Melbourne Grammar School 2018

Before we begin, we would like to extend our gratitude to the Whitson Family as well as Mr. Gioia and the school for providing us with this opportunity to experience international exchange. Our trip to Melbourne Grammar School in Melbourne, Australia was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and we cannot put into words how grateful we are.

Arrival and Week 1 (Luke): Joseph Perazzini and I (Luke Bernatavitz) left for Melbourne, Australia on June 11 and arrived on June 13. After many hours of travel, we were both exhausted. Our host families met us in the airport, and we went our separate ways. For the first few days, our host families allowed us to relax and prepare for school the next week. Our host brothers, Aran and Lochie, took us into Melbourne to show us around the city. The day before school began, we both visited the uniform shop to receive our school attire. The first day of school began with meeting members of our houses. Joseph was a member of Ross House and I was in Witherby House. We shadowed our brothers for a day or two until we had personal time tables. Everyone was extremely welcoming and helpful in making us feel welcome during our first week at Melbourne Grammar School. Our families also bought tickets to a P!nk concert and Lochie's family took us to see Kangaroos in the wild. Following that,we went to a unique Asian restaurant where we were able to choose our dishes straight off the cart. We choose kangaroo and crocodile among other things.

 After the first week, we both felt confident and ready to dive into all that this exchange would offer us.

Week 2 (Luke): The second week was one of the busiest for us in Australia. We both received our respective time tables and started our classes. I began training with the soccer team before school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Joseph began basketball. Lochie's uncle took us to his farm during the week. It was atop a hill adjoining a national park. We were determined to find a koala, but did not succeed in doing so. However, we were able to see Rock Wallabies, Kangaroos, and many other incredible animals. On Saturday, I played in my first soccer game with the blokes, which we were extremely excited to win, since it was against a rival school. The next day, we traveled to the Ballarat gold mines. We spent the day panning for gold, walking through old mine shafts, and going on tours of the town. Our second week was certainly one to remember. 

Week 3 (Luke): Our third week was incredible. We began the week with a trip to the Healsville Wildlife Sanctuary. We had the privilege of spending the day seeing the incredible indigenous animals of Australia. Among the animals we were able to see were Tasmanian Devils, Wombats, and Australian Dingos. The night before visiting Healsville, we spent the night at Lochie's family farm, which was another fantastic view into undisturbed wildlife. That Friday, we went with Lochie to an Australian Rules Football (AFL) match. Fortunately, we had picked an exceptional night to attend an AFL match. Our team, Richmond, was victorious, and all the locals said we had attended the game of the year. On Saturday evening, we went with Aran's family to eat Korean Barbecue. 

Week 4 (Joseph): Our final week was a very busy week at the school, with school really kicking back into session for them. While we didn't get to go on any of the journeys we had gone on earlier in the trip, we were able to explore more of the city. In this journey to the city we were able to visit the Asian center of the city, trying and eating a blended cuisine of the Aussies and Asians. With the school week being pretty busy it was littered with different house events which both Luke and I got to participate in. These include the house Nerf football throw, Call of Duty tournament, the debate competition, and chapel. However, the most anticipated event of the week was the house cross country. Every person who was able bodied was required to race across the Yarra river and around the beautiful botanical gardens,which I had seen earlier in the trip,to earn huge points for the house competition and to determine who was the fastest in the school. Both Luke and I ran and had good finishes, helping score much needed points for our new house mates. As our trip neared an end, we attended the Melbourne Film Festival with Mrs. Dowd (Lochie's mom) . The film was about the Kimberley, a huge hub for aboriginal and indigenous culture, something that is very important to the Aussies. This film along with the speaker, a young aboriginal man, gave us an insight to life in the Kimberley and aboriginal culture. In our last two days in Australia we said our goodbyes to our host families and our house mates, finishing all our schoolwork and getting more tim tams and cherry ripes to bring back to our families back in the state. The final day, the Dowd's took me to St. Kilda Beach, where we ate our final meal together and enjoyed the beautiful Australian sunset before my early journey. The next morning, I said my final goodbyes before I headed off to the airport around 4:30 in the morning. We arrived in Sydney around 7:30 in the morning, where we got a quick glimpse of the Sydney Tower, the second tallest observation tower in the Southern Hemisphere. We boarded the plane to the Houston getting in around 10:00 the same morning. While saddened by our departure, we were thankful we got to experience Australia. 

We would like to express our immense thanks for this experience, as it will be one that sticks with us for a lifetime. Not very many kids can ever say they have been to Australia let alone out of the country, so we would like to thank everyone who made this possible for us. Australia is always one of those places as a kid where you want to visit but realize it may never happen because of how far away it is from the states, yet we were given the opportunity and it definitely lived up to everything we hoped it could have been. Thank you so much for this experience and enjoy all the amazing photos from our amazing trip. Cheers and G'Day!

Bishops Diocesan College

Cape Town, South Africa Exchange Summer 2018

Week 1


My name is Alexander Hasse, and this summer I visited Cape Town, South Africa on a Warner Exchange Grant. The first week my host family picked me up at the Johannesburg Airport. Then, we immediately headed to the Kruger National Park for the school holiday. The Kruger National Park was one of the most extensive national parks in all of South Africa. My host family and I drove around and looked for wild animals from the safety of our car. The big five is what every tourist in the park hopes to see on their visit. I saw the big five (lions, leopards, rhinoceroses, elephants, and buffaloes). Along with those animals, I saw cheetahs, zebras, giraffes, hyenas, and hippos. I was able to see the beauty in the African bush surrounded by the native wildlife. It was really interesting to see the anti poaching people patrolling the park. Rhino horns are very valuable, and people try to take them from the Rhinos in the park. Our rental house bordered the Sabie river inside the national park. Still being jet lagged, I was able to watch the sunrise most mornings. It was amazing being able to see the animals in their natural habitat rather than in the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere. My host family taught me how to brai meat while in the park. I learned that having a brai was a very social event in South Africa.







