Ben's Rotary Youth Exchange

Closed For Business

2011-01-22T13:49:00.003-06:00

Dear Readers,

This will be my last post on my "Rotary Youth Exchange" blog.

I have decided to open up a new blog called, "American in Thailand"

You can find this link at: http://american-in-thailand.blogspot.com/

Thank you for reading this life-changing experience I had, and hopefully you will follow me on my next!

-Ben Mau

MIND BLOWN

2011-01-17T01:06:00.003-06:00

I thought that after a year on exchange I wouldn't be the least bit surprised when I received my 2nd country selection call. The first time it wasn't so bad... I mean I wanted to go to France, but they just put me in the country right next to it... no biggy.

This time I KNEW in my mind that I would be going to South America. I had absolutely NO DOUBT. Everyone I knew who wanted to go to a South American country got it like THAT... When they called and announced that I was going to a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CONTINENT THAN SOUTH AMERICA... ASIA... I WAS FLORED! South america is completely foreign to me... but ASIA... ASIA is a DIFFERENT planet.

This is SO exciting... I was worried that next year would be just a nice fun year.. but after hearing that I'm going to THAILAND... and I know that it will be quite an eye-opening experience. I can't begin to imagine all that I will absorb while I am living there. All of the the culture, and art, and food, and tradition, and religion, and way of LIFE! This is such an enormous challenge and I am more than happy to accept.

I know that this kind of challenge is what I want my future to be like. I want to be in constant motion, traveling and experiencing from one place to the next. I want to push myself to my limit, break down cultural barriers, observe humanity through completely new perspectives, and adapt to anything on the surface of this Earth! I'm ready for a new life!

THAILAND

2011-01-16T15:18:00.000-06:00

I AM GOING TO THAILAND!

THIS WAS TOTALLY OUT OF THE BLUE. I TOTALLY THOUGHT I WOULD BE GOING TO SOUTH AMERICA... OMG! I AM REALLLLLLY EXCITED!!! THIS IS GOING TO BE AN INSANNNNNE YEAR! HAHA... I CAN'T BELIEVE I AM GOING TO... THAILAND... I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS COUNTRY! WOOOOOW!

Winter Break

2010-12-23T10:42:00.002-06:00

Winter Break 2010 has been absolutely amazing thus far! It has been an awesome time to chill, have fun, see friends, and just enjoy my last few weeks as a minor. (I turn 18 on January 8th) I'm enjoying senior year so much. LIFE IS GREAT! I am 100% re-submerged into my American life and it feels wunderbar!

quick update:

- Accepted as a 11-12 RYE student
- Received my first college acceptance letter- Minnesota- Twin Cities
- Cast as a lead in the school musical Cabaret (Emcee)
- Have maintained my 3.9
- Low stress
- Relationship with my parents and family is better than it EVER has been
- Close knit group of friends has opened up to a bunch of awesome people
- Enjoy my job and have a steady income.

... life is good ;)

Happy Holidays!

good news!

2010-11-25T12:51:00.003-06:00

Ben

Your application will be submitted on Monday with a Primary designation.

Good luck.

I'M GOING ABROAD NEXT YEAR! IT'S OFFICIAL!!!
I'm pretty pumped :)

Also- expect a new layout coming soon ;)

JOIN

2010-11-21T14:19:00.003-06:00

If you are going to be a Rotary Exchange Student for the 2011-2012 academic year, please join the Rotary Youth Exchange 2011-2012 facebook group.
invite your friends, and start an exchange community with people from all over the world.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=58258628633

!JOIN!

November Update

2010-11-20T11:11:00.002-06:00

It has been quite a while since I have last written.
Here's a recap on what has been going on...

Two weeks ago I attended the Rotary Interviews in Wisconsin Dells.
I, along with some other rebounds, were asked to help answer questions before the outbounds went to be interviewed, and we also were on a panel interviewing students and parents. It was a very nice time, I enjoyed the company of all of the rebounds and it was nice to talk with all of the prospective outbounds. They all reminded me of my sophomore self SO MUCH! I'm excited to see what an exchange year will teach them, and how it will make them grow into the amazing young adults. Every district of exchange students is unique in its own way, but this wave of students will be more unusual than normal because all of the outbounds are female, except for one male (and me). I have never come across such a district! Teenage guys really have to step it up, I am disappointed!

Before the interviews I had a little chat with the district chair about my gap year and we went over what it would entail. I believe it still would be a fantastic time, and a perfect education opportunity before college starts up. It looks like there are 17 open outbound spots, and 19 people who are signed up. As of now, one other rebound and myself are alternates, but I am not too worried about being accepted because there is bound to be someone who drops out after country selections, and even if no one does drop out, I'm sure we could find a way to send two more students abroad.

All of my paperwork is done, my check is sent in, and all I must do now is wait to see what comes out of it. I do not know if they will automatically assign me a country, or if they will wait. It is to me a mystery! I am just along for the ride. It should be quite interesting to see how it turns out. I am very excited at the unique process I am going through. If it were to be exactly the same as last year, It would not have been half as interesting!

In other news, about a month ago I visited two of my best exchange friends in NYC. It was so nice to catch up with them, and actually see living people who share so many memories with me from my year in Berlin. One of those friends in NYC is coming to visit me after Thanksgiving, and it will be SO MUCH FUN! exchange students are awesome! Speaking of... I was just hanging out with three of them last night ;) (Finland, Germany, Holland). Ohhh exchange students!

I am also happy to announce that I have successfully sent in all of my college applications. I applied to Macalester College, UW-Madison, and UM-Twin Cities. Everything on my apps leads me to believe that I should get accepted to those colleges... except my ACT score. I took the ACT last month and studied a lot before taking it, but unfortunately, I did very poorly. I was expecting to do MUCH better, and was quite shocked when I received my scores. Honestly, I have no idea what happened- on all of my timed practice tests I did much better... but when the real test came about- I bombed. I RECOMMEND TO ALL OUTBOUNDS TO TAKE THE ACT BEFORE YOU GO ABROAD, AND ALSO WHEN YOU COME BACK! I regret not taking the test because now I have only one more chance to take the test in December, and if that doesn't go well, I may jeopardize the likelihood of my acceptance into Macalester. (where I reallllly want to study!)

All Applications are done- rotary and college - and it feels fantastic. My hours at work are a bit lower than normal, but that is due in part to the role I just received in the School Musical. This year James Madison Memorial is putting on Cabaret and I got the Emcee part! I am thrilled to get to work on the musical... it will be so exciting to be a part of! Between work, school, cabaret, and forensics (I'm doing 3 events: DI, Duo, SOS), I really do not have much time to think about exchange. This time 2 years ago I was ecstatic and could not focus on ANYTHING except exchange! Doing it a second time definitely is easier because our (rebounds) patience has grown so much!

I will try to post up more updates as they come. Life is so great! Senior year is GREAT! living in the moment is great! I continue to attribute all of my happiness to my exchange year. It really did drastically impact me, and molded me into the passionate person I am today..

Good Luck Outbounds!!!!

Applying

2010-10-14T19:30:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to inform all readers that I have officially turned in my Rotary Youth Exchange Application last Friday and my top 5 are as follows.
(I only am eligible for 8 out of 40 because of my age)

1. Argentina
2. Brazil
3. Bolivia
4. Thailand
5. India

Next year should be quite a change from Germany!!!

In other news I am just about finished with completing my College Applications. It is a piece of cake in comparison to Rotary Applications so I'm not too worried. I decided to apply to three schools, and after I get answers I am planning on deferring acceptance for one year!

I am just excited about life :)

Quick Update

2010-09-29T14:27:00.002-05:00

So as I said before, I am currently applying for both college and Rotary Youth Exchange!

I'm SO excited at the prospect of going out AGAIN for another exchange year! If that somehow doesn't work out, I'm still very excited about going to college. It's looking like I will probably be going to either Argentina or Brazil... but who knows?

I'm pretty much done with my application. All I have left to do is basically put my pictures in, make copies of everything, and get signatures!!! Who knew I'd be going through this again..

... actually the more I think about it... I kind of KNEW it the whole time that I would be applying this year. I even had an inkling when I was filing out forms last year.

no time

2010-09-24T23:57:00.001-05:00

I have had no time to write ANYTHING!

school, work, homework, college applications, rotary applications.

I still don't know where I'm going to end up. I am applying to college and I am applying to Youth exchange. We will see what happens! I will try and update ASAP!

Starting another Chapter

2010-09-04T20:28:00.006-05:00

I miss it, I miss it, I miss it... I miss exchange so much.

I wish I could be back in Berlin. I miss German life. I miss going to school on the subways in the morning, I miss waking up to "Guten Morgen" and eating Broetchen every single morning! I miss hanging out with my friends at Hackesher and Potsdamer! I miss the life of the city and the multitude of languages heard while walking down the streets. I miss late night Doeners and having umlauts on the keyboards. I miss the movement, the uniqueness of architecture, and the rich German culture. But most of all, I miss with all of the wonderful people I met. :(

(photos by German classmate: Marie Stoltze)

First day of school was on the 2nd... I am not saying it was bad, I am just saying that I need some time to adapt to this new atmosphere. It has been a long time since I was in American High School. I am NOT used to the sassy attitude of students (on the first day I accidentally bumped into an underclassman girl, politely, I smiled and said, "oh, I'm sorry about that." She responded by, "shoo boy, you betta be!"), the crazy amount of cliques, and the massive student body! It will be an interesting year. talk about culture shock.

I have been in a bit of contact with my District Coordinator. She told me that outlook on next year is not ideal. If I decide to go abroad again, I will most likely be an alternate (which is fine, I don't want to take the place of an outbound)... and I will probably have a very limited country choice. I will be going to an inbound orientation next week to meet all of the new exchange students and hopefully I will get to talk with some Rotarians that will help me make some decisions.

I have no idea where I'm going to be in a years time. I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA! It's actually kind of exciting! Will I take a gap year? Will I go to college? What will I be doing?

All you have to do is read and find out... (easy for you)

My Mind is a Workin'

2010-08-21T13:25:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I gave my rotary presentation to my sponsor Rotary club: Madison West Towne Middleton. It was a really special time because I gave the presentation exactly one year after I left for Germany. While at the meeting I met a new inbound at the meeting who is from the Netherlands who will be attending my school next year. I also just received word that there will be another inbound who will be going to my school from POTSDAM! (a boarder city of Berlin).

Also, in other big news... I have been really thinking about my future and what I am going to be doing after my senior year. I want to go into the working-world with as much experience as I possibly can. I want see as much of the world as I can, learn as many languages as I can, and learn as many lessons as I can. I'm really trying to figure out what the best bet for me will be...

Do I want to go right to college and sometime in my years pay $20,000+ for a semester abroad?
Do I want to go to college, get a degree, and after, join an organization that allows me to travel?
or... do I want to go on Rotary Youth Exchange again?

Since I signed up for RYE I always considered doing a yo-yo year. I learned SO much last year and doing another year would enable me to learn another language and experience a new culture . But... I would have to repeat a year of high school, and I could possibly experience a "been there done that" sort of feel. Also, there are more complications- WHERE WOULD I GO? There are several age restrictions on the countries I could go to... I would be 18 and 7 months if I were to leave, but the age limit on many countries is 18 and 6 months. I wonder how strict they would be in accepting me? I'd love to be fluent in French (because I've taken 4+ years).. but my mind says SPANISH. (because its the third most spoken language on the planet).

Anyways... I have been going back and forth with this idea in my mind. I definitely have NOT made a decision yet, but I'm just relying on god to help me out with this. I'm going into next year with a completely open mind! We'll see what happens.

That's a Wrap

2010-08-01T00:47:00.005-05:00

I feel it is fitting that I write a sort of "closing" post to sum up this exchange year even though this will probably not end up being my last blog post. I plan to update everyone every so often throughout the coming months to share how all of my grades end up transferring, as well as how my year abroad affects my college plans. Feel free to contact me at any time to ask questions about Rotary Youth Exchange or what it MEANS to be an exchange student abroad. I would be more than happy to answer your questions as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

So... After being back in America for just under a month I find myself thinking less and less about Germany, and more and more on the present. It kills me to say it, but Germany seems a bit like a dream- sometimes I can't believe it really happened! I feels so LONG ago- like a distant memory, or a dream! ... I still feel like no one except other exchange students truly understand what last year really meant to me, but I'm okay with that. I guess my it is kind of like my little secret that I have inside of me. My year is a unique part of me- something that will never leave me.

I still think about Berlin every day- I still am dreaming in German - and I love all of the amazing people I met in Germany. I miss it so MUCH...but I feel like it is time to move on. Its time to focus on other things now than my exchange year. I know that my year in Germany was the most important, most influential year of my life... but I have had a whole month to get back on track and now I need to start thinking about my future- finishing high school and finding the right college.

All I can say in closing is THANK YOU of you people who took the time to follow me in my adventures in Germany this year. It really gets me excited to think that all over the world, exchange students are getting ready (or just starting) their year abroad. To all of you outbounds reading this... this year ahead of you will change your life. Go into it with an open mind and HAVE FUN! It is over soooo quick! (you'll hate me for saying that because it doesn't feel fast until it is over).

It was a pleasure to write- I hope you all enjoyed my far from grammatically correct blog, and possibly gained some insight to a year abroad through rotary youth exchange. I wouldn't trade my year for the world! It changed me, it changed my prospect on the world, and it taught me immeasurably more than I ever thought I would learn my Junior year.

home

2010-07-11T15:38:00.008-05:00

I have officially been on American soil for just under a week!

Tracing back in time-

On July 5 at 5.00 in the morning I made my way to the Tegel airport in Berlin with my host family. A few of my close friends from school came to the airport at well, and a bunch of exchange students came. After saying goodbye to all of the people I had grown close to this year, I boarded my plane and took off at 7.15 to Amsterdam. During the flight I read all of the letters that my friends had written to me and looked through a photo album that was made for me. It was a very emotional time and I cried for a good 20 minutes. In Amsterdam I made my way through the airport in a confused haze- tears were in my eyes, I was in awe that this year was actually- OVER... After getting something to eat I got myself into shape, and really started to just focus on all of the amazing experiences that I had this year and it made the whole situation a lot better. The flight from Amsterdam to Detroit went pretty smoothly. On my last leg of the journey to Chicago, I talked to a girl my age about going home, and she really helped me prepare for my reunion with my parents.

Once I got through security I was veryyy excited to see my family. I walked down the escalator into the baggage terminal and slowly my family came into view holding a "welcome home" sign. Everyone looked so DIFFERENT! It was as if I was looking at the whole reunion from a bystander's perspective. I ran towards them and gave them all hugs... and it was GREAT to see them again after SOOOO long!

After the airport I went with my family to eat some great TGI Fridays- and it was so great to get free refills!!! After eating we drove home to Madison. I gave my family their presents that I had collected over the months- and then I surprised my friends later that night. I had barely ANY jet-leg the first few days home... it kicked in right as the adrenaline stopped about 2 days in. I just spent my first days adjusting to the new environment... unpacking, meeting with friends... and spending time with my family. It felt good to be back home.

On Friday morning my Mother and I drove up to Grand Rapids, Michigan for the Central States conference that I attended last year as an outbound student. It was quite different than what I experienced last year. I realllly did NOT feel like going to the meetings planed for us to get us "re-adjusted"... I much preferred just hanging out with other rebounds and talking about our life. Our past-present- and future. Probably one of the coolest moments was when I was with my old friends from last year and we were going around a circle saying how to say certain things in German, Spanish, Turkish, Japanese, and Czech... not many friends can sit in a circle and do that! It was amazing to just reconnect with everyone after a year. I love how everyone changed so much... but they still are exactly who they were when they left. (that probably doesn't make sense at all).

So now I am home again. The weekend was like I have already said- GREAT... but it still sucks to not be able to hang out with everyone for a longer period of time! I guess it was nice when it lasted! As of now- I'm really trying to just live... I got a lot of stuff going through my head at the moment, but in the scheme of things... yeahh... I guess I am just trying to wrap my head around all the stuff I saw, all the people I met, and all of the relationships I made this year. I have no idea where I would be if I had never done exchange. I can not imagine my life without it.

I have some thinking to do.

going home

2010-07-04T16:52:00.002-05:00

I am leaving to go to the airport in 5 short hours.

Im a bit anxious- I can not believe it is actually happening. It hasnt set in yet.
I really dont know what to say other than this has been the best year of my life and I enjoyed every minute of it. I'm really curious to see how life will be after this year... it should be interesting to see.

Well, I better go now. I need to get some sleep before I travel all of tomorrow.

Gute Nacht!

ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE 2009-2010
DISTRIKT 1940
BERLIN, DEUTSCHLAND
DAS BESTE JAHR MEINES LEBENS!!!

Success

2010-07-03T05:14:00.003-05:00

After last night- it is safe to say that this year was a success!

I went to a party of a girl friend of mine and all of the German's there did not realize that I was American until I told them. I got multiple compliments on how good my German was, some said I I had perfect German (not true... I still have MUCH to learn), and a lot of people referred to me simply as the American with amazing German! hahaha.... That was a GREAT last experience during my last weekend in Germany. I always dreamed of being bi-lingual... and never realize that I actually am. I have totally immersed myself into the German culture- I look, talk, and walk like Germans. I feel like I really achieved all of the goals I set for myself last year when I was preparing for this year.

I feel on top of the world!

time is ticking

2010-06-30T03:35:00.003-05:00

I have less than a week left in Berlin and I am enjoying myself immensly.
I'm not scrambling to do all of the things that I havn't done yet- just focusing on being with friends and just being happy. I know that one day I will return to this city... so I'm not worried about seeing everything one last time. I have been doing a lot of reflecting these past few days about what all has happend this year- it has been quite a year. So influential, so interesting, so AMAZING.

I have been in the airport almost every day seeing my friends off to their homeland. I have been there so many times I believe that Monday I will be ready to go- It is my turn. It is time to get back into reality... I can not wait to see my family and friends again. Getting back into the American culture should be... interesting. I can not imagine actually driving a car, or speaking all the time English, or not eating bread all of the time, or going to American high-school, or how the architecture everything looks.. it seems very foreign to me. But I am none-the-less excited

I am mostly dreading what a lot of exchange students have told me that already home. They say that people just dont realize how much they have grown- they do not realize how LIFE CHANGING an exchange year is, and they simply act like the exchange year never took place. I can't just forget about my year in berlin. I can not just go right back into life in madison. This year like I have said so many times before- changed my LIFE. I am a completely different person- I can not just pick up were I left off a year ago. I HOPE there will be some people who understand that.

Anyways- Friday is my last day of school in Berlin. Today I am going with friends to go make a picnic in Wansee and tomorrow we must clean the school! On friday We have a very short day- a church service and I will recieve my report card. (which should be A LOT WORSE than my first one because I missed a lot of school this half of the year). After that there is a going away pool party that I am going to with other exchange students to say goodbye. On Saturday is the Germany vs. Argentina game and I am going to watch it with friends from school. After that I will hopefully go to a huge beach party on Wansee with my host brother and listen to music and things there. Then, on Sunday- I will be going to be doing some things with my host family- packing-saying goodbye... and before I know it- I will be on my flight back to the US at 7.15 on Monday morning.

Well I must go now. I have to meet my friends at the beach. I hope to write at least one more post before I leave. until then!

thinking...

2010-06-24T14:01:00.002-05:00

I have 10 days left in Berlin.

Each day I am thinking about all the things I have experienced this year.
I am juIst BOMBARDED with memories and emotions... to tell the truth it is quite intense.

This year has been the most influential year of my life. It has given me the chance to experience life in a whole new way and really has just opened my eyes to all that life has to offer.

One thing that I just realized today... is that I have forgotten to thank somebody for this year. It's actually the person who has made this entire life-changing experience possible- It's god. Without him I would not be here right now... I would be no one- have nothing. He has made this experience possible and it is a real shame that it took me 10 months to figure that out. He has been beside me this entire time and has had his watchful eye out for me. Though it took an immense amount of mistakes to see- god has really taught me some lessons that I fear I would have never learned if I had not gone on exchange...

Winding down

2010-06-21T01:54:00.006-05:00

Well my time in Berlin is definately winding down...

I have just realized that I havn't really written about what I have been up to in quite a long time- it has been almost a month!!! To tell you the truth I have not been on the computer all that much because I have been trying to be busying myself with everything and anything I have not yet done in Berlin. It feels like I have almost done more in the month of June than the whole year!

Now is the time when many of the exchange students are returning home. I have been in the airport 2 times this week already and I will be going once again tomorrow to say goodbye to one of my closest friends- Caitlin Ryan! I have had to say goodbye so many times already, but it is nevertheless very difficult each and every time. It will be especially difficult to say goodbye to Caitlin because we have so many memories together. But I know that saying goodbye is something that is just another part of exchange. It must be done- or else exchange would not be exchange. Along with saying goodbye there has seemed to be an IMMENSE amount of goodbye parties- Most of them are just grilling somewhere in berlin, listening to music, and talking late into the night- but last weekend I traveled to the city of Brandenburg and had a party at my friend from India's holiday apartment, It was soo much fun!. I feel like everyone has bonded to much in these last weeks together.

So many of you know that the World Cup has started! it is probably the most fun I have ever had in my life. The Europeans are extremely passionate about soccer... and even if one doesn't not like watching soccer it is regardless fun to watch. There are viewing points at what seems like every place- restaurants, beer gartens, bars, and the best- official public viewing points. For the first game, Germany played against Australia, and I went with some friends from school to a boat that was anchored to the shore of the river Spree that runs through the center of Berlin. We all just chilled, talked a bit, and celebrated the 4-0 Germany victory. The second game, me and some friends went to the "fan mile" which is a HUGE public viewing point outside of the Olympia stadium (where the olympics were held in the 30's). Everyone went decked out in the German flags and face paint and it was a lot of fun despite Germany"s unexpected loss against Serbia! (0-1... could not believe it)!

So beside the World Cup, I have also been trying to experience as much Berlin-culture as I possibly can in these short 2 weeks I have left. Last weekend I took part in one of the most amazing experiences of my life- Christopher Street Days- A day that used to be a protest for the rights of homosexuals, but now-a-days is simply one of the biggest parades in the world. It was such a fantastic, freeing experience. There were 600,000 people walking through the streets that came of ALL different walks of life- gay, bisexual, lesbian, transexuals, and gay-supporters. I went with some friends of mine, and definately not expecting to be so entertained and just... happy. It was a Berlin i had never seen before. Everywhere I looked were people who looked so content, and happy, and without anger. It felt like happyness was simply in the air, and there was no sort of stress or worry what-so-ever.. Towards the end the came a bunch of party buses with really great-loud music. Me and my friends ended up dancing behind the bus all the way from Ku'damm, all the way to Brandenburger Tor. It was the experience of a lifetime. I met people from all over the world and my eyes were opened to a whole new part of Berlin I had NEVER even known to exist.

Well, like I said before, I have exactly 2 weeks left, and I have been here for exactly 10 months. it is still so strange for me to imagine to go home- but I am prepared. After living abroad throughout this year going home is the least of my difficulties. I am very excited to see my family, to be back in my hometown, be with my American friends, and to go back to reality ... there are no words to describe what this year means to me. It has taught me SO much, and has opened my eyes to things... that I will never have the words to describe. I have so many memories, stories, and experiences in this beautiful city... Berlin will ALWAYS be in my heart-

(I am currently not on my real computer- will upload pictures later)

YUP!

2010-06-13T07:48:00.001-05:00

PRETTY MUCH SUMS US UP!!!

learning

2010-06-01T13:14:00.005-05:00

How do you define yourself?

by your NAME?
by your NaTiOnAliTy?
by your religion?
by your JOB?
by your sexuality?

