Middle October

Hey guys!

It has been a while since I posted, so here is an update!

After the Sprachkurs I came home for a few days, went to Koblenz once shopping with a friend, and then I went on vacation with my host family! A hiking vacation. It was surprisingly amazing! The only thing is, if you know me, I am a bit of a scaredy cat. Being so tall, it is a long way to ground. When I fall, I fall hard. (hence the cautiousness). But I didn't even think about falling until I had to make my way DOWN the mountain. It was a little precarious, but I finally made down and I only fell twice. :) I loved how relaxed the vacation was. We would get up, eat a HUGE breakfast with a lot of Brötchen and Nutella, hike for the morning, and then stay at home, read, or play UNO until dinner. :) It was just what I needed. It was so fun to be there with my host sister, too. She is so awesome and nice! I am waiting for her to get sick of me or get fed up with my lack of German skills. German learning is going along alright. I am getting pretty good at understanding normal conversation, but a downfall from that is that I have stopped the intense studying every night. Just because I can understand more doesn't mean I should stop learning! Or, at least, that is what I have been telling myself. I am working on it. Here are some photos from vacation:
(By the way, I probably took 200 photos of cows. Not kidding.)

Oh yeah. If you are wondering why I am at home right now, it is because I don't have classes at the moment! I usually have a German Language course every Thursday, but because I don't today I have 5 'hours' free! It is fabulous. I went to school for the first two hours and then walked back up the 'mountain' to my house! This morning was a bit frustrating, however. I pulled a 'Beth'. Considering that is my name, it should be more common, but thankfully it isn't. However, it finally happened. I woke up a little later today and was still very tired. I got my stuff together, ate breakfast and went out the door. I was half asleep on the bus and then all of a sudden we were at the school! I rushed out of the bus and into the school. I looked down and saw that my hands were empty and realized I left my stuff on the bus. Typical Beth move. I was so worried I ran into 5 people chasing after the bus, but of course it didn't stop. Haha. I went to class, borrowed some paper from a friend and sulked for the two hours of class. I called my host mother to let her know and I felt awful. After my two hours of class I walked back home, went up to my room, and to find what? My school stuff. I was so out of it I just neglected to even take my school stuff with me today. HA! Well, there you have it. A day in the life of Beth. Hopefully I don't do that again. :)

Since I have a little bit of time, here are some Germanisms:

Copy money: I don't believe I have said this before, but sorry if I have. Here, you have to pay money for the paper copies you get. I haven't had to do this always, but I have walked into a couple classes and the teacher has said, "Two Euros for copies, everyone." The first time shocked me, but now I see the reasoning.

Chalkboards: They are everywhere. No whiteboards here! And they don't have 'normal' chalkboard erasers. They always wet the board with a sponge and continue to write on it!

Voice pitch: Just a weird observation, but everyone sounds different when they speak English here. In my English class everyones voice becomes noticably higher pitched when they speak English. Just a thing.

Ring finger: here a ring goes on the ring finger of your right hand when you get married. It was a little awkward when my host mom noticed the ring I always have on my right hand ring finger. I have since switched it to the left.

Okay! That is all for today. :) Have a good day!

Beth.

St. Goarshausen

Some old photos of the fireworks in the town right next to mine. :)

Sprachkurs!

Hello all!

I know, I know, it has been a long time, but I have been busy, I promise!!

I have been at a language camp for the past one and a half weeks! And it has been quite fun. The language camp is organized by Rotary to help the exchange students with there german. Because the camp is two weeks long, I miss one week of school to be here. (The other week is part of my fall vacation.)

Here is the layout of a day at the camp. We get up around 6:40..... Then we get up a second time at 7:000 (I am not a morning person) we get ready to go, and then we go downstairs in the hostel and have breakfast. Then we take a bus to the train station. Then a train to a neighboring town: Gemersheim. We then walk 15 to a university.on the first day we were bombarded with questions in German, and our reactions placed us in our respective classes. We have three different level classes.

When we arrive at the camp sego straight to our classes and learn from 9:30 to 11:00. We have a fifteen minute break and then continue until lunch, at 12:45. We eat lunch for forty five minutes and then go to homework time until four or so.

It is a long day.

