After midstay

The "New" museum (egyptian museum)

EVA! at the parade

Klettern park

drinking coconut juice from a coconut :)

Pergamount museum!

Since I’ve been back from my midstay(may 16^th) time has been going faster and faster! I had one week of school, and I have been on break ever since. I go back to school tomorrow. (June 1^st) During the break I have been hanging out with friends and finishing things on my to-do list before I leave Berlin. There was also the Karnivale der kulturen! The Karnivale der kulturen was really cool! It was several blocks closed off and set up with booths all over the place with different foods, music, and goods from all over the world! Everyday was a little bit different. So Darcy and I went every day. On Sunday (may 23^rd) was the parade. All the exchange students walked in it. We painted our faces, and dressed up according to our countries. It was a lot of fun! (The getting ready part.) I met up with Eva who was visiting Berlin for the weekend. Eva was in Missouri last year with AFS. It was awesome to see her again! The parade went on for about 4-5 hours, and we all got extremely bored because we weren’t very organized and all the other floats were really awesome, and had music and stuff, but 15 of us stuck through until the end. :p During break, I met up with a group of American AFSers, and we all went to see Sex and the City 2 in English. Since Berlin is a multicultural city there are a few theatres that play the movies in original version rather than the German dubbed version. I’m very happy I saw it in English because I’ve decided that what language a movie is made in, is the language one should watch it in. Subtitles are good for when you do not understand that language. When one reads subtitles they can at least hear the real voices of the characters and the real tones. Another thing I did was I went to a klettern garten. I’m not sure what the word is in English, but it’s a climbing park where you have clips and zip lines and climb between wires and stuff extremely high up! I really love Berlin. I really can’t believe it is coming to an end. The year I had been waiting for years for (starting around the 5^th grade) is coming to an end. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it. I really love it here, but there are things I miss from back home a lot! I am feeling man I really want to stay here, but also I want to go back to see my family and friends again! I know this is normal from my years of volunteering with AFS, but still it’s really hard. The quote “It’s not how much you know; it’s how much you experience” is defiantly proving itself right now.

pics from midstay that woudlnt fit in the first blog post

i look like a boy in this pic..but whatever..that's my host family form my midstay!

THE LION KING!!!

Beatle's Museum!

Chillin at school :)

a sign in Hamburg that I find really really funny! It says weapons are not permitted! and your not allowed to carry open bottles of alchol because they can be used as a weapon.

midstay :)

Yesterday I started to make a list of all the things I still want to do before I leave from home. I have realized there isn’t much time left. It seems like yesterday I had 100 days (knowledge thanks to the countdown of my cousin) and last month I was in St. Louis airport crying my eyes out leaving my mom and my best friend. This past year has gone by so fast. They always say the second half of the year goes by so much faster, but now it seems like its going by a week per eye blink.

In the week of april 19^th, my class was suppose to go to Spain for the week. However our class has extremely bad luck, and we were not able to fly because of the volcano that exploded in Iceland. We ended up not having school that Monday, and Tuesday was all vertratung (all substitute teachers). Then we had to go to school the rest of the week, which was really sucky since all our us were thinking if the volcano had not exploded we would def be in Spain right now. We got through the week, and were still sour, but then we moved on.