I don't know about you, but these questions have racked my mind for much of my teenage life. who am I? Why do I act the way I act, talk the way I talk, or dress the way I dress? Is it really ME? What is it that defines me? Was I born with a pre-programmed circuitboard in my mind, or heart, or who-knows- where that is labeled, "Benjamin John Mau" and is inscripted with all of my behaiviors, emotions, knowledge capacity, habits, tendencies... etc? Or, is my soul a free-spirit that is capable of transforming depending on how I naturally grow over the course of time?

....can i choose who i want to be?

I went on exchange hoping to answer some of these questions. Maybe, by being away from all of the things that I knew, all of the people that knew me- I could get my head on straight and really try to find who Ben Mau is....

over these past 9 months living in a foreign country, figuring these things out has proven to be very emotional and insanely tough. But- it could not have been any other way. By making mistakes- by being torn apart- by experiencing hardship- by feeling like your world is crumbling around you... that is the way you really learn.

It has been a constant battle- some days I think about these questions without end- and other days, my self-identification goes without notice for weeks ... but now that I am almost done with my exchange, I think I can say I have a pretty good idea as to who I am. I am satisfied. I have learned just about as much about my myself as I can . I know who I am.

However, theres a HUGE difference between KNOWING who I am and BEING who I am. That's something I continue to struggle with- and I know I will continue to struggle with in the future. Regardless, this exchange year has realllly helped me a TON with this process... I have all of the amazing people I have met here to thank for that. Every single person- The people that I was with for the entire year AND even the people I was with for only a few days ... everyone played their part. thanks.

Karneval der Kulturen

2010-05-25T05:12:00.011-05:00

What a week!

I have been out of the house most of the time because the weather is so nice and there has been so much to do. My best friend Majo leaves to go back to Mexico TOMORROW so we have super busy with doing fun-crazy stuff.

Last week I wrote my Physik exam and it was really embarassing because I'm horrible at Physik and I just could not answer anything. But I made it through and was able to write down a few things. On Friday me and some friends went out to eat and go into the kino and on Saturday we had a going away party for Majo. It was really nice to all get together and eat and talk! We had so much fun grilling and reminiscing on the year together. That night we decided to go to this fest called Karneval der Kulturen. I had no idea what it was but Boyyyy was I in for a suprise.

Karnival der Kulturen is basically a HUGE hippy fest. On the night we were there, there were roughly 100,000 people from all over the world in this one park. The streets were lined with traditional food from all over the world like Afrika, Mexico, France, USA, India, etc... And there were what seamed like 100s of little stores with all different sorts of interesting gifts. The vibe was AMAZING! It was the first time that I really experienced a laid-back vibe from germany. Normally Germans are really punctual and stressed out about something, but here it was just hippy and peaceful and relaxed and it felt GREAT! There was this huge field with people dancing in circles to drums, and lights hanging in trees, and people singing and chanting... it was great.

On Sunday a good friend of mine came to visit from about an hour outside of Berlin. We all met up in the city at 11 O'clock and made our way to Mehringdam- where a big Culture parade was going to take place that day. We were pretty early and got some seats on the grass on the side of the road and watched at people started to pour into the streets. By noon the entire area was covered in people from all over the world. The parade started slowly and we saw people from all over the world performing traditional dances or other art forms. It was very interesting. The parade started to get a bit slow so a few hours in we started walking in the direction of the starting point and saw it much quicker. I loved the feel of world cultures all around me and I felt really good in this atmosphere. We ate some indien food and enjoyed the musik coming from what seemed like every single direction and had a GREAT time in the sun. It was a fantastic experience. That night we went back to the street fest and had another fun night in the field of hippies. Greatttt times :)

I have no school from Monday-Wednesday so I#m just enjoying the weather an relaxing. Today is my last day with Majo and tonight we are just going to hang out and maybe go to some places where we all share a lot of memories together- Potsdamer, Hauptbahnhof, and most of all- Hackesher! (anyone that hasnt been to berlin probably has no idea what I am talking about) Having my best friend leaving is a huge wake-up call! Its really telling me that I am leaving is just over a month! ONE MONTH! I HAVE ONE LEFT.... one. how the time flies. I can not even explain.

On Thursday i am back to school and will be writing two more exams on Thursday and Friday. I have no idea how to do the Biology one on Thursday... it is about the immune system but I was gone when they learned about it so I am clueless. Im hoping I will be able to do the Math exam on Friday. Im pretty decent in Math but again- I was gone from school during Eurotour so I missed quite a great deal. I'm not sweating it... I should be getting going. I need to get some food into my stomach and then call around to see what people are doing today. until later.

Mai

2010-05-16T14:26:00.008-05:00

Im sorry I havn't written for a long time. I've been relatively busy having fun lately and have negleted to write. I havn't filled anyone in on what has gone on since I have returned from Eurotour at the end of April.

Tracing back in time...

WAIT- BEFORE I GO ON I FORGOT TO MENTION! I AM AN UNCLE! His name is Carter-Joseph! I'm really excited to meet him! Here is a picture of my family without me.

May has been extremely relaxed and fun!!! The first weekend of I went and visited some good friends in Neurruppin! It was very nice to go up for the day and hang with them all day and spend the night. We went to a carnaval time thing in the city center and it was a great litte-town feeling. School was normal the first full week back after Eurotour. I've realized that I have completely lost my ability to speak in French... but I can understand what everyone is saying and I can read! Its very strange... but i will practice over the summer and hopefully be ready to start that up in the beginning of the school.

The second weekend in May I got the opportunity to go to a professional soccer match in Berlin. It was the last match of the season (Berlin vs Bayern) they are rivals and we all knew Bayern would win because they are the best and we are the worst but it was REALLY fun! A friend of mine from school invited me to go to the game with some other people from school and we ended up having a GREAT time together.

Last week was very relaxing. We only had Monday-Wednesday of school- LONG WEEKEND! However on Tuesday morning the first person in our distrikt returned home for college. It was strange having people actually LEAVING... it kind of hit me fast- "wow, my amazing year WILL come to an end..." I think it really is going to hit me when one of my BEST FRIENDS- Majo from Mexico goes home in 9 days. Im dreading it!

During the long weekend my host sister's (who is abroad in equador) host brother (who is in Germany) came to visit Berlin. It was a really nice stay. He was really chill and we got along really good. The first day we stayed in Berlin and had a great picnik in Tiergarten with my friends then went to an exhibition on Frida Kahlo (famous Meixcan artistin), and after that we went out to Berlin and hung out with friends... but unfortunately there wasnt much taking place that night so he didnt really get to seee NIGHTLIFE in Berlin. The second day he was here we went to Hamburg with my host parents which was a really fun treat. We had a boat tour in the morning, walked around town, went out for food and coffee, visited the Hamburg Dungeon, ate once again, then headed back home. It was a beutiful German city with lots of Water. The third day he was here I had a bunch of friends over, my host brother had a few over, and my parents had some as well- and we all ate together and had a little party for no particluar reason. On the last day we just chilled until he needed to take the train back home. We grilled, had some coffee and kuchen, and went souvenir shopping. It was a really nice weekend.

This week I don't have much planned. I am just going to school, chilling with friends, and enjoying life. I have to write two tests this week which is a bummer (math and physik), but should be okay. This weekend me and some friends are planning on making home-made salsa and indian food then go salsa dancing later that night... I am looking forward to that

Life is ammmazing right now- I love where i am at! Today I spent two hours with a friend from school going out for coffee (i have two hours free every monday) and eating breakfast. It is sooo nice to just talk with people in German and them being able to understand! I am very proud with all the german i have learned and how far i have come. I am farrr from perfect, farrr from a native speaker, but I am fluent. I can express myself, I have a voice, and I understand what is going on... (other than this literature we are reading in German class). Although I am having the TIME of my life... I think in 7 weeks... I will be ready to go back. (wow 7 WEEKS... where has TIME GONE!) I wish I could stay a bit more during the summer- but I have had my slice of heaven and its about time to go back into realität. One of the biggest things I miss is my school system. The system here really likes to me not!!! And of course I miss people close to me. It will be great to see all of those people again!

Like i have said many times before- life just seems completely normal. I don't really feel like I am ON EXCHANGE... I feel kind of just normal at home. I don't have a problem yelling at my host brother when I get mad, or asking my host parents for things, or chilling with friends at school, or really anything. It seems like normal life. Amerika seems like this place far off... somewhere that I don't remember very well. I can't imagine going to high school next year, or speaking english all the time, or doing things american teenagers do! it seems unreal!

I also have been really thinking about my future. I am starting to think about what college i want to go to what I want to study, If I want to study abroad in the future, etc... I think I have my heart set on UW Madison for a college (hopefully I would get in)... but I'm open to see where fate takes me. Theres a huge part of me who wants to do an exchange year in a Spanish speaking country sometime. I know it would be hard, but I REALLLY need to learn spanish- thats one thing I had to learn the hard way! Sure French is beautiful and so fun to learn- but SPANISH IS NECCESARY! I regret not taking it. In my future I can imagine a lot of things for me. I can see myself in so many careers it is not even funny. International Studies would be a really cool thing... and from there I could desperately try getting into Foreign Service and working for the U.S. government... but there's a part of me who wants a different life. theres a part of me who wants to study English Education and join the peace corps, or another organization and travel around the world teaching english in exotic countries like Japan, China, Tailand, India, etc... but theI also have my heart in the arts... it would be really fun to get into writing, film, journalism, etc.. All that I know is that whatever I choose to do in the end... I will give it my all, and I will try my hardest.

Well that is all for now. In the next few weeks I will try to make more pictures of day-to-day life. until later!

ATTENTION- ANY OUTBOUND STUDENT READING THING!!!! I HAVE A HUGE WORD OF ADVICE!

I HIGHLY reccommend buying an electronic dictionary-translator before you leave on exchange. It will save you SOOO much time. It is the only thing that I regret not getting. A lot of time spent during class while on exchange is used looking up words that I hear or read. I have a pocket dictionary and I always told myself to get one but now that I am here I cant bring myself to buy one for 100€ when I know there is a cheeper one out there! GET ONE!!! You will use it EVERY DAY NEXT YEAR!
(*Parents reading this- it is a great going away present!)

Article

2010-05-10T10:44:00.003-05:00

I wrote an article for the school newspaper in my American school a while back which was just issued last week. This article was a rough overview about how my exchange has played out so far-

check it out at this link (page number 2):
http://memorialweb.madison.k12.wi.us/files/memorial/S&S7web.pdf

Europareise- Adventure of a LIFETIME!

2010-04-29T06:22:00.053-05:00

I just got back from Distrikt 1940 Eurotour 2010 yesterday! It was a trip of a lifetime. I had the most fun I have ever had, and was able to explore a ton of beautiful European cities. Today I am staying home from school because I am insanely tired, and I am a little sick from the trip (basically all of the exchange students are sick). So I'm not going to go into extreme detail about what we did everyday, but I'll try to sum it all up without boring all of you! Los gehts...

Day One: Berlin - Dresden
All of the students gather at Berlin Ostbahnhof and make our way to the historical city of Dresden, Germany. I got to share the "Holiday House"with 5 other exchange students and it came complete with a living room and kitchen. Pretty cool. That night we all went out and explored the city nightlife.

Day Two: Dresden
We receive a City Bus/walking Tour of Dresden see many famous landmarks and learn about the history . We are given many hours of free time to roam around the city and do whatever we want.

Day Three: Dresden - Prague
We make our way to the river Elbe that runs through the center of Dresden and enter a large boat. We spend the majority of the afternoon driving down the river and enjoying the rolling hills speckled with german communities. After the boatride, the bus picks us up and we drive to Prague, Czech Republic. After settling in our hotel, we are given free time and we explore Prague by night. The city was very beautiful. I liked all of the buildings with slanted roofs on them. In Berlin there are hardly any slanted roofs in the city. It was a definite shock to go from German to Czech! But luckily most of the residence knew German or English so we got around fine.

Day Four: Prague
A woman gives the group a verrrrry LONG tour of Prague and the old castles, bridges, and monuments of the downtown city. The tour guide talked WAY to much and it was super boring because she repeated everything 2ce- once in German and the next in English. But after the Tour we were given free time to go and explore the city and shop. we met back at the hotel for dinner and then all went out to see the weirdest show I have ever seen in my life. It was a "dark light show." The whole theatre was pitch black and people in black costumes moved objects that were laced with black lights to give the illusion that they were floating. It was really cool, but super super super komisch. That night we were given the opportunity to either go to the biggest club in Europe or go somewhere we wanted to go. I decided to go out with a group of friends to the most famous pub in Prague because we needed to be back by 1, it was a Wednesday, and I really don't like clubbing all that much. The Pub turned out to be a FANTASTIC decision. They all played traditional Czech music and we met a bunch of Germans on a classtrip.

Day Five: Prague - Vienna
The next day we drove a suprisingly short way to the city of Vienna, Austria. During the drive we stopped at a medival-themed mini amusement park and spent a few hours chatting and walking around. Once in Vienna I went with a few friends to check out a few Indian stores. We bought a bunch of traditional Indian food and ate it later that night. It was delicious. It was raining that night (the only day it rained the entire trip... besides Berlin... but it always rains here) so I just stayed in the Hostel that night with friends.

Day Six: Vienna
During our day in Vienna we had a tour of the beautiful Austrian city by Bus as well as by walking. That night we went to a Mozart and Schumann concert complete with singing, and dancing. After the concert we were given freetime and had a great night on the town!

Day Seven: Vienna - Venice
We spent the majority of this day driving about 8 hours to Lido de Jesolo, Italy (a town right outside of Venice). It was amazing to see beach, something I have not seen in a very long time. Though the weather was considerably cold, that night a bunch of us exchange students decided to plunge into the freezing water! It was such a great rush!

Day Eight: Venice
We woke up early in the morning to travel to the beach and take a boat to the city of Venice. Right as we were leaving we realized that someone was missing- the exchange student out of Japan. The Rotarians got all worked up about missing our boat and we thought we were never going to be able to see Venice, but once we found Koki (japanese exchange student), we made it to the docks right in time. After 30 minutes of driving with the boat we got our first glimpses of the BEAUTIFUL city of Venice. It was by far the most gorgeous city we saw. We were given the whole morning and early afternoon of freetime where we spent our time eating, shopping, and walking through the winding maze of skinny allyways. At around 2 O'clock we all met up and took watertaxies to another part of the city. A resident there gave us a tour of the city and we had some of the best ice-cream I have ever had. After the tour we drove back to Lido de Jesolo and had a crazy night which included singing at the top of our lungs to songs on a dock, and swimming in the freezing water until it nummed our body and felt warm. What an amazing city!

Day Nine: Venice - Rome
we spent the majority of this day driving to the famous city of Rome, Italy. We didnt go directly to our hotel right when we got there because it was very central, so we all unpacked on the outskirts of the city, and made our way with the underground to our hotel. I would like to say that I think Rome has the WORST Underground line i have ever been on. It was even worse than PARIS! You have to walk like a kilometer to get down there, and you have have to follow different colored lines and it was just horrible. Im very thankful for Berlins Underground! So much easier! Anyways, we arrived at our hotel.. and found it to be extremely OLD and DIRTY! It was pretty disgusting. After getting situated we went to eat a very unsatisfactory meal- I was expecting the meals to be good in Rome, but almost all of them were pretty gross :P I must say my first impression of rome was pretty bad. It was dirty, busy, loud, and the food was bad. But that changed when me and some friends walked to the Colleseum that night! It was so pretty :)

Day Ten: Rome
We visted the Vatikin City and had a guided tour of the city. It was really cool seeing the Sistine Chapel and al the other historical monuments. During the day we had free-time and we walked all over Rome and saw a bunch of ruins and other famous monuments. What I found very cool was that it was Historical Week so we were able to get into many things for free!

Day Eleven: Rome
We woke up very early on this day to get in line for the Pope Audience. I have no idea how our group managed to get invited seeing that we have no religious affiliation, but I'm glad we did because it was a great experience. We arrived at around 8 in the morning and got seats 3rd from the front. We waited there until 10.30, and the ceremony started. It was cool to see such a governmental figure like the Pope! For the rest of the day we wandered aimlessly around the HUGE city. We ate a lot and shopped. We also visted inside of the colleseum (for free). By the end of the day we were all BEAT. Me and a few others fell asleep in a field right next to colleseum! That night we all met at the hotel and drove to eat dinner. Once at dinner we realized we had lost someone while underway! The rotary FREAKED out because we could not reach him, so they went off looking for him and eventually found him at the Underground station. That night we had our overnight drive to Insbruck, Austria. It was pretty terrible. Rotary had bad moods and it was difficult to sleep, But we made it! All and all, Rome was a cool city, but was way under my expectations. I was expecting it to be a lot more... live-able. But it was just like a really dirty, busy, LOUD city with tons of tourists and random famous monuments placed in the weirdest places. Yet again, I was only there 2 days. I'm sure if I was placed there for my exchange I would grow used to it and love it after a few weeks.

Day 12: Insbruck - Nesselwang
After riding the bus the entire night we all were EXHAUSTED! Rotary booked two hotels for the sole purpose of showering. We all were alotted 3 minutes to shower... it was quite hectik- but very nice to be surrounded by a familiar language, and be able to eat a descent brötchen breakfast. We needed to spend 9 hours in Insbruck so the bus driver could get some sleep, so we first had a very short guide of the city, and then went to the Swarovski Crystal World! The Crystal Welt was quite strange- I didn't really understand what it was supposed to be... you can just look at the pictures and be confused as well. After Swarovski we we given the day to wander the city! It was so nice to be out of the loudness and dirtiness of Rome and into a small town surrounded by mountains. That evening we drove 100 km or so to the small ort of Nesselwang. This small town in Bayern was so welcoming and pretty. The food was great and the hotel was the best in the whole trip.

Day 13: Füssen
The reason why we slept in the middle of nowhere was to be able to visit the Schloss Neuschwanstein- the most famous castle in Germany. (the Disney Land castle is built after it). We had a guided tour of the castle and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. It was great to be in Germany again. After the Castle, we took a lift to the top of a small mountain and got a great view of our surroundings. After that we all rode little luge-type carts through a track, and it made a lot of FUN! That night we all went swimming in a Swim-House next to the hotel. It was very large and we all bonded a lot.

Day 14: Nesselwang - Linderhof - Munich
We drove to a very small private castle in Linderhof, Germany this day. The grounds were gorgeous, and the castle was very different from other castles I have already seen. There was also this very cool man-made Grotto that was used for Operas a feww hundred years ago. The man who made it was crazy. For the rest of the day we enjoyed the BEAUTIFUL weather and layed out in the sun. We were all family by then and just enjoyed eachother's company. The bus ride to Munich was quite short- we arrived there, ate dinner, then a few of us went to a Spring Fest. We went on rides, and bumper cars, and it was a lot of fun!

Day 15: Munich
On this day we drove throughout the city and recieved a tour. We visited a famous castle and suprised all of the other tourists by breaking out in Macarina. After our tour we went to the most famous Beer Garden in Munich, and enjoyed delicious White Würstchen, and Pretzels. We roamed the city for a few hours, soaked up the sun in grassy parks, and that night went to Hard Rock Café for dinner. It was my first REAL Hamburger in a long time! That night the exchange students had a night on the town and visited some famous Bayerish places. Bayern sure knows how to have fun ;)

Day 16: Munich - Berlin
We spent a good 8 hours driving back up to Berlin on our second to last day. It was a good last busride- everyone was content, everyone realizing that our trip was coming to an end, a little bit sad actually. It was a bit strange being back home in Berlin and staying at a hostel, but a fun experience. The Hostel was verrry nice. I enjoyed being able to be a tourist and buy Souvenirs and things.

Day 17: Berlin
On our last full day of Eurotour we were given a tour of Berlin's most famous places. The guide told about the history and architecture behind the buildings and it was quite interesting to hear about. We also visted the Jewish Museum under the Jewish memorial. The highlight of our day was visiting the German Parliment buidling- the Reichstag. I had never been inside so it was pretty cool to see. Most tourists are only allowed to go to the dome on the top, but we were given a special tour inside the offices of the people of parliment. As luck would have it, I was chosen to be the translator of the tour because the person who was supposed to lead the English guide didn't show up. I really did not want to be the translator because I am have no experience translating... but it went prettty well. But translating is wayyy harder than it looks- It's one thing to understand what people say in german, but it is another thing to translate instantainiously. It's really hard to remember all of the details they say! So it was kind of embarassing some times because he would say something, I would remember the first part, but totally forget the second part of what he said. Even though it was a little embarassing, I'm glad I got to translate- it was good practice. After the tour we all went to have our LAST dinner together in the near from the city central station. We all had a great time laughing and eating and reminiscing on the amazing trip. Towards the end of the night it got really sad. There are many exchange students who are flying home in May and June, and I will never see them again. Tears were shed, and speeches were given... it was so amazing to hear everyone talk about how exchange has changed them. All of us were completely different since the first conference and that in itself made me cry. At that momentthough we were 50 exchange students speaking different languages, from different lands, and with different traditions- we were only one family that night. After dinner rotary told us all to meet in the central station of Berlin. We met there, they told us breakfast was at 8.30 the next morning, and then they left. It was QUITE a night :D

Day 18: Berlin
I missed breakfast the next morning because I didnt hear my alarm going off. I had only 10 minutes to get dressed and pack all of my things that I had accumulated. Once downstairs we all said our goodbyes in the central station over a cup of coffee, and I made my way back home. It was sad saying goodbye to the people I know I won't see anymore- but we do have a last goodbye-party at the end of July with the majority of exchange students. Hopefully some of the exchange students will be able to visit Berlin in the next months. That would be great.

So here i am back in Berlin and tomorrow I go back to School. It will be quite a change going back and learning, but I think I'm ready. I am kind of in awe at how fast April went by- At this rate, I'm going to be back in America before I know it. I have roughly TWO months left. thats Insane! I'm really looking forward to enjoying the summer weather during these last months.

Leaving for Eurotour

2010-04-11T04:48:00.004-05:00

I'm about to leave for Eurotour and I am veryyyy excited. I've be gone for the next 3 weeks.
There's nothing much more to say except that lately everythings been pretty good. I'll be sure to write a post when I come back from Eurotour.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Osterferien!

2010-03-27T09:36:00.006-05:00

My 2 weeks of Osterferien (Easter Break) is finally here and I am happier than ever! Last week I had three Klausuren (2 hour long finals that are at random times during the year). On Tuesday I had Religion, but it was too confusing so the teacher let me leave ;) (I was translating one text for 1 hour and there were at least 10 words that were not in my dictionary!). On Wednesday I had my Advanced-French Klausur and it went ok. We had to summarize a text given (it was from Le Petit Prince! I think thats what they read this year in my school in America), than we had to write 2 miny essays on questions given about previous stories we had read. I know that my grammar was horrible- and I used very basic French vocabulary- but it could have been a lot worse. Thursday was the day I had been dreading for a while- I had to write my German Klausur! Last time I didn't write it because.. well how do you expect me to write an essay on German when I have only been learning German on my own for one year? Anyways a while back my German teacher told me I had to make it with this time- so it was an essay on this book called, Homer Faber. Well, my german is good- but it can't compare with the people in my class who have been learning it their entire lives! I'm very happy that I did this test with! It was my first essay I have ever written in German and it was 4 pages long :) There were some times that I couldn't say exactly what I wanted, and it was pretty lousy for a REAL essay... but I wrote one and it made me happy :D

SO anyways- I am here now! Most students start their holidays is 2 days on the 31st, but my school's break started last Friday! The weather is warm, the snow gone, flowers are beginning to bloom - I am so happy that Spring is finally here!!!

