Late Orientation Camp

This past weekend I was at the AFS Late Orientation Camp. Sixteen exchange students from the area were there and the camp was lead by AFS returnees. I had such a blast! It is my personal opinion that exchange students are the coolest people in the world, so getting to spend a whole weekend with other exchange students was such a treat.
On Friday afternoon after Deutschkurs, Hazal, Taisy, Adriana, and I took the bus from Gießen to Grünsberg where the camp was held. The cabins we stayed in were adorable; they were bright yellow and in the shape of triangles. All of the girls slept in one and all of the boys slept in the other. Since Hazal, Taisy, Adriana, and I were the first to arrive, we were able to snag the loft beds inside the cabin.

Chile, Czech Republic, Honduras, Hong Kong, Poland, Thailand, Turkey, the United States, and Venezuela were represented at the camp.

Activities at the camp consisted of games, (lots and lots) of energizers, and some discussions about our experiences in Germany so far. During our free time we'd hangout outside, play fußball, listen to music, and dance (the Latinas tried to teach us to Salsa with little to no success).  Our favorite game to play was "ninja." We played this a lot, which was good because everyone always enjoyed it, except for the time that I accidentally slap Ben in the face (oops).

Saturday consisted of a few special activities. The first was a challenge where we were split into four groups and each group given an apple and a raw egg. We were then shuttled into town with the task of cooking the egg and exchanging the apple for something better in two hours or less. The challenge was based on a German expression, "Für einen Apfel und ein Ei" which literally translates to "For an apple and an egg" but is meant to say that something cost almost nothing. The task was meant to test our German skills because we'd have to interact with the locals and explain our situation. Thankfully, I was put in a group with a boy that spoke German very well, his name is Darren and he's also from the US. Also in my group, was Begüm from Turkey and Sofia from Chile. 

The first thing we did was cook the egg. We introduced ourselves to a lady we saw carrying her groceries from her car to her apartment, and offered to help her if she'd allow us to boil our egg. She said yes, which lead to the four of us plus her and her two children all standing in her small kitchen for ten awkward minutes while the egg boiled. We spoke a little bit of German to her but it was mostly quiet. Thankfully, her six-month-old baby would giggle occasionally and break the silence. 

After the egg had finished cooking, we thanked the woman and set out to find someone who'd trade us something for the apple. This was difficult because no one usually came to the door when we rang the bell, so we had to find people who were already outside of their house. The first lady we found was working in her garden; she traded us for a liter of apple-plum juice (fun fact: she had a cat named Amy Winehouse). We then found a lady at a museum who brought us to a nearby house where another lady traded us a bottle of wine for our bottle of juice. 

For a while we were debating whether we should keep the wine or trade for something different. We were exploring the town when we happened upon a movie rental store inside we saw giant movie posters like you'd see in a movie theatre. We thought that if we could get one that it'd be a unique thing to bring back to the camp. The man in the store agreed to trade a two-meter-tall stand-up cardboard movie poster and a few smaller posters for the bottle of wine. And with that our time was up and we went back to camp to compare our treasures with the other groups. We didn't end up winning the contest, but it was still fun. 

Darren and I with our first trade: a bottle of apple-plum juice.

The whole group with the bottle of wine.

These are our movie posters. Behind us is our giant cardboard stand-up. I got to keep the posters of The Lucky One and The Great Gatsby (not pictured).

 That evening we had a cookout with brats and steak. Being the outdoorsy Vermonter that I am, I of course volunteered to help build the fire.

Yum!

After dinner we went inside to have a talent show. We had been warned about this before the camp and told to prepare a talent to share. Still, many of us neglected to prepare for this, myself included. I couldn't think of a talent that I could perform. Minutes before we started I discovered my talent; I can name all fifty states in less than 30 seconds. It's lame I know, but my peers seemed pretty impressed. Performances ranged from solving a Rubric's cube to playing instruments, from dancing to the worst magic show I've ever seen. 

Eventually, the talent show somehow turned into a dance party. The dances we did came from all over the world; we danced the Macarena, a Turkish wedding dance, and of course Gangnam Style. Being an American, I taught everyone to dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe.
At Midnight we celebrated the birthday of Carlos from Honduras. There was cake and everybody sang  happy birthday to him in their native language (that took awhile).
The night didn't end until roughly 2:30am when we were all incredibly tired, or "fix und fertig" as they'd say in German.
Unfortunately, Sunday was our last day. After lunch everyone started leaving. Taisy, Hazal, and I took the train back to Wetzlar where I returned to my host family completely worn out. Even though I would have loved to stay longer, when my host family asked me if I was glad to be home I honestly replied that the camp was fun but I couldn't be their forever because we didn't sleep enough.

