Saturday, October 4, 2008

A posting comes across the blog

Yes, I know it has been a while. I am sorry that I have been too busy partying, going to concerts, grilling and chilling with german people to write things on the blog, but such is the burden that one bears during an exchange year I guess.

More seriously, it has been really cool so far for the first month in my year host family. I barely even believe how much better my German is (mind you, I still have a LONG way to go) and I have managed to make friends with some of the kids at school as well. I don't really have any central topic to write about today, but I figure I might as well make it a bit comprehensive, so here goes.

School: An important topic for any kid my age. I'm at a Gymnasium, which is like a high school except that it goes down to fifth grade, and it's more or less for college-bound kids. The courseload is fairly heavy because the most you have of any class in a given week is four forty-five-minute hours; the schedule changes from day to day. The classes themselves are more intensive than your average US high school to prepare for the german Abitur (equivalent to the British A-Levels or the IB program in the US) but for the most part they're not too different from classes you might take in the States. There's German class, sport (gym), physics, chem, bio, math, social studies, econ, art, geography, and history, but there's also two required foreign languages (English and either Latin or French), Ethics or Religion, and Astronomy. Yes, I take all of these classes in a single week. In German. Yeah. Luckily the average school day here is about five hours long. That gives me more time to sleep.

Oh yes, sleeping. From what I hear, my bedtime is fairly late when it comes to exchange students; I'm going to bed every night between about 8:30 and 9:00 because I have to get up at 6:15 for school. One of the girls I talked to who had been in Croatia for an exchange year said for her first week there she slept every day from 5:00 PM until 8 the next morning.

One thing that I love about this place is that you can walk everywhere. My school is fifteen or twenty minutes away by foot. If I'm meeting someone in the city, I can get there in five to ten minutes with a bus for 2 Euros or I can take forty minutes to walk it, which being a cheap sort of person I do somewhat often. Unfortunately that is not possible when it rains, which it does all winter long in Germany, but it's great nonetheless. I'm considering going into the market for a bike, but most people here can get along fine without them.

I miss water fountains. They don't have them here and I'm always thirsty :(

I think there are a lot of stories about gross german food out there, but most of the stuff I've had is great and even some of the gross sounding stuff like Leberkäse ('liver cheese,' think SPAM with liver in it) goes alright on some of the awesome german bread. There are only a couple of things that I really can't go along with. There's Blutwurst, yes, blood sausage, which comes in a can and is in fact made out of blood and fat. A lot of my friends like the stuff and we have in around but it's not my thing - it's this black paste with white lumps in it where you sort of go ''eeew, that's... oh god.'' There's also this soft cheese we have in our fridge called Creme Royale. It brags on the outside about its 'blau und grun Schimmel' which, yes, means blue and green mold. It smells about how you think it would; the stuff is straight up rotten. I don't really know how they get the mold inside the stuff though... it grows within the block of cheese. Yum.

This was a fairly fragmented post because it was just random thoughts from the past month. I can give more specific stuff later.

4 comments:

Mom said...

Hey it is about time Mr. What do you mean you are busy having fun. I am working hard at school, home and work and you are having fun? All are well here and glad to hear you are not getting bored. We miss you a great deal and love you even more

Kamran A said...

I think Germany was made for you.

Carmen Tschofen said...

Hey CJ,
Just so you know, some of my favorite foods have Schimmel. Personally, I am always alarmed at the parade of pickled items in the back of germanic-region refrigerators, especially the herring (good for einen Kater, I was informed). And isn't refrigerating pickled things somewhat redundant, anyway? Of course, the non-refrigerated sauerkraut in the waist-high barrel in the basement, weighed down into the brine with a plastic garbage bag full of water, was also somewhat disturbing... Have you checked the basement recently? :-)
Keep having fun, and greetings from the Austrian contingent.

RCarlson said...

Hi CJ -- Glad to hear you're having a great time in Germany making friends and seeing the sites. Keep up the blogs -- they're very interesting. Have a great year and experience all there is in Germany.
Aunt Robin