After classes there are sometimes events planned. For instance, yesterday we went on a tour of the town Speyer, and we received a tour of the Dom in Speyer. It was interesting. Other days we go to museums, or karaoke, and today I think we are going to another museum! It is pretty fun.

The people here are awesome. It is all other exchange students from the area. The thing about exchange students is that there is no awkward getting to know you stage. You are just automatically close. Notice, I don't necessarily say friends. But there is no awkward official questions to ask. :)

I really do like everyone here but I mostly hang out with a girl from the US and a girl from Finland. They are great! It is fun to teach the Finnish girl American slang. :) and to learn about Finland.

By the way, everyone here speaks Spanish and Portuguese. At the language camp that is. And I really want to learn Spanish. So if anyone wants to give me lessons... Haha. :)

But right now I am working on my German. And it is going alright. I really wish I could be learning faster, but It is hard to balance hanging out with people, talking to people back home, and studying German. But I think it will balance out in time. In a way, I think my german has gone backwards from when I got to German camp because we speak so much English here!! Everyone is always speaking English or Spanish or Portuguese and I only understand the English, so of course I speak that. I think I have spoken more English here than I have the past month in German. But I guess I have all year to speak English!:)


I hope that is a good enough update for now. (I am typing on my iPad so please excuse spelling mistakes. :D)

Tschüss!

Get Ready for a Long Post...

Hello all!

All is good here. Live is going on, as normal. I have some more observations for you, however! :D

1) DRIVERS. Drivers here are crazy. Nothing like Minnesota. They drive on either side of the road and as fast as they please. Most cars (as I have observed) are stick shifts. But, that being said, I haven't seen any car crashes or wreck cars. So, good for the Germans.

2) Classes here. The physical classes are quite comparable to classes in the states. The odd thing is, is that teachers here move classrooms as well as the teachers (In eleventh grade that is. I think it is different in 10th grade and under). It is odd. So they have to haul all of their stuff around too. And they don't use computers nearly as often as in the States.

3) Scarves. Scarves everywhere. Okay, maybe not nearly as many as I'd estimated. But a lot more. And boys too. That is not as uncommon as in the US. Definitely liking the scarf look, though. :)

4) School books. The other day in my Deutsch class the teacher told us of a book we had to buy. I was shocked. In my school in the US all of those books are provided. I am very grateful for that now. It must get expensive to always buy those books!

5) German students here need to get some Camelbacks. :) I am so surprised! Most people here do not have reusable water bottles! But most do have water bottles. There is an interesting 'system' for water bottles here. You buy a large case of them at a set price, and then, if you bring all the empty bottles back, you get money back! You can do that in the United States but unfortunately most of the time the bottles are not brought back. Here, they definitely are. But, they still need some CamelBacks. :)

6) American flags. Weirdly enough, this is a weird fashion statement. American flag print shorts, shirts, and scarves. I am not sure why anyone not from America, or in America really, would want an American flag print anything, but whatever, I suppose. I bought myself an American flag print scarf for the Rotary Exchange Orientation. :)

7) Boys here actually have decent hair. And care about what it looks like. Just thought I would point that out to any American boys reading this... :)

Well, I have more, but I'll save those for later.

On another note, I went to the German Walmart yesterday! It is called Globus, and it had three floors! I was quite reminiscent of good old Wally World. And it was oddly comforting.

Well, that is all for now.

Tschüss!
Beth

Fireworks and Meatloaf

Hello All!

So, things are going well here, for sure. But I had a really busy week! Luckily this weekend is/was quite relaxing. On Friday I came home from school, hung around the house with my host family and played a bit of speedmitton. :) Yesterday (Saturday) I spent the morning with my host family, did homework and studied German, then at night my host mom, host dad, and I went to Oberwesel to see another firework show! It was absolutely spectacular! Here are some photos:

 It was amazing! And it had music set to it to. Breathtaking. So today, got up, had a good breakfast, played UNO and Kniffel (Yahtzee) with my host sister and then made meatloaf and mashed potatoes for my family!

It ended up being quite yummy. Surprisingly. 

Sorry, not too much information about German life yet, but I have made a list of things I want to share and I will make a blog video in the next couple of days! 

Tschüss!