This is the problem faced by Bruno Garcia (Gar-THEE-ah), one of this year's inbound Rotary Youth Exchange students.

Bruno, whose father is a psychologist and mother is a family doctor, comes to Northfield from Alicante, a large city on Spain's Mediterranean coast. So far, the best Bruno has been able to do is to travel with his host family, Dr. Mark and Kathy Mellstrom, north to the shores of Lake Superior and south along the Mississippi River into Iowa. But someday, maybe, California.

"It's my dream,"Bruno says.

Meanwhile, the classes he takes at Northfield High School show his serious side: French, advanced placement calculus, computer programming, advanced placement physics, and contemporary literature. He has studied English for many years, so he reports few language problems. When he encounters any difficulties with technical terms in school, he makes sure he asks questions until the meaning is clear. Bruno is also fluent in French.

He notes that life here is very different from life in Spain. Meals are served at different times. In Spain, people eat at 2 p.m. and then at about 10 p.m. Night life begins after that. And there is more night life in Alicante, especially beach parties. One drawback there is that you cannot drive until you are 18 years old; Bruno likes Minnesota's law that you can drive at 16.

The weather is different too. On the Mediterranean coast, the weather is always the same: warm and dry. You do not worry about it, except whether the wind will be strong enough to make good waves for surfing. In Minnesota, there is much more rain and the green trees that grow in such a climate.

What does he miss most? His family, he says, and his friends. And the sea.

Bruno likes sports. He is an avid supporter of Barcelona, the football (that is soccer to Americans) club; he wears the club scarf. Bruno likes to play ping-pong and hopes to play for the Northfield Hightennis team in the spring. He is waiting for snow so he can ski and snowboard. At home, his family often goes skiing in Andorra, a small state in the Pyrenes mountains between Spain and France.

Later this year, Bruno will live with Stephen and Leona Openshaw and then with Gary and Susan Singer. He is one of about 6,000 young men and women between the ages of 16 and 19 that the Rotary Youth Exchange program sends each year to study in foreign countries.

Next year, Bruno will study computer science or engineering at a university, either at home or – perhaps inevitably – in California by the sea.

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