Let's start with the issue of whether Western Pennsylvanians are winter wimps.

We are.

That's the ruling from 13 Wisconsin students here as part of a foreign-exchange program with Mars Area High School.

Yes, I know Wisconsin isn't a foreign country, but cheeseheads can still feel like strangers in a strange land.

Don't get me wrong. This crew from North Appleton High School wasn't wearing plastic cheese chapeaus when they emerged from a cheddar-colored school bus at the Carnegie Science Center last Friday, but they brought their Midwestern pride with them.

What, they all wanted to know, was the deal with all these two-hour school delays when there was only a half-inch of snow on the ground?

I tried to explain that we lived in the treacherous foothills of Appalachia, as opposed to that flat-as-a-pancake, or maybe a waffle, state of theirs. They weren't having it.

Kristopher Koroch said he'd seen someone using de-icing spray on a windshield. He said it in the tone of a man who'd just seen someone eat a candy bar with a fork.

That sprinkling last week would be barely worth breaking out the ice scraper in America's Dairyland.

Cultural exchanges like these are the reason Mars has launched this short-term exchange program.

Members of the American Field Service program know these four-day swaps with the Midwest won't be as eye-opening as sending a girl to Austria or welcoming a boy from Switzerland for a year, but they can be good for a double-take or two.

Take the language problem.

Nobody around here knows that a "bubbler" is a water fountain. We say "pop" when they say "soda."

We find the Midwestern accent nasal. Ours, in the words of Tony Knuppel, is an odd combination of "hardcore British and hardcore hick."

He's got quite a future in diplomacy, this Knuppel kid.

Eventually, we got around to cuisine. These teen-agers were tired of their very essence being tied to coagulated, compressed and ripened curds of milk, tired of being asked if they liked cheese. But when I mentioned that, on my first visit to Wisconsin, I was offered a cheese curd by my host, Koroch jumped in:

"Cheese curds rule."

"You've got to get them, like, totally fresh so they, like, squeak when you chew on them," Chelsey Ginder said.

You hear that? Cheese curds taste as good as they sound.

Eventually, I had to ask about Appleton native and Steeler great Rocky Bleier. They hadn't much clue who he was, but teacher, Karen Pfefferle, knew. She said that Bleier's family restaurant had long since changed hands, but that it was still the place to go in Appleton for a Friday night fish fry.

You can bet your bratwurst that was not a happy place when the Broncos beat the Steelers, and then the Packers from just up the road, last month. But at least we have heartbreaking football in common. And bad roads. These teen-agers say Wisconsin roads are worse than ours.

I swear. That's what they said.

They also say they worried about being good hosts when Mars students visit Appleton in April, because Mars kids are so darn friendly.

Well, I have an idea. Take the Mars students to see Koroch and Knuppel's band, Asphyxiation, which they described as just another "comedy-noise-hardcore-jazz" group from the Midwest. Knuppel says he even uses a cheesehead as a percussion instrument. No lie. He imitated the noise it made.

It sounded Gouda.