Helau, Alaaf, Kikeriki!

Helau, Alaaf, and Kikeriki!

It's been over a month now since the last entry here. So what have I been up to?

Having the time of my life at Midstay, that's what.

On February 16th I took the Deutsche Bahn to Vlotho in Niedersachsen, only about a 3 hour trip. There I met with 35 other exchange students for a 4 day seminar over the theme "Europe" covering the European Union and other ways European countries relate to oneanother and the rest of the world. I don't think we learned a lot, it was mostly just quizes and games and activities. But it was a great opportunity to meet new people and make new friends.

I only knew one person there in the entire group. Sara from Italy, who moved from Wesel to München early last year when she changed families, was there, so we got to catch up a bit. I was the only American there, which was a new, but good, experience. Germany is seriously overridden with American students. It was interesting to be in the minority for once. But that meant that in some activities where we were divided by region, for instance for skits in which we had to compare German culture with culture from our home countries, I was in the group which really didn't have much home culture in common: Norway, Italy, France, USA. The odd-country group. We're only on the other side of the world from each other.

I was sad to leave the seminar because I thought in the next two weeks with the Midstay host families we exchange students wouldn't be able to do anything together. But then, on the last day, Freddy and Daniel, two of the volunteers running the joint, sang and drew the activities we would all do together for the next two weeks. I think the total number of activities came out to be 8, including a city tour, swimming, and disco.

On Sunday the 19th we all got on the train together to Osnabrück. It's a city which is a bit larger than Wesel. The name means bridge over the Osna, the river which was part of the city's defense system over 1500 years ago. Other interesting facts: The city symbol is a wheel, which is intigrated all over the place. There's one on one of the church spires, on the signs for pubs and bars, and other places as well. The city also had the first public school (for boys) in Germany, established in the time of Charlemagne (aka Karl der Große aka Charles le Magne).

My host family lived in Rulle, a smaller town on the outskirts of Osnabrück. From there to the city was a half hour bus ride over a large hill called Haster Burg (Burg means hill). There was a lovely forest there, and though I never got the chance to walk through it, I went through it on the bus many times.

The Sprengelmeyers were great. Claus is an electrician, Petra works about 3 days a week in a travel agency. Sarina turned 18 on the day I left, and Laura is 14, and she does volleyball and gymnastics in the school and clubs. The Grandma lived underneath the family. Whenever Petra was out working we would go under to her and eat there. She makes super quark. Mein neues Lieblingsessen.

We didn't end up doing too much together, but they were understanding about it. They let me have a lot of freedom. I did go with them to watch Laura play Volleyball, helped Sarina with her French homework (ie with the Word program), and helped do some chores.

Most of the time the other exchange students and I were together. I got lucky because there were two other guys at my school, Clément from France and Jorge from Equador, who were always willing to do something together. During the breaks we'd go across the street to visit Gabi from Brasil. We four, the so-called Rulle Team, because we all lived minutes from each other in Rulle, did most activities together. When French class got canceled, we took the bus into Osnabrück and went shopping. When there was an AFS activity (or also when there wasn't) we'd arrange to take the same bus from Rulle.

There were lots of great AFS students there with whom we hung out a lot. Marit from Norway, Lenka, Lucie and Barbora from Czech Rep., Anna, Yulia and Nina from Russia, Bethina and Ancella from Hong Kong... We were also with the Latinos a lot. Mostly because we were almost every day in a Brasilian or Cuban lounge/pub, and the Latinos chilled there the whole two weeks.

We weren't always in Osnabrück, though that's where we went most of the time. There was one day where Clément, his host mom and I went to visit Lei from China in his little town of Bad Essen, then we saw a couple of castles there.

Over Midstay was Karnival. I thought that there wouldn't be a Karnival celebration in Osnabrück, because it's a city north of Münster. But there was a big one. AFS was in the parade, #73. Karnival in Germany is basically where the police can close off the streets into the city so the inhabitants can run around, get drunk, and litter the city with glass shards while doing relatively little damage to themselves or anyone else. Germans are normally really clean and proud of their recycling and such, so this must be the holiday in which they release all their pent-up energy.

The weather was terrible while I was there. Most of the time it was snowing or hailing and under 32° F. The streets were covered in ice, especially at night. There was one time when I was on the bus back home from Osnabrück with Clément and the bus driver said it was too dangerous and wouldn't drive us over the hill to Rulle, so we were stuck halfway between Osnabrück and Rulle until my host dad could pick us up.

Overall, Midstay can be summed up in three words: Party, Féte, and Feiern. Or, in English, Party Party Party. Every night we were out until at least 10, on weekends until 3. Like I said, my host parents were extremely understanding. It was a lot of fun. The exchange students got really close and comfortable with oneanother. It was a great experience.

For pictures, go here. I've posted some 40 pictures of people and places there on photobucket.

Bis nechstes Mal!