Thanksgiving Abroad

It's somewhat difficult being an American abroad. The other exchange students from more "unknown places," for lack of a better phrase, have more of an individual and unfamiliar culture to bring to their new family and friends. But everyone, it seems, knows all about the United States. Even though this is not exactly true, our culture is shared by the media in all corners of the earth, and so many other countries have adopted our customs. In fact, I really don't believe that there are very many distinct traditions belonging to just the United States anymore. Thanksgiving, however, is the one holiday that I would say is still fairly unique to the U.S.

I was slightly disappointed when I realized I wasn't going to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving in Germany. Then I thought about it. I have more reasons than ever before to be thankful this year. I don't need to have a meal with my family and a break from school to realize this. The most important aspects of the holiday are reflection and appreciating what one has. I have an amazing family here in Germany, and an amazing life. What else do I need? Pumpkin pie or no pumpkin pie, I can celebrate Thanksgiving in Germany anyway.

German "Thanksgiving Dinner"

So, I'm going to use this post as my way to say thanks, because this year I have loads to be thankful for. Firstly, I'm grateful for my Congress Bundestag scholarship that has enabled me to spend this year in Germany. I'm also really thankful that my family let me leave for so long. Secondly, and more importantly, I'm thankful to my host family for taking me in for such a long time, and for all that they've done for me. I have a feeling that I'm going to be appreciative of them for many Thanksgivings to come. When AFS said that we'd be gaining lifetime friendships, they really weren't kidding. :)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Language, Life, and Late Orientation Camp

In the typical fall fashion, I caught a cold. It's more annoying than anything. But it hasn't kept me from doing much (except for track or gym class). In fact, school is more and more fun every day. I can understand a lot more, even though I still can't participate much. German class is still the hardest. They're reading something in "old German," which is even more difficult to read than "normal German." One of my classmates brought a kids book to read with me during the break.

It has awesome pictures, and is called something like "In a Deep, Dark Forest..." I love my class. :)

Other observations about German school:
1. They have a lot of breaks between classes. At least five minutes between ever 45 minute class, and 10-15 after every two periods.
2. Lots of people eat whole sandwiches in the break (now me included).
3. Quotation marks are written „..." I knew this before I came, but it still bugs me.
4. Kilograms, centimeters... oh, metric system, why are you still so confusing?
5. My class has to take a lot more subjects. They take physics AND bio AND chemistry, plus english, french or latin, math, German, geography... the list goes on an on. They just don't have class as often.
6. They generally have class with the same people.
7. Senior privledges for EVERYONE that's not in "middle school" grades. Except better. When you don't have class, the school doesn't care where you are.
8. Alles auf Deutsch... yeah, I know, I'm in Germany, but it's still pretty hard sometimes.
9. Middle school and high school are together.
10. They really don't have that much homework. Not like I'm able to do much/any of it anyway, but still.

11. Electives, like art and music, aren't just fun. The first one and a half months of art class were spent learning about composition. Then we took a test on it. We just started drawing these past couple of weeks after vacation, and drew kohlrabis as part of the nature study unit. Here's a picture of part of mine (almost finished!)

I could keep going, but I won't, because I want you to keep reading. Anyway, last weekend was the AFS Late Orientation Camp. It was such a good weekend! We didn't get a whole lot of sleep, but we all had so much fun. I already knew two people, Ajelet and Jessany, who are both CBYXers from group five in D.C. orientation. Then there were Bosnians, Brazilians, Portuguese, Italians, Spaniards, Chinese, Indonesian, and so many more. There were a few workshops every day, but there was a lot of free time to get to know everyone. Exchange students are so awesome. AFS makes us do a talent show, which was also really fun. I sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" with Ajelet in English at the same time Katherine and Gabriel (from Brasil) sang it in Portuguese. Plus a few more kid songs accompanied by Katherine on the recorder.

We all wrote notes to each other in our languages on the last day. English just isn't that cool, because everyone can understand it. The reason it says "NO!" on one of the notes, is that for some reason, we got onto the topic of health class in the U.S... Jessany explained how we learn how to say "NO!" to drugs and sex and alcohol. Everyone else found this really funny, and it was repeated quite often. I can't wait to meet everyone again, but they're all in a different AFS group that meets in (or near) Stuttgart.

