Thursday and Friday, October 19th and 20th, my host parents took me to Germany’s second largest city, Hamburg, about an hour and a half drive away, where we were hosted by my host parents college friends. What a surprise it was to see Nancy, new friend and AFS student from China, at the Elbe Tunnel! (Email subscribers, please click here for the slideshow.)
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A little more than an hour away, we took a day trip to Lubeck on Tuesday, October 18th. It is located on the Trave river, a World Heritage Site, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCbeck . The Niederegger Marzipan Museum was especially amazing! (Email subscribers, please click here for the slideshow.)
Fall break started in Germany, giving students two weeks off from school, October 18th to the 30th. The next three blog posts will share some of my adventures beginning with an Eco-Farm visit on Monday, October 17. Please click here for the slideshow.
While biking the big walking loop trail nearby my home, I see lots of fruit trees, but have noticed a plum tree especially. After asking for my Oma’s Streusel Kuchen recipe and checking with my host mom, I took a bike ride after school on the trail to harvest the plums. I located the plum tree in no time, parking my bike off the trail. I tried climbing the tree with my helmet on at first, but that didn't work at all as the helmet kept getting caught in the branches. There were a lot of blackberry bushes at the bottom which had thorns and a couple of burning nettles, but with less injury than I thought, I hoisted myself up into the tree. The plum tree wasn't really built to hold weight, noted by the way the branches split off but with great care, I made it to the top without anything going wrong. I brought along a little plastic bag and it filled up quite quickly with the beautiful plums. Climbing down was harder because the twigs kept poking me and getting snagged on my clothes, but I made it down only getting one burning nettle sting. With a feeling of success, I headed back home with the aroma of my full bag of plums accompanying me. This is the recipe my Oma has handed down for the Streusel Kuchen: My Oma grew up in Grieteinen, East Prussia (west of the city of Tilsit which is now Sovetsk, Russia) where she lived with her family on a prosperous farm. From her family history book “Faith and Courage: A Story of the Hardt Family” there is a passage where my Oma shared about her Vati (father) planting a plum tree in their garden. She and her siblings shared memories of picking cherries, apples, canning peas, making gooseberry jam, raspberry juice (Himbeersaft), carrying baskets of food and coffee for the harvest workers mid-afternoon Kaffee. It must have been fun to do all those things as a family, enjoying the fruits of their farm’s harvest. When I first started mixing all of the ingredients for the Streusel Kuchen I was a little nervous to see how it would turn out, since my last few baking tries didn’t turn out exactly as expected. We started first by halving the plums which was a lot easier than I thought, which showed they were ripe and ready to use. They were a light green color inside which worried me slightly but they tasted good so I kept going. We covered the bottom layer of dough with cut fruit, finishing it off with the streusel, a beautiful mixture of crumbly and sweet. Once in the oven it was just a matter of cleaning up and waiting for the end results. Soon the timer rang and the streusel kuchen was done! To my delight, the plums had turned a beautiful purple, no green to be seen! We sampled a little and it was great, but streusel tends to taste better once at room temperature. I think this is my most successful baking attempt yet and I hope to have many more!
Did you know it’s almost been a month since I traveled to Heikendorf to begin my CBYX school year with my host family? And to think a year ago I began to complete the online application for CBYX?! When I began answering the application questions and writing the essays, I don’t think I fully realized just how life changing this experience could or would be. But now, as you have seen from my blog postings, I am SO GLAD I applied and am now experiencing life as a CBYX scholar. When I look back over the last four weeks, I can see how the CIEE time together in D.C. and then with the Experiment e.V. staff at Schloss Wittgenstein made it easier to transition into Germany. Before we left the U.S. we talked about some basics, and every question we could think of was answered so we left reassured and ready to embrace our new lives in Germany. The language camp really helped ward off any potential homesickness since we had a full schedule and were always doing something, which also helped reduce the culture shock and confusion. I learned a lot of lessons at language camp that have already influenced my living here in Germany, like try everything, even if you have no clue what it is or how to do it. The support you feel from the 49 other kids and the 10 teamers and teachers is great and the best part is that the support doesn’t end with language camp. Each scholar receives an Experiment e.V. Betreuerin (advisor) who checks in with you and your host family, supporting the positive and listening to the negative. These Betreuerin are usually available via WhatsApp so it’s easy to talk with them whenever you need. I think this support system is one of the best parts of the CBYX/CIEE/Experiment e.V and something that sets it apart from other study abroad programs. I met with my Betreuerin Sunday, September 18, when she came and visited me and the host family. The day before my host mom and I made a carrot cake topped with handmade marzipan carrots which we served along with little cinnamon rolls and IKEA cookies for refreshments. Our visit was pleasant with us talking about general stuff like school and how we’re all settling into a routine. She asked if we talked about house rules yet and, since we hadn’t, we planned a time to discuss with the help of a Q&A packet my host sister received when she lived this past school year with a host family in Texas. We also talked about the importance of open communication, even about simple things like who is responsible to buy shampoo or who pays at the movies. We had a good visit and the carrot cake was just as delicious as it looks in the photo! It’s nice to have someone checking in – both for the CBYX scholar and the host family.
