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

Hamburg

       A few weeks ago the other exchange student in my city, Leandro, asked me if I wanted to go to Hamburg for the day with him and his sister Micaela who was visiting from Argentina.  Two out of my three classes had been cancelled on that day anyways so my host parents said it would be okay for me to trade in a math class for the cultural experience of visiting Germany's second largest city.  Leandro has been here for 6 months because he's on the winter schedule so I let him handle the German train ticket and before I knew it, I was off to Hamburg on a thankfully sunny Wednesday morning.  The train ride was about 2 hours with a stop over in Bremen.  The official reason for our visit was for Leandro to visit the Argentinian consulate there and I was just tagging along.
       Once the consulate opened and they had talked to some people in rapid Spanish, the three of us walked to a park and it was decided that I could take off to look around the city while Lea and Micaela worked at the consulate because we didn't know how long it might take.  With my camera slung round my neck and my walking sandals on, I headed off toward the city center in true tourist fasion.  A pleasant 30 minute walk along the lake led me straight into the main square of Hamburg.  I snapped plenty of photos along the way and had to restrain myself when I hit the city from taking a picture of every single building I came across.  Wandering around chasing after the glimpse of a church steeple over bridges that spanned the cities many canals, I felt truly contented and fully European.  I even successfully ordered a Döner from a cart without the man switching into English on me! (Granted I think German was his second language too, but it's a start).  I left the cart man and sauntered off with my Döner and new found confidence to a nice spot on the steps leading down to the main canal.   There I enjoyed my giant "Turkey meets Germany gyro sandwich" while watching people feed the swans and thinking about how cool my life is.
       Shortly after I finished, I got the call to meet my friends at the park in half an hour.  With only a slight detour made to find an ice cream cone, I returned along the same trail that had brought me into the city.  We had to go to a rotary dinner ice cream eating (apparently thats a thing here, just to have ice cream meetings.  I'm not complaining, I just wish I had realized it before showing up with an empty stomach...) that night so we had to take the next train back to Bremen.  In the train station we had half an hour extra in which I was able to meet with a friend who used to go to my school in America.  He is in Germany with the CBYX scholarship program and had a few weeks in Hamburg for language school before he relocates to the south of Germany for the rest of the year.  It was strange to see someone from home who I knew just one month earlier had been in my same town and one year from now would be back there!  After our hasty catching up, I said goodbye to Austin and hopped on my train back to Bremerhaven.  I slept most of the way home too, luckily Lea woke me up in time for my stops! (I've learned I'm really good at sleeping on trains)
       
Over all it was a very fun day, I can't wait for another oppurtunity to get back to Hamburg!

And here's a quick photo tour, you can find all the rest on my facebook.

We made it!

Crest of Hamburg

Yay for public transportation systems!

First views of the city beyound the lake

Hamburg Rathaus

Döner <3

Mini Northville reunion in the Hauptbahnhof.  Good luck with those crazy southerners Austin!

 Look for posts on last weekends rotary orientation and the German school system next!

~M

FAQs

       One month in Germany.  It really feels surreal to me.  It's hard to imagine life going on outside of Germany but at the same time when I sit down and count the days, I realize this is twice as long as I have ever been away from home before.  This post is going to focus on the 10 most frequently asked questions I get from Germans.  In order of most asked, here are the questions and my answers!

1. How is your German doing? It's improving so that's encouraging but German is still a hard language to learn.  It's made even more difficult for me because of how excessible Germany is to an English speaker.  You could live here very comfortably knowing only English and the most basic German so I have to force myself to use my bumbling German, but I'm getting better about it and everyone is always encouraging.

2. Do you like your host family?  My host family is very kind and helpful and they have made me feel right at home.  I'm especially happy that I fit here well because they are my only family, I won't be switching like most rotary students.  And yes, I miss having my host sister around now that she has left for Chile but that was always expected and I know she will be having a great exchange year over in South America.

