Fall – Family and Activities

Family & Activities

 So my family is a very good family for me to be with and also very, very traditional. On some things we click and on some things we don’t. They’re very FAMILY-FAMILY but also encourage me to get out and get fresh air or go out with friends. They are extremely opinionated and it doesn’t go over well if they’re told wrong. They are also the type to make plans and not be so spontaneous. They eat bread, potatoes, or noodles for every meal-but always fresh and delicious-and the remedy for almost everything is herbal. Everything is organized and clean. Friends and family come first. They don’t forget anything and keep promises. And they’ll freaking TELL YOU LIKE IT IS. Which is usually good, because then you really know where you stand!

On the whole they’re a good family. Super active and don’t make me do something if I really don’t want to. Grab what you want, do what you want. Wanna go to the friends? Awesome. Disko? Sweet, do it. You went shopping after school and wandered aimlessly for hours? Cool, what’d you get? And they’re super helpful and understanding and still eager to help me learn the language. Svenja and I get along and go horseback riding together and talk more now (we were mostly shy around each other before). We tease and I even have inside jokes with her already and we get along, even though if she sees me do something she can’t do – for instance eat that, wear my shoes in the house, have a dirty room – she immediately goes to the parents and asks why she can’t do that? She even tried to pull the card that since I don’t have math why does she have to? She’s 12 and at the age where she’s testing her parents’ boundaries. I know this because I did the same thing when I was younger. 😛

They are also very outdoorsy and natural. They enjoy growing and eating their own foods. We make our own marmalade from berries for breakfast jam (jelly?) and we use our own salad and tomatoes and cucumbers, though the season is running out for that. The other day we gathered Pfifferlinge from the forest (think of bright orange but delicious mushrooms) and cooked them and ate them over noodles. We also go climbing and adventuring and Marcus’s personal favorite: Canoeing!!

They also are always together as a family. I can’t wrap my head around the idea of always coming home at noon and seeing so much of my family (don’t get me wrong I’d love to, I love them) because we’re all gone the whole day. Katja, on the flip side, can’t wrap her head around the fact that in America we don’t eat together ever, really – it’s everyone fends for themselves in America and we all just take different rounds to the refrigerator at different times of the day. Maybe two or three times a week we have a meal cooked by mom or dad. It’s not that we don’t try, or that we don’t want…to it’s just we all have very different schedules. Like almost every household in America, both my parents work and my brother goes to college and I go to school and sports all day, and so we simply come home at different times. Also, since we live in the country, we don’t just go home for lunch. I’ll try to make more of an effort when I come home from this but honestly, it’s almost virtually impossible. Here we eat every meal we can possibly manage together, and Katja cooks it most of the time. Also everything here is FRESH. That just DOESN’T HAPPEN in America either. We don’t really have bakeries, and if we do they’re super duper expensive. (Wait, does Hy-Vee count?). And we also gather almost every night after dinner to watch a movie or go on a walk if everybody’s homework is done. Now that it’s colder it’s usually movies. And for the record – German Scrabble and Monopoly are awesome games. 😀

One thing it was really hard to do at first was prioritize – I have to keep everything here super clean, which is totally different than in America. Cleanliness and oversleeping are two things I have to be careful of, because my room in America was like a tornado and I could sleep til 1 or 2 PM on a good day. 9:30 at the latest and the room really should stay tidy (And in almost every household here, there no shoes in the house except for the house shoes. Definitely messed that one up a couple of times). I also should try to spend enough time outside because they’re big on spending lots of time outside. Then homework isn’t as big of a deal to them as the fact that I spend a lot of time with my new friends. They worry I spend too much time on my computer/in my room/connected to back home and so I have to be more careful about stuff like what I’m doing right now. Oops, haha – I hate feeling guilty for spending a day doing nothing, since it happened so often in America. We’re definitely feeling out those differences and I definitely have to form to a new lifestyle. I hope I’m doing alright doing that.

