AFS Camp & More

I realize I haven’t posted in a few weeks, but I blame it on the fact that German life is always jam packed with stuff to do. Most recently, I attended the AFS Midstay Camp. It was held this past weekend in Wennigsen, a small town about a half hour away from Hannover.
The camp was pretty similar to the last one, except there were more people – 44 all together. A few have already been living in Germany for 8 months, and some have just arrived one month ago. I got to meet new exchange students from Brazil, Switzerland, New Zealand, Russia, Malaysia, and China. It was also good to reunite with the ones I already knew.
Throughout the weekend, we split into our three groups (Late Orientation, Mid-stay, and End of Stay) and had a few workshops. In my group, we talked about what we now perceive Germany as, and what we want to do while we’re still here. One thing we all have in common is that we all want to go to Berlin. We made a poster and filled it with pictures of disco balls, chocolate, “Ich verstehe nichts” (I understand nothing), and some other German stuff. We also talked about our problems, like how none of us can participate in school besides English class, and how we all want friends – the leaders explained to us the process of how Germans make friends, and how the hardest part is progressing from acquaintances to friends. They said it takes a while, but it was good to know that everyone’s in the same situation as I am.
On Saturday, we walked into town to do a scavenger hunt. Astrid (Norway), Tina (Switzerland), Amy (New Zealand) and I spent about an hour walking around, trying to find certain places and information. We had to stop random people on the street to ask for directions. Unfortunately, there were very few people on the street, and most of the ones we stopped replied saying they’re not from the town. In the end, we found everything and got the most points!
The rest of the time we were there we spent hanging out: singing/playing guitar, playing cards, doing “magic”, and eating a lot. Sadly, this was my last AFS camp since I’m leaving Germany earlier than most of everyone else.

On the way into town

Getting directions from a nice German lady who

helped us with about half of our tasks

Most of the group :)

I experienced another interesting thing unexpectedly last Thursday. I left school during the middle of the day (half of our classes were canceled) and went to the city with my host sister and a few people from our class. Before I knew it, I was marching the streets with a few hundred others, protesting the school system. Someone explained it to me, and basically they don’t want to have to pay for schoolbooks or for college. They also want their high school to go through grade 13 instead of stopping at 12. It was really cool because it was all young people. Music blared from a truck that we followed all around Hannover. The only chant I could follow was “Wir sind hier! Wir sind laut! Weil man uns die Bildung klaut!” (We are here! We are loud! Because our education is being stolen!) People stopped to watch and take pictures of us as we passed by, and that night it was on the news.

One more thing – today, I went on a field trip with my class to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp. We walked around the whole place and through the woods where we saw where the barracks used to be.

Here’s one of the gravestones where 2,500 bodies were buried

This was part of the memorial. It was shocking to read that thirty thousand

Jews were killed in just this one concentration camp.

Bergen-Belsen is the camp where Anne Frank and her sister died. There was a lot of information on her story in the museum, which was really interesting. Much of what I saw today was unbelievable.

Today’s Thanksgiving and I will not be eating any turkey or pumpkin pie :( But I have very much to be thankful for!

München!

Our trip started at 4:00 am on Thursday the 20th. There were eight of us all together – my family plus Andreas, Kirsten, and their son, Yannick – so we drove together in a big van (I think it was called the Euro-Mobile). Somehow I managed to sleep most of the way, so the six-hour drive went quickly for me. When we arrived in Munich, we went to our hotel first, which was a tiny old place in between the Phung Phu Chinese restaurant and a billiard hall. Right after we unpacked our stuff, we went off to see the city.

First, we went to Marienplatz, where we waited for the Glockenspiel to play. The whole place was filled with people by the time the bells started. The Glockenspiel was really cool and old, and seemed just like I had learned about in German class.

For the rest of the day, we walked all around the city. Here are the places we went:

Hard Rock Cafe. We didn’t eat there, we just went inside to look and get t-shirts of course.