3. Are German boys hotter than American boys? (I told you I was using the most commonly asked questions, not the most relevent)  German boys on average are much better groomed with more attention given to clothes and hair but this is not an absolute rule.  I find this to be a plus but for those American girls who swoon over sweat pants (I never understood that one...) you will be dissapointed here.  But rotary doesn't allow dating anyways so really its a moot point all around.

4. Do you like it here in Bremerhaven? I love it!

5. Wait... really?  Yeah!  Everyone has been so friendly and I think the city is really cool.  I love living by the water and eating brötchen after school and having barbeques with friends.  I like how it's completely normal to see dogs everywhere, like in shopping malls, buses, restraunts etc.  It's also so exciting when I understand German, even if it's just a lady on the bus talking about her day shopping.

6. Does everyone in America own a gun?  No.  I've never shot a gun or seen one shot, though yes my dad does own a gun but it is only good for hunting birds.  There are people who are gun crazy but that isn't the majority of people.  Personally, I support much stricter gun laws, especially when it comes to assault weapons.  Why does anyone need something that can shoot automatically?

7. What's different about the schools here versus in the US?  Well the scheduling of classes is very different, and there isn't as much homework assigned here.  Though when it is assigned, it's usually more thought provoking than just practicing. (I'll have a longer post on school soon!)  Content wise it is hard for me to compare just because I understand so little of the German.

8. Things are more expensive in Europe, right?  On average clothing seems more expensive but there are also places here like H&M where you can buy cheap clothes.  I find the food here to be cheaper, both eating out and just from the store.  It's also really nice not having to tip at the end of a meal!  Though remember that I'm not going out to nice restraunts here, its usually a €3 Döner or asian inspired noodles.  The fanciest meal I've had so far was a plate of nachos so don't try asking me for the prices of couture food.

9. What do you miss most from home? People. Duh. But beyond missing the amazing people I left back in the states, it's hard to pick.  I miss the ease of being able to drive anywhere anytime but the buses and trains are very useful so it's not too big a deal.  I also miss good asian food.  There's asian food here but it doesn't compare.  People seem to talk about a lack of Mexican food a lot but that was never a huge part of my life before so I don't mind.  But I do miss pad thai and sushi that doesn't look like it was shipped in that plastic box all the way from a factory in Japan.  Then again I have German chocolate and Brötchen so I guess that's the exchange I'm making.

10. Were you a cheer leader? Nope, I have never had any desire to be a cheer leader.  I was always a fan of sports that required you to break a sweat.

So ranging from silly to serious, those are my top 10 German FAQs.  I'll try to get a post up soon that covers the exciting things I've been up to for the last month, but that's a rather daunting task because there have been so many great experiences!
Grüße aus Deutschland
~M

First Days in Germany

       That's right folks, I have finally made it to Germany!  There is lots to write about because now I become excited from the simplest of things like what I ate for breakfast, driving down the road, and how the doors lock all because "this is how Germans do it"!  It is hard for me to really compare many of the things that I have seen so far as German v. American because I don't know if it is all the norm or if things I am seeing are unusual by German standards as well.  That is why I have decided instead to give a super speed recap of the last few days without any judgements.

        So after my great 9 hours spent travelling, I finally made it to the Bremen airport.  My family was waiting for me there and there were hugs given all around.  This did surprise me because everyone told me that Germans rarely hug but if that is true, my family must be an acception because I got a hug from each of them and my host sister greets all her friends with a hug.  From Bremen, it was about a 45 minute drive to our house in Bremerhaven.  I told them I wasn't tired but after the first half hour I could hardly keep my eyes open.  I tried to stay awake so I could see all of my city but it wasn't really working so I succumbed to the 5 minute power nap.  Bremerhaven and my house look much different in person than they did on google maps, but only in the best way.  My new house is absolutely adorable.  It has a very  rustic cottage feel to it, everything is made of wood, even the fridge and the dish washer.  There's exposed beams all over and a loft in the living room as well as my bedroom.  It reminds me of my mom's favorite architecure book called Cottage Living or something like that that is all about maximizing space.  I need to figure out how to download my cameras pictures soon so that you all can see because I am in love with how cute it is.

