Classes got Canceled

School in Germany seems more like college than American high school. Besides the fact that most of the walls are "University White," except for the ones coated in murals or hung with the art class's Escher style paintings, one can have free periods in the middle of the day. And classes can get canceled.

This week my physics class got canceled on both days. Since physics constitutes Thursday's first and second periods, and I have no third or fourth, today is a relatively easy day. I get to leave for school at 11:15 instead of 7:30, and I only have two classes.

Therefore there are only 6 periods until Fall Break. Great, no?

This afternoon I will try to go to a sort of building club at school (the only club with any sort of poster up). They have made giant wood chess and checker pieces which people can play on a board painted on the floor. I think they also build the sets for the school plays and other events. I am not great shakes at woodworking, but since Max, my AFS-liason, says I need to find more things to do with my time, I might as well try it out.

Tomorrow I will go to a theater group with Alicia, another activity I am not good at (especially not in German!) but I will use to fill up time. Other activities, such as playing flute in the musical "Annie" or the big city band, take place on Mondays, the day of the mandatory German course. Hopefully those I will be able to pick up in December or January, after the course is over.

Mein Igel

It is time to introduce you to the newest member of our family, Luka. The 14-day-old was found on Sunday under a car, and we decided to keep him through the winter because he's too small to hibernate, and we're the only family with animals which won't bother him (our cats had a run-in with his type a while back). Luka is the sweetest little hedgehog you have ever seen. He'll even let you pet his bristles if you're careful.

Most of the time Luka likes to sleep. He loves warm, dark places, so the ideal spot is inside my sweater.

Luka eats snails, egg, and cat food, and drinks milk. He has been steadily losing 5 grams a day since Sunday, which is obviously not good. We hope it is only because he is still adjusting to his new home, a large cardboard box with newspaper and straw.

Hopefully soon we will manage to get Luka to a vet near enough to us who will look at baby hedgehogs. In the meantime, we will keep on catching snails, a mighty task, seeing as they're so fast. Pictures of Luka will get up here too, eventually.

11th Grade Schedule

The transfer into class 11 is going well. I think it's actually better than in class 10. In 11th, we change classes, so I get to see new faces every now and then. It is also better because a different person will show me to the next classroom, instead of me only tagging along behind the same class. The students are also more well-behaved and mature, and it makes one think they actually want to learn the material.

The schedule maker made a schedule up for me last Wednesday, before I left for camp. It was in the middle of the school day, so I expected to go back to 10e when he was done and start in the 11th on Monday. But instead he told me I would start immediately, and showed me to the Erdkunde classroom, except there was no one there. So I got to attend another 10th grade math class Herr Trobel (?) teaches, and then to a 10e history class.

Another nice aspect of 11th grade in Germany is the free periods. On Wednesday I had one in 5th period. The other side is that 11th through 13th grades often have 7th or 8th periods. So during my free period I rode back to the Kiefers to write Jutta a note that I would be late for lunch because of school.

7th period wasn't all that bad, though: physics with Herr Trobel again. On Monday was another 7th period, German. Come to mention it, my schedule has 3 periods of German classes on Mondays, because Herr Trobel thought I'd learn better German if I took two German classes.

You might as well see the entire schedule. I like it, because it is not so random as 10th grade. Every class gets three periods a week: one double period and another period on another day. The periods go by surprisingly faster than they were in 10th. It is nice to have only 3 or 4 subjects a day.

Montag

1. Englisch
2. Mathe
3. Deutsch
4. "
5. Chemie
6. "
7. Deutsch

Dienstag

1. Sport
2. "
3. Deutsch
4. "
5. Biologie
6. Erdkunde

Mittwoch

1. Englisch
2. "
3. Erdkunde
4. "
5. Frei
6. Deutsch
7. Physik

Donnerstag

1. Physik
2. "
3. Frei
4. Frei
5. Chemie
6. Sport

Freitag

1. Mathe
2. "
3. Biologie
4. "

Monday is the fullest day, and the classes grow steadily lighter as the week progresses. Monday is not going to be fun, though. There are 3 periods of Deutsch on Mondays, and then right after school I take the train to Dinslaken for another 3 plus hours of Deutsch Unterrichtung. Nicht viel spass.

Thank goodness we start vacation next week. It's two weeks long! So far our plans are to go to Bonn, Oberhausen, and Trier, and probably elsewhere.

Edit: 7te Stunde ist von 13:20 bis 14:05, und ich denke 8te Stunde ist von 14:10 bis 14:55 (Ist das genug, Herr Harrell? Später soll ich ein Post auf Deutsch schreiben.)

