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ALOTOFINDEPENDENCE.”
BEST MOMENT: Teddy and five SYA classmates registered for the town basketball tournament in Zaragoza. For uniforms, they wrote their names on their SYA t-shirts, and about 30 classmates showed up to cheer them on. The Americans took the Spanish players to school.
After SYA, Teddy took a gap year in 2020 before starting at Princeton University. He taught English in Quepos, Costa Rica and Antigua, Guatemala. After a volunteer stint with Polish Humanitarian Action on the Ukrainian border, Teddy met up with an SYA buddy in Spain on his return journey. At Princeton, Teddy is studying Public and International Affairs.
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RENNES, FRANCE
KEEVAN
KEARNS ’23
KEEVAN’S TAKEAWAYS: Keevan learned how to attend to many “adult” tasks that her parents used to handle for her. She also found that life in Rennes is much slower-paced and more focused on pleasure than work. Keevan’s host family was shocked at how many work/family commitments her parents juggle. “There are a lot of cultural differences,” Keevan said. “But that was the thing I appreciated most—the chance to live through a new perspective.”
BEST MOMENT: Keevan played on a local women’s soccer team in Rennes. It helped improve her language (and soccer) skills immensely, as she was the only American on the team. As the team wrapped up the season, the players gathered for an all-day cookout in the park and played games with local neighborhood kids. That was when she felt most at home in France.
TOP TAKEAWAYS: Days off were spent at a host grandma’s vineyard, a church older than any building in North America, and even a 10-day trip to Sicily. Nell and Sofia agree that the bonds and friendships formed are precious. Nell calls her host family every other day for chats (exclusively in Italian), and Sofia visited her host family during a recent school break.
BEST MOMENTS: For Sofia, it was the three-hour luncheon by the beach in Salerno with her host cousins and other extended family members. Nell loved dashing down a coastal trail from the hilltop town of Taormina to catch a train in Sicily.
