i am 17, going on 18...

Last week was my birthday week, I literally claimed the entire weekend for myself in one of my friend's planners. I wrote in big letters: "Lissa's Birthday Weekend! (It's all belongs to me!) <3 Lissa" It only seemed right to make sure my birthday in Germany was a special though even though I was a little nervous about what I wanted to do. Blah, who wants to have to figure out the party and plan it? I definitely didn't want to, but everything worked itself out wonderfully.

My birthday began already on Monday when I walked into school after two weeks of break, and comments immediately filled the air like, "I know someone who has a birthday this week..." followed by poking my side, inconspicuously. The excited attitude was really quite contagious. : ) I couldn't help but smile and beam too at the thought of my birthday! Already on Monday in school, someone handed me a birthday letter from one of my German friends that had moved to Brazil. The birthday happiness began with a bang! On Tuesday, more comments as to my birthday were brought up in conversation by my friends, anyone with a Facebook or SchülerVZ (they receive notices), or a person that I had just managed to write my birthday in their planner at some point. I received another birthday card that night from America and proudly looked at the nice little birthday pile forming, waiting until Friday to open anything. Wednesday is a day that I am not really up to commenting on, you can read below if you want to. : ) Then Thursday was actually a guy friend of mine's, Marius', birthday, so the birthday wishes were flowing in the air. I thought it was funny enough as someone ran up to Marius and gave him a huge hug, right before immediately turning to me and saying, "and guess who has a birthday tomorrow!" I endured the entire day as my friends would tell me I wasn't allowed to listen to a conversation or covered my ears. The excitement for tomorrow was building no matter what! I was talking to Anne on Facebook Thursday night, and she was asking me about my birthday and whether or not I was excited. I, truthfully, confessed how it was exciting and I wanted to spend my birthday with as many people who loved me as possible, including my exchange friends. Anne typed in a short response: "Why not?" I didn't give it more than a second's thought before I ran downstairs and asked my host parents if two Americans could spend the night Friday night to celebrate my birthday with me. After leaving Anne and Sara messages, I felt so much better as I laid down in bed for my last night being 16.

Waking up to the first words of "Alles Güte zum Geburtstag," sounded a little different than the "Happy Birthday" I had thought to myself, but it wasn't at all less meaningful.  Immediately walking into school, I was giving and getting hugs and just saying the words "Vielen Dank" over and over again. Germans don't give hugs, they give little kisses on the cheek, so it was a great change that I had missed. A friend ran up excitedly behind me and literally jumped with her hands around my neck: "Alles Güte zum Geburtstag!" English class was great as everybody sang to me, and then it was a class period where I didn't have to concentrate a lot, given that it is my natural language. ; ) Then during the first break, my friends made a circle in the hallway and presented me with two birthday cakes while singing Happy Birthday. I was just laughing and smiling. It was great! And then it was even better when someone was asking around for a lighter, and I blew out my birthday candles in the middle of the school on the stairs. It got even better when someone pulled out a bottle of children strawberry champagne to drink in congratulations. 

Then it was just even funnier when we all realized that we were supposed to be in class and only had a 10 minute break. I had to carry the cakes in Art class, but the birthday magic continued as I actually knew what I wanted to draw for the first time ever. It was supposed to be a still life representing us: my photos, my ballet shoes, my computer, iPod headphones, text books, journal, and German Grammar in a Nutshell were all displayed as important parts of me. Back to the school grounds for our bigger break, I was nervous as I was designated to open the bottle and cut the cake, but it was so much fun as we were all standing outside drinking out of this bright pink bottle (no one thought to bring glasses) and we all ate cake from our hands.

Back to class. Which turned out not to be so bad, considering we watched a movie in both Religion and German. Somehow, fate recognized my birthday and just turned my day into way better than days should possibly be. Plus, Sport was cancelled so I was able to run home before Circus and Ballet and actually switch out bags instead of carrying everything with me the entire day, especially now that 'everything' included the leftover cake, strawberry juice, and presents. My German friends turned my birthday into a way better birthday than I could have expected.


Birthday wishes and happiness continued through circus and ballet as I had so much fun do the things I loved. My host parents had asked my a week before if I was going to go to class on my birthday, but I couldn't imagine a better way to spend part of my day. After a particularly interesting pointe class, I was walking from the bus stop and Anne was calling me, "Where are you? We're going to be a little late to your house... but not long!" Two seconds later, Sara jumped out from behind a car and scared me so much! I laughed and was so happy to have my Americans there! I talked to my mom for five minutes before jumping on a bus to go meet up with a group of five friends at a cocktail café. I was shocked to walk in and see there was an extremely full table, and then on top of that, people came and joined us as we sat and enjoyed each other's company. ; ) We were there for a couple hours until Sara was so tired, and I must admit that I was getting pretty tired too. We ran to McDonald's to get food for the way home and then sat at my house and talked until we fell asleep.