My Oma has been here for the past week looking over the home (aka- making sure no one throws a huge house party haha). She left yesterday and a family friend and her son from the near from Saltzberg are staying for 2 weeks to house sit. When my Oma was here I felt really stressed ALL THE TIME because she gets upset really easily. She is the sweetest woman EVER- and when we were alone, and she was just telling me about her life in Berlin during the war- it was AWESOME- but... a lot of the time, I felt like people were constantly fighting and just being mad at one another. I really didn't like that. It made me just want to be out of the house as much as I possibly could be. Well she's gone now, and it is definately a bit strange having another family here. I have become to used to the Meyfarths (and I miss my host parents in Equador!) and now there is a family out of the south and they do things a little bit differently. Nevertheless it should be an interesting 2 weeks with this family.

I have nothing very big planned for this easter break. My friend Chris had his birthday 2 days ago and we had a lot of fun celebrating. I'm planning on meeting up with some friends from school and hang out sometime before I go on My EUROTOUR! IM GETTING REALLY EXCITED FOR EUROTOUR!!!! It happens the day after Easter Break and I will be traveling Europe with 50 Exchange students for 19 days! Very exciting :D

So the weather is rainy right now and everyone has school so might as well go into some detail about what I've been feeling inside recently.

Recently I have been really feeling a development in my character. Exchange is like a "GROW UP" crash course. We are forced to grow up- FAST! We can't visit parents at breaks, we can't go to them when we have problems... we have to learn how to do that on our own. I feel like no one except other exchange students really understand how INFLUENTIAL an exchange year is. People just think that its some vacation to another country to study some language- but it is soooo much more than that. It teaches you how to live life, and how to be who you are. I feel sooo independant, which is good, but also a little bit bad. It's good because I feel like I can live on my own, that I can provide for myself, and that I can solve problems that arise. However, the one downside to gaining so much independence is the realization that I am still only 17. Though I feel like I am an adult- I am not. The reality is that I still have one more year of high school, and one more year living with my parents... It should be an interesting backwards transition. I'm planning on just taking advantage of it! One more year of free food!!! :D

One other thing that I really wanted to achieve when I came here was to not be worried about how other people thing about me, and not be such a people-pleaser. When I came here I morphed into a thousand different people just so that certain people would accept me as their friend. Over the months I have learned that yes I should be polite, and respectful, and friendly... but the most I can be is myself. I can do things for people, I can pretend to be someone I'm not- but that is just a silly show. The people who will really be there for me are the people who know and love me for who I really am! I'm done pretending to be someone I'm not. I'm ready to just be Ben.

With that thought in mind- I probably should take a shower- I smell. I wish all of you a very Happy Easter.

DONE

2010-03-15T16:07:00.003-05:00

My bio and rotary presentations are OVER!
It is a big load off of my chest. Both of them went very well.

In bio I think people were just suprised that I could talk about intellectual things. My German has a very conversational vocabulary.. it is seldom people in class here intellectual things one hears in presentations and things. But this presentation was in English and I really tried to show all of them what I am capable of.

Rotary Presentation was very nice. It wasn't a prepared speech like my bio speech. I has a powerpoint presentation and talked about my life in amerika and then my life here in berlin and the process of how I came here. I was happy that I was able to present for 20 minutes in German, but after doing it, it really shows me how much I can still improve. There are still a lot of words that I don't know- I struggle with descriptions and adjectives, forming ideas, and epressing emotions and and opinions.

it seems never-ending.

Busy

2010-03-14T11:43:00.004-05:00

Im really busy right now.
I was just informed that I need to do a speech tomorrow in Biology. Everyone else has to just write a poster, but I am a guest speaker I guess. The whole 11th year will be coming and I will be giving a really boring speech about Social Darwinism in English. I hope they understand! (ps- thank you forensics for teaching me how to write speeches so fastt)

Other than that, I have my rotary presentation TOMORROW. I'm not done with that yet... but Im planning on kind of just talking and showing them a lot of pictures on Powerpoint.

Actually, I am supposed to give in this German homework on Tuesday about this book we read- but theres NO way I can do it. It is a practice essay. I am at NO level to be writing essays in German! It is simply undoable at the moment. I wish I could, I really do- And also, we are writing three Klausurs this week- which I am supposed to be participating in, but they ate my HARDEST subjects and it is only essays we are writing... about philisophical things. I can not do them this early in my German-learning career. That is the truth! Im not the person to find excuses to get out of work.

I wanted to mention that I have been mixing up my English and German lately. It is the weirdest thing... It happened to me right in the beginning of the exchange than stopped for a very long time.. and It just started happening again. I'll be talking in German, than half way through switch to Englisch... but not realize it... until the end. Or I will say really short and simple things in English, like "goodbye", or "thank you" but think I'm saying them in German... than 10 minutes later I realize that I had said it in English. I'll even substitute words into phrases ... today I was outside and I said to some people, "wollen wir herein go" (do we want to go inside).

Yes, so I have 2 more weeks until Easter Holidays. I am very excited for that! Now... back to work... I'm a good exchange student- actually doing homework!

ps- it is snowing right now. This has been the worst winter since 20-30 years or so. Arn't I lucky? -__-

Föhr

2010-03-09T07:29:00.015-06:00

Last weekend was the best Rotary Weekend I have had TO-THE-DATE! It was WUNDERBAR!

On Friday morning I met up with Maria (from Mexico) and Chris (from the United States) in Südkreuz train station. We then drove together from Berlin to Hamburg on one of the ICE trains. Once in Hamburg about 50 exchange students met up on the platforms and we all rode from Hamburg to Niebüll (in the near from Denmark) together. It was THE funnest train ride I have ever had!!!

(Map of Germany and the island of Föhr)

Once in Niebüll all of the exchange students from my distrikt (1940) and another distrikt (1890) that we had never met before, met up with one another and drove on a boat from Niebüll to the island of Föhr. The boat ride was very crammed and everyone was a little bit tired... but it started to snow very hard and that made things interesting.

(Boatride to Föhr)
(Boatride to Föhr)

That night, we all mingled together and got to know eachother while eating dinner. It was really fun meeting a ton of NEW exchange students. Later, we just all hung out in the hostel and had fun! I met a girl from Minnesota and she was GREAT! Her Minnesota accent reminded me so much of home! I hope that I can visit her in Hamburg!

(me and minnesota :) Dont-cha-know!)

On Saturday we walked about 5 kilometers along the North Sea. It was very nice wetter but the wind started getting a little bit cold after a while. After walking, we made our way to a swimbath where a lot of exchange students swimmed. I decided not to..(*ehm.. im 7 kilos heavier ehm*) I went with some friends to a hotel and we ate cakes and coffe and hot chocolate. After that we had some time to kill so we wandered aimlessly throughout the city and went on a little expidition!
(Me in front of the North Sea)

(me and two other Americans)

(North Sea)
(walking through the town)

That night we were required to make a presentation on our home country. We decided to sing the song "50 nifty Untied States." After the presentation we had the BEST night ever of just hanging out and dancing and talking! Rotary was REALLY cool. They weren't strict about when we had to be in bed, or how loud we were... they understood that we were almost 100 exchange students together from one weekend in which we are supposed to have fun, stay up late, be crazy... etc. Rotary in Germany is the BEST!

(American's Presentation)

The next day was sad because everyone had to say their goodbyes. We all rode the train from Niebüll-Hamburg together, but me and Maria had a layover there so we stayed with the exchange students from Hamburg for another hour or so, then rode the train back home to Berlin. Being back in Berlin was kind of a drag... I had no desire to go to school the next morning or do ANYTHING... i just wanted to be back with the wonderful people in my distrikt and the new distrikt. To make things worse, right when I got home I recieved an email from my travel agent with my return date information. It isn't that I never want to go home... it was just kind of a slap in the face- WOW this life here in Germany is going to be ending in 4 months!

Yes... so my date that I will be leaving Germany is July 5th. very bittersweet....

(92 exchange students waiting for the boat)

(Trainride back to Berlin)

This weekend brought all of us SO MUCH CLOSER TOGETHER! Before, some exchange students had a bit too much drama, and were kind of stupid about groups and not liking certain people. But after this weekend we all gained an understading for eachother... It is getting me SO SO SO excited for Euro-Tour. I can't believe that it starts in LESS THAN ONE MONTH! 3 weeks touring Europe, with the funnest people everr... will be absolutley FANTASTIC!

So things to come....

-Next monday I have to give a Biology presentation on Social Darwinism... should be interesting
-Next week I will to give a presentationa about my expereince to my host rotary club in German
-From the 31st of March to the 9th of April- I will be on Easter Break
-Euro Tour starts on the 4th of April

:) Ich liebe AUSTAUSCH :)

6 months

2010-02-22T09:17:00.007-06:00

Berlin... 6 months!!!

It has been quite a while since I last wrote. The reason why- not too much has happend. I've just been hangin out with friends... learning... living!

School has been going very well lately. I don't have so much of a problem with understanding what is going on so it makes it A LOT easier. However, at the same time it is a little bit harder because now that I understand I have to keep up with everything going on... I havn't been learning German my entire life like the people in my class so logically, I need a little bit more "processing time" than everyone else- I have to listen to what the teacher has to say, process it, make sure I understand what they are asking, form an opinion, figure out how I want to say it, than raise my hand to answer. By that point either ...

A. someone alread said what I wanted to say or,
B. we have already moved on to another topic.

I'm really trying though to participate. Lately I feel like I have a good grasp on the German language, but I need to start learning more advanced vocabulary. I know all of the basic verbs that we use everyday to take, to sleep, to ride, to live ect... but I'm really diving into verbs we don't use very often such as to recognize, to reject, to survey, to consider... ect. Also I am trying to make my vocabulary a little more colorful... Adjectives and Adverbs like mysterious, reluctantly, terriffic, indimidating... I want to be taken seriously when people talk to me. I don't want to have the vocabulary of a 5 year old.

There are days when I feel like my German is completely WORTHLESS. When I totally misunderstand someone (usually with my host mom because she uses words I have NEVER heard of... all the time), when I read a text and find about 100 words I've never heard of... or when just completely mispronounce something. But I'm happy with how far my German has come. I have been here exactly 6 months and already can I read a book in German and understand what is going on. Right now, I am reading a book in German that roughly translates to, "Try to make your life" (Versuche dein Leben zu machen). While all of the kids in my advanced English class have to read a English book and give a 20-30 presentation on it, I have to read a German book, and give a presentation on it. My host mom recommended the book to me, and I am very suprised at how easily I can read it. It is about a Jew living/hiding in Berlin during Hitler's reign, and I'm learning a lot. I also had to read Homo Faber for German class. It is a German classic and I found it a bit more difficult, though understandable. Also, the more I speak and read, I am finding so many words that don't exist in English. When I speak in English, I try to find... SOMETHING to substitute the words... but it never suffices. What will I do without these words?

Other than school, I have been corresponding a bit with Amerika. I need to choose my classes for next year, my senior year, but it is a bit hard because I don't know which credits will transfer over from this year. I still havn't been able to choose ALL of my classes, but I have a pretty good idea about what I will choose- it is all resting on how much credit I will recieve for Sport. (I need 1,5 credits to graduate).

I'm really looking forward to traveling to the island of Föhr! It is happening not this weekend, but the weekend after (März 5-7). And until then, I am just living, and learning. I'm finding that the one downside to being able to speak German now is that I have to do homework. blah. I should do that now!

Until later!

Winterferien

2010-02-09T07:55:00.015-06:00

A lot has happend since I have last posted. Last Friday I had to go into the city to meet up with all of my fellow classmates and attend a praktikum debriefing session. We met in Sankt Bonifatius Church in the middle of Kreuzberg (a part of Berlin that I really like). I was informed that the session would only be an hour or so- but after mingling with my classmates for a while- they said that it would last the entire afternoon! That was a bummer! Regardless, all of us went inside and discussed how our internships went! Most of the students were in really difficult places to work like in hospitals and old homes- It was a little awkward because they were telling stories of how dreadful and hard it was, and then it came my turn and I was like, "it was really FUN!!!" I went on to describe what I did everyday, and then the teacher kept asking me questions and I got all choked up and couldn't speak German- so I felt super STUPID! Then we had to sit through a service at the church, which put me into a worse mood because I'm really not into Catholic church!!! When I got home, my host family informed me that traffic was too bad so we would leave for Austria in the middle of the night, but I couldn't leave the house just in case they changed their minds... so that left me the entire day to sit at home and do- nothing! And of course, my entire family was screaming at eachother because they were so stressed out about remembering to pack everything... sometimes I think stress to Germans is a form of love.

At 2AM we left the house. It was quite a trip- jammed in the back of a 5 seat car, with 5 people, and PACKED with luggage! I tried sleeping, but it didn't work very well. I got one hour of sleep at minimum. But I was really excited to get there, so it kept my spirits up. We finally arrived at our hotel at 12 o'clock the next day. Everyone was exhausted... we unpacked, walked around the town a bit, chilled in the hotel, and went to sleep!

For the next week I had an AMAZING time snowboarding with my host family. We would get up at 8.30 every day, eat breakfast at 9, get to the ski lifts at about 10, then start skiing around 10.30 or so. We skiied until 3 or 4 than went back to the hotel to the spa. The sauna and steam room were amazing!!! especially after going skiing all day. Relaxing there was a huge highlight to my vacation. The hot air from the Finnish sauna, with a mixture of the sharp mist in the steam room, simply made all of the pain in my muscles disappear. Needless to say, it was also was a very interesting cultural experience... you see- Germans don't wear any clothes in the sauna. That was a bit of a shock to me when I went into the spa for the first time and saw men and woman mingling together without clothes on. But I've been out of the country long enough to simply accept the way other countries do things... "when in rome, do as the romans do!" At 7 or 8 we would all go to dinner and eat amazing 5 course meals!!! The food was so delicious! It never seemed to stop coming!!!... I think I gained a few kilos! After dinner we all just chilled and went to sleep. I had no lust to go out to diskos or anything... I was always DEAD by that time!

The trip was fantastic in general. My host brothers were very annoying at times- constantly throwing snowballs, being really immature, etc... but I can't really complain. Austria was beautiful and I am so thankful to my host parents for taking me along.

Yesterday was my first day of real school since 7 WEEKS! It was a bit of a shocker to go back! My first 3 hours were cancelled (typical). and then I had History, German, and French. It was nice seeing everybody again. There were many new faces in my class. 6 or 7 students spent the first half of the year abroad and now are back. They seem cool- I'm excited to get to know them. However, It also was a little strange being back because there a ton of media people outside our school taking pictures and things. About two weeks ago the Berlin Morgenpost had a huge artical about a molestation scandal from the 70s and 80s at my school that was just uncovered. And this scandal isn't just a few offenses- they are saying 20 cases at least. If you really want to read about it you can find articals about it in the NYT or Washington post... It's a really big deal here in Germany because it's the first major offense from the German Roman Catholic Church. eeeeks. Good thing that it happened over 20 years ago! Here are a few photos in the newspapers of my school... they make it look so ominous!

So yes- back to normal life in Berlin. Life is good. There are many things to look forward to. In March there is a trip with other exchange students to an island in the north of Germany. In April we have Easter Break and directly after that is finished I will be going on the EUROTOUR 2010 for 2.5 weeks. That leaves June... and then comes July. I was just contacted by my travel agent Ed, and I have to have my flight booked by the middle of the month. My mom is taking care of it, but it looks like I will be flying back sometime between the 5th and 8th of July. It looks like I will indeed make the Grand Rapids Conference- my school ends on the 2nd of July! Right now it seems so far away, but I'm already more than half way done, and I know time will fly. I'm just living these days while they last!

Until Later!

Praktikum Randoms

2010-01-28T14:27:00.012-06:00

Today was my last day of Praktikum :(

It was a GREAT experience!!!

here are some pictures...

me and nico reading-

me, another intern, and 2 teachers

trouble maker!

getting reading to walk to the afterschool!

In the afterschool (where they eat)-

the teachers lounge-

favorite kid :)

reading :)

the best school song EVER! too bad my battery ran out :(

GOODBYE PRAKTIKUM!!!

KALT...brrr

2010-01-25T10:34:00.005-06:00

Well, the reason why I havn't blogged recently is because not too much has been going on. The weather in Berlin has been horrible. The snow on the ground is frozen like a rock and the sidewalks are like ice-rinks. IT IS SO COLD! To make things worse, before last week there was NO SUN for 16 days! I felt so down during that period- I had absolutely no energy. When we finally got some sun last weekend, I just stared at it for a few moments and literally felt my mood lifting!

(walking the schoolkids to the afterschool. DULL, DREARY, COLD)

I've just been working at the school everyday- learning a lot from the kids. (I have been reading with them almost everyday. With the younger kids we read easy lines like, "I drive with the bus" and when they have finished I must write down the number of mistakes they have made. The 2nd class we read harder books and I am learning many vocabularies) It is sad that I only will be with them and my wonderful colleugues untill this Thursday! To make things worse, right now I am not feeling well at all. I have a bad cough, throatache, and headache. I went to work today, but told them that I will not be there tomorrow. Hopefully, I will be well enough by Wednesday, because me and the other Practicant will be bringing in treats for the teachers.

Last weekend Friday a friend of mine had a party at his house and I went there. we just all chilled and had a good time... practiced German. On Saturday me and my host brother went to his "abi party" which is a party for a bunch of people starting their Abitur which is this huge test Germans have to take before their graduate (it's like the BAC in France). I really wasn't in the mood to go to a party that night, but I'm glad I went because it was really cool club. It was massive. there were about 1000 people there and the club was built in a former factory- it was built like a mini Berlin, and there were all of these different places people could sit at, and downstairs was a techno hall and it was really amazing... but I didn't really know anybody, and I didn't have any lust to dance or anything so it was lame at the same time- but I'm glad I went!

This weekend Friday was interesting for me. It was the 5 month anniversary that I have been in Berlin, and I was at the airport saying goodbye to an exchange student Daniel. He was going back home to Brazil. It was the first time I had been in the Berlin airport since I had said goodbye to my host sister in August... and it was really weird. It made me really think about going home and how it must feel, and it made me have fear. I love my family and friends and home... but going back? just unimaginable at the moment.

Anyways, after the airport, I had some friends come over to my house and we just hung out. On Saturday I was with my favorite mexican Maria- We watched a really old film in German with my host family. Sunday, I just chilled at home- enjoying not doing anything in particular. However, it was quite tense in the house because something happened between my host sister in Equador, and my host family. She was robbed sometime last week when she was out one night, and there is a ton of drama going on due to the reaction of my host parents- it caused me a lot of stress! But I believe it has been resolved now, so all is good.

Despite the fact that I m sick, I have so many things to look forward to! On Friday I have a meeting with all of the 11th class at my school to debreif about our praktikums, and after that I have my Winter Holiday Break and I am off to Austria with my host family!!! We will be going on a ski/snowboard trip for an entire week and I could not be more excited. I LOVE SNOWBOARDING! After that, starts school back up again, and it should be good to get back into the swing of things.

:) life is good :)

... can I just say how AMAZING exchange is!!! I know a lot of people have troubles with their exchange year- host familes, friends, school, location... butt so far, this has been the best year of my life. Sure there are things that wrong happen, but as a whole, I have experienced so much, met so many people, seen so many things, lived in a new house with new people, gone to school in a new langugae and location, and lived in a new CITY with some of the best friends I could ask for.

Mein Austauchjahr könnte nicht besser sein!

Half Way Through?

2010-01-24T08:55:00.006-06:00

Is it possible that I am HALF WAY through my exchange???

no... I don't think it is! That means I only have 5-6 months to go. I don't like that!!!
(*erasing from head*)

It feels like the time goes by so slowly at some points... but then other times it FLYS! (it has been flying lately)

It's so weird to think that...

all of the insane things I have already experienced
all of the insane amount of language and culture I have already learned
all of the insane amount I have changed since I have gotten here

... is only 1/2 way done! (Ich kann mir das nicht vorstellen!)

Great Start to 2010

2010-01-11T09:37:00.009-06:00

2010 has been absolutely FANTASTIC!

I must be experiencing a high point of my exchange or something because for the past few weeks I have been feeling stupendous! It was tough having to say goodbye to my 2 week Christmas Break- but last week was just as good because of my Praktikum!

At Canisius Kolleg (the school I go to) all students in the 11th class must do a social Praktikum for ONE MONTH! the "social" means that it has to be helping society in some sort of way, for instance: Old Home, Soup Kitchen, a school, etc... Right away I decided I wanted to be somewhere with kids because I love little kids! But really, I had another intention- Little kids don't know English, which means I would be forced to use German all of the time, which means I would get a lot better at German... BRILLIANT! I'm now working in an elementary school/afterschool and it has been one of the best times I've had since being here in Germany. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! Not only have I learned a TON of german, but the kolleagues there are fantastically nice and the kids (most of them) are so sweet!

I get to wake up an hour later at 7.30 every morning (so much better than waking up at 6.30)! I shower, eat breakfast, take a bus few minutes, and then walk about 1000 meters or so through the bitter cold, until I arrive at the elementary school. When I get there I am greated by the smiling faces of the teachers in a "teachers lounge" sort of a thing (they are all women by the way- I have seen only one man teacher). We sit in a circle, talk, and drink coffee- it's a great, relaxing start to the morning. I have a really open schedule which I really like. Every day is a litle bit different. Some days I watch the kids in the play-hall, most days I help the kids with their work, or read with them. At 13.30 I walk the kids over to the afterschool where they eat, and play for the rest of the day. At the afterschool I help the kids with their homework, play with them, make a fool out of myself, and most importantly, make sure they don't kill eachother... It's really LOUD- but by just watching them I am learning so much about human interaction and things. The kids really have no idea about this world, or life in general. They believe anything you tell them, and say the first thing that comes to their minds- That intruiges me!!! They are teaching me so much.

What I really find is funny is that some of the kids don't even realize I am a foreigner. A few days ago it was my birthday- I brought in treats, they sang me the cutest birthday song ever, and they all asked me questions about my life. I told them I was an exchange student and then made them guess where I came from. They guessed: Bavaria (southern Germany-haha), Sweeden, Denmark, Turkey, and... Africa! When I told the kids I came from America... well I was bOmBaRdEd with questions.

Does it snow there?

What football team do you play for?

Is McDonalds your FAVORITE restaurant?

Can you speak American???

Do you know HANNAH MONTANA!?!?!

Other than that- I get made fun of a lot. I've been told very politely that I have a "sharp" nose. Almost every day I am described as, "the american who speaks funny." Today a little girl sat me down, started pointing at my face, and told me with a wide smile where all my blemishes were! The best part is, 5 months ago my ego would have been hurt... those remarks would have STUNG! Now that I've experienced exchange- not a CHANCE. I have been laughed at SO-SO-SO much- haha who cares? Embarassement is... normal! I can now say that yes- I do have a HUGE nose. my face is abnormally long and thin, my left ear is about 2 centimeters higher than my right, my back slouches, my toro is strangely long, my neck- even longer... and yes- Sometimes I wake up in the morning to be greeted with a lovely pimple on my face... Mmm the joy of being a teenager.

Well- thats basically what I do. I love it so much. I feel so accomplished when I help a kid read, teach the difference between an odd and an even number (harder than it sounds), or simply play with them. My praktikum is GREAT!!! It's so nice to be able to speak now. I don't have to worry too much about the language. Sure, I make Grammatik mistakes, and don't know how to say certain words... but it's not so tiring like it used to be. I wouldn't say I'm fluent just yet- but I'm getting pretty darn close.

Other than fun with elementary students, I had my BIRTHDAY on the 8th which was last friday!!! It was really fun! I was woken up really early to taken townstairs to 17 glowing candles. The family sang for me, and I openedup my presents (which I had picked out the day before with my host mom). We ate a quick breakfast together and I was off to work. Like I said, at the elementary school I had a little celebration. The teachers gave me a gift card which was sooo nice!!! They also gave me a half day. That night, I decided to have a couple of close friends over to my place. I transformed my basement into the PERFECT american party basement like one sees in the movies. We all made our own pizzas, chilled, listened to musik, and celebrated! it definately was my favorite birthday yet! My host parents were so cool!!! They insisted that all 5 of my friends stay the night because of weather :) On Saturday I went out to a goodbye get-together for Kate. She is flying home next weekend! It was weird to say goodbye, but it felt like it was the right time for it to happen!

