Goodbye 2009!

Well, this was an amazing year! FULL of ups and downs.. That's for sure! This has definitely been one of the hardest years yet, and I'm sure it will keep getting harder from here on in. I guess I might as well make a new years resolution. Try and get rid of this overwhelming pessimism that has overcome me lately! I CAN DO IT. Look, I'm already starting ;) Let's think of a little something I did every month.

January - First orientation. Waited to see where I would go
February - Found out I was going to Germany
March - Red Deer orientation, and it all starts to get exciting.
April - Waiting!!
May - GRAD '09!!!
June - Finally done high school!!
July - (Definitely the hardest month of the year, most people probably know why) Germany!!!
August - First month, school starts in Germany
September - Trying to figure out this ridiculously hard language that is German
October - 18!! Officially an adult. Cool, eh?
November - Getting more into the routine of things
December - Christmas, and at last, the 5 month point of my exchange. How did this happen so fast?

Wish me luck in 2010 everyone! Keep the good times rollin' :)

R.I.P.

Erin Chalmers, you were such an amazing person. You lit up the whole room when you came in, one of the nicest people I've ever met, and you touched the lives of so many people around the world. Rest in peace.

Weihnachten!

Ok, So. Here's the deal. If you like Christmas... come to Germany!!! They have tons of days of it. First is Christmas eve. This day I went with my host family to church at 6pm where we sang and listened and so on. Then we came home and my host mom made us go up to our rooms so she could get the presents ready. I don't know how this is how every family does it, but in my host family we didn't have the presents under the tree until then, and we also each got a plate with chocolate and oranges and apples on it! So while we were waiting my host mom was setting this up. Each of our plates with our present beside it. Then it came time to open the presents, but hold up!! We have to sing a song first, that was a very different experience, but quite cute :) We ended up eating quite late that night, around 10 because my host family was skyping with their son then I skyped with my family. We didn't have any special Christmas food just a normal German dinner. (Oh, and they had real candles on the tree, how cool is that!?)

Then came the first day of Christmas. We didn't really do much, just sort of relaxed and thought about what we would do when all the company got there on the 26th. Again no special dinner, we had fish which was quite delish. But we did have the table all fancied up :)

Ok and yet another day of Christmas. (26th) Aka our boxing day, which I tried to explain to my host family.. They don't have huge boxing day sales here :( We had a bunch of my host family's family over and we had a big dinner of Stag. All I could think of was bambi while I was eating it.... BUT it was no fish with a face, so it wasn't all that bad. And it tasted good, so it's all that counts for me! The good thing about the Christmas being so different here was that I didn't have time to feel home sick because I wasn't reminded of what was going on at home. I might actually miss the German Christmas next year!

Merry Christmas everyone! Now I just have to get through New Years without getting home sick, good luck Lisa!

Happy Holidays!

I realized why I haven't felt too into Christmas lately. The huge lack of snow! Normally I have tons of time to get used to the snow and that prepares me for Christmas, but this year... first actual snow was on December 18th! How crazy is that? And today, it rained! It was about 3 or 4 degrees for the majority of the day today and it's difficult to be in the holiday spirit when it's raining and over 0 degrees! I guess it's better than -40 but a little more snow couldn't hurt ;). But it still seems very very cold. I think it's just because I walk around a lot more here than I do at home. But I was dressed up very well like a good Canadian so I didn't get too cold!

Today my host family was deciding what we would eat for Christmas. Fish it is! Well, it's different for sure. Maybe it won't make me feel home sick because I won't be eating the normal at home Christmas food. I was trying to explain what we eat at home for Christmas but it was pretty difficult to explain since there isn't any type of meal like that here! I might just have to get some pictures of a big turkey and loads of mashed potatoes to show my host family!

Merry Christmas everyone if I don't have another update before the actual day!

Rotex Wochenende #2!

I wish that the rotex weekends were every weekend, and not just on the weekend...! They're just way too much fun. On friday we all met in the night then we were having a buffet that was supposed to be made up of food that we all brought. Too bad that most of us didn't even bring any! Good thing that me and my friends are sneeky and we can hide some pasta for ourselves behind the curtains! We 'partied' for a while aka just danced around at the top of the stairs and then we all went to bed but I'm pretty sure I didn't even sleep at all!
The next day we got up super early and went to a mine, the man that we were with was pretty boring and we were all almost falling asleep. But we did get some pretty cool pictures with us wearing hard hats! After this we went back and had lunch then came time for the German test! The beginning of the test had a section where we had to fill in the correct article: der, die, or das. Ok. Cool! I totally knew all of them ;)... not!! Well anyway we all 'passed' the test and we're all still going on eurotour so that's all that matters! That night we had a christmas party where about half of the people dressed up as santa and we had a secret santa then more 'party' time.
The next day we had the pleasure of waking up early again and then we had to get some presentations ready for the outbound students for next year and their parents. We just sat at tables of our country and answered the questions that people had, but most people had the exact same questions : what is school in canada like? what sports are there?
All and all the weekend was super fun and now I have to wait until February for another one! Which is sad but that means eurotour will shorty follow :)

Wernigerode Wochenende!

