So yeah, it’s been a long time, and a lot has happened…. So I’ll try to remember it all so I can write about it.
First off…. Saturday August 14th, 2010: My host family and I went to this super awesome castle in Runneburg (I think that’s how you spell it). Afterwards we drove to a town called Gelnhausen, which was really cool, it was very stereotypical Germany looking. On the way home I met with some of my other Exchange Student friends at the train station, and we took the train to Fulda to see a movie. We saw Eclipse, which is as good in German as in English. The movie theaters are weird though. The popcorn is sweet. It’s like kettle corn, but even sweeter; but it’s still pretty good. Plus everything is super expensive, and they sell beer, and weird nacho things. Ha. While I was in Fulda I also bought a wallet, because I decided I’d had enough with all of the coins falling out of my pocket all of the time.
Sunday August 15th, 2010: My host family and I went to Wurzburg, which is the prettiest city I’ve seen so far. I like it a lot, we went into this super giant castle, and then into the place where the royalty actually lived, which was crazy because it took them I think five (5) years to build the structure itself and then sixty (60) years to finish the inside.
Tuesday August 17th, 2010: I came home and my host mom told me that she got a letter from the German customs saying that my package got stopped and that I had to go and pick it up; which wasn’t really a big deal. I also learned a super long word: die Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungszone, which means ‘speed limit zone’.
Wednesday August 18th, 2010: We, the exchange students, went to the Rathaus (City Hall) and met with the mayor (Bürgermeisterin) which was pretty cool.
Thursday August 19th, 2010: We were in the newspaper; it had an article (which I still haven’t read) about who we were and why we were always so loud when we walked through the town. Also on Thursday we went into a couple of class rooms, and observed how school in Germany worked. Thursday night we had a going away party for ourselves, haha.
Friday August 20th, 2010: So on Friday we made a year book type thing, we all wrote a page for it and we put in a bunch of pictures and stuff, and we signed them on Friday since it was our last day of school together. After we made those we made some cards for people in town, such as the Baker that let us observe him, and brought those to people. Then the teachers decided that we needed to take a 20 minute uphill walk, which was a ton of fun, to a watch out tower thing that was above the town; it ended up being really cool. After that we went back to the school and went into one of the English classes for an hour and a half and made a poster thing with the Germans, it was weird, but it was fun. We somehow ended up outside again, and when we were going in the music teacher was sitting outside with six (6) guitars and he asked if we wanted to learn a song, so we all played the guitar a little bit and we sang a song. When we went back inside we all sat together in a circle and passed around a copy of “Oh the Places You’ll Go” and we all took turns reading aloud from it. After that the teachers gave us our big surprise, which was our Schultütes, which is basically a really big paper cone filled with candy that they give to little kids on their first day of school ever year. Then us exchange students went to the Eis café together for one last time, walked to the bus stop, and said goodbye to each other for the last time. Which was hard. It’s crazy to think that you can make so good of friends in four (4) short weeks.
Saturday August 21st, 2010: Saturday morning I was up bright and early to finish up my packing and what not. I left the house for the last time at 09:30, and I was on the train at 10:08. There were supposed to be four of us on the train together, but when we got on there were only three of us, but we thought the fourth was just going to be getting on at the next stop because it would’ve been closer for him; but he didn’t get on. So when we got to our stop where we caught our connecting train, we searched for him but had no luck. My friend Ashley and I had to get on our train, so we left our friend Stella alone on the Platform, without her travel companion whose name her ticket was in. When Ashley and I got on the train we tried to find our seats, which we had reserved. We passed them but didn’t know that at the time, so we just kept walking and finally decided we were just going to stop and wait, and grab a seat when somebody got out at the next stop. Well the next stop came and nobody got out, so we went again on the search for our seats. We came to mine first, so I kicked the guy that was sitting there out, at sat down. Ashley went to find her seat which was in the next wagon. I did then talk to Stella and she said that she did eventually find the missing David, and they had no other problems on their trip, besides a 45 minute delay due to a cow on the tracks. At one of the stops everybody in my little room thing got out so I called Ashley and told her to come. Later on the controller (ticket checker) came by and asked us all for our tickets. YFU sent us all our tickets but apparently they didn’t send Ashley hers because she went through her entire folder and there was no ticket, and what she thought was her ticked was actually just her seat reservation confirmation. So she had to buy a ticket, but she got a good deal on it since we lied to the guy. The ride was pretty uneventful after that. I rode for about an hour longer and then I got out in Hamburg and got on to a regional train which took me to the town where my host family was picking me up. …and they were there.
