Five Mercersburg students and faculty member Will Willis traveled to Chile for a Spanish language immersion experience with the Academy's sister school, Colegio Alemán de San Felipe.

As part of a new annual exchange program, the group stayed with host families and attended classes at the school for approximately three weeks in August. The group returned to Mercersburg later this month in time for the beginning of the academic year--and was the first official group of American students to participate in an exchange with the Chilean school.

Several students from Colegio Alemán de San Felipe spent a month earlier this year at Mercersburg; the exchange program is modeled after Mercersburg's longstanding exchange with the Gauss Gymnasium in Worms, Germany.

"We are in excellent hands here, and the host families are wonderfully gracious and giving," said Willis, Mercersburg's director of international programs, during the trip. "With the start of classes will come more opportunity for our students to learn about Chilean culture and the Spanish language, and perhaps even make a few lifelong friends while doing it."

As in the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, August is wintertime in Chile, but the Mercersburg group has been met with temperatures in the 60s—as well as stunning views of the snow-capped Andes to the east. "This Mediterranean-esque version of winter appeals to a guy like me, who appreciates having unlimited portions of fresh avocado and clementines," Willis says. The school is approximately 90 miles from the capital city of Santiago.

"Culture shock is a marvelous opportunity for learning when embraced. Yet as much culture shock as there may or may not be (and truthfully, our students have reported very little at all), so many things remind me of home when I travel; my Chilean host family lives on a sycamore-lined street of their own, half a world away from Mercersburg."

Mercersburg students on the trip included Mariah Blake '09, Erica Hendrickson '09, Mark Herring '09, Troy Presbury '11, and Chris Weller '11.