No new post this week......except for this one I guess, but it shouldn't really count or something. I promise (to you, my loyal reader base of about 20) that I WILL write something this week as soon as I know what I want to write. PLEASE comment on this...thing (it's not a post!)...if there is anything you (my huge reader base) want to know!

-Kevin

German kids have more fun than American kids.

Another week of school went by, fairly fast I should add. I went to a trial tennis training session on Monday, which was a blast. I was sick for the entire week, but I think I am pretty much over it now. After missing a day of school on Tuesday, I didn't know what to do as far as excusing my absence, and I'm not quite sure if it is completely settled or not. On Thursday I went to a barbecue party that the class threw for a student because she is leaving to New Zealand for a year. On Saturday, I stayed up until 2 with my Heiko (host brother) watching Dawn of the Dead (the original version is called "Zombies in Kaufhaus" in German, which means zombies in shopping mall). I gave him a bag of honest to god American cheetos, they were smuggled in by one of my connections in America (her name is "wow" upside-down). Cheetos are one of the few American things that haven't found there way into the German market.

Enough about me, this week's topic is "German kids have more fun than American kids."

This doesn't have anything to do with the lower drinking age, or the abundance of dance clubs, or the easy to use public transit systems, this point is purely based on the cool playstructures in German playgrounds. If you are reading this from a country other than USA, you might want to know that most playgrounds in America lack any really fun things because of liability issues.

To start, German playgrounds all contain the basics: swings, slides, castles, etc. The first time I went to a German playground was a few weeks ago with some other people from the language camp. The playground had this one thing that three people could stand on top of, it was balanced on a couple of strings, AND it spun around really fast if somebody pushed it. Once it was spinning, there was no chance of getting off safely, and the only thing you could do was to hold on to the metal pole in the middle for your dear life.

Another example of German playground fun-ness is the monster of a play spider-web that belongs to the school next to mine. I can see it out of the window I sit next to, it's huge! I have seen a few spider web playstructures here and there, but this one was a 3-D tower of ropes and knots, with little platforms placed randomly to sit on. For some reason, almost every time we have class in the classroom that has a view of the spider web, there are kids playing on it, and it always looks like alot of fun. I was reminded of why American playgrounds are so bland when I kid slipped and fell pretty far down, prompting a crowd of other kids and a teacher to come swarming in. In America, the spider web would have been gone the next day, but alas, it still stands!

Yesterday, I went with Heiko (host brother) and his friend Dennis to a park in a forest. Scattered around in the woods were little obstacle courses and forts, all built completely out of logs, planks, and nails, only the seats on the sings were made of plastic. One of the structures there was a simple log fort with a little staircase on one side, but the other three sides had an assortment of logs and fallen trees that led to the top that you could climb, if you had good enough balance, to the top of the fort.

After that we went to a playground that had a big, double-cone shaped rope thing that you could crawl inside of, and then it could spin, making for a pretty frightening experience.

Another German playground staple, at least in school playgrounds, is the ping pong table. The tables lack any moving parts like a removeable net, or foldability, and they are made solid with cement and metal, so they last through whatever school kids want to do with them. All you need is your own ping pong paddle and ball, and you can play pretty much anywhere.

Hopefully I will encounter some more crazy playgrounds with some new structures, I will keep you updated!

Tell me what you want! What should I write about? Post a comment and let me know! (I know, I know, MORE PICTURES)

Sunday at the theater.

After my first week of German school, a nice slow-paced weekend was perfect for me. On saturday I went shopping with my host mother and brother at the mall, I needed a jacket for winter. We went to a bunch of shops, but I couldn't find anything. I found one jacket that I liked, but the first size I tried on had really short sleeves, and the next size up the sleeves were the same, but the jecket almost whent down to my knees. I settled for a pair of sweatshirts from the foot locker, my poor adidas jacket needs a break after being worn every day for a month. Hopefully next time I will find something.

That evening I watched a new German gameshow on TV with my host parents. I think it was the show's first airing, and it seemed to not be very well thought out. After an hour straight without commercials, the show was only two-fifths finished, and almost every question was a tie. Contestants were cheating now and then, and it seemed alot of the answers were purely based on if the host thought it was close enough or not. After the hour of waching it, I still couldn't quite understand the rules, and I don't think the contestants really knew what was going on either. There are six kids and three adults competing for some money by answering questions or something. All of the kids were playing for money for their schools, and one girl started crying when she didn't win the money her school needed to install proper equipment in its gymnasium. It was clearly a rip-off of "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" but it was nearly unwatchable for me. Maybe I'm being too harsh...

Back to the weekend, sunday started with a slow morning of TV, video games, sleeping, etc.. At one o'clock everbody gathered around for a delicious lunch of roast pork, green beans, peas and carrots, potatoes, and pasta. Mmmmmm. In the afternoon, I met with people from school and we took the train into the city to one of the nicest trainstations I have been to in Germany, there were plants inside, as well as a small shopping mall, and it was like a big greenhouse with glass domed roof. We went to the Cinemaxx theater to see "The Bourne Ultimatum". The theater was huge! I think it was the biggest one I have ever been in. The movie was fun, and afterwards we went to McDonald's (which seems very popular in Germany) and had some cheeseburgers. It wasn't until the train ride home that I realized I should not walk from the train station home alone, but luckily one of the people I was with (Patrick) offered to give me I ride home.

