Reentry

So it has been over a year since I last posted on my blog.  I never meant for that to happen, but back in December, exchange really picked up and my poor blog fell out of my mind.  I hope to go back and fill in the back half with help from my journal, but that isn't why I'm back.  Tonight I want to let you all know a little more about that rarely mentioned, third year of exchange. 

 

But Mary!  You only went away for one year!  What do you mean a THIRD year??

Well, lovely reader, exchange is really something of a three year process.  

Year one, is the application/prep year.  The one where you get super excited, and write a million blog posts, even though you don't have anything to talk about, like yours truly.

Next, you have the actual "living in a new country" year, aka when I lived in Germany.  That is typically the focus of any talks about Exchange and for good reason. It's incredible.  But that isn't what this post is about.  

This post is about the reentry year.  The reverse culture shock of returning home, only to discover it doesn't feel like home.  Or maybe that you don't feel like you.  But you are you so whatever you feel like has to be you because who else would it be?  

Confused?

Good.  Now you are getting into the third year mindset.  Now I can't claim to be the first person to speak up about this.  Any Exchanger has heard tell of the dreaded reentry questions...

"How was your trip?"

or

"Oh that must have been relaxing to be on vacation for a year!"

You answer with scathing, sarcastic quips like,

"Why yes, that entire year of my life when I moved away from everything I knew and showed up utterly friendless at the home of complete strangers, all while not knowing the language, was always relaxing and fun!"

but oft as not, they won't realize that you are making a joke and they'll then continue on with commenting on the weather, speculating as to whether or not you have grown any taller, or other equally as interesting topics.  

You learn to accept it.  Next time you just give them a smile, say it was good, and continue on.  It's how we cope.  Because how do you explain the experience of building a family for yourself from scratch, or the feeling of understanding what someone is saying even though you never studied the words they are using?  You can't.  There isn't enough time to explain it, and one language doesn't hold enough words.  The frustrating thing though, is that there are people who understand.  There are people who know every situation you keep referencing, but they are scattered across the globe now and you are left with...not them.  It's not just the change of people though.

There are other funny things you notice, like... 

Nobody rides bikes.

People do stuff on Sundays.

Breakfast is treated as a second-class meal.

The grocery store has bags waiting for you at the end of the conveyor.

Said bags are free.

They are also filled by someone other than yourself, all you have to do is pay!

Jaywalking.

Free toilets. 

Water is flat and boring again.

Smiles. Everywhere.

The bread is like cake, but not in a good way.

You can drive a car.

You get excited hearing a stranger speak English.

Drinking fountains.

Kleenex boxes. 

Salty popcorn.

Small talk.

Mail boxes.

Subdivisions.

Those street signs with the funny shapes.

What is "bae" and why do you all have one?

How do I fleek?  

Thot =/= thought?

WHY IS EVERYTHING WEIRD AND WHY DID I NEVER NOTICE?  

We all knew that our host country would be a new experience, but after a year of living there, there are a lot of things about our 'home' countries that seem really odd and sometimes backwards.  Again we chant the Exchanger mantra "It's not weird, its just different. Not weird, different. Different, not weird."  Throwing that phrase at the place where you were raised, however, can be a real bender.  It's all just too...different.

It's a radical time, when you are trying to define what exactly exchange was, how it changed you, and what that means for the future.  You try to invest in life back home, but it's hard when your thoughts are drifting across oceans, shifting between adventures past and future.  All you want is to be exploring somewhere new, and the idea of setting down roots makes you cringe.  It's a balancing act, trying to hold up some sort of a double life, not able to pick just one.  It's one I haven't figured out, that's for sure.

Liebe Grüße

MMB

A Home for the Holidays

Christmas time has come and I am thousands of miles from home.  It's a strange feeling, a surprisingly empty one really.  It doesn't feel like Christmas at all.  For one thing, this weather is not right.  No nipping cold, no  snow, it's a relatively balmy 40 degrees Fahrenheit and the grass has retained all of it's green.  No big family gatherings or snowmen.  It's not my normal Christmas, but it has been all the sweeter for that.

