just a few photos...

There were lots and lots and lots of people...


...with some rather fantastic costumes


here we are, hooray!


The Korean float!

my favorites-- the fat headed people!

Many floats were political. here is Angela Merkel


google street view invades your privacy! yes, this man is completely naked and anatomically correct. welcome to Germany, we're not prudes!


the pope--finally handing out condoms
this guy was just cool


the end!

Halbzeitscamp

I spent last week in Bad Honnef for my midstay camp for my scholarship. I have to say, I was completely dreading it, but it turned out to be a pile of fun. We got there Tuesday evening. We spent Wednesday in Bonn. Thursday we had workshops, and Wednesday we went to Köln. In the morning we went to a Mosque. It was incredible. I had never been insideone before, and it was beautiful. The man who talked to us was very nice, and very open. I was surprised and honored about how openly we were recieved and how much we were shown. Then we saw the Dom, many of us went to the Art Museum (I and a couple other friends stayed the longest, who's surprised), had some shopping time, and went to an awful restaurant for dinner. But AFS gave us all 7€, and since all the dishes were with meat, I bought Pommes (fries) and kept the 5€ remaining. Saturday we had a couple more workshops, and then had a lot of free time to prepare for the talent show. Whichhhh was amazing. There was some really surprising singing, some poetry, some dancing, some impressive stringed instrument playing, and the group that I was in (which was pretty much the I-Don't-Know-What-To-Do Group) learned this crazy mormon dance and had a great time. All in all it was great to get reconnected with everyone, and I was a bit sad to leave. But leave I did, and just in time, because on Sunday night I fell gravely ill. Not really, but the combination of waterbottle sharing and little sleep took its toll, and so I slept. Sunday night, all through Monday, and Monday night. Today I am up and about a bit, but still have the snuffles and the coughs etc. So that's the update! Until next time!

I eat languages for Breakfast.

Okay people. I apologize that it's been an eternity since I last posted. I thought I'd written about the week after my praktikum but I guess the post somehow got deleted. I find that every time I'm sittin in the bus, I think of a whole Menge (what is the English word? bunch? Gosh am I losing my english!) I think of a whole bunch of things I want to write about on my blog, but as soon as I'm sitting here before the computer, I don't know what to write. So, to combat this dilemma I have turned to my diary, in which I write ungewöhnlich viel (unusually much) and in a mix of languages, which makes later paroozles somewhat more time consuming. But anyways, to try and make things concise, I'm just going to make a little list of things I've done since being back in school.

• gone ice skating with AFS
• had a lovely movie night and chat evening with guest sister
• hung out with international friends- baking, movies, sleepovers etc.
• made an excursion with my Französisch Leistungskurs to the French-German department of the Frankfurter Buchmesse (Frankfurt Book Fair). This was very interesting, and I realized that although I cannot speak French nearly as well as I can speak German, my comprehension ability in the two languages is the same. That is to say, I understand between 95 and 100%.
• found out that my scholarship will pay for my school trip to Madrid in the spring! woohoo!
• bought a new winter Mantel, which is very chic in my opition.
• called my parents, finally!
• done three presentations all having to do with the industrial revolution and work houses, two in english class and one in history.

I also went partying with a friend from my French class and her friends, and met lots of people, which was fun. Last Sunday I went on a day trip with my guest parents to Weztlar, a really beautiful city north of Frankfurt where Goethe's Unfulfilled Love, Carlotte, lived. I was totally taken by the romantic Altstadt (old city) and the watchtower ruin. On Valentines Day Monday I went with my French class to the Theater in Russelsheim, where we saw real French People in a Real Play of Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran. It was very well done and I could understand almost everything. (I came to late in the school to read the book with the others in my class, so I think they understood much more).

On Wednesday I had quite a day. At two o'clock I had my second Korean lesson, which was quite difficult. In principle the Korean alphabet is quite simple, but the way it's actually written is complicated. Lots of letters get stacked upon eachother and I'm never quite sure when. Also, the fact that it is simply completely unfamiliar makes it sort of a brain-full. After an hour we switched, and I helped my 'teacher' with her German. She is improving a lot and is very cute.

At four o'clock I went to my first Hebrew class. It was... quite the experience. There are only four of us in the class: twins, for whom Hebrew is their montherlanguage, and another girl who is just learning. I was very surprised at how much came back to me--I could still read and write, and what little vocabulary I had was taken out again to air. However, what I did find not as nice was that everybody who could speak fluent Hebrew (which is most people there) always spoke Hebrew unter einander (with eachother) when I kneww knewww knewwww they were talking about me! In front of my face! They could have the courtousy to speak in German, I thought. It also seems to be a very strong community there, and everybody kept asking me if I was a member of the Synagogue, and telling me what other classes I could take there, and double checking that I was in fact, in my school, in an Ethik course. It was just very strict. But I think that under all that the people are also very nice, and the Hebrew class is good so I'm going to stick around.

