Melissa
Ambrosch
Bicycles,
Kayaks, Snowshoes
Carol
Severino
11/10/15
As
we loaded the bus to Chicago, I could feel the butterflies in my stomach. I had gone abroad without my parents before,
but this time I would be gone for an entire month and be living with a foreign
family. Once we got to O’hare,
everything became real. I had to lug
around my suitcase by myself while carrying a backpack and a purse. I prepared for a long nine hour flight. The traveling was exhausting and we ended up
landing around five in the afternoon, Germany time.
A little while later, we found our
exchange students. My exchange student,
Dina, and I had gotten along so well when she was in America so we were so
excited to see each other. Her boyfriend
was with her as well and he drove us back.
I immediately noticed how reckless and crazy the drivers in Germany
were. There were times when I thought we
were going to crash into the car ahead of us.
I also noticed that the car we were in was stick shift. All of my friends in America drive an
automatic so riding in a stick shift was a new experience for me. As we pulled onto her street, I started to
get a little nervous about meeting her family.
The street itself looked exactly how I would picture a small German
village. The roads were all cobblestone
and the houses were colorful and much taller than wide. Once we pulled into the driveway, her family
ran out to greet us. Her mother rapped
me in her arms and her father stood nearby with a big smile on his face. Her three brothers seemed shy but also
uttered a “hallo”. Behind them stood her
sister Helen and their dog. I was in awe
of how sweet they were to me. They asked
me how my trip was and assured me that if I needed anything, to be sure to
ask. About an hour later we sat down to
dinner. Her mother had a large garden in
their backyard where she grew many vegetables.
The salad she had made did not contain any greens, but all different
kinds of vegetables, including raw tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots. Her father had decided to grill that night as
well and there was an array of meat to choose from. Despite the different language being spoken,
the bubbly family chatter made it feel just like home.
The
next morning, I did not go with Dina to school as I was recovering from jetlag. Her sister woke me up at ten however, so that
my body could try and get used to the time change. We went downstairs to have breakfast. Her father had gone to the bakery earlier in
the morning and bought every kind of bread that they sold. The smell of freshly baked bread filled my
nostrils. There were warm fluffy
croissants, rolls filled with ham, and kasebrotchen, cheese bread. Helen called her friend to take us to
school. She told me that normally they
rode bikes to school, but she did not want me to ride by myself. Again, I witnessed the crazy driving that
these German kids engaged inh. Helen
told me that in Germany, one does not get their license until they are eighteen
and that it costs nearly $2000. They
also must go through a rigorous test that includes physically driving and a
written test. This was crazy to me as it
was only $20 dollars in the United States and we just had to pass a short written
test along with a short driving test.
Around
noon I joined Dina at school. I met her
friends Annelie, Nora, Nadine and Lotte.
Her high school was much different than mine as they had long breaks in
between classes, different classes every day, and an open campus. A few minutes later they told me they were
leaving campus to take a smoke break.
This was different because none of my friends at home smoked. One of her friends was only 14, yet she smoked. We walked to an area about a half mile away
in a creepy looking alley. They brought
spray deodorant with them to mask the smell.
I had also never seen this before as most people use stick deodorant in
the United States.
As
the week went on, I got used to riding a bike to school every morning at 6:30,
eating sandwiches for breakfast, taking smoke breaks, and going to class in
German. At first, I had a hard time
riding the bike as it was too big for me and the other girls were quite fast on
their bikes. However, I soon learned to
love the early morning bike rides as they got me energized for school. Dina would always run into someone she knew
on the way to school, so I would get to meet more people every day. The ride was through their downtown, which had
all cobblestone streets surrounded by little shops and restaurants. There were always birds chirping in the
morning and these street cleaners. I had
never witnessed someone cleaning the street.
Somedays we would stop in the little boutiques and look around. Going to class in German every day made the
transition from speaking English to German much easier. I was always surrounded by it and learned new
words, like all the slang my German teacher would not teach us.
At
the end of the first week, I went to my first World Cup viewing party. There were so many people in one square. At the front, there were two large screens
featuring the Germany team and whoever they were playing in the first
round. People wore red, black and yellow
necklaces and tattoos. There were German
flags everywhere and people chanting.
Dina told me this was the only time that the German flag was allowed to
be flown, as the only other time the flag had been flown this freely was during
the reign of Hitler. After his reign,
Germany banned people from flying the flag to avoid being associated with
Hitler and the Nazis. In the front and
back of the square there were tents of beer and people dancing merrily. Every time Germany scored a goal, the crowd
would launch into a chant and hug each other.
