Schule, Schüler und Lernen

Last week I began a new and very important part of my exchange, and its called Gymnasium. It was everything I expected it to be and everything I expected not at the same time. I find it very hard to explain what I mean by this unless you really are an exchange student and then you understand and I'm sure its very different depending what country you exchange is in.
My first day I went to the bus stop with my neighbor who is also a girl my age and goes to the same school, got on the crowded public bus surrounded by students on their way to school.
I get my bus at 7:09 everyday at the bus stop down the street from where I live. I start school every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7:40 and on Tuesday and Thursdays I don't have to be at school until 9:35.
My school has 5 buildings, yes, confusing for someone, someone like me. They all have different names like "Menza" and other ones. My first class was Politics. I found my room successfully. :) I entered the class and took a seat. Since school had stated in September and it was now October everyone had stared at me like "Who is this girl" "Why is she in this class room" Then the teacher had arrived, she asked me who I was, how long I'm here for, blah blah blah. And I answered. She went on with the class and I sat there knowing nothing that was coming out of her mouth majority of the time. And it is also very hard just to keep up with the speed they talk. Then my next class was Biology. I walked in and took a seat the teacher came over and shook my hand and told everyone that I was an exchange student from the United States. Then he proceeded to ask me, "How do you like Germany?" my response "Oh its very cold here" everyone seemed to think it was funny, and I do to but seriously. VERY COLD IN GERMANY! The next question was "How do you like the food" I replied "I love the food here alot, I just don't like butter on my bread when I'm eating a sandwich" he replied "Its okay we have McDonalds here" I DON'T EVEN LIKE MCDONALDS! Typically American stereotype. My next class German of the 11th grade. Right now they are interpreting Gothe, that's like English Shakespere, so I don't understand anything in that class. Then we had lunch, then I had English where they just finished reading the book "Accidental Billionaires" and my homework for that class was to read the whole book. That was my first day, it was a long day where I understood very little. Not many people talked to me in fact I got one sentence said to me and it was "Are you bored, you must be because I am and I understand what is going on." And yes it was in English UGHHH! The next day I got to sleep in and school didn't start until 9:35, I had math. Yes I took math thinking that it is universal numbers are numbers but I was wrong. They learn a different type of math than I did in high school in the states. Then I had physics. Which I was really good at in school back home. These two classes will be the worst of me. I was supposed to have sport that day but it was cancelled because my teacher was in the US on a week exchange or something. When I went to find  my math class that morning I could find room 21. So I went up to this big group of people and asked "Wo ist room 21?" then realized room isn't room here, OOOPPPS. "Wo ist zimmer 21?" Embarrassing. Then the one was like I think she is from Wales to his friend. Because this past wee we had a big group of exchange students from Wale for a week. I told him I wasn't that I was from the United States. Wednesday I have politic first thing in the morning. These girls were giving a presentation on the American government shut down. So after their presentation the teacher asked me how my family is or was affected by the government shut down. So I answered and then after class, my teacher asked me if I could do a presentation on the American government system and the power the the president has when they start learning about different presidential systems in late November and December, but she never told me if she wants it in English or German. Oppps. Next class was art. My teacher was very nice and people talked to me in that class. And for the first time that I started school I got the question "How many classes of German did you have when you went to school in the USA?" My response, when I got here a month and a half ago, I couldn't speak German.

Instantly everyone looked at me and were so shocked. Its amazing how much  you can learn from knowing nothing when your life revolves around the one thing you don't know.

Thursday another day of sleeping in. I started my day of with German class. After that I have English class. My favorite class, and the only class I think that I will do good at. We talked about the book. Then I had my "Seminar Fach" class. Its a class where I will write a 10-15 page research paper on some sort of German influence in America. The class is called "Germans in America". And everyone has to write in English. Luckily for me, I'm a bit more experienced. At the end of the year we get to go to England and London for a week. Friday I have two classes from 7:40-11:10. Not my favorite day though you think it would be since its so short. My classes are physics and math. But that's my week at school.

Differences from my school in the US to here:
Teachers wear bluejeans everyday and not just special casual days.
All the teachers here are very young.
School supplies are bought by students: books, art supplies, calculators (which I can't remember how to say in German so I use the words "math machine" and translate it to German.
Students raise a finger when they want called on.
More talking less tests and book work. (Discussion based)
Students use rulers for everything.
Homework isn't collected or graded.
Students are generally more organized.
People wear the same jeans all week.
20 minute breaks in between each class.
Every class is 90 minutes long in US and Germany but in Germany its broke up into two with a 5 minute break in between it. You go to the bathroom during that time and not during class unless its absolutely needed.
That was my first week of school. and people are starting to warm up to me.
I also think some people think I want to be talked to in English. Which is the contrary and I think now they are starting to realize it and are more comfortable talking to me in German.