The new host family is fantastic. I have my own room here, which I didn’t have at the other, it’s not really all that big of a deal but it is nice. Parents are very nice (Heike and Andreas), and the kids are great (Christoph, Johannes, Markus). My brother, Johannes, speaks fluent English but we don’t speak English to each other, so it’s nice that I never got used to speaking English here. When I got home I took a nap, then got up and ate dinner, and went back to bed. After a fun filled day of spending 6 hours on a train I was dead.
Sunday August 22nd, 2010: On Sunday we went to church in the morning, I understood most of what was going on and what was being said, but it was still boring. I don’t think it’s possible to make church fun. After that I went with Markus and Christoph to a soccer game, in which Johannes was playing. Later that night we went to a going away party for one of their family friends who is going to the US for a year as an exchange student on the third of September. I also played soccer for the first time on Sunday.
Monday August 23rd, 2010: First day of school. Let me give you an example of how much I understood: my first class was Latin 5, So yeah I didn’t understand one thing the entire day, plus I didn’t have any books, or notebooks or anything, I was very unprepared. The good news was that all of the kids in my class are super nice. I’m in the class 10N1, which is one of the four, 10th grade classes. My brother, Markus, is in 10N2. I have 14 subjects. They are as follows.
Monday: French, Music, Gym, Gym, Math, German, Physics
Tuesday: French, Biology, German, Geography, History, and Chemistry.
Wednesday: Politics, English, Math, Biology, Art, Art, Chemistry, French.
Thursday: Music, Physics, Politics, Geography, German, French, Religion.
Friday: History, Math, Math, Religion, English, English.
Also on Monday I went with my host mom to the bank and finally opened a bank account so that I can get more money and not have to carry cash. I’m glad I brought cash with me though since it is impossible to use a credit card here. So in like a week I’ll be getting a EC card, which stands for Electronic Cash, the accept that card EVERYWHERE but not credit cards, and it kind of ticks me off. I then went to soccer practice. Well, yeah I sucked. A lot. But I had fun, so I will continue with it I think.
Tuesday August 24th, 2010: Second day of school. I didn’t understand anything again; until my last class… Chemistry. Oh how I love chemistry. I completely love what we’re currently learning so it’s super easy for me and all of the other kids in my class think I’m some kind of Genius because I can understand it. After school everyday my mom has lunch made for us, so as we’re eating my mom tells Markus that he got a letter from YFU and so he opened it up and it said the he was accepted to be an exchange student in the US next year. So he was pretty excited, I was pretty excited too. Tuesday was also Johannes’ 18th birthday, but their dad was in Köln on Tuesday so we drove to Bremen and met him for dinner at this Brazilian restaurant. It was super delicious, the only problem with it was that they brought you more food every 3 minutes, so I was full super fast. But it was good.
Wednesday August 25th: I finally got my school books, and I was pretty happy because I didn’t have to pay for them, usually you have to rent them but they were nice and just gave them to me. Yeah, my English skills are waning. I try to write emails and stuff but the words are very hard for me to find, so at the moment there are a lot of words that I cannot say in English or in German.
Thursday August 26th: On Thursday I felt a little better at school. I finally had all of my books and most of my supplies that I needed, but not quite all of them. So after school my mom and I went into town, I needed to register as a resident. So yeah, I am now an official full pledged resident of Ostereistedt, Germany. Anyway, after that we went to Aldi. After Aldi we went to a school supply store, so I bought a Pencil bag (?) (Hamburg SV) and some colored markers. I also bought my very first fountain pen; Fountain pens are a super big deal in Germany, and they are also really cool, but really expensive. You can write with them, or attempt, it’s quite difficult, and then you have a special marker with which you can erase the ink and then rewrite over it, it’s really awesome. I still become covered in ink when I use it but I’m sure that I will eventually learn. Later on Thursday I registered to take the ACT on October 23rd in Bremen. I wanted to take it as early as I could so my English would still be good, but we’ll see it’s waning quickly. Also, highlight of the day, we bought tickets to see Jimmy Eats World in Hamburg on November 5th.