The First Week

I've been in Germany for about a week now. Last Friday, myself and 76 other American exchange students took of from DC and we landed in Frankfurt early Saturday morning. That was such a crazy "day" for me, as it started at 7:30am Friday morning and I didn't go to bed again until 1am Sunday morning. Our Flight lasted eight hours. I met my host mom and sister (Nina) at the airport and we drove to my new home in Wetzlar.

Needless to say, I don't look so good after being on a plane for eight hours,
but this is the first photo of me and my host family.

I remember being so tired that I felt like a zombie. Despite that, Nina and I seemed to have hit it off. At the time, I wanted nothing more than to sleep forever, but then Nina told me about a party that she and I had been invited to that evening. Not wanting to miss my first German party, I decide to suck it up and go. I was already teetering from lack of sleep, might as well add alcohol to the situation, right?
That night, I was introduced to a ton of people, but I can't remember any of their names and I didn't understand any of the conversations because everything was in German. Luckily, the people were nice to me and I had a good time. Also, I learned a few new words in German by playing drinking games.

On Monday I started my German lessons. The classes are Monday-Friday 9am-1pm. There are four Americans in the class (me and three boys) and also a girl from Hong Kong, a girl from Turkey, a girl from Venezuela, and a girl from Argentina. Everyday I ride the bus from Wetzlar to Geißen with Taisy (from Hong Kong) and Hazal (from Turkey). It was a shock on the first day to find out the classes are mostly taught in German. I'm really struggling; learning a language from immersion is extremely difficult. I have two more weeks of these lessons. I hope that something magical happens and I'm suddenly able to speak German because right now things are going very slowly. A couple times people who are unaware that I don't speak German have said something to me and I'll just stare at them wide-eyed and be like "Uhhh... umm... keine Deutsch."

On Wednesday my host family took me to see a hand ball game in Mannheim. It was wicked awesome.  Before we went to the arena we spent sometime shopping in the city of Mannheim. We had VIP tickets which basically meant that we had pretty good seats and before the game we got to hang out in this room with free food and such. Prior to the game I had one of the other exchange students explain the rules of handball to me so I pretty much understood what was happening the whole time. I encourage everyone to checkout handball because it's a fun sport. The team we were rooting for were "die Löwen" or the Lions, and they won! Whoo hoo! It was a really fun evening and a great way to spend time with my host family.

All in all, things have been pretty great. My host family is fantastic. They are so nice and friendly and eager to teach me German. I love the flat that Nina and I share, it's above their butchery and connected to the family's home. I like living in a city; I was nervous riding the bus alone for the first time but now I really enjoy it. I think that this is going to be a great year. Now, if I could only speak German...

Tomorrow's the Day (How an Exchange Student Feels the Night Before Take-Off)

I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm waking up at 3am to be at the airport by 4:30am for my flight at 6am. Up until now, the fact that I'm leaving for ten months hasn't really registered. It's all starting to sink in now.
It's hard to describe what it feels like to say goodbye to everyone and everything. It's not that I'm afraid of missing out on things or being forgotten, I'm just afraid of how things may change while I'm gone. I'm not afraid of not talking with my friends and family (with things like Facebook and Skype, it'll be easy to stay in touch), but I am going to miss simply being near them and chatting about whatever. I'm incredibly excited and happy to get to Germany and meet my host family, but I'm sad about leaving Vermont and my natural family. I can't wait to start learning German and about the German culture but I'm not sure if I'm ready for so much information at once. I have a feeling that my host sister and I will be really great friends, but then again I'm a bit apprehensive because I know that not all exchange student-host relationships work out.
I really think that someone should invent a word for the emotion that people feel before they go abroad for a long time. The closest (simple) description I can think of is excitement mixed with the fear of saying goodbye.
There is one thing I'm certain of however, and that is that it has been my dream for years to be an exchange student and I am determined as hell to make this a good year.

I'm all packed and ready for my new life!

The Host Family

Ummm... so can we talk about the fact that I'll be heading off to DC in two days to embark on the adventure of a lifetime?! Actually, we're going to be talking about something else: my host family!
This year I'll be living in a city called Wetzlar in the state of Hesse. Wetzlar has a population of over 50,000 (quite a difference from the small Vermont town I live in with less than 5,000 people). The closet big city to us is Frankfurt; it's about 45min away. I've done a bit of searching via Google Maps and Wikipedia, and my conclusion is that Wetzlar looks like an absolutely gorgeous place to live.

I have two host sisters, (Nina is 17 and Sarah is 20), a host mother, a host father, and a host dog. They seem like a fantastic group of people. My host parents own a butchery. All that fresh and readily available meat might cause me to gain the classic exchange student weight. Thankfully, my host family is also very active, so that should help prevent too much weight gain. I've skyped with Nina a few times now and I chat with her often on Facebook. She's fluent in English because she was an exchange student in the US two years ago. We seem to have hit it off so far, but I can't wait to meet her and the rest of my family in person. I think we'll be a pretty good match.