So Far, So Fabulous

To be fair, I did try to update weekly. Sunday night I got to the very end of the post when my iPad spontaneously restarted on me. I got a little impatient after that. Today seemed like a good day to try again because today, my friends, marks the first month I've spent abroad. 

I had originally written a long long long entry with tons of details, but I think I'll try to spare y'all some time this go round.

So, I've gotten my schedule. I got it the 2nd day of school, which was also my birthday. On a side note, I had more people say Happy Birthday to me at this school (yes, the one that I had gone to for all of 2 days at that point) than any year in America. Period. And they were all sincere with hugs and songs. Germany, y'all. Anyway, I was lucky enough to have Sarah (my host sister) and Jana (my new friend from my grade) to help me pick out classes. They told me which subjects to go for and which teachers to avoid. Yet another time I found myself crazy grateful to have such great host sisters and now, a friend. I'm actually spending my senior year as a junior, because the seniors here don't stay in school the whole year and the Bundestag requires that of us Experimenters. I have several classes that my teachers don't even know I'm a student in. I'm not on their attendance sheet but I'm waiting to see how long I can go without them noticing the American in the class. My English class is very interesting to take part in because Germans learn British English. Also, we are discussing, in depth, the American dream. It's really crazy to see how other countries view ours. MERICA. German class is impossible. I'm in 11th  grade German. I should be in 5th grade German. Gym is mandatory here but I chose the best possible class. We did aerobics and dance today, and at some point in the year we're doing badminton and rugby. Score. :) For the first time, I don't dread gym class. Math class on the other hand... You know how Cady Heron said math was the same in every country? Yeah, she lied. Turns out Mean Girls is not a viable source for guidance and lifestyle advice. Who would've thought.

The weekend was parties and dancing and a ridiculous amount of fun. If there's one thing I can say about my German experience so far, it's that it hasn't had a boring moment. If there's another thing, it's that they aren't kidding when they say that Germans eat a lot of bread. I'm not totally sure who "they" are, but what they failed to mention is how delicious the bread is! My favorite food here so far is either my host moms homemade bread with cheese, or the rice, veggies, and eggs meal they make. I don't know how to explain that stuff, but I swear it is beyond delicious. I'm hungry now that I'm writing about it. Going to get cheese and bread, shall return shortly----

Alright, folks. I'm back and fully loaded with cheese and bread. Even a few grapes. Back to blogging. Yes so the combination of stress (subconcious from language barriers and adaptation) and weather had me pretty sick over the weekend. Yet, my sisters still managed to show me a good time. I didn't really feel up to going to the club on Friday night, but I said yes and had probably one of, if not THE, funnest nights of my life. That has been the case planty of times here in Germany. Going to the club, joining someone in their class, even yoga class, anything that wasn't exactly appealing to me ended up turning into another great experience. Because of this, my exchange motto has become, "Say yes." Because if I had holed up to read and sleep that night like a normal sick person, I would have missed a really great time, and a chance to get to know people outside of school. If you're reading this as a soon to be exchange student here in Germany, please take that advice. Saying yes is the easiest way to bring you out of your comfort zone. There's a fine line between "Yes, I know this and I like this" and "WHOA THAT'S NEW NO THANK YOU NO NOPE NO." and if you just push yourself to cross that line, you'll find out all kinds of new things about yourself. For instance, I have never in my life enjoyed anythign remotely athletic. My host mom and sister asked me if I wanted to go to yoga, and that was a very easy thing to say yes to because yoga is so calm. Then they asked me if I want to go to aerobics and I didn't particularly WANT to, but I said yes anyway and I adored it. Seriously entertaining and "worth it" experience. I have always hated gym class, and it's my favorite class here. Now I'm going to yoga once a week, aerobics twice a week, and 3 hours a week I have dance. And I completely love it. I honestly want to do more. I never would have known how much I actually enjoyed all of this if I hadn't said yes and left my comfort zone. So try everything, it's worth it. :)

I think that's all I have for now. We're going to Dusseldorf this weekend, so I'll have pictures and a post for that. :) Tune in Sunday for yet another riveting blog update~

My hostfamily gave me my very own Frühstückbrettchen for my birthday. 😍 

First Day!

I'm a frequent player for the role of "new student", but I can easily say that no state I've lived in included a first day of school like today. 

For starters, it's currently noon thirty and my school day is already over. Welcome to Gymnasium. :) Needless to say German schools are different than American schools, but I'm currently a bigger fan of my new school. <3 There are three types of high school type schools in Germany. Realschule, Gymnasium, and something else I can't remember. I know little to nothing about Realschule, but I'm enrolled in a Gymnasium so I know a little bit about that. From what I've seen and heard, Gymnasium is a lot more like college than what we know as high school. There are no mandatory "school day hours" as in, 8-3 or whatever, and if a teacher is sick there are no substitutes. You just don't have class. Also, there are no school sport teams. You join teams through clubs of some sort. OH, and gym class is mandatory every year. My school offers gymnastics, dancing, and some type of athletics for gym classes so I'm not nearly as disappointed about that as I would be if it were a bum gym class. As far as I know, it's an open campus. I don't think they even serve lunch, you just go to town or bring a lunch or something. YOLO.

