Aachen and Baked Apples

Last weekend was another Rotex Wochenende with all the inbound students in district 1810. This time we went spent it in Aachen. The first night was a big Christmas party with music and dancing. It was after 3am before we finally got some sleep. Then we were cruelly awakened at 6:45 to get ready for a German test. We spent the morning taking a test that consisted of German listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills. After the test we went to the Aachener Weihnachts Markt. Aachen has a very well known Christmas market in the center of the city. It's a festive display of food and gift stands. One of the most common German Weihnacht traditions is Gluhwein. Gluhwein is a very sweet wine served hot. Very tasty! Aachen is also well known for the Aachener Dom. This is one of the oldest cathedrals in Germany. Charles the Great began building it in 792. It was consecrated in 805 by Pope Leo III. The Aachener Dom was extremely significant in the early Catholic religion. It was built as a shrine to Mary. It was also the church where coronations of 30 German kings and 12 queens took place between the years 936-1531. When Charles the Great died in 814, he was buried in a vault of the Cathedral. He has been dug up and reburied several times, but his remains are still there. Perhaps the most famous part of the Aachener dom is Shrine of St. Mary. It contains Mary's cloak, John the Baptists beheading cloth, Christ's swaddling clothes, and his loincloth. These are brought out of the shrine and put on display every 7 years. The weekend in Aachen was a lot of fun and NOT a lot of sleep. It was sort of rainy on Sunday when we left Aachen, but Aachen is considerably lower in altitude than Haan. I was welcomed home by about a foot of snow.. slushy, wet, gross snow. It normally wouldn't bother me, but it's much more snow than the people here are used to getting. So it was slightly chaotic.

On Thursday I attended my Rotary club's Christmas party. It took place in an old church in Düsseldorf. We had a personal pipe organ concert and then a VERY nice dinner.

Last night I spent the evening with a group of girls in my class making baked apples. It's a popular Christmas treat here. They were super tasty and I had a great time getting to know the girls. You can check out pictures at www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation Don't be alarmed when you see pictures with a handsome little man named Flat Stanley. I'm taking pictures of him around Germany for Mrs. Ulseth's third grade class in Minnesota, and sometimes I forget to take my own pictures without him. =)

Thanksgiving

I think I wrote something along the lines of a promise not to neglect my blog so much in my last post. Is it too late to apologize? School has taken up most of my concentration this past month. I've recently joined the school choir and was selected to be in a swing choir of six girls. It's been a lot of fun (and a lot of work).

Some highlights of November were another trip to Oma's (including another hedgehog incident with our dog Paul), a trip to the Ruhr Museum, and Thanksgiving!

The Ruhr Museum was really interesting. It's in an old cool washing plant in Essen. They restored the original building and much of the original machinery but added some modern twists. The museum has three floors. The first floor focuses on "present". It has a great display of photographs of the Ruhrgebiet (valley of the Ruhr River). One of Ginette's best friends was a photographer for this display. He's the one who took us to see the museum. The second floor is about "memory". This floor displays much of the original machinery and things from the industrial revolution. The third floor is "history". It focuses on the history of Germany. It includes geological and archeological artifacts and displays of the early church. It was really interesting to see history this old. America is so young in comparison!

It was really strange to still have school when Thanksgiving came around. I decided it would be a perfect opportunity to share some American culture with my host family and some friends, so I cooked an authentic Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. It was a lot of work, but the cooking itself went rather smoothly. The difficult part was grocery shopping. I had never realized how many canned items Americans use at Thanksgiving. Well, I discovered that Germans don't can much, so some ingredients were very hard to find! I ended up having to use fresh pumpkins for the pumpkin pie. Turkey is also rare here. We had to call a butcher to have a fresh turkey ready for us by Saturday. We named her Gertrude. She wasn't a butterball, but after lots of added butter and seasonings she tasted great! The Thanksgiving menu included Gertrude, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie. We only had one normal pie size dish, so I doubled the recipe for the pumpkin pie and put it into one big dish. BIGGEST PUMPKIN PIE EVER! And it tasted just as yummy with fresh pumpkins! The dinner turned out perfect, and everybody enjoyed the all-American experience! It was worth the work! Check out pictures at www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation

Fall Break

The past two weeks have been fall break. Two weeks off of school in Fall is a concept I could get used to! I'm not going to get to sleep in on Monday... my body may be slightly shocked. I told myself that I would get time to write blogs, a new Gazette, and finish scholarship applications during break. But I didn't. I've been out and about almost constantly.

To start off vacation, I had my first swin golf experience. Frank, Ginette, and some family friends took me out to spend a lovely Sunday afternoon playing 18 holes of this strange variation of golf. It's the exact same concept except there's only one club. This club is three-sided with a driver, pitcher, and putter. The balls are slightly bigger and soft, and the holes are much bigger. It was a lot of fun! After the first nine holes we took a break for lunch (which is actually eating at about 3 here). The golf course raises ostriches and uses the meat in their restaurant. I had a delicious salad with marinated ostrich meat. That was new. I was also quite surprised to see a wallaby at the golf course too. "Kangaroos in DEUTSCHLAND!? WAS!?" All-in-all, it was a great day!

