school life &c,

What a long time it has been. I have now dashed through two weeks of school and an AFS weekend, and have hardly had time to cut my fingernails. I guess I'll start from the beginning. Wow, the really beginning.

Two days after I posted my last post, was the Frankfurt Nacht der Clubs. This is how it works: twenty of Frankfurts clubs were open to anybody with a green Nacht Der Clubs bracelet, which meant that you had payed the 10€ ticket. I went with my host sister and some of her friends, first into a salsa club, where I drank a coffee with milk and sat. Then we went to a different club, which was much hotter, louder, and more crouded. It took a long time just pay to stash our bags and coats in the coatroom. Having never been clubbing before, I was pretty impressed. Lights, and music, and people all dressed up, and just a very intense atmosphere. We drank a bit and danced a lot, and met up with more friends. Then, after a few hours we went to different club, which was by far worse. Upstairs it was too crouded, loud, and the lights were too bright and changed too fast. Downstairs it was not crouded enough, too loud, and too smoky. Mother, you would have hated it. And so did I. We did not stay long. Around four or five am we went to McDonalds, ate and drank, and went back home. I finally crashed into bed at around six, and slept until ten.

That was Friday. Monday was the first day of school, which turned out to be awfully uneventful. I trailed my sister until we had a meeting with the school director and got my schedule worked out. Here is my schedule. At first I thought it was awful, but in fact I like it.

Just a quick note about school in Germany- there are three different kinds of schools: a) Hauptschule, which goes until the 10th grade, and focuses on more hands on work than on college academics, b) Realschule, which is a bit more academicy, and which ends also in the 10th grade, from where people can either start work or they can move to c) Gymnasium, the university-bound track at the end of which (12th or 13th year) all students must make their Abitur. My impression is that it is a bit like France's Baccalauréat. Every student must pass this test in order to go to University, so the last year is a stressful one, since nobody wants to take it twice. There is no third chance.

In Gymnasium, starting in the upper grades (11th, 12th and 13th I believe) people can choose up to three main subjects, which they will study more intensely and more often than the other subjects. These are called Leistungs courses. My Leistungs courses are French and History. One of your Leistungs courses is first, and the other is second. Your normal courses (Grund courses) are taken with the other people in your number one Leistungs course. Originally I wanted French and Art as my Leistungs courses, but now I am so glad that I have History, because everybody is nicer than I ever could have imagined. I was nervous to come to school, because I had heard so much that German teenagers are closed, and though not necessarily UNfriendly, they certainly don't need you, and you'll have to work your butt off to find friends. Maybe that's true, but I sure haven't seen it. I have been able to talk and laugh with anyone, and everyone was always willing to talk with me and help me. People think coming from America is cool, which I think is kind of funny.

Before I start talking about each class, I just want to preface it with this: there is another American exchange student in my class, so when I say we without saying who, I mean her and me. My English teacher is very, very, very nice. We try to be helpful in class. Sometimes people make little English mistakes and we can't help but laugh. We're not laughing at them, of course, it's just that what they say is very cute. My teacher for Art and Biology are the same, but when I went to my first biology class I didn't realize it (having seen so many new faces, and all) and I went up and introduced myself again! She gave me this funny smile, and said she knew, and I went back to my seat feeling confused. Only when she took off her coat and I saw she was wearing Exaclty The Same Things as the day before did I realize my mistake. Oops! But art is fun, and what we are doing in Biology I learned two years ago and have since just about forgotten. My Politics and Economy teacher seems nice, but I have only met her once, and we had to do a test. It was a little ridiculous, and we spent most of the two hours huddled over the dictionary trying to figure out what the passages meant. My German teacher confuses me. Partly because I can't understand what he says in class, and partly because he looks like an American, and partly because I never know what he thinks or feels, and partly because he is just a bit strange. We spend most of our time in German class writing notes and silly drawings, and laughing too much about stupid things, and looking words up in the Dictionary. Somtimes we try to pay attention too, but since what's going on is often so far out of our grasp we just end up zoning out and daydreaming instead. My Ethik class seems like it will be alright. I sit next to people I don't normally see, and that is good. They are all, as usual, very very nice. The teacher is a bit strict and looks like of like this. Not really, just kidding. Maybe more like a fish. He is nice. We watched a video on Freud, which was interesting. My Spanish teacher is younger than all my other teachers, and also really nice. Spanish is not that hard, but since I missed the beginning of the year I have to catch up on the basics. My History teacher is really nice too, and funny, but I can't understand most of what goes on in class. That's okay. The only class I have not had yet is Sport.

