Fußballspiel und ein Konzert

Ok so! i am making up for my lacking of updating my blog! So sunday I had a long day. Philipp, Georg, and I went to a professional German soccer game. The teams were Hertha BSC (The Berlin team) against Wolfsburg. The picture above is the Olympic stadium for the 1936 olympics. This was where Jessie Owens won 3 gold medals. In fact there was a street named after him on the left. The stadium was very cool because it wasnt to big looking from the outside but when you go in it it is huge. The part that you see now is only the top section of rows. There are plenty more that go below ground level. And we just happened to be 3 rows from the front!

Philipp my host brother and I posing with our tickets in front of the stadium. Instead of selling hamburgers and nachos and fries here, they sell butter or salt pretzels and beer.

This stadium was awesome! This picture was taken at ground level. There were 35,000 people there and plenty of empty seats. Unfortunately the reason for the empty seats is that Hertha BSC is the worst team in the league. But it was still enjoyable and they didn't lose! It was a tie 0-0. Also the fans are crazy! The whole time there was drunken singing and chanting! The only chant that i could understand was "Ha Ho Hee, Hertha BSC"

And after we changed from the soccer game we went to the philharmonic Klassik Musik Konzert. It was good... No they were really good but it reminded me of my days when I was dragged to the cleveland orchestra. This concert was hosted by the Classical Music radio channel so they had some of the radio hosts come out and say stuff. It was interesting. Fun Facts!!! Germans never eat pie and have no idea what it is. For example I sadly went to McDonalds today and I ordered 2 "apple Pies" which are called apfeltaschen translated to being pocket apples. and they not only cost 2 euro when it is usually 1 dollar for both but they were crusty and way to sweet and not at all the two for one dollar apple pies that I love. Another fun fact is that not only do bikers have there own lane in streets but they also have biking traffic lights with little bike symbols on them. and the crosswalk lights make noises so the blind people know when to cross. One last fun fact for the day, Germany Rocks! Ok later!

Berlin, night of lights

Ok, sorry about this late blog. Also I will try to make my grammar a little bit better since I have had several complaints. Last weekend was the start of my "Herbst Ferien" (fall break). It is two weeks long but for me, quite boring. Anyway, last weekend my host family took me out to a fancy pizza resaurant in Berlin. It was very tasty but i got a Calzone that could have fed 5 people. So i wasn't quite able to finish which because of that i was made fun of by my family. Anyway after the restaurant we walked around Berlin. In October Berlin is recognized as the City of lights. This is because many of the buildings and castles are decorated by pretty lights. We went first to the Brandenburger Tor. It was very cool. There were thousands of people there and even a white stretched hummer pulled up with what i can assume to be German celebrities, and took pictures in front of it. It was constantly changing colors. So this wasn't the only color it had.

Phillip and I standing in front of one of the lights used to light up the Brandenburger Tor. We thought we were cool. In reality we saw a model having photos taken of her in front of the light, so we wanted to try it too.

This is Schloss Charlottenburg, It is the biggest palace in Berlin. It is really beautiful in day time and has a huge Garden behind it that is incredible. But it is also pretty at night, I guess.

From this shot it doesn't even look real. So after the night of lights which was last saturday I had a pingpong tournament with the neighbors, which was great. We played a game which they called chinese tabletennis. Which i think is called "around the world" in America. Pretty much you hit the ball and run around the table to hit another and multiple people can play. It was great... And i won. :D This Past weekend of vacation I have been bored out of my mind. Amusing myself by mostly exploring the many forests in Seeburg. And I have had someone to do it with me. Claire whom I have mentioned on the blog before is staying with me for the next few weeks because her host family was awful and she is switching families. She is an American exchange student like me and also with CBYX (Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange) which is the scholarship program we are on. But other then that my week has been awfully boring. I saw Pelham 123 with claire, Phillip and phillip's friend last wednesday. It was pretty good from what I could understand. And today I slept in late and then helped Claudia in the Garden for a couple hours and then Claudia, Claire and I went Christmas Shopping! Yes, I know. CHRISTMAS Shopping. We have a good reason. It takes a while to ship the Gifts. But we went to A shopping center in Berlin and it was huge and i think it had around 7 floors. So ya. Tomorrow we are going to a Fußball Spiel (soccer game) where the berlin team is playing another team. And then we are seeing an Orchestra. And on monday we might go to the Berlin Zoo which has the most species in all of Europe. So I will have a more exciting Blog post to update after those. German fun Fact time!!! Germans never put napkins on there laps. EVER! It is so weird and they always give me looks when I do. Also they always keep their hands above the table when eating. Germans rarely wear Helmets when riding bikes. Dogs are allowed everywhere. You can see them in the shopping centers, Grocery stores and in random Shops. Germans are very crafty. My Neighbor is building a Race Cart for racing down a hill. It is made out of wood and is very cool. Badminton is a serious and big sport here. OH YA!! I just remembered. I went to a nikey Store the other day when I was helping philipp buy a winter coat and it was huge! All over the walls it had facts of world records in sports. And Micheal Jordan was listed for some fact. And taking up the whole wall behind the cashier counter was a giant picture of Lebron James doing his chalk throw while runnig in the court. and it had the Just Do It nikey logo. I was so excited!!! Also Addidas is German, I had no idea. Anyway till next time!