It was so exciting and the atmosphere was crazy. The party seemed to continue all night. When we left, cars were out in the street
honking as people leaned out the window waving flags. Afterwards, we went to one of Dina’s friend’s
houses. One of the most peculiar things
I had noticed since I had been in Germany is how much they seemed to like
President Obama. While I was at her
friend’s house and used the bathroom, I noticed the face of Obama on the toilet
seat. When I went back out into the
living room, I brought this up and they told me that they liked him because he
had many ideas that were similar to their leader Angela Merkel. They told me that they think he is
sympathetic towards all people, mostly because of his nationwide health
insurance idea.
The
weeks went on and I experienced many new things and people. Although their school and culture were so
different, Dina’s friends still hung out together like I did with my own
friends. A few days we went swimming, on the weekends we would go to parties
and on our downtime, I would get to hear all the gossip that was going on in
their school. The river where we swam
seemed to be a local hangout. All around
the beach, people were grilling food and tanning themselves. Every time we went, the beach always seemed
to be teeming with people. One night we
went to a cook out with some of her closest friends. A big difference I noticed is that parents at
these hang outs seemed to be nonexistent.
The drinking age was also sixteen in Germany so Dina’s mom would always
send her off with a bottle of champagne.
When we got there, the boys were cooking meat over an open fire. This was different, as we always just ordered
pizza at home. It took a very long time
for the meet to be cooked, but it was very good tasting. Later that night we played a drinking game
that was very different than anything I had ever played before. We stood out in the street trying to knock a
water bottle over with a bottle.
Whenever one would knock the bottle over, the team would try to drink as
much beer as they could. Whichever team
drank all their beer first, won. The
Germans drank out of beer bottles instead of cans, and I remember it tasting
almost exactly like American beer.
Playing in the street was odd because cars would come every so often and
we would have to run off the street with our bottles. Weed was also something the Germans seemed to
smoke on a regular basis. That night I
saw someone roll a joint and got to experience the thrill of passing a joint
around. They made it seem like a big
social event as they turned on music and would dance while passing the
joint. Unfortunately, we had to ride our
bikes about four miles back to Dina’s house.
I did not really make the connection against drinking, smoking and
driving. This led to running into a
bush, but somehow I ended up home in one piece.
Another
night we took the train, which was surprisingly big and comfortable, into
Cologne. In America, one normally
“pre-games” in their house before going out.
In Germany, I learned that they take bottles onto the trains and literally
drink out of them. We finally got to
Cologne and the club where we met up with Dina’s brother and some of his
friends. The club was dark and noisy,
but played music by American artists such as Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber. Later that night when we left the club, we
found out the trains had stopped running due to “umwetter,” the German word for
a windstorm. We later found out that
four people had been killed from falling trees.
We all stuffed into a tiny car that resembled a clown car, and drove
back into Dina’s town. We stayed at her
brother’s house for a while until the trains started running again. The entire time we were at her brother’s
apartment, we sang Beatles songs such as “Hey Jude” and “Yellow Submarine” and
drank vodka. How very European I thought
to myself. We almost ended up missing
the train but finally got on one at 3 in the morning. It was surprising how many other people were
also on the train. After this weekend, I
realized everyone stayed up quite late and that their parents did not really
enforce curfews. This was a new sense of
freedom that I had never experienced. This
freedom ultimately helped me to grow up and think for myself.
The
next weekend we took the train into Cologne again to go shopping and see the
city. Preimarkt, one of the stores we went to, had
three floors of cheap accessories, clothing and shoes. This was just about every girl’s dream, and
we ended up spending about three hours there.
We had lunch at one of Dina’s favorite restaurants. This was where I first had a freshly made
German beer. The beer there is served in
pints and is lukewarm. It was much
stronger than anything I had ever tasted but was by far the best beer I have
ever had. For dessert, we had a
traditional German dessert called spaghetti eis. It was a type of ice cream that was shaved
into strings like spaghetti. It was
covered in fruit and syrup but was less sweet than typical American ice cream.
About
a week later I had to say goodbye to Dina and her family. It was incredibly sad as I had gotten so
close with her family. We vowed to stay
in touch and visit each other soon. To
this day we are still in touch and share our lives with each other. She is a special person and will always have
a place in my heart.
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