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.

Vacation up until Christmas

School got out after the first three hours on Friday, and I was feeling pretty bummed out and scared about vacation. Three huge blank weeks filled with nothing but sitting at home having no friends. Thank goodness it hasn't turned out that way. Friday was filled with Christmas shopping and freezing out at night at the Weihnachtsmarkt with my sister and her lovely friends. Saturday I went to a birthday party of one of my sister's best friends, which was in fact a lot of fun. We ate mexican food and played games and chatted.

I was expecting to meet my other guest sister, who was coming back from University in France, but her train was late and I was asleep. So I met her Sunday morning. Sunday was an interesting day. Early in the afternoon we walked down the hill to another small part of the city and built a snow woman and walked through the snow in a sort of park area. Afterwards we went to coffee at some friends of my guest parents, which was nice, but awkward. I always get so red when I have to talk in front of a lot of people, and trying to explain the American college application process in a foreign language is no easy task. One exciting thing happened though-- I answered the house phone. Three times in about ten minutes. It was exhausting and nervewracking, and the next day when the phone rang I just let it go.

Monday was filled with Christmas shopping, cooking, and movie watching. It was nice. Tuesday I met up with some friends (American and her visiting friend, and our German friend) and went to see the movie Tangled. For those of you who don't know, perhaps, it is a new Disney take on the Rapunzel story. I found it really sweet. Afterwards I met up with my sister and more of her friends and we all went again to the Weihnachtsmarkt. I was very cold, having been outside already for hours, and I decided that I really do need winter boots. Frankfurt has more snow this year than practically anyone can remember, which means it looks nice but in fact you just have to walk through a lot of slush. No fun.

The next day I went Christmas shopping again (!!) and met up with an AFS USA hopee, who has applied for the scholarship that I am on. In German it's called 'PPP' (das Parlamentarische Patenschafts Programm) and in English it's called the Congress-Bundestag Scholarship. We walked through the Weihnachtsmarkt and around the river a bit, until I had to go home. It was quite nice. He asked me quite a few questions about America, which I did my best to answer, taking into account that the US is huge and could be quite different in other parts of the country. It is interesting to talk with him because he is Jewish, and his parents actually come from Israel, so he speaks fluent Hebrew. He told me about a Hebrew class which takes place every Wednesday at a sinagogue near the school I have my French class in. Of course I said I was game, and he's been super nice and is asking the teacher and director people if I can join after break. After all, what's another language? French, Spanish, German, a touch of Icelandic, a touch of Hebrew... I'm getting in touch with my heritage!

But this boy and this Hebrew class actually lead me to talk about something that I find rather ironic here. When I told people in the US that I wanted to go to Germany, some of them were shocked, and said things along the lines of 'OH my GOD, but you're Jewish right and you want to go to GERmany?? I mean like aren't you SCARed?' Well actually no, not at all, the Nazis were last century, remember? And in fact I have met more Jewish people here, and more knowledge about and respect for the Jewish religion, and more opportunities to participate in it and learn about it here, than I have ever seen in my rural home in the United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave.

Otherwise, however, I'm pretty excited about experience my first Christmas. Besides all the shopping, and eating food at the Weihnachtsmarkt, I hadn't done all that much until today, when we went to pick out and cut our Christmas tree. We drove about a half hour out of the city, found the place by accident, and got the car stuck. In the process of pushing it out, I got mud splattered all over my gray corduroy pants, the only pants I have that aren't completely too small. Then we tromped all around through the snow and chucked snow balls at eachother, and finally settled on a good tree and drove back home. In the evening (after a touch of very last minute shopping) we went in the Theater. It was a quite interesting, and unique interpretation of Jesus' life. But it was cool, too, because my guest parents know the people who act there and run it all, and apparently my guest father even played a talking tree once, in a play about something from Schiller. That's all I could gather.

So tomorrow is Christmas in Germany, and I don't know what to expect but whatever it is I know it will be good! Gute Nacht, Frohe Weihnachten, and I hope you enjoy the pictures below!


Weihnachts Plätschen, so fatty and delicious...

Standing by our snow lady!

Trying to get the car in the right direction again. It took a while.

Cutting our final choice.

Cold, wet, and happy :D

not an interesting title

What can I say. Things are normal. My emotional weather seems to be staying pretty predictable. That is to say, unpredictable. Perhaps this is because of my extreme fatigue lingering from the weekend. I was pretty busy, by my standards, out until all hours of the night and morning with friends, and out the next day with more. I saw some interesting things, and had a lot of fun.