But it’s difficult with the whole friends thing because I feel like I’m still juggling so many things that trying to constantly be with friends is actually WORK because of the language difference. I don’t want to step out of line, and that can feel like walking on eggshells sometimes. And also as a sidenote, my family back at home and I always talked smart to each other and our form of affection was a kind of strange insulting-each-other love. It’s hard to bite your tongue in your own house. Back at home I whined and back-talked and argued with my family, but because I knew I could. I usually don’t have an opinion here – partially because I don’t have the words to express myself but also because everything is new and my family knows what’s best. I’m here to learn the rituals, right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m used to being respectful – but I almost miss my smart mouth and my dry sarcasm. I’m not sure if I should apply that here and I can’t really portray it to friends yet. 😛

But really, they’re truly awesome. I read about people raging and being all bent out of shape about their families here; other CBYX-ers who have switched homes three times or more…and I’m totally content with my family. They do what they can and they understand that it’s hard, even though sometimes I need that day to myself indoors or that today just sucks and I don’t know why, because I’m a teenager maybe and they haven’t had one of us yet! As for the homesickness about two weeks I broke down absolutely heaving and sobbing my guts out and both Marcus and Katja came in and comforted me. When I’m frustrated about my language, Katja says I’m too impatient and that my expectations are too high, but if you shoot for the moon and miss at least you’ll land in the stars, right?

And here are some awesome things we’ve done together:

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Kandel:

Went hiking for over two hours in the mountains (Kandel) and we went all the way to the top! My family was searching like crazy for these mushrooms and apparently hit the jackpot with “Pfifferlinge” – a kind of orange mushroom that we call “Chanterelles” but I’ve never eaten much less seen much less heard of in English either. They found a patch of about thirty or more and got super excited, and I didn’t see what all the fuss was until we’d picked them, took them home and cleaned them and fried them up and put them over noodles. They actually were DELICIOUS… and I used to be a picky eater!

word of advice from another exchange student was to try something that scares you every day. It sounded a bit funny but it actually was good advice today. I ate the deformed bright orange mushrooms. And I also scaled the side of the mountain. I have to drive to Minnesota at least three hours to get to an REI to climb a legitimately awesome rock wall. And that’s fake, indoors, with rooms and legitimate footholds. I scaled a REAL,  BIGGER mountain today. With NO ROPES. And with actual boulders and no real handholds or footholds. Uhmmm, adrenaline rush much? And the view was sooo, sooo, worth it. I’m also kind of an adrenaline junkie.
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Affenwald/Ribeauvillé:

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Affenwald – literally is what it means: monkey forest. We drove 45 minutes – it takes about 20 to get into France – and then we were given popcorn to feed the monkeys. They were awesome and are so humanlike; just walking around chilling around the people and eating popcorn like it was their job. Which it kinda was. I took tons of pictures; and the babies are absolutely adorable. Then we went to a cute little French town to take pictures and I’m now definitely in love with France – probably the most beautiful place I’ve been so far. But hey, I’ve still got Switzerland and Italy to go, and maybe maybe Prague and Austria if I’m a really, really lucky girl.

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Europapark:

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Europapark was outstanding. I said Germans do almost everything better. They now have a few things they do much better than us: Bread. Candy (mostly chocolate and cakes). Chemistry. Math.

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And AMUSEMENT PARKS.

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I will never find a better amusement park. The rides are ten times better. (Silver Star was so high it made me almost pee my pants just looking at it go. I didn’t ride it because I didn’t have the guts to but I’m sure you daredevils would love it. If you know Valley Fair think of the Wild Thing except higher, the Renegade except faster, and the free fall feeling of Steel Venom, except more…and then you might have Silver Star).

