You have given me wings to explore new horizons, and home where my roots will always be.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

German School

German schools are an absolute gongshow!! The time tables don't make any sense, and there's no given lunch periods or any bells. I don't understand a single thing going on in class, and it almost seems that the teachers don't care if we do anything. They don't take to many tests, or do written assignments, it's all discussion work. I guess 60 percent of the grades is participation, and that's not really something you can do if you can't speak the same language as them. I atleast have french and English, which are two languages i understand, so hopefully those classes don't give me as much of a headache. All I have to say is I don't think I will ever complain about my old high school again.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Germany!!















Getting here wasn't fun at all!! It started in Cranbrook with over weight baggage and having to spend allot of money, too going out and through security in the Frankfurt airport for no reason, almost missing my flight, luckily it was delayed or i would've been in big trouble. However once i got to Hamburg I had a nice warm welcome from my first host family and Horst , they had a giant Canadian flag and some posters.
This first night i attended my first rotary meeting, and noticed that it is completely different to the rotary club at home. There are no woman in rotary club, and it's in German! There was no happy bucks, which was nice to hear at the meetings at home. Everyone i met though was really nice to me, and most of them were able to speak to me a bit, but the others didn't know any english.
The next day i went out biking with Harald(host father) and Charlin(host sister) to see the sites or Bargteheide. This allowed me to visit my school and look around, the coffee shop that most students hang out at. We also visited the tennis courts where i might start playing, we'll see how the first lesson with Freddy(host brother) goes though. The main things i've noticed here is that everyone bikes everywhere, and it rains on you alot when you are biking. Later that evening i went and met the other inbound exchange student, she's from Mexico and her names Carmen. Being here for me is hard because of the language barrier but atleast most people speak pretty good english, so i can't imagine how it is for her, she speaks some english but not the best. She is really nice though, and I'm happy to have her around.
Today I went and registered as a citizen in Bargethide and got to return to my school again, and change my profile as they call it. I was in Biology to begin with and knew that was bad news, so i went and talked to the principal and changed to a sport profile. I'm not really sure what this means, but i'm glad i'll be able to participate in sports throughout my stay here. After this my host family decided it was a nice day so we were going to go see Luebeck, and on the way there stop and visit the Baltic sea. It was beautiful at the sea, i loved being able to walk in the sand, i wish i could've gone into the sea but it wasn't warm enough to go in without freezing your butt off. There was alot of people there though enjoying the last bit of they're vacation, and tons of people water skiing and wake boarding. It was so odd though they were being pulled by a machine i guess you could say, it was a 700 meter circle where you were pulled from a rope above you. I've heard of this before but it was cool to see.
After this we went and saw Luebeck which is a beautiful old city with a giant river running through it. Here we had some Marzipan and they said it's the best Marzipan in all of Germany, i have nothing to compare it to but i enjoyed it atleast. After this we just walked around the streets and through the farmers market. In the middle of the market there was a 3-D map of the city that was actually made by Rotary, it was cool to see that rotary is everywhere.
This is life so far in Germany, i'm really enjoying it and excited/nervous to start school on Monday!