Weekly Post #6

Hey Everybody!

Welcome to my 6th weekly post! So I think my new day for updating my posts will be sunday because I always end up doing something on fridays. I hope everybody's week was great and their weekends were sunny and warm!

6. September 2014:

On Saturday I got up early to go to a school/community parade/rally for tolerence. At the rally there was music, gallaries, food, and information stations. It was finally nice outside. In Wisconsin when it is over 70°F everybody is wearing shorts and a tshirt. I was suprised to find out that in Germany they wait until it is about 80°F to wear shorts. I think that is something that in my time here I won't fully get used to. After the rally my family and I went to go get ice cream at a man made lake. I would have never guessed it was a man made lake unless my dad told me so. Apparently it used to be a huge area for mining steel. Now after all of the jobs were moved elsewhere, the lake has become a spot for high priced condos, appartments, and restraunts. By the time we got home my head was pounding from a bad headache. I think it was a combination of it being so suddenly warm and culture shock. After about a half an hour after we got home and sat in quiet it was gone and my mom and I headed off to St. Michaelis Fest in Mengede Markt. While we were there we met some friends, listened to a band, and ate currywurst.

7. September 2014:

On Sunday my parents and I went to Schloss Nordkirchen to attend a YFU gathering. I thought this was really nice because I got to meet a few of the YFU students in my area. We also took my host aunts dog, Leo, with us which I really loved. Leo is a huge Swiss mountain dog like dog with tons of fur. He is the sweetest dog you could ever meet. Needless to say I can't get enough of him. Even after seeing Schloss Nordkirchen while I was in Warendorf, I was still awed by how awesome it is when I saw it the second time. When we got home my dad and I ended up playing FIFA soccer. Needless to say I got my butt kicked both times. One day I will win!

8. September 2014:

Monday has probably been the worst day of my whole time here. I started the day by waking up in complete darkness which isn't fun even in America. In my first class the teacher ended up being sick, so we had a substitute. We did group work, but I was so tired it was really hard to understand what anybody was saying. The fact that the room has no carpet makes peoples voices bounce which made it almost impossible to understand anybody. In English I gave a group presentation on the Raj in India (British occupance of India). I realised during this presentation how much I hesitate now in English to make sure what I am saying is absolutely right. I thought that was pretty cool that, that has transfered over from my German speaking. By the time I got to my Art class I was so tired that it felt like everybody was talking as fast as the squirrel,Twitchy, in Hoodwinked. On top of my whole school day the shoes I bought on friday were just a bit too small for my feet. Needless to say I was not a happy camper when I got into my mom's car. The first think my mom said was that I looked awful when I walked up. She made sure that I got new shoes that night so I wouldn't have the same problem the next day. In the evening we went to a Shuhcenter in Dortmund. After we got home from the shoe store Hannah showed me a PS3 game called Heavy Rain. In the game you play 5 characters, all of whom are trying to find a criminal called, The Oragami Killer. In the end one of the people you play ends up being the Oragami Killer, but you don't know throughout the whole game. It was a really interesting game so we played it for the rest of the evening.

9. September 2014:

Tuesday was amazing compared to monday. I started my day off with Sowi. Sowi is probably my strangest class I have. There is a perfect balance of knowing what is going on vs. not. I feel like I know exactly what is going on, but on the other hand I also feel like I don't know at all what is going on. This is probably my favorite class just because of that feeling. My gym class was definately not as hard as the last one. It even started out with a really funny moment. In the beginning of the class we were walking out to a field and my teacher had an American football in her hand. Of course I got super excited because I though we were going to play football. We started playing and what we ended up playing was nothing like football. I ended up standing in the middle of the field and yelling "was spielen wir?" (what are we playing?). Everybody just stopped and started laughing, I laughed too just because the whole situation was so absurd. After school I made gyros for the first time ever. This was an adventure because I have never even eaten gyros before, additionally I am no cook like Katerina. I ended up eyeing up what a healthy brown should be and I turned out to be right. (Thats right mom I can now make something other than noodles in college!)

10. September 2014:

On Wednesday I got to sleep in because I didn't have a class until 9:30. This was also my first day riding the bus by myself. Unfortunately on Tuesday the bus app was down so we weren't able to really look at the bus routes. Fortunately that morning it was up and running and my dad found a way for me to get to school. But of course between switching buses I missed the one I was supposed to get on. I quickly looked up on my app which bus I should take to get to school on time. Luckily there was a bus about 10 minutes later that would get me to school just on time. I made sure I didn't miss this one and everything went on as according to planned. I got out of school at two o'clock and I decided to take the bus into Mengede Markt to go to the Rossmann's (It's exactly like a German Walgreens without the Pharmacy part). I probably wandered around the store for about 30 minutes just getting myself used to everything and where it was. Although I have to say their shampoo and conditioner section is definatley not friendly to long thick hair. I think I will have to buy two sets of shampoo and conditioner at a time. After dinner my parents and I made sticky notes and posted them all over the kitchen and living room. I talked to a friend from school who moved to Germany 4 years ago and she said that she still struggles with the articles, (there are about 16 different words for THE and A) just like me. She said that it really helps to put sticky notes all over the house so then you can always look at them. I have to say that trick is already working.

11. September 2014:

On Thursday I finally had my second history lesson. I really like my history lessons because it is in English, that way I can get the full meaing of what they are talking about, and it is so interesting to hear about what other cultures though about different moments in history. Right now we are talking about the Napoleonic Wars. It was really amazing to hear about how Prussia, Russia, Austria, and Germany worked so hard against Napoleon. We also talked about how Napoleon was supressing people of all different nations. At the very end we talked about the difference between nations, liberalism, and nationalism. In the after math of Napoleons downfall people's ideas and ways of life changed from the Prussian national thinking to German nationalistic thinking. In complete contrast to my history class my geography teacher sat us down in a computer lab and left for the rest of the lesson. I didn't mind though because I was able to talk with my classmates and practice my german.

12. September 2014:

On Friday I only had Math and German. In German we read a page of Kabala und Liebe and I was so happy that I understood the basic plot of what was going on. Kabala und Liebe is in old german, which in english is exactly like Shakespeare. My German teacher, Herr Koster, also used me as an example of how it is much harder for non native speakers to understand irony, which I thought was super cool. After school my mom, Justus, and I went to a family friends house. I played with the son on their trampoline which was really fun and sweet. We also played several rounds of scrabble. I really love playing scrabble because I get to learn so many new words in German. It was also fun this time because for every word that was put down I would tell everybody what it was in English. After we got back home we ended up watching a soccer game with some friends. I really like doing this because it is a nice way to get to know people better.

Thanks for reading!

Sandra