My next big adventure was a trip to an art park outside of Wuppertal. It was very modern art. I've come to the conclusion that you can call anything art. And usually calling it that somehow makes it appear cooler than it really is. This concept is now a running joke between Ginette, her friend Gabriela, and me.

The other day, Ginette took me to tour Zons. It's an old medieval fort/castle right on the Rhine. There isn't a bridge to get to it, so we had to take a car ferry. It was fun. The little town is under the German equivalent of the Historical Society, so the surrounding wall and towers and houses are required to stay how they were in the 1300's. It was neat to see the look out towers and the little alleys.

Those are three of the major events of my fall break. I've also enjoyed doing some cooking with Ginette, meeting new people, seeing Duisburg Harbor, shopping, and spending time with friends and my host family. It's been a great vacation. In about an hour I'm going English style horse-back riding with a friend, and tomorrow I'm going to visit Holland for a day of shopping with Ginette and Kolja! I'm having too much fun on break! I'm not ready for school to start again!

Check out pictures at www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation

Rotex Wochenende, Haaner Kirmes, Starting School, Rotary sister club Potters Bar Weekend, and Köln Dom

I realize I have been extremely negligent with my blogging responsibilities and I apologize. The last two weeks have been insanely busy. I will attempt to fill everyone in without writing a novel.

Weekend of September 24-27: Friday, I went to my German course and received my certificate for passing with a 1,3 (1,0 being the best and 6,0 being the worst). Ginette was very proud of me and gave me a beautiful orchid plant (my favorite flower) for a congratulations gift! It already has 4 blooms open! Friday evening, I packed a sleeping bag and a change of clothes and headed to the Rotex weekend lock-in in Solingen. The first night, all the students were split up to stay with host families from Rotary. I was paired with Maria from Equador, and we stayed in the pool house of a very wealthy Rotarian. We were having a splendid time with the family until we went to the pool house to get ready for bed. There we discovered that our bathroom had a shower and toilet COMBO. This is apparently a French style, but the toilet had no toilet seat. It was a hole in the floor that doubled as the toilet and the shower drain. We were both quite shocked and confused. Let's just say that we urgently ran to the bathroom in the house the next morning. But we had a good time laughing at the situation. The next morning we met with all the other exchange students and went to visit Schloß Burg. We rode up in pairs on a little lift (like a ski lift). At the top we were allowed a couple hours to wander and explore the castle. Most of the rooms were turned into a museum. After the castle, we took a long hike through the woods to Müngstener Brücke, the highest steel railway bridge in Germany. We then returned to the little sport hall in Solingen where we stayed the night. We started out with presentations of our countries. The Brazilians and the Mexicans did some traditional dances for us, and then it was the Americans' turn. The Rotex member in charge of the music had spent a year in America so he started playing popular teenage dances like Cupid Shuffle and the Cha Cha Slide. No other countries had to present after that because it turned into a huge dance party. The Rotex lock-in ended the next morning with several new couples (apparently the no dating rule isn't very important to Latin Americans) and more importantly, new friends from all over the world. Sleep deprived friends that is.

On arriving home, I took a nap and then geared up for a night out at Haaner Kirmes, the city festival. International food, fun rides and games, and German beer make Kirmes the best weekend of the year in Haan. Frank (my host dad) got home from Mexico on Monday. The entire city is closed down for Kirmes on Monday. The weather was cold and rainy, but miserable weather doesn't keep the residents of Haan from spending the day at Kirmes.

Tuesday was my first day of school at Gymnasium Haan. Everybody in my class was very kind and helpful. They showed me to my classes and tried to help me understand the lessons. Most of the school is sleepy after Kirmes. Tuesday is the last day of Kirmes, and even though it is another school night, everyone goes out to Kirmes for the last hurrah with fireworks and fun. And school is once again slow and sleepy on Wednesday.

On Thursday, I finally had my first Rotary meeting with the Hilden-Haan Rotary Club. It was nice to meet everyone (even though I can't for the life of me remember all the German names that I'm being introduced to here). The Hilden-Haan club meets weekly at a very nice hotel for either lunch or dinner. Thursday was dinner and we had a delicious salmon dish. The presentation was about gold in the world presented by a representative of a jewelry company.

Weekend October 2-3: The Hilden-Haan Rotary Club has a sister club in Potters Bar, England. Each year they visit each other, and this year it was Potters Bar's turn to come to Germany. I was invited to spend the day with them. We went to Essen where we saw a beautiful Impressionism display at the art museum. Then we had lunch at a fancy restaurant before boarding a cute tour boat in Dortmund, and toured Germany's largest inland harbor where the Ruhr pours into the Rhine. Spending the day with the British Rotary members was very diverting. We finished the day with a formal dinner at a restaurant near Hilden. For all the Wayne Rotary members reading this, I have collected three foreign banners for the club thus far. I exchanged with Hilden-Haan, Potters Bar, and a special guest with Potters Bar from the Waltham Abbey, England club. =)

