GREAT NEWS: I’m not changing host families! Shortly before Christmas the family and I had a chat and we decided that things are going so well that I can stay until June J
Christmastime was magical. I had always heard about the Christmas celebration in Germany and how it is all about family, but to experience it was another matter. The whole Christmas season is filled with ‘Weihnachtsplaetzchen’ (yummy baked goods) and AMAZING food—I definitely gained a pound or two J Before Christmas we decorated the ‘Tannenbaum’ (Christmas tree) and built the ‘Krippe’ (manger scene). The Grandmas came over to celebrate Heilegenabend (Christmas Eve) and the ‘drei Feiertage’ (three days of Christmas). On Heiligenabend we went to church, ate dinner, exchanged gifts, and played for a midnight service with the orchestra.
We also did a video chat with my family in the US; I had a fun time introducing everyone and translating. The drei Feiertage were just as good; we took walks, played games, and spent some calm and peaceful time together. We all had a nice, relaxing holiday that I will never forget.
On Silvester (New Year’s Eve) I partied with the neighborhood. We brought in the New Year with awesome music and food AND I met a participant from last year’s CBYX program who came back for Silvester to visit his host family here in Ostheim. After Silvester my host family and I went to visit Grandma in Oberfranken. We spent a few days having fun on the farm, making snow forts, and going on walks. Verena and I rushed home on the 5th to celebrate her birthday at a club in Frankfurt, which was a blast
On January 17th was the New Year’s concert by our orchestra.
Toward the end January I spent some time at an orthopedist’s office where I shadowed the doctors during their rounds in the clinic. I learned a lot about the skeletal structure, chronic spine injuries, hip & knee replacement, pain management, and therapy techniques.
Our CBYX program Mid-year Seminar took place in Berlin from the 24th to the 29th of January. When we arrived we were all so happy to see each other again; some of us haven’t seen each other since we dispersed in Bonn. We spent the mornings attending presentations from Ronnie Golz, an English-born Berliner with a remarkable knack for history, politics, economics, sociology, and jokes about America. He was a fantastic guide when we hit the streets to explore Berlin; he left the typical sites for us to see on our own time and showed us widely unknown corners of Berlin with great historical significance.
For example, we visited the Stasi prison in Hohenschoenhausen that was used during the time of the GDR to detain political prisoners; that is, completely normal East Berliners who openly disagreed with the communist policies. We were given a tour by Mike, a 4-time prisoner at this very prison. He showed us his cell and described how he survived a total 6.5 years in one of the most mentally and psychologically brutal prisons known to Europe. He told us how he used optimism and humor to overcome the oppressions of prison as well as the GDR itself. Berlin is full of fantastic museums; I visited the GDR museum, the Berlin Cathedral museum, the Checkpoint Charlie museum, and the Holocaust museum. We saw lots of landmarks; Brandenburg Gate, Jewish Holocaust memorial, the 1936 Olympic stadium, the Memorial Church, and the Reichstag (Parliament building). Among our busy schedule of presentations and sightseeing we had lots of fun too; we went clubbing in Matrix and I saw Avatar in the SonyCenter i-max theater at Potsdamerplatz with a few buddies (awesome movie, by the way. Especially if you sit in the third row J) These experiences and so much more made my time in Berlin the trip of a lifetime.
Starting right after I got home from Berlin I started an EMT course with the Red Cross. A four-week course, our class of ten spends eight hours a day learning the basics of anatomy, emergency response, pathology, and patient care. After two weeks we took an exam, and I got a 1! (an A, in American terms) I was the only one in the class to get a 1 J The class in itself is going very well; the last couple days we’ve been doing mainly case studies where one of us plays the role of the patient while two others play the role of the EMTs. The teacher tells the patient what symptoms to exhibit and the EMTs provide emergency care. Sometimes the patient falls unconscious, allowing the EMTs to continue care on the CPR mannequin. I really enjoy the theoretical and practical aspects of this career field; I think I will continue with emergency response during college to gain practical experience for further medical studies. I owe a HUGE thank you to the Red Cross here in Hanau, who has taken such good care of me by completely covering the cost of this thousand-Euro course and organizing the internships that I will do at the local hospital the week after next.
To wrap things up I’d like to tell you about Karneval here in Germany. Karneval might conjure images of MardiGras-like celebrations in Rio de Janeiro but don’t be fooled, Germany celebrates Karneval as well. Starting the week before Ash Wednesday, certain parts of Germany (mostly northern Germany; Cologne, Mainz, Frankfurt) celebrate Karneval, sometimes called “the fifth season”, with wild parties, parades, and costumes. I was hoping to visit friends in Cologne where the biggest, baddest Karneval partying takes place but my EMT course didn’t give us off on Monday and Tuesday, when the parades and parties take place in Cologne.
Nevertheless I was able to make the best of things and I went to a Hessisch Rock concert with friends followed by a Karneval masquerade here in Ostheim. The next day I went to a Karneval parade in Hanau with my host family. I had a wicked good weekend and fulfilled my desire to get a piece of the Karneval action J
Thanks for reading! Sorry it’s been so long, as you can tell I’ve been pretty busy! Feel free to send me an email anytime at ryannot9691@aol.com or via Facebook—I’d love you hear from you
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