What is Foreign Exchange to Me?

"A year of of my life. My life in a year."

Google Translate (Google Übersetzer)

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Happy New Year!

Where did my Ferian(break) go!? The pasIMG_3535t two weeks went by way to quickly with the family here. Christmas/New Year are supposed to be one of the most prominent times for homesickness amongst exchange students, but my host-family has become my family. I’m right at home here. Smile

We have been in the middle of a HUGE storm for about a week now (or several huge storms, I’m not really sure). Today though it was technically 38 degrees Fahrenheit, the weather said it “feels like it’s 16 degrees fahrenheit.” Brr! Freezing

PC310912In German, New Years Eve is called “Silvester” though to be quite honest, I haven't a clue as to why. This ‘Silvester’ I spent with my host-family, as well as my host-brothers girlfriend and my host-sister’s boyfriend. To be honest, I was dreading my sibling’s significant others spending the week here because I thought it would make me miss my friends in California more, but it turned out to be an excellent week. Silvester, the entire neighborhood set off fireworks at miPC310899dnight and despite it being freezing cold and wet, it was absolutely beautiful. Fireworks were made illegal in my hometown a few years ago, so it was a lot of fun to be able to set them off again. We watched “Dinner for One,” (a German Silvester tradition) a short film about a crazy old woman who is almost deaf and quite delusional. The strange thing is, everyone watches it in English even though most people don’t understand it, but they still find it funny.

Monday (New Years Day), we drove to Hannover and went ice skating. The ice arena has a roof, but no walls so it is only open durP1010921ing winter, and I told my family about the Snoopy’s Ice Arena in my hometown, and they thought it was crazy that California has ice arenas, which is ironic, because that is what my town is famous for because of Charles Schultz and his Peanuts cartoon.

On Tuesday afternoon, I had my Rotary presentation about “California, My Life, and Germany” in German. I love going to the Rotary meetings because Rotary Club Hameln is prominently a group of older men (I think there are three woman in the club and about 45 people total)who all P1030938wear dark suits… and then there’s me, an 18-year-old girl with the only splash of color in the room. I also presented the banner from my club in Santa Rosa (Rotary Club Valley of the Moon) to Rotary Club Hameln, and as a token of gratitude, the club presented me with a lovely box of chocolates.

Tuesday evening I went to see the “Puss and Boots” film (Der Gestiefelte Kater) in 3-D with my host-brother, his girlfriend, and my friend Leo. It was only fair to drag Leo to the “child’s film” because a few weeks back he dragged me to Twilight. The film was based on American Nursery imagerhymes (think Jack and Jill, Jack and the Beanstalk, Humpty Dumpty) and as soon as the Humpty the egg entered the plot, Leo said he thought it was dumb that they had an egg playing the roll, after the film I told him all about the nursery rhymes and I think the plot made a lot more since all of a sudden. After, Leo and I watched Monsters Inc. because he hadn’t seen it and it made me sad. At the end of “Monsters Inc” there is a blooper where Mike says, “Go ‘head, go throw up” instead of “grow up,” which led me to telling Leoimage about the time my best friend and I were bored in English in the 8th grade so we tried to think of all the different ways to say “throw up” (we came up with nine different words off the top of our heads). Following that conversation Leo constructed this list:

All the ways to say “Puking” in German

auswürgen, barfen, brechdurchfall, brechen, briggeln, bröckelhusten, bröckeln, Brocken lachen, das innere zum vorschein bringen, den mock rauslassen, den porzellangott anbeten, die inneren werte zeigen, die Speisekarte faxen, die suppe nochmal würzen, eine unbekannte masse herauspoltern, einem das Essen aus dem Gesicht fallen, engstermann, erbrechen, exkorporieren, flatschen, geiern, gerrit sehen, göbeln, gulpen, halbverdaute nahrungsreste unter einer magenreizung, verursacht durch zu schnelle nahrungsaufnahme,, jürgen würgen, Kloschüssel umarmen, kotzen, kübeln, Lebensmittel Auswurf, Mageninhalt oral entleeren, Mundstuhl machen, nach dem ulf rufen, nach Melk telefonieren, ne Pizza legen, nochmal durch den kopf gehen lassen, pabsten, pizzieren, Rachenfasching, reihern, reziproke Speiseröhrenperistaltik, rückwärts essen, rückwärts frühstücken, sich mit der Klobrille unterhalten, sich übergeben, speiben, speien, sporadischer (nahrungsmittel) auswurf, spucken, Superschluck, über die Zunge scheissen, uebergeben, ulf anrufen, Ulfen, Villeroy & Boch umarmen, vomieren, würfelhusten, Würfelhusten

Today was surprisingly an excellent day! I wasn’t looking forward to going back to school, just because break has been really nice, but today was the first day I understood everything said by my teachers and friends, and I could respond to everything. I have gotten so used to simply not understanding what’s going on, that it was actually weird to have a clue again. Up until about a month ago, I did not particularly like the German language simply because it can be really frustrating and difficult, but now that I speak it, I really enjoy it. Not to mention, it’s convenient to speak the most spoken language in Europe. Winking smile

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Days in Germany