Frohe Weihnachten!

Ah, so another Monat gone, and plenty of experiences to share. I am just going to stop apologizing for failing to write on this thing. I am sort of dissapointed in myself, because I was going to use this blog as one of the key ways with which I would remember this year. I know I will forget so much (vor allem being the language) einigermaßen schnell, but I can't bring myself to actually sit down and spend time writing. Every second is precious, and I could spend every second trying to write some poetry down about the preceding second, but as you see, the paradox would make it a beautfiul poetry of writing poetry. There was a man who once said along the lines of, "Doing something is easy, experience is easy, but saying something about it, now that's something," and to be honest, I think that's a load of Mist (German Mist, not English mist). I am going to try to just experience my time here, and when I have a Tagebuchschreibensdrang, then ja, mach mal.

So Merry Christmas! Or as the Germans say, Frohe Weihnachten! I must say, Christmas in Germany was a pretty beatitful time, and it has a lot of neat features that my American Christmas doesn't have.

Where do we start?

Ah, yes, the Christmas markets.

If you ever happened to take a vacation nach Deutschland, I would either do it at the end of September (so you could richtig enjoy Oktoberfest in München) or during December, because during December every relatively large city hosts wonderful Weihnachtsmärkte that are just wünderschön.

"What exactly is a Christmas market, Mr. German?"

Oh, wise question, fellow inquisitive Amerikaner, a Christmas market is a large gathering of people eating delicious food, buying cute German Kleinigkeiten (roughly translated to trinket), and slowly becoming intoxicated by the wondrous joy sogenannt, Glühwein. Glühwein is a mulled wine served at 72 or 73 degrees Celcius (you do the math) usually flavored with cinammon, melted sugar, and not to forget, rum or some similar sort of liqour. I have always wondered how Germans survive the Winter here, and now I am certain that the solution lies in the cup. In December, it can drop to freezing temperatures here (in some places it is seldom above 0 degrees C) but if you are clutching on to a finger burning cup of alcohol, the coldness becomes ultimately egal ("it does not matter"). My first time Glüweining was with the Manatee in Osnabrück, and as much as I do not like talking about alcohol on this page, I must say, it tastes deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious. There is a special kind of Glühwein that I must recommend call Feuerzangebowle, which takes the taste buds to new levels and there is even a German Christmas film with the same title where an old man decides to go back to high school (even if you do not understand it, which I personally did not its a pretty darn good laugh, among other typical German Christmas films and episdodes include Dinner for One, which I demand you watch this instant). Typical stomach fillers (tried to find a phrase meaning both food and drink) at the Christmas markets include piping-hot crepes with Nutella inside, roasted chestnus, burnt almonds (the best thing on Earth by far), and of course, beer. Christmas markets run throughout the entire month of Dezember, and have good live music and is just generally a wonderful way to spend time with friends during the holiday season.

