Schöne Weihnachten!

As promised, here is holiday season post nummer zwei.

Regarding general day to day activities, I've been quite busy with my internship at the Goethe-Institut, as well as with the B23 German class (the highest class of the intermediate level; after this come the 'C', or advanced, classes and our goal is for me to test somewhere in that level in May) I've been sitting in on as a guest student in order to get my German up and running. Not gonna lie, it's pretty hard to concentrate on German homework and actually

learn something from it when you've been up since the early morning, in class from 8:30am to 1:00pm, and then in the office doing internly duties for the rest of the day (depending on the day, we might get out earlier or later, but usually no later than 5:00pm unless there's an event planned which requires our attendance). But I try to get the most out of it and I have learned quite a bit... Like what "Fortschritt" and all its variations mean. :)

A couple Saturdays ago, it snowed! 8:00am, I heard Leah talking and getting dressed which I thought was unusual until I looked up at my loft skylight window covered in white frozen stuff, which could only mean one thing... SNOW DAY! It was simply amazing; I couldn't get enough of it. Sadly, it melted later on but it's for sure more snow than I would have gotten in Texas. 

The last day of class we ate (my "American brownies" actually ended up turning beige; the consistency was pretty accurate, the color not so much), watched a DVD with short skits, played musical chairs with German grammar question (der bose Braziliener beat me and I came in second place) and played a kind of murder mystery game. We also got to hear why Leo wants to kill all Germans (issues with the Guest House, where 99% of the students stay). This guy is a character and we're all going to miss him. "You should ask for a package full of things you love! What do you love? I don't know what you love, but you should ask for a package full of things you love!"

Thursday marked the first official day of Winter Break for me. About six or so days later than what I'm used to, but I'm nonetheless thankful that vacation is finally here. Unlike my friends who are or were still in German school, I didn't get a Fall Break or start my break several days earlier like a lot of people.

The past few days has been so much laziness to the point where I might explode if I don't do something soon, but at the same time I've felt like I have so much to do. That would include ghost writing a college recommendation for a teacher who will then edit and submit it to my colleges. I highly dislike writing about myself and what I think are my achievements, especially when you don't know whether or not you're overshooting. 


Anyway, back to Christmas and such. The evening of Christmas Eve, we went over to my host mom's brother's house (mind you, this means walking through the backyard) to eat with the rest of the family. It was pouring rain, so we opted for the car. Apparently every Christmas is the same (and you can definitely tell it's the same every year. Well okay, they have to decide which songs to sing), but there's good food, presents and it's the first Christmas I've spent with many more people than I usually do.

Funny video of the day:


















We're flying to England on the 28th and will be coming back on the 1st in 2010. 

Happy New Year / Bonne Année / Ein Gutes Neues Jahr / Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku / שנה טובה

                                                                                                   

Two Roads

It's hard to believe that almost a whole year has passed since I sent in my CBYX application and that new people are getting ready to send in theirs soon. It's even harder to believe that 2010 is upon us and I've been living in Germany for five months now. The States seem really far away and I tend to unknowingly distance myself from people back "home". Honestly, I don't miss it at all. The dogs and Lady are probably the ones I miss most, to tell the truth. With Goethe-Institut students going home for the holidays, it's so surreal that you can just jump on a plane and be on the other side of the world, with the same people you've lived with your entire life, in a matter of hours. At the moment, I can't even begin to fathom that. Erin's gone home to New York, but for her it's not so weird since she was there in October as well; in that case, her stay in Freiburg could be compared to a studious vacation. Ich vermisse meine Freundin von grossen Portionen sehr! I don't know anybody else who completely understands any of our strange, twisted inside jokes.
I feel like I've just relocated for an unknown period of time and as strange as it sounds, Bahlingen is home. People here who don't yet know me really well always ask how long I've been in Germany, until when I'm staying and if I'm homesick. Tonight at Christmas Eve dinner, I kind of internally freaked out after I got several "so, bis wann bleibst du?" questions and at the suggestion of my amazing, handsome, intelligent, buff host dad (and I'm totally not saying all that because I know he'll be reading this :)), I have a brand spanking new standard answer: "so lang wie möglich". I find it to be an improvement from "Alsooo... bestimmt bis Juni, und dann... vielleicht, bleib' ich?" There are some days when it's crystal clear to me that I'm meant to stay, and then there are others when the whole thing seems completely impossible to pull off. The former comes much more often than the latter, though; whether that's a good or a bad sign, I have no idea. My brain attempts to logically analyze the situation but my heart tells me to stay. Where I ended up just seems like too much of a coincidence. I mean come on, how many German-Canadian families (who just happen to end up with an American exchange student) do you find in the area? So what if I'm not taking the traditional college route like everyone else? Sure, I might be missing something regarding dorm life but I'm pretty sure I'd be more than willing to give that up in order to stay here. I simply cannot see myself leaving in June, and that's that.