P.S. I hope that if you are reading this blog and meet the requirements, you will consider going online - http://www.usagermanyscholarship.org/apply-ciee/ -to apply for the 2016-2017 CBYX scholarship or share the link with a friend who might be interested. (Submission deadline is December 4, 2015.) As you can see from last week’s newspaper headline, the Syrian refugee situation is part of my CBYX exerpeince in Heikendorf. In the last two weeks Schleswig-Holstein (the German state containing Hamburg, Kiel and Heikendorf) took in 7,200 refugees.
As Germany has experienced war twice in the last one hundred years, a lot of the people know personally what it’s like to flee their homeland (Poland, Prussia), needing help and support. They remember the people in America who brought food and help to Germany during the time following the war and want to pay it forward to the refugees now. In watching the news or reading newspaper articles, there are often photos of refugees being met at the larger train stations by people smiling, holding large “Welcome” signs. Even at school we have “Refugees Welcome – Ihr seid willkommen” signs posted in the classroom windows. The refugee route brings them first to Southern Germany where they are put on trains to the 16 German states. They are supposed to get their papers and clear up their identity when they first enter Germany but, as there are so many refugees, a lot don’t get papers until they reach the camps in each state. There are a lot of empty miltary barracks where a lot of the refugees are being housed temporarily, allowing them to receive medical attention, German language and orientation courses while permanent housing/relocation is determined. German’s tend to be very organized. We heard this a lot during our time at Schloss Wittgenstein - “We will do it the organized German way, not the American way”. With the refugees, Germany recognizes this is where the bigger problem lies - all of the organization required to answer the questions “Where does the money for this come? Who will do this work?” The current refugee assistance systems are good, but the even larger numbers of refugees daily arriving adds complication and strain. Also, the Syrian refugees are different as returning to Syria is suicide – they cannot return. These refugees really need a home because they can't go home until the war ends, which isn't predicted to be soon. There are a few concerns that the refugees might bring the fight and prejudices with them from where they’ve just escaped, but for now the people of Germany are more focused on saving lives and helping these refugees. From what I have seen at church, in conversations at school and with my host family, and in the media and press, Germany is offering a much needed and greatly appreciated helping hand, refusing to stand by and watch people die, offering their organized assistance to resettle refugees. The September 11th weekend began early as Friday afternoon we headed into Kiel to watch the Dragon Boat Races. The races take place in the harbor and are intense! You feel the German pride in athleticism and sport just standing and watching. We sat and watched a few of the races, four boats at a time, and you get an adrenaline rush just observing, it’s weird. The competition is either for the winners of the races or the best costumes. Most of the older kids have simple things like face paint and matching bandanas while the littler kids are dressed up like pirates, unicorns or as other matching characters. Those boats are fun to watch and my favorite was the Smurf boat - they had their faces painted blue and all! Afterward we headed over to the church for “Abenteuer Land” or Adventure Land. Each Friday afternoon elementary aged children come to enjoy Bible lessons, snack, playing games and hanging out for an hour and a half. We learned about the good Samaritan through a slideshow with the illustrations being photographs of Lego people. The kids loved it, asking to watch through the slides twice. Pia had a very creative game that was like soccer where the kids were given toilet brushes (never been used for their real purpose) and a tennis ball they had to hit into the goals on either side of the room. It was harder than it seemed and got pretty intense with the ball flying under couches and tables and the kids diving under to get it, but everyone stayed safe and had a great time. After the last child was picked up, we headed over to a church youth group meeting. We sang some songs, German and English, from a modern songbook and one of the youth played the guitar and the other that box you sit on, it’s like a drum. After the lesson we set up some tables to make one long dining table and we brought in dinner of lasagna that two of the girls, Madita and Toni, made earlier and it was really good. Everyone was just chatting and having a good time - it was great! As we left, I was happily tired after a full day of school, fun and new friends. Starting the Saturday morning early, I walked with my host mom to the nearby bakery, about three minutes away. We purchased some rolls with different grains and some plain white rolls for breakfast. It’s always cozy and warm in the bakery and the smell of freshly baked bread is great. After that we went home and set up breakfast. This evening we plan to attend a wedding, so the rest of the morning