Pictures: Part 3

A close up of our christmas tree (candles, spheres, and chocolate ring things)
The carp (the flash makes it look a lot paler than it actually was).
The heiligen Abend dinner table (host dad cutting fish, host grandpa on right)
My heiligen Abend plate (a sampling of everything)
Christmas: first day. Preparations for second big dinner (duck). On far left (redish): Rotkohl. The circle things are Klosters (kind of like potatoes), and in front is the gravy and my host grandmother

Pictures: Part 2

The first carp.
The insides (on newspaper: what not to eat, in bowl: what can be eaten later)

Holger replacing the candles (real).
Our christmas tree

Pictures: Part 1

On the last day of the Christmas market in Potsdam, I went around and took a couple pictures. Here is one of the sweets stands (with gingerbread hearts and candied nuts. yum.). The whole main shopping street is lined with these stands (sweets, wurst, shoes, toys, candles, perfume, etc etc etc).

Yet anonther stand at the Christmas market.
One of the ends of the Christmas market (in the background: Brandenburger Tor).
Some of the more old fashioned stands by the giant blue Christmas tree above.
The poor carp that wasn´t quite dead yet.

Weihnachten in Deutschland ("Christmas in Germany")

Christmas in Germany. Well, first off, Christmas in Germany is not only one day. It´s three. there is the heiligen Abend (the 24th), when people go to church to see the nativity play. They also open their gifts that evening. Then, the following 2 days, the 25th and 26th, are the first and second days of Christmas. That pretty much means time with family and big fancy dinners. The house was pretty full for Christmas. There was the whole family (host mom (Karin), host dad (Peter), host brothers (Harald, Holger, Oskar) along with Harald´s girlfriend (Lena) and Holger´s girlfriend (Sarah), host sister (Irene) and her boyfriend (Daniel), and my host grandparents. Not everybody was there the whole three days, but it was still a cozy fit. The whole atmosphere was wonderful. The nativity play was a little embarrassing (not for me, but for the young actors and actresses) because the kids who were acting weren´t really into the parts and one of them forgot his lines. All in all though, it was wonderful. Oh Christmas.
My host mom has had carp for heiligen Abend every year of her life, and my host dad has also had a long tradition of carp on the 24th (a strange coincidence). Therefore, I got to watch the preparation of carp (it´s not that difficult, just remove the insides, wash, and cook\bake). I missed out on watching the first carp, but the second one (that´s right, we had two huge carps because there were lots of mouths to feed) was most definitely interesting. When my host dad but his hand on it to cut it open, it squirmed and flailed its tail. That´s right, it moved. Normally, when a fish moves, it is not dead. That just proves that the fish was really fresh. We waited a little while for the fish to calm down\die, then he cut it open and removed it´s innards. Even after that, the fish moved once in a while because it still had active nerve endings (like automatic responses) even though it was not only dead, but also organ-less. An interesting experience.

Nikolaus Tag

Fröhliche Nikolaus Tag everybody! Every 5th of December, kids all over Germany (and the world, I assume) clean their shoes and put them my the front door for Saint Nikolaus. Saint Nikolaus then goes from house to house during the night, filling the shoes of good little children with lots of sweets and suprises. The parents and other people get presents too, but not as many. On the morning of the 6th, everyone wakes up to wonderful goodies in their shoes. We have plates with goodies in my host family because they are easier and a little cleaner, but with the same idea. The plates had all types of chocolates and cookies, and there was a special gingerbread-type cookie on each plate. My younger brother, Oskar, got a gingerbread cell phone because he like to play with them (I believe he wants one for his own, so he can download games and movies and so on). My other brother, Harald, got a gingerbread car because he is preparing for his driving test (the whole geting a drivers licence process is much longer and more expensive here). I got a gingerbread bike. The reason: for the past week or so, my bike has been causing minor issues (it has a flat tire, so I can´t use it). All that means is that I need a little for time to get from place to place. Time to smell the roses.
On a completley non-Saint Nikolaus Tag realated note, this weekend is the second inbound meeting (where all the other exchange stundents fron the district meet and have fun) is this weekend. Can´t wait.
Happy Nikolaus Tag!

