First 3 weeks of my new classes

So I've been pretty busy adjusting to my new routine in the 11th grade, I just have to say I love it!

I'm meeting some wonderful people and I love my classes.

So I think I'll just dump photos all over you because I'm lazy, and I don't want to waste your time

(remember, click on them for their full glory)

Ok, so 2 weekends ago another YFU exchange student (Kamila from Czech Rep.) came to visit

The Bards

Host Dad + Ye olde bread bowl

Schwatzen mit einem Paar spitze Bayern

(chatting with a pair of cool Bavarians)  

And for one glorious evening, this was my reality. What you are looking at, ladies & gentlemen, is a hardcore, totally legit medieval tavern called Anno Domini (legit except for the bathrooms fortunately). We're talking all candle lighting, the menu is all pre Colombian-Exchange germany (i.e. no Potatoes, Tomatoes etc.), you got a wooden spoon and a wooden knife, there was an awesome drum/guitar/bagpipe/wooden flute playing duo of bards that played loud, repetitive, but appropriate "songs". And to top it all of, my guest family, Kamila and I had the great luck of being there the same night as some kind of club from Bayern, decked out in lederhosen, completely drunk, singing drinking songs and schuplatting (above photo) on tables.

As for me I ate the shoulder of a pig with onions, leeks, sauerkraut & mustard basically entirely with my hands, drank a Liter of Radeberger, and banged my fists and shouted along with everyone else, YOU GUYS IT'S CALLED CULTURAL IMMERSION.

For the record: Bayern is Germany's Texas, Oktoberfest, Brezels, Lederhosen, Yodeling                       --> all Bavarian Culture (or to a greater respect Alps culture). I live in Saxony so that stuff's not normal at all here, but BELIEVE me they were more than welcome at that restaurant.

Two other things I got to do that weekend:

Kamila and I went hiking with my area representative Ulli. She is like a super cool, friendly, intelligible, physicist and rock climber (ETHS kids, german Doc C), I literally could not ask for a more understanding and involved area rep.

We went hiking through the Sächsische Sweiz (Saxon Switzerland, note: not in Switzerland), and it was majestic.

 
 

I also got to check out the Sächsische Landtag (State Parliament), cool building, later I got to observe sit in the balcony and watch a session of Parliament!!!

Here is some other sweet stuff:

I went with Heidi (host mom) to a Harvest Fair, met the self titled "Kräuterhexe" (Herb-Witch), she laid down some knowledge, that's just my paying attention face.

I went to a Paint Party/Concert with Noah, the other American exchange student at my school. He's here with Rotary. I got to meet some other Rotary students who were there. The party was really fun HOWEVER: I personally would not recommend Rotary because they have a reputation for spending most of their time with other Rotary kids, speaking mostly English with one another, Partying, and the program includes multiple highly Touristy excursions. If that's your thing that's fine, it's just personally not the experience I was looking for.

Anyways here are some pics from the aptly named "Neon Splash"

As you can see, I've been quite busy, but hopefully I can get back to blogging bi weekly because I don't want to keep giving my readers Literary Dyspepsia.

Right now I'm on vacation at the North Sea, It's beautiful, and I'll write about it next week.

DANKE FÜR DAS ABLESEN! (thanks for reading)

Aaaaaaand I'm no longer in 9th grade

So the school finally gave me my new class schedule yesterday!

I'm a little disappointed that it took so long (Bureaucracy), and I still have 3 periods a week in the 9th grade (Bureaucracy), but I'm just going to look on the bright side and be glad that on Monday I'll start going to more challenging classes with people my age. I didn't get to pick the classes, that's not really a thing here, but the School Director nicely allowed me to write down which classes I was interested in and tried to fit a schedule together.

