What the @*§€ is Wrong with My Fork? and other important questions

Show of hands. Who really expected me to be consistent in blog posting? I sure didn't!! Well, I suppose one day isn't that much of a difference, right?

I am going to chalk my inconsistency up to the fact that I had a VERY interesting weekend. AFS hosted the Late-Orientation Camp in Bad Honnef (no that is not the opposite of good, I think it has something to do with a bath), and it was very time-consuming. All the AFSers from the immediate area chilled for the weekend and discussed much.Texas, Turkey, Iowa, Italy, China, Turkey, Italy, Chile, and Argentina!
Boston (almost:P), Iowa, Bosnia, Finland, and Texas!
Matt, Me, Mila, Sanni, and Ben!
This is my crew, almost. For some reason Emre the Turk isn't in this picture. And I kind of regret that the Americans all ended up together - it probably seems sort of snobbish. But hey, we didn't do it on purpose! We're just that cool!

And that's not even everyone who was there, but I'm too lazy to go find pictures of every single one of them. If someone gets a group foto up on Facebook I'll snitch it for y'all, cuz it was a great group.
We did a bunch of activities in small discussion groups called 'workshops' where we went over what all the differences were in our lives right now. It was hard because everyone was having different differences, since we're from all over the world! And the Americans epically failed the Label German Cities contest. And I regret to say I had to ask someone what Angola was. 'Seriously, Meg? It's a country!' Oops?

The best part was Saturday night when we had a Talent Show. I videoed the whole thing, but I think that if I tried to upload a video to Youtube this computer would cough its last. So I'll work on that later and let you know! In the meantime, a photo teaser. No, the pyramid was not all.


Notice that we are both wearing watches. When in Rome....





America supporting Finland. No metaphor implied.






Matt from Boston can make a loud noise with his fingers, Turkey and Italy have learned new cuss words, and (surprise!) China can play the piano. 'After school I did 4 hours of homework, had dinner, and then practiced the piano for 2 hours. I haven't slept much for the last 3 years.' I fixed the grammatical errors for your reading pleasure.

Then we had a wicked-sweet dance party. And whenever it got too hot for you in the dancing room, you could go outside and smoke! *coughcough* my scarf will never be the same....


And to thank you for once again reading all of my ramblings, I leave you with this amazing picture.

I should so be a professional dancer.

Trains Get My Vote Over Buses

Besides the obvious 'green' advantages of trains, there is just something soothing about the way a train moves. No jerks, no jolts, no uncomfortable speed-ups. If you weren't so worried about skipping your stop, you would instantly fall asleep.

Also, the scenery is much better.

And the schedules are MUCH easier to read.

SCHOOL

The most interesting thing about the students I noticed was that they all have the same backpack.

If you're a young-un,
your backpack looks like this:

Of course there are variations on the style - the little girls all have very very colorful ones that are covered with reflective strips so they don't get hit by the crazy German drivers in their 2-door stick shifts.





If you're older than that, you get choices!!! Yay for you!

Choice 1: Choice 2:

The coolest people of all are the ones who go backpack shopping with their friends and buy the exact same on in different colors. I saw three girls at the bus stop Friday with Choice 2 exactly - all with a different color scheme. I feel really stupid now for not having the guts to dig out my camera.

ALDI

So there's this grocery store called Aldi's. At first I just thought that my host mother was crazy about it - like how some people get with Sam's Club. Honestly, the woman woke me up from a nap one day to tell me that Aldi's had reached the Top 10 of something in Great Britain. *rubrub* "Wha..?"
But it turns out that it is a little revolutionary, as far as stealing from the rich to feed the poor is concerned. Mr. Aldi and his brother are the #1 and #2 richest people in Germany.
Here's the concept, as explained by my host dad: Companies stock Aldi warehouses with their product. Aldi sells the product in their store at the exact same price that they bought it: no tacking on extra Euro at the customers' expense. At the end of the cycle (I think 3 days) the company must come and retrieve all the product that hasn't been sold, at no extra cost to Aldi. Aldi pays them 30 days later for the product that was sold.

So... where's the money?

Elementary, my dear Watson. Mr. Aldi and his brother receive the money the instant the customer buys it in the store, but the compnay that owns the product gets paid 30 days later. The profit for Aldi is in the interest accrued.
Apparently they're kind of jerks to the companies, though. On top of making them pick up their extra product, the companies are often pressured into selling products either without a label or with a non-namebrand label.
The customers win: they get namebrand prices for as cheap as stores get them, and they know it's quality - if any product gets less than an A rating, it's pulled from the stores.

Still - if Mom tries telling me one more time that Aldi is the same kind of store as Wal-Mart and that it will have taken over America by the time I get back, words are going to be thrown. Can someone help me explain the difference between a grocery store that has some school supplies and whatnot, and a Wal-Mart, the ultimate bargain-shopper's paradise? Honestly.

ME

Well that's all fine and dandy, but what about me? I'm the one you're here to read about! (Unless Mrs. Vander Wilt is forcing you to read about me - high five, Señora!) My life has become a very set routine of Cornflakes, bus ride, school, bus ride, Cornflakes, nap, real food, homework, bed. On Tuesdays I may start Choir but I haven't really decided yet. On Wednesdays I take the train to Bonn for a German class with some other AFS kids in theBonn area - including an American boy from Boston, a boy from Paraguay, a girl from Venezuela, and Sanni from Finland. Honest-to-goodness, Kayce, the girl is just like you. It's almost creepy. This wide array of accents all attempting to speak German is rather amusing to me - but they get me back. I'm the only one who can execute a flawless pirate's AARRRR!!!

Because nobody else can make an R sound. Stupid east-coast accents.... thanks Matt.

