Dear Leath,

l can't believe we've been here in Shenyang, China, for 3 weeks already. l wanted to write to you every day to tell you about the people I've met and what l've learned. We're experiencing so many new things each day and starting to fit into our totally new life here. It's challenging but also exciting!

Apparently, I need to get familiar with the processes, but luckily the people are really friendly. Quite a few new families are joining the school, so the teachers and admin staff have a clear list for us newcomers. Although with various background and teaching styles, they are all passionate and caring. They don't mind answering our questions from time to time and keep reminding us that there are no bad or wrong questions, so just ask! This is a relief. I was concerned that our German courage for exploring might not be accepted here, but l don't need to worry about it at HuZ.

We've now had the first week of normal classroom learning. Thankfully, it didn’t take me too long to figure out which classroom l needed to go to for each subject. You know l love maths and enjoy working on challenging questions? Well, what amazed me was that so many of the other students do too! This makes class discussions lively. My classmates inspired me to come up with solutions faster. Our maths teacher also challenges us to come up with other possible ways to sove a problem- it' s like a daily competition, and l really enjoy it！

I wish you could come and visit me here soon so I can introduce you to my teachers and classmates. I’m sure you’d like them as well.

While I said everything is going smoothly here, there have been some issues. But we’ve managed to overcome them. I was concerned that I might not fit in as a stranger to a new place. However, from the first day of class, our home teacher welcomed me with the Admissions Officer and gave me a lot of tips for “navigation”. And luckily, I had a classmate, Laura, who came to HuZ a year ago, volunteer to be my “navigator” for 2 weeks. She said she was in the same situation last year, so if her experience could help me, it was worthwhile. She’s been really great and calmed me down every time I felt worried. With her support, my transition has been smoother than I thought. In the future, if there’s new transfer students, I can do the same for them.

l also figured out how to handover homework through the online system. Because it is different from what we used in Munich, l had issues logging in on the first 3 days. Laura gave me a lot of support. Now I have no problem and can easily upload my homework or download the tasks. Since Maxi is in the same school as me, l also helped him understand the learning system.

As a family, we've never made such a massive transition before. While we're adapting to the new environment, we know many more issues will crop up. But we don't fear them as we know We’ll find a solution. l am so grateful we have the chance to experience something so different.

l miss you and our friends in Munich and hope you girls are having fun over there.

Lara,

September 15, Shenyang