Saturday morning, we wake up and ate a huge brunch with my host family with Anne and Sara there. We sat around lazily and looked at old photos and reminisced like old ladies. : ) Eventually, it was time to walk Sara to the train station and say goodbye, but me and Anne didn't let that stop us on our fun. We went to the city for a bit, and I spent one of my birthday presents already (a gift card!) For lunch, we decided to keep it simple as we passed the last strawberries of the day from the first strawberries of the season, and we bought two quarts before joining what seemed like the rest of Aachen to lay down on the grass and enjoy the sun.

As we walked around, Anne and I talked about everything just like we normally do, but at one point she mentioned how her and Josa (her host mom) talk about me. I was very intrigued and persisted until Anne told me about Josa's impersonation of me: "I am Lissa. I am from Texas. I do what I want." If you've ever met Josa, you would just have to laugh at the thought. But Josa was right, since I had gotten to Germany, I had jumped through a lot of loop holes and assured everyone that if I wanted to do something, I would do it and nobody or nothing was going to stop me.

After Anne left, I went home for a little bit to shower and get ready before leaving again. Saturday night was a night watching Sex and the City at a friend's house, while eating more strawberries and chocolate. Then Sunday was a day where my host parents literally spent from noon until 5, sitting on our back porch, soaking it in. I took their example and went for an over hour long walk and enjoyed the sunlight too. I laid down on the slightly wet grass without a hesitation and bopped my head along to the music on my iPod and just closed my eyes for the warmth to color my cheeks again. Summer is finally returning.

Man wird gleich kleine Lissa Stückchen an den Wände finden...

You're about to find little Lissa pieces on the walls....

The Important Events, Pertaining to the Afternoon of
Wednesday, April 14, 2010:

13.50 I am sitting in Art class when my teacher pulls out paintings from back in December to give back to us. I see my painting at the very bottom of the pile. The huge sunset that I had tried and failed to make look magical, the pictures of Tori that I had incorporated even though they were too small, and the fact that you could obviously tell I painted it if you looked at anything I have painted since 4th grade: All of these fact were painfully obvious to me. I took my painting quickly and put it under my desk, then there was the painting of my friend Lena who had moved in January, but someone had to take her painting to her Grandma's house as a gift. I volunteered and covered my painting with hers.

14.10 My art teacher walks quickly across the quad with the two paintings in hand, "Lissa! If you didn't want the paintings you could have just thrown them away instead of leaving them around!" She was shoving them back at me, and I barely found my words to explain how I left them in the auditorium because I have choir practice there in 5 minutes and didn't want to carry them outside with me right then. She faltered then apologized for assuming before, but I was still thrown off guard about the attack. People spent the rest of the time, trying to sneak peeks at the paintings. (These are 40x50cm canvases, hard to hide) Then some boy jumps into the conversation: "Do you understand? No, that's the funny part. You exchange students think you understand and say you understand, but you actually have no idea. I know how you are." What in the world?

15.08 After a boring choir practice where I tried to remember the complicated soprano part of "Requiem," because I had missed so many practices due to Easter Break and Auschwitz. I walked into the city, thinking, "I have mine and Lena's huge paintings. I am supposed to go to Purweider Weg and drop of Lena's painting... I have all of this stuff in my purse to send Felicia in Sweden, and I wanted to buy a couple other things to add... I have to be back here to meet my Community Representative at 17.00, which I forgot to tell my host family about... I can get this all done."

15.16 Walking to the general downtown direction, I decide to send Felicia's present because that was important and had to be done soon. I made my way to a souvenir shop and picked up some Aachen-themed stuff, but as soon as I walk outside, it starts raining. The sky had been perfect 15 minutes before... What happened? Without an umbrella, with two huge paintings, and on a street with little shelter or overhangs, I start just trying to move quickly to the next store. While crossing the street as the rain dies down, I have to run back real fast because I just dropped one of the paintings on the street... Not good.

15:45 With yummy candy put in my purse and a cardboard box under my hand that I had just gotten from a pharmacy, (the Lissa method of shipping something is to just ask a lot of stores if they have an empty cardboard box, many of them do) I walked to the post office, glad to have one thing almost off of my list. Oh wait, why are the lights dark at the Post office? A guy is walking out of the doors as I am walking and says, "Well, this is really stupid!" I look closer at the note taped on the glass room dividers: "We apologize for the inconvenience, but the post office will be closed on Wednesday, April 14th. We will be open again on Thursday, April 15th. We apologize, once again, for the inconvenience." I looked at the two paintings under one arm, the overflowing purse under the other, and the cardboard box in my hands. The post office knows absolutely nothing about inconvenience.


