Foreign exchange student loves sports

Florian Gaul

Florian Gaul loves sports and knows his geography. Gaul knows where Liberty Island is and that it is too far to travel from West Valley High School (WVHS) to the New York harbor to see the Statue of Liberty. Gaul said he “would love to see the Grand Canyon.”

Gaul, a WVHS foreign exchange student from Stuttgart, Germany, turned 16 recently and has already done his share of traveling. He has been to Italy, to Paris, France to Switzerland and Austria.

Florian Gaul speaks German, English and “Je parle un peu français. (I speak a little French.).” His 12-year-old sister, Marie-Wise, would like to spend a year as a student in France.

Gaul arrived at the Redding airport on Sept. 17, three days before school started. His flight from Frankfurt to San Francisco and then to Redding took some 20 hours in the air.

He also hopes to “be in the air,” next spring when he goes over the bar in the pole vault competition. He has done 4.58 meters (15 feet) over the bar and could be a valuable asset to the West Valley track team.

Tyler Gray holds the West Valley and all-time Northern Section pole vault record at 15-feet 6-inches. Gray set that mark in 2000 at the Arcadia Invitational and Gaul would like a shot at it.

Gaul is now running cross country for the school. In Germany he also played soccer — their equivalent to American football.

Comparing his German school with his classes here, Gaul said that in Germany he had 12 different classes and the teachers moved to the different classrooms. There was a different schedule every day from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and then from 2 to 3:30 or 4 p.m.

Here he is living with the family of Jacob Ramirez who is a sophomore student at WVHS. Gaul’s father is an engineer and his mother is a nurse in Germany.

He said the television programs are not much different in California and at home but he does not watch that much television.