which is quite old, but really beautiful. The antique building was built by an architect from Boston called Bulfinch, who is also the architect of the state house, which we are visting tomorrow (I also learned a lot about the history of Wakefield from my host mom!) The town of Wakefield isn't very big, but it's incredibly charming. After that, we went to a rather popular and very cute thrift shop in town. There were some nice pieces, but they were rather expensive. Later, we all grabbed coffee at Dunkin Donuts and the sizes were almost double the size of what we consider "normal".

 

Entry 2

The first picture I chose was of the street near my house on the way to school, where you can see a school bus driving by. I had never seen a school bus before. I guess, in all the American movies that I have seen, they never showed any of these buses, they must not have fit into the storyline. Frankly, I quite like them. I also loved the way the street looked that morning and, of course, I felt excited about going to an American highschool.

I met friends of mine in one or two subjects. We had astronomy and criminal psychology together, which were actually pretty interesting subjects, to say the least. As long as it’s not math, it’s fine. The teachers were nice and the stuff we were doing was cool. In the second subject mentioned, we looked at our fingerprints and looked at the anomalies of each one and compared them to other people’s fingerprints. The astronomy teacher was actually looking at the camera there, probably wondering why I had my phone out.

 

We had art class, and the teacher was actually a really nice guy. He talked to the students like he was part of the group. I obviously didn’t have any real work to do in that class, so I just copied stuff off Pinterest. Great stuff, Pinterest. The teacher didn’t mind me working on other stuff in class and even complimented my sketches.

I love cats. And the family I am staying with has two of them. So here’s a picture of one. They are actually indoor cats. That means that they don’t go outside at all, which may come off as cruel, but is for their own safety. They are Siamese and we live right next to a crossroad. They do love their food and occasionally come to wake me up in the middle of the night because we have the audacity of ignoring them in their time of immense boredom.

One of the things the family wanted me to see was an arcade, but it was closed. Still, it was a nice idea. Maybe next time. So, we had tacos instead. And this might be weird, but—I’ve never had tacos before, so that was nice.

I’m really loving America so far! The food and the people are great, and I’m excited for the days ahead.