the end of an era

So, I’m back in school. The majority of my class time this week has been spent reading Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen and writing things unrelated to class (German grammar exercises that I make up, haikus in any of my three languages, or drafts of personal statements). I am understanding a lot more, but I simply believe that my time is better spent reading Harry Potter than trying to understand analysis of a story that I couldn’t understand in the first place.

That sounds a bit ridiculous (shouldn’t I be trying to participate in my classes?), but I’m actually completely serious. I’m at a point in my German-learning where I can hold a decent conversation, but heavily language-based courses are currently way over my head. Trying to pay attention in German class is likely to result in daydreaming about wacky, sleep-deprived conversations in lit last year, and I can’t stand bio because it makes me deeply homesick for Mr. Orr’s class (if you ever had him as a teacher, you’ll understand), neither of which are conducive to learning anything. Reading Harry Potter, on the other hand, teaches me a lot more about applying grammar, and is helping a lot with learning the frustratingly irregular preterite forms (which are apparently only used in writing, with a few exceptions). Plus, it’s very enjoyable, and I’m understanding more and more of what I read as I go along.

By the way, Gummy (one of my top four favorite grandmothers) expressed some interest in hearing Hagrid speak German. I have to say, “Yer a wizard, Harry” just doesn’t have the same ring to it auf Deutsch: “Harry, du bist ein Zauberer.” Yawn. Unless I’m missing a lot of the subtleties, Hagrid’s speech patterns don’t translate wonderfully, but at the same time, it’s recognizably Hagrid. “Nimm dir ein Würstchen, kalt sind sie auch nicht schlecht — und zu ‘nem Stück von deinem Geburstagskuchen würd ich auch nicht nein sagen.”

I have my first AFS camp this weekend. I’m taking the train to Bad Honnef Friday morning, and Gaby’s coming to pick me up on Sunday. It’s with all of the exchange students from the greater area, so I believe I’ll be reunited with some Americans I met in D.C. (though I can’t for the life of me remember who’s nearby) and also meet other students from all over the world. I’m excited about that part, but otherwise, I don’t really know what we’re doing. I’ve heard mixed reviews from people I know who had their camps earlier in the month, so we’ll see!

The title of this post is in reference to my Deutschkurs…tomorrow afternoon is my last day! It’s bittersweet, because I know that there’s a lot more grammar that I don’t understand, and that is definitely best learned in such a setting, but at the same time, I’m looking forward to staying in school the whole day and getting more integrated into my classes. (Actually, I mostly just want to go to math on Tuesday afternoons.)

I have more things to talk about, to be sure, but you may have noticed my mention of personal statements earlier in this post. I recently noticed that my first application is due this coming Monday, and since the personal statement is essentially the only part that isn’t finished, I could potentially be completely done with the application process come the first day of November. Hey, they said that we would grow in unpredictable ways on exchange… (If you don’t know me well, let’s just say that I’m not known for my ability to get things done in advance of their deadlines.) I don’t believe that there has ever been another student who has pounded out as many unsatisfactory essays in October as I have. So, time to call an end to this post and come up with a few more 500-word capsules of my life so far. Heck, this blog post is about 650 words. Maybe I’ll just chop a few random paragraphs and send it in.

Here’s a pretty picture to tide you over until I’m done with college applications forever and can tell you more about my life.

Aaaaachen. I may have overdone the a's.

on the dogs

Meet Luna. She just wants to be loved. How can you look into those eyes and not want to spend the rest of your life playing with her? HOW? Actually, there are a great number of potential reasons that you might not want to, but she doesn’t understand that. (and it is a pretty cute face.)

One possibility is “I have a computer on my lap and I’m trying to get work done.” Luckily, her comrade, Balu, has a perfect solution to that problem.

Laptop? What laptop?

The dogs are actually a large part of my daily routine, though. We spend quality time together almost every evening while walking through the fields or the forest behind the house.

(you can click on the photos to enlarge them, if you like. the first one is definitely worth it. in my very humble opinion.)

