November 9, 2006
Guten Tag from Germany!!!!

It’s now the beginning of November, autumn has arrived and along with it, snow in Germany!! It’s very cold all of the time, and there has been a light dusting of snow a few times already. It’s hard to believe I’ve been here a little over 2 months. The time goes fast!! I have been on autumn break the past week, which I really enjoyed. I’ll do a little update on what I have been up to since school started.

The school system changes dramatically here in Germany compared to the U.S. For instance, here the kids stay in the same classroom pretty much the whole day and the teachers come to them. In German Gymnasium the people that go to school range from 5 to 21 or so years old. This age gap really surprised me. I was so used to American high school where there’s no one under the age of 13. Here there are little kids running around everywhere on break time. As for the subjects taught in school I’m taking a regular course load. In class I try to listen and understand what the teacher is saying, or I study German. Other than that, I don’t really do a whole lot of the schoolwork due to the fact I don’t understand most of it.

Having been here for 2 months I feel my German has improved. When I came, I barely knew anything. At least now I’m picking up vocabulary and can sometimes understand people. I wish this was a faster process, but according to the people who have been here for 9 months and are leaving in January, it takes about 6 months to really be able to speak and understand almost everything. Right now I understand more than I can speak. Sometimes it’s really hard having this language barrier. Granted almost everyone speaks a little bit of English, but still going everywhere hearing a language you don’t really understand is hard for me, as it would be for anyone. My goal, and the main reason I’m here is to learn German at least semi fluently; I hope I can succeed in this.

I’ve had a bit of homesickness the last month. The feeling of everything being new, wonderful, and perfect has worn off and there are times I just want o come back to Bremerton and pick up where I left off. I finally started my language course. It’s now twice a week, for 1 1⁄2 hours. It will last about 18 lessons. I’m taking it with two other girls, one from Ecuador (Dani) and the other from Brazil (Deborah). These two girls have become good friends to me. We’re Rotary exchange students for Augsburg & Freidburg. We're all really lucky to be living in a city. Most of the group of exchange students in Bavaria lives in villages, or small towns. Very few live in Munich, Augsburg or Ulm.

At the beginning of October I went to Oktoberfest with a group of exchange students. It was really fun and I was excited to finally get to go! The atmosphere was wonderful, but the place was insanely crowed and everything was really expensive. Most girls were wearing dendell (sp) and the boys were wearing lederhosen.

On another weekend I went to Ulm with all the exchangees to my Brazilian friend's house who was having a get together. He lives in a small village outside of Ulm. It was neat to see what it was like in a small Bavarian village. There was not much going on…. but the house was quaint and nice.

Last Friday I went on the ROTEX Berlin tour with most of the group of exchanges in Bavaria (36 of us in all). It was 5 days long! We left at night somewhere around 10 o'clock, then, drove for nearly 7 hours to Berlin from Augsburg. We arrived in Berlin in time to eat breakfast then go tour around. First we went to a museum called “Story of Berlin” It went over Berlin’s history for the last 400 years or something like that. I found all of it very interesting, although there was not enough time to go through it all. After that, we went to a cold war bunker under a parking garage. There was enough room for 600 people (I think) to live 2 weeks. It was very dark and gloomy. We also went to Mauermuseum Haus & Checkpoint Charlie on Saturday. I found all of it very informative, but again not enough time to go through the whole museum. We went back to the youth hostel and ate dinner.

On Sunday day we went to the German TV & radio station for a tour, it was really boring and everyone wanted to sleep, mainly because the tour was only given in German. But I was surprised that the station put out the news in German, English and Spanish. We were walking in our tour groups when we passed a work area where everyone was a native English speaker. I was like ahhhh English!!! I got to watch a clip of news about what was happening in Germany in English and in German. After that we went to a DDR prison and torture center. During DDR times, this place had been impossible for anyone to get into with out being part of the DDR. The jail was massive; I was able to see the different forms of torture used on the prisoners, both physical and mental. In the prison, not a single person ever escaped. Many were tortured, beaten and starved for information. The prisoners had to stay in the cells by themselves all day. They were only allowed to stand or sit in certain positions and without sleeping. Even when they were allowed to sleep at night, they had to do so in certain positions…maybe with their hands across their chest for example. If they didn't, the guards banged on the doors. They also had a torture room where you were stripped and put in a dark cell where cold water would be poured on you through pipes. Then you would be left alone for a few hours only to have the same thing happen again until you broke down and gave up information. If you took the German version of the tour the guides were themselves original prisoners of this prison that closed down in 1989.

