Zwei, zwolf, ahhh dundun

Every practice for volleyball after we get done running we go into a circle. First we do ten situps, and than ten pushups, and than we do the superman. Its where you lay on your belly and put your arms and legs up slightly of the ground, and than you move your legs and arms up and down without touching the ground. Now doing this is not nearly as hard as doing this and counting in german. We have to count all the way to 50 and I do great untill we get to the larger numbers.

It goes like this everyone has to say a number and we go around in the circle so if the person on my left says 5 i say 6 and so on, but in german. So sarah, and sarah..., always laugh at me when we get to this because no matter how hard i try i always get stumped, and than mumble randoms things such as dundun, oh ahhahah, or i grrrr. Its not because Im mad but becuase im trying to think of the number that comes next. So of course everyone laughs at that, but they laugh when i say the numbers too because although i cant tell how I am saying it wrong they can. I often times mix up 15 and 50, and 17 and 70. ´They sound the same to me, but I guess they are said differently :S.

Just the other day we all got into a circle and started to count as we normaly do, this time i thought to myself that i was going to count all the way through, although i failed at counting the superman, when we streched i was able to count all the way to 25. Now I can of course count 25 to myself but when we come in a circle I dont know what number goes next and usually i get really confused, but yesterday I did it everytime. I was pretty proud of myself for counting, I dont know if it is something to get really excited over but it was another accomplishment. I think learning the numbers are the hardest thing for me here, such as when i go to pay for something they say the number really fast so i throw out a euro that i know is higher than what they asked so i dont look to stupid trying to figure out what they say, than once i get teh receipt i check it and make sure they did not rip me off. although i think our way of counting is better when we get to that larger numbers such as when we say 52 we say it fifty two, but they say the numbers backwards so it is said zweiundfunfzig so like we are saying 25 but really it is 52, it took sometime to get use to but i see the point in doing that because than you dont need to learn fifty, and sixty, and learn all the larger numbers you just need to know 1-10 and than the ending such as zehen, and zig but it is zig for any larger number than twenty :D, I finally am getting the jist of that, but i dont think i am quite ready to take on the circle and count to 50 just yet...

Ogallalalalala & 5€ Foot Long, and 1€ Mcmenü

This weekend was more of a girls night out. Margy and I got invited to eat at subway with some friends of margy´s who play tennis. Margy and I go to the subway and we see that they have 5 euro foot longs there. I started cracking up and singing the commericial of five dollar foot long, except i put five euro instead. No one understood of course, but for an american that was pretty funny.

The next day margy and I discover a McDonalds in meckenheim. We walk down there and right as I was about to order margy pointed out they have a 1 euro McMenü. We started laughing again because than we started talking about every thing we could think of that was on the dollar menu in america. It is so funny to see sometimes how some things are so similar to america, but at the same time completley different.

When I introduce myself to people here and they ask what state I am from I say Nebraska. Than they say ohh in the middle of no where,,, what town in nerbraska, and than I say Ogallala. Everyone stops me there and asks me how do I say my town, and I say it again. No one can quite get saying my town down, so when my mother sent me a shirt saying how to pronounce Ogallala everyone got a kick out of that. I now here Ogallalalalala. The person who I hear it most from is my 7 year old host sister. She was actually the first one to say my town and she is so adorable when she says it because she has lost both of her front teeth, and than she says hannah is from O... Ga.. lala. Now every american she sees she askes if they are from O...Ga...lala. Jona really enjoys everything, and is one of the most sweetest little girls I have ever met, and it makes my stay here so much better because I am used to having so many sisters, so its nice when there are alot of people. So sometimes I feel alone because I am use to a crowd at the table and everyone telling stories or embarrassing moments and stuff like that,, so when Jona says O..Ga..lala at the table it makes me feel so much more at home, although I dont really know why. Well those are just a few of the many things that have happend to me this week. I have actually now begun to get invited to places from people in meckenheim and I do not go to school with any of them, so its nice that they think I am worth inviting to places. There was also a fair thing this week in my town, and it was so much better than any theme park in america, it just goes to show you the gras is greener on the otherside,, and that is literally too it really is alot greener here :D

If all else fails shout a country.

