I'm Dreaming of a Whiiite Christmas....

Merry Christmas everyone! So now that it is four days after Christmas I think it's time to make a Christmas post, right?

We made the newspaper!

On the 24th my mom and host brother and I went to a friends house for Coffee time at three. Right away the father there was like "You are decended from the Irish aren't you?" and then he said I was tall. First ever time I have been called tall (: Wohhooo! After Coffee we went to a tiny church where a Nativity play was going on. It was very cute and reminded me of back when I used to be an angel in those.

The church was full so we got to watch from the top.

When that had finished we went home and made dinner - chicken, potatoes, and broccoli - and opened presents. All in all I would say it was a pretty good christmas! The next morning we had brunch at our house and a lot of people came over. I ate SO MUCH over the course of those days, it was ridiculous! I got to skype with my entire family after that, it was so nice to see everyone (all eleven of them) in one place, even if I couldn't be there in person. My christmas package to them had arrived in time so that was good (:

 The tree with presents underneath (:

Yesterday Rebekah finally brought me to the Berlin Wall, something she'd been saying we gotta do since I arrived. She leaves in a week so I am happy we got around to doing that finally!

Last night I got my package from my parents - cheetos, pie flavored gum, thai noodles, brownie mix, fritos, pop rocks, a pair of earrings (: We got a letter from the Deutsche Post saying I needed to go pick it up from somewhere. I looked up it on google maps and was like "right, I can DO this!" I rode my bike to the address but somehow ended up in a semi truck parking yard thing, very sketchy in my opinion. But, I biked all the way there and I wasn't leaving without my package! I tried to ask some people for directions but found out they only spoke Polish. My mom helped find it later that day after we called for better directions. And now I have my package! Yay!

Last Friday

Today is Friday and the first day of Christmas Break! I am really excited. One full week off of school! Last Friday I went to Rotarys Advent Celebration. It was very cool. First we met at a restaurant and then walked over to a church where someone talked a bit about Christmas, and then we sang a few carols. Then we went back to the Restaurant and there was a buffet. I was really excited because the food was absolutely AMAZING. Coq au Vin, ginger/pumpkin soup, rice, wurst.. it was delicious! After dinner a dance team from town performed a bit, it was very cool.

The Essen.

Schnee! On my way to school, was geil but melted before 9 :(

Then on Sunday me and my mom went to buy a christmas tree, I was expecting the average fir tree but my host mom wanted me to have more of a typical german/east german christmas experience and its a different kind of christmas tree.

Our tree, inside finally two days before christmas (the norm in D-land) to be decorated tonight or tomorrow. On the tv is Last Christmas, by Wham.

Ours is a bit smaller than the ginormous one at Hauptbahnhof. Thats me, the red speck to the right of the clock. And all I can think of is where in the world they keep these things in the off season??

Let's see... two weeks ago my music teacher asked me to read a poem for the schools Christmas Party. The first Thursday that I did it was for the teachers, and the second time (yesterday) was in front of the school. Rebekah is an amazing singer so they asked her to sing. Yesterday after it was all finished up Rebekah and I were like "right, no we can go home" and then the Mensa starts filling up with more students and that's when we find out we have to do the whole thing over again! The poem was very seriously Danglish. I read it with a girl from my class and she was a little nervous so she read it pretty fast and I'm right next to her reading about twice as slow so that I don't mess up my German (or English). Since it was English and German together I ended up with a german accent when I spoke the English and a pretty decent English accent when I read the German parts! The poem was called "Merry Weihnachten"

Taken from inside school, a portion of Fürstenwalde. I love looking out of the window and watching the sheep. They are awesome.

Merry Weihnachted
(the stanzas I read)

Aber auch zu Mum und Dad

ist Old Santa pretty nett;

denn die Gifts aus Peter’s Shop

sind Prime Collection , - einfach top;

From Heaven high, da kommt er her,

und bringt der Goodies mehr und mehr.

Grandma, Grandpa, ach Ihr Alten,

Weihnachten könnt Ihr gern behalten,

X-mas providet globally

Corporate Identity;

Joy to the world, bald ist’s Zeit

again für Silent und für Holy Night.

