In Deutschland, at last!!!

Okay, I'm really wishing I was fluent in German already. However, I know that the painful and difficult struggle I am about to pursue is part of the whole exchange experience, so I'm not focusing on my regrets. I am still pretty tired after many hours of travel but I don't think it's fatigue from being surrounded by a new country yet. I think that's probably coming soon, though. Our flight was good, although dinner was served at midnight, and so I finally fell asleep at 1 am and then at about 3:30 I woke up and it was light out (because it was 7:00 where we were flying over. We landed at about 6, which was noon German time. Then I, along with a few other people, was taken to the waiting area for people leaving on trains. For some reason my train was full of Brazilian exchange students, so I couldn't even understand the other students! But I sat with some other Americans and we played cards and bought our first German items... except we were on a train so there wasn't much to choose from. I bought a Twix bar for 1,5 Euro. It was deliciously German. Then some of us switched trains and there weren't any open tables, so I sat by myself and tried to get some sleep while listening to Portuguese. At 8 p.m. (German time) we got to our stop and I met my host familie!!! They are very nice. Clara made me a sign and a pin with my name on them. When we got to the house we had dinner: bread with meat and cheese and salad. I was so happy there was salad. I met Simon and Lisa, his girlfriend, and everyone spoke in Deutsch while I sat there eating... oh well. Then I took a shower- the showerhead was really low but I managed. The toilets are very funny- they all have a sticker on the seat with 2 pictures of a man peeing (not real pictures, just those little black figures on bathroom doors) and one says "bitte" (please) with a red x over it and the other (the wrong way) says "danke" (thank you). The one with an x is a man standing, the other is a man sitting. Apparently German men don't stand when they pee. I haven't embarrassed myself terribly yet, although I did mistake a soup plate for a bread plate. Whoopsie-daisy.
I went to church with my host parents on Sunday, for the first time in my life. It was definitely a good experience, but I don't think I'll be going every week. Or even every other week. Clara talked to me all day long, and I'm not sure she realized that I couldn't understand anything she was saying, but sometimes I could get the jist of it. She taught me how to play this simple game with pegs and dice, and then we played Rummycube (I won!!) and pick-up sticks, and after the afternoon meal (lunch + dinner combined) we played "Cafe International", a board game from the 80s that was fun but definitely entailed some stereotypes... there were cartoon pictures of men and women from different countries, and all the Cubans had cigars and military outfits, the Russians had fur hats, and the Americans had big flashy sunglasses. It was fun, though. Today Daniela (host mom) took me to the market to get food. It was an interesting experience. Did you know that in Germany you have to put a Euro coin into the shopping carts in order to use them? And then when you're done you put the cart back and lock it with the others and it gives you your coin back, to prevent people from stealing. Also, everyone brings baskets or bags, if you don't then you have to buy bags. Overall it is very eco-friendly here.
I have found that at night and in the morning I feel pretty down, asking myself how I got myself into this mess where I can't understand anything and I won't be home for 10 months. But as soon as I go downstairs and start talking to people, even if they can't understand what I'm saying it makes me feel more cheerful and very lucky that I get to learn this cool language. Well, I love you all, but I'm going to go help make lunch now! Auf Wiedersehen!!!

Worries, Woes, and Walla-Walla

So last night I had a dream that I was at the airport about to get on the plane when my mom tells me that I'm not going to Germany; instead she's booked me a flight to Walla-Walla. She said that it's closer to home (not by much, but it is in the same country) and since nobody actually knows where it is they'll still be just as impressed. (I know where it is. And I'm only 16. I'm sure there are plenty of 40-something-year-olds out there who know it's in Washington.) Anyway, I think Mom's sort of starting to freak out a little, and so she tells me to relax and breathe and that if I don't buy everything I need before I go then I can buy stuff there, but I think she's really attempting to relax herself. My poor sister started school today and last night my mom kept forgetting that she had to go to bed early. So then we had to go find a Staples to try and find a binder for her, because Mom keeps forgetting it's September and she's not on vacation anymore. Oh well. She'll get a kick in the rump soon enough when I'm not there lollygagging and Olivia has piles of homework and the driveway has piles of leaves.
So, now for my worries and woes... I don't really have a lot, but it made for a good title. I decided to deal with a winter coat once I get there. I bought a North face fleece that should do for fall, and I'm bringing a hat and gloves and such. There's a pair of boots I found online that look quite nice (on sale!!) but I wouldn't be able to pack them anyway so I'm just going to wait. I might have mom order them and then ship them to me anyway, though. Because she won't have enough to do. I think I've got nearly everything I need. I'm going downtown today to buy a lens filter and some new Converse, and I have to go peanut-butter-and-oreo shopping at some point. I don't know how I'm going to fit all this stuff though! I stuffed my backpack full of clothes yesterday, and it only weighed 25 pounds. I'm going to have to start using Ziploc baggies to squish out all the air. I decided on a many-layered airplane outfit so that I can take as much weight off my bag as possible (not that it matters a whole lot since I've got 20 pounds to spare.) So, now that you've heard all that gloriously boring stuff, I'll put up some pictures of my house and host family that my familie emailed me!!

