Break:
Well thank god for school breaks. The coldness, lack of sun, and school had begun to get to me, yet again, and I started to crash. My school here gives all the students off for two full weeks plus the first Monday of 2020. I have been loving this break. I haven't done too much (but that's just the way I like it). And a reason for that is that many of my friends have been away. They're not coming back until after New Years but I've gotten to spend time with my host family and their extended family which has been really nice.
In the week before break, many of my teachers didn't do much. It was like being back in elementary school. In US high schools, the week before winter break is filled with finals and big tests and some assignment that we'll have to complete. But my school here, it's just like elementary school. Movies, snacks, singing. My music class on Monday consisted of only singing. My English classes were just watching a movie. Some classes were cancelled. On Friday, we watched YouTube, ate waffles (and the brownies I made), and sang karaoke the whole day. It was wonderful.
Lingen:
The final day of school, I had plans to see Julia and Atticus. We were originally just going to walk around Papenburg and go to a cafe or something. On our way to town we decided, "hey, let's go to another city. Why not go visit the other exchange students in Lingen?" Lingen is a town south of us that's about maybe 40 minutes by train. So I went back to school, got my bike, went home for about 45 minutes, and then met them at the train station. A girl from Leer got on the train one stop before us and we met her so we could all go together.
Once we got to Lingen, we walked to the mall to meet the others. Julia and I each bought a pair of incredible sunglasses for 1 euro. The best purchase of my life. We met two other exchange students, one from the US and one from Canada, and walked to the Christmas market together. For most of the time, we were just sitting around talking. Some German friends of the other exchange students joined us and one more Brazilian exchange student. We all hung out and then walked to get food before going to the train station. It was a really good way to start break.
Christmas things:
I got to set up my first ever christmas tree! My host family has a fake tree; something which I really support. Noelle and I watched Mean Girls as we set up the tree. There were matching ornaments rather than an abundance of homemade ones, so it was neat and pretty and I loved it. I brought an ornament from Colorado, a gold covered aspen leave, and Ulla put it on top of the tree. A couple days later, I went with my family to the Oldenburg christmas market again. Since it was a weekday, it wasn't as crowded, so it was so much nicer. I had some actual Glühwein and I have mixed feelings. It was good but there was just too many flavors and spices for my taste.
On December 22nd, my host family had their annual get together with a bunch of family friends. Before everyone came over, I called my family and we lit candles and I opened my first Hanukkah present. Once everyone came over, we all had dinner together. Afterwards, I got some candy corn that my grandpa sent me and I taught some people how to play dreidel. I continued to light the menorah every night on Hanukkah per tradition. The next day, one of the families close friends cut my hair a little bit so now it's much healthier and my parents don't have to be annoyed with my refusal to cut it. :)
So I got my first Christmas! Germans celebrate on the night of the 24th so that's when we opened presents. My host family has a fun tradition of rolling a dice/die and if you roll a 6, you pick a present from under the tree to give to someone else. My parents sent gifts for my host family after I told them what my host family liked. For my host parents, we got a bottle of wine and wine glasses for them. For Noelle, they got a necklace. And Milo (the dog) got a Broncos collar. The wine, glasses, and necklace were all made in Colorado. I got a whole bunch of stuff, both from my parents and grandpa in the US and my host family. Some of the things worth mentioning: socks, peanut butter, a lip stick kit, some clothes, a lot of books, a lot of candy corn, tickets for a hockey game, and an essential oils bracelet.
The next day, I went to church. It was kind of like being in synagogue, just singing. It had the books, the songs in a language that's foreign to me, standing up and sitting down. The biggest differences were that everyone knew what they were singing, they had to kneel, and there were the little things that people eat which I don't understand. It was a cool experience though. We went back the following day to see the story of Christmas play. There was an actual baby playing Jesus and they had real sheep and a donkey. It was really fun to watch.
Osnabrück:
With a family friend, Noelle and I traveled to Osnabrück. The girl, Farina, is a student at the university there and she showed us around the area. We went to a really cute cafe, some little stores, 2 libraries, a book store, and a mall that had a wave pool for indoor surfing inside. Farina has tests soon for English. While I think she'll pass them, we spent the day speaking English so she could be more sure. It was a really great day.
At the cafe, I had hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and I don't understand how, but marshmallows in Germany are just superior to those in the US. Even the ones that say "American Style" and are the Rocky Mountain brand are better. Then we went to the first library. I found probably on of the biggest books/dictionaries I've ever seen. Both libraries had multiple floors (4+) and I was in awe. We spent a lot of time in the bookstore too, despite me having 9 other books to read. For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant and I got pizza. Nothing will ever compare to Virgilios back home, but I've found good pizza here too. The city was beautiful during the day time and at night as well. So many cute streets; just like you imagine when you think "European street." One store we went to reminded me of a store called Marbles, which just has a bunch of games. This store also had an upstairs. One room upstairs was solely for Christmas. Farina told Noelle and me that it was like that all year round. It had Santa's chair, candles, evergreen stuff, everything. It was crazy.
New Years!
Despite my 2 best friends being busy and me in another country, I had a good new years. My friend from Brazil, Arthur, and I traveled to a city called Jever where we both knew people there. I stayed with my friend Kathleen from the US, and he stayed with another Brazilian. One more exchange student joined Kathleen and me for new years. We all had pizza and watched Deadpool. We stopped the movie so we could go see the fireworks. And boy, was I in for a surprise. It's all legal here! People were lighting huge fireworks from their driveways!! We could actually feel things falling onto our faces. It was beautiful though. I loved it so so so much.
The next day, Kathleen and I met the two Brazilians in town and we walked around before going to a museum. Being students, we got in for 3 euros each. The museum was a kind of castle like building. It was huge and it took a couple hours to explore the whole thing. Different rooms were centered around different themes/times, and some even showed how people lived hundreds of years ago. I got to play a piano from 1912 and that was so cool. There were so many old artifacts and beautiful paintings. I thought of my sister when we walked up to it because the outside is pink and I thought she'd like that.
Bremerhaven:
Since Michael's parents live in Bremerhaven, we went to visit again. I really like that city and staying at their house (because they have 2 very sweet doggies). The reason for our visit was the hockey game. As I mentioned before, Noelle and I received tickets for the hockey game. Hockey is my second favorite sport to watch, so it was really fun. One of those fun little cultural differences occurred on our way into the stadium/rink; all they did was gently pat people down. No metal detectors. It was nice. We had incredible seats, only 4 rows up so we got to see a lot of the action close up. It was an especially good game because we won!
Earlier that day, we went to the German emigration museum. People get to learn about where people immigrated to, times where immigration was more common, and the conditions that the ships were in as the times changed. One part of the museum had different rooms to show what cabins were like during different time periods. Conditions definitely improved over time. One section was dedicated to Ellis Island and it talked about what it was like for immigrants once they arrived. A whole room was dedicated to Grand Central Station. The only thing missing was the clock. But they did have an old American flag there that only had 46 stars on it. My favorite part of the museum was the computer room where everyone could try ancesty.com. I put in my grandpa's name first just to see what would come up and I actually found his marriage certificate. Next, I pulled up a picture of a sort of family tree that my mom had given me. I typed in the name of her great grandpa and found some information on him. I learned that even being from Austria, his native tongue was Yiddish. I think thats so cool. I want to try that website for myself one day when I have more time because I think it's really interesting to learn about your origins and the people that came before you.
When we got back to Papenburg, I started writing my blog and haven't do too much else. Which brings us here; the end of my post. I hope you enjoyed reading!
Gallery:
The picture gallery is for you to scroll through and the pictures will be in chronological order of the way I wrote in my blog.