       After settling in and taking a nice long nap, I took a walk with my host sister, Charlotte, and the dog, Waltraud.  She brought me to a really pretty park not too far from the house that I would  love to run in soon and she showed me the neighborhood.  I was introduced to a few neighbors who I can't remember the names of unfortunately.  After a light dinner of bread with meat and cheese, chocolate yogurt, and a salad, I went to bed. (again)

       Friday dawned bright and hot.  The hottest day of the summer in fact!  I spent the morning grocery shopping and buying a very simple pre-paid phone.  In the afternoon Charlotte brought me along into the city to meet her friend Alex.  We saw most of the main attractions of the city like the main church, the large pedestrian shopping street, the Mediterraneo (this was like a standard mall but all the store fronts looked like Italian houses, it was very cool) and I went inside that big glass building that looks like a jelly bean that is in every picture of the city.  After awhile we were summoned home so I could relax because Petra is extra careful with me; it's very sweet.  A couple hours later Helmut drove us back to the harbor where a movie was being shown on a huge screen made of the shipping containers that fill the harbor.  We sat on a blanket on the cobble stones with a bunch of Charlotte's friends and Charlotte translated the whole movie for me, which was so nice because I would have been completely lost without her!  Helmut came and brought us home afterwards.

        Saturday I slept extremely late.  When I woke up my host parents took me to a park that stretches along the dike past Bremerhaven to walk Waltraud and show me the country side, but when we pulled up it began to rain.  We turned around and drove through the industrial harbor where I saw all the giant cranes for moving the containers which are mostly filled with cars.  The road was bordered by huge trains stacked with new cars ready to be taken to all of Europe.  We ended up finding a tour bus in a parking lot there that we hopped onto.  Normally, the tour wouldn't pick people up there but the driver agreed to drive us back to our car afterwards.  He really liked to talk so it took awhile for him to get us back but he seemed nice enough.  He only spoke German so I mostly didn't know what was going on.  At night I went back to the movie festival with Charlotte and some friends but the movie for that night was really boring so we left pretty early and just walked around the city and went down to the dike.  I still don't understand anything in German unless it is said very slowly so I couldn't keep up with the others at all but Charlotte would stop and explain their conversations sometimes so it was fun!  We saw a few shooting stars as well and they showed me a new constellation.
       
      Today I have had an easy morning and soon we will go to meet Helmut's mom.  Tonight we are barbequeing with some neighbors which I guess happens every Sunday.

Over all, Germany is treating me very well!

~M

Ready or Not, Here I Come

        I keep writing up posts that go along the lines of "OMG I leave in XX days!!!! I'm so ExCiTeD wait I'm really nervous but can I just be in Germany already wahhh I love this make it stop!"  Each one is promptly deleted because the tone at the beginning never matches that at the end and the middle bit just makes me sound violently bipolar.
        I've come to realize though that this is just the way I feel right now.  Depending on the day and even on the hour I feel different emotions about leaving and going.  I need to make it clear that these are two very different things.  Going always has good emotions even if there is some anxiety.  Leaving on the other hand slips through my fingers every time I try to pick up on the exact emotion it excites.  I have definitely left any indifference far behind. I am sad to be leaving my friends, but I have their assurance that I won't be forgotten and I know that they'll be here for me when I return as well as emotionally supportive even while I'm away.  My family will be just fine without me no matter what some of them seem to think and there will probably be so many letters home the only difference will be all the extra time available in the shower.  But leaving still isn't all bad because in doing so, I will be discarding any labels that I have accumulated over the years and arriving in Germany with a clean foundation to build myself on.  Though as I write this, I wonder if that really should be labeled as a "going" feeling. You see what I mean by the blog changing directions?

       Well no matter, that doesn't change the fact that I am leaving in a mere 13 days!  That's right, I have my ticket all set for 10 pm on July 31st.  From there I fly to Amsterdam, have a two hour lay over and then an hour flight to Bremen where I will be greeted by my host family at 2:30 in the afternoon on August 1st.  I don't actually fly well truth be told and it just so happens that flying between Detroit and Amsterdam was the first time that I threw up on a plane.

