Lost in Translation

I still haven’t figured out if this is a good or bad thing yet, but because of the language barrier, I can never seem to keep up with the conversation, usually resulting in me not knowing what we’re going to do for the day until we are actually doing it.

For example:  Last Friday I went with my host sisters to their diving practice, expecting to swim laps/watch them dive, but I ended up instead joining right in with them as the instructor very politely tried to show me what to do, even though I understood about 5% of what he was actually saying. Fun, no? Well I actually really did enjoy it, and I’m going to join in with my host sisters and practice twice a week. It ended up that Zoe forgot to tell her coach that I was American, and didn’t understand most diving terms until the end of the first practice, so I must’ve seemed pretty slow… whoops!

Also one morning last week, after eating breakfast, my host mom told me to pack a bag, and we were going canoeing for the day with the girl’s swim team. No problem! It ended up being pretty fun, except I felt petty bad that I couldn’t understand any of the directions being given. But we made it, and then we went rock climbing after a few hours on the water, and had an enjoyable picnic in a park, munchin on fresh picked apples off of the trees.

The next day we went into town, shopping around and walking through the fresh foods market set up in the streets weekly, and stopped at an outdoor café for cappachinos/hot coco/tea. It was my picture-perfect European moment, watching the locals walk through the cobblestone streets while we sat relaxing and conversing. It was pretty surreal, thinking of what I would be doing if I were back home. (Which would be just getting up and ready for school, ick!)

Last weekend we hosted a grill-out in our cute little backyard/garden, which if I heard right, my 18 year old host brother completely remade earlier in the summer. It was really fun, and lots of the neighbours came out to eat delicious German potato salad, brats, and loads of bread.  After it got dark out, Zoe and I joined in with the younger kids to play on the trampoline and numerous rounds of Königfrei, or as I understood it, manhunt.

We also had a bonfire, and did something that I found very strange: Instead of roasting marshmallows and making s’mores, we put a sort of pizza-dough on sticks, and roasted them til they tasted like freshly baked pizza dough, mmmm. I’m tellin you, these Germans sure know how to do bread right! (I’ve got to stay really careful around all these delicious foods!)

At the moment I am reading none other than The Magic Tree House series, (for 1st-2nd graders) but auf Deutsch, Das Magische Baumhaus, of course. I find it pretty crazy that I actually read what I’m reading now 10 years ago, but this time in another language. And the reason for such a silly choice in books, is that I can understand it! Probably not the typical choice in reading for someone in High School, though. I just find it crazy, that the same book in English is probably sitting either on my or my sisters bookshelf at home. Weird. Film-wise, every night at 20.15 (8:15 p.m.) there is the prime-time feature on TV, and we’ve been watching an assortment of shows, German produced, and American, with voices dubbed over. My two most memorable include Friendship!, about two Germans from former East Germany travel across America; very humourous; and Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson, which I found incredibly relatable. (As I watched it in German with Japanese and actually didn’t understand much of it at all, so maybe I’m completely off.)

My first official day of German school was Monday, and everything went well! I’m starting a new post now, or more likely after I translate all of my homework…

Oh! Other exciting news: During our fall break over here we will be heading up to Berlin! Woot woot!!

First week Abroad

From the day I stood changing in swim class, hearing my name being called down to K031 and learning that I was going to be an exchange student in Germany, to 6 days ago, a lot has changed in my life.

I can’t say that there’s a way to truly prepare yourself for when your family walks you up to the security gate at the airport to say the final goodbyes and let you walk off on your own into the world, because that would be a lie. I don’t think anything can really come close to preparing yourself.

So, leaving my family and everything familiar to me was tougher than I thought it would be, and so was coming to realize that I would be here for the next 10+ months, but it got better. When I stepped off the plane, and was greeted by my new family, I already began to feel less worried and more excited about the future. I am very fortunate to have such a warm, friendly host family. Zoe, one of my three sisters is coming to North Penn next year, and I can’t wait to show her around like she has for me.

My family doesn’t understand much English, and they also have a very strong Schwäbish dialect, one of the many regional dialects here in Southern Germany. So that makes understanding them a lot harder for me, but I’m getting better each day.

The first day, after settling in, I rode bikes with my host sisters into town, and we went swimming in a beautiful outdoor pool. It seemed very surreal, being surrounded by mountains and happy German people, just hours after an 8 hour flight across the Atlantic. The next morning, I went again with Zoe and Prisca and Muriel downtown. It is quite picturesque, typical German, but surrounding it is also a lot of newer more modern buildings. We also stopped by my new school, or Gymnasiam, and their grandmother’s (Oma’s) apartment.

The next day we went to a ‘Drachenfest,’ or Kite festival overlooking Aalen. We also ended up going to a beautiful roman bath-like spa overlooking Aalen and the kite festival. There is no real way to describe it, other than the water was very warm and the air was very cold, but it was very relaxing. I also got to experience a Sauna, and walking over stones and wood to keep your feet healthy. Later that night my youngest host sister, who had purchased a kite was eager to fly it, and around dawn in the mist we rode bikes up to open cornfields, and watched a very red sun set in the horizon.

The following day was Sunday, and we spent the afternoon riding bikes through a trail right off of our street. The way there was mostly uphill, but again led to more striking views of the town. Pooka, our dog, came along running by our sides.

On Monday we drove out to a farm and went to a corn maze, much larger and more confusing than any that I’ve been to at Freddy Hill or Merry Mead Farms. We then drove around, stopping here and there to look at Roman ruins. The Romans had settled the area hundreds of years ago and their legacy is still very well preserved.

Today, we had another leisurely morning, and after everyone came home for lunch, (the largest meal of the day, and most important to Germans) my host mother drove me and my host sisters to yet another mountain, this one we hiked up to find Aalbaümer, (don’t quote me on that name) a tower reaching high above the trees to overlook, you guessed it, more breathtaking views of the area. One the way down we took a route that is used as a ski slope in winter, so Muriel could fly her kite, and above us some men were hang-gliding. We also watched ‘Heidi’ today, after I told my family that Heidi is my name in German class. They found it very amusing, and insisted on watching the cute classic. School starts the 10^th, and I’m still missing everyone and the comforts of being back home like crazy, which I didn’t expect at all, but it’s getting better. More to come, promise!