So, here is my language learning schedule:
Mondays: German, Spanish.
Tuesdays: German, French.
Wednesdays: German, Korean, Hebrew.
Thursdays: German, French
Fridays: German, French, Spanish.

Today I took a Spanish test (for which I studied!) and I think I did quite well. I also noticed for the first time how much people cheat here! Somebody asked me afterwards if it went well for me, and I said yes, and you? and she answered yes. Well of course! She had a sneaky little piece of paper with vocabulary and stuff printed out in negative 10 pt font hidden in her pen or who knows where! Gosh!

Also, I think I'm going to have a bread attack. Sometimes I could just scream, I'm so tired of bread, bread, bread. Breaadd for breakfast breeaadd for lunch, breaaad for snacks, breeaadd with dinner. So much bread! Brown bread that takes half an hour to chew, crunchy white bread, the crusts of which scrape your gums, thin bitter bread that I don't know why anyone eats, just so much bread! I'll go crazy! So I'm eating fruit, and müsli, and yogurt, and fruit, and vegetables, and other things, but sometimes there is simply nothing else in the house to bring to school except bread, meat, and cheese. Which means for me, bread and cheese.

But other than that, everything is really really well. I finally have the feeling that I have good friends here, and I'm always connecting with more people. I feel totally comfortable in school (and Biology class is so soporific that I really do fall asleep sometimes) and in general everywhere else too. I'm happy with my activities, i.e., two choirs and five foreign languages, and things with my guest family are good too. So, I've now finally reached the end of this monster post, which is good because the computer is beeping at me because it's out of battery. Goodbye!

Praktikum week two

The second week of my praktikum was really good, and really tiring. I ended up doing a lot lot lot of drawing. That was fun, but also tiring trying to think of ways to draw things like 'culture shock'. When I get my originals back (they are still at the school to be scanned) then I will try and post of a couple of my favorites up here. I also helped a woman from Korea with German accent and grammar, after her class. I really enjoyed it, because it allowed me to analyze a bit more closely what I have already learned, and I love finding just the right way to explain something so that that particular person gets it. We chatted a bunch too, and I learned a lot from her. I asked if she would be willing to teach me Korean, since I was fascinated by all the little Korean notes she made to herself as I told her stuff. She said she would teach me Korean (!!) and I gave her my number and she said she would send me an text. I hope it works out, it seems super super cool.

Over the weekend I went ice skating with AFS, and realized how much more I like cross country skiing. It was really nice to see people I hadn't seen for a long time, though. I also had a lovely evening with my guest sister. We watched a movie (Easy Virtue) and then just stayed in her room and chatted for probably an hour, and then ate cake and went to bed. And now I'm back in school. Woohoo! So I guess I'll go now, and read more for my French LK.

Au revoir, mes amis, à bientôt!

praktikum week one

Ok, well I don't know if I've already said a whole lot about my Praktikum, so let me just give a little overview of the whole thing. Every student in my school in the 12th grade does a two week internship in a place and profession of their choice. It is meant to give kids a bit of practical experience and help them get more of an idea of what they actually want to go into. I think this in an advantage in the German school system that we don't have in America. Then again, in America we don't have to know what we want to major in the moment we start going to college.

Anyway, I decided to do my Praktikum by my old language school, A-viva. (Which is by the way pretty much the best language and culture centur for anybody new to the German language or to Frankfurt!). It's pretty chillig there, and the other Praktikantin is super, super nice. We laugh a lot. Here is some of what I have done so far:

• picked up books at the book store
• lots and lots of online research for people, about scholarships, activities, places to stay, spas, prices, etc
• chatted with students and teachers
• sat in on an English class (very interesting!)
• learned a lot about Microsoft Word and Excel
• formatted, printed stickers of, and stuck on, chinese flashcards

I think next week I'm going to be doing line illustrations of some sort for the chinese flashcards. I'm pretty excited about that.

Okay, just some other small notes... I am now past page 200 in Twilight in German, and pretty much gobbling my way through. Learning a lot of words. My guest father had his birthday during the week, and a party today. We spent all Saturday baking and cooking, and we have an awful lot of left overs. But I'm starting my diet Tuesday, I swear! Speaking of dieting, though, maybe I'll just buy myself bigger jeans. I was such a skinny string bean in the US I couldn't even imagine gaining weight, but here I am. AFS: another fat student!

the winning streak week

This last week has been one of my very best here in Germany. After vacation it was as if almost everything just started falling into place. I gues it's hard to describe what makes a week good--mostly it's just little chats with people that make you happy, or hugs that you get, or sentences you realize you understand completely without having to look a million words up in the dictionary. In any case, it literally flew by and I still can't believe that today is already the 17th.

