The front EU building



Here are a few photos that I forgot to upload last week.

The back of the EU building.

            This week my class is playing an Economy game. We have to start and run a company for an entire week.

            Every morning we go into our homeroom and have everything explained to us, then we break up into groups and fill out the worksheets that we are given. This cycle repeats itself about every two hours. I can't say that I understand much(if any) of what is going on, so my week isn't turning out to be that interesting.

            But there are some things that I do understand!! We get to make a commercial for our product (a massage chair), fliers for the company, and a logo. I am proud to say that I came up with our logo and I get to create the flier. I think making the movie is going to be fun, we can do whatever we want. I have a great group of kids to work with. On Thursday every group must give a presentation at the assembly and I have no idea what I am going to do! But thats life.

I think the way to sum this week up is to say that it is the best of times, it is the worst of times.

After arriving at the teen hostile on the edge of Germany and unpacking our stuff my friends and I walked over to France! We ended up in the outskirts of Strassburg, which we were to tour the next day.
The park that we sat down in was beautiful but not as well kept up as the german side. While we were messing about in the grass a little by came up to us and started speaking in French. MY FIRST FRENCH PERSON!!! he understood no german or english but the girls from my class who had been taking French spoke to him. I think it's amazing who 50 meters of water can separate two languages.
We also saw a French model. No, seriously, there was a lady modeling in front of the brick wall that ran around the park.

The next day we all went in a bus to Strassburg and took a tour. The tour guide was german so I found the whole thing to be quite boring. But we got to go through the Cathedral Notre Dame, even though it was not the famous one in Paris. The houses are all very thin and tall and built right next to each other, the left wall of one is right wall of the next. That afternoon we went and walked around the European parliament. The building was super cool!

Day three had us driving for a hour to an eight hundred year old castle. We go to go all the way through it. It was made from stone and was built up on top of a hill so when standing on the tower wed had a view of 50 km.

Day four we went to the Disney Land of Europe. The theme park had a section for each country and the rides showed the speciality from it's host nation. We ran from Greece to Victoria Station in ten minutes!


Day 5 we drive the seven hours back to Melle. All in all, I liked the trip but prefer the absolute comradery of the St. Andrew Sal et Lux better.

School is fun!!! But it is also long. It starts at 8 just like schools in America but runs until 1:20. We have six classes a day and two breaks, one after the second class and one after the forth class. Unlike most American public school the stubents are only alowed to pick two of their classes. On a normal day I have German, English(the language), Math, theater/art/sport(PE), and one of three sciences. Every student takes Chemistry, Physics, and Biology during the same we. So far my favorite class is science(s) and math.

Even though this school has no uniform policy, the students have inflicted upon themselves a uniform stricter then that of St. Andrew. Every student wears skinny-jeans (boys and girls). Sometimes the jeans are a bright color. They wear flat shoes (the ones that all the girls in the tenth grade at St. Andrew wears if its not TOMS.) And them a semi-baggy shirt. It is suprising how much they would compain if they were actually given a uniform.

As a side not GERMANY HAS NO TOMS :) :)   The end.

Upon arriving in Deutschland late Sunday I have been thrown into the mix of German society. Living in a modern neighborhood for the middle class has been a new experience all together. For the first time in my life I have a multiple friends within a five minute walk and a school house 500 meters away.

The neighbor hood is beautiful with tons of sidewalks for pedestrians and small, curving roads that run this way, that, and the other. most(all) of the houses are made of red or white brick. I can not say that that they are some of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen, but their all right.

At night time every window in every house is shuttered. But these are no ordinary shutters!! They look like garage doors and they function in just the same way. Another odd quality of these houses is the color coordination. Normally the walls of every room is white with a single strip of bright red, blue, green, or yellow running around the middle of the wall. The strip will widen out around a picture to a square shape to give the frame of the picture a frame. In the kitchen everything is wood/metal and square from the door handles to the celling lights.

All in all it is hard to tell if you have been brought back in time or put into a movie of the future.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a young girl in possession of a good mind must be in want of an audience." 

Upon being throw into the whirl-wind of a european school what else is there to do but learn as much, see as much, and laugh as much as possible.