Life is Germany is... so amazing. I can't imagine life any different. It fits. It scares me when I think about coming home. What will I do at James Madison Memorial High School? WHO will I be able to relate with? When I came to Germany, I had to start over completely new, learn a new LANGUAGE, go through tons of anxiety... Crying, Laughing, and CRYING again. I am laughed at daily, and held back by something I never ever in a million years had to worry about-language. I have been through SO many awkward moments it is not even funny!!! I have had to put myself out there, make a fool out of myself, do things I am afraid of. I feel like in these last 4.5 months I have learned... SO MUCH!

When I go back to Madison, Wisconsin. Life will be... normal.

In Berlin...

I finally feel free and independant.

I love my life here and I finally feel confident in myself.

...I feel like Berlin is my home.

The only thing that is missing is my family, and friends.

CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT THESE NEXT 6 MONTHS HAVE IN STORE FOR ME!!!!

One Crazy Holiday Break

2010-01-01T08:39:00.028-06:00

If there was one word to describe my 2 weeks of winter holidays here in Berlin, I would use- CRAZY!!! These past two weeks have been absolutely insane. Where do I even start...

I spent the first few days of break hanging out with friends and desperately trying to find gifts that I could afford for my host family. I ended up getting my brothers musik gift cards, my parents a German comedy CD, Christiane recieved a hand-made apron from my mom (because she is always cooking), I burned my oma the entire Well-Tempered Clavier (which was a lot of work- 5 CDS) and got her some cooking supplies, for the famliy I gave them a book about Madison, and my parents from the States got them a board game and some amazing home-made sweets...mmm. I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit nervous for Christmas because I didn't know what to expect and I didn't want my host parents to feel like they NEEDED to get me things... but it all worked out.

The night of the 23rd I visited a really nice Christmas Market in Berlin, and also went to the Galeries Lafayette. (they speak french there).

On the 24th, (Germans exchange gifts and celebrate Christmas on the 24th, not the 25th) we stayed home for the whole day, my host brother did some last minute shopping, I helped decorate the tree (which sadly is not a family thing), and I wrapped some presents. My Oma and Mama were busy making a delicious Fondu dinner for that night, and we all just enjoyed eachothers company. And that is when it started... my family started to ask me all these questions about my traditions... and I told them all of the things I know about Christmas in America. (which sadly was not very much because I celebrated Christmas differently than most people when I was young). They were really confused why I didn't know so much about such a big holiday, and they kept on asking questions about my traditions, my parents trandions- and I tried my best to answer them, but I ended up excusing myself and locking myself in my room for a couple minutes because I got so emotional. I started to heave, and tears came to my eyes... and it was really unexpected. When I was a kid we didn't do lights, or santa, or presents... which was totally fine with me back than because I didn't really understand the significance of the holiday. We always did something special, like going out to eat, singing carols, and one year we went to a hotel with a cool waterpark inside (I remember thinking it was the BEST day of my life). We always had a lot of fun! But... after hearing all the stories of my oma, mama, papa, and brothers christmas experiences... I realized that I never got the chance to believe in santa claus, I never left out milk and cookies for him, I never woke up at the crack of dawn to RUN down the stairs to find presents under a tree... I felt like there was a hole in my childhood- like I had missed out on something special.

After unlocking my door and wiping away the tears, I told myseld: "Ben, this is not a big deal. you are going to get over this and you are going to enjoy yourself." BUT- then my host mom came up the stairs and told me to start getting ready. And I asked, "for what?" And she said, "Dinner." I was so confused! I didn't know if that meant I should change... or take a shower, or brush my teeth. So I decided to go back in my room and put the best thing on I could find- which was sadly a blue sweater and black jeans. When I was done, I opened up my door again, and see my Oma, papa, and two host brothers in REALLY nice clothing... and I told them I didn't have anything nicer and I was sorry- they were understanding. I was about to walk downstairs when they all asked, "what are you doing?" I responded,"going downstairs." Then they proceeded to explain to me the we ,"Have to wait for the bell." I was emotional as it was... but after they told me that I just couldn't take it- I WAS SO CONFUSED. I told them I needed something in my room and then locked the door cried a little more. After the 2nd breakdown I was really determined to make the night a good night. Sure I was confused about my traditions, and I was VERY confused about their traditions... but I put on a smile, unlocked the door, and patiently waited with them on the upstairs landing. After about 10 minutes we heard a ring from downstairs and all walked down and stood in front of the tree. My family than turned on some musik and started singing a really long complilation of German Christmas songs. After they finished, we all started to open presents. My host family here were very generous. I became some winter gear, cologne, DVD about Berlin, Grammar book, and a new Cell Phone. My parents from the States got me a new camera and a book and it was very nice of them! I now finally have a CAMERA! That means- MORE PICTURES! After opening presents, eating the AMAZING fondue, and talking a little bit I felt like I really belonged there, and I forgot all the confusion, and sadness I was feeling before! I'm so lucky to have such an amazing host family.

On actual Christmas DAY, we didnt really do anything. We ate a traditional German meal, and a few friends of mine came over! It was a really great time :)

Christmas Eve Dinner
Our Tree

Nativity Scene

The days in between Christmas and New Years were pretty normal. I didn't go into the city to many times because I was tired and just wanted to chill... but I got to see a lot of friends and that was nice.

ONE HUGE THING-
IT SNOWED... A LOT!
I just measured the snow outside and we have 16 cm! and it is STILL snowing. My parents keep on telling me how lucky I am because normally there is nowhere near to this much snow in Berlin!

Now... New Years Eve- WAS AMAZING! IT WAS THE BEST NEW YEARS EVER!!! After a little bit of convincing I got my host parents to let me and some friends go to Brandenburger Tor! I was feeling like it wouldn't really be an AMAZING time, because of the snow and immense amount of people... but I was proven WRONG- it was AMAZING and MORE! First, my 2 friends Maria, and Maria came over with their friend Maria from Equador. Turns out she is currently living in Wisconsin and studying in Appleton (big world ey?). The three Marias and I chilled for a little bit and then made our way downtown to meet up with some other friends of ours. When we got there it was like an insane war zone. we were walking down the street and there were firworks going off all over the place and we were always afraid we would get hit! There were so many people, and our shoes started to get a bit wet... and the wettness turned into FROZENESS! We all couldn't feel our feet. After a bit of walking, we found an entrance and sneakily snuck through the huge crowd. We made it pretty close to the front and were able to see what was happening on stage. It was such a special moment, because we were surrounded my loud, pulsing musik, and we all were dancing and talking with the people around us, and it was just AMAZING! We got to hear a lot of famous German artists singing, and brought in the new year with fireworks and of course- good luck kisses! MAGICAL MOMENT!

Heres a video of the countdown:

We finished up the night by heading back to my house. (it was an adventure- we got stuck in a street with INSANE AMOUNT OF FIREWORKS- they were going off EVERYWHERE) Once we got there we drank a celebratory glass of champaign with my host family, and got our fortunes read of the next year. We melted these pieces of metal on spoons, then threw them in water! Mine was really smooth and looked like a cross between a goose and a gondala. My host parents told me that means through hard work I will suceed... but I will be poor- haha!

At around 3 my host parents said goodnight and at 4 I skyped with my parents in the States. I got to see a lot of people I know because there was a party at my house- it was nice. I think I ended up getting to bed around 5.15 or so.

I think it is safe to say that this year has been pretty amazing and life-changing. SO much happened in 2009. I turned 16, I got my liscense, I sang in my first musical, I became an exchange student, I set foot on Europe's soil for the first time, I learned a new language, a have a 2nd family, and I have made some friends that I hope I never will loose! I'm excited to see how 2010 plays out. First thing to look forward to is my birthday number 17- which is in one week!

GREAT DAY!!!

2009-12-18T07:00:00.012-06:00

Guess what I just got???

!!!A PACKAGE FROM HOME!!!

I'm sooo excited! I felt like crying when I recieved it! AH! SIX BOXES OF MAC N' CHEESE! I'm sooooo excited to eat those! And FINALLY, I have some descent salsa! wooooo :) I can eat it with scrambled eggs now! Thank you so much family for the amazing presents! I don't know what is inside of them yet... but I'm really excited to find out! Best of all were the amazing fotos of our family! It was so cool to see all of the photos that my family took in the airport,my sister going to college,my family camping, my FAT dog, and SNOW EVERYWHERE! The package you sent with the goodies inside has yet to be opened unfortuanately. Christiane is keen on having EVERYONE there when it is opened!

(Coffee packaged in Wisconsin??? sweet! I'm excited to try it!)

I also recieved my report card from the school! I'm really happy with the results!

A 1 is the best.. and a 6 is the worst. I got 1's in Englisch basik and advanced, and Art. I got 2's in Biologie and Math (no idea how i got a 2 in Biologie!). I got 3's in Chemistry and Basik French. And I got a 4 PLUS in Advanced French! Ahh! I know that 4 isn't very good... but French here is So HARD! I always am thinking in German or Englisch! NOT FRENCH! It screws everything up and most of the time I sit silent in class because my brain is so angry at me for having another foreign languages squeezed into my mind. The O.B. things basically stand for "passing." I havn't written the tests for Religion, History, Physiks, and German because they are REALLY hard to understand... so instead of giving me a note they just wrote that!

ANYWAYS.. my spirits are INCREDIBLY HIGH because WINTER HOLIDAYS! WOO! NO SCHOOL! Look... we even have a little snow!

but its nothing compared to back home in Madison-

Happy Holidays All!

Winter

2009-12-17T13:00:00.003-06:00

The past few weeks I wasn't really sure if it was truely winter time. The sky was always grey, the ground a dirty brown, and the trees dead and ominous. But in the past week it has snowed a total of THREE times which totals up to a whole 1/2 cm or so. I guess that means that the most wonderful time of the year is here! (I'm so jealous of you people in Madison! The snowball fight at Bascom Hill was on the news here!!!)

Last week wasn't anything out of the ordinary. I had a bunch of free hours in school because a ton of teachers were randomly gone- so that was really cool. On friday night I went to a house party with my host brother and got to practice a lot of german there! (while most people go to parties for the sole purpose of have fun- I go there with the mindset of practicing my german... I'm weird like that). It was a really good time. There wasn't a HUGE amount of people there so it wasn't too overwhelming and I actually knew a lot of people there from other parties so it was cool to catch up. It got a little hard to talk with people after someone turned on a fog machine- I couldn't see anything more that was more than a foot away!

So this week was reallly busy. On monday my guestmother and I had a Rotary Christmas dinner with my host rotary club. Before we ate we went to this Evangelical church in the near and sat through a short service made special for us. It was weird. The man had this costume on with this ridiculous looking fluffy white thing around his neck that made him look like a peacock- turns out he became a rotarian that night. After the strange service we went to a resaurant and ate delicious 4 course meal. It was really cool to see how much German I learned since the first meeting. The first meeting I casually said who I was and dreaded anyone asking questions because I had no idea what anyone was saying. The second I chimed in here and there with facts about me, and my life here in Berlin. And this meeting I had a good 30 minute conversation with this nice woman sitting next to me- complete with questions, comments, stories, and even a little bit of humor here and there.

Tuesday was a really cool day. For school I watched a film in German class the first hour. Then had 2 hours free- in which I sat in the "cafeteria" (cafeteria doesn't do this place justice- it is like a café, and has amazing food! Everything from fresh sandwhiches to coffee, to sweet breads- it is amazing!) My englisch class sat there together and just hung out and chatted. It was really nice to just talk together in German and answer/ask questions about life and culture and traditions. The next two hours I watched Matrix in Religion class and discussed the Philosophy incorporated with the film... that was interesting! The last two hours I had Basik Englisch and we watched a Britisch film called "How to Be" that was really difficult to understand even for me!!! (The accents were so sharp) Halfway through we switched movies because it was so BAD! We then watched Finding Forester.

After school, I hung out with a friend after school. We ate, chatted with her family in German- than went Christmas shopping. I must say that the girls here in Germany are a lot easier to make friends with than the guys. I feel like a lot of the guys here are kind of immature- laughing all the time about stupid jokes, making fun of how people talk, laugh, dress, or look, and basking in their "coolness." (of course not all of them). I understand the girls a lot better and we seem to be on the same wavelength as far as maturity goes. They also are way quicker to invite me places so hey- I have no problem with that! Anyways, I ended up getting a few things for the host famly. It's a little bit tough to find things for them because I don't really know what they want, but I did my best and now am DONE with christmas shopping. (can I just add how annoying it is that everything in Europe is so expensive... I am now completely broke woo!)

Wednesday I had another normal day at school! A girl from my school invited me to go to another Rotary Christmas dinner so I gladly accepted and around dinner time met up with her and another friend from school at a tennis club in the Grunewald- area. (took me one hour to get there because I had to take 2 different buses... they were slow) When I got there I greeted people with my stylish rotary blazer (which, might I add, is getting very FULL). Heikki, the exchange student from Finland, also was there so that was a really plesant suprise. The program was a little boring but nice nonetheless. A string trio played, old white people gave speeches, we all ate, and talked!

Today was the last full school day before Christmas break. Tomorrow we have the first hour or two of school than we have a church service, then we become our report cards. I'm really eager to see how they will turn out. I have absolutely no idea what teachers will give me for the classes in which I do not understand! (aka- physik, history, german, biologie, religion). We'll see! I'll let you know how it turns out!

I'm really excited for these umcoming 2 months. I have 2 weeks of Christmas break. My Oma is driving here tomorrow and I believe on Monday we are driving down to Dresden to visit Christmas markets. Other than that, nothing big is really planned which is very nice. I'm hoping to be able to relax, hang out with friends and family, practice german, and have fun! Christmas and New Years should be really interesting! I don't really know what to expect... going in with an open mind.

After break comes my Sozialpraktikum- I will be helping society socially for 1 month, 6 hours a day, instead of going to school! It is now confirmed that I will be helping in an after school type place, where children come to play and do homework. I'm really excited to get started with that! It should be fun and hopefully the little youngesters will help me learn German! (I won't be able to use Englisch because they do now know how to speak it). After my Sozialpraktikum comes 1 week of Winter break, in which I believe I will be going to Austria with my family to go skiing. If all of that works out It should be really, really, really exciting! I've never skiied on real mountain before!

Life is good. I'm enjoying myself immensely! I'm still learning a ton about the language and myself. Some days are really tough and I just want to crawl into a ball and cry... but most of the time my spirits are high. I wish everyone in Madison, Wisconsin, The United States, and wherever else you readers may be- Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein gutes Neues Jahr! Frohe Feiertage :)

Winter... for a day

2009-12-13T07:25:00.001-06:00

1 Year

2009-12-08T07:26:00.004-06:00

One year ago this week, I was sitting in my friends craft room and we we talking about our plans for the year to come. There was talk of being upper classmen, taking AP Bio, AP 11 English, and just about school in Madison, Wisconsin.

There was snow covering the grass, we were inside sipping on hot tea, and preparing for the weekly AP World History test. I remember vividly talking about traveling... and then we started talking about going abroad during the summer time. All of us agreed that we never could do a year abroad because it was too much of a commitement, and it would screw up all of the classes we were planning on taking. Sometime in the conversation, Malina Piatt was mentioned. They told me that she was hoping to go to Italy for an entire year. I KNEW Malina Piatt. She was a student at my school who I ate lunch with every single day. She seemed smart, normal, not really anything out of the ordinary. I couldn't believe that she would throw all of her high school career to be an exchange student. She would have to learn a new language, go to a new school, make new friends, and totally RUIN her high school career. I couldn't believe she was willing to leave EVERYTHING! her grades, and family, and friends...

......and then it happened- I started to THINK. I pictured myself in a foreign country. I pictured myself in a completely DIFFERENT setting, with NEW people, a NEW language, a NEW school... a NEW family. The thought intruiged me. What if I didn't go to James Memorial High School in Madison, Wisconsin? What if I left everyone? what if I went to school in a completely foreign language???

I must say that this day I didn't learn the slightest bit of World History. The only thought on my mind was foreign exchange... I felt compelled to give it a shot. I felt like it was my calling... like I was meant to do it!

When I got home that night I told my family everything. I told them that I was interested in going abroad. They respected the idea. (which I know am soooo thankful for... so many parents are so stupid. The hear their child wants to go on exchange and they immediately reject it... they never think about the benifits, growth and knowledge their son or daughter will gain- all they think about it safety, money, or their own plans for their child... THANK YOU mom and dad for understanding) My parents told me that if I could find information about it, they would consider it. THANK GOD FOR ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE! I asked my French teacher the next day and she recommended Rotary... I looked online, got the information, read the reviews, and started the most amazing process of my life.

Right now I'm sitting in my room, listening to a song that I never would have understood one year ago. I'm thinking about the homework I need to do for tomorrow- It's not in English. It's in a language that last year, had heard only a handful of timess. This langauge surroundes me everywhere- at home, in school, in public... everywhere- GERMAN!

I LOVE GERMAN SO MUCH! I alway thought that I was meant to go to France. French was my LIFE! I studied it every NIGHT! I thought it was what I was supposed to do... but after living in BERLIN for the past 3.5 months, my thoughts have changed. I LOVE GERMAN! It works with my mouth. It seems natural. Sure I can't understand everything people say, but I feel like I was meant to be here and speak this language. I now am wayyy better in German than I ever was in French! I can't imagine life without it. My home is here in Berlin. I can't imagine it any other way. Whenever I think about going home in the summer (which is a longgg ways away I know) I just CAN NOT. It seems so weird. I can't and won't imagine it. I've finally got settled into this new home here, I can't even think what it will be like going home.

can you believe that I am 1/3 done with my exchange !!! It feels like just yesterday when this whole process started!!!

WELL.... enough with all of the memories- this last week has been pretty amazing. It's that time of year- CHRISTMAS TIME! and everything seems so festive. sure there isn't any snow, and there are a TON of tourists everywhere, but it is a really special time of year. I finally feel like I belong here. I feels like my home. I can understand the main topics that are discussed at school, and I relate to my classmates and friends here.

This past weekend was REALLLLLY special! My friend Stina Seaberg who lives in Middleton, Wisconsin (5 minutes from where I live) and is an exchange student in the near from Hannover, visited me in BERLIN! It was suprisingly realllly cool to actually talk with somone who knows what UW, Mad-Town, Memorial, Middleton, State Street, and Farmers Market are. It was such a great weekend. We went to a party on Friday with my host brother in the farrrrr east side of Berlin- which was really interesting. We had to follow glow sticks to find it. On Saturday we went all around Berlin, then we went up to Sömmerfeld-Beetz to go to my exchange student friends birthday party. it was a lot of fun as well... Sunday we went back to my house for St. Nikolaus. My Shoes were full of candy and Stina became a cup with chocolate in it. It was so cool! Sunday night, it was really NOT COOL to say goodbye to Stina. I felt like I was back home when she was here... when she left, I was back to my normal life.

Sunday night, the whole family gathered around the table and talked about St. Nikolaus day while eating Chinese food. It was really cool. I was really tired from the weekend, but I felt like a family. It no longer is awkward or weird to refuse something, or say no! Just yesterday I got mad at my younger brother for the first time (because he was being really annoying), and we had a little "fight." Its really weird, but things like that make me feel closer to the family. I feel like we can be more real if we are comfortable enough to disagree with eachother.

Today I found out that the first 2 hours of class were church so I didn't go to school because I had no idea where the church was. At third hour I had Englisch, and got my final back- 15/15 points! A+! That was cool to get :) After that I though we had 2 hours of Religion, then 2 hours of Englisch, but turns out both of the teachers weren't there. SWEET! I had only 1 hour of school today! It was great. I also just feel like German is going sooo well! During the breaks I talk with all of my classmates, and to and from school I talk with the classmates that take the same bus. It feels like th language barriers are falling... soooo exciting!!!

So I better get going pretty soon... cause me and my host mom are going to be driving to an elementary school to see if I can do my Social Praktikum there (instead of going to school in January we need to go to help the community in a social way ex. school, hospital, old folks home) I 've been looking FOREVER to see where I can do my Praktikum, and I'm hoping that a Kindergarten will accept me! That would be sooo fun to work with kids for an entire month instead of going to school!!! I'll let you all know ASAP when I figure out where I'll be for school in the month of January.

Until next time- hope everyone is having a pleasant holiday season :)

Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T05:53:00.004-06:00

This past weekend was Thanksgiving weekend, and I must say that it was much much much better than I thought it would be! Wednesday after school, I took the train up to Neuruppin to meet up with some friends and celebrate Thanksgiving a day early! We spent the ENTIRE afternoon and early evening cooking up a feast! We had a 7,5 kilo turkey (where my friends host mom miraculously found in a market), green beans with crunchies, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas/carrots, home-made stuffing, pumpkin pie, and apple pie! It was SO delicious. We ended up finishing dinner a little bit late and we had no lust to drive back a whole hour/hour and a half back home so we all called our parents to see if we could spent the night. We ALL were expecting them to be like, "no, its a school night" but suprisingly ALL of them had no problem with it! I was dumbfounded. We had the best pre-thanksgiving night EVER! It was so nice to share our tradition with the German family there, and it was a really unique, unforgettable night with friends. (the 1st picture is really funny- hahaha- but there are more of me with the turkey, and I'll put them up once my friend gives them to me)

So on Thursday (real Thanksgiving), we all went back to Berlin and made it back to school for a few hours. I took my Basic French final and it wasn't too bad. I was a little bit tired from the night before, but managed to write a summary and essay in FRENCH! (I got a lot of French and German words mixed up). After school I went home and invite some friends over to eat Thanksgiving dinner at my house. They came, and we all ate a really yummy German-style dinner, with female turkey, round potatoe-dumplings (I don't know the English word for it), gravey, pumpkin soup, bread, and chocolate mousse with cranberry and vanilla sauce. Mmm! I think I gained a few kilos. Best of all, on Thanksgiving night I got to skype with my ENTIRE family! I got to see every single one of them- even my dog! To make things better, the Packer game was going on as I was skyping, and I they scored a TOUCHDOWN (which I saw). It was great to catch up with them and see all of their faces!

So... Friday went by really quick in school. I was late to school because one of my busses came 10 minutes late, but it turned out that my first hour teacher never showed up, so I just sat in the class with some other students and just chatted. We had a Biology final the next hour (which I had no idea about) I felt really awkward because I was studying German Grammar the whole 2 hours, and my teacher thought I was writing the exam, so at the end when I handed in the empty exam, he was like, "Ben you forgot your text" and then I had to embarassingly explain how I didn't understand a word of what they were asking- something about a stress system. But- speaking of language comprehension, even though I can't understand high school textbooks, I really feel like I've gotten over a HUGE landmark in my German skills. I'm able to understand normal day-to-day language really well and can answer pretty well also.

On Friday night I decided to stay home with the family because I've been out a lot lately. My host brother, host mom, and I ended up going to the movies and watching Die Päpstine. It was pretty interesting, and I understood the majority of dialogue which was GREAT! Last night, I went to a party with my host brother. it was on the complete other side of town and we had to go over 20 stops with the subway! But it wasn't too bad because a bunch of his friends were there and we just chatte din German the whole time and they asked a lot of question and one of the girls was in Oregon for a month! The party was pretty cool- it was a really remote house in north-west Berlin with like 70 or so people. Like all parties are, it was a little awkward at first (I'm totally used to awkward situations now, it doesn't really bother me the least bit). I didn't wan't to be hanging on to my brother Max the whole time, so I just kind of mingled, and a lot of his friends recognized me from other parties, so we all started to talk, and it was great because I spoke in german the entire time and recieved a lot of compliments about how my German had improved . A lot of times people asked me if I understood what they were talking about or if the talked really fast if I could understand, and suprisingly I answered their questions without hesitation. I COULD understand what they were saying, and I COULD respond. It was really really really encouraging. So yeah- it was a really fun night!!!