Now. French deserves its whole own paragraph, because let me tell you. It has put me through quite some stuff. First of all, my school does not offer French, so I have to take the metro a few stops to this other school. The first day a boy in my class who also has French took me there. Everybody went around the room and introduced themselves to me, in French. Of course I understood everything, but when it came my turn to speak I couldn't! I had to concentrate so hard just to figure out how to say 'My name is, I am an exchange student, I am seventeen years old', and every other word popped out in German. It was so embarassing! But also sort of funny too. I said a lot in German and apologized for being so bad at French right now, but really it's all German in my head. Everybody was, again, so, so nice, and I was able to contribute just fine to the making of a dialogue, and reading sentences aloud with grammar points and so on. So I left thinking 'I'm going to listen to French music and read French books, and at least the first big hump day is over and everything will be good from now on!'.

Well, of course that was not the case. The next day of French class, I lost track of the boy who also goes to my school for French, and instead walked with some other friends who have Physics as a Leistungs course there. They said 'Do you know where you have to go?' I said 'Yes!' ...But my French class wasn't there! I knocked on like every door on the second floor hallway, and found either empty rooms, or other classes. I thought: OH NO. So I sidled up to some people talking in the hallway, and said I had French here but I didn't know where it was, and did they? They said, look on your schedule. I said, I can't, because I am normally at the Max-Beckmann Schule and it doesn't say a room number on my schedule. They said, well go downstairs and look on the yellow doors, and there it says all that information. So I thanked them and went back downstairs. I found the yellow doors, and I found the paper, and I found the period, and I found the little F1, standing for Französisch Leistungs Kurs. It was on the first floor this time, go figure. So I knocked, and there was my French teacher, and the whole class looking at me. I apologized for being late, and said I had no idea it was in this other room, and I had to ask these people upstairs, and nobody told me that the rooms changed from day to day! I hope that nobody thought any the worse of me, but again, it was awkward. After that things went fine, and I was able to contribute just fine again. At least my grammar and conjugation are still solid, I'm discovering that. Next time, French class will be held in my school, on the third floor. This time I won't mess up! :)

I find that it is useful to be good at stuff, in order to win friends. I think of it as rather a process, and you win or you lose. My exchange student friend and I are winning. She is a whizz at math, we are both whizzes at English, and I can help people with art. These skills have already lead to new connections. As for the rest of my life, outside of school, most of it has been spent reading. I am almost done with The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood. Excellent, as always. I am hoping to start playing some casual soccer, and on Wednesday school gets out early and I am invited to go bake things with some people from school. There could possibly be some light English tutoring on weekends, which would also be fun. There is a giant Fleamarket in Frankfurt every Saturday, which I am hoping to go to this weekend with my exchange student friends.

Also-- I have to take back something I said in an earlier post, about German movie theaters being small. I went with my lovely liason to a positively gigantic theater, near the shopping street. It was quiet impressive. The movie is called The Kids are Alright, and I thought it was very, very good.

So, that was the monster post to get everything up to date. I will try in the future to post smaller posts more frequently. Bye!

Some Crazy Stuff

The past week or so has been a bit of a rollercoaster for me. Now that things are finally settling down, I sometimes feel a bit homesick. Don't get me wrong--I love it here. But sometimes it is hard to think how easy and familiar everything is back in Maine. Something that I've noticed bothers me, though it's really not a big deal, is that I am still a bit of guest. This is how I know: I always get offered food first. Sometimes I feel like screaming 'Why do I have to be first!? I don't know how things work here, All I want to do is copy You!'

