St. Martins Tag

So this is actually not going to be a Germany vs. America blog post. But the next one will be, I promise. I just wanted to tell y'all about my experience on Tuesday November 12, or St. Martins Day. It's a holiday here in Germany for little kids in honor of St. Martin. It started out with all the little kids and their parents (and me) meeting in the teeny tiny church for a program put on by the kindergartners and their teachers. It was full to the brim and extremely hot. The kindergartners sang songs and the teachers acted out a skit all about good 'ol Martin.
So the story goes that there was a really poor man outside in the snow and he was about to freeze to death, and then St. Martin rides up on his horse with some other soldiers and sees the poor man. He then proceeds to take out his sword, cut his jacket in half, and give part of it to the poor man. Later that night he has a dream that the poor man he gave the jacket too was actually Jesus and he goes on to live his life for God. All of the teachers were women so the skit was pretty funny.
After the skit all the kids get their lanterns and go on a march through the town, which is led by St. Martin himself and his trusty steed. The march ended at the kindergarten, where there was a big fire and refreshments. There was coffee, tea, and some hot alcoholic drink to drink and then for food there was fettes brot (which I'm pretty sure is literally just fat smeared on bread), pickles, and these little gingerbread shaped bread men.

It was just really cool to experience and I know as a kid I would of loved getting to make a lantern in school and then march through town showing it off.

UPDATE: St. Martin and Martin Luther are NOT the same person, and your religion teacher will laugh at you if you write about them on your religion test as though they are. Sorry for any confusion.

A Whole New World

So I've decided to change things up a little bit. So far my posts have mostly been about me and what I'm doing. But now that I've been here for a few months I've fallen into a routine and not much new is going on, so it wouldn't be very interesting for me to write about doing the same things week after week. But I assure you that if I do end up doing anything noteworthy I'll be sure to notify you of it.
For the next few weeks or so I've decided to write about the difference between America and Germany. Before I came here I always thought that Germany and America were pretty similar. I mean yeah, they speak a different language, but other than that they live basically the same as us right? But that's turned out to actually be pretty far from the truth. Most everything is different. From things around the house such as windows and light switches and how the doors lock to the things that are important to the people. And some of the things are better and some are worse and some are just different. But I guess they all make Germany Germany and America America and I think that's pretty cool. I hope you do too!
If you have anything in particular you're curious about or would like to hear about just shoot me an email or leave a comment and I'll be happy to answer it or even write a post about it! If not I'll have to come up with ideas on my own!

 Left and Middle: German windows open 2 ways, you can open them like a door or you can tip them open at the top.
Right: German light switches are little square buttons you push. This one is for the bathroom and it's outside on the wall in the hallway and it lights up when it's on so you know if it's in use or not.

Back in the Swing of Things

After two weeks of vacation it was certainly difficult to get out of bed at 5:30 Monday morning. But I did it and, as saddening as it was to have to go back to school, it was really great to see all of my friends again. I'm back into my old routine again.
This week my math teacher was on a field trip so school started 2 hours later on both Wednesday (11:00) and Friday (9:15). But it doesn't seem to matter how much sleep I get, I'm still always exhausted.
For the past few weeks my family has been renovating the front yard. We bought a new garage, tore out the old driveway, picked out trees, and they are currently laying the stones for our new driveway. It looks so pretty and I'm really excited to see the finished product! I'll add pictures when it's done.
This Thursday was Halloween and it was pretty disappointing how little was going on. Halloween still isn't very big here, and the few things there are to do are mostly for little kids. I did go to a halloween party with my host sister, but that was it. Almost no one mentioned it in school and there certainly wasn't anyone in costume. It was still a good day though.
It finally November and I'm officially 25% of the way through my exchange year. It's very bittersweet. I'm really excited to get to go back and get to see all of my friends and family again, but I want this year to last forever. I just have to keep reminding myself that's it's very possibly I won't get the chance to live in Germany again, but I'll definitely get to see my friends and family again, so I just have to make the most of this opportunity while I have it.