*Skip this story if you are of feint heart or queasy stomach* (okay it's not that bad and you will miss some laughs but skip if you must)

To start with, I get motion sick pathetically easily.  Like say I ride in a particularly fast elevator.  Afterwards I have to sit down for a minute to stop walking in crooked lines. Yeah, it's bad.  So of course there wasn't a single barf bag on my first transatlantic 7 hour flight.  I hardly thought about it though because I'd felt fine the entire time, fully enjoying all that the awesome built in TV had to offer, as well as the new delicacy of "Plane Food" .  Unfortunately, as we started to descend and the pressure changed, so did my brand new opinion on in flight meals.  After about infinity plus 1 hours I felt the longed for bump of wheels hitting the tarmac and I thought to myself, "I'm saved!".  Alas, I rejoiced too soon for I still could not run to the bathroom because the captain hadn't turned off the seat belt sign.  Now you may be thinking that my needs outranked the little glowing light above my head and in this thinking, you would be wrong.  12-year-old Mary had had the authority of seat belt signs drilled into her since the early age of 2.  I knew in no uncertain terms that walking while the light was on would cause the spontaneous combustion and immediate drop of the plane from the sky along with the death of every person on-board.  It didn't matter that the plane was driving around already ON the ground, I was not about to be responsible for the deaths of all those people.  Now I'm not trying to sound like a hero, I only did what any wonderful self-sacrificing person would do.  I leaned over the side of my chair and threw up all over the isle that half a Boeing 747 needed to walk down to get out of the plane.  Within seconds the suddenly attentive Lufthansa flight attendant swooped down from behind and nabbed my blanket from me.  I watched her deftly fold it up and gracefully lay it across the isle were it magically blended into the blue/grey carpeting.  The large man across from me never even looked up from the computer he had just turned back on.  I then sat there and watched the whole back of the plane exit unknowingly over my first in flight meal.

*End story*

So if you read that paragraph, you now understand why I'm not thrilled to be returning to Amsterdam.  For those of you who heeded my warning and skipped it, just know that it involved the red light district, high speed trams, a missing passport, and an uncomfortably large amount of Swiss cheese.  I trust your imagination can fill in the rest for you and now you also know why I'm not thrilled to be returning to Amsterdam.  Luckily, I already found a few other exchange students who I will meet up with for the flight to Bremen so even if I am a little out of it in the airport, I should make it all the way to Bremen.  Less than two weeks seems so soon, next time I post here, I very well might be in Germany!  Crazy ehh?

~M

Central States Conference

       2 weeks until Germany and it still feels utterly surreal.  This past weekend was the Central States Rotary Youth Exchange weekend (CSRYE).  The days were filled with meetings that were decently informative though rather repetitive.  But I'd rather have a rotary that over prepares me rather than under prepares me so I'm not complaining.  Both nights we had dance parties which were wicked fun.  Now I only wish I was headed for Latin America so they could teach me to dance!  I also fell in love with all the Spanish and Portuguese songs by the end of Saturday night, they're just so much more fun to dance to even if I don't know what in the world is being said...

       There was also the traditional "Brasil against The World" soccer game one afternoon.  I was able to play for a few minutes but I had to really fight the boys to let me on.  They'd grown tired of being out played by the all boys Brazilian team so when I swapped on, an athletic inbound ran up and told me to get off the field.  Why he thought that would work, I have no idea.  The next play came down to my end of the field, I carried it straight down the middle for half the field and laid it off in an easy pass to a girl standing wide open at the corner of the 18.  She proceeded to fall over in her attempt to kick the ball.  (Okay so maybe that was the reason why "The World" boys were trying to keep us girls off the pitch.)  Anyways, after that I got high fives from most of the boys on both teams and an almost apology from the kid who had tried to sub me out.  Hopefully they won't count out the girls quite so quickly next time.  I gave up my spot to the next person who wanted to sub in and keeping with tradition, Brasil won the game.  After the game we set up a game of 8v8 that was a lot of fun because everyone was relaxed and just out to have a good time.  This did however make me late and sweaty for the pin exchange.

