Today is "Honor Cecile Day" for Maine West's foreign exchange student, Cecile Taymans.

Cecile is from Brussels, Belgium, where she attended a Catholic girls' school. Every year Cecile studied French, Dutch, English, German, Latin, Greek, geography, history, algebra, calculus, geometry, trigonometry, physics, chemistry, and religion.

Cecile attended classes six days a week, but she had Wednesday and Saturday afternoons off. She had a different schedule each day, and the teachers came to the class, instead of the students going to the teacher. This way, Cecile was with the same students every day.

After studying at Maine West for the year, Cecile will return to Brussels where she will attend the University. Cecile hasn't as yet decided what her major will be.

When asked her feelings about Maine West, Cecile replied, "I like Maine West very much. But it is hard to get to know the kids because there are different kids in every class."

Cecile feels it is easier to relax in the United States than in Belgium because of the more modern appliances here.

Cecile also added, "The teenagers in Belgium enjoy more the little things they have. There is no time for teenagers to work during the school year in Belgium because they have so much homework. Most of the teenagers will go the the University because it is necessary to have the diploma for most jobs.''

On weekends, the teenagers in Belgium all meet at various clubs where they see movies, dance, and hold discussions. Cecile added that the American teenagers seem older than European teenagers.

Television is much different here than it is in Belgium. They have no morning shows and very few commercials. They have fewer comedies in Belgium and more pictures in their news broadcasts. Cecile finds our commercials "very boring!" Most of their records come from France and England.

Cecile is staying with Barb Weaver '71 and her family.

Tom Peterson '70 spent two months in Waltrop, Germany, this last summer as part of the American Field Service program.

Waltrop is in the Upper Rhine­land of Germany about 100 miles from Holland.

Tom flew to New York and spent the night with 300 other AFS students from the United States. The next day Tom flew to Brussels, Belgium.

From Brussels, Tom took a train to Hamburg, Germany, where he stayed in a language camp for a week with other AFS students. Tom had two years of German at Maine West, but most of the students in the camp had never had any German.

Tom arrived in Waltrop the Fourth of July where his German family met him. Tom said, "I don't feel the AFS could have done any better in placing me with a family. They were just great. I had a brother 19, a sister 18, another brother 15, and a sister 10.

"My father was a bricklayer, my older brother worked for a newspaper, and my older sister was a dental assistant. Some days I would go to work with my father, and other days I would go to school. We would consider the family lower middle class. They had no car or telephone, and they shared their house with an older couple."

School was from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. six days a week. Tom was given the opportunity to teach English, U.S. history, physics, and math in school.

Tom said about the teenagers, "There's no real difference, except maybe in their drinking habits! Beer is the teenage drink because it's so much cheaper than coke. The drinking age is 16, and liquor is served at the parties the way we serve soft drinks. My German father was always trying to get me drunk!

"The German people don't drink anything with their meals, and most drink coffee instead of milk."

Just before he left, Tom went on a six‑day, 300‑mile bike trip across western Germany to the east‑west border. Tom arrived in the United States September 4.