was spent with homework, jogging, meeting up with a school friend. The wedding theme was “Children of God” with the church decorated with white tulle, ivy and golden crowns. The wedding ceremony included music and the pastor pronouncing them man and wife with little kids throwing rose petals in front of them as the newly married couple walked down the aisle. The wedding was well attended with many staying for the reception to congratulate the newlyweds. They served a variety of desserts of which I sampled what looked like a brownie, but it tasted like seaweed so I tried again with a piece of rhubarb strudel and it wasn't all that sweet, but it was good! They also had really colorful marble muffins that had a hint of lemon in them with the kids especially drawn to these colorful creations. It was really cool getting to see a German wedding and comparing it with the American weddings I have attended. Sunday started later as, due to the Kiel Marathon, church services were moved to 3 p.m. My host parents and brother took me to Laboe to the German Naval Memorial (http://www.deutscher-marinebund.de/geschichte_me_english.htm) since we had the morning open. Usually Germany is shut down on Sunday's, but tourist spots tend to be open since Sunday's are touring days. The museum had a lot of model ships, u boats and displays sharing intriguing stories about men who died on the ships or at sea. Seeing the engraved wall depictions of the number of sunken ships and submarines during WWI and WWII - it was hard for me to wrap my mind around just how many ships and lives were lost. After that we took the memorial elevator up 57 floors to the viewing deck where we got a great view of the farmland, ocean, beach and the local villages. My host mom told me that when she was a kid and sickness swept through the area parents would bring their kids to the top of the tower to get some clean fresh air in hopes that they wouldn’t catch the sickness too. That evening, following the afternoon church service, we enjoyed a slice of my host mom’s favorite cake- almond cake - which was really yummy! The rest of Sunday was relaxed with us watching a movie "Das Leben der Anderen/The Lives of Others" which deals with East Germany espionage and some of the injustices that were occurring during that time. We had actually watched the movie in Frau Wilson’s German class and it was good so I thought, why not watch it again?
Monday began with my host mom departing with her school trip (she teaches third grade). Pia and I prepared our school snacks before heading out the door. We had a double period of WIPO (politics/economics) where my teacher is advising me with my Praktikum. A Praktikum is a two week period where the students have an internship at a company, school, business, etc. They do not have school for two weeks so they can fully focus on the Praktikum and the paper that is written at the end of their experience. I might do one at a kindergarten or a photography place. After WIPO (vee-poh) we had another double period (two 45 minute sessions with a five minute break in between) of math. It was one of the girl’s birthdays and she brought this really cool cookie cake. The butter cookies are stacked with layers of Nutella filling between. Easy to put together and delicious! We had a double period of biology where we currently are studying translation and transcription of RNA and DNA. During class a girl’s phone pinged and everyone started chanting "Cake, Cake, Cake!!" We have a rule in class that if someone's phone rings/goes off, they have to bring cake. That was a great way to end the class! As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the teacher’s have other appointments or obligations so when they don’t arrive to class within 10 minutes of start time, they are probably not coming at all, giving us free class periods. Since the History teacher was out, Pia and I took the work the teacher left and went home where we were surprised when the doorbell rang and two little boys a few houses down delivered a vegetable and salad tray with meatballs and cake. I guess their mom knew my host mom was away on the school trip. How nice! Once we cleaned up the kitchen from lunch I had about an hour before choir practice from 3-4 p.m. Choir practice had about 25/30 kids from sixth grade through twelfth grade, so a wide range in voice maturity. We received our music - two cannons, “Siahamba” (which the choir school sang recently), “Killing Me Softly” and “Moonlight”. Back home, we played a board game called "Incognito" after dinner which is complicated to learn the first time through, but it was a lot of fun. My team didn't win however I did figure out who was who and which pawn they were – fun! Monday morning (September 7) I walked with my host sister and dad to school, about a three minute walk from home. We went to the front office and talked with them about my schedule before I went on to my first class. It was funny seeing the looks I got - the kids thought I was changing schools, not that I was an exchange student. I guess I look really German and have a slight or no accent? That's cool! One of the first differences I noticed from South Meck - there is a main teacher for each class but they mostly organize trips, the class and teach a few main subjects. My homeroom talked about the Barcelona trip. It's a thing in Germany to do big class trips, but you are with your same classmates for 90% of the time, so everyone is closer than they would be at South so a week long trip to Barcelona isn’t out of the norm. Other differences I saw or learned my first day:
