From March 10th to March 15th, I had the oppurtunity to go to southern Germany. This trip is one of two trips that we must take with our scholarship. This trip has the scholarship winners split between two differnt cities, one in the middle west part of Germany, and mine, about 25 minutes from Munich. So, on the 10th at 7:30 in the morning, I had to be on my train, ready for a 9 hour ride (with 2 transfers). Yea, pretty long, but after the first 2 hours I was able to meet up with other YFU kids going to the seminar, and then we all had something to do. After our long trip (for me from really north, to really south), we then had the task of finding this place we were staying at, and of course to make it easier, I thought it would be a good idea to have the convience of just having an duffel bag, but soon regreted that. After about 20 minutes of walking with our giant luggage, we finally found our home for the next few days.
When I was finally able to relieve my shoulder of it's pain, I went downstairs, and was flooded with hugs from friends from my 3 week course and chicago course. When all were finally there, we jumped right into action. We got split up into groups, and were assigned a 'bärchen' (cub) group. Each cub group had 3 students, and one of the leaders, all of them having done an exchange year themself. Our first lessen was of course ice breakers, name games, and then a game with candy. What type, well we're in Germany, so of course it's gummy bears. Each person got a little bag with 6 or 7 gummy bears, and then we chose one, and had to say something according to the color of the bear. For example, if I chose red I had to say a fear of mine, orange was to tell a funny story about this year, green was your favorite animal, yellow was somthing that annoys you, and so on. As if the gummy bears wanted to simply make me angry, my bag had 5 orange, one yellow, and one red... Let's just say by the end it was tough to think of any more stories, since I had so many orange. After dinner, then it was time to catch up with friends! Me and some of my closest friends there formed a circle in the lobby, and just talked and talked, until one of our leaders told us at 12 that we have to stop.
One day done, and that just means less time to stay...
Anyways, WENDSDAY! 8 o'clock breakfast and then back to our groups. We started this group session with a look back on our year so far. We closed our eyes, and one leader led us in thinking back trough our year, all the way from how we felt on the plane, to getting on the train to come to where we were now. After that, we drew a graph of how our year has been, going month to month. This graph had 4 lines on it, family, friends, school, and language. After we all discussed our graph, and where are lowest points were, and how we got throuh them, I realized how really lucky I've been this year, either that, or I'm just robotic and can't feel sad. I've never really had big problems with my family, my school is fine, I made friends easily, and my German, while never near perfect, is still way better than what I could do at the beginning. Lunch marked the point and time where the adventures really begun. We took a 30 minute subway, and a short tram ride, and then we were at the Nymphenburg castle. This place was, first of all, huge, but secondly was just so exquisitly decorated, it wasn't possible to see it all. Check out the pictures, and keep in mind that all of the golden looking stuff, IS GOLD! After the Castle, we got to go to the Capital of this 'state', Munich. Here we were assigned a scavenger hunt to do, bringing us to the most historic parts of the city. After finished with that, we were then sent out to eat food, and what can we eat in a place with an amazing food culture, only somthing very German right? Wrong... due to our lack of time, we just ate at the first decently priced place, and that was a burger place. With 7 hours almost completly standing up, half of that likely walking, I'll just say I was able to sleep quite well.
On to the next day! Thursday. Agian, just like usual, up and about at 8, and at 9 started the lesson. This lesson was mostly about what makes us who we are. We took an example of our host mom asks us to work in the garden with her, but you are skyping with a friend, what are the voices in your head, and how do you decide what to do. After a discussion, we went into the hallway where one wall represented totally agree, and the other was completly disagree, and we had to stand and the point of where we felt. There the questions were all about conflicts, and how we hadle ourselves. Are you loud or shy, sturdy on you point or easily swayed, afraid to be alone or go with the flow, and so on. All in all, we went though many different exercises to show that we all have a different personality, and we see ourself differently than others see us. After lunch we had a little bit of free time, followed up by our history and politics part of the seminar. We were able to choose from 4 topics, and I decided to choose a group that studied a person or group in German History, and decided if they were a hero, traitor, victim, and so on. Our group of 16 got split into 4 groups of 4, and my group studied a man who attempted to kill Hitler, failed, and was quickly killed. After we all researched our person, we made a small poster and presented to the other 3 groups. After that, we had to prepare a presentation for all of the other people who chose a different topic. Because we didn't want to be boring, we ended up making a talkshow type thing like Oprah. Our guests were the people we researched, and I was Oprah. Finally, we had free time, dinner, and then we watched a movie relating to our trip that we signed up for for the next day. The choices were the University, Dakau, the Olimpic stadiums, or the City, and I chose the Olimpic Stadium. Our movie was sadly about the 1972 Olympics Massacre, but it was something important to learn. Soon after the movie was over, it was bed time, and that meant that the days left were getting less and less.