Christmas eve is the big event here, celebrated on the 24th of December.  With cookies baked and presents wrapped beneath the tree, it looked almost like an American Christmas.  This might have had something to do with the fact that I was the one who took over the tree decoration.  I have a "The More the Merrier" mindset when it comes to Christmas trees, and I never want an ornament to feel left out, so its not unusual for every branch to hold multiple ornaments.  When Helmut saw what I had created, his eyebrows jumped up to meet his hairline, and he called Petra in to have a look at what the crazy Ami had done this time.  I had hung every single ornament, strung lights around the whole thing, and added a liberal layer of tinsel on top of it all.  Apparently, they would normally pick one of those three decorations.  They had a chuckle over it all, and declared that it looked better than ever.  A few days later, Helmut came home from work with a giant, light-up snowflake to hang in my window.  He said it was an old store decoration that everyone else at work thought was kitschy but he figured I'd like it.  I laughed and hung it in my window, and every night I'd turn it on and feel a little glow of home.

So with everything properly decorated, Christmas was ready to begin.  New traditions were the name of the game, starting out with putting make-up on my host dad.
Wait, what?
That's right folks.  We whitened his beard, rosied his cheeks, and even gave him a nice little belly before helping him get dressed.  Then it was my turn to be sparkled, wigged, and winged.  Petra bayed us farewell, and we climbed into the big green van, the Weihnachtsman and his Engel.
I'll back it up a little for you now.  German children receive their gifts both from parents and a Santa Claus like man, called the Christmas man (Weihnachtsman), in the evening on the 24th.  Many parents will have a friend come and deliver the presents to their kids, dressed as the Weihnachtsman, and that's where Helmut came in.  We drove around to the homes of some of his friends and work colleagues, and when the parents saw his van go by, they'd make an excuse to run outside and hand off a bag full of toys they had bought to Helmut, and maybe give him some insider information on the children, like that Julian had been fighting with Markus, or that Joana didn't keep her room clean. Then we would enter and Helmut would give a little speech about Christmas, and introduce his friend, the American angel, as we handed out the toys to the kids.  He would then make the children promise to be good, otherwise he wouldn't be able to come back the next year.   I was mostly just there for show, but it was a really sweet tradition to be a part of.

After visiting our 5 homes, we picked up Helmut's mom, Oma Wilma, and went home to find Petra and Oma Bertie already in the kitchen.  We had a very tasty fondue dinner then, and cake afterwards.  Then came all the presents.  I had by far the most, seeing as my parents had sent me a package from the US as well.  For the Omas, I had bought chocolates, and Helmut got a giant chocolate Weihnachtsman.  Petra's gift had taken the most time, for it was a small recipe book.  I had taken all the recipes my mom had sent me, translated them, and written them out in a little book for her.  I also made little cards for everyone.  Oma Wilma had knit me a pair of socks and a scarf, and from Oma Bertie, I got a really nice book full of pictures of Germany with German and English captions.  From Petra and Helmut, I received a pair of ice skates, which came in handy in the next months.  My parents sent me some earrings, plenty of candy, and a scarf from my grandma.  After all that, the Omas were ready to go home, so Helmut drove Wilma home and Bertie walked back next door.  Normally that would be the end of Christmas for the Wohlers, but this year they offered to come to midnight mass with me.  We drove down to the church and waited in the atrium for awhile for the 11pm mass to get out, until we realized that mass must have started at 11:30, not 12, so we slipped in and stood in the back.  There weren't any hymnals left for us, so I hummed along to familiar tunes and enjoyed the atmosphere.  The last song, however, was Silent Night, or Stille Nacht.  Preparing to sing after the first notes from the organ, I realized that without the German words, I wasn't going to be able to sing along.  That just didn't seem like an option however, and so I took a big breathe, and began to belt out the English words.  This garnered more than one confused stare as my foreign words clashed against the German ones, but in that moment, it really felt like Christmas, and I was happy.



Sampler of what I was singing, versus the rest of the church:

Silent night, Holy night                               Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht!

All is calm, all is bright                               Alles schläft, einsam wacht
Round yon virgin, mother and child           Nur das traute heilige Paar
Sleep in heavenly peace,                          Holder Knab' im lockigten Haar,
Sleep in heavenly peace.                          Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh

Holy infant, tender and mild                      Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh

Thanksgiving auf Deutsch

Thanksgiving.  One of the classic American holidays.  Or so I thought, until I learned that our northern neighbors also celebrate Thanksgiving, albeit earlier in the year in October.  Feasts for giving thanks for the years harvest also stretch back as far as humans have been planting food as far as my research* can tell.  For my non-north American readers though, maybe I should sum up the idea of Thanksgiving for you.
       Basically, you eat more than you should with a house filled with more people than it fits by normal standards and watch American football with more dedication than is shown at other times of the year.  As for what exactly we eat, there is a trend of soft and mushy, which decreases time spent chewing meaning we can stuff in more food before our bellies notice and start begging us to stop.  It's really all just a race against your hypothalamus. These foods include mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, stuffing, pumpkin pie, apple pie and of course the big ol' butter ball himself, The Thanksgiving Turkey.  I understand that turkey isn't quite a mushy food, but after the amounts of gravy I typically add to it, you find it slides down quite easily.  This list is not exclusive by any means, but it covers the basics.  All this gorging often induces food comas and then leads to lots of napping and lounging.
       Now the second point in my explanation was that you need a very full house, preferably filed with lots of people you love.  For me, this always meant having a bustling crowd of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins with the smallest children often placed at hastily errected card tables scattered across the house with paper turkey centerpieces.  Add a barking dog or two to the mix, and perfection is near at hand.
       The last piece is one that I don't find to be critical for anything but traditions sake and that is watching Thanksgiving day football.  The interested members of the family gather around the fernseher and watch our valiant Lions fight to (unfortunately) most likely a loss, though if we are with my mom's family then we will also tune in to the Packers game and so there is a chance of a win there.

       The challenge that I set myself for this year, was to make the most authentic Thanksgiving I could while here in German.  Now a few problems faced me, like where to buy a turkey, and how to stuff my house to the brim with people I loved.  Football was one problem I decided to sacrifice in the name of simplicity.  I talked to my host parents about the turkey issue and after a few different searches, we found that the local super market actually carried turkeys of consideraable size.  The American expat community is strong enough here that turkeys are stocked for the holiday seasons, making one problem disappear quickly.  Now that we had two 5 kilo birds to stuff, where were we going to find a large group of loving individuals to stuff the house with?  You guessed it, all the American rotary exchange students, that's who!
       My poor, sweet host parents didn't quite know what they were agreeing to I fear when I asked if we could house these American vagabonds for a day of thankful feasting.  Bless their big welcoming hearts, they handled the hectic day with grace and poise and didn't back down from the challenge I built for them.  14 teenagers filled our cozy home which had under gone some remodeling to add a long folding table and two benches across the living room to accomadate everyone.  My host dad made multiple trips to the train station to pick up our pot and pan totting pilgrims that had ridden on buses and trains for up to 2 hours to reach us.  All the classic foods were there and with hearts full of exchange student love we all ate more than might be reccomended but we didn't forget to give thanks for all the blessings we had in our lives.  Going around the tables, we all took time to remember why we were there and who had helped us reach that point.  Many of us had similar things to be thankful for this year and I think the main things for me are covered in this list:

1. My family for enabling my exchange.
2. Rotary for building such an amazing program and sponsoring me.
3. My friends back in Michigan who have supported me from over 4,000 miles away.
4. My host family for taking me in as one of their own.
5. All the exchange students who have acted as my adopted extended family.
6. All the Germans who have shown such kindness to this often confused little Ami.
7. God for listening when nobody else could and guiding me through this year.
8. The lessons I have learned in these last 4 months about myself and the ways of the world.

       It was a wonderful day to reflect on the last 4 months and to look ahead to all the adventures that await us still.  This spirit was all covered in a video that a good friend made where we all recorded our thanks and our dreams for the year.  I really hope I can figure out how to upload videos by the time I get a copy of the video as I am sure it'll be a wonderful snapshot of exchange life to share with you all.  Until then,

Liebe Grüße
~M

*"my research" is actually just some vague memory from something once read and a pinch of critical thinking so here's to hoping I'm right.

Bike Ride Through Bremerhaven

A few weeks ago on a decently warm and relatively dry Tuesday I went biking through the older part of Bremerhaven with my camera in search of some new sights.  It was a fun couple hours of biking and at one point I pulled out a page from other exchange students books and decided to make a video.  Videos are fun to take and fun to watch and I think people will enjoy hearing my voice as I take you on a tiny tour of Bremehaven.  And no, there wasn't a script or any rehearsals, I really am just that good at improv.

Enjoy!  hmm so two days later and the video doesn't seem to be working... I might be able to get it up on my facebook for my friends and family but the rest of my readers will just need to wait until I get this figured out.

School Schedule

So the way that school days here are set up is sorta like a college schedule in the way that it differs from day to day but it has another confusing addition in the fact that it also changes by week with a seperate schedule for even and odd weeks.