Right across from the Hard Rock Cafe was the Hofbräuhaus! We stayed there for a few beers and some food. The atmosphere there was really lively and happy partly because of the German band and partly because it was all tourists on vacation. We ended up going to the Hofbräuhaus again for dinner that evening. We all had haxen (pig knuckles?) because apparently it’s a traditional Bavarian food. Although it was slightly difficult to eat, it was pretty tasty.

The Viktualienmarkt – a big food market in the center of the city. Most of the shops sold all different types of wurst, fruits, and cheeses. The market is known for its high prices so we didn’t buy anything there.

Frauenkirche. One of the tower things was under construction so that’s why the picture looks like it does. The inside was really cool and huge but kind of creepy…In the entryway, there’s a footprint that was made by the devil, according to the legend. Apparently he laughed and stamped his foot when he saw that there were no windows, because “a dark building has no purpose”. The devil went further into the church and saw that there actually were windows, and then I don’t know what happened after that.

On Friday, we went to the Bavaria Film Studios, which was like a small, German version of Universal Studios. We watched 3D movies, and had a tour through studios for all these different German movies that I’ve never seen. After the tour, we went to the other section of the place, called Bullyversum. The whole place was all about the life and movies of a German actor nicknamed “Bully”. It was a little bit like a museum, but there were some interactive things too. Luca (in purple) and Yannick (in orange) volunteered to be part of a movie with two other people. They filmed a whole bunch of scenes that didn’t make sense, and at the end they were all put together with scenes from a real movie, which ended up being really funny.

For lunch, we went to another market. I don’t remember the name of it, but it’s only open three times a year, for one week at a time. We sat down at a table in a tent where we had beer. The place was really full so we had to share the table with an older couple. When they found out that I’m from America, they started talking to me in English and telling me about how at Oktoberfest, the people dance on the tables and take their clothes off (?). I just nodded and smiled because I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Everybody left to go to the bathroom, except Chiara, the lady and me. Within the five minutes we were left there, we learned the lady’s whole life story, and all about the three men she’s been with. She spoke in English the whole time, so Chiara and I could both understand her. We left as soon as our parents came back.

That evening, we went to an Italian restaurant for pizza. It was absolutely delicious since it was the first pizza I’ve had in Germany. Here are my host parents representing Wisconsin :)

On Saturday, we took the city tour bus (the awesome double-decker kind) all around the city. Here are the pictures from that, which are not very good because they were taken from inside a moving bus.

Michael Jackson Memorial

We got off the bus at Olympiapark, where the Olympic games were held. The park was really pretty with the hills and little lake. We took the elevator to the top of the tower, which is almost 600 feet tall. The view was amazing, and here you can see the Olympic stadium.

After visiting Munich, I feel like I’ve really been in Germany. At all the restaurants, the waitresses wear dirndls, and the waiters wear lederhosen. The foods I ate that I thought were just German, but are actually Bavarian include pretzels, schnitzel, krautsalat, and leberkäse (translates to liver cheese, but it was just a thick piece of meat on a roll). By the end of our trip, my family said they couldn’t eat any more Bavarian food.

It’s been a couple weeks since we got back from Munich so I’ll add a quick update on what’s been going on.
Monday: Went to Ikea with my host mom, sister, and brother, visited my host dad’s company, and went to Chiara’s friend’s house for a movie night.
Tuesday: Went to a stone place/hiking park with my host family and grandparents, and met my AFS friends Astrid and Linda in the city.
Wednesday: Not much happened that day. Hung out at home during the day, and watched the 96 game (soccer) and Desperate Housewives in the evening.
Thursday: Went to my host mom’s friend’s place to see the new house and horse.
Friday: Went to the city with Chiara and three friends to go shopping, had dinner with my host grandparents, host aunt and host cousin
Saturday: Went to the river to go boating, and carved pumpkins while we were there

Dumping the seeds in the river

Sunday: Went to Infa, a big fair, similar to the expo center at the state fair, except there were about five buildings and it was cooler and more than just infomercial type stuff.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: School.