My German, in my opinion, is coming along wonderfully. I can understand mostly everything that is spoken directly to me, but I am still not able to follow along completely in a normal conversation between two native speakers. My grammar is terrible, but I will have to worry about that later because if I worried about my grammar now I wouldn’t be able to say very much at all. 🙂 My German teacher at school (for little kid German) did not believe me when I told her that I did not study German in my school in America!

On the other hand, my other languages have been noticeably deteriorating. It is a lot harder to speak English and sometimes I wonder if my English is even correct, but oh well I don’t need English anymore anyways. If I must sacrifice some English eloquence to be fluent in German, then so be it! My Spanish has unfortunately been neglected to the point of no return. If I try to speak Spanish in my Spanish class, I immediately revert back to German. My brain just can’t handle that yet! Sometimes I feel like I am in the stage where I have no languages and I just can’t communicate for awhile.

I was nervous to start school where I knew I would understand nothing, know no one, and be completely out of my element. But in the end I really had nothing to fear. I am in the sixth grade (or 10th grade in America) and my class is completely nice and welcoming. I didn’t go into the 7th grade with kids my own age because in that class they do a lot of preparation for the final exam that all Austrians must take at the end of their general education. The Austrian school system is completely different so I will give you a quick rundown. You have only one class of 15-20 students that you stay with from the time you are kids. You are only with this class and in one room the whole school year. Instead of the students switching classes, the teachers go from class room to class room. The daily schedule is also different for each day of the week. You have 6 periods per day and these periods change all the time. In total there are 10-12 subjects that I sit through every week, but I only get a grade in 7 of these which I choose. My schedule is also slightly special since I have not learned and do not need to learn all of the subjects as the other kids. So for classes like French, Latin, and Religion I go to the first or seconds grades during their German periods.

School is also shorter in Gymnasium. On a normal day school is out at 1:20. We do not have lunch in school but instead two 10-15 minute breaks where we are allowed to eat a snack. After school I usually go home where we then eat lunch together. School can be boring sometimes as I cannot understand all of the German that is being spoken so fast during lessons. But that is normal for any school anywhere (except in Mrs. Jenkins class, or any other of my dear Chelan teachers who may be reading this)! I have already finished the only English book I brought from America thanks to these long hours of understanding absolutely nothing.

Rotary Youth Exchange – Inbound Orientation Weekend

Over 33 different countries were represented at the Inbound Orientation Weekend that held Sept 6^th and 7th in Pentiction, BC Canada. What a group of amazing young people with lots of talent! Due to the wildfires the Re-bound weekend usually held in July was re-scheduled and joined the inbounds for the weekend. There was a parade of flags from the different countries and the students from those countries performed a short skit or shared a song about their home country. The re-bound students who have just returned from being abroad each shared their best experience and their worst experience on exchange. Some of the stories were heartwarming, some were a little scary but when asked if they would go on exchange again all unanimously said,” YES”!.

In visiting with the different students the one theme that kept coming up was that the students appreciated the local clubs being involved with their exchange by taking them to lunch, touring different businesses, enjoying an evening meal at different houses so they could share about their home country and town. Having others involved helps to fight off the normal homesickness that any 15-17 year old student experiences.

This upcoming year brings lots of opportunities to be involved. The Outbound Student Orientation will be held here in Chelan April 18-19^th. Mark your calendar and come to visit with the students.

Jannik Tisher, our inbound student from Germany can be reached at his cell 509-423-1730 or at the home of Lori and Ken Jenkins 509-670-0723. Thank you to Lori and Ken for opening their home and hosting Jannik. Typically a student stays with a host family 3-4 months during their 10-month stay. This is a wonderful way to learn about a different country! If you are interested in hosting a student or know someone who is, please contact Lexy Lieurance or Tim Hollingsworth at Lake Chelan Rotary.

Obviously my very first impressions were hard to decipher through pain and blurry tears, but that did not stop me from noticing how gorgeous everything is. Mountains, lakes, and fields of flowers. Old churches, adorable stone houses with flowers lining every window, cobblestone streets. Everyone always dresses very nice and has very good manners. It is difficult to pick up on all of the subtleties that make people the way they are because of the German speaking, but soon enough I will be able to once more have conversations on a deeper level.

People drive crazy everywhere they go but if something is a 20 minute walk or less, they always walk or ride a bike. They are big on conserving energy and recycling here as well. You always turn off the light and close any windows when you leave a room, run the water for the least amount of time possible, and in most places recycle plastics, etc. It is hard to recall small differences now that I have been here long enough to get used to them. The doors don’t close like they do in America. In America doors close completely where they are pretty much flat with the wall. Here, there is a small lip that stays over the frame after the latch clicks into the hole. It confused me at first because I thought the door wouldn’t shut all the way. The pillows here are all square. They have the same length as US pillows but the width is extended. The toilets are usually separate from the bathroom and they are built a lot differently. Everyone uses shower gel here. I don’t know about you but in the US, shower gel is the extra thing in the toiletry gift bag that sits unused in a drawer until one day you decide to do a deep clean and throw it away.

Food is also different. There is bread available for pretty much every meal and of all kinds. Lunch is the largest meal here usually and when you eat you eat with your family all at once. There are different kinds of food in general but nothing crazy or disgusting and I have liked almost everything I’ve tried. One thing I found very odd at first though was the sparking water. They drink a lot of sparkling water either by itself or with flavored syrup, juice, etc. I’m not a big fan of plain sparkling water but with other stuff mixed with it, it’s great! If I think of anything else, I will fill you all in.
That is about it for my stay so far in Austria. Of course, I can’t explain to you all of the little feelings and experiences that come from being here first hand. Plus, I can feel my English deteriorating already. I haven’t had to write so much English in awhile because here I am either speaking English filler words, speaking German, listening to German, or trying to formulate a German sentence in my head. You will probably notice this with my future blog posts if you haven’t already! And this post was a little boring in my opinion because it was just a general surface run down of what has occurred thus far (which many people have requested). But in the future, I will probably be covering only larger events and more feelings and people than anything. I will have one blog post per month MINIMUM. Thanks for visiting and talk to you again soon!

Aufwiedersehen!

Love, Vanessa