The Beginning of Herbst

Lots has happened since my last post, but I don’t want this to be too long so here are the main events:

School. I’m getting a little better at understanding what’s going on in class. Last week in German I had to read a section of a story out loud. It was a difficult story, even for the Germans, so basically I just sounded out every word since I didn’t know most of them. When I was finished, the whole class clapped for me. It must be funny for them to hear me speak German. The math test that I thought was going to be in English was actually in German, and I’m pretty sure I bombed it. For the biology test, I understood about half of the questions because Chiara’s Opa helped me study the day before. I ended up getting a 5 on it (a 6 is the worst), and I don’t feel that bad about it because two other people in my class got the same grade. And they know German a little better than I do. This week and next week we have Herbstferien (Fall break). I’m going to Munich with my host family on Thursday, and I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do there but it will be cool to see a different part of Germany.

Food. I don’t think I’ve found anything that I haven’t liked. Some of the typical German foods I’ve eaten are schnitzel, currywurst, pretzels, and kuchen. Oh and of course the chocolate and gummi bears. Here in Germany the candy is so much more delicious, I don’t know why.

On Friday after school, I met my AFS friend Astrid (from Norway) in the city. We shopped of course, and ate lunch at Subway because she had never been to one before. By the way, the food is the same there. After I paid for my sub, I grabbed the tray and Astrid looked at me and asked if we were eating at the restaurant because she hadn’t paid to eat there. I was so surprised. Since when do you have to pay extra to eat at the restaurant?! Apparently even McDonald’s charges you for a table. So I put the tray back and just took my sub. Then we found a bench outside where we could eat for free.

I went to the city again on Saturday with a friend from school. I was so proud of myself because I managed to take the right Bahn to the right stop, and then walk to the right place in the city to meet her. We got Chinese food for lunch, then took the bus to the Maschsee, where we were going to go boating. I guess it was too late in the season for boating, so we just sat by the lake for awhile and talked. We went back into the city for ice cream (which is actually gelato). Right when we were about to go home, I got a call from Chiara asking if I wanted to dye my hair with her and two friends. They were somewhere else in the city, so I decided to meet up with them, which required a 20-minute phone call and two different people trying to give me directions. I finally got to the right place and was talked into dying my hair. Here are the before and during pictures (we don’t have any after pictures because Chiara didn’t like how hers turned out):

Helena, me, Chiara

Marleen starting Chiara's hair

In the process of dying Helena's hair

Marleen and Helena doing my hair

Yesterday (Sunday), we went hiking with four other families from the neighborhood. At 9:00 am we took the train to Hameln, a smaller city about a half hour away. We hiked (what seemed like) mountains all day. I was wearing brand new shoes so now I have blisters in addition to sore legs. However, it was nice to get to meet and talk to all of the neighbors. They were all very nice and spoke slowly for me. Once we got to the top of the little mountain, we could see all of the farmland and hills and houses. It was really cool. Then we climbed up a steeper mountain for a really long time, until we reached the top, where there was a little restaurant. I had an order of Pommes (fries), which came with a tiny little fork that I had to use. Also, the little ketchup packet cost an extra 20 cents. Before we left, I climbed up the tower that was a part of the restaurant with my host brother, Luca. The view from there was really pretty too. After walking back down the mountain and finally reaching flat land, we walked for a long time on a path that went through farmland. It was a really quiet area, with houses spread far apart, and was really different than from what I’m used to here in Hannover. We needed to get to the Bahn station, and the path was going the wrong way, so my host dad thought it would be faster to cut through the cornfield. About five of us went with him. We had to walk through three different fields and jump over a muddy stream, and by 5:00 pm we arrived at the station. I could hardly walk because my legs were so sore, but since they don’t go hiking very often I wasn’t the only one.

The kids waiting for the train in the morning

At the very beginning of our hike

Almost to the top of the first little mountain

At the top, on our way to the big mountains, which you can see in the background

Chiara and I at the restaurant on the top of the mountain

View from the tower at the restaurant

Another view

My next post will come after the trip to Munich :)

Lots of Stuff

It’s hard to believe I’ve been in Germany for almost a month already. The days are starting to go by faster as I’m becoming more attuned to my German life. Here are some things that have happened:

Two weekends ago, I went to the Oktoberfest in Hannover. On Friday night we went with the family, and on Saturday night Chiara and I met up with some friends. It was similar to the state fair – food and rides – but it was more centered on beer.

