This is Sarina Streissl’s first time out of her native country, Austria, and her second week in Tucson. A new foreign exchange student, Sarina has been placed with a family and their 20-year-old son. Although she’s only been here for a short while, she’s already getting into American cuisine.  She really enjoys eating the pizza, she explained that “they do have pizza in Austria but the pizza here is really good.” Since she hasn’t been here too long, she hasn’t had a chance to go anywhere fun or experience new things. That is, except for this past weekend on Friday the 11th when she went skiing up in the White Mountains – something most Tucsonans have never done.  Sarina is used to the snow because it’s always snowing and very cold in Austria. Besides skiing, Sarina is also really into gymnastics, as you can see from her mid-air-split photo below.

Thinking about visiting Austria some day? One place she suggested going to is Zillertal, a valley in Tyrol, and a main point for skiing. She explains that Zillertal is a “very beautiful area to visit.” A food Sarina suggests someone should try while staying in Austria is “Kaiserschmarrn” a pancake sliced into little pieces with powdered sugar. She said they are “very good.”

The schools in Austria are a little different than the ones here in Tucson. The school Sarina goes to keeps them in one room all day while their teachers switch around to them. The students in Austria are taught how to speak English, but Sarina said it is “very different and hard when having to speak it regularly.” When Sarina came to Sahuaro she wasn’t nervous because students were nice and a few showed her to classes and

around the school. Sarina leaves back to her home on July 24th, but before then she hopes she can try many new

things.