I Went Extreme Walking in Frankfurt, Germany

I waved goodbye to my first host family on Saturday, but they sent me with enough candy to last a month, so I won't be forgetting them anytime soon. Two hours later I arrived in Frankfurt, and was greeted by the four people whose house I will be sharing for the next ten months. They greeted me with bug hugs from everyone, and we proceeded to throw my bags in a locker and go for a walk through the streets of Frankfurt.

Constantin (my host brother) and I soon discovered our common passion for jumping onto, over, and off of inanimate objects. We both agree that your surroundings are only as boring as you allow them to be. Especially in Frankfurt, there is always an audience to impress with how absurdly, goofily, and carefree-ily you can leap onto and balance on a metal pole sticking about a meter out of the ground (which there seems to be a strange abundance of). Susan and Heiko (host mom and dad) are also really fun, and every once in a while would cheer Const and me on when we accomplished some spectacular feat.

The family and I strolled nonchalantly past a McDonald's, and this event convinced me of how well my host sister, Marie, and I will get along. From the moment her eyes caught sight of the Golden Arches, she had a look of passionate longing on her face. That's actually not entirely true, but she does really like McDonald's, and this is the foundation of our friendship. It's actually not the foundation of our friendship, but it is something we have in common. Okay, I'm glad I wasted so many words on that seemingly irrelevant detail. I just get really excited when people like Mikee-Dee's. That's McDonald's.


Const and Marie are also late sleepers, so there is yet another attribute I share with this family. Unfortunately I have to wake up at around 6:30 in the morning to catch a bus to school. Gross... Speaking of school, I had my first day on Monday. It was pretty good, but I'm in the 11th grade, so everyone is a bit younger than me. I met one kid who is especially cool, though. His name is Phil. We're friends.

I have to take French, which is a little tough, seeing as I speak ABSOLUTELY ZERO FRENCH! This only gives me a little taste, however, of what my friend Mateo is going through. He, too, is an American doing a year in Germany. The difference between my situation and his is that he speaks only as much German as he has learned in the month he has been here. I would never have gone to live alone in a country where I didn't speak the language, but that is exaclty what Mateo is doing. I have so much respect for him, and you all should to. If you're reading this, send Mateo some good vibes and a mental pat-on-the-back, becuase he deserves it.

Warning for Alex S. and my brother: I'm playing a ton of ping pong, so y'all best be on yo game when I get back.

Peace and Love and Döner,
Tommy

The Three-Week Month

So this is my fourth week in Germany. The thing is that I can only remember two of the three full weeks that I have been here. I don’t have the slightest clue what happened to that other week, nor do I remember which week I have forgotten. Time is speeding by faster perhaps than it ever has for me before.

Just as I am starting to consider the house in which I sleep a home, the people with whom I live family, and the characters I have met as friends, I am climbing on a train for yet another new situation. Saturday I will be leaving, once again, everything familiar for something completely new. I am nervous, but excited. I will miss my family terribly, but just the idea that I got to share a month with them helps me out of the blues.

As to what has kept me busy the past two or three weeks (could be either): where to begin?

I went to visit my GAPP host family from two years ago on my ex-host-brother’s birthday. I took a train to his general vicinity and was picked up by a friend. The two of us went to a soccer game in Mönchengladbach stadium, which was TIGHT, and then proceeded to Jannick’s and his celebration. The thing was that he didn’t know I was coming, so I surprised him and his whole family with my presence. You might say, rather than bringing presents, I brought my presence… but you probably wouldn’t. That sounds like a pun I would make and nobody would laugh at. Anyway, it was great to see all of my old friends and family again, and I got to sleep in my old bed from two years ago. The family is amazing, and they’ve all grown up a little bit. Too bad I haven’t.

I’ve played soccer with the local team for the past few weeks. It is a really different experience than what I am used to. Rather than water breaks, they take cigarette breaks, and at the end they talk about what went good and bad during the practice over beers. That was perhaps the most extreme culture shock I have experienced as of yet. Physical fitness is quite apparently considered secondary to mental contentedness, which is just about as opposite as opposite gets from the American mindset.

I wrote a song on the cello about good-smelling girls.

This past weekend I went to see a really neat memorial to the German Kaiser Reich and discovered my host-mom’s extreme phobia of heights. She did, however, make it all the way to the top, which she had never done before, so we were all very proud of her. I also went to an old underground cave that was cool. Yeah.