Xoxo,
Nola

45 Days in Germany and counting + + + + + +

Okay so I've done a lot over this "fall break". My first week my host mother and I had to do a lot of stuff like going to the city hall, getting papers signed, etc. I filled for my residency permit, and got my bahncard  (a 25% discount of all train rides in Germany). My bedroom is pretty big about as big as the one in my house back in America. The cool thing was, when I got here it had a comforter and pillow with owls all over them, my family didn't even know how much I love owls either. My bed has 2 beds, its the ones where you can pull out the extra bed, and I think that's pretty cool although it is a bit squeaky although I don't notice anymore it used to wake me up when I'd move in my sleep. When I'm with my family we don't speak English at all in fact my host mom can't speak it at all which I love. When I don't know a word I just look it up in the dictionary. I don't know why many Germans think my German ability is super because over all I have been given 4 books in all German and they aren't readable at my level which is like 4 year old.... IF THAT.
I met my liaison and we ate doners in the town. We talked and it was very nice. Here comes the oh so tragic but now that I look at it kind of funny. As you may know I am a phoneless, germanless, american living in Germany. I get on my bus, correct bus too. I'm sitting on the bus and realize that I have missed my bus stop and have no clue what to do. So as I was heading home now I was heading right back to where I came from. So I try explaining to the bus driver what had happen and he clearly didn't understand my German and started getting very nasty with me. So I got off the bus furious waited in the cold for the next bus to come knowing it would be him and got back on. I showed him my ticket even though I was ready to pay for a new one and he let me on. Lesson learned.
That Saturday I went on vacation about an 3 hour drive away but I don't know how to spell it. It was a big camp where a bunch of people from the Deutsch Rotes Kruez (German Red Cross) and their children go. It was for families with special need children, the vacation was from Saturday to Saturday but I had to leave Wednesday night because I had a meeting with my school on Thursday.
During that week we did various things like going out in the city, we went to Kassel for one day, went to an aquarium and went out on a boat ride (which was freezing I might add) but it was a very nice weekend and I got to meet a bunch of wonderful people. Wednesday my family took me to Kassel and put me on the ICE the fast trains that go from city to city and sent me off to Braunschweig, its the city my host sister lives in and she picked me up from the train station. The train ride was only an hour long, much quicker than driving. That night we watched fashion hero, my favorite show here in Germany. The next morning we took a bus to Wolfenbuttel to meet with a person from the school. I selected my classes and was given a tour and my schedule where I would start school on Monday. After that Laura went to work and I stayed and watched Twilight, in German. I found it very funny because It wasn't Bella and Edward's voice and I wasn't used to it, and I didn't understand much. The next day, Laura and I rode a train to Uelzen, for my late-arrival orientation camp (LOC). I as an exchange student, and Laura as a volunteer. We got there and I met many other exchange students from my area and surrounding areas. There where may of us and it was a pretty fun weekend but we had lots of workshops we had to do. We stayed at a youth hostel, and depending on who is reading this I don't know if you have ever seen the movie Hostel but it pretty much freaks me out. The doors to the hostel locked at 9pm and all the workers leave. We (AFSers) where the only one staying at the hostel... that night. The lobby and doors where all glass and at about 11:00 there where three men trying to get into the building which freaked me out. So I told the AFS volunteers and they told them they couldn't get in and they were circling the building. Outside of my room window was a lake, perfect set up for the perfect horror story. The next day we had workshops and then we went into the town where the volunteers gave us a list of things to do, they gave us an apple where we had to exchange it with someone for something better. Take a group picture with a bird. That includes all of us, take a picture with someone in a red jacket, someone riding a bike, and a group photo with two random people jumping in the air.
This game people in the town are not warned about or anything so we split up into groups. The tricky thing about taking pictures with people is they don't want to have their photos taken because they don't know where they may end up. So my group was me, an Italian girl, Czech Republic boy and a girl from Japan. We saw a boy about 14 on a bike just hanging out so we went over to him explained what we where doing and asked if we could have a photo with him, he seemed very skeptical and then I said in German :) "you can say no if you want" and the next thing he said was "Niiiii" so we moved on next we found a lady in a red jacked with a friend we explained what we were doing and she agreed to a group photo with us and her friend to the photo, we got our apple changed into a big piece of Ginger. Got a group photo with two very nice ladies while we were all jumping. We were the first ones done and then they volunteers told us everyone had to be in the picture with the bird, so we found a bird and asked a lady to take a picture of us with it. She agreed as we walked over to the bird it was like oh wait a little more because the dumb pigeon kept moving over finally the lady got a picture of all of us with the bird. That one was funny because we had to go half way across the city center just to get a picture with a bird and the lady walked too, such a nice woman. After all, we ended up winning lollipops :)
I'm not going to post any pictures because I want to respect the privacy of the people who where so kind to let us get a picture with them.
That night we had more orientation and as we were walking up the steps I was turned around walking up the steps and I was talking to Rosa and turned around and one of the men from the night before was standing right infront of my face low and behold I screamed from being so startled my heart has never beat so fast. I laughed so hard after that my stomach started to hurt. Lets just say my Youth Hostel experience wasn't the greatest.
Here are some pictures from my LOC:

All of us :)

End of language camp and new family.

