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Saturday, May 29, 2010

May 29th
Paris, France
  
(I tried to write this blog a couple times with no success. Too many ideas.)

Bonjour.
The City of Lights.
Je t’aime.
Paris holds the key to my heart.
Au revior.

After a little over six hours sitting in the same bus, ten minutes in the car riding home, five minutes pulling out the second bed, and seconds of laying in my bed again, I went to turn off the alarm clock, because it was 6:00 AM on a Sunday morning: “Ugh, my alarm clock is about to go off again. Honestly, can you believe everything that’s happened since then?”

Around 23 hours and 36 minutes earlier, we were getting up slowly, excited for a day that I knew I would remember for a while. It would just be a day, but it was a day in Paris. I was on the bus at 8:00AM with Christel and Martin (my host parents), Jana (my host sister), the other Jana (my host sister’s friend), and Anne by my side.
Back in November, I remember visiting Anne in Jülich for the afternoon, and we plotted how to get to Paris. Anne was determined to go to Paris, and I was, truthfully, just determined to travel. So when my parents discussed planning a trip to Paris, I worked up the courage to ask if Anne could come too.
Driving there was as unpleasant as a six hour bus ride could be, but I kept looking over to Anne with tired eyes and pulling out the scary-excited smile: Paris! The bus ride was a killer, but seeing every highway sign with the word “PARIS” written above got my nerves jumping and me pinching myself to validate everything going on around me.


We drove more and more into the heart of the city. The older buildings all just looked so… Parisian. As our bus pulled in next to the Arc d’Triomphe, I could not believe anything that was going on. We were looking at the Arc d’Triomphe. It was right in front of us. There. Like, really there. I read the dates and took in all of the detailed statues, which commemorated the Revolution that I was used to studying in my German classroom *** miles away. The view behind us was just as beautiful: Avenue des Champs-Élysées, one of the most famous shopping streets in the world.


… The rest of the day, we saw some of the most beautiful things in Paris. I, literally, stared at the Eifel tour every three minutes just to see that it was really there. That was something that I had seen over and over again in movies and history books, and now it was there. We walked up the steps of a large, beautiful church and looked at Paris as the sun set on the city. We fought our way through the Paris subway system, keeping a hand on our purses the entire time. We peered through gates to see “The Thinker” statue at a museum. We laughed as we saw the real Moulin Rouge: yes ladies and gentlemen, it does exist. We gasped at the beauty of Notre Dame and laughed at our childhood memories of the hunchbacked bell ringer. At the end of the day, through the tired eyes, we were still running around singing, “Paris holds the key to your heart. Ooh la la.”



When it comes to French: A language that I don’t understand. I couldn’t discern words so there was a need, a desire to learn and interpret, to say the words back to people with the same elegance. It was another language to conquer, and I tried to use the words I knew, saying “merci” and “excuse moi” with the best accents I could muster. Paris was beautiful.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Has time ever really escaped you? Every second slips through your fingers? Minutes vanish before your eyes? Hours and days slink into the past?

So here’s the deal, I wanted to write. I really did want to write.  In fact, I was able to send my mom a quick email with photos at one point, and although I’m already back in America now (but not at home!) I want to talk about the end of my exchange then the beginning of being back.





 May 22nd-25th
Jena, Germany
   

For a long weekend in May, I visited another exchange student, Jordan. He lives in East Germany, what used to be known as the DDR(German Democratic Republic), which resembled nothing of a democracy. The DDR was the part of Germany taken over by the Soviet Union after World War II, so they were rebuilt with certain socialistic ideas. Jordan’s host parents were both well into their 60s and had lived in the DDR for their entire lives. I heard the stories about how they were members of the Protestant church (very against the political Party), having a Volkswagen Bug where the only car driven was a Trabbi (upper right photo), and the fear of saying what you thought, which could ruin your children’s lives. It was a really educational weekend, and I loved seeing how another exchange student lived.

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Question Marks.


Nowadays, people rarely look at me for the answer. (With the exception of English class and, sometimes, Math.)

However, thirteen pairs of eyes were looking at me at this point. Every single pair was tense with anticipation and anxiety for the answer. I was sitting in a circle with just one of the groups of Germans taking exchanges next year to America. These kids were going to a range of places in America from Texas to New Jersey to Michigan, and they were looking to me for the answer.

Last weekend, I was in Köln (or Cologne) with my exchange organization AYUSA for three days back in that same old youth hostile from my mid-year seminar in January. I was there again with exchange students, but instead of getting the advice, I was now giving it out and holding the wealth of knowledge as a current exchange student and a real American.

There were questions that I could answer thoroughly though and give my perspective. I explained what a normal school day could be like and the situation of public transportation (they were shocked that there really is a yellow school bus). At one point, one of the girls countered me and told me how she heard that in America you had the same classes everyday. She was set on what she had heard, and immediately, I started to counter argue and point out how my school had the A-day/B-day system. Then I had to smile to myself when I thought about how I was that girl when I came to Germany: I knew the answers. Two of my sisters had done this, I have always been surrounded by exchange students, and I just knew what to expect. Despite knowing that, most of my exchange experience has caught me off-guard, but I was still glad to help these exchange students however I could.

“How long have you been here? When do you go home? … Wow.”
“Did you have homesickness? What’d you do?”
“What’s high school like? What’s the biggest different between school here and there?”
“I heard they don’t have [insert object name] in America, should I bring it?”
“Do you have your own bedroom here?”
“You’re from Texas, right? Do you have a gun?”
“Have you been homesick?”
“How much money do I need per month for spending money?”
“How often do you talk to your family in America?”
“So what’s homesickness like?”
“Is everything really cheaper in America?”
“Where have you been in America?”
“Do you know anything about [Insert host-city name here]?”
“I’m scared about getting homesick. Is it hard?”
“Was it hard making new friends here?”
“What was your first day of school like?”