Also on Saturday, we had a surprise birthday party for a classmate, and the celebration went late into the night. Anna (birthday girl) and I went extreme walking in Heiligenstadt while the others looked on and made fun of us. We watched a lunar eclipse from a playground and then everyone slept over at my house.

Sunday I went to the Harz, which if anyone has read Faust, is the place where he meets the devil. That was neat, if a bit touristy, and I took pictures with sculptures of really ugly witches and devils. I know how eager you all are to see those, so I’ll do my best to make them accessible sometime in the near future.

What else… my computer is dead, my converter/adapter is dead, and my mp3 player is flying around the world on a United 747. At least I have a camera (knock on wood).

I think I’ve spent about €27 on Döner in the past less-than-a-month. It’s just so good.

On Saturday I’m moving in with my permanent host family, so the next time you hear from me I hope I have lots of good things to say. They seem to be very different from the family with which I now live, but I love different, so I’m really looking forward to it. The downside: I have to leave yet another family and group of friends.

Life goes on,

Tommy

Six Pieces of Pie in Two Days

That’s right. On Thursday and Friday of last week I did it. My family, the Göbels, feed me extremely well. Every weekday we have four meals. Breakfast (bread with anything you could imagine on it), lunch (the hot meal of the day), coffee (usually consists of pies and drinks) and dinner (usually the same as breakfast). I have also had four Döner in a week and a half. Döner is perhaps the best food ever. It’s a Turkish sin with lamb, onions, lettuce, sometimes cheese, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers and anything else that particular shop decides to throw in. It is served in a triangular bread pocket that is open on two sides and closed on the hypotenuse.
Let me tell you, there is an art to eating this monster. It is so full of flavor and deliciousness that it will spill all over the place if you are not careful. You will never find a Döner that has a reasonable amount of food in it; there will always be far too much for the practical volume of the bread.
I love it.
I went to Berlin this past weekend and got to see some of places where I was two years ago. The city was definitely a bit quieter, despite being a bustling capital of the world. German pride was still present, but you had to look a little harder to find it. I have to say that I missed walking down the streets with my fellow GAPPers singing the few fragments of Disney songs that we knew.
And I bought bright yellow suspenders there that I’m probably going to wear to the Disko this weekend.
I also now have access to a cello! One of Christina’s friends brought it over, and it’s here to stay for a little while. On that same musical theme, I had Christina and Maria teach me how to play a little of their instrument: the accordion. It was really cool, but I really couldn’t do it. I’ve been doodling around since then, and I’m picking it up a little, but it’s harder than it looks.
I’ve also started my orientation course. Ten other Americans and I sit together in a classroom from 9-4 five days per week and learn how to speak German and get along in a new culture. The problem is (besides the fact that we are missing out on so much other neat stuff, like Döner) that we were placed together because we scored the highest on a language competency test that the program gave. Therefore, just about the only thing to do is practice, which would be much easier were we spending that time with our families or friends. Seven hours a day is a lot of school for the summer.
Side note: One of the girls in my class also did GAPP in 2005-2006. She’s from Michigan, but we were both in Germany at the same time. And we were both in Berlin during that time at the same time. And we both watched the World Cup semifinal from the same place at the same time. And we both went to see Blue Man Group in Berlin at the same time. And to top it all off, she’s going to Macalester College next year. And so am I.
Can you say small “world?”
This week I also found a bunch of kids to play soccer with. I’m going to a practice tonight, and I think it’s a try-out, so it should be fun. They’re a blast to play with, and it’s nice to be around people who love the game as much as I do.
As I become immersed in a new language, I start to realize that you can’t always translate a word or concept. I have begun to think in German because I have found that it is easier to understand the people and their ideas. Although harder to express myself, speaking constantly in German gives me a new perspective on many things I have always taken for granted. My accent is developing so well that a nine-year-old didn’t believe that I was a foreigner. I was quite stoked.

I miss everyone, and I’ll try to get some pictures on the internet as soon as I can.