15:48 Plan B. Buy large envelope and send as much as possible to Sweden, so it gets there sooner, the entire day won't be a waste, and I won't have to wait around for my CR with so much stuff. I put my cardboard box next to the trash can and went off to get an envelope and was deeply absorbed when an older man comes up to me:
"Excuse me, did you just put the cardboard box next to the trash can?"
"Uhmmm... No?"
"I'm sorry, but did you just put the cardboard box next to the trash can? It can't stay there. You need to take it with you."
"What?"
He starts walking to the trash and pointing at the box, "Nein! Du musst es mit dir nehmen!" I put it in the trash again and walked away rolling my eyes, then he is yelling at me loudly saying, "NEIN! Du darfst das nicht machen! Take home! Take home!"
He finally walks away and the incredible urge to throw the stupid cardboard box at the back of his head crept over my entire body. You have no idea how much strength it took to not do it.
I walked into another store, and they recycled my box for me happily. I went to go buy stamps for my new ready package, the machine only takes coins and credit cards. I went to the bakery and begged for change for my 10 Euro bill. I finally get the package ready to go, and there is absolutely no space in the mail drop; letters are literally falling out and on the ground anytime someone opens it.

16:14 I walked in the city and searched after another mail drop until I finally found one and had to shove and squish my package so much to make it fit through the slot. I hope nothing broke... There was still a little under an hour before I had to meet my CR, which wasn't enough time to go home or drop off the painting at the grandma's house and who wants to walk through stores carrying two huge paintings? I decided to enjoy the good weather and walked up to the very top floor of a good bookstore nearby and went on their outside balcony where they have a small playground and fountains. Sitting down with a huge huff, I looked over at the two stupid paintings I was carrying, neither of them were truthfully that great. This is where Lissa reaches the point of insanity. I turn my own painting over and start ripping the canvas out from under the staples. Just ripping it out. No clue what I was going to do with it. It took me a good fifteen or twenty minutes to get through all the staples, but I just kept ripping and didn't think twice.  I couldn't exactly rip apart another girl's painting, but it felt so liberating throwing the pieces of wood frame away and shoving the canvas in my purse, even though it barely fit. Deep breathes. I felt officially like I could do the maniac laugh for a reason.

Me and My Flag. (A Children's Book)

Hi. My name is Lissa, and I live in a country named Germany, but I visited my friend in a country named Sweden!

I took a plane to go visit my friend, Felicia, in Sweden, and it was very exciting!

Sweden was new and pretty, but there was still some snow! One night, me and my Swedish friends put on very pretty dresses for a special dinner, and on our way to the restaurant we found….

A beautiful sky-blue and sunny-yellow flag! Do you know this flag? This is the Swedish flag.

We bought the flag and started having a lot of adventures around Stockholm, Sweden.

I went to a lot of cool places with my flag and learned tons of cool history, and sometimes we took funny photos too.

Me and Felicia had tons of fun in Sweden, especially with my flag.

Now, I am back in Germany, but I still have my flag and want to go Felicia visit again! I am proud to call myself a little Swedish and say: “Jag heter Lissa” instead of “Ich heiße Lissa” or “My name is Lissa.”

The End.

Today, I sat in the car and watched out the window at the Autobahn. I watched the roads curve in between mountains. When you drove around a bend, you would find yourself driving on a bridge over a town nestled in a valley. I was used to this kind of drive for when I went south of Aachen to my host-grandparents’ and cousins’ houses. In contrast to the drive south of Aachen, there are the roads to the east and the north that I know well too. Last Wednesday morning, even though it was still pitch-black outside the windows when my host-dad and I left at 6:00AM, I still knew the flat green fields we were driving past with hills in the background. By the time the sun rose, I didn’t recognize the landscape as much because we were driving in a new northward direction for me. There were a different kind of trees outside the windows, and a new Dutch-like landscape rolled by. I was on my way to a small airport to fly to Stockholm. I have been dreaming about going to Stockholm since we dropped Felicia off at the airport last June…

I sat in the front seat and told everyone how I wanted to go visit Felicia in Sweden when I was in Germany. Tori immediately gave me a reality check of how I “wouldn’t be able to travel as much as [I] would like to,” and it will be very unlikely. Instead, my answer was: “It will be the cheapest to visit her when I am in Germany than it will ever been again in my life. I am going to figure out a way.” Tori just shrugged her shoulders, knowing I would see for myself once I got to Germany…

I sat in the airport, happily, remembering that from the previous summer and laughing at Tori in my head. I did it. I walked across the tarmac after not checking any bags (that’s what you get when your flight costs less than $50 roundtrip), and a sense of independence rushed over me. I was going to Sweden!

I found myself three hours later sitting on Felicia’s bed and just listening to her talk about our week’s plans in awe. She was blonde again, which had surprised me when she scared me at the bus stop. Her motorcycle boots and red velvet leggings didn’t fit my memory of the girl I knew, but the black bow in her hair assured me it was the same one. Oh, how much I had missed her! After a quick tour of their apartment, which amazingly cool and urban (I was mesmerized by her shower of all things), I was staring outside her bedroom window where I could see the main shopping street in Stockholm just one block down. I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know how she went to Prosper, Texas where everything is miles away, and a person relies on others for transport after growing up, literally, in the middle of downtown Stockholm. Stockholm is a city of 750,000 people, which is less than Köln’s million, but they seem to have so much more to offer.

