Trexler’s adventures in Germany, as a Student Ambassador.
2024 : August | September | October
AUGUST 2024
Wazzup Troop 13!!
My name is Trexler B. and I’m a Life Scout in Troop 13 and a Junior in high school currently studying abroad in Germany. I arrived in August and will be living here until June of 2025.
Overview
I’m here as part of a program called CBYX (Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange), in which the US government sends 250 high school students to Germany for the academic year to serve as youth ambassadors of the United States. Germany sends the same number of high school students to the US at the same time, in an exchange which attempts to build connections between the two countries and build the diplomatic relationship between the US and Germany. The program is a full-ride scholarship, with a 2% acceptance rate, where the US covers any mandatory costs including flight tickets, school tuition while abroad, and room and board during Language Camp, before you go to your host family. Your host family covers your room and board, which is incredibly generous of them, especially because the German government only gives them 70€ a month to help financially. That being said, your host family is not just your bed and breakfast. You are expected to help out around the house, follow their rules, and listen to them. One thing my program emphasised heavily before I left was that this is not a vacation year, and you are not here to party. You are here to bond with your host family, make friends, and experience life from a German perspective. You are also expected to participate actively in school and make an effort to learn German, although you are not expected to be as good at either of these as a native speaker. CBYX just wants to see that you’re making an effort. All that being said, you’re not just here to do homework, you’re also here for new experiences, adventures, friendships, and growth. Thus, one of the things I’ve had to learn is balancing homework with immersion- learning German, hanging out with friends, spending time with my host family, and exploring. But before I get into all that, which is coming in later updates, I want to start with an explanation of how I’m here and my first month in Germany.
CBYX Implementation
Although the CBYX program is funded through the US State Department, the organisation running our language camp and implementing our year abroad was YFU (Youth for Understanding). It was YFU volunteers that coordinated our travel to Germany, YFU volunteers that organized our language camp, and YFU volunteers who are assigned to check up on us every month or so to make sure that everything is okay. YFU is not the only organization in charge of implementing CBYX though. The program is administered by four different private exchange organisations across the US, with each organisation taking a region of the country. My organisation, YFU, was mostly just in charge of the Midwest, but somehow Tennessee got rolled in there too.
How It All Started
I had heard about the program initially from my sister who participated in a similar state department scholarship, studying in Taiwan for the academic year. She knew that I was interested in going abroad, and wanted to learn German, so she mentioned this to me on the way to school one day. At first, it just sounded like a cool idea, but I didn’t think it was actually realistic. Then the application opened and I, half on a whim, decided to start an application. As I filled out more and more of the application, however, I really started thinking seriously about it. By the time I was putting the finishing touches on the five essays I had to write, I was really thinking this might be a possibility. So there I was, on Halloween, furiously finishing up everything on my application just hours before it was due. In the end though, it all got in on time, and I still had time for some Halloween fun!! Only a few days later, I got a date for my interview, the second state of the application. I felt like I had put in a very strong application, and my interviewer told me I had done very well, but I didn’t hear anything more until February, 2024, when I received the email that I was a semi-finalist. This was so exciting for me after months of waiting; for the first time this program looked like it might be a reality. Even after making it this far though, nothing could prepare me for the shock of opening my email one day in March at the end of art class, to find out I had been accepted. It was like a dream come true for me, after so long waiting and worrying and hoping, this was such an amazing development!! I don’t know if I can express the amazement I felt of one minute going about my normal business and normal life, then the next finding out I could be spending the next school year halfway around the world, for free. That was a truly amazing moment!! After thinking it over for a couple of days, I finally decided to take the scholarship. It was a hard decision however, because I was also being offered a State Department scholarship to study abroad for free in Turkey for the academic year. In both cases, I would get to live with a host family and experience a totally new part of the world, which I was super excited about, but it also worried me a little about missing my junior year. I had fun classes lined up for my American high school, and worried about missing out on them, but I eventually decided this was such an incredible, ance-in-a-lifetime experience, that it was worth taking. So, several hours of paperwork and packing, several weeks of preparation, and several months of anticipation later, I landed in Germany, ready for a new adventure.
Language Camp
I spent the first month of time in Germany in Bad Sachsa, Niedersachsen (one of Germany’s 16 states), a little village nestled in the Harz Mountains of Germany. Here I was in a language camp with about 50 other CBYXers where we received a basic introduction to German culture and language. In the mornings, we would have three hours of German language class at a local international school nearby the hotel we were staying at, then in the afternoon we had three hours of cultural education on Germany. In the evenings we would often have optional group activities like field games or sports, and we also played a lot of pool (billiards) and table kicker (the German word for foosball). One of the kids even set up a foosball tournament with 11+ different two-person teams which were all named for real top-level German soccer teams, competing for the top spots. It was a ton of fun!!
School
During the week we all had German lessons for three hours during the morning at the local school. We were separated into groups based on prior German knowledge, and assigned teachers accordingly. Although we were in private German intensive classes (without normal students at the school), we got to meet and talk with the regular German students each day during our twenty minute break. It was during this time that I ended up making about six goodish friends who I continued to bond with throughout my time in Bad Sachsa.