Now I always knew that when I came here I would be associated with america, but what I did not expect was how they were going to do it. I thought that everyone would say oh because your american you can do this, or your an american so you like that. I thought those were the things people would associate me with, but actually i have now just become "the american". The first month everyone would call me by my first name, but there are so many hannahs here that I never know when they are talking to me. They then began to call me by my last name, but that did not work out to well because my last name although simple to say sounds like ellen to them. Actually on the first day of school people thought my name was helen because of hannah allen and I would say it to fast so they just caught helen. People began to think my name was allen for a little bit there too because the teachers would call me by my last name to take student role. Then one day a teacher came in and asked where the american was, not even a name just the american, and of course everyone pointed to me. It was then lite, the new name of the american. All teachers notes, tests, and homework is addressed to the american. It is alot simpler for them to call me the american because of course I am the only one, but now students call me the american too. They know my name but they usually get a response from me when they say american. Now it is partly my fault that I would not respond to hannah but to the american becuase although there are many hannahs there is only one american here..... me. Today I think was finally the last american straw, and no im not getting bothered by it, i just think that they have put american into almost everything of mine but i did not expect this. I did not have a computer account in the school, so I cant do a power point in biology. So my friend jasmin went with me to set up one. All I had to write down was my first and last name, and than they would set up an account for me. I knew I needed a password but I was thinking that they would put a random order of numbers to begin with. Today I finally found out my account infromation. My login name is HannahAllen and of course my password is amerika.... spelt with a K. Now that just set my friends laughing because it was just so funny because all of them got a random order of numbers for their passwords but i got amerika. So if you have a foreigner in your community and you just cant seem to remember or pronounce their name... if all else fails shout a country.

Festival weekend

This weekend my host family was leaving to go see their old friends from another town. They decided not to take me, which was fine with me because I would feel very lost. They asked margy´s host family if i could stay the weekend with her, and tehy agreeded to it. I was really happy because she is one of my best friends here. On friday she took me through her town, and we went into the store to get some things to eat.... that is when i saw it.... the love of my life in america just got here in germany ;D;D Dr. Pepper. I could of screamed with happieness if it wasnt for all the dr. pepper margy and I staked up on. Now I know for alot of you pop does not seem like something to get excited about, but when you have been two months with just milk and mineral water, than tell me pop is not exciteing.

So we got some junk food and brought it to her house. My parents had sent me a large package and put movies in there for me to watch, so i brought them over to her house. We stayed up really late, and had the funnest time speaking english because although you would think, we dont get to speak alot here. On saturday margy had a tennis club party, and they invited me along. Now my older sisters are pretty much tennis champions but I have no hand and eye cordination for that, yet I was at a huge tennis party. The people were suprisingly very very nice, and they all said I should join with them and play tennis... to tell you the truth I am actually considering it. Finally the party was over and margy and I went back to her house and slept.

Finally on sunday, we decided to go to a festival in Bonn. Now her host mom told us how to get there, but she only explained it in german, not english. So when we got off the train at bonn, we were compleltly lost. We got on a bus, not knowing if it was the right one, margy just pointed out the most people were getting on that one.. so we did too. We took the bus untill nothing was familier, and than got off. We were so completly lost. We than walked back towards teh derection the bus came from. We passed some bus stops because they were shady, and we were a little bit afraid to go near them. Finally we found a decent one, and waited for another bus. We than hopped on that bus and it took us back to the train. We were still lost, so we did not get off at the train stop and just waited for the bus to leave again. The bus than took us over the Rhein River, and both margy and I have never been on the other side of the river. We were on the bus for what seemed forever. Margy had given up, and wanted to get off at the next stop, but I was tired and just wanted to nap.. so I told her to just wait. We were on the bus for a very long time, and than we came to a parking place full of cars. I told margy we should get off and follow those people. So we did, and sure enough we had found the festival. The funny thing about it was that my host parents had told me it was a small one but this festival put my towns to shame. There were rollercoasters, and rides, and american food, they had games, and auctions, they had just about everything. Margy and I were so happy to have found it, and even went on a ride. There were so many people that you had to wait about 15 minutes to get anywhere though. We did not get to stay very long at the festival because we set out to the festival at 3 and did not get there until 5 or 6 and had to leave by 7 to get back home by 8. We of course were very late getting out of there because the amount of people that were in one place. I cant wait till this weekend though, because my host parents told me that there is a bigger festival this weekend, and if they think that, that one was small, I can only imagine how huge its going to be this weekend. Although I did not get to do much this weekend, I think it was the funnest I have had yet because I got to spend time with a friend, and we had so much fun doing the simplest things. I have had a very festival weekend.