On a recent evening, I remarked to Gaby that walking with the dogs is a bit like waiting for a game of American football to end. The dogs stop at least as much as the clock does in a football game, and just like in football, something that by all appearances should take five minutes ends up taking at least fifteen. I don’t know if my analogy made much sense to her, though.

But, even though they’re incredibly needy and always barking and need to be taken out even on freezing windy rainy days, I love them anyway. Please remind me of that the next time Luna’s trying to snag cookies from the kitchen counter and Balu’s slobbering on my laptop.

on German food

Hello, my poor, neglected blog-readers (Mom…and everyone else)! I apologize for disappearing, and there’s plenty of filling-in to do, but before I do a great big recap, I’d like to address the most important part of any cross-cultural experience: the food. (Get ready for lots of generalizations about Germans and what they like to eat when.)

Brötchen

Brötchen is basically the main staple of German food. In a perfect world, Germans would eat fresh Brötchen at least twice per day (breakfast and dinner). It is consumed with the contents of this refrigerator shelf…

a refrigerator shelf holding several hundred types of cheese and wurst

…along with butter or margarine. Other possible Brötchen-toppings include Frischkäse (I believe this is cream cheese), Marmalade, and of course, Nutella.

It’s harder to fake lunch photos in the middle of the evening, because lunch is generally the warm meal of the day. Potential lunch/dinner foods include Maultaschen, Flammkuchen, Schnitzel with Spätzle, and spaghetti with meat sauce. Some things we eat definitely scream “GERMAN,” but some things would be totally normal to eat at home. If I didn’t have a vegetarian sister. I’ve probably already eaten more meat in the past month than I had in the preceding half-year or so.

So far, I’ve liked pretty much everything I’ve eaten here. I’d say that the only things that I haven’t really liked are sauerkraut and cucumbers. Disliking something as mundane as cucumbers probably makes me a very boring person, but luckily it’s not a crippling disability. For example, Mona and I prepared our own Mittagessen (literally, midday food) today. We boiled potatoes, cooked sausages, and made cucumber salad. It was incredibly delicious. Even with the cucumbers.

Speaking of incredibly delicious, I had my first Döner on Monday. For the unenlightened, a Döner is a Turkish creation akin to a gyro. It’s made of lamb and salad and really really tasty sauce, all of which is stuffed into a big flatbread which is messy to eat but so worth it. They’re quite popular in Germany, because of the sizable Turkish-immigrant population here.

Mona and me with our Döner

Germans also love coffee. And cake. And coffee and cake together. Coffee and cake is a perfect before- or after-lunch snack. Or both.

my host family's amazing coffee machine

I’m learning a lot about various coffee drinks that I really never bothered trying to understand before. Latte macchiatos are appropriate for every occasion, and Milchkaffee means “café au lait.” (Why are some German coffee names in German, while others are left in Italian? Why are American coffee names almost exclusively in non-English languages? Ah, the great mysteries facing our generation.) Anyway, Germans do drink things besides coffee, and no, I’m not going to discuss beer.

"tap water"

Germans don’t drink tap water. One time we were at a restaurant and I ordered water. To my surprise, the waitress actually asked whether I wanted it “mit Gas oder ohne Gas,” and I asked for the latter, thinking it would be “simpler.” I still got mineral water in a fancy bottle; it just wasn’t bubbly.

drink of gods

I drink Apfelschorle about 80% of the time. It’s basically just apple juice mixed with seltzer. My host family buys both water and Apfelschorle in large cases. That’s how important this stuff is.

Ja! Keiner ist billiger!

That’s milk. It just seemed like a good opportunity to display (in poor focus) the phenomenon of ja! I think it’s the store brand of the Rewe supermarket. I just think that products that say “ja!” on them in large, blue letters look silly.

Speaking of milk, because I am stubbornly American, I occasionally prefer to eat this for breakfast:

new favorite breakfast cereal

However, I can only get away with it on school days. And speaking of being American, look at what I found at the supermarket today:

the label says "USA" in several places

I was very surprised and getting all excited to make peanut butter cookies when my host father informed me that he and I are the only ones in the house that like peanut butter. My mind is blown. I’m considering making the cookies anyway. And speaking of cookies (yes, I really am doing the lame “speaking of” thing again), look at what Mona and I made today:

molasses cookies!