Week 2


For my second week, we returned to Cape Town. My family lived in Newlands which is right across from the national cricket stadium. My host family took me to the top of table mountain where I could see the entirety of Cape Town and where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. Table Mountain is one of the seven wonders of nature. My host family also took me to Muizenberg, a local beach, where I learned how to surf. I found it interesting that they have shark spotters at the top of the cliffs to look for sharks. I also visited the waterfront which is where the harbor was, and the waterfront is modeled after San Francisco's waterfront area. Later in the week, it was Mandela day, and it was recommended that every citizen does 67 minutes of community service. I accompanied my host family to their synagogue where we made peanut butter sandwiches. These sandwiches were later given out to people in the townships. There was a strong feeling of community, and Mandela’s influence was felt even though he is gone.











Week 3


In my third week of holiday, my host family brought me to Betty’s Bay, a small beach town. We were able to go see the penguins right next to the beach. It was a very relaxing weekend before school began. My host brother took me to a Comic Con Convention at the event center. I was able to see all the video games they play in Cape Town like Fortnite,Counter Strike, and Overwatch. I also visited the Cape Town Comedy Festival at the University of Cape Town. There were comedians from around the world. It was particularly difficult though to understand the South African humor.








Week 4


In my first week of school, I found that the South African education system different from MBA’s curriculum They learned their subject matter over their four years in high school gradually instead of taking specific classes. For example, one week they would learn geometry, and the next they would be learning calculus. It was very interesting being in an Afrikaans class. Afrikaans, being a Germanic language, made it possible for me to pick up on some of the meanings of words because I have taken two years of German. I also began playing field hockey. I was put on the sixth under 16 field hockey team. I had never played field hockey. It was a completely foreign sport to me. It was refreshing trying a sport that I had no previous experience playing.





Week 5 and 6


In my second and third weeks of school, I went on a hop on hop off red bus tour where I was able see the city with the other exchange students from across the world. I visited a lot of the beaches like Hout Bay, Muizenberg, and Betty’s Bay. There were people selling beautiful street art. In my last field hockey game against Reddam, my field hockey team won for the first time in their season 4-1. On my last day of school, my host dad took me to Robben Island where Mandela was in prison for 27 years. It was a very informative trip learning about the apartheid era in South Africa. My host dad told me that he thought it would be interesting for me, but he thought that the history of the apartheid movement and Robben Island was very shameful for the people from South Africa.





Cape Town was very different from Nashville. In Cape Town the amount of poverty was staggering. The unemployment rate was very high. There were people begging for money at every robot, and people willing and eager to do anything for money. For example, random strangers would guard my host family’s car for the smallest amount of money in the grocery store parking lots. My host family’s house was surrounded by a wall with an electric fence lining the top. My exchange brother was taken aback that my house in Nashville has little to no security. The drought in Cape Town was very serious as well. I was limited to 50 liters per day. The citizens in Cape Town were very frugal about using their water. This exchange experience was a once in a lifetime experience, and I am now able to see life through a different lense after being fully immersed in another culture.





Staying in a home with five people in it was also different for me. During my whole life it has always been my mom and me. It was really awesome having two little host sisters and a host brother to hang out with. I forged an especially meaningful connection with my host dad. He was genuinely interested in me and my ambitions and interests in life. By the end of the trip, I looked at him as a father figure in my life. Since my exchange, we stay in touch daily. Although he may not know it, he has had a profound influence on me.





I would like to thank the Warner family for making this wonderful experience possible, and I would also like to thank Mrs. Scholer for helping organize the trip.

Christ's College

Exchange to Christchurch, New Zealand 2018


Carlos Soria-Garcia, Jonathan Brown, and I traveled a total of thirty six hours to Christchurch, New Zealand this summer. Once we arrived in the Christchurch airport, we were greeted by our individual host families. Carlos and I stayed together for the whole trip and the first two weeks we stayed with Finn Brokenshire who lived next to the bay of Taylor's Mistake, and for the last two weeks we stayed in countryside of Christchurch with Ollie Breckenridge. Jonathan stayed in the bay of Sumner for the whole trip with Sebastian Ferguson. For the first week of our trip, Christ's College was still on winter break, so after a couple of days of rest to make up for the jet lag we took a three day trip to Queenstown, New Zealand for skiing and other tourist activities. We had a great time in Queenstown and our generous host families took us skiing for one day and on the other two days we rode on the shotover jet through a canyon and played Frisbee golf.

After our first week in New Zealand, we began school on Monday. On the first day we went to our hosts, classes and experienced a curriculum much different to that of MBA's. Our hosts took classes such as film studies, mechanical technology, and tri-science, which is a rigorous course taken by the top students in which three different science courses are taught over the year. The other boys at the school were all very nice and we had a good time getting to know new people. On the weekends our hosts took us to rugby games, hiking, and to various zoos and tourist destinations in the vicinity of Christchurch.

As the trip came to a close, we all prepared for the long trip home. Although we did not look forward to the thirty plus hour trip, the trip was truly a once in a lifetime experience that provided us with a broader world view and perspective that we will never forget. We would like to thank both the Warner family and MBA for this incredible opportunity and hope to encourage others to take advantage of these trips in the future.