Thanksgiving!!

It is a well know fact (or at least it should be) that every country does not have the same staple ingredients. For example, instead of vanilla extract, germans use vanilla sugar. I tried to pick out recipies with simple ingredients so that I could be sure that I could find them. Well, I wanted to make a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie (both of which, in my eyes, are Thanksgiving staples). Every pumpkin pie requires pumpkin, and every pecan pie requires cornsyrup. Well, the season for pumpkins is over, and my hostgrandmother had never heard of cornsyrup before. I assumed that cornsyrup and molassis are the same thing (I´m still not sure), and asked her if she knew what that was. She did, but said that we can use a molassis made from sugar from turnips instead (it tastes a little different , but still good). She had also never heard of pecans before. I´m almost sure that they do not exist in Germany, because everyone I asked, my hostfamily and some people in school, had no idea what a pecan nut was. So I used walnuts instead. All in all, the pecan pie turned out well. As for the pumpkin pie. As I said, pumpkins are no longer in season, and there is no way that I can buy canned spiced pie-ready pumpkin puree here, so I got a little desperate. I figured any pumpkin is better than no pumpkin, so I bought some sweet and sour pumpkins (in a jar). Well, they were a lot more sour than I had hoped (I had hoped that they wen´t sour at all, but I knew that wouldn´t happen in the label says sweet and sour on it). The whole batter tasted a little sour, so I tried to dilute it with sugar, honey, cinnamin and nutmeg, but you can only do so much. In the end, it didn´t taste posionous, but it lacked that punchy pumpkin taste that pumpkin pies usually have. Oh well. All in all, the meal went well. Everything tasted good, a little different, but good. My host grandma said that I earned a masters degree in cooking for the meal, but she is highly exagerating.

Happy Thanksgiving! Sorry I haven´t written for so long. The past week has been pretty packed. My host parents went to Spain last Saturday (they are taking a 10 day vacation), so my host moms parents came to be with us for the week. Helga and Heinz (my host grandparents) are amazing. Anyway. Last weekend Will came to visit. He came with a bunch of people from his school. That was fun because we go to see a lot of interesting things around Berlin that I hadn´t been able to see yet. There are so many interesting things in Berlin that it is impossible to see all of them in just one weekend, but we saw a lot. Then, on Monday, I started preparing for Thanksgiving. I´m planning of preparing Thanksgiving dinner for my family, so I figured that if normal families cook the whole day or two days for this meal, and they´ve done it before, it would probably be a good idea to start a week ahead of time. So, on Monday I looked up the recipies, went grocery shopping with Helga, and prepared two pie crusts (I had no school, so I had more time to prepare). I also made the cranberry sauce (wich doesn´t actually have much cranberries in it). The grocery shopping was a little difficult because they don´t have everything I need here (such as pumkin puree), so I have to improvise a little bit. On Tuesday I finished the pies (pecan and pumpkin, except that pecans seem to not exist in Germany, so I used walnuts, and I had to use pumpkin that was a little sour, so I´m not sure if I´m going to serve that or not). On Wednesday, I had no time, so today I have to make the turkey (just the breast, not the whole bird), the potatoes, and the green beans. It shouldn´t be too hard. Everything tastes a little different than at home because the ingredients are a little different, but it still tastes good.

I just wanted to put up a quick catch-up post. I changed families yesterday, and am currently living with the Flegels. They have four kids (2 are older and have moved out of the house, the others are 10 and 18). I live right next to Park Sansoussi (a beautiful park), and the family is amazingly nice. I´ll explain a little bit more later, but right now, I have to finish my Kust homework (Kunst = art). Good night!

