Michael Smith

2003-04 Outbound to Germany

Date of Birth: December 10, 1985

Hometown: Jacksonville, Florida

School: Bartram Trail High School

Sponsor: Mandarin Rotary Club, District 6970, Florida USA

Host: Warendorf Rotary Club, District 1870, Germany

Michael's Bio

Hi, I'm Michael Smith.

I currently live in Jacksonville, Florida. Next year I'm going to Germany for a year as an exchange student.

My main hobbies are Music, Art, and Movies. I like a lot of different kinds of music, particularly metal (not Nu-metal), classic 70's-era prog (i.e. Rush & Yes), and I also like Jazz. I also play bass, and attempt to play the harmonica, which is more messing around than something that I'm actually good at :p As far as movies, I mostly like anime. I enjoy any movie with a good plot or movies with emotion. I also enjoy drawing a lot, but lately I've been drawing mostly on the computer. I like making animations and websites and stuff like that.

I look forward to being an exchange student because I don't want to limit myself to America and American culture. I don't want to be limited to one language, and one perspective on things. I would love to be able to live in Europe someday, there are so many other countries and cultures that interest me, and you can't experience them in America. You can't even fully experience them as a tourist, so being an exchange student seems like a great step in being able to experience another culture.

September 30 Journal

I've now been here in Germany for just under one month, I am absolutely loving it. While it isn't always easy, the rewarding aspects easily compensate for the bad. I'm sure that this will be the most affecting year of my life. 

Michael in Münster
 (click to enlarge)

I live in a small town of 20,000, called Freckenhorst, but it is in the most heavily populated state of Germany. There is another small town just about every 5km, and a larger city every 30km. It's really interesting because you can actually go from city to city by bicycle trail. I live in the area called Münsterland, which is almost as flat as Florida, therefore people love riding bikes here. That also means that I ride my bike here, a lot. I actually rode by bike to Münster (60km there and back) with my host family, which was exhausting, but quite enjoyable. Anywhere I go, I go by bike, to school, to shop, or to get my bike repaired. It is also quite funny because cars always yield to me as if I belong on the road more than they do, while in America I would think "What is this yoyo doing on the street?" It makes sense though, everything is closer, and gas costs roughly three times more than in America. 

A really nice aspect of Germany, especially for exchange students, is that there are youth clubs. Here n Freckenhorst there is Mittwochstreff, which is a building with a lot of couches, a yard with a soccer goal, and it's next to a small castle =) Most people in Freckenhorst from ages 16-22 are members of Mittwochstreff, you can go there most anytime and there are people there to hangout with. They are all really friendly and I was quickly able to make a lot of friends there. 

Michael on his 
bike ride (click to enlarge)

Luckily for me, my host family's English was worse than my German when I first arrived, therefore we always speak German. I can already feel quite an improvement, and my friends have said so, which is quite rewarding. While German quite resembles English in many ways, the word order can be a pain. When I actually say a sentence such as, "She had to me said, that if I to Münster going would like to, then should I her call." It is quite rewarding, but it is rare that I can pull off such a sentence without screwing up a few times.

School here is quite fun, I have different courses every day, with breaks as long as two hours randomly thrown in. On Mondays I have a two hour break after first period, I usually take a nap and listen to headphones. Then on Wednesday I don't have any classes until 10:20, I get to sleep in :D 

The classes are interesting, in the German school system most of a class is discussion, 50% of your grade is speaking up in class. Most classes only have two tests per year. I have yet to receive a worksheet, or any "busy work". Although for me classes can be quite difficult to understand, especially when we read 17th century German in philosophy, I understood just about none of it. Although usually philosophy isn't too hard to understand, biology is really difficult to understand. My teacher mumbles a lot, and he usually doesn't even talk about biology. One time he spent 20 minutes drawing a map of bicycles crossing a street, I'm still not quite sure what that had to do with microscopes. 

I LOVE the weather here. The Florida weather and I never really got along, something about breaking a sweat while going from the front door to the mailbox just rubbed me the wrong way. But on the other end of the spectrum, I think I'm embracing the cold a little too much. The other night at a Rotary orientation I went outside and listened to a CD in jeans and a T-shirt (I had forgotten to bring my jacket to the orientation) it was really fun and atmospheric, but now I'm sick. I think it was 5°C... oops. The days here are getting shorter already as well, at the height of winter dawn will be around 9:30am, and it will get dark around 4pm, while in summer it will be light until 11pm. 

I'm getting quite used to the German culture. I can almost eat fries with a fork (yes, a fork) without thinking to myself "this is really goofy..." I am also getting used to almost never eating hamburgers. I really do miss $4.99 Large pizza at Little Caesar's, with crazy bread for an additional 99 cents. The German food is great though, bratwurst rules. 

The Germans are always quite interested in American culture, and ask me often about America. They still can't believe that you can get your driver's license at 16, and pay only $15. They have to pay about $2,000, and wait until they are 18. Germans always like to practice their English with me, which is often funny, "I think that Germany is better because you can see sex in the TV." 