Another weekend come and gone... This time we were in Wernigerode, in (or near?) the Harz Mountains. We stayed in a youth hostel and good news to everyone at home who has never stayed in one.. it's not as scary as the movie!! From what I've heard from the students who have already been on Eurotour, this was quite a nice hostel, though. We had two bunk-beds in each room and.. a bathroom! That was really great. The only bad thing was the food... eugchh! The breakfast wasn't all that bad (how much can you go wrong with bread and cheese anyway?) but the lunch on Saturday... oh lord! A very typical-ish german meal I suppose.. but it wasn't very good at all.. And the dessert! Well all I have to say is I'm glad I have so long until I have to eat in a hostel again. We went to the Christmas market on Friday night and it was really cute, lots of people, Chritsmas stuff, and drinks/food!
Saturday we got up early (but apparently not early enough because I almost missed breakfast) and went to some place that we could go swimming or bowling. A lot of people didn't want to go swimming but then we found out after walking for god knows how long that the bowling wasn't open until two so we walked back to the hostel to play kegel (I don't if that's really how I say that.. but it will do). I am sure that they just made us walk there and back because they think we're all getting a little too fat for our own good. Then came some for work. Ekkehard Musick told us some German history (but unfortunately I couldn't understand some of it, but I got most of it) and then we were seperated into groups to prepare some short presentations: 'What expectations do you have of your school/host family/host club etc..' and 'What expectations do these people have of you'. Then we had another chance to go back to the Christmas market. We took the super long walk, in the rain, just to get some crepes and decide that we were too tired and wet from the rain to go back! My shoes are still wet!!!
Sunday we had the pleasure of waking up early again (and at the right time this time) and then we went to the Castle on top of the hill. We got a cool tain ride up the hill which was very exciting, then we took a bunch of pictures before splitting into two groups to get a tour of the castle. It was pretty interesting, some very funnny things in there.. like the beds.. they were so short! German people people are all so tall.. I guess they started off short and they just keep growing! After the tour we all chilled in the middle for a while and they had us sing 'Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer' for some reason. And after the whole group did it, they wanted me and a few others to do it again but of course with a group like us, everyone (or at least a good group of us) will end up doing it! We took the train back to the hostel and had lunch and then took off!
There is a rotex weekend in two weeks and I'm super excited.. Hopefully we won't have to walk around in the rain so much.. :S

R.I.P.

It's crazy to think this happened. I didn't know any of you very well but from what I've heard you were all amazing. Rest in peace, Cayley, Emma, and Joi. My heart goes out to your family and friends.

Do you cook for lunch or for dinner?

From what I've gathered, this is the typical German meal plan for the day: Breakfast = cereal or bread with cheese/meat or cheese and meat. Lunch = something warm, like spaghetti, rice, sausage... etc. Dinner = Bread with cheese/meat or cheese and meat. And the bread here is much different (I think better :P) than back at home. You can either eat it in buns or a loaf too but it's a lot different. I guarantee you that if you came to Germany for a long period of time and lived with a German family they would ask you the following: Do you cook for lunch or dinner? Well. This is a difficult question to answer seeing that we don't have 'Abendbrot' (dinner of bread and cheese) everyday, and at least for me, I don't have a very scheduled eating... schedule. I normally just eat what I want when I want. If I see some KD in the cupboard and I'm craving it... I'm eating it! I don't care what time it is. If I want to be fancy and make something cool.. that's what I'll do! If I feel like making a sandwich... well okay you get the point. And even if you do have a schedule.. it's much different! So when asked when we eat Brot (bread and cheese which is twice a day here)... well first of all, we don't do that. That was a lost cause before i even started to answer. Anywho, I guess the moral of the story is... don't try to explain to a German how we eat in Canada (or the US for that matter) because it will not be easy! Maybe I'll make a presentation and show it next time I'm asked.

P.S. After posting this note I went to a birthday party of my second host Dad. I was asked there by a woman I had met: 'Do you cook for lunch or dinner?'. I swear, this concept will forever be lost on the German people. I'll keep trying though ;)

Deutsch Yoga!

