Let me start off by saying that I am so so so excited today because I got my bicycle (partially) fixed - it will finally shift out of the most difficult gear! Luckily the problem was the handlebar shifter, and not the rear derailer... otherwise it would've cost a lot more. But it is as if I have a brand new bicycle, I am so happy. I can FINALLY go up hill! Of course the teeth on the cassette are all worn down and it needs a new chain and everything is rusted, but IT SHIFTS! And it is glorious and I am happy.


But, anyway. For the non-bike-nerds out there... It's been a month since I wrote and I'm really not sure where January went. I am suddently halfway through my exchange. It feels like spring here and I am loving it.

Since the last time I wrote, I drove with Pati to Berlin and met up with Lissa, Colin, Felix, and Katrina. Lissa and Colin are friends from my high school German class who are also exchange students this year. Katrina is another friend from German class and was visiting her aunt in Germany for a month, and Felix was a German exchange student in my American school last year. I hadn't seen anyone from home in over four months, and it was SO great to talk to all of them. It was also really nice for me to be able to introduce Pati to friends from home. We spoke a strange hybrid of German and English, since Katrina had only been in Germany for three weeks and was having a harder time keeping up. Together we explored Berlin, traveling via U-Bahn and S-Bahn. Highlights included Alexanderplatz, the DDR (East Germany) Museum, the German History Museum, vegan burgers from Vego, and an Irish Pub. It was kind of strange to be sitting with people from back home drinking beer openly at a bar, but fun. We tried to get into the Reichstag but it was closed due to terror alert... Too bad.

Last week I had Winter Ferien, and I traveled to Austria for a ski vacation with Simon and his family! We left reaaaaaaally early in the morning on the first Saturday of vacation, and drove at least ten hours, maybe more, to Katschberghohe, Austria. I should probably remind you that Simon's family is Belgian, and while they all speak German, they speak Flemish with each other at home. While Flemish is something like a blending of German and English, I still can't exactly speak it (although sometimes I could understand it, which was really cool). They were really nice about trying to speak German with each other so that I could understand, but at times it was like I was back to my first week in Germany with little understanding of the conversations around me. They also own a chocolate factory and I definitely ate way too much of the sweets they brought with them (did you know the Belgians invented the Praline? Do we say Praline in English? I can't remember... They're small chocolates with various fillings and shapes.).



But anyway, we met up with some friends of Simon's family and got our ski passes and rentals and were on the mountain the next day. I hadn't been skiing in a couple of years, so I was a little nervous to start but it came back quickly. For six days in a row we skied from 10 am until 4 pm, with a break for lunch. I had never been skiing for even two days in a row, since in Maine we always just drive up to the mountain for one day... so the muscle stress and endurance took a little getting used to. But by the end of the week I had conquered my first ever black diamond ski trail - and I skied it 5 times in total. I pretty much stuck with Simon, but I also got to know his parents and siblings (Marie, 13 and Johannis, 6). His family is wonderful and so nice and I had a great time with them for the week.


Other than that... I have some exciting news regarding school! We just started the second semester and I finally feel like I'm (almost) on an even playing field with everyone else. We've started new topics (color and light in chemistry are proving to be muchhhh better than sugars and proteins), I switched out of biology and into ART ART ART(!!!!!!!), I finally have my real history teacher and not a substitute, I can understand what's going on in politics and I even took the test today with everyone else... things are looking up!

Funny story from my first day in history class: I wanted to see how long I could go without my new history teacher finding out that I was an exchange student, so I didn't specially introduce myself or anything. But, as part of his lecture, he had us write down the five most important things to us in life on a piece of paper. I wasn't sure how I should write 'knowledge' (Kenntnis? Wissen? Bildung?), so I took out my dictionary and tried to figure it out. Herr Berno saw this and asked loudly and sarcastically 'You need to look this up in the dictionary?' I replied 'I'm the exchange student...' and he was really embarassed and everyone laughed. I'm not sure if that was one of those 'You had to be there' stories or not, I hope you guys find it as funny as I did.

Tonight I'm going to Jana's birthday party, and since it's Fasching season we all have to dress up as a character from a Märchen (fairy tale). I don't exactly have much for costume materials, but I have a blue dress and Ramona helped me to make wings and a wand... so I'm going as a fairy. Should be interesting. On March 1st I get to take a train for something like 10 hours from Spremberg to Bad Honnef, where I have my AFS Midstay Camp until the 6th. Unfortunately the timing means I have to miss my school's Fasching celebration, along with the local Fasching Disco... pretty bummed about that, but there's nothing I can do to change it. In other news, I'm getting very excited to see Philipp Poisel in Dresden with Pati in a week and a half!

I figure since I'm five months in I should do some sort of reflection...