Cultural Sessions
During the middle and late afternoons, we would have culture sessions in which we learned a lot about German culture, traditions, stereotypes, and more. The idea of these classes was to give us an introduction to German culture and norms so that we weren’t as culture shocked when arriving at our host families. In other sessions we also covered German politics and history. In my politics session I learned a ton about Germany’s political parties, of which there are seven, and where they stand on various issues. Unlike in the US where so many things are polarized into Democratic and Republican or Conservative and Liberal, in Germany the large number of parties allows for more a spectrum of opinions. Plus, this way it’s not like an all-or-nothing scenario the way it is in the US. Here you are still likely to see legislation you like passed regardless of who is in power, because many of the parties are at least somewhat similar, unlike in the US where you are more likely to see a lot of legislation you like passed, or almost no legislation that you like passed. My history session was also highly informative, in it I learned a ton about the NSU (the National Socialist Underground). This was a Neo-Nazi terrorist organization in Germany in the early 2000s that was responsible for numerous bombings and murders across the country, all orchestrated by three of its most important members, targeting immigrants in Germany. This was really interesting to learn about because until this point I had known very little about the recent history of the country.
Field Trips
Often on the weekends the staffers who ran our program would organise day trips for us, including to a neighbouring city-Göttingen, a 14th Century monastery, and to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. I always learned a lot on these trips and it was really cool to see more of the area surrounding where we were staying. In Göttingen we were allowed to roam around as we chose; granted we were in groups of 3+ people. It was really cool to see an at least slightly bigger German town after only being in Bad Sachsa. On the other hand, the monastery was really cool for the opposite reason. It was nestled in this very old town with not a lot of shops or anything but tons of old trees pushing up between and around the ruins, and creeks and other beautiful nature. It was really nice to see both worlds and gave me a better understanding of the region where we were staying. Of all our little field trips though, the one I learned the most on was our trip to Buchenwald. This was one of Germany’s three major concentration camps, along with Dachau and Sachsenhausen. We received a guided tour from two people who had both studied the camp and led us around, then were released to explore on our own recognisance. I remember in some ways it was kind of hard to picture the true horror of what happened there because there is not much standing to reference, but one part that really did hit hard was the crematorium. Walking through that room, knowing that tens of thousands of people if not more had been burned to ashes in those ovens was awful. Despite especially hard parts like this, I am glad I went and feel I have an even better understanding now of just how terrible Holocaust really was. It’s one thing to read about it in books or see documentaries about it, but it’s quite another to actually stand on the very same stones as hundreds of thousands of people before you, and to realize this is where they were killed. This understanding of Germany’s past is crucial to understanding German culture, because the last hundred years of German history are still very visible to this day. For instance, all over Germany in both big towns and small you can find little metal bricks set into the street in front of the houses of people sent to concentration and death camps under the Nazi Regime.
Free Time
In our free time we often hung out around the hotel or went into the town, particularly after dinner, for a second dinner. German traditional dinner is soup and bread, it’s literally called “evening bread,” which is not the most filling, particularly when you are having it every day. To make up for this, we often went out to a nearby pizza and Döner Kebab restaurant that was relatively cheap. In fact, almost every evening you could see CBYXers there. That being said, sometimes I felt a little cooped up in the hotel because of the rules around when and how you could leave. For instance, you had to have two other people with you whenever you left the hotel, so if you wanted to go out, you had to hope that other people were both free and also wanted to. This was hard for me because I wanted to try and run most mornings, and sometimes I could get two other people to come but one of them was sick for a few days and eventually it became complicated enough that I decided to postpone running completely until after language camp. Although this was sad, it did certainly teach me to appreciate what I could do, and helped me to more fully appreciate the runs and hikes that I was able to go on.
Food
As far as food, it was in this first month of living in Germany that I got my first real taste of traditional German food traditions. Often for breakfast you have a bread roll or two called Brötchen, these are super common in Germany, filled with nutella or deli meat, deli cheese, cold veggies etc. along with yogurt on the side. Then unlike in the US, lunch is the hot and largest meal here traditionally, unlike in the US where dinner fills this role. For dinner, you just have soup and a little bread. The word for dinner in German literally translates to evening bread, and is more of a snack to keep you going than a real meal. Getting used to this new way of life was definitely an adjustment, and by the end of it everyone in my YFU cohort, including me, and the staff who ran it, all felt we didn’t want to see any more soup and bread for a very long time.
Lows
One thing I feel like people don’t really see with regard to exchange is just how hard it is mentally and emotionally. It’s certainly not something I realised until coming here, but this exchange is probably the hardest thing I have ever done. For one thing, you miss your family and friends. You miss your people, the people who you get along with and who want to hang out with you, who you click with. I would say that was one of the hardest parts of language camp for me, not having those people. Basically everyone had formed into cliques and while I got along pretty well with most of the people, I didn’t feel like I fit in any of the groups.Over time I found ways to connect with people and make friends, especially at the school in Bad Sachsa where we had our German lessons, and just hung out with them more. So while it was really hard, and I did feel really lonely sometimes, I feel like it helped me branch out more and make more friends in my new (if temporary )home. That being said, this exchange is definitely not all sunshine and rainbows, as you will hear more about later, and that’s definitely something to keep in mind when you are applying. You will have great experiences and be so glad you came sometimes, and then there will be times that you are incredibly lonely and sad and homesick and just want to be back with your people, where you fit, in the US.
