- If the teacher is absent and you're in one of the upper classes, you can do what you want (within reason). You get your course work assigned and it's up to you if you stay in class to complete it or if you leave. They want you to stay but if you can get it done pretty quickly you can leave.
- The school bell sounds more like a melody. It's five or six chime like notes – especially nice to hear when you’ve had a particularly hard or intense class.
- High school and middle school are one school, 5th grade to 12th grade. The only slight separation is between the 10th and 11th graders but that’s because that is the level kids in “Realschule” or “Hauptschule” end school. If you study for two more years (some places three) you will get an Abitur which you have to have to go to college.
My art class currently is studying architecture. In class we looked at the blueprint of the school and then drew a key for the school. Another assignment had us taking pictures of different structures at the school, like support beams, doors and staircases and sketching them in class.
In geography class we are learning about different regions of Germany. "Essen" is a small coal mining town turned tourist site. We had a movie about it that we watched and took pretty intensive notes. So Essen in German also means food, so for some reason I thought we were talking about the food in Germany and the economics and environmental effects it has but after a while I realized the movie was instead about the city Essen. Luckily no one was looking at my paper. ☺
- Baking chocolate chip cookies with a classmate when a class fell out.
- Riding bikes to Laboe where my host mom told me about the annual Probsteier Korntage Strohfiguren Schleswig-Holstein – a straw figures competition between villages - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSyYJaDbQDk . We stopped and shopped at the Laboe Aldi with it’s literally “green” roof, as in there were plants growing on the roof. Aldi here has more variety and European stuff, like bottled water and apple juice and a BUNCH of chocolate and gummies. We checked out and returned the cart before having a snack of a Snickers bar. In America we put in a quarter to get a cart but here you can put in €.50, €1 or €2, which is convenient.
- Going to the weekend market where a cheese stand/truck interested me. I asked the merchant what his favorite cheese was and he told me what his least favorite is. I didn't even know this existed, but it is a caramel cheese from Norway, caramel in color, a savory cheese, but you don't want to chew it. I sampled some and was surprised that it does taste like caramel but the aftertaste is something else.
- Taking a five minute jog I can be at the seashore, taking off my shoes and socks, walking in the water. It is cold, but it isn't as cold as the Central California Coast water. I plan to take a dip someday when the temperature is warmer than the current 65 F.