The Grilling

 My last few days in Kescheid were actually quite fun.  Roy from Hong Kong arrived on Sunday evening, just in time to help me make a pizza dinner for the family.  He is traveling around Europe for three months, and so far, had been all around Germany, to Romania and to Turkey.  He is very energetic and small and wants to learn everything about everything.  So, he’s like the Asian version of my mom.  I actually learned quite a few interesting things from him, namely, that Hong Kong and China are basically like two different countries, even though Hong Kong is really a city in China.  Roy kept saying Hong Kong, Hong Kong, never mentioned China, so finally I asked why.  He never called himself Chinese or anything, as if he didn’t identify with the country at all.  He said they are completely separate from China--I never knew that! He told me that Hong Kong has better quality products than China, and that all of the Chinese people come to Hong Kong to shop, and then the Hong Kong people have nothing to buy…etc. It was interesting to hear him talk about it, and at times difficult to understand through the accent, although he spoke pretty good English. He also wrote a bit in traditional Chinese for Lisa and I, and I asked him how long his papers had to be in high school, since each Chinese character is a word, and he said they always wrote them in English! Strange guy, but he was interesting. The best ones are.

On Monday, Lisa, Roy, and I finished all of the work in only a few hours, so we took Leo for a walk out into the forest/meadow area.  It was kind of fun having Roy, simply because he doesn’t speak any German, so I kind of got to play translator for a few days. He cooked a Chinese dinner for us that night, which was paired with a few glasses of Austrian wine, a lot of laughter and joking in English and German, and a tipsy Hayley trying to walk up the stairs to get to bed. 

I promptly woke up at 5 am this morning and rushed around my room trying to pack all of my things back into my suitcases.  Wasn’t sure what to do with my dirty boots, which are covered in horse poop and mud.  I just kept packing other things, hoping somehow they’d get clean before I had to put them in my suitcase, but alas, they are probably stinking up my clean clothes right now.  One is wrapped in a plastic bag.  The other one is going commando.  Oh well. By 6 am I was downstairs and making a last American meal, requested by Guido, waffles.  Except Melanie didn’t have some of the ingredients I needed to make them, so I just improvised.  They turned out okay, especially with Nutella on top. Then, at 7:30, I left for school with Ulrike (finally figured out her name), Melanie’s mom. 

I was slightly nervous going into a German school and didn’t quite know what to expect, but I really ended up loving it.  I got to attend 3 different English lessons with 6^th, 9^th, and 10^th graders, and one German class with 8^th graders.  It was so different from anything in America.  When we first walked in, we went straight to the teacher’s lounge which is a big room filled with 5 or 6 long tables, and every teacher has their own spot at the table.  It felt like a very close-knit community, everyone interacted with each other, and most came up to me and introduced themselves, not even knowing who I was or why I was there, but just because they saw a new face.  The teachers come back to the teacher’s lounge in between every lesson because they change classrooms instead of the students.  The students have their own homeroom, which they can decorate and organize however they like and make their own. There was a lot of art covering the walls in all the hallways, and not sucky art like you usually see, with one good piece out of fifty, but amazing drawings and paintings.  I couldn’t believe the students had done it all.

The lessons each last for 45 minutes.  There are 5^th-13^th graders in the same school. My first lesson was English with Monique, who was probably only a few years older than me, and she had 10^th graders.  She said they were pretty shy.  She let me introduce myself, where I was from, what I was doing in Germany, and then gave them time to think of some questions to ask me. At first they all looked down at their books and nobody wanted to try speaking to me in English, but then Monique told them to each write a question down and then they would all ask one by one.  This worked better.  I got some questions as simple as: What is your favorite German meal? What do you like about Germany? What is school like in America? Have you ever seen any “stars”? And then, of course, what do you think about the gun laws in America? What is your opinion on the death penalty? Are you a Republican? What do you think of Obama? They totally grilled me.  I answered honestly and explained why I thought what I did, knowing that they probably only hear one side of the story in Germany, and then asked them what they thought and why.  Then they got a chance to ask me questions in German, which they were much more comfortable with, and I had to answer in German, which didn’t go as poorly as I thought it would. 

