Servus! Charlotte Caling here writing this blog about the second day of German exchange 2019.
I started Monday morning off by a very early start, waking up at 4 am. I went back to sleep to then be woken up by my alarm at 5:30 to get ready to catch the train to school When I arrived at school I was greeted by friendly faces and the rest of the exchange students who told me that they also woke up at sparrows fart! Looks like jet lag got the best of us all. I am happy to say it has worn off now.
The school part of the day started off by our hosts going to there own classes while the Australians got our own little room to share what we did on our weekend. When the first period finished we joined our hosts again and went to class with them, which in that case mine was sport. I have gathered that PE classes in schools in Australia are much more fun than the ones in Germany. I was told that for sport next week we would be running in circles for 45 minutes, which I’m not complaining about because I love running but the rest of the class wasn’t happy. In sport we were to work on a project about any sport we would like to do. Of course I chose Aussie Rules Football.
The bell went for period 3 and we made our way from the sport building to the HAULA, which is were the students have their school assemblies. The Australian students and teachers were to perform a speech about who they are and their hobby’s (in German of course) in front of the whole school. Some were a little reluctant to do it but they persisted and did a fantastic job. I did my speech in bare foot (which no one cared about) because having to take my shoes off in the sport building caused me to temporarily misplace them. German schools are funny like that, you can show up to school in anything and they couldn’t care less.
Today was school photos for my class so everyone was dressed in traditional clothes, girls in Dirndls and boys in Lederhosen. Emily insisted I wore one of hers so I did. I can conclude that Dirndls look amazing but they aren’t as comfortable as most people would like them to be. But I do, and so does Emily, enjoy wearing a Dirndl.
School had finally finished and the Australians and their hosts, followed by next years German exchanges and teachers made their way to Bad Aiblings bowling alley. I have to say this bowling alley was quite old fashioned ( or “altmodisch ” as a deutsche would say). We split ourselves up into groups with new people to get to know everyone. It turns out that most of the Germans in one class know less than a quarter of the people in the year below them. So the three people in mine and Emily’s group were people we were meeting for the first time. Their names were David, Celina and Jonas. I discovered that you actually have to have skill to bowl, which I do not possess because I came second last, oops. Anyway when everyone had finished we sat down to chat and eat “Pommes mit Ketchup” (hot chips with sauce) and drink Spitze. Then made our own ways home.
I am more than delighted to say that everyone here are so friendly and willing to get to know you and make you feel welcome and like you are part of their family. I wasn’t able to upload the photos because I didn’t get any from bowling.
Dankeschön and i hope you enjoyed reading this blog.
-Charlotte Caling