Wochenende in Duisburg

Can you do the funky chicken? I said ah-ooh, ah-ah-ah-ooh, ah-…

This weekend, from Thursday to Sunday, was the AFS regional orientation/lock-in in Duisburg. Many of us students were meeting each other for the first time, or at least talking for the first time, because in the airport and on the train here we were too anxious to talk. Most of all this weekend was a fun mix of cultures and talents.

I carpooled with Natalia/Natasha (she has many other interchangeable names I forget) from Russia and Katria from Finland with Katri’s Gasteltern. We ended up being the first arrivals at the youth hostel by about a half hour because virtually everyone else took the train. In Germany, the trains are the way to go, especially when AFS refunds trips like these. Seriously, when we told some people we took a car to Duisburg (which is less than a half hour from Wesel by auto), they stared at us and said, “Wow, that’s far.”

Thursday afternoon was spent playing “name” games. For example, moving around on small chairs to sort ourselves in alphabetical order, without touching the ground. We played a lot of group games, what the counsellors called “Energizers,” over the course of the weekend. Many of them were “Rock, Paper, Scissors” based though, including the “Amoeba” game and “Giants eat the Dwarfs, who eat the Fairies, who eat the Giants.” I never understood the psychology of those sorts of games, so go figure, I lost. I lose at one-on-one Chinese paper games, too, though I think I have mastered the concept of the Brasilian game (next time I want to play winner keeps the Euro game pieces).

Friday and Saturday were devoted to workshops. Sort of. Most of the information they gave us in the workshops I have heard about 5 times already. The counsellors claim the reiteration will help us remember them, but by the second hearing I knew the 4 “No-no-no-no’s” upside-own backwards and flipped over:

No Drugs
No Driving
No Hitchhiking
No Babies

I took advantage of the weekend to get to know my peers from all over the world. I now have friends from Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Brasil, Italia, Columbia, Russia, Finland, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Turkey, and many other places besides. One of the most popular activities at the camp were learning languages and folk dances. I can speak in Thai (So-bai-dee-mai? So-bai-dee-ka!) and Thai dance, for instance. We had Merenga and Salsa lessons from the Latinos. And a lot of us can now pronounce Kurt’s, from China, real name.

Friends from Hong Kong, China, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Thailand

On Saturday there was a sort of scavenger hunt in which you start out with an egg and an apple, knock on peoples doors and ask them (auf Deutsch) if they will trade you anything for your items. My group didn’t do so well, because shortly into the game one very nice lady gave us a tin for our collection of items and told us not to open it on her doorstep. It turned out to be money, and since that doesn’t trade too well, we tried to buy something (candy) which didn’t work too well. The escapade drained our enthusiasm, except to eat the candy, so we returned to the camp early. Everyone else did really well, someone even got a soccer ball signed by a famous soccer player in Germany.

Friday night was a disco, in which there was plenty of Merenga dancing, break dancing, shower dancing, invisible basketball dancing, etc. Most of the people left long before the hostel managers kicked us out, but we were joined by some Germans not in our group, so that made up for our numbers.

Saturday night was the talent show, and there were so many talents in our group of 30 or so it was amazing. The opening talent was “The Hostel Bathroom” acted in normal, western, sci-fi, cheer leaders (which was misinterpreted to be funky chicken), etc by the counsellors. Then we had songs in Chinese, juggler’s ribbons which sparked, guitar playing/acting, human veet box, accapella, Merenga and break dancing (because we hadn’t seen enough of the two throughout the weekend), Clarinet, traditional Mexican dance with a lit candle balanced on the dancer’s head, and the most impresive modern jazz dance I have ever seen. Katri and I were going to whistle with our hands, but we lost our talents less than an hour before the show, so we rock n roll danced instead. The ironic part was that she taught it to me.

A "magic trick" where Tuna (Turkish guy in chair)

was lifted by 8 fingers, two from each of the people

doing some kind of concentration exercise.

Lupita does the traditional Mexican dance,

complete with garb.

It was a great weekend. Talking with other people about our similar experiences so far is releasing. I can’t wait until the next time we all get together, either at the middle of stay or at the end, so we can share even more. I was almost disappointed when we had to leave, but I think I was ready to go back to the Kiefers.

The Americans strike a pose.