Highs
In spite of these hard parts, language camp certainly had many highs, from making new friends and exploring with them to movie nights with other campers. One of my favorite memories from Language Camp is from the very first week we were there. People hadn’t really started forming cliques yet as much so it was easy to make friends quickly. In this case, I bonded with two girls over running: we all wanted to run and since you needed to be in groups of 3+ people whenever you were leaving the hotel, we decided to all run together. We all met up early the next morning before breakfast and started on our run, but only made it about half a mile in because one of the girls was having cardio issues. Instead of running further, we explored Bad Sachsa, and had tons of fun splashing around in a creek we found right off the road. After that we still had free time so we explored the local school; little did we know this would be the same school where we would be studying for the next four weeks. I remember we found and crushed a soda can into a puck and ended up playing soccer with it at the school for at least twenty minutes. We even named the can Carl and brought it with us, as a new member of the group. During this time when we were playing can soccer, we also met a few of the kids who went to the school which was really cool because these were the first Germans we had met, who were our age. I remember one of the kids I dubbed “USA Boy” because I said hello to him in English and he went AMERICA!! I looked for him at the school every day after that, but never did find USA Boy again. This first morning of running and exploring was a tremendous bonding experience for me and my new friends. Even though our little group drifted apart some as time went on, this morning remains one of my favourite memories from the whole month. A few other highlights were watching old Disney movies like Hercules with some of the other campers and tons of delicious snacks, and exploring and hiking around Bad Sachsa. Of all the hikes I went on though, one stands out as the most memorable and fun. I had gone out with a few of my friends for a little walk around the town, but after a short time, we got distracted playing on this playground, and then found a trail leading into the woods from the playground. We ended up exploring along this trail for a long while and it was so beautiful with a soft winding blowing over everything and those long, leaning grasses and tall towering trees and bunches of bushes of wild black berries. It felt like we were in another world, you couldn’t see any sign of human presence except for the trail we were walking on, we could have been up in the mountains, which in fact we were, miles away from anything. It was so fun and freeing to feel like we had escaped into a different world with no buildings or cars or anything, just the dirt and the trees, and trails, and the mountain. You could look in any direction and you would just see trees and rocks and grasses and other mountains, and not one car. Later on we stumbled across this little fairy tale park with little creeks and statues out of Grimm’s fairy tales and cute little huts. At the front, the entry was even carved and painted with Santa and elf faces. The whole scene felt like something out of a fairy tale, and it was so cool to see!! After a long while more hiking, we found our way back to the playground and went home, but even now, more than three months later, I am still filled with nostalgia for that early morning adventure.
This concludes my August update for my life in Germany. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to reach out to me with any questions!! It may take me some time to respond because I want to minimize contact back home for better immersion but I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner!!
Yours in Scouting,
Trexler B.
SEPTEMBER 2024
GOOD MORNING TROOP 13,
This is Trexler back again with the September issue of my year abroad. At the start of September I just had boarded the train from my language camp to Bremen, my new home. My host mom was waiting for me with flowers on the platform when I arrived, which was incredibly sweet of her. After saying goodbye to my American friends whom I had ridden to Bremen with, I hopped in the car with my host mom and headed towards my new home. As we drove she pointed out the main landmarks of the city: the fall tower at the university which towers over Bremen, where they do zero gravity experiments, the radio tower, and the different neighborhoods of Bremen, as we drove through them.
It was all sort of a blur, I was still in shock that I had reached my phone for the whole sear, after so long anxiously awaiting this day. Anyways, when I got to my host family’s house, my host brother had just gotten home from school and so I met him and liked him immediately, before sitting down to Kaffee and Kuchen (coffee and cake), a major German tradition, basically the German equivalent of Afternoon Tea. Later that day my host brother walked me around my new neighborhood and showed me my new school, Gymnasium Horn. Seeing the gymnasium was a big shock. As someone who had spent the last two years in an American public high school, the school seemed like the cleanest building I had ever seen. It looks very modern and new, with brightly painted walls and tons of natural light.
On that first walk with my host brother, we bonded so much!! He took me to some of his favorite spots in the area and we talked a ton about everything, but especially favorite movies (we both agreed that many Spielberg films definitely rank at the top), and compared notes on what sports we liked to play. Over the next several days I did a TON with my host family. We biked into the city Center the day after I arrived and walked around a ton there, including to see the famous Bremen Town Musicians, from the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale, and the Schnoor, Bremen’s beautiful old district filled with tons of little shops, cute little cobbled streets, and tucked away down a little side street, the smallest flat in Germany. Slightly less famous but no less exciting was my introduction to what my host brother calls “the best public toilets in Bremen.”
Public Bathrooms
In Germany, free public toilets are virtually non-existent, and even public toilets where you have to pay are very limited. While in the US most every shop, restraint, and department store has a public toilet, though it sometimes costs, here you could visit 30 such establishments and not find one bathroom. For this, I feel so blessed to have a public toilet here, be it two flights up in a department store, and make sure to visit it and leave it with a parting gift whenever I am in the neighborhood.
Early Adventures with my Host Family
The next day, we drove to a neighboring city and I got to see the North Sea, just an hour from my home. This was a crazy experience for me, as someone who has lived almost his entire life hundreds if not thousands of miles away from salt water. It was so fun to wade out in the waves and feel the salt spray on my skin. Then later that afternoon I tried Baked Fish, a popular food here in Northern Germany consisting of freshly baked fish usually with a lemon sauce on top, inside of a warm bun. It was so cool to have this new cultural experience and is not one I will soon forget.
