Karneval: Part Two

This will follow the same format as the last one, going day-to-day. Karneval is now over, and I'm sad :( It was some of the best fun I've had in my entire life. Anyway, I suppose I'll start with Sunday.

Sunday: I went to Hannah's house in a nearby village to Cologne. We left the house and headed to a club place in downtown Cologne. We didn't stay there long... the DJ wasn't all that wonderful, and the atmosphere wasn't either. So we got pizza from Pizza Hut, and drank some coffee downtown for a few hours. Then we went back to Hannah's house and chilled awhile, watched Blades of Glory and part of The Hangover. It was fun, we always have fun together :).

Monday: Oh man. Rosenmontagszug. Or... a gigantic parade. Too many people. Cold. But still awesome. I took a few pictures, you can see them here. Cool, no? And that was only a tiny piece of the parade. TINY. We didn't stay the whole time because it was cold, and I personally was getting freaked out by all the people. It was INSANE. Then, we went back to Hannah's house and ate some soup and watched some more of the parade on TV. We then went into the sauna because, well, as I mentioned before, it was cold. However, the sauna was in between 80° and 85° ... Celsius. Hot. So then we ran outside a couple times in the snow. It was relaxing, the sauna, but still... hot. I then went home to get ready for a party that was happening in my city that night. That was definitely a lot of fun. Most of my friends were there, and it wasn't as insanely stifling as Heimersheim was. We danced the whole night, and then I ended up crashing at Veda's house again. This means that I didn't spend one night of Karneval at my house, ever. :D

And today. I came home, uploaded pictures to Facebook, and am now writing my blog. It was a GREAT last few days. Maybe I can swing it to come back next year!! I wish...

Liebe Grüße

Signe

Karneval: Four Days In

Hello everyone. Sorry for not writing lately -- I really have no excuse. To try and catch up with the last months would be absolutely insane, so let's just give you all what's been happening in the past couple days. Rest assure I'm still alive and still enjoying my exchange year in Germany.

I live around thirty miles south of Cologne (more commonly known as Köln in Germany). Cologne is famous for one thing that comes in February: Karneval. I'm sure you've all heard of Carnival in Brazil -- and it's basically the same thing with more clothing, as it's freezing in Germany in February. From Thursday on was Straßenkarneval, or street Karneval. I guess I'll do a day-to-day explanation, as that's the only way I can think of to properly explain.

Thursday: This was the major party day in my school. Every class had to come up with some sort of dance performance, which I of course did with my class. And then, Erandy (Mexico), Vedashree (India) and I (you'd better know where I come from) decided to do a little "Tricultural Dance", which can hopefully be seen by you lovely readers here. (Sorry if it doesn't work, one of the other Americans posted it and it doesn't work in Germany. Should work in the US, though). The three of us wore cultural outfits, too (as Karneval is a time for costumes). So I wore a cowgirl dress, Erandy wore traditional Mexican garb, and Veda wore what I think is a sari. It was something Indian, at the very least. Oh, and if you're friends with me on Facebook, you can also see it there. Anyway, we all had our little pieces of cultural dance. I, being American, of course chose Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Vedashree chose Jai Ho (from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, listen to it!) and Erandy did the Macarena. We were the last to perform -- and apparently they all LOVED it! We were even called back to do it again. It was amazing performing in front of so many people, and the atmosphere was wild. But does this mean I'll be doing more of the like in the U.S.? Probably not :P. But anyway, that was basically Thursday.

Friday: Not much goes on during the day in Karneval -- only parades and suchlike. I didn't go to a parade on Friday. Instead, I headed to David's house (David is the other American exchange student, if you don't already know) and we watched an episode of Mythbusters before being picked up by Kevin. We headed to McDonald's and waited for Kevin to return with some other people so we could go to Steffis, the only disco in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. Vedashree also came with a couple other Germans. We finally got to the door, but... the door guard wouldn't let us in, even though we had legitimate ID's with our birthdays on them. Why? We didn't have a German Personalausweis (a German's main ID card). I guess he didn't believe that we were exchange students, or just really hated foreigners. Anyway, we tried getting in twice, but it didn't work. So we just went and sat in a restaurant/bar for awhile until we got bored and went home. I slept at another exchange student's house, because where I live is the furthest away from Bad Neuenahr. So not extremely exciting, but it was still fun enough.