       I'm afraid I'll never have a super covered blazer just because I'm a big believer in collecting memories and experiences rather than souvenirs and things (being perpetually late might also inhibit my pin collecting abilities, but let's just chalk it up to principles instead) I don't have souvenirs from anything because I always end up asking myself if shopping is really what I want to do while I'm traveling and the answer is always no.  Of course pins are a little different, and some people may argue that a pin is a memory and that trading is an experience to remember but in a mass trade where I don't even know someones name I just don't get as excited as the rest of the exchange students.  I did still trade a fair amount and will be flying with a half full blazer so I will scream Rotary Exchange Student just as loudly as the next blazer clad kid, don't worry!

       I must warn any future exchange students going to CSRYE, there was very little sleep to be had all weekend.  I slept all of 4 hours the first night and then did not sleep again until the car ride home at 10am on Sunday.  There is a strict curfew of course, but only for being inside your dorm building.  I spent all of Saturday night with a fun bunch of outbound, inbound, and rebound students who have all become very good friends of mine. There's something about exchange students, even those of us who haven't left yet that binds us all together.  Maybe it's that we've all had the courage to leave our homes to enter into these great adventures.  What ever it is, exchange students really are the most universally fun group of people you will ever meet.

Basically if you are going to CSRYE get ready for a fun time, and keep in mind that nobody ever remembers the nights that they get enough sleep (;

Tschuess!

~M

Bremerhaven

       My first post after the original host family email was rather brief, so this post will serve as a sort of supplement on the city of Bremerhaven.  I meant to put this up sooner but better late then never!  This information all came off google though so maybe I'll make a comparison post once I actually reach Bremerhaven.

                                                           Tour of Bremerhaven:

This picture comes from a boat festival held annually in Bremerhaven.  Hopefully I'll stay late enough next year to see it!

Boat Parade

This is the main terminal building of Bremerhaven's port.  The city is supposed to be very modern and most of the architecture is post war.

Sunset over the harbor

This is the "Zoo by the Sea" (literally that's what Zoo am Meer translates to) and it's an aquarium plus other animals found near the sea.  I'll definitely check it out

Lloyd Gymnasium This is one of the buildings of my school!

Here's a picture from inside another one of my high school's buildings.  I could get used to this!

A German beach on the North Sea.  It looks just like Lake Michigan to me!

On a rare sunny day, everyone flocks to the beach

Bremerhaven even has it's own beautiful town Christmas tree!

Host Email Part II

        I told you I'd make another post after I got a response from my family and now, several emails later, I finally am getting around to it!  So now I know for sure that I will be living in Bremerhaven with my host mom and dad.  The daughter who is going to Chile will be there for my first month which will probably be very helpful for adjusting, though she won't go to my school.  My host brother is graduating high school this year and next year will be living in Hamburg about an hour away.  I don't know when he will leave for Hamburg or how often he'll come home but overall, I'm going to be an only child!  I admit, this scared me a little at first, seeing as I've been raised with three siblings but the more I thought about it, the more benefits I see to being the only child for my exchange year. Another peculiarity about my situation is that they will be my only family!  Rotary typically moves you around so as to lighten the load on the host and to give you a broader view of "normal" life but it just worked out that I will only have one host family.  I can't say that I'm disappointed by this though, because from all the emails I've been exchanging with my host mom, she seems perfect.  I also have some pictures of their house now and it looks absolutely adorable.  All the flowers are coming up in the gardens now, just like here.

       My host mom also told me that I will attend Lloyd Gymnasium, because that's where all of the exchange students in Bremerhaven go to school.  It's website said that they are a bilingual school which freaked me out at first, but my host mom said she'd support me in getting myself into strictly German taught classes.  Did I mention how superb her English is?  She's been writing most emails in both German and English for me, though now it's mostly just German.  I still write out an English and German version because I'm sure that without an English version to reference, my German would be almost indecipherable.  It's still good practice for me to be writing in German though, and I'm learning that I use "excited" "beautiful" and "very" a whole lot.  I almost hope their spoken English isn't quite as good just so that I don't use it too much as a crutch when the German gets hard.  This was a rather rambling post but I think it served it's purpose.