When I was finally able to relieve my shoulder of it's pain, I went downstairs, and was flooded with hugs from friends from my 3 week course and chicago course. When all were finally there, we jumped right into action. We got split up into groups, and were assigned a 'bärchen' (cub) group. Each cub group had 3 students, and one of the leaders, all of them having done an exchange year themself. Our first lessen was of course ice breakers, name games, and then a game with candy. What type, well we're in Germany, so of course it's gummy bears. Each person got a little bag with 6 or 7 gummy bears, and then we chose one, and had to say something according to the color of the bear. For example, if I chose red I had to say a fear of mine, orange was to tell a funny story about this year, green was your favorite animal, yellow was somthing that annoys you, and so on. As if the gummy bears wanted to simply make me angry, my bag had 5 orange, one yellow, and one red... Let's just say by the end it was tough to think of any more stories, since I had so many orange. After dinner, then it was time to catch up with friends! Me and some of my closest friends there formed a circle in the lobby, and just talked and talked, until one of our leaders told us at 12 that we have to stop.
One day done, and that just means less time to stay...
Anyways, WENDSDAY! 8 o'clock breakfast and then back to our groups. We started this group session with a look back on our year so far. We closed our eyes, and one leader led us in thinking back trough our year, all the way from how we felt on the plane, to getting on the train to come to where we were now. After that, we drew a graph of how our year has been, going month to month. This graph had 4 lines on it, family, friends, school, and language. After we all discussed our graph, and where are lowest points were, and how we got throuh them, I realized how really lucky I've been this year, either that, or I'm just robotic and can't feel sad. I've never really had big problems with my family, my school is fine, I made friends easily, and my German, while never near perfect, is still way better than what I could do at the beginning. Lunch marked the point and time where the adventures really begun. We took a 30 minute subway, and a short tram ride, and then we were at the Nymphenburg castle. This place was, first of all, huge, but secondly was just so exquisitly decorated, it wasn't possible to see it all. Check out the pictures, and keep in mind that all of the golden looking stuff, IS GOLD! After the Castle, we got to go to the Capital of this 'state', Munich. Here we were assigned a scavenger hunt to do, bringing us to the most historic parts of the city. After finished with that, we were then sent out to eat food, and what can we eat in a place with an amazing food culture, only somthing very German right? Wrong... due to our lack of time, we just ate at the first decently priced place, and that was a burger place. With 7 hours almost completly standing up, half of that likely walking, I'll just say I was able to sleep quite well.
On to the next day! Thursday. Agian, just like usual, up and about at 8, and at 9 started the lesson. This lesson was mostly about what makes us who we are. We took an example of our host mom asks us to work in the garden with her, but you are skyping with a friend, what are the voices in your head, and how do you decide what to do. After a discussion, we went into the hallway where one wall represented totally agree, and the other was completly disagree, and we had to stand and the point of where we felt. There the questions were all about conflicts, and how we hadle ourselves. Are you loud or shy, sturdy on you point or easily swayed, afraid to be alone or go with the flow, and so on. All in all, we went though many different exercises to show that we all have a different personality, and we see ourself differently than others see us. After lunch we had a little bit of free time, followed up by our history and politics part of the seminar. We were able to choose from 4 topics, and I decided to choose a group that studied a person or group in German History, and decided if they were a hero, traitor, victim, and so on. Our group of 16 got split into 4 groups of 4, and my group studied a man who attempted to kill Hitler, failed, and was quickly killed. After we all researched our person, we made a small poster and presented to the other 3 groups. After that, we had to prepare a presentation for all of the other people who chose a different topic. Because we didn't want to be boring, we ended up making a talkshow type thing like Oprah. Our guests were the people we researched, and I was Oprah. Finally, we had free time, dinner, and then we watched a movie relating to our trip that we signed up for for the next day. The choices were the University, Dakau, the Olimpic stadiums, or the City, and I chose the Olimpic Stadium. Our movie was sadly about the 1972 Olympics Massacre, but it was something important to learn. Soon after the movie was over, it was bed time, and that meant that the days left were getting less and less.