Yesterday, Tuesday, was a full day. I went with my host mother and sister to IKEA, for the first time in my life! My favorite part was the huge room full of bedrooms. Maybe I am tired... Then we payed a lovely visit to Oma, my host mom's mom. We drank tea and coffee, and ate home made plum cake that my guest father cooks every Sunday. Then we looked at photographs (I am beginning to know all the family, at least in pictures) and watched old movies that all the cousins made when they were kids. Very funny. Oma told me that I had very good German, which was very nice. I can understand now almost all that happens, except when I'm taken by surprise. It was pretty exhausting though, concentrating so hard all afternoon, and by the time I got home I felt like crashing.

Today was strange. In a way it is sort of a small, condensed version of all the ups and downs that I have gone through, and will no doubt continue to go through. This is how it went: In the morning I felt listless, and a bit frantic at the same time. I talked a lot with some other exchange students on facebook, with my ipod, which is always stressful just because it's so small and sometimes inconsistant. I miss a lot of messages, and don't see chats at all unless I'm waiting for them. I knew the last thing I wanted to do was stay at home all day, because especially at this time it is important for me to stay busy and keep my mind occupied and happy. I have been wanting to go to the library for a while now, since I only brought one English book with me and I've already read it several times. I talked to my host mother about it, and she was so nice and called the Stadtbucherei for me, and asked about what I needed to get a library card. Which turned out to be my passport and official proof of residence. So that meant that I had to go to the Rathaus and get a special paper to prove that I live where I do. It's very close, and so I walked there right away and got all that I needed very quickly and easily.

Then, I made the great first expodition, and walked right past the huuuge Stadtbucherei without even seeing it. Oops. When I knew I'd gone to far, I turned around and felt silly at how obvious it was. I walked in through the doors, and it felt like heaven. People must have thought I was crazy because I was grinning like mad. The first thing I saw was a little Flohmarkt (books for sale) and on the shelf were two American College books. I wanted to laugh out loud. I skimmed the pages on Bowdoin. Then I got my library card, and went exploring. The library is big, and spacious, and warm, and comfortable, and it felt like home. Downstairs I found the books in other languages. I paroozed the French books, but since I didn't know what to look for I moved quickly on to English. It's hard to describe how I felt. Just like there was this huge well of happiness in me, and I was riding totally on some huge natural high.

I ended up picking out The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood. She is one of my favorite authors, and since I loved Oryx and Crake I'm excited to finally read something else by her. I also picked out Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger. I'm doubly excited because it is by one of my very favorite authors, and it was recommended to me last year by a really good friend of mine. So at this point, as I was walking out of this gorgeous library with two goreous books in my hand, I felt on top of the world. And then, I got in the metro, and it didnt drive away, and it kept getting more and more crouded, and my happy bubble burst. The beginning of the book also reminded me of my life, which was strange, and disheartening. When I finally got out of the bus near my house, it was raining, and I sprinted home feeling empty and like a ghost.

It was all very strange. I feel fine now, though, especially because it is supper time. So tschüss, and guten appetit!

It Goes

Hey everybody. It's been a little while since I have written, and I find that it is actually a bit difficult to think of things to write about. (I haven't just been sitting at home all day, though, I swear!). Let's see. I am finished with my language course, which is a way a relief and a way a bit sad. It has helped me immensly, to the point that when I meet new people, they tell me that my German is very good, and ask me how long I have been studying it. This is very exciting :D So far, I have been able to tell someone the time, give a lady directions to a hospital, and confirm for several slightly confused souls the direction of the U-Bahn. I can also ask and (mostly) understand directions, read maps, and navigate my way through very large subway and train stations, all of which are very useful skills. And considering I'm just a poor girl from rural Maine who used to be afraid to take the subway alone, I think I'm doing alright.

So far this vacation I have met some more of my host sister's friends, and hung out with some of my own AFS friends. Normally we just go our for coffee, or hot chocolate, and shop or walk along the river. Last night we went out for cocktails in the local bar, which was fun. Having never drank (or is it 'drunk'? grammarians, help me!) before, and being very tired, I only had half of my Vanilla Sky. It was quite tasty, though. Afterwards my friend and I went out into the city. But since it was cold, and we had to be back soon, we did not spend a lot of time outside.