One thing I find vastly better about America is Rotary meetings. In America there is a breakfast buffet and everyone jokes around a lot. Here I got the pleasure of sitting through a 2-hour presentation about the economic development in Münsterland. After the thrilling PowerPoint presentation, questions were asked, each one sentence question received a 20 minute answer, yay. I was sure to use my "Rotary Smile" when asked what I thought of the meeting. It was nice though because everyone was really friendly and glad to have me there. 

I'll be sure to update again in a month, so far I'm so happy to be here. I often forget I'm actually here when I wake up, it's nice when I remember that I am. I hope all you other 8 inbounds are having fun, and also all the 20-something inbounds in Florida, tschüs!

October 31 Journal

I'm here almost two months here now, I'm feeling a lot more German now. I know my way around everywhere without having to think about it, which is much better than in the beginning when someone had to show me how to get everywhere. I now have a new favorite food, which I didn't know existed previously. It's a Turkish food called Döner, it's really popular in Germany, for good reason. I now understand just about everything, even when I'm not directly being spoken to. I've also had to go through some of the most stressful and difficult conversations of my life in German.

I don't have a whole lot to say about school in this entry, It's been two weeks since I last went to school. We have fall vacation here, and it's a nice two weeks long. When we get back we have a big English test, I'm not all too stressed out about that. During the first week of vacation I went to a "Gruppenleitersgrundkurs", which is a course with 22 other people from ages 16-22 (see picture - click to enlarge), we learn how to have a group of kids, and play games with them, etc. There isn't anything like this in America, so it's rather hard to explain. Essentially though, it was a week where I stayed in a Youth Hostel with a bunch of people my age, and we had a great time. Every night we hung out late into the night, every day after lunch we played volleyball, we once went into the city and played really bad music and sung really poorly in front of a grocery store. We stayed there and made no money, and then the grocery store manager told us to leave.

It was a whole lot of fun though, it also snowed the first time there. We were in another city that has a higher elevation than Warendorf, so it snowed a lot more. We then played games in the snow (we played a lot of games while there). I had a whole lot of fun and met some great people, we are planning to all meet up again later, as we all live within 30km of each other.

I'm loving the weather as well, the cold makes me happy. It also is strangely calming when it starts getting dark at 5pm. Sometimes though it can be a hassle, especially when I am really tired and have to ride my bike through the wet cold. Most of the time I really love it though, I'm going to either melt or drown in my own sweat when I get back to Jacksonville next summer.

Before I came here, we were required to read the, "Exchange Student's Handbook", it said that usually on the first month everything is great, and everything seems like it can't go bad. It then said in the next three months things can really be crappy and that it won't exactly be peachy. It also said homesickness will be the worst in this time. I read that and thought, "Yeah, whatever. A book can't pigeon-hole me so easily, I won't get homesick" Here I am in the second month though, and things aren't so great, and I often wish I could sleep in my own bed and wake up to my real family. I think I've taken the necessary measures to make things better, and I think that soon things will get better.

A little advice for any current or future exchange students, if you have a problem with your host family, tell them. If you are feeling like something isn't working out, tell your counselor, he is actually there just to help you. For some reason I had doubted this fact, and thought that if I talked to him he would get mad at me for bothering him, or that he wouldn't do anything to help me. It's actually quite the opposite, he was glad that I talked to him, he was completely understanding, and he and his family were ever so helpful. I was feeling really, really bad, and he talked to me for a while, then he let me eat lunch with his family, and they were all really nice and I felt so much better.

I've had to be rather confrontational in the past few days. I am a person who hates arguing, and would rather just remain quiet and see how things turn out. That unfortunately doesn't always work out so well. I waited two months, and saw that things weren't going to turn out favorably unless I did something. So I had to say and do something, it was extremely hard for me. I'm glad I did it though because I think things will get better now, and I think that it was a good experience to have to do something that I usually would never do. Even if the experience was nerve-wracking and fear-invoking.

I'll avoid the clichés of saying "Time goes o so fast!", and just say that a year is a year, we all know how long that is. I'm about 1/6 of the way through, and hoping that from here things get better. If not, then a year is a year, and I can just hold out and take the experience, bad or good, and in the future be able to tolerate more.

November 28 Journal

Not only do I feel at home, I feel pretty German as well.  I came into this family speaking fluent German, and already being comfortable in German culture.  There was no friction, no orienting me, or training me to bend to a breaking point.  I simply came into the family, and it worked.  This was an unbelievable occurrence for me, I had begun to think that only my family in America could work for me, and that they were an exception.  I thought that I was incapable of living with a family other than my own.  I now realize that that isn’t really true at all, as I feel quite at home with this family.  