Wenn wir daheim schon nicht verstehen,

wie soll’s global dann besser gehen?

Nicht, wenn Ihr fremde Wörter stammelt, -

doch wenn Ihr unterm Wort Euch sammelt,

strahlt in die Welt so weit, so breit,

der Friede dieser Weihnachtszeit.

The other night in Berlin I had to take a picture of thise, a smartcar, epicly parked. I love it.

One last thing, since I won't be seeing anybody from home for Christmas so I hope everyone has a very, merry christmas! Love, Rose

Weinnachtsmarkt

Last night for dinner we had... something... I forgot the name, but the important part is that it had Sauerkraut in it! I was realy impressed. It was the first time I'd eaten sauerkraut in Germany, and probably the first time ever! Usually this meal has more big chunks of meat in it, but it was really good, especially with a bit of sour cream! MmmMmmm!

I went to Berlin the other day because I was craving KFC, here it's called just "Kentucky" so at first I was really confused when people were telling me how they'd been to Kentucky the other day! We stopped by a Christmas Market in Berlin Alexanderplatz. I couldn't find any cotton candy there which I LOVE.

But on the bright side I was asking some lady what she was making (they were like inch wide pancakes) and she responded to me in German even though I could hear that she had an Irish accent! I love that I can hear when people have foreign accents now, because before it was all just German German German!

An Exchange Students Ode to Her Dictionary

This is how I manage to stay sane after four hours of Math in German.

Today was Saint. Nikolas Day, which I had no idea existed until this morning when I came down stairs and to my surprise found a bowl of candy by my cereal. Apparently what the little kids do is clean their shoes and leave them outside and if they meet Saint Nicks standards then he will leave them candy. How cool!

Sachsenhausen

On Saturday my distrikt traveled an hour out of Berlin to Oranienburg where a concentration camp is. It´s called Sachsenhausen. What it was, if I understood right, was not a concentration camp with the objective of killing people, but more focused on working people to death. For example, the camp would make people walk around in circles, sometimes pushing various heavy objects for hours every day. It was so sad and it was raining which actually was really fitting. I was told that this was one of the smaller concentration camps, because only 100,000 people or so died of starvation, exhaustion, diease, mistreatment, etc.

At the entrance to Sachsenhausen

The toilettes.

A painting of potatoes in the kitchen. I read that their food consisted of bread and potatoe soup. It said in the kitchen the stench from the potatoes they had to peel was so bad they could feel it in their heads.

This is the table where they would observe the dead bodies, figure out the exact cause of death, see if there was anything unusal present that wasn't there before they came... creepy, right?

This is what is left of the the cremation site. Apparently years after Sachsenhausen was finished people found very very high amounts of human ash in the roads. It appears as if they had coated the roads in human ash at one point in time because there was so much of it.

To end things on a lighter note, here are my double chocolate chip cookies I made on Friday(:

Thanksgiving!

Something has come to my attention recently, that something is that my host mum doesn't make eggnog during christmas! We were talking about warm drinks, because we were making Glüwein (fill you in, in a second) and I asked if Germans happen to make eggnog for christmas. She says "what's that?"

Glühwein: warm up wine not quite to boiling that is very typical of Germany. Now that the christmas markets have opened up and christmas is around the corner I am hearing a lot about it. I wasn't very impressed, but I guess it beats drinking cold wine outside in the winter, right?

Now for Thanksgiving...

Thursday felt a little weird, knowing that all my friends in the states were celebrating and had Thursday and Friday off. Here in Germany everyone just went on as usual. I mean, of course they would because they dont't celebrate it, but it felt lt weird to me, especially because I wouldnt make thanksgiving dinner until Sunday because my host mom had a meeting.

On Friday a bunch of us American exchange students (plus a frenchie, kiwi, and aussie) celebrated Thanksgiving together. I'd say it was very successful. All in all there were about 12 of us I think. We all brought our own dishes.

