Die Nord See

Ok, well I got slack again these past few days so I am going to attach the report letter that I wrote for Rio Tinto who are so kindly paying for my stay here. Vielen Dank Rio Tinto :)

It pretty much summarizes my time in the North Sea and in Germany thus far.

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To Whom it may concern,

Guten Tag!
I have been in Germany for just over six weeks and I am so far loving the experience. After arriving on the 27th of February I was tired but ready to start an adventure that I will never forget. In my six short weeks I have already visited the cities and towns of Düsseldorf, Kaiserwerth, Ratingen, Greetsiel, Pilsum, Norden, Bremen, Bad Honnef and Pewsum. Today I just got back from a week away at the North Sea which was as the Germans say ´schön´ which is beautiful. The fresh air is very good for your health and therefore many older people retire and live there. However there are also many visiting tourists with young families who visit in order to see the seaside (which isn’t as common as it is in Australia) and relax. There is also plenty of time to have an ice cream as you walk along the harbour or even try some of the local herring which isn’t to everybody’s taste! The surrounding towns are very old with the church dating back to over three hundred years old. However they have been restored so that the present generation and generations to come can still bask in the history of the area and reflect upon the past. About an hour and a half from where I stayed with my host family in the North Sea is the city of Bremen. Bremen was first founded under the name of Fabiranum or Phabiranum around 150AD with the first stone city walls being built in 1302. From that point on Bremen has grown and developed to become one of the most populous cities in Germany. However while Bremen´s wealth once lay in shipping, merchants and trade this is no longer the case because of the cost of the ships. The city’s past wealth is reflected through the intricate details on the buildings and furniture outside and within places such as the city hall. However much of the history of the city was destroyed during the Second World War with only some streets and buildings surviving. The older city however was breathtaking and proves the importance of the old within the new. I thoroughly enjoyed my tour of the city and would love to return there one day.

Me in the town of Greetsiel which is at the North Sea

Tomorrow I return back to school in my town of Ratingen. I attend the high school Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker- Gymnasium where I am in the twelfth grade with my host sister Pia. While I can’t understand most of the classes except for English, my German is slowly improving with the help of some of the friends I have made there as well as my Deutsch books. The subjects that I am taking are English, German, Art, Biology, Sport, History, Math’s and Religion. Each lesson lasts forty five minutes and the number of lessons that I have a day ranges from four to eight. This means that most days I am home for lunch which is the main meal of the day in Germany. It is usually warm and can be anything from pasta to vegetables and veal. For dinner we normally just have bread, rolls, cheese and sliced meat. As you would know this is the reverse of how it is at home with dinner in Australia being the main meal. In my free afternoons I do any homework that I can complete, practice my German, go to the gym and spend time with my host sister and friends from school. I often spend time in the inner city of Ratingen. Ratingen is in the district of Mettman, in North Rhine-Westphalia and is about twelve kilometres north east of Düsseldorf. It was settled before 849 but only received city rights in 1276. At the end of the Middle Ages it experienced a boom and at the beginning of the Industrial Age the first manufacturing plant opened (1783). As there was relatively very little damage during the war many of the older buildings have survived and can still be seen today, such as the local church within Ratingen Mitte and the Catholic and Anglican Church in my suburb, Homberg. Ratingen further developed during the 1960s and 70s with the population increasing from that point on. Now approximately 92,000 people live in the town which hosts shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, churches and even a small disco. Below you can see one of the local churches.

On the weekends I go to meet people at café bars, cocktail bars and clubs, at their houses, in the city or even at soccer games. I have played ´kicker´ (table soccer) in a friend’s basement as well as seen an actual soccer game in Düsseldorf where I cheered on Düsseldorf Fortuna. However at the soccer game that I saw the score was null all- very disappointing. It was still however a good experience because of the atmosphere of the fans cheering on their team.

The weather differs greatly, whilst in Perth it is mostly sunny except for the colder months in winter (which really aren’t that cold) it is often rainy and it even snows! I saw snow for the first time in years here and got over excited and picked some up in my bare hand which I tell you is not a good idea! The snow made everything seem peaceful and covered the fields behind my house. However as the weather is warming up (it is currently spring) the snow melted quickly. However I am looking forward to summer as it allows the opportunity to travel and explore more of Europe. I hope during my time here I will get to see much of not only Germany but all of Europe so that I can see the diversification of the cultures as well as collect some tacky souvenirs. I am entirely grateful to Rio Tinto for allowing me this opportunity to live in another country and be immersed in it’s culture. It is amazing that I can see buildings older than any in Australia, customs that date back years and learn another language. My time here is flying by and before I know it I will be back in Australia. However I am sure that I will never forget my time here with the amazing support of my host family, friends, the AFS exchange program and Rio Tinto.

Vielen Dank for this chance to see the world and grow as a person.

Yours sincerely,

Lauren- Marie Wiszniewski
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and there it is. Hope you enjoyed it :)

ok still can´t insert images, sorry. check my facebook instead :)

AFS Camp

Ok time for a new post. Kay told me after my first post that I needed to post again so here I go:
Sorry I´m so lazy :( but time seems to fly by so fast and before I know it the day is over.
Since last time I posted I´ve done alot so I think I will do different posts for certain things.

Lets begin with the AFS orientation camp.

That happened in Bad Honnef. To get there I had to catch an assortment of trains to get there. At one point the girl that I was travelling with and I were scared that we had hopped on the wrong train but we hadn´t and we got there safe and sound.

However after the three legged race that night I wasn´t so safe. As most of my friends know I have an appalling sense of rhythm (who else claps out of time on Presentation night?- why they always put me right next to a microphone I´ll never know why). But anyway, may I continue? The point is that my lack of rhythm means that I am a very bad partner to have for a three legged race and Chris I am sincerely sorry that you were with me. Basically I fell alot which when combined with the masking tape around our ankles resulted in chafted skin and even a bruise around my ankle. Chocolate however did make it better :)

On the Saturday all of us amazing exchange students were spilt into groups with each group being given an egg and an apple as well as balloons with cards saying what we were thankful for. Somehow we needed to cook the egg and also trade the apple for bigger and better things. The balloons we just needed to handout and explain what we were doing.

My group went into a bakery where our egg was magically made into six different cakes. It truely is amazing how fast things cook ;)

Then we traded our apple for a children´s polony sausage at the butcher. The polony sausage we then traded for a book. We also traded one of our cakes for a can of coke and then the coke for a bowl. We tried to trade the bowl for pizza but they just gave us a bannana instead. Items that other groups collected and traded included wine, coffee, breathmints, snake skin, E10, nutella, a cat figurine, bird figurine, model phone and even a lamp. For their eggs the other groups just got them fried. It was a pretty fun experience and it was amazing to see how generous the people of Bad Honnef were.

That night Stephanie and I bonded over our love of gossip girl, the spanish speaking group sung songs in their native language and more chocolate was consumed.

Soon time came that we had to go back to our host families and we all said goodbye. I´m looking forward to the next camp.
BTW- I tried to add pictures but it wouldn´t work :( Tur mir Leid