Friday August 27th, 2010: So on Friday I finally had English. It was weird. It was actually a chore for me to speak English. The teacher asked me a question in English, and I started to answer in German and he said no speak English, so I tried to but for what I was trying to say I couldn’t put a sentence together in English. It was also kind of hard to understand because it is a mix of British and American, so I’m not really 100% sure what the book is always talking about. The teacher wasn’t very good either, I think his English is just a little bit better than the students, he asked me a bunch of questions about if you could say certain things. Friday was also the first day that I had to ride the bus home alone. So I got on what I thought was my bus, then two minutes later as we were pulling out I was like ‘crap this isn’t my bus’ so the bus driver let me off, then I got onto the bus that I thought was the right one and I asked the bus driver if she was going to Ostereistedt, she told me that the bus that I had just gotten off of was the one that went there. She was nice though and radioed the other bus driver and they met up so I could get back on the right bus, the original bus driver was a little angry and asked me if I could read. I thought that was kind of rude. As I’m writing this I’m getting ready to go to a going away party… more on that later…Perhaps?
General notes about Germany:
I’m not exactly sure yet how it is here, but in the south you are no safer on the sidewalk then you are in the middle of the road. When there is somewhere they want to go and there is only a sidewalk that goes there, you’d better bet they are driving on the sidewalk. I’m pretty sure that we drove straight through a park last weekend.
I had something else to add, but I can’t remember it at the moment.
If you’d like to send me some mail I’d love that. Send it to the address exactly as it’s written below.
James Sullivan
Bei: Familie Meyer
Landstr. 25
27404 Ostereistedt
Germany
27 August 2010
13 August 2010
Eclipse ins Kino....auf Deutsch
So, it's been a really really long time since I've updated my blog but I've been a pretty busy guy, so cut me some slack. I've done a lot in the last, how long has it been, like a week?
Last Friday, August 6th.
So everyday in Germany it rains. It's almost a guarantee. So my host family let me borrow an umbrella, on Friday I was sitting on the bus, and I was super tired. I set the umbrella on the seat next to me. When we finally got to our stop, I got off of the bus, and started walking towards the school. It was raining. So I thought "I'm pretty sure I had an umbrella earlier" then I realized that I left it on the bus. So I was pretty ticked. I went after school any bought two umbrella's. One for me and one for my host family. I got home and it wasn't really a big deal to them. Then I told them how much the umbrella's cost, and they told me that I paid way to much for them.
There was a thing, I think it was called Disco am Straße (Disco on the street), in a town called Aufenau, which is like 20-ish minutes from where I live. So all of the Exchange students decided that we were gonna go together, since disco's are super popular in Germany, and see what it was like. We'd been planning for the entire week, since the buses didn't run late enough we had to make other arrangements to get there and home. The night finally did come, however. I left home with my brother Christopher around 9:38 p.m., we stopped and picked up some other people and drove to the Disco. We had already purchased our tickets. But that didn't really matter because we still had to wait in line for like 10 minutes when we got there. When we finally got to the front of the line they gave everybody a wrist band. --In Germany there are two different drinking ages: at 16 you can drink beer and wine; at 18 you can drink everything else-- So they check your ID and if you're 16 you get a red wrist band and if you're 18 you get a green one. Well it just so happens that they didn't check my ID or ask me how old I was they just threw a green wrist band on my arm; I'm totally only 16. So I walked in found my friends, and decided to buy a drink. I went up to the 'bar' (this is all inside of a tent) and saw the bartender mixing something with coke, I had no idea what it was but I decided I wanted one. So I got it, went back to our 'table' and took a sip. At first I thought it was the worst thing I'd tasted in my entire life. But I kept on drinking it, by the time I was finished I decided that it wasn't really all that bad. So I was gonna go and get another one buy my friend told me that I should just try a beer instead. So I got the cheapest beer I could, which was a pilsner. I walked outside, and took a sip. I thought the other drink was bad, but I'm now positive that the beer I had was the worst thing I've ever tasted in my entire life. So I finished that, after like half an hour, and decided to get something else. I ended up getting a weizenbier ( which isn't as bitter) mixed with cola; and that's what I drank for the rest of the night. Everybody else left at about 12:45, but since I was the only one that wasn't spending the night in Aufenau, I had to wait for my brother. I was chillin' with some new German people that I had met, when he found me and said that we we're going to leave. We then entered the tent where we stayed for like 45 more mintues. I did finally make it home by 2:30, and I was completely dead.
Saturday, August 7th.
