"Damn, these Germans are big."

So, since last post I have started school here. The first day was on Thursday and, of course, was very nerve racking.  My host brother and I biked to the school at 8:30 for a meeting with Herr Fischer.  Herr Fischer told me that I would be put into the 10th grade because 11th and 12th grade are for their Abitur.  The Abitur is what they have to pass to graduate the Gymnasium (High School).  After our meeting he walked me to my new classroom.  When we got there I had to introduce myself so I proceeded to in German.  You could tell the students thought my German was laughable because they all had funny smirks on their faces.  After that I sat in my desk and was engulfed in gibberish.  I couldn't understand a word my teacher said and he didn't speak hardly any English.  My day ended early at 11:15 because my next class was sport and I had no sport clothes.  The next day started with German which I couldn't follow then political science.  My politics teacher turned out to have gone to college at the University of Minnesota and had actually been to River Falls.  She spoke fluent English and had the Minnesotan accent which was comforting.  My final class for the day was Religion which, again, I couldn't follow.  Friday ended promptly at 13:00 or 1:00. After school I played soccer with Fritz and Hans then we had to go to dinner with the Fritz and Hans' great grandparents.  We went to a Greek restaurant called Athos.  The food was good and we got peppermint Schnapps which was better than the other Schnapps I had. The car ride home was spent clowning around and singing along to the radio.

Saturday I went to the Centrum (mall) and walked around.  It's pretty small but had a lot of different things.  After I bought some items I bought a German Coke called Sinalco.  Both my host dad and host brother like it better than Coke and when I tasted it I though it tasted like Pepsi but that was quickly denounced by them. When we got home Hans' grandmother was there and dropped off some new speakers. They are both 200 watts and very very very loud.  We played with them for a couple hours making all of Wiesmoor angry.  After we had to drop Hans off at the Orchestra because he was playing and then we went to my host mom's parents.  We had some Apfel Kuchen and coffee and just sat and talked.  Once the kuchen was all gone the grandmother went in and said in German "Does Tony drink wine" and I blurted out "Ja!" just because I could understand.  The wine was very good but I drank it slow because I'd never had a whole glass of wine before.  After I finally finished the glass it was immediately refilled with "You'll sleep good tonight."  We stopped on the way home and got a pizza for dinner. It turned out that part of it had tuna on it which I tried of course and it wasn't for me.  Sunday was a slow day and we just hung out.  For dinner we had another Barbecue.  One of the sauces they had said 'Extra Hot' so of course I tried it.  It turned out to be mild at best.  Germans don't have much heat in their food.  Another thing they think is spicy is Dijon Mustard.

On Monday I had school and first hour we got our books for all of our classes.  As we all checked them out from the school book shop I found out I needed 11 very heavy books.  Now I had to carry all of the very heavy books around all day.  Second hour I had Spanish which was really easy and I actually understood everything.  After that I had History which was spent day dreaming.  I got done at 1:00 again and as I was riding home I took a sharp turn and the weight of the books flung me off my bike to everyone's amusement. When I got home there was a lunch of potatoes, carrots and SCHNITZEL! It was one of the best things I have ever tasted.  Later that day me and Hans went into town because he needed new shorts and I was looking for a new T-shirt.  He found his shorts but in all of Wiesmoor I didn't find a single good shirt, but there were plenty of business suits.  So we stopped at Ali Baba and had döner which is Turkish and very good. After we went home and watched TV until we went to bed. Tuesday I had a period of Deutsch and then English.  English was really good because I could understand but the teacher was German so she had an accent and she didn't have super great English.  Next hour I had chemie which was spent doodling.  The next hour I had math which was hard to understand.  Many of the classes I have now I already took last year so when I do understand I already knew it.  But on a positive note my doodling skills have greatly improved.

