Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, June 06, 2002

Alex WYBRANSKI claims that it's not the food that she misses. "The food is about the same," she said. "We have McDonald's and Burger King."

What she does miss from her home in Berlin, Germany is a beautiful city full of parks, museums and shopping streets, as well as the independence to enjoy these things.

And although she has found people in Ringgold county to be friendlier than in Berlin, she admits that she won't miss the feeling that everyone knows everything about her in this small area.

WYBRANSKI, age 16, attended Mount Ayr Community high school as an exchange student this year. She has lived with two host families in Ringgold county. From August through December she lived in Maloy in the home of Brian TERRELL and Betsy KEENAN. She then moved to Mount Ayr to live with the family of Bill and Sandy ARMSTRONG and their sons.

WYBRANSKI came to Iowa not only from one of the most diverse cities of the world, but also as someone who has visited other parts of the world. Countries she has visited with her family include South Africa, Greece, Spain and Mexico. And her visit to Iowa was not her first visit to the U.S. She had been to Los Angeles and San Francisco with her family on two previous trips.

Although she had not been in the Midwest before, she had a good idea of what to expect because her brother had been an exchange student in Omaha, NE in 1996. Still, she has had to adjust to life in a small community and a school that has qute a few differences from her school in Berlin.

Life in Berlin gives WYBRANSKI many opportunities for things to do and also gives her a great amount of independence that she misses since being in Iowa.

WYBRANSKI has lived all her life in Berlin. She is the youngest child of Bernhard and Gudrun WYBRANSKI. She has an older brother, Christian, who is in medical school in Berlin. Her father works with technology and has his own technology magazine.

The family lives in a large apartment in Stegliz, a district in the southwest part of Berlin. The architecture is older in this area of the city but the buildings have been renovated and are pertty she says.

There are parks near her home and all over Berlin. "Berlin is a green city," WYBRANSKI said. "There are trees everywhere and near our home there are two or three parks. Near my school is a lake."

For WYBRANSKI, Berlin gives her many choices of things to do. "You can have so much fun in Berlin because there is s omuch to do, like going to the swimming pool, movie theatres or lakes."

Even as a teenager WYBRANSKI says she enjoys a great amount of independence in Berlin. From an early age, she has been accustomed to using public transportation, bicycling or walking all over.

The family owns a car and both of her parents drive but they don't use their vehicle much. "It's faster to go with [public] transportation," she explained. "There are traffic jams everywhere." Another deterrent to driving is the price of gas which she says is about 90-cents per liter (just less than 1/4 gallon).

WYBRANSKI says that one of her favorite things to do in Berlin is take a bicycle tour in her neighborhood, something she does almost every day. There is a street with many shops that is only 15 minutes walking distance or three minutes by bicycle from her house.

In Berlin she would tell her mom, "I'm going there and there" and go where she wanted by herself. On a typical school day, she would walk to catch a train, take the train to a stop near her school and then walk to the school, about a 45 minute trip.

This freedom to get to places on her own is something she misses. In Ringgold county, expecially in Maloy, she had to ask for a ride to most places. In Mount Ayr at least she can walk to most places, but to go to a shopping mall she still has to have someone drive her.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, July of 2012