That was interesting! Can't say I've ever done yoga in a foreign language before, although I know I will be going back a lot! First of all, I was the youngest person taking the class by a good ten years. I guess since the only time I did yoga at home was at dance camp with people from my dance classes, so I didn't really expect that! Then the first thing we did was lay down on our mats with a blanket and listened to music while the instructor was talking about who knows what in German. I just let my mind wonder, as I have gotten quite good at. After this we sat up and started doing some meditation type thing, the little girl in me came out when they started doing the 'HUMMMMMMMMM'. I was so close to laughing, but thankfully I kept it together! It probably wouldn't look so good when the foreign girl starts laughing during serious time in yoga (which I guess is the whole time anyway). We did it again at the end and I decided instead of just thinking it was weird I'd join in. During the class I felt a little bit silly always looking at everyone else to see what they were doing. I could understand a bit of what the teacher was saying 'legs, head, fingers'... but what I was actually supposed to DO with my legs, head, and fingers... beats me! I would try to watch and imitate what the others were doing until the teacher would come around and explain to me again, and when necessary he would say it in English. Overall it was really great and I felt amazing after. I am really looking forward to going back. I think I am going to go twice or maybe even three times a week if I have time. I can't wait!!

When I got home I got a huge package from home. It was really big and there was tons of bubble wrap in it... Yay bubble wrap! I will have fun for weeks. Thanks Mom & Dad! <3

Kinder Circus

Oops! Next time I go to a circus, I think I will check if it is for kids or not. Or maybe here in Germany it's just a known fact that only the kids go to the circus. Anyhow, it was quite an interesting and funny time! They had tons of animals, horses, donkeys, dogs, camels, tiny horses... They had a belly dancer and a crazy flexible girl, who were both really young, and two clowns. These clowns were totally silly. I'm not sure exactly what was going on but they started running around yelling 'help me!!' and then one comes right over to me and gives me a giant hug!! Ahh! I was quite unsure what to do, basically doing nothing and looking at the German lady sitting beside me seemed to be an appropriate action. Later in the show the same clown had a bucket of popcorn and was walking around to the people in the front row (and obviously we were v.i.p. enough to be sitting in the front row) and letting them take some popcorn. He skipped past us and then went over to a little kid and threw a piece of popcorn at him and he caught it in his mouth, then he turns... looks at me... points at me.... runs over to me. Then he starts to throw popcorn at ME. I'm not too coordinated and catching popcorn in my mouth while a clown is throwing it at me isn't my favorite activity so I started hitting it away. After three times... HE THREW THE WHOLE BUCKET AT ME. Well I am never going to a German circus again :) But, it was pretty funny.

Italy

Well, I wouldn't say it was 100% my type of vacation, but it was still amazing!! I got to see some super great things while I was there. We stayed in a Camperpark (not really sure what to call it). The first day my host family was telling me that we would go see some famous mountains, I was thinking that would be a really cool thing to take pictures of. Little did I know we were going to climb up them! The first day of hiking we did a short two hour hike up a mountain near the camp ground. Once we were to the spot we had lunch and took pictures with all the cows and goats that were there, must have been some sort of farm or something. I had gone hiking in my oh-so-famous wrecked puma's and the next day we were planning on going on a much longer, harder hike so my host family offered to buy me some hiking boots! Note to self: never again buy a pair of hiking boots and go hiking for 6 hours without breaking them in first. What an adventure! We looked at the map of where we wanted to go and started off on our adventure, we were on a path surrounded by trees and before we knew it.. there were no more trees and no more path. We could see a slight path near the river so we decided to try and follow it. After a few hours of climbing around a river and crazy trees I was pretty convinced that we were on the path less travelled. Finally... people!!! Only a hundred meters up though... We climbed a massive hill to finally make it to the spot where the path was supposed to be. We made it to the point we were looking for and then discovered that the building was closed! Good thing we brought some nice German sandwiches with us to eat :). We stayed at the top of that mountain for a while until deciding to go back down. Thank God this time we decided to follow the path!! I must be the work hiker in the entire world or something but I was always at the back of our line and I could always hear people gaining up from behind me then just doddle off on the rocks. I suppose for a first-timer I did pretty well but a note to anyone who ever wants to go hiking with me: it might take about double the time it will take YOU!

