Exchange student from Czech Republic in Texas: Homecoming

How to describe this event in one word? Awesome! But let’s move a little bit backward. What is Homecoming? It is a huge social event in American schools (you have homecoming in a high school and also in a college – and I will of course talk about high school homecoming). The main idea is to “come home” after graduation. So this event is for ex-students who already graduated and want see their old school, meet their former teachers, and very often this is time for some kind of class reunion. The second highlight of homecoming is building school spirit. We had this event after 3 weeks of school so everything was still strange before for me. During this week and after homecoming I have started to feel better about school. I finally know people in my school and know my way around the building. I think that homecoming enhanced school spirit for many new students and made us feel welcome.

Homecoming is celebrated for a week and I already wrote about the activities in my previous article (special dress themes, parade, pep rally) so I’ll move to the Friday (American) football game. This was my absolutely first football game ever so I was pretty excited. When we arrived to the Berry Center, I saw an outstanding facility. This stadium for high school games is simply something amazing. It has two floors and more than 12 000 seats! The design of the stadium is influenced by ancient (I think) architecture with arena seating. We played against Cy-Lakes HS. The crowd came out to enjoy the game and there were between 6-7k people on our side and approximately 500 Cy-Lakes fans. We wanted to win more than Cy-Lakes because it was our homecoming game! You simply can’t lose on your homecoming game!!! The first half ended 17:0 for Mustangs (Cy-Ranch). Each school had performances during half time. Cy-Lakes band and drill team were interesting to watch as they performed on the field. The Cy-Ranch performance was not exciting because their performance included an introduction of all the candidates for homecoming king and queen. In the second half, I walked around the stadium to meet and greet my friends. The Mustangs expanded their lead and won 32:2. After the game I finally learned the basic rules of American Football. I had a good time with Mark (my host-brother) and the other exchange students and their host-siblings.

Next day (Saturday) was the main day of homecoming. Before the homecoming dance you usually go to the dinner with your date or with a group of friends. Mark and I started the evening at 4pm. We put on suits and Glen drove us to dinner. I met with the group of exchange students and their siblings and Mark went to dinner with his friends. I had dinner at Cypress Grill Station and had a good time with great people. We also took a lot of pictures. (Melanie, our local coordinator, is crazy about taking photos). At 8pm we moved from the restaurant to the school for the Homecoming dance (the main part). Some students left us after dinner but almost everyone from my group was there. After a while our group joined Lauren (another exchange student’s host-sister) with her 3 friends. I also met some friends from school. We danced, took a lot of pictures (especially selfies), and had fun at school till 11pm. I learned what a special social event homecoming is for all of the students. After 11pm we moved to Denny’s and continued our celebration. We had breakfast there. For me calling my midnight meal “breakfast” was a little bit weird.. :D Between 1-2am our group dissolved. I got home after 2am totally tired but excited that I had such a great time! Homecoming was the best event with friends so far :)

Berry center

HIGH SCHOOL GAME

GO MUSTANGS!

Cy-Lakes band

Cy-Ranch band and classic

Almost final score

Our group

Me and my brother!!!

My and Ben (from Germany)

All group of exchange students
Boys (left): Tim (Netherland) Alex (Italy), Ben (Germany), Me (CZECH REPUBLIC), Jefrey (Taiwan), Gabriel (Brasil)
Girls (left): Henriette (Norway), Betina (Denmark), Paloma (Brasil), Susanne (Germany)