I went to the Hannover Zoo with my family. It’s a really nice zoo – there’s a boat version of the lazy river that runs through it, which was cool because we could see all of the animals and not have to walk around. We also went to the sea lion show, where I just happened to sit next to an American! She’s from Seattle, and her husband is German so they live here sometimes. She was really nice and it was refreshing to have a conversation with someone while actually being able to speak the words I want to say. (Most of my conversations in German consist of having the other person guess what I’m trying to say by asking questions.)

Last week we had really warm weather. What I don’t understand is why I’m the only person who doesn’t wear a jacket and a scarf when it’s like 75˚.

In geography we were studying the U.S. and had many people come to me with questions on the homework. It’s pretty amusing listening to Germans trying to pronounce things like “Illinois”.

Chiara and I saw Jesus on the train, no big deal. There was this man with long hair and a long beard wearing a white cloth dress thing. He was kind of old and skinny and looked like Jesus. Apparently Chiara’s friend has seen him before too so we’re not the only ones.

School is still difficult and boring. In German class I really don’t understand anything, so I read short poems or stories and then write down what I understand. Then Chiara or somebody corrects the grammar and all of my mistakes, which ends up being a lot. Today, I had a biology test. I tried to learn everything last night because I’ve only had biology class once since I’ve been here. Cramming is especially hard in German. Tomorrow I have a math test, which will be hard, but the teacher is nice enough to make an English version for me.

Here in Germany, everyone brings a giant water bottle to school (or Apfel Schorle, which apple juice mixed with sparkling water). I’ve gotten used to drinking sparkling water, but the bottle still explodes every time I open it. I didn’t realize I had the option of having normal water (Stillwasser) until a few days ago. Now I only drink Stillwasser and don’t have to worry about exploding water.

Also, everybody plays soccer here. Not everyone plays on a team, but everyone can play. In gym class last week, we had free time and pretty much the whole class played soccer. I’m definitely in Europe.

I managed to take the train home from school by myself without getting lost. Success.

Last weekend I went to the AFS Late Orientation Camp with 20 other AFSers from all over the world. The place where we stayed was actually like camp – it was in the woods somewhere and we slept in little cabins. We arrived on Friday evening, and left on Sunday around noon. We had workshops where we talked about our expectations for Germany before we left, what we had experienced so far, and what we plan on doing to make the best of our year/semester. There was a lot of free time where we just got to hang out and get to know each other. On Saturday night, we had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows (this was a first time thing for some of the people). However, we didn’t make s’mores. It felt so weird eating just the marshmallow. But I learned the German way of doing it: put gummi bears in the middle. It was surprisingly delicious. After the bonfire, we played ghost in the graveyard, thanks to the other American who was there.
On Sunday we had more workshops and went over more rules. The trip back to Hannover was a half hour ride jam packed in the train with a million people going to the city for the soccer game. I was so exhausted when I got home that afternoon, but unfortunately I did not get to sleep until 4:30 am. A bunch of Chiara’s friends stayed over and we watched like a hundred movies.

Pictures :)

Oktoberfest Hannover!

An intense game of Whack-a-Mole

Chiara, Luca and I on a ride

A typical dinner. Everything is laid out on the table and you can take what you want to put on your bread: butter, cheese, meat, nutella, cream cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, something called Fleischsalat (which translates to meat salad...), and that’s about it.

Sitting around the bonfire: Linda (Finland), Camila, (Uruguay), Megumi (Bolivia), Tatyana (Russia), Guido (Argentina), Danila (Russia), Olga (Poland)

Roasting Marshmallows

Gummi Bear Marshmallows

Pringles and Haribo from my host mom :)

Another bonfire picture: Miguel (Venezuela), Vale (Chile), Camila, Linda, Olga and Megumi

That’s all for now. I will post again when I’ve got something.

School (and some other stuff)

So. After settling in and having my first two weeks of school, I’m pretty much almost used to life in Germany. Here is what my schedule is during a school day:

6:25 Wake up
7:00 Breakfast (I eat Toppas every morning, the German version of Mini Wheats)
7:25ish Leave for school. Chiara and I go with two of the neighbors. First, we walk a couple minutes down the street to catch the bus. The bus takes us to the train, which takes us to the train station. Then we walk to school from there.
8:00 Arrive at school and start class.
School ends sometime in the afternoon. It’s not the same everyday because some days we have fewer classes. Before I left for Germany, I was told that if the teacher doesn’t show up, you don’t have class. This is true but what I didn’t realize is that it happens like at least once a week. There’s a TV screen at school that shows what classes won’t have teachers the next day. We have to check it everyday. That’s how often it happens.