Saturday: This was probably the best day I've had so far during Karneval (but don't hold your breath, as there are still two and a half days left!). My host family and I went to Holzweiler (local village) for a parade. The amount of food and stuff thrown to the crowds is INSANE; my host family alone collected something like three bags full of stuff. I even got a slice of pizza and a lighter. Yeah. Cool, no? Anyway, it was freezing cold and I was kinda glad to get back inside. Then, a couple hours later, I headed over to my old host family's house, where Vedashree now lives. After awhile, we got ready to go to the party in Heimersheim (another local village), which was apparently the hot spot for that night. Veda got her hands on a German dirndl (dress thingy) for 1 €, so she of course wore that. She also braided her hair and with her sparkly makeup looked absolutely adorable. I took a completely different route, choosing a Barbie theme as my costume. Oh, by the way, I'm also strawberry blonde now. It was fun, though, because as you all know, Barbie is definitely not my style. I wore entirely too much makeup, and had ridiculously high heels that I knew I would regret wearing later. I'm pretty sure the heel was between 4 and 6 inches, but hey, they looked awesome. We got to the party (which was surprisingly free), and immediately realized that it was PACKED. I'm talking, you can hardly move two inches without hitting someone. Anyway, we found friends fairly quickly, despite so many people being there. It was fun -- the music was so loud that one couldn't speak and be heard, so all there was to do was dance. Easy enough, right? Well, I did regret wearing those heels (my feet still hurt today, twelve hours later). I was extremely lucky that Vedashree is a complete angel and let me switch shoes with her every once in awhile. Anyway, we stayed fairly late, and finally went back to Veda's house with a taxi. And then crashed. Around six hours at such a party is pretty much exhausting.

So, then, that's a recap of my last few days. Today, I'm heading up to Cologne, Karneval central, to see one of my friends who's also an exchange student. I'm pretty excited, although slightly sad I'll miss the parties here in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler with my friends. Oh well, I'm sure I'll have fun anyway.

Hope you guys aren't too sick of the snow there. Love and miss you all.

Liebe Grüße

Signe

Merrye Olde England

So I write this to you all gazing out of the window looking at the lovely English weather... a.k.a. rain, wind, and pretty much no sun.

Fun, no?

Despite the faulty weather conditions, this week has been amazing. Ok, so I've only been here for three full days, but still... I suppose I'll do a bullet style day-by-day format, as that seems to be the quickest and most efficient way of informing you all what I have been up to. Oh, I'm staying with Bret, Sharon, and their kids... by the way :)

Sunday
We made our merry way to Liverpool, which is about an hour and a half away from Lancaster, where I am currently staying. This, as I hope most of you know, is the "birthplace" of The Beatles, so naturally we went to the only permanent Beatles museum in the world. I found that was completely amazing, and of course, I had to buy a t-shirt and some patches for my Rotary blazer... along with some other things, of course. Also in Liverpool was a Ferris wheel, which was pretty fun, and the Albert Docks, which held many interesting stores, museums, and other sights. We were in Liverpool from lunchtime to about 3.30 pm, as that is when all starts to get dark here in England. All in all, a lovely day.

Monday
This day was a bit more laid-back than Sunday. Bret had to teach, so Sharon and I went into town and went grocery shopping. English grocery stores are so different from German ones -- a bit more warm and friendly. I suppose that's just the difference in the people... not saying that Germans aren't nice, of course, but they're just a bit more reserved. Then Sharon and I went to see New Moon, the latest film release from the Twilight saga. I suppose I should explain my love/hate relationship with Twilight: I think the books are decent, honestly, for teenage girls. They're not great works of art, like Lord of the Rings, or books by Jane Austen. But they are truly entertaining. So we went to see the movie, which I enjoyed simply because it was two hours in which I didn't have to particularly concentrate on much.