They have a dog, not only do they have a dog, they have the same kind of dog that I have at home, a Cairn Terrier (like Toto from the Wizard of Oz)  They tell me, “Excuse the dog, she smells bad”, I reply, “Yea!  My dog smells bad too!”  Not that I wanted to put down their dog, but I thought to myself “He has mangy hair, as does mine!”  They also have a snake, and two mice.  They told me “You have two rooms, but I wouldn’t sleep in the larger room, because there are mice there, there were two, but one is dead”  I thought that they meant the room was infested with mice, and they were waiting out until the mice died.  I didn’t want to sleep knowing a mouse could be leaving presents on my bed, biting my face off, or infesting me with rabies.  I said “O that’s fine, I can live with mice”.  Then I saw that my host brother had a snake, and I said, “You should feed the mouse to the snake”, and my host sister let out a nervous laugh, I wasn’t sure why it was a nervous laugh though.  They then show me the “Mice infested room”, and there was a pet mouse in a cage, oops!

My host sister was last year in Argentina, so she knows what I’m going through, which is nice.  My host dad is the president of this rotary district, and my host mom is also in rotary.  They also have a daughter who is doing a half-year exchange in Canada.  I get along with all of them, and my host mom even proofread my philosophy essay with me, and corrected my grammar mistakes :p  

Now that everything is going so smoothly and nicely, I can be more perky and positive, rather than saying, “Getting through this as an experience will make me stronger”, I can say “I’m having such nice a time, and I want to keep learning German, and learning about myself, but have a great time as well”  Speaking of things going well, I started getting some of my grades J  Germans have a different grading scale, but I’ll “translate” them.  I got, believe it or not, an A in English, the highest grade in the class even!  Taking English as a foreign language is a blast.  I also managed to get a C+ in Philosophy, and a B in Art.  I was really proud of my philosophy grade though, because I know I actually earned it rather than an “exchange student mercy grade”, I wrote essays and such, I like that class.  Unfortunately I can’t do any of the math, I console myself by saying, “If there’s anything I’ll need in life less than Philosophy, it’s math”  It’s fun though, I enjoy school, I participate in enough classes that I don’t feel like a bum, and then there are a few classes where I just kind of idly zone out ... I mean, subconsciously absorb the German language. 

Every few months or so, we have “Rotex Weekends” here, which are where all the exchange students, inbounds, former outbounds, and Rotex all sleep in a gym in a random city for a weekend.  We do activities and such, but a large majority of the time is just talking to and getting to know the other exchange students.  There was one guy, who came from Russia, but not just Russia, from Siberia.  He had never had English in school, and he spoke not a word of German.  The people who couldn’t speak German speak English at the Rotex weekends, everyone there speaks English to at least a semi-fluent degree.  Then there was the single guy from Siberia, who couldn’t speak either English or German, I felt really bad for him, and he couldn’t communicate with anyone.  This was in the first two weeks.  I have Russian as a foreign language, having had two weeks of Russian, I knew how to say “Hello” and “My name is”, I said it to him, and then he said “Hi” back, and then I gave him a blank stare and said in German “Umm.. that’s all the Russian I know… sorry”  I probably spoke it so bad that he didn’t even understand me anyway :D  

We then had another Rotary meeting two months later, and I asked him how he was doing, and lo and behold, he spoke fluent German!  I found that really cool, someone who previously simply couldn’t communicate with me, and now he could.  I talked to him quite a bit during the weekend, it’s interesting speaking a foreign language with someone, when it’s to both people a foreign language.  It makes me realize that, knowing another language, I am able to communicate with a lot more people than I previously could. 

Now that I’m in a new family I have a new bike, a girl’s bike J  It even has a horn!  A horn is cool to have when I want to annoy my friends and honk obnoxiously, but when I, for example, am behind two old people who won’t move out of the way, I don’t want to give them a heart attack by honking at them, so I have to say “Entschuldigung…”  This paragraph had no point, nor punch-line.

I’ve really adapted to the subtle differences of Germany.  When I on the first day, was in the Frankfurt airport, I saw a trashcan with four compartments;  Biological trash, glass, paper, and various.  I thought to myself, “If that trashcan were in America, no-one would follow the trashcan rules”  Now I don’t even have to think, when I’m about to throw an apple core away “Ok.. which kind of trash is this classified as.. and where is the appropriate trash container for this?”  I’ll probably be shocked in America to see people throwing GLASS BOTTLES away.  In Germany when you buy a drink, you have to pay about 50% the price of the drink extra, and then if you bring the bottle back, you receive that 50% back.  If not, then you just paid a lot of money for an empty glass bottle.  

I can completely understand movies now in German, which in my case is a bad thing, being that the only two movies I’ve seen here are Dumb and Dumberer, and The Matrix Revolutions.  This has nothing to do with being an exchange student, but who would have thought the Matrix Revolutions would actually end up being WORSE than The Matrix Reloaded, even WITHOUT a 20 minute techno-cave-rave scene.  I guess the Power-rangeresque fight at the end made up for that.  I thought that I might have trouble understanding the dialogue, fortunately they were too busy having swarms of stupid robots pointlessly flying around to have any time for dialogue.