Life Update

School went well today. I think going into Bonn really helped make connections with the class. Unfortunately, I don't know if I'll be with this class long, because I'm considering requesting to be moved into grade 11. All of the classes are easy (except for the fact they're in German). Even physics, which I've never taken before, is relatively simple. I don't understand concepts in that class, but the math is simple enough. Plus, if I want to transfer some credits back to Pacifica, I should probably try to take harder courses. Nothing definite yet, though. I'll probably talk with Herr Schoch on Monday.

This afternoon I met up with Alicia (the other US AFSer in Wesel) downtown, so we could shop and talk. Or she did most of it. All I bought was a shirt. I am in need of clothes, so I don't have to wear outfits 4 days in a row before they get washed. Yay sales.

Hannah came over again tonight and we watched Der Herr der Ringe in German. We made up one of Kaylin's popcorn packets, which made Hannah really excited. The dubbing was really well done. At least, the voice pitches were done well. The funniest part were the names, e.g., Bilbo Baggins was pronounced Bibbo Boglin. We had a good time watching it, and next week Hannah will probably come over again and we'll watch the next one.

Field Trip

Class 10e got to go on a field trip to Bonn today, to visit the museum of German history post WWII. There were about 17 of us students (there should have been 20, but the cold has been going around) and the head teacher. We took the Rhine-Express to Bonn, about a 2 hour train ride, then took the subway to the museum.

The visit to the museum was entirely in German, so I didn't learn much. Herr Schoch gave me a pamphlet describing exhibits in the museum depicting American-German relations. The most interesting exhibit was the model of the international space station. I wanted to take a picture, but found out (the hard way) that we are not supposed to take pictures in the museum. One would think that is obvious, since the majority of all museums don't permit pictures, not only those in Europe. Yet here I even the things I know seem unfamiliar and awkward.

We had the option of two trains back, one at 3 or 4. The class opted for the later one, so after the tour through the museum we had an hour and a half of free time in Bonn. I went with Kira, Melanie, and Karla, even when they decided to go to McDonalds for lunch. Jutta had packed me lunch: salami on wheat bread, joghurt, an apple. My three companions found the irony of an American eating healthy food and Germans eating fast food quite amusing.

The bad side of waiting for the later train is that it was during rush, so there were no seats. I spent a portion of the train ride calculating by hand how many days we'd lose a year because of the inaccuracy of the clock in the train station in Bonn. When the second hand reached 12, the clock would take three seconds to move the minute hand once, then the second hand would resume its journey around the face until it reached 12 again. The final figure, for one year, was 18 days, 4 hours, and 48 minutes.

Hannah came over with an English-German book later: Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." She made me read the German side out loud, and then she would read the German, then attempt the English. It was fun, creepy as "The Raven" is.

10th Grade Schedule

Here is the class schedule I keep right now. This will undoubtedly change at the end of Herbst Ferien, once we have figured out which math class to put me in. As I've said before, I've been put in class 10e. I'm lucky because this means I take nearly all my classes with the same group. When you get into grades 11, 12, and 13 you start to take them in courses with various groups.

Zeit

1. 8:00-8:45
2. 8:50-9:35
3. 9:50-10:35
4. 10:40-11:25
5. 11:40-12:25
6. 12:30-13:15

Montag

1. Deutsch
2. Englisch
3. Sport
4. Mathe (normally Französisch)
5. Differencierung (Biologie)

Dienstag

1. Mathe (normally Religion)
2. Englisch
3. Physik
4. Musik
5. Französisch
6. Mathe mit 10e

Mittwoch

1. Diff (Biologie)
2. " "
3. Politik
4. Geschichte
5. Mathe mit 10e
6. Chemie

Donnerstag

1. Deutsch
2. Mathe mit 10e
3. Mathe (normally Französisch)
4. Chemie
5. Physik
6. Musik

Freitag

1. Englisch
2. Religion
3. Deutsch
4. Sport
5. Geschichte
6. Politik

Politik and Geschichte are the bilingual courses, taught in English. The math courses I am taking that are not with 10e are with different classes and different teachers, as an experiment to decide which one I fit into best. This would work in theory except this Donnerstag and next my class is going on field trips, and in both cases I will miss third Stunde, so I will never have tested that particular math class!

Because I still have one Stunde (period) of French, and will potentially have more, our neighbor Hannah came over yesterday to teach me some from her first year French book.

I can now say "Hello, my name is Rachael" (Salut, je suis Rachael, or Salut, je m'appelle Rachael) and "Arthur is a parrot." (Arthur est un paurroquet), as well as a few other phrases. How many languages do you think I can learn in 10 months?

On Top of the City

Today was special because all the churches were open to visitors. Jutta, Stephan, and I went into downtown Wesel to climb the church tower, a feat that they, let alone I, have never accomplished until now.