Not exactly your mother’s (or, in my case, my sister’s) molasses cookies, between the sketchy metric conversions and similar-but-not-exactly-the-same ingredients, but they are still delicious.

This was actually my second attempt at baking American cookies, and I’ve found that the AFS mantra of “not good, not bad, just different” comes in handy more often in the kitchen than anywhere else. The chocolate cookies that Uta, Sebastian, and I produced without real chocolate chips, vanilla extract, or brown sugar were tasty, but really not American chocolate chip cookies. Today, once again, I found myself without the ingredient that gives molasses cookies their name, and apparently ground cloves are an alien concept here, but with some whole cloves and a pepper grinder, we made it work. Not good, not bad, just different.

Well, more like “not better, not worse, just different.” Because they’re awesome.

I have no school for the next week, so I promise you haven’t heard the last of me. Bis gleich!

Leben und das Gymnasium

My dear mother has made me aware, in rather confusing German (why does she refer to me as Sie when I’m a bit younger than her, and part of her family to boot? mysteries…), that I have fallen behind on my blog updates. Despite the fact that today is a typically busy schoolday, I’ve managed to find a bit of time to bring y’all up to date. (Spoiler: that sentence contains a healthy dose of sarcasm. Don’t go feeling guilty on me.)

I realize that I’m nearly two weeks behind, so before I get to school, I’m going to back up a bit. The day after my last post, I finally purchased a proper journal, as it seems that it was one of the things that I judged to be superfluous weight during my last minute packing in New York. (A word of advice to future exchange students: don’t pack at the last minute.) I’ve written about thirty pages since then, so I’ll to try to distill that into something a bit more manageable.

Last week started out pretty much like the one previous. I spent much of my time at Uta’s. On Monday evening, we had an expedition to a mall in Köln, which was actually a lot of fun, because Sebastian and I got to try out our German on the salespeople. Or, mostly, I watched him try out his German/gave helpful suggestions/laughed, since I wasn’t buying anything. Then, on Thursday, we went to Phantasialand after our lesson in the morning! It’s an amusement park in Brühl, and Uta and Kay decided that since Kay had the day off, it would be a good time to go. They were totally correct — it was the perfect day! The weather was gorgeous, ideal first-day-of-fall weather (warm, neither hot nor cold), and the crowds at the park were typical first-day-of-fall crowds (essentially nonexistent). There were some awesome rides and almost no lines, and I had a great time.

Uta, Sebastian, Kay, and me in front of the "Mystery Castle" (think Tower of Terror)

Then, on Friday, we went to school for the first time. Gaby drove me over around 10 AM, and we met Sebastian and Kay there. We had a meeting with Herr Steinberg, the school director, and Herr Bretschneider, a math teacher (I thought he introduced himself as Brett Schneider, and wasn’t really sure why he was telling us his first name). We worked out the classes we’d be taking, the adults spoke in German a lot, and Sebastian and I looked around confusedly. I was handed my schedule, a map of the school, and a brochure with information (in German), had a brief encounter with my music teacher during which I decided to come back to school later for my music lesson, and we left. (The music lesson was uneventful…I understood most of what we did, because rhythms are pretty self-explanatory, and nobody talked to me.)

INTERLUDE
And now for something completely different! On Saturday, my host family took me to Köln! Aside from my encounter with the shopping mall, this was my first time in Cologne, and it was lovely, as promised. (for the record, most of these photos are the same ones that are on Facebook, so if you’ve already seen those, don’t bother.)

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We went to the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum (source of the first few photos), where I took the “für Kids” audioguide, for the record…it’s safe to say that I’d know more about the history of Köln if I’d gone with English, but I had a lot more fun trying to decipher the (simplified) German commentary. Of course, as an American, I always greatly enjoy European history museums because they have oboes that are older than my country.

