B-CC Students Get Around

by Brandon Levy

Living in Montgomery County, one encounters people in all sorts of interesting occupations, many of which take them to all parts of the globe. And when a journalists and diplomats move to a foreign country, they take their families with them. As a result, there are many students at B-CC who have lived all over the world.

One of these students is senior Nicholas Anania, whose father works for the State Department. He and his brother, freshman Michael Anania, have lived in three different countries on three continents. When he was ten months old, Nicholas’s family moved to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Three years later, he moved to Berlin, Germany, and then to Hong Kong, China. When he was ten years old, his family moved back to the United States, only to move to Berlin again four years later. He came back to Montgomery County this past summer.

            “I would have liked to have that kind of typical thing where you grow up with your friends and you all graduate together,” Nicholas said, “but I think I’ve gotten a lot of worldly insight from moving around.” Michael agreed that such a lifestyle can be a double-edged sword. “It’s bittersweet,” he said. “If I didn’t move around, I wouldn’t know half of the people I do today. But I would also be much more in tune with the things around me. I guess I don’t know any other life, so I can’t compare the two.”

            Part of the problem with living in a foreign country is the language barrier, but this was not an issue for either of the brothers. “I spoke in broken German, but basically everyone in Berlin speaks English to some extent, so I would just end up talking in English and they understood me,” Nicholas explained. “Language barriers really weren’t that problematic as I didn’t engage in lengthy debates about politics and world issues, or other complicated subjects,” Michael added.

            The biggest difference between living in Germany and the United States was the culture concerning drinking. “In Germany, the drinking age is sixteen for beer and eighteen for harder liquors,” Nicholas said. “That was a different cultural thing because you’d just go to parties and at every party there would be kids drinking and it was completely legal. You could walk down the street drinking alcohol.”

            Sophomore Valeria Rotella has also spent the majority of her life outside the United States. She recently moved here from Madrid, Spain, where she lived for two years. Before that, she spent six years in Paris, France, and five years in Buenos Aires, Argentina. “My dad is a journalist, so we just follow him around,” Valeria explained.

            “When I was in Argentina, I remember everything seemed huge and ancient,” she said. “Paris was rainy but fun, and even though there was a lot to do in the city, everything closed too early.” Her favorite place was Madrid. “I loved it because there was an easygoing vibe that I really fit into,” she revealed.

            Overall, Rotella says she likes moving around. “Sure you may miss friends and family, but you get to meet new people,” she elaborated. “But besides people, the thing you probably miss the most when you move is the food. You end up missing the food a lot.”

            Caroline Mariz, a B-CC senior who moved to Switzerland in September, has lived in Germany, Brazil, and Malta, a tiny island in the Meditteranean, because of her father’s job in the Foreign Service. She says her family’s recent move was especially difficult. “When we moved here I thought we were going to stay, and then I found out we had to leave again,” she explained. “It was horrible.”

            When she moved to the United States, going to a public high school was a big change for Mariz. “I’ve always gone to a private international school,” she said. “At international school all the kids are from somewhere different and everybody speaks another language and has lived somewhere else. I remember when I first came here everybody was surprised that I’ve lived in so many places. They all thought it was really cool. But at international school it’s no big deal because everybody has.”

            Mariz says she is particularly concerned about going to college in the United States while her family is living in Switzerland. “When I come back here for college I’m going to be completely alone,” she declared. “Odds are I’m going to end up on the east coast, so my parents are going to be an ocean away and my grandparents are going to be a whole country away. I’m just thinking that I better start growing up because I’m going to be alone next year.”

            However, despite the problems moving around has caused her, she has still enjoyed doing it. “It’s always interesting and it’s a chance to start over. Whenever I have to move I get mad and don’t want to do it, but I appreciate it in the end.”