Herbstferien

It's weird to think that, at this time last year, I was applying for the CB scholarship. It's seems like it's been years since the thought of living in Germany first entered my mind. I guess it's just because so much has happened between now an then. I've done so much even these past couple of weeks!

I'll start with vacation. Vacation was so cool that it deserves its own post. All German schools have a fall vacation, and it's not just the wimpy three days we get off for Thanksgiving. Sometimes it's two weeks, sometimes it's just one, but they all have some sort of time off. We had just a week, but what a week it was! After the Halloween party Monday night, we headed off to a campground in Bayern. It's on a lake in a town called Murnau, and I can't even describe how beautiful it was.

The picture doesn't do it justice. Michael's parents have had a camper there for elven years, I believe, and it's pretty much a permanent dwelling now.

Wednesday, we visited München.

We walked through through the older part of the city to a museum, which was really cool. Of course, the day couldn't be complete without a visit to H&M. The next day we visited Linderhof Palace, took a gondola up a mountain, and visited Oberammergau. Friday we went to the Garmisch Olympic Ski Jump, Wickiedorf, the site of a German viking movie, and Murnau before we picked up to go home

later the next day.

In the evening, we played board and card games on the little camper table. I don't even know how we managed to cram so much into just five days...

Two Months Fast Approaching

I've been putting off posting for so long, that I don't even know if I can include everything... 50 days down, which means 1/6 of the year already. I honestly can't believe it's been so long; only nine months left! I've done so much already, from day trips to Switzerland and Austria, to working in the garden with my host family, that I couldn't possibly write it all down, but I can truly say that I'm having the time of my life. I have enjoyed just about everything that I've experienced so far.

I can tell that my German has improved, because I'm having an easier time understanding my teachers in school, and can carry one-on-one conversations for a much longer time (depending on the subject). I love it when I can just sit with one of my classmates and simply talk for a while. It's really the best way to improve one's speaking and comprehension abilities in any language. Language classes in school just don't cut it. It's one thing to be able to sit for an hour and fill out verb conjugation sheets and grammar exercises, and quite another to experience the language and culture first hand. I can't even truly describe it.

My class is really, really nice. Halloween has spread to Germany, and I went to a Halloween party at Helli's house yesterday with a bunch of others. It's really exhausting listening to German all day, so I'm always tired, but I managed to stay awake through two of the movies. Even though AFS told us we'd be pretty tired for a couple of months, I didn't really expect it. I guess it's because, at home, I'm used to being able to do some things mindlessly without having to concentrate much. Here, everything is in German, and my brain has to be more engaged for a better part of the day. It doesn't really get a break. But hey, I'm not complaining!

After school on Friday marked the beginning of Herbstferien! One whole week off of school! But it's going to be a pretty full week. :) After a full weekend of baking cookies for Advent, hanging out with the family fiends from Holland, and playing a lot of board games, we're off to spend the week in a camper in Bayern! We're leaving in a few minutes, so I'm going to end this post now. Hopefully I'll have time to write when we come back, because this post was only the tip of the iceberg!

Check out my Picasa for more pictures!

Second Week in Germany

Last Friday marked the end of my first school week in Germany, and the start of my first full weekend. Though I can understand more and more German every day, classes are still hard because the teachers speak so fast, and the subjects are pretty advanced. Almost every day I end school at a different time, and the bus runs pretty regularly. It's pretty difficult to understand at first, and I still have to ask my host family sometimes which bus to take.

Saturday was a pretty full day. The first graders, because it's their first year, have a special first day of school, and the second graders perform short plays. Lorenz is in second grade, so we all went to watch. It was really sweet. Afterwards we drove to the first AFS chapter meeting in a town called Reutlingen. There are only three other students in my chapter. It was a little boring, but worth the trip, because we were able to buy cheap ski jackets at a nearby store. Later that night, a family friend called Katha asked me if I wanted to go to a party. I needed an I.D. to get in, and Corina was worried my driver's license wouldn't work, because the Germans write the date day.month.year, and as my birthday is January 11th, it looked as if I was born on November 1st. . Fortunately it passed inspection. The party was loud and full, and we ended up leaving at 11:15.

