Hi everybody!

I'm on vacation so I finally have time to write a good blogpost... but I'm running out of ideas for what to talk about. Suggestions, anyone?

I'll go back through my journal and pick out the highlights:

-We're studying proteins and amino acids now in Chemie and the subject of vegetarianism came up... of course, being the token vegetarian, I was asked all sort of questions about my dietary habits and my parents' dietary habits and my reasons for not eating meat and so on. The teacher asked me if I ate eggs and dairy products and I explained that, at least in America, I try to only eat eggs from 'glückliche Hühner' (happy chickens). I think they thought I only said 'glückliche Hühner' because I didn't know how to say 'organic chickens that are treated fairly and get to see the sun and roam around on the grass as much as they please' in German, but the truth is that I say 'happy chickens' even when I'm talking in English. But the class thought it was cute and süß and I was happy to have contributed.

-I finally braved the German Friseur (hairdresser). I went with Linda and we got our hair cut together and it wasn't too scary... luckily I had taken photos from the last time I got my hair cut in the US so I could show the Friseur how it was supposed to be and alles war in Ordnung. Future exchange students who may have stumbled upon this blog: take photos of your hairstyle!

-My German tutor, Frau Zimmler, also teaches an English course at the local Volkshochschule (essentially Adult Education). Shortly before Christmas she invited me to come to her course and we ate Stolle and drank Glühwein and I talked about Christmas in the US (auf englisch). It was definitely the most English I've spoken in months and it was really, really strange. But it was cool to share my traditions with the class. I talked about How the Grinch Stole Christmas and how Santa Claus comes through the chimney and we leave him milk and cookies and all sorts of silly American things. And then the students told me about their Christmas traditions (auf englisch). The crazy part was that I found the students much easier to understand when they spoke German than when they spoke English with thick accents... losing your mother tongue is a scary process.

-Pati and I went to see Stitchtag (Due Date) in Cottbus. I think it came out a long time ago in the US, but often films take a while to get translated and make their way across the Atlantic, so it was new here. The movie was better than I expected it to be, and I realized afterwards that after the first 15 minutes or so I had completely stopped noticing that the movie was even in German... I was simply understanding the story and not spending time or effort translating. Pretty cool!

-I got a letter in the mail from the foreigners' office in Forst telling me that I had to get a residence permit since I've now been in Germany for longer than three months. So, I spent ten Euros and got biometric passport photos taken after school (no smile, completely stern and serious facial expression, looking in exactly the right direction... Germans love rules) and then brought them home... only to promptly forget where I had put them. We literally spent hours searching everywhere in the house only to find the photos the next day... in the toilet. I had put the photos in my back pants pocket and apparently they took a little plunge. But I still managed to get my residence permit... it's a cool sticker in my passport and now I'm officially a deutsche Staatsbürgerin (für ein Jahr).

-I'm not sure I've written yet about my host sister's cat. His name is Krüger and is completely black except for a small tuft of white on his breast. He's outdoors most of the time, but in winter he's inside a lot more. Now for those who may not know, I am a total animal person. I love dogs and cats and I have two cats at home. I have never been afraid of a cat before... and although Krüger is not exactly friendly, we had been enjoying a relatively peaceful coexistence up until last week. We had a mutual agreement: I let him sleep on my bed during the day occasionally, and in turn he generally leaves me alone. But the other day, I was laying on my bed with my feet at the head of the bed and he was near my pillows, taking a nap... but all of a sudden he randomly attacked and bit my foot. I still have no idea what happened but there was blood and I was not happy. Since then Krüger is no longer allowed in my room.

-The garden guesthouse ('die Laube') is officially finished. My host family has been building a guest house in the garden for the last six months or so... and now it is done, complete with a small kitchen, bathroom, living room, and bedroom. It looks great and I took some photos for SmugMug. We had a housewarming grill party with Glühwein, Bratwurst, cheese, toast, and bananas.

-Although I managed to avoid getting sick for the last three months, I finally succumed to a bit of a cold and a sore throat, just in time for Christmas. Being sick without my mother is kind of terrifying but, after a lot of throat lozenges (that's definitely spelled wrong) and breathing in a hot salt water minty solution (no idea) and putting some cream on my throat, I feel better. The worst is definitely over and hopefully I'll be 100% for Silvester.

-On the last day before Christmas vacation, I gave a presentation to my English class about Christmas in the US, which involved talking about How the Grinch Stole Christmas again and the separation of church and state in the US (ie: how we're not allowed to have Christas parties in school) and showing pictures of my family's Christmas tree and it was generally nice. But again, weird to speak so much English... Afterwards we watched the Christmas Carol and even I had a hard time understanding it due to three months immersed in German, British accents, and bad audio quality. We also had a Christmas party in German class, which involved drinking tea, eating cookies, attempting and failing to sing Christmas songs, and reading funny Christmas stories. It was pleasing and a nice way to bond with my classmates. It was also cool to experience a real Christmas party in school for the first time since elementary school (if not ever, I can't remember).

-Later that night, Simon had a Christmas party at the Schokiburg (his house... the chocolate castle). There were a bunch of kids from school (including Daniela, Pati, Vanni, Ewa, Linda, Anna, and Jenny) along with his band members and some more people that I had met at his other parties. We were cooking once again, this time Indian/Middle Eastern - Falafel, rice, and curry sauce. And chocolate muffins. With Glühwein of course. Unfortunately this time the cooking was much less organized and Pati, Linda, and I ended up doing most of the work, with Simon supervising and everyone else hanging out... and the curry sauce was kind of a sour/spicy fail. But by the time we were done cooking everyone was so hungry that it didn't really matter. And after we ate we played Wichteln, which is kind of like a Chinese Auction at American Christmas parties. Everyone brought a gift with a value of less than 5 euros, and we put them all in the middle and through various roles of the dice traded and switched gifts until everyone had one that wasn't their own. I ended up with Pati's gift - Duschbad (bubble bath?) and a bar of fair trade organic chocolate and a Kinder Überaschung (also chocolate, with a small toy inside). The night was really fun and I found myself comparing it to the first party at Simon's back at the beginning of October... it was amazing how different it felt: how much more I understood, how aquaintances had turned into friends, how much I felt like I belonged.

-One of the differences between American and German Christmas is the Christmas tree and the various traditions associated with it. In my family in America, we always put up the tree at least a few weeks before Christmas, and it stays up until New Years. Almost all of the ornaments are unique and have been collected over the years and many are personal to our family. Here in Germany, we decorated our tree on the 23rd (I think the 23rd or even the 24th is normal here), and it will come down on New Years. The ornaments all go together and are all red or pearl white/silver. There aren't any personalized ornaments. Also, the trees here are more like normal trees from the forest and aren't especially groomed to be perfect Christmas trees. There are some photos on SmugMug. Maria, Thomas, and I decorated it together while listening to Christmas music. Ramona and Jörg supervised.

-The opening of Christmas gifts ('die Bescherung') occurs in Germany on Christmas Eve, along with a big meal. In the morning Pati came over and we exchanged gifts... I just have to brag here for a minute because he's seriously the sweetest. He gave me a Guy Fawkes mask (from the movie V for Vendetta, which we both love and had watched together on our second date), the German version of the book Animal Farm by George Orwell, burned copies of Harry Potter 1 and 2 Book-On-CD, and, best of all, tickets to see Philipp Poisel in Dresden in February!!!!!!! Philipp Poisel is a German acoustic indie singer-songwriter, and my favorite German musician. SO. EXCITED. You can listen to one of his songs here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPim7E63FQo Then we had lunch of wurst (I even had veggie wurst...) and sauerkraut and then later Aunt Beate and Uncle Heinrich and Oma Ruth came over for coffee and kuchen. We exchanged a few gifts and ate Stolle and Christmas cookies and drank tea and coffee. Later, Jezzy and Martin arrived from Berlin, and then Ramona dressed up in a red cloak as the Weihnachstmann (Santa Claus) and read us a Christmas poem to start the Bescherung. Then we all had to sing a Christmas song in order to recieve our gifts (I sang Jingle Bells). We each distributed our gifts until we each had our own pile, and then we opened our piles all at the same time. This was quite different for me, as my family always opens gifts one at a time so we can all watch while they're being opened... and as a result the gift giving process usually lasts several hours. But it was interesting to experience Christmas in a different way, and my host family got me really nice, thoughtful gifts, including an issue of Der Spiegel recapping the news of the last year (so I'll always remember what happened in Germany while I was here), warm socks, a German grammar card game, a Clueso CD, and lots of chocolate. My host family also seemed really happy with their gifts, which included a phramed collage of photos from my time here so far, an Energie Cottbus team calendar for Maria, Energie Cottbus Fan Wine and bier glas for Jörg, and a book with crafting ideas for Ramona. After opening gifts, we had a bigggg meal of rabbit (I had falafel as a meat substitute), dumplings, rotkohl, and brussel sprouts. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing and watching Maria's new Alf DVD.

-Christmas Day is much more relaxed here and doesn't really involve any presents - instead more eating and more family. We had Oma Ruth over for lunch and then Aunt Barbara, Uncle Roger, Aunt Beate, Uncle Heinrich, Maria, Thomas, Cousin Sabina, Cousin Juliana, Cousin Steffan, and Steffan's girlfriend Juliana all came over for dinner and we grilled and hung out in the garden house. Maria, Thomas, Sabina and I went to the Klaki (a local bar) for some schnapps and cola bier to finish off the night. When I got home, I got to skype with almost my whole family back in the US, and even though it was 1 in the morning it was so so so wonderful to see all of them and I opened up my packages from Memére and Grandad and Aunt Niki and Uncle Ted and I went to bed very happy.

-The 26th is also a holiday here in Germany, the second Weihnachtsfeiertag (kind of like Boxing Day in Canada, maybe?). I spent it going to a Gaststätte, the Schweizer Garden, with Maria and Thomas and Thomas's family. I think Gaststättes are kind of like inns with a big restaurant... I haven't really seen anything similar to them in the US, but they're really popular here. We ate (food seems to be the main theme here...) and drank and I got to meet Thomas's nice family and then we went for a walk outside around the Swan Pond (the German love of fresh air hasn't changed despite the fact that the temperatures have been hovering around 15 degrees Fahrenheit these days). Later that night, I went with Maria and Thomas and Sabina to Hühnerstall (another bar), where we met Pati and some of Maria's friends and drank cocktails and more cola bier.