I would like to say that, during the exchange year, if everything is completely horrible and unbearable, it will get better.  If you have a problem, talk to your counselor, the year is supposed to be your year, and if it’s not working out as it should, your counselor will see to it that it does.  While you should please your host family, and while you should give your time and energy to others, you aren’t there simply to do that in spite of yourself.  Don’t blame yourself if things don’t work out with your host family, you’re likely doing all you can, and when that isn’t enough, there’s simply a problem that needs resolved.  That is the advice that took me three months to learn, while it should be kept it mind, and is good to read, it probably can’t sink in until you experience it yourself,

Tschüßchen!

January 1 Journal

I'm a bit late, but I wanted to include all the New Year and Christmas references. Everything is going excellently now, I feel so at home in my new host family. Christmas with them was really nice, and I even get along well with the extended family; cousins, grandmas, grandpas, etc. My host grandparents even gave me a book about Warendorf for Christmas, and my other host grandma gave me "Jamaican Rum Balls", they have alcohol in them though, so I'm not going to eat them J

When I first got my driver's license I wanted to buy one of those old, rusted, piece of crap, VW buses. I just thought it would so great to be able to drive my friends around in it, and be able to sleep in it when needed. Looking back on that though, it was a pretty stupid idea. I still like them though. My host mom tells me at breakfast, "We're selling the old car, and Friedhelm (host dad) is buying a new VW bus" I said, "O, that's the car I always had wanted", then Friedhelm says, "Really?", my host mom says, "You've instantly made friends with Friedhelm if you like VW buses." She then told me how he always had had one, and he loves them. So we drove to the VW factory and took a tour, getting to see all the parts being molded on the assembly-line and so forth. We then get the van, and it took the guy 30 minutes to show us all the features of it, including remote control side doors.

Christmas was really nice, in Germany Christmas is celebrated mostly on Christmas Eve. We start at about 9pm Christmas Eve, including dinner, presents, and so forth. It felt really Christmassy, even though I wasn't at home.

On actual Christmas Day a bunch of extended family came over. I had really good conversation with my host cousins and host sister. With my host mom and host grandma as well. I talked to her about Herman Hesse, I never in a million years could have had a discussion about literature with my last host grandma, it made me realize how glad I am to be in this host family.

I get along so well with my host sister, I got along well enough with my last host brother, but I never really felt comfortable with him. I can hang out with my host sister and we can actually have conversation beyond "When are we eating lunch today?" I'm on the same wave as this family, it's nice to see people lazily laying on the couch reading a book, rather than watching a football game while frantically talking on the phone about what will be done on the weekend. I'm sure some people would like that atmosphere, but I feel really at home when I know I can lay on the couch and read a book, or just take a nap in the middle of the day. It's nice to see my host brother licking ice cream off the spoon, or playing with the dog, it makes me feel really at home.

For New Year's we first went to the cabin that my host aunt owns, I went with my host family, and all the extended family was there. My host aunt kept asking me, "Hey! Speak English!" I refuse to speak English, every time someone meets me and hears that I'm from America, they immediately assume I can't speak a word of German, and immediately say something like, "O, my English isn't very good" Said either in English to me, or said in German to the person standing next to me, as if I'm not there. I therefore never want to speak English, and spread the stereotype of "Americans are lazy and expect everyone to speak their language". I finally said "Happy New Year" to her though, as I left :p

I then went with my host sister and cousins to a party. We all went to the marketplace in Warendorf as there were ten minutes left of the year. It was like a battlefield, fireworks going off everywhere, if you were to stand in the middle of the market place you would probably lose a limb. At one point an empty shell actually fell on my head. It was really pretty, as I saw the marketplace covered with smoke and fireworks, I remembered the first time I entered the marketplace, on my first day in Germany. I remember it seemed brand new to me, as if it had just came into existence that day, I had no memories associated with it. Standing there on New Year's, I realized that I'll never see it again like that. I have so many memories attached to this spot. I look through the smoke at the bench in front of the Rathaus, remembering when I was sitting with two friends on that bench at midnight. We were waiting on some other friends, who ended up never arriving. As we're sitting there, I see a bum riding his bike aimlessly around in the center of the marketplace. I think "Don't come and talk to us." He then looks at us, but continues riding his bike out of the marketplace, I let out a sigh of relief. About two minutes later he pops out from around the corner of the Rathaus, he is wearing a clown hat. He gets off his bike, and I think "O no, he's going to talk to us". He then opens with, "Silence. In this dark and cold night, of this small German town, silence. Do you hear that? The stillness of this night? You three sitting there, wordless, in the marketplace, what are you waiting on? Must we always have something planned? Can we not just take in the silence and the stillness of this night, of this empty marketplace?" He then proceeded to recite philosophy and poetry to us, he was essentially talking to himself though. Every ounce of my concentration was exerted toward holding in my laughter. I broke out in laughter a few times though, when his poetry and philosophic ramblings became especially "deep". He eventually rides off after standing there wordless for about five minutes. I then look at my friends, as if to wordlessly ask "what the hell?" My friend looks at his watch and then says "Whoa… he was talking to us for 45 minutes" I then wondered if he did that every night. And now every time I see that bench I'll remember that "Still and Silent night" :p

