From Deutschkurs to Gymnasium (Part One)

Last Friday, my fellow exchange students and I completed our three weeks of Deutschkurs. We celebrated our final day by having a breakfast comprised of food brought in by each student and out teacher. There were many delicious treats to be had; the typical Brötchen and Nutella was accompanied by some traditional breakfast foods from Venezuela and Turkey, that Adriana and Hazal had so generously prepared for us. I was supposed to bring sausage from out butchery but I left it sitting on our kitchen table. Oops.
But before we could enjoy our smorgasbord, we had to take a final test to see how much we'd learned. The test didn't go as badly as I thought it might, and it wasn't nearly as terrible as the test we took on the first day of Deutschkurs. In the end, I managed to pull a 85%. I'd say that's a solid B. But when you consider the whole rest of the German language that I've yet to learn, I still have a long way to go.

A polaroid taken of our class

After class, the festivities continued. We went to lunch at a restaurant called Dach Cafe (it means Roof Cafe, a fitting name considering that it's at the top of a very tall building). After lunch, some left, while others spent the evening exploring Gießen. Highlights include: everyone buying a kilo of gummy bears at a gummy bear store, sitting on a bench in the middle of the Marktplatz teaching each other to swear in one another's native tongue, and going to see a movie (in English!) with Adriana. By the time Taisy, Hazal, and I caught the bus back to Wetzlar we were "fix und fertig."

I couldn't have asked for an easier first week of school. On Monday I was supposed to have English and biology, but the English teacher couldn't make it that day. In bio, despite the fact that I didn't understand what the teacher was saying, I already knew the content of the topic (cellular respiration) because we covered it last year in my American bio class. Tuesday was the only hard day. I had four classes: math, sports, German, and IB history. And when I say that the day was "hard" I just mean "long." Math was a similar situation to bio; I understood the topic, but not what the teacher was saying. 

I didn't really participate in sports (it was a theory class) or German, but history was nice because it's taught in English. Wednesday was great because I had English (afterwards I went home while my host sister took an ethics test). In English, the teacher was excited to have me there because I'm a native speaker. We read an article about the US government shutdown and then they wanted to hear my opinion on the issue, which was nerve-wracking because I felt like they knew more than I did. On Thursday there was no school because it was Tag der Deutschen Einheit. And on Friday, I once again, had only one class which was math (I was supposed to have sports but that got cancelled). This week I just followed my host sister to her classes. Soon I should meet with the person in charge of scheduling for a time-table of my own.

Since I don't speak much German, I haven't been able to socialize with other students much at school. Which is why I am thankful to anyone who has helped me or had a conversation with me this week. So, shout out to the girl who sits next to me in math class and always speaks to me in very clear, slow German, the girl who sits next to me in English who invited me to check out her Spanish class, the girl who offered to help me find the right bus after school because she takes the same one, the girl who went classroom to classroom with me on Friday to help me find my math class, and to the group of people who invited me to sit with them at a party on Friday after I'd spent most of the night being depressed because I didn't understand what anyone was saying. I don't know if those people even realize the impact they've had on my first week of school. It's hard being in a new place and speaking a new language, which is why I urge everyone out there who knows an exchange, to talk to them, to help them, or invite them to do something. Even the smallest of gestures can brighten an exchange student's day.