Montag (20th Feb) - FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! In the morning getting ready at 6am.. I had no expectations of school, since I had no clue of anything; no idea of any subjects I was doing or if I'd make friends or even when school finished! Getting the train in the morning was fine, I left insanely early since Roggentin only has train that leave every hour, so I had plently of time to get to school.. even too much time that I went for a stroll around Warnemünde (the town my school is in) - which is a lovely beach town. Once at school I went to the office with my broken German and found my year adviser who organised which subjects I was doing; bio, religion, history, drama, German, English, French, maths (kill me now), geography, art and swimming for sport. The year adviser then ushered me into the senior section of the school and left me with a few people in my grade, they were really nice though i didn't know them and couldn't really talk to them or ask them questions due to the language barrier. Then Diertje found me and hugged me making my nerves go away, I was glad I knew at least one person.. when school actually started I was meant to have a free period, though since I had no idea what was going on I ended up sitting in a Chemistry lesson with Diertje... I was surprised that I picked up on some words in the 1.5hour lesson though I was still oblivious to everything happening around me which sucked. Biology wasn't much better, I sat there thinking about how class in Australia seemed to go forever and it was only 55mins plus i knew what was going on, so these classes seemed like an eternity! Religion was pretty good since I spoke in English and classmates helped me translate words :) Next was lunch where everyone went into the cafeteria and got their lunch - it was so different to lunch in Australia though I liked it how everyone actually ate together in a civilized way instead of rushing or on the go. After that I had a free but once again found myself sitting in a Physics lesson - yay. Then I had "Bili" which is English and German history, I loved it! It was the only part of the day in which I actually contributed as the lesson was in English and about the JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech which I have studied so I actually helped the others :) School went for ever though, it finished at 5.10pm!!
After school I pretty much went straight to soccer and had the most intense training session ever... gotta love preseason training.
Dienstag (21st Feb) - The second day was much better and my "new exchange student" status wasn't that intense as most people had already sussed me out on the first day.. also I had pretty much met everyone in our grade as there is only about 50 people in it. First up was drama which was really good as we walked around Warnemünde and found different contemporary stages in the area, but most of the time I was talking with the girls and learning some new German words. Next was German history which was very hard and boring so the teacher told me to do something else so I just played on my laptop, I think this will be reoccurring. Then it was English and I had a blast, even though I had to give a 1 mintue speech in front of the class and I got 2 assessments. Then we had lunch in the cafeteria again and I handed out caramello koala's which was cute and helped me talk to different people in my grade. After lunch I was meant to go to French, but "accidently" forgot to go and stayed in the common room with some others who had a free period.. my mentality was that this year is about learning German not French and the others agreed so whatever. School ended at a normal time, 3.30pm, so I was happy though insanely tired as the impact of school and training had hit me.
Mittwoch (22nd Feb) - Today was a short day as I had a free period first, yay :) and then finished at 3.30pm. The day involved German (I didn't understand anything), Bio and Maths - I felt like maths would be good as it didn't involve speaking but no.. not doing maths for 2 years really didn't help me on that one. After school finished I raced the station and got the train to Peter's (host dad) work where I had all my soccer stuff, then he drove me straight to training. Training was outdoor on turf and was not a hard training compared to previous but my body just couldn't keep up with the amount of exercise over the two weeks and my legs gave way.. intense muscle cramps/strains suck!
Donnerstag (23rd Feb) - My actual first month in Germany. I ended up feeling pretty guilty about not going to French so I sat in and pretty much did nothing. Then I had German where I also did nothing since I couldn't understand anything. Then I had History where majority of the lesson was in German so I did nothing. After doing a whole lot of nothing I wasn't in the best mood, then I found out I had to stay at school until 5.10pm and then things got messy. I found out that Geography was only 1 unit, so I had to do another 1 unit subject which was social studies and that was last period.. If I stayed til last period I wouldn't make soccer training and I really needed to go and run around. So I looked at the timetable and decided to ditch Geo/social studies and pick up Physics since it was placed in alright times in the timetable. So in the end everything worked out and I went to soccer training ran around with my sore legs but I was happy.