(My first moments with Felicia as she showed me Stockholm)

My following week in Stockholm was beautiful. Wednesday night after I came, me and Felicia didn’t do much besides for pick up cookies and pulled out season 2 of Gossip Girl, so she would have to stare at that temptation to get her homework done. Thursday morning, I got up and was very excited to go to school, but it was all in Swedish so the majority of my understanding came down to a piece of paper with important Swedish words that Felicia had made for me. The Math teacher graciously welcomed me, a boy came up and thought I was new student thanks to his friends’ April Fool’s joke, and I looked through Felicia’s books in class and searched for those similar word that I could understand thanks to German. Thursday night, me and Felicia pulled out all of the glitter and sequined covered clothes in her closet, which was a lot, and got ready for a birthday party! I selected a black, high-waisted skirt with Felicia’s black sequined vest and my pink tank top, a combination that I wasn’t sure if I was brave enough to wear outside the house. We met up with a friend of Felicia's and took a subway out of the city where the snow was still on the ground, the water was still frozen, and the houses looked more like pictures from a book. Inside Elvira’s, the birthday girl’s, house, everything was completely and totally white with the lightest birch on the floors so every other color seemed to pop against the background. The windows lining the house showed a view below that no photo could do it justice. While I looked at all the girls showing up, I leaned over to Felicia and whispered: “One of my German friends told me about how she always thinks of Swedes as so fashionable and so beautiful. I am sitting here and looking at you guys and the word ‘glamorous’ keeps popping in my head. This is like a movie and completely glamorous.” Felicia laughed and pointed it out that this was a 18^th birthday party, and they don’t normally have champagne glasses in their hands either. It was a great night.

(I recognize that I can’t tell about everything in such detail, so I’m going to try to hurry it up from here on out)

Friday morning, we woke up then Felicia, her dad, and I made our way to the airport. Sweden had blessed us with some sun, so I could see all of its glory out of a little 4-person plane that Felicia’s dad could fly. It was my personal tour of Stockholm and the greater Sweden. We saw everything from the sky: the castle, Felicia’s house, the landmarks, and the vastness of 20,000 islands stretching out to form such an archipelago. No tour from a bus down on the ground could have shown that or how the ice was slowly melting now and the tracks where it was or had been thick enough for cars to drive across.  Driving out to the reaches of Sweden’s border almost in Finland, Felicia pulled diet coke and cinnamon buns out of a bag her dad had brought. How perfect! Later back on the ground, we prettied ourselves up for a nice Good Friday dinner at a famous hotel down in the harbor. On our way to the restaurant is where my lovely children’s book begins; we found a Swedish flag that was a fitting gift for the American. Dinner was great, and our eyes were bigger than our stomachs as we saw the amazing buffet. I took this as my opportunity to try caviar and herring, both of which weren’t my taste; however, the dessert buffet was. Felicia, her sisters (Carolina and Viktoria), and I all loaded up our plates and cleaned them off as quickly as possible.

Saturday, Felicia and I took my flag around the city for it’s first official tour of Stockholm with the American. She showed me the beautiful “Old Town,” and my flag bounced happily out of my purse. The bright orange colors of the buildings were something I had never expected in Stockholm, but they shined brilliantly in the afternoon sun. I posed for photos with my flag around the city, the castle, the harbor, near the museums, on our way to McDonalds for ice cream, and in a store. At the castle, an older woman came up to us and asked why we were carrying the flag, thinking we were both just random Swedish teenagers with a flag. Felicia had to explain the mix up in Swedish, but she would start speaking English. I was rubbing off on her. : ) The woman started talking to me in English and surprised me by asking if I was “brain washed” too. She was referring to how we said the pledge of allegiance with hands over our hearts. Is that brain washed? All in all, it was quite a successful day.

Sunday was Easter, but we woke up and continued on my tour of Sweden to see the inside of the castle and couple other museums. To explain the history Viktoria joined us, but we were all confused as we walked to the castle and they were doing a huge ceremony. The soldiers had huge guns and were brandishing knives. Yes, I am aware of the American military and their guns, but it was uncomfortable for me to see the soldier not let a hand off his gun, even though there was no one of importance there. Weird. We saw the castle, still decorated with styles from the 17^th century, and Felicia and Viktoria told me a little about Swedish history where the words “queen” and “king” stood out funny to me. We visited the treasury and a museum of the crown underneath the castle, which were all really interesting. I didn’t think about it much, but it was Easter. A day normally began with church and Easter hug hunts. Instead, we continued our day with eating yummy cake and a coffee shop, buying jeans, and then going to the gym to work off some of the candy we had been eating. The gym open on Easter? Nothing was weird about that. Felicia’s mom and her sister were leaving early the next morning to have a mother-daughter trip in Paris, so we said our goodbyes but not before eating a wonderful Easter dinner and finishing it off with ice cream and tons of “thank yous.”