On the other end of the spectrum, no matter how amazing one's host family is, it's often unbelievably difficult to figure out how to "fit in". It really messes with your head when you're the outsider guest with people who have lived their entire lives with each other, and accepting another is probably one of the most awkward things. Sometimes it just really sucks. That's probably the hardest thing for me as an exchange student. Something that's become an unexplainable minor "pet peeve" of mine is when someone says "wenn du zurück nach Hause gehst..." They really don't mean anything by it and technically, it's accurate. It's called an exchange year, and not an exchange life for a reason. 
The entire family sitting there at Christmas Eve dinner caused me to think about all of this again for the hundredth time, but I started out intending to write about general things I've been up to lately, since my last post was in November. Next post -- versprochen!
Last but not least, Happy Holidays to everyone.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

-- Robert Frost

Monday, Monday

Today, I attempted and failed to go to work, failing because my boss at the Goethe sent me home on account of my everlasting (or at the least, everlasting through this past weekend and beyond) cold. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining in the slightest! She's more than happy to let me stay at home tomorrow as well, and I'll be quick to take her up on the offer. I've always preferred to hear the downside of things first, so bad news is that because I'm sick (and I am taking off of work, after all) I won't be able to go to the Culture Matters German-American conference in Tubingen conducted by a Columbia professor. The upside is that I came home this morning to find a cardboard Amazon package on the doorstep, which means that my Holga Starter Kit came! Naturally, a celebration dance was in order. The second part to that upside (wait, there's more?) is that I'm about to go brew some of that tea from Israel and finish Love Actually.

"Un voisin profite de la naïveté d'Amélie pour lui faire croire que son appareil a un défaut: il déclenche des accidents. Comme elle a pris des clichés toute l'après-midi, un doute affreux l'assaille le soir venu. Elle s'effondre devant la télé, accablée par la responsabilité d'un gigantesque incendie, de deux déraillements, et du crash d'un Boeing 747."

The World Through a Plastic Lens

I ordered my Holga today! Ahhhhhh.

Friday Night

One of the many reasons why I love my host family...

After I rambled on about something in a Russian accent
HM: "She can really do that accent."
HD: "You're definitely ready for International Relations."

   "I'm like a freaking quilt."

HD: "That's what you should tell them (college applications): 'I'm like a freaking quilt.'"

           *****************************

Me, talking about someone
HD: "You DO know that if I ever meet him I'm going to beat him up, right?"
HM: "... You want to beat him up?"

       "I feel it's my duty as a hostfather."

           *****************************

And the most epic one, by none other than yours truly...

      
       "I woked up disappointingly early."* 

We're still cracking up about it, as in "I must've woked up on the wrong side of the bed!"



*Disclaimer: I was on DayQuil (my host dad found this ridiculously amusing). 


But I do love these people to death. :)

"Was ist los", you ask?

List formats are easier. Also, I seriously think my brain cells are slowly dying from constantly working on college applications.

1. I'm well into my (second) internship at the Goethe Institut.
2. And it's pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself.
3. My boss spent five years at the Goethe in Paris. And she likes me. And she wants me to stay. Helllo, job opportunities?
4. I'm soaking it in. All of it.
5. I have a million photos of trees. Changing colors, that is.
6. With my limited funds, I'm desperately trying to decide between a new pair of boots or a Holga. It's a girl thing.
7. The Isbitsky's and the Szostak/Isbitsky went on an excursion to Colmar yesterday to visit family friends.
8. It was good. Literally. I mean the food. :)
9. Highlights of yesterday: speaking French again, Champagne from Champagne, good wine, good food and good atmosphere, to generalize.
10. Saturday: IKEA with Anja, the chipped glass and the Family Card, taking pictures of our eyes, Black Beauty and Spiderman, Adam decided to make dinner, I learned how to cut against the grain!, we were all ridiculously cute and best of all -- it was home.
11. I'm probably making things too complicated in my head. Life is an adventure, so what is there to lose?
12. Continuing on that same thought process... I've started to work almost exclusively on my American U of Paris application.
13. I think this past weekend and a culmination of recent events caused a rather large light bulb to go off in my head at 11:30 last night, so the college essay is well on it's way.
14. What I'm not looking forward to is going to Stuttgart to take SAT Subject Tests.
15. I'm getting the travel bug again, I want to visit exchange student friends, I want to go to Morocco, but I'm excited for our England trip. But also, I've come to realize that it's the people that make the place.