I probably should study for my Advanced French final which is on Tuesday. That should be interesting!

School in Berlin

2009-11-23T08:37:00.002-06:00

So I finally gathered my thoughts and compared/contrasted the my school in The United State and my school here in Germany. I'm reallllly sorry that it cuts short. I don't know why, but my video only let me record 10 minutes- bummer. The next thing I was going to say after the BUT was, "but sometimes I feel like everything is a little bit too perfect. and I feel like I'm surrounded by cookie-cutter people." After that I was done. I just said goodye, and thanks for watching!

Viel Spaß!

International Rotary Club of Berlin

2009-11-16T10:58:00.006-06:00

Last weekend I, along with a dozen other exchange students in Berlin, were invited to take part in a flag ceremony for the charter celebration of the International Rotary Club of Berlin. The club is really unique because it is the first club in Germany were the dominate language is English, and its members come from 12 different countries! I was expecting the metting to be really boring, but it ended up being a really exciting night.

All of the exchange students arrived at the Ritz Carlton at 15.00 and we all mingled and waited to get instructions about the flag ceremony. The hotel was BEAUTIFUL! It's the nicest hotel I've EVER seen! hahaha....It was really funny though because everyone was all dressed up all fancy, but all of us exchange students, had our ridiculous blazers on! hahaha... We definately stuck out!

Anyways, we ran through the flag ceremony a few times, then rotary sent all of us to the cinema where we watched 2012. Then we came back, did the flag ceremony, stood with our flags for 50 minutes while listening to the charter, listened to a man play some awesome piano (Rhapsody in Blue), took some pictures, then we got to take part in a dessert buffet. It was delicious! After the dessert buffet I thought that it was all over, but then all of the Rotarians insisted that we go downstairs to the bar with them and have a drink with them. We talked with a bunch of Rotarians for a while, then finally said goodbye. I really liked how the Rotarians didn't treat us like little children- I have nothing but good things to say about the new club.

other than the charter event, nothing really special has been going on. All of last week I was moderately sick, and this weekend it got a lot worse. Today my whole family stayed home from work and school because we all are so sick! We played this really complicated stragey boardgame (like risk)... but it involved discussing with other people, making teams, cheating, double -crossing, etc... I was so confused and had a killer headache.. so I lost in the first 3 hours. (they are still playing downstairs and have been playing for 6 hours or so). I'm hoping that I'll be well enough to go to school tomorrow, because that's where I learn most of my German... but wait- I just realized that tomorrow is Tuesday and I have 4 hours of English class every Tuesday! ehh... maybe I will stay home.

In other news, i'm hoping that I can go to this music school this week with one of my friends. She says that I can rent an instrument for 6€ a month. Thats cool. I also am looking for a German-course to take. There are a few that look promising... there really isn't anymore to say other than I'm jealous of all of the people back home taking part in the musical this year (Wizard of Oz... how fun does that sound) and...I've been living in Berlin for nearly 3 months!!!

It feels like.... home

Paris Je T'aime

2009-11-09T09:04:00.028-06:00

A year ago today I was daydreaming about the day when I would be able visit Europe. I was fascinated with the history, diversity of culture, and variety of languages. Most of all, I was intrigued by the country of France, more specifically- Paris. Ever since the 7th grade, Paris was the city I longed to see- I wanted to learn about their culture, eat their food, and most importantly... speak their beautiful language!!!

I had no idea that in one short year...I would be in Paris. I would be learning about their culture, I would be eating their food, and I would be speaking.... GERMAN?!?! It still astounds me how drastically life can change in the course of one year. My mind is boggled.

Well, as you can tell from my little introduction there, I just got back from Paris yesterday! I have few words to describe how beautiful and amazing it was. Despite the fact that I was tired, sick, and had really sore back from sitting in the bus, I had a BLAST and got to see so many things I never thought I'd ever see.

We started our journey mid-day on Thursday. I didn't have to go to school so I ended up going to Ostbahnhof (a train station) early to meet up with some friends who live up north. They had never been to Berlin before so I gave them a super quick tour of the Berlin Wall, Hackesher Markt, Alexander Platz, and Potsdamer Platz before getting picked up by my host mom to go back to the train station. Once there, we mingled with all the exchange students who we havn't seen since September in Neuruppin. It was GREAT to see everyone.

After a few hours of waiting for the bus, we finally all got settled and started the 14 hour bus ride to Paris. It took us forever to get out of Berlin, but once we were out it was smooth-ish sailing. Despite the fact that we were with all of our friends it still didn't erase the fact that the bus was incredibly uncomfortable. We also couldn't use the bathroom for some odd reason. We stopped ever 2-4 hours and went pretty fast. I got around 3-4 hours of sleep so that was nice!

The first thing I saw when I got to Paris that I recognized was La Sacré Coeur. I never thought it was so HUGE! it totally dominates a large portion of the Parisian skyline. I had no idea. Anyways, we went to the hotel and unloaded all of our stuff. It was a realllllly nice hotel. I was expecting it to be really cramped and old, but we all had our own bathrooms and the rooms had windows and were clean and spacious. After we got settled in we made our way to breakfast and I had a great buffet breakfast of crouissants, bread, cheese, and coffee.

The first thing we went to was the "new part" of Paris. It's were the big box-shaped building is, and there are a lot of modern developments there. It also was the first time I've ridden Paris' subway. It was way different than Berlin's- Much older, And much, much, much more complicated...

The next location on our list was Champs-Élysée. We were allotted 2 hours of free time, so me and some friends decided to go to L'arc de Triomphe. It ended up being free for people under the age of 18 to go on top, we we all walked up the never-ending spiraling staircase, and saw a SPECTACULAR view of Paris. It was such a nice day and my breath was taken away by the beauty of Paris' exquisite layout. The contrast of the massive and striaght, Champs-Élyesée, mixed with tiny zig-zagging streets, and numerous round-abouts made the city look like a piece of artwork. It was fantastic.

For the next few hours we slowly walked down the famous Champs-Élysée. We ate some Mcdonalds (only thing I could afford... but still ridiculously expensive) I didn't understand why it cost 1€ for a Hamburger, but 2.30€ for a Cheeseburger... I'm still really confused- that means that a slice of cheese costs more money than an entire hamburger... Hmmm? Speaking of food, I also had my first crêpe in France EVER, and it was very delicious. The woman who made it for me was listening to a Spanish song and she suddenly just started to belt out singing as she was making my crêpe and she was suprisingly REALLY good at singing.

We all met at Place de La Concorde (where the Guillotine used to be back in the day). We had to wait for some people because they got lost, but after that, we went to L'Opera and Galleries Lafayette and had freetime there. I was really tired by that point. We then all rode back to our hotel, and got ready to go to diner.

For dinner we went to a little restaurant in Montmartre. It was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel, and was right next to Sacré Coeur. We had a roast type of thing to eat, and had UNLIMITED WATER! I was SO excited for that! It was even CHILLED! First time that's happened in Europe! After dinner we were given freetime until bedtime. Some friends and I decided to go to The Eiffel Tour. We made it there and took some AMAZING PICTURES! It was so beautiful at night. Unfortunately I didn't bring my host-mom's camera with me because it fails to take pictures at night, but I'll be able to get them from them soon. After walking around a little bit, we made our way to La Louvre and looked at the Pyramid by night. It was really pretty! After taking about a thousand pictures, we made it back to the hotel JUST in time... two minutes to spare.

The next day the first thing we did was go to Le Louvre for 3 hours! It was really interesting and cool (I got to see Mona), but I think it was a little long for a group of 50 exchange students. We walked around after that- and saw a bunch of cool places! At Notre Dame there was a "Free Hugs" campaign going on and we got some pictures with them.

After wandering around together, we ate dinner at a steak restaurant, then went on a boatride to see Paris by night! It was so beautiful! The Eiffel Tour was having a special lightshow and even though it was cold, it was a fantastic way to experience Paris. On the way home we made a quick detour to Moulin Rouge and met some peculiar people in the red light district! It was awesome :) (ps- I know my eyes are close in the first picture, but it's the only one I have haha)

The final day in paris we all went to the Eiffel Tour for the majority of the day. It was optional to go up the tower (we had to pay) but it was totally worth it. We took the stairs up the first two stories and I was really freaked out because of my fear of heights. We have made many pictures and than rode the final elevator up to the top.

The final thing we did in Paris was go to Versailles. I was exhausted! It was really cool though!

After Versailles we all piled into Mcdonalds and ate BigMacs and Cola! It was a great way to end a fantastic trip :) The busride back was pretty smooth. I was really tired and ended up being able to sleep for a long portion of the ride. It was nice to be back in Berlin- were everything is familiar, but I miss all of the exchange students very much. They are all so much fun! It's a bummer than I won't be able to see them until March (the exchange students who don't live in Berlin).

So THAT, was my trip to France. It was spectacular. I can't wait to go back in the years to come and experience all the other things it has to offer. I'm still incredibly tired since I havn't had a descent amount of sleep since the night before I left for Paris. I would have slept yesterday but it was the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, so I went out downtown yesterday night will all of my friends, in the pouring rain to witness the huge celebration. Hilary Clinton and Bon Jovi were there!!! It was so COOL! (despite being absolutely freezing). There were hundreds of massive dominoes there set up around Brandenburger Tour all the way down to Potsdamer Platz , and each one had a mural on it having to due with Freedom and the fall of the berlin wall! It was really exciting to watch all of the dominoes fall down!

Later that night, I met my hostmom and brother at Tony Roma's and had a fantastic American dinner! It was SO late and I was SO tired, but I got to eat hot wings and ribs for the first time in AGES! I ended up getting hope around 12, and got to sleep at 1. It was really hard to wake up for school this morning at 6.30. We also had a klausur (BIG test that happens 2ce a year) in Basic English today. We had to write a summary and essay about these 2 short pieces of writing... I'm not worrying about it :) I totally forgot to say that I got my Math Klausur back and I got a 2+!!! That is like a B+! I'm was so EXCITED!!!

So...There really isn't anything out of the ordinary going on in the weeks to come. Life is completely... normal. Currently I'm having a lot of difficulty with German Articals and how they change depending on how they are used in a sentence... English is so easy in comparison to German... We only say "THE" but Germans use der, die, das, den, dem, AND des. Adjective endings, and other endings in general... are also really diffiuclt! But I know that it isn't THAT important. Nomatter which article you use, Germans understand- they just never tell me when I get it wrong!

Whew... so this is a really long blog post-I better get started on a French assignment! Hopefully I'll be getting more pictures soon!

Also to come- I'm going to be doing a video shortly about the similarities and differences between the American and German school systems (more specifically James Madison Memorial High School and Canisius Kolleg).

Pleasant Suprises

2009-11-04T09:17:00.005-06:00

Dear Ben,

Your facebook account has been temporarily suspended for security purposes. Our systems indicate that your Facebook account has been compromised by cybercriminals attempting to impersonate you. These criminals often will try to trick your friends into sending them money by claiming that you are stuck in a far away location and need assistance. It is possible that your email account was compromised as well. Please take the following steps to regain control of your account...

love,

-Facebook

SCHEIßE!

If anyone got a message from me via facebook or email saying I was stuck away in a far country and needed money... I DON'T!!! hahaha... I'm pretty everything is perfectly fine. My email has a completely new password, and my facebook is... "temporarly disabled." Hopefully I'll get it back soon!

I'm going to PARIS TOMORROW!!! I'M SOOOO EXCITED! I just went with my host mom to the grocery store to buy food for the trip and we found PEANUT-BUTTER AND HONEY!!!! I can't wait until I get to eat it! I have soooo much food for the trip- it's amazing! She also got me an early Christmas present- a BRAND NEW WINTER COAT! I couldn't believe it! When I got home from school she was like, "Ben, your coat is so nice, but you need one that is fit for rainy Berlin weather." She said something about going to get one, and I thought she was joking, but then she was just like, "we're going to buy one!" So now I have a really warm winter coat that is rain-resistant! I love HER!

Die Mauer

2009-10-27T12:10:00.011-05:00

Today I went with one of my friend Caitlin to this part of the Berlin Wall that has a bunch of cool murals on it (it took us a while to find it). I can't believe I've been here in Berlin for more than 2 months and I havn't seen this yet! It was SO cool! I thought I would share some photos.

!!! ICH LIEBE BERLIN !!!

ps- 10 days until PARIS

Herbstferien

2009-10-25T09:40:00.013-05:00

I am officially 1/2 way through my Herbstferien and I don't want it to ever end! I loveeeee break! I get to sleep in, I get to relax, I get to hang out with friends all day... it's pretty much amazing!

From Monday to Friday I was in Bad Kissingen visiting my Oma and strangely enough- it was one of the best times I've had so far here in Germany. Bad Kissingen is a small town in Northern Bavaria and it is a traditional GERMAN town... with lots of old people. My Oma used to own a cheese store and she and her family (my host mom) slept in the 2 floors above it. The cheese store is now a jewelry store, and it isn't owned by my Oma anymore, but she still lives above the shop and it was so beautiful to wake up every morning and see the winding streets below and rolling hills filled with Autumn-colored trees. here are a few pictures. the first 2 are from my Oma's house and the 3rd is what the city looks like.

On Tuesday I went with my family (mama, con, and oma) to a beautiful town about 30 minutes away from bad Kissingen. The name of the town escapes me but it has a college there and a really old castle/village. We walked around all day, visited a museam, listen to my host brother complain about how boring everything is (he's getting really annoying), went out to eat, met up with a girl who is in the extended family, went into about 10 churches... then finally came back home. Here are some pictures. 1st- "the residence" basically museum we went to. 2nd- the castle thing. 3rd/4th- at the castle looking at the city.

On Thursday we all went to the Kreuzberg is a small mountain about half an hour away from bad kissingen. We got to see some beautiful views... and burned a lot of calories walking up and down. We visited a lot of churches there and drank some freshly brewed bavarian beer made from the monk/priests that live there. It was fantastic.

While I was in Bad Kissingen I learned a lot about german culture. I didn't speak any English the entire time I was there, and was totally enclosed in a house where there was NON-STOP German. It made me sooo exhausted. There were several instances when I felt like my head was going to blow up. The biggest thing that I learned (already knew but now I know from experience) is how IMPORTANT FOOD IS! FOOD IS SOOOOO IMPORTANT HERE. At my Omas house, we would wake up in the morning and eat. then all morning she would be preparing lunch and asking if I was hungry, then after lunch we would have coffee and tea, then she would prepare dinner and ask if I was hungry... then we would eat dinner, and an hour late we would break out something sweet... and Oma would ask me yet again if i was hungry... Everything tasted Soooooo GOOD! I ate soooo MUCH! haha... I feel like time here revolves around when we eat here. (speaking of time, I guess today was daylight saving time so we gained an hour...) On Friday when we were about to leave my Oma found out we were not gong to be stopping for dinner so she packed us a FEAST of bread and candy and drinks, and cheese and meat... Ohhh boy! Here's what we had every single morning for Breakfast... mmmm

So yes- Now I'm glad to be back home in Berlin. I loved the south but it's good to be back home. There were a bunch of exchange students here from the south of germany visiting Berlin so we hung out all weekend and it was really fun!!! I plan to just hang out the rest of the week with friends, do my french homework that I've been putting off for 3 weeks, and brush up on my French a little bit because I'm going to PARIS in TWO WEEKS! (my french is HORRIBLE) I'M REALLLLYYYYY EXCITED! I can't WAITTT!

Autumn

2009-10-18T06:33:00.003-05:00

Right now it's 13.43 and I'm still wearing my PJ's because I'm too lazy to change- I am officially in Herbstferien-MODE (aka-Fall break). I have 2 weeks of no school and I am ready to indulge in sleeping-in, eating, relaxing, etc... I NEED A BREAK. Even though school isn't academically challenging (because I can't understand the curicculum) it causes a lot of fatigue!

Its a typical Sunday afternoon in Berlin- cloudy, and brisk. It is definately Autumn here!!! When I'm on my way to school every morning I have to wear a sweatshirt and a jacket because the temperature is so low. I really like the atmosphere though... It feels like the city is smaller when it's cold, because there arn't as many people walking outside. The house is quieter than normal because my host brother left yesterday to go to Egypt with his friend. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I'm driving down to Bad Kissingen (close to Frankfurt am Main) with my host-family to visit my Oma. We'll stay there for a few days then drive back up to Berlin. My host parents are still unsure if we can go to Budapest... but if that doesn't work out I'm fine with staying in Berlin.

Nothing really big has happened since my last post- I'm starting to get excited for Paris!!! I should start to brush up on my Französisch... but thats going to be difficult though because my mind is swimming with DEUTSCH!!! speaking of, I think it's safe to say that my spoken-German is better than my spoken-French now. But I can read and write better in French... That's EXCITING! Yesterday I went to a party with only German people and I realized that I could understand a TON about what people were saying!!! I'm almost to the point where I can start to actually contribute to conversations... (other than answering questions)...but not yet!

On friday I had a 2-hour math test (Theres only 2 of them every year). I was worried that I wouldn't be able to understand the problems and that I wouldn't do very well... but I actually think I did really good! I answered all of the questions... finished with 30 minutes to spare. I ended up re-writing half of the test because I didn't want to get points off for sloppyness like I did last test.

After school on Friday, I met up with another exchange student and we decided to get our hair cuts... but for CHEAP! So we set off looking for a cheap hair-salon... hopped onto a U-bahn and crossed our fingers that we would find a place. After much looking, we didn't find a single thing... so we decided to walk to the S-bahn station to drive back to where we started... and as fate would have it, RIGHT when we were waiting outside the station we turn around and RIGHT there was an express hair salon. It was a little bit sketchy (the women working there had crazy mullets dyed yellow and pink) but ended up getting our hair cuts there for only 10€! It was really funny trying to communicate with the people there! GREAT EXPERIENCE!

Well... I don't really have anything else to say. I'm kind of bummed that I don't have a camera right now because there are so many instances that I want to take a picture of something... bummer. Oh and I think I'll post up another video soon because I feel like it's more personal!

I really should take a shower now!

Here's a really old pitcture of me from my first week here... I just found it.

I have no LIFE!

2009-10-09T09:14:00.002-05:00

Another random video about life in Germany.

Things are getting tough

2009-10-02T10:36:00.004-05:00

The title of this blogpost is pretty self explanitory!

- things are getting tough! -

I really should not be complaining AT ALL, because I live in a wonderful city, I have a wonderful host family, I go to an awesome school, and I have amazing friends...
BUT.

exchange is NOT easy.
exchange is NOT a vacation.
exchange is NOT a year off!

...exchange is difficult...

When I tell someone that my German grades are not transfering over to America- only credits... they usually respond with, " you have it SO easy," or "your SO lucky" ... THAT IS SOOOO aggrivating to hear, because I don't have it easy! Do they have any idea what it means to be an exchange student??? People act like this is a game! Like I'm here on a little adventure for a year, having the time of my life, and everything is easy, and I just get to slack off and do NO work!... boooyyy are they wrong! It is SO hard to sit through school everyday and TRY to understand what is going on. It is SO difficult to get a piece of paper and not be able to read it. It is SO difficult to sit there in class, watching everyone speaking perfect German, while I try to make sense of German grammar in a stupid grammar book! I feel SO STUPID! I feel SO LIMITED! YES-LIMITED... that is the perfect word there is! I've never felt so limited in my life! I've always been able to do things socially very well, but now that I have this whole language issue I can't. I have to THINK before I speak. It's not just random shit coming out like I do in the United States. I actually have to think, process, filter, decide if it's really important, think some more, make sure it is correct, then speak.

This has been the most difficult one and a half months of my LIFE! I feel like I've learning more in this month than in all of last year- in all of high school maybe! So many things are just streaming into my head all the time! IT IS SO EXHAUSTING! I feel like my mind will never slow down! Always, there is something new! Not so much new places or foods or scents... but new WORDS!

... don't even get me started with language! I could complain for hours! Did anybody ever mention how hard it is to learn a langauge by immersion??? It is so difficult, so humiliating, so embarassing, so stupidddd... I've heard of students who just pick it up super quick and everything is good and they don't have to do a lot of work, but me? NO WAY. I am working! Whenever I hear a word a couple of times and still can't figure out what it means, I write it down in a book and find out the definition by asking a native speaker. Like I mentioned before, I bought a German Grammar book and I read and do excersizes in most of my classes. German grammar is really tricky so I can't just read something and then know what it is... I have to do it over and over and over again, and then I have a small grasp on what I'm reading. Whenever I think I'm doing really well with the language, I learn a new rule, or tense... and it seems like I'm just as bad as when I started.

Okay I really need to break away from my moment of pity.

Things could be SO-SO-SO much worse! I'm trying to be optomistic about as many things as I can, because in reality, nothing BAD is happening. Things are just difficult. I'm out of my comfort zone. I'm surrounded by a foreign language. I don't have my parents or friends back home to support me.

I really think everyone should go on exchange in high school. I know that's impossible, but if one of you out there reading this, is a little confused about life in general, is trying to figure out who they are, and is up for the challenge, I really recommend exchange (through rotary of course). I have yet to regret it! It is exactly what I need in my life.

I'm realizing that that I'm kind of starting to ramble, but I have a lot of random stuff to say... so to make this post even more random, I want to talk about French class a little bit.

Ohhh French class... where to start! In the United States, French was my favorite class (yes I'm a dork). It was a very interactive class, and the teachers I had were really awesome! I was facinated by French and I loved speaking, reading, writing, and learning about French/France. Unfortunately... things have changed! French in Germany is my LEAST favorite class! The class is pretty difficult, but that's not the reason why I don't like it. I feel like every time I go into French class, my I'm messing up my German. Whenever I walk out I feel more behind in German because it's too much to be thinking in 3 languages at the same time. I am in Germany right now. I want to be learning German - NOT FRENCH! All we do in French is read stories and learn vocabulary and Grammar. I guess it's a good thing that I'm in French because I really want to be fluent in the future, but for the time being I just want a break. As luck would have it I WILL have a break! NO FRENCH FOR 1 MONTH!!!!! My french teacher is leaving for 2 weeks to go to Lyon, so I won't have french class for that. Then, the next 2 weeks is Fall-break, so I won't have french for that either! I'm really relieved because I feel really pressured whenever I sit in his class. He always asks me questions about how to say stuff in English, and only 1/2 the time I know! The class is pretty advanced... and I'm struggling to keep up. (explanations are in German).

... Speaking of French, I'm going to Paris in November! And my rotary club is PAYING FOR IT! Ahhh! I'm so excited! All of the exchange students in my district are taking a bus there! It's going to be so much FUN!

speaking of exchange students... I havn't seen Kate IN SO LONG! Kate is another exchange student who has been living outside of Berlin for around 9 months now.
!!!!KATE IS MY ROCK!!!!
The person I turn to! She's who I call when I'm having a bad day, and she always makes me feel better even if we talk for only 1 or 2 minutes. I really don't know what I'd do without Kate. She has made my "settling in" phase SO much smoother and I love her for that. I feel like she's the one person I can be real with. I can go to her for anything. I don't want to face the fact that she's leaving in January :(

well I best me going. I've rambled for much too long, and me and my host brother have to go to the the wayyyy east of Berlin for a party tonight. Hopefully it will be fun!

Random Video

2009-10-02T08:49:00.006-05:00

I just found this video I took of me and some other exchange students 1.5 months ago, right before we met our host families... I wish I would have kept it rolling longer, but you get the idea.

!!!OKTOBERFEST!!!