The following weekends were filled up with equally new experiences, ranging from riding an elevator that never stops, you just hop on and hop off as it moves, to trying my first (alcohol-free) beer. My host mom had tons of ideas for things we could all do together in Bremen and worked really hard to make these ideas possible.
School in Germany
Just three days after I arrived in Bremen, I started at my new school. This was a kind of crazy experience for me because school here is so different from how it is in the US. For starters, the school has kids from grades 5-13, which was a shock to me because I had only ever gone to high school with kids in 9-12 grade. Also high school is different here: in the US everyone goes to a high school, but here people either go to an Oberschule, which is basically like traditional high school, or to a gymnasium, which is specifically for academics. In fact, gymnasiums do not have sports teams, bands, spirit weak, or really any kind of school spirit whatsoever like that which is associated with high school in the US. Furthermore, each grade is divided into 5 tracks, and you get to pick a track based on what you want to focus on. Each track also corresponds to a letter of the alphabet (A-F), so instead of just saying your grade level, you also say your letter, for instance I’m 11f. Of the five tracks, mine is Philosophy, the others are Economics, Math, Biologie, and English. Another major difference is the grading system here. Often students aren’t aware what grade they have in the class all the time, unlike in the US where you can check on PowerSchool whenever you want. Here, everyone has a private conversation with the teacher at the end of the quarter during which the student and teacher discuss the grade and the teacher explains it in depth. The grade is out of 15 points, where 15 is 100% and 0 is 0%. Another big difference is how tests are done. In the US, tests tend to be more frequent in school but each test carries less weight. Over here, there tends to be only one test per quarter, but it is weighted very heavily and is very long. One last big difference is the school schedule here as opposed to in the US. In Germany, everyone has a block schedule, so a different schedule for each day of the week, with only certain classes each day, unlike in the US where you have the same schedule for every day. This means that over here, I get out of school at different times each day, depending on when my classes and have a lunch break at a different time each day, except for on Thursday, when I don’t have one. Sometimes the schedule gets even crazier though, when classes are canceled. Because my school doesn’t have substitute teachers, whenever a teacher can’t come, we just don’t have class. This is a very pleasant surprise, but if you do anything you need to make sure you aren’t biting off more than you can chew. I made this mistake within the first few weeks here. I had my first few classes of the day canceled so I DECIDED TO GO INTO THE TOWN CENTER AND EXPLORE. I WALKED AROUND A LOT AND SO A LOT OF BREMEN, BUT I misjudged the time, and accidentally missed math class. I didn’t think this was a problem at the time, but later that day when i told my host mom she made sure I learned you NEVER MISS CLASS.
My Host Family Experience
Since coming to Germany I have gotten to know my host family, my host brother and my host mom, a ton more and have bonded with them tremendously. Some of my favorite moments have been playing Mario Kart and Badminton/Basketball with my host brother after dinner, and picking quinces then making quince cake with my host mom. They have always made sure to include me and support me in doing things I like to do, and I try to do the same for them, which has helped us become so much closer. I had texted with my host brother some prior to coming here, but there’s a big difference between texting from across the Atlantic and actually living together. Despite the culture shocks that come with suddenly living together after never even knowing each other in person, we have gotten along so well and have gotten a ton closer. My host family worked super hard to make sure I felt at home, and were incredibly supportive of me in the transition. Although we get along really well, there are always some bumps that come with living together, particularly after not living together before. For instance, at one point my host mom was upset with me because I had left my window open for about an hour to let fresh air in. She had told me previously that eventually it could only be open for fifteen minutes at a time so as not to let too much warm air out, but I hadn’t realized it was that time yet. We talked it out though and ever since I’ve made sure to only keep my window open for fifteen minutes at a time, three times a day. This is a practice all across Germany in order to ventilate rooms and prevent molding while minimizing the amount of warm air let out. We have had more bumps like this, but we have always talked them out and have grown because of it. Another time, my host mom was upset with me because she felt like I wasn’t pulling my weight around the house and taking her work for granted, which was surprising to me because I felt like I was trying to help out a lot. After a healthy conversation though, we came to a much better understanding and have functioned a lot more smoothly since. These misunderstandings are just par for the course, as miscommunication is a part of communication, and although we have had issues from time to time, we have always worked them out, and these issues are far overshadowed by the tremendous amount of wonderful things I have done with them and how much we have bonded. One of things that has helped us grow the most I think is communication and mutual effort to build the relationship. My host family laid out rules and expectations early on and I did my best to learn them quickly, likewise my host family was very patient with me and gave me a lot of grace, for which I am very grateful to them.
Food in Bremen
Another large part of my immersion experience here has been trying new food and drinks here, from Döner Kebab to Alcohol-Free Beer. Döner is an incredibly common street food here and can be found on most major streets. It consists of thinly sliced strips of meat-typically chicken or beef here-covered with sauce, onions, lettuce, etc. all stuffed into a pita. It is delicious and you all should definitely try it if you’re in Germany. Another big street food here, and one that originates from Bremen, is the Rollo. This is basically the same thing as a Döner kebab except as a wrap instead of pita and is also incredibly good. While both of these foods are incredibly prolific in Germany, they are both relatively new here, brought over by Turkish immigrants looking for better lives. More traditional food here is potatoes, asparagus in the spring, which is a huge deal, the German government even has a designated start and end to asparagus season, and where I am, fish. Once upon a time, fish was very common in the north, while meat was more common in the south. This is no longer as true though because the invention of refrigerated trucks has allowed for the long-distance movement of these foods which would otherwise spoil, across Germany.