Don't get me wrong, I'm now friends with a good number of people in my old class, they were incredibly friendly and helpful to me and I'll miss them, BUT I think everyone can imagine that It was slowly starting to get very boring/weird being in a class of 14/15 year olds who's time is scheduled by their parents and in Math are learning   
xaxb=xa+b

I'm not sure right now what grade I'm in, but I have classes both in 11th and 12 grade here's a list:
-3 "Leistungskurse" --> Intensive Studies course, so just more in depth and more classes per week
             -Geschichte (History)
             -Mathe (figure it out yourself)
             - Englisch (6 periods a week, 3 different classes, 2 different teachers, WHAT? But I think I'll be able to help out a lot
             which is nice, we'll see how that all works out, It's not like I'll do the homework)
-Geography (once in upper class and once in 9th)
-German level 1, I feel like that will be with the slacker kids, and I had this teacher once as a sub and I was really scared of her.
-Biology
-Music
-Art
-Informatik (computer science) and Profil Naturwissenschaft: Both are with the same teacher who's really great. Every year
people get to pick a Profil (Art or Science) where they rotate every month to a different subcategory (Ex photography to
sculpture, or Communications to Robotics). What I'm doing I THINK is just going along with Herr Franz and learn 
computer programming by taking all the Informatik Profil rotations. I did my first german presentation in my Profil class on Bitcoin, click to see that I'm not lying. So hopefully I'll get some experience with C++ and HTML and what have you by the end of year, I'm already learning a language, why not two more?

Classes that most people take here that I'm not:
-Spanish level 4,000 , I just can't catch up with them and It'd be just too hard, I wouldn't be able to do anything
-Sports, woot woot
-Physics, Chemistry, I could deal with it, but I think i'm taking enough classes as it it.

So I've done a lot since I last posted, It would get a bit long-winded to , so I'll just post some interesting photos I've taken from them:

 So two weekends ago I was really bored, so I hiked 7 miles through the Tharandter Forest, I go jogging there like 3 times per week and I've enjoyed exploring it. Here's a unique rock outcropping, I could really picture all the colorful history in this forest going back hundreds of years when it used to be a hunting reserve for Barons. There are still hunting-stands all over the place, pretty sure there are still wild boars here. Below is a view from the town Landberg "Landmountain". I could see really far, even the Dresden TV tower, which is on the other side of Dresden, couldn't see the city because it's down in the Elbe river valley.
(click it for the full pic)

Cool decorations at a late night event at a high ropes course

My host mom, host cousin and I drove 30 minutes to the Czech Rep. to get gas because it's way cheaper.

                                                                                                                                                 

Yesterday I went with another Exchange Student (Noah, from NY state with Rotary) and a friend from school to walk around Dresden. We went to this store "Globetrotter" which was just awesome! Something like a Gander mountain and Dicks Sporting goods that carries things from REI. They had a indoor Diagonal 3 Story Climbing Wall that was free and open (that's where I found this gem of a sign), a pool to test out Canoes and Kayaks, a Rain Room to test Rain Jackets and Tents, and a giant freezer to test out winter jackets.

The Election posters are mostly still up, I saw the one on the left ("Good for big and Small") yesterday in Dresden. He'res an actual photo of him, I was half hoping he'd look exactly like the drawing.

Another Wahlplakate. Effectively reads "Sharing Is Fun: Tax Millionaires!"

Something you'd never see so unabashedly in US politics.

Die Linke (the Left), is, well, leftist, and is a carryover from the East Germany majority party btw

Thanks for reading!

Odd Sodas, Popsicles and things

Hello!
This is a short and pippy post... probably... possibly

First off: I'm in the paper, again, it took a while to translate it, check it out on the Media page, or click this

Now that that's out of the way, everything is running smoothly here. Here are some interesting things I've seen:

Highly derpy baroque sconce at the Zwinger, it made me laugh and think about the possible sculptorial intent. Made even funnier by the fact that it was twice as big as life sized and there were several.

Che Guevara themed soda at Dresden zoo, complete with "Hasta la Victoria Siempre". I don't think that this generic, over-priced cherry cola is financing, or even in the spirit of, a Latin-American revolution. But the marketing made me really want to buy it, victory for the capitalist establishment?

Sparkling water named "Sinus Quelle"

Fritz-kola seems to me in the style of Jones Soda, I had this Coffee flavored Soda at the beach, just wonderful.

Come on nestle ice-cream subdivision, this is just a massive failure of inter-linguistic branding. You're telling me that people in Europe (sorry Richard) purchase and then proceed to lick "Bum-Bums" to cool off on a hot summers day? (Bum = Arsch for the non-amis)

And that is all.

Thanks for reading!

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.