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. For gym class you change in a small room, but each class gets their own room so you have more privacy. In sport we are focusing on soccer for the next few weeks, so I wore some tennis shoes to class only to be surprised when everyone else whipped out a pair of cleats. Seeing my face one of the girls commented, "Most of us are on the soccer team.” We met inside the gym briefly to get some cones and soccer balls before heading outside to the track/field. Sport here is taken seriously and to support that point, as a warm up we ran four laps then started with soccer drills. We wove in and out of cones while dribbling the ball then sprinted back to the start, passing on our ball. The bar is set pretty high with soccer team players in my gym class. My host sister’s gym class is required to run the track 7 1/2 times with their running times between 15 and 20 minutes. One round on the track is about 4 feet shorter than one round on an American track, so their test is a little under two miles. Sport is intense, man! 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. ☺ Since school days are shorter, the average is six hours with my schedule varying between three and five hour days, there’s more time to meet up with new friends or get out and explore. This first week I’ve enjoyed:
Our last day together at Schloss Wittgenstein, Friday, September 4, was filled with a wide array of varying emotions, each person’s different from the others. After our last fun and game filled class we got a “You Did It” award before presenting our video project then joining together as a group for about four hours of watching everyone’s talent show acts. That night we had a lot of fun making more memories and laughing at anything and everything before heading to bed one last time at the Schloss. The next morning at breakfast already five of our group were gone as we all departed for our host families Saturday. Heading out to the taxi (it seated 10 so both teamers and teachers rode together) I got a lot of hugs and last goodbyes, but a lot of “see you soon” too. As we started off, with the taxi driver playing upbeat ‘70's techno music, a few of the CBYX kids ran after us waving goodbye. It felt like a scene from a movie where the beginning credits start rolling while showing a big family driving away. We all wondered if the taxi driver selected this music for departure situations, making what could be a super sad moment more upbeat? I don't think I will ever forget that taxi ride. At the Bad Laasphe train station we had more good-byes as we split for our varying train destinations. One of the other CBYX scholars, Hannah C., and I were on a train together with reserved seats, transferring in Hamburg. The Hamburg train station is a huge space with arches and steel structures above you and lot of glass giving it an older feel. There was a lot of hustle and bustle and people going every which way which quickly swept Hannah and I up the stairs to our rails. After a feeling that maybe I was at the wrong rail, I had assistance from the train station desk, discovering I was at the wrong rail, quickly heading to the correct rail for the regional express to Kiel. German trains are efficient which can be good or bad, seeing that you have about two minutes to gather all your stuff (I had four small bags after shipping my two suitcases) and get off before the train departs, not stopping again for another 30 minutes. As I got off the train in Kiel, I looked around for my family and had an almost awkward moment. I heard someone say my name and “Hallo” so I looked and thought it was my family so I smiled, but then they walked right past me. I'm not even sure why I thought they were my family - it was a mom and two girls. Anyway, I kept smiling to pull it off casually and then, there was my host family! We took a picture in the station, then as we were going outside to the car it began raining. Once the rain started to stop stop we were happily surprised to see, from the bridge, a really vivid double rainbow - perfect for another “Hallo” photo! The drive to Heikendorf was about 10 minutes in their stick shift, giving us time to visit. Once at home, we unloaded, bringing my things upstairs to my room (I am on the third of four floors). My host mom made a dinner of steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots with a cheese sauce and bits of ham – delicious! Then it was time for me to give my host family gifts. They really liked the U.S. holiday socks and the Reese's candies and cookie mix as well as the other “Charlotte” gifts. After an emotional day I am glad that I am in Heikendorf and with the Stammerjohann family. After a breakfast of homemade bread, really dense, with jam and butter, we left for church in Kiel. Landeskirchliche Gemeinschaft Kiel in the Koldingstrasse (http://www.gemeinschaft-kiel.de/ was well attended with old and young. Today’s service recognized youth going through confirmation. After the lesson they had announcements and then we were dismissed to refreshments of coffee at the back with time to visit and chat.