-On Monday Pati and I went sledding in Schwarze Pumpe. We were both poorly dressed (I don't exactly have a pair of snow pants with me...) and got cold and wet pretty quickly, but it was still really fun. We had a super oldschool wooden sled from when he was a kid, along with some trash bags. Everything was white and felt really old with no other people around us and this ancient sled... except for the huge smoke stacks from the power plant in Pumpe behind us, haha. Later that night we made vegetable pizza and I had too much glühwein. And when I got home, I was delighted to discover that my Christmas package from my parents had FINALLY arrived! I was so happy to discover the Reese's chocolates and M&Ms and Bicyling and AP Magazines and cycling books and scarfs and Christmas cards and Annie's Mac and Cheese and Burts Bees lip balm and Orbit Gum.... The littlest things from home are the best :) And my parents had even put in a present for my host family and one for Pati, too.



So... those are the major happenings that have occured over the last two weeks. I have four more days of vacation, which will involve meeting up with Daniela, Linda, Ewa, and Vanni today in der Stadt, spin class tomorrow, and a Silvester party at Max Göthel's on Friday. Should be fun. :)

Bis später!
Dani

Christmas in Germany

So it's been a while... but I've really just been so busy with the holiday season that the two weeks since my last blog have flown by. My three month mark was last Saturday and I still can't believe it's almost Christmas. Actually, life around here is actually starting to feel so normal that I haven't really had much to write about! Also, this blog entry is promising to be scatterbrained and unorganized. I apologize. And in case anyone is wondering, it's snowed almost every day for the last three weeks and doesn't show any sign of slowing down. We probably have around a foot to a foot and a half of snow, but since everything is in metric here I really have no idea. But anyway, onto my post:

Christmas in Germany is a BIG deal. In a lot of ways it's similar to the US, but there are also a lot of things that are unique to Germany.

Weihnachtsmarkts:
Weihnachtsmarkts are probably one of the most well known German Christmas traditions. A Weihnachtsmarkt is kind of a combination of an outdoor craft fair and a carneval, with lots and lots of Glühwein and delicious food like fried almonds rolled in sugar, chocolate covered fruit, candies, bread, and lots more. There's also of course lots of wurst and various other meats... but we won't talk about that. Crafters come and sell their goods from little stalls... mostly Christmas decorations, but also pottery and stonework and candles and knitted things. And there are sometimes ferris wheels and merry go rounds and carneval games. By now some of you have probably seen my photos from various Weihnachtsmarkts around Germany... if you haven't, head over to SmugMug and check them out! Over the last few weeks I've been to Weihnachtsmarkts in Dresden, Cottbus, and Spremberg, and I'm headed to some in Berlin this weekend. Weihnachstsmarkts are awesome, but unfortunately the weather has been awful every time I've gone to one... I'm pressing my thumbs for good weather this weekend.


die Schule/Hanukkah/Separation of Church and State:
This is one of the most striking differences between Christmas in America and Christmas in Germany... it's generally assumed here that EVERYONE celebrates Christmas, and we're allowed to have school Christmas parties and some teachers have Advent wreaths in their rooms and we sing Christmas songs in music class. I've asked about Hanukkah and a lot of people have never heard of it... and actually most people I've talked to don't even know any Jewish people (or at most they know one or two). And Kwanzaa definitely doesn't exist. Christmas is also not really associated with Christianity... of course there are Christian people who probably celebrate Christmas in a more religious way than others, but here in the former DDR a lot of families, including my host family, aren't religious at all but wouldn't dream of not celebrating Christmas. Of course there are a ton of nonreligious people who still celebrate Christmas in the US, but it seems that here Christmas is even less associated with religion than in America.

Räuchermännchen:
A cool Christmas decoration here in Germany that I've never seen in the US are Räuchermännchen. A Räuchermännchen is a handcrafted wooden figure, usually a man or woman or santa claus (the Weihnachtsmann) or a snowman. They come in all sorts of vareties, from traditional Christmas figurines to bakers or mechanics or German soccer fans at the world cup. They're hollow inside with holes in their mouths. You put a special candle inside and the incense smoke comes out through the mouth and fills the room with lovely Christmas smells. My host family has a bunch of them and you can always find them for sale at Weihnachtsmarkts... There are photos on SmugMug :)

Weihnachtslieder:
Germans sing a combination of German and American Christmas songs... thanks to Frau Heath I already know a bunch of the words to the German ones :) Check out Oh Du Fröhliche or Kling Glöckchen on youtube for examples.

St. Niklaus Tag:
In Germany and various other European countries the 6th of December is St. Niklaus Tag! It's a lovely holiday that we unfortunately don't have in the US, and it's kind of a precursor to Christmas. The night before the 6th, children clean their shoes and leave them by the door for the Niklausmann. Then, if they've been good, Niklaus brings them chocolate and sweets and leaves them in their shoes! Ramona and I cleaned our shoes together and I woke up to chocolate goodies the next morning :)

Plätzchen/Stollen
My host mom and I have been baking up a storm for the last few weeks... every day a new type of cookie. Cookies only really exist here during the Christmas season, and they're called Plätzchen. They're always some form of sugar cookie, sometimes with nuts or marzipan or ginger, and then we decorate them with sugar or chocolate on top. There's also photos on SmugMug :) And then Stolle is a special kind of Christmas baked good here in Germany. I want to say it's almost like fruitcake, because it's not very sweet and it has raisins and dried fruit in it and mostly only adults like it. A lot of people make it themselves but it takes FOREVER and is really complicated... and then it has to sit for at least a week before it's ready to eat! So we bought ours from the bakery :) There's also a photo on SmugMug.

Weihnachtskarten:
Christmas cards are a tradition here as well as in the US, but my host mom makes them all by hand and each is unique. There's a lot of time and care and craft involved and I really like the fact that they're not all store-bought and mass-manufactured like the ones most people buy in the US. Maria and I also made one each. Actually, in general Germans make a lot more things from scratch and by hand, especially when it comes to food and gifts. It's a lot more personal and I really like it :)

Advent:
In the US I experienced Advent only as a Christian, churchy thing... each of the four Sundays before Christmas they would light one more candle at church, and that was pretty much it. Sometimes we had an advent weath at home. But here Advent is totally not associated with church and people wish you a happy first or second or third or fourth Advent and everyone has Advent candles, even some teachers at school like I've already said. It's kind of cool and definitely a difference I wouldn't have expected.


So, that is my rambling on German Christmas... and there is certainly more information to come because it's only the 14th of December. But as for a general update on things... I've been in Germany for three months now and I honestly have started crying just thinking about the fact that I only have seven months left. I haven't felt homesick since early October. I'm really happy with my language skills. I'm still going to my German tutor and I think she's really helped me to make a lot of progress. I think I'm almost to the point where I can start functioning as a normal student at school. I got the equivalent of an A on my math Klausur (kind of like a Midterm exam) and the equivalent of a B on a test for music class, which included an essay analyzing how the musical composition of an opera related to its plot. I understand 80-90% of what's going on around me when I really focus. I very rarely use a dictionary in everyday conversations. Even when I don't know a word, most of the time I can understand the German explanation of what the word means enough to figure it out. I'm swimming and cycling and I may start yoga on Wednesdays (shout out to Mr. Milligan, I miss you and your awesome math class!). I have really great friends and a boyfriend, Patrick... aka Pati. And thanks to him I experienced my first ever romantic candlelit dinner last weekend. I'm planning to go to a few punk concerts in the coming months and I am excited. Biking to school in the snow is not fun at all, and they don't plow very well here. Luckily Pati drives me to school now a lot of the time. I was invited to a party for Silvester (New Years Eve).

Life is really, really good.

The Christmas season has begun

I do believe it's officially the Christmas season here in Germany - we have snow on the ground and the Weihnachtsmarkts are in full swing - glühwein and sweets and all. There's lots of tea and christmas songs and decorations and I really don't think anyone does Christmas like the Germans - it's serious business. My host mom has been planning out her baking for weeks. Our house is completely consumed by decorations. It's quite pleasing.

I have been cooking up a storm lately... in addition to cooking thanksgiving dinner and generally helping out my host mom, I also made homemade vegetable soup for the first time! I had to fudge the metric/American measurements a bit and I added and subtracted certain vegetables, but I think it came out well! I surprised my host mom with it for lunch and I also brought some to Pati since he was home sick for half the week.

I've been still attending my German course with Frau Zimmler, and we've been tackling some really tricky German grammar... Subjunctive (Konjuktiv) and such... which is the conditional future, as in 'If you could pick me up on Friday, I would gladly come with you to the movies.' It's tough but I think I may finally be wrapping my head around it.

I rode my bicycle in the snow for the first time in my life. I've also started blowdrying my hair, because my host parents won't let me out of the house with wet hair anymore.

I took a test in music class! The teacher is really sweet but doesn't really understand that I don't want to speak English, so she translated the questions for me and everything... but I wrote a mini essay about relationship between the plot of an opera and the musical arrangement of the Aria in German! Of course I needed almost two full periods when the others only needed one, but still! I wrote an almost-essay in German and it actually went reasonably well, I think.

I managed to not get completely homesick on Thanksgiving, despite the fact that I had to go to school. Ramona and Bruno and I skyped with Mom and Dad and Grammy and Aunt Clarissa and Uncle Jeff, and it was really lovely and my dad practiced his German out on Ramona ('zwei Bier bitte'). Most Germans don't really have much of an idea of what Thanksgiving is, so I've had to explain it a lot. And Frau Rennert asked me about turkeys in German class and I explained I was a vegetarian and she had a good laugh with that one. :)

Just when I thought my German was getting good I managed to embarass myself in front of various customers at the stationary store in Spremberg... I bought a new journal (my old one is full!) and an eraser and a sheet of nice purple paper, and didn't understand what the cashier when she asked me if I wanted a recipt... Bah...But now I know: die Quittung - Recipt

We didn't have school randomly on Friday (I guess all schools in Germany, or at least Brandenburg, get three random days where they can cancel...sort of like staff development days in the US, minus the staff development) and I spent it with Pati :) It was quite lovely.