So on even weeks I have...
Monday       German          History

Tuesday       Biology          History    Sport        German

Wednesday  Music             English     Math

Thursday     Free Block      History

Friday          Free Block      English     Philosophy

And then my odd weeks, they are a bit heavier than the even week.
Monday        German          English

Tuesday        Biology           History    Sport

Wednesday   Music             English     Math        Philosophy

Thursday       Free Block     History    Biology

Friday            Math               English    Philosophy

       Every class lasts for 90 minutes and in between them there is a break of 25 minutes until you reach the third break which is only 15 minutes.  The first class begins at 7:55 and depending on the day, I get out at either 11:20, 13:15, or 15:00.  On Thursdays and every other Friday you might have noticed I have a free block for the first hour of school and so on those days, my classes begin at 9:50.  I love Thursdays.  As you might have noticed, there isn't a lunch break.  There is a small cafeteria in the school but its more like a snack bar with a couple tables.  Most people bring some sort of bread with them wrapped in tin foil that is eaten in the hall ways during the breaks.  I was always so confused by the different times that I've gotten used to not eating at school most days.  On my four hour days though I normally go out in the second block and buy something from the bakery truck that comes to my school.  I have discovered I have a serious weak spot for chocolate croissants.

       I should also add in that this is not considered a full school schedule, German students require at least one more class if not two or three more.  Also if you took the time to read that whole schedule, you will notice that English and History show up more than the other classes as those are my Leistungskurses.  The idea of a Leistungskurse is to focus yourself on this specific topic.  In the last year of school you take your final exams called the Abitur on your two Leistungskurses as well as two other courses of your choice.  I'm sure I could talk about this a whhole lot more (and hopefully I will! My new blogging resolution has been going really well so far aka for 2 days)

gute Nacht meine Lieben
~M

P.S. Did you know that in German, capitalization isn't just for the first word and proper nouns?  You didn't?  Well now you know, Germans capitalize EVERY SINGLE noun.  Example: I ran out the Door and saw the Sun in the Sky and beneath that there was a Bird sitting in an Apple Tree eating a Worm.  (note apple tree would be one word so I wasn't sure how to englesize that one...) I realize myself doing it to English words sometimes too but since we don't have a rule like that I tend to have a weird sort of capitalization frenzy that just explodes all over.  Example: I ran Out the door and saw the Sun in The sky and beneath that there Was a bird sittiNg in An apple tree eating A worm.  I think my little pinkies just get really itchy to hit the shift key and start to inappropriately capitalize.  Maybe this is how people with Tourettes feel when they try to hold in a tick.  It comes out no matter what you do, you just don't know when or how.
Okay so there was your German lesson of the day (brought to you because I realized that liebe and Liebe are seperate things, one is the verb "to love" and the other is "dear")
So goodnight my dears.

German High School

So this is something I've been meaning to write for quite a long time now but alwas avoided just because at this point, it seems so normal I don't even care to write about it.  For the rest of you reading though, I think you will be interested by the German school system.
       So first off there are seperate levels of high school that the students are split into in 4th grade.  At the top is the Gymnasium, which prepares students to study in college.  That's where I am so remember all personal anecdotes are Gymnasium based.  Next comes the Realschule which prepares students to enter into the work world but usually seems to include some sort of internship and the education throughout the Realschule is rather broad.  The last traditional school option is the Hauptschule which is purely to prepares students for work directly after high school and is more specialized toward a line of work than the Realschule.  I know the system isn't completely rigid though because my host sister told me her school didn't fit any of these categories.  Before she left for Chile, she explained that her school had all three put in one building and through extra testing it was possible to swap up to the next type of school.  It isn't gaurenteed that you will stay in the school that you start in anywhere though because if your grades aren't high enough, you get booted down the ladder to the next school.  Truthfully it seems rather frightening and unforgiving to me.  I know plenty of people back in the states who didn't care about school until high school and if they were here in Germany they would have a very small chance of going on to college.  Which by the way, is wayyy cheaper here.  It's sorta like the reward you get for making it all the way through the system of high schools.  Okay so I'm tired now but very soon I will finally get you my schedule too, it's pretty funky.
Tschüss!
~M

Where have I been?

So, I'm afraid I freaked a few people out by this mysterious title and the lack of blog post but the last time I was on blogger, not text box would appear and so I never got to write my post.  It's working today though and that's good enough for me.  Now to finally answer that question of where I have been...


Saying I didn't have time to blog would be a lie, but I have been quite busy for the last two months.  Looking back, I can see that I last blogged on September 12th and so I made a map of all the places I have been since then. Map of my travels

Point A is where I live (Bremerhaven) and the rest are in order of where I was.  So follow along with the map and see what I have been up to!

A Bremerhaven.  This is where I live, so think school and chocolate.  I think those are some of the most important things that happen here.