Yesterday, Frank and Ginette took me to Cologne to see the cathedral. The weather was gorgeous and we thought we had chosen the perfect day to visit Köln. We were wrong. The main autobahn route into the city from Haan was closed for construction so we had to take a round-about detour only to find that our second option was also closed due to the Cologne Marathon running through the central city. What should have been a 20 minute drive took nearly two hours in stand still traffic with an overheating car. But once we finally arrived, the afternoon was splendid. I climbed to the top of the Cathedral tower via a small, stone, spiral staircase. And I did it very quickly because Frank and Ginette were waiting for me at the bottom. My legs were a bit tired afterwards but it was really cool to see. We weren't able to explore through the cathedral much because they have services all day on Sundays so most of it is closed off. Ginette assured me we would go back again. I also got to see the digging site near the Cathedral where it has been discovered that the entire city of Cologne is built on top of an ancient Roman city!

So all-in-all it has been a wonderful and exhausting two weeks. Ok so I pretty much wrote a novel. I will try to stay more current on my blog entries from now on! You can check out pictures at www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation

Schwebebahn und Brake

In Wuppertal, their public transportation includes the Schwebebahn instead of a normal train. This train hangs from a rail that travels above the streets. Ginette took me to Wuppertal last week and we got on the Scwebebahn and took it all the way to the last stop and then back again. Wuppertal is well known for its wide variety of churches, most of which are "sehr schön" (very beautiful). It was a lot of fun riding all through the city looking at the architecture. I'll post some pictures of the Schwebebahn on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation

Friday, right after class, we loaded up with backpacks and our trusty terrier sidekick Paul and took off for a weekend at Oma's (Grandma's). Ginette's mother lives in a town called Brake near Hertford and Bielefeld. It's about a two hour drive north of here on a good day (more on that in a bit).

Brake is about as rural as it gets here I think. The population is probably somewhere from 3-5 thousand. I can never tell though. Unfortunately Germans don't put population signs up, and the people are squished into much smaller spaces than they are in the United States. A town here may have the area of a very small city but the population of a much larger one. Brake has quite a bit of farmland around it where they harvest corn, asparagus, beats, etc. But even farmland is way different. Some of these farmers have to try to squeeze a field into an area the size of a Nebraskan's back yard.

Oma's home is a very large, very old house. It was built in the 1800's and was once a bakery. Since then, they have renovated it into a home, but kept much of the original style. She now rents parts of it out. I put a few pictures on getjealous. It was really nice staying there for the weekend. We had a wood stove burning and bird feeders outside. I woke up before everyone on Sunday morning and sat with a cup of tea enjoying the quiet and watching the Nuthatches and Chickadees bicker amongst themselves for the bird seed. It reminded me of Sowbelly Canyon in Western Nebraska. Oma is a splendid cook, and it's just like visiting Grandma in America. You always eat too much, sleep better than you would at home, and are never ready to leave.

There are several things I learned throughout the weekend at Oma's:

1) How a two hour trip becomes much longer: Ginette's car is rather old and objects to hills. The minimum speed limit on the autobahn is 60km/h. At times we were going 50. Poor little Mitsubishi. This is one way to extend the length of a trip. Another is a 16km long traffic stand still. Ginette always gets off right away and drives around through towns on smaller highways until she sees an on-ramp that's not backed up. This saves more time than the cars still on the autobahn, but still lengthens the trip considerably.

2) If at all possible you should avoid making regular potty breaks at autobahn rest stops. Why? Because there's a 70 cent fee to use the bathrooms. My stall was even out of toilet paper. What a rip-off! They do give you a little 50 cent coupon to buy something, but they know that 80% of the people won't actually use it... they're sneaky alright! This was probably the most shocking experience I've had in Germany thus far.

3) How to efficiently peel a hot Kartoffel (potato) after it's been cooked. They don't eat baked potatoes here, they eat boiled potatoes. And they don't eat the skins. They boil them and then skin them afterwards.

4) Cutting your potato with your knife is an absolute NO NO! It's considered very rude in Germany. You may only use your fork to dissect your potato. It made me giggle when Kolja was scolded at the dinner table for this... nobody mentioned it when I did it the night before, but I'm glad I learned this with my family and not in a more formal situation.

5) Hedgehogs are abundant in Germany. And terriers love to hunt them. It's virtually impossible for a dog to catch a hedgehog before they roll up into their tight little balls. When they're rolled up they can't be harmed by the dog. Well, I've learned that Paul has supercanine powers. He is somehow able to catch hedgehogs before they roll up. He's obsessed with it too. Even when his mouth is bleeding from the spines, he will not let a hedgehog go. Oma loves hedgehogs and feeds them so they stay in her gardens. I think you all see where this is going. We had a bit of a dramatic incident as we were loading up to go home. Pouring water on Paul was the only way to get him to release the poor critter. But after the battle was said and done, the traumatized hedgehog was not mortally wounded, and Paul received absolutely no sympathy for his bloody gums. He was repeatedly called a "Dummkopf".