Tuesday
Oh man... well, Bret and Sharon and I went to the oldest pub in Lancaster (called The Three Mariners), and had a lovely lunch. I had the BEST double cheeseburger of my LIFE, and the barkeeper was actually rather adorable. I suppose this is definitely helped by the fact that he had a lovely accent. Then, Bret split to go buy coffee and get the kids, and Sharon and I went shopping!! This was especially good because I have been losing weight, and the vast majority of clothes I brought to Germany are getting loose. So, yeah, we shopped. It seems that things are cheaper here in England, which is very good, considering I purchased the following: two pairs of jeans, a pair of (PURPLE) boots, three scarves (VERY popular in Germany), and a leather jacket (also very popular). Overall, a lovely time.

And today is Wednesday... so...
Well, we're prepping for Thanksgiving. Which reminds me, I should go and help! So until the next...

LG
Signe

Germa-Deutsch-No, Just German.

I've realized recently that one of the most commonly asked questions of me is "How's your German?"

Answer: Pretty good. I can understand the vast majority of what is said to me, and can carry on everyday conversations. In class, I can follow along what is being talked about, and can generally glean the main points from texts. Some days my German is awesome, other days I can barely even form a simple sentence.

But lately, what has been really, really cool is actually thinking and dreaming in German. The only problem is (especially with the thinking) is that I often get confused and will say stuff in both languages. For example...

"Jaah, wir sind nach Hamburg gegangen, which was total toll."

And it's not even like I don't know the German for that, but both languages just get confused.

Oh, and another cool thing. There are two Mexican exchange students in my school, and I've realized that I've started translating what they say in Spanish into German. Cool, no?

My writing skills in German, though, are still pretty bad. My teachers allow me to do a lot of my work in English, and sometimes have me translate it later. One good example of this was from today in my Deutsch class, we read "Kleine Fabel" (Small Fable) by Franz Kafka. Our teacher charged us to write a story with a similar message in the end (Please don't ask me to explain what that is)... so Vedashree and I, somewhat aided by Marcos (Veda is from India, Marcos from Mexico) wrote the following story (I'm posting it because I thought it was pretty good):

He stared around the room... that bleak, concrete cell that he had been stuck in for the past sixteen years. A knock on the solid metal door was followed by a flash of light, accompanied by the warden bringing his evening meal -- the usual; a hard stale roll and tasteless soup. The warden ssettled himself on the one chair in the room and quickly fell asleep, leaving the door open. The beam of light beckoned him to venture outside those cold concrete walls. The thoughts ran through his mind:
"Should I run? Should I risk the little life I have left for a breath of fresh air? Or shall I remain in my place?"
Half-standing, he began to move torwards the door. Suddenly, the warden woke, and seeing him moving, said,
"What are you doing?"
He sank down on the bed, resigning himself to his fate.
-end-

Surprisingly, once it had been explained in German, it got quite a lot of feedback. Apparently, it had some sort of "deep meaning", which I found hilarious, considering Veda and I wrote it in five minutes or so.

Well... that's all for now...

So yeah. Tschüß and such.

LG
Signe

The last... month?

Let's start with Holland.

In Germany, we have a two week holiday in Autumn called Herbstferien. I did a couple of things, but the highlight was definitely going to Holland for a week with my host parents and my host sister Rike. We were at a lovely resort called Hof van Saksen, which was absolutely gorgeous in all respects, and oriented torwards families with smaller children.

My host sister and I are 17 and 16, respectively, but we still managed to have fun, I believe. We rode bikes, swam in the resorts' five pools plus outdoor heated water slide, and watched Prison Break and Scrubs (in German, of course!). We also went to a couple random cities in Holland: Emmen for the zoo, Groningen for shopping, and we were in Assen briefly as well. Pretty sweet.

The food was EXCELLENT, I definitely ate waaay more than I ever should have. Especially with the whole cream puff thing... every night at dinner, there were cream puffs. Every night, I would try to beat my record from the previous night. Can we say seventeen in one sitting? I could have done more, but sadly, the week ended...