Anyway, back to school! Monday was my first day. I was spared a lot of angst by my neighbor, Laura, who came over on Sunday to meet me. We have a lot of classes together, so, unlike Friday, I wasn’t going in blind, and it helped a lot. She introduced me to loads of people before first period started, and I even remembered some of their names later, remarkably enough. Everyone has been incredibly nice, and, even better, most of them speak German with me! The first day, I barely spoke English for the entire time, which was confusing and tiring but very, very cool. That being said, there is a whole lot that I can’t communicate in German yet, but it’s a step in the right direction. Pretty much every time I started feeling down on myself, a new person who didn’t realize that I’d only been seriously learning German for about two weeks would find out and act surprised, which definitely helped.

Now, some short commentary on German school: it’s weird. Not good, not bad, just different (yes, I’ve been well trained!). When I found out that I’d be taking ten classes, my reaction was something along the lines of “wow, that’s a lot.” As it turns out, it isn’t, and most of my classmates are taking more. Most of my classes meet for three periods a week, while a few meet for two and one meets for four. Much like my American school, there are five days with eight periods apiece; out of a possible forty periods (Stunden) of class each week, I have exactly twenty-six. Whoa. I know that the people reading this blog know me in varying capacities, so let me just impress upon you the fact that I haven’t even had a lunch period in the past three years. Now, I sometimes have literally two straight hours free in the middle of the day. Three days a week, I go home after sixth period.

In addition, when the teacher isn’t there, class is cancelled. I’d heard this before, but I hadn’t really imagined that in my first week, three of my classes would be cancelled (two periods each). It’s a great system: as soon as the teacher knows that s/he won’t be there, it’s posted on a screen in the “lobby” of the school, so you can plan ahead. I was also not required to go to history yesterday, so, assuming that tomorrow goes as scheduled, I will have been in class for eighteen periods this week. And yet I still come home exhausted every day…the things living in another language does to your brain, let me tell you!

In the grand tradition of my blog posts, this one is now too long, so I’m going to leave this here and do some specific topics over the next few days. I’ve heard requests for information about food, and I might take some of the school stuff out of this post and flesh it out a bit in a new one…anything else you want to know about? Leave a comment! I love reading all of them.

one week down?

Where did it go? I feel like I have no concept of passing time here, so I must trust the calendar, and it says that I’ve now been here for seven days. Go figure. And what have I done with those days? Well…

I’m usually at Uta’s for my Deutschkurs from about nine until two-thirty, or even three-thirty some days. I always try to charge ahead, but Uta keeps me grounded. I think she has a point in making me learn the articles and plural forms before diving into all the verb tenses and cases that I’m curious about, haha.

Sebastian and I are making steady progress, and I usually manage to keep my Spanish and German separate. Notable exceptions are my seemingly-unbreakable habit of saying “und” instead of “y” when speaking Spanish and my less-frequent tendency to say “yo” instead of “ich” while speaking German. Still, I think one of my number one fears about exchange was losing my Spanish, so to me, it’s worth some confusion to keep using it. It also makes me feel a bit better about myself, because I hate when everyone has to speak English for my benefit.

Also, Spanish provides Sebastian and me with a recourse when we fail at pronouncing the German ‘r,’ because at least we can both do the Spanish ‘r’ better than Uta. But really…I just want to say that stupid German ‘r’ properly! (We also frequently have small arguments about the differences between the Spanish that Sebastian and I know – Latin American-style, I suppose – and Uta’s “Spain of the Spain.” Always entertaining.)

Despite all the Spanish, my German is already much much better. Frustratingly bad, but much better.

The other part of my routine is walking the dogs. Gaby and I take Luna and Balu out every evening — we weather the weather whatever the weather, whether we like it or not. ;D (Here’s hoping that I used the right weather/whether/wether’s there. My English is currently slightly worse than normal.) We go different ways each time, through the fields and woods behind the house. It’s lovely, more often than not! The dogs are a bit crazy, though. Luna wants to herd absolutely everything, including the wild rabbits, so she sometimes takes off unexpectedly. Balu is also prone to disappearing in the cornfield, but they always come back eventually.

