First week in Germany

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Hi Everyone,
I finally got this thing up and running. Luckily I'm only a week late. I'm usally later than that. It's sooooo nice to be back in Germany. I've really missed being back here. This past week I've spent hanging out with friends and family. I got to celebrate Evy's birthday with her. =) That was soooo nice. Been to a couple party's, but mostly been chilling. Basti (my host-brother. I'm staying with my host-family from the first time I was in Germany for those of you that didn't know that) is in Spain right now (lucky dude). It's quite a bit warmer there than it is here. I had forgotten how quickly it gets cool here in Germany. Oh well. Marina (my host-sister) is now moved into her place in Bochum and started school yesterday. It was nice that we had a week to spend together and that I got to help move her in. Hopefully I'll have the chance to visit her a couple times. My German hasn't been too bad. The stuff I had forgotten is coming back (a little slower than I would like, but oh well). I can still understand everything, so that's good. Still not thinking in German and that kinda bugs me. I'm thinking its from spending a lot of the day home by myself right now. Ach, that too will come. I'm also starting to get ready to move to Trier. In exactly 2 weeks from today I'll be in my new place. Quite excited about that. =) I'll try to post pictures of my place as soon as I can for all of you. ..... There's really not a whole lot to write about from this week. Just a few interesting things:

Feuerwehr Party in the Schützenhalle on Sat (Local fire station anniversary celebration):
The celebration started on Fri. but the big party was Sat. evening. The theme: A Bavarian Evening. I went, to suprise a bunch of my friends. I knew they would be there, but most of them didn't know that I was in Germany yet. my first thought wen I walked into the hall was what typical German party it was(or rather what we think as being stero-typically German). The music that the band (from Bavaria) played was very much walt and marchish. Everyone had a beer (or two) in the hand and people were singing along with the folk songs at the tops of their lungs while standing on the tables or dancing the fox-trot on the dance floor. =) It was quite a site. (No, not all German partys are that way) It was still a blast! hehe Very different than any party I would be at in the United States. It was also great to suprise my friends. Being with them at the party kidna reminded me of being at Schützenfests with them in the summer of 2002. (Schützenfests I'll have to explain later. Those take a little imagination and are kinda wierd to explain, but are soooo much fun). It was great to stand around and drink with friends while we caught up on everything. Some of them I hadn't talked to since I was here last summer. Most of them were friends of mine from the youth orchestra I played with during my exchange year 4 years ago already! It was kinda wierd to see all the younger ones that were also in JBO that are now all 16 or 17 yrs old. Almost all of em are now bigger than I am. hehe Of course, I had to dance too =) Wasn't sure if I would remember how to dance the fox-trot since it had been about three years since I last danced it. Wasn't a problem at all =). Had a wonderful time dancing with different friends.
Afterwards a group of us went to a friend's house for "Eierbacken". Directly translated it's egg baking. After a party people here sometimes go to someone's house (of course everyone is drunk and it's an ungodly hour in the morning) and cook eggs. I had never been "eierbacken" before, so it was kinda fun. (I know, sounds kinda wierd, but its not that bad) =) It was over all a great night.


Religion in School:
Today I went with Johanna (my 8 year old cousin) to school. I had forgotten what role religion played in the elementary school here (especially in the 3rd grade) until this morning. As soon as school started the 3rd and 4th graders lined up and walked over to the catholic church for mass (right across the street from the school). They had children's mass this morning. it was a little over an hour long and the kids had to read passages and prayers and so forth. (The children that aren't catholic stayed at the school). A couple hours later, they had religion class, taught by the Priest. (again, the children that aren't catholic went to another room and did something else during that time) Third grade is when they have 1st communion, so their religion classes are focused on that. Today they had to write down part of the apostle's creed and learn it by heart. It's not a bad thing, but while I sat there next to Johanna during both the mass and the class it really hit me how different the schools are here and in the US. Can you imagine what would've happend if anything even close to that had happened in an American classroom?! There would've been lawsuits all over the place. Here, it's just what's done. A crusifix hangs over the door of the classroom. Nobody here complains, even if they aren't catholic. It was just an interesting difference that was quite obvious today.


Germany's election:
As some of you will know, Germany had their election on Sun. and as of yet has no govt. for the next year. It's been quite interesting to be here. The German political system is quite different than ours. I'll try to explain it just a little. They don't have an electoral college here, so the results are counted by percentage of the popular vote. To have seats in the parliament the party has to have at least 5% of the popular vote. The percentage won determines how many seats a party is given in the parliament. To be the ruling party, they must have a least 51% of the popular vote. Very rarley does one party have that many votes, so they form coalitions with one another and the Chancellor candidate of the party in the coalition with the most votes then becomes the Chancellor of Germany. That's kind of a quick run down of the system (of course I've left quite a bit out, but it's a quick synopsis)
What's happend this election is that the two biggest partys, the CDU (Christian Democratic Union) and the SPD (Social Party of Germany) both recieved too few votes to make a coalition with the smaller partys they normally team up with. They were also very close in votes. The CDU only recieved 1% more of the popular vote than the SPD. Now the problem is forming a coalition. There's been talk of the two large partys forming a coalition (kinda like the republicans and democrats forming a coalition), but word here is that many still want Gehard Schröder to be the Chancellor of Germany. If the CDU and the SPD for a coalition he won't be (as he's the candidate for the SPD and they're a 1% behind the CDU) Angela Merkel (candidate for the CDU) will. Almost everything talked about now is about the election and what the results may be. Such a situation is very unusal here. This has been a very short run down of it. If you want to read more about it I have two sites you can visit:

http://edition.cnn.com/EUROPE ~ This of course is CNN news. There are several articles about the election here.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/ ~ This site is from Spiegel (a very well renouned German magazine) This link is to their english site. This will give you a view of the election from the side of the Germans.

Enjoy=)

It's now about time that I closed this journal entry... I think the novel is long enough now. Hope it hasn't been to boring. If you have any questions or comments let me know. I'd love to hear form you all. Hope all is going well. I'll write again when I can. Ciao!

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Comments

[Isabel]

:-)
Glad to hear that you are doing well and are having fun in Germany Rachie! Take care and be safe! ♥