Every location has memories associated to it now, which is one of the biggest differences between living somewhere and visiting somewhere. Almost nothing seems "new" anymore, and that makes me really feel like I live here. Some places even have so much memory attached to them that I become on the verge of panic when passing them. Going down a road on my bike, I'll think something like "Here is where I rode from the street to the sidewalk, not realizing there was a curb, and fell off my bike like an idiot", or "Here is where I turned too sharp on the ice, and fell off my bike like an idiot, while my toe twitched in pain. Why my toe though?" In my first month here, riding down the street, it was always something such as, "I've been here once before, I think. Where am I supposed to turn?" Now everything is old, I've been everywhere, and I really feel like I live here.

January 28 Journal

A lot of that excitement has worn off by now, I usually don’t give much thought to speaking German anymore, except when I screw up, at which point I just get annoyed.  It’s not my fault though, because the German language has way too much grammar.  It’s also not so exciting to hear German on the street.  I actually get more excited when I hear English on the street.  I heard some people speaking English at the marketplace outside the bookstore; I’m always tempted to ask these people where they are from, and ask how they like Germany. 

An interesting experience that showed how accustomed I had become to the language was when I went skiing in Austria.  I had never been skiing before, only sledding on a cheap plastic sled before I moved to Florida.  Now I was going to Austria to learn how to ski.  I went to the store to buy some pretzels and gummy bears (how cliché…), and I get to the cash register, and was greeted by an abomination of the German Language, Austrian German.  “Servos!”  “Abend..”  “Dreee Erooo Dree und Verzigg!”  *Looks at cash register display, as I couldn’t understand at all what she was saying, gives her the money*  It is really surprising how different dialects can sound.  I was on the ski-lift with a bunch of Austrians at one point, and I could only understand about half of what they were saying. 

I had a really nice time however, I did learn how to ski.  There was also another “Foreigner” there, a lady from Slovenia.  I always find it rewarding to be able to speak to someone, with whom I wouldn’t be able to communicate with had I not been able to speak German.  I found the Alps absolutely beautiful as well, going up the gondola I could see so many incredible mountains, bathed in fog and covered in snow. I also heard enough Austrians speaking that I now can make fun of their accent.

I still have a problem talking to little kids in German, it just seems weird.  I’m not very good at talking to little kids in English either.  I had to go to the bathroom while in Münster, I went into a McDonald’s and found the Men’s Room.  There is some 2 or 3 year old kid leaning into the door, hands pressed against it, head facing straight down into the floor.  He’s not moving or at all paying attention, just holding the door shut.  I’m very non-intrusive, and just decided to stand there until he noticed I was standing there.  He eventually looks up at me, and then looks back down at the floor, and continues holding the door.  I finally say “Umm.. excuse  me..”  Eventually the door is knocked open from the inside.  He was holding the door shut so his brother couldn’t get out of the bathroom.  I seize the opportunity and go into the bathroom.  The kid follows me in.  Urinals in Germany never have walls.  I am standing in front of the urinal, and the kid is about two steps behind me, staring at me.  I give him a weird look, at which point he goes into the only stall.  I then look away, and  look back, he is peeking around the corner of the stall, still looking at me.  I said “..What are you doing?”  And he just kept staring at me, I left the bathroom without a word.

I'm getting another Host Sister on Friday, she has been in Canada the whole time I’ve been here, and she’s coming home now.  I will find it interesting, before I left Florida, I got to see what it was like to arrive in the host country before-hand, via my host sister Rebecca arriving from Taiwan.  I now will get to see five months ahead of time what it will be like to arrive home.  It seems like I’ve been here forever, my parents have sent me pictures, and it seemed weird to see inside my house.  I’m sure it will be adequately disorienting to arrive home, maybe even more disorienting than it was to arrive here. 

March 5 Journal

I’m rather late, forgive me.  For some reason no particularly interesting things that I could right down have entered my mind.  Hopefully a stream-of-rambling-consciousness style of writing will unleash them.  If that doesn’t work, and I write a horrendously boring and un-insightful excuse for an entry, I have pictures. (Although they are unfortunately less than spectacular)

I guess the most significant thing that has been happening is realising that I surpassed the half-way point.  That is boring and cliché to talk about, so I will skip it.

I made a realisation, and said to myself, “I’m at a point where my German won’t get any better, it’s reached its peak and if it does get much better it will be an insignificant difference.”  I then made a better realisation that that is stupid.  Perhaps my automatic language-acquisition had reached its peak, perhaps I knew all the words I needed to get through a day, or to carry on conversation, but I realised I only had one year to try to catch up to what my friends here have had seventeen years to acquire, including the natural jump of the first eleven years of life.  I also know I won’t be able to reach that equivalent in a year, truly learning a language takes years, or a lifetime, my English isn’t exactly spectacular either; I notice this as I see the grammar checker removing various commas and capitalising various words that I didn’t bother to.  With all this in mind, I decided to use a lot of time to really force myself to learn more German, the German that can’t be learned from day-to-day living.  I’ve been going through German novels, making flash-cards, looking up all the words I don’t know, and then attempting to use them when I talk.  Words like “To suspect”, that isn’t really learned or needed in everyday life, “To think”, or “To believe”, can in any case be used in its place, but “To suspect” is simply a better word in some cases.  I’ve been giving that a go, and I suspect it has really helped me.