After I finally woke up I ate breakfast and got ready. Soon after that we were out the door. --Checkpoint Charlie, is a place in Berlin where you could cross the border between East and West Germany-- Our first stop of the day was at Point Alpha, which was a US Military border patrol zone. It was a ton of fun. When we got there we toured the American's base and went up in the watch tower and through the barracks and whatnot. Then we went out to the border. The actual border. With all of the original stuff. The actual border markers, which look really cool, the border fence, and an East German border patrol road. So we walked along that for a while and we saw an East German watchtower, and then some of the other border fences that they used. Then we went into a museum that had all of the East German stuff. It had uniforms, and vehicles, and guns, and also another part of the actual border fence, completely unaltered. That was probably the coolest part of the day. After we walked through that we went into another room that had a bunch of hypocritical quotes from East German officials, which we actually really funny. When we walked out I saw this big blue thing, so I went over to it, and to my surprise it was a piece of the Berlin wall. It was super cool, and I was able to get a picture of it.
When we left point alpha(it's cool when you drive over the border, there are signs that say that there used to be a border there and what time it opened at that point.), we went to lunch and then on to the highest point in Hessen. Which was a complete surprise to me, but it was a lot of fun. We hiked to the top, where I was able to get some super awesome photo's. Then we went down a little and my brother Max and I went on a summer luge, which was a lot of fun. Then we went home, I was going to go to another party on Saturday night but we ended up having dinner with my Grandma, they asked me if I wanted to go after that but I was super tired from all of the walking that I had done that day, so I decided to just stay home.
Sunday, August 8th.
I got up, as always. We went to Bavaria. We toured a castle. It was pretty cool, the guide spoke English and German so I was able to understand everything. There were also two other people there who only spoke English, they were from Australia, and they were pretty nice. That's pretty much all that I did on Sunday. I did go to church on Sunday night, yeah they have night service's, which may have been more interesting but I had a pretty bad headache so I wasn't really trying very hard to comprehend what was being said.
Monday, August 9th.
My YFU rep for the month lives in the same town as I go to school, and her parents own a butcher shop, so we eat there everyday. Anyway, on Monday we went and took a tour of the butcher shop (butchery?) which was pretty cool. Didn't really understand a whole lot of it. We did get to see some pig heads that were cut in half though, and we got to wear some really awesome clothes. After school I went with my brothers to the 'grocery store' to try and find some food that I could make for them that would be very American. As I'm walking through the aisle I see a green bottle. I walk over to it, and to my surprise it's Mountain Dew, which is pretty hard to find in Germany. I asked my host brothers and they both said that they hadn't tried it. So I bought some, as a gift for all of us. My headphones, that I use to call people, finally died after two years so I ordered some new ones.
Tuesday, August 10th.
Tuesday was a very boring day. The only thing that happened that is worth mentioning is that I went to an Opera. I guess it was a pretty famous Opera, but that didn't really matter to me. I was very bored and I couldn't understand anything that they were saying. So at the intermission we decided to leave. It was free since we were exchange students.
Wednesday, August 11th.
On Wednesday I did a lot of stuff. I took the train for the first time, from my town to Fulda, which is about 38 minutes on the train. The train that we took, however, was a slow one; the train that I'm taking on Saturday (21st) goes 300kph (186mph) and the one that I was on, on Wednesday went probably 65 or 70 mph. It was however a lot of fun, and cool to see how everything worked. So anyway we all went to Fulda for the day. When we got there we did a Stadtrally (City rally?, kind of like a scavenger hunt) which was pretty cool. We went in to a really old church that is called der Dom, it was super cool and super pretty. After that we went into the old city castle. Which was cool to see don't get me wrong, but the tour itself was soooo boring. There wasn't anything in any of the rooms at the castle so it totally could've been a lot more interesting. After that we climbed 1,000,000 stairs (yes I counted) to a turret type thing where we were able to get a super awesome view of the entire city. We then ate lunch. After lunch we broke up into groups. We walked for a while then we went into this store that is called Karstadt. It's basically like a really big walmart, it had everything. The biggest difference was that everything there was really nice. So we went up to the top floor and looked at movies and cd's. I thought it was weird that you could buy a movie for 12 Euro, but a cd cost 18 Euro or more. Kind of backwards. We were at the store for a pretty good amount of time, I as the only person that bought anything, what did I buy do you ask? Nail clippers. My host family doesn't have any, they use these nail scissors that are very hard to use. We were then going to go and get ice cream but we somehow ended up going to another store to try on Lederhosen. I didn't try them on because we only had 15 minutes before we had to meet at the train station. After the lederhosen we went back to Karstadt to buy German wallets, yes they are that different. I didn't have enough cash with me to buy one, which is probably a good thing. Then we started walking back towards the train station, and being the stereotypical Americans that we are we decided to stop at McDonalds. Which would've been find, except half of our group was unsuccessful with ordering in German so they had to do English. We got on the train after that, and about half way though, David, another exchange student, asked us if we had his camera. So yeah he lost it, but our teachers were nice enough to call the stores for him and they did end up finding it. When I got off of the train we went to another grocery store, I was looking around and I found some oreo's, which my host family had also not tried, so I bought some. It was great because on Wednesday I made them homemade 'American' hamburgers and fries, and the Oreo's were a great American dessert. Also on Wednesday I decided that I really didn't want to have to bring all of my luggage with me on a train so my host mom told me that I could just ship my luggage and they YFU sent them a sheet with a webaddress. So I looked and it only cost me 17 euro to have my luggage picked up from my house on Tuesday and dropped off at my next house by next Friday, a lot easier than dragging it through a bunch of train stations.