Lost words

I have now been in Germany for almost two months, now in writing that does not seem like a long time. But for me it seems like a lifetime I have been here already. I was told that one day the language would dawn on me and I would recognize that I understand what people are saying. Now that has happened to me quite abit, sometimes I listen to convorsations, and even though I cannot translate it exactly from german to english I still get the meaning of what they are trying to say. I think when it dawned on me that I am starting to learn more each day was actually in the strangest place; it was in my english class.

Jasmin and I had to write a text over an advertisment of VW. We had a piece of paper that had everything we should include in our text. I love writing speeches, so I always have a hard time just simply writing it in text form and adding no topic sentences, or transistion sentances, or rhetorical questions, or figures of speech. I love to include all of these things when I am writing, so eventually I gave up writing in text form and did it in more of a speech from. I put my three points of contention in my first paragraph, and my last paragraph I left them with a great closing. I also get carried away sometimes when I am writing and I do not realize just how much I am writing. So I did have to cut my "speech" a little bit shorter. I was finally done with it and was ready to hand it into the teacher. Now of all the classes I am taking english is one of my best subjects....imagine that. Well before we handed it in we had to give our homework to the person sitting next to us, so they could proof read it. I had already proof read my piece time and time again so I was thinking to myself that I had not a single mistake in my entire piece. The person sitting next to me was jasmin as usual, so I gave her my work and she gave me hers. I started to get carried away with jasmin´s paper and putting in little detailed corrections, and adding sentances. I really cant help it when I am writing or reading to do those things. So I gave her, her paper back and she was glad that I added to her work because now it was a full page. I looked down at my sheet and to my surprise there were check marks. I couldent believe it, that I was wrong in english class. So I looked at all the checks and realized that I spelt all the words right. I asked jasmin what is wrong with these words, and she smiled and said that they are right, so i asked her than why did you check them and she said they are right... but in german, we are in english class. I relized that I had spelt words in german. For example object in english is objekt in deutsch. It was not just little words like that either, I had forgotten how to spell words in english, simple little words that I never thought I would spell wrong. Its as if someone just hit me in the back of the head, and I than realized that I was losing my words. I than went through all the things I have written in english and discovered that I had mispelled so many words, and that I have forgotten my vocabualry. The strange thing is that I am happy I am forgetting english because than I will be able to speak better deutsch. It was definatly something I did not expect to happen, and in just under two months too.

I have lost words in my head in english, but gained them in deutsch.

Ticket Checker!

This post is actually about one of my new good found friends here....margy. Margy is a small blonde girl who has a deadly fear of ticket checkers. She once forgot to buy her bus ticket, and she saw the ticket checkers coming, and they asked for her ticket and she did not have one. She tried to explain that she could not speak german but they failed to acknowledge the fact. So she threw a 5 euro in their hands which is more than you actually pay for a ticket and ran off the bus. Now it seems that everytime margy goes onto a train, or bus, she gets checked. I however have the natural ability to repel ticket checkers. I have been on everything from trains to buses, and not once have I been checked, and not once have I bothered to buy a ticket either. Clint who is another exchange student goes to school with margy in meckenheim now and has the greatest laugh of randomly yelling ticket checker in the hall, and no matter where margy is she flips around and looks as if she is going to bolt off. I also have to admit to yelling ticket checker around her, and although funny to us, its not so funny to her.