Bremen
Also, I want to give you guys a little introduction to Bremen. It’s located in Northwest Germany near the North Sea and is both a city and a state inside of Germany, as it is not part of any of Germany’s other 15 states. For a little context, Germany is divided into 16 big states, and most of them encompass multiple cities, with the exceptions of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen,which are all their own city-states. Bremen’s history and culture have been built around centuries of trade, as it sits on the Weser River, and thus has long been a center of maritime trade in Northwest Germany. In this way, and in other respects, it reminds me of Memphis. It’s the poorest of Germany’s sixteen states and has a sort of grittiness to it. It’s not like the pictures you all may have seen of pristine German villages nestled up in the snowy alps of Bavaria, but rather cold and wet, and pretty gray. The weather tends to be very bleak: often gray and mistily raining, but for all that, it’s still my home and I love it. It’s like in the Springsteen song “My Hometown,” it may not necessarily be the nicest place always, or the wealthiest, but it’s your home, and you love it all the same. Despite this, one of the questions I’ve been asked the most is why did I choose to come to Bremen of all the cities in Germany. I have met many people who are bewildered that I come to Germany, and live in Bremen rather than in Munich or Hamburg or Berlin. The truth is, I didn’t choose to come here, my host family picked me, not the other way around. That being said, I wouldn’t trade living here for anything. I’ve found friends, I have an incredible host family, and I have learned so much about myself and the world around me.
Bremen Demographic Makeup
Bremen has a very diverse demographic and economic makeup because as a harbor city it has a long history of people moving here for jobs or else experiencing the city from ships, liking it, and moving in. The city has a huge Turkish population, many of whom moved here with their families seeking work on the water. This has led to the growth of almost entirely Turkish neighborhoods, neighborhoods which many Germans regard with suspicion. In fact, in Bremen there is fairly strong suspicion of Turkish people in general and many Germans do not like to go into the Turkish neighborhoods. This bias has led to the rise of strong tensions between Turkish and German people, visible particularly in wealth and location. Often though not always, Germans in Bremen tend to have more money than Turks in the city, and likewise live in wealthier areas than their Turkish counterparts. This unwritten segregation has only furthered the divide between the two ethnic groups in a city already divided by wealth.
Independence
Another big thing I’ve noticed here is how much more independence kids and teenagers have here. For instance, everyone here, even young kids, bike to school by themselves. Whereas in the US kids’ parents have to drive them everywhere, here the kids take care of their own transport to and from school, as well as to sports and after-school activities. Speaking of which, kids here also have far greater autonomy than I’ve seen in the US. Here, as far as I can tell, kids are free to do what they want as long as they are back when they are supposed to be. Parents aren’t really worried the way they are in the states. It has been super nice to have all this independence, since in Memphis a lot of things were harder to do because they either involved a car, or were not as safe-like walking around at 9:30 pm when it is super dark.
Safety
I think part of this independence comes from a safety and compactness seen in European cities that has not made it to the US. Bremen is much safer than Memphis and even what is seen as the worst crime is often not nearly as bad as Memphis crime. For one thing, guns are not really a problem here since the only people allowed to have guns are police officers and hunters. Even then, whenever the gun is not in action it must be locked up in a government-approved safe, and even obtaining a gun is difficult. It requires years of training, tons of paperwork, and thousands of dollars, because of this, they are far less prevalent here. Plus, poverty is a lot lower here, and so people are not as desperate. While poverty is still very existent here, it is neither as widespread nor as intense as is seen in Memphis. All this, combined with a well-regulated police force, makes Bremen far safer to be in, especially at night, than Memphis. For instance, after a fair one night I had to bike thirty minutes back to my house through the city and never once felt I was in danger. While there certainly are neighborhoods everyone says to avoid here, there are fewer of them than in Memphis, and they do not seem quite as tough as the toughest parts of Memphis. It has been so nice to have this heightened sense of security and is definitely something I like more about Germany than the US.
Friends
One thing that was harder to get used to though was friends. For the first several weeks, I was never really sure who was a real friend and who was trolling me. Plus I figured plenty of people were just being nice to me because they thought I was cool, as the exchange student. Despite this, I did my best to be nice to everyone and over time did start to find my people. It definitely became easier as time went on and I settled in, for which I am very grateful.
This concludes my September update for my life in Germany. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to reach out to me with any questions!! It may take me some time to respond because I want to minimize contact back home for better immersion but I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner!!
Yours in Scouting,
Trexler B
OCTOBER 2024
Good morning Troop 13!!
It’s Trexler, and I’m back with the October issue of my year in Germany. October was filled with many new experiences, from meeting my host family’s extended family, to seeing the Freimarkt (Bremen’s biggest festival all year). During this month I also continued to settle in to my new home, bond further with my host family, and make more friends.
Fall Break
Just one week into October, I had my fall break, and with it my first German holiday break. The German system doesn’t do Thanksgiving break, instead they do two to two and a half weeks of break for fall break. During the first weekend of this break my host family and I headed to Rostock to visit my host family’s extended family, stopping on the way to see Wismar.