Last night I went to Simon's birthday party! He had a bunch of people over to the 'Schokiburg' - or the 'chocolate castle' - his parents own a Belgian chocolate factory, for those who may have forgotten. A bunch of my friends were there, including Daniela, Ewa, Vanni, Anna, Erik, Pati, and Max (well, there were actually three Maxes there). We ate lasagna and quatsched and listened to Simon's band play and played guitar hero and twister and such. In Germany it's bad luck to wish someone happy birthday before their actual birthday, so we all waited until midnight and then sang Happy Birthday to Simon in cute German accents. Then we all gave him his gifts :) I gave him the Alternative Press magazine that my mom had sent from home, and I also made him a card with pictures of us. I wrote about how much I appreciate his friendship, since he was actually my first German friend and through him I met virtually all of my new friends :) Without him, my life in Germany would probably be really, really different. He seemed to really like it :)

Today I went to an antique shop in Spremberg with my host family. It was really cool to see all of the old things and compare them to antiques in the US... especially things from the Nazi era and the DDR. Of course Germany shouldn't be defined only by these time periods, but since I've learned so much about them in school I find such relics quite fascinating. Jörg bought me a few pieces of really old Germany currency... Deutsche Marks from the 1903 and 1923. also stumbled upon a copy of Mein Kampf, which was admittidly quite creepy.

Also, I finished reading Brecht's Die Gewehere der Frau Carrar for the second time, and now I've moved on to the German translation of 1984. I really hoped I can manage to get through it... it's pretty hefty but I love the book auf englisch so we'll see how it goes.

I am quite tired, so I'm going to finish uploading my photos to smugmug and then relax for the evening. Das Leben ist schön in Deutschland :)

Since the last time I wrote...

-I went to a concert in Cottbus with Simon, Pati, and Hans. It was really crass, straight up German hardcore punk, without a melody to be heard and three chords and barking and moshing. I was generally unenthused by the music, but the atmosphere was cool and the company was of course great. Also, we stood outside for a while and there was a random, really adorable sheephound-type dog running around and we and some punks played fetch with him for about a half an hour.

-I had my first 'Turkish Pizza' - which is essentially a Döner in a wrap. Quite tasty.

-I woke up before dawn and biked to school for chemistry (which starts at 7 am on Tuesdays...ugh) only to have the teacher not show up. Mist.

-I kind of understood our lesson about enyzmes and substrats in Biologie, despite my complete incompetence when it comes to science.

-I finished my German pro cycling magazine! I also started to reread Die Gewehre Der Frau Carrar, which is the Brecht book that Frau Rennert gave me a month or so ago. The first time I read it, a dictionary was a necessity... this time, I have barely needed it at all!

-We started talking about democracy versus dictatorship states in Politik, and we've been listening to presentations about the political systems of Russia, China, Iran, etc.... and determining if they have democratic potential and to what extent they are dictatorships. It's quite interesting, and I've actually been understanding a lot!

-I started studying the Subjunctive (Konjunktiv) case in my German course... still tricky, but it's getting easier.

-I received a package from home complete with gum, gloves, socks, PEANUT BUTTER, Libby's canned pumpkin for pumpkin pie, cards, a puzzle, a bicycling skull cap, and Bicycling and AP magazine! I was quite pleased, and I made Pati his first ever PB&J. Of course I also had one myself :) Tastes like home.

-I had two free hours in the cafeteria on Friday and I spent them in the cafeteria with Ewa, Vanni, Karina, and Linda, helping with English homework and explaining Thanksgiving. We also played bowling with drink bottles and a calculator. Pretty fun :)

-I saw the first part of the 7th Harry Potter movie!!! I went with a bunch of friends including Simon, Pati, Ewa, Daniela, Vanni, and Anna and Erik. We also got pizza before (Pati and I split a really yummy veggie pizza!) and then got drinks in the Klaki (a bar in Spremberg) afterwards. The movie was really really good, and I understood it all! Unfortunately the ending is a horrible cliffhanger and now we have to wait until June or something... but oh well. The evening was really quite wonderful and I had a great time hanging out with everyone :)

-I went to Berlin with Pati and Hans yesterday! There we went to an anti-fascism demonstration in honor of Silvio Meier, who was killed by Neo-nazis in Berlin some time ago. We marched through the streets of Berlin with over four thousand other people... chanting and waving flags and such. There were even some fireworks set off from the top of apartment buildings, but I'm not sure if they were legal or not. It was really sureal and powerful and I quite enjoyed myself. It was definitely a cultural experience that I never would have had in America. The Germans, especially the Berliners, love their protest. Also, afterwards we went back to my house and had a fire in the garden and drank glühwein with my host family :) It was cold but quite nice.

-I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my host family! Minus the turkey, of course. I made crannberry stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, honey balasmic carrots, corn, pumpkin pie, and chocolate chip cookies! All from scratch! Although of course with a little help from my host mom... :) The cookies, especially, were quite a hit. Everything tasted like home and it was really nice to share the holiday with my host family, who were of course experiencing it for the first time.


So, yes. Things are good. I am quite enjoying myself here in Germany. In honor of Thanksgiving, I'd like to say just how thankful I am for this wonderful, crazy experience that I am living. I am so thankful for my great host family, for how awesome my German friends are, for the fact that I get to wake up everyday and get to speak German and learn about another culture... just for everything.

:)

Oh, and there are new photos on SmugMug for your enjoyment!

Germans dance weird

Recent developments:

-I took a German chemistry test, and it wasn't a complete fail. I understood the questions (mostly) and wrote at least something for each one. The teacher was really pleased that I was trying and said that what I wrote actually wasn't bad. I've definitely had to let the perfectionist gene go at this point... I have to keep reminding myself that I'm actually not getting graded and that my best effort is enough, regardless of the outcome. Sometimes I feel completely incompetent though and its tough... But it's definitely getting easier to relax about school.

-We started reading about racial and ethnic diversity in Englisch class and right now we're focusing on the USA. We read a speech Obama gave about his racial identity and diversity in America, and it was really lovely and I helped to explain it to people (in German, of course!). English class continues to be amusing because the teacher is quite strange and says really random things to me all time. He quotes Metalica a lot and takes deep, heaving, exasperated breaths. Er ist ein komischer Mensch.

-I skyped with Frau Adams' 8th grade German class and told them all about Germany and my host family and school and life in general here. It was really fun and I hope that they're all inspired to keep learning German :)

-Pati and I went to a bar/punk house/youth hang out place in Spremberg called Piraten eV (Pirate Club, basically). I listened to him talk with people about anti-nazi demonstrations (the Spremberg/Cottbus area is apparently a hotbed for Neo-Nazis, yikes) and then he bought me a Döner with falafel (my new favorite Döner) and we watched V for Vendetta since it was the 5th of November. Afterwards we went back to my house and sat in the garden house and talked and it was lovely and all in German and without a dictionary. :)

-I went to Aunt Barbara and Uncle Roger's house with my host family and a bunch of other people to celebrate the finishing of their house renovations. Barbara cooked way, way too much food, people drank a lot of schnapps, I had more glühwein and tried Eierliqör (egg liquor???) and we were merry.

-I went to my first real German disko (dance club), at the university in Cottbus. I went with Olga and Yasmin and Jenny and some other girls and guys that don't go to my school. It was quite the experience... No ID check on the way in, lots and lots of people and a smoke machine and a DJ and lights and lots of alcohol. Germans dance strangely though... instead of grinding like Americans do at a club (or a school dance), we girls kind of stood in a circle and grooved independently with virtually no interaction with guys. Now I'm not exactly the expert on American dancing, but it was a bit odd for me. I explained about how we dance in America and my friends were pretty appauled. I was amused. I also bought a Pina Colada (again, no ID check... they never card you in Germany) and the bartender spoke English to me and it was really strange. Is there really that much of a difference in the proununciation of 'Pina Colada' that immediately gave away my foreignness??? I don't get it. But anyway, it was fun and definitely a new cultural experience.

-I gave another presentation in Politik, this time on the results of the American midterm elections. I had graphs and attempted to not make a fool of myself and Herr Hesse talked a lot. I think it went pretty well. He's not pleased with the election results and I'm obviously not either. It's really amusing though because he doesn't try to hide his own political views at all and he'll talk to me in English about how much he dislikes Republicans and such. Win.

-Tuesday was the 21st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and we talked about it in German class and Ramona and I watched a TV special on it. We had a really nice and interesting conversation about what actually happened that day and how my host parents reacted and how life changed here. The former East Germany is super interesting for me so it really pleases me to be living here and to be able to talk with my host parents about it. :)

-I went to go see the movie Goethe in Cottbus with Aunt Barbara. For those who don't know, Goethe was a really famous German poet and playwright, and the movie was about his life and how his (failed) love story shaped his career as a writer. I understood the whole film without any form of subtitles and with absolutely no knowledge of the plot beforehand! Win. It was a really good film, too! And I'm not normally a fan of 1700's era stuff.

-In German class yesterday, I was minding my own business reading my cycling magazine when I suddenly picked up what Frau Rennert was asking and realized that I knew the answer to her question! She was asking about what had been recently unearthed at a construction site in Berlin, and thanks to a news article my mom had sent me, I knew the answer: Art that the Nazis considered to be deviant and had confiscated. When a fire burned down Nazi offices, all the statues and busts ended up getting buried in the rubble and were only just now found! So when Frau Rennert asked this, and no one in the class knew the answer, I got super excited and raised my hand and just said 'Kunst!' which means 'Art.' She was quite impressed, I think, and I was so happy to show her that I can actually understand her when she talks at a normal speed. (Normally she talks to me really slowly like I'm a small child).

-I finally got a German tutor - a really nice retired German/English teacher, and I had my first lesson with her yesterday. It was really enjoyable and she was impressed with my German. We're doing some grammar work so I can fill in some of the holes that still remain in my understanding.

-I started basketball in Sport today and while it's not as easy as swimming it's still enjoyable and a good way to bond with some of the girls at school.



So. Things are good here in Deutschland.

Tomorrow is a big day... it marks TWO MONTHS that I've been in Germany! I really don't know where the last month went, and when I think about the fact that I've been here for two months I get sad because that means I only have eight more left. In honor of this occasion, here's a summary of how things are going:

School
I think that I'm finally getting used to the speed of German lectures, and that my vocabulary is finally getting big enough so that I can actually understand a lot of what is said in my classes. Of course not everything, but dramatically more than I could at the beginning. I participate fully in math, sport, and English. I participate but I'm not really graded or expected to write tests in music, chemistry, and biology. In history and politics, 90% of the time the class consists of student presentations so I sit and listen and translate the handouts. Today I actually understood a lot of politics class, to my surprise.