(Stupid BlogSpot won't let me turn the photo...)

Monday, we woke up to a thin layer of snow in Stockholm, so our plans of visiting an outdoor zoo/museum were scrapped for a day of baking instead. Felicia pulled out the ingredients for traditional Swedish cinnamon and vanilla buns, and I happily helped wherever I could. Over three hours later, there were over fifty warm buns on the counters even though a good deal of the dough was eaten in the baking process. After painting our nails too, Felicia, Viktoria, and I got ready and went to the movies to see “Remember Me.” Even after Viktoria told me all about the movie and I saw the trailer, the ending still came as a shock to me. I would recommend you see it, so I can’t ruin it too much, but it was still my first time sitting in a movie theater with a movie in English in almost 8 months. (Sweden has only 9 million people, so most American movies and TV shows are played here in English, versus in Germany where synchronizing and dubbing voices is a huge industry)

Tuesday was recognized as my last full day in Sweden, which would have been a lot sadder if Viktoria hadn’t gotten up early and made amazing pancakes, covered in strawberries. We gobbled them up despite their beauty. Then Felicia put the question out there: “What do you want to do on your last day?” This meant meeting her friend at the Stockholm city library then going out for ice cream and sitting on the King’s Garden, collecting my last souvenirs from Stockholm, buying chocolate and picking out candy to take back to Germany, checking out the stores, and taking the requested photos of Felicia’s shower for my mom. We finished the night off with movies in Felicia’s room like we had been accustomed to and then Sushi for dinner.

Sleeping in Felicia’s water bed, I was going to miss that. Seeing the water around me as I walk over bridges, I was going to miss that. Talking in English and it not being my problem when people had issues with the language, I was going to miss that too. Hanging out with Felicia even if we were only watching Gossip Girl, I was definitely going to miss that. I miss it already. Coming back to Germany, I pulled my bags back down to my room and immediately put the Swedish flag up on my wall, that was a part of Sweden that I didn’t want to forget. In my blood, I am a quarter Swedish and a quarter German which both have proved a pretty big importance to me.

So, thanks for holding on and reading everything if you did. Congratulations! That’s my experience of Sweden in a nutshell.

TIME

The last seconds of Physics drag on so slowly. A night with friends is gone in the blink of an eye. Hours of pondering while staring out the bus window turn out to have been just 12 minutes. The last 8 months in Germany seem to have just flown by at a speed of way too fast, even though the next 2 months look so long and scary. Time is one of the trickiest things out there. One of my exchange friends, Josh Tokioka, coined this quote: Time is in relativity.

My perspective of time has changed since I’ve been here. People going on 5 month exchanges, who complain about homesickness, seem a little weird to me, because I just think of when I had been in Germany for 5 months, I still had 5 months left at that point. The idea of college doesn’t seem scary at all, because at least you go home during breaks and random weekends. Even more on top of all that, it used to take an hour to drive down to downtown Dallas and how often did we do that? Not very often, less than once a week probably. Here, I’m sitting on a bus or train or waiting at the train station after my bus dropped me off a little early and will end up spending over an hour in transportation to go visit a friend for a couple hours, and it doesn’t bother me.

For example, it is an 8 minute train to get to the main train station, then I have to wait 11 minutes for the next bus, which I’ll sit on for 32 minutes until I get to another town, where then I’ll walk 3 minutes and get ready for dance class: 54 minutes later. The best of part of this story is that I could drive there in less than 15 minutes from driveway to parking lot, if I was just allowed to drive here and had a car. Then again, not worrying about gas and being able to get everyone is very nice, no matter how long it takes.

I flip through my photos organized by months, and I see the following titles:

August- Leaving and Language Camp

September- Moving to Aachen, Kayaking, and Trying on Dirndls

October- Oktoberfest, Herbstferien, a Tea Party

November- Fall in Aachen, our Chorfahrt, and our American Thanksgiving

December- Adventzeit and Christmas

January- Snow, CBYX Seminar in Köln

February- Karneval and Aschaffenburg

March- Jana’s Birthday, Holland, Tango practice, and Auschwitz

April- Sweden, Münster

My feeling of time is different. I’ll be in America again in a little less than 2 months and 2 weeks. It is scarier to me that I can remember back 2 months and 2 weeks ago, and it feels just like yesterday.


NEXT BLOG: SWEDEN (please expect within week)

Motto Woche

It’s is already been pretty well established that German school is different than American schools. The German school system proved just how different it was after I curiously say the words “Motto Woche” written across the entire week from March 22-26 on Jana’s column of the family calendar. I’ll try to explain a little bit about the system first.

