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Published: September 2nd 2007
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Train Station
Leaving from Berlin Alright so before I get into my weekend at the family reunion I think everyone is pretty curious about my school Sophie Scholl Oberschule. Well, for starters it takes me a good 45 minutes to get there by bus and then by U Bahn which I'm definitely not used to, seeing as how if I jumped on my trampoline at home I could see my school and even hear the bell ring to start class. So I guess no more waking up 10 minutes before I have to be there.
My school is situated in a nice quiet part of town with lots of little stores and restaurents/cafes dotting the street line. What I find fascinating however is one restaurent in particular, a CANADIAN yes you read right.. a Canadian deli right in the heart of Berlin and just a hop skip and a jump away from my school. And of course what else could this deli be called but Tim's! I first noticed the sign outside the restaurent advertising real Montreal smoked meat sandwiches. I suppose when I'm at my lowest point and the most homesick for my country I'll have to go there and have a sandwich!
Town
This was the center of the town Sophie Scholl is quite a bit bigger than Riverview High School with kids ranging from what looks like 12 or 13 to about 20 or 21 and about 5 stories of classrooms! As with everything in Berlin, the school is well entrenched with it's own history as a bunker in WWII. The name Sophie Scholl was taken from a teenager back in the war that used an underground printing press to put out pamphlet's against Hitler and his regime. Eventually however she was caught and murdered by the Nazi's, thankfully though her name still lives on.
The first day of school was nerve wrecking to say the least, Claudia (my host mom) took me bright and early on monday to get me settled in my classes and find out where I'm supposed to be. However, once we arrived we soon realized that nothing had been prearranged and nobody knew where I was supposed to be or my class schedule. Great. The only positive aspect that came out of that morning was that I met and befriended another Rotary exchange student from Argentina named Yael (pronounced like Sha-el). Thankfully we got put in the same class which generally stays together
for the year, minus the specialty classes. I had the option of taking either German, English, French or Spanish as my main language that all my classes would be in. This is not typical of a normal German high school because it turns out that my school is a European school where people from all over can come and have school in their language. As a result, I find that no one is just German here. For example, one girl I talked to in Art was half Romanian and half German/Lebanesse or another girl was part Cuban and another was from Ghanna. So all in all quite different from Riverview to say the least.
I got to know a few people this week at school but it is difficult with the language barrier to have any sort of depth of conversation. I keep having to reassure myself that I am here for a year and to give everything it's time. However, if anyone knows me at all, I can be pretty impatient at times and want everything to happen perfectly right away. I guess this will be a good challenge for me in the long run but for now it
Claudia
This is my host mom Claudia! is a real frustration.
So this weekend rolled around and Claudia and I had plans to travel to a family reunion. We woke up early on friday morning to catch the train to a small town in the middle of Germany named Bad Hersefeld (you can try to find it on the map but it is a bit hard). I was expecting the trains in Germany to be vastly superior to ours in Canada but in general the appearance is somewhat the same. What I found to be an improvement was the smoothness and probably the speed that they had. All in all it too about 3 hours and 40 minutes to get to our destination. At the train station we met up with some of Claudia's relatives and I was introduced as I always am as the Ă–sterschuler or exchange student. After a ten minute drive through winding German country side (kinda felt like a German car commercial) we got to our accomodations for the weekend, Schloss Buchenau or in english Buchenau Castle. I wont go into too much detail on the appearance because I'm hoping to get pictures up tonight but the castle was built in 1618 so
Monatery
This was a thousand year old monastery that we visited a good 400 years old. Not bad for a little Canadian!
We spent most of the weekend eating and touring the little town and on saturday night was the big celebration, Claudia's mothers 80 something birthday. All of Claudia's relatives were very nice to me but again it was tough going through meal after meal listening to Germans laugh and talk while having no clue what they're saying. One especially kind relative actually invited me to Frankfurt in November to visit a Roman archaelogical excavation site once she found out what I was studying next year at university. Claudia seems to think I will be able to go so that is exciting!
On sunday we left early for our train and had a big lunch when we got home with some family friends.
Tomorrow will be my first day at my language class in the afternoon and of course I have normal school in the morning. I'm still looking forward to the Rotary Orientation whenever that might be because it'll be nice to meet the other exchange students.
Anyways I'd love to hear from everyone back home and look forward to your comments, emails or any news from people back
A view of the town
I went for a walk on saturday through the little town, and this was my view! home! Good luck to everyone that's going back to school and just be thankfull that your classes are in english!!
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Marla, Michelle and Keigan
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Big changes, little changes...
Hey shannon, Your mum gave us the link to your blog so hope you don't mind us posting even though we are "old"! It is interesting to hear about your travels so far! Keigan is going through some changes too - she is starting Kindergarten tomorrow. We will be sure to tell her that Shannon is in a new school but far away so she should be thankful that her school is just down the road - and in English - at least for this year ;) Marla, Mich and Keigan