All in all it was a splendid weekend. Today I began my last week of German Class. We are officially speaking only German around the house now. I'm getting along pretty well, but require everyone to speak VERY slowly... and to be patient with the lag-time while my brain translates German to English (what I can translate that is), processes a response (consisting of very few words due to my meager German vocabulary), translates it to German, and tries to get my tongue to utter the foreign sounds. I'm sure I appear to be lacking intelligence when this sequence takes place, but they are all very understanding.

Wednesday will mark a whole month in Deutschland! It's baffling how quickly it's going.

First Inbound Orientation

Today was my first inbound orientation. Dr. Probst and Dr. Staeding from my host Rotary club took me to Bonn for the meetings. There are about 75 students from all over the world in district 1810. We all introduced ourselves by country and then were oriented on the Rotary rules... again... Then we were allowed to mix and mingle and meet everybody. It was a lot of fun, and I exchanged a lot of pins! My jacket is filling up quickly! =) I posted a picture of the whole group on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation.

After the meetings, we drove to the hotel where the UN Conference on Afghanistan was held in December 2001. It's a really beautiful hotel with a fantastic view of Bonn and the Rhine River. There's also a random castle nestled into the hillside visible from the patios of the hotel. There are pictures on getjealous.

It was beautiful weather for the orientation, but it just started raining again as we were getting home. Typical.

Future events:

Sept. 16 I will attend my first Hilden-Haan Rotary Club meeting. Topic: J.S. Bach =)

Sept. 17-19 Weekend visiting Ginette's mother

Sept. 23 The final for my German Class in Düsseldorf

Sept. 24-26 The District 1810 Rotex Club is throwing all the inbounds a slumber-party weekend. =)

Sept. 26-27 Haan Kirmes! The annual 4-day fair of Haan. It actually goes from Sept 25-28, but I will be at the Rotex weekend until sunday morning, and then will have school on Tuesday. Gymnasium Haan doesn't have school on Monday because of Kirmes.

Sept. 28 My first day at Gymnasium Haan!

Oct. 2-3 Hilden-Haan Rotary club's sister club from England is visiting. We will attend a French Impressionism art display! =)

Kleine Unterschieder

I've established a list of kleine Unterschieder (little differences) that may seem quite trivial, but I found them interesting.

1. Emergency exit signs are not red, they are green with a little man running toward the exit.

2. Stop lights not only turn from green to yellow to red, but also from red to yellow to green. I've decided this must be because nearly all cars here are manuals. An extra second before you can go gives them a chance to put it back in gear...

3. Door 'knobs' are non-existent here. I have yet to see one. They are all handles. Ginette told me that she saw a door knob one time and it took her a long time to figure out how it worked. That made me giggle.

4. Windows here don't usually have screens. They also have two opening options. I haven't seen a window that slides like most American windows. Instead they have option one: turning the handle 90 degrees will open a window out like a door. Or option two: turning the handle 180 degrees will keep the bottom of the window in place and the top will fall in toward you a few inches. Straaaange, but option two conveniently keeps the rain out.

5. Window shades are on the outside with a pulley contraption from the inside to lower them. If you're real sophisticated they might be automatic with just a button. =)

6. Right on red is not legal. But most people do it anyway.

7. Chevy's are really rare, but I saw my first one yesterday. It was a blazer. I've only seen two pickups since I got here. One was some sort of metro pickup. The other was a Dodge Ram. I never thought I'd be excited to see a Dodge, but I was.

8. All the light switches here are those ones that are like plates that work like teeter-totters. But I think they're backwards from the ones in America. You push in the bottom of the plate for on and the top of the plate for off. I don't know if I explain it well enough but I can't find the name of the switch. But they don't have the up and down switches that a lot of Americans have.

9. Public bathrooms are usually two separate rooms; one for the toilet and one for the sink. This is rather efficient for one-seaters, because the next person can go in while you're washing your hands.

10. Toilet flushers are never handles. They're like big buttons and they always have a little picture of a hand and water waves just to makes sure you know the function.

11. Many people don't have dryers. They hang their clothes out to dry. Except it's usually raining so they actually hang their clothes IN to dry. They make clever use out of stairway banisters and the backs of chairs.

12. Hardly anybody drinks normal water here. It's almost always carbonated mineral water. I'm starting to get used to it, but it makes me burp. Nobody else seems to have that problem so I must just be strange. Or maybe they have a discreteness I could benefit from acquiring.

13. In Germany it's not three-ringed binders, but TWO-ringed. It's actually not so bad. I would normally worry about the corners flying so free, but when their in the binder they're fine. It makes hole punches much more compact. (I know, trivial, but interesting)

14. In German, bitte means please and you're welcome, and danke means thank you. However, in restaurants, the waiters say bitte as they hand you your food kind of as a "here you go. enjoy." It was really awkward the first time this happened to me because it was like they were saying you're welcome before I got the chance to say thank you. I just stared at the waitress in confusion for a minute and then mumbled "danke??" I'm getting used to it now, but it still seems so backwards.