Thrusday, August 12th.
Didn't do anything. I wrote some letters and did some homework, but I didn't really leave the house after I got home from School. My headphones did come though, so that was pretty exciting.
Friday, August 13th.
On Friday at school we went to a bakery. The teachers had told us not to expect anything special as it was a really small bakery. It ended up being the highlight of my life. It was so much fun. We got to see how they made everything, and we got to help them. We made cinnamon rolls, and these other things that had custard in them. We did some other stuff too. After the rolls came out of the oven we frosted them and they told us that we could all take one of each of the things that we made. So that was super nice of them, and it was also really delicious. My friend David, asked the guy if he could go and work with them on Monday from 3-7:00 a.m., and he told him that he could, so we'll have to see if he actually does. After that we went back to school and did some boring learning. After school I got on the bus and the bus driver (who is a super nice guy) had my umbrella that I had lost the Friday before, so that was super awesome. When I got home I kind of just wanted to be alone so I went up stairs to watch tv and before I knew it, it was 6:30. So I went down stairs and ate dinner, and then I went through all of my clothes and brought all of the stuff that I wouldn't be wearing last night upstairs. Then we went on a walk with the dog, so I am now super confident walking though the city alone. When I got back I went up and packed my suit case, and weighed it. So yeah I'm pretty much prepared for next weekend.
Tomorrow, Saturday the 14th,
We're going to a few places, one of which is a castle I believe. Then I'm meeting some people at the train station and we're taking the train to Fulda again to see Eclipse in German. Which should be a lot of fun.
One thing that I'm not really very happy about is that my school started on August 5th, so I have to start two weeks late. Oh, and I apparently mis-read my blink-182 tour dates because I looked again last night and they are totally playing in Hamburg on the 24th, which is 3 days after I get there, but I asked my host brothers, and none of them like blink-182, and I'm not gonna go alone, so that was kind of a disappointment. I did however find out that a German band that I like, called Sportfreunde-Stiller, is playing in Hamburg on my birthday so I'll have to ask my brothers if they'd be interested in going to that with me.
That's basically been my life for the last week. I would upload pictures, but the internet here is slow so it takes me like 20 minutes per photo. They are all on facebook anyway. This took me over an hour and a half to write so you should appreciate it.
Last Friday, August 6th.
So everyday in Germany it rains. It's almost a guarantee. So my host family let me borrow an umbrella, on Friday I was sitting on the bus, and I was super tired. I set the umbrella on the seat next to me. When we finally got to our stop, I got off of the bus, and started walking towards the school. It was raining. So I thought "I'm pretty sure I had an umbrella earlier" then I realized that I left it on the bus. So I was pretty ticked. I went after school any bought two umbrella's. One for me and one for my host family. I got home and it wasn't really a big deal to them. Then I told them how much the umbrella's cost, and they told me that I paid way to much for them.