(One of our buildings)

So for starters, every German must attend school from the ages of 6 to 16. This rules out all possibilities for high school dropouts and such, which is great; but it also bans things like “homeschooling.” First Germans will begin with putting their children into Kindergarten, which is unlike how us, Americans, use the word, because here it refers to provided daycare that might start at 2 or 3 years old, and is not in connection to a school. Parents will work to get their children spots in Kindergarten, but most are very cautious about how many hours a day their children will be there, and if the environment is pedagogically suitable. Germany actually has a very good Kindergarten program from what I have heard in comparison to other countries; on top of that, where the DDR used to exist in Eastern Germany, the Kindergartens were organized even better so every parent could work to maximize efficiency.

Around the age of 6 years old, parents will start looking for a proper Grundschule  (meaning “basic school”) for their children to attend through 4^th grade. Normally, the school will be somewhat near their house, which will change later. Kids will attend Grundschule and form the basics of their knowledge. The school day will end around 2:00PM everyday, and they’ll go home to eat a warm lunch with their family. My experience isn’t very good with the Grundschule system, because there are just teenagers in my host home.

At the end of 4^th grade, the teachers will look at each child’s grades and talk to their parents before putting forth a recommendation for what school the student should attend: Hauptschule, Realschule, Gesamtschule, or Gymansium. Hauptschule will be preparing students for a job in the real world, versus preparing them to go to a university, learning at a slower rate until 9^th grade. A student in Realschule will experience the same materials as a student at a Hauptschule, but will learn until 10^th grade and will learn at a slightly quicker rate. A Gesamtschule, which literally means “together school” is a school consisting of kids from every level of the German schooling system, so this would resemble more of an American High School with classes at different levels for different kinds of thinkers.  Then, last but definitely not least, comes the German Gymnasium. If you are selected to learn at a Gymnasium, that means you are going somewhere in life. Your parents probably had a good education and have a study job and so will you. Students can complete Realschule then go further in their education and step it up to Gymnasium, but that will mean a lot of hard work because they have been learning on different levels. When you attend a Gymnasium, you’ll be there from 5^th until 13^th (yes, 13^th) grade, and in this time, you’ll choose “majors” or Leistungskurs in high school and all of this learning will come down to a final exam: Abitur.

The Abitur is a huge test that is enough to scare anyone into weeks of uninterrupted learning. It is a grade that defines your schooling career, and it is the equivalent of an American GPA and SAT and ACT scores all put together. You won’t forget it. A final Abitur grade will decide which college your going to attend, what subject material, and your future as a whole. So, to sum it all up, this is a really important thing. The 13^th Graders will have their last day of school on April 16^th, then spend the rest of the time at home studying and learning for these huge subject tests, which they’ll take on three different days until the end of June. To commemorate the Abitur, there are parties to raise money, a yearbook, t-shirts, a slogan, and a final dance as a congratulation. We just experienced Motto Woche, which was a week of craziness designed by the 13^th graders, where they danced on tables, showed up to school crazily dressed, orchestrated games during our breaks between all the different grades, and ended it off by revealing their Motto: Suit Up, It’s GonnA BI Legendary. : ) It was a hilarious experience.

 (13th Graders dancing on our tables during the breaks)

On the down side, I go to school with already some of Germany’s “Smartest.” You miss the contributions and comments that one enjoys in a normal high school, because there isn’t as much of a variety of intellect. However, there is a lot more freedom and trust given to students: beginning in 11^th grade, you can leave the school during your breaks, and once you turn 18, you are fully responsible for yourself and can sign your own absence slips. Our classes are more arranged like at a college, so classes meet during specific days of the week, in different time blocks, in different classrooms. There is no “lunch” period in school, but most teachers are okay with a little snacking in class. It’s also not a problem considering the average school day is out at 2:00PM.

1^st Period- 8:00-9:00

2^nd Period- 9:10-10:10

3^rd Period- 10:30-11:30

4^th Period- 11:40-12:40

5^th Period- 1:00-2:00

7^th Period- 3:00-4:00

As for how our schedules work, students will concentrate their learning on either the Natural Sciences or Foreign Languages and will take multiple science classes or multiple foreign languages (English is considered mandatory no matter what, and not ‘foreign.’) Classes such as German, Math, History/Geography, English, Biology/Chemistry/Physics, Sport, Music/Art, Spanish/Latin/French, Philosophy, and Computer Science are offered at my school. The average student will have somewhere around 23 hours of school a week and might stay after school for concentrated study in a particular subject during the 7^th Period. Now in preparation for the end of the German schooling, Abitur, the house is pretty quiet, but the German school system is still a thing to marvel at. 

Auschwitz...

Yesterday, I was walking out of dance class, and I told a group of little girls to have a good Easter break. One of the little girls stops and says, “You speak funny!” I laugh a little then start to explain, “That is because I am from America, and we speak English there.” She contemplated it for about two seconds then looked at me resolutely, “No, you just speak funny.”