On Thursday, Gaby, Mona, and I went to Düren, a bustling metropolis about 10 km from here. Okay, bustling only in comparison with Froitzheim, but still, more bustle than I’ve seen in a while! Or, a week. I bought a few sundries, a scarf from H&M (which made me feel super-German), the first Harry Potter book auf Deutsch (Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen), and a new winter coat. I am super-excited about the coat since I haven’t had a new one for years, and it’s beautiful and I will get batteries tomorrow and post photos of everything sometime soon. Then we went to Gaby’s friend’s house for a while to talk and eat cake. She and Steffi, her daughter, were very friendly and spoke to me clearly and slowly, haha, which was much appreciated. Steffi said that she’ll invite me out with her and her friends sometime, which would be really nice, so we’ll see!

Now, for Tracy: Ja, klar! Wochenenden gibt es hier. Last night, Mona slept over at a friend’s house, so Gaby, Tobi and I went out for dinner at a restaurant in Nideggen. It had a beautiful view of the Eifel, although it got dark quickly. Afterward I had my awesome Ned-encounter (see below), so of course I overslept this morning. (Even in Germany where people call me Maggie, I’m still the same old Margaret, haha.) When I was up and dressed and whatnot (only 15 minutes late, thank you), we drove to Nettersheim or thereabouts, because Tobi’s mother is buried in a sort of forest-cemetery there. It’s quite lovely — they bury people under trees, and each tree has a small sign with the names of the people who are buried there. It was an eventful trip, though, because the tire blew early on and I received my second-ever lesson in tire changing. I understand it in theory; I hope never have to find out whether I can actually do it by myself in practice.

On the way back, we stopped in Bad Münstereifel, a pretty (but touristy) old town. We drank coffee and ate cake, because that is what Germans do, I’ve found. Then we walked around through the shops, including one called “Schaf und Schön” (Sheep and Nice?) which had lots of really nice, but expensive wool things that I wanted to buy but didn’t. There was also an old Fiat 500 on display, and I experienced a rare (for me) case of auto-lust. Tobi professed to feel the same way about the old tractor that was being displayed nearby.

After that, Gaby, Mona, and I went to the AFS Survival Camp. It was less alarming than it sounds, although I do think that in some parts of it, I was being conditioned to survive being surrounded by people I can’t understand (in case I wasn’t used to that by now). I kept looking at Sebastian across the table and laughing, because we were both totally lost for part of the time. We reviewed the rules, had more cake and coffee (of course), and met lots of AFS-associated people: Kay, Eva, Ellen, Dachma, Amelia, Zara, Sabine, and Ana, the other exchange student in our area, from Brazil.

Tonight, Mona wasn’t feeling well so I went with Gaby and Tobi to our neighbor Sabine’s party. I’d met Sabine, her husband, and two of her children before, but honestly…tonight was really hard. I was really tired, and communicating was just really not coming naturally. After an hour or so, I told them (auf Deutsch) that my sister was a bit sick and I needed to go check on her, and since then I’ve been hanging out with Mona, which has been wunderbar. We’ve spoken a bit in German and a bit in English and both understood everything…yay! I told her that “Mein Fuß macht ein gut Kissen” and I think she thought I was crazy until she saw that Luna was sleeping on my foot, haha. We’re watching this ridiculous German game show, and both looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

But in order to sleep in, I must go to sleep. Bis später, meine Lieblinge!

on German television

This one goes out to my mom’s side of the family. You’ll see why. (Other people are more than welcome to read it, of course, but you might not find it so interesting.)

Yesterday, I had my first encounter with German television. I wanted to watch the news in the afternoon when I got home, but the only news show I could find was from Bavaria, so they were showing a bunch of Oktoberfest footage, which was hilarious. (Lots of men in green Lederhosen…too funny!) I didn’t find the news  too difficult to understand for the most part, but only because they tend to show pictures of what they’re talking about, plus they use a lot of numbers, haha. I flipped through the channels a bit, but for the most part didn’t know what I was watching, aside from recognizing Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy in some terrible-looking movie (dubbed in German, of course), and MTV (ugh).

