Kristen Roberts can’t wait to experience the Danish lifestyle.By Cassie Maher
The 15yearold Berwick Secondary College student will soon find herself in a foreign country, living with a foreign family and attending a foreign school.
From January 16, Kristen will be calling Denmark home and living the Danish lifestyle.
As part of the Southern Cross Cultural Exchange, Kristen will live with a host family for five and a half months and participate in all things Danish, including school.
After attended a talk about the exchange program at her school, Kristen jumped at the chance to sign up for her first overseas experience.
She has been busily saving ever since, working after school at the Berwick Village Bakery to come up with half the $7000 needed to get her to Denmark.
As well as madly saving, Kristen has been busy taking on extra school subjects as the exchange program doesn’t count towards the school curriculum in Berwick, and she doesn’t want to fall behind.
So why Denmark?
“I heard it was a beautiful country,” Kristen said. “The program recommended a Scandinavian country as they have a great lifestyle and culture.”
Kristen’s mother Judy feels the trip will be a fantastic experience for her daughter, “Hopefully Kristen will develop a more mature attitude towards other cultures and people,” she said.
Judy is so positive about the exchange program that she and her husband John would be happy to take on an overseas student in their own home.
“We travel a lot though,” she said, “So it would have to be for a shorter period than the five and a half months Kristen will do.”
However excited she may be, Judy is still a mum. “We will miss her a lot,” she said.
Kristen is a little apprehensive about the trip although confident about what she hopes to gain from the experience. “I would like to become bilingual,” she said.
She has not yet been assigned a family to stay with in Denmark, but is optimistic that they will be friendly and that she will feel at home.
If not, Kristen is not too worried.
“If there is any type of ‘personality clash’, for me or the family, the program can just change you to somewhere else,” she said.