Now that you, my fellow German in the making, understand the core of einer richtigen deutschen Weihnachten, I can now move to explaining more of the cultural traditions of the most wonderful time of the year. I believe the opinon can be change based on personal belief or experience, but I consider the first day of December, the first day of Christmas, as in, the ABCs 25 Days of Christmas starts showing all the classics, Christmas songs are played (too) frequently on the radio, the Christmas trees and decorations go up, and "Merry Christmas" starts to become a usable greeting and farewell. In Germany, it is similar but is distinct in: the Tannenbaum is never put up before the 23rd of Dezember, "Frohe Weihnachten" is only an acceptable greeting on the 25th and 26th (thereby, called the 1st and 2nd days of Christmas), no houses have lights put up, and above all, the only Christmas song played on the radio is Wham's "Last Christmas." Now I have to take a step off from the main path (as my normal neurotic writing style operates) and clarify: The German people are OBSESSED with that overplayed, overremade song. I mean, they play it at least 18 teams a day, everyone knows the words by heart (impressive considering, you know, they are German). I know we listen to this song an exordinate amount of times, too, but this is one piece of American culture that Germany took and not only ran away with, sondern flew off the to the moon. Jetzt weiter geht's. One very nice German tradition that I have to mention is Plätzchen backen. Every single German household, without question, spends on evening in Dezember rolling out dough and making star cutout cookies. Not a very large thing, but a small event that I really enjoyed with my host family. In my family, and most American families that I am aware of where Santa visits, the presents are opened on the 25th of December, which gives the kids the apprehension and the excitement of waking up early to see what goodies lie under the Baum. In Germay, I would say that most families do all of the gift unwrapping on the evening of the 24th (so called, "Heiligeabend" = "Holy Evening" also the name for Christmas Eve). In our family, Henrik and I were told to wait upstairs while the gifts were being placed under the tree, after which a bell was rung, and it had began. It really was a beautiful moment. I must say, in the past month, it seems as if my relationship with my host family has gotten exponentially better, and I couldn't wait for Christmas, because I knew it would be a wonderful experience to share with them. The four of us just stood together, opening up presents at our own paces and giving the proper hugs following. I gave Henrik a Chicago Bulls Derrick Rose jersey, a charging dock for Playstation 4 controllers (which he got despite the worldwide sellout, and because my host mother told me that he would get one, I bet him 5 Euro that he would get one, he took it on, and now he has a PS4 and I have 5 Euro, actually 1 Euro because we have been making a series of continuous bets including watching all the Rambo films and taking guesses on how many people John would kill by the end of the movie, which is quite interesting going from Rambo First Blood, where he theroetically kills no one, to John Rambo, the fourth, in which he kills in excess of 250, but thats a story in itself), and Ocean's 11, 12, and 13. I gave Mary, my host mother, the first Diary of a Wimpy kid book and a free voucher to a piano concert in my room. And to Hermann, my host father, I gave an African carved face thing, John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, a calender, and travel book over America. I must say, all of my gifts completely overwhelmed me and made me oh so happy, including but not limited to: Lederhose, that's right Lederhose, a Mario Götze's Deutsche Nationalmannschaft jersey, an oppurtunity to play the organ in a church of a neighboring city, a beautiful factbook (did you know that the capital of South Korea, "Seoul" means "capital city" in Korean or that Bugs Bunny's orignal name was "Happy Rabbit"), and for someodd reason a large photograph of me and a wild fat sea animal that is related to the elephant.

After the gift opening, we had a wonderful German typical-for-my-host-family meal of Hawaiian toast, which is sliced bread with ham, a slice of pineapple, melted cheese, and a cherry. Then we spent the rest of the night having fun with our gifts and just enjoying ourselves, not to mention a good four of PS4 (which is every bit as beautiful as I imagined it to be). On Christmas Day, Henrik and I spent the entire day with the PS4, then we skyped my family back home, and I forced my family to watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which they found to be hilarious. On the second day of Christmas I got up extremely late and we went to a nice restaurant where we feasted on duck and then spent the rest of the day with family at the house and not to mention once again, even more PS4.

So was my Christmas, no snow, no gimmicks, just a simple and quick two days. Do I prefer my Christmas to the Germans'? Yeah, probably, and part of that is because I really do miss my family and our traditions back at home. But soon I will be back with them, and as much as I do miss them, the time goes way too quickly here and I already see myself on the flight back. So I just got to keep going, and make the best of my time.

Frohe Weihnachten zu allen, und zu allen, eine Gute Nacht!

An der Nordseeküste!

Hello people! Let's all give me a round of applause for my over-proactiveness in creating blog posts...but really, I am so sorry. I have no idea where the time has went. I have now about seven posts that I have never finished, time is just slipping away so fast. I have been in Germany for almost a third of a year now (the thought almost brings me to hyperventilation) and I have only successfully written perhaps one measley blog post. I am really sorry for failing to update, and I won't make any promises to write more, I am just gonna write more.

Anyways, this weekend I got the wonderful oppurtunity to go on school choir trip to Norderney, a tincy wincy little island off the north coast of Germany.

I and about 40 other students, ranging from 9 to 17 years old, participated in this trip spending the weekend singing and struggling against the (as Germans say) Arsch-kalt weather that plagues the tiny island (and most of Northern Deutschland) year-round. On Friday morning, all 40 of us and a few teachers took off by bus towards the Norddeich, about a 3-hour trip. There were only 6 people there from my grade; therefore, we made the joke the entire time that we were only there so we could babysit the little ones. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful time enjoying the freedom that came with our age and also getting to dive a tad back into our youth as the kids pulled us along into their shenanigans. 

We spent most of the bus ride talking about everything and nothing, and I forced my German friends to read some English aloud, which, of course, was absolutely hysterical.