I don't have a schedule yet, so I spent the day shadowing Jana (a friend of my host sisters'). She was super kind and introduced me to few more people and helped out with my schedule situation. Tomorrow during what sounds like 6th period is when we'll work out my schedule. I'm required to take 2 LK classes which are the equivalent to AP so I'm obviously enrolling in LK Englisch and, here's a funny joke, LK Chemie. If you were in my chemistry class last year you know how hysterical that is. I'm also hoping I can sign up for Deutsch (obviously), some kinda math (algebra bitte), maybe politics, dance, and child development. We'll see how it goes. :) 

Even though the first day is nothing but information, the classes completely went over my head. I hadn't a clue what the teachers were saying. EXCEPT IN RELIGION. I understood everything in there! Really not much exciting happened today at school. I'm so grateful to have two wonderful host sisters my age though, it honestly makes everything so much easier. Sarah and Miriam have both been so helpful and patient with me, I couldn't have asked for any better siblings. <3 

TL;DR::::::::

Today at school, I made Jesus a Facebook page (I'm not completely sure why), exhausted myself straining to understand schnell Deutsch, and went home at noon. WOO, GO GERMANY. You get better every day!!

Sidenote: Tune in Sunday for my experience last night at the movie theater :)

Meine Gastfamilie

Welcome back, y'all.

I have officially left the American bubble of Schloß Witti and am settling into the Loers' household in Mettmann. I was so excited when my family showed up at camp. It happened perfectly. I was leaving lunch and they drove past me to the parking lot. I started to freak out all American-like. "Y'all, is that my family? Y'ALL THAT'S MY FAMILY." They saw me as well and waved as I ran down to meet them. Now, a prominent fear of exchange students when meeting host families is how exactly to greet them. Do you stay polite and stick with the handshake? Do you go in for the hug and hope for the best? Do you have an awkward combination of the two and reach out for a handshake but then decide on a hug and squish the shaking hands between the two of you? Yep, the third. So that was fun and my family was very okay with hugs. People make Germans out to seem very cold and whatnot, but not my family. :) Honestly, most of the Germans I've met thus far have been a-okay with hugs. I have a family of 5, not including myself. Two sisters, Miriam and Sarah. One brother, Jakob. And my parents are Adelheid and Sami Ali. Miriam came with my hostparents to pick me up and I was pretty excited to see them all there. 

My first day here was not nearly as emotional as the alumni/program had me under the impression it would be. I unpacked, had "Kuchen und Tee", and went to the Heimatfest. Heimatfest was on Saturday night and I had the best time. Third Fest since being in Germany, and by far the best. I met my host sisters' friends and we stood in the front of the crowd listening to the coverband. I got hella pumped when I heard the beginning of "Rebel Yell" start playing. There's a lot of American music here, but it's nice because at the Fest it was a pretty even mixture of Deutsch und Englisch. Once it got dark we kept circling back to the crepe stand because it was so cold. I ate my first crepe, and it was filled with Nutella. Sehr lecker. :) 

Sunday I mostly slept through, because I have had little to no sleep lately and Sunday is a relaxing day.  Best sleep I've ever had. My bed here is so comfy and the blinds pull down outside the window and nearly blackout the room. When I finally did wake up, that's when the whirlwind of emotions got me. I got pretty worried that my host family would think I was a hermit for sleeping all day, but then I figured they would understand that the whole experience is pretty exhausting in the beginning. Then I got worried again because since the moment they picked me up, we've only spoken German. Let me say, I really do appreciate that. I believe I'm going to learn much faster with them pushing me like this and correcting my mistakes. But yesterday, I was a complete mess over it. I was like I SWEAR IM NOT SOCIALLY AWKWARD, I'm just barricaded by a language barrier! I went downstairs for a few minutes but I didn't say anything because I'm not really conversational in German yet, so I quickly went back upstairs. Then I cried because I missed my friends from camp. I know this all sounds absolutely ridiculous, but the amount of feelings that hit you the first few days are sheerly overwhelming. Normal Zoë would never retreat to her room, but Emotional Crazy Zoë did so pretty quickly. I was sad about it too because I honestly really like my host family. They're so nice and have a great sense of humor. Thinking back on this, I have no idea what I was so worried for. But nonetheless, I was worried. My boyfriend, Austin, had agreed to sort of be my anchor this year when things get tough, so when I got that overwhelmed I turned to him. You'd think that being my boyfriend he would soothe me and stay talking to me to cheer me up. But Austin? Nope. He knew that the real me wasn't so pathetic and he told me to get back down there and talk. Even if I made a fool out of myself, at least I would be downstairs trying. I can't put into words how much that helped me, but it made a difference. I went downstairs and I sat on the couch to write. Sarah asked me if I wanted to walk the dog with her, and on the walk I actually understood almost all of what we talked about. Which is a big step for those of you who don't know. The first like month for tons of people is just nodding and laughing when the family laughs. :) Afterwards, we all watched a movie together and I was so grateful for Austin pushing me to reach out and be myself. I adore my family already and I'm so excited to spend this year with them. 