Late orientation photos

So a few weekends ago I had a late orientation with Afs and these are a few photos I took from it. above is the Fernsehetum up close. and you can kinda see alexanderplatz which is the area all around the tum.

My search and destroy team. we had to find certain locations all around alexander platz and answer questions. Lucas on the left from Brazil, Claire from the U.S. then Chiara from Italy and Teddy from France. The Balloons were free.

The whole Group from our Orientation. Yes look at me and my balloon in the front!

Some cool Cathedral. This was the point were Lucas and I ran off looking for the Brandenburger Tor and we lost the rest of our group.

4 weeks in

ok im going to start off by apologizing to everyone because i have been completely out of communication as of late. also i think it has been two weeks since i last updated. I do have some valid excuses of course. I am so busy! If my school gave me hw here i am not quite sure i would have time to do it. First of all since i last wrote i talked about my first trip to berlin and mentioned how awesome it is? well i loved it so much that i have been back 6 times sense! See, this seems a little bit extreme but what can i say, im an addict and im addicted to berlin. well the real reason is that i have begun taking courses at night at a language school in berlin twice a week. the first couple of times my host dad Georg drove me the 30 minutes to the school but today i went by myself using public transportation with the UBahn which is like the subway. it was a real adventure and the half hour train ride wasnt too bad and i didnt get lost, i feel like a local! annnnnyway the school is working out fine but it cuts into my last bit of free time on the weekdays. I spent the weekend in berlin with afs the weekend of the 3rd and 4th. it was labeled "late orientation camp" it was a load of baloney(i hope that is spelled right). It was completely pointless other then the fact that we got to meet other exchange students and share are experiences so far and help each other out and stuff and it was a lot of fun during our free time and we had a trip to alexanders platz where the the fernsehetum, i think there is a picture of it below somewhere. so when i say pointless i mean not pointless at all its just that some of their activities belittled us into children. so there were brazilians, a frenchman, some chinese students, a swiss girl, another american named claire, and a japanese student, a thai student, a latvian student and a mexican. pretty interesting crowd. i was happy because i got to play a lot of table tennis and foosball. Then this past weekend my friend claire who was also at the orientation stayed over with my host family and me for the weekend. she had to take the sat in Berlin. but my host mom and i decided to make her weekend interesting so we went into berlin saturday and checked out the brandburger tor and went to this chocolate shop that apparently is quite famous but i forget its name. it had chocolate statues of the titanic and the brandenburger tor and fernsehetum and several others. it was quite cool. plus i got to buy a bunch of delicious chocolates. then on sunday we went to potsdam and checked out sansoucci again and showed claire my school and stuff. speaking of sunday, i had a soccer game and i am sorry to say we lost, and i either broke my finger or hyper extended it. so i am typing all this with my ring finger on my right hand all bandaged up and useless. school is impossible as ever and i took a day off last tuesday to recuperate a little. it is exhausting being immersed in a language that u do not speak fluently. I went to my first party on friday and it was an odd experience. apperently by the end of it 250 ppl had come and gone. it was huge and it was in this tiny house with speakers blasting u could here from a block away but the neighbors didnt seem to care too much. germans also only dance to this weird Electral techno, so i did my best with the stanky leg dance and the shopping cart and all the other awesome dances that i know. much sarcasm in Awesome. i made a complete idiot of myself because its all fun and everyone loved it. School is still in possible with math being the only language that i fully understand even tho its in german. but i only get it by figuring out how she got to the next step in the equation on my own so it is mostly self taught. well a guided self lesson. philipp and i get along so freaken well. i lucked out with my host family, i could not have asked for a better one. philipp and i throw the frisbee a lot together and screw around all the time. in fact last weekend we had a huge wrestling match on the kitchen floor and my host mom claudia took pictures and videotaped it! it was a riot. philipp left for the week to go to england with the school, by the way. uhhh german fun facts time!!! i am not sure if i mentioned this before but germany has a bazilian political parties including several communist and nazi partys. these parties take up a very small percent of the voting population but they do still exist. German Teenagers and kids adore "your mom" Jokes. my school doesnt ever have substitute teachers, they just have free periods if the teacher is out. uuuhhh t mobile is pretty much the biggest cellphone company here. (please bear with me if i repeat myself). everone wears scarves, and very colorfuls ones at that, guys included. and that is it for this week. till next week!