Freitag (24th Feb) - Today my grade had an excursion to Hamburg for a Uni information day. The train from Rostock to Hamburg took 2.5hours but it didn't seem that bad as the train ride involved lots of talking in German and English, eating listening to music and trying to show as much Aussie music I had on my Ipod, plus we played celebrity heads - I was Kermet the Frog and Barney Stinson :) Once in Hamburg it felt like Sydney (Town hall station on a packed day), it was really busy and in a way comforting to the normality of business. Then we all walked to the University Hall where outside almost every student was smoking and speaking in impossible fast German. Once inside, I followed Diertje to different Uni stalls as she wants to do medicine which is kind of a similar field to what I want to do. I ended up finding 2 interesting Uni's which did some similar courses to which I'd like to do and they were in English - Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany and London Metropolitan University, England. So international study could maybe be a possibility for the future, never know. For lunch a group of us ventured around Hamburg, it was so beautiful! Old building and cobblestone streets but modern interior, amazing. We ended up in a Kebab shop and I had the most amazing meal - Pomm Döner - which was just hot chips, kebab meat and salad but the simplicity was awesome. Some of the boys wanted to go "bier trinken" (beer drinking) so we went for a stroll, then it started pouring - good old German weather - we eventually found a cute little indie backpacker restaurant and the boys go to relax. The train ride home wasn't the best as most of the way I was stuck in a baby seat due the packed train and limited seating, though we all survived the 2.5hours and safely made it home.
After school I pretty much went straight to soccer and had the most intense training session ever... gotta love preseason training.
Dienstag (21st Feb) - The second day was much better and my "new exchange student" status wasn't that intense as most people had already sussed me out on the first day.. also I had pretty much met everyone in our grade as there is only about 50 people in it. First up was drama which was really good as we walked around Warnemünde and found different contemporary stages in the area, but most of the time I was talking with the girls and learning some new German words. Next was German history which was very hard and boring so the teacher told me to do something else so I just played on my laptop, I think this will be reoccurring. Then it was English and I had a blast, even though I had to give a 1 mintue speech in front of the class and I got 2 assessments. Then we had lunch in the cafeteria again and I handed out caramello koala's which was cute and helped me talk to different people in my grade. After lunch I was meant to go to French, but "accidently" forgot to go and stayed in the common room with some others who had a free period.. my mentality was that this year is about learning German not French and the others agreed so whatever. School ended at a normal time, 3.30pm, so I was happy though insanely tired as the impact of school and training had hit me.
Mittwoch (22nd Feb) - Today was a short day as I had a free period first, yay :) and then finished at 3.30pm. The day involved German (I didn't understand anything), Bio and Maths - I felt like maths would be good as it didn't involve speaking but no.. not doing maths for 2 years really didn't help me on that one. After school finished I raced the station and got the train to Peter's (host dad) work where I had all my soccer stuff, then he drove me straight to training. Training was outdoor on turf and was not a hard training compared to previous but my body just couldn't keep up with the amount of exercise over the two weeks and my legs gave way.. intense muscle cramps/strains suck!
Donnerstag (23rd Feb) - My actual first month in Germany. I ended up feeling pretty guilty about not going to French so I sat in and pretty much did nothing. Then I had German where I also did nothing since I couldn't understand anything. Then I had History where majority of the lesson was in German so I did nothing. After doing a whole lot of nothing I wasn't in the best mood, then I found out I had to stay at school until 5.10pm and then things got messy. I found out that Geography was only 1 unit, so I had to do another 1 unit subject which was social studies and that was last period.. If I stayed til last period I wouldn't make soccer training and I really needed to go and run around. So I looked at the timetable and decided to ditch Geo/social studies and pick up Physics since it was placed in alright times in the timetable. So in the end everything worked out and I went to soccer training ran around with my sore legs but I was happy.
Freitag (24th Feb) - Today my grade had an excursion to Hamburg for a Uni information day. The train from Rostock to Hamburg took 2.5hours but it didn't seem that bad as the train ride involved lots of talking in German and English, eating listening to music and trying to show as much Aussie music I had on my Ipod, plus we played celebrity heads - I was Kermet the Frog and Barney Stinson :) Once in Hamburg it felt like Sydney (Town hall station on a packed day), it was really busy and in a way comforting to the normality of business. Then we all walked to the University Hall where outside almost every student was smoking and speaking in impossible fast German. Once inside, I followed Diertje to different Uni stalls as she wants to do medicine which is kind of a similar field to what I want to do. I ended up finding 2 interesting Uni's which did some similar courses to which I'd like to do and they were in English - Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany and London Metropolitan University, England. So international study could maybe be a possibility for the future, never know. For lunch a group of us ventured around Hamburg, it was so beautiful! Old building and cobblestone streets but modern interior, amazing. We ended up in a Kebab shop and I had the most amazing meal - Pomm Döner - which was just hot chips, kebab meat and salad but the simplicity was awesome. Some of the boys wanted to go "bier trinken" (beer drinking) so we went for a stroll, then it started pouring - good old German weather - we eventually found a cute little indie backpacker restaurant and the boys go to relax. The train ride home wasn't the best as most of the way I was stuck in a baby seat due the packed train and limited seating, though we all survived the 2.5hours and safely made it home.
That is all for now.
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