Math is super confusing in Germany, because I'm pretty sure we haven't done derivatives back home, and that's what my class is doing now. Hopefully I'll find something online that can explain it to me. On Tuesday morning I had art, but no one except one boy showed up to the classroom. Apparently we were supposed to meet in the center of the city, but I didn't know that. My classmate figured it out, and we walked super fast down into Sigmaringen. The class was critiquing a gallery of paintings done special ed children, which was semi-interesting. The breakfast the teacher gave us after was much more fun. My art and English teachers are definitely my favorite so far. They're so nice and laid back!

Today I got to try rock climbing for the first time. Michael is a really good climber, and he seems to know all the good cliffs over the Donau. We climbed up and up and up to get to the cliff, and the view itself was worth it. Rock climbing was really fun, and so was mini-golfing afterwards. I got invited to go to a theater or a festival tomorrow, but we're going hiking in Austria, which I'm super psyched for! More pictures to come!

First Days in Germany

The Plattner's are an amazing family, and I feel totally comfortable with them already. The car ride home was really fun, and I was surprised that I was able to communicate fairly well in German. Southern Germany is really nice, with a lot of mountains. Krauchenwies (my town), is really small, but wicked pretty, with narrow streets and cool German houses. My (Laura's) room is huge, and Laura had made a sign for it before she left for her year in Portugal. They had put up the pictures I had on my AFS application for me, to make me feel more at home. I had a lot of help putting all of my things away, and I still can't believe how much I brought with me! For lunch we had Döner. :)
Later in the day we went to a wedding of a friend. It wasn't like any wedding I had ever been to. The bride and groom walked in stepping over hula hoops that the younger kids (and me) held. We wore red Krauchenwies hats and shirts. We then went to the reception upstairs, where we played card games, ate, and talked. Our table neighbors said they had been to Maine, and when I asked where, they said “Maranacook.” What??? Small world. We also got cards on which we wrote that we would do something for whoever found it. My family suggested I should write that I'll take a family photo. We tied the cards to balloons and set them free over the town. I was really tired during the wedding, because I hadn't really slept in 30 hours or so, so Michael brought Louisa and me home early.
I absolutely love the typical German breakfast and supper. I don't think I've eaten so much bread and cheese in my life, but it's all so good. All the food is really good. My favorite so far is Käse Spätzle. We went Sunday for a bike ride through the fields, town, and park, and it was all sooo pretty. We also went swimming in the lake, which was pretty cold.
I started school on Monday, and I always feel lost. There is another exchange student, Liisa, from Estonia, but she's with rotary. We have a German class together. My class, 11b, is really nice to me, and when I don't understand something, they explain it slower or in English. The English teacher so far has either not shown up to class, or is really late, and they don't have substitute teachers in Germany. If the teacher doesn't come, we can go. When you don't have class, you can go wherever you want. My classes are German, English, math, ethics, gym, bk (and I have not idea what that is), and art. I had ethics today, and I can officially say that Aristotle in German is really difficult... on Monday and Tuesday school goes until 3 or so, for me, but the rest of the week I get to go home at lunch. I got to go to track after lunch on Tuesday, and it was really fun. So far, I'm having a really good time!

The Way to Germany

haven't blogged in a while, so I'll split what's happened into two posts.

After a long week in D.C. with lots of sessions about living with a German family, visits with our congress(wo)men, cool people, and late nights, I finally got to Germany. It was really fun to hang out with the CB and AFS kids all week, but I think we were all pretty anxious to get to our new families. Getting through the airport with 92 excited exchange students and only two chaperones was difficult, but we eventually made it. The flight lasted about 6 ½ hours, but I couldn't sleep at all. When we got to Germany, we had to go up two escalators with our bag, and I accidentally didn't have mine fully on the step, so I fell backwards with it... It was embarrassing, but the kid in front of me was nice and he grabbed it for me. My family, (Corina, Michael, Louisa, and Lorenz Plattner) were waiting for me at the top with a sign, and we checked out with the AFS volunteers.