I answered every question as well as I could, but with always a side note on there: “But that’s how it is for me, personally, it could also be like…” Hopefully whatever I said will help someone in the long run, but they’ll figure it out for themselves. I am sure of that.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Mayersche's Most Loyal Customers...


Okay, fine, Anne. I read your blog, and I guess that is something that I have been wanting to talk about. Inspiration? I think so.

Did you know I am actually pretty productive? Like I go and study (or I try to!) two times a week? I guess I just might have to convince you: Anne and I recently started this new routine where every Monday afternoon, both of us get out a period early so Anne gets on a bus to Aachen, and I run home to grab some food. A snack for two, which Anne reminds me of my weirdness considering I’ve showed up with fruit, shrimp kebabs, PB&J sandwiches, yogurt with spoons, and cookies. We eat outside on a park bench or on the grass, enjoying the good weather as we tell each other about our weekends and what we’ve missed.

Still talking, we take three escalators up to the very top floor where the subject matter changes to “Hey, is this the book we decided we liked?” “Were you finished with the Slang book?” “Make sure you grab both the dictionaries!” We both take our piles of books to a study carrel and pull out our notebooks before switching them. Then the sentences change again:

“Uhmmm… thorough?”
“Wait… give me a second! … Sorgfältig!”
“Hey, that was pretty good!”
“Yeah, I studied in the bus,” admitted with a sheepish smile.
“To look for, to long for”
“Sich sehnen!”

We go through our lists of vocabulary words, helping each other remember the more difficult ones and seeing how much we learned. Last week, we both sat there astounded at the impact of the words we had learned. How could people have used those words so many times, and I never thought twice about what it meant or questioned them? I thought I always understood everything, but I’ve heard this word at least 32 times today and I never knew it before? It’s pretty hard to imagine.

Then we do the next step: find more new words to learn. We pull out what is considered a “Basic Dictionary” and go through page by page, quizzing each other on new random words. If you don’t know the word, write it down and be expected to know it next week. Easy enough. Now, I can welcome a long list of new words into my vocabulary such as: großzügig, zart, heiter, sich sehnen. Words that I had heard so many times and never really thought about what they mean.

Plus, the best part of it all is to watch passerby-ers stop at the peculiarity of our conversation where we’ll switch from German to English 6 times in one sentence, not thinking twice about the fact that I just said “obwohl” and “ich denke” directly after “yesterday afternoon” and “great.” 

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Excerpts from a Journal...

This is me wanting to post something, but not actually wanting to take the time to write something new. ; )
Enjoy.

"Now this will be interesting to write about. I have been living in parallel worlds. My world in America is waiting for me to come back. It exists here, but it doesn’t really. Tori Elenburg and my Mom seem the most like reality to me, but even my own sisters seem like a small bit of my imagination, of a bit of my life that doesn’t belong to me, like maybe a part of a book that I read. How are they so far away? Out of sight, out of mind. At the same time, when I am talking to other exchange students or making plans for traveling or just living in the context of my calendar, my life, family, and friends here in Germany don’t really exist to me. They all turn into a temporary condition versus a year of my life. They become relatively less important and real. However, when I am laying down for bed at night and watching a movie or TV show on my computer, I lay down with a content little smile on my face, and every other problem in the world literally disappears and I go to bed forgetting about the problem that Jana and I are having or how I need to say “Thank You” to my host parents for such a wonderful weekend. Anytime I leave the house and get my break for a couple hours or so, everything slips away from me, and I come back in such a happy, go lucky attitude of everything is great until I walk in the front door and find out that things are where I left them....Well, the moral of the story is that I want to pack and slowly return back to that “alternate universe” in America that is waiting on me. I was asked once again today, “Wann fährst du? Freust du dich schon auf zu Hause?” The answer is really simple. “Duh. Es ist mein ‘zu Hause!’” Yesterday, I talked to Jordan and Sara on the phone. With Sara, I was cleaning out my stuff at the moment and she had mentioned how she had packed one suitcase already, then realized that she still needed all the stuff inside and ended up unpacking it. Jordan told me to just go ahead and do a rough pack where I could weigh everything. That seems like a good idea too. Seriously, will everything make it back home? What am I going to do when I get go home? Will I nail all of my college interviews and find my place at an Ivy League? Will I go to Stanford all smart and prepared? Will I come back and start showing Anna around Prosper and Dallas and be a good host sister? Will I start writing college essays and apply early decision? Will I have good class rank? There are so many unknowns and possibilities that I want to come true. Not like my ACT test or my PSAT where I didn’t really study and still did amazing, but I keep thinking now, couldn’t I have done better? Or do I just have this luck that opens up doors of possibilities to me? Haven’t I always worked it out in the end? Or is confidence going to kill me?"



I am going to elaborate on the last one, although I am ready to go home and it is my “zu Hause,” I’ve made myself a “zu Hause” here. I have sat down and talked to my mom multiple times and after telling her about what I did the last weekend with my last huge smile and sigh of contentment, she’ll suggest, “So are you ready to come home from all your adventures, Lissa?” Then I can laugh a little bit and protest, “No!... Can all my worlds just combine? Fuse into one? That would be a lot easier nowadays!” Truthfully, I know when I am going back to America: June 23rd. I’ll be with my family on June 25th and back in Prosper for a couple days around July 7th. However, I have no clue the next time that I’ll be in Germany or I’ll see any of these people again and that, I can honestly say, scares me.

So… are the Germans are going to America or are the Americans coming to Germany? J