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What's so different between The United States and a small country in another continent???
By Siranush Aghekyan
Jan 2, 2007, 10:29

I'm Siranush Aghekyan, an exchange student from Armenia, and I will be sharing the differences between my country and The United States.

At first when I arrived here I was very happy, because I found out that I don't have to sit at the table and eat the soups. And believe me, at home sometimes I had to spend more than an hour eating dinner!!! Here I realized that family dinners together are very seldom and formal, while in Armenia it is one of the most usual things.

 The second thing that I was surprised by is the fast food drive thrus that are very popular in America. It will sound weird because before I came here, I've seen those only in the movies! And besides everything tastes different here, even water!

The third thing that I was very surprised with is that my host sister is 17 and she drives. In Armenia a person has to be 18 or older to get a driver's license. Then I realized that the teenagers have to have a car to be able to go somewhere alone or with friends. In Armenia you can always call and order a taxi or use a public transportation. It won't cost you more that $5 and you can go anywhere you want!!! Here, in Ohio I haven't seen many buses or taxies, so I understand that without cars the students had to be driven by their parents or someone older, which is very uncomfortable, because people have to work! Sometimes I feel concerned about the fact that I cannot drive. I don't feel ready, and then I realize that the schedule is not the only cause of getting a driver's license at 16. The roads here seem much wider because the traffic is not so heavy, as I am used to seeing. In my country people are able to walk to the shops and malls: here the distances are much longer. Maybe if those things were the same in both countries, the laws would be the same too.

And then I go to school. I realize that I have to move between my classes and in addition I only have three minutes to change my sets of class supplies, and I can't be late!!! In Armenian schools you go to your first class and stay there until the end of the school day. Each teacher enters the classroom, teaches for 45 minutes and goes to their next class. We had four, 5 minute breaks and two, 10 minute ones. We had only 6 classes a day, and our school days are shorter. At first it was very hard to adjust. At the end of the school day I was so tired that I could sleep the rest of the day, but I had homework to do. In Armenia we didn't have each class every day, our schedule changed daily, and some of the classes are even once a week, and so we learn 17 or more classes each week. We go to school only for 10 years and graduate from school at the age of 16.

Yes, it was hard but now I can say that I belong to this life routine, and I am having a great experience in this big country.