 Moin moin!
So I've finally gotten around to writing my journal! I
apologize for keeping you all in such suspense. I'll start with my first day
here, since I find airport stories so uninteresting:
I arrived in Bremen around 10:30 in the morning and met my
host brother, Peter, outside the gate. We didn't recognize each other at
first, because the only pictures my family had seen of me were taken when I
had my awesome long hair, and my family (for whatever reason) expected me to
be really tall. My host mother said that, before I came, she was afraid I
wouldn't be able to fit in the bed. Anyway, I eventually found Peter, and he
immediately started speaking to me in German on fast-forward. I've taken
four years' worth of German in school and could only laugh when he spoke to
me because, I'll be honest, I thought I wouldn't have a very tough time with
the language. A minute with him, nodding and smiling as these words flew out
of his mouth, made me realize how much work I had ahead of me. Ingrid, my
host mother, came from parking the car, and we made our way back to the
parking lot with my cart of 120 lbs or so full of stuff. The ride to
Oldenburg wasn't very long, and we had a nice conversation over the German
countryside in Denglish, my combination of German and English. When we got
home and unloaded my luggage, my host mother realized how much of what I had
brought was clothes. She actually looked a little bit frightened, while I
thought that I had done a good job of keeping things to a minimum.
Relatively. She told me that here, they wear the same shirt two or three
times before washing it, and jeans maybe half a month or so (we've recently
agreed to split the job of ironing the laundry). The rest of the day is a
blur, since I hadn't slept at all on the flights to Deutschland. We ate some
salad, and then I went to bed sometime thereafter.
The first week, I went on a couple bicycle tours with the
family. We rode to Bad Zwischenahn, a little village situated near a lake,
and on a course through the country around Oldenburg with a stop at a German
Melkhus (“milk-house”), where I had a fantastic chocolate shake. My host
father, Gerd, goes on real bike tours through different countries, so for
him these were a breeze. I'm already boring myself with this journal so I
think I'll take a different approach:
My Family
I'm so happy to be with my current host family. Peter's
very patient with me, and always invites me to go out with him and his
friends. Still though, after a month of being here, I really need to devote
all my attention to understanding him when he speaks. He speaks crazy-fast.
I am seriously considering organizing a party the day I can have a flawless
conversation with him. My host mother seems just as happy to have me here as
I am to be here. She was an exchange student in America some years ago, so
of course she knows just how I feel (and can speak great English). And then
my host father is awesome. He speaks English perfectly, too, and with a
slightly British/Irish accent, and he blurts things out in English in the
middle of long strings of German. I always find myself laughing around him.
The family has taken to calling me der Keilige, a combination of my name and
the German word for “holy,” heilig. And then apparently, I fit in very well
with the family! A few people have said to Peter “Oh! You look like you
could pass for part of the family!”
The City
Oldenburg is a great place for an exchange. With 160,000
people, it's large enough to keep you occupied, and small enough where you
can see plenty of people you know during a simple walk through downtown. We
live just a couple kilometers from farms and the countryside while having
all the benefits of a larger city. And at the moment, Oldenburg is having a
couple-weeks-long celebration of its 900th anniversary, so on weekends
there's always plenty going on around town.
School
I've been in school for about four weeks now, and things
certainly are moving along. My host mother arranged for me to go to Peter's
school shortly after school started, which I'm very grateful for. The first
school I went to was pretty depressing, but the one I'm at now is great:
it's smaller and warmer, and now after these few weeks I'm really starting
to feel like I'm a part of the school. I've joined the school's choir and
symphony, which are the two things the school's known throughout Oldenburg
for, and I can't wait for our next practice. As for the lessons, I must
admit that they're pretty boring. But hey, that's school, right? Oh! I love
the situation they have here with schedules. There are some days where I'll
have two hours of classes and then two free hours before my next class,
during which we're free to go anywhere and do whatever. The school is so
close to our house that I usually just ride my bike home and chill; or if
friends have the same hours off, then we walk downtown (right across the
street) and grab something to eat. Speaking of eating, people can and do
bring their dogs inside restaurants and department stores here, which I
found pretty odd. And department stores! I didn't really believe people when
they told me that clothes here are expensive, but they really are. My host
mother took me to what she called “one of the cheaper stores” and I
seriously thought she was pulling my leg, maybe with her German sense of
humor, when I looked at the prices of everything. But she was serious. Maybe
I should make a “Miscellaneous” topic for things like this to go under.
Food
I think I like the food here. For breakfast, Frühstück,
on weekdays I have this incredible cereal-stuff called Müsli, with
little bits of chocolate in it. Breakfast on weekends is bread (German bread
is great) with butter and then wurst, cheese, jam or prosciutto-type meat; a
soft-boiled egg; freshly-squeezed orange juice; and some tea. The main meal
of the day, Mittagessen, is usually in the afternoon, which I really
like now. It didn't take much to get used to coming home from school to a
great meal (Gerd cooks fantastically). And then the evening meal,
Abendbrot (literally,“evening bread”), is bread with the things I
mentioned before. I thought I'd be pigging out here in Germany, but I've
actually kept my appetite under control. No, really.
The Language
I'm quite proud of the progress I'm making with German.
It's not incredible, to be sure, but it's clear. I am very happy now to have
been placed in Germany, because my four years of German have really made a
difference. Of course I'm nowhere near fluent, but I'm at the point now
where I don't plan everything that I'm going to say to someone before I walk
up and talk to them (making sure I have grammar and word order right, etc.).
And boy does it feel good to carry on a conversation at a “native” speed! It
seems like these words are just starting to line up by themselves, coming
without thinking. And then I'm starting to think in German now! It's still
little phrases that I think in, but it feels great nonetheless. I love this
language. Some words are so literal (Dasein: existence, literally
“there being”) and then there are those massive words that German's known
for: I mean how great is it to be able to write words like
Durchschnittsgeschwindigkeitor Stoffwechselzwischenprodukte on a
regular basis in school?
Miscellaneous
Germans do have a sense of humor. Sometimes it can be a
little odd, though, where you ask yourself “was he serious about that or
not?” and no, he wasn't serious. Germans overall take a little more time to
make friends with than is the case with most Americans. French fries are to
be eaten swimming in mayonnaise. When eating dinner at the table, I had to
train myself to keep my left arm on the tabletop. The first day here, my
host mother asked my why I keep my left hand in my lap when I eat and I
thought “Well, because I'm not using it!” But now I've learned to let it not
be used on the table. Our bathroom here at home has a urinal. The windows
here are marvels. It took me about fifteen minutes to figure out the windows
in my room. And speaking of, the Germans really like to open their windows
and let the fresh air in. In school, if the students ever need to draw a
straight line at all (to underline a word, draw a graph, double-underline a
word), out comes the straight-edge!
I think I'll bring this journal to a close. Before I do,
though, I'd like to say how very, very much I appreciate being given this
opportunity by Rotary and my family. I can say I've never loved a club up
until now, and I thank everyone involved for such an incredible chance. I
fully intend to make the most out of this year!
|
Kyle Steed