Packing Frenzy

I'm back from camp and the Cape! The day after I got back from camp, still in a slight society shock, my family zoomed off to Cape Cod for a few days, which was beautiful and fun but slightly stressful at the same time because I have so much to do and there's no internet access or malls in Truro. I have a 2-page to do list, not to mention a packing list and a buying list. I'm leaving for D.C. in exactly a week! I'm super-excited, and I think I can definitely accomplish everything I need to in a week as long as I can convince my mom to drive me to Holyoke to buy all the stuff I need... mostly winter clothes and shoes, plus an ipod charger that works in Germany. I'm also packing up my room- today I sent 2 boxes out to the pod, and I have another one almost packed in my room. then I have to pack a box of stuff I might need my mom to send me so it needs to be easily reachable. And I have to pack to actually leave. Psh I have a lot to do. Hopefully I'll get one more post in before I leave, maybe with pictures of my bumload of stuff I'm bringing. Of course I still have to keep it under 44 pounds... this is going to be quite interesting.

Camp and German Grammar

Hallo everyone... so today I am leaving for 3 weeks of overnight camp! Wahoo! I'll be in my 2nd year as a Leader-in-Training, which means that we have to do more counselor-ish work, but we have to pay less to go. I'm pretty much all packed, and I have a lot of stuff... two plastic bins (the rolling ones that go under your bunk), a duffel bag, and my backpack. I think I inherited my mutter's packing skills. Ah well. I am pledging to ignore that part of my genes when I go to Germany!
So, if anyone wants to write to me at camp (please do! I promise to write back!), the address is:
Jasmine Landry/ LIT
Wildwood-Mass Audubon
P.O. Box 826
Rindge, NH 03461

Also, I've been doing a lot of German-learning, and the German grammar is killing me... it's so confusing, there is one word ("sie") that means she, you formal, and they. And the verbs only change the ending if the subject is I or you familiar. But I think I'm catching on! I put up sticky vocab labels all over the house. The only one Mom knows is "das Auto", because it's in her car. I love the word for refrigerator, it's "der Kühlschrank," which literally means "cool cabinet". It's quite fun to say.
Well, I must be going now... I have to bring all my stuff downstairs while Dad empties bales of hay out of his truck (don't ask me what they're doing there. Maybe he's fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a farmer). Auf wiedersehen!!

Das Kleine Dunkel Wolke (The little dark cloud)

My German is coming along well, I have gotten the general idea of the pronunciation from Rosetta Stone and now I'm working in my German textbooks that I bought off Amazon.com. : ) They have a recent publication date but all the pictures show people from the 80's, kind of like my Spanish books at school. I actually think they're the same publisher. Maybe they use all the same pictures. Also, I found a little blank journal in my room when I was "cleaning up", and I decided to make it my German journal. I'm writing a bit in it (in German) each day. Right now I'm only doing a couple basic sentences, but I hope to build up to a paragraph or so before I leave!

On a not so cheery note, last Wednesday my alarm didn't go off and therefore I got up late for crew practice. I rushed downstairs and threw on some clothes and called my coach in a panic, apologizing for being late and shoving a Kashi bar down my throat for breakfast. So, already in a hurry, I biked downtown and down the Fort St. hill and was pulling onto the dirt road when I saw a car turning around a little ways ahead, so I slowed down. Unfortunately for me, there had been an enormous rainstorm the night before and there was a tiny mud patch right in front of me, on which my bike slid and I went flying. Fortunately for me, the car that was turning had been full of Jehovah's witnesses, who gave me tissues to wipe up the blood and a cell phone to call my dad and his truck to the rescue. Then Mom and I spent most of the afternoon in the doctor's office/ hospital, only to find out that I had broken my radial head. So now I have to wear my right arm in a sling, and my knees are still all bleedy and gross and where they're not bloody they're purple and bruised. My nose and right hand are swollen, and it kind of hurts to walk PLUS it's a right pain in the arse to do everything left-handed. So the moral of that lovely story was SLOW DOWN and WEAR A HELMET. (I was wearing a helmet. I was just saying. Don't forget.)

Even a broken arm can't dampen my excitement though!!