Friends
I feel so incredibly lucky because everyone in my class is just so, so welcoming. I have real friends that ask me to hang out on the weekends and kiss me hello and goodbye. I always have someone to sit with at lunch and I really feel like a part of the group. It seems like I get to know someone new every week! For example, I've been swimming with two new friends from the 13th grade, Jana and Max, and they're really nice and I may start going to lifeguard training with them now too.

Family
I am really, really happy with my host family and I feel completely at home in my house now. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better host family. And plus, Bruno is awesome.

Language
I think I talk about this a lot, but basically, my German has improved dramatically over the last two months, especially in terms of understanding... The only time I ever speak English is in Englisch class. When I first meet people, I am constantly asked how long I've been here and then I get complimented on my German, and although I'm still uncomfortable with a few grammatical areas, I'm really happy with my progress so far.

Me
I wear boots and scarves to school, and barely any t-shirts. I drink a lot of tea. I eat a lot of bread. I have aquired a taste for Sauerkraut. I need a haircut but I'm scared of the German Friseur. I'm more or less the same weight I was when I got here. I still don't like beer. But glühwein is really delicious. I miss my roadbike. I can find my way around Spremberg without my map, and I'm actually fairly familiar with Berlin as well. I'm not afraid to talk to strangers, although answering the phone is still slightly terrifying. I am really quite happy.


Bis später,
Dani

And because I'm feeling inspired...

and also because I don't want to attempt to read my Chemistry textbook in order to study for the test I have to attempt (and ultimately fail) tomorrow, you get a bonus blog post for this week!

Here are a few of my favorite German words/phrases and their translations/explanations:

1. Echt. This word means real or really and is generally used as an exclamation/question combination. When someone says something unbelievable or unusual or exciting, someone might say 'echt?!?!?' in response. I find this incredibly amusing and I tend to use the word a lot. You could also say that my photo with Barack Obama, for example, is echt - he isn't a wax figure. I've had to say that a lot here, haha.

2. Doch. We don't have a word for this in English, but it essentially means 'On the contrary.' So, when someone asks a negative question in German, such as 'Didn't you go to the store?', the correct answer to the question when you did in fact go to the store is not 'ja', but rather 'doch' ('on the contrary, I DID go to the store'). This avoids all of the double negative confusion we have in English, because technically if you said 'yes' to that question, it would mean that you DIDN'T go to the store. The double negative 'no' answer would mean that you did in fact go to the store. Phew. That one is hard to explain. I hope that makes sense! So instead of arguments consisting of like 'yes!' 'no!' 'yes!' 'no!' they consist of 'nein!' 'doch!' 'nein!' 'doch!' I find this extremely funny.

3. Egal/Es ist mir egal. We also don't have this one in English! Loosely, egal means 'doesn't matter.' Es ist mir egal means 'It doesn't matter to me.' But it's so much easier to say egal than it is to say 'it doesn't matter.'

4. Gleich. Gleich means equal, but it also means 'In a moment.' Again, we don't have an exact translation. When you say 'Ich gehe gleich' it means that you will be going within the next 2-3 minutes. And this is Germany, so you'd better be on time.

5. Gar nicht. I say this one all the time, mostly because I love how it sounds. It means 'Not at all.'

More may be coming later, but now I need to attempt to read about electron pair bonding in a foreign language. Bleh.

Bis dann!

Back to school

Hello again everyone,

Things here in Germany are still going quite well. Last week was my first week back to school after the Herbst Ferien. The week itself was mostly uneventful, but it was nice to get back into a routine after two weeks of vacation. Some highlights included making homemade marmalade from Quitten (a strange German fruit that I'm not sure we have in America... photo here: http://www.frau-mutti.de/bilder/blblog/KASTANIEN3.JPG ) from the garden and swimming a 400 meter (approximately 430 yards, I think) test for sport class. Thanks to my days of swimming the 500 yard event in swim team, it was a breeze and I received another 1+. Sport and math class are so nice because for once I don't feel totally incompetent (I think that's spelled incorrectly... my English is definitely going downhill).

On that note... School is starting to feel normal now. I know where all my classes are and I have real friends and I get kissed hello and goodbye. Sometimes I can even understand what's going on in German class. But history is still a fail.

But now on to more exciting things... the weekend! On Friday I was actually invited to not one, but TWO parties. One was a Halloween party at Chrissy's house, and one was a birthday party for a girl in my class. I ended up going to the Halloween party because I was invited to that first. Maria gave me clothing advice (my complete lack of fashion sense hasn't changed despite being in Europe) and did my makeup so that I looked like some dead vampire/zombie combination. Although I've never had a sister before so I'm not really sure what that bond is supposed to feel like, I think we were starting to get there. It felt nice.

Ramona drove me to Chrissy's house, and after an encounter with her grandmother (who may or may not have realized that I'm not German) who lives in the other half of the duplex, I managed to find the party. Daniela, Ewa, Simon, Vanni, Karina, Erik, and Chrissy were there, along with three new boys... Philipp, Philipp, and Tom, who is from Sachsen. I know this because he speaks the horrendously difficult to understand sächsische dialect. More on that later. A couple of the other girls and Simon and Erik also had halloween makeup on, thankfully. Once Chrissy had told me that we were dressing up for the halloween party, I had the sinking feeling that it would be like straight out of Mean Girls where Lindsey Lohan shows up to the halloween party looking like a horrible dead zombie and all the other girls are dressed up as like... playboy bunnies and sexy devils. Thankfully, that did not happen to me!

But anyway, we hung out in the kitchen for a while and Chrissy made 'fingers' out of wurst (not hotdogs, wurst) and almonds (so German...). Then we went downstairs into her basement and ate and talked and were social. I discovered that 'vegetarian' noodle salad actually contained ham. Which makes the third time that I've accidentally consumed a small amount of meat here. I also discovered that I still do not like Pils beer and that despite readily available alcohol very few people were drinking it and they were definitely not getting drunk. Alcohol culture is very, very different here. Speaking from limited experience... In America, at least among teenagers/college students, it doesn't matter that the beer tastes awful because the purpose of drinking it is only to get drunk. Here beer is just like soda, so people that don't like the taste (read: almost all the girls I've met) just don't drink it. It's that simple.

After a while we put in a horror film called Thirteen Ghosts. With German subtitles (it's so much easier to understand movies when I can read as well as hear the German), I understood the whole movie and was definitely scared. I'm not much of a horror film person and I only had a pillow to cling to... aber trotzdem war der Film ok. We also started to watch Paranormal Activity (all the Germans call it Paranormal Activities, so cute), but we fell asleep on that one pretty quickly. I also dreamt in German again!!! For anyone not familiar with the language learning process... this is a huge step towards fluency and is really, really exciting. It's so funny for me because I wake up the next morning and I can't remember what the dream was about but I know that it was in German.

Naja. On to Saturday. We (me, Ramona, Jörg, Maria, and Thomas) went to Aunt Beate and Uncle Heinrich's house for dinner. Aunt Barbara and Uncle Roger (who coincidentally live nextdoor to Aunt Beate and Uncle Roger) also came over. We made a fire in the garden and sat around talking and drinking Grog (the men) and Glühwein (the women). Grog is rum and hot water. Glühwein is mulled red wine with spices and sometimes fruit/citrus. It's normally drunken in the wintertime and is a feature of the Christmas Markets. It was actually really, really good! Way better than regular wine.

After an hour or so I walked to a nearby parking lot with Maria where Pati, a guy from my class, picked me up to go to the movies. We went to see the Social Network! I had been wanting to see it for a while and it didn't disappoint. And despite the lack of subtitles and the fact that Jesse Eisenberg (and therefore his German voiceover actor) always speak impossibly fast, I understood the film! I only had a few questions for Pati afterwards, but he also had a few for me (about American university culture... the film takes place at Harvard). After the movie he drove me home and we ended up talking for almost two hours, all in German and without a dictionary! I was pretty pleased. It was also lovely conversation, about politics and music and Germany and the US and culture and travel and just fun stuff. He also gave me a bottle of his favorite beer ('zu kösten!') and a book about the dirty laundry of various corporations. And on top of all that, I dreamt in German again that night! I've definitely discovered the key to dreaming in German... whenever I spent the hours before bed conversing intensely in German, I dream in German. Normally I spend about a half an hour to an hour before bed writing in my journal (in English) and sending an email or two (in English), so the dreaming tends to occur when I sleep over at a friend's house.

And finally to today. I met my other host Oma (Ramona's mother), as she came over for lunch. Afterwards, we all (minus Oma) went for a really nice and long walk with Bruno in the Wald.

A note on the language:
German varies incredibly among the regions of Germany, Austria, and Switerland. Now with English we're used to regional accents and we can usually tell whether we're talking to someone from Texas or Massachusetts or Ireland or London. In German, the regional differences are on a whole different level, to the point that Germans from the north sometimes need subtitles to understand Germans from Bavaria. And it's not just the accent, either. Sometimes there are whole different words for things in different regions. Zum Beispiel... a pancake in Spremberg is called a Plins, but in Berlin it's called a Pfannkuchen. A potato in Germany is a Kartoffel. In Austria it is an Erdapfel. Blueberries have three or four different names in various regions... Blaubeeren, Heidelbeeren... and more that I don't even know. This does not make life easy for an exchange student. For example, Spremberg, while located in the state of Brandenburg, borders the state of Sachsen. Sachsen's dialect is almost as extreme as that in Bavaria, and therefore I have an extremely hard time understanding my host uncle Heinrich and Tom from the Halloween party. It's hard to describe, but at least the men speaking the dialect sound like they're saying 'glub glub glub' half the time and speaking from the depths of their throat. If you fastfoward to 0:40 on this youtube video, you can hear some Sächisch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmGmdeaujww

Fortunately, however, the Spremberg dialect is not so extreme. A few examples. The high German word 'nichts' is pronounced like 'nischt' in Spremberg. And instead of saying 'ich weiß,' pronounced 'ich v-eye-ss', Sprembergers pronounce it like 'ich v-ayyy-ss.' Instead of saying 'klein' like 'kl-eye-n' they sometimes say 'kl-ayy-n.' I enjoy the Spremberger dialect. It's not too difficult, thankfully.

And now for a note on Halloween:
I'm not sure about Halloween in the west of Germany, but here in the former East, Halloween is quite new. It's been slowly gaining popularity over the last 5-10 years, but my host siblings (aged 22 and 24) never once went trick or treating as kids. Now, some young children do, but for the adults the day has no meaning. Despite this, I carved a jack-o-lantern and I'm preparing the answer the door for the kids that do come. I find German children impossibly adorable, so I hope that we at least get a few.