Hello again. Now for a little bit more explination. The stories are not in the exact same order as the last post, so you might have to jump around a little bit.
1-"Some police talking to a street performer (on La Rambla).", "A flower stand on La Rambla.", "A pet stand on La Ramblas"
- La Rambla is a big street in Barcelona that has a walk way through the middle of it (the cars drive on either side), so there are lots of stands, street performers etc. There are flower stands, touristy stands, pet stands (where you can buy birds, small reptiles, and I think I saw rabbits too, along with their supplies), and artists. There were tons of street performers, some better than others. This particular street performer was in a black cardboard box, and when he heard money go into his bowl or if he heard a large group of unsuspecting people walk buy, his would open his box and laugh and evil laugh to scare the people. It was interesting. This picture is from the way back (I saw him in teh morning, and then on the way back to the university, i saw him again). I have no idea why he was talking to the police (since I don´t understand spanish, etc), but I personal theory is that someone complained that there was a scary guy jumping out of a box scaring people on the street. Ha.

2-"Just a part of one stand in the market off of La Rambla." - Off of La Rambla, there was this huge crouded market. There were fuit stand, meat stands, candy stands, everything imaginable. It was bustling with life (and tourists) and really colorful. Beautiful.

3-"Part of Will's University" - Pretty simple. The front of the main building of Wills´s University.

4-"One of the many many cats roaming the grounds of the University of Barcelona." - Will´s University (University of Barcelona, I believe) is absolutely covered in cats. This is just one of the 15 or so I saw during my visit (and that´s keeping in mind that I wasn´t at the University very often). They were adorable, but I can imagine that they can be a nusance when you are eating lunch outside.

5-"Will at Tapas place on the first night."- On the forst day in Barcelona, Will and I went to a Tapas resturant. Tapas is pretty much like a buffet, but instead of filling your plate with spoonfuls or slices of food, most of the entrees are on little wooden skewers (like co-bobs) and the price you pay depends on the length of the skewer. It was delecious.

6-"Part of Parc de la Ciutadella" - In Barcelona, there is a Arc de Triumpf, and near the arc, there is this park. It was tropical feeling with all of the palm trees (there are no palm trees in Potsdam). There was even a little lake (in the picture) and a giant fountain. The fountain was under construction or getting repair or something of the sort, so it wasn´t on. It was quite a nice park, and there were a couple of museums on the side, but I didn´t have time to visit them.

7- "The highest point of Parc Guall (you can see the whole city from up there)", "Me next to the el Drac (in Parc Guall)" - I used to think that Potsdam was the park capital of the world (we have roughly a million lakes, castles, and parks). This park beats them. It was a huge park, and in it, there was a hill, and on the top, you can see all of Barcelona and the surrounding area. It was breathtaking (both literally and figuritivly (the hill was steep, so once you get to the top, you are a little out of breath)). Will, correct me if I´m wrong, but Dahli? decorated and designed the park. Everything way made out of stone, and there were abstract balonies and beautiful hand painted ceramics (every one different).

8- "Sagrada Familia (a church)" - One of the famous churchs of Barcelona.

9- "les fonts magics de monjuic" - Will and I went to a fountain performance thing. There was music, and the fountain was colored by changing lights. The one we went to had a sort of movie song theme. They played songs from Titanic, ET, and some other really well known movies. It was absolutly beautiful.

10 - "Will in front of a sculputre of the caselles in vila franca de penedes", "one view on the edge of vila franca de penedes" - Will and I took a trip to vila franca de penedes (Where Will did his exchange 2 years ago). We visited the Rificas (I´m not sure how to spell their name) (Will´s old host family), had lunch with them, wandered around the city, etc. It was relaxing and nice to see where Will had spent his year. We also went to visit some of his friends there. It was really fun.

Well, that explains the picture a little more. There were so many things in Spain (like soccer wall ball, going to the supermarket, school classes, etc), that I can´t possibly write about everything, but I think that is a pretty good taste.

The chorus in school is making a christmas CD, so most of my weekend will be spent in the school along with the rest of the chorus, singing for the CD. It should be fun.

I just found out who my next host family will be, and I think I´m going to meet them this weekend. I´ll be switching in mid-november.