Fall Break! -Week 2

This past week hasn’t been too exciting. I’ve been kind of sick -just a cold or something- so there’s been a lot of sleeping going on. 

Tuesday and Thursday were family birthday parties. I swear everyone in the family has a birthday in like a one month span. We have more next week. So most German birthday parties for older people (by this I really just mean not teenagers) start in the afternoon with coffee and cake. A few hours later there’s dinner. Then they bring out the schnapps. And then they set out snacks (most chips, small chocolates, and these things called flips that look and feel like the puffy Cheetos but they’re peanut butter flavored, I’m not a big fan). So basically it’s a lot of eating and drinking and sitting and talking and if you’re there the whole time it can last like 7 hours. It can be a little boring because I don’t know very many people and I’m still not able to just jump in on any conversation. It can also be overwhelming because everyone will start talking at once and it gets loud and there are so many conversations going and it all blurs together and I can’t understand anything. But the food is always really good and I really like the German cakes (probably a little too much.. :/). 

I’m starting to look forward to my birthday coming up in January. Unfortunately it’s on a Tuesday, but 18 is a really big deal here because that’s when you’re allowed to do everything (vote, drive, etc.) and even though I won’t be allowed to do any of those things here I’m still hoping to have a pretty big party. 

Last night was REfresh, which is basically like a really big youth group service. It was a lot of fun, but I couldn’t quite understand it all. After that there was a birthday party for a girl in our youth group which I didn’t actually know about but I still ended up there anyway. It was a little lame, but I was able to talk to so many people and I think I’m starting to form stronger friendships with the people in my youth group. I even told them about my Candy Crush addiction. It was some top notch bonding time. 

I found it a little weird that the girl was having her birthday party at the church and there was alcohol and secular music and everything, but no one else seemed to find it odd. It’s just a difference in cultures I guess. I still cringe when I hear the F-word in school or church, but it’s normal to them. 

I have to go back to school tomorrow, which I’m not looking forward to. But the clocks did go back an hour here today, so at least 5:30 won’t feel so early… Maybe..

Fall Break!

So this past week was our family vacation in Berlin! Berlin was great. It was beautiful and big and had tons of great places to shop and eat. Everything a girl could want! But it was also a little overwhelming. All of the people and stores and cars and languages. There was literally SO much to take in and it was exhausting and wonderful all at the same time. 

On Monday we arrived, took a look around, and visited a few malls.

Tuesday we did all of our sightseeing. We bought tickets for a bus that drove to all of the big sightseeing spots (the Brandenburger Tor, Checkpoint Charlie, etc.) and you could pick which ones you wanted to get off at and spend a little time looking at and then which ones you didn’t really care to see. It was a great way to see all of the big tourist things, especially since it was raining. I felt really sorry for all of the people who decided to take bike tours! We visited the Ritter Sport Shop, where I got to custom order my own candy bar (which was really just an hour of waiting in line, 30 seconds of picking my ingredients, and then 40 minutes of waiting for it to be finished… but it was yummy!).

Then Wednesday we visited the Berlin Aquarium and Zoo and did a lot of shopping! My host dad had picked out a Turkish restaurant ahead of time that he really wanted to eat at. After walking, riding the U-bahn, riding the S-bahn, and walking some more (mostly in the wrong direction) we FINALLY found the restaurant (after an hour or two). We stood outside, read the menu for a few minutes, and then decided to go somewhere else. I certainly got my exercise this week!

Thursday we headed back home, but not before stopping at this big huge dome called Tropical Islands, which actually is an indoor island. It was so crazy to walk from 10 degrees Celsius into a building that’s 28 degrees. We changed from our winter jackets into our bathing suits and went for a nice swim. It was really cool!

It was nice to come home though, and to be in my own bed and not have to walk so much. It was also really nice to realize I now think of this house as home and this bed as my own. I’m certainly getting comfortable here, and to think that my year here is ¼ over is scary!

Today is Friday and it was a pretty relaxed day at home. I unpacked my bag and hung up my new clothes. I’m about to eat dinner, get ready, and finish off the day with a Kirmes Disko in one of the neighboring towns with friends from school and friends from church! 