There was a thing, I think it was called Disco am Straße (Disco on the street), in a town called Aufenau, which is like 20-ish minutes from where I live. So all of the Exchange students decided that we were gonna go together, since disco's are super popular in Germany, and see what it was like. We'd been planning for the entire week, since the buses didn't run late enough we had to make other arrangements to get there and home. The night finally did come, however. I left home with my brother Christopher around 9:38 p.m., we stopped and picked up some other people and drove to the Disco. We had already purchased our tickets. But that didn't really matter because we still had to wait in line for like 10 minutes when we got there. When we finally got to the front of the line they gave everybody a wrist band. --In Germany there are two different drinking ages: at 16 you can drink beer and wine; at 18 you can drink everything else-- So they check your ID and if you're 16 you get a red wrist band and if you're 18 you get a green one. Well it just so happens that they didn't check my ID or ask me how old I was they just threw a green wrist band on my arm; I'm totally only 16. So I walked in found my friends, and decided to buy a drink. I went up to the 'bar' (this is all inside of a tent) and saw the bartender mixing something with coke, I had no idea what it was but I decided I wanted one. So I got it, went back to our 'table' and took a sip. At first I thought it was the worst thing I'd tasted in my entire life. But I kept on drinking it, by the time I was finished I decided that it wasn't really all that bad. So I was gonna go and get another one buy my friend told me that I should just try a beer instead. So I got the cheapest beer I could, which was a pilsner. I walked outside, and took a sip. I thought the other drink was bad, but I'm now positive that the beer I had was the worst thing I've ever tasted in my entire life. So I finished that, after like half an hour, and decided to get something else. I ended up getting a weizenbier ( which isn't as bitter) mixed with cola; and that's what I drank for the rest of the night. Everybody else left at about 12:45, but since I was the only one that wasn't spending the night in Aufenau, I had to wait for my brother. I was chillin' with some new German people that I had met, when he found me and said that we we're going to leave. We then entered the tent where we stayed for like 45 more mintues. I did finally make it home by 2:30, and I was completely dead.
Saturday, August 7th.
After I finally woke up I ate breakfast and got ready. Soon after that we were out the door. --Checkpoint Charlie, is a place in Berlin where you could cross the border between East and West Germany-- Our first stop of the day was at Point Alpha, which was a US Military border patrol zone. It was a ton of fun. When we got there we toured the American's base and went up in the watch tower and through the barracks and whatnot. Then we went out to the border. The actual border. With all of the original stuff. The actual border markers, which look really cool, the border fence, and an East German border patrol road. So we walked along that for a while and we saw an East German watchtower, and then some of the other border fences that they used. Then we went into a museum that had all of the East German stuff. It had uniforms, and vehicles, and guns, and also another part of the actual border fence, completely unaltered. That was probably the coolest part of the day. After we walked through that we went into another room that had a bunch of hypocritical quotes from East German officials, which we actually really funny. When we walked out I saw this big blue thing, so I went over to it, and to my surprise it was a piece of the Berlin wall. It was super cool, and I was able to get a picture of it.
When we left point alpha(it's cool when you drive over the border, there are signs that say that there used to be a border there and what time it opened at that point.), we went to lunch and then on to the highest point in Hessen. Which was a complete surprise to me, but it was a lot of fun. We hiked to the top, where I was able to get some super awesome photo's. Then we went down a little and my brother Max and I went on a summer luge, which was a lot of fun. Then we went home, I was going to go to another party on Saturday night but we ended up having dinner with my Grandma, they asked me if I wanted to go after that but I was super tired from all of the walking that I had done that day, so I decided to just stay home.
Sunday, August 8th.
I got up, as always. We went to Bavaria. We toured a castle. It was pretty cool, the guide spoke English and German so I was able to understand everything. There were also two other people there who only spoke English, they were from Australia, and they were pretty nice. That's pretty much all that I did on Sunday. I did go to church on Sunday night, yeah they have night service's, which may have been more interesting but I had a pretty bad headache so I wasn't really trying very hard to comprehend what was being said.
Monday, August 9th.
My YFU rep for the month lives in the same town as I go to school, and her parents own a butcher shop, so we eat there everyday. Anyway, on Monday we went and took a tour of the butcher shop (butchery?) which was pretty cool. Didn't really understand a whole lot of it. We did get to see some pig heads that were cut in half though, and we got to wear some really awesome clothes. After school I went with my brothers to the 'grocery store' to try and find some food that I could make for them that would be very American. As I'm walking through the aisle I see a green bottle. I walk over to it, and to my surprise it's Mountain Dew, which is pretty hard to find in Germany. I asked my host brothers and they both said that they hadn't tried it. So I bought some, as a gift for all of us. My headphones, that I use to call people, finally died after two years so I ordered some new ones.
Tuesday, August 10th.
Tuesday was a very boring day. The only thing that happened that is worth mentioning is that I went to an Opera. I guess it was a pretty famous Opera, but that didn't really matter to me. I was very bored and I couldn't understand anything that they were saying. So at the intermission we decided to leave. It was free since we were exchange students.
Wednesday, August 11th.