Until next time,
Dani

Ferien

Today is my last day of Herbstferien so it's about time I wrote a little about what I've been up to for the last two weeks.

On Wednesday I met Linda in Spremberg's City Center and we got yummy baked goods and hot chocolate in a Bäckerei. I can't properly pronounce or spell the name of the one that I ate, but you can see photos on SmugMug. That's daniellesmith.smugmug.com, in case anyone is wondering. We also walked around town, did a little window shopping, and headed over to the city park, which is home to a lot of trees and also mounments for the victims of fascism and the Holocaust. There's also a cemetery for Russian soldiers that died in World War II, and the Bismarck Tower. The lighting of the sun on the leaves was totally beautiful, so I took lots of photos and generally made a tourist of myself. It was quite fun.

The next day, Maria and I went to Cottbus. We nommed some really delicious Indian food (I had Chana Masala, if anyone is wondering) and I bought some warm clothes at H&M. Germans are generally in love with H&M, and I've become a fan as well. I also got some warm boots for the extremely cold winter that is supposedly ahead. The radio has been saying it will be the coldest winter here in 2000 years. 2000 years is Quatsch (nonsense), but it will definitely be cold. I hope it's a snowy one.

I spent Friday night at Yasmin's house with a bunch of other girls including Olga, Daniela, Vanni, and Ewa, and some other girls I didn't know. We made pizza, I made Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for them to try, and we played lots of Wii. We all pretty much failed at Wii Tennis, but I ended up being really good at Wii Trivial Pursuit, despite the questions being in German, since most a lot of them were about American pop culture. We also spent a while watching funny youtube videos, going on Chat Roulette, and talking about boys of course (this was a sleepover after all). The whole night was so much fun and I just had one of those perfect moments of clarity where I can understand almost everything that is being said and I forget that I'm even in a foreign country. I'm pretty sure I dreamt in German that night too, and at breakfast Yasmin's mom said she thought I had been here for at least 5 or 6 months based on my German (!!!!). Another highlight included Daniela kissing my cheek goodbye when she left, saying that now I'm an official real friend (she reads my blog... hi Daniela!). Olga and Yasmin did the same :)

On Saturday, the four of us (Jörg, Ramona, Maria, and I) drove to Berlin. I'm really, really not used to driving 180 kilometers per hour (roughly 110 miles per hour) on the Autobahn (and in the rain, no less). But, that is Germany... and despite slight carsickness I made it to Berlin in one piece. Once at the apartment that Jörg and Maria inhabit during the week, we did a little grocry shopping for breakfast the next morning and then we were off for some sightseeing. The weather was really awful, cold and horribly rainy, but we made do. We saw a WWII/Holocaust memorial... unfortunately we didn't have enough time for me to read the whole thing (even with English translations, it was an incredibly large museum-like display), but maybe next time. Then we got Sushi at Potsdamer Platz for dinner. Unfortunately I wasn't a fan, but afterwards I got a delicious tomato/mozerella/basil bagel. Tomato/mozerella/basil is probably my favorite combination of flavors ever, so I was pretty pleased. After dinner we headed over to the Brandenburg Gate and various other pretty buildings, along with the US embassy (which is not pretty and actually looks somewhat scary). That week was a special event in Berlin called the Festival of Lights, so most of the fancy buildings we saw had special lights and projectors on them so it was even cooler than usual. Despite the weather being awful, I managed to get a few decent photos. From there we walked and walked some more and stopped into a chocolate shop which had chocolate models of various famous Berlin attractions (see SmugMug for photos). At this point my feet hurt and I was cold and it was still rainy so we went back to the car and drove back to the apartment for some good sleep.

The next morning, after a breakfast of Brötchen and cheese and marmalade, we headed to the Reichstag, which is Germany's most important political building. I'm struggling to come up with an American equivalent, because it's not like the White House since Angela Merkel doesn't live there... So maybe it's like the Capitol Building? I'm still not entirely sure. But anyway, they give tours and people stand in line for hours to go up to the glass dome on top of it. We didn't have enough time to stand in line, so I'll have to do that on another day. Instead we just took some photos and saw more memorials for the victims of the Nazis and those who died trying to cross the Berlin Wall. Afterwards we headed back to Potsdamer Platz, where we met Martin and Jezzy. It was Martin's birthday, so we went to a Mexican (!!!!) restaurant in the area. I had a burrito for the first time in a month and it was epic and delicious. I also tried rum and wasn't a big fan (surprise surprise). After lunch we went to a cafè for some coffee and hot chocolate. We gave Martin his gifts and then drove back to Spremberg. I haven't exactly figured out the customs here surrounding birthdays and giftgiving... a meal in a restaurant seems to be tradition but Martin didn't open his presents in front of us and neither did Oma. I'm not sure if this is the norm or just a coincidence.

Anway, on Monday I was off with Jörg and Ramona to Sachsen (the next federal state). We stayed at a small inn in Thürmsdorf until Wednesday. On Monday we visited Königstein, which is a really old fortress from the years of Sachsen monarchy. We spent the day walking around the huge complex and checking out all the exhibits of old weaponry and the old well and the old horse stall and other old things. Photos can be seen on SmugMug.

On Tuesday the weather was foreboding, so we decided against hiking and instead drove to Dresden. Dresden is very much a modern city, but it has a certain section called the Altstadt where most of the old pretty buildings are located, and it's the tourist center. The most famous building is the Frauenkirche. What's amazing about the Altstadt of Dresden, besides its beauty, is the fact that in WWII it was completely burned to the ground by the United States' fire bomb. Over the last twenty years of united Germany, the old buildings have been completely rebuilt to their exact old specifications, and even with a lot of the original stone. So, when you see pictures of the Frauenkirche, try to imagine what it was like to completely rebuild it from charred sandstone and rubble. Pretty crazy. Fortunately, because of the crappy weather, we were able to actually climb up to the top of the Frauenkirche and also go inside. Normally you have to wait for quite a while because it's the most popular site in Dresden. In the basement of the church there's a whole historical exhibit detailing the reconstruction of the church. It was really quite interesting. We spent the rest of the day just walking around and checking out the buildings, and we also went to the Palace of King Augustus of Dresden. The palace complex is huge, and now they use the buildings for various museum exhibits. Ramona and I checked out Augutus' huge porcelain collection. Over his lifetime he accumulated a TON of porcelain from China and Japan, and also a lot from Meissen, which is a city in Germany that's really well known for porcelain production.

The next day (Wednesday) we drove back to Spremberg, but on the way we stopped at the IKEA in Dresden. Now, we have IKEAs in the US, but in Germany... IKEA is a way of life. I had never been in one before, so it was quite the experience. It was unbelievably huge, with everything you could possibly need for your house inside, along with a children's play place, a restaurant, and a Swedish food market. (IKEA originated in Sweden, just like H&M. Germans are big fans of Sweden). It was like Bed Bath and Beyond plus aspects of Home Depot on steroids. I was pretty blown away.

On Thursday, I met up with Olga and Yasmin at a local bar called Hühnerstall (chicken stall). Maria also met a few of her friends there, so we went together. It was halfprice cocktails night and I truly enjoyed an alcoholic beverage for the first time (mostly because I couldn't taste the alcohol). It was a strawberry margarita - like mother, like daughter, I suppose... hahaha. We just quatsched for a while (quatsch is a noun as well as a verb in German... the verb means to talk about nonsense or to chatter, I love it) and it was really quite nice. Once Olga and Yasmin left, I sat with Maria and her friends for a while, managed to understand almost everything, and was complimented on my German. It was a good night :)

And finally, on Friday, I took the train with Olga and Yasmin to Berlin! We also rode with Olga's sister in her friend. There's something called the Berlin-Brandenburg ticket, where up to five people can buy one ticket for 27 euros (about 35 dollars) to Berlin and back, and it's also valid for all the public transportation in Berlin. That means it cost me 7 dollars for an entire day of trains and subways and street cars in and to Berlin. Pretty sweet deal. Our goal was to do a little sightseeing and little shopping, but it ended up being mostly sightseeing. We saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Tiergarten, Kürfustendamm, and Alexanderplatz. At Kürfurstendamm, Olga and Yasmin had Starbucks for the first time (actually, it might have been my first time too... I can't remember if I've ever actually bought something there. But anway, it was a big deal to Olga and Yasmin since it's only in big cities in Germany and it's always something celebrities drink). We also popped into H&M. At Alexanderplatz, we checked out the New Yorker (a clothing store) and Media Markt, and I spent way too much money on a German professional cycling magazine. But, it has lots of lovely photos and I swear it's good for my German... We also bought a cheesy girls magazine called Mädchen for entertainment on the train home. The whole day was a lot of fun.

This weekend has been quite lazy, with lots of sleeping, a little bike riding, some work in the garden and some homesicknes. The strangest things trigger homesickness, like raking leaves and cooking vegetables... it's really quite odd. But I'm feeling better today. And tomorrow I will go back to my school routine, which I am looking forward to. That's all for now :)

Bis später,
Dani

An intro to German culture

So, since I'm on Herbstferien (fall break) and have done pretty much nothing the last few days... I'm going to take this opportunity to share some tidbits of German life with you. This is in no particular order, and I make no guarantees that I haven't already mentioned certain things.

Laundry:
We hang everything on a clothes line to dry. We only use the dryer when absolutely necessary (ie: jeans in wintertime). This is partially because it is bad for the environment and also because it's ridiculously expensive (something like 6 euros a load). We have an outside clothes line and also several inside in the basement. Even in winter most things are line dried. Also, I had to get a lesson in putting the clothes on the line correctly because everything must be in perfekt German Ordnung (order) and I wasn't doing it right. This means that pairs of socks have to be hung together, and the clothes lines closest to the washer must be completely filled before moving to the ones closer to the door.

Greetings:
I keep forgetting to talk about this, but it's so different from the US! And really quite cool. Generally people always greet each other with handshakes. And not just old men or the first time you meet someone, like in the US. Sometimes it's also kind of like the American 'manhug' too, with a handshake and then a light hug in which you place your cheek against the other person's. But, among young people, this is quite different. Boys still greet boys with handshakes, but girls and boys greet each other with a cheek kiss. Except it's not really a cheek kiss... it's putting your cheek against the other person's cheek and kissing the air. I think I would need to demonstrate to truly explain. Girls greet each other this way too. I have yet to be greeted this way and I'm pretty sure that once I am it will mean that I am now officially a good friend.

