Well, I'm here!!! Germany is pretty awesome, but I'l get to that later. I'm going to start with the orientation for all of the CBYX kids in DC. It was a lot of fun. We mostly had a lot of stuff to go over yanno, preparing us for Germany and what to expect and all that kinda stuff. It started on the 2nd and I went down a day earlier to meet and hangout with some of the kids that also went down a day early. One of the days of the orienation we met with a representative of our congressman and thanked them for the scholarship which was pretty neat. The next two days were just seminars and powerpoints. All of the CB kids are really cool and they made the countless hours in the conference room so worth it. On Friday all 50 of the CB kids + 33 of the normal AFS Germany kids loaded onto 2 buses and headed to the airport (not to mention all in our bright blue AFS shirts). After getting through the airport and onto the plane nothing really exciting happened. When we all arrived in Germany some kids got picked up by their families at Frankfurt and some had to wait and take a train ride to another city. I had to wait until 12:30 (so 6 hours) until my train came that would soon take me to Munster. Unfortunetly their was a strike within Germany and all the train workers didn't want to work so my train came in at 2. I got the most horrible hour and a half of sleep on the airport ground (if you want to call it sleep). At this point most of the kids left in the airport were walking zombies. The train ride to Munster was around 4 hours I think and was also not to fun, at this point I was up for 30 something hours or around there. I finally arrived in Munster where I was greeted by my awesome family :) :) I then went 40 minutes by car and arrived in Bahnof Reken. It is beautiful here. I stayed up and talked a little with my family and unpacked and soon went to sleep though. I got a lot of sleep that night and then woke up Sunday morning and ate breakfast and all that good stuff. Either Sunday or Monday night we had a barbeque and it was delicious. Bratwurst and chicken and salad and potatoes. It was a nice night. We also played cards and hungout. I'm not exactly sure of the chronological order of events from there but I got my residence papers, and met with the head of the school and all that kind of stuff. Yesterday was my first day of school and I had Sport, Bio, Geopgraphy, and religion along with a private german lesson. Today, my second day of school I had my german lesson, sport, bio, and english. English is probably going to be my favorite because the teacher only talks in English and it's really easy for me so far. Sport is also really fun, it's different than in the US and I think actually harder but more fun. Which brings me to my next point: differences I've noticed between the States and Germany.
1) School- the school in the states is like very restrictive and has so many rules.45 minute classes with 4 minutes in between each class and one 30 minute break for lunch and you are not allowed to go outside by yourself. German school however is much different and better in my opinion. Each class is an hour, then after the 2nd class you get a 15 minute break. Everyday the schedule is different and you can have a different amount of classes each day. You also get an hour break for lunch. Today the way my schedule is I had 2 breaks in a row so I had 2 hours of free time where you can go outside and walk around, walk to the city to get some food or do whatever. Also you leave when your classes end. Also the buses are much different, in the US we have the classis yellow school bus which takes us to and from school. I get asked on a regular basis if the yellow buses are real and Germans think it's realy cool for some reason. They also think lockers are cool too, because in Germany you carry your back pack and jacket from class to class. Here I catch a bus in the morning around 7:15 and take a bus home too. Buses come like every hour or so and I have a pass for it so it's not a big deal at all. I can also take the train home from school if I wanted to too. German school is very different than American school.
2) German children dress a lot nicer. It's a little different too. I have seen a lot of girls wear really nice outfits and wear nike tennis shoes with them. It just isn't something you see much in the states. Skinny jeans and converse also seem to be very popular here. Boys haircuts are all pretty much similar it's the short sides and longer top.. a lot of the famous football players (soccer) have it.
3) Barely anybody wears makeuep.
4) The water is always bubbly.
5) Bread is life. My first sport class we ran from station to station and completed tasks and the last task was to eat a piece of bread...
6) Public transportation here is amazing and almost everyone uses it.
7) The recycling is crazy. I have 3 seperate trash cans for dividing recycling and garbarge and some places have 4. Germany uses very clean energy.
8) Everyone is much more laid back here and nobody is in a rush.
9) Contary to popular belief, Germans are actually really friendly for the most part.
10) iPhones do not rule the world, and everyone uses whatsapp.
That's all I can think of for now but if anything comes to mind I'll add it later in another post. That's all for now! If you want to look at pictures you can just add me on Facebook they are all there.
Meeting with our Representative
The 50 AFS CBYX students.
Roaming DC.
My host family :)