I realised how much I like living in Germany when I went to Karneval in Düsseldorf.  Karneval is like Mardi Gras, but I’ve never been to Mardi Gras, so I actually have no idea.  I also liked Halloween as a kid, and I like costumes and things like that.  I went to Karneval dressed as a bum, including an “I work for bread” sign made of cardboard, hanging with a string made of floss around my neck.  That turned out to not be the greatest idea, as there were a lot of real bums on the street, begging for money.  I had a really great time though, as Düsseldorf is probably the coolest city I have ever seen, maybe that was just because I only saw it during Karneval though.  There were bands playing German drinking songs all over the street, costumed, singing people all over the place, and a general happy and energetic mood.  I was there at a Rotex meeting, so all the other exchange students and Rotex were there, we had a really great time running through the city in stupid costumes, and looking at everyone else’s stupid costumes.

Speaking of all the other exchange students, we’ve now had so many Rotex meetings and all have got to know each other so well.  That is a really great aspect of Rotary Exchange, you are able to meet like-minded people (anyone who is an exchange student is like-minded on at least a certain level) from all over the world.  I have talked to people from other organisations and they say their organisation offers nothing like this, if anything they have one or two times per year where they meet up with all the other exchange students.  Five or so times we have already met up with all the 40 or so inbounds, and 30 or so Rotex members are usually there as well.  These people I have gotten to know so well, and I always look forward to the next time I will be able to see them, see how their lives have changed, see how their German has improved, and to see how they themselves have changed.  I’ll be going on a tour all over Europe with 50 of these people, starting on 26 March, I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and tell all about that.

There’s not a whole lot else to say, I’m at a point where nothing seems all that spectacular, nothing strikes me as weird, and where nothing is more than regular life.  It’s hard to pick out all the interesting facts of “regular life”, there aren’t many things that I feel as distinguishing factors between my regular life and my life in Germany, I guess they have become the same thing, which is the point.

May 6 Journal

That’s what the last three months consist of though, a hectic rush to go on as many vacations as possible.  I can’t remember the last weekend I had where I stayed home.  I went for a three week Europe Tour, we went all over Europe, with fifty other exchange students, it was easily the greatest time of my life.  I just got back from a trip to Weimar that I made with my two best friends, I went through the park where Goethe lived, I saw the balcony where Hitler gave various speeches, and I went through the gates of the third largest concentration camp in Germany.  I also went to Berlin, and stood where the wall used to stand.

I could give endless narrarative, but it would just lead to everyone skimming through my entry until the eyes caught upon something relevant.  I’ll just explain how the end of the exchange year feels.  It feels beautiful, and disgusting at the same time.  On one hand I just want to be in my real family again, relax, speak english, be a slob again.  I know though that while I came here knowing I’d go back home, I will leave here knowing that I’m leaving this home forever.  It really does become to feel more and more like home everyday, even with the ever-approaching departure date.  Visiting my friend in his host family (Luise’s family actually), I realised that I don’t feel this distinction of being a foreigner.  It is just like someone’s family.  His eight year old host brother asked my friend and I while speaking in English, "You guys know Cameron’s language too?", which was really cute, but also great because he didn’t even think of us as foreigners. 

Walking even through cities that I don’t live in, but frequent often, Münster for example, people will ask me directions and I always know the way.  It makes me feel like I’ve lived here longer than I have, and like I belong here in a way.  The sun sets now at around 10pm, and there are endless dandylion fields all across the country, the whole train-ride back from Weimar I saw only endless dandylion fields on rolling hills.  It’s something that I know I’ll think back on all next year and miss dearly, even though these dandylions are giving me a really stuffy nose.  I’m going to look back on and miss so many things about Germany, I’m sure I’ll miss Germany more than I’m missing the United States right now.  Knowing I’ll never live here like this again will make it so much harder, I’ll never be an exchange student again.  I won’t be able to relax to this degree probably ever again.  I realise I said earlier, "I just want to get home so I can relax", but here as an exchange student I actually am experiencing a huge sense of relaxation.  Europe is less uptight than America for one thing, my grades don’t count here, every weekend I either meet friends in Münster, go canoeing/sailing/etc.,  the Rotary Club here is excellent, Rotex always offers us "Rotex Weekends" which are always a blast and have made this year so much greater.  It’s sad though in a way, some of the inbounds here have already started going home, I’m just about the last to leave, I’m still here for just under three months, so I’ll have to sit here and watch everyone leave.  That’s a position I prefer though, better than being the first one out, I was also of the last to leave from the nine outbounds.