I hope to add another post that will highlight all the cool things I've learned about Bremerhaven soon!  Get ready for lots of pictures in that!

~M 

Host Email Part I

        I opened the computer after school and was flicking through my usual tabs when an unfamiliar email address caught my eye.  I flipped back and looked closer.  Charlotte?  I don't know anyone named Charlotte...I sat there waiting for the email to load when final it hit me.  This must be from my host family!  Now you might think that after all my desperate scanning for exchange related news I would be able to connect the dots a little faster than I did.  In my defense, I've been very preoccupied with studying for my upcoming AP exams and finals.  Okay, so I've been preoccupied with thinking about studying for my AP exams, but same diff.
         So what exactly did this mystery email tell me?  Not a whole bunch I'm afraid, but I'll share what I know so far!  I now know that I will be living in the fabulous city of Bremerhaven with two host parents and a host brother of an unknown age.  My host sister, Charlotte, who sent me the email, is going to be on exchange in Chile while I'm there so it's possible we'll never even meet.  What a strange thought!  I don't know if there are other families who just haven't contacted me yet, or if they are the only one.  That is one of the numerous questions I sent them; I'll post the answers to all my questions when I get a response!  Unfortunately it is now 12 am in Bremerhaven so I might have to wait until tomorrow!
         Until that happens....

~M

Packing List

       I have a stress, and that stress is packing.  How do I fit a years worth of clothes plus host family gifts into one suitcase and a carry on?!  Plus, what will I be trying to bring home two summers from now that I need to leave space for?  I'm usually pretty good at packing sensibly, but this is just crazy.  To relieve some of this stress, I decided to start my packing list.
       I'm a big fan of lists, but I have found that it is a common misconception that list makers are organized people.  I am telling you now, that is not true. Though I may make neat, structured lists, the frequency with which I lose them is very high.  So when I started to make a packing list 3 and 1/2 months in advance, I knew there was no way it was going to last until July.  Then it hit me!  Put the list on my blog!  This way I can't lose it, I can still edit it, and maybe I'll even have some helpful readers jump in with a suggestion or two as to what I'll need!   So please, give me all your wisdom as to what I absolutely have to have, and what should stay here in Michigan.  So without further ado, I'd like to introduce:

Mary's Super Duper Packing List

1. Large American flag
2. Host family gifts
3. Banners from Northville Rotary club
4. Pins
5. Large rolling duffel bag
6. Carry on bag
7. Backpack
8. 2 simple dresses
9. 2 pair jeans
10. 1 pair leggings
11. 2 pair thick tights
12. 2 pair shorts
13. Favorite pair of fuzzy sock
14. Laptop (This is still a very contested item.  If you have any experience with the worth of having a computer on exchange, please chime in!)
15. Large jar of peanut butter
16. Running shoes
17. Sandals
18. Leather boots
19. Converse (Trying to cut down on shoes is so difficult)
20. 7 shirts
21. 2 scarves
22. 2 cardigans
23. Rotary Blazer
24. Winter jacket

I still don't know exactly what luggage I'll be taking so I may have way less or way more space than all that stuff would require.  At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to maximize the amount of clothing I'll wear on the plane.  Not too bad a look, right??

This would be so much easier if I wasn't leaving at the end of July when it'll be 90+ degrees in Detroit...

~M

Distrikt and Dates

       Distrikt as in the German district of 1850 and dates as in flight departures, not romantic dinners!  So I'm already having trouble keeping this silly thing current but below you will find the narrative that I wrote the day after I found everything out.

       Wednesday afternoon, I got home and flipped on the computer.  As always, I opened my email hoping to see some news from Rotary, thinking  about how pathetic it's become to do this everyday. Sitting there surrounded by twitter notifications was an email titled "Rotary Youth Exchange".  With racing heart, I opened it, quickly skimming through a choppy email that was signed, Your German Youth Exchange Team.  It told me to follow a link to a website where they had a login for me and after searching the different tabs, in the bottom corner of the last one I found one minuscule box labeled Distrikt 1850.  Excitedly, I typed that clue into Google and it showed me that I will be living in the Northwest corner of Germany in Lower Saxony!

