Another Year Finished...

This will probably be my last blog entry from my exchange-year in Germany.  I feel really great knowing what I've been through, and being able to treasure my time and experiences here with my friends and host-family.  I took the Zertifikat B1 Deutsches Sprachdiplom (Certificate B1 German Language Diploma) two weeks ago, and I felt good about the results.  I won't find out until September or sometime this fall.  My plane is on Friday and it'll have been exactly 50 weeks since I was in the USA.  The pictures below are of my host-brother's "Prom" that we had last weekend, and my "going-home" party.  It's been quite a journey and time never paused during my stay.  My host-sister will be visiting us from the end of July to the middle of August; she's never seen the USA and this will be a great way for me to keep-up my German and practice!  (She's 11 and doesn't speak English.)  So other than this, I start school next year on August 22nd at at the University of Illinois at Springfield. I plan on double-majoring in international relations and political science and minoring in business administration.

Thank you to everyone who has read this and I look forward to seeing you!

Viele Grüße

My host-brother's band.

My host-brothers and I.  (The one on the left was in the USA for a year.)

My friend, Christine, and I at "Prom."

Make a wish!

Enjoying my last days in Germany.

Our "Last Supper" at the 12 Apostles restaurant...

My host-family and I in Holiday Park...

Rush Hour

This is my last complete month in Germany.  I have done so much last-minute traveling with my friends and host-family.  Within this month I was able to visit Hamburg (the biggest northern German city) and Denmark.  We had a few days off of school and made a trip to visit northern Germany.  Other than that I have my big fluency exam tomorrow, and we have a pretty packed agenda before my flight home in two weeks.

This was our (my host-family and I) vacation house in Moorhusen.  It's close to the city of Hamburg.

Volleyball on the beach...!

The streets of Denmark.

Even in Denmark!

Hauptstadt Deutschlands: BERLIN

http://www.bundestag.de/Mediathek/index.jsp?categorie=Kurzbeitr%E4ge&action=search&contentArea=details&offsetStart=0&offsetLength=6&id=34600644&instance=m187&destination=search

The last week of May I was in Berlin for our official Congress-Bundestag 2010-2011 exchange seminar.  Aside from checking out Berlin and the Bundestag (Germany's Parliamentary headquarters), we  had a lot of reflecting over the coarse of our exchange year.  I was fortunate to meet once more with my "congresswoman" in Germany's Bundestag.  She was able to show me much more of the Bundestag and I was able to get very nice photos.  Berlin is an amazing historic city in eastern Germany with a population of around three million.  It's the largest city in Germany and it also serves as its capital.  I had a great time and I can't believe that another year is done...this trip officially marked the end of my time in Germany.  The link above is a video of us in the news with all the Congress-Bundestag scholars as we met in Berlin.

The building with the dome in the background is the Bundestag...

My congresswoman in Germany, Michaela Noll (North Rhine-Westphalia, Christian Democratic Union)

This is just before you cross over to the other side of the Berlin Wall.

This is Dr. Norbert Lammert, President of the German Bundestag.

The weekend prior to my "end-of-the-year" trip with my organisation in Berlin, my host-family and I went water-skiing (it's now hot enough)!  It was a water-skiing course in which you hang on as a cable pulls you--very different and much fun.  There were several large ponds with gliding cables that you hang on with as you ski.



VIENNA

Last weekend, I made a trip to Austria to visit my cousin who's studying abroad in Vienna.  It was great to see him as well as the city.  (He lives about an hour from where I live at home, so this weekend was probably the most time we've ever seen each other!)  It was a very historically preserved city, and German is the official language of Austria (even more practice)!

Austria's Parliament Building

In the marketpalce...

My cousin, Kent, and I.

Easter Break

This spring turned out to be wonderful!  I finished school for break on April 15th, and we went back in on May 2nd.  I was fortunate to do so much.  The first weekend I was able to visit my first host-family from Geilenkirchen (about an hour from where I am now) where I lived for my first month to learn German.  It's so nice to visit them; when I visit them, my German seems tremendously better.  (I couldn't do much in summer when I lived with them, and my last visit was in November!)

