Ansbach, Mittel-Frankonia, Bayern, Deutschland

I have now lived in Ansbach for two months. This is what I have done so far:

I was welcomed by the wonderful Mehl family: Birgit, Guido, and Maximilan, and they told me all about Ansbach, German traditions, and their family.  Birgit is my host mother; she is full of life and loves to try new things. She studied economics at University, and currently teaches a class of people trying to find work or need a to change careers.  We talk a lot together about the differences between the U.S. and Germany, the traditions of her family and Germany, her job, and plenty of other things too.  Guido is my host father; he is very nice and works hard.  He owns a newspaper and radiostation, and has a lot of work to do in his company.  He loves cars and trains.  Finally, my little brother, Maximilian, is a cool boy.  He plays the guitar, loves to draw, plays golf, and plays with his friends.

We went on a day trip to Castell for a wine tasting with Guido's auto club.  The winery was huge.  We took a little tour, a man described how they make the wine, and then he took us through the halls where giant barrels were fermenting, until we reached the end of the underground tunnels.  There we all received a glass of wine, and the man talked about how it was made and why it tasted the way it did.  So everyone was sipping and smelling and swishing the wine, and listening.  I go to take my first sip and I swallow it the wrong way.  For the next ten minutes I was choking and coughing and gasping for air, while the other people from the auto club were enjoying their wine and trying to listen to the man over my gasps and coughs. It wasn't embarrassing at all.  Then we went to a legal document library where there were deeds for property and other purposes.  They were written in beautiful calligraphy and had a big circular gold plated metal crest attached to the paper with a string, and then the documents are kept in boxes on shelves.  After our visit to the library, we went to a quaint restaurant and ate typical Deutsch dishes: red craut, brat wurst, and various cold salads.  Everything was delicious, and the autos were sleek.  After that we went to a living museum; houses from all over Deutschland and from different centuries were moved here to create a collective presentation of how people lived and how life evolved over time.  The houses were interesting and beautiful.  Inside the first house there was a woman spinning burlap.  And all of the houses were furnished in the way they would have been in the actual time period. 

I had my Late Orientation Camp in Ludwigburg, Baden-Wuerttemburg.  This orientation was similar to the pre-orientation, except we could talk about our host-families, and our experiences in Germany to this point.  The students were from all over the world! I met Honza from Czech Republic, Zita from Hungary, Gunaar from Norway, Timur from Russia, students from Latin America who taught us all how to salsa, and I got to know the other Americans better as well.  We had a talent show, and I sang Star Dust because I love that song, and others danced, belly-danced, sang, and played the ukilali and guitar.  It takes a certain kind of courage or personality to be able to say, "Yes, I'm going to live in another country where I don't know the language, and have an adventure!" So when all these people are together, it's a lot of fun because all of us are interested in each other's cultures and traditions. 

I went to Crailsheim, the next town over, to visit Honza and Alejandra, who were in my L.O.C. in Ludwigsburg.  Honza met me at the Bahnhof and he showed me his new town, and where he and Alejandra go to school.  I got to meet their German friends too.  The next day, we cooked typical Czech food, it took the whole day, and it tasted so good.  We made a vegtable, mustard, lemon sauce, meat, and knuedeln, hand made noodles.  In between all of the cooking we told each other about where we come from, and how it was like growing up in our home countries.

In the fall break my family took Margherita, the Italian exchange student who was my neighbor, and me on a road trip to Paris!  We spent three days in the city and we saw Notre Dame, Champs-Elysees, Arc d'Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, and Sacre Couer, the church on the hill.  The trip was absolutely lovely, and the city has gorgeous architechture.  Margherita and I ate macaroons, walked around for half an hour on the Champs-Elysees trying to find a post office so we could send some post cards, and completed our mission to find I heart Paris T-shirts. We climbed a ridiculous amount of stairs up the Arc d'Triomphe to see Paris by night.  The Eiffel Tower was lit up and sparkling, and we could see the entire city from here.  We ate dinner in the most typical French restaurant; it was cute and cozy and the food was delicious.  On the way home we drove through Champagne, France, where my host parents bought some champagne for the holidays.  Champagne was charming with the vineyards covering the hill sides and the little towns are nestled in the valleys below. It was a beautiful trip.

I went to Stuttgart to meet up with the students from the L.O.C., and go to the Mercedes Benz Museum.  This museum was really interesting because it didn't just have exhibitions about cars, it put a historical context behind the development of the automobile, and it told us what was going on in the world when these cars were on the road. 

