Bummer...maybe

So with my dance class we are going to have a trip to Austria in January where we will have skiing lessons. How cool does that sound, going skiing in the Alps? But.... at the moment it looks kinda sketchy for me. My Counselor/Rotarian/Person who looks over me says that I might not be able to go, he has to talk to the teacher and get the details. I really hope he lets me go, my mom in the USA already gave me the go ahead, and all my friends are going so I really hope he says yes.

Last weekend was pretty fun. We had 3 birthday parties and a going away party all in one. We all spent the night in the next little town in tents. It got really cold at night (well for me) so I ended up getting maybe two hours of sleep? I don't really know, when I came home I crashed for a few hours : )

Oh yeah, I get to sleep in tomorrow..yayy!! My biology teacher (first class for me) will not be there tomorrow. So instead of having substitute teachers they just let the students have free time. There is a board in the hallway that gives you general information about that stuff. There's gonna be blah..blah... after school on Thursday...blah..blah.... stuff like that. And it also says which teacher won't be there. Pretty cool if you ask me.

So yeah, that's all for now.

Week # 3

And I have successfully completed the 3rd week. I can't say it was as exciting as last week, but I did still have fun. School was....eh..what can I say? I just don't like school, so sue me.

So I was asked by some friends if I wanted to go swimming after school, of course I said yes, I mean why not? So we all met at the town square on our bikes ready to take off, we rode, and rode, and rode some more. Turns out the lake they were going to was in the next town, a grand total of about 25 miles round trip!! That doesn't sound bad because you all have cars back in the U.S. but get on your bike and ride 25 miles in 94 degree weather through the woods and hills, tell me how good you feel after. ( Especially if your outta shape like me!) We get to the lake and the water is waayy too cold for me, so I stayed on land and played volleyball with some of the others who came. It turned out to be pretty fun, and I guess the ride wasn't too terrible, I am gonna have some major leg muscle when I come back. Then on Thursday the school let out at 11:30 and we all went again, all I need to do is run some and I could say I was training for a triathlon.

The Rotary club of Stendal has arranged German classes for Poliana and I. We didn't have to pay for anything, so that was really nice on their part. I get out of some classes at school too, so when is that ever a bad thing? So for the next 10 weeks we will have intensive German lessons, on top of school, and being immersed in the language. So I fursure have no doubt that I will be fluent when I come back.

Tonight (Saturday) there is a huge party that I will be attending. There are like 3 people who all have birthdays within a few days of each other, and my host brother is having a going away party before he leaves for Argentina next week. So they combined all of them for one huge blowout party. I will tell you how it goes later.

Next weekend I have a Rotex weekend in Hannover that I am definitely looking forward to. (Rotex is an organization of people who have already been on exchanges. They help guide us and give us advice and so forth. They also plan out fun things for us to do while in Germany.) All of the other exchange students in the district will be there, so tons of fun heading my way. Only sad part is that my classmates are in a local band. They are having a battle of the bands type of thing on Friday the 28th. I was invited to go and was really looking forward to it, but it turns out by the time they play I will be on a train to Hannover : (.....

I signed up for dance classes here at the school, but I do not like them whatsoever, they just aren't as good as Mrs. Lee's dance classes, but I will stay, because friends are there and in January they are going to Austria for a week. They will be taking skiing lessons in the Alps, so I can put up with some ridiculous dancing for that right? Yes, yes I can...hahaha.

Alright, that's all for now, I'll update some more later. But it looks like I am making this a once weekly update. So maybe that's what I will aim for, once a week updates, lets say on either Saturday or Sunday you can all check an see what I did that week.

Ciao!!
Amanda

Week #2 (Un-edited)

Okaaayyy, so I have officially been here for 2 weeks, and so far it has been amazing.( And I don't even know the language very well) So that means that if I can have this much fun without much to work on, imagine what a blast I will have once I can speak German?

School has been alright, I have figured out that school, no matter what language, is going to be boring. But for me it has been really, really boring. I opted to not be graded, figuring it would seriously help with stress (worry about my grades on top of everything else would probably do me in). So, I sit in class and pretty much stare at the wall, while the teachers lecture in German. They don't even hand me any work, or expect me to do homework xD. Most of the time I will write down into my notebook everything they write on the board, and they appreciate that I am putting forth effort. I understand all of the math really well, and can do the work for the most part until they start talking about different ways to do the problem in German, at which point I am lost once again. Biology though I like because even though labeling parts of the cell is in German, I at least know what he is talking about, so now I can label the cell in German..haha. I love all of the breaks they take, and they start school earlier, but get out earlier too. I have made a lot of friends, and we hang as much as possible. So that always makes school better.

^ Everyone rides their bikes to school. If they live too far away they take the city bus.