2009-09-28T15:00:00.009-05:00

This weekend me and my family went to the original OKTOBERFEST in München! After school on Friday me and my family rushed around the house to make sure we had everything, and after eating a whole pizza, and 2 glasses of 3,5% Milk (My host family doesn't believe in non-fat), we all crammed into the car and headed off to Dresden. In Dresden we picked up my host dad who was working there, and then we drove for a couple hours until we stopped for dinner in a typical Bavarian restaurant in a typical Bavarian town with cobblestone streets and those German-looking houses with the X's on them (I forgot what it's called). My host parents are very proud to be Bavarian and they know a lot about Bavarian dialects, history, and of course FOOD! So anyways, after some Wiener Schnitzel and Bavarian tap we drove a few more hours to a friends house in a town right outside of München (Munich). The whole trip was about 6 hours and it was not bad at all... however it is a little overwhelming to be stuck in a car with non-stop German all around for 6 hours.

The next morning all of us headed into München to go to Oktoberfest. I spent most of the day with my host brother and his friend Henning, and we had a great time! First we just walked around for a while... there were SOOOO many people! Its really hard to describe! Then we went into one of those HUGE beers tents... but naturally it was full, so we left and tried getting into another one, and we ended up having to wait in line for a while but we finally got into a tent! Naturally, that tent was full as well, but we managed to find room at a table and yeah... we were there in that tent, at that table, for the entire day! It was really fun, really loud, really... GERMAN! A little bit overwhelming, but fun non-the-less. After the tent closed we went and ate at a restaurant and then went home to sleep.

The next morning we said goodbye to our hosts and drove about an hour south east of München to one of the most beutiful towns I have ever seen. (The most beutiful one I have seen in Europe so far). The town was called Tegernsee, and it was situated right on the edge of the Alps with a
big lake right in the center. We all ate lunch at another Bavarian restaurant overlooking the town, and it was really beautiful!

The ride back to Berlin was a little bit tough for me. Not only was I tired from the day before, but for some reason I just was not feeling myself. I was listening to my Ipod about 4 hours into the journey and all the sudden I came across some songs that really reminded me of home. It was so weird because emotion just hit me all of the sudden, and tears just came to my eyes. I put a sweatshirt over my head and pretended I was sleeping... but I on/off cried for a good 30 minutes. It was unreal! I still can't really say exactly why I cried... I wasn't homesick... I was just missing certain things- like eating dinner with my family and understanding everything, and chilling at the Molly Meier' house with my friends (***cough cough*** shoutout to the girl who know how to twirl, that fine thang who goes bang bang, and the laday who drives me crazay... haha I couldn't find anything that rhymed with lady... I miss you... really!!!) ! It's really hard to explain. Anyways... enough of that! I have it so good here so I shouldn't complain.

I guess I'm just learning that I can't do everything! I have limits, and I really need to lower the bar for myself. Before I thought I could do anything on my own. I only depended on myself and the reason why I seldom trusted someone to "get the job done"was because I had too much pride...I now realize that I'm only 16. Like I said before, I can't do everything! I'm a human being.

Well, I think I've written enough! This has been quite a week! The elections were yesterday and the Conservative party won... so all the people in my school are happy! My German has gotten tremendously better! I can understand more than 50% of what people are saying in normal conversations... and I normally can answer a question if someone asks me something! School is still very difficult to understand but I know what what's going on in every class. My grammar is still very bad (the articles der,die, das, den, dem... I guess every time)... but I can get the point across.

this metaphor defines my life right now,

"Foreign exchange is an emotional rollercoaster"

Neuruppin

2009-09-21T05:16:00.001-05:00

I have been here for exactly one month. crazy. So much has happened in this month, I have no words to describe. I feel like I am already so different than from when I came. I've learned so much, and have had so much fun. Of course exchange isn't just fun and games. This month has been so tiring and new and tough and aggrivating, but at the same time so amazing. I feel everyday I am growing- it is insane. I can see now that deciding to go on exchange was the best idea/whim I have ever had. It was and is the "thing" that I alway have been looking for. I always felt that something was missing, and that I should be DOING something other than what everyone else was doing in American high school. I am feeling so grateful to rotary for giving me the opportunity to go on exchange without charging insane amounts of money, to my family for allowing me go on exchange and putting their trust in me, to my counselor at school for actually incouraging me to go on exhange and not being a huge "you-know-what" like other exchange student's counselors are, and to my friends back home for just understanding what this means to me.

Well I have a lot of of time of my hands right now because believe it or not I am home from school- SICK! I don't have anything really bad, just my throat is sore, my sinises are a bit inflamed, and my head hurts, but it's nothing serious. I was planning on just missing gym first hour and going to my next class at 11, but my host mom excused me from the whole day. I'm not complaining.

Since I have so much time I'll tell all of you guys about the first inbound orientation we had this weekend (AKA- where I picked up this cold). Here it goes....

This weekend all of the exchange students in distrikt 1940 went to the first inbound orientation in Neuruppin. Neuruppin is a small town of about 30,000 people, and is an hour or so north-west of Berlin. It's a very pretty town, with lots of water, and a lot of history having to do with Prussian kings. I'm not really sure why the orientation takes place there every year... but it was cool nontheless.

-this is kind of how the town looked like-

-The big church in Neuruppin-

On Friday all 40+ of us arrived periodically throughout the afternoon. My host mom drove me, and after I got everything situated I ended up finding some exchange students playing volleyball. It was the most awkward way to meet people because we all made short little greetings and then proceeded to play a really lousy game of volleyball. Things got way better when the last busload of exchange students arrived and we all started to mingle and get to know eachother. We traded pins for our blazers and give eachother our cards. It was really overwhelmeing because there were so many new people and I didn't know what to do or who to talk to. Also, the rotary people were MIA so we all just ended up wandering around for a while until we figured out we were having dinner. After dinner we all just chilled and got to know eachother at the hostel (which was on a lake by the way). It was a bummer though because Kate, the australian exchange student/best friend/sister/mentor/amazing person, only could stay for a few hours because she had to go to London with her school. Sad for me. Exciting for her!

The next day we took a tour of the town and afterwards got to hang out there for basically the entire day. It was a really nice time to just chill and enjoy eachothers company and have some free time. I like free time a lot! I hate having to follow tour guides around and stay in one big group for a long period of time. It gets super old... really fast.

So I ended up walking around with 3 other exchange students and we hung out with one another for a good portion of the orientation. (me, another american, a canadian, and a mexican... THING 1-2-3 and 4! wooo North America) Since there are SO many exchange students... it's a little hard to hang out with EVERYONE all the time... so yeah, the four of us were a good group! It was super chill and it wasn't too loud or crazy. If there's one one thing I hate, it's when there's too big of a group and everyone is competing to get the most attention... I found out that that happens really easily with exchange students because we all talk a lot... well most of us.

So we all got döner (an amazing blend of Turkish and German tastiness), and we got ice cream, and then we got some delicious eclairs, and then we ate lunch. (I'm becoming a pro at eating... prepare for a much bigger Ben when I come back) At lunch we listened to a presentation that was said in German, then translated to English, then translated to Spanish. It was a little boring because It was a bit repetative... but that isn't really something I should be complaining about. We got some basic info about Germany and our exchange here... same-old same-old. The exciting news was about our trips this year! In November it is mandatory that all of us go to the next inbound conference in PARIS! We'll all drive there in a bus and I'm pretty PUMPED! Our rotary clubs here are supposed to help us pay for it and it's cheeper than I thought it would be... (only 250€) In April is oue Euro-tour! Its for about 2 weeks and I really hope that I can go! All of the exchange students who have been on one say it is the best weeks of their life and that even though it is expenisive it is worth every single penny. Speaking of money... I havn't really been spending much of it here. My rotary club hasn't given me any money yet because they are having problems with my bank account. I really should ask to get the money because it's close to the end of the month... but I have like 40€ right now... and the only only time I spend money is when I'm at the movies or eating out with exchange students. I don't have anything I HAVE to buy... havn't bought any clothes, or really anything. I'm really glad I brought a lot of clothes because contrary to what Rotary said... I wear everything I brought! I don't look any different than anyone else here and the clothes I brought are just fine! I will be needing a few things in the next couple of months like a few more jeans and a few winter shirts, but to any outbounds reading this... If you don't spend a ton of money in your home country, chances are you won't have to spend a lot of money in your host country. My host parents cover necessities, and I don't really need anything else.

Back to Saturday... I can't really remember the order that everything happened, but we saw some old German cars, and played some crazy improv games... and yeah it was a good day. For dinner we all went to this cool building that was a cross between a barn, a rec room, a bar, and a meeting center... It was chill. We all ate some barbecue and hung out more- Danced a little bit. The cool thing about exchange students is that just hanging out... doesnt really get old. We all find stuff to do and it doesn't really get boring. Back at the hostel I listened to some crazy improvs people were doing... but I wasn't feeling very well so I couldn't participate. I had an... interesting night sleep, and it was Sunday morning before I knew it.

It was a GREAT weekend as a whole, but it had a very different over-all feeling than the orientations and conferences back home. However, the one paralell I found is that no matter what country you're in, you will feel like shit after a rotary youth exchange conference. You spend a weekend with amazing people that understand you completely, and are going through the same thing as you are, and are feeling the same emotions you are feeling, then afterwards...WHAM... reality hits like a baseball bat.... and you are sleep deprived, which isn't so much fun.

Since it was such a fun and amazing weekend, obviously something BAD had to happen to someone! (That's just how life seems to work hahaha) As fate would have it, the bad thing happened to me :( (Lindsay... prepare yourself... ) My beautiful camera... that has captured SO many moments... is as the German's say... "KAPUT." It was in the inside pocket of my jacket and when we went to get eclairs at the bakery, I took off my jacket and it fell to the cobblestone sidewalk. The screen didn't break, and it charges and transfers my photos to the computer, but it DOESN'T TURN ON! This really is a huge bummer that this happened so early in my exchange, because I really want to capture the moments I have... So I'm going to first talk with my host dad and see If he knows if it can be repaired ( I think he works with the company it is made from )... and If It doesn't get repaired I will scope out where I can buy a new one. I'll be sure to take pictures with a family camera next weekend when I go to München for Oktoberfest.

Thats all I got for now folks... This week we have a short day tomorrow or thursday I can't remember, and we have a "sports day" on Wednesday. I only have to be at school for 2 hours or so to help with one of the events. Overall it should be a pretty low-stress week. I'm really looking forward to München! Should be a lot of fun.

-Candid exchange student moment-

-meet thing 1,2,3... and 4 (thats me)-

-My favorite car at the car show-

-Distrikt 1940-

?!?!?

2009-09-14T09:39:00.003-05:00

I think I dreamt in German last night.

I really think I did!

... it wasn't like a dream with a story or anything but it was more like me in a semi-conscious state and my mind was going off in German. I didn't know exactly what I was saying... It kind of was like hearing a bunch of people speaking German words I don't know in my head, but it was MY own voice saying them! Hmmm.... so does this count as my first dream in German???

... In other news...

-I forgot to inform everyone that last monday I went to the foreigner office and obtained my Alien Residence Permit. I had to wait in the office for nearly five hours and me and my host mom were sent from office to office to office, and they were really mean, but I HAVE it now! My host mom fought so hard!

Tomorrow is some Catholic holiday so instead of going to school... I have to go to church... and THEN I have to go to school! Woopie for me- double the fun!

MONTAGE

2009-09-07T14:11:00.015-05:00

Get ready for a montage of blog posts. I never had the time to actually sit down and write a complete post this week, but I manage to record tid-bits at different times and now I'm putting them all together! So... this may not make a lot of sense... and it's a bit repetative, but bear with me.

Post #1: When I wake up to the automatic shades at 6.30 every morning I'm not suprised to hear, "Guten Morgen Ben, hast Du gut geshlafen?" When I think of my room I think of yellow walls, a white couch, and a little balcony that overlooks a parking lot. When I think of home I see a yellow house with a triangular roof, small garden, and two cars parked underneath an outdoor garage-overhang. Bread, cheese, and meat make up my main diet...and are normal for me at every meal. People speaking a foreign tongue around me doesn't sound like muddled sounds anymore. I recognize words now, and for some odd reason they just start to make sense even though I havn't looked them up. Having a difficult time trying to communicate is just a part of life now. I'm not sure what language I'm thinking in... right now it isn't really anything. My mind is very confused so I usually think without words. Most of all, I finally have a sense of direction. I know that bus 181 takes me directly home and if I miss that, I can take the M44 and that will take me a few bocks away. I remember saying right when I got here, "I can't wait untill I know where I am and how to get home" NOW I CAN! :)

Post #2: I just realized that I have all of the subway stops memorized from my house untill I get off at Kochstraße for school ... cool?

Post #3: I'm really obsessed with Owl City. I listen to them the 45 minutes to school, 45 minutes back from school! I usually get super sick of bands really quick, but I've been listening to them straight for over a month!!! I think whenever I hear a song by them in the future, I'm definately going to think about Berlin... and riding on buses\subways.

Post #4: MY BRAIN IS SO CONFUSED RIGHT NOW!!! I sit through German classes, then I have French, then I start thinking in English! Then I start to mix all of them up and I start to see pictures because I don't know which languge to use!!! I just want to to KNOW GERMAN! ehh! Everything is getting so jumbled up together and I feel so stupid in classes because I can't answer questions! I hate not being able to laugh at jokes or contribute to discussions.

Post #5: I just realized today that I'm totally a different person here. I am... quiet. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very extroverted. I'm not afraid to try to answer questions or make friends, but my voice has gotten so much quieter. Its strange. I have been told at least 10 times to speak up because I'm speaking so quiet. When I do speak in English it is with simpler words... and it sounds like someone else is saying the words. ehh... I have no idea what is going on... maybe its self-discovery. What I do know is that the Ben Mau in Germany is NOT the Ben Mau in America. AT ALL!!! I really don't know which one is me or which one I like better. I'm trying to be myself but I'm not really sure what myself is.... hmm...

Post #6: My host mom just called me and we had an entire conversation in GERMAN! wooo! It was 3 or so minutes long!!! She didn't transfer over to English and neither did I! Sweet :)

Post #7: (*this is an excerpt from my notebook*) I'm actually sitting in Biologie class right now and its super boring so I thought I might as well make use of time and write a little about whats going on. I've been here for just over three weeks now, and I still am absolutely loving it. I think it's safe to say that I'm settled in. I have a routine I do every morning: I wake up, take a shower, get dressed, go downstairs and eat some bread, then I pack some more bread for school, then I have an expresso (because I dont have time to drink a whole coffee but I still need the caffine), then I brush my teeth, grab my things, and head off to school.

Speaking of school... I've been trying really hard all week to understand what is going on, and I usually get the jist of it, but I've resorted to drawing pictures alllll over my notebook in the classes that I'm absolutely clueless in (aka-Deutsch, Biologie, Chemie, Physik und Religion). If you think I'm slacking... I'd like you to try sitting through one! The teacher just wrote, "Einfluss des Bluzuckspiegels Blulzucker: Traulenzucher." on the board....... What DOES THAT MEAN! It doesn't help that I can't even read half of what the teachers writing!!!

Other than sitting through super boring science classes, I've been having success in my English Class! Right now we're talking about family relationships and writing mini newspaper articles about people abandoning babies. My advanced English teacher is still sick, so I havn't yet had that class. French is another class that is going well! I AM LEARNING SO MUCH... SO FAST- the reason why it's so much faster here is because everybody in the class takes it seriously and they actually WANT to learn the language!!!!I have five hours of it ever week and it is very interesting. My teacher is kind of strict but he is VERY VERY good! It is a little bit difficult that I can't understaand the translations from French-German, and I also can't understand when he explains some concept in German... but he gave me an English-French dictionary. So all my questions are answered now??? haha!!! The class is veryd avanced as a whole. They know all of the tenses except for simple past, and also, the class isn't grammar based, but vocabulary based. We read stories with a bunch of new vocab in them and we have to learn every single word we don't know. Monday will be my first vocabulary quiz! It is pretty difficult stuff... and I'm not exacly sure how it is going to work because I only know the English-French translations. But I guess we'll just find out!

Mathe is another subject I understand pretty well. Right now were doing basic linear functions! Which is what I did in the 8th grade,! So its really easy material... but its all in German... so that kind of levels out the playing field... so its basically the same difficulty level as taking Algebra 3A at memorial! My art class is also really fun because its pretty self explanitory! Right now we are doing portraits of people in the class.

All in all, I really like school. The classes are super boring, but the people make up for it because they are so nice. I really like how there arn't cliques here like there are in America. I never realized how divided my school back home was until I came here. Sure there are different groups here in Germany, but at my school in the States the cliques are so defined! Everyone has a label and they arn't allowed to interact or sit with or eat with a person from another! Here... it is SO MUCH DIFFERENT! I see the most diverse people hanging out with oneanother, and its totally cool for people to like chill with certain people on day, and other people the next!

As far as langauge goes, It's coming along... I guess. It's still really hard to communicate, and I still can't understand a ton of stuff people say, but I usually get the jist of conversations. I really have a lot of luck because most of the students at my school only talk to me in German, and when someone tries to talk to me in English they say, "NEIN... Er muß Deutsch lernen" (He needs to learn German) My host parents talk to me in German unless I ask them to explain in English. The only person who usually speaks to me in English is my host brother... It kind of a neccesity because we hang out a lot and my German is super limited, so we speak in mostly English so we can communicate. However, to make up for speaking English I ask him a kajillion times how to say certain things in German... We both agreed that when my German starts to get better we will only speak in German!

... Well I'd better get back to Biologie class. Only 15 more minutes!!! After this I have 2 hours Mathe, 1 hour Physik! ehhh... so BORING! I hate Fridays!!!

Post #8: hahaha... I just found out today that basically all of the male-teachers at my school are gay! hahaha- I love it... especially because its a catholic school (I guess the stereotype is true). life is good.

Post #9: I havn't been to church in a while and to tell you the truth I don't miss it. I'm kind of sick of organized religion in general... I'm also really sick of seeing crosses with deformed jesus' on them in every single classroom I sit in, and watching the students chanting their prayer to jesus or mary or god knows who every morning... It looks, feels, and smells like a game to me. I don't want anyone back home to be afraid now that I'm like "walking in the darkness" because I'm not going to church, and I'm having these feelings about religion, but I'm just putting it out there. To be honest, I feel better than I've felt in a very, very, very, long time. I feel very free. I feel like I'm not judged by people around me.

Like I said before- have no fear, I have sooooo much Christian doctrine drilled into me its impossible to forget it. I know the story, I know the descisions one must make, I know what everyone says... I just have to live right now, stop worrying about religion, and start doing things that actual matter- like building relationships with real, living, breathing people around me...

Post #10: Tonight I'm just chilling in the house with my host brother. My parents are out of town until tomorrow and they don't want us roaming around town. Thats totally cool with me... I don't mind just hanging out. Tomorrow I'm meeting with a friend from school for a few hours, then later tomorrow night I'm going to a party with my host brother. I'll probably just chill on Sunday too! I need to translate some homework and study for my French quiz. I don't want to be the exchange student who goes on exchange for the sole purpose of not having to do school work. I want to do the best I can... I'm weird.

Well this post has been pretty long! Its taken me 2-3 hours to write. A little tooo long. A little too deep! But I really don't care what people back home, or what people here think about me. I am done worrying about that and keeping so many things pent up inside of me. In Madison I was confined to a little mold because I was so scared about what everyone around me would think... I only told a few people what I was really feeling. I'm just making the first step of breaking out of that mold and trying to find out who I am, and what I'm supposed to do in life. So I guess... read more and find out what happens???

My life is a situational comedy.

... and now- random pictures

Real First Day of School

2009-09-01T11:30:00.004-05:00

Today was my REAL first day of school. Thats is, I actually needed to do work. In the Morning I took he bus, subway, then another bus to get to school. On the 2nd bus I saw this girl who is in my class and we tried talked a little bit (She doesn't speak English). At School I had German, then two hours of English Profilkurse (Main study). I was really suprised at how difficult the course was. We read a British prose piece that was even confusing for me! We went over terms like Point of View, Narrator, and Perspective. It was so nice to be able to speak in English and understand everything the teacher was saying. Many students in the class were very good at English... nearly fluent! I was very impressed.

After English I went to 2 hours of religion! I was expecting it to be super boring... and really bible-y and just not fun! But yet again I was wrong. The students in my class were split up into 2 groups, one Catholic and the other Protestant or Evangelical. I went with the Protestants and we went into this little tiny room (there were 8 of us), and we sat in this circle and talked not about religion, but philosophy. It was questions about life and really interesting stuff! I couldn't understand very much, but I raised my hand for the first time and managed to answer a question in German! WO! It was a very cool class! It didn't seem like school at all! It seemed like a conversation! I liked it alot.

After Religion I went to the office and waited in line to recieve a new schedule. I managed to get everything worked out and now I have all of the classes I need. On my new schedule I found out that I had 2 more hours of normal English (not profilkurse)... So I went to the classroom and sat through a much easier English course. DOn't get me wrong, the people in the basic course were really good at English... much better then we are with our languages in American high school. Basically we had to hold up picture out of a magazine and explain what is there and why we picked it. That is all! Yup... so thats it for today. After school I went with my host mom to the bank and we opened up a German bank account for my Rotary allowance. It was very difficult for my host parents to find a bank that was willing to open one for me so I am very grateful to them.

Now I'm just sitting here in my room. A little tired from the day. This exchange is very exciting for me at the moment. I feel as if I'm actually learning life lessons... I'm learning so much about myself, German culture, and human interaction.... It's SO exciting.

Most exciting of all I think is learning the German language. Today when I was sitting through religion class my brain had a little meltdown. It was so confused... but in a good way. It was hearing the foreign words come out of the teachers mouth and it was trying to make sense of it... I felt little axles in my head spinning and slowly I felt my brain start to transfer over to German. It was unreal! The little step is merely the beginning for grasping the German language, but I am determined to learn this language!

New Schedule
Monday: sports, free, free, history, german, basic french.
Tuesday: german, advanced english, advanced english, religion, religion, basic english, basic english.
Wednesday: math, advanced french, advanced french, phisics, german, sports, free.
Thursday: history, art, art, chemistry, chemistry, basic french, basic french.
Friday: basic english, biology, biology, math, math, physics, free.

There's a rumor going around that my advanced English teacher will be gone for 3 months... there's no such thing as substitutes here. haha! I love Germany.

First day of... school???

2009-08-31T09:31:00.009-05:00

Today was my first day of SCHOOL! When I woke up this morning I was expecting to go to a building, sit through a bunch of classes, make awkward conversation, try to find my way around... and yeah.. thats about it! Boy... What I WRONG! School today was nothing like I've ever experienced.

I woke up around 6.00, took a shower, went downstairs to have one of my host-moms AMAZING smoothies (and a pretzle), then drove to the school with both my mom and dad. When we got the school we had to go to this classroom and wait for the women in charge of the school. I was really nervous because I got the impression that it would just be a meeting with me, my host parents, and her, but I was relieved to find that it was a meeting for ALL the new students. So I was one of about 15. The women in charge called our names and introduced us to our homeroom teachers. Every student got a different teacher. I'm in class 11-B. My host parents were a little suprised that I wasn't in Sabrina's old class (because they were expecting me to take her place... and to have the same connections and friends), but everything is good. I like my homeroom teacher. He seems really nice.

I think I finally have a small grasp on how my school works. In my class there are 4 subgroups (11-a, 11-b, 11-c, 11-d), and a homeroom teacher for each one. Each subgroup stayed with one another for the subjects that everyone is required to take. Those subjects are Sports, History, Deutsch, Religion, Math, Phisics, Biology, and Chemistry. For most of these classes we stay in the same room and the teachers rotate from class to class. The 2nd and 3rd hours are devoted to our 2 subjects that are MOST important. They are the two classes that we pick, and we have more hours of them because they are our favorite or the ones we are best at. The two classes that I have chosen are English and French. I think English will be fun... but I think French will be very challenging because A- The teaching language is German, and B- The European community seems to be more advanced with language in general (Students here actually take it seriously).