I played the Bach Cello Suit No.1 Prelude in a Krystallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) memorial ceremony.  On November 9th, 1938 in Ansbach, all of the windows of Jewish residences and places of business were shattered by German police.  They wanted to burn the synagoge down, but the buildings in the city center were too close together to safely burn the building down.  Instead they smashed the windows, and made a small controlled fire inside, put it out with water and moved on to the next building. Because of this, the synagoge is still in good condition, it's decorations and red marble survived this awful night.  I played my solo inbetween readings and other student musicians that performed as well.  This was the first time in my life that I played without a single nervous feeling in my heart.  I just played.  The ceremony was powerful and profound.  I will never forget this.

My host mama, Birgit, took me to Dinkelsbuel and Rothenberg.  Going to these towns was like walking into a fairytale.  They have old buildings that are painted pretty colors, the shop names are written in an old script, and they both have a stone wall around the whole town.  Rothenberg has an all-year-round Christmas store that just keeps going on forever; it's a Christmas Narnia! She told me every year the whole town of Dinksbuel goes back in time to celebrates the city's surrender to Swedish Troops during the Thirty Year's War. This reenactment is played out by many of the town's residents. It features a whole array of Swedish troops attacking the city gate, and children dressed in traditional garb coming to watch the event. Paper cones full of chocolate and candy are given as gifts to children. This historical event is called the "Kinderzeche".  The legend is that a child saved the town from massacre by the Swedish Troops during the surrender.  It says that when the Swedish army besieged the town, a teenage girl took the children to beg the general for mercy.  The Swedish general had recently lost his young son to illness, and a boy who approached him so closely resembled his own son that he decided to spare the town.

I visited my friend Maddie Conway in Bonn, where we went to the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market) together with her brother, Chad.  We had enjoyed looking at the unique candles, pyramides, and toys that the people were selling.  We also tried, schnee balls, which are pie crust strips bunched together and covered in chocolate, gebrannte mandeln (roasted almonds), Gluehwein, Eierpunsch, and Kakao (hot chocolate).  We also went to Ludwig van Beethoven's birthhouse and museum; it was amazing, we took a tour with audio-guides.  Then we went to Cologne and saw the Dome, which is the biggest and most beautiful cathedral in Germany.  After that we went to Maddie's house in Voerde, and her host family is very nice.  The next day we went to Duesseldorf, which is home to Carnival.  It's an artsy city that has funky and unique architecture, especially around the harbor.  We went up the Seiko Tower, that has observation decks and a rotating dining room at the top. Then I took my train home along the Rhein river admiring the towns and castles in the hills.

This past week I learned how to play golf, gave a presentation to my English class about Thanksgiving Day, I went to Nuernburg for shopping and seeing the Weihnachtsmarkt with girls from my class in school, and I went to the Rothenburg Weihnachtsmarkt with my host mama, brother, and their neighbor friends.  Another beautiful week in Deutschland, and the first Sunday of Advent we went to church together in the morning.  Then we toured the Ansbach Castle that was unbelievably ornamented and preserved. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed.

We are visiting the Weihnachtsmarkt in Rothenberg.

Anna, Jana, and I at the Nuernberg Weihnachtsmarkt.

Aufwiedersehen Celle

I am in Celle's stadt zentrum loving life.

My month in Celle was wonderful! I have learned some German, and I have had many great experiences.  I stayed with a beautiful family, Denise, Harold, Valorie, Tom, and Leah.  They showed me my way around Celle, and helped me learn more German words. Tom introduced his friends to me, and Leah asked me to help her with her English homework.  And my AFS group did many activities together:  a historical tour of Celle, a tour of the castle, the prison, Bergen-Belsen, and we had an end of stay picnic.

The end of stay picnic was on October 3^rd, which is the Deutschland National Day of Unity! We all brought something to eat, and everything was delicious! One of the host-fathers brought a game called Viking’s Chess, which is a game you play on the grass with wooden sticks and blocks. It reminds me of horse shoes a little bit.  It has a lot of rules, but it was fun to learn.  Language school was a great experience with the other CBYX students.  We learned how to build sentences and asked questions, and we learned how to say: Hello, I am an exchange student. I am from the U.S.A.  Hallo, Ich bin eine austauschschulerin.  Ich komme aus U.S.A.

I learned about a city full of historical treasures, and I want to thank my host family for being supportive and generously welcoming me into their home and their family. 

Planes, Trains, Automobiles..... and My Bike!

A lot has happened in my first week in Germany. 