I’ve been slacking on blogging because I’ve just been so busy doing lots of things. So it’s been over a month now here in Germany…. I’m going to start with my last two weeks of language camp….

I learned a lot during those last two weeks, I feel almost double than what I had learned the first two weeks. After school I did things like stay in town and hang out with friends… Ilana and I went to Hannover to shop with her host sister and we ended up in Primark… There is no such place in America like Primark. When you are walking around Hannover you see every other person walking with Primark bag…. And I will tell you why, EUROPE IS EXPENSIVE and Primark is not. So since my American dollars are less money already of course I fell in love with the cheapest store in Europe, the quality may not be the best, but I only need the clothes to last me a year and never the less the clothes there are mainly cute, and stylish. I left only spending 100 euros. J That week went on and on Friday most of the language camp students had to go to their late-arrival orientation camp in Goslar. Eboni, Alana and I didn’t have to go because we already had our permanent host families and I attend mine on October 18. Eboni and I went and had “doners/kabobs”. That night my host mom was having friends over because the next day was her birthday! That night Lisa-Marie and I went to the disco where it was supposed to be “Black Music Night” and what they mean by that is the American pop music pretty much, they seem to think its like our “rap”. They played Thrift Shop by Macklemore, Boyfriend by Justin Bieber, Etc. but to make it their style they added techno music to every song they played. The club was cool it had 4 bars in it and it had a sit down restaurant type thing where you couldn’t hear the music and they sold food. I think it’s a great idea and clubs in America should do that too.

While Lisa-Marie and I were on the dance floor she pointed at a group of guys and said they aren’t German and continued to ask them where they were from. They were from the UK and spoke English. They lived in Germany due to being in the UK Air-Force. So I told them I was from America and this is when it gets good… I broke an “American Stereotype” which I can’t help but laugh about every time I think about it because I can’t believe someone would think its true but then again I live in America and don’t just see the movies that come out of their. So this is how the conversation went…

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” -me

“I’ve always wanted to ask an American this”

“Ok”

“Are parties in America really like American-Pie?”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH American-Pie… Anyone in America knows that this is so not true. That’s like asking if parties like Project X happen every weekend. Of course NOT. There you go, I broke my first American Stereotype. That next day was Oma’s 70^th Birthday and it was a long day because I was very tired from the night before. We had dinner and after dinner everyone walked around and mingled. I sat and talked to the other Oma, needless to say she was the only one there that couldn’t speak any English.

Challenge accepted. It was difficult and half the time I had no idea what she was saying but I’m glad I steered away from talking English. Rode bikes around Wathlingen with the family.

So now I’m on my final week of language camp and staying with my welcome family in Wathlingen. Tuesday I went to Hannover again with Bri, Eboni, Guilia. Bri bought this ugly cheetah suitcase since the one she came to Germany with didn’t have wheels and you can only imagine how terrible that must have been for here lugging it around halfway across Germany from plane to train to different train.

Wednesday was the last day of language camp and we didn’t do much. That night everyone from language camp plus the other local AFSers and some host siblings planned to go to Inkognito! The club in Celle!  It was a fun last night being that big group of Americans who only talk English and broken German. Nothing really exciting happened at the club beside the part of Brennan dancing. Everything he did was so funny. Thursday I went mini golfing with my host family. Mini-golfing in Germany and in America is very different…. Americans golf on green. Germans gold on cement. Americans all get a ball same size. Germans get a set of balls and each one you use a certain color for that hole. Very interesting to me because I thought the way of mini-golfing was universal. Friday I went to Hamburg with Mom, Dad, Lisa and her friend it was a good day and I bought my family dinner in Hamburg as a dankeschon.

Then came Saturday.. I got up and had breakfast with my family and then I went up to my room to pack all of my luggage up again hopefully for the last time for the next nine months. I definitely had more than what I came with an my luggage was heavier and fuller that before…. Oooopppsies. Then my new family arrived in Wathlingen. They came in and we all had cake and tea together. I said my goodbyes to my welcome host family and we went on our way to Wolfenbuttel. My new family doesn’t speak English and I love it! I rarely ever speak English here and I’ve been here fore about 4 days now and I can tell that everyday my German is improving. We’ve played lots of board games and my school is on break for about 2 weeks and I start October 21^st. I’m nervous and excited.

Until then,

Here are some pictures from the club and Hamburg :)

Love Nola <3