Here are the guys with the turkey just outta the oven - they were pretty impressed.

Frenchie with her Ratatouille

 There were potatoes, spinach dish, two stuffed turkeys wrapped in bacon, pumpkin pie (mine), pavlova (kiwi dish), and shephards pie. We even did the proper "I am Thankful for...", and a toast, and maybe I might've heard someone trying to say what they could remember of the thanksgiving prayer!

The Meal.

Even though it wasn't the same thanksgiving that I have had back home, I think all of us were happy to be together and celebrate something that had been so important to us back in the states (: Besides we are basically family to eachother.

The Group (with a few germans)

On Sunday I came home and made Thanksgiving for my family. I managed to put together, with a lot of help from my mom, a chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, and green beans. Success!

Today my host mom and I made christmas cookies. I made chocolate-chocolate chip cookies. She says they are Ultra American cookies. Tomorrow I go to Berlin, hopefully I will send off my Christmas package for my family before I get on the train. Then I will meet with my distrikt and we will go to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen and later to a Weihnachtsmarkt. I want to get good sleep tonight because we will have a long day tomorrow!

I love Germany!

I'm not sure that I have made in completely clear how much I LOVE Germany! This was definitely an excellent decision on my part. I still remember the date December 5th, 2010, when I went down to Duluth with my mom for my final district interview. I remember someone told me I must dress-up for it so my mom and I went out and got some new clothes (thanks mom!). I remember how completely nervous out of my mind I was... totally stressing out one-hundred and ten percent...

^ Exactly how I feel ^

Eleven Reasons Why I Love Germany So Much !

1. Transportation - so easy and cheap! I barely miss my lisence!
2. Pommes - they are everywhere! With mayo.. mmmm
3. Formailty - at first it was really offputting, but now it just makes things easier. You meet someone new, and you are expected to shake their hand. Simple.
4. Taxes - they are all included in the price before you buy it, so you always know how much money you need before you're up at the counter.
5. Tipping - it's not a must at restaurants, which again, makes things a lot easier.
6. Street Musicians - even though sometimes it gets awkward when they ask you for money, I love walking down the street or on the s-bahns or u-bahns and hearing live music.
7. Water Boilers - every house I have been in has a separate water boiler, its just like a tea kettle but it has its own little stand and heats up very quickly, nice.
8. Closeness - all the buildings here are very close together, there is no space wasted. At first it was disconcerting but now I rather like it. It's cozy.
9. Christmas - I think there are more decorations here than in the U.S., not to mention all the christmas markets! So cute.
11. Nutella - a must in every home. Absolutely delicious.
12. German - I love the German language! Now I feel like I cant understand so much more and it is so good to feel like that! I have started prefering listening to German over English, not because it will make me learn faster, but just because I like it so much!
13. Mesh of Cultures - there is SO MUCH more diversity here than I am used to, I love it! And I love how Germany has adopted other cultures, Döners (a very popular sandwhich wrap) is from Turkey(?), the music they listen to is a mix of European, South American, and North American. And you can't walk down the street in Berlin without hearing several languages!

Thanksgiving post up next! (:

18 Years Old

In my life I have slowly come to realize that being 18 years old is a pretty magical age, when suddenly overnight obtain loads more freedom. One day you are a child and the next day you are officially considered an "adult". Where I come from in America when you are 18 you can do things that only adults have the privilage of doing, such as buying tobacco, gambling, etc. Now in Germany, they have slightly different laws. When you turn 18 you can get your driver's liscence, buy hard alcohol, and, as I found out today, buy a pet animal.

I found that last one out today, when I went to Fürstenwalde Süd to buy a Chinese-Fighting Fish with my friend Rebekah. We get to the shop and look around because it was AWESOME. The petstore was really very cool. It had meter long fish, snakes, birds, rabbits, and an ALIGATOR. (Okay, I'm not 100% sure that was actually real, but I swear it was.)