Eventually we got to the Norddeich, where we would be taking a ferry across the North Sea to some good ole' sunny beach relaxation.....ha, not a chance. On the boat, because of the wind and the ridiculous coldness of the air, I wore an undershirt, under a shirt, under a sweatshirt, under a coat, with a scarf, gloves, and a cap and hood, and was still so cold that I was forced to cuddle with my classmates. And also for the first time in my life, I saw WILD SEA LIONS, which was pretty darn cool, they were doing absolutely nothing, just chillin' out (chilling, ha, cold, ha), but even when a sea lion does nothing its still quite wonderful (you might be able to see that I like sea lions). I will be honest to say that I never got the oppurtunity to ride one, but I promise, before I leave this realm, I will have ridden a wild sea lion, oh yes I will. 

After a forty minute ride, we were finally on Norderney, and got to the Jugendherberge. That means, "youth hostel," which is a very basic hotel-type vacational sleep-place. I am not sure if these sorts of hotels are popular in America, but I would say they are a very popular and cheaper alternative to hotels in Germany. It was nothing fancy, and when I say nothing fancy, I mean that our bedroom came with no towels, handtowels, shampoo, body or hand soap (yes I did have to go three days without the oppurtunity to wash my hands in my bathroom, but that doesn't mean I didn't wash my hands at all, I just washed them with soap...less often than someone should). But to be honest, I liked how simple it was. There was no expectance of formalness, you could be as loud as you want in the hallways and no one would complain. It was an attitude of, "Okay, here is your room key, have fun, we'll leave some breakfast out for you, and I will see you when you give me the back, bye!" which, considering my occasional aversion to human interaction in a second language, I really enjoyed.

 On Friday night, after a pretty long hour-and-a-half of singing English Christmas songs (why English? The depth of English in this coutry is an interesting and troubling topic that I will dive into sometime in the near future), the six of us crazy kids went down to the beach in what was probably 30 degree weather. Despite the desire to amputate both legs, I had a really, really wonderful time there. We just frolicked around in the blissful silence of the crashing waves, spinning around on the beach, running away from the incoming tide, and singing horrible German oldies. After that, we all walked hand in hand through the city, forcing the island inhabitors, who are normally customed to a quiet life, to listen to our loud and seemingly obnoxious serenade. I kept wondering the entire weekend, "Why would anyone want to live on such a small island?" It is forty minutes from the mainland, is not especially beautiful, and experiences some really cold (understatement) weather. But that night held all of the answers. Walking the through the streets at night, you could almost hear the silence, and by that I am trying to describe that feeling when it is so quiet, that you feel like any sudden sound my disturb the natural order of things. It was so, but at the same time, no matter where you were on the island you could always hear the faint and gentle sound of water rushing up on shore and then back down again. That night, I slept like a baby.

On Saturday, we decided that we were going to eat breakfast on the beach, so we got up pretty early for a Saturday, packed our German breakfasts (which consists of 80% bread and 20% more bread) and made our way Artic-bound. I sortof...forgot my jacket. Here is a picture of the struggle.

It was quite difficult to enjoy any time here...so I just picked up a few shells, ate my bread, and made a mad dash for heat (not to mention that I did put a hat over my face, so the others had to comically lead me back to the hostel)

Nevertheless, it was still pretty darn beautiful. After another round of singing we went back out to the city, where I experienced my first German Subway, ate chocolate the size of my head, some cool piggy banks (with names on the piggy banks representing the purpose of the piggy bank z.B. Hochzeit, oder Urlaub)

found Forest Gump (the book) in German (cool to note here: I am not sure if we have this in America, but in some of the smaller villages in Germany they have these "self-serve" libraries, which are basically just bookshelves on the side of the road. The idea is, you take a book, read it, and then give it back or if you want to keep it, give another book you cherish. Hopefully, I will one day find the oppurtunity to return to Norderney and leave this beautiful book for someone else to discover). Also, I rode a sea lion, a sea lion named "Fernando," yeah, that's right, what did you do today?

Then we were forced back into another two hours of singing (to be honest the singing wasn't that bad, because the Choir conductor is absolutely wonderful, and there is nothing better than hearing a bunch of ten-year-old's singing Yesus Krist instead of Jesus Christ). We were all too excited afterwards to go through another round through the city, so instead we all just hung out and let the kids exhaust us death. I really cannot adequately describe the cuteness of the little girls coming up to me and asking me the most random questions, they kept stealing my shoes, and playing tricks on me. Perhaps German kids are cuter than American kids, or perhaps are kids cute everywhere. I wish I had known how cute and small I was when I was 10, if I had, I would have used the fact much more to my advantage.

On Sunday morning after breakfast and noch mehr singen, we went to a local church to perform during a mass. It was a really beautiful Church, built in 1867 and complete with a pulpit and wooden model ships hanging from the ceiling. The mass was in German, so I understood about 20%, but still, it really was a wonderful experience. 

