Judging from my last post, most of you haven't heard much since the flight to Germany. The eight hour long flight to Germany. The eight hour long flight to Germany that had no pee breaks, because although we were in the 2nd biggest plane possible, I still managed to be trapped.
So, clearly, y'all need to be updated.
We arrived in Germany with 50 American students in tow and immediately embarked on the like 500 hours long busride to Bad Laasphe. Most of us knew from the Facebook group that we would be spending the 3 weeks of language camp in a castle, but it's Germany, so naturally you take 5 steps and there's a castle. It's so great. So the entire ride to Bad Laasphe there were sporadic shouts of "Is that our castle?!" and the answer seemed to always be NEIN. This busride was extremely important though because that's where I met my two best friends, Dean and Maria. After a few hours we pulled up to Schloss Wittgenstein, our home for the next three weeks. Outside the bus waiting for us, 5 wonderful teamers, our "parents" for the next three weeks. We ate brunch and picked our roommates (I had the best roommate out of everyone in the camp; THREE MUSKETEERS YAY) and took our first trip down the "hill". Schloss Witti is on top of a pretty decent sized mountain that winded most of us on our first trip back up it.
Most of what we did those three weeks I can't blog about because it'd ruin the surprise for next years Experimenters/CBYXers, but rest assured, it was the best 3 weeks of my life. I think most if not all of my fellow CBYXers would agree. There were 2 festivals (Bierfest und Altstadtfest), countless activities planned by the teamers, relationship building, beer drinking, and mountain climbing. Lots of mountain climbing. Oh, and Plenum. Future CBYXers, I wish you the best of luck with Plenum. That place is Hell on Earth. Yet somehow, now that I don't go there everyday, I actually miss it. We had a test that we took on the second day that evaluated our level of German and placed us in class levels ranging from 0 (those who have never heard a lick of German other than scheiß) to 4 (those who are basically fluent). I was placed in the middle class, and that turned out to be the perfect level for me. We mostly focused on grammer. Mima was the best teacher I've had in my entire life and it's so sad that she won't be teaching at my school. Anyway, so class was 5 days out of the week just like real school and Tuesdays and Thursdays were longer. Picture your entire school day, 5-7 periods and lunch. Now imagine that entire time spent in one class. In a foreign language. I felt like that was doomed to be terrible but Mima made it fun and I quickly became more comfortable with German. Most of us found that by the second week, we were losing our English and speaking German much more frequently. Using English words with German word order was my biggest problem, but we'd always just laugh it off.
After the first week, we lost one of our participants due to a serious lack of character on his part. Integrity and common sense, y'all. You'd be surprised how many people can't handle the basics. We became a very close family of 49 though, and I couldn't imagine the camp any other way. All meals were eaten at the Schloß, and yes, they served rabbit. I was sick that day though, so I didn't end up eating it. Frankly, I didn't eat any of the meat they served because it was not very appealing to me. But if you're reading this and preparing to go to language camp, let it be known that I don't recommend avoiding their meat at all costs. It made me pretty sick by the end. When you're first assigned your room, theres a signup sheet where you write your name if you're a vegetarian and THAT I would recommend. You can't get the vegetarian option if you don't sign up. Bad bad bad. But fear not, future CBYXers! Schloss food is not a good representation of the food in Germany. My host family cooks the best food.
Now, three weeks later: On Saturday we left the camp, some on trains to meet their host families, and some picked up by their hostfamilies in front of the Schloss. I had a 2 hour carride out to Mettmann but I was so exhausted that I slept the entire time. Which is okay to do, because one thing about host families; They will Always understand. That's my best job of summing up the three weeks in Bad Laasphe without spoiling anything. Point being, Schloss Witti= Lifetime friends and Plenum.
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