Relationships:
Most of the couples in my school are extremely discreet compared to those in America. Sometimes they don't even sit together at lunch, and you rarely see them kiss. I can barely even tell who is dating whom, especially when everyone is kissing each other on the cheek. I generally appreciate the lack of PDA, although it can sometimes be confusing.

Food:
For breakfast we normally have bread (sliced or Brötchen, kind of like rolls) with butter (always) and then cheese, meat, cucumbers, marmalade, or some combination. Yes, this means I have bread with butter AND jam for breakfast. A lot of times the jam is homemade too, and really delicious. Also, a note on the butter: my host mom doesn't believe in margarine. It's always the real deal. I generally stick to cereal, however, because I love Müsli (from Switzerland... think cornflakes with dried fruit and also crunchy bits) more than life. I also usually have a banana and orange juice, but I don't think that's normal. While I eat breakfast, my host mom makes me Stüllen, which are mini sandwiches consist of dark bread, butter, and cheese. I eat these for lunch at school on the long days, along with a juice box, fruit, chocolate, and sometimes a cucumber. Germans are really into cucumbers. On the shorter days I come home for lunch with Ramona, which is normally hot and the biggest meal of the day. Dinner is again bread with butter, cheese, meat, vegetables, or marmalade (but that's just me... my host mom finds it hilarious that I want jam with dinnerbread). Sometimes we have leftovers from lunch. On the weekends we often have tea time, which consists of tea, coffee, and kuchen (delicious pastries). We don't buy chips or any snack foods really (like pretzels or cheezits or granola bars... etc), so I stick to yogurt (whole fat... my host mother doesn't believe in fat free dairy products... more on that later) and fruit when I get hungry. Oh, and we've been to a restaurant once in the month I've been here, for Oma's birthday. I think it's quite expensive to eat out here, so we don't do it often.

Drink:
My host mom constantly tells me to drink more, since she (and all Germans I've met) thinks you need to drink three liters of Flüssigkeit (liquid) a day. Most of the time I have orange juice, water from the tap (we have a special water filter, so Germans that are normally opposed to all forms of tap water will drink it and I don't look like a total weirdo), and tea. My host mother refuses to buy anything other than whole milk (because she thinks that skim milk has chemicals in it to make it taste better), so I only have that with cereal. As far as alcohol goes, my host mother doesn't drink it, aside from Berliner Kindl (sweet, fruit flavored beer that has a low alcohol content) and Maltbeer (kind of like rootbeer, I think? Also with barely any alcohol), because it gives her headaches. This means for the most part alcohol only happens on weekends, when Jörg is home. I have yet to find a real beer I truly enjoy, although I did like beer with cola (which seems to be a uniquely German phenomenon). It seems to be all Pilz, although I'm not exactly sure what that means. I had a glass of red wine and it burned my nose. Berliner Kindl is too sweet. Schnapps (Polish potato vodka) burned going down but made me feel nicely warm afterwards... but I don't think I'd have it again. So far beer consumption among young people here is really different from the US... for example, at Simon's house a few guys were drinking beer but it definitely wasn't to get drunk like it always was in America. Most people didn't have any at all, even though it was available.

Bakeries:
This would fall under food if I were in America, but die Bäckerei is such a big deal in Germany that it deserves its own category. There are at least three bakeries in Spremberg alone... and I'm certain there are more I haven't yet discovered. We don't buy bread at the supermarket. Bread must be fresh (we buy more at least every day or two), and we cut it ourselves. Pastries are always bought the day of consumption. Bakeries here are kind of like Frosty's doughnuts in Brunswick, to the extent that you only go there to buy bread or pastries, not to sit and eat them. Except all the bakeries sell tons of types of breads and multiple Kuchen varieties, not just doughnuts.

Recycling:
At my house in the US, we had one container for trash, one for paper recyling, and one for cans/plastic jugs. Here we have a compost, a container for foodwaste, one for paper/plastic packaging, one for paper recycling, and one for bottles and cans. In major public places, there are multiple containers for different kinds of waste. I quite like this.

Biking:
Everyone bikes here, out of necessity and not a desire for exercise. Only tourists and some old people wear helmets, and that's on the bike path and not the street. The roads are too narrow to ride on, so bikes are accepted on the sidewalk. There are bike racks in every single public place. Everywhere. It is wonderful.

School:
I've already talked a lot about school, but in general there is just a much higher level of trust. There is no such thing as a teacher having lunch duty or greeting duty... generally they stay in their teacher's lounge unless they are in class. We're not supervised during lunch, or anytime really. There is no such thing as a detention or suspension. In free hours we can leave or pretty much do whatever. No one is loud in the halls and there are never fights or anything like MTA. Everyone is really respectful of teachers. Everyone studies, a lot, although there isn't much homework. There are no afterschool clubs or much in the way of school activities. I miss them, but other than that I am a fan of German school.

Christmas:
Yes, it is October and I am writing about Christmas. That is because in Germany the Christmas season (in shops and the like) begins in late September. In the US the super crazy stores put out Christmas stuff after Halloween, but mostly the Christmas season begins after Thanksgiving. Here, Halloween isn't major (in the former East, it's only been occuring for about 15 years, and it's mostly just small children), and there is no Thanksgiving, so the stores have nothing to wait for and just put out stuff in Oktober. Pretty silly, I think. My host mother agrees.

Fall:
There is no such thing as pumpkin pie and also kids do not jump into piles of leaves here. This is upsetting. I am determined to make pumpkin pie from scratch, but I may have to forgo the leaves.

CDs:
There is no longer a music store in Spremberg. Today I went to Cottbus, the neighboring city, with Maria and Ramona, and we went to Media Markt (kind of like Best Buy). This is the closest thing to a CD store here - a giant electronics store with a music section. The selection wasn't great, with only mainstream American artists and even less German ones. There was also a section entitled 'Black Music' (in English), which I deteremined to be mostly soul/hip hop/music generally performed by, well, black people. I found the title to be astonishingly politically incorrect, but I don't think the Germans understand the meaning so I can't really blame them. Also, the prices are atrocious, with an average CD costing anywhere from 15 to 20 euros (20-25 dollars). Needless to say, I didn't buy anything and I was horribly missing Bull Moose.

Fashion:
Clothes are expensive here and I keep reminding myself not to buy too much as I have to bring it all back in my suitcase. The fashion isn't too different here (not that I paid much attention in the US), but there's definitely more scarves and boots and skinny jeans. Also, hardly anyone wears t-shirts to school... it's always a well put together outfit with jewelry and accessories and everything. I'm glad I didn't bring many t-shirts. There's a lot of stripes and plaid, but that was the same in the US. Spremberg has a few stores but nothing too big, so I think Maria and I are going to check out some in Cottbus tomorrow. In general I think I packed pretty well, but I could use something warm as it's quickly getting really cold here.


That's enough for now, I think. Yesterday I walked around Spremberg and did a little shopping with Linda. It was a lot of fun :) Tomorrow Maria and I are going to Cottbus for a little sightseeing (although Cottbus is different from a lot of European cities in that it doesn't have much of an old town or pretty landmarks... it was basically a city that came about out of necessity during the time of former East Germany because a lot of people worked at the power plants nearby. Think like, Pittsburgh or Lewiston/Auburn or something) and shopping. I think we are getting lunch at this Indian/Italian restaurant (weird combination, but whatever, it's Indian), which I am so happy about. I miss Sheere Punjab like it's my job. I checked out the menu, and this place even has Chana Masala. Yum!

Tomorrow night I'm staying over at Yasmin's with Olga and Daniela for some pizza and Wii (they say pizza like 'pit-sah' here, and at first I had no idea what Olga was saying... it took three tries for me to figure it out). Then I'm heading off to Berlin with my host family for Martin's birthday. We'll be there from Saturday to Sunday, and I'm hoping to meet up with Lissa and Felix at least briefly. Maybe we will even do some touristy things for me :)

Also: My host mom has never had a burrito. I am sorely missing Mexican food, and I think I will be making burritos for us very soon.

That's all for now!
Dani

As of today I've officially been in Germany for one month! The time has completely flown by. So for this entry I will recap the last week and then do a little reflecting on the month that has passed :)

Highlights:

-Frau Rennert still thinks my name is Debbie.

-I finally got my package from my parents, complete with my winter coat, hat, and gloves along with Orbit gum, Tom's of Maine toothpaste, American pancake mix, Kraft and Annie's mac and cheese, granola bars, part of the Times Record newspaper, the book I had been reading about the Roma, and a nice card from my parents. :)

-I finished Die Gewehre der Frau Cararr by Brecht. I think I want to read it again to make sure I caught everything... but still, I read a real German work of literature!

-Frau Rennert's birthday was on Wednesday and we surprised her in German class by all standing up and singing Happy Birthday (the same song we sing here, in English with adorable German accents).

-I biked to school for the early hour of Biologie on Thursday in near darkness. It was incredibly serene, with no cars and just nice cold fall air.

-I had a moment of near perfect clarity in German class when I realized that they were talking about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and that I could understand almost everything that was being discussed.

-I spent multiple lunch periods and free hours with friends in the cafeteria talking about the US and American high school (and how it actually has a lot of resemblance to the movie Mean Girls, which is called Girl's Club here). It's really fun to talk about prom, football teams and cheerleaders here. And also about driving to school and the differences between the North and South and politics and meeting Obama. My German friends are generally enchanted with the idea of American high school and after school clubs, as it's pretty much something out of a movie to them. Almost magical, even. I really enjoy sharing it with them.

-I gave my presentation to my Politik class about American political parties and the upcoming November election. I had prepared a three page German handout, and talked in German and English about the system. Luckily my politics teacher is also an English teacher so he could help me translate things when I needed it. One of the pages of the handout included the photo of me and Obama, and the reaction of the class was absolutely priceless. You could literally see a ripple effect through the room as they saw it, and everyone thought it was a wax figure. Really, really funny. :)

-The weather this week has been totally gorgeous and as such I took a bike ride through the town, fully intending to just wander and get lost and try to find my way home. I didn't even end up needing the map!


