Jennifer Thomas, second from left above, is visiting from Germany as an exchange student at Blue Earth Area High School. Seated with her, from left to right, are Sean Groe, Chloe Groe and Mandy (Huntington) Groe.

There is a new exchange student at Blue Earth Area High School, one who came to Blue Earth around the first part of November, just in time for the start of the second quarter.

Jennifer “Jenny” Thomas is from the town of Hattorf, Germany, a city of about 4,000 people.

“It is in the middle of Germany,” Thomas says. “The bigger city near it is Hanover.”

Thomas, who is 16 years old, is staying at the home of Sean and Mandy (Huntington) Groe, and their daughter, Chloe, in Blue Earth.

Back home in Germany, both of Thomas’ parents are engineers.

"Sisters" Jenny and Chloe.

“My father, Rene, is an engineer at a pipeline company,” Thomas says. “And my mother, Iris, is an engineer for a small car parts company.”

She is able to visit with her mother and father over Skype every weekend. It takes a bit of planning, since there is a seven-hour time difference.

She does not have any brothers or sisters back home, but now she has a host family little sister.

“They really like each other,” says Mandy Groe. “But, since each of them is an only child, they are still trying to figure out who is who, and who is in charge.”

Back home in Germany, Thomas doesn’t go to school in either her home town of Hattorf, or in the big city of Hanover. Instead, she travels over to the city of Herzberg.

Jenny’s parents, Iris and Rene, are at home in Germany.

Between walking to the train station, taking the train, then walking to the school, it takes her about an hour to get to school and then an hour to get back home.

“School in Germany is much harder than it is here,” she says. “In Germany, I mainly got ‘Cs,’ maybe a ‘B’ or two, but here I am getting ‘As.'”

She is taking a variety of classes including culinary arts, world cultures and principles of business and band.

Back home in Germany, her favorite activities have been playing the flute, playing soccer and going to movies and shopping with friends.

She also enjoys going to the beach. And last summer she vacationed to Miami Beach with her parents. It was that trip that made her want to see more of the U.S. and become an exchange student here.

“At the end of the school year, my parents are coming here and we are going to travel all over the United States before I go back home to Germany,” Thomas says. “We also went to Dubai, last year, and I loved it. It is a whole different culture there. And we toured the city, went four-wheeling in the desert, went up in the world’s tallest building.”

She has done some four-wheeling here in Blue Earth, too, with her host sister Chloe.

“Today we went out on the four-wheeler and we saw seven deer together,” Thomas says. “We see a lot of deer. It is fun.”

While she plays soccer back home in Germany, here she has gone out for basketball and will be participating on the C-team squad. While she has played basketball in Germany, she admits it has not been a lot and she has much to learn.

She has also enjoyed some other new experiences so far in America. Like celebrating Thanksgiving with a big dinner.

She is also getting a taste of how Americans celebrate the Christmas season.

“We told her we were going to go pick out a tree for Christmas,” Sean Groe says. “And she thought we going to go out into the forest. But we just went to Blue Earth Landscape.”

However, the Groes are also getting in on some German ways of celebrating Christmas.

“Her mother sent us an advent cake,” Mandy Groe says. “We eat a piece of it every Sunday in Advent.”

American food is sometimes something new for Thomas, who admits she does not always like all of it.

On the other hand, she says she does not like German sauerkraut, either.

Her favorite type of food? Seafood, she says. And, she loves sushi.

Her favorite new food in America?

“Tacos,” she says without hesitation. “I tried them and fell in love with them.”

Both Thomas and the Groes admit they are still getting adjusted to this new routine of being an exchange student and a host family.

While the Groes have hosted students in the past, they were not on the list for this year. But after getting a phone call about hosting a late arrival, they quickly agreed.

Just two days later, Thomas arrived in Blue Earth.

“Her bedroom had been an office, so we had to quickly change it into a bedroom,” Mandy Groe says. “And we are getting into the routine of both girls being in basketball, Christmas concerts, things like that. It keeps us pretty busy.”

But, it is all working out just fine, everyone agrees.

“We all like to go shopping,” Mandy Groe says. “So Jenny fits right in. And we introduced her to Black Friday shopping. We all had a great time.”