Das Leben ist Schön

My motto for this week has been: Das Leben ist schön (Life is good). And it really is! This last weekend was Kirmes in Bebra. I got to go on Friday to the Disko with my friends, and then on Sunday I went for a little while with my host family. Saturday we had 2 family birthday parties to attend (during which I consumed 6 pieces of cake.. oops..). The second party ended in fireworks, which ended up falling over and shooting at us and the house. No one got hurt and nothing was damaged thankfully! Monday and Tuesday were pretty uneventful. Wednesday one of my teachers wasn’t there, so instead of the 4 hours of class we would have had with her, we did some bookwork together in 1 and then went home. Then I helped my host mom with her children’s gymnastics class (I can now semi understand/communicate with some of the kids!) and then my Betreuer came to visit. Thursday another one of my teachers was sick, but we sadly didn’t get to go home early. Most of the kids spent their time studying for the English test we had next, but I didn’t really need to do that so it was just a free block for me (I spent it napping). Then Thursday night I went to youth group again, where we built a huge spiderweb all across the room and it was pretty awesome, but inconvenient when you needed to move around. Today was a half day, so I only had 2 ½ hours of school and now it's fall break!!! We have two weeks off from school and my host family leaves Monday for Berlin! I can’t wait to tell you all about it! 

Our spiderweb!

Happy German Reunification Day!

So life has been a little busy lately, but today is a national holiday, which means no work or school! Here’s a little info to catch you up on what’s been going on:

• Last Saturday was my host grandfather’s (on my host dad’s side) birthday party. A common theme I’ve seen at German birthday parties- amazing food!!

Me with a piece of the wall at Point Alpha. 

• Then on Sunday my host family and I drove up to Point Alpha, which was a US post on the border between East and West Germany. A lot of the stuff was in English, so it was easy to understand and it was pretty interesting.
• Monday-Wednesday I was on a Team Building field trip with my class. We were on the Edersee (which is some lake, but where we were it didn't have much water anymore and you could actually walk around in it). It was absolutely freezing and the activities we did weren't very fun. But I still had a wonderful time. I feel a lot closer to a lot of my classmates. One of the girls in our class smoked in an area of the camp you're not supposed to smoke in (well there’s really only one area you can smoke in and it’s down a mountain) and so she was told she either had to pay 140 euros (somewhere around $200) or get picked up. She couldn’t get picked up though and she didn't have the money, so she was freaking out. As soon as everyone in the class found out, we did the math and all donated 5 euros to her cause, plus 30 euros we won from our Gesundheitstag. It was really cool because everyone in the class was so willing to help her out and no one hesitated for even a moment to agree to it. I think that was probably one of the biggest team building moments for us.

A really cool monument from Point Alpha,
representing the two regions of
Germany being reunited.

And now we’re back to today, October 3^rd, the German holiday for their reunification. After World War II Germany as a whole and then the capital, Berlin, were split into four zones (US, France, Great Britain, and Russia). Later on the US, France, and Great Britain decided to rejoin their zones together (West Germany), but Russia did not want to give up their piece (East Germany), leaving Germany and Berlin split down the middle. Today marks the date that East and West Germany were finally brought back together and Germany was once again whole. I was a little disappointed by the lack of festivities today. My host mom said most people spend their free day hiking or biking, but I was really hoping for some cool traditions, like our fireworks on the Fourth of July.

Nevertheless it was a good day! I was able to sleep in, and my host family ate lunch at my host dad’s boss’s wife’s restaurant, which was having a little Oktoberfest thing. The food was really good and I finished my meal off with a nutella crepe. After multiple tries I have determined that it is impossible to eat a nutella crepe without making a mess. But they’re  certainly worth it!

PS: I typed this on Thursday, but unfortunately my internet was not working on my laptop, so I had to post it today. :/ 

PPS: An update on the situation with the smoking, someone else during our stay smoked inside one of the cabins, and the camp determined that since smoking in a cabin is worse that just smoking outside, the girl in our class would only have to pay 40 euros and whoever smoked inside the cabin would have to pay the 140. Which means we all get our money back!