And now for the weekend! This weekend I went to my AFS Late-Orientation Camp in Berlin! I was a little skeptical about it since I didn't really enjoy the orientation we had in America, but it turned out to be really, really fun. I took the train there and met up with all the other exchange students and an AFS volunteer at the Hauptbahnhof in Berlin. From there we took multiple street trains and subways to Osloer Straße, where we were staying in a youth hostel. That Friday night was the Germany vs. Turkey soccer game in Berlin, which was qualification for the European 2012 championships. Germany has a very large Turkish immigrant population, particularly in Berlin, so this game was especially intense. It so happened that the youth hostel we were staying at was located in the primarily Turkish section of Berlin, so on the trains there were a ton of Turkish guys with vuvuzelas and giant flags and they were all wearing red and white and generally being excited and extremely loud. It was really interesting to see. We couldn't actually watch the game since the hostel didn't have TV, but Germany ended up winning 3-0. But apparently 2/3 of the stadium was Turkish fans! So much for a home game, haha.

The orientation itself was so much more relevant now that we're actually in Germany, and I also got to meet people from all over the world! There were people from Russia, Norway, Hungary, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Venezuala, Colombia, the USA, Thailand, China, Japan, and Hong Kong. The whole weekend was conducted trilingually in German, English, and Spanish, and at times it felt like we were the UN. We did a lot of workshops about our feelings and our experiences so far and our host families, but we also got to do a scavenger hunt in Berlin at Alexanderplatz! We were split into groups of four and then we had to find about ten different things in the area and do random tasks like draw the entrance to the Berliner Dom or count the statues on a certain bridge or take a picture with a random person wearing a red jacket at the Neptune Well. It was very difficult but really quite fun, and my group came in second.

I definitely spoke way too much English during the weekend, but it was nice to have a break where I could finally feel truly funny and intelligent again. That's What She Said jokes and subtlties in tone just don't translate... Also, the weekend actually made me realize how much German I actually know compared to most of the other exchange students (THANK YOU Frau and Jeremy!). A lot of times they would conduct a workshop in English (as it was the most common language among everyone there) forgetting that Dorina (from Hungary) couldn't speak it, and I would end up translating for her. And also, whenever they would give an instruction in German (before translating it into English and Spanish), I had no problem understanding, unlike most.

I guess that's a nice transition to a reflection of the last month, so here goes. I'm really happy here. I feel at home with my host family. I can communicate and understand without much difficulty. I have great friends at school who consistently think to include me in their plans. I can understand some of my classes. My German has gotten so much better. Sometimes I miss home, but it's usually just specific things or people or foods (like Sheer Punjab.... god I miss Chana Masala), and I definitely haven't ever felt like I actually wanted to go home. I'm looking forward to spending time over the two week Fall break with friends and doing a little traveling with family. On Friday night I'm going to Yasmin's with Olga and Daniela for pizza and wii, and then on Saturday and Sunday I'm going to Berlin with my host family for my host brother's birthday. I'm just so excited and lucky to be here.

Hello everybody!

Again it has almost been a week since my last post. This time I will stick to the highlights and then share a little about the differences between the US and Germany and various other observations I've had here (with over three weeks under my belt).

Let's see. Since the last time I wrote:


-I found out the London trip is totally full, so unfortunately I won't be able to do that.

-I watched Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others, perhaps my all time favorite German movie) without subtitles for the first time and managed to understand the first hour (after which I promptly fell asleep).

-I taught Jörg some English and challenged him to spell 'delicious' (epic fail). It's always hilarious to hear him speak English, not because it's particularly bad, but just because I'm not used to it at all... especially when he says random things that don't really make sense, like 'God save Jörg.'

-It rained a lot (and I mean a lot) and the Spree (the river that divides Spremberg in half) flooded. Lots of mud and wetness ensued and I had to take a different route to school.

-My English teacher asked me about Frank Zappa.

-I watched WOMEN's pro cycling on Eurosport (which is now my favorite TV channel). It was the world time trial championship, and I even got to see Eveyln Stevens (a Dartmouth grad that only started racing two years ago and is now one of the best) race.

-The next night I watched the men's time trial, and Fabian Cancellera won to no one's surprise. Ramona thinks I'm hilarious when I watch cyling on TV because of how into it I get and how I insist that Fabian is 'Der Beste.'

-I started to read a legitimate German book (not a children's book!) called Der Gewehre der Frau Carrar. It's written by Brecht and was given to me by Frau Rennert (my crazy German teacher). I think it's about the Spanish anti-fascist rebellion... in the 30's? Somewhere around that time.

-I just spelled Spanish 'Spanisch.'

-I was consulted for information about Guantanmo Bay and the use of the death penalty in the US in Politik. With the list of the top 6 countries for executions per year on the board (In order: China, Iran, Iraq, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen) I felt really and truly embarassed to be from a country that still uses this practice generally considered by all of the western world to be barbaric.

-I went to my first German spin class (indoor cycling) and it was thoroughly painful and thoroughly awesome. There's something about intense German dance music and a crazy instructor yelling 'EINS! ZWEI! DREI! VIER!' that really gets you into it. It was the first real workout I've had since I got here (although I've been active every day, biking to school or on the bike paths and walking with Bruno in the Wald). I'm going to be going every week now :)

-I successfully took my first German math test and got the equivalent of an A+. Now mind you the math isn't an incredible accomplishment considering I'm more or less two years ahead of the class in calculus... I'm way more proud of the fact that I managed to understand the questions and answer them correctly (including writing a conclusion sentence in what I hoped was grammatically correct German). The teacher was pleased and announced to the class that I had the highest score... hopefully they won't think I'm a streber (German equivalent of nerd or geek).

-I went to my first gathering resembling a party at Simon's house with about 12 or so other people including Daniela, Ewa, and Vanni. There were a bunch of people I hadn't met before as well, so I got to make some new aquantainces. :) Together we all listened to punk music and cooked veggie and noodle Auflauf (sort of like a casserole), Falafel, pasta, and chocolate muffins. It was totally awesome and I had a fantastic time. I really felt like part of the group. It turned out that two of the new guys I had met are the bass player and second guitar player in Simon's band, so we all went upstairs to their practice space and listened to them play a few songs. Simon's family also operates a Belgian chocolate factory (oh yeah, he's actually Belgian not German and also speaks Flemish...) from their large gouse, so Simon showed me the giant vats of chocolate and we picked out a bunch for us to all eat. It was generally a really great time and I had lots of fun!

-I went to Berlin for a day (by train) with Daniela and Chrissy and some other kids from school with an adult that I eventually discovered was a local youth group leader. We went to an event called YOU-Messe. I truthfully had really no idea what it was until we got there, but it ended up being pretty cool. The closest thing to it I had ever experienced in the US was Warped Tour... it was this giant conglomerate of music (unfortunately mostly awful German hip hop and rap); extreme sports (including the European Parkour Championship); educational, political, and nonprofit organizations; and lifestyle things like shopping and fashion. The end of the night included a concert by the really well known (in Germany at least) rapper Sido. I'd say that just being with friends for the day was even better than the event itself.

-While waiting in the trainstation for our train home, a new friend Olga helped me order my first (vegetarian) Döner. For those who are less familiar with Germany, the country has a really large Turkish immigrant population and one of the lovely gifts that this group of people has brought to Deutschland is the Döner Kebap. There are photos on smugmug, but it's essentially a pouch made of pita-like bread with vegetables, herb sauce, Rotkohl, and garlic sauce. The meat version also has lamb. It's also extremely messy and difficult to eat (although delicious), and as such Olga documented the eating process with multiple photos.

-On the multiple trains home, I got to know two new friends, Olga and Yasmin. Together with them and Daniela we read from a cheesy girl's magazine (think 17 or something even worse). It had a section with ghost stories, and I read them aloud (to their delight at my American accent) and we just laughed and laughed and laughed at how awful and cheesy they were and how 'süB' (sweet) my accent is. This was definitely the best part of the day :)

-Olga gave me a trading card for Bastian Schweinsteiger (my favorite player from the German national soccer team) and also a mini Deutsche Bahn soccer ball. She got the ball from a 13 year old boy (who looked about 9) at YOU-Messe who offered it to her while demanding a kiss on the cheek. Of course she didn't kiss him, but he gave her the ball anyway.

-Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of German reunification. I expected a little more fanfare, but all that took place were fireworks (which I didn't see or hear), a TV special, and a brief live broadcast from Berlin. My host family generally regarded the dramatics as Quatsch (nonsense, a great German word).

-A girl named Jana in the 13th grade invited me to come to her swim club with her after she saw me at Swimfest. Today we went and swam together and it was really fun :)



So that is the last week summed up into bullet points. Now for a special edition of Things You Probably Don't Know About Germans/Germany Unless You've Been Here:

-All the Germans I've met think that you have to drink at least 3 liters of liquid a day. My host mom continuously badgers me to drink more, telling me that I'll get wrinkles if I don't.

-Germans love American music and TV shows. I've heard more American pop songs from German MTV in the school cafeteria in three weeks here than I ever heard in America. Also, I watched Two and a Half Men at school today. All the boys here love it.

-A normal breakfast consists of bread, cheese, meat, and marmalade. Dinner is quite often like this as well, as the hot meal is usually during the day. Eggs are not a breakfast food, and neither are pancakes.

-Almost no one bikes with a helmet, and everyone has a cruiser, hybrid, or mountain bicycle.

-Most German schools don't have any clubs or sports teams. Mine has none. The only thing taken into consideration in German college admissions is grades. Absolutely nothing else has any effect.

-Germans are obsessed with fresh air and the window is always open, no matter how cold it is outside.

-The hallways in my school aren't heated - only the classrooms are. This makes for a chilly passing time, but it's cheaper and better for the environment.

-Ice cubes in drinks are considered to be strange by most people.

-You can't drive a car here until you're 18, but you can drive a scooter, and as such a lot of the guys take them to school, complete with motorcycle helmets.

-The majority of people that live right in Spremberg bike to school. Those that live in the neighboring villages take the bus, but it's not a bus specifically for school. It's just the area bus line.

-All teenage girls wear scarves, skinny jeans or jeggings or leggings, and boots. Everyone is really fashionable, and eye makeup is a must. Some of the guys wear scarves too, especially when it's cold.

-Fußball is life. Seriously, read my post about the Cottbus game.

-Chocolate is a daily occurance. Especially on weekends, there is also a special time of day for tea and cake. Despite this, almost everyone is incredibly thin and fit. I haven't yet figured this out.

-Slippers are a must.