The next week ,on april 29^th, I left for my midstay in Lübeck. AFS Germany offers a program where students can pay a small rate and go visit another city for two and a half weeks. I was selected for the midstay die Hanse: Lübeck. Lübeck is a very nice little city. It is in the north near Hamburg. Lübeck is known for its ports. It was at one time the second biggest port in Germany because of its location on the coast of the Ostsee. From that Thursday we stayed in a youth hostel, had seminars learning about Lübeck, and getting to know the other students who were also there. We had an awesome group. We always had fun! Then on that Sunday we were picked up by our host families. We stayed with a host family for two weeks in the area of Lübeck. I stayed in Reihnfeld which is a city in between Hamburg and Lübeck. My host family was A host mom, dad, and two sisters (14 and 17). On the first Sunday there it was the prettiest day I had seen in Germany so far. It was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit the whole day without rain. It was Lusaynne’s birthday (14 year old), so Ann Christin (17 year old) and I went on a bike tour through Rheinfeld. There wasn’t much to see, but it was very nice to go through and see all the nature. The next day we went to school. Another girl in Annie’s class also had a midstayer, Domi from Brazil. We were partners in crime. We always at next to each other, and drew/talked until the day was over. During the midstay I was able to go to Hamburg several times. Hamburg is one of the prettiest cities I’ve been too, but I was missing Berlin. On the first weekend we went to the Haffen Geburgstag. The port of Hamburg had a birthday and there were a whole bunch of ships all over, and it was really cool! The coolest thing I got to do while I was on my Midstay was see the Lion King the Musical! I have wanted to see that for so long, and I was so theatre deprived. I bought a tshirt saying König der Löwen (the lion king) because it was the first shirt I had found with German written on it. Most shirts are written in English here because all the shirts are printed in Asia, and just shipped off to the chain stores. I went with Domi, and it was probably one of the coolest things I could have done while there. The show was amazing! While I was on my midstay it was during the time of the German father’s day. Father’s day in Germany is when all the men go out and drink a whole bunch. They find random spots and carry around huge wagons just full of alcohol. The teenagers usually join in the celebration too. Ann Christin, my host sister, was working on her paperwork to go to the u.s.a. next year. It was really cool for me because I was like wow I know exactly where she is at. I was there just last year doing the same stuff. (I still can’t really believe it’s almost over.) When I left reihnfeld, and had to go back to Berlin, I was really sad, but happy at the same time because I was on my way to my favorite German city BERLIN! Going on my midstay made me realize one thing. There are lots of really awesome, pretty cities in Germany, but Berlin is the best city for sure! I had missed my normal host family while I was gone. I am really happy I went on my midstay!

School Schedule in Berlin and thoughts on the school!

Monday

8:00-9:40 English Professional course (my favorite class out of all my classes)

9:55-10:40 Biology (sitting and thinking class/waste of time. I don’t understand ANYTHING!)

10:55-11:35 Chemistry (fill of worksheets from copy other people/ daydream when teacher is talking…I don’t understand this class either :/ )

11:45-12:30 Deutsch (sitting with my translator and writing the neglish word above every german word I don’t understand.)

Tuesday

8:00-9:40 Geography Professional Course (the class I understand the most besides English)

9:55-11:35 Geography normal class (I understand this class too! J )

11:45-13:35 Math (I got my first 1 in this class other than in English! The 11^th grade here is doing algebra 1 and 2 things, so basically what I had last year J )

Wednesday

8:00-9:40 art (I love this class! I don’t understand the theory behind what we are drawing, but it is still fun to learn how to draw new things. I’ve learned that when I take my time, I can actually draw some pretty cool things. J )

9:55-10:40 Physic (the class that I only understand the math stuff, but nothing more because the teacher sits in front of the class the whole time trying to get us to tell her why everything is the way it is. To make her a better teacher she needs to teach us first why things are and then the next class ask us why..duh!)

10:55-11:35 English normal class (I think this teacher is scared of me or something. She never grades my stuff, and when she grades everyone else’s then everyone asked me if her corrections are really right, and sometimes they aren’t always. She speaks Germish; English with German word order.)

11:45-12:30 Geography normal class

12:50-13:35 Biology

Thursday

8:00-8:45 Physics

8:55-940 German

9:55-11:35 Sport

Thursdays are my favorite days because I get to leave after the 4^th hour, and I have lots of time to go exploring the amazing city of BERLIN!

Friday

8:00-8:45 German

8:55-9:40 Math

9:55-11:35 English normal class

11:45-12:30 Chemistry

I find school in Berlin a lot easier than in Thüringen. I have fewer classes, so I get out of school earlier. What the students are learning now I can usually understand a little bit. It’s not as advanced as in Thüringen. I do really love the school better though in Berlin. The teachers are a lot nicer. The only big downfall of the school is the bathroom. The bathrooms are really gross, and I only use them when I really have too. There is graffiti all over the place, the stalls are not even big enough for a person and their school bag to fit in, and the toilets are just circles above a pipe. So over all they are very gross. Other than the bathrooms the school is very nice. Defiantly different than what I was used too, but it doesn’t bother me. I like the differences. It is completely different from what I’m used too!