Next, we move onto this past weekend. I went to Kiel to visit Jon Norwich, another outbound from my Rotary district back home. This was awesome, because I haven't actually seen anybody from Gettysburg since August (as was expected, of course), so it was nice for that. We ended up not spending so much time in Kiel, but instead went to Hamburg for a Rotex day in his district. I met a LOT more exchanges, which is always a good thing. We basically just walked around the entire day, and ended up on ReeperStraße (or Reeper Bahn, I can't quite remember). This is Hamburg's red light district. I have never seen anything similar to that before, so it was most definitely one of the most interesting things that I have ever seen in my life. I'm not really sure what I can say to keep it all G-rated here, but rest assure I took plenty of pictures to laugh at later.

Other than go to Hamburg, Jon and I basically chilled out and caught up from the past months. Nothing worth repeating there.

And now for a funny story!

It's true. And it happened today.

So I was in gym class today, as I am every Monday morning. Everyone in my class knows that I am totally incapable of doing sports, and we always have a good-natured laugh when I fail. Today was no different. We ran a little, did our fitness stations (which is where people laugh at me the most), and since we had time left, we played soccer. I'm sure some of you readers out there remember my soccer days, and how I would just basically stand there and watch the ball go by. It's no different in Germany. But somehow, the ball landed in front of my feet today, so I closed my eyes and gave it a kick. Guess who scored a goal? And guess whose team won?? Yeah, ME and MINE! My whole class was shocked, I think, and they all cheered when it happened. Best thing that happened on any Monday.

A Brief Taco Interlude

As mentioned in my previous post, I made tacos for my host family today. It was more amusing than I had reason to expect.

As you know, a taco is traditionally eaten with one's hands. I explained this to my host family, and walked them through the taco-making process.

My host father took one bite, then set the taco down, and started eating it with a fork and knife. My host sister did that from the start. My host mom was the only one to stick it out until the end. Go, Elke! :P

Then, my host father ate a second taco. This time, he put mustard on it along with everything else.

Yes, mustard.

We also ate Oreo Dessert, but nothing eventful happened there.

So this is all for today.

Bis Dann
Signe

All The Small Things

Well, here we go. All of the little insignificant facts about Germany that you never really wanted to know.

^^ And that rhymes!

My German comprehension varies from day to day, especially depending on how much sleep was gotten the night before. For example, yesterday, I was able to understand most of my classes (except for one tiny mishap in Deutsch where I had to summarize stories in German that had been read out loud five minutes previously), while today, I acquired a serious headache in my one class. It would seem that the ancient Greek political system structure is difficult to understand, even in one's native tongue. Or maybe the vocabulary was just over my head. Either way, I do learn more every day, which helps. I hope to be pretty much fluent by February, if not sooner.

School is probably something that many of you wonder about. The German school system, I find, is a lot more intense than the American school system. I'm in a 'gymnasium'. German kids go to school together from 1st to 4th grade, then are sent to different schools:
Hauptschule: goes until 16, students generally work and only go to school 2 days a week as they get older.
Realschule: Basically a vocational school. Students learn a trade while continuing their education.
Gymnasium: As I see it, it's basically college preparation. It goes until 13th grade, when one is 19 or 20.

The cool thing about going to Gymnasium is basically all the morons who don't care about learning are weeded out. But this also makes for harder classes, since teachers know that the students are capable. Free periods are generally spent studying, only a little socializing is done. Interesting, no?

Also, in my school, students are not allowed to have chalk. This makes me wonder what possibly could have happened to make this a rule...

FAQ's
Do you drink a lot? No, basically not at all. Don't want to be the drunk American, dontcha know.

What's your favorite thing about Germany? Could you be any more vague?

Favorite food? Well, I had previously thought brötchen, but now... I am totally and completely in love with Döner. Look up pictures on Google, and you will see why.

How do you say the the name of town where you're living? Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler is Bahd Noy-en-ahr- Ahr-vi-ler. Not that hard.

What do you do in your free time? Whatever I feel like. Listening to music, playing games, writing...

And I believe that is all for now. I am introducing my host family to tacos today. Wish me luck!

I miss and love you all.
Liebe Grüße,

Signe