I got margy to join one of my volleyball teams with me, and we had to take the train and bus to get there. The entire time she was saying how she was going to get checked, and I kept on assuring her that because she was with me she wouldent. We got on the train, and got off the train unchecked...... but right as margy went to get onto the bus there was a ticket checker. Now I am not quite sure what the ticket checker was doing but the next thing I see is that he shuts the bus doors, smashing poor little margy in between them. For a split second she was shut in between both doors, and the ticket checker opened them and yelled something at us and pointed to the bus halt stop. So we walked about two feet, to the bus halt, and than not a minute later the bus slowly pulls up to let us on. The ticket checker left... because I naturally repel them as I told you, but the entire way up to volleyball, I could not catch my breath because I was laughing so hard. Because here is margy with a deadly fear of ticket checkers, and than one slams her in between the bus doors. It was so funny for me because I was standing behind her so I got to see her face as she saw the ticket checker, and after he slammed her in the door. It was a priceless moment and I felt the need to tell everyone about it. I even told clint the next day at one of our Rotary meetings, and he found it about as funny as I did. Now we have a joke with margy, and everytime we yell ticket checker we also nug, or push her into something along the way. I think margy is over her fear because their is nothing else that a ticket checker can really do to her now that she has not already been through.... so next time one of you gets onto a bus or train watch out for the ticket checkers!!!

Change

Guten nacht, Guten Tag!
Ich habe lang geschlafen....
These are now the things
I hear most often,

The questions have changed
The time is now wrong
What they sing here
Is not my regualar song

Night is now day
Goodbye is now tschüss
The road I now travel
Is not longer spruce

The tounge is twisted
The words are misunderstood
What is valued there,
Here is not good

My life is changing
I now must find me
There are no limits here
of who I can be

I am now the different
in the regualar society
my vocabulary must be altered
diminishing words like propriety

My normal world
hand only a first person view
Now I have to see
What is viewed by you.

Misunderstanding

Sometimes a word can mean one thing, in once place, but mean a totally different thing in another. Although confusing it does make for some good funny moments. Being misunderstood is not always fun, but sometimes such simple little words that are misunderstood have their laugh in the end. Here are some situations where being misunderstood had a funny effect.

I was playing volleyball on my team, and although I get alot of comments on my hair none can compare to when my freinds sarah came to give me a compliment on my hair. Sarah is a very pretty girl, and she treats me really well. Every time I make a mistake speaking german she laughs and tells me its so cute when i mess up, and that she loves my accent. She has been teaching me alot of german words, but this word I did not expect to hear, or take it the way i did. I was the gym getting ready to go, and I let my hair out of my pony tail. Now my hair is naturally curly and the only way I can tame the wild beast is with a large amount of moose. No matter how much I put in though everytime after I get done working out it seems that my hair wants to go into a large Fro. So I take my hair out and I am about to shove it into the hoodie of my jacket when sarah comes running out of no where and starts touching my hair, and saying oh your hair is so DICK. at first I just stared at her because I did not know what else to do. I have had alot of comments on my hair but none ever came close to calling my hair a dick. I smiled though and nodded my head, and thinking in the back of it, who calls someones hair dick. Later on that night I keept on thinking about her calling me that so I decided to look into my little hand dictionary. There I found out that dick means thick, and that she was not calling my hair a genital part of the men body. It was such a relief but that I began to laugh to myself because something she meant to say in a good way, was taking to completley different by me. Sarah also taught me some other words that I never expected to hear, such as one time i fell onto my but during volleyball, and she asked if i hurt my poo. I could not help but laugh extremely hard and long about that, but even though i still do not know how to spell the word for butt, it sounds like poo. So now everytime i fall in volleyball I think of her asking me if i hurt my poo. Another funny thing with sarah was the other night was her birthday party.

I was with one of my friends margy, and her and I spent a long time looking for a present for her, we finally found one and managed to ask the store keeper if she could wrap it. We than walked to sarah´s house and she opened the door, she smiled when she saw that i remembered her birthday present, and i smiled and said here is your gift. I said this right infront of her family, and friends that were already there. Now gift in america means a present, or something that you buy for someone else but in germany... gift means poision. So you can just imagine all of their faces, but luckly I had margy with me and she said no no a present not a gift. After they found out what i was trying to say they laughed about it but i still turn beat red, when i think about saying that infront of everyone and how i must of looked like.