There were 216 stairs up the tower. Or so said the people working there. I had to take their word for it, because I lost count at "sechs-und-zwanzig."

The view at the top was spectacular. Too bad it was a foggy day.

We walked through a flea market that was set up in downtown afterwards. It was fascinating. My favorite part was the free samples food stands would give you. They were huge! One lady actually gave me half of a huge pastry, and then offered me another bunch of pastries to try. We found some Berliners, too. The lady selling them didn't seem to understand what was so funny.

Mmm...Bratwurst mit Senf!

Apparently today is "Blumenkamp Sonntag" (that's the city that we live in) so a concert was being set up in the market place. It's popular with the teenagers.

I was supposed to attend it with some people from school, but there were some complications so that didn't happen. Instead, Jutta and Stephan took me into Xanthen, a city across the Rhine. Xanthen is one of the old Roman cities in Germany. It has an old windmill and church, both of which we got to explore.

The windmill was running today, which was lucky. We got to climb and watch the gears spin and the grain being ground. Near the top, though, the ladder was blocked with a sign that warned of the dangers of the powerful gears connected to the windmill.

No need to read the sign, the picture says it all! Stephan and the windmill

We were in the church in Xanthen when it was time to ring the bell at 6:15. They let me help.That bell weighs close to, if not more than, a ton. It wasn't easy work, and we had to pull it for five minutes. At the end, the man in charge of ringing the bells let us hold on to the rope as it lifted us into the air. You could probably clear over 6 feet with it if you grabbed the rope high enough.

Fahrradtour

We rode our bikes into downtown again, this time taking the long way around. Wesel is full of nature, and we rode through plenty of it on our way.

We went to see another parade, like the one last week. Actually, I think it was the same one, because the queen and king were the same. They marched the queen and all the princesses up to the Rathaus first, and while they were inside two bands provided a concert, which lasted an hour.

Wesel Rathaus, with the shield in colored bricks

The parades in Wesel always end at the town hall. That is where they celebrate. That is, they eat, drink, sing, cheer, and on occasion have entertainment. I had the opportunity to go to the town hall to see the performance of one of the Voltigieren groups, the one that my neighbor Amelie is in.

Voltigieren, horseback acrobatics, looks indescribably difficult. They had to use a pommel horse in the town hall, but normally this group performs their routine on a real horse. A real galloping horse. It takes an incredible amount of strength, balance, and trust. I cannot believe these girls doing handstands, splits, and forming human pyramids can do this.

Three members of the Voltigieren troupe

They were super. If you want to look into a challenging sport, check out Voltigieren.

First Days

I love math. Numbers are still numbers, no matter what language you're using. I looked at the textbook my class is using, and I know all of that material, so tomorrow I will ask the head teacher if I can move up to a higher level. The math here is integrated, so no matter which class I get put in, chances are I'll know a lot of what they are learning. Hopefully they start teaching calculus at one of the higher levels. That would make me happy.

After school today I finally got to meet my AFS contact-person, Max. He is in the 11th grade at the other Gymnasium in Wesel, because he got held back a grade when he came over to the US for a year. He was in Sante Fe, New Mexico with AFS last year, which means his English is really good. We had a nice chat about Germany, the US, school, social life, etc. for nearly two hours. We were talking so long he missed his bus home to Hamminkeln! He almost missed the next one, too. Hopefully he was able to make it to the bus stop in time.

Tonight we ate fresh, home-made bread with sausage and cheese. Last night we biked down to Hamminkeln (about 4 miles) and ate at a small restaurant serving a schnitzel buffet. The food here in Germany is really good. At school, the students eat fruit and bread at every free moment. I think I've seen only one student eating a candy bar at school.

Since you were photo-deprived in the last post, here are some extra ones from this week:

Jutta, Stephan and I when we first met

at the train station in Duisburg.

We love our Italian ice cream!

Amelie, Hannah, and Clara, some of our neighbors.

The "first school day" tradition.

Day 1

Today was my first day of school. Go figure it would be the day I had to get up late. The alarm clock I use (one of those old-fashioned, wind-up ones with the bells on the top like mickey mouse ears) didn't go off, which is my fault. Apparently you have to move the metal switch to the left, so it doesn't hinder the ringer. You learn something new every day here.

So I had about 15 minutes before I left for school. I was too nervous to eat anyway, so that saved time, too. Amelie from across the street came over to wait for me, so we could ride to school together.