SPAIN!!!

I'll write more later, with stories, explinations and such, but just for a little taste, here are some pictures from Spain...

Some police talking to a street performer (on La Rambla).
A flower stand on La Rambla.
Just a part of one stand in the market off of La Rambla.
Part of Will's University
Will at Tapas place on the first night.
A pet stand on La Ramblas
One of the many many cats roaming the grounds of the University of Barcelona.
Part of Parc de la Ciutadella
The highest point of Parc Guall (you can see the whole city from up there)
Me next to the el Drac (in Parc Guall)
Sagrada Familia (a church)
les fonts magics de monjuic
Will in front of a sculputre of the caselles in vila franca de penedes
one view on the edge of vila franca de penedes

I know! Two posts within an hour. Crazy. Well, I just noticed that I had comments (I know, I´m a little slow), and I´d just like to thank you guys for keeping in touch (Mary, Sahar, Rebecca, Leila, Colleen, Debbie, Meghan, etc). You guys are great! Have a great day (I have no idea what time it is were you (collective) are, so feel free to replace "day" with "morning", "afternoon", or "night").

Hello! Last weekend, I went to an Apple Festival (more like a Middle Ages type thing, but with more apples). It was fun and there were lots of little kids running around with their families. School this week is fantastic because a lot of the teachers are acting as chaperones on class trips, and in Germany, when a teacher is not there (sick, etc), there is no class. They have subsitiutes in other grades, but not in 11th, so since my Earth Science teacher, my chemistry and math teacher, my chorus teacher, and my history teacher are gone, I have a much lighter course load. Today, for example, I would normally have math, chemistry, theater and art, but I just had theater and art. That meant that my schoolday didn´t start until 13:45, so I had some time in the morning. I had gotten some carrots earlier because I missed them and had a little carrot craving, but I had gotten too many and at once, so my host mom left me a note saying that I would have to eat them soon or else they would go bad. Since I had time this morning, I decided to make a carrot cake, so I checked to see what ingredients we had (or what I could find, at least), went to the grocery store to pick up the things we didn´t have, and made a cake. It was quite fun. It was a little extra moist in the center, but it turned out ok. Tomorrow, like today, I only have two periods of class. Oh, and another reason why the past couple days have been especially good: I CAN VISIT MY BROTHER IN SPAIN!! My school has break next week, so I´m planning on going on a little trip TO SPAIN to visit Will. I can´t wait!

Pictures!!

Here is a link to a photobucket album I made of just a sampling of the pictures of the past month and a half. I´ll just type the descriptions here because clicking on every picture was taking too long (this computer is not really fast). Ok, keep in mind that they go backwards chronologically. I´m describing them, though, as they are. Ok.

http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc200/pearlmmb/

1.The end of the hike we made on the last day of the Rotary weekend (we had to cut through a field to get back to the hostel).
2. Our chariot (boat) that we took to and from Neuropin (I spelled that wrong)during the exchange weekend. (Our youth hostel was across the lake from Neuropin)
3. Some of the exchange students while waiting for our tours of Neuropin to start.
4. There was a weekend Topfermarkt where a street in the Hollander square was filled with stands like this selling stuff made out of clay.
5. One of the student run stands at the School festival at the beginning of the year.
6. My dinner at the big music festival I went to on my fist or second weekend here.
7. A stand from the Renaissance-y part of the big music festival
8. Some kids playing a game at the joint party for a cousin of a friend of Ilka´s and some other kids. It is their first year of school, so they had a party.
9. Neuener Tor (right by my house)
10. The street across from school
11. A castle that looks like a big english country house in the Neue Garten
12. Every chimney (of the castle above) has a different pattern. And there´s a lot of chimneys.
13. The same castle.
14. The view from my window
15 - 19. A panaramic-ish view of my room (the sofa turns into a bed)

The Rotary weekend was fantastic. Last weekend, the school chorus practiced on saturday and sunday. On saturday evening, two friends from German class at the Volksholzschule and I payed 5 Euro (a special) to go to pretty much every museum in Potsdam. We went to a history museum, the film museum, stopped by at a carnival that was across the street, then went to a small planetarium and a small art showing. Very fun.