Finally i discovered that one of my blogs names are Das ist gross, now when i wrote this i took it as O-ma calling the bug nasty or gross in english, but what i failed to mention was that a week later after writing that, that i found out that gross spelt groß means big. so she was actually saying that the bug was big, and even though both meanings fit for the bug, it was still funny that i took it differently. Its amazing how two languages can be so different in some ways, but have the same words, and even though you assume you understand, you really dont. I think I will walk through my learning process with a more open mind, and not assume just because its in english that it means the same thing in german.

The best "Shot" in the------ East?

Today I went to sport class, thinking that I would have to run, and make a complelete fool of myself in front of my entire sport class. I was thinking to myself the most running I have ever done was either runnig away from my sisters, or running after my horse. Even then I usually get tired and either let the horse go, or just let my sisters catch me. We got to the track, which was made of dirt so I was thinking in my head " oh this is it, im going to slip and do the splits or something, or im going to prove to them that we are Mcdonalds healthy". We started to run and I was keeping up with everyone else, I was actually jogging quite fast, and than I found out that we were just doing that for warmup. So I still cannot quite fully understand german so i did not know what we were doing. I finally saw them measuring out 100m and heard them say the word sprints. My body is not quite built for sprints. I have short legs, well more like a short body. I also have enough packing in my suitcase... if you know what i mean... to keep me afloat in water, but make gravity do its toll on land. They than started to seperate us into two groups, and the teacher last pointed to me and told me to follow the rest. We started to walk to the other side of the track and than i thought to myself "Oh no they are going to make me run the 200m dash", I was never really good at that event. But the teacher than took us to a pit, and I saw four Shotputs lying in the dirt. My heart jumped when i found out this is what we were doing, because i did this event in the Ogallala Track team. Everyone went before me and the teacher was explaining the technique in german to them. Finally it came to my turn and I stepped onto the concrete to throw. I threw like I normally would on track team, and the teacher stoped me. At first I thought I did horrible, but she told me in german to do it again so she could watch. So I did and than she pointed to me and said something to the class in german. I thought i was being used as an example of what not to do, but than the entire class circled around the concrete and the teacher told me to throw again. So i threw, and everyone was amazed at how far i threw. The teacher than said that I was on her special list and that I did really good. Finally she called over the second group and had them watch me as well. It was really nearve racking because I did not know exactly what it was I was suppose to be doing. So I just threw, and threw again, and again. My shoulder was done by this time and the teacher said I was really good. Than I went and did my 100m dash and for not running for 3 years 16.3 was not half bad. I was glad when i heard that you had to make it under 16.5 or do it again, so when i saw my time i was just happy to not run again. Than we once again went by the shot put pit. This time so they could measure our throws. I had thrown so many times that by this point my arms were on fire. So I threw my first throw, and the girls keept telling me that i was really good, and the boys were mad because i threw farther than them. I dont know if I was happy to do good or not, because I really am just trying to fit in and not put anyone in a shadow so It is kind of scary to be better than someone here. My second throw was not quite as good, but I could barley hold onto the shot. So I think I did very well today, and It was nice for once to be the best in something. I also like the fact that the teacher was happy with me because I may actually get mark 1 in her class, which is the best you can get. I think it will be my one class that I have a good mark in besides english. I am really happy that coach Vo made me work on my technique for hours at a time in Track, because now even if I do not try hard I am still rewarded for technique. So even though I was never good at Shotput in the west I can now say that for today I really was ....the best "Shot" in the East