Neanderthals, Hombroich, and Architecture

On Saturday, Ginette took me to the dig-site of the oldest man found in Germany. The Neanderthal museum had several nature trails with modern art dispersed throughout. The site was in a cave when he was found, but was dug out and the cave is no longer there. Afterward we had tea and visited a graveyard in a historical neighborhood. Cemeteries in Germany are a bit different than in America. When you buy a plot in a cemetery, you actually own it. You can plant a little mini garden around your stone and put whatever you want in it. I included a picture of a plot on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation. I apologize if you are new to my blog and want to see the pictures from earlier posts. Getjealous gives me a limit on the number of photos I can post so I have to delete some of the older ones.

On Sunday, we visited Museum Insel Hombroich and Raketenstation Hombroich near Neuss. On the way there I saw a tractor tilling a field. It reminded me of home! Hombroich is out in the country and is an artist haven. It's full of modern architecture that houses several artists who display their work all around the grounds. Sunday was beautiful weather, so we strolled leisurely through the parks to see all the beautiful architecture and art. I've posted a few pictures on getjealous. The architecture was extremely modern. They were all either brick or glass with edgy designs. One structure that was different than the rest was the Musik Palast at Raketenstation Hombroich (a former NATO base). This abstract building was going to be exactly what it sounds like, a music palace for musicians to live and perform in. It is, however, not finished because Karl-Heinrich Müller (the founder of this artistic corner of the world) died. Construction will hopefully resume soon, but funeral preparations, ceremonies, and mourning have been first priority for some time now. Müller was a musician and is now buried on the grounds of Museum Insel Hombroich. One of the artists living there built bird houses all around his grave "so he will always here the music of the birds".

At Raketenstation Hombroich, there is an amazing garden. The garden has a cement wall probably 7 or 8ft high built all around it. The wall goes about 17in into the ground to keep pesky rabbits and rodents out. This wall virtually eliminates wind in the garden, so it gets very warm. It's a perfect environment for growth. The layout of the garden is in a Japanese style with a maze of stone pathways through the vegetation and a large square pool of water in the center. The garden has only existed about three years, but it already produces spectacular plants. The produce like pears, tomatoes, grapes, apples, nectarines, and squash are all extremely large (and delicious looking)! The lady that was working in the garden was very passionate about her job. She was so excited to share all the information she knew about the plants and the museums. She would dash from plant to plant having us try different herbs and vegetables.

We ate lunch in the cafeteria at the Museum Insel Hombroich. They had delicious potatoes, breads, and homemade marmalades from the fruits of the garden at Raketenstation Hombroich. YUMMI! Then we meandered around through the modern buildings, looking at the different art displays. There were large displays outdoors like "Parliament" (a large circle of huge metal chairs) and a ring of stones with pictures carved into them. The mixture of nature and art made a delightful Sunday afternoon.

Ginette decided to take me through Düsseldorf on our way home to see the modern architecture of the Harbor. These were huge office buildings with very unique styles. One building had interesting patches of color in the glass windows. Another had these strange colorful creatures crawling up the walls. Pictures of some of the more interesting things are on getjealous. The craziest of them all were the three buildings side-by-side that were built by architect, Frank Gehry. Their shapes are out of control! One is white and one is a reddish brown color, and right between them is a building that knocked my socks off! It looks like waves and is covered in chrome plates that have interesting dents so it reflects the light in all sorts of directions. These buildings made me dizzy. I would get lost inside them. We drove by a more classical building that is an art institute. Ginette said they put on a big open-house every winter and that we will definitely go see it. Then she showed me a street of city houses. On one side of the street it looks like a place you should avoid at night. On the other is a row of houses painted with murals and bright colors. One house had very realistic bugs painted on it. Others were cartoon characters. The story behind this area is neat. These buildings were abandoned at one point, so a few people moved into them and fixed them up. They weren't paying rent because nobody knew who owned them. When the city started getting things together they came knocking on their doors saying they needed to pay rent, but the residents refused. They fought for a long time and won. They still don't pay rent. They only pay for their utilities, as opposed to the other side of the street. Ginette has a friend that lived there.

So after a wonderful weekend of site-seeing, I'm back in my German class trying to remember which article goes with which noun. I'm just not sure what they were thinking when they decided to stick random articles on nouns without any rules! I've also decided that Germans have officially overused the "sh" sound. I was looking in the dictionary for a word starting with sd today, and in a normal dictionary you get to sch and you start going one page at a time because you know you're close. Not so in the German dictionary. Sch goes on FOREVER! It seems like ever other word in conversation is sh this and sh that. It makes picking out different words even harder. But I've been really trying to learn as much German from this class as possible so I usually spend several hours trying to memorize vocabulary words. I fell asleep in the process today.

Villa de Hügel

Yesterday Ginette took me to visit Villa de Hügel in Essen. It's a mansion that belonged to the Krupp family. It was built by Alfred Krupp in 1873. The Krupps were a family of industrialists who were very prominent for their steel production. The mansion was their home as well as a representation of their industry. The home passed down through several generations. During WWII, it was under Bertha Krupp who married Alfred von Bohlen und Halbach. Alfred allied with Hitler (probably because a man with his fame had no chance of keeping it if he wasn't part of the SS). You know Big Bertha? Yeah that was named after Bertha Krupp. The mansion was extremely modern for the time. It had the most up-to-date heating system. It was similar to those used today. This was EXTREMELY modern for the time. I'm posting pictures on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation. The interior is mostly wood. It's a little dark for my taste. But the libraries are really nice... unfortunately they aren't completely full of books. But I dream of having a library like that someday. =) What I like most is the upper level with a railing in the library. The mansion consists of two "houses" that are connected with indoor passageways on two levels. The smaller house is a museum with displays history of the Krupp family. The larger house was where the family lived and has original furnishings.