Over the last five months I have:

• Moved across the Atlantic Ocean and joined a new family in a foreign land and culture
• Improved my German skills drastically (more on this point later)
• Visited Dresden and Berlin multiple times
• Participated in anti-Nazi demonstrations in Berlin and Spremberg
• Made great friends at school
• Taken math, music, and politics tests in a foreign language
• Fallen in love for the first time
• Skied in the Austrian Alps (and skied my first black diamond trail)
• Visited Königstein
• Gone to Poland
• Gotten drunk for the first time (sorry mom)
• Had a romantic candlelit dinner for two
• Biked along the Spree
• Attended the Rosa Luxemburg Conference
• Celebrated Silvester (although I wish I could remember more of it...)
• Cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my host family
• Had my first German Christmas, visited my first Weihnachtsmärkte, and drank Glühwein
• Learned how to make Kartoffeln mit Quark and German Christmas cookies
• Eaten my first Döner
• Sang in a chorus concert for the first time since the 5th grade

And definitely more stuff I can't think of. Also my grammar is really bad. Speaking of, here's a note on the current state of my English and German:

I've gotten to the point where I can speak German better than most of the kids in my English class can speak English (with the possible exception of Simon). Kids will ask me what English words mean and I can finally give exact translations without much effort and without a dictionary (most of the time). My English grammar and spelling have really deteriorated, and a lot of times I just can't think of English words. It's really strange when I hear English outside of English class and a lot of time I don't even realize that it's English. I write a lot of my journal in German or at least in English with German sentence structure. I don't have trouble understanding class or the news or conversations around me when I pay attention and have context. I dream regularly in German. I have two more weeks of German lessons and I feel like I'm ready to be done with them. I don't write perfectly or always say things the way a real German would, but I'm comfortable in my ability to communicate, even if I'm still afraid of using du/Sie incorrectly. I don't put (German) subtitles on TV movies anymore, because I can understand from the spoken word well enough that I don't need to read it too. I look up words in a dictionary (for everyday conversation) maybe once or twice a week. I don't even use it for school that much anymore, and my notebook of new vocabulary is contains less words than average for the last few weeks.

If anyone has any questions, I could really use some more blog ideas. I am looking forward to Philipp Poisel and spring and summer. I hope my AFS Midstay camp will be fun. I am mostly happy and not homesick (although sometimes I really crave certain things from home, especially roadbiking with my parents and downtown Brunswick in general). I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and family from home in five months, but I'm also glad to be here.

Viele Grüße, Dani

As of today, I've been in Germany for four months. This may be a little touchy feely and introspective.

The time as flown by, but at the same time, I feel like I'm so different from who I was when I first came here. When I think about my first weeks here they seem like years ago, like I'm somehow older now. It's a strange feeling, but I barely feel connected to the nerdy, awkward American who stepped off the plane here four months ago. I think back on my first days here, on getting hot chocolate with Simon and Gustavo when English was canceled, on Frau Rennert firing biographical questions at me while cackling and attempting to reassure me with near-shouts of 'keine Angst! keine Angst!', on taking bike rides through the city back when I still needed my map, and it feels like it was all a dream.

The thing that makes packing your life into a 44 pound suitcase and flying across the Atlantic Ocean so amazing is that NO ONE knows you who you are. You start a new life. No one knows if you were in NHS or in band. No one knows if you were valedictorian, or who your prom date was. No one knows about the awkward emo phase you had when you were thirteen, or that you used to like Fall Out Boy more than you'd ever admit. No one remembers your bad haircuts, your past relationships, or your circles of friends. You're not held back by social cliques or past associations. No one knows what a Gay-Straight Alliance is, and no one has ever heard of Dartmouth College. You are no longer defined by everything you've done from Kindergarten until now. In fact, your past accomplishments are vague and generally unimportant. You have a completely fresh start - you ARE who you show to people, and only that.

I spent my last few months in America making speeches, giving newspaper interviews, and meeting the President. I graduated from high school at the top of my class and was accepted to an Ivy League university. I couldn't go anywhere without hearing 'Congratulations!' And while it was all really nice and I appreciate every good thing that happened to me, it's kind of nice to just be anonymous.

Being in Germany is finally giving me a chance to relax a little and be a normal teenager - to stay out late, not worry about grades, and just have fun with my friends. I am finally doing things because I want to do them, not because it will look good on a college application. And honestly, it is so, so refreshing.

At the same time, as much as I love Germany and everyone that I've met here (and really, my host family is great and I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends - Dani, Linda, Ewa, Vanni, Yasmin, Olga, Anna, Chrissy, Theresa, Jana... Pati, Simon, Hans, Göthel, Löning, Rick, Henning - you've all welcomed me from the start and I don't think I could ever truly express my appreciation for each of you. You make me feel like I belong here.), I am also looking forward to my future, and to this summer. I'm excited to show Pati my hometown as I rediscover it myself. I want Summer's End. I want to stuff myself on Chana Masala and Naan at Shere Punjab, and then go see a movie at the Evening Star. I want to hug my parents. I want to bike Ridge Road with my dad, and have dinner at Pedros with the Wheelers. I want to go kayaking in Harpswell with Cassie. I want to go to Gelato and play ultimate frisbee. I'm excited to start college with a new perspective, and I'm excited to be a nerd again and to understand everything that's going on in my classes. I'm excited to join clubs and sports teams and get active and involved, reinvigorated and ready to make a difference.

I also have no idea what I want to do with my life once I graduate. Although I guess I have a couple of more years to figure that out.

But for now, I have six more months left to enjoy my life in Germany... being with people I love, eating Döner, watching Wer Wird Millionär with my host mom, drinking tea, walking with Bruno, riding my bicycle along the Spree, swimming, going to concerts, partying, and having fun. Although I'm still afraid of my chemistry teacher and I don't think I'm ever going to understand biology, that's okay. I now know that don't have to be good at everything. And that's good enough for me.

Dani

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