My classes were generally good-- the ones I don't like, or don't understand (like Deutsch and Bio) I read through. I have now finished my first German book: Das Mädchen mit dem Perlenohrring. I'm very excited, and have now started reading Twilight in German. (So far the fact that I'm reading it in German is its only redeeming factor). My Spanish teacher, who is probably the nicest, coolest teacher I have this year, was kind enough to treat my like everyone else and give me a grade. At the end of the semester everybody gets a short one on one chat with the teacher in the hall about their grade. She told me there how cool she found it that I have come to Germany, learned perfect German (I disputed that), and am learning Spanish (and French) on top of it all.

But in fact, if I can judge how good my German is getting by how bad my English is becoming, my German is doing pretty darn well. On Friday evening, as my sister and I were walking out of the metro station to meet a friend before we went to the Abi Party, I said to her 'Do you think I could up the down escalator to go?'. Only upon reflection did I realize what had come out wrong. On Sunday, as she was correcting the pages I write in German over my day, I was writing in my diary, and wrote 'Birte's friends were already there while they had to learn for their Abi'. For those of you who aren't so familiar with German, 'weil' (pronounced 'vile') means 'because'. It also happens more and more frequently that when the other American exchange student and I speak in English, we say things that are in fact a direct translation from the German, like 'By me it doesn't give that', and so on.

Anyways, yes, on Friday my sister and some friends and I went to our school's Abi Party. Abi Parties are sort of the equivalent of the school dances to raise money for the Prom, which is the Abi Ball for those in the 13th class who have made their Abitur. There are however, quite a few differences between Abi Parties and school dances. This party started at 10 and went til 5, was in an actual club, smoking and drinking were not a problem, and there were no teacher and parent behaviour-police. The music could have been a bit more interesting, but it was still a lot of fun. We left two hours before it ended and took the night bus to one of the big U-Bahn stations, and from there we took the U-Bahn to a stop not particularly near our house. We would have had to wait at least an hour before our bus started its first rounds, so we walked, perhaps a bit more than a mile. I wouldn't say it was fun, but with two of us it wasn't bad.

Saturday was of course a slow day, until the evening when I went to a game evening with my liason and some of her friends and her friend's friends. It was fun, but quite challenging to try and play games like Dictionary in a foreign language. It was around midnight when I finally got home. I ended up calling my host dad and having him pick me up from the metro station. That was actually unnecessary, because once I got there I saw that my bus was coming in 12 minutes and there still lots of people about. But I guess it's better to go with your gut.

Sunday I went with my host parents to look at the Main, which has overflown onto the street. It was funny to see the swans on the grass, and the benches 25 feet behind them all deep in water. We also climed the Domturm, the tower of the big Church, which was over 300 steps up this tiny narrow spiral staircase. The view was incredible and the weather was surprisingly gorgeous, and we took a lot of photos. After that we went to coffee, and went home. My sister had a Sushi-Abend with her friends, and it was really nice to sit around the table with them. I am a bit jealous though-- I want friends like that too!

All in all though its been an absolute corker of a week, and I'm almost a bit disappointed to be starting my Praktikum today. But that's a whole new adventure, and I will definitely write about it in a week or two. Ciao!

The Holidays (a short post)

Christmas day itself was rather boring and stressful, because nothing happened but my guest mother was stressed because she felt like she had too much to do, and because my whole family bickered pretty much constantly in one way or another. In the evening we went to the Instadt to hear all the church bells ringing for half an hour, which was cold but beautiful. When we got home we ate lasagna and then opened presents. Here is a picture of the Dom, the biggest church, and below it is our christmas tree, all decorated.



On New Years I went to a friend's house. We ate asian food for dinner, and sat around and chatted and drank a bit. Our other friend (the other American exchange student) came and we polished off the entire thing of apple tiramisu that I had brought. At midnight we all drank some Sekt, which is like champagne, and then went out into the street to set of fireworks. There were a lot of otherpeople out as well, and it was really loud and really cool to see all the different fireworks. Later in the night some friends of the girl's whose house we were at stopped by, and we actually ended up going to one of their appartments and talking and dancing. It was nice, but I would rather have been back in bed earlier than 5am.

I am now in my last week of vacation, and trying desperately (as I have been the whole time) to connect with people and make some good German friends. It's hard to keep my spirits up sometimes when I text at least five people in the morning and hear back from only one, saying they wouuullld want to do something with me buttttt.... I also really was hoping to travel at least a little bit, but somehow that never happened either. I mean I have managed to score a couple afternoons out and about with people, and I've had some nice facebook and text messages, but all in all it has not been the funnest or easiest or happiest vacation of my life, and I am actually looking forward to school starting again just so I wont be sitting at home all day despite my efforts to get out with people.