Choices, choices…

I'm re-applying to college. Fun in theory (the fact that you're now about to do pretty much what you want to) and not so fun regarding the actual application process. All. Over. Again.

Last year, I was applying to colleges within the United States, except for when I was considering the American University of Paris. This year, I'm applying to colleges on both sides of the pond. Going to school in Europe doesn't seem like so much of a reach anymore, I'm seriously considering staying here and if application decisions allow me, I would go to college in France without much hesitation. I have to consider all my options. I know that. But the possibility of leaving Europe actually scares the crap out of me. Hello, irony.

Unbezahlbar

regiokarte: 34€

latte macchiato: 1,50€

freiburg postcard: 1€

scarf: 9€

comprehending that I'm incredibly lucky to be living here: priceless



And DeutscheBank does it all. ;)

Part Zwei

A continuation of our time in Bonn...

Our last excursion with AIB was a cruise on the Rhine. The day turned out to be perfect, just sunny enough to enjoy being on a boat. Sunny enough to make everyone sleepy, but no matter. Passing by, we got to see the Loreley and a bunch of castles. When we got to our destination, we had lunch and then began the hike up to Marksburg Castle. Niki and I had waited for Kelly to change shoes so we actually ended up taking a different (and probably the wrong) route to the forest. After realizing this, we called Cole, he walked down to come and get us and we proceeded to have a very rushed hike and first three quarters of the Marksburg tour. On our way out, there was a wedding party (certain guests only had to walk about half of the way that we did to get to the castle, but I wouldn't want to experience those steps in a dress and heels) taking photos and we got a group photo with the whole shebang: old school Volkswagen, the couple and all 24 of us. Just one of our fabulous shenanigans! But we never did get to walk around all dressed up with champagne bottles... Berlin in January, anyone?

Our last night in Bonn, AIB held a going away party for us just like they did when we arrived. All the host families were there and that was when I realized how much I had become a part of the Elschner family. We had some of the best entertainment, namely Ryan Knott, Lindsay, Huggs (Kelsey), Bree, Elena and Chris perform 'In The Jungle' from the Lion King (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vl6slaJGhQ), us gifting Cole an iPod which was delivered to him back in the States (he thought the picture of the iPod in the card was just a joke, haha. We are so snazzy) and Joe finally played the doodlesack!
After the party was over, we sat in our traditional Biergarten, drank and talked. And then the goodbyes came... Depending on the region of Germany each of us was going to, we were taking trains at different times that next day so we would only be seeing the people that were going to the same region. It was hard to say goodbye but it was also exciting to finally be able to look forward to living with our permanent host families. At 11:14, Niki, Grace, Mason, Jake, Alex and I (along with our host families) were waiting for the train to Baden-Wurttemberg to come to the Bonn Hauptbahnhof.
At about 3:30 that afternoon, we arrived in the Freiburg Hauptbahnhof to find our host families and our area rep, Duncan Cummins waiting for us. I could see Adam, Anja and Leah right outside my window, they recognized me and then I realized it was them. I must have sounded like a little kid as I was going to get my luggage; you could tell they were excited to finally have me here and I was equally excited, resulting in my laughter and other people on the train giving me these heartwarming looks. It was actually really cute.

Needless to say, the Isbitsky's are simply amazing. I'm treated like family here and have gotten the chance to meet several family members and a ton of family friends. This is a completely serious household full of German discipline ... NOOOOT! I watched Borat with Adam a few weeks ago if that says anything. :)
Dance parties to Lady Gaga (especially the "Disco Stick song"), Cassandra Steen's "Stadt," (Ich baue 'ne Stadt fur diiiich...) and Katy Perry (you're hot then you're cold, you're yes then you're no!) are common. A Chucks-wearing, Lady Gaga-singing, "is this the end of the queueeee?", "Wir sind hier. Shatzy ist gefunden!", International Family, family is "Very niiice, I laaaik!"

Hallo aus Bahlingen!

Congratulate me. No, seriously. I’ve finally gotten around to keeping a blog to document my year as (and I love saying this) a government intern with Open Door International on the Congress Bundestag Vocational Youth Exchange, a $24,000 value scholarship. We are so VIP. Yay!