Shortly after I returned, I traveled all the way to other side of Germany (in the east) where my relatives.  They live in the city of Leipzig (about 520,000 people).  My grandfather, Bodo G. Gebauer, has his entire family living there (his sister, his two nieces, nephew, and their children, and those children now have very young kids).  It was nearly ten years since we last visited them in Germany (summer of 2001 was my first visit).  There was so much to talk about since it's been just about a decade!  The best part...I can actually speak German now!  It was a great way to spend Easter with a part of my family that I have not seen in a long time.  They were able to show us all around their city, Leipzig (where my grandpa lived), and we checked out one of the oldest cities in the Sachson province, Dresden.

My mother's cousin, Petra, is in the middle with her husband on the left.

We're standing in front of the St. Thomas Church.  My grandpa sang in

the St. Thomas Youth Choir when he was a young boy, as well as attend school there.

A statue of the Reformation Leader, Martin Luther, in Dresden.

The city of Dresden...

This is called the Frauenkirche ("women church," if you translate it).

After World War II, nearly the entire church was left in ruins,

except for the dark black charred section if you look to the left. 

The two twin boys of my mother's cousin's (Petra from the photos) daughter.

Parts of Leipzig where my relatives here live, and where my grandpa grew up as a child.

The United Kingdom: Great Britain

This was an amazing and extremely fast-paced weekend!  I visited the city of London, England.  One of my host-brothers, his girlfriend and her friend, and I left from Germany at midnight on Friday (Saturday morning) by a coach bus.  We drove from Germany into France, and then boarded a ferry that docked in the United Kingdom (about 9:00 AM).  Once in London, we had the whole Saturday until late in the evening before we went home.

The city had perfect weather (no rain) and the scenery was gorgeous.  I was very surprised that most of the police force isn't armed, with the exception of palace guards, and all over the city are video-recording cameras.  I thought this was interesting; in British hospitals there is a cashier people stop at when they leave to make sure they have enough money and resources to get home...unbelievable, right?  Everyone drives on the left side of the road, and the car driver is on the right.

The London Bridge

Buckingham Palace

Big Ben

Parliament Building

Does this remind you of anything?

Wandering the streets of London at night...

The journey home was a bit trickier--just for me!  Everyone else in the tour lived somewhere in Europe, therefore France just requires that they show valid identification.  It took longer for me because I'm from America (with my American passport), living under a German Student Visa, coming from Britain, and going into Frace!  Nevertheless, this was a great, quick way to see the UK in a weekend.  

One of My Birthday Presents...

Last weekend, eight of my friends treated me to a bowling night and then we went out to dinner.  It was the gift from some of the kids in the 12th and 13th grade at my 18th birthday party!  It's shocking for me to think that I have only three months left.  It's been so much easier to think, speak, read, and listen in German!  School and movies are generally fast to catch everything, but after being here so long, it doesn't seem unaturally difficult anymore.  Next weekend I'll be visiting the UK, which will be nice since I wasn't able to make the big trip at the end of the year with my class.  Bis Dann!     

Karneval

“Alaaf!” (if you’re from Cologne) and “helau!” (if you’re from Düsseldorf).  Düsseldorf and Cologne are the two biggest rival cities in the state and each brew their own beer specialties, and have special German dialects.  These are the two words that people in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia shout during the holiday event, Karneval.  Karneval is a parade where people dress up in costumes, to celebrate before Lent.  Fat Tuesday for Mardi Gras is a similar event practiced the USA.  It’s very popular in western Germany, whereas October Fest predominantly takes up the south.  Other than that, we have all of next week off from school to enjoy Karneval!

Featuring the USA & Canada as North America.

Der Kölner Dom...

Police

MUNICH

"Deutsches Museum" is a popular museum of science and technology.

Really big pretzels!  The woman is also wearing very traditional German clothes from Bavaria.

Hofbräuhaus, Munich's very well-known bar, restaurant, and beer brewery.

This past week I was with my exchange program's organization for our "half-way" seminar in Munich!  Munich is in the far south of Germany in the Bavaria province.  Bavaria attracts the largest attention of tourists world-wide because it's where the very typical German traditions began.  Munich is the city with the third largest population in Germany, and is known as the beer capital of the world.  I took the "bullet" ICE train from Duesseldorf for about 7 hours.  They travel around 139 miles per hour!

Endlich 18!

                                                                       "Finally" 18

Another year gone, and another birthday away from home (for my 17th, I was in Washington, DC)...  however, last weekend I had my 18th birthday!  My party was on February 5th, my actual birthday, with around eighteen friends of mine.  I had a fantastic time and it was great to have it in Germany.  Eighteen is the biggest birthday year here , where in the USA it's typically 16 and 21.