We stopped back by the house to get my camera - which reminds me to share about their home door lock system. They have this really cool door that opens with your fingerprint! So instead of carrying a key around, they have a normal looking German door with a fingerprint scanner. It doesn't look techy, you can't really see/recognize the fingerprint scanner, which is cool. Anyway, I have both of my pointer finger prints saved so I can get into the house whenever I need to. We then headed to Laboe for lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant where the Stammerjohann’s are friends with the owners. It was fun eating Vietnamese cuisine with rice, or as the waiter called it "Asian french fries". After lunch we walked the stretch of beach on the sidewalk which makes it’s way all the way back to Heikendorf and farther. The weather was windy, sunny and cool, but the more you walked the warmer it got. After our beach walk we returned home to then walk over to Heinrich Heine Schule (http://www.heinegymnasium.de/) where I will begin attending school Monday. Only a three minute walk, we saw the four room trailer that Pia has her class in - a bright yellow building - and the rest of the campus. We then returned to the ocean trail, only five minutes away from their house, enjoying the beauty of the Baltic Sea on a sunny day. All of the afternoon walking led to a wonderful waffle dinner. Frau Stammerjohann made them using a waffle iron that makes five little heart waffles which we ate with powdered sugar. Being on the third floor of the house, I have a great sunset room, allowing me to see the sunset every night! As I head to bed my second night here, my thoughts turn to tomorrow - first week of school, here I come! CBYX German coordinators, Experiment e.V. (http://www.experiment-ev.de/foreign-visitors) have made the past three weeks at Schloss Wittgenstein fly! As you can see from the schedule, each day we have time for study, workshops, classes and fun. I’ll share a few of the highlights from each week. Monday, August 17 - We all were given German written and oral language tests to be placed in one of the Level 1-5 language groups. Having just completed AP German with Frau Wilson, I was happy to learn I was placed in the top level 5 group (with 8 other students) with Fabian as my teacher. During plenum (basically means group), when everyone meets together, either in the Aula (auxiliary room) or Capelle (another room with good acoustics), we got our schedule for the rest of the week and talked about the Schloss (castle), the town and our classes. Dinner, at 6:15 p.m., offered rolls with cheeses, many meats, cream cheese, butter, cucumber, herb cream cheese and nutella. The rolls were warm, too, so they were delicious. I love the herb cream cheese with cucumbers, it’s so good! After dinner we went to the Aula where I was in Veronica and Matthias’ small group, or, as he calls it, Home Group. He is really relaxed, yet he still gets everyone to talk and be involved which is good. We talked about our first thoughts about the Schloss and our first opinions. Everyone was mentioning the toilets so we started a list about how German toilets are different from American ones. It was a short but fun small group since they are only 30 minutes. Afterward we had Plenum sharing information about room checks. On school nights (Sunday-Thursday) room checks are at 10 pm, weekends (Friday-Saturday) are 12 am. Again I went to sleep pretty early after room check because the beds are so comfortable! They have a fitted sheet, duvet and really big (2ftx2ft) square pillow which is my favorite! I fell asleep in about 5 minutes. Thursday, August 20 - Today I turned 17! I woke up at 5:55 a.m.and quietly Skyped in the hallway with my family where I opened the package sent from my host family – German chocolate and a really pretty hand crafted photograph card. I was really happy that they remembered my birthday! After breakfast, when I returned to my room, there were balloons on my bed, pink and blue, and a gingerbread cookie necklace in the shape of a heart that said “Mine Prinzessin”. My roommates had set it up when I went to breakfast and I didn’t have any idea! It was super sweet of them! Sunday, August 23 - We walked into town to attend church (http://www.kirchenkreis-wittgenstein.de/ev-kirchengemeinde-bad-laasphe.html) where we sang some hymns with the pastor talking about the importance of reading the Bible and ending with communion. There was an art gallery opening as part of the church and they had that right after the service but we went back to the castle to catch the end of brunch. We had a treasure hunt around 2:30 p.m. We were with our small groups (home group) and had to come up with a team name, flag, cheer and outfits. We decided to go with rainbow, since some of us already had the beginning colored shirts. There were nine stations around the jogging trail that we had to complete and the groups were split up in 10 minute increments. We were going for accuracy, not speed, so that was nice. Station 1 – Complete a quiz about random German things (how many grams in a Nutella jar) 2. Charades with two of the teamers. We did well at the first two and we started to walk in a rainbow line, for our team stuff. 