Wismor is another German Harbor town with beautiful old buildings and churches,much like many of the towns in northern Germany. We walked all around the town and saw lots, from an old, peaceful canal lined by trees casting cool shade across the water, to a beautiful and massive old church dating back to the 15th Century, which had taken more than 100 years to build!! While at the church we were even able to join a tour group and get a tour of the church from the rafters hidden in the walls right below the roof. It was super cool to see the church from above and to feel almost like we were in the Phantom of the Opera, hidden in the catwalk over 100 feet up, able to see everything, without being seen from below. Another particularly memorable part was seeing and walking around the foundation of what had once been a huge, old church that had been almost completely levelled during World War Two. Allied bomber planes had been too heavy to land because they still had bombs aboard, so they had to empty their bombs somewhere, and one of those places was this church. All that is left are the foundation walls, forming the outline of the building, serving as a memorial to the destructiveness of war. I remember walking around inside and reflecting on the tremendous power of weapons today, and just how utterly destructive war is in all of its forms. The whole memorial was deeply sobering and thought-provoking, both changing and reinforcing the way I view war today. We saw a lot more of Wismar throughout the afternoon before having a snack of baked fish, a traditional street-food from northern Germany, and continuing on our way to Rostock.
Rostock lies in what used to be East Germany, in the state of Mecklenburg- Vorpommen. It is the largest city in the state and has one of the oldest universities in northern Germany. The city sits right next to the Baltic Sea, which we were staying only about ten minutes from, and which we visited every day while we were in Rostock. On that first day in the city I got to meet my host family’s extended family- two cousins a few years older than me, an aunt, an uncle, and a grandmother. They were all incredibly welcoming to me, giving me handshakes and hugs, even though they had never met me before!! That evening I got to know them and was able to seriously practice my German for the first time, because my aunt and uncle don’t speak much English and my grandma doesn’t speak any. That evening my immediate host family and I had a lovely dinner prepared by my host grandma and talked all together a while more before turning in for the night. My host grandma also gave both my host brother and me each a box of Ferrero-Rocher chocolates and some many, an incredibly generous gift, especially considering she had only just met me!!
The next was just as interesting. In the morning we went for a walk along the beach, right next to the Baltic Sea, which was lovely, before having a breakfast of fresh pastries from a local bakery before heading into Rostock to explore the town.Throughout the day we walked around the town, seeing the university there (the oldest in northern Germany), as well as my host mom’s childhood home, and the famous walls and main gate of the old city.
Other highlights of the visit included having dinner at a Greek restaurant where i got to try a non-alcoholic beer and some good Greek food, a massive grill out on our last night in Rostock, with my extended host family, featuring more amazing grilled meat and other food than I could have ever have imagined, and talking to my host-cousin who had done the same program that i am now on, only a couple years ago. In fact, he is the reason I have the host family I do-he told them about YFU and inspired them to start hosting. It was really fun to compare notes with him about our time abroad, especially because he had gone from Germany to the US and I was doing the opposite, so it was really cool to see the differences.
One of my favourite memories from the whole trip was when we all had breakfast together on our last day in Rostock. It was a traditional German breakfast of fruits, deli meats and cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, fresh Brötchen (bread rolls), and other similar foods. That morning my host brother and host cousins introduced me to a German game with the boiled eggs. You go around the table knocking your eggs together trying to crack each others’ eggs, and the last person with an uncracked egg wins. I lost almost immediately, but it was still really fun!!
I loved my time in Rostock and really connected with my host family’s family there. I am so grateful for how welcoming they were to me, and I can’t wait for the next trip!!
On the way back we stopped at Schloss Ahrensburg, a castle dating back to the 17th Century nestled right outside Hamburg. This was my first visit to a German castle, although by no means my last, and it was really cool to see!! The castle was surrounded by an algae-covered moat, just like you hear about in the stories, with tall, white walls towering straight out of the water. Inside was fairly normal, filled with elegant old furniture and art, much like in any old, wealthy living residence.
After this first adventure, fall break proved to still have more new and exciting experiences in store for me. Two that stand out in particular, are my solo trip around Bremen and my trip to Schwerin, Germany with my host family. For my Bremen trip, I decided to go to the Hafen Museum, which I had heard was cool, nestled in Übersee Stadt, a part of Bremen right on the river where Bremen’s shipping all used to happen. I had made a list of possible places to see in Bremen, a way of keeping myself busy during fall break so that I didn’t just sit at home, and this seemed like a good way to start checking off that list. Getting to the museum was definitely an adventure, I had to use a combination of google maps, common sense, and trial and error, all while navigating cars, pedestrians, and other bikers. Despite these obstacles, I eventually made it to the museum and had an awesome visit. That being said, while the museum was very cool, with lots of interactive exhibits from being able to lift sandbags via ropes and pulleys the way people would have on ships, to being able to smell the fragrances of various goods traded daily in the Harbor, the real adventure was actually getting to the museum and getting back. The trip took me through parts of Bremen I had rarely if ever been in, such as the Burger park, which is one of Bremen’s main urban forests, and gave me a better sense for the layout of the city overall. I feel like I learned a lot from having to use a street map and having to pay attention to the areas around me. It got me to observe a lot more of the area as I passed through, than I would have if I was just riding in a car. I’m so glad I am able to have experiences like this and grow my independence and understanding of the city.