After the mass, I helped the teacher-chaperones schlepp (ooh learning Yiddish too!) the kids to the beach one last time and also so they could eat waffles to their hearts' desires. 

They be too school for cool.

This sixteen-year-old, contrary to her belief, is in fact also a cute ten-year-old.

Because Koalas make everything better.

Contrary to popular belief, we were not in Holland.

So just like that, our short little vacation was to an end. I slept on the bus ride home and was welcomed back into the arms of my host family, who kept making jokes about how wild and crazy the party that the had in my absence was. And now, I have Thanksgiving next week, and more adventures soon to begin!

Endlich!

Deutschland.

Deutschland.

Deutschland.

So first off I must say that I am very sorry for failing to write a single word on this blog for my entire first month in Germany. I felt that I didn't have sufficient time to write anything of note, and that as time went along, I would have more and more to write about, and that everything I wanted to say here would get piled up to an unglaublich amount. I have now realized, that it will be impossible on this blog to:

1. Mention all of my thoughts about Germany
2. Make every blog post be a world-class novel.
3. Fully capture the beauty and brillaince of this remarkable country.

Every single second that I spend in Germany, my mind constantly races trying to cope with the reality of it all. I spend so much time and energy trying to see if there is a difference between American life and German life, and while there are many, many differences, there are still so many things that are similar. Some of these similarites come from the fact that Germans have an obsession with American culture in many ways (a topic which I will discuss in depth eventually) but they come from the fact that humans are just human, that regardless of where they live, or what language they think in, they are just in fact simply, human. And that really is a beautiful fact that I see on and off again here in Germany. Sure, the people here and how they act are in many ways entirely different from the typical Southern American banter and spiel that I have grown up with. But still at the same time, through all the barriers and layers and subtexts of culture, are all humans stilll extremely wonderful people. And for that, I must say I am truly in awe. Most of my blog posts on this blog here are going to encompass one of two things. They are going to either:

1. Account a cool brief anecdote about my time here in Germany.
2. Or attempt to be poignant or philisophical and summarize some intereting fact about German life, culture, or perhaps even some interesting difference between the two countries. 

Hopefully, what I can put down here will actually be of some worth. Perhaps you can find some insight through this wonderful opportunity I have been given. And perhaps you will excuse and all English grammatical mistakes I make along the way, as I forget more and more English with every passing day. 

Pretty soon, I will be summarizing my first month in Deutschland and also will be writing some (hopefully) interesting essays between America and Germany. My tone of voice probably doesn't sound very excited right now, and that is because I am very tired, have poor English skills because German, and am also very dissapointed in myself for not having written on this blog earlier (I am also upset because I missed the Dortmund Hamburger game today and 8 goals were scored).

Anyways, come along for the journey if you would like! I can tell you already, it will be quite an splendephorous one!

The Casual "See-You-Later's"

Well, its getting very close to that time. That big time. That some-smart-sounding-synonym-for-big time. And no I am not talking about any prior stress about the name conundrum of some British king-to-be, nor am I talking about the Breaking Bad series finale (although that is a pretty gargantuan deal). I am talking about Friday, where I pack my bags and leave for D.C. only to be whisked away to Germany soon after. In order to send me off right, my parents helped me throw a party titled as "Aufwiederschwimmen" (in layman 's terms, "'til we swim again"). It was quite a joyous occasion, many of my closest pals were there as we enjoyed some German-colored revelry. The walls were adorned in black, red, and yellow, and the party-goers sipped from glass bottles covered in lederhosen cozies. I could not have asked for a better way to spend time with the people I loved. Many tears were shed, and several hugs were given, but still, the entire party seemed to be a pretty happy occasion, and avoided most melodrama. Never before have I been so appreciative of my friends. I hope that all of my friends understand how much I love them and how much I love their existence. They are a firm rock in which to place trust that allows for one to have the confidence to go to Europe. After the party was over, and the din of the crowd had been reduced to clanking of dirty dishes, I opened many of the gifts that my friends had left for me. I never asked for gifts, and I also required that all gift-givers would be instantaneously removed from the premises. But alas, I did very much appreciate everyone's gift. I received some stationary so people would force me to write along with a beautiful travel journal. Not to mention my friend John, who decided for some ridiculous reason to give me his prized Vaporeon/Jolteon Pokemon shoes...I hope my tears thanked him. Once again, I cannot state my gratitude. My friends have been with me through every faux pas and dumb mistake, every laugh and smile, and I hate to leave them. But I can earnestly promise that I will try my best to include them in my life over the next year, and that when I return the friendships that have glued us together over the years will still be holding tightly. I wish all of you the best of luck and jovial times in the next year. Stay beautiful always, and don't forget to be awesome. I leave Friday.