I have been trying to think of some sort of a list of differences and similarities between German and American culture and people, but I am afraid I have not been able to come up with a lot. However, one thing that I did notice from the very beginning (and it took me a while to get used to) is this: In America, when you go into a store or a restaurant, people say hello, and ask you how you are. When you leave, nothing happens. In Germany, when you go into a store or a restaurant, nobody asks you how you are, but you (and they) always say 'tschüss' when you leave. Another thing is, of course, the food. In Germany people eat a lot of bread. I find that very understandable, because the bread is good. On the bread goes butter (the more the better) and jam or cheese or meat. That goes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The rest of my vacation is pretty full of no plans at all. There are some scheduling complications, and my host parents still have to work this first week. I am hoping to make some day trips to other cities or something, but I will have to wait and see. After that I will be starting real school, for which I am nervous and very excited.

Life So Far

Well, I've been in Germany for about three weeks now. It feels like longer, but in a very good way. I still feel great with my family, and my German is still getting better. Although, there have been some slightly embarassing situations arising from my inability to understand strangers when they speak to me, but no matter.

I have still been going to language course every day. The language is hard, but sitting still for three hours (hungry) in the same room is harder. For those of you who know me, I have a sort of quirky sense of humor (an english teacher once described it as "bordering on the absurd"), and I tend not to have an outlet for that while I'm sitting in language class. But I have to remind myself that it's all worth it.

I have not done a whole lot of exploring of Frankfurt, except for that one day when I couldn't open the door. However, I am becoming very well acquainted with the shopping street with three H&Ms, and what more do I really need? Just joking. I'm planning on going to the Historisches Museum quite soon. Last week I went to a fresh foods market with a lady who was in my German class, and it was quite nice. I explored a very big bookstore with a couple of other friends from my language course, and it had a very good classics section, but I thought the art section was rather weak.

I have been to see two movies with my host family so far, and let me just say: going to the movies in Germany is very different than going to the movies in Maine. For one thing, the theaters here are much smaller, and the buildings were obviously not built with the intention of showing movies. Outside the one (or two maybe) movie-showing-rooms is a bar/restaurant, where you can obviously buy drinks and food. The first movie we saw was in a little town outside Frankfurt, which had a caslte! It also had a spring (Quelle), whose water apparently does wonders for the health (Gesundheit). It tasted foul, to me, though.Unfortunately, it was dark so I could not take any pictures.

The film we saw was called Babys. It had almost no talking, but it was ingenious. It followed the lives of four babies for about a year. One born in California, one in Japan, one in Mongolia, and one in Namibia. The differences in their lives, environments, and how they were raised were really astonishing, and sometimes a little shocking to my silly American eyes. I won't delve any deeper here, but if you want to see the trailer for it, click here. It really is so eye opening.

The next day (last Saturday) was a long day. In the morning I went with my guest parents on this tour of an apple orchard. It was very cold and wet, and started to rain halfway through our walk. I am still not exactly clear on what it was all about, but as far as I can tell we can take care of some trees, or an area of trees, and then we can take the apples and do what we want with them. This was very exciting for my guest father, because he loves (and I mean lloovveess) applewine. There was an article about it in the newspaper the other day, and he said to me "have you read this? Because it states my opinion exactly: applewine is the best drink in the word." When I got home I took a very hot shower, and blowdried my hair :).

Later, we went to the Museum für Moderne Kunst (Modern art museum). We were there quite a long time, considering that I don't think any of us were particularly impressed with all the photographs of naked Japanese women tied up with rope, in various awkward and explicit poses. At least we went for free, because it was the last Saturday of the month.

Then we ate dinner, and went to another movie in my family's favourite theater. This film, also, was very very interesting. (Too bad American theaters can't be bothered to show worthwhile things). It was called Kinshasa Symphony, and it was about the only all-black orchestra, in the DRC. It was mainly in French, naturally, with German subtitles. Quite the thing for my brain, but I really enjoyed it. My French is good enough that when people with milder accents spoke, I could understand them, and my German is good enough that when I couldn't understand the French, I could at least get the gist of what was happening. I won't say more here about this movie, either, but it was also very eye opening and if you want to learn more about it, click here.