Today is Monday, and I start school on Wednesday. We went to the into town to get my visa but I couldn't get it because my hostparents weren't with us. They're at work, so Sarah and Miriam went with me. After that, we went to the school to try and work out my schedule (i think, i'm not sure) and that didn't happen either. I'm still not sure what happened there because the German was so fast. And when I didn't understand, my sisters explained but it was still in German so nope. I BELIEVE I'm shadowing someone on my first day. That's what I got from the conversation. All I understood was "slowly". My German is super, y'all. :P They showed me downtown Mettmann and I must say, I am in love with Mettmann. It's smaller than Bowling Green, but it's so gorgeous and I really adore that I can walk to just about anyones house/the mall/the grocery/school/ ANYWHERE and it's so green! I'll have to post pictures soon. 

This is the view of my room from the bed and it's perfect. I love it. :) 

So now y'all are completely caught up on my adventure. I think I'll post weekly, probably on Sundays. If you want to keep up with me then that'd be when to check in. :) Hopefully I'll be a tad more brief from now on. 

Tschüss!  

Three Weeks; One Post

Because that's how we roll here on the ever so frequently updated blog of Zoë Grayson. 

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. 

Welcome friends!

Most of you are just now finding my blog because I've finally shared it so, HERZLICH WILKOMMEN :)

I haven't been able to post since arriving in Washington, D.C., because I'm bad at internet connectiony type things but hey, here I am. Today dad is dropping me off at the hotel and, as sad as it is to think about, it's also super exciting to know that today is when my journey starts. I'll go ahead and post the addresses to contact me at while I'm there so I don't have to send them to 57 people. 

*Language camp- 

Experiment e.V.

Zoë Grayson

Schloss Wittgenstein 6

57334 Bad Laasphe 

Germany

*Host Family-

Zoë Grayson/Loers

Vogelskamp 78

40822 Mettmann

Germany

*Texting

If you have iPhone or android, get the "whatsapp" application and TO YOUR CONTACTS add my number. 781-927-9193. After adding me to your actual contacts, the app will add me to your favorites list. After that, you're all set to text me. :)

*Skype

prettyraveegirl

Make sure that you send me your address before Saturday if you want any snail mail or german souvenirs :P AND WRITE ME. I love letters! And I'm going to feel very homesick around holidays and whatnot so letters are absolutely positively 100% always welcome. 

Tune in tonight for my post while at the Hilton Washington Dulles Airport hotel place of meeting fabulous students. 

Tschüs! :*

On the road

An hour ago: Bowling Green, Kentucky

Eight hours from now: Bethesda, Maryland

Currently: I dunno, dude. Like, Springfield, Kentucky. Somewhere sunny and seventy-five~

We hit single digits this week, and I'm counting down the final week as of today. This morning was my last in Bowling Green for the next year, but that was much easier to handle than expected. All of my goodbyes were said last night, which honestly was really difficult, and now I'm sitting beside Dad while we drive the 9 hours up to Washington, DC. I'm not sure what to do with this post other than update on places and plans.

We, (being the exchange students OF 2014 WOOOOO GO CIEE), received plenty of emails from the program head since my last post. Here's our new details:

>Language and Culture camp is going to be at Schloss Wittgenstein. 

>CBYX Pre-Departure Orientation (PDO) will actually be combined with the CIEE German inbound students' Arrival Orientation. 

>We have addresses for mail, and I'll make a separate post for that.

>All of us officially have a host family!

>We're having dinner with our German counterparts in Arlington :D

That's all that's really worth sharing. A lot of my fellow exchange students are talking about how "it has finally become real that we're going to Germany" and I've gotta say, I slightly hit that moment last week and it is literally a sudden realization. Of course we've known since March, but that doesn't mean it had hit us yet. I was driving back into Bowling Green after spending a weekend in Columbia with some seriously amazing people and it hit me that that was the last time I'd drive back into my town or even see these people for the next year. It wasn't even sad at that point, just sheerly shocking. But believe, it didn't take long to become sad. 

I have one more big goodbye left, and after that there's no more being sad for me. It becomes excitement and awe. For anyone thinking of applying, or any finalists, here's your forewarning. It's a week until i leave, and the whirlwind of emotions has already struck. It's all mixed up and jumbly, but its just great. It's eager/sad/anxious/excited but all of that falls together to be a ball of GET ME TO GERMANY ALREADY. I know there will be homesickness and feeling out of place at times this year, but i'm resilient and determined to let the good stuff outweigh the rough stuff. 

Here's to one week, y'all!

Newsletter

I forgot to mention something, naturally.

I've received about 3-4 newsletters so far from the organization with pointers and tips on preparing for the trip. These actually prove to be helpful, because the first one mentions applying to colleges while over seas, which is what I'll have to do. WOO CLASS OF 2014. 

I took a screenshot if part of the first one to give you an idea of what to expect (again, this is me assuming you're a future applicant to the CBYX program and not like... Dad. Hey dad.)