berlin and my week

This is the holocaust memorial. It is huge. it has thousands of these giant grey block that can be as tall as 15 feet. it is crazy cool. but of course sad too!

This is the Giant Berlin Bahnhof (trainstation) this is he station where i came in from and it is overwhelming. it is so big and so modern!

Brandeburger tor from the parliament building!

this is in the middle of the holocaust memorial. these blocks where aroround 15 feet heigh. it was really really cool.


OK so this week was great! I had my first soccer game 2 saturdays ago and we won 5 to 1. i am playing forward, not my usual defense position. i am one of the fastest players on the team so it is a good position for me. my footskills are getting a lot better and by the time of my second game on saturday. i scored and also made this sweet pass to someone behind and to the left of me where someone passed it straight to me and i let the ball go through my legs and then kicked it to the left with my right foot. this is for u dad haha but it was really sweet and i cant wait to see how much better i get. anyway in this car ride to the first soccer game i saw more windmills then i have ever seen in my entire life in the US. i must have seen thousands upon thousands. Germany uses something like 40 or 50 percent wind energy. it might be 60. i have no clue but it was a really high number! So i had dinner with leos family on friday and they are really nice and funny! i prolly have 3 best friends in germany currently besides philipp and thats Leo, Leah, and a boy named marcel who is really cool and nice. So i went to berlin on saturday with my host family as u can see in all these photos. it was beautiful and so nice! germany is very very modern. sunday was the election and it is really hard to explain but im an expert on german government now. I had my first math test last week and i got a 2plus which is pretty much a B plus. that is really good considering the test was in german and i only had about half the lessons for the test. Anyay ill wright again soon but im am lacking much time! fun facts time! germans actually have 2 votes. one for the politcal canidate and one for the politcal party. Germany has a couple political parties that are actually nazis. and they also have a few communist parties. however these only take up about 2 percent of the votes. also the piraten (pirate) party is becoming more and more popular. they advocate legal internet media sharing AKA Torrenting or lymewire. Germany is just 5 or so latitude degrees south of Alaska. Also in germany we get absolutely no hw. i have no idea why but the schooling is really easy. anyway till next time! love ya guys!

more berlin!

The Brandenburg Tor of course! this the famous gate that was just on the east side of the berlin wall. it is probably the most famous structure in berlin. it is huge! and beautiful! on the other side of the tor is a plaza with restaurants and a fancy hotel and the giant american embassy. its pretty!

me with the fernsehen Tum behind me! the Fernsehen Tum(television tower) is the tallest building in the european union and can be seen from all over Berlin.

A beautiful opera house looking building that used to be the building for the german congress or something i didnt really understand what electronic tour guide said but apparently the cement roof was a gift from america to west berlin in the late 40s.

My host family! philipp, Georg, und Claudia! this is on top of the parliament building.

Berlin parliament building!

So last saturday after my 2 soccer game, which we won 6 to 1 and i had the first goal! My Gastfamilie decided to take me out to berlin and show me around! so these pictures are of the German parliament building. The architecht made it so that the funnel of mirrors and windows shown above actually lights up the giant meeting chamber below. when we were in the glass dome we could actually see the seets and stuff from the chamber through the glass. also we went the day before the big german election so there were camera ppl and news crews all over. i even saw a famous German Newsanchor! So ya this dome has ramps that lead all the way to the top of the funnel with a informational hand hold audio player that guides u and informs on german history and polotics the whole way up. its really cool cuz you can see the whole city!

The big dome on top of the parliament buílding

Philipp and my host mother claudia! we were posing at the top of the dome.

Thats the German parliament building and u can see the dome right on top of it. this building was around during the times of world war 2 and you can see plenty of repaired bullet holes. The interior is completely modernized however.