I don’t remember what else we did Sunday, but the next day we went to Potsdam. We went to 2 castles; one was Schloss Sanssouci and the other Hollandisched Viertel. I had already been to Schloss Sanssouci, where Fredrick the Great lived. But I liked seeing the castles in the fall. We also walked around Potsdam in small groups for about 2 hours. I found a Duncan Donuts, and got my fill of donuts. I don’t remember which days but one day we went to the Bunderstag, or the Dem Deutschen Volke; the main government building for Germany. Like the White House in the U.S. we got a nice tour of the building and where the German parliament takes place. We also got to go to the Berlin Jewish Museum. I really liked all of it. It started with the beginning of Jewish times and ended with present day. Of course I could not get through all of that with the small amount of time we had, but it was great just the same.

On one of the nights, ROTEX had a surprise for us. We were taken to the Blue Man Group live in Berlin. We were all excited when we found out because they originally told us we were going to another museum. The show was great and I had never been to see the Blue Man Group but had always wanted to go.

Wednesday morning we left Berlin and headed back to Augsburg. It took the whole day, and on the way there it started to snow. All the South Americans were exited because most of them had never seen snow.

For the next few weeks I’m not sure what I’ll be doing other than going to school. I don’t have any small trips planed with ROTEX or my host family. Hopefully, I'll be changing host families at the beginning of December. I’m looking forward to that.

Well, that’s some of the main things I’ve been up to lately. I would sure love to hear what everyone else has been up to! Hope all is well.

Malea




Brett Aho our Bremerton High School, our (2005-2006) in Winterthur, Switzerland.

March 19th, 2006

Well, here is finally part two to my last email. I just never really got around to doing it till yet.

So on March 8th, i finally turned 18. Turning 18 in Switzerland is just about the same as turning 18 in America. The only differences in age privelages, are the driving and drinking ages. In Switzerland one can drink at 16 while its 21 in america, and in america one starts learning to drive at 15, while you cant start in switzerland till your 18th birthday. But other than that everything else is the same, you become an adult at 18, gambling at 18, voting at 18, etc...

On my birthday, i woke up to a suprise breakfast table with 18 roses and various birthday presents laid out. after enjoying a breakfast, i skipped the first hour of school (it was only english) to take an extra long shower, read my email, etc... Then i headed to school, where everyone congradulated me and whatnot. Doris had even baked me a pair of cakes to bring to school to share!

Then after school for dinner, Doris and Jörg took me to a lebanese reastaurant in Zurich for my birthday dinner. I dont really know how to describe lebanese cuisine. but it started first with Mezzes, a huge selection of appetizers laid out over the entire table. A lot of hummus dishes, foods with creams and dairy sauces, lots of herbs and spices, and various vegetable dishes. followed by the main course of different grilled meats; lamb, kofta and fish. Desset was then a a large plate of exotic fruits, and fancy nuts and honey pastries. I think i can probobly honestly say it was one of the best meals of my life. A+

Then on thursday, the Sulzers invited to dinner at "Stars and Stripes", an American Bar and Grill. There, I throughouly enjoyed eating a true american "half pounder", loaded with barbecue sauce and accompanied by Onion Rings, washed down by a cold beer. also A+ Afterwards we went back to sulzers where Petra had cake and ice cream, and we played a round of Rummikub (pronouned rum-ee-cub here, at home we called it room-ih-cube).

Then on Friday night, my good friend Gerladine, who just bought her own apartment with her boyfriend, threw sort of a combination house-warming party/birthday celebration for me. It was pretty awesome.

And finally on Satruday, The Rotary Club Morsburg, had their 25th aniversery Gala which Jurg Reinhardt had invited me to. There i met and got to know Jarryd, a new exchange student from South Africa, and hung out with Lorenz and Ramon who were both in Australia on exhcnage last year. Also enjoyed my third most excellent (and 5 course) meal of the week. Every single rotary event, whether in Bremerton or Winterthur, i have been to has been joined by excellent food. When i get older, im for sure going to have to join Rotary just for the food.

Thank you everybody for all the thoughtful cards and gifts that i received! They all really mean a lot to me!

That pretty much concludes my birthday celebrations. However after looking through the pictures i uploaded, i forgot "part 1"... soooo, perhaps there will be another email in the next couple days if i have the time.

The past week has been pretty normal with school and whatnot. Later today im going to the Casino in Baden with my good friend Adam, an exchange student from Canada.

Cheers! -Brett

Swiss Ski-Break Update
Date: February 23, 2006
Soo
Once again, sorry about the little break

As most of you know, i spent the past 2 weeks or so skiing. Between Winter and Spring breaks, the schools take a 2 week break called "ski break" or just "sport break" in which all the kids go skiing for a week or two. I spent the first week in Sedrun with my class, and the second week in Saas-Fee with my hostfamily.