On Wednesday I did a lot of stuff. I took the train for the first time, from my town to Fulda, which is about 38 minutes on the train. The train that we took, however, was a slow one; the train that I'm taking on Saturday (21st) goes 300kph (186mph) and the one that I was on, on Wednesday went probably 65 or 70 mph. It was however a lot of fun, and cool to see how everything worked. So anyway we all went to Fulda for the day. When we got there we did a Stadtrally (City rally?, kind of like a scavenger hunt) which was pretty cool. We went in to a really old church that is called der Dom, it was super cool and super pretty. After that we went into the old city castle. Which was cool to see don't get me wrong, but the tour itself was soooo boring. There wasn't anything in any of the rooms at the castle so it totally could've been a lot more interesting. After that we climbed 1,000,000 stairs (yes I counted) to a turret type thing where we were able to get a super awesome view of the entire city. We then ate lunch. After lunch we broke up into groups. We walked for a while then we went into this store that is called Karstadt. It's basically like a really big walmart, it had everything. The biggest difference was that everything there was really nice. So we went up to the top floor and looked at movies and cd's. I thought it was weird that you could buy a movie for 12 Euro, but a cd cost 18 Euro or more. Kind of backwards. We were at the store for a pretty good amount of time, I as the only person that bought anything, what did I buy do you ask? Nail clippers. My host family doesn't have any, they use these nail scissors that are very hard to use. We were then going to go and get ice cream but we somehow ended up going to another store to try on Lederhosen. I didn't try them on because we only had 15 minutes before we had to meet at the train station. After the lederhosen we went back to Karstadt to buy German wallets, yes they are that different. I didn't have enough cash with me to buy one, which is probably a good thing. Then we started walking back towards the train station, and being the stereotypical Americans that we are we decided to stop at McDonalds. Which would've been find, except half of our group was unsuccessful with ordering in German so they had to do English. We got on the train after that, and about half way though, David, another exchange student, asked us if we had his camera. So yeah he lost it, but our teachers were nice enough to call the stores for him and they did end up finding it. When I got off of the train we went to another grocery store, I was looking around and I found some oreo's, which my host family had also not tried, so I bought some. It was great because on Wednesday I made them homemade 'American' hamburgers and fries, and the Oreo's were a great American dessert. Also on Wednesday I decided that I really didn't want to have to bring all of my luggage with me on a train so my host mom told me that I could just ship my luggage and they YFU sent them a sheet with a webaddress. So I looked and it only cost me 17 euro to have my luggage picked up from my house on Tuesday and dropped off at my next house by next Friday, a lot easier than dragging it through a bunch of train stations.
Thrusday, August 12th.
Didn't do anything. I wrote some letters and did some homework, but I didn't really leave the house after I got home from School. My headphones did come though, so that was pretty exciting.
Friday, August 13th.
On Friday at school we went to a bakery. The teachers had told us not to expect anything special as it was a really small bakery. It ended up being the highlight of my life. It was so much fun. We got to see how they made everything, and we got to help them. We made cinnamon rolls, and these other things that had custard in them. We did some other stuff too. After the rolls came out of the oven we frosted them and they told us that we could all take one of each of the things that we made. So that was super nice of them, and it was also really delicious. My friend David, asked the guy if he could go and work with them on Monday from 3-7:00 a.m., and he told him that he could, so we'll have to see if he actually does. After that we went back to school and did some boring learning. After school I got on the bus and the bus driver (who is a super nice guy) had my umbrella that I had lost the Friday before, so that was super awesome. When I got home I kind of just wanted to be alone so I went up stairs to watch tv and before I knew it, it was 6:30. So I went down stairs and ate dinner, and then I went through all of my clothes and brought all of the stuff that I wouldn't be wearing last night upstairs. Then we went on a walk with the dog, so I am now super confident walking though the city alone. When I got back I went up and packed my suit case, and weighed it. So yeah I'm pretty much prepared for next weekend.
Tomorrow, Saturday the 14th,
We're going to a few places, one of which is a castle I believe. Then I'm meeting some people at the train station and we're taking the train to Fulda again to see Eclipse in German. Which should be a lot of fun.
One thing that I'm not really very happy about is that my school started on August 5th, so I have to start two weeks late. Oh, and I apparently mis-read my blink-182 tour dates because I looked again last night and they are totally playing in Hamburg on the 24th, which is 3 days after I get there, but I asked my host brothers, and none of them like blink-182, and I'm not gonna go alone, so that was kind of a disappointment. I did however find out that a German band that I like, called Sportfreunde-Stiller, is playing in Hamburg on my birthday so I'll have to ask my brothers if they'd be interested in going to that with me.
