Life...

Well, it has come to the point where I have lost track on how long I have been here. Jetlag is all gone, and I have slipped into the daily routine of everyday life.

My alarm goes off at 6.15 every morning. EVERY. MORNING. I then get dressed and head down to breakfast. Leaving the house at 7, I bike to my friends house and then through the village until we reach the train station, to catch our 7.15 train. Then, after an 8 minute train ride we are in Lueneburg. We then get on our OTHER bikes, and bike to school ready to begin school at 8am. Twice a week I finish school at 3.15, the other 3 days I finish at 1.15.

Classes are going...varyingly. History and Geography, I have no clue what we are doing. None at all. Whatsoever. Nilch, zero, nil. Biology, I have some idea - it's kind of transportation over a cell membrane, active transport using Na+ and K+ pumps etc - stff I learnt in Year 11 thankfully. German, I have a little bit of an idea. A little. And Philosophy I have had only one class of and I can keep up (barely and very briefly) if I pay verry close attention. Maths...Maths. Ahhhm. Well, I think we can all agree I was never any form of mathematician in New Zealand, and unfortunately that is no different here. Whilst I can understand the numbers obviously, I have no clue how to work things out or anything - its all calculus and functions and eugh. And English. Well, I seem to have some form of gift for English. Due to my French teacher requesting I leave her class, I am now in two English classes - one in which I enjoy and have made some good friends, and one in which I tolerate.

After school, there is always the mad rush to the Train station to catch the train that leaves at 32 minutes past the hour - if you miss it, you have to wait another hour. My afternoons are slowly filling up - on Monday and Wednesday I have my verrry basic verrry beginners course in German. Origionally I was in a course for 'Knows some German words" on a Tuesday and Wednesday - this course, I soon learnt 5 minutes into my first class that it was a "Can speak fluent German and have fluent German converesations and oh look that girl there looks rather lost and confused and LETS TEACH HER HOW TO SPEAK GERMAN IN GERMAN". After that night of horror, I went home and spoke to my host mother asking if I could please change classes. The problem wasn't that I had no idea what people were saying - it seems I am quite good at understanding some things, it's just I don't know how to structure my own sentences and form my own responses - I don't know the rules and guidelines and when to use the small tricky words like mir or aus or how to say their or theirs or ours etc. Things I need to be taught, that I won't be able to learn just by listening, and the more advanced class has learnt aall of this. However, my beginners class is the complete opposite. When they say beginners, they REALLY mean beginners. My first lesson consisted of 45 minutes of introducing oursleves, back and forard around the room - "Hallo, Ich heisse Emma, wie heisst du?" and the other half consisted of "Gut-en ab-end", "Gut-en Mor-gen" - never have I felt the urge to bash my head repeatedly against a table more than that session! However, I must stick to it. This is the class that will hopefully cover what I need to learn, where the other class has already passed that.
Starting in March I will aslo have a Grammar course on Thursday nights.

Friday evenings are now filled with Choir, in the beautiful St Johannes Church in Lueneburg. There are around 20 singers, and myself and another girl are the oldest by two years, but I still enjoy it, and singing hymns and religious songs in German is definitely an experience!

Weekends are starting to get very full also. This weekend alone, I went clubbing with the two other exchange students in Lueneburg (after choir on Friday), stayed the night at one of their houses, got up at noon, was invited to go out with school friends but had to decline due to exhaustion and then spent today with one of my good friends at his house in another village, and met his horse, Lucky. Next weeknd is the Rotex weekend in Hundisburg, and the following is filled with a Rotary dinner and potentially some form of birthday celebrations (yet to be decided). The following weekend is a choir weekend away in Uelzen. Very busy!!

I have made some really great friends here, and most of them are German! They are definitely helping me embrace the German life - some even insisted that I join them for a tradition in germany, where the night before they get their school reports they go out to a club for most of the night, and then straight to school with no sleep. I joined them for some time, however was picked up by my lovely Host brother at 1am as I had no way of getting to my school in the morning and to be honest, 1am was definitely enough for me! The club was smoky, hot and incredibly crowded and I was surrounded by a lot of drunk, smoking people - not really my scene at all! My friends also aren't too impressed with my 'No drinking' rule, but I have proven to them that one can have fun without the help of gross beer!

I also seem to be losing a bit of weight - I think it is due to the small amount of mean consumed here as opposed to New Zealand. Whereas in Nz we have meat with almost every meal, and we have a large quantity of it, here meat is used more to give flavour or texture to a sauce or something, rather than a vital component of a meal. And yes, I am confirming the sterotypical German diet - bread. Bread for lunch, sometimes dinner, and fresh rolls for breakfast in the weekend. Mmmm covered in nutella - I absolutely love it!

Theres not much else to say - its still bloody cold here, and will be for another two weeks at least. More smow is expected tomorrow, which I am surprisingly not looking forward to - biking in snow storms is horrible! But hey, all part of my new life!

But I am exhausted now, and am off to sleep.
Nuhnight!