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

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).

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!

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

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!

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.

Another random video about life in Germany.