After I finished the meeting with the new students I trailed my homeroom teacher around the school and he showed me our homeroom, then he left me with these two guys in my homeroom. I sat down and a girl came up to me and told me we all needed to go to a meeting in the gym. She was very nice, but unfortunately she is leaving in a few days to go on her own exchange to England. I kind of was the awkward new kid walking in back of the group of friends who have known eachother for years. Once we arrived in the gym, I found a place to sit behind the group of kids in my class. A man came up and started singing this call and response thing in German, and I had no idea what was going on. Then everyone sat down and he started to talk about the Berlin Wall, and he was incorporting it to a wall built up inside of all of us... at least thats what I think he was talking about! Again... I don't really know... It was in German believe it or not.

There were a few more songs and prayers and it was a little bizzare, but after the get-together we went to homeroom. I sat in the back... by myself! haha... SO NOT LIKE ME! Its hard enough being a "new kid" let alone not being able to communicate to the people around you!!.. so I was just kind of sitting.. pretending I had something important to do. The teacher was 20 minutes late so we just sat there and eventually we all ended uo talking and I introduced myself to most people. THe teacher came in and he talked about who knows what. I'm pretty sure these two girls were elected to be representatives for the class.

We got our schedules and I had a ton of blank spaces! Since I never chose what classes to take the school just didnt give me any classes, they just gave me the required courses. I went to the office after homeroom was over and asked if I could have my 2 important classes be French and English, and somehow everything worked out and I was so proud of myself for talking to someone IN GERMAN and actually MAKING SENSE! I also had the choice to take Art or Music and I decided to ake Art because the music class was more music theory and had math incorporated with it so I'm staying awayyyy from that!

The man I talked to told me that the new classes would take effect tomorrow. I headed off to my next class which was history. WHen I arrived there was around 10 people there and no teacher. We waited and waited and waited... but no teacher. We found out after some time that the teacher was sick. So... that left me with 4 hours of free class. I had NO IDEA what to do so I hopped on a bus and it took me to Potsdamer Platz. I walked around... alone :( haha... but it was fine... When I came back to school I had only one class left- German. It was my first class in Germany ever! Before class eveyone talked for a while and I got to meet more students and talk a bit more with everyone. I learned that there is a girl who just moved here from England with her family. She's fluent in German because her family is German, but she knows ENGLISH!

When the teacher walked in the room all of the students stood up... I was in disbelief that students here actually have respect for their teachers (unlike in America)! We were given this sheet of paper that looked like a play and people were reading it,and then we were told to write the pros and cons of some argument and I had no idea what to do so I just copied the board. I really like how everyone in the class answers questions. I'm so used to teachers practically forcing students to answer questions in America, but at this school everyone has a desire to learn, so everyone raises their hand, and everyone participates in discussions... well... everyone except me :/ I WOULD PARTICIPATE... I WANTED TO PARTICIPATE... but I couldn't!!! It was a bit aggrivating because I felt a bit stupid.

I got to go home an hour before most student (13.45) which was GREAT! But I couldn't find the right bus stop and I ended up going on a bus driving in the opposite direction (most bused in Berlin usually have 2 of the same number and they go in opposite directions) so I started going in the complete opposite direction, and I had to get off after 10 minutes, cross the street, wait for the other bus to come in the right direction, then go all the way to CheckPoint Charlie (my subway station), then take that all the way to the south of Berlin, and from there I had to take another bus to get home. I ended getting home at the same time everyone else! Nevertheless, Over-all it was a very easy first day. I wish everyday were like this!

My weekly schedule.. as of now. I think more classes will be added tomorrow.

Monday: Sports, French, History, Deutsch
Tuesday: Deutsch, English, Religion
Wednesday: Math, French, Phisics, Deutsch, Sports
Thursday: History, English, Chemistry
Friday (aka- worst day of the week) : Biology, Math, Phisics

FML

2009-08-28T14:56:00.002-05:00

So Basically things have been pretty good lately! I really have nothing to complain about but a few very small things happen a lot that I really take for granted back in the states.

- In America, when people in my family are angry at eachother, it isn't a big deal to me because it's just normal and it will pass and I am comfortable. Here, when my family has an argument I have NO idea what to do. I don't know if I should go into my room, or stay where I am, or ignore it, or WHAT! I don't want to make anyone angry... but I really don't know what to do! My little host brother is kind of a handful! He causes a lot of stress to his mother and they bicker a lot, so yes... I don't know what to do with that!

- I have preferances in America. I know what I like and I know what I don't like. Here, I have NO IDEA! My host family is asking me all the time what I want. Certain foods to eat, certain places to see... but I have NO idea. Its not that I'm too shy to ask, I just have no idea.

- I don't know who to please! Today I went with my host mom, Oma, and host brother to this lake about an hour north to visit a castle and eat. My host brother was forced to go by my mother as a punishment for something and he really did NOT want to be there. I felt bad because I didn't know whose side to be on. I really tried to remain neutral but it was hard when they were asking me what I wanted to do. My mom was like, 'Do you want to visit the castle' and I knew she wanted to see it, but my brother was like, 'Ben you dont want to its so boring.' I didnt know what to do! How to answer. I was at a loss for words. I just kind of sat there and said, I DONT KNOW like 5 times. I felt really bad because I didn't want to dissapoint anyone or make anyone angry. It was frustrating.

.. These things are very small and it probably isn't even worth writing about! I know it is just part of settling into the family and becoming aquainted with eachother.

hahaha... changing the subject- Today was the SECOND time I've had a phoning-mishap. By that I mean, I phone someone I know, and someone else picks up and they speak German and I have no Idea what to do... the first time this happened I was trying to call one of my exchange friends and for some reason the number I typed in was wrong... but it wasn't because they were the same but anyways... the lady who picked up was NOT and exchange student and she just talked in german for like 30 seconds and I didn't know what to do so I just hanged up... and Today... hahaha... I was trying to call the SAME friend on her house phone and her dad picked up so I just said in German, Is Kate there... then He started talking in German and I had NO idea what he was saying and then he startd to repeat a certain line... and I thought he was just saying there is no Kate here... there is no Kate here... but really he was saying who is this! AND I WAS CONFUSED AND SCARED OF THE SCARY GERMAN MAN... so I hung up! ohhh... what a great idea! He called back and then told me something in German along the lines of.... When you call this house you must say who you are and who you want to talk to... then I got to speak with Kate! Long story... but it's funny! hahaha... such a typical exchange student moment.

Speaking of exchange student... the ones here in Berlin and surrounding areas are awesome! I really like them! I've met one girl from Australia who is AWESOME! (Kate... the one who is causing me so much phone trouble... haha jk... Ich hab dich lieb) I'm interested to meet all of the students in our district in 2 weeks.

OH... I have a handy (cellphone) by the way. It is ancient, but I'm very lucky to have one! Right now I can only recieve texts or calls but I'm hoping tomorrow I will be able to buy some minutes and/or texts.

Well... Today is the last day I'll have this much access to a computer. I'm not sure how frequent I'll be able to write. School starts in 2 days. I'll be sure to post something up about that!

Tschüss!

Dresden

2009-08-26T04:42:00.005-05:00

Yesterday me and my host mom and Oma woke up at 6.30 had breakfast and went to Dresden! It was my first real time out of the city and into countryside so I was very excited! We saw many small German communities and towns on the way over and many windturbines. it was also my first experience on the AUTO-BAHN. Its the road with no speed limit and we were going 210 km! I definately think America should adopt that policy on roadways because it works really well! The slow people go in the right lane. the fast people go in the left lane... as simple as that!

When we arrived in Dresde my host mom got us tickets to see the city by double decker bus! haha... we were such tourists but it was very fun to see the city! It was such a perfect day! Not too hot not too cold not too windy... PERFECT! The bus tour allowed us to get on and off at any time... so we crossed a river and got off and rode this lift up a big hill to go and eat at a restaurant.

... I NEED A SEPERATE PARAGRAPH TO TALK ABOUT FOOD! food is important in Germany... or at least my family. Get ready for this... when we were in Dresden we stopped not once, not twice, not three times, but different 5 times to eat or drink something!!! First we had espressos and ice cream, then we had lunch on this huge balcony overlooking Dresden, then we stopped at a cafe for water and lemonade, then we stopped at another cafe for traditional Bavarian beer, then we had dinner at an outdoor steakhouse! CRAZINESS!!! The food was so-so-so good though! However, I really hate that water cost money here though. it is so expensive (like 5€) to buy in restaurants because it comes in these huge glass containers... I also hate that it is nearly impossible to find a bathroom. After looking everywhere for one you need to pay 0,50€.

So Dreseden was wonderful! We had a lot of fun! We visited Germany's oldest dairy (tried buttermilk... gross) saw a bunch of beutiful castles and things, and at the end of the day we went to the top of this HUGE catholic church that was destroyed in WW2! It was so cool... a great view of the city. Also, my parents wanted to go to a service at the church so we ended up going to an evening devotional at this massive catholic church... too bad it was all in german! haha.. I couldn't understand a thing! But the organ was awesome! It was so powerful! I realized as I was sitting there how unique music is... despite the fact that there were people from all over the word in the room... Everyone could understand the music. After the service a man came up and told everyone about the history of the church... which was also in german! haha... It wasn't very interesting because all I heard was big words in German!

Anyways that was my day! It was awesome. I've always wanted to see a European town like that and now I finally have! Untill next time...

Settling In

2009-08-23T14:25:00.003-05:00

This has been my 3rd day in Berlin and so far I love it! It is so amazing! It's very difficult to even start telling you all the things that have already happened. First off- I have no idea how frequent I will be able to update because the computer I am using is my host brother's and he is out of town... so once school starts I'm not sure if I'll be able to use the computer often. But since I have access now I will talk a little bit about what I have been up to.

today I woke up very early and couln't get back to sleep. My time is still a little bit messed up! Anyways... after the family woke up we had an amazing breakfast with smoothies and meat and bread and cheese and expresso and coffee and so many very good German foods. After that me and my family went to Potsdam. It is a city a couple of kilometers outside of Berlin. We first went around the famous landmarks and castles which was very cool to see, and after we drove around the city and ended up going to a Biergarten! It was so cool! Like authentic beer garden. Next to a lake... I had the best food I have ever had! So many things I have never even seen or heard of before. And of course I had some famous Berlin beer which was so delicious I have no words to describe... It is nothing like American beer! One thing my family is good at is feeding me. They do not take NO for an answer. They are always telling to to eat more and more and I always say, Nein Ich bin Satt (no I am full) but they think I am being shy! hahaha... I am not being shy! I am very full ALL the time! I definitely will be putting on weight! Well thats it for now... Tomorrow I am going with my mother to get my public transportation pass and then I will meet a bunch of exchange students in downtown Berlin. I'm super excited for that!!! After that I will go to my first rotary meeting and present to them about myself. I am not sure how that will go but I hope it will go good... Just for the record... It is so weird having German around me at all times. My speech is getting so German-like ALREADY! I was laughing today because I caught myself speaking in English to my family and pronouncing the W with a V. Well.. .Until later!

I am here

2009-08-22T10:03:00.007-05:00

I am here in Berlin! Finally! The plane rides were okay... worst of all was the flight from chicago to Detroit because there was bad weather and (I was freaking out because there was bad turbulence) and we were forced to fly flight patterns, and then me and my rotary buddy Margaret had to run through the Detroit airport to make our flight to Amsterdam which we BARELY made! I dat next to this really nice Canadian lady who was awesome and she made the flight experience much more pleasant! In the Amsterdam airport me and margaret met up with a bunch of exchange students all going to Germany and we hung out in the terminal for an hour or so. The flight to Berlin was fine as well, I was so excited to see my host family! ... As luck would have it my baggage and Margaret's baggage did not make it because of the short connection time in Detroit.

My first sight of my host family was right through a security checkpoint... they waved hello and had a sign and I yelled, "mein gepäck ist nicht hier!" but right as I said it a sliding door closed and i was yelling in a little security room and the security guards thought I was yelling at then like 2 feet away and they got really angry and started to yell at me in German! haha... great first experience! The family is so great so far! They have helped me so much and I even got my luggage back within a few hours! When we arrived home we went to the supermarket to buy things for lunch and dinner and we also bought some very yummy bakery items. For the rest of the day I was very tired because I had no sleep on the flights but I ate a lot and my host mom made me coffee and expresso! (mom... they have an automatic coffee/expresso/cappicino maker SCORE!!!) I ended up going to a few more stores with my host brother and then later that night me and my host sister (who is now on her way to Quito) went to a famous Berlin street and met up with a friend who goes to Canisius Kolleg! We had ice cream and I got to practice my German! haha.. I don't know why I said that.... I gues I'm practicing my German all the time! I suprisingly understand more than I thought I could! I can usually get the point across by using a mixture of Germand and English words! I've already asked my host family about a thousand times how to say certain things and I'm learning so much faster with German round me at all times.

Today me and the family woke up early to see Sabrina off the the airport. After that we went downtown Berlin and there is a marathoin going on! It was very cool to see the sites like Brandenberg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial. We had a birthday lunch for oma at an outdoor cafe/resteraunt and now I am home! Germany so far is everything I hoped it would be. I've had a little bit more culture shock than I thought I would and I am WAY more tired than I thought I'd be... but I couldn't ask for a better situation. Alles GUTE!

Here We Go!!!

2009-08-19T21:03:00.012-05:00

I know it sounds crazy... but I think this whole "foreign exchange" thing might actually happen! And by might actually happen, I mean is going to happen- TOMORROW! (9 hours approximately)

If I had to describe what I am feeling right now I would say this: akhfsatpoalk thewjs;D 9359%*( KASJDSETY JK BE0-2567.

By that I mean... There are no words. It is the most intense variations of emotions... I don't even know where or how to start. I'm happy, but sad. I'm excited, but afraid. Most of all, I am anxious. I am in disbelief that this whole... "thing" that I've been preparing for and dreaming about for months and months and months... is actually happening- Okay enough with whats running through my brain right now! I don't even know how to make sense of it so there's no use in me trying to explain it through writing!

I know that last post I said that my last week in America would "fly by" but I was totally unprepared for the flying. It FLEW! I don't even know where it went! I spent my last days hanging out all day with my friends ! We didn't really do anything crazy or out of the ordinary... just typical summer nights!

Today I woke up suprisingly early and finished my packing. It was kind of hard to pack before today because I still needed clothes to wear, so it was really nice to have everything finally packed this morning! I have all of my papers ready, I have my travel documents, and I have lots of EUROS... which are sooo colorful by the way!

During the daytime I drove all around town and visited my closest friends to say goodbye! It was awesome to be able to see all of them one last time! For dinner I went home to my family where I enjoyed one last American meal.... Steak Fajitas! hahaha... Americanized Steak Fajitas... which were DELICIOUS! I'm going to miss my mom's nachos and guacamole! I also will miss the AMAZING meals my mom makes every single night (the salad MMmm) and dinner as a family in general! ( the constant noise??? haha maybe) After dinner, my family went to ColdStone for dessert and yeah... now I am home.

These months of preparation have been pretty crazy. I remember way back to the beginning of everything and it seems like an eternity ago. The funny thing is, I haven't even started yet! I have so much to look forward to! I'm not sure how much I will update when I am in Germany... I don't have a computer so it depends on what my host family has access to. I WILL have a journal however, which I plan to keep up on pretty religiously. My goal is to update a few times a month but I really have NO idea! I'll be sure to update when I get there and how the first week is going!

So I guess... Here we go! This is going to be quite a year!

Thanks for reading!

One Week

2009-08-13T22:48:00.011-05:00

Well technically I leave in basically 6-day (ish) because its Thursday night... and I leave next Thursday morning, but I thought I'd just write a few things about what I'm up to because stuff like this was always the part I was most curious about 6 months ago... weird I know! Well for future reference- This time is not exciting AT ALL! It is more like prolonged pain! Now that the last week in the USA is here I don't really know what to do with myself! I feel like I should be doing something... BIG! But I find myself doing the same thing everyday... just hanging out with my friends. hanvin fun. goofin off. doing random stuff teenagers do. The two other outbounds to Germany in my district are already there and settled in. One flew in on the 10th and the other has been there since the 31st of JULY!!! Thats like THREE weeks! craziness! I know that this week will fly by and before I know it I'll be getting on the plane but to tell you the truth waiting is getting really OLD! But I guess I've waited for roughly 270 DAYS... so I can wait 6 more.

Speaking of everything being proolllooonnngggeeeddd I hate the whole goodbye thing! I never know if I'm going to see certain people again before I leave so I don't know whether to say goodbye or to not say goodbye... Its just really awkward because if I say goodbye to someone then that means I'm not going to be hanging out with them before I leave... but thats awkward because I'm still here for 6 more days... and what if I ran into them sometime before I leave and then was like, "just-kidding... goodbye for real now!"

.... okay I'm 98% positive that didn't make sense but it does in my head!

So yes... I'm not having a goodbye party because I figured the people I really want to say goodbye to, I'm sure as hell going say goodbye to! I guess its just not ME to invite a bunch of people over for the sole purpose of saying goodbye to me! I'm leaving for a YEAR people.. not my whole life!!! Its not like I'm never going to see everyone here again! I'll be back for senior year.

Other than goodbyes I'm just livin my life. I am realizing how amazing summer is! I love being able to sleep- in and fall asleep however late I want. I love being able to eat what I want. Go on the internet when I want. text or call when I want. drive when I want. talk when I want. Basically do anything when I want. This isn't to sound spoiled or anything but I'm just really appreciating what I have here in Madison before I have to go to Berlin and start over from square one.

wow... so this post was meant to be a paragraph or two! Obviously I think too much- but you know that already! I'll try to be a bit more cohesive from now one ;)

psssttt-- the real reason why I'm writing this post is because I had 31 posst in total... which is NOT an even number! and I know how much that upsets you Lindsay Quella (aka- coolest friend in the world) So I wrote another one! YAY FOR 32!

HOW'S THIS FOR A SHOUT-OUT????

What am I doing?

2009-08-07T13:03:00.006-05:00

Wayyyy back in the winter months... when I was waiting and waiting and waiting for any scrap of information about foreign exchange- I would always read the blogs of American outbounds and it would make me feel so much better and get me excited about the future! Most of all, I liked to read about all the stuff going on BEFORE the exchange because it was the stage I was going through at that very moment! Now don't get me wrong, exchanges themselves were very interesting to read about, but I always liked reading about when everyone found out their host family or found out their city/country! Something I really wanted to know about was WHAT goes on in the few weeks prior to the exchange, because most of the blogs I read would have a post in July about getting plane tickets, then the next post would be at the end of August and they would be like, "I'M IN MEXICO!"So this is random, but I've always wondered
...WHAT HAPPENS IN THAT MONTH???

Now I know...

So I have all of my information. I'm not waiting for a VISA, plane ticket, departure date, host family, host rotary club, or guarantee forms. I am now waiting for my departure date itself, August 20th, which is 13 DAYS AWAY!!! Let me tell you... It is so strange to go from looking forward to receiving information for nearly 9 months... then suddenly have all of it and now you look forward to actually leaving the country!

So I talked to my host parent about picking me up from the airport and everything! They're all very excited and want to bring the dog! We also talked about taking care of all the legal issues in the first few days I'll be there... my host mom is so on top of everything which it awesome. As of right now... I'm kind of wondering where the summer went. It went by SO FAST... yet at the same time it was so slllooowww. I remember when I had like 80 days left. Anyways..I'm slowly starting to pack (mostly winter things)... and I finally went downtown a few days ago and bought everyone in my host family a gift :)

There isn't a day that goes by I don't think about exchange. I can't believe at the end of the month I will be starting school in Germany. I will have a new home. new room. new dog. new friends. new family.... thats pretty exciting.

A WORD OF ADVICE TO EXCHANGE STUDENTS: BEWARE of CALENDAR STARING- calendar staring gets very addictive. Once you turn you calendar to the month of your departure... you will stare at it... for a very long time- periodically throught the day. and night.

Danke

2009-07-30T16:54:00.003-05:00

As I sit here. In Madison, WI. Hundreds of exchange students from all over the world are either...

A: In a new country
B: On a plane going to a new country.
C: Just about to get on a plane to go to a new country

So the first major wave of exchange students is OFF!!! I'm pretty jealous of course, but I have only 3 weeks until I leave myself. I'm pretty excited! It's really cool to see everyone's status' on facebook like, "last day in USA," or, " on the plane." ... It sucks having to wait :( None the less, this summer is awesome so far! I've had a lot of fun just doing the things American teenagers do...

Now onto why I wrote this post... I wanted to say thank you to the Rotary Club of West Towne- Middleton for donating towards my exchange. I know that a lot of Rotary Clubs don't just hand outbound students money, and I'm really lucky to have you all as sponsors. I can't wait to tell all of you about my exchange when I come back.

Guaranteed

2009-07-22T10:15:00.005-05:00

I know... I know... I've been posting a lot of stuff lately- but tons of stuff has been going on.

I GOT MY GUARANTEE FORMS YESTERDAY!!!

I don't know why I wrote that in caps... guarantee forms are not really that exciting. I don't need a VISA to go to Germany so the guarantee forms are just- forms... that guarantee me. Basically all I have to do is send this 2 papers back to a guy in Germany saying that I've read this long letter about insurance and rules... and I'm good to go!
hahaha I just remembered - The first email I ever received from my correspondent said they would have my Guarantee Forms returned to me by May 15th... oh boy! only 2 months off ;)

Ticketed

2009-07-21T00:01:00.005-05:00

... So that tentative itinerary I wrote about 2 posts back, is now official. Today I faxed over this confirmation sheet and a few hours later- my travel agent sends me an email saying its all set. I also asked if I could get frequent flier miles on my family's account and he said that was a go too!!! I'm happy :D

Also... today I went to the bank and set up a new bank account. Its called a student debit account. Basically, I'll have a debit card, and while abroad I'll be able to withdraw Cash and it will come directly out of my bank account. I'll It took a while for the banker to figure all the details out, but everything is looking good for money-related issues.

Pins-Pins-Pins

2009-07-20T10:52:00.004-05:00

So I've been putting off this whole pin thing FOREVER! I was just going to go to Germany without any... but then I thought that would be kind of lame on my part so I decided to get some! Instead of paying a kajillion dollars for lapel pins me and my mom decided to make some :) We went with those safety pin american flags! They're a little time consuming but its strangely relaxing! Anyways, I just thought I should share... It could be a good pin idea for future outbounds.

... oh and might I mention that I have exactly ONE MONTH until I get on that plane (well actually... those planes) and travel to Germany :) ... As of right this very moment, I'm not in the mindset that I am leaving because one month is a really long time, but I'm guessing that in 2-3 weeks, I'll start getting really excited. Yeah... I'm a little bit jealous because the first wave to fly to Germany leaves on the 31st of July... which is in like 10 days! But I leave in 31 days so I guess I'm fine with that! More summer for me!!!

Itinerary

2009-07-19T13:41:00.012-05:00

So this past weekend at the conference the outbound coordinators (Doug and Sharon Richmond) came up to me and said that I was the last one out of like 30 outbounds to get their Guarantee Forms! This wasn't a huge deal because my host parents have already contacted me and everything, but the only reason why I wanted them was so I could get my itinerary. Well I still don't have my Guarantee Forms... but I DO have my tentative itinerary:) which is AWESOME! I guess my corespondent sent my forms to my travel agent because they sent me an email on the 14th saying all my travel documents were in! WOOO :D I know I've said it a million times, but everything seems so official!!!

