Australians get welcome lunch

While cold rain pelted the windowpanes, inside the Souplantation in Costa Mesa warm smiles and laughter filled the room. The restaurant’s staff was busily refilling the soup vats Monday as a group of American and Australian teenagers, who were dining together, returned to dip ladle after ladle into their bowls.

“This place is amazing,” said senior Sarah Mangan, 16, surveying the room around her.

She is one of seven students from Wyndham, Australia, taking part in the Australian Education Exchange Program with Costa Mesa’s Estancia High School.

Costa Mesa and Wyndham have been sister cities since August 1996. The goal of the Sister City Agreement was to encourage deeper understanding between the two nations with an emphasis on commerce, education and culture.

Costa Mesa resident Sue Smith decided to take the education component upon herself.

“As former Estancia [Parent Teacher Assn.] president, I wanted to give our students the opportunity to expand their cultural awareness,” said Smith, founder and director of the Australian Education Exchange Program.

The Australian delegation from Hoppers Crossing Secondary College landed Saturday at Los Angeles International Airport, becoming the fifth delegation of Australian exchange students to visit Estancia.

The Australian students will spend the next three weeks observing and participating in the day-to-day lives of their student hosts. For the past few days, they have been having fun chatting and getting acquainted with their American peers over meals and at an Anaheim Ducks game.

On Monday, while Estancia was off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the American students hosted their Australian counterparts to a welcome to Costa Mesa lunch at the local Souplantation.

On Tuesday, the Australians will enter the classroom. They are eager to learn about the American high school experience.

“I want to learn differences between how we learn. I think they learn through sit-down lecture and reading, whereas we go on lots of excursions,” said Hoppers Crossing junior Amy Penaluna, 16. She thinks she may find the American educational system more formal.

Yet, she also points out that her host, Estancia junior Vanessa Corona, 16, plans on wearing jeans to class tomorrow, while she will be wearing her school uniform, which includes a skirt, tights and blazer.

Amy has been preparing for her cross-Pacific journey for quite some time. “I’ve been learning Spanish,” she says.

Her student host’s mother speaks Spanish primarily. As Italian is typically the language taught at Hoppers Crossing, Amy has taken it upon herself to pick up some of her host mother’s native tongue.

She’s also been doing some reading.

“Vanessa stayed with me when she came to Australia. She left some magazines. I’ve been reading through magazines on Costa Mesa,” Amy said.

While she was flipping through print media to prepare for her tip, Sarah and fellow senior Melissa Briggs, 18, hit the Internet.

“I’ve been searching everything on the itinerary. Balboa Island … Oooh, what’s that?” she said, laughing and tapping fingers on an imaginary keyboard.

“I’ve also been asking people who’ve already been here about what to expect,” Melissa said. She is looking forward to returning to Australia and sharing her own learning with her classmates.

Sarah, like her fellow delegates, has elected to give up a leisurely summer break back home to take part in the exchange program.

“It’s worth it to be able to go home and tell friends and families about all the experiences,” she said..