The next day, Sunday, my host sister and my host mom and I went to a huge fabric market. It was still a bit chilly, but not so bad. All the colors and textures of the different fabrics together was a bit overwhelming, but very pretty too. In the afternoon my host parents and I walked to a small medieval event that was taking place very near my house. There were things to buy and things to see, and things (mostly meat) to eat. It was quite small, and we didn't stay very long.

One night last week, I had my first taste of German Gummy Bears! After supper we brought out the bag, and my sister got The Gummy Bear Oracle Book. Here is how it works: You pick five gummy bears with your eyes closed, and depending on what colors you pick, you have a different fortune. I picked one red, one yellow, a green and two orange bears. I learned that I am a free, passionate spirit who loves big wide landscapes but who has bad luck in love. In other words, I once had a farm in Africa.

Wednesday night there was an AFS meeting/get together, where I met all the other exchange students in my area, and learned that hard alcohol counts as a drug. We went over AFS rules, and then just socialized. Everyone is very nice, and a few of us (along with a couple AFS people) have plans to go out for coffee or hot chocolate this Sunday. But I'm sure the rest of us will all get together soon enough as well. It is nice to think that my social will finally start existing with people my own age again! (Also, in addition to a bag of gummy bears, a sticker and a pen, we each all recieved a tshirt from AFS Frankfurt! That makes AFS tshirt number two, so far :p)

I wanted to say some differences and observations about life and people here, but I seem to have forgotten them all now. Remember, though, feel free to comment and ask questions. Below are some photos.




this is a real eis kaffee. its coffee with ice cream in it.

museum of modern art


sad at my gummy bear oracle


frankfurt skyline twice

The First Week

My first week in Frankfurt was great. I saw some sights with my host parents, ate a lot of good food, and slept. My family is super nice, and I felt at home right away. Their house is medium sized, and very pretty. They do a lot of work on it themselves, so its not entirely finished, but it doesn't matter. And since my house in Maine is far from completed either, it really doesn't bother me at all. I have a pretty room which overlooks the garden. There are lots of books around, and currently I'm reading Harry Potter und der Feurkelch. Can you guess? Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It's good to read, since I know the words so well in English it helps me a lot with my German. There is a beautiful park that overlooks Frankfurt a ten minute walk or so away from my house, out of the city, and maybe sometime I will put up some pictures.

My daily routine goes something like this: I get up around eight, leave for my class around nine. I catch the bus and go until the end of the line, and then I catch the tram, which drops me off right near my course. Everybody is very nice there. German grammar (cases, mostly) I find somewhat confusing, but I'm sure I'll improve. On Tuesday I had a little adventure. Upon arriving home after class, I discovered that I could not open the door. It was a pretty ridiculous predicament, and I didnt know what to do, so I went out again, and came back, and went out again. I took the metro to a stop that looked on the map as though it was near the river. I got out, and didnt find the river. I did, however, see a new part of Frankfurt, and now I know where the Goethe Museum is! I got back a bit late because I walked around for so long, and my family let me in. It was somewhat embarassing, once I learned how to open the door, but it was a good day overall. The rest of the week passed without incident. I'm understanding more and more, and I was able to tell a lady waiting for the tram the time.

The weekend came, and Saturday my guest sister took me shopping on a big street that has three (three!) H&Ms. So far I've only been in one. On that street I went up the longest escalator in Europe, and bought a shirt, a scarf, and a sweater. After three hours we were pretty exhausted, and went back home for a quick bite to eat before going to a Französich Party organized by my language class program. We didn't know anybody there, so we just ate a bunch of deserts for an hour. We were actually about to leave, when two young guys we're acquainted with came in, and we ended up all sitting at a table outside in the cold, because inside it was so hot. We finally went back home around midnight. It was a long day. Sunday morning one of my sister's friends came over, and then in the evening we went to another friends house to meet a bunch of other friends. There we watched a very strange movie in which Daniel Brühl played a schizophrenic. We got back quite late, and were very tired in the morning.

In three weeks fall break starts, and I think we might go on a small trip somewhere. And on October 25th I will start actual German high school (in my case Gymnasium, the university-bound school track). Very exciting.