SO, when one of my friends asked me about German television later in the evening, I told him that there wasn’t much that I recognized from the U.S., with the caveat that I barely watch TV at home. I proceeded to go upstairs, with the intention of going to sleep shortly thereafter, but I decided to check out the television set in my room, because Gaby had asked me whether I’d used it yet (I hadn’t). Happily for me, my TV says the names of the programs, and I recognized several of them, including everyone-in-the-world’s favorite show, Law and Order SVU. (I’ve still never seen it.)

I kept surfing, and OH MY GOD Ned was on TV. (Sorry, coherency goes downhill from this point.) I almost died. Ned is my cousin, and he’s an actor (you know the voice talking to the astronauts in Apollo 13? yeah, that’s him) and wouldn’t ya know that at the moment I happened to be on channel nine, there he was on Cold Case, dubbed into German.

For a minute, I thought I was imagining it, but I ended up watching the rest of the episode and there was no way it was anyone else. So I checked IMDb this afternoon, and I saw that he had been on an episode of Cold Case called “The Good Death.” I was super-confused, because the television had said “Kein Opfer ist je Vergessen,” which I thought meant “No Sacrifice is Ever Forgotten.”  But I read the description, and it’s the same one that I watched last night. (No, I don’t understand TV shows dubbed in German, but it was pretty obvious what it was about, if not the specific details.) I realized later that “Opfer” also means “Victim,” so “No Victim is Ever Forgotten” is the German name for Cold Case.

Awesome.

Sorry for everyone who was totally bored by that, but hopefully certain people will appreciate it almost as much as I did (which was a lot, believe me). I’ll update y’all on the other aspects of my life sometime this weekend.

ich bin hier!

Yes, it’s true. I’ve finally made it to Germany all in one piece, and let me tell you, it was worth the wait.

Navigating the airport with seventy-seven people was quite the adventure, but, thanks to our stylish yellow tees, we made it through security without losing anyone. The plane wasn’t huge, so naturally most of us were sitting with another AFSer or two – I was the notable exception, ending up smack dab in the middle of a row between two random men. They were both nice, though, and I made it through the eight hours with a bit of reading, a bit of random conversation, a lot of journal-writing, and not enough sleep.

AFSers take over United Airlines flight 952 clad in stunning, eye-catching yellow tees.

After going through customs (a far less arduous process in Deutschland than in the US), most of our group was herded off to various trains that would take them to their host communities, leaving only those headed to southern Germany (not far from Frankfurt) and those being picked up directly from the airport. Kate (my friend from New York) and I went up to the AFS meeting place together, and I was suddenly incredibly nervous. She basically had to give me a pep talk the entire time, and finally I spotted Tobi and pretty much flipped out. He, Gaby, and Mona were all there, and we hugged and I hugged Kate goodbye and pretty much before I knew it, we were headed north in their car. My poor, tired, bad-airplane-coffee-addled brain really could not comprehend what was happening. I was beyond excited, but at the same time, I couldn’t believe it was real.

We drove for about two hours, during which time I contributed a lot of silence, some English, and even a bit of German to the conversation, and suddenly, we were arriving at home, which is inexplicably even more beautiful than it looks in the photos. There I immediately met Balu and Luna, the dogs, who were very, um, vocal in their welcome, and Tim, who was maybe a bit less enthusiastic (in other words, he didn’t jump on me, which was much appreciated).

My room, which was described to me as something like Harry Potter’s cupboard under the stairs, is anything but. It’s huge and gorgeous and just generally amazing.

Sadly, I have no extra batteries for my camera, so photographic documentation ends there, but you’ll see more of this beautiful place soon, I promise.

I have mainly stayed at home since I arrived. I ate lunch with the family – spätzle mit käse! Two of my favorite foods in one meal, plus a good salad and apfelschorle, my favorite drink. I took a long walk with Gaby and the dogs through some fields and the small forest nearby, all of which was lovely. I unpacked, Tim helped me choose my classes for school, and then we talked for a while about traveling, music, and stereotypes of Germany and America (flashbacks to orientation at that point), and then I pretty much talked his ear off about my views on American politics. Sorry, Tim! But Mona also sat with us for a little while, and it was quite nice to spend some time with my new siblings. Sadly for me, Tim is home now and Mona is on a class trip in Weimar, but the extra time means that I can get more college essays written…oh joy!