       The district borders the North Sea and the Netherlands.  It seems to be largely a farming community with a few larger cities like Bremen and Oldenburg.  I'm in love with all the old architecture in the area!

Old marketplace in Bremen

I posted my assignment onto a huge facebook group of rotary kids, and was automatically approached by an Aussie and an American who are in D1850 right now. I've talked to them some and I think that I will really enjoy my time there!
       A few days later, my YEO sent me an email that included all of the departure dates by district.  School in Niedersachsen starts earlier than most of the other states in Germany so I will leaving this great state of Michigan between July 29th and August 4th.  This is a few weeks earlier than I had anticipated so I will need to adjust some of my summer plans in order to fit everything in!  I have now officially started a count down, today I am 119 days away from GERMANY!!

       In other exchange related news, I've discovered Doulingo.com, a free, language learning site.  It is similar to Rosetta Stone with the main differences being the language selection and the crazy Rosetta Stone price! I highly suggest if you're learning Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, or German that you take a look at Duolingo.  I also believe they're working on a version for Mandarin Chinese so you can look for other languages in the future!

Happy Easter!
~M

Orientation +

      It's been too long my readers! (Using plural hoping I'm not being presumptuous that there is more than 1 person reading these...) Between ACT prep and the actual test, youth group, friends, and of course the inescapable school work, these last few weeks have been busy beyond belief, but I am back to bring you up to speed on orientation.  Now seeing that there is an unprecedented amount of Bs in there, but I think I like it so they're staying.  Now for orientation, which happened back on Saturday, February 16th.

     The snow was falling swiftly as we followed the line of cars beneath the St. Clair river to resurface out of the tunnel in Windsor, Canada.  A short drive later, we had made it to the building where our meeting was to take place.  It was funny noting the differences that that short span of water and one international border created.  Automatically, I felt far from home with all the signs in English and French, a different style of street lights, and the smooth roads (had to throw in a Michigan road joke sometime :).  I love that I have an international district so we get a touch of that sought after culture mingling before we even leave home.
       A lot of the information presented during orientation I had already searched up on my own, but it was still reassuring to hear it spoken by everyone at the meeting.   We had a little time to meet the other exchangers in the middle, but over all there wasn't as much of a "get to know you" aspect as I had expected.  Here's a quick district 6400 profile:
Our district has 9 outbounds for next year with two Brazil bound girls, two girls and a boy headed for France, one girl for Italy, one to Denmark, another to Turkey, and yours truly for Germany of course.  The girl going to Turkey had it numbered somewhere in the thirties (we had about 40 country choices, so this was extremely unlikely to have happened!)  The rest of us all had our future host countries listed near the top 10, which is more typical of a rotary assignment.  Everyone seems nice, I'm excited to get to know them better over the next few months!
        Toward the end, we were fitted for our blazers, given tips on pin making, and promised a copy of The Exchange Student Survival Guide to be delivered at our next meeting in April.  We were also each assigned a topic to present on about our home country for the April meeting.  Mine is to talk for 5-8 minutes on a famous American and include what they are famous for and how they gained their fame.  The topics ranged from silly, like mine, to rather serious ones regarding foreign policy and home country politics.  The idea is just to help us become comfortable speaking in front of groups as we will likely need to present in front of our host rotary club, and that will have to be in another language!  I'm not worried about my celebrity speech, but presenting to a roomful of German adults, all in German, sounds more than a little intimidating at the moment.
         After the meeting, my mom and I had to rush back over the river to get to the Detroit Athletic Club where my dad and my grandpa were entered in a squash tournament.  It was the last night of the tournament and there is always a big banquet with a band at the end that I went to as my grandpa's date.  I got him out on the dance floor for a few songs, even though the music was a little too new age for him (It was mostly 80s Motown to give you an idea of my grandpa's musical preferences).  My parents would have danced until 2 am if they could, but with my 83 year old grandpa along, we ended up heading home by 11 o'clock.  Over all a fun way to spend a Saturday!

Bis bald!
          Mary