I try to give pretty comprehensive posts, but if there's something you're especially curious about that I haven't mentioned, please do comment, or contact me with facebook or email.

Tschüss!

Whirlwind

Alright. This was written in fact on saturday morning, bit I couldn't post it until Tuesday. Somtwtime later I'll write about the whole first week.

What a time it has been! I'll start from the beginning. I left Tuesday morning on a 7:10 flight, where I met up with the four other Congress-Bundestag recipients from Maine. We flew from Portland to New York, then New York to Washington DC. There in the airport we met some AFS volunteers, and went to the hotel where we would be staying and having our orientation. People arrived throughout the day, and by the time all 50 of us were there it was definitely hard to remember eveyones name. Luckily we had name tags on lanyards that we had to wear ALL THE TIME.

The first day we had an early start. We bussed into DC. Because we were running early we had to visit the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, and a few other sites in walking distance if we wanted to or had time. Then we headed to the State Department. I think most of us were expecting a tour or something along those lines, but instead we sat in one room for some talks and questions. It was interesting, though a bit strange, and we were spoken to afterwards for not asking the expected questions.

From there we went to Union Station, where we ate lunch wherever we wanted and went to visit our Congressional Representatives, to say thank you for their support and talk a little about the scholarship itself. The hope is that despite the tough financial times, if they ever see the Congress-Bundestag scholarship they will remember those nice kids who came to see them, and they will keep it going. We from Maine were not actually able see our rep, but we spoke to a really nice staffer who was a recent grad from Bowdoin.

Later in the afternoon we went to the German Embassy, where a Congress-Bundestag alum gave us a vey interesting and helpful presentation on the German government. Then we practically bombarded he with questions about her stay in Germany, her experiences in regards to this or that, her perspective on this, what advice she had about that. It was a lit of fun, and we got pins and pens at the end. After taking a group photo in front of the German Embassy sign, we went to dinner at a German restaurant and then bussed back to our hotel to crash after the long day.

The next day, Thursday, we did a lot of activities, and had a lot of in depth discussions about what we wanted to gain from our experience and what it means to be an ambassador. The regular AFS students began to arrive. We also did some role-playing over situations we might encounter in Germany. On Friday we were all getting very anxious to leave. But until then, we talked some more about what we hope to gain and what it means to be an ambassador. (In fact we did more than just that but it's so hard to remember, and that was without a doubt the recurring theme).

The airport went relatively smoothly. We had two volunteers actually flying with us, and when we got off the plane after a basically sleepless night, AFS Germany volunteers were there to put us on our trains or bring us to meet our host families. And this is where everyone's experiences start to diverge.

I saw my host family upstairs, and it was very exciting to meet them. We drove home through Frankfurt. Though my house is still in the city, it's far from the center and it's surprisingly green. We ate breakfast, and I went to the market with my host father and sister to get fresh food. The whole day is sort of a blur... I ran some errands with my host mom... We ate lunch... My sister took me on a small tour of the neighborhood... We ate dinner... I went to bed.

It's amazing to me how much I can understand, considering how I only sort of taught myself German over the summer, and at the same time how much I don't understand. But I already feel quite comfortable with my family, and I'm getting used to hearing German all around me.

Well, it is almost breakfast time so I think it is time to go downstairs.

Tschuss!

Last Week

So this is it! My last week in Maine has been pretty busy so far, with bridge jumping and going to the mall, getting lost, riding my bike, hanging out with friends and family, packing, and studying, studying studying!

I'm doing sort of an on-going trial pack (which means that whatever I don't wear is actually going to stay in my suitcase from now until I get to Germany). My suitcase weighs 41 pounds, but my scale is a bit inconsistent so I'm never quite sure. Anyways, with the 44lbs limit, I think I'm all set.

My German family is signing me up for a German language course, with a program called A-Viva. I think it is the German version of the Alliance Française (where I took classes last summer in Paris). I took a Deutschekenntnisse Test, a German knowledge test, and they placed me at level A2. That means I don't know much but I'm not a total beginner! So that's a plus.

I'll fly to Washington D.C. with a few friends on September 7th for my pre-orientation, so there will me more to post about soon.

Tschüss!