So for the first week, I went with my class (4th year) to Sedrun, the same ski-resort where the Schochs, my third hostfamily took me over winter break. And, while the first two days of skiing were wonderful, unfortunatly I caught a cold and only ended up skiing 3 out of 7 days. Just about the only good thing that came from being sick was that i got my own room. However i had a blast regardless.

Every day i would have to get up around 8 AM to the blasting of the old german song "Schnaps das war sein leztes wort... etc..." ( crappy version, but it gives you the idea) translation means "Schnaps, that was his last word". Funny song, but after hearing it some 10 times a day, not to mention 100,s of times over and over in your head, it starts to get a bit old. Anyways, it was pretty impossible to sleep through that, so i would get up for breakfast, and afterwards when everyone else headed skiing, for 4 of the 7 days, i went back to sleep or just sat around reading, playing cards, or listening to music... Then once the others came back, we would usually go to the swim pool which was just a 5 minute walk away and mess around in the pool for an hour or so before dinner. Then after dinner all the others went out to "apres-ski" bars or just hung out around the house. All in all, it was a really good week. I got to know a bunch of new kids, and had fun hanging out with friends from the school. I only wish that i had been able to ski a bit more. Once again, many thanks to Kantonshule Rychenberg for paying for everything, i really really appreciate it.

Then, in the second week, my current hostfamily, the Ruoschs, invited me to skiing with them in Saas-Fee, a really pretty ski-resort more in South-West Switzerland, in the canton of Walis. Lukas and I took the train directly from Sedrun to Brig, and then a bus to Saas-Fee. Its actually not far from the Italian border, perhaps some 100km or so from Torino and the olympics. Its also home the t allest revolving restauraunt in the world at 3500m, as well as the tallest mountain in Switzerland, the Dom at some 4500m Anyway, I was still a bit sick on the first day in Saas-Fee, so i took it easy that day, And then the next 3 days i spent skiing mostly with Lukas in beautiful weather. We spent most of the time in the terrain park playing around on jumps. Unfortunatly i only brought my camera with me one day, but i got a couple of films of jumps. Unfortunatly these are kind of lame, but hey, you cant really do any real tricks with long straight skis. Then on the 3rd I somehow hurt my right ankle, something like a bruise deep in the muscle, right under the skiboot. Aaand, unfortunatly i really couldnt do much skiing after that, it just plain hurt whenever i had my ski-boots on. However it wasnt too bad. Saas-Fee is a really really nice little city, a lot of great restauraunts and cafes and whatnot, it even has a movie theater where Doris took us out to a movie on the second day. So really i spent the last 3 or 4 days of vacation lounging around in cafes, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, solving crosswords and sudokus, just taking it easy. Really it was an awsome week, good skiing, good company, good food, and, well just a good time. A very heartfelt and special thanks to the Ruoschs who invited me to go with them, and covered all the expenses for me. I really really do appreciate it.

Then this monday, school started again with the second semester. For those of you who are interested, here is my new schedule, i think on the whole its a bit better than my old one, less holes in it. I also have a new French class in which we just discuss politics and international affairs for 2 hours all in French, I can imagine its probobly going to be my new favorite class combining 2 of my favorite subjects, International Politics and French. Another thing, i think im going to start learning italian soon as well. Ive signed up to spend 2 weeks in Grosetto and Seine in Italy in June while staying with a hostfamily and before i go there, i plan on spending an hour or so a day learning italian baisics, and then once i learn enough i would like to maybe start taking italian lessons in the school. I really like the language a lot, and having already learnt both French and German, i think it should be pretty easy for me to pick up.

Then on top of school and everything, i am finally diving head first into the scholarship application pile. Finally i have finished with the college applications, (thanks mom+dad for helping me out there), and am now faced with the next step of scholarships and financial aid.

As for colleges i am currently 6 for 6 out of the 15 schools i applied for. So far ive been accepted at The University of Redlands (CA), University of the Pacific (CA), Portland State University (OR), Western Washington University (WA), Whitworth (WA), and WSU. Havent yet heard from the others. I would also like to personally thank Greg Raymond and Chris Swanson for their help with letters of reccomendation, graduation issues, and just with the whole college process. Thanks.

Mmmmm... trying to think if theres anything else that i can think of... oh yea, i turn 18 in less than 2 weeks! :D pretty excited about that.

Ive really been pretty bad with the pictures lately, always forgetting my camera, and when i dont forget it, i always forget to take pictures... Ill try and take more in the future.

Hope all is well back home.
Cheers! -Brett