The rooms on the main floors are very large. But in the upper level, the bedrooms and living space are rather small. The point of the house was to hold up their reputation. The entrance and dance halls are all on the first floor. On the second floor are more guest areas as well as a huge living room with a dome ceiling. The ceiling is made of many windows, so to save from always having to clean them, they built another area with a roof and lots of vertical windows above the dome. This protected the ceiling from the elements. While we were walking around the grounds I noticed this extra area with many windows and was really interested to know what it was. Turns out it has no usable space. What a waste of an amazing location and so many windows. For future reference, I would never do that. It should be an astronomy area or something cool like that.

The Villa sits on a very large acreage. In the days of industry, it was much larger with beautiful gardens and many houses for workers. The Krupps also built many houses in Essen for their workers. They even provided health insurance for their employees. This was very rare at the time. The mansion sits on the Ruhr River and Lake Baldeney. They had large private boat to take out on the lake.

After visiting Villa Hügel, we went to the lake and found Schloß Baldeney. It's a small castle right on the lake that's for sale for €4 million. It has it's own chapel and everything. I've been saying this whole time that I want to buy a castle while I'm here. This would definitely be a nice one. It needs a lot of work, but Dad could run the parish and Mom volunteered to be the grounds keeper. When I'm an architect I could manage the renovations. It sounds like a splendid idea to me. ;)

On our way home we drove by a HUGE Catholic church in Essen, so we stopped and looked around. Construction of this church began in 1250. It's amazing what kind of structures they could make before they had modern technology.

Ginette is really interested in architecture as well, so we talk about dream homes and renovation ideas. It's a lot of fun! We've both decided that a dream home is nothing without amazing gardens, so they landscaping is always included in our brainstorming. =)

Benrath

German class is going well. It's a little slow for my liking but it's good. Yesterday we visited Benrath. It's a pink palace (pink symbolized celebrity at the time) and gardens that were completed in 1770 for the Palatine Elector-Prince Karl Theodor. It was meant to be a summer/hunting estate, but he never really lived there at all.

French architect Nicolas de Pigage designed this mansion with the theme of nature in mind. It was extremely important to French architects at the time to have complete symmetry. So much so, that if there was a door on one side of a room but no door opposite it, they would make a blind door (area on the wall that looks just like a door but really leads nowhere) just to keep in symmetric. Opposite every window must be a mirror. I've been known to be obsessive compulsive about symmetry, so I really enjoy classic French architecture. The estate itself is also symmetric. With the main building in the center, two identical long buildings to the sides, and two small buildings on the outsides. The gardens are very important in the estate, with a French garden on one side and an English garden on the other, as well as ponds in front and back. They also have a moat! =) I'm posting pictures on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation because it's difficult to describe. We got a private tour of the interior, but pictures weren't allowed (I'm including some google images on getjealous). The palace has two identical sides (hence the symmetry). One side of the first floor belonged to Karl Theodor. It consisted of his private sitting rooms, bed chamber, and hall to entertain guests. The opposite side of the first floor belonged to his wife. It has an identical structure. In the center, is the entry, a sitting room, and the ballroom. In the ballroom, the ceiling is the hight of the entire house. There is a large opening in the center of the dome and you see a separate ceiling higher up with natural light, but you can't see the windows. This is a hidden room for the orchestra. The stairway to this room is upstairs. The point was to make guests feel like the orchestra was invisible and music was just there magically. Upstairs is the guest area with two guest suites on both sides (4 suites in all). The suites include a bedroom with 3 sitting rooms. In between the two suites is a larger sitting room for the guests to meet each other. This "second floor" is actually the third of 4 floors in the house. Between the first and third floors, and above the third floor, are servant floors. This allowed servants to move from room to room undetected by guests. Many of the doors leading to their stairways were camouflaged into the wallpaper. The floors are hidden by low ceilings on the main floors and the windows stretch through two floors giving the appearance of only two floors from the outside. Nicolas de Pigage was tricky! ;)

After a wonderful day feeling like I belong in a Jane Austen book, we hit the ice cream parlor. I had a blueberry citric liquor sundae. Of course I had to include a picture of that on getjealous too. =)

Tag 1 deutsch klasse

My first day of German class went rather well. Much of the beginning things were greeting sentences and phrases that I already knew, but we got into a lot of material that I didn't know. I've been working really hard to use what I do know in conversation. It's not a lot, but every little bit counts. It's funny how just after the first day, I've been able to understand a few more things when people are speaking. The class is 4 hours long, 5 days a week, for 4 weeks. Hopefully I'll learn a lot. It's kind of cool how this class works. Strangely it's taught in German, but it seems to be effective because there is a wide variety of nationalities there and most everyone seems to be picking up on it. My partner is an Australian guy. His accent makes my day. =)

After class, I studied a little and was distracted a lot. Then I went for a drive around the country. I saw the biggest milk cows I've EVER seen, a really cool Nicodemus mission monastery, and a lot of gorgeous countryside! Then we went and picked flowers at this community garden and put them around the house.