Friday night I went with my guest sister to a small house party of sorts by a friend of hers. I won't say how much alcohol was drunk, but I will say that only a very small portion of it was downed by yours truly. I went to bed the next morning, and about six hours later after stumbling downstairs and through breakfast and a shower, I started trying to bake chocolate chip cookies for a sort of baking slash recipe exchange party that night at a friend of mine's. I was missing a few ingredients, so I added some others, and was astonished to discover that they actually turned out alright. Absolutely nothing like the chocolate chip cookies I am accustomed to, but quite tasty. Then I rushed out of the house, barely caught my bus, and was on my way to the Christmas market in Bad Homburg with AFS. It was very cold, and there was surprisingly little to eat there (I had been counting on that), but all in all the afternoon was fun.

After some streetcar mishaps I got to my friends house shortly before nine, and we all just ate, and chatted, and made a Feuerzangenbowle. It was very impressive, and very tasty. We finally crashed around two am, and in the morning we bummed around after breakfast and watched Ratatouille. I was also lent a book: The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, in which, after three days I am on page 575 of 593. It's the kind of actually-good love story that makes you want to rip your heart out and cry until you shrivel up as you simultaneously explode with joy and deplore your own bland to nonexistant love life. Well, maybe that's just me. But let me say, this book is way better than it's movie. It also makes me very emotionaly susceptibale to anything negative, and although it has been a captivating and delightful read, I am looking forward to finishing it so I can have my life back and end my emotional trip. Or just so I can sit bored in classes again, either way.

Today was actually quite nice. After the nearly fatal French-class boredom, they watched a movie (the Bucket List) in English class. I read. In the afternoon, I had no art class because the others had math, and two hours later my Ethik class was writing a test. So I went with my lovely American friend into 'the street' by our school, where there are lots of interesting little shops. I finally bought a new diary, a lovely red book that claims to be perfect for everything because it's made with special glue and can be rolled into a cylinder without experiencing bodily harm. Better than ripping out pages from my notebook and sticking them in the back of my old green diary. I had never walked that way before, and it was a lot of fun. We went into a store called Middle Earth, where it smelled like incence and there were lots of books about religion and philosophy. I looked for The Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff, but I didn't find it. Then there was another shop with a funny name, that had all sorts of games and toys and masks and facepaint and everything that is fun to look at and to play with. We spent quite a while in there, and I felt rather like a child again. It was refreshing. When I got home it was boring: I ate, and allowed myself to shed a few anquished tears for my book, and then I just talked with people on facebook and tried to straighten out problems with my bank account and my debit card and my money, in order to get Christmas presents for my family.

Oh! One thing that I have not at all mentioned yet: All students in the 12th grade in my school are required to do a Praktikum (basically an internship) during the first two weeks after winter break. I, as a normal, participating member (sort of) of my class, am also doing one. I asked the director of my old Sprachschule, and I think I have a place. I am very excited to see what I will do in a language school. I am hoping to get an insider's view on teaching English as a second language, which has always interested me. I have to write a CV and send it to the school, and then I also have to write certain papers for my school over my expectations and hopes, and then later over my experiences. This is treated as the first big Klausur (exam) grade of the next semester. Not that it matters for me, as I am still not officially getting grades, but I still want to hit it with my best shot. I have begun to write, though rather inconsistantly, as I have only written one so far, about a page double spaced about my day, which my sister then corrects. This is very, very good, and I highly recommend it to any exchange student, especially if you are learning the language only through speaking. I realized a few weeks ago that although I can hold a reasonably intelligent german converstion about just about anything, if I was suddenly asked to write about what I had spoken of, I would be utterly at a loss. So I am hoping that this will improve my literacy and my fluency.

As for the rest of this week, I am looking forward to seeing people in school and to finally getting my French exam back! (I'm unnecessarily nervous; I already know I did badly). After that comes Winter Ferien, a big wide open three weeks with nothing exactly planned yet, except of course Christmas and Sylvester (new years). My other guest sister is coming back from France, and I am excited to meet her. It's hard to believe that I've been here for more than three months already. It's hard to believe it is already almost Christmas... I remember when I started school after Herbst Ferien and saw that we had eight weeks until the next break. It seemed like ages away. I remember when I arrived in Germany and thought that Herbst Ferien was ages away! My how time flies. I'm told that the whole year goes like this, except that it just keeps getting faster. Man, next thing I know I will blink my eyes and be back in the US, with everything feeling like a dream, saying 'wait, did that just happen? But it seemed like such a long time...!' I guess that's a call for me to savor every second that I've got, and sign off the computer.

Until next time!