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One week ago today, I was in Poland and packing my bags to come back to Germany. We were there visiting the Auschwitz concentration camp, a very significant camp in the Holocaust, and we had seen so much in our short six days there that I hope I will never forget and take with me. Since we’ve been back, we all hear the question: “How was it?” How do you describe one of those places without getting into a full debate? My standard answer: “I learned a lot.” A couple of the teachers just don’t seem to grasp the concept of what we were doing: “Was your trip wholesome?” (a teacher used the words ‘wholesome!’) “How was Cracow?” (like it was just a sightseeing trip!) Well, I honestly think that a person can’t have appreciated Auschwitz, and everything we saw unless they put it into perspective. I tried to do just that.

Excerpt from my journal:

“So the day began with a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and from the first glance, it looked exactly what I had imagined a concentration camp looked like, which Auschwitz had proved wrong the day before, except for the buses of Israelis pouring out, wearing their blue and white flag (with Jewish star) proudly. The camp was huge, bare, muted, the miles of barbed wire stuck out in the middle of nowhere, hardly any trees shielded the prisoners from the summer sun and the paths were large puddles, where even with mats on the ground, shoes were soaking wet. My group of Germans kept looking at the Israelis, waving these ridiculous flags and the world “unangenehm” or “unpleasant” kept being said over and over again, as they would whisper more quietly in German as the star of David passed by and they (the Israelis) posed for photos with their flags at every possible place. I debated speaking English loudly to ease the tensions and establish us as Americans, granted, it wasn’t at all that serious. Just “unangenehm.” We walked up to the main watchtower and the sounds of clunking military boots filled my ears, they ducked under the same low walkways that we did. They looked out across the squared miles of people, starving and dying, and just saw justice. I tried to imagine the grounds full of starving people; I just felt a mass of burden. The tour continued into a horses stable built for 52 horses that, instead, held anywhere from 400 to 800 or 1000 Jews. Unangenehm. The thin wood walls were a joke and the slats of the “beds” couldn’t have handled the weight of a normal person. One fireplace should warmed the entire place from one corner, for the minimal time it was on. We walked the grounds, and it was easier for me to imagine a new line of train cars coming in with confused people. Prisoners stood to one side to take people’s belongings to the “Canadas” and the officers were yelling loudly: “Frauen und Kinder links and Männer rechts!” (We stood at the railroad tracks and looked at a lone, old car that was ironically a gift from Germany) Dr. Mengele stood at the front and motioned simple with his thumb whether the people were in good enough condition to work. The elderly, children, and too weak were reassured of the thought of a nice “shower” as they were lead to gas chambers/crematoriums. (We saw the ruins of 5 burned down combination building that had been used to kill 70-75% of the people that came, who were never even prisoners) The German officers reminded them to remember what numbered hook they had left their stuff at as they were huddled into a room and they look expectedly at the fake shower heads. What a though out story, less than 20 minutes later, fellow prisoners were shoving them into the crematoriums, praying to not recognize one of the motionless faces. (Up to 2,000 people could meet this fate at one time) On the other hand, the stronger people were being herded into a “sauna,” where they were being forced to strip, and officers searched for weak people/pregnant women that they had overlooked earlier. (We stood in the large opening room on a newly built glass walkway for preservation) Fellow prisoners searched through their belongings and tried to smuggle valuable goods for trading later (we looked in the room with displayed suitcases, clothing, hairbrushes, money, watches, and photos) They, then, caught glimpse of a sign above the doorway: Haarschneiderei. SS officers brutally cut off all hair on people’s bodies, hastily, mocking, and jeering. Their skins were also burned with needles, numbers replaced names. (The room couldn’t have been half of the size of our den back at home, and my imagination flicked back to the enormous pile of hair discovered at the Stammlager.) They continued walking, still humiliated and naked, bare, exposed. The showers were at least something to look forward to, until they were shoved in the next large room and freezing cold or scalding hot water seared their skins. The assembly line continued. They were directed to a “drying room,” where they had to wait for clothes to be disinfected by other prisoners from steam or hot water. (We walked past the big machines. “Desinfizierte Wäsche” could be read above the door) Finally, the prisoners were beat and screamed at until they were in the last room, where they received the new clothes and the fresh tattoo still burned the skin. A new identity and the beginning of a new life was given to them (or a lack of one.)