Tomorrow I go to my class by myself for the first time on the bus. I feel so grown up. ;) I finally put pictures of my host family's house on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation.

Krank!? Schon!?

I expected it would happen because my immune system isn't up to snuff on German illnesses. I woke up this morning with an awful sore throat that's progressively getting worse. My host mom is out of zinc but she's going to buy me some tomorrow. For now I'm drinking an herbal tea concoction she suggested. I'm afraid to ask what's in it. It's helping a little. I figure I'll get over this and won't have to worry about getting it again. My good ol' immune system learns quickly.

Yesterday after I wrote my blog, I went out to lunch with Kolja's girlfriend Alex, a couple of her friends, and her boss to eat at an American restaurant. Her boss has a white 1958 Sixty Special Cadillac. It's pretty much beautiful. He rents it out for weddings and stuff, but when he heard I was an American, he invited us all out for a spin so he could talk American cars with me. This car would get some looks in America, but in Germany EVERYONE stares. They just don't have cars like that here. I put some pictures on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation for you to see. As for the American restaurant, it was funny. They went out of their way to hang random American things like roadsigns and a disco-ball. They had chicken wings and burgers and stuff like that. But German burgers just don't hold a candle to Nebraska beef. Their BBQ sauce isn't quite as good as Famous Dave's or Buffalo Wild Wings either.

After we ate, Alex, one of her friends, and I went shopping in Düsseldorf. Shopping here is so much fun because instead of malls you have streets with shops everywhere. Sort of like an outdoor mall but BIGGER and the buildings are all unique for each store. Düsseldorf has one of the most famous shopping streets. We drove down the street and I was one of those gawking tourists that all these rich people laugh at because I'm not used to seeing streets full of Gucci and Prada etc! After a couple seconds of shock I said, "Where do people like me shop!?" Luckily there are more affordable streets.

While we were in Düsseldorf, I saw a bierbike. There's a picture on getjealous. It was like a little trolley with a big keg on the front and a bunch of stools on the sides. While you sit on the stools (like a bar) drinking beer, you pedal like a bike and it rides down the streets. It was quite the contraption.

Today at breakfast I decided I should take a picture of the table so you could see the kind of things we eat. I really love breakfast here with the AMAZING bread and cheese. Yummi! I put that picture on getjealous too. Kolja asked me if I would make pancakes and cookies for him someday. Neither of which they really have here. Subway is the only place they can get cookies like the ones we eat. I wish I would have brought a church cookbook!

My German class in Düsseldorf starts tomorrow morning. I'm excited to start learning the language. It'll be nice when I can understand what everyone is talking about.

My host family doesn't often go to church, but I decided not to find one on my own quite yet. I won't get much out of it until I know more German. Instead I had my own devotions and Matins this morning and had Dad send me the readings and his sermon from our church. I look forward to attending some German churches in the future to see what they're like.

Today is the end of summer for everyone around Haan. Kolja says, "No more making party. Today I chill" I'm looking forward to some relaxation time today. Ginette wants to watch The Men Who Stare at Goats with me later. =)

First Impressions

1. Germans really are crazy drivers! Crazy, but very good! I have yet to see an automatic vehicle. People park in the most absurd places. Most streets have cars parked on the sidewalks. But most of their cars are small enough that it's ok to squeeze them into the tiniest spots available. But needless-to-say, they drive FAST. =)

2. Most Germans are extremely kind. They are much like Nebraskans I've noticed. When they go to a business they talk to the workers like they know each other even if they don't. "How are you? Has your day been busy? It's finally sunny today!" Things like that. It's comforting and reminds me of home. And being nice to people makes business much easier.

3. Speaking of sun, I looked out my window when I started this blog and it was a prospectively delightful day. The sun was shining and there was a nice breeze. Now it's raining. It rains pretty much all the time. At least part of every day I've been here so far.

4. Architecture is amazing here. The houses and buildings are so old and beautiful. There are plenty of pictures on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation that you can check out.

5. A lot of things here are American or at least found in America. But they are all much more expensive. Ford vehicles are not quite as affordable here. Converse cost twice as much. etc. About 80% of there movies are American with German voices so the lips aren't moving with the words. That's a little annoying. They listen to a LOT of American music including oldies. That's another one of those comforting things.

6. Food portions are much smaller here unless you go to an American restaurant. The food isn't that much different than America, though. Breakfasts are almost always toast or really good bread with marmalade or nutella or something. Nutella is a hazelnut version of peanut butter that is super delicious, but pretty sweet. They also use their butter knife a lot. Usually when they eat they have their butter knife in their right hand and their fork in their left so they can cut all their food with the knife instead of the side of a fork like a lot of Americans. Then they use the knife to pack the food onto their fork for each bite. It's interesting but I'm getting used to it. It's actually quite convenient if you can train your hands to coordinate your utensils in such a way.