Next I sat in on a class of 6^th graders while they had their English lesson.  The teacher was a younger guy and had actually been to Eugene and Portland and Seattle, so that was pretty cool! He seemed quite flustered by his students, and I think they knew exactly how  to push his buttons, but when he included me into the lesson, I think they forgot about being obnoxious and were a bit more fascinated than usual.  They had only studied English for a year at that point, but I found that they were fairly good at it.  They, too, asked if I’d ever seen any stars. Perhaps they think L.A. is kind of like a zoo, where Ryan Gosling walks around with his shirt off all day.  If only.  They also asked me if I rode horses.  Horses are a popular thing in their town.

Next I accompanied a native Brit to his English class with 9^th graders.  He was a total ass.  I think he thought that was his “thing”, like he was sarcastic and jokey, but really he was just rude, telling the students they sucked at English and everything.  It was kind of strange.  But he walked with me into the classroom and said, “Class, this is Ms. Peterson, you have the rest of the period to ask her questions, and your homework is to write a full report on her for Thursday.”  Oh, how I’d love to read those reports.  Some students were pretty interested and willing to practice their English, others were shy, so I totally felt their pain.  That’s me in language classes.  They asked me how old I was, IF I HAD KIDS (HECK NO), if I watched the NBA (HECK NO), what I thought about gun laws in America, did I have a boyfriend (“Julian wanted me to ask!” As another boy turns red in his corner seat and everybody snickers…), did I want to be a teacher, etc.  Again with the stars questions.  They were amazed that it could get up to 70 degrees in California in December. Yes, these reports will be great.

Once back in the teacher’s lounge, I had a nice conversation auf Deutsch with the Assistant Headmaster (I think that’s what they’d call it…?) who came to greet me.  She was in America when the first iPhone came out, fun fact.  She was very nice, everyone was.  Then I sat in on a lesson with Ulrike and some 9^th graders.  They were working on presentations about current events.  One group presented today and then the others gave compliments and critiqued and graded the presentation.  I found that really interesting because we rarely did anything like that in school growing up, and it’s very common in German classrooms.  It makes sense, Americans sugar coat things and don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, Germans just say what they think and that’s that.  I did feel slightly uncomfortable at times, or just bad for the group, because all of the students were saying, “Your poster is really good, but the presentation was boring.” So sad! But I guess that’s just the American in me talking. Another thing I thought was interesting was that every single student participated in the discussion without being prodded or asked.  They readily shared their opinions.  I would have never wanted to critique anyone to their face in school.

After the fourth lesson, we had a bit to eat and drink and then Ulrike sent me with Andreas, another teacher, to Montabaur.  He lives around there and offered to drop me off at the train station, which was incredibly nice of him.  He didn’t speak very much English, which was good for me! But we managed to talk for the entire 30 minute drive to Montabaur.  All of the teachers asked if I would be coming back for a practicum or some type of internship.  I think I actually would, if I had time.  I really enjoyed it.

So I hopped on a train in Montabaur, rode it to Frankfurt, and then switched over to a train headed for Zürich.  That is where I am currently sitting right now, about 25 minutes from the city center, and then 30 more minutes by S-Bahn to Anja’s house. Earlier we passed through Mannheim, just 15 miles west of Heidelberg or so—I wanted to stop and explore!  Then we passed through Freiburg, too bad it was already dark, I wish I could have seen everything. Oh well, I have plenty of time left for that, and I am very excited to wake up in Switzerland tomorrow morning and see it for the first time in daylight.  Melanie and Lisa were sad to say goodbye to me, but I told them to visit in Heidelberg…so perhaps I will see them again.  Plus they have Roy now.  A good substitute.

PS:  Aaron, the horse from some of the first pictures I posted, is sick and went to the clinic on Friday night! Last we heard, things were not going so well for him. It was sad to pass by his stall all weekend and have it be empty and untouched…I hope he is okay.

PPS: I made it to Anja’s house!  I finally got to meet her husband, Olaf, and son, Tom.  It’s going to be a great week, I already know.