Short overview of my seven weeks in Bonn:

We arrived in Germany at around 9:00am in the Frankfurt Airport and from there took a two hour bus ride to Bonn. I remember everyone being really loud and excited but honestly, I. Was. Exhausted. I also recall Mike (I’m pretty sure it was Mike) and I falling asleep every five minutes and Elena warning us that we’d better stay awake because of the time difference, haha. Our first “meal” in Germany was one of those Hanuta biscuit things which was really good but as far as I can remember, I was starving…

My first host house was with an older single Greek woman who shared the house with a younger Polish guy living on the third floor. Her son was studying in Cologne so it was just her and me. My room was really nice and the house wasn’t bad either, and I really thought that after getting to know each other we’d get along well, but after a couple days of living there I started to get this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and I don’t know why. Maybe it was the fact that she wouldn’t take phone calls from cell phones or other unknown numbers because it was “too expensive,” or that we had to lock our doors since she was afraid of the Polish guy stealing our things, or maybe (probably mostly) because she left me alone most of the time and it seemed like she was hosting a student because of the small stipend the Bonn host families get from AIB… anyway, whatever it was (misunderstanding or not) feeling terribly lonely when you’ve just arrived in Germany isn’t exactly the greatest feeling in the world. My point is that no matter how much I love(d) it here and no matter how little (a.k.a. not at all, really. I do miss my dogs way too much though) I’m homesick, I needed someone who cared. Like a puppy. Haha no, that was a terrible joke and I’m not a puppy but in the end, I decided to and managed to switch families. Good choice, because I ended up with the best family ever. The Elschners really saved my time in Bonn and made it AWESOME. So awesome in fact, that I got invited back for a real Karneval in February (huge thing here… major competition between the different provinces. Everyone says that their Karneval is the “real” one, but apparently it’s the best in the Rhineland). While I was with the Elschners, I had my birthday (I wish I had remembered to bring out my camera; we spent the entire day setting up for my birthday baking, cooking, etc. and then when it got dark my host dad put several candles in the garden, making it look really beautiful), my oldest host sister Elisa’s birthday (for which I made brownies, ohhh yes), went hiking once to the top of this mountain with a gorgeous panoramic view of the Rhine and the surrounding area, as well as the castle where presidents and other important people have come to stay when they come to Bonn (President Kennedy stayed there), and another time in the vineyards and a small nearby town with a Medieval festival where it was also so beautiful. It’s funny how in Europe you really don’t need to photoshop anything because everything looks exactly the same as in the pictures.

As for the social aspect of Bonn, we had our group of 25 minus two after two people went home (unfortunately. But at least I got lucky and was picked for the program) and we all got ridiculously close. Five days a week, Monday through Friday, 8:45am to 1:00pm we had our Deutsche Unterrichte. Kurz A, Kurz B and Kurz C were beginning, intermediate and advanced and I was placed in the intermediate class along with R. Kelly (Ryan with the Nutella ... not Knooooott!) from Florida, Elena the Tree Hugger from Rhode Island, James the car enthusiast with the cucumber pipe from Missouri, Hecko the Hollister model (Hector) from El Paso, Alex the Waldorf Kind also from Austin and our amazing teacher Anna Moussa originally from Dresden (dialect included when she tried. "Hey, Alte. Ich weiss wo dein Haus wohnt!") but married to Amro from Egypt. Definitely the funnest class at AIB and everyone knew it. :)

Daily activities included… getting 1.50 Euro Doners during Happy Hour, going on AIB excursions, sitting in the Biergarten (and that one night we played Never Have I Ever … let’s just say we learned A LOT about certain people. Very niiiice, I laaaik!), clubbing at Nacht Schicht (the crappiest club ever but we brought the party), making American cheesecake at Sarah’s with Philadelphia Cream Cheese and strawberries soaked in strawberry liquer from the Galeria Kaufhof, getting Hartwig to say “damnit!” as many times as possible and counting each one, sitting outside with our class and Anna and having really, really interesting conversations to say the least (auf Deutsch, naturlich! And that one time we saw nudists in the Uni Hofgarten…), getting ice cream and trying all the flavors and then having Mike get hit on by the male Eis dealer, that one party at Mason’s where “the dog, eet sheets. Do they know, the dog, eet sheets?” and Lindsay remarked that both she and Jake had especially spectacular looking legs that night after the party waiting for the train back to Bonn (“NO, I’m going to sit here, riiight here. Jake has nice legs.. I have nice legs, too!”), Cole chasing Alex around AIB trying to get him to make a decision, having entire conversations in Borat language with my favourite Gypsy Sczcerba (that was the first time I spelled your name right without referring to where it was already written out, Chris. I’m pretty proud of myself, not gonna lie. Eet make me feel better after I get disappointed dat woman has right to choose!) and of course…

Kellychen: “Is that like a brothel or something?”
Rainer (in strong German accent): “Kelly, whot ees brotel? Whot ees dees brotel?”
Kellychen: “You knowwww, like, a whoooorehooouse?”

To be continued… (I’m tired and empty after a very long day to be explained in my blog tomorrow, and this is already getting to be an enormously long post).

Guten Nacht, bonne nuit & לַיְלָה טוֹב. (Lilah Tov, pronounced: lye-lah tov. I'm teaching myself Hebrew :) )