Not only that but they also have different areas of the park designated to different ‘countries’ and themes. Within there is held thousands of delicious food options, themed accordingly, and shows playing constantly. Only a half hour long, usually, but very well rehearsed and highly entertaining. They also have a 4D movie theater where I got doused with some water and theoretically attacked by scorpions. I ate way too much candy, took way too many pictures, and saw many different ‘countries’ that were very stereotypical of the land. As stated in my handy dandy map of Europapark:

Germany

Italy (Saw a show called Luminocity with a bunch of admirable magic tricks and an acrobat and dancers that danced simultaneously with a light show)

France (YUMM CRÉPES)

Switzerland

Greece (AMAZING SEAFOOD)

England

Russia

Holland

Africa (Very stereotypical; the toilets were even marked Tarzan and Jane)

Scandinavia

Austria

Spain (Had a sweet show with the 3 Muskateers and a bunch of sword fighting and tricks on horseback)

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Portugal (Looks really pretty, makes me wanna visit Portugal)

Iceland (Home of my favorite ride there, Blue Fire. I like going upside down and it had plenty of loops for me!! Rode it twice)

Children’s World

Enchanted Forest

Adventure Land

Europa-Park Hotels

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— Yes, hotels. You can’t possibly see or do anything in a day, maybe not even in a weekend. We were there for twelve hours and didn’t get around to all that much. Some rides had an hour long wait and I heard every language from Italian, French, German, Russian, Swiss-German, British-English, American-English, and some sorts of Scandinavian around me. They make it worth the wait, however, with very stereotypical themed surroundings with talking figures and other such things. It was truly amazing. 😀 I would go again in a heartbeat. Thank you, host parents, for the generous birthday gift. ❤ ❤

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Munich:

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We spent Halloween in Munich, because my family had to pick up a new car they’d bought but then we decided to stay for a few days to see the beautiful town. We started off the day at 5 AM, rushing to Freiburg to catch the bus and freezing our butts off. And then 4 and a half hours later, after some absolutely gorgeous scenery of the first snow, we were in Munich.

I’ve been in Munich before, four years ago, and I remembered some of it. It was a lot warmer though and it was with my family. This time I was a lot older, more mature, had won a $15,000 scholarship and had about 150 euros to spend on Christmas gifts to send back to the family I’d left behind. Strange feelings, indeed. We got to our Ferienwohnung which is literally a vacation house. It had one floor with a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. It was cute but pretty cold and basic, and Svenja and I split the living room.

We went to the Deutsches Museum, the largest museum in the world. It could have been super interesting or super dull and it was a little bit of both. It was really well put together and absolutely huge, to the point where somebody shouldn’t make plans as to how to go through it but simply stumble through exhibits. It was interesting to see English as the second language in fine print – or sometimes not even there at all. It took the whole day!

The next day we spent in Munich, just wandering around. It was actually a gorgeous day. I darted in and out of gift shops and then went shopping a little with Svenja on the Marienplatz as the parental units drank coffee and searched the bookshop. The bookshop was cool too, six floors high and full of books. Normally my absolute favorite place to be, and it was still a comforting atmosphere but I felt a little deflated by the fact that reading the books here takes such effort and time and confusion – I could have spent hours in there just reading if they were English books. Days, even. Nevertheless I bought the Hunger Games in German and I’m a whopping EIGHTEEN pages in! :O The shops were cool but expensive and I quickly burned through my money buying Christmas gifts. Then we went to the Hofbräuhaus and ate one of the most delicious meals of my life – a traditional southern German meal of white brats with sweet mustard, buttered pretzels and light beer with lemonade. I am completely German and the fact was solidified then because it was absolutely delicious. Then we toured the town a little more. A few dozen breathtaking pictures and a hefty dose of nostalgia later, we’d toured most of Munich and I’d decided it’s one of the most beautiful towns in Germany. A big city without an absolute big-city feel and a bunch of the old mixed in as well. You can’t go a block in without seeing something that is historic and old, engraved with gargoyles or with painted walls or gold weaved into the walls. Munich, you have me hooked. 🙂

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