7. Schaumparties are REALLY fun. It's a club where the dance floor is covered in foam. It's like having shampoo suds all over you. By the end of the night you are completely soaked! My host brother Kolja took me to a schaumparty last night with a few of his buds. It was a really good time! I'll post pictures on getjealous!

8. The students and people at the club stare at me a lot. I haven't figured out if it was because I just look like an American or if they heard me speaking English or if they found out I'm the exchange student. Or maybe I'm just a really bad dancer. =) But they are all very interested in America. I hung a flag and a map in my room and my host family really liked looking at my map and seeing places they've heard of. Interestingly enough, politics rarely come up.

These are some of the first things I've noticed about Germany. I'm sure there are many more to come!

P.S. It's sunny again. Strange.

Mein Zuerst Tagen in Deutschland

I wasn't sure if I would have much to write in a blog all year, but at the rate I'm going, I'll have TONS! I arrived in Düsseldorf at 7:20am Wednesday morning... I flew through the night and got maybe an hour of broken sleep, but watched the sun rise over England. Breath-taking. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture.

My host mother Ginette, host brother Kolja, and a family friend were waiting for me in the airport along with two Rotary members. Becky Sohler told me to really pay attention to the smell when I got off the plane because the smell of another country is different. So true! It only took me a minute or two to get accustomed to it, but it was cool. Germany is a nice smelling country. =) I do look forward to smelling Nebraska for the first time again when I return. Good ol' cornfields!

I was exhausted when I got home, but I was determined to stay up until night time so I could kick the jet-lag in the butt right away. I went for a walk with Kolja and our dog Paul, drove around, got a bank account, got a cell phone, went out to lunch, saw some really cool houses, and had a supper with some friends at home. My first home-cooked German meal was Kiesch! Sehr Gut!! =) I slept about 13 hours that night. It was great! Yesterday we did some more sight seeing around Haan and went to Solingen (the neighboring city where my host brother goes to school). Last night we stayed home and watched Pineapple Express in German. They gave me English subtitles so I could try to learn, but I don't think it's that easy. This morning I went to Düsseldorf with a Rotary member to take a placement examination for my German course. Needless-to-say, I'm a beginner. My beginner's intensive 4-week course starts Monday. I will start high school in Haan after I have a better understanding of German.

I'm posting pictures on www.getjealous.com/cultural.cultivation of some of the amazing architecture I've already seen. It's funny how some of the churches that I think are the most spectacular structures are just everyday, no big deal to the people here. There are also some pictures of the trinkgut store with the largest bottles of liquor I've ever seen! Stay tuned for a list of first impressions hopefully tomorrow. =)

Getting Dangerously Close

My departure date is getting dangerously close, and not to anyone's surprise, my mind is spinning. I will stay the night in Omaha on Monday, and my plane hits the skies Tuesday morning. After a short little jump to Chicago, I will spend nearly nine hours in and out of what can hardly be called sleep and wake up in Düsseldorf the next morning. I'm sure this will be especially challenging because I'm going to want to SLEEP!! But the day will only have just begun for all the people I will meet in Germany. Hopefully I'll be too darn excited to feel tired!
This entire year of surreal planning has finally become real this past week. It's all starting to sink in. I began packing and realized that a 50lb bag is really not much room for a years worth of clothes and supplies for a typical teenage girl. Wish me luck on making THAT all work out. Sadly enough, half of my suitcase is full of the only kind of hair gel I've found that controls my disobedient curls. As silly as that seems, it's been on the top of my priorities. I'm less concerned about clothes because I know I'll want to shop when I get there. But packing is still not a complete success yet.

I'm starting to say my goodbye's to friends and family now. It's harder than I thought it would be. When all of this was just a romantic idea, I didn't think I'd miss home at all. Fat chance on that one. Luckily, my host family seems very nice and I know I'll be just fine.

All-in-all, I think I'm nearing a point of preparedness for this adventure. It's not going to be easy, but it's an opportunity to be an ambassador and for cultural cultivation.

Here we go...

As I write my first post for the year, I am realizing that I may lack the persistence needed to keep a blog up to date while I'm away. Especially when I will be trying to focus on learning German the first few months. I've been told it's more difficult to pick up on a language if you keep going back to your native tongue. We'll have to see how it goes.
But for an introduction to my year of cultural cultivation I'll lay down the facts. I will leave for Germany sometime in August. The summer up until the departure will be occupied with feeble attempts to raise donated money and much larger attempts to earn money. I work. A lot.
I will be spending the year as a part of the Hilden-Haan Rotary club. Hilden and Haan are two smaller cities located in the Western part of Germany in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. They are about 7km apart, about 20km south of Düsseldorf, and about 30km north of Cologne.
There's the basic facts. This blog is meant to keep friends and family posted on my blunderings throughout the year. I also pray that it will serve as my tool to be an ambassador during my exchange, that it will encourage others to try a similar experience, and that it will promote Rotary International and their services for the world. All-in-all, it should be an exciting and challenging year! =) A year of cultural cultivation!