DEPART: THURSDAY AUGUST 20TH
ARRIVE: FRIDAY AUGUST 21ST

NORTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT: 1244
LEAVE: CHICAGO/O'HARE 12:05 PM
ARRIVE: DETROIT/METRO 2:30 PM
(235 MILES)

NORTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT: 40
LEAVE: DETROIT/METRO 4:00 PM
ARRIVE: AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS 5:55 AM
(3940 MILES)

NORTHWEST AIRLINES FLIGHT: 8245
LEAVE: AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS 8:20 AM
ARRIVE: BERLIN/TEGEL 9:40 AM
(361 MILES)

For any future outbounds interested in how much open-ended tickets cost, mine was $2,235.28. I don't know about your financial situation, but I come from a family of 5 kids, and two thousand dollars is a lot of money to me! However, the plane ticket is the only BIG payment a rotary exchange student is required to pay... If you are on the boarderline of rotary or another program... I'd really recommend rotary! Other programs cost like $10-$20K! So far, I have only had to pay for 2 conference weekends (<$500) and the travel expenses ($2300). Also, rotarians are so helpful with everything- seriously anything from personal concerns to financial concerns to travel arrangements... there is ALWAYS a rotarian you can call from your area and they will HELP YOU! GO WITH ROTARY :D

Overflow of Emotion

2009-07-13T13:11:00.002-05:00

I know that I experience inspiration daily by simply thinking about exchange, or reading other peoples blogs, or talking to other exchange students. Well I think I have a serious case of inspiration because I'm feeling it so strong right now that I'm going a little crazy. Yesterday I literally cried all day for no particular reason... Actually there was a particular reason but that's another story for another time. I was feeling so many emotions. It was an overflow. I couldn't remember the last time I cried so I was super confused and... just did not know what was going on! It was so weird.

Today I woke up and still felt a little funny. I was still trying to categorize my emotions a little bit, they were all jumbled up! There was a lot of confusion, uncontrollable happiness, sadness, awkwardness, anger, excitement, anxiety, laughter, sleep deprivation, reflection, heart-ache, second-guessing... yeah a lot of stuff. I wrote a little bit but I wasn't feeling any resolve- so I sat down at the piano and went... okay Ben- If you have anything to express, do it now. Now If you don't know, I do play the piano... I taught myself how in the 6th grade, had lessons for a year or two, then stopped, and now its a hobby. I compose music when I have super intense emotions. I haven't had any in a very long time... so as I sat down I wasn't expecting much, boy was I wrong. I started to just play... and everything that I was feeling just came out.. It was perfect. It was sad and confused, but it was so exciting and happy! I couldn't believe I was actually playing something new! I still can't believe it! Last time that happened was 6 months ago when Rotary said I was leaving the country!

So... to be quite honest, I don't really know whats going on. I want to be that exchange students who doesn't worry at all, and who keeps their emotions to themselves, and plays it super chill... haha but instead, here I am, exposing my self-conscious, over-emotional, self to the world. How embarrassing... you must think I'm crazy.

Central States

2009-07-12T14:25:00.003-05:00

So I just got back from the Central States conference at Calvin College in Michigan a few hours ago and I thought I should document a little bit of whats going through my mind right now. I do want to warn you... I am sleep deprived and kind of loopy so beware.

I can't really describe what conference was like... It was so much! Overall I guess it was just a ton of fun! There was always something to do. There was amazing people everywhere. Everyone was super chill and lax and it was just awesome... Except some of the Rotarians- A few of the people in charge were super super strict and they came across to me as really rude. I felt like a little child when they talked to me and I felt as if they gave Rotary a bad name.

I met so many people from all over the world and they were a huge motivation! Its crazy to think that a few of the people are leaving in a matter of days! I can't believe we're actually DONE with sitting through speeches... We finally get to just experience for ourselves.

One downside I guess is that this conference brought us all close together... but then it just rips everyone apart! We meet all these amazing people and bond and its awesome... but when we leave... it's just like not a good feeling! I feel kind of hollow... and sinky-feeling. I guess it's worth it!!!

So this post isn't coherent what-so-ever... but I guess I'll leave all of you with important things to know about central states! OH I FORGOT- I did the talent show! It was fun... I opened with my composition on the piano.

What to know about central states:
- The smokers area is ALWAYS full!!!
- Don't eat the eggs.
- If you join the talent show you will be confined to a greenroom and miss 4-6 hours of meetings and free-time.
- Its over before you know it.

My Inspirations

2009-06-25T14:25:00.008-05:00

I know that I just wrote a few days ago, but I feel like this post is really important!!! I just got back from a small going away get-together for Ane Rødstøl... an AMAZING exchange student from Norway who spent the year here in Madison, WI attending James Madison Memorial High School. I met Ane a few times in the earlier part of the schoolyear through my sister, but I really got to know her in the winter time in JMM's production of The Sound of Music. The more I got to know Ane, the more I got interested in foreign exchange... she was so involved, had so many friends, was genuinely nice and funny, got straight A's, and had a remarkable relationship with her host family!!! In a nut-shell... Ane was the PERFECT exchange student!

It seems so weird to me that Ane is leaving the states in a few hours!!! She seems like she is a part of the community here. I mean, I don't even really KNOW her THAT well, but whenever I was around her I always was happy and comfortable. Ane is a huge inspiration to me. I hope that I can be an exchange student like her next year! I hope I can be as involved as she was, I hope I can make as many friends as she did, and I hope I will leave an impact on the people I will come into contact with.

Because I'm talking about my inspirations I might as well move down the list. My next inspiration is kind of unique... It is a person... but I've never met her before! I've mentioned this person before, but I might as well mention her again because believe it or not, this person who I've never met before, has motivated me, has been an excellent role-model, and has kept me sane throughout the school-year. Any guesses??? haha... none other than the outbound to Slovakia 08-09, Allison Cramer! I first came into contact with Allison right when I started my pre- exchange adventure in mid-december. I was sifting through the tumult of incomplete blogs when I came across a blog entitled, "Becoming Slovak!" Now Allison's blog isn't just ANY blog... it is a NOVEL! It is everything and anything an outbound would want! It has EVERYTHING in it! I spent hours reading and re-reading about her adventure in Slovakia... everything from when she was crossing her fingers to go to Poland for her exchange, to when she stepped off the plane in Slovakia, to when she went sight-seeing around Nitra with her first host family, to when she was struggling to make it through the exchange in the winter, and all the way to her trips to Prague and the U.K at the end of the exchange.! Allison is leaving Slovakia in a matter of days... and I really appreciate all that she has directly and indirectly has done for me! "Becoming Slovak" inspires me to try everything and anything next year, to persevere through tough times, and to really help others the way she helped me. THANKS ALLISON!

I know that I have many more inspirations for going on exchange, and I might even acquire a few more before I leave, but after experiencing the "goodbye" to Ane, I felt like sharing a little... This exchange-deal is so complicated. There are so new opportunities... so many new friends, new relationships, new experiences! But there are also so many goodbyes, so many tears, so much emotion! It's like an adventure... kind of like a movie!!! I just hope it ends well...

Emotions

2009-06-22T16:42:00.008-05:00

Summer is in full swing! It has been absolutely amazing so far. I'm trying to just live in the moment and enjoy all the people, places, smells, noises, food, and all the other things that are normal to me here in Madison. I know that on several occasions next year I'm going to miss this place (as crazy as it sounds) so I'm really really trying to make this summer the best summer EVER! haha... that goes without saying- AHHH LESS THAN 2 MONTHS!!! I"M LEAVING IN 59 DAYS! (yes I do have a countdown) Its so FAR AWAY... but close in a way!!! It's so hard to wait like this! I've only been on summer break for ONE week. Just ONE! So much has happened in this week! Its crazy! I feel like I've been on summer break forever. It seems like Berlin is just a dream.. and this whole exchange thing will always be this date far, far away and I'm never going to say goodbye to my friends, I'm never going to board that plane, I'm never going to go to a different school, and never going to learn a new language... it all seems too good to be true.

I mean lets face it...

-I registered 2 months later than the deadline
-I never had to worry about being "accepted"
-I was given a country in my top 5
-I found out my district super early!
-I'm going to a world class CITY!
-My host family seems awesome
-I'm going to top-notch school

... and the list goes on! It seems like all these amazing things are happening to me... and like I said.. it seems way to good to be true. Doesn't it seem too good to be true???

I've never felt this way before! It seems like... in 56 days I am doing something with my life. I'm not doing what normal teenagers do. I'm actually DOING something. I'm moving away from everything that I have- and going somewhere where I have nothing! I'm starting OVER! As geeky as it sounds... I'm going on an adventure. But to tell you the truth- I'm getting really nervous that something's going to happen that is going to stop me from going there. I know it sounds stupid but seriously- I'm nervous that I'm going to break a bone or something and not be able to go. I'm also really really really nervous about flying. Before you all start laughing HEAR ME OUT! I have flown on a decent number of flights! I've been to California a couple times, and I've been to Central America three times. So that's a lot for me. Basically around 10-15 times that I've taken off and landed. Every single time that I fly... my fear of flying gets worse and worse! I HATE FLYING! Plane crashes are my number #1 fear! I know the statistics... I know that its the safest way to travel... but it is my worst nightmare- Literally!

Last night I had a dream I was flying to Germany and I was up in the air... I was finally feeling a little safe- then BAM! the plane started to veer off to the left! And everything started to shake! I tried to bend over in the fetal position but my seatbelt was off for some reason... and I tried to stay in my seat but the plane was shaking so hard. And then next thing I knew I looked up and a huge piece of the plane's ceiling ripped off and I started getting sucked up and I was banging into all the chairs and over-head bins... and everyone was screaming... and I hit my head and everything went black! I'm pretty sure I died! But then... I woke up and thought it really happened and that I was a survivor or something, then I thought I was in heaven, then I realized it was a dream and just sighed a HUGE sigh of relief. Pheww. It was one of the scariest and most vivid dreams I've ever had!

Well this is basically the stage that I'm at right now! My departure date is drawing closer and closer (Some people are leaving as early as mid-July)! I'm definitely looking forward for July 9th- that's when the Grand Rapids conference is taking place at Calvin College. Its going to be SO COOL! There are going to be Inbounds, Outbounds, Rebounds! The whole SHA-BANG! Thats coming up pretty soon!!! I'm hoping that by that time I'll have my guarantee forms back- I need them so that I can send them to my travel agent and recieve my flight itinerary. Other than that... I'm pretty much set! I'm ready... or am I?

Goodbye Memorial

2009-06-11T16:01:00.033-05:00

As of 11:45AM this morning, I am officially done with my sophomore year at James Madison Memorial. No more dripping ceilings, no more saggy dividers, no more paper thin walls, no more fights at lunch, and no more security guards!!! I am done... for the time being :/ Though I feel great because school's out... There was an unfortunate event that happened two nights ago that made the end of school a bit bittersweet. A kid in my grade was shot and killed in a drive-by, and the one of the people under arrest for taking part in the murder goes to my school TOO! That was not very encouraging to hear over the loud speaker:/ Why do things like that happen?

Well... There really isn't any more to say- Next time I'll be taking classes is at Canisius-Kolleg! ah! Oh... also- I've been getting a ton of emails from my host mom recently!!! They are all in German... which is good because I need to learn it:) I can't tell you how happy I am when I get emails from her. She just tells me about their weekends and what they're up to...it's nice!

Out with the OLD - In with the NEW!

2009-06-05T16:12:00.006-05:00

My host parents mentioned in some of their emails that they have been trying for the past couple of weeks to find a good school for me. Why my host parents are looking for a school, and not my host club, I do not know, but that is besides the point. For all of you who don't know, certain schools in Berlin don't accept exchange students, and so my parents thought it would be a good idea to do a true exchange and see if I could actually switch places with their daughter (who is going to Equador next year), and take her place at her school. I just got an email from my host parents yesterday afternoon saying that they have been in contact with the headmaster guy at this school for a while now and he has agreed to accept me into the school- Canisius Kolleg. They sent me this 3-page pdf file (why I say pdf is because I couldn't copy it and translate it online, I had to get it translated by a friend at school) and it was the contract of the school.

Oh yeah... did I forget to mention that it is a PRIVATE CATHOLIC SCHOOL! SUPRISE! I go to a very public school in the states! It is very diverse, semi-violent, and I don't know- typical public school. I must say that I am a little bit nervous for this transition! This school looks pretty intense. It only has 850 students, its a prep-school, and its considered one of the best schools in Berlin. Not intimidating at all. I would've been perfectly happy with a normal public school. I'm really thankful to have host parents who go so far out of their way to ensure that I recieve an education that they want their children to get. That really tells you something- ey? But even though I'm a little nervous, I must realize that this experience, whether it's going to be good or bad, is all of what exchange is all about.

Onto a more somber note- I just realized that I need to start saying goodbye to people I won't be seeing over the Summer. We have one week left of finals... and I only have to come to school on monday/wednesday/thursday. I guess its not THAT sad, because they aren't my best friends, but I mean, the juniors and seniors aquaintances I have, I may not ever see again. Thats super weird to me.

Okay, so my host parents say that my guarantee forms will be coming soon. They're starting to write their messages in German... which is good. Once I get my forms I can send them to my travel agent and get a full itinerary.

... did I ever mention that right now I feel like the luckiest guy alive. I'm still in disbelief that this whole exchange this isn' t just a dream :)

Departure Date

2009-05-31T19:46:00.011-05:00

I just got an email from the "It's your world" travel agency and my travel agent, Ed Piekarczyk. Basically I have to fill out a registration form with my payment information and other random info (I'm a a pro at applications after having to do Rotary's application), enclosed was also a packet with a bunch of information regarding traveling. Maybe I'm just weird, but I thought the information was interesting.I love how I don't have to get a VISA! Germany is so organized :) I LOVE IT!

Okay... now for the exciting news. I know I don't have my itinerary, but I found out my official departure date. it is... drumrolll please....

AUGUST 20TH!!!!

I'm really happy with this departure date because its sooner than I expected. (I was expecting 23rd or 24th) . What a fantastic way to end May :) This feels so official... It's weird.

Enough Said

2009-05-26T16:12:00.006-05:00

Need I say anymore? haha... That's a picture of me up in Door County, WI. I went up with a bunch of friends for Memorial Day weekend. Its crazy that there's only 2 weeks left of school! After those two weeks... I will be stress-free, and I won't have to come back to Memorial for A WHOLE YEAR! I seriously... can not wait for school to end. Once it finishes... I only have a summer in the way of me and Berlin. I'm ready to get this ball rolling!!!

I've been in pretty good contact with my host family so far. I've mostly been talking to their daughter who is exchanging to Ecuador. I think the family found me school after some searching, and It should be interesting to see where I end up! I'm not really sure what to wait for next... hmmm... Rotary conference in July???

This is HUGE!

2009-05-19T21:51:00.006-05:00

Okay. I think I can breath now.
Now that the initial shock of finding out my city has sunk in, I'm going NUTS!
I always told myself... I never could get Berlin... no one ever gets Berlin. BUT I DID GET BERLIN! believe it or not... crazy! I'm so excited to be able to say that I've lived in Berlin... of all places. I'm so excited I didn't get stuck in a little hick-town. All I'm going to say is that this... next year is going to be HUGE!

I'm also realizing that I'm DONE with the main exchanger- information. I have my country. I have my city. I have my first host country! It feels so weird. I always would imagine what it would feel like, and now I'm feeling it! I have a dot on a map- A place I'm going to LIVE!

Berlin

2009-05-19T17:14:00.013-05:00

SERIOUSLY... FIGURES!

Tue, May 19, 2009 at 2:31 PM
Dear Benjamin - welcome in Berlin,
dear Mr. and Mrs. Mau,

we are happy to welcome you in our family in Berlin, the capital of Germany.we, that are Ralph (50), Christiane (47), Maximilian (17), Sabrina (15) and Constantin (12) Meyfarth and our dog Baxter a 5-year-old Labrador retriever. Sabrina will leave on August 22, 2009 to Ecquador for her Rotary exchange visit. Hopefully you will fly in before, so that you can meet each other. We live in a house with a small garden in the south of berlin.

Address: Mohriner Allee 68e
12347 Berlin
Germany

Please tell us about your German expirience, that we can find the right school for you. In our house you will have your own room and there is also a piano, waiting that somebody is playing on it. Ralph is busy working as the CEO of lesswire AG. Christiane stays at home taking care of the children and the dog. All Children go to different schools. Sabrina and Constantin go to different catholic private schools in Berlin. Maximilian goes to an economic school.

Enclosed you will find a family picture.

We all are very excited and looking foreward to see you soon. We hope you will have a great time in Berlin.

Best whishes to the whole familly - we can't wait to see you here.

Take care,

Christiane and Ralph and the whole familly

I really can't believe that i found out my host family.
I really can't believe I found out the day after I posted such a downer-post.
I really can' believe I'm going to BERLIN!!!

... I think my body is in shock right now! I don't understand how one day I was so clueless... and when I least expected it...BAM!!! Maybe when my mind is a little bit more straight I'll post another one up... wow. my mind is blown at how ironic this is.

Dragging On

2009-05-18T20:17:00.003-05:00

I've gotten to the point...
where I really don't care anymore...
okay
I take that back.
I do care........ (mental fighting)

but... I mean- I've used up so much energy being excited about going to Germany, that I'm kind of spent! I haven't received the least bit of information in months. I used to be excited everyday to check my email... but now I've gotten into such a routine of NOT getting any info, that I've lost the whole excitement of actually finding out my city/family. I know it will happen. I won't be city/family -less forever, but my mind is not on Germany at the moment (*gasp)

Hopefully... this attitude will change soon

*blah*

Obsessed

2009-05-06T21:27:00.003-05:00

Just putting it out there... I think I'm 100% obsessed with checking my email!I feel like a complete looser because every single day I check my email MULTIPLE TIMES!!! sometimes I'll check it in 10 minute intervals... hoping that a message from my host family will come!!! I hope I'm not the only one out there, because seriously... this is so lame! I hate checking my email sooo often, but I'm dying to know where I'll be living!!! Do you know what... I'm going to cut it back! I'll just check it after school every day... THATS IT! My information will come, even though it may take a while, I know that it will come!

----Breeeaaaathhh----

May Conference

2009-05-03T11:55:00.002-05:00

There arn't really any words as to how I can explain this conference I went to this weekend in Wisconsin Rapids, WI. I guess this is the first time I've ever been around other exchange students, and it was the first time I experienced the unexplainable, indescribable feeling of understanding and friendship between foreign exchange students. I literally got out of the car an hour or so ago, and the feeling is still fresh... Its kinda a mixture of excitement, and sadness. Anyways, despite the fact that we had to sit through some REALLY boring speeches, and attend some awkward dinners (with Rotarians), it was totally worth it because I met a ton of super cool people from all around the world! We laughed, we chilled, we talked, and we were bored together during the long talks! In all ways, this experience has gotten me incredibly excited for whats to come. If one weekend with exchange students from around this world is this much fun... I can't even imagine what a whole year will be! I'm also a little scared because I already miss the people I befriended, and I met them 3 days ago. If I miss exchangers who I met a few days ago... what in the world will be the emotions that I will feel when I leave all my future friends in Germany?

I think its kinda funny because I had to miss the whole morning and afternoon of Saturday to go to a speech compitition for the Optomist Oritorical Contest, and I was super hesitant, and not looking forward to going! I had to wake up before 6 am, get dressed in a suit, drive down an hour or so to Kalihari, and perform two rounds of speeches. I wasn't very confident with my speech, but strangely I won, and recieved a $1500 scholarship, which really made my week a good one! Everything about this weekend was so incredibly cool! All I gotta say to future outbound students, is that LOOK forward to this weekend! If your like me, there are only 2 conferences with exchange students until you leave, so have fun during them, don't let awkward get in the way, and just reach out! If you have any conflicts, try as best as you can to get out of them, because these weekends are not to miss! You'll regret it!

Talent Show Rehearsal

2009-04-26T16:42:00.003-05:00

Today was the first day that I met inbounds, and other outbounds in my district (6250). We went to the conference talent show rehearsal, and I met around 10 or so people... which is pretty cool because I've never met or seen barely ANY other exchangers. It was really cool to talk to the people from Germany, they spoke some French so ironically we held most of our conversations in French. (which was awesome) I also tried speaking to them in German, which was really fun, and I think I asked them about a thousand times how to say certain this "auf Deutsch."

Other than that, I met some really cool outbounds who are going to really cool places, and all have amazing stories. I feel as if we all can connect on a whole new level that most people, who arn't exchangers, can't. I think the coolest part is the ease it is to meet new people. Seriously, it was "awkward" for less than a minute, and we left the rehearsal, arms wrapped around eachother, singing loudly to a song that none of us had ever heard! This small experience has gotten me very excited for the conference on Friday... I don't know what to expect... but I'm sure it will be very amazing.

MALINA!

2009-04-24T22:30:00.004-05:00

MALINA GOT THE BIG NEWS TODAY!!!
For all of you who don't know, I have a really good friend named Malina, and next year she's going abroad to SPAIN with Rotary. Just yesterday afternoon, she received an email from her host-sister in Spain, who explained how they got her papers the day before and were very excited to get to know her! Unfortunately, the excited host sister forgot to mention where she lived, which left Malina in HUGE anxious BUNDLE ALL OF TODAY (While she was waiting for her host sister to respond) Around 8 or so, I got the call from Malina, " I... Know... I KNOW... my... CITY! I was SO excited for her! She will be living in Denia, Alicante... Which is RIGHT on the Mediterranean coast south of Valencia. I'm so incredibly happy for her... seriously it is gorgeous, the PERFECT spot for an exchange! I thought I'd share the amazing news!

The Weekend of Speeches

2009-04-20T20:23:00.004-05:00

So as I said before, this weekend I attended 3 different speech competitions, one for forensics, one for Rotary, and one for the Optimist Oratorical club. In all, I performed in 7 different rounds, and talked for more than an hour! The first competition was the Forensics State competition and it went extremely well! My school, Memorial, won state by 47 points, and I ended up taking 2nd place in Special Occasion Speaking. (As you can see... I am SUPER tired)

The next Day I drove up to Wisconsin Rapids where I attended my very first Rotary-sponsored activity- The Rotary Speech competition on "making dreams real." Unfortunately, I must have mis-interpreted the speech I was supposed to write, because I didn't place. For some weird reason, I got the impression that the speech was supposed to be about making dreams real on a global scale, and in general. I wrote one paragraph about myself, but I didn't want to say that much about me because I was afraid I would be bragging. Boy was I wrong! The two guys that won were talented, none-the-less, but the majority of their speech was about themselves... hmmm, it was a good experience none-the-less.

Besides not doing well at the Rotary Speech, I met my very first inbound Rotary Student. He's this guy from Germany, and we got to talking, and I learned a lot about life there. He lives in 1810 (on boarder of France) and I'm just excited now about going. I also got my first two pins for my blazer! Oh, and speaking of foreign exchange, like EVERYONE is finding out where they're going in Germany! I'm getting a little nervous... I'm a little scared because once I find out, I'll KNOW where I'm going! And that will be like, the PLACE where I'm going. It's super nerve-racking. Oh, and by the way This month has gone by SO fast! The Rotary Conference is in 2 weeks, and I've been studying Germany for nearly 100 days.

Well, the last speech contest was the Optimist Oratorical Speech Contest, and I got back from it a few hours ago. I moved onto the final round, which is at a resort up north, but I don't think I can go because I'll be at the Rotary Conference, so I think I'll be throwing away my chances at a $1500 scholarship, for a day at the conference... bummmmer :(

Well, my next post will be when I have more Rotary News. I'm so busy right now its absolutely CRAZY! I have no idea when or what it will be about... It may be in 2 weeks when I have the conference, or it may be when I find out Host families... this month is a month of crazy information!