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!