The first day of school

Well i cant remember the last time is was really nervous for the first day of school. But today i was extra nervous. But despite all that i survived and made it through. It was very different from what i am used to. (What did i expect, FCHS?) I am in the 11 Klasse (Junior year) which means that i stay with the same people all day long and instead of the students moving the teachers move. so i began the day with Herr. Besserman, who is a hard but fair teacher (or so i have been told) He seems like he has a very dry but very funny sense of humor. too bad i understand very little of what he says. then the next teacher came in for History of Germany from 1945. i really enjoyed that class because i could kind of understand what was happening. There is another exchange student in my class from Kentucky, his name is clayton and we sit together. The teacher passed out this worksheet with a list of important historical events in germany and you had to put the date next to them when the events occured. Clayton and I did better than a good portion of the class, which was really funny. Then we had a break where alot of kids go and smoke but it is also a time to eat. So, i pulled out my little Coke lunchbox and at the bread and meats that i made for myself that morning. Then we had english. Which is going to be easy, obviously. then we went to physics, which i hated in english so you can imagine how hard it was in German. Then i got to leave school early because Luis(the exchange student from Brazil) and i went to gottigen with his host dad to get our Visas. Gottigen is an amazing city. I loved. It has a university and kinda feels like fort collins (maybe thats why i liked it)We got some really good Ice Creame while we were waiting for our Visas to be done. So, I guess i am officaly in Germany. I then came home and got ready for soccer. Yes, I know you all thought i was all washed up and could never play again. Well i am here to say that i am once again playing soccer. However i am complelty out of shape and i am so exhausted. The guys are really nice though. Well that is all for today. i am sooooo tired and i have to get up for school tommorow.

8/30/2006

Well its offically the last day of "vacation" for me. I begin school tommorow at 7:45 AM.
The weather today has been very fickle. First it is beautiful, then it rains, then the sun comes out, then it rains. But i slept in today and awoke to an empty house because Inga had a hair appointment. I enjoyed the time alone though. i " read" the newspaper, which consists of me going straight to the comics because they are usually the easiest to understand. After that i watched some TV. Horse sports are huge here, I watched the one where they ride around and jump over bars. I dont know the name. Dan, maybe you could help me out with that? After that we had lunch. Homemade (everything is) Tomatoe soup and Reismilch. which is rice and milk and then you put sugar and cinnamon on it. Then i was sitting out on the porch reading and enjoying the sunshine and it began to rain. however, it wasent all bad becuase i took some pictures that i really like. So enjoy! After that my second or third host mum, sister and Louis (exchage student from Brasil) came over and we went and walked around Muenden. They are both really nice and i understood alot of what they were saying. There are some brief moments of clarity and then its back to understanding very little of what is said. However, those moments are very encouraging! We then went back to their home and i found out that my host dad is a Pastor, so i guess that is good. We had apple cake and played super nintendo. I then when and went to the grocery store with Steffen. he is such a cool guy. A funny thing about german grocery stores is that you have to pay a euro to unlock the cart and then you get that euro back when you bring the cart back. Life is good here. Please send me E-mails or comments, i love receiving them.

love Tyler

8/29/2006

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."

I wish Paul would have expanded on his "secret" but perhaps it is different for each one of us.

Anyways that was just something that was on my mind.

I awoke this morning to sunshine streaming through my window and the realization that i was actually in Germany. WOW! how lucky am i?

Inga and I went to the bank today and set up my account here in Muenden. I meet my third host mom, she was really nice and funny. Shes has 14 year old daughter and she is a big skier. I guess the sterotype carries over here in Germany too. Oh, your from colorado, Do you Ski? So we are going skiing sometime this winter. Then we went and had some more passport pictures taken because mine didnt work because i was smiling in them. Whoops. No smiling. Then we went and met one of Inga's friends, Bea. She just recently opened a used book store but she also sells wine, coffee and "drinking chocolate" (you take warm milk and then take a special piece of chocolate and melt it in the milk) AMAZING! We came home and had an excellent lunch of salad and quiche. Me, Inga and Steffen sat out on their back porch and taked for a while. I then decided to take a couple of pictures of my house. I only got a couple taken and then it began to rain. It is cold here. Even with the sun up today, jeans and a jacket were needed. This is my type of weather. Call me crazy but i dont think i will miss the 300 days of sunshine that Colorado has.

Ummm...let see. My host brother and i went to the local hang out spot last night and i met alot of his friends. He is a very intelligent person, thus is friends are very intelligent. They all speak perfect English, German and some other language. They were all really nice but it is hard to understand them because they speak very fast. We are going back there on Wednesday.

