Often the feeling of homesickness is overwhelming, even if you are only a short five minutes away. Imagine yearning for home, but home is thousands of miles away. For junior Mariette Esposito and sophomore Lucia Lopez-Montoto, this is a reality as they are spending the year as foreign exchange students here.
Ischia, Italy is a rough 5,703 miles away from Orange. This beautiful island is where Mariette Esposito is from. The things she misses the most about her hometown are her dog, family, and friends.
Esposito said the move to Orange was not as traumatic as she expected.
“I’ve loved everything since the first time here,” she said.
According to Esposito, her favorite part about LCM is attending the football games and playing soccer for the school.
“I immediately made friends,” Esposito said. “Everyone’s nice to me and asks me questions.”
Esposito said some of the most interesting things she has been a part of in America so far are mudding, LCM spirit week, and the huge grocery stores.
She has also had her fair share of culture shocks with the food and the weather. Esposito said she chose to be a foreign exchange student because she likes traveling.
“I’m thinking of leaving Italy, so this is an opportunity to know how life is out there,” she said.
Tarragona, Spain is 5,118 miles away from Orange. This beautiful city is where Lucia Lopez-Montoto is from. Montoto said that what she misses most from home are her family, friends, and her basketball team.
Montoto said she chose to be a foreign exchange student because she wanted to improve her English and experience American culture. She said her transition from Spain to Texas has not been what she expected it to be.
“It has been fun and easier than I thought it would be,” she said.
Montoto has had her own fair share of shocking experiences, some of which being the Homecoming week and pep rallies.
“I heard that they (Americans) take sports very seriously and it’s true,” she said, “We don’t have that in Spain.”
The most extreme culture shock that Montoto has experienced so far is the difference in dinner times. In Spain, she said dinner time is around 10:30 p.m. As for her experience as a student in Orange, she said it has been pleasant so far.
“All the students have been very kind to me, even if they didn’t know I’m a foreign exchange student,” she said.