3. Create something - so we made a really cute fairy house with flowers, ferns and moss. 4. Spider Webb- we had to get everyone through the web without them touching the web. We lost 3/10 so it wasn't good but it wasn't bad. The rest of the stations went well with our returning to the castle to make our flag and turn in our packet. Our team came in 1st, winning a goody bag with chocolate and gummies. Wednesday, August 26 - Today Hannah and I went for a run at 6:40 a.m. on the same trail we used on the treasure hunt. In class our worksheet was talking about tenses and then we played a game that had to do with a review of the worksheet. We had six rows (ich,du,er/sie.es,wir,ihr,Sie) and then different words like "burste" or "tranieren" and we had to change it to "wir bursten uns" or "du tranierts dich". Both teams had a dice in the same row and if you landed on the other teams dice you could send them back to the beginning of their row. Katerina and I were a team and we won, but it was pretty close! In plenum today, we got new sheets and learned how to make a bed the German way. Back in our rooms it seemed pretty simple – we used a fitted sheet and then a duvet and pillow with case and cover. The only difference is the sheets are cleaned and pressed inside out so it’s easier to put your duvet or pillow inside.
Thursday, August 27 – During the afternoon we learned a traditional German dance and that song was our “soundtrack”. The dance was actually a more formal dance but it worked ok with the song since it was a faster pace. After a snack of an ice cream bar we went upstarts and had some free time in our rooms. When we checked the time we had exactly one minute to get to Plenum, so we sprinted and barely made it. If you are late you have to sing in front of the whole group, so you don’t want to be late. We learned about the different trains in Germany, what they look like, how fast they go, where they go and how to get tickets. It was a lot of information so I had to write some of it down but the teamers said our host families would help us out with it also. Dinner was super nice because instead of cold cuts we had cheeseburgers, which was kind of out of the blue! For evening group activity I played volkerball until it was time to head to our rooms for the evening. Friday, August 28 - We left around 5:00 p.m. to walk into town for the Altstadtfest held in Bad Lasphe’s town center. Similar to last weekends Bier Fest, Bosch bier has many stands set up and pretty much dominates the festival. There was only one band at the Bier Fest but at the Alstadtfest there were four different places for a band and each space is filled. We started off where all the German teens were by the bumper cars, game booths and trampolines. The bumper cars were really intense! A lot of the Americans got slight whiplash because you could drive a lot faster and of course ram into people harder. It was really fun taking pictures of people cause they made really funny faces. Some of the kids also jumped on the trampoline, you were bungeed in, and did flips and double flips. We moved on through the streets to see what else there was and after passing a country band (singing German lyrics) and a rock cover band we made it to the DJ tent. You could tell the party was here. Wanna know how? There was a group of about 30 Americans dancing and being rowdy. It was amazing how in about 30 minutes all the American kids and the Experiment e.V. teamers were in one tent dancing and bringing the party. Most of the Germans didn't dance, it's not really a thing. They would dance if they were drinking but they tended to watch over joining in. We danced from about 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. without really stopping. The DJ was having a blast too and we were hollering and challenging each other dance wise. Just so you understand that we were really going all out, the plastic on the sides of the tent was fogging up and everyone looked like they had run through a rainstorm. By 11:30 p.m. we all had to go and call cabs to drive us back up to the Schloss, since no one is allowed to walk up past sunset. Cabs cost about €7 to €7.60 and if you squeeze five people in the cab it's not too expensive. We called the cabs and they got us back by 11:55 p.m. before the midnight lockout. A great way to make memories as this is our last weekend together at the Scholss. We all leave for our host homes Saturday, September 5. |
aboutElizabeth began German immersion at Waddell Language Academy and continued at South Meck World Language Magnet. She is spending her senior year in Heikendorf, Germany as a CBYX scholar. Archives
June 2016
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