Day 1 - Day 3

[NOTE: You wanted a post, you GOT A POST! A damn long one at that….]

Ich glaube, dass ich in den Traum bin.

I’m sitting on a hammock outside my German house admist Pflaumen (Plum; a new favorite word), Pfirsichen (Peach), and Äpfel trees. I’m looking at beautiful German houses that have small yards and big gardens. There are cows (!!!) mooing behind me (HOLSTEINS?), but I can’t see them. Neighbors are speaking German (mhmm, of all things) to my left, and to my right, my host brother, Jakob (Ya-cub) and his friend are sneaking around the yard watching me. Der Himmel is blau und die Sonne scheint (HA! This was the only German phrase I could say a few weeks ago… It means: The sky is blue and the sun shines). The temperature is about 60 F, absolutely schön. People pass by on bikes every few minutes – there are MANY more bikers here than in Champaign. My dad would hate it… There are even bikers on the Autoban!

I really cannot believe I am here. I think I’m in a dream. Although, it may just be the jetlag that has me in a daze.

…

SO, two days ago around 10am Ascheberg time (3am Champaign time), I walked out of Hamburg Airport’s baggage claim with my Rotary students and co-travelers, Allison and Barbara, to see American flags waving and a sign from afar reading, “ALLISON”. But then I look directly in front of me to see Pauline squint at me, then give me huge eyes of recognition. THEN I see Pauline hold sign for me: “WILLKOMMEN JENNY!” with Blumen (flowers) drawn around my name. I had been debating beforehand whether to hug or shake hands with my new Host Family (I hear Germans aren’t very prone to hugs) and which few German words I’d mutter… But I ended up frantically repeating “Hallo! Hallo!” and offered hugs. Pauline and Jakob gave me unsure, loose hugs first, so I did the same to Markus – my host dad – only to receive an incredibly tight one from him! He then got the car while Pauline, Jakob, and I silently and awkwardly stood outside waiting. Smiles were all around, though. I took several photos with them. Ja, ich kann nicht so gut Deutsch sprechen!

My huge bags barely fit into the trunk of Markus’ TINY car (a stickshift, Besty! That was the first German word I asked about.. But I forget it now). The ride home from Hamburg actually looked a lot like Champaign: lots of flat land, corn, regular old resaurants, some buildings – just a normal city, only the streets are much narrower. The ride home was also my first experience with German speaking… Luckily (and unluckily), my host father insists on speaking ONLY German to me; he has Pauline and Jakob do the same, even though they all speak fairly good English. They don’t follow this rule completely, though – they often have sympathy for me and my bewildered face.

Yesterday Ulrike (my host mom who lives in another town), Markus, Pauline, Jakob, and I went to the Baltic Sea a.k.a Der Ostsee. It was just like Lake Michigan’s beach, only the water was WARMER, a little bit salty, and, oh yeah, there are also JELLY FISH SWIMMING EVERYWHERE. Jakob threw one at me!!!!! I had never touched a jellyfish before, but I hope to do so again very soon… It feels like a slimy plastic bag with water inside. I was a little freaked out at first because Ulrike said, “Only the red ones are poisonous.” But low and behold, the very first jellyfish I see is a red one!........

I actually feel very comfortable with everyone already. My impression of Markus from Pauline’s emails was that he is very busy, regal, and impersonal, but that is so far from the truth. She called him “verplant”, which I now understand well – he is VERY organized. The house is spotless and he explained that everyone helps out around the house ZUSAMMEN (together). Things are done very meticulously around here, but not impossibly so. This procedure is just very different from my own home ;). Love ya, Mom. But anyway, Markus is actually VERY playful, friendly, and informal: when we were at the Baltic Sea, he built a sand castle by himself, and chased around Pauline and Jakob. He also insists that I call him “du” (informal) instead of “Sie” (formal). He’s very energetic and he also looooooves to cook. Steve, I haven’t asked him about the German recipes yet – mainly because I don’t know the word for recipe ;). He gardens and listens to (loud) music… It’s American, I think, but it sounds like bad 80s tunes.. :/ I wake up to it every morning, haha. It’s funny, though, when he was explaining some things to me, he said “You can listen to music, but please not too loud. Actually, I listen to music, and when I do, I like to listen LOUD. So you can too.”

Pauline is very sweet and she speaks VERY FAST German… It’s difficult to hang out with just her because we can’t really communicate. But today her two friends, Hania #1 and Hania #2, came over and I hung out all day with them. First we rode our bikes to a small store to get FOUR cartons of ice cream… Hania #1 and I both rode on the back of two separate bikes (a flat spot where baskets normally go.. very uncomfortable, VERY fun) while Hania #2 and Pauline drove the bikes. Later we went swimming in a large lake in my town. The weather was pretty cool and cloudy, but they didn’t seem to think twice about it. The two Hanias are both really cool – they’re very patient with my bad German and Hania #1 is actually the most helpful person yet. She’s SO nice and thoughtful of how I’m feeling in a situation – actually more so than Pauline. She also corrects me a lot, and guides me slowly through sentences, like: Wir raufen sie immer “Puppy” (We call her always “Puppy”) – They asked me about my dog’s name…