One of the good things about having other exchange students is they are going through the same thing you are.  I have spent all of my breaks with them because I wouldn't know where else to go if I didn't.  They are all very nice and very funny.  On Saturday they all went to Aurich for a festival which they said was amazing but I didn't go because I thought I was going to Heide Park an amusement park near Bremen but my host brother was doing poorly with his Latin so we didn't go. However, next weekend I believe more is happening so there's more to come.  Now, back to the title of the post.  I saw a comedian whose joke ended with "Damn, these Germans are big" and he was absolutely correct.  I'm the shortest guy in my class and you're hard pressed to find anyone shorter.  So, damn these Germans are big.

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

Well, it has been a very exciting, exhausting, peculiar week.  It started with a very nervous good-bye in Minneapolis.  Thankfully the person next to me was a former exchange student to Sweden who was visiting his host family.  He told me stories about his exchange and helped cool me nerves.  The plane ride, otherwise, was pretty dreadful.  Not only was I unable to sleep, I couldn't see anything news worthy until I got to the English Channel where I saw a town that was defined by its street lights.  As I prepared to land in Amsterdam the view of the city is indescribable.  It has to be one of the most beautiful towns in the world.  When I finally landed in Amsterdam after the eight hour flight I was running on fumes.  One of my biggest worries was navigating the airport, but to my relief it turned out to be very simple.  One of the biggest shocks was hearing a different language spoken by seemingly everybody else but you.  Since I had a four hour layover I walked around.One of my reminders that I was in Europe was the dirty magazines are out in front with absolutely no cover so everything is out for everyone to see. I bought my first item with Euros and my change came to 4.20 but I only got three coins which is weird  because I'm only use to 25 cent coins.

 After I got on my connecting flight I fell asleep before the plane even took off and I slept the whole flight.  When i got to Bremen it was raining and my plane was so small it couldn't be hitched to a gate so we had to walk out into the rain into a bus.  One of the worst decisions I made was wearing shorts because it was 50 degrees and raining.  After I got my bags I met my host mother and brother, who helped me out greatly with my seemingly 400 pound suitcases.  Before we went back to Wiesmoor we had to stop at an Ikea which I've never been to and they sold hot dogs so I had one, though I wasn't really hungry just exhausted.  Once we got to Wiesmoor I went to bed almost instantaneously only to be woken up for dinner. After dinner we went to a local soccer game where the home team lost to Dornum. I went directly to bad after we got home.  Saturday was spent getting to know my host siblings Fritz, Hans, and Julius.  I played soccer with Hans and Fritz, and I played Legos with Julius. For dinner we had a German Barbecue which was fantastic. We had some kind of pork chop and some kind of wurst.  To drink we had apple juice mixed with carbonated water which is very typical in Germany and very good at that. After dinner we watched Pirates of the Caribbean which i fell asleep to in the beginning because I was still severely jet lagged. Sunday was spent playing board games because it rained.  So I got to play German Monopoly, Lebens (Life), and Wii.

Monday started with me delivering flowers to my host father's dad to be replanted.  It was the first time I had gone into downtown Wiesmoor and it is a very beautiful city.  Every house has hedge fences and clay tile roofs.  Wiesmoor is considerably small compared to its neighbor Bremen with only 13,000 citizens.  After we dropped the flowers off and had some hot chocolate, Fritz took me to see the school I'll be going to.  After we saw it we headed back home.  When we arrived I played soccer with Hans at the fußballplatz.  I don't know if we were allowed to play there but we did which tired me out considerably.  Once we finished we went back to the house and played chess (I won but then lost).  Earlier Julius wanted me to play Eisenbahn (trains) with him. So, I did until it was time for my first Rotary meeting in Germany.  Once we got there I shook everybody's hand and took my seat.  There were five other exchange students but only one spoke English but all of them were from South America so they all spoke Spanish the whole time.  When we were served dinner we got a pig's ankle, which I didn't know how to eat so i had to look around, on Apfel-Sekt-Kraut with something that my exchange brother didn't even know.  It all schmeckt gut (tasted good). Following dinner the exchange students had to introduce ourselves. While this was happening the waitresses were passing out a small glass of something.  After all of the introductions were done the room erupted with "Brost" to which we drank the glass.  I found out it was Schnapps so I immediately made a sour face to all the men's delight.  When we got home I went straight to bed seeing as I am still a little jet lagged.  That is all for this post.