My last big adventure of my lovely and long fall break was my trip to Schwerin with my host family. The city is the capital of the German state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the same state in which Rostock is. Although Rostock is the biggest city in the state, Schwerin is the capital. This is where my host mom had attended university and had lived for a few years afterwards. She still has a good college friend there, so we were visiting her. It was really cool to hear their university stories and you could tell that even now, all these years later, they remain incredibly close. During our brief stay, my host mom’s friend took us all around Schwerin and it was gorgeous to see, especially in fall. The city is filled with lakes and ponds, and beautiful, cobbled, tree lined streets with few cars and that were incredibly clean. The city was very quiet and peaceful, and felt like it was meant a lot more for bikes and pedestrians than for cars, which I really liked. Plus, the leaves were just starting to change from green to beautiful shades of yellow and red, lining both the trees and the streets below with an abundance of fall colours. Yet another stunning feature of the city was the beautiful old palace which we were able to tour. It dates back to when Germany was several different independent states, and in it you can see a vast collection of beautiful old antique things and rooms, including a beautiful marble throne room and the private library of the Duke who lived there, that being said, i think the outside was even more beautiful, with a cobbled bridge flanked by two huge metal statues, that led up to the main gate, and towering walls that formed a hexagon around a central courtyard. The most incredible part about it though was simply how detailed and fancy it was, it certainly looked the part as a palace. I remember the first time I saw it, it took my breath away: you come over a small dip in the cobbled street and there it is towering beautifully, just a quarter mile away. Needless to say, this was an incredibly interesting break all around and I look forward to the next one, which now is only a few weeks away.
Community Mindset
One big cultural difference I’ve noticed here is the presence of a community mindset in Germany that I haven’t really noticed in the US. People are more mindful of disturbing others, especially with noise, and really in all aspects of life here there is more mindfulness of others and of the community as a whole, people aren’t just worried about themselves the way they often are in the US. Plus, rules are followed by everyone all the time, not just by people when they feel like it, and there is a much greater feeling of rules being there to help keep the community running and for the greater good of everyone, rather than just being there to be broken.
School Differences
Since coming to Germany I’ve noticed a variety of school differences from the US. For instance, people here dress a lot more nicely for school each day, often in jeans and clean (mostly) sneakers. You don’t see anyone in pyjama pants or anything along those lines. Another big difference is while most guys I have seen wear backpacks, most girls opt for a tote bag to hold their school supplies, unlike in the US where everyone uses a backpack. Another big difference is the emphasis here placed on school and grades. Many kids here, in gymnasiums at least, often only hang out on the weekends opting to study and do homework all week. School here is definitely a bigger priority and more of a sole focus than it is in the US. The last big thing I’ve noticed is the difference in how grades are given. Instead of having homework and classwork grades, students are graded only on participation in class and big tests for each class at the end of each quarter. While teachers sometimes give homework, it is not graded, instead you use it to help with participation in class the next day.
Insider Notes on Bremen
One thing I’ve really enjoyed since coming to Bremen has been learning more about the city as an insider who lives there, not just as a tourist. From my host mom especially, I’ve learned more about Bremen’s financial problems and why it is so poor, things that I never would have learned were I not living here. Two of the biggest problems stem from transportation costs and living costs respectively. One of Bremen’s big problems is that the city center, the Bremen equivalent of downtown, the main tourist destination of the city, is dying. This is because people who live in Bremen no longer can afford to come here for shopping and thus move further out to make their lives easier. In the city center parking is incredibly hard to find and incredibly expensive, and the tram that runs throughout the city is not cheap either. This means that if you want to go grocery shopping, furniture shopping, etc. you must use a car or the tram, but sometimes the stuff you are buying is too much to bring on the tram. At any rate, you certainly can’t bike with your new things, and biking is about the only easy and affordable way to get in and out of the city center. Because of this, stores are moving out of the center, and people are too. This has caused a major decline in the city center population as the city spreads out, similar to many American cities today. The other problem is that Bremen is incredibly poor because of a lack of tax revenue. In Germany, you pay taxes to the state you live in, and tons of people who work in Bremen live in neighboring Niedersachsen because it is cheaper. This means that they commute daily via Bremen’s infrastructure, but their money does not go to its upkeep. Because of this, the government of Bremen has to pull money from other government programs to repair this infrastructure, resulting in a constant lack of revenue for Bremen. Another big problem in Bremen is flooding, which I learned about from my host brother who was giving a presentation on it to his class. Bremen, like many cities, is almost all stone and asphalt, except for the two big city parks. Also, Bremen is very rainy and tends to be cold and wet almost all the time. Because so much of the city is stone though, the water can not be absorbed into the ground, and it is too often wet and cold for all the water to evaporate, resulting in a major flooding problem across the city.
Despite these issues, living here there are also things I’ve come to love about Bremen. I love how independent I can be here-I can go wherever I want via my bike and dont need to ask my host mom for rides. Another thing I really like is the compact and orderly nature of the city, which means I can get to my destination a lot more efficiently than I could in the US, where everything tends to be more spread out. Another thing I love is how much fresh bread there is here. You can buy good, fresh bread or bread rolls at just about any bakery, of which there are tons here, and at the supermarket. Plus, it is significantly cheaper here than it is in the states.
That being said, there certainly are things I miss about the US and about Memphis in particular. I miss how outgoing and friendly everyone is back home. I miss an abundance of public restrooms, like would it seriously kill these guys to install even the occasional public toilet? Another thing I miss is school spirit and after school activities at school. Here they don’t really have school clubs or school sports, something that was always really nice in the US.
