German rowers traveled 5658 miles away from their homes to train with the Oakland Strokes crew team. Strokes hosted 20 rowers from Germany, two of which stayed with Piedmont students.

Crew members sophomore Maryse Suppiger, junior Odessa Blackmore, junior Brendan Gerrity and sophomore Ashley Gerrity hosted German exchange students from October 11 to October 22.

Suppiger said during the day, the German rowers practiced at our boathouse, and then as a group, went on adventures around the Bay Area, like biking in Tiburon and shopping in SF.

“Then, they come home, have dinner, and relax with us,” Suppiger said. “Each morning, I walk Toni, my rower, to Mulberry’s where her coaches pick her up in the morning for practice.”

This is not the first time Oakland Strokes have had an exchange with the Germany based crew team, Rats Gymnasium. Rats Gymnasium rower Antionette Schunur stayed with Suppiger during the exchange.

After rowing for three years, Schunur decided to visit the United States for the first time when it was introduced to her by her rowing club.

Suppiger said after doing a foreign exchange program herself in Costa Rica, she knew that she wanted to host an exchange student.

“I was excited to host a foreign exchange rower in my house. I also knew that Germans are really good at crew and was excited to watch them row,” Suppiger said. “We decided to do it about 2 weeks ago, which was the night that they sent out the email.”

Suppiger said due to Schunur’s English being impeccable there has not been many language barrier problems, but has seen some cultural differences.

“Her school is 400 years old, which is older than our country. There are a lot of little things too that she has told me about, like how in Germany instead of giving letter grades, they grade you on a scale from 1-5, 1 being the best,” Suppiger said. “Toni also is appalled by the amount of homework I have, because she never has to do over 30 minutes.”

Schunur said she enjoyed her stay here, especially going to Lake Tahoe, shopping, sightseeing and new food like pumpkins and avocados.

“My least favorite thing was the tax,” Schunur said. “You don’t really know how much [something] costs.”