The next amazing thing that I got to do was to go to Venice!! Never in my right mind would I be able to say 'oh hey, let's go on vacation.. maybe we'll stop in Venice for a day or so'. Pretty cool! There was one thing about it that really amazed me though, the size, it was tiny! For being such an advertised and talked about place I thought it would be really huge. We parked in the parking lot (which was an adventure in itself with some guy telling my host parents to leave their keys in the car..?) then we got out and got the map of the city. I took a peek at it and just thought, 'where's the rest of it?!' Regardless of the size of course it was really great. We started at one end and walked all the way through to the other side. Everywhere I looked there was another little shop selling nic-nacs and silly stuff. I did get to buy a very cool 'I <3 Italia". There were also TONS of guys on boats wearing tight pants and funny hats! It was pretty hot there that day, and due to the condition of my ankles and heels after hiking I had worn my flip flops and I'm very glad I did! It was also extremely humid, Germany is one place to talk about humid, but in Venice it was much worse! I am super happy I was able to go there and so easily too, I wouldn't take it back for anything. I also had my 18th birthday the day after we got back. Pretty sweet to be able to say I went to Italy on vacation, then went back home to Germany to celebrate my 18th birthday. Don't worry if you're jealous :), I would be too!!

Hamburgtag!

Yippie! Another rotex day! =D This day was super long, we left Northeim around 7 in the morning and I ended up getting home at 1 in the morning! All of the inbounds and the rotex met in Hannover at 9am and from there we took the train together to Hamburg. Once we were in Hamburg we had a short city tour with the rotex and then we went to see the tunnel under the river. We had some time after that to shop around the harbor for pins and souveniers. Then came the boat tour! They rented a whole boat for us, but unfortunately the man was telling us everything in German so we didn't really understand all the facts of what we were looking at, but it was still really good. This is a picture of the ship we were on.... well okay that wasn't it but this one is pretty cool! After the boat tour around the harbor we had some free time to walk around and shop. We saw some really cool street performers and also some very scary ones, but all and all it was an amazing day and I am looking forward to the next rotex day!

"Oktoberfest" in Göttingen!

Well I'm 100% positive of the fact that it's not as cool as Munich Oktoberfest, but it was still fun! On Saturday morning Madi, Ailie and I met in Göttingen and were expecting a big parade. Turns out it was about 20 men & women in lederhosen and dirndls playing music followed by two horses and carriage. We thought we would make the most of it so we walked along with the parade!

The parade let us to a bar where we bought some really 'cool' Göttingen Oktoberfest t-shirts. A good way to remember the weekend!!

Almost 6 Weeks!

Too crazy! Sometimes it feels like the past six weeks have been the longest in my life but then other times it feels like I was stepping onto the plane just yesterday. The most interesting part for me so far has been meeting with the other inbounds and doing orientations. The first actual orientation was in Gifhorn where we ate spaghetti and then listened to the rules.. fun.. then ate.. ICE CREAM! Which people seem to do all the time, I'm starting to understand why, it's so good!
Second orientation with rotex in Hannover: super fun! I probably slept a total of 6 hours the whole weekend.. but who cares about sleep anyway.. We played some games that I would definitely NEVER see being played at a rotex event in Canada which was extremely entertaining. We visited the town hall and they asked people to stand up when they called their countries, too bad they forgot about Canada! That was a little bit sad, but... well... oh well!
Third orientation weekend in Walsrode: rainy! The games weren't as fun this weekend as they were this time which was pretty disappointing but I enjoyed the archery and the 'leader' of the group who only had one pocket on the back of his pants. Overall it was still a pretty good weekend. We stayed with host families and the house that Carla, Krystal, Nyasha, Jessica and I were in was so amazing! It was on a farm and they had two lakes on the land and horses, donkeys, chickens, dogs, everything! The next orientation is a day in Hamburg with the rotex which I think will be very fun. =)

Northeim & German School!

The three week point is almost here! I feel like I have already been here for forever. The town here is very old, and small. There are about 37,000 people who live here and it is about 700 years old. Very different than Calgary! Many of the roads here are stone and almost all of them are very small. One thing that I noticed is very confusing, are the lines on the road. The center line is a white dotted line, as well are the lines like the white dotted lines at home. Sometimes I am a little scared that the people I am with may be driving on the wrong side! There is a section in the middle of the town which is normally only for pedestrians, I'm still a little unsure of the rules of when people can drive/drive their bikes through it.

School started almost two weeks ago and boy is it ...interesting! I love meeting new people and talking to them but the classes, I guess for a lack of a better word, boring! I basically don't speak German and listening to a teacher speak German for an hour and a half at a time, no matter if I may like the subject or not, is not the most entertaining thing in the world! I start a language course on Thursday though and I know it will make things much easier. I am very excited to start speaking German and to start to understand what people are saying when they're in a big group talking about something.