Regen, Deutsch und kaffee

Rain, German and coffee. i think this sums up the day well. It is currently 5 in the afternoon here and i am sitting at the dinner table listening to classical music while Inga is reading on the couch. It has been raining for most of the day, which i love. I woke up this morning around 10:3o, had a quick breakfast of nutella and bread. Americans have peanut butter, Europeans have Nutella. Once again i think the europeans are doing better than us. nutella is much better than peanut butter, so perhaps i will give my jar of peanut butter away to some European who will love it because it is not nutella. Inga and I then went to my school were i found out my classes and received my student card. (like an ID in american schools) I am taking 31 classes a week, which is a very good amount. I am taking latin, math, physics, biology, philosophy, soccer, history, geography, english, german and some other stuff that i cant remember. So i am really excited to start school but also really nervous. Then we went to the registration building where i had to register that i live in Hann Muenden. Then we came home and had a wonderful lunch of fish and kartoffeln (potatoes) We talked for a while and i spoke some Deutsch with steffen und inga and i understood alot of what they were saying. A small amount of encouragement in the frustrating world of learning another language. Then Steffen und i watched collateral...not a good movie, i would not reccommend it. Life here is slowly beginning to take shape. German makes me exhausted though because i am constantly conentrating on the simplest conversations. I get frustrated and upset at myself that i dont know more. But so ist das leben (so is life) and i will work hard until i am fluent. however, i am busy every single weekend in September. I have trips all over Germany and then the last week of September i am going to Berlin with the other exchange students. I cant wait. I love hearing from everyone, so please leave a comment and tell me how you are doing.

Tyler

First Full day in Germany

Well my first day in Germany was amazing. i am truly blessed to be in such an amazing town with an amazing family. feel free to remind me of that after i have a bad day. Anyways i was allowed to sleep in today, which felt so good. i woke up around 11 and took a shower, unpacked and then went upstairs. my room is in the basement thus the reason for my going upstairs. i love the privacy of the basement and i have my own bathroom. i went upstairs and got some coffee from the most amazing coffee maker i have ever seen. praise God for people who take coffee seriously. this thing proably costed more than a, well im not sure but it looks expensive. you get the coffee one cup at a time. it grinds the beans right before and then brews in a matter of seconds. my life is complete, i ask for nothing else ;) so i think i had 6 cups of coffee today. we had an amazing brunch/lunch/dinner around 12:30. i had the best scrambled eggs of my life. I keep telling my host mom that everything is excellent and she is like "you always say that" But everything is really excellent. they had the most amazing rolls, which i gladly hade 4 of. (Hargan family you know what i am talking about. ) I had salmon, nutella and butter on these rolls and fruit. it was a great meal. my brother (philip) and i then spent a couple hours exchanging music, talking music, playing music. it was great. he is such an amazing guy who is really patient with my german and speaks great english, very smart ect. then my friend phillipp who live near goettigen, and who was an exchagne student in fort collins last year. we then walked around my town with my host mum and i took alot of pics. we came home and had a good conversation about soccer and life. then me phillipp, philip and steffen went to a turkish resteraunt and got Kabob, which is kinda like a gyro. it was really good. we then went to a concert in a neighboring town to see a band called taschen billard. they were really good. then we came back and sat around talking. my german is bad. lets just flat out say it. i can understand alot though it is just frustrating not to understand everything. but i wll get better. my goal is fluency by christmas

love you

Tyler

Second Update on Germany

Well here I am. I arrived in Germany around PM on August 26th. I had a long trip and i was so happy to see my host family in Hannover. The Detriot airport was suprisingly nice. i enjoyed a overpriced piece of pizza from little ceasers, a vanilla latte from starbucks and too many games of hearts on my laptop. the trip overseas was very comfortable. the food was decent, the movies were great. i didnt sleep but the flight went fairly fast and we landed in amsterdam an hour early. i quikly excited the plane and made my way out of the airport. i bought a rountrip ticket to downtown and back and then i began my first solo excursion of a european city. Surreal? You have no idea. the pictures i'm attaching are all from this little expedition. I ate at this nice resteraunt (see pictures) where i enjoyed a pancake and a cup of coffee. ummmm it hit the spot. After finishing the meal i realized how exhausted i was, so i made my way back to the airport. After a brief nap there it was time to go to Hannover. As i was boarding the plane another rotary student walked up to me. She was at the airport the whole time and i hadent seen her! She was so nice and easy to talk to. Her name is kelcey and she is in a town near mine called Helmstedt. We landed in Hannover in less than an hour. i met my host family and they are such amazing people. I was greeted with a giant hug and a huge smile. We had an amazing conversation on the ride home and over dinner. I am so excited for the year to come. I love you all so much.

More to come tommorow.

Love, Tyler