Host Family and Stay

Hello everyone!!

I have not posted in a while, mainly because I have had a little to post. But after months of agonizing patience, hitting the "refresh" button on my Gmail inbox, and hours spent on the internet finding skin-hued gloves to hide my obviously nerve-bitten fingernails, I have finally found out where my adventure to Germany will take me! That's right, I now know the details concerning my host family, or Gastfamilie, in German.

I will be staying in Bad Essen, Germany, which is a tiny town consisting of 16,000 people in northwestern Germany. Bad Essen can be seen on this map that was obviously drawn by a four-year-old. It is about an hour away from the Netherlander border and about halfway between Hamburg and Cologne. Bad Essen is beautiful town surrounded by foothills and permeated by the Mittellandkanal, a small river tributary. A minute mountain range runs along the southern third of this small village, and citizens are encompassed by the beauty of the area. When I originally applied for this program, I hoped to be placed in a large city such as Munich. However, this placement has given me a change of heart, being in a smaller town, I will most likely be receive a much more personal and a very German experience. Many international cities in Germany, such as Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, show visible signs of American globalism and contain McDonald's, Subways, etc. Being in Bad Essen, a smaller town that probably won't have any five-euro-footlongs, will allow me to have more German experiences and let me more fully engage in a purely German life.

For security purposes, I am not going to release my host families' members' names, so from this point on, I will refer to my host brother as Johannes, my host father as Richard, and my host mother as Clara (and if you picked up, these are all coincidentally the first names of German composers). Richard and Clara both work in the health industry and enjoy hunting, traveling, and riding their two horses. Johannes, fifteen, is an excellent tennis player and will be going to the same high school I will be attending. I will be attending the local Gymnasium, which is the equivalent of an American college-preparatory high school. The school is only a ten-minute bike ride over a river away, which is exceptionally fantastic, compared to the current thirty-minute commute on the deathtrap the street signs call "Germantown Parkway." I do not know much about what I will be doing in my school, except that I am 100% certain that everything will be in German. Stone. Cold. German. Hopefully my host brother will hold my hand as I make my way through the German crowds. My school looks like a pretty interesting place, the only video of it that I could find on the internet contained five students running around in banana costumes giving bananas to the faculty....so it seems as if I will fit right in!

If you would like more information about Bad Essen or my stay, please leave a comment or message me, I will be glad to talk about the Fatherland!

Countdown to Frankfurt: 25 DAYS

Going to Germany!

Greetings
Hello!

My name is Ryan Cobb and I will be spending my next year of high school as a junior in Germany. I am a quirky, derpy piano AP nerd who enjoys everything from running cross country to embracing in German folk dancing.

Purpose
This blog's purpose is to document my experience abroad and to share my experiences with my family and friends in America. I plan on sharing photos from my year in Germany along with several anecdotes and accounts of what it is like to be an international student. I hope also to provide advice and assistance for anyone else who has the aspirations to study abroad either in college or with the scholarship that I won and will be describing in the next section.

CBYX
In early January, I applied for a scholarship from the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange, an organization created in 1986 in order to facilitate friendly relations between the United States and Germany and to educate the nations with foreign cultural values. Winners of the scholarship receive a (most-expenses-paid) year of education in a German high school in (guess what country...) DEUTSCHLAND! Every year, 250 American students and 300 German high school students receive the scholarship and spend a year of school abroad staying with a host family. The United States is divided into five regions, in which fifty people receive the scholarship. I am from the Southeast and was awarded the scholarship after an interview process by an organization called CIEE.

Plans
On August 8th, 2013, I will arrive in Washington, D.C. to meet with my other scholarship winners. On August 10th, my forty-nine CIEE buddies will fly with me to Europe and spend three weeks with me in a German cultural immersion camp. Soon after, I will begin my life as a German student and will travel to live with my host family and go to a high school in which all classes are taught in (guess what language...) DEUTSCH! I will spend ten months there and I will return to the United States in June of 2014, hopefully after a healthy dosage of rooting on the Germans to a FIFA victory in Brasil.

I hope you tag along for this exciting ride! I have no idea what will happen but I hope that this blog will give you some insight into life in Germany.