I have never seen so many bikes being ridden in one place. The streets close to the school are packed with children on bicycle, so it's amazing no one hits each other. You don't have to wear a helmet here, either. I thought we'd take our bikes to the bike racks we saw when we visited the school, but we didn't. There's actually are garage underneath the school for bicycles, which is really cool. It gets really full, too, so it's hard sometimes to find a spot.

Classes were...interesting. Most of the time I just sat there and tried to understand some of the words people were saying. In religion, they were doing read-arounds. They skipped me. In French, I did nothing. English was far more interesting. Herr Schoch drilled me with questions in German, translated into English if I didn't understand, and made me answer in German. Then he'd correct all my German phrases. That class is writing newspaper articles on hurricane Katrina. Now I'm extremely glad we did newspapers in Mrs. Ross's class last year. The other classes were physics (that teacher is...strange. Most of them seem very strange to me) and music, where we watched a video on different singers and their strategies. Billy Idol is quite, um, disturbed.

We got out of school at 12:30 or so, because math class got canceled. Usually school will run until 1:15.

Tonight we went to a restaurant to meet our AFS liasons, returnees from AFS. Mine wasn't there, but we're supposed to get together for a chat on Thursday.

First Post aus Deutschland!

Sunday was an extremely eventful day in Wesel. It was my first full day with the Kiefers, so we decided to go biking into downtown Wesel. We stopped at Konrad-Duden Gymnasium (KDG) first, so I could get a first impression of it. The campus is huge, two stories, with tons of bike racks and cement ping-pong tables scattered throughout. Plus it has brick walk, no asphalt or cement except on the basketball courts.

Next we followed the red brick road (aka bike lane) downtown. We took one quick circuit around the line of shops, and then settled down at an outdoor seating area for Italien ice cream. The ice cream shops were the only ones open, because all the other stores are closed on Sundays. The ice cream, some chocolate mix, was the best I've ever tasted (which is what I say every time I have Italien ice cream). Apparently, these ice cream shops are closed in the winter and the owners go back down to Italy. Who would want ice cream in winter anyway?

Jutta and I with "die Esel von Wesel", a

donkey with movable tail, mouth, and ears.

Next we visited the Rhine. It is a kilometer (0,63 miles) from the Kiefers. We climbed a support of an old railway bridge that used to span a mile across the river. The actual bridge was blown up by the Germans on D-day, so the Allies could not cross into their country. It was never rebuilt. Barges are constantly going up and down the Rhine, from Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, to Duisburg, the largest inland port in Europe, which also happens to be the city where I got off the train to meet the Kiefers. It is about half an hour out of Wesel. These barges are required by law to fly the flag from its country. This makes it easier for the water police.

The Rhine, and the rest of the railway bride

across the river

Earlier, while eating ice cream downtown, we had heard a band playing music in the distance. Someone there had mentioned that there would be a performance in the marketplace later, so we came back around 2 o'clock. It turned out to be a parade, celebrating the election of a queen and king (for what I'm not sure). But there were about 4 bands and a string of VW bugs (German auto company), along with horses and men marching with sabers.

When we were waiting for the parade to organize, the president of the club asked if I would sit in one of the cars and go through the parade with them. Unfortunately, I couldn't, because I couldn't leave my bicycle. But I did get introduced to the king and queen, and took lots of pictures with the Kiefer's camera (mine was out of batteries).

I am meeting the queen, king, and princess.

I counted some of the instruments as the marched by. The largest band had 23 piccolos! Plus 18 snare drums, 12 bugles, and 4 loud, lyre-shaped bells-like instruments, along with others. All the bands played traditional German songs, most of which dated back to Kaiser Wilhem. Right before the parade the big band stopped in front of an old-persons' home and played their selections for the elderly, and they were clapping along. So much German culture and identity! It was great to watch.

The band with 23 piccolos

In the evening some children and teens from the neighborhood came by for some 2 1/2 hours. Amelie, the girl I will be biking to school with, her older sister, Matthias from down the street with his younger sister, and Amelie's friend, Christine. They talked with Jutta for the most part, and whenever she had to go off to work on something, we would bravely try to make conversation with each other. Most of the time, it was nice to be able to smile at each other across the table and laugh with them whenever everyone else laughed. Even better were the few occasions when I got to laugh and mean it because I actually understood what was said.

Tonight was the debate between the two candidates for chancellor, Angela Merkel and Gerhard Schröder. I couldn't understand a word except the occasional "Euros", they were speaking so fast. Oh, and once someone mentioned New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina. Elections are of September 18th! I'm glad to have the opportunity to witness this event.