That's basically been my life for the last week. I would upload pictures, but the internet here is slow so it takes me like 20 minutes per photo. They are all on facebook anyway. This took me over an hour and a half to write so you should appreciate it.
01 August 2010
Brothers Grimm
Saturday, we had the birthday party for my host grandma. Let me just say this. Family gatherings are painful to begin with, then throw in the fact that it's not actually your Family, then it's just awkward; and to top it all off you can't understand any of these people, so yeah I'd prefer not to do that again. Besides the awkward not knowing anybody it was ok though. Food was good. I did however grab what I thought was orange juice, took a drink of it and it definitely was not orange juice, but instead champagne mixed with orange juice, it was good I just wasn't expecting it. After we ate, and had ice cream of course, we went for a walk(?) to an outdoor foot spa (which are apparently very common here, it's the third one I'd been to) where you basically walk on a bunch of different surfaces (wood chips, broken clay shingles, sand, etc.) and then you walk through a long trough of really cold water, and it's supposed to do wonders for your feet and make you live longer(?). We then went back to the restaurant where there was an actress "from" the 14th century who had a bunch of vegetables and gave them to people as she made fun of them I guess, I couldn't understand her for multiple reasons; but I guess she was hilarious, I was the only one in the room not laughing. After she left we had cake, there was 13 different kinds, all but 1 with fruit (which I don't like in pastry's) so I decided to just have some banana cake. It was delicious. Then it really slowed down and we kind of just sat there for a while, then we started playing a game called 'Wer bin Ich?' (who am I?) where somebody else puts a sticker on your head with 'your' name on it and you have to ask yes or no questions to figure out who you are. I won, I guessed who I was four times. Then went home and kind of just sat around, the nights go by really really fast.
Some other notes....
I have perfected the art of wearing the same clothes multiple times before rewashing them, which is weird at first, but it's actually really convenient. Also, last night I purchased a phone number through skype that you can call and talk to me on, you'll probably get the machine most of the time, but if you leave a message I'll be sure and call you back. The number that you're gonna want to call is (612) 293-4299 it's a local call if you're in Minnesota. I totally had something else to write about but I'm completely forgetting it right now. I really don't like the coins. They're all really small denomination, and everything always costs more than you have in coins and the smallest bill is a 5 so you always get a bunch of coins back anyway, so I right now have a huge pile of coins on the desk that adds up to 1.32 Euro. The bottles are also kind of a hassle, because when they're empty you have to still carry them with you, because when you buy them you pay an extra 15-50 cents to pfand, which you get back when you bring the bottle back; so there is no throwing them away.
But that's basically my life so far, 9 days of my year on complete, but it feels like it's been a lot more than that.
Until next time, Tschüß!
Really old building
Entrance to the cave
Inside the cave
Today, Sunday, I was awoken by the sound of the fire department siren (basically a tornado siren) that they use to call the fire department, crazy I know, because some lady went missing in the next town a few days ago. I got up and got ready, and after being ready for about 2 hours we finally made it out of the house and went to Steinau a.d.Str. (Steinau an der Straße) which is the hometown of the Brothers Grimm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm) who are famous for going around and collecting folk tales and publishing them, there was totally a movie made about them like two years ago. So I got to see a lot of really old and really well preserved stuff, as well as see where they lived. It was a pretty good time, I also had my first Döner which is kind of like a gyro, but not really. ha. It was really good. After lunch we went to a limestone cave, that was really cool, I didn't understand the tour at all but it was cool to see. That concludes my adventures for Sunday. Some other notes....
I have perfected the art of wearing the same clothes multiple times before rewashing them, which is weird at first, but it's actually really convenient. Also, last night I purchased a phone number through skype that you can call and talk to me on, you'll probably get the machine most of the time, but if you leave a message I'll be sure and call you back. The number that you're gonna want to call is (612) 293-4299 it's a local call if you're in Minnesota. I totally had something else to write about but I'm completely forgetting it right now. I really don't like the coins. They're all really small denomination, and everything always costs more than you have in coins and the smallest bill is a 5 so you always get a bunch of coins back anyway, so I right now have a huge pile of coins on the desk that adds up to 1.32 Euro. The bottles are also kind of a hassle, because when they're empty you have to still carry them with you, because when you buy them you pay an extra 15-50 cents to pfand, which you get back when you bring the bottle back; so there is no throwing them away.
But that's basically my life so far, 9 days of my year on complete, but it feels like it's been a lot more than that.
Until next time, Tschüß!
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