These are all of my classes: Religion, Chemistry, Geography, History, English, German, Math, Politics, Physics, Art, Gym, Biology, and Theater.
So basically what I do is follow Chiara around everywhere and copy down whatever she writes. The teachers and everyone talk so fast so I can’t really ever understand anything. When she has Spanish, I go to the cafeteria and bring my laptop to work on the AFS activity thing. Between each class (which are usually 90 minutes long), we have a Pause, where we go outside in the courtyard and have a break. Everyone has Pause Brot, which is a little sandwich that your mom makes for you in the morning. These breaks are 15 or 30 minutes long. On some days when we have fewer classes, we eat lunch at school. The food is real food on real plates with real silverware. The food is delicious because it comes from a restaurant at the city hall. No microwaved pizza dippers here.

A lot of other things have happened. Learned how to play Rummy, went to Herbstfest (a fall fest), had my first German beer, and watched a bunch of American movies in German.

My room

The view from my window (our Garten)

Vito!

The city hall. We went all the way up to the tower.

Mama & I at the top of the tower

Maschsee, which we had to run around for gym class. It's like four miles or something.

Chiara, Vito and I (:

The Beginning

I can’t believe that the countdown is over and I’m already here in Germany. So much has happened in the past four days, it feels like a month ago that I was leaving Milwaukee. This past Thursday I flew to Washington D.C. from Milwaukee with Elisa, who I met at one of the first orientations earlier this year. I’m very grateful I had someone to travel with, because I would have been lost without her!
In Washington, we had our gateway orientation at a hotel with all of the AFSers going to Germany (there are 91 of us). It was fun meeting everyone and talking about where we’re going to live and stuff. The orientation itself was alright, all we did pretty much was listen to some people talk to us about how Germany is different and I don’t really remember anything else…
On Friday, the orientation continued until about 1:30 when we left for the airport. We were probably pretty amusing to anyone who saw us – we were a huge group of kids in blue tshirts who had to count off by shouting our numbers (1-91) anytime we went to a different section of the airport. Three hours later, we boarded the plane. I forgot to mention that I didn’t have a seat originally, along with three other people, so we got ours right before we boarded. We were seated in a different section of the plane than everyone else, so we tried to switch with people but that didn’t work. Then we realized we had economy plus seats, so we stayed and everything was good. Except for the fact that I had this caffeinated drink from Starbucks before we took off, so I barely slept on the plane. The flight wasn’t bad otherwise, and didn’t seem too long.
We arrived in Frankfurt at six or seven in the morning (Frankfurt time). After we got our baggage and went through customs, we were greeted by AFS-Germany volunteers. We were then sent to this huge room where we were stuck for the next five hours because none of the other AFSers from other countries came until a couple hours later. So we stayed in there and basically died of thirst and lack of sleep. The AFS people brought us water and food after a while, but guess what the water was sparkling water so nobody could drink it. I managed to drink a whole bottle by the time I left (many hours later). Also during this time, a few host families arrived to take their people home. It was really fun to watch them all meet each other, and made everyone else jealous that we had to wait so long. I brought a huge bag of string for friendship bracelets, which came in handy when we found out that we could teach Germans how to make them because they don’t have them here. A lot of the AFS volunteers were really close to our age (and spoke English) so we were able to make friends.
Finally, 1:20 came around and the group of about 20 going to Hannover left to take the train. Thankfully, I was in this group. Everyone else had to wait longer. We were pumped to finally leave, but what we didn’t know was that we would be dragging our luggage all around the subway and train station for a half hour. I pretty much only knew one person in this group, Noah, so we stayed together for the train ride and stuff, which happened to be another five hours of waiting. We were so overtired by this point. I couldn’t sleep on the train because I kept remembering that I would soon be meeting my host family. I got more and more excited/nervous as time went on. After more bracelet making, listening to music, and nonsense conversations with Noah (you don’t understand how tired we were), we arrived in Hannover! My mom, Chiara, Luca, and Vito (dog) were there waiting for me and greeted me with hugs. It was so happy and exciting and good and stuff.
We drove to the house, just a couple minutes away. This house is so modern and cool on the inside, and has a really nice garten (backyard). I have my own room, which is really nice too. After they showed me around, we had dinner, my first German meal! It was exactly what everyone says it usually is: bread with whatever you want on it – butter, salami, salmon, ham, or some kind of spread. The bread here is so good. I had Käsebrot, which is cheese bread, with butter and salami. Later, Chiara and I met her friend to take the dogs for a walk. Then we came home and watched TV with my mom and Luca. My dad came home from a work dinner later and so I met him too.
I now realize how bad my German really is. It’s so hard for me to follow conversations and to respond to questions. Oh well.
Today, we got up early to go to church because Luca was graduating from Sunday school or something like that, I don’t really know. Other than today, the family doesn’t go to church often. After church, we came home to get the boat and then drove to the lake, where we met a couple of the family’s friends. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy once we got there so I didn’t wakeboard or water ski. It was still fun though.
Since today is Sunday, most of the restaurants were closed. Of course McDonald’s was open, so we went there. This is one of the most interesting things in Germany so far. So when you go to a McDonald’s, you sit down at a table right away, instead of ordering first. You take a paper menu and rip off the sections that you want to order, and then someone goes up to the register to hand them the pieces and pay. Another thing that’s really different is that everything comes as a meal. I ordered a McChicken and automatically got a 6 piece chicken nugget and a large soda with it. It was way too much food. Also, instead of ranch or barbeque, we had sweet and sour sauce for the chicken nuggets.
This post has gotten really long, so I apologize. It will end soon. The rest of today we spent at home, and I got my stuff ready for school tomorrow. We didn’t have dinner which is good because I’m still full from lunch.
I still can’t believe I’m here in Germany. For six more months. Wow.