And now for my reflections about being an exchange student/possible advice for hopefulls who may have discovered this blog:

One of the things I have had to get used to is being confused 80-90% of the time. Even when I can understand the words, I can't always understand their implications or even the basic meaning. Some things just don't translate. I've given up on knowing exact plans or itineraries, and instead have to trust other people to take care of these things. I do a lot of smiling and nodding. I have had to stop being a control freak. I think that this has been good for me. There is a lot of going with the flow.

I've also had to readjust my definition of success. Now it is not about getting an A or getting into a good college or any higher goal. Success now is finding my way to the swim hall without the map, or understanding a joke the first time it's said. It's piping up to say one sentence in class, or understanding my homework, or reading a page in a textbook. It's an accomplishment to sit with friends in the cafeteria and take part in the conversation.

I'm also really happy with how my German is progressing so far. With a bit of a struggle and perhaps a dictionary, I can usually get across anything I try to say in everyday conversation. I almost completely understand my host mom without one. School is harder because everyone talks so fast, but I've gotten used to the speed and can usually understand when I really pay attention. I've been writing down new words for every day in my notebook, and my vocabulary is really coming along. I may possibly be getting a German tutor soon, too. I think that would help a lot.

So, in conclusion, things here in Germany are still going really well. After this week, I have two weeks of fall vacation, including an AFS weekend in Berlin and a possible night at Yasmin's to play wii. There's also talk of another day trip to Berlin, but I'm not sure yet of my host family's plans for the break. Wir werden mal sehen :)

Bis dann!

Wow, does time fly! It's been almost a week since my last post! I've now been in Deutschland for over two weeks and I'm feeling settled in and at home. Let's see where I left off... oh right, Wednesday.

On Wednesday I got to sleep in an extra hour and a half because Musik was canceled! It was sooo nice. I'm way over jetlag at this point, but just living in a foreign language and constant translation is incredibly exhausting. I'll take any extra sleep I can get. I ate breakfast while watching How I Met Your Mother with German voices, which continue to amuse me. I had Chemistry first, which was generally unexciting (much like Chemistry in the US), and then I had English. There again the teacher gave me opportunity to speak, this time about the new health care reforms and how our system of insurance works. Then the class told me about their social welfare programs in Germany. It was quite interesting. In German we watched a really strange movie about the German author Bertolt Brecht.... after changing rooms three times because the VCRs wouldn't work... got to love 90's technology. It was particularly funny because Frau Rennert decided to put Konstantin in charge of fixing the TV and she kept yelling at him.

That night I had an AFS meeting in Cottbus. I got a ride with Herr and Frau Schmidt, who live in the area and are also hosting an AFS exchange student (from Thailand). Her name is Sasikan, but unfortunately she doesn't speak German or much English so we can't really communicate... instead I talked to her host parents in German. The meeting was generally uneventful, we just signed a rules agreement, met our liasons, and had drinks. I was the only new exchange student that can speak any German, so the meeting was unfortunately conducted in English.

That brings us to Thursday... I had Biologie (looking at cells under microscopes), Deutsch (more of that weird movie and faulty VCRs), Sport Theory (talking about free time athletic activities), and Politik (ehh). Lunch, however, was quite eventful! I discovered that there's a class trip to London in April! It's currently full, but Linda seems to think that the teacher may make space for me since I'm an exchange student. I'm pressing my thumbs (the German equivalent of crossing your fingers)! Also, I was invited to go to Simon's house on Friday night, but I had to turn down the invite because I was going to the Cottbus vs Berlin soccer game (more on that later). Simon also mentioned something about me going to Austria with him and his parents on a ski vacation in January, but I'm not sure how certain that is... anyway, all of this invitations were really nice! I feel as if I have real friends at school now :)

After school I biked home and was surprised to find Jezzy and Martin in the garden! They were home from Berlin for a visit and it was so nice to see them and tell them about how things are going. Martin also said that in January there is a professional track (indoor) cyling race in Berlin, and that we can get tickets! There's actually guys from the Tour de France and everything!!! Track cycling is so cool (youtube it)... I really hope it works out. On that note, I went for a short bike ride on the bike path that afternoon since the weather was so wonderful :)

Speaking of cycling, I've also discovered a bike club here in Spermberg! Of course it's with road bikes and I'm on a mountain bike, and it's a bunch of old men, but perhaps in the spring if my parents will ship my bike here... hint hint. In the meantime they have a few mountain bike and bike tour events in the fall that I might be able to partake in! Later in the evening they went back to Berlin, and Ramona and I went to Aunt Barbara's house for dinner. We ate potatoes with quark and talked about school and the differences in America and she gave me a pin for Energie Cottbus, our soccer team! She's so nice and I really enjoyed the dinner.

And now to Friday! I had Geschichte (history) first, which was boring, but then Math, which I once again completely understood! Math is such a breath of fresh air here since I can actually participate to almost the same capacity as everyone else. We have a test this week and I'm actually going to take it. I only have school until 11:15 on Fridays (awesome) so I came home and ate lunch with Ramona - pasta with tomato sauce and fresh mushrooms from the forest where we walk with Bruno. The weather was still beautiful so that afternoon I put on my bike shorts and decided I was going to go for a real ride this time. I ended up going to Sachsen, the next state. I biked for about 50 minutes along the river and through a big grazing area for lots of smelly cows. It felt so good to be back on the bike for more than just commuting.

When I came back home, Jörg and Ramona arrived from Berlin. Jörg and I took Bruno on a walk in the forest, and then soon Thomas arrived and he and Maria and I left for the soccer game: Energie Cottbus vs Berlin Hertha! We picked up a couple of friends, hung the team scarves out the back windows of the car, and were off! Upon arrival at the stadium, we got our mandatory pat down and went to check out the food. They only sold Bratwurst and soft pretzels (how German), so I got a pretzel and some Fanta. Then we were off to the Fan Block!

Soccer in Germany is definitely nothing like it is in the US. First of all, the Fan Block. The Fan Block is a standing room only section that's basically stairs or bleachers all along the goal line of the stadium. It's where all the totally crazy Cottbus fans go to cheer and chant and sing and of course jeer the other team. Cottbus fans can also sit in chairs along the long ends of the field, and then all the away fans are on the opposite goal line, complete with their own smaller Fan Block.

And when I say chant and jeer, I really mean chant and jeer... You just have to see it for yourself... check out a few videos I took at: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=13177922DA15C454 . Before the game had even started we were already chanting and clapping for Cottbus, yelling 'Berliner Arschlocher!' (Berlin assholes!) and 'Blau, weiße, West Berliner Scheiße!' (Blue, white, West Berlin shit!). Once the game started (after a fanfare of songs, flag waving, and general meriment), it only got more intense. More photos can also be seen of course at daniellesmith.smugmug.com (puttting photos directly onto this blog is incredibly tedious and difficult).

Berlin mostly controlled the ball the first half, but it remained tied at 0-0. Berlin managed to score in the second half, but it was still a really close game and Cottbus actually rallied in the last 20 minutes or so but didn't quite manage to score. A bit disappointing, but they played very well and Berlin is a team with a lot more money. Of course we also waited in the Fan Block to jeer the winning team off the field... people get really crazy! They even bring in megaphones and drums and trumpets. It's totally unlike anything I've ever seen in the US at a sporting event. I topped off the evening by buying a team scarf :)

This brings us to Saturday... the morning was spent doing various chores around the house. Mine was to walk Bruno in the forest. Of course I got lost, and Jörg came and found me (some things never change). I spent the afternoon working on my presentation about American politics for my Politik class, and Jezzy was incredibly helpful with the translating. Maria also was very nice to do a proofread, and I feel quite good about the project now.

That evening was my welcome party! Oma and Aunt Beate and an Uncle from Sachsen (I forget his name!) came over and joined me, Maria, Thomas, Ramona, Jörg, Jezzy, and Martin for dinner in the garden house. Aunt Beate also brought flowers and an awesome homemade bag for me with cool fabric with images of Paris and Rome on it! We barbequed and the feast included bread, grilled cheese, grilled pumpkin, grilled tofu, meat, salad, watermelon, and grilled bananas with cinamon and sugar (yum). We spent the evening just talking and laughing and eating and drinking (of course the Schnapps came out again). It was a good night :)

On Sunday I finally woke up early enough to have breakfast with everyone, which included Brötchens and marmalade and yogurt. Pretty much every meal here is with the whole family, it's quite nice. That morning Jörg and I took Bruno out for a walk along the river in the rain, and I got to see the Bismarck tower (which you can climb up and see the city from above... we're going to go back on a nicer day) and a Holocaust memorial. That afternoon was a lazy one, with reading and laying in bed and watching some German TV. Then Ramona and I spent some time looking online for activities for me. In addition to the swim club, I'm going to ask Krissi about playing vollyball and I may also take a spin ('indoor cycling') class at a fitness center. There's also a potential water color painting course. I need some more things to do; I'm not used to this much free time. German schools don't really have any clubs... so these are all private clubs in the city. The evening was also mostly uneventful, with some TV and some ice cream and some family time.

Finally we are up to today... I had three hours of English, during which I moderated a debate about social welfare, and then I had an hour of Musik during which we once again sang songs.
All of the rest of the classes were canceled because of Swimfest! I had originally planned on going to Linda's house and then biking to the swim hall with her, but because of the awful rain she had taken the bus. Instead I had lunch in the cafeteria with Vanni, Ewa, Simon, and Daniela (crepe-like pancakes with apple sauce and cinamon sugar... yum!) and then Daniela and Simon and I walked to Ewa's house (Ewa came later as she had one more class). Of course we were totally soaked by the time we got there, and I was still lugging around my bike. But then Ewa's mom made us some hot apple tea and we relaxed there until Ewa arrived. Once she joined us, we walked to the swimhall, again getting quite wet.

I'm still not sure as to the meaning or purpose behind Swimfest, but it was fun nonetheless. I swam the 50 meter front crawl for Vanni since she didn't wanted to swim. I didn't win my race(another thing that hasn't changed, I can't sprint) but it was nice to participate with the school event. Even kids that didn't swim had to come and watch the event. It was kind of odd and I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing half the time, but Ewa helped me to understand. There was 50 m breast, freestyle, backstroke, and then underwater swimming (to see who could go the longest without breathing). Then the winning class got chocolate. We came in third out of four.

After swimming I biked home in the rain. It was a bit of a trek and I managed to fall, so of course I got drenched again... but I am now finally warm and dry and at home and writing, so all is good.

I will also be putting some videos from the soccer game up on my youtube account and hopefully on here as well. Once I get that taken care of I'll update this post.

Bis dann!