Another thing about living in a new place: you discover new places you love. Two of my favorite places here have been Bremen’s main art gallery, though I’ve only been through the whole thing once, and Bremen’s main public library, which I don’t get to super often but love none the less. Both of these are great places to just chill out and relax, or to discover something new. They are also conveniently located right across the street from each other, which I really like!!
Throughout my time here I have also found outdoor places which I really enjoy visiting, such as the Burgerpark-Bremen’s main urban forest and park, and the Rhododendron Park, the biggest worldwide, featuring all sorts of different botanical species, not just rhododendrons, that change weekly. I have not spent a tremendous amount of time in either place because it is getting dark so early here, but I hope to change this with Spring as it starts to stay lighter longer. I also just love getting on my bike and heading out to explore new areas around Bremen, be they rural, urban, or a mix. I love furthering my knowledge of the city and discovering new places.
Lows
Just like always though, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The highs are higher here, but the lows are lower. Two of the particularly memorable lows from October both proved to be learning experiences though, a good reminder that sometimes things that seem really hard or not fun aren’t always bad. The first experience came rather early in the month: I had left my window open for about an hour, before finding out that it could only be open for fifteen minutes at a time. I had known that when it was late enough in the fall when we could only have them open for fifteen minutes at a time so as not to let the warm air out too much, but I hadn’t realised that point had already come. Since then, however, I have always made sure to only have it open for fifteen minutes. In fact, the Germans kind of have it down to a science: fifteen minutes in the morning, fifteen in the afternoon, and fifteen in the evening. If you are in a room more, you need to open the window more, but the minimum is three times a day. This is not just my host family, but rather a practice throughout Germany that combines letting all the moisture out so mold can’t grow with not letting too much warm air out. My second misunderstanding came when I had just gotten back from a run and was changing in my room, when my host mom came upstairs to ask me whether I wanted to have lunch now with them. Because she had often come upstairs to ask me, I didn’t think anything wrong, but when I got downstairs she explained that it’s better for me to come downstairs and touch base when she gets home, because she is already busy and doesn’t have time to run upstairs to ask me stuff all the time too. She was also upset because she felt like she was having to do everything and that I wasn’t interested in helping, which came as a surprise to me because I felt I had tried to help a lot, especially with the cleaning. After a long and productive conversation however, we came to a much better understanding. She explained that it was easier for her if I just do little chores like emptying the compost and setting the table, because this would be easier than her trying to explain how to do more involved chores to me. Initially I was thinking I could help with these bigger chores like vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom, the way I did back home in the US, but soon it became apparent that she had a special way of doing these more involved chores, something that became apparent when she informed me that I was vacuuming to loudly, when I was vacuuming in what I considered to be a normal fashion. So since then, I have just done smaller chores but made sure to do them especially well and especially often so as to make less work for her. Since then, this problem has been significantly lessened and we now have a much better understanding, once again proof that communication is key to any good relationship.
Highs
Despite these lows however, I still had a wonderful month filled with new experiences, from trying out a basketball club I found here to experiencing the Freimarkt, Bremen’s biggest event all year.
I have been interested in playing basketball for a long time, a combination of playing it a lot with my cousin who loves the sport, and seeing a lot of basketball games at Rhodes College with my dad. I had looked for a club at which to play Intramural in Memphis but hadn’t found one, so I was really excited to have found one here. I have only made it to one practice because I can’t run right now (I have a leg injury) but I’m hoping to make it back soon!!
As for the Freimarkt, I went there a total of three times, once with a large group of my friends from school, once with my friend who lives nearby and is also a CBYXer Through YFU, and once with my host family. It was a lot of fun all three times, but I think the first time, with my school friends, was my favourite. For one thing, there were about nine of us, and so it was fun to talk with everyone and all hang out together!! Plus it was really fun to go on lots of different rides together, although I must admit the rides I went on before having food were significantly more enjoyable to my stomach than the ones that came after I had some food. For a brief introduction to the Freimarkt, it’s basically a huge fair that comes to Bremen every year in the last two weeks of October. It is the hi-light of the year, featuring rides, fair food, prize games, and much more. My favourite food from the Freimarkt was definitely Schmalz-Kuchen. This is fried dough covered with powdered sugar, very similar to a Beignet, except that there are lots of little pastries instead of a few big ones. Another delicious German fair food is Kartoffelpuffer (potato pancakes). This is exactly what it sounds like, a giant pancake of fried potato, covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon or sometimes quince sauce. While one is not typically enough for a whole meal, a few of these delicious creations will fill you up nicely.
While the fair part of the Freimarkt is certainly the main attraction, there is also a parade for it organised by the Bremen government. This was similar to Mardi Gras in the US, featuring over 100 different groups, each with their own uniquely decorated car and all throwing things of one sort or another for candy to Ikea bags with shopping discounts. It was a ton of fun to participate and try to catch stuff, definitely a highlight of the month
Later that afternoon my host mom and I went to a local YFU meet-up during which Isave another person from my language camp, who was also from Tennessee. We hadn’t been super close at language camp but we’re still friends and it was really nice to see a familiar face after so long of just meeting new people.
October had many other highs, but these ones stood out in particular to me and make me particularly glad that I chose to come to Germany this year.
This concludes my October update for my year in Germany. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to reach out to me with any questions!! It may take me some time to respond because I want to minimize contact back home for better immersion but I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner!!
Yours in Scouting,
Trexler B