After traveling and being awake for 24 hours, my host parents picked me up at the Hannover train station. There was an annual festival for the arts that day, and my host sister, Valorie works in the theaters where the fest was held.  There were bands playing, poetry readings, previews of the coming theatrical season, and, of course, there was food.  I had crepe and my first bratwurst, and they were delicious.  The band was playing American music, which confused my brain.  The atmosphere was relaxed and everyone was having a good time.  My host parents told me that that was the first nice day they had all summer.  They told me about Celle, and asked me about 9.11 and about American views on other topics.

The next day, I went swimming with my host father in Badenland, which is a pool complex.  It was the last day to swim outside in the 50m pool.  The water was cold, but it felt good to swim after traveling the day before.  Later that Sunday, we rode our bikes to Celle.  My bike was spray-painted yellow and purple, and is the family hand-me-down bike.  I love it. They showed me my language school, the Alle River, massive fields that become ice rinks in the winter, and the city with its shops, old houses, and charm. On the way home it started to pour! I found out I need a rain jacket.

Monday I started language school.  My teacher spoke only in German. The first day was difficult because I did not know any German at all when I came here.  However, the next day at school was better.  On Tuesday our AFS group took a tour of the castle of Celle.  My friend Genevieve and I kept making wrong turns and we got lost.  We asked a man for directions and he was a total hippie, he had painted platform shoes on and long straight hair. He was kind and pointed out the way, and we ran the rest of the way to the castle because we were late.  We made it in time for our tour though.  The woman took us through the different rooms and explained the love stories and relationships of Celle’s nobility and how the blood lines of England and Germany crossed.  Then we went to the church and climbed 208 steps to the top of the tower where we could see all of Celle.

Wednesday I ate my first doner, which is a Turkish sandwich.  It was delicious! Then Genvieve and I went shopping and I didn’t find things that I loved.  Plus everything is very expensive, so I want to buy things that will last and things that I love.  Hopefully I’ll have better luck next time.  My host brother Tom came home from a two week exchange in Israel.  He is nice to me and helps me when I don’t understand what is going on.   

Thursday I went to Genevieve’s house in the afternoon and I met her host family.  We ate chocolate mousse cake, did a little bit of homework and played soccer with her host brother. 

Friday the AFS group went to Badenland, and we swam inside and used the hot tubs and salt bath.  It was relaxing after a busy week.  Then Tom and I went to Hachefest in Nienhausen, which used to be a celebration of the harvest and a way for all of the farmers to see each other and visit.   Now there are fewer farmers in and around Celle, but the tradition of getting the community together carried on.  They had a talent show of sorts and there was a group of about 16 older people who all wore cowboy hats and boots and line danced to “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain” and that song about a banjo which were both translated into German.  It was so funny!  I also met people Tom knows from school and soccer.  It was fun.

On Saturday my host father took me on a bike tour along the east-west German border with his good friends.  The border was the Elbe River, and bridges were destroyed so people could not cross easily.  There were also watch towers from which soldiers would shoot those who tried to cross the border.  We rode 50km, and the day was beautiful and warm.  It was a little cloudy, but the sun still shined.  The land was flat and was easy to ride on.  There were fields of corn and sunflowers, and there were cows, roosters, sheep, and horses.  It was the best way to spend a day. 

Today was wonderful too.  I went for a 5km jog with my host father through a path in a wooded area near his company building. The ground was soft and the trees were pretty. Then I studied and took a nap.  And that evening we all went to my host mother’s concert.  She was in the choir for an amazing performance of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.  I had never heard the whole work before, and it is beautiful and powerful. The soprano soloist had a clear and effortless sound; she had amazing control and musicality.  The orchestra and everyone singing and playing together was absolutely wonderful!

It was a wonderful week.

Orientation and Before Landing

Hello again!

Orientation began on Tuesday, September 6^th for all of the CBYX scholars.  I was excited and nervous to get another step closer to Germany.  I said good-bye to parents and Grandma when they dropped me off at the hotel giving them one last hug a few times. 

That day we got to meet our fellow CBYX students and talk about where we are from and why we want to be with this program.  We were split into groups at dinner and kept them throughout the orientation.  I was in Group 3 which we dubbed the Dream Team.  Our Group leaders were Lauren and Clay and they had studied abroad this past summer in India and Russia.  That night we had a workshop called How to be an Effective Ambassador, and talked about how to represent ourselves at the Department of State and at our Congressional interviews.  Our job was to advocate the program to our congressional representative, and to let them know how vital study abroad programs are to international relationships and cultural understanding. 