It was only a little bit of a struggle explaining what I wanted. Weirdly, after I told the guy I would like a fish that lived in a bowl where it didn't need an air ventilator thing he got really un-salesmanly-like.I don't know what his deal was. I saw the fishtank where they kept the fish I wanted, and it didn't have a bubbly thing in it either. Then he goes and tells me that I better come back with my mom and dad sometime because I have to be 18 years old to buy it.

I learn something new every day (:

Feuerfeiern! (Fire Celebrations)

I am running off of a very small amount of sleep so please bear with me as I try to do this shenanigan. Last night a bunch of us exchangers got together in Biesenthal for a bonfire. I was really excited because I love bonfires and since coming to Germany I have had way less wilderness-me time than I really would have liked, and a bonfire would be a chance to chill with some pretty kick-awesome people and enjoy the warm (for me) November night. Unfortunately my camera was having a bad day and the pictures are definately not mona lisa's, but I have been told that pictures are cool to include in my blog so Imma include some for the heck of it.

Here is some of our group chillin' by the fire with Kiwi on guitar

I have to say, we had a really good time. Pumpkin soup for dinner, gummy bears, and käse flavoured corn chips. Basically super yummy. After we ran out of wood and energy we went inside and watched "Dinner for One" which is hilarious, I definately reccomend seeing it. Dener's host mom suggested us watch it, and at first I was super skeptical because it's all in black and white and that's weird for someone like me who has grown up in color, but totally worth it. Here's the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDqD0Dz_J-M it's only ten minutes long so you should probably just watch it and get it over with (: haha

Ah, the second movie we watched was "The Pink Panther II" and that was funny, and cool because the main character in the movie has an excellent French accent and Laurine, from France, was like "Oh no, do I really sound like that?" it was very cute.

The road on the way to Dener's place.

Biesenthal was pretty cool except in the part of the house where we were staying  (the basement, it doesn't get used so much) was FULL of spiders! Seriously, with their legs they were like an inch, inch an a half big. Like in the bathroom, you can't look up cuz it's like a colony of 'em up there.

Thanksgiving is this Thursday and I don't know how I feel about that. I'm hungary, right now, and Karin said there are meatballs, or "Buletten" for dinner. Yummy (:

National Story-Telling Day

Today was Germany's National Story-Telling Day. My Englisch teacher at Palmnicken thought it would be nice for Rebekah, Andrea, and I to read at the Library. There were maybe 30 students there who came from an Oberschule in Fürstenwalde. We read from a book, Noughts and Crosses, which is apparently all the rage in England right now. Most of the students were between 14 and 16 years old and I think they had a little bit of a hard time understanding our English. But it was good (:

I was a little worried there would be that usually awkward silence when we do the usual "okay does anybody have any questions?" but that wasn't the case! In America it always seems as if someone, or atleast a couple people always ask a question or two at the end because it seems rude if you don't but here in Germany it's an awkward silence almost every time.

After the we finished reading at the bibliothek we went back to my house and had leftovers from the night before, which is called "Baack" or "Wek" or something like that. My host family tries to eat at least one veggie meal a week. This meal reminded me a bit of what we call Stir-Fry back home. It was peppers, broccoli, maybe onions or something, and some green leafy things. At the end we added coconut milk and rice. And I ate it all with chop sticks! I was very proud of myself!

Paris

I have just spent five very crazy, exhausting, incredible, sleepless, amazing days with my exchange students traveling to and in Paris! The forcast for the weekend predicted rain, but we were lucky and the weather was excellent! I think those first three nights I got a combined time of about 7 or 8 hours of sleep, but as Frenchie told me (guess where shes from):

 "we aren't going all the way to Paris just to sleep!"

Frenchie & I

In front of the Mona Lisa

I seriously still need some time to digest the past few days, but I will do my best to include all the important stuff. As I said in an earlier post, I went to Paris four years ago, so this wasn't my first time. It was pretty sweet to recognize statues or buildings that I had previously forgotten about. Throughout the whole trip though I had a serious case of déjà vu. And having seen everything before I wasn't so stressed out about viewing all those standard tourist attractions and let myself relax and have fun.

