Chor Wochenende!

I spent this past weekend at a nearby youth hostel with my choir! I definitely sang more then I ever have within a 48 hour time period. Despite my voice becoming a little hoarse, and my throat starting to get sore, I had an absolutely fantastic time! Not only did we sing, but we also played a lot of games and talked. And the best part - I spoke close to zero English alllllll weekend! 

Here's a little outline of what we did. I've been having a hard time motivating (and finding the time) to journal, so I'm at least going to try and keep this up a bit so I have some record of what I did. 

Friday, November 20th: 

Came directly home from school at 2:30, ate a quick lunch, and packed my backpack with the stuff I needed to bring. We arrived at the Jugendherberge a little after 4:00. Then we  made our beds (the beds don't come already made up at youth hostels) and then then went downstairs to sing a bit before dinner.
After eating our bread, cheese, and sliced meat with a side of potatoes (very typical for Abendessen in Germany), we headed back to the conference room that our group had for the weekend to sing and play some circle games. Luckily for me, most of the games we played were pretty simple (and didn't require a ton of talking), so I was able to participate just fine. 
After that, we divided into smaller groups and ate some snacks and played some board/card games. I joined a group of experienced "speed cup" enthusiasts, which turned out to be quite an interesting time. Basically, in Speed Cups, each player gets 5 little plastic cups of different colors, and with these little cups the players have to complete various challenges, which are determined by cards that are flipped over one after another. Whichever player completes the  task the fastest wins dings a bell and then they that card. Whoever has the most cards at the end wins. Despite only winning 2 cards (I was actually extremely happy with myself to get those on my first time playing). I've never really seen a game similar to to this in America, so maybe I'll just have to bring it back and start a new trend, haha. ;) Eventually we all went to bed and got a sufficient (sort of) amount go sleep before the next day. :P 

Saturday, November 21st:

I'm not going to go through everything we did in order, but our day included lots more singing, practicing for a musical, and playing many more games. One of the games we played was a card game called "Bohnanza" (you'll only get the pun if you know some German). Anyway, it is a game where each player is acting the part of a bean farmer trying to earn the most money from their crops. There's absolutely no American game that I can even begin to compare to it. It's quite entertaining once everyone figures out how it works!   We sang so so so many Christmas songs, which started getting me excited for Christmas!  :D One of my favorites that we sang is a pretty song called "Mitten in der Nacht", which we will be singing at some of our performances in December. Incase you don't speak German, Mitten in German does not = mitten in English. The name of the song translates simply to "Middle of the Night" 
After lunch, we had a group picture on the big staircase of the youth hostel, which was quite an adventure in itself. Everyone (I think 40 people) just barely fit, and getting everyone arranged so that we could all be seen seemed a little harder than it should have been.   After we finally got the picture taken, we spontaneously started singing a song called "Der Kleine Stern" (the little star). Some other people staying at the youth hostel walked by while we were singing (thankfully they didn't need to use the stairs), and they looked like they rather enjoyed it. They were from a drumming group, so I guess they must have been musical types too. I hope so anyway, because we also sang a bunch in the dining hall and in other common areas of the building. :P We ate all our meals in the Jugendherberge, and the food was very good! I've now eaten at 5 different German youth hostels, and I've really never been disappointed by the food. 

Sunday, November 22nd: 

We did more singing with the whole group, and we also had a "wunsch runde" (wish round) where people could request for the whole group to sing their favorite songs. When it was finally time to go home (at 2 pm) a bunch of us got back up on the aforementioned staircase to sing happy birthday to one girl's mom, when she arrived to pick up her daughter. I think she really appreciated it, and being part of a surprise is always fun. :) 

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post. I didn't really use my phone during the weekend, so I didn't take any. If I can get ahold of some other people's pictures then I'll post them! 

Schönes Wochenende, everyone! (Have a nice weekend) 
I'm going to the Düsseldorf Weihnachtsmarkt tomorrow! I'll definitely be taking pictures there. :) 

Over 100 days in Germany!!

I meant to write this post last Saturday (my hundredth day here), but I didn't end up getting around to it, so I'm just going to do it now! Anyway, it's honestly so hard to believe that I've already been here for over 100 days. Time is just going so quickly...we're already about half way between the time that we (the ASSE CBYX group) arrived, and our midyear program in Weimar. I know I can't possibly recap everything I've done since the fall vacation (already a month ago) but I'll try my best to hit the most important subjects.

24. October Went to a Geocaching event with my host dad and host sister. We talked some with other geocachers for a while, signed a guest book, and traded trackables (little trinkets attached to metal tags which each have a special code, allowing them to be tracked as they move from geocache to geocache towards their final destination.

25. October I got adventurous and tried cooking a couple of my favorite foods for my host family! I made...wait for it....SUSHI and PUMPKIN PIE. I realize that those two foods could probably win an award for the world's worst food combo, but it actually turned out pretty well! I had mentioned that I like making sushi a few days before, and before I knew it, a sushi mat and nori, that my host had ordered online arrived at our door. So of course, I wanted to make them sushi as soon as possible. :D I wanted to make pumpkin pie because 1. it's pretty much the best dessert ever, and 2. we had gotten a pumpkin in the CSA box earlier in the week that I was free to use for the recipe of my choice. My host sister even made fresh whipped cream to go with it. :D

October 30. Just a normal school day, but wanted to share these pics that I took after school of the nice fall colors. :)

31. October 
Took a little day trip to Düsseldorf and met up with one of my CBYX friends. She had never visited Düsseldorf, and I know it pretty well since it's close by and I was there every day for 3 weeks during language camp. It was fun to be the "tour guide" in a city that was completely foreign to me just a few months ago.