Our stay in the Polish town of Oświęcim, also known as the German name “Auschwitz,” we learned a lot. We stayed in “The Center of Dialogue and Prayer,” which was less than a five minute walk away from Auschwitz I, the Stammlager. I remember my first sight of the camp from our bus from the airport, my stomach felt sick, looking at the old brick buildings. The Stammlager has been turned into a museum now, and a person walks through exhibits about Prisoner Life, the beginning of the War, Proof of War Crimes, Living Conditions, Starvation, and so much more. But in the midst of all these glass cases and carefully laid out exhibitions, you forget that you’re standing in a block where people previously laid there and died every night. You just have to remind yourself. Several countries have also set up exhibitions, using one of the blocks, honoring the victims in their country that suffered from the Holocaust and telling their story of what happened. These exhibits include an interesting, very orange one from Hungary; one from Poland that gave me the creeps and made me feel like I shouldn’t be there; one from Israel that did the exact same thing; one from Italy where you walked on a walkway through a winding cloth telling their story of the Holocaust; one from the Netherlands that was just too bright and welcoming (the thought that you were in a block was unimaginable); a interesting, mission like one from France where shadows were painted all over the walls; a bright, white one from Belgium made in 5 or 6 languages; and a couple others. It was interesting, because each country had control of their exhibit, so a couple like Austria made it appear like they had fought against Hitler’s powers so much and how they had been such an innocent ‘victim.’

There is so much more to say about Auschwitz. In our time there, we went to all three Auschwitz camps, received three hour tours in both Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau; we met a Polish Holocaust survivor who had the most luck during the entire experience; we went to a art exhibit from a man who survived the Holocaust and spent years painting his experience; we visited the Jewish Synagogue, museum, and graveyard in the town of Auschwitz; we went to the city of Cracow for a day; and we had hours and hours of group discussions where we discussed if Auschwitz was “a state of mind, a cemetery or a museum” or if , as a German, a person should feel “shame, anger, or sadness.” Sitting as the only American in the group, it was so interesting listening to their answers and their completely different perspective than mine. I gave a presentation on what Americans learn about the Holocaust, (thanks to the people that helped!) and I was shocked to learn that they hadn’t learned about the Holocaust in school yet. They are supposed to cover it in 10^th grade then again in 12^th or 13^th grade, but their teacher ran out of time. Can you believe going to Auschwitz and not knowing all of the history? We got our first introduction to the Holocaust around 3^rd grade after reading an edit version of Anne Frank’s Diary or Under the Stars, then again in 8^th grade where we read the play of Anne Frank’s Diary and Night and did these outrageous huge reports on the Holocaust that required so much research, then they are covering the Holocaust right now again in US History. We learn. I couldn’t fathom it. Although most kids had looked up quite a bit of information on their own and asked their grandparents, it was still shocking.

All in all, Auschwitz was a great experience, and I can honestly say that I learned so much. I thought of what a crazy mess the world is in and how we are killing our environment all the time and there are all the wars and insane people and how it seems like Revelations but happen any day. Then I remember during the Holocaust how the world must have looked to them when the entire world was literally fighting each other and millions of people were dying because of something they had no choice over. Now in history we are learning about the French Revolution, and I think in the same lines, how insane must have the world looked to them when people were running past uncontrollable with people for the guillotine. The world always seems pretty insane, doesn’t it? How do we take what we learned from over 6,000,000 deaths in the Holocaust (1,300,000 just from Auschwitz) and translate that into the people dying unjustly all over the world today… What have we learned? What do we do?

Write, Woman, Write.

 Funnily enough, when I say the word "woman" like that in a sentence, Billy from CBYX pops into my head, and it makes me laugh. That begins this story time to describe the last month...

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: My exchange organization is having a big meeting in June with the German Bundestag to say "thank you" and show them what we have learned. Our group is supposed to put something artistic together, so the idea came up, "Why not do a tango? Wasn't that important for us? We danced quite a bit in Hedersleben..." So we started practicing once in January at our CBYX meeting in Köln.

Now, back to present-day last weekend, Billy (a boy in the exchange program) came up to Aachen to practice the tango. What a nice morning taking salsa lessons and getting to learn great new people at a new dance studio, then them asking for me and Billy to show off what we could do. Thankfully, they knew pretty much no tango, so whatever we did looked pretty cool. It wasn't long later that we started using our time better to practice, and we started dreaming the impossible: "Wait! Maybe, I can do this and then you can do that and then we can both do this and go here and that gets us here in angle to the audience, and that sets up to do that trick that we thought of earlier- do you remember that?- Yep, sound good?" But just dancing the tango again was so much fun. Fits of laughter would ensue when I would step back and think about me dancing in front of the German government in just three short months. Yeah.... This will be fun. Anne came and joined us in our dancing, and she learned my part of the dance, and Billy's, then I learned Billy's part of the dance, and he learned mine, and in the end, we were just all having fun dancing. It was tons of laughing, Nutella eating, and dancing. Just a great evening and a ridiculous total of 10+ hours of dancing.

However, Sunday was spent packing for Poland. Walking through Tango steps. Throwing the snow boots into the bag for Poland. Pulling my bright yellow converse out for the spring weather here. Finding  three new bruises around my right knee from the previous day's dancing. Searching for medical insurance paper. Writing handouts for presentation. Forcing Germans to stay awake way past their bed time. Laying in bed. Thinking nervously. Drifting off. Waking up to bright light at 2:00AM. Putting bags in the car. Arriving at train station. Seeing group of sleep deprived teenagers.

NEXT BLOG: POLAND