Even though my jetlag seems to have hit me all at once last night (of my allotted 8.5 hours of sleep, I was awake for literally six), today was a lot of fun. I had my first German lesson, and I was a bit nervous, but it ended up being relaxed and awesome, if a bit easy (!!). Gaby drove me to register to live in the town and then to a nearby village where Uta, my teacher, lives. I ate breakfast at her house with the other students: the boy she’s hosting from Colombia, Sebastian, and a Brasilian au pair, Neiva. Yes, there are three of us, and it’s perfect. I’m right in the middle, skill-wise – Neiva has lived here for something like seven months already, so her German is great, but Sebastian is a beginner. Well, so am I, so it’s a fairly level playing field there. Whether you know me personally or not, the fact that I’m an exchange student alone should be a pretty good indication that I love languages, so spending several hours a day speaking a mixture of English, German, and Spanish is basically my ideal pastime. It’s a bit harder when Neiva is there, because she speaks Portuguese (obviously), some German, and very little English, but she had to leave early to take care of the kids and being with Uta and Sebastian is so, so much fun. Sebastian will go to school with me when we start at the gymnasium in two weeks, too, and we’ll still have German lessons after school, so I look forward to having many trilingual conversations with him in the future.

After class, Uta drove me home and the dogs scared me half to death, but I made it into the house unscathed and then took a nice long walk around the village. It’s small, but there is still quite a bit to explore, and I look forward to continuing to do so (especially once my camera is working again).

So, to summarize that novel: I love it here. It’s gorgeous, the people are lovely, and my German is getting a bit better every day. I am so, so lucky.

bis später. 🙂

Orientation, as told by my camera

At the time of my last blog post, discussing my exchange still felt incredibly theoretical. It’s only been in these past few days of orientation that I’ve started to grasp the fact that I’ll be in Germany soon, and my certainty seems to come and go. But, while some parts of the orientation have been repetitive, boring, and (dare I say it) downright unhelpful, there have definitely been parts that were informative and fun. Here are some highlights that I managed to document, despite my failing camera battery:

Even though we went into the city on business, we got to do some sort of incidental sightseeing.

Kate and I got to be "lobbyists" and go talk to some Hinchey staffers about continued funding for CBYX. (fun fact: his office building is named after Sam Rayburn.)

We got a great talk from a CBYX alum who works at the German Embassy, about both German foreign policy and about life as an exchange student.

The day took a toll on my shoes...

...and my feet.

on a separate note, Group Eight is indisputably the best.

We manage to make everything fun. Everything.

“Don’t worry, there’s still plenty of t-“

Today is Saturday. Exactly three weeks from today, I will be stepping off of a plane and onto German soil. Or airport-flooring.

Here’s a sneak-peek of what I have to look forward to:

It doesn’t get much more schön than that.

There are times when I stop being wildly excited about going to Germany, or, dare I say it, stressed about how soon I’m leaving, but it’s never long before something comes along and makes me impatient to the point of being unable to sit still. (I’m serious; I literally start tapping my foot or jumping up and down or wandering aimlessly. I hope that’s not as weird as it sounds.)

And believe me, it doesn’t take much. It could be:

• meeting someone new (“how old are you? what grade are you going into?” “well, I’m actually going to Germany…”)
• going on Facebook and getting a message from another CBYXer
• or, even better, a German friend
• going to the eye place and having to order a full year’s supply of contact lenses
• getting an email from my host family
• just looking at those gorgeous photos
• and so on and so forth

That said, I am starting to panic slightly. In days, I have gone from a mindset of “I’m going to be here forever” to “so much to do, so little time.” I am fitting in visits to four colleges (in four states, including the District of Columbia), visits with all three sets of grandparents, visits to two different healthcare facilities, and one birthday party for my very own baby sister who is turning fifteen this year (God save us all). Wild!