The Year's Update

Ok so I've decided to make a new post because I haven't made one since...a year ago. As you can imagine, a whole lot has happened since last August. Here are the major events:
1. I've made it through the process of applying for my semester abroad (only took about four months)
2. I've been accepted by AFS-USA and AFS-Germany
3. I have been placed with a host family! (yay & more on this below)
4. I've received my travel information

These past few months have gotten me more and more excited for what's to come. The biggest news was finding out about my host family. At first, the only information I was given were the names of my host parents, their emails, and their home address. Oh- at this same time I found out what school I'll be attending. The website makes it look amazing- a cool old building with a modern, German-looking inside. Anyway, back to my family. I was pretty nervous because I thought I was going into a family with no kids. However, a few weeks later I received an email with more information on my family. I was very happy to find out that I will have a sister and a brother! Here is my family, the Stutos-
Host mother: Kerstin
Host father: Alfio
Host sister: Chiara (16)
Host brother: Luca (12)
Dog: Vito

I've added Chiara and Luca on Facebook. Chiara and I have been talking a lot, which is getting me so excited to meet her and the family!

More recently, I've received my travel information. I will arrive in Washington DC on September 8th, and leave the next day for Frankfurt. We have our big orientation before we leave DC.

My AFS luggage tags came in the mail the other day! Now I'll have to start thinking about packing...

Help Me Get to Germany!

Hello, my name is Melanie Blaser and I live in Germantown, Wisconsin. I am a junior at Germantown High School. I am currently in the process of applying to study abroad in Germany through the AFS Intercultural Exchange Program. Hopefully, I will spend the first semester of my senior year in Germany (Fall of 2011 - Spring 2012).


One of the main reasons why I want to study abroad with AFS is because I would like to experience a culture different than my own. I hope to learn a lot about Germany, and I know I will learn more by living there, rather than just studying the country. I also want to improve my German speaking ability. As of right now, I speak very little German (I'm taking German 3 in school this year).


To make this dream come true, I need to raise a lot of money - I have about $2,000 saved so far. I need a total of about $10,000 for tuition and other costs of my trip and stay in Germany. I'm doing my best to save my own money (from my job, gifts, etc.) and I plan to do several fundraisers throughout the next year. However, I still need some help to make this happen. Thank you for taking time to read about me and my dream for the future. I appreciate donations of any amount and would be happy to help you out in some way in exchange. Just ask! If you know anyone who you think might want to sponsor my AFS experience, please forward my blog to them -- http://mblaser1.blogspot.com/ . To sponsor my AFS program now, please click the ChipIn button on the gadget on the top of this page.


Thank you so much!


Melanie