A Trip to a Wisconsin Oktoberfest

And yet, those are often the moments I remember most. We took our first students, Gabin and Lukas, on a road trip along the Pacific Northwest coast. We later traveled with them through the Yucatán Peninsula while celebrating the winter holidays. I took our third student, Frieder, and a friend to Florida for another winter holiday—because by that point in the Wisconsin winter, we usually need a break. We also took Frieder and Matthieu, our fifth student, to the Georgia coast for spring break.

This year, we are not beginning with a road trip, but with a smaller excursion. We took our current exchange students, Marie from France and Alvaro from Spain, to the Bavarian Bierhaus Oktoberfest in Glendale, Wisconsin. Two of their friends joined us—one of whom is also an exchange student from Spain—along with members of my extended family. For me, it became another reminder of what hospitality really means.

When we think about hosting exchange students, it is easy to focus on the practical things: providing a comfortable bedroom, feeding additional hungry mouths, making sure everyone gets to school, navigating several schedules, and creating opportunities to have fun. Those things obviously matter, but they are only the framework of hosting.

The heart of hosting is sharing a life.

That means inviting someone into our traditions while also making room for theirs.

Oktoberfest is a good example. We were in Glendale, not Munich, but Wisconsin’s strong German heritage has made celebrations like this feel completely at home here. There was food, music, laughter, and that particular kind of joy that comes when a group of people simply decides to celebrate something together.

For Marie and Alvaro, it was another glimpse into the strange cultural mixture that makes up our family and our life in Wisconsin. For us, it was a chance to see something familiar through new eyes.

That may be one of my favorite parts of hosting exchange students: remembering—and sharing—why we do the things we do.

Places you have visited before suddenly become interesting again when you are with someone seeing them for the first time. Foods you barely think about become welcome treats to a fresh palate. Local customs require explanation. Even the question of why Wisconsinites are so enthusiastic about festivals can become a cultural lesson.

But cultural exchange does not move in only one direction. Marie and Alvaro bring France and Spain into our home every day. They bring their own expectations, their unique senses of humor, their food cravings and dislikes, their ways of expressing emotion, and their family traditions. We introduce them to Wisconsin, and in return, our own world becomes a little larger and grander.

Somewhere in that exchange, something else begins to happen.

Friendship. A host family can provide a student with a place to stay. Hospitality asks something more of us. It asks us to make room not only in our houses, but also in our routines, traditions, conversations, and memories.

That is why I have come to value small outings like Oktoberfest so much. They do not need to be big vacations—although I thoroughly enjoy those—nor do they need to be carefully curated cultural events. Friendship is just as likely to develop while sharing one of my failed dinners, laughing over something unexpected, listening to one another’s music, or taking a photograph in which I clearly have too many chins for everyone to look back on years later.

The activity is almost secondary. What matters is that we made memories together while doing it.

Hospitality means treating guests as people worthy of our care. Welcoming someone into your home requires a certain openness: a willingness to let another person’s presence change the flow of your household.

Exchange students certainly do that. They arrive as strangers with suitcases, often facing a language barrier and carrying some fear because they have entered a new world without their familiar comforts.

Gradually, though, there are inside jokes. Favorite foods begin to appear on the dinner table. New routines take shape. Particular seats are established on the couch, in the car, or at the table. Stories accumulate. Photographs fill phones and are eventually shared with loved ones back home.

Without anyone quite knowing when it happened, the students have become part of our family story.

Our afternoon at Oktoberfest was only one day in the ten months we will share with Marie and Alvaro. In the grand scheme, it was a small outing. But hospitality is built from these small things. Taken individually, they might not seem extraordinary. Put together, they become friendship.

Months from now, when the school year is over and Marie and Alvaro are once again living in their home countries, I hope these ordinary days will be among the ones they treasure most.

Ultimately, hosting an exchange student is not only about showing someone everything Wisconsin has to offer. It is about saying, “You have family and friends here, too.”

P.S. Please forgive the indecent hand gesture in the photograph. It was entirely a joke that I started.