But never fear: I will spend time with as many friends as possible during that time. I will also take a theoretically awesome trip to NYC with my lovely Thai sister, Nam, and a bunch of other inbound AFSers in our area (and do as much physical therapy as my health insurance will authorize).

my sisters and I by the Hudson River

In the immortal words of Bill Watterson: The Days Are Just Packed.

and so is my suitcase (for the moment). you'd be shocked at how many pairs of shoes fit into this duffel...and it's still under the weight limit!

The Life of an Outbound, Part Two

my "dashboard"

So. This is my “dashboard.” It is a potentially useful invention by those friendly folks over at Apple who can convince you that you need absolutely anything. (I mean, the iPad? really? …but it’s so pretty!) Anyway, while this dashboard thing may not have an obvious function, it does give you a vague idea of what’s important in my life. Allow me to demonstrate.

• weather widget-things: These allow me to get accustomed to Celsius temperatures by comparing the number for my town to how the weather outside feels, and to get accustomed to weather in my German town by using a system of measuring temperature that actually makes sense to me.
• clocks: Aside from being a Coldplay song, these help whenever I a) am rebelling against technology by refusing to use a digital clock (though I’m still using a laptop) but want to know what time it is in New York anyway or b) would like to know what time it is in Germany but find adding six hours to the current time here too taxing.
• calculator: I like math! The only annoying thing about this is that, while it is a four function calculator and therefore doesn’t have a “fancy display” like my TI-84, it is extra difficult to turn this one upside-down once I’ve typed 0.7734.
• sticky notes: They are blank. This represents my failed NaNoWriMo’s and unwritten college essays. Or something.
• puzzle: I would use this to waste time if I was good enough at puzzles to solve it. Instead, I don’t touch it, because it looks pretty.
• German/English translator: self-explanatory, but I usually use Google Translate anyway because I try to get as little use as possible out of my dashboard.
• iTunes widget: Yes, I listen to adorable theme songs from German children’s shows while writing blog posts.
• countdowns: This is the fun part. First of all, the South Africa one is cute. I don’t care if the World Cup is over. (This also means that I will still complain bitterly about Thomas Müller’s yellow card in Germany v. Argentina. Sorry.)
  1. Common App: It is coming out soon. I will apply to college. Then I will go to Germany and not worry about college anymore.
  2. Nam!: Our exchange student is coming! She is from Thailand, and her nickname is “Nam.” She likes Justin Bieber/Disney Channel. As long as she can get used to the fact that we don’t listen to Justin Bieber, nor do we watch or even get Disney Channel, we are going to have an awesome time together.
  3. D.C.: CBYX Orientation. I can’t wait to meet everyone. It’s going to be crazy fun.
  4. Germany: Take a wild guess.
  5. HP 7.1: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part One). Duh. It’s coming out two days earlier in Germany than the U.S., apparently. I look forward to gloating. ;D
• calendar: Um, it’s a calendar. I have no cool explanation for this. It’s Harry Potter’s birthday?

So, yeah! I found out a few days ago that I need to be at Dulles by 3pm on September 7th for orientation, and that I’m leaving for Germany on the evening of September 10th and arriving in Germany the following morning. I found out at varying times over the past two months that I have three people and two dogs in my family and that they will pick me up from the airport when I get there.

Since I started this post, I also had a fantastic four-day visit in Brooklyn where I saw lots of awesome people and talked their ears off about college. I went to the Highline park in lower Manhattan, which was very cool, and got clothes and a bank card for Germany. Mainly, I had a really great time.

OH. And I ordered a ukulele. Since I play cello and tuba, which are very inconvenient to transport to another continent, I decided to try my hand at soprano uke. I’ll have it in a week or two or three (or four, I guess). That should be interesting.

I have also been working on German more again. I am in the process of becoming a Verbmeister. (Ich werde ein Verbmeister?) Or something.

Once again, I have written an absurdly long blog post, so I’ll stop now. Bis bald, WordPress!