A little advice for the newly chosen outbounds about the language.  Rotary tells you everywhere, "You will be fluent by Christmas", I feel bad about undermining Rotary’s authority on Rotary’s own website, but this statement is a lie.  Everyone says, "I will be fluent by Christmas whether I work at the language or not."  This is also a lie.  Your skill at the language is a complete reflection of how much work you put into it.  If you wait until you arrive to start learning, you’ve wasted two/four months.  Having to speak English the first two months of your year will completely ruin your chances.  At the nine month point the difference is painfully obvious in who spoke English in the first two months and who didn’t.  Do yourself the favour and start learning it NOW, don’t make it an obligation, make it a favour to yourself so you can get off the plane and speak your host family’s language to them.  Not only will your host family appreciate it, but you’ll start learning the language from the very first day.  On the Europe tour we had to keep a journal, everyone took a turn to write about a day.  A guy saw me writing and said, "Woah, you can WRITE in German?  Damn, you’ve got it down!"  Start learning it now, do not end up like this.  Even after eight months of speaking German every day, some of the subtle nuances of the grammar and the language are just becoming known to me.  I’m finally at a point where I’m just polishing everything up, but it just becomes exponentially harder.  Whereas in the first month my german probably doubled, I would need another five years to get 25% bettter now.  The degree of fluency you obtain is varying, I’ve only met probably three exchange students who after eight months ARE NOT fluent (not being able to have even an easy conversation with another exchange student in German), I’ve met a lot who have a really weak degree of fluency.  They can understand most everything conversation, and reply, but not much else. 

I just need to make the most of my remaining time, and start wrapping things up here.  I wouldn’t take this year back for anything, I learned more during this year than I would have in three years in America, I mean that honestly.  I probably won’t even realise the full effect of this year until I get back to the US.  Look forward to your exchange year, it is hard a lot of times, and you’ll often wish you could just be at home, but the majority of my best memories took place during this year, and it has shaped me into what I am now, nothing can take that away.

June 21 Journal

All of these weekends have unfortunately came to an end, however.  On this last weekend we went camping, we canoed, had a bonfire, grilled, all the camping specifics, basically.  I saw a lot of people for the last time this weekend, which was quite hard.  I’ve came to be such good friends with many of the exchange students here, and this was the last time we were all together.  I realized how German we had all became, I always am making fun of the Germans for eating and loving bread rolls, and on the second day of the weekend at breakfast the bread rolls came rather late,  could see how antsy even all the non-Germans were getting, myself included.  When they did come the box of them was rushed instantly, I was one of the first there.  My best friends among the exchange students are Finnish and Japanese, we always speak German with each other, it’s become our international language.  My friend had two of her friends visit from America, they didn’t speak a word of German, while they were there the Japanese and Finns had to speak English, it felt so incredibly weird to speak English with them, it felt wrong somehow. 

This last Rotex Weekend included fifty or so Outbounds (Germans going on exchange) as well as the fifty of our Inbounds.  It was really cool to meet fifty Germans who were at the same point I was a year ago.  I met one guy who is going to Florida, with whom I got along really well, he’ll not be in my district, but maybe we’ll see each other again in Florida.  I also got to talk to a lot of people who were going to the US and answer questions they had and give them various advice. 

I still have a month and a half left, with ten months behind me.  I feel as if I’m really a part of some aspects of Germany.  Getting asked “Where’s the train station” while in Münster, I automatically replied without even having to think about it, I know the city in and out.  In Philosophy (one of my better classes), the teacher treats me like a regular student, and I am one of the more talkative people in the class, a class where we mostly just discuss various topics and do very little writing.  That’s not to say I’m so well integrated in all classes, some advice I’ll give is to do as much work in school as you can from the beginning, having something to do (even work) is better than having absolutely nothing to do, which is my case in some classes. 

I’ve been here a really long time, I don’t remember what the doorknobs or the knobs on the drawers in my house look like anymore, for example.  I have adapted and fallen in love with the colder climate.  We have had about two days where it has actually exceeded 80°F, and I was ready to either faint or kill myself, I couldn’t handle it.  I don’t think I’ll ever get used to Florida 100° and 100% humidity again.  I have fallen in love with German literature and bookstores, I have read more this year than any other year, and am glad for it.  I am going to miss being able to buy German books, I have learned most of my later German by reading a lot. 

While I felt little to no homesickness toward the beginning and middle of the year, in the last few months I’ve had more homesickness.  It’s true that everyone gets homesick, I’ve never talked to an exchange student who hasn’t.  Knowing the year is about to end makes me more antsy, I can see the imminent end from here, and waiting to hit it makes me impatient and to want it just to be over.  Once it is finished though, I know I’ll miss it more than I would have thought, and look back on it as the best time of my life.  I still do have a lot to look forward to in this short time, I’m going to Munich with the Finns in a few weeks, and shortly after my parents are visiting, then I have only fifteen days remaining.  The time keeps going faster and faster and the reality of “Over” won’t hit me until I’m gone. 