The language! Everyone has been extremely patient with my lack of understanding – no one really gets irritated. I have my token phrases such as:

Was bedeut ___ auf Deutsch? (What means ___ in German?)
Wie sagt man ___ auf Deutsch? (How does one say ___ in German?)
Ich verstehe nicht. (I don’t understand)
Langsamer, bitte. (Slower, please)

My family usually always speak German to me, and I normally use the above phrases to guide myself through their sentences. When I’m with Pauline and her friends, they tend to offer me some English sometimes, but still fairly rarely ;). I can form sentences with present tense, simple past tense, and very limited vocabulary. But I’m afraid they’ll soon find my inability to understand German quite old, and will stop talking to me in general. Like on the way home from Kiel today, Pauline was talking to her friends in the back seat, and I was sitting quietly with Ulrike in the front. BUT, on the happier side, I think already I can understand more German – with context, hand motions, and overall getting used to hearing it. ALSO, even though it’s only been two days, my English is already bad!!! I tried to talk to an American today, and I couldn’t think of words like “seagull”, and just my normal English flow is now corrupted…. So much for writing college essays while I’m here :/ So if I word something oddly in here or my grammer is bad, now you know why.

Food! For breakfast we eat DELICIOUS bread (Brot) with jelly or nutella or peanutbutter, lots of water (Wasser), juice, and LOTS of fruit (Obst) from outside (Draußen). Lunch is the biggest meal of the day – we’ve had pasta/vegetables, potatoes/meat/peas, and home-made pizza. Tim convinced me that I’m going to get FAT, and he may be right, because Germans eat A LOT and very FAST. But the thing is, almost all the food I’ve eaten has been SO healthy! It’s been only fresh fruit, fresh bread, jams, all home-made meals. I haven’t had ANY sodas while here, not even juice. I’ve only drunk water! Also, even the desserts are fruit-centered: home-made apple mousse, home-made plum cake… And there is always dessert after lunch, and there are many other dessert times during the day. Recently when I was merely picking at a piece of plum cake instead of going right after it, my host father said I didn’t have to eat it if I didn’t like it. I said I did! I’m just so full….. And that was the truth, man. Also… the cheese is delicious ;).

My town! I had been a bit concerned about the small size of my town before, but now I am absolutely in love with it. I went for a walk by myself yesterday, and there are open green fields everywhere, cows, a windmill (!), and father away there’s a windfarm (!!luke!!). We went to Kiel today, a big city, and it just is not as beautiful as a small town. In my Ascheberg, you can ride your bike everywhere: to the nice little food shops, two different lakes, or just enjoy the scenery around. I really really really really love the aesthetic of my town – just the sight of these close-together German neighborhoods make me melt. There is a lot of orange, I notice: the brick sidewalks, the orange roofs, the orange brick houses, orange flowers… Ja.

Sleep! My jetlag really wasn’t that bad. I mean, on the first night, I went to bed at 6pm and woke up at 9am. Other than that, my sleeping schedule has been fairly regular, and I feel that I’m already used to the time change. Maybe my fatigue just hasn’t caught up to me yet, though.

School! I start school on Monday, and I think I’m signing up for classes that morning at 6.45. They know that I’m done with high school in America, so I told Markus that I want to take “Spaß Klassen” (fun classes!). So basically that means: german, english, french, geography, art, and history. They don’t have many electives here, I guess. Also, I met my Rotary counselor today (Mom, it changed from Olaf Hahn to a man named Hanz Smid – he also said that I don’t need to do anything about my alien registration or insurance. I promise! But then again, he doesn’t speak any English….). With Hanz was his former exchange student, Ryan, who’s from Michigan. Ryan said that Plön (city I go to school in) has a lot of great activities – he took sailing. But I can’t imagine learning to sail without learning German first…

I was only homesick the first day when I tried to nap – all I could feel when I closed my eyes was slight panic and a disconnection with everything I knew. But that quickly passed once I socialized more with my NEW family…. Sorry, Goodwines ;) Also, I think Ulrike helps me out a lot, just by giving me a hug every time she sees me. It reminds me of my own mom. Yeah, I can see that sheepish grin on your face now, mom…. ;)

Oh yeah, and one weird thing here is that my sense of cardinal direction is off, I think. But it seems to me that the sun rises from the opposite side than in America, DOES THIS MAKES SENSE?! I don’t want to appear stupid, but honestly it feels that way. When I wake up, the position of the sun makes it feel like 4:00pm, not 10am…

Um and it’s nice here also because it’s very acceptable to wear the same close more than one day in a row ;) Which is good for me because once I de-packed everything (told you my english was bad), I seem to have much less than I thought. And remember for next time, it’s better to bring along PRACTICAL clothing items, instead of clothing items that are stylish…. :/ Did I just call them “clothing items”? Do people say that? Ugh… I don’t even know anymore.

Yeah, yeah I know: too much detail. And I’m sure you think I couldn’t have forgotten anything, but there’s still much more to say. I guess I’ll save that for another day, though. If you have any specific questions, leave a comment, and I’ll try to address that subject in another post! I love and miss you all!!!!!!! MUAH!

Viele Grüße,
-jennyg