jenny DOES exist!

Hello friends and foes! (Do I've any foes reading my blog???????)

I could pull a blog owner's cliche and say "Sorry I haven't updated my blog in a long time!" But I shan't succumb to such petty apologies!

So, I’ve been on "Herbstferien" (or Fall Break as us Americans would call it, if we had one…) for over two weeks now, so the whole getting used to school thing will basically have to start back up all over again when school resumes. The rest of the students at Gymnasium Plön (the actual name of my school) have two weeks of break, but I have three because my fellow 12th graders have "Praktikum" which is more or less a week-long internship at some business in the area: bank, pharmacy, grocery store, etc. The students I asked about it said they picked were they did because they couldn’t think of anywhere better to do so, and it had nothing to do with what they actually wanted to do for a career. Because like ME and most other young people I know, they don’t really know what they want to do yet.




Alright, so what else have I done this Fall break?

My host mom, Uli, took Pauline, Jakob, and I to Mallorca, Spain (an island of Spain) the first week of break. Right around our hotel, it was a huge tourist trap (pretty depressing at first), where everyone spoke English(tourists and workers alike), cheap plastic souveniers made in China were crammed into the shops on every street, and there was an entertainment stage next to our hotel room blasting Disney songs all night as people in creepy costumes danced to it. BUT, Uli utilized her Mallorca book and map from the library well, and we managed to escape with bikes and busses into more authentic areas of the island. We visited an outdoor market where we bought local cheeses and fruits and then we rode our bikes into this secluded area in between big canyony rocks next to the ocean, and we swam and had a picnic all day. Very nice.

After Mallorca, we went to my host GRANDPARENT’S house, which was FANTASTIC – the house itself was a goldmine, completely German in every way. I think I’ll dedicate an entire post to their house and one specific room and a funny scenario that took place there sometime soon (no, REALLY!). But Uli’s parents, Wilhelm and Ursula, treated me so well, really like a granddaughter, and I just kept thinking, I’m just this strange American girl that you’ve never met before and can’t speak your language, how can you see me as your granddaughter to readily?! Wilhelm, who I felt compelled to call Opa (grandpa in German), brought me to a museum about the Bridge at Remagen (bridge in his town that was destroyed during WWII) and then to another museum nearby that contained actual ruins of a roman mansion that was covered up by a mud slide, then found years later. And THEN to this community of houses surrounded by some old Roman wall that even used to have a moat around it, and these houses were SO beautiful, all uniquely painted with little designs, flowers, and otherwise – really great. Really, Wilhelm and Ursula were so great and still really sharp.

Ah! Very quickly, on Friday, I had my birthday party with my Canadian exchange student friend, Marie Pierre (yeah she speaks French), with all the kids in our grade. It was really fun to set it up, because it was Halloween themed, and Germany rarely celebrates much for Halloween. I dressed up as a gnome. Just as a side note, in 8th grade, I was voted "Most Likely to Own Her Own Lawn Gnome Superstore". I was, and still am, quite proud. Maybe pictures later.

And I also want to explain, that although I can't fluently speak or understand German, I find it interesting that I can still understand what a person is like, as if the majority of a person's character isn't verbal or something. Haha, but watch me be completely wrong, and once I understand what people are saying, I'll have an entirely new perspective of them. ACTUALLY, that's already happened, with my host brother. I guess at first I sort of thought he was just a regular 12 year old kid, sort of a trouble maker, not too interesting or bright, maybe, but we've started speaking English together (at Markus' request, because Jakob needs help with it) and Jakob is actually REALLY clever and halarious... Yeah, just thought I'd let you all know.

And now, it is 10 thirty, I ate breakfast as I typed this, I’m sitting in the computer room, no one is home, and I will soon go to Plön by train, without buying a ticket, hoping I don’t get caught by the ticket checkers (they normally don’t come by to check, but my luck will run out soon, I think. The penalty is 40 Euros… a lot!), and I will buy several Euros worth of stamps, and maybe begin to ask strangers on the street, with my broken German, what cool things there are to do in Plön.

BIS GLEICH! (literally: UNTIL SOON… err),
jennyg