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