Königsalle Düsseldorf

1.  November 
I biked to Zons (a stadtteil of Dormagen, which is between Düsseldorf and Köln) with my host parents. It was a surprisingly warm and sunny November day, so we decided to take our time and find some geocaches along the way. Once we got to Zons, we locked up the bikes and walked around the beautiful little town. It was pretty busy that day, but I can understand why. With the center of the city enclosed by walls built in the 14th and 15th centuries, this little town has been called the Rothenburg of NRW. The city has many historic features, including a mill tower/windmill, the St. Martinus Kirche, und the Zollturm and Rheintor (Toll tower and Rhine Gate) which were formerly used to collect tolls from users of the Rhine. At the end of our little tour of Zons, I spotted a group of people walking about 5 donkeys and a sheep right through downtown. Never know what you'll see in Germany. :P

8. November Another amazing Düsseldorf day with some CBYX friends. It's actually a really rare occasion that I meet up with other exchange students (It actually is, even though I've mentioned it twice in this post), because we're all usually busy doing stuff with our host families and/or German friends, and of course the point of being here is to become integrated into the culture, learn the language etc. But that being said, I did have an absolutely fabulous time "playing tourist" with 3 of the most amazing girls I've ever met. We toured the Alt Stadt, ate Pizza, and even went to the top of the Rheinturm (sort of like the space needle). Then we went over the bridge across the Rhine, attempting to go to our favorite little after-language-camp gelato shop. Unfortunately it was closed, but we ended up going into the Jugendherberge where our language camp was held and bought ice cream bars. :P If you feel like seeing the four of us vlog this exciting day, check out my youtube video here:

Top of the Rhein Turm! 

9. November In the 4th-6th lessons, all of the 11th grade history classes from my school took the city bus into Neuss for a ceremony, to commemorate the Jewish people who were killed on this day in 1938. I didn't understand everything that was said (it was all pretty complex and some of it was actually spoken in hebrew) but I did get the main ideas. Afterwords, we had some free time in the city, so I walked around with a few friends. We checked out H&M (just looked, didn't buy anything) and went to REWE for brötchen and pretzels. We had considered getting Döner, but then decided not to, mainly due to the fact that none of us were very hungry, and we didn't have a whole lot of time. Then we all took city busses back to school in time for the 7th lesson. 

10. November Went into the city with a friend from school in the afternoon! She showed me this amazing waffle restaurant, and we both got waffles there. The amount of toppings to choose from was crazy. Lots various of kinder chocolate products, fruit, and a wide variety of other stuff. Here's a pic of my waffle! I got it with nutella, kinder bueno, almonds, giotto candies, and kinder bonbons. Maybe not the healthiest thing ever, but when in Germany... ;) 

11. November The 11th was Saint Martin's Day, which is mostly celebrated by children who carry lanterns and go to people's houses, sing a song, and then get candy. They don't do trick-or-treating on Halloween here, so no, the German kids are not bringing in giant hauls of candy twice within a two week timeframe. Although I'm sure there's plenty of kids who wouldn't mind that at all. :P Anyway, before the kids go house to house, they have a "Sankt Martin's Züge" which is a parade of all the kids carrying their lanterns. Since this is so unique to Germany, I didn't want to miss my chance to see it. My host family told me when and where the parade was supposed to start, so I left about 5 minutes before if was scheduled to start (this supposed starting place was literally 200 feet down the street and around a corner). Well much to my surprise, I got there, and there was not a soul to be seen. But, luckily, I could hear a band playing in the distance. Unfortunately, it sounded really far away, and I couldn't even tell what direction it was coming from. So I just took a guess and started walking in one direction. Well, the music because even more faint as I walked, and eventually I figured out that the way I was going was most certainly wrong (go figure). At that point, I decided to on my "map my run" app on my phone (for 2 reasons, one being so that I could find my way back from wherever I ended up, and the other being that I thought it'd be interesting to see how far I had to go to find the parade). Well eventually, after almost a mile, I found it! After all the kids had walked by with their adorable lanterns (all very individual and creative), I followed the mass of people to the place where they were having a bonfire and telling of the story of Saint Martin. I'm definitely glad I didn't give up.  

Sankt Martin

14. November Went to a "Sankt Martin's Markt" with my host sister, host mom, and host mom's friend at a church nearby. It was pretty much a craft fair/book sale, and they also had some snacks for sale. I didn't buy anything, but the crafts were all really cool and fun to look at. Maybe I'll be inspired to do some crafts sometime soon (I actually would have time for that here. Amazing, right?). Then we went home for a bit and had a quick bite to eat before heading to friend's 18th birthday party. We had quite the time finding the place, but once we got there, we had a great time! 

Cute Christmas stuff at the St. Martins Markt

15. November Slept in and had kind of a lazy day. But my host sister and I did make some really cool paper stars (like 3-d origami ones). Each star required 30 different pieces, which when assembled correctly, required no tape to stay together. That afternoon I did my English homework for the weekend, which turned out to be way harder then I bargained for because it was a task that involved translating a German text to English. :P 

One of the 3 paper stars we made. :)

That's all for this time! I'll try to blog a bit more often now (we'll see if that really happens). It's starting to look like Christmas here! Supposedly my school is going to be decorated for Christmas on Monday! :D