Stay Awesome,

Tommy

The Start of Something New

I would like to start off by asserting that I miss everyone already. It's great here, but there are a few key personality ingredients that I wouldn't mind having around. Secondly, the keyboard here is a little different than the one I'm used to, so if you see anything that makes absoltely no sense, just look carefully and see if you can figure out my typo.
Okay, so, the trip: The flight was almost eight hours long, and I was far too wired to do much sleeping action. I made some new friends and reconnected with a few students who had been at Fishkill, NY (where a pre-departure orientation weekend was held for YFU students in New England). I then got off the plane and split up with all of the kids who I had flown over with, save one. Depending on the savy we displayed on a short competency test, we were all going to different locations in Germany to take a crash course in the language and culture of our new home. I had no idea how well I had done on this test before then, but I guess I'm in level 5. Students in the level 5 class displayed the most comfort with the language and scored the highest on the test, so I guess I'm just wicked good at German (not to brag, or anything).
After shuffling around a bit, I finally ended up on the right train to the right place with the right people, and I passed out. I was so exhasuted that I simply could not keep my eyes open a moment longer.
I awoke when the train arrived in either Heidigenstadt or Heiligenstadt, I can't quite make out whether it's a l or a d, and my grandmother- and sister-to-be picked me up and brought me home. I stuffed some delectable brötchen in my mouth, as I had not eaten a meal for about ten hours, and then Christina (my sister) and I went back into town on some bikes.
I live in Westhausen, a tiny little "Dorf" just outside of H'stadt. We rode back into H'stadt which is also relativeluy small, and went down the main street and into the Kurpark. Now, H'stadt is what Germans call a Kurstadt, or a cure city. It is a place for sick people to go to get better, and it is verz easy to see why. The Kurpark was a blanket of green tranquility, spotted with fountains, ponds, benches, and playgrounds for children. I almost fell asleep walking my bike.
There was a small pool of water, maybe a foot deep, ten feet long and five feet wide, that people were walking in circles in. There was a handrail in the middle, the bottom was tiled and the water was crystal clear. I guess that some study proved that walking around in cold water every once in a while was really good for a person's general health. I'm pretty sure it was called a Wassertreter, but I'm not positive. I decided that it wouldn't be such a bad thing to start off my year with cold feet (pun- hahaha) so I did a few laps. It was really quite nice.
On the way home I ate Scheiße off my bike right in front of my new host sister in some really soft sand, but I was to exhasted to care at all. We made dinner together and I went to sleep.
Sixteen hours later (not a typo or exaggeration) I awoke and descende from my room on the top floor of the house. Iäm the only one living up there, and it's kind of nice to have my own bathroom. My family was sitting around the table in the kitchen eating lunch, so after introductions I joined them and proceeded to sate my ravenous appetite. I met the father, Joachim (Yo-ah-chim), the 13-year-old sister, Maria, and the 7-year-old sister, Angela.
I unpacked a bit, and then we all went to Oma's for the afternoon. It was a family afternoon, and we ate some meal consisting only of pies at around 4:00, and then dinner at around 6:30. Towards the end of the first "meal" all of the men had beers placed in front of them. THEY THOUGHT I WAS A MAN!!!!! Take that, all of you who make fun of me for taking a week to grow noticeable facial hair, real German Männer accepted me as one of them. The really cool thing was that there was no rush to drink it. It wasn't a chug fest or anything of the sort. The fastest any of the men finished one of the beers was about two hours. When I finished mine, they promplty refilled it. After that one, I politely refused any more, as dinner was yet to come.
It was delicious. I don't have any idea what I ate, and I don't really care. I love German food.
At the conclusion of this meal, all of the men (onve again, that includes me) were poured a a shot of some hard alcohol
that looked like apple juice (but tasted nothing like it) and the women all were poured something else. The burn I felt when I tossed that tiny sip down was about like the feeling of my muscles after climbing High School Hill three times in the Tour de Rumford (yeah nordic), except it was in my throat and stomach instead of my legs and arms. After a few deep breaths and a waggle of my head I felt alright, but I again politely refused as the bottle mades it's second round 'round the table. Decided that since I didn't know what it was, I'd better not push it.
Upon coming home I handed out the gifts, which the entire family loved (way to go Mommy!) and then we played cards until about 10:30. It took me about four and a half hours to fall asleep (not a joke) and I woke up to yet another beautiful day.
Tonight I'm going to a welcome home party with Christina for her friends who were in Rome, so I'll get to meet some new kids. I don't know when the next time I'll be able to get on here is, but I will try.

I love and miss most of you,
Tommy