Happy one month Anniversery! I´ve been here for a month now, and it´s been fantastic. The first Rotary weekend is this coming weekend and I am so excited. I can´t wait to meet the other exchange students from the area. And trade pins, you can´t forget that. I´m working on a presentation for that weekend (every exchange student needs to make a presentation about their country, themselves, etc), and on a presentation I need to give to the Rotary club soonish about Rochester, New York, and the USA. Yeah powerpoint!
On a slightly different note, I´ve noticed that Chuck Norris jokes are popular here now (they were popular in Brighton probably about 2 years ago). I was quite suprised. For example: When Chuck Norris falls in water, Chuck Norris doesn't get wet. Water gets Chuck Norris. If you feel so inclined, there are hundrends of them on the internet. I have heard these jokes more than one time, so I assume that they are in the upswing now. People at dragenboat (similair to crew) were telling them, and people at the Jugendkreis (youth circle (in church)) weekend I went to this weekend (singing, praying, playing games like volleyball and crab soccer, eating, etc).
Another random point, in gym, every friday, we run about 3.5ish km around a pond in the Neue Garten. The past two times have been practices, and I think the next time is the real thing. It reminds me a little bit of cross country, except shorter. Fun times.

Hello everyone. I still haven´t figured out the whole photo post thing yet, but I´ll keep trying. So, last weekend, there was a school festival (medium sized), a clay-ish festival, and a nice bike ride. On Saturday, I went to the school festival (the 11th graders job was to set up). There were different stand for different grades, like a baked good stand, a jam stand, a make your own lip balm stand, a mixed drinks without alcohol stand, a fortune telling stand, a face painting stand, and so on. It was fun. At the same time, practically across the street, the clay-ish festival thing was going on. There were 2 or 3 streets full of stands on either side with stuff made out of clay (pots, vases, plates, little animals, etc). It was held in the Hollander section of Potsdam (the houses built for the Hollanders to live in so that they would move here and work). The biking was on Sunday. It was beautiful. Potsdam is practically an island (it is surrounded by lakes, rivers, and canals, the first two created by the ice age), and we rode on the edge of a couple different lakes and rivers.
Last wednesday was the first day of chorus. We have chorus every wednesday. When I first agreed to be in it, I was a little sceptical of my ability to sing in a chorus, but after that practice, I remembered how much fun it was to me in a musical group. We practiced a christmas song made of of many christmas songs (it was in english, but most of their other songs are in german). This chours is a really good chorus. They´ve won competitions and last summer they went to Rome ( I think they go somewhere exciting every summer). We´ll be making a christmas CD and selling it around christmas time. The people in chorus are really nice too. It´s easier to have the chance to get to know people there because in class, the only time to freely talk is before and after the lesson, and during break.
Well, that´s about it for now. I´m going to go and try to get the pictures of of my camera.

My First Day of School

It´s been a great first week. I´ve already had a nice little trip to Berlin, and gone to a fantastic music festival. On the topic of school (the title of this emtry), my first day of school was today. I´ll be in the 11th grade, and I will take German, Math, Gym, History, Art, Physics, Chemistry, Spanish, Philosophy, Geography, and Chorus. Exciting! On the first day alone, I´ve met 3 german students that were exchange students last year (2 in America, one in Australia) and lots of other students seem to be away on exchange (when we took attendence in class, the other students kept saying "Ausland" when students sames were called) Most people go on exchange in the 11th grade here, so that is why so many people are missing.

My first day

Hello everyone! I´m glad to say that I traveled safely, and now I am living with a fantastic host family. For some reason, I am unable to post pictures right now, but once I figure it out, I´ll post some of my first day. My host father picked me up from the airport, along with his daughter, and we spoke german almost all the way home. I´m a little tired, so I will write more a little later to fill in some of the details.