August 1 Journal

I realized that I should probably get my last journal entry done with, now that the new outbounds are already posting their first entries.  As I write this I have two and a half days left in Germany.  I have all of the cliché feelings at once, "Time went so fast!" and "I am excited to go home but also will hate to leave.", etc. etc.  I realize at this point to how incredibly large a degree Germany has become home to me, and with it how the German language has become what seems like more than just "a second language."  Sitting on the train on the way to Düsseldorf, which is where I spent my last weekend here, I have my headphones on and am sitting with four other strangers.  I pull out the .5L cola I had bought at the train station, open my bag of gummibears, and while not paying attention at all open the cola up really fast.  It of course explodes and sprays all over my pants, shirt, and the floor.  Luckily it didn't hit any of the people near me.  The first thing out of my mouth was a reflexive, "Scheiße!" 

Germany really feels like this beautiful home to me that I've not yet fully explored.  A country that is roughly the size of Georgia, with an unbelievable amount of things to see and do crammed into that tiny space.  If you draw a 50km radius around Oberhausen, there are over 6 million people in it, in over five very large cities.  Berlin has also 6 million, Munich has a good chunk, and it goes on and on like that.  There isn't any empty space, there is always a village, city, or large city,  with pretty nature in between of course, but you'll never find yourself far from civilization in Germany. 

I took a trip with two other exchange students from Finland to Munich a few weeks ago, it was a budget vacation because by the end of the year no exchange student has any money left.  We slept in a tent, cooked cheap pasta in a gasoline cooker, and kept refilling a water bottle in public bathrooms.  Typical of Bavaria is that you can order a one liter glass of beer at a restaurant, it costs about 6€, so we didn't even bother, and to buy a glass like that is about 12€.  We decided to rent for thirty minutes one of those peddle boats, and peddle around the lake in the "English Garden" in Munich, we are peddling around the water next to the Biergarten, and I look into the water and see six or so of these 1-liter, 6€ beer glasses all over the seafloor.  We then manuevered the boat to them while I kept sweeping the glasses up one by one.  We gathered six of them and then cleaned the algae and sea moss off with toilet paper.  Even after cleaning they still look rather green and dirty, but souvenirs are more fun when you work for them. 

We spent a whole day in the "Deutsches Museum", which is a gigantic, excellent museum that covers a giant array of topics.  Particularly interesting was a glass blowing demonstration, I had always seen that on TV, but seeing it in real life was quite impressive.  We then spent another entire day in the concentration camp in Dachau, that was the first time I really visited a concentration camp.  We got one of those audio guides and went all over the various places and listened to the information on the audioguide.  You see a big open area, and then the audio guide tells you "This is where the prisoners where brought to roll-call everyday, the gate to the west is where the new admittees were brought in, stripped, tattooed and assigned work."  It was a really overwhelming feeling to be standing in the spot where this all took place.  We hadn't really planned to stay in Dachau more than a few hours, but after arriving we ended up staying there most of the day.  We took a trip for another whole day to Neuschwanstein, which is arguably the most beautiful castle in Europe (http://www.bauernhofurlaub-ostallgaeu.de/images/neuschwanstein.jpg). 

I feel really at home here now, and at the same time I finally have a real insight into what being a foreigner is like.  Although in Germany I can't be noticed as a foreigner on sight, but I still have this great experience of living as a one.  Germany has an incredible amount of immigrants and foreign people in general, especially in large cities it seems like every fifth person is from Asia, Italy, east Europe, Africa, just from everywhere.  Speaking German with people from Africa or Japan, it gives me a real sense of Germany as a melting pot and place where cultures really integrate.  America lays the claim at being "THE melting pot", but I feel it holds much more true to Germany.  I feel like I have more in common with all the other people who aren't German here, and when I'm back in America I'll have that same thing in common with anyone who isn't originally from the U.S., as I know what it is like.  Basically it just forms this connection with everyone, because anyone can be a foreigner if he finds himself in another country. 

I want to come back to Germany, I really would like to go to University here and live here on my own.  After eleven months here I've come to feel German in part, after around eleven months I've really started to feel like I belong here.  I can barely think in English anymore without German words slipping in left and right, and reading German books isn't much harder than English anymore.  Aside from that, I couldn't even imagine going a whole day without eating bread, at least one meal is usually just bread here.  I can also hardly imagine using the car to go half a mile, in Germany no-one does that.  There are just all kinds of things that I've become so accustomed to and come to think of as "That's how it is", that when I come home will be completely different.  Some of these things will probably be a huge relief, such as German cleanliness, but other things I will miss dearly. 

So it ends, I need to accept that it will end here, and remember it for what it was.  I need to let the things I learned from here help me in my life in the US, rather than just jump back into the exact same life I had before leaving.  The point of spending a year outside of my usual life was to be able to take as much as I could back from that and create a new way of life between the two, rather than living differently for a year, and simply regressing back to exactly how I was before, there would be no point in that.