My school is to the right. There are two gymnasium high schools here. At the end of your time in middle school you receive your placement. Depending on how well you did decides what Gymnasium you will go to. Winkelmann is the Gymnasium I attend, then there is Hildebrand, as far as I have been told Winkelmann is the better of the two. The students have to work very hard, their grade points go towards one huge test called the Abitur. That test at the end of their high school determines where they can study and what they can study. Not like the U.S. if you don't do so well on the SAT/ACT (which is kinda like an equivalent) you can still be a doctor. Here if you don't do well you cannot study to be a doctor, you are given no second chance to be a doctor, just at a different college, you don't do well, you have no choice. So it is very stressful, the amount of work and studying they do. And I thought my school was bad. Ha.

This is my school schedule. (click on the picture to enlarge it) They don't have the same classes every day, or every-other-day. What classes they have on Monday will always be on a Monday and so forth. I am fortunate because I get a lot of free time, whereas normal students will maybe have one free time space. In high school the students you are placed with will be the same students for the rest of you High School career, as a result everyone becomes really close. Not all of my classes are with the same people, but German, History, Math, and English are all with those same people.

Last Friday I was invited to go to a "Disco", and my first reaction was " Why would I want to go to a disco?" I immediately thought of the '70's and thought no. Turns out their "disco" is our version of club. I went with my friends and it turned out to be a ton of fun. The club was a lot smaller than I had thought, but it got really crowded, and everyone there was around my age. Stendal only has 4 clubs, but I found out that I am allowed to travel around in my district and will definitely be going to other cities to check out fun sites there.

Here's a bit of cool history. While on our way to Giforn we were driving through a wooded area, and every 50 yards or so there were signs. I couldn't understand the signs, but I figured it must have been something important. Later my host dad said that no one was allowed in the woods there because there were still active Russian land mines, and explosives all throughout the area. I also got to see where the wall separating East Germany from West Germany was put up as I traveled to another state.

And last but not least, I had my first inbound orientation this past Saturday. I got to meet all of the other exchange student from around the world who would be in Germany for a year just like me! We had some people from: Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, USA, Canada, India, Taiwan, Japan, Australia and Chile. It was super cool to be in a room with so many nationalities. My district has so much planned for us, it will be so exciting and fun. I won't say all that we will be doing, because I will blog about them later in more detail.

My second week was pretty cool, I am hoping to top it next week!

Until then

~Amanda

Pictures

<---- Me at school

<---- Poliana an exchange student from Brazil. She and I are the only exchange students in Stendal.

<----My classmates and I after the first day of school.

<---- The President of Stendal Rotary and I

<---- Sebastian and Felix are leaving, while Poliana and I take their places. Sebastian is going to Argentina, and Felix is going to Iowa.

So my first week in Germany has already come and gone. So far it has been really great, I am still getting used to carbonated water, riding my bike everywhere, German, and the amount of bread they eat here. I go for my first whole week of school tomorrow, so that should be fun

Changes (a very long post)

Okay so everything for me has taken a one-eighty spin. But didn't I sign up for that too? Well so far so good. My host family is really nice and they are trying their hardest to make me feel at home. Stendal is an interesting little town with tons of untainted history behind it. The other day my host brother and I were riding our bikes when we went past a Russian cemetary. He said that there was a battle with the Russians against Hitler, and it was put up in their memory. And downtown we went into a Cathedral built in the 12th century, and in my opinion it was much cooler than Notre Dame. Only because it wasn't used for tourism. There were no glass barriers, or ropes that were sectioned off. Everything in this church was real, there wasn't a gift shop, or a guide to tell you about the history. The only sign I saw in this church was a handwritten piece of paper asking you to please not touch the walls/paintings, and to not use cameras. All of that is understandable, I know that cameras with a flash damage or helps deterioate the walls/paintings. We drove past a section in town from were Stendal had been bombed in WW2, and as we continued to drive I saw several more buildings that looked quite old, I want to learn more about them later, maybe when I can understand what people are saying.



I start school on Thursday; I don't remember all of the classes I signed up for but they go along the lines of: Geography, German, English, I think I am taking gymnastics also, Math, Biology, and a few more I can't remember. I met a lot of the kids that I will be going to class with, so far they are very fun and out going. Learning German so far has been going pretty well. I can understand more and more about what they are saying. But I can't yet respond to their questions yet.



I met with the Rotary here for the first time and they were all very nice too. There is one more exchange student here with me, her name is Poliana, and she is from Brazil. Her English is perfect, she says she has been studying English for 10 years. She doesn't speak any German either, so we are on the same page there. And I think she will be in the same class as me also. I study my German books whenever I get the chance to, but I feel like that still doesn't help very much...



OKAY, so my host family is taking Poliana and I to Oktoberfest!!! So very exciting!! They also asked where all I wanted to go i.e: Hamburg, Munich, Hannover, places like that were I can see other parts of Germany with them. My host parents haven't traveled much and they are going to see many places with me for the first time also.



And that is all for now I am sure I will think of something more later, but until then.

~Amanda