Thanks for reading,
-Kevin


Here is a picture just because I feel bad about not having any for the last few posts. A shot of a beatiful morning in Hamburg (the weather has been really nice the last few days, reminds my old home town Palo Alto actually).

At most schools, the teachers have trouble pronouncing my name, but in Germany, the teachers are saying it right, and I'm the one wih the bad pronunciation!

School

I have only been at school for two days, but I think I am going to like it. My school plan for the year isn't set in stone, but here is a copy of my current schedule. The blank spots in the afternoons will be filled with sports, and thespots on thursday will be another German class.


(Click the photo to enlarge)

Also, post your comments and questions! I will do my best to answer!

Class Trip

I just got back from a week in the Black Forest (Freiburg/Feldburg) with my new class from school! The trip went really well, all of the students are nice, as well as the the two teachers that went with us. We had 2 full days days of travel and 3 days of doing stuff. Here is an overview with plenty of details ommited.

Day 1: I went with my host father to the maain train station in Hamurg to meet the class in the morning. I shook some hands and said hello to some people, but my interaction was slim to none. On the train, a nice girl invited me to sit next to her for the ride, I accepted. During the trip (which lasted about 6 hours) I played Uno, solitare, listened to music, and enjoyed to scenery. Other than the fact that train traveling takes a long time, I think I prefer it to flying. The ride is very smooth, there are no security lines or confusing airports, the train goes through the countryside so you can see the land, as well as through the cities so you can see them too, and the seats are very spacious. After the train ride, we took another train, then a bus (I gave my seat up to an older lady), and we arrived at the youth hostel in Feldburg. I got a room with five other classmates (bunk beds) and fell asleep pretty fast.

Day 2: Day two was the climbing day. It was really cold and raining, so instead of climbing on the mountains we played some games as a group in the morning, and climbed trees and boxes in the afternoon. The rain turned into heavy hail, and then into sun, but back into rain. In the evening, people pulled out ping pong paddles and a group of about eight of us played ping pong for the remainder of the evening.

Day 3: On day three we all went into the old section of Freiburg. The town was very nice, there was a big cathedral, some pretty old buildings, and every street had a small canal running down it (There is a local "rule" that says if you fall into the canal, you must marry a Freiburger). We had a tourguide for a while, but she spoke incredibly fast so I had no clue what she was talking about most of the time. After the tour, we split into groups and explored the city. Everybody's first stop was McDonald's, which seems really popular here. Remeber a earlier post where I said everything costs money in Germany? If you don't believe me, go to a McDonald's in Germany and see how much Ketchup and Mayonaise cost. (0.15 Euros per packet) After McDonald's we had some real ice cream (cinnamon, caramel, and vanilla) which was delicious, and we headed back into town. After dinner, we went to the youth hostel's "disco" (an empty pool with lights and speakers) with another school group. I danced for an hour and half with the rest of the group, it was pretty fun, but they said they'll take me to a real disco which is much better.

Day 4: Day four was entirely Europa Park! (Germany's biggest amusement park) I went on all the big rides. The first ride I did was my first roller coaster ride ever! Suprisingly, I really enjoyed it! I went on the Swiss Bobsled ride first, then the Russian MIR ride, then the Silver Star (It was so scary I couldn't scream), and the Eurosat, which was indoors (there was no light so you couldn't see what was coming!). The Silver Star is Europe's highest and biggest roller coaster, so it was pretty frightening for my first day riding roller coasters, and we even waited an extra half hour to sit in the front row. It was my favorite ride of the day I think.

http://www.europapark.de/lang-en/c259/default.html

Europa Park website.

Day 5: After packing and cleaning the rooms, we went on a hike up the mountain that the youth hostel was on. It was about four kilometers I think and in the winter it is a ski mountian (the whole area was a ski area, but not steep at all). From the top, you could see Switzerland and Mont Blanc (France). I wrote a message in the guest book at the top too. Something odd I noticed in the trainstation that I had also seen at the city fair was a stand that sold surgical and medical implements. Scalpels, forcepts, hammers, those things doctors sting in your ears to look at your brain, all the pokey things the dentist uses, everything you need to be your own docter you can buy at the train station. On the train back I played a gruelling two and a half hour poker game, we called a tie game (there was a lot of poker playing on this trip). After that, I answered generic questions about America and myself.

All in all a fun week, I think I made a bunch of friends already and I'm looking forward to school on Monday! Sorry for the long post without pictures, hopefully I will get some from other students who had cameras and post them later.

Last day of Camp! Barbecue!

Camp is finally over! The last day consisted of....nothing. We started with watching most of a Germany movie ("Wo Ist Fred") which was really good, but there was a big scratch over the last part of the movie so we don't know what happens, very frustrating. After that we had the only lunch that I actually felt sick from eating, and I could only many to eat a few bites of it. It was a fish stew kinda thing, and it was really gross.

Maybe it was just the contrast with the bad lunch, but that night's dinner tasted really good. My host mother cooked some fresh sausages from the butcher and we ate them in baguettes with a bunch of toppings.

Today (Saturday) was pretty fun. I walked around the local town a little with Heiko (host-brother) and we did some (unsuccesful) shopping. After that the family and I drove to a barbecue with some family friends, they might have been relatives I'm unsure. The barbecue was fun, I had some real wurst, grilled chicken, potatoe/pasta/tomato salads, among other foods. It was a pretty good time.

One more day and then off to the Black Forest for a school trip for a few days!!