The next day we went to the Department of State on a beautifully dreary and rainy day, with a breakfast box in hand.  Once we passed through security, and after we were led into the stark white halls of the department, government international relations representatives spoke to us.  They explained why study abroad programs are important to them and why these programs are an essential investment that the government makes.  Ron is a foreign diplomat who spoke to us and we were able to ask him how he got to be in the department writing statements for Obama, and traveling the world.  He was fun to listen to and he gave us a good perspective on what civil and foreign diplomats do.  We ended the night with the movie: Das Leben Der Andere, The Lives of Others which addressed the circumstances in East Germany and the Stasi secret police before the Berlin Wall finally fell in 1989.

After our visit we were dropped off at Union Station which is a big mall with restaurants.  We ate lunch and were responsible for getting to our congressional appointments by ourselves.  Armed with ponchos and umbrellas we set off into the poring thunderstorm that conveniently hovered over our paths to the congressional offices. It was a fun game of puddle jumping and dodging.  Now that my shoes were soggy and everyone’s hair was a mess, we were ready to meet with our representative.  My constituent group met with Julia Steinberger in Kathy Hochul’s office.  Our meeting was short, but we delivered our message and I hope she heard what we had to say.  Then we took a taxi back to Union Station because it was still stormy.

Back to the tour buses! Our next stop was the German Heritage Museum and the head of the museum spoke to us about German-Americans and how they had a strong influence on the formation and development of the United States.  He was interesting to listen to because I like to learn history and he was excited about the information he was sharing with us.  Next a woman from the German Embassy spoke about what the German Embassy does here in the U.S. and how it connects with the American Embassy in Germany and how they effectively work together.  She also shared her experience as a CB scholar and how she got her career with the embassy.

Our next stop was the cultural dinner at Mozart Café.  We ate together and were serenaded by a German concertina player who whipped out both the hokey pokey and, of course, it wouldn’t be a party without the chicken dance, with a little bit of this and that.  The food was good; I had the Viennese beef goulash.  And just when we were finishing our meals, the concertina player started to yodel, and then she whipped out wooden spoons and started playing them and whacking the wait staff with the spoons if they happened to walk by her.  She was a kick! She gave us a toast and wished us luck on our year in Germany. 

Then we went back to the hotel and I fell into my bed, after shedding my soggy shoes.

Thursday was a day of workshops and receiving advice from our AFS volunteers and staff members.  We addressed culture shock, journaling and blogging, how to balance communication with home because I want to “have both feet in Germany” and take in every moment while I’m there.  Another workshop was how to communicate effectively with my host family.  We took a quiz about the world and competed for a non-existent prize. Then Patrick and Hannah gave us a presentation on cultural awareness which addressed personality, criticism, civil order and respect for rules, and conserving resources and understanding that they are limited and expensive.  They gave us good information to take with us on our trip. 

Today we received our final address from Allen Evans AFS who was the facilitator for our departure orientation! Darin made us hug someone next to us for at least three minutes; I hugged Maddie Conway, one of my Dream Team friends.  The hug was good because apparently Germans are all about their personal space.  We packed our bags and 92 students traveling with AFS were bussed to the airport.  I called my mom at the airport and boarded the plane and now we are almost there. I am almost in another country where I don’t speak the language.  I will soon be in an airport full of every foreign exchange student coming to Germany from all over the world. Then I will board a train to Celle.  My journey has begun.  I hope to learn about the world and test my limits as I face challenges I have never before faced.  I will jump in with two feet, with no regrets…other than packing more than I want to carry!

A Journey Soon Begins

     I started to apply to college last summer and I was faced with the daunting task of figuring out what direction I wanted my life to take.  I completed applications for both physical therapy and music schools, and I auditioned on voice at three schools.  Both of those programs are rigorous and do not leave time for travel abroad programs, but I knew I had to travel in my life.
     My brother Steve is involved in AFS and he was a Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) scholar, and he caused me to become more interested in other cultures.  I applied for the program while I applied for college, and I thought what ever happens will happen.  My interview was the weekend of my high school musical Les Miserables.  It was the morning of the third night performance. I received notification about my acceptance during my orchestra tour in Chicago in April, and I got the official e-mail when I got home!
     I am so excited to have won this scholarship and amazing opportunity to become bilingual, to gain new perspectives about the U.S. government and world issues, and to learn about the German culture by living with two host families.
      I will be staying with Denise and Harald Goehring in Celle, Germany for my first month while I attend language camp.  Then I will go to my permenant placement in Ansbach, Nurenburg, Bavaria.  I will live with Birgit, Guido, and Maxamillion Mehl. 

To the start of a new adventure,
Bridget Dix