Meine neue Heimat (My new home)

Sorry I didn't post sooner, I've been busy adjusting to life in Saxony. This post is gonna be a big'un
Right off the bat, everything is Awesome, my guest family, the school, the house, the whole area. There are no real issues short of a different culture, language, and school system (Even math is different, HOW CAN MATH BE DIFFERENT?!?)

Here's a list of things I've done in my first three weeks here:

I rode in a Hot Air Balloon!!!!
(but I didn't fly, they were very clear in saying that you don't fly in a balloon, you ride): It really helped that i was able to actually walk around Dresden city center the day before, so I could put what I was seeing in context. Really beautiful, here is some evidence:

German flag swag

yep, I took the cover photo for my own blog, btw those are 3 different buildings.

Stadt Zentrum facing süd

der Zwinger, really beautiful baroque palace, currently has like 3 museums in it.

Dynamo Dresden Fußball Stadion, Schwarz-Gelb!!! Aka the original blackandyellowblackandyellow

Actually, Wiz Khalifa needs to show up here.

Brand spanking neu Bridge a little south of downtown, literally opened 2 weeks ago.

Pic of me and my host parent's granddaughter Kaja who visited, wir vermissen dich Kaja!

Another hot air balloon and the Dresdner Fernsehturm, they all took off from the same spot in a 20 minute window, looked really cool.

I've been in the newspaper twice already! (Soon to be thrice): Link Here!! You can also click on the media button under pages on the right                                                                              --------------------->

Moritzburg:
Last week my whole guest family went with a guest family from another YFU exchange student (Brathering!) to check out an astoundingly beautiful baroque palace.

Fasanenschlösschen --> Little Pheasant Palace (the whole place was a hunting reserve for royals)

9th grade:
 So they put me in the 9th grade in my school, yeah.... But it's not actually that bad! Everyone is super nice and it's not too complicated, think back to the class structure from elementary school with the same people in mostly one classroom all day (and they've all been in the same class together for 4 years!). The principle told me that if I wasn't there they'd have to put two classes together (oh German Bureaucracy...), but after a few weeks they'll switch me, at least that's what they said.

Heavy loads conveyed:
My host-mom's son Mario runs his own special transport trucking company. I got to go with him twice as we drove a whopping 80 on the Autobahn in an escort vehicle behind the overloaded truck. The first time was for a power plant Turbine, we got a police escort for that which was cool, and the second time they moved a tunnel boring machine thingy

We met the trucks in front of an old East-German factory, looked like something from Half Life 2

Pancakes:
I cooked american style pancakes this weekend for my host family. They've only ever had Blintzes and Crepes (that should be a band name), and they've never had Maple Syrup :O   , so I enlightened them. And you guys, I DIDN'T USE A MIX. After some experimenting the last half turned out ok, but they were definitely no Walker Bros.

Chancellor Debates:
The election for Bundeskanzler/in is in a few weeks. There are posters all over the place and I watched two debates on TV. The first one was Merkel (CDU) vs. Steinbruck (SPD) that was like a US presidential debate, and then the next night was the "Dreikampf" between Trittin (Grün) Brüderle (FDP) and Gysi (die Linke). I wasn't able to understand it all, but irregardless interesting. I like how people in Germany have 2 votes, one for the candidate and one for the political party, I don't exactly get how it works but I will eventually!

Here's a random list of some of the things I'm really enjoying here:
1. South facing window = My Waka Waka actually waka works!
2. Everywhere in German they have these awesome windows that can swing out both horizontally or vertically!
3. The whole area is really beautiful. Unfortunately it's way to hilly to ride my bike anywhere in my neighborhood without breaking a sweat. But the forest next to my town is awesome, and has a non-threatening yet Brothers-Grimm aesthetic.

I'm sorry for so much info all at once. Next weekend will be a more compact one.
Bis nächstes Mal!

So I´m actually here - Also bin Ich echt hier

My flight was long, but a week later I've already adjusted to the time and am beginning to feel at home.

I couldn't post anything so far because I had a week-long orientation in Lauenburg (Hamburg area) in a Youth Hostel with no wifi.

Frankfurt Flughafen

Entrance to the Hostel

Germany snack-time: Sparkling Apple Juice + Ketchup Chips = Lecker!!!

Lets talk about that for a bit:

"Schildkröte", "Schummeln", "Techtelmechtel", "Ein Bisschen" und naturlich "Jetzts gehts los"!!!
These are all words that we learned, well not really, there was a wall where people wrote new words they learned and, yeah.

There was only one other american there with me, the other "Amis" went two weeks earlier to a different orientation. Jacob (the other american, and two was plenty) and I went to this one because we knew pretty good German already.
I got a few compliments on my German, but to talk myself down a bit, I was the oldest one there and all the Europeans take upwards of 3 foreign languages. Most of them knew English better than German, and I was translating German to English for them.

I met some really awesome people from:
            Poland, The Czech Republic, Italy, Georgia (shout out to the whole Georgian mafia you're awesome), Serbia, Romania, Moldova, and Bulgaria. --> Actually, shout out to everyone, everyone was super wonderful and most people got along really well. A few even told me that Jacob and I really improved their impression of Americans (woot woot).
            Also, the volunteers were also great!!! And I really appreciate that they took the week to run this orientation, go jogging with me (Momo), and give me some german acapella songs (wieder Danke Chiara!).

I miss them all so much already, and hopefully I'll get the chance to see some of them again at a middle-year seminar, a get together in Göttingen (kind of in the middle for everyone), and of course a visit to Prague (Kamila!)


