Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Before I Forget
I've been in this country a little less than four months and I've slept in ten different houses.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Two Months Down
This marks my third month in Germany and my second month in Happerschoß, Hennef.
I know this has been a recurring theme, me saying I'd post and then not posting but I promise it's not because I'm lazy. Or maybe it is. Or maybe too much has been happening but at the same time not enough is happening.
At this point, I've gotten used to life in Germany and the little things that used to make me surprised or annoyed are gone now. I'm pretty grateful that we had language camp at Hedersleben before coming to our host families because not only was it helpful because I knew no German whatsoever but because Hedersleben literally had nothing in it and it made me more appreciative of where I am now.
Speaking of where I am now, I live in a village of 1,500 people and we have a restaurant, a dentist, and I think a few farmers? I don't know but in order to get in and out of the village you have to go up or down long and winding roads through forest and that was really cool at first but now I'm kind of getting tired of it because the bus only comes once every hour on weekdays and then every other hour on weekends. But that's okay because it's manageable.
Because I take the bus to school every morning and go home with it, I have a SchülerTicket which allows me to take any public transport anywhere in my Bundesland south of Köln (Cologne). It's pretty cool that I live so close to a big city because I get to go there any time I want but also enjoy the village life. But to be honest I had a hard time accepting the village life at first because it's the complete opposite of the OC life. I have to travel an hour to get to the closest Starbucks. It's a little heartbreaking but I manage. ~
But that's okay because Starbucks here is overpriced. Everything in Germany is overpriced. I cry a little bit inside when I go into a store and see a nice T-shirt and see that it costs €25, which is relatively cheap for Germany, and then realize that in dollars that's $34 and think about how much cheaper it would be in the US. Hollister is also very overpriced! I mean it was already overpriced in the US but here it's inflated to the max. But still everyone seems to always be wearing Hollister. That can also be annoying/sad sometimes because every time I see a shirt or a jacket that says Huntington Beach or Laguna Beach or Newport Beach it makes it difficult not to think about home.
As I said before, I had a really hard time accepting the village life at first and during the first week I had homesickness. It was just a combination of all the culture shock and then starting school and realizing I couldn't just listen to the teachers and understand what they were saying. School was really difficult and is still pretty difficult because of my lack of German speaking abilities but it gets better little by little. Making friends is pretty difficult for me because I'm paralyzed every time I try to speak German so I always end up finding people nice enough to say hi to me and then just standing with their group. This isn't the case with everybody, I promise. I'm just slow (if not the slowest) on the Freundschaft business. That wasn't the case at home but I guess now I know that this is what happens when you take away American humor and ratchetness and sass and mutual understanding of language? It's all still a learning process.
I've gotten along pretty well with my host family, though! I love them and I appreciate that they always try to make me feel like part of the family and I do feel that way. I've gone to a political seminar with them about the Israel and Palestine conflict and while we were there we visited Bergen-Belsen which is the camp that Anne Frank passed away in. We've also visited the Deutsches Museum in Bonn together which was also very interesting. I'm so glad that we do activities like this together and I'm very excited to go skiing with them for the first time during Winterferien.
This is a lot of information to be just thrown at you all at one time but because I haven't been posting I thought I'd just talk about a few things. More posts about my Herbstferien will come soon and about the exchange student life. (:
Bis später ~
P.S. I forgot to write an actual post about the Hedersleben life so I think I might make one about that.
I know this has been a recurring theme, me saying I'd post and then not posting but I promise it's not because I'm lazy. Or maybe it is. Or maybe too much has been happening but at the same time not enough is happening.
At this point, I've gotten used to life in Germany and the little things that used to make me surprised or annoyed are gone now. I'm pretty grateful that we had language camp at Hedersleben before coming to our host families because not only was it helpful because I knew no German whatsoever but because Hedersleben literally had nothing in it and it made me more appreciative of where I am now.
Speaking of where I am now, I live in a village of 1,500 people and we have a restaurant, a dentist, and I think a few farmers? I don't know but in order to get in and out of the village you have to go up or down long and winding roads through forest and that was really cool at first but now I'm kind of getting tired of it because the bus only comes once every hour on weekdays and then every other hour on weekends. But that's okay because it's manageable.
Because I take the bus to school every morning and go home with it, I have a SchülerTicket which allows me to take any public transport anywhere in my Bundesland south of Köln (Cologne). It's pretty cool that I live so close to a big city because I get to go there any time I want but also enjoy the village life. But to be honest I had a hard time accepting the village life at first because it's the complete opposite of the OC life. I have to travel an hour to get to the closest Starbucks. It's a little heartbreaking but I manage. ~
But that's okay because Starbucks here is overpriced. Everything in Germany is overpriced. I cry a little bit inside when I go into a store and see a nice T-shirt and see that it costs €25, which is relatively cheap for Germany, and then realize that in dollars that's $34 and think about how much cheaper it would be in the US. Hollister is also very overpriced! I mean it was already overpriced in the US but here it's inflated to the max. But still everyone seems to always be wearing Hollister. That can also be annoying/sad sometimes because every time I see a shirt or a jacket that says Huntington Beach or Laguna Beach or Newport Beach it makes it difficult not to think about home.
As I said before, I had a really hard time accepting the village life at first and during the first week I had homesickness. It was just a combination of all the culture shock and then starting school and realizing I couldn't just listen to the teachers and understand what they were saying. School was really difficult and is still pretty difficult because of my lack of German speaking abilities but it gets better little by little. Making friends is pretty difficult for me because I'm paralyzed every time I try to speak German so I always end up finding people nice enough to say hi to me and then just standing with their group. This isn't the case with everybody, I promise. I'm just slow (if not the slowest) on the Freundschaft business. That wasn't the case at home but I guess now I know that this is what happens when you take away American humor and ratchetness and sass and mutual understanding of language? It's all still a learning process.
I've gotten along pretty well with my host family, though! I love them and I appreciate that they always try to make me feel like part of the family and I do feel that way. I've gone to a political seminar with them about the Israel and Palestine conflict and while we were there we visited Bergen-Belsen which is the camp that Anne Frank passed away in. We've also visited the Deutsches Museum in Bonn together which was also very interesting. I'm so glad that we do activities like this together and I'm very excited to go skiing with them for the first time during Winterferien.
This is a lot of information to be just thrown at you all at one time but because I haven't been posting I thought I'd just talk about a few things. More posts about my Herbstferien will come soon and about the exchange student life. (:
Bis später ~
P.S. I forgot to write an actual post about the Hedersleben life so I think I might make one about that.
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