B Worpswede.  September 13-14
I spent the weekend with my host-mom at a charming Bed & Breakfast run out of an old farm house by a little old lady.  Worpswede is a small little German village that was first established as an artists colony.  It had a neat little museum and a very picturesque setting.  The weekend was nice and relaxing, with lots of time spent riding our bikes.  More time than we meant really, because my host-mom and I are both quite directionally challenged.

C München.  September 26-29
I went to Oktoberfest!  I was there with two other exchange students, Lea and Gino from Argentina, and the first host family of Lea, the Bayers.  The city of München was very cool with plenty of old architecture and some very pretty parks.  Oktoberfest itself was extremely crowded and it was hilarious to see thousands of people dressed in Lederhosen and Dirndls in the tents.  We had traditional Bayerisch foods (the rest of Germany would like me to remind you that pretzels, beer, and Lederhosen are Bayerisch stereotypes, not German.) I will also add in that Bayern is the state that München is located in and is the butt of many a German joke.  Sorta like Texas is to America.  Unfortunately for the rest of Germany though, the Bayerisch are too funny to not represent Germany to the rest of the world.  Sorry guys.  Anyways, München was a lot of fun and I owe a big thank you to Kiki Bayer for inviting me and her brother Tim and family for hosting all of us!

From left to right
Kiki Bayer, Niklas Bayer, Gino, Lea Steiner, Micaela Steiner, Philip Bayer, Me, Tim, Florian (Michi not pictures)

D Föhr. September 30-October 4
Next stop was the island of Föhr with my friend Elizabeth from Canada and her host-parents, Heiner and Maria.  It is a very pretty little island that involved a lot of bike riding.  I saw some neat traditional dancing, lots of sheep, and one of the most gorgeous sun sets to date.  Danke schön Familie Neunstein!

E Erfurt. October 5th
Here is where my 6 day rotary sponsored Germany tour began!  I will be writing more on this, hopefully because those 6 days were all insanely busy and I ended up with over 1,000 pictures.  Erfurt is where our first hostel was and there were some really cool churches there (including one that has the claim of "The Birthplace of Lutheranism") though we mostly just slept there and then took the bus to other places during the day

F Buchenwald Concentration Camp.  October 6th
This was a very sombering experience as you might expect but one I am glad I had.

G Weimar. October 7th
A picturesque central German city where we stopped for a few hours.

H Berlin October -10
The highlight of our Germany tour, our three days in Berlin were filled with tours, museums, shopping, partying, and just havingg a teriffic exchange student time. After the Germany tour ended, I realized that they could probably drop us all off in the desert for a week and as long as there was plenty of food, we would all be completely happy just to be together all the time.  The fact that the trip also took us to some really cool places was just a bonus to being able to spend all that time with the exchangers.

I Wolfsburg. October 10
Also called the Auto city of Germany, this is a sort of manufactured city/museum/store for Volkswagon.  I found it to be much more interesting than I had expected, but it still wasn't really my sort of place.  I think it also didn't help that we all had had an extreme lack of sleep at this point and so were in slight zombie states.  A little irony is that I wore my Detroit Tigers shirt that day, showing some pride for the USAs Motor City.

J Hamburg. October
I made it back to Hamburg twice now since my first time.  Since that first time, I saw a tunnel that runs below the river, fed the swans, finally found my first satisfactory Thai food here in Germany, and walked the infamous Reeperbahn.  I think the very best part was stumbling upon the little asian imbiss and finding a red curry coconut stir fry just like my favorite one back in the states.

K Oldenburg. October
I made a few stops by Oldenburg in the last couple months as well.  There are a lot of exchangers who live there and it is a very pretty city about the size of Bremerhaven and a 1 1/2 hour train ride away.  Thanks to the magnificent Jugendfreizeit Ticket (youth free time ticket.  It's a nice example of how Germans just mush words together to make super duper compound words) that I buy every month for 17.50€. I can travel on all buses and trains in about a 1 hour radius from Bremen every week day after 2pm and at all times on weekends.  It is one of the best things to happen to my exchange I think seeing as travelling from Bremerhaven to Oldenburg just once round trip would cost me about 50€.  If you ever find yourself in Germany, look for these awesome deals for the under 21 crowd.

L Bremen.
Bremen has become my adoptive sister city (Thank you jugendfreizeit again!).  I realized I make it there close to once a week it seems whether thats to do some extra shopping or just to meet up with exchangers.  I love Bremen and can proudly say I have ridden the entire length of 2 of the Straßenbahn lines (I still have another 8 to explore) and can make my way around all the major tourist attractions and some of the less well known places as well.

Liebe Grüße von Mary