school

I usually only attended the first four lessons of school a day so i could than go to langauge school, so even though i have been in school for almost a month now, today was actually my first real day of school. I am lucky with my mondays because i do not have a first lesson, so i have more time to sleep in. My first class is german and so is my second, than we have a break after the third lesson period and it last for about 20 minutes. Than I went to art which is actually the only lesson i can get through with out anyproblems. It is manly because the teacher does not really need to explain things to me, he just sets something infront of me and says draw it. I can choose how i want to draw it, and even sometimes he comes over and helps me shade my drawing. He knows I cant understand him but he will everyonce in a while say some things. In all actuallity though I can understand what people are saying, for the most part. I try to make an effort to listen to the keywords of the sentances, but somehow i forget to look for it and than i still understand what they want to hear from me, or if they are telling me something, or just asking a question. I have an easier time understanding german than speaking it, and my friends always encourage me by saying that half of the people in germany cant use grammer still. So even though my sentances are choppy they repeat my question or what i just said back to me in the correct form and than either say somthing back or answer my question. If i really do not understand it though they do not mind speaking english to me which is a huge help. I usually have double lessons so when i go to german class the next period i have german again, same with art. I had art class so my next period was art. Than after the 5th period we have another break that is 30 minutes long. Than after the break i went to social science, which is not really like social science in america. It is actually a mixture of politics, history, and government. I know politics in english are the same as government but maybe it is different here. Because they go through the democrat´s and republicans, and then they go through the system of government. So i think that they are best explained in two seperate subjects that what we do in america and just put them into one. I only had once lesson of that, and than i went to french class. I think everyone from everywhere except america has the ability to pick up foreign languages really fast. They all could speak fluent french in teh classroom, and i have been in french class for three years, and still do not know half of the vocabulary. I also noticed that here all teh students participate. When a teacher askes a question everyone raises their hands to answer it. Teachers do not even bother really asking questions in america because most of the time we will either wait for the teacher to answer or laugh at the person she chooses to answer it. Its great to see how eager they are to learn new things, and school is not viewed quite how it is in america. Although everyone has to attend school it is thought of more as a privalage here than a right. I only had 7 periods today, and each day i have different classes and a different amount of periods i go too. I go to one class three times in a week, but i have 10 classes all together. I really like how they scheduale it like that because than it gives you alot of time to do homework, and gets you through the school day alot faster. The days are not so boring because you have different classes everyday, so each day is new. Even though there are alot of classes i do not like, its easy because i only have to go to them three times a week. But homework is assigned alot more here than in america. I think that all the students are better prepared for college because they must learn to work outside of school. Homework will have to be something I will ahve to get used to doing, but until i can fully grasp the langauge i think i will stick with just paying attention in class. First comes listening, than speaking, and than i will start to do homework. Being an exchange student is not about just not doing anything in class, so i will eventually have to get up to pace and focus very hard on homework. But it is nice that the teachers do not expect me to be up to par with the rest of the students. Even though everyone is alot more shy here, they are very nice when you get to know them.

I really enjoy school here, and I like almost all of my classes. For classes I take religion, math, art, social science, sport, biology, french, german, spanish, and than of course my favortie subject english. The hardest classes to the easiest are as such, math-german-spanish-french-religion-social science-biology-art-sport-english. I bet everyone notices that languages are at towards the hardest of my classes, and it really is hard to learn all these languages. Becaus the teachers in each subject only speak in that language, and than when they explain things it is in german. So when i cannot understand something than they say it in german and I still cannot understand. I will catch on hopefully towards the end, and it will be nice to come back to the states being able to speak all those languages, but for now i will just try to learn german. I also noticed how advanced their math was, i thought that math would be easy because it is just numbers, but their math is so advanced that I do not even now how to begin to solve the problems. One of my friends told me that 11th grade math here is close to professional math in america. Meaning a mathmatician in america, which I am no math person to being with, so I cannot even come close to what they are doing. I was happy when I went to biology though because my teacher in my old high school was really up to date on teaching and I acutaly already went through everything I am learning now, so i can really understand everything. Also all the names are scientific so they are used everywhere, so i can understand that as well. Sport it easy because all i have to do is watch the rest of the students and figure out what we are doing. Social science is not hard, but more boring to me. It is funny to see that people here in germany know more about our government than we do though. I am also very lucky to have 7 classes on mondays with now first period so i actually only have 6, i have 8 on tuesday, than it goes 6, 6, and 5 on fridays. I really like it also that my class representative put me in all the same classes of my friends jasmine except of course german, and french. She really helps me alot in my classes, and she likes to speak to me whether in english or in german. Some school days are hard, but overall i really enjoy coming to school here. Oh and i also like it because here it is okay to wear the same thing two times in a row, or even a week if you really want because in germany they are not so materialistic as we are in america. So its nice that i do not have to change outfits so many times, and i can re-wear the same pair of pants two times in a week. I think my sister christine would love it here, because than she could even wear her p-j´s to school if she really wanted to, and she could wear them all week. I definatly could get use to not being so materialistic..