Ok, this was a pretty long post, and I still have more to share, tomorrow I'll write another post about moving in with my host family in Kurort Hartha.

I will leave you with these pictures of my host-pets: Garfield, Lizzie, Prinz, & Motte.

         

Packung und Wartung (Packing and Waiting)

So almost all of the people I met at the Wheaton orientation are already over there.
And I'm stuck in the U.S like...
 

I've been procrastinating on packing, reading, attempting to start packing  and then just, not.
Only 85 Hours till takeoff!!!

I did do some shopping today, I'm getting my host parents a coffee table book which has all these cool photos shot in Chicago, and also a Turtle, well, a stone Turtle for their garden.

I'm overcome with anxiety, and excitement, the kind of excitement that paralyzes you, but it's a fun paralysis though.

I just can't wait

Did I mention I'm ready to leave NOW, (except i'm not packed) but I'M READY TO GET OUT OF HERE.


Next time in Germany!!!

Sachsen Here I come!!!

So I know my host-family now...


Suffice it to say that I'm very excited.

I mean, I've always known that I'd be going to Germany for the year, and have a vague idea of what I'd do there. But this combined with a great YFU National Orientation (go Green Group) last weekend has finally made it feel really really real.

But I guess it should, after all I only have
22 MORE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!

I've begun packing up my room so my little sister can steal it from me, and I'm setting up my $ and Cell situation for over there.

I'm going to live in Kurort-Hartha, Sachsen (Saxony). It's a small town right on the edge of Tharandter Hochwald (historical foresty place) just outside of the State's capital city Dresden.

My two host parents, Heidi and Jürgen, are retired, and they have three small dogs and a cat, SOUNDS GREAT!!!

Honestly I hadn't formed any expectations about what type of host family I'd get, and now that I know that, I still don't know what they're like. But from their email, and from the fact that they volunteered to host me, I'm very excited to get to know them.

I'm wrapping up now, but just as a future qualifier to readers (THANKS FOR READING BTW), I don't plan on being super detailed with this blog as a rule because I want to avoid making broad cultural assumptions or comparisons, or having readers think that I am. This is the main thing I took away from my orientation. I plan on posting at least every other week, or if something interesting happens.

Thanks for reading, once more in the USA, and then in Deutschland.

15 Mile Walks, Rosettas, Open Mics, and Dandelions

Well, Summer has been wonderful so far.


I did a 15.5 Mile walk from my house all the way to the loop last Thursday! My feet are killing me, but totally fun adventure and I got too see really cool parts of the city that I would never have normally seen.
Saw book of Mormon, went to Bea's graduation party. Just did open mic night at Linz & Vail, I've been practicing making latte art, hopefully i'll build some muscle-memory by the end of the summer. I'm house-sitting, and also trying to make time to practice speed-reading.

I AM NOT BORED
      (Maybe it's because my little sister Meg left for camp yesterday and I miss her!)

In terms of German stuff, I'm just watching lot's of ZDFtivi programs, they have lots of full kid's shows online to stream.

My favorite is "Löwenzahn", literally Lionstooth, which is german for Dandelion. It's pretty educational and deals with a different theme each time. 

The next exchange relating thing I have is my overnight orientation in Wheaton of all places.

Now? I'm watching Star Trek Next Generation because I'm just that cool.

Thanks for reading.

Fun Encounter at Work

Here's a short post:

So yesterday I was working at Linz and Vail, I'm getting much more comfortable with it and I even locked up by my self!

Anyway I was working and a big group of like 8 people, like 5 kids and three adults comes in. And the mom starts ordering Gelato with an accent, and then she asks the kids in german what they want. I then proceed to respond to their order in German like it's no big deal, and everyone loves it. I asked what they were doing in Evanston, and they answered but I couldn't quite understand it. Then the Mom asked where I was from, which leads me to believe that she thought I was from Germany and was in fact a native German speaker! I'm sure if I talked to them for more than a minute they could easily tell that my German was lacking alot, but still!

This absolutely made my day, and made me feel way more confident with my German skills. Hopefully I'll find more chances to practice German before I go. If I keep up listening to German kid's TV and looking up the words I don't know I might end up learning more German this summer than all Senior year.

'till next time! :D

Countdown to Germany Begins!

Working at Linz and Vail for the summer! Coffee and Gelato, I've always wanted to learn to be a Barista!


Well this Saturday I had the first of several orientations for YFU Germany.

-btw I got rejected from University of Chicago's wait-list finally, still need to defer from Macalester though.

But back to the Orientation:
It was really great getting to meet other foreign exchange kids, and meet some students from abroad currently on exchange in the US.
Fortunately my friend Naomi showed up, I had no idea she was going to Uruguay, and it was really nice having someone else in the room that I knew.

We talked about general, non country specific, issues, like culture shock, and dealing with general issues like meeting people, dealing with school, and getting along with different structures of Host families.

I met some really nice people, and this guy Ashi who is going with CBYX (jealous), hopefully a lot of us will all meet up when we're there, but then again I don't want to be that American who only hangs out with other American Exchange students.

I'm also getting interviewed by the Evanstonian, my HS newspaper, about my gap year. Which should be fun.

School Stuff coming up: Prom!!! Final AP test (in German), and two awards for Environmental Science and Calculus.

Overall, I'm getting "excited to be terrified" about the whole thing, I definitely need to spend some time studying German and watching some German TV shows over the summer to help prep my listening.

Right now? Coming down from a contact Caffeine high from work and reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Bis Später!!