Some interesting things are bound to happen soon - my school has a two-week long break coming up in October, I have AFS late-orientation soon (we're going castle touring - be sure to check my photo links on the left), and sometime this week I will be receiving a box from home with warmer clothing in it!!

In the meantime, more Cornflakes are in order.

Listening to the Radio When the Signal Isn't Clear

Even the air is different in Germany....

Wilkommen bei Obererl!

That's the higher part of Erl, the village where I live. It just celebrated its 750th
birthday! That's not even when it was founded - that's just when the first record of it is from. It was probably around a lot longer than that.
"But of course none of the houses are that old. This is the first of the new ones," my hostmother explained on our Sunday afternoon stroll. "It's only about 200 years old."
Woah! There weren't even white people in Iowa 200 years ago! Well, maybe, but they weren't building houses. One thing's for sure - if that house is still standing,

{They don't make 'em like they used to!}

SCHULE

starts at 8:00. My bus leaves at 7:20. The classes run 45 minutes long, with a 5-minute break in-between which isn't necessary because the teachers(lehrers) move, not the students(schuler/in). After 3rd class there is a 15-minute break and everyone has to go to the Aula - sort of the schoolyard. There they can buy food, mostly breads with various types of toppings. Then we have 3 more classes and school gets out at 13. That may seem a little late for lunch, especially since I get home at 13:45, but everyone snacks on breads and fruit and drink mineral wasser (bubbly water) in class all day! I mentioned to Yan (a boy, pronounced yawn) that we're not allowed food in class in Iowa and he said, shocked, "But how do you concentrate?" I had to stifle a giggle.
The hardest part to adjust to is that we have different classes every day. Friday, my schedule went:
Italian (free period for me)
Englisch
Geography
Art
More Art (we only have it once a week)
Chemistry

And my schedule for tomorrow is:
Math
Ethics (I could have picked Ethics, Protestant Religion, or Catholic Religion)
Deutsch
Biology
German 101 for Stupid Americans (self-titled)
Italian (free period for me)

My English lehrer is amazing. The whole class is in Englisch, because they've been learning it since 5th year. It's most definitely my favorite class. Friday he had me read an interview of J.K. Rowling with him, and guess who had the long part? The native speaker, of course. Right before I started he said, "Remember to speak slower for them."


Okay, you can stop giggling at the mental image of me trying to read slowly. I don't know if y'all have noticed, but I talk rather fast. And if you were in my Speech class last year, you know when I'm in front of people I talk even faster. So I had to slow it down to normal, then slow it down it German... oh man, I was so tongue-tied. They must think I'm retarded. Also, they use terms like 'present progressive' and 'past participle'. What are those?

I haven't the slightest.

TOURISM IN LINZ

Linz is home to the Bridge at Regamen. Or the remains of it, anyway. After Normandy, Hitler ordered all of the bridges along the Rhein River (get out your maps, that's pretty much the western border of Germany) burned as a defense against the Allied forces.
Except for this one - it wasn't to be burned until after the German soldiers were across. Well, the commanding officer wasn't muchly fond of Hitler - a lot of Germans weren't, they'll be sure to tell you- so he didn't burn the bridge. He and 5 others were court-martialed and executed, but their action caused the war to end 3 months earlier. How cool is that?
Unfortunately, it collapsed on its own a few months later, killing American soldiers trying to stablize it. The blame lies with the constant vibrations from bombing the area, although it never was hit directly.

Have you ever heard of the name Lorelai? If you've seenyou have! Oh man.. I miss fast-talking crazy Americans....
Anyway.
The name Lorelai comes from a rockface called Lorelai - a 'lai' is a rock and 'lore' comes either from the word meaning to lurk or to murmur. The legend I was told goes that Lorelai jumped off the top because of an unfaithful lover (let that be a lesson to you) and then became a siren, luring sailors with her voice. The shape of the rock echos the movement of the water going around it, causing a loud murmuring sound. Also, a large number of shipwrecks are said to have been caused by Lorelai.
How cool is that?

Meine Schlafzimmer

FOTOS of my travels and of my bedroom are up on Facebook!

You don't have to have an account. Just click here to view.

WEIRD...

I'm here!! Today/yesterday (kinda the same thing for me) were RIDICULOUS. Lemme just give you the lowdown.

We got a wakeup call at 7am on Friday, to which we complied, good girls that we are. *cough* (haha Luca...)
After a whole day of being told stuff we didn't want to listen to but will be happy to have heard a month from now - including a very interesting sex talk - we went to airport.
FOUR hours later we got on our plane. By this point I was ready to go to bed. Keep in mind this is 5 pm. Which was actually 11pm to us because we changed our watches to Germany time as soon as we were on the plane.
Ben from Texas paid me 10 Euro to switch him seats on the plane (his idea not mine) which landed me 10 Euros better off AND right next to 2 cute guys from the Ukraine. The plane ride ROCKED but we got no sleep. HEY Sam, I ate the breakfast and I was just fine....
In the Frankfurt airport we sat around from 7am to 12:30pm doing absolutely nothing except making new friends and drinking soda. No, not pop. Soda. Hardly any of the Americans knew what pop was, and the Hong Kong kids really had no idea. Ronald from Ghana gave me a really cool necklace
.(Sorry it's so big! But it's kinda like a top.)
Then we finally got on the train, where we sat for 2.5 hours until the bahnhof in Bonn. Then my new friend Matt, the Finnish girl, and I exited the train and went our separate ways.


I am now officially being tutored by a 5-year-old.

And I haven't slept in who know how long... can anyone tell me what year it is? I think I got lost.....

I promise I will give cultural details about everything from the radio to the toilet at a later date.

/crash into bed

Washington D.C.

Here I am in DC for the night with 84 other kids who're crazy enough to go to Germany for a year!!