 The Louvre was AMAZING. It wasnt as packed as last time which was nice. After that we went to the Opèra, we didn't go in but we walked around Paris. I was absolutely starving because the breakfast that morning was all bread (I'm allergic) so we found a McDonalds.

I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea what this building is here.

It felt very weird not being in Germany anymore, like "why am I here, this doesnt feel right" kept going through my head. I am so used to talking to everyone in German except for that in Paris you will more likely find someone who speaks English than German.

On the Metro

The next day we took a city bus tour of Paris and then went to Versailles. For lunch Nathan, Frenchie, Kiwi and I went and got Escargo and frog legs because I wanted to try some escargo. It was €8,50 for six snails but totally worth it. I took a video but for some reason it isnt uploading. Heres a pic anyhow!

Me & ze Escargo

On the last day we went to the Eifel tower and then Notre Dame. I love going into the Notre Dame because every time I think of the movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and that scene where they are in the main part with all the pilars around them.

Being Hunch-backed.

As much as I love Paris, I missed Berlin very much. The people in Paris were a lot ruder than people in Berlin. If you were in their way they would just shove on past you, with no "pardons" or anything. Although I did notice that they were a lot more willing to talk to new people, unlike Berliners.

Here is a public link to all of the photos I have put on facebook. Enjoy!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2361201302914.2124504.1036756913&type=1&l=c578a36941

Happy Halloween!

Today was moving day today, and Halloween! My old host mom drove me to new new host family, who literally live two blocks from my old house. Today went really well, I got to unpack, and for dinner we made pumpkin soup - it was delish! Surprisingly I fit all my stuff into the bags I originally brought to Germany! I'm pretty proud :)

 Here's my stuff.

And my new room!

Until today I didn't fully realize that it was Halloween. Tonight is the first night that I have seen jack-ö-lanterns. Unlike back in the states there were no decorations on the houses, no lights or zombies or fake cobwebs. Of course it is celebrated, but just not as much as it is back home. I think we have had two trick-or-treaters come to the door tonight, thats weird for me!

Paris in three days <3

Food

It is finally fall!

I was talking to a really close friend the other night and in the middle of describing some story I stopped and I realized that it didn't feel right. I didn't really feel like me. I panicked a little bit, my voice didn't sound right, and what was coming out of it wasn't what old Rose would be talking about. I could have used every word in the English dictionary and my friend still wouldn't have really completely understood.

The Spree

Before I left for this exchange I knew what rebounds had said, how it was hard to go back home because no one would understand what an entirely different person they are. I understand that now. For the first two months I think I felt like the same person just living some four thousand miles east of where she used to live. Now it's still me but.. different.

I had Quark (pronounced: ka-vaack) on Friday. To me it tasted like a sweeter jogurt with raspberries (or some red berry), and every time I would say that they were like "no, its different" but couldn't actually tell me specifics on how. Maybe it's a secret recipe...

This is Quark with some red fruit.. mmmyummy

On Tuesday Paola, Andrea, rebekah, and I came to my house after school and made käse kuchen - cheese cake. It was Andrea's recipe and it was amaaaazing! I brought it to school for the next few days for us to munch on. Although there was Quark in it so I'm not sure if it's a German recipe or not.

The Käse Kuchen

Andrea & I eating it (:

This coming Thursday my distrikt leaves for Paris! We will drive there in two buses. My distrikt and a few people from other districts are going as well, over 90 people total! We will have to sleep on the bus because we will arrive in Paris at 8am or so an have a full day ahead of us! I looked at our itinerary and it sounds like we are going to the Louvre, Eifel Tower, Montmarte, Moulon Rouge (?), and Versailles. I went to Paris four years ago and I am interested to see if I remember everything we will be seeing! I hope it won't feel like a been there - done that situation.. Well, I do know for sure that it will be a completely different experience than last time!

This is one of the two instant coffee machines in the school.

We have no snack vending machines :(

But we do have a cafeteria that has forks and knives and real plates!

Serving fries and currywurst, as well as sandwhiches and donuts

and a ton of other stuff but its pommes all the way for me!