Giulia LaRosa, 17, is here from Italy and said that Christmas is not so different from back home.

“Christmas doesn’t really change much, the food is different,” LaRosa said.

LaRosa said that Santa is called Babbo Natale and he does not bring candy, only presents.

“An old woman, like a hag, brings candy and puts it in stockings,” LaRosa said. “Her name is Befana.”

News Photo by Barbara Woodham Foreign exchange students at Alpena High School point out where they come from on a hall map at Alpena High School. Pictured left to right are Francisco Ferreira, Franciska Treiliha, and Giulia LaRosa.

LaRosa said this happens on Jan. 6 for the feast of Epiphany.

Todd and Jenny Poli took LaRosa into their home for the year. LaRosa is happy there and participates in aerial silk dancing at the APlex.

“My mom was an exchange student, too,” LaRosa said. “I kind of grew up listening to her experiences of her exchange year and I thought it was fascinating. I came here to better learn English and also, make a new experience and a new adventure and meet up with new culture and traditions.”

Franciska Treiliha, 17, is here from Latvia. She agrees with LaRosa that Christmas is Christmas all over the world, but also agreed that the food is different.

“Christmas is pretty much the same,” Treiliha said. “It is called Ziemassvetku.”

Treiliha said that Santa’s name is Vecitis in Latvia.

Lori Vought, APS counselor and foreign exchange student coordinator said that she has placed 30-plus students with families over the past 10 years and is always looking for new families getting involved.

Vought said host families don’t have to do fancy, expensive things with the students. They are happy to experience small town American life.

“It’s not like Hollywood,” Vought said that she tells the students. “It’s not what you see in the movies. It’s just normal people living their everyday life. You, as a student, are meant to fit into that ordinary life, not the other way around.”

Treiliha’s host family is Shawn and Cory Lancasster and she is really enjoying her stay in Alpena.

“I have to do some stuff for my school back home, but I have to do less than my classmates,” Treiliha said.

Both LaRosa and Treiliha said that school in America is very different from school in their countries.

“Your teachers are like friends here,” LaRosa said. “You can joke with them and say whatever you want to them. Our school is much stricter.”

“You come in, you sit down, you do your work and you leave,” Treiliha said. “It is a very different atmosphere.”

The girls said that before they came here they thought of America as a dream where everything is perfect. Now they realize that it is not. Americans have the same struggles in everyday life.

“It’s certainly entertaining,” Treiliha said.

Vought said that she works with the International Student Exchange Program and that she makes sure that the host families have, not only, the financial means to take in a new family member, but also the emotional ability to add another person to their family for a year.

“We do a careful screening of the families and try to put them into homes that will be a good fit,” Vought said.

Francisco Ferreira is from Portugal and is 18 years old. He has already graduated in Portugal.

“I am in a gap year,” Ferreira said.

Ferreira said that he has been to America once before. He visited New York.

Even though Ferreira said that he is enjoying Alpena and the high school and his family, Tami Halkias and Shirley Weaver, he is in love with big city life.

Vought said that she has very rarely had to make adjustments and the families and students have usually done very well.

All of the exchange students will participate in the APS graduation ceremony this spring and will receive certificates of completion.

According to Vought, the students will get to participate in all of the senior year festivities for the social aspect of the experience.

“The American Government commits to the idea that if a student from any country comes over here and has a positive experience in America that it increases diplomacy throughout the world because that student goes back to their own country with good news about America,” Vought explained.