Germany, translated

Trexler’s adventures in Germany, as a Student Ambassador.

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

NOVEMBER 2024

Wazzup Troop 13!!

I hope you guys are all doing well and enjoying this Christmas season!! It’s Trexler and I’m back with the November account of my life in Germany. This month was filled with new adventures from seeing new places to meeting new people. Plus, I learned about even more differences between the US and Germany both culturally and linguistically.

Transportation

A big cultural difference I have noticed here is transportation. While cars are a thing here, they are far less common than in the US and motorcycles are virtually non-existent. Biking on the other hand is huge. I use my bike to go almost everywhere, the only times I don’t are when my host family and I are going on an outing far away where we take the car, or when I’m meeting up with friends a ways away, when I take the city tram. I have only ever used the tram three times though in all my time here, and I only ride in a car a few times a month, if that. This was crazy to me at first because as you guys know you need a car to go almost anywhere in Memphis, but I really like this new way. It has allowed me to be a ton more independent and if I want to go somewhere I just go there, I don’t have to ask my parents to drive me or anything. Back in the US I would have to go with a car fifteen minutes to school, then fifteen back, but now I can bike to school in five minutes. This independence is definitely something I will really miss when I go back and will have to find other ways to maintain it, like continuing to learn how to drive and using my bike more in Memphis. With this and with other things, I have definitely discovered things that I think Germans do better and that I want to continue to do back in the US.

Grammar

Although English and German are both Germanic languages, they have a variety of differences and German is more grammatically complex than English in a number of ways. First and foremost, German has three different genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter. All nouns are one of these three genders, and the article with which you describe them changes based on which gender it is. In comparison, English has no gender, we just say “the” for everything. We say “the pizza, the beer, and the bird,” but Germans say “die Pizza, das Bier, und der Vogel.” This is because pizza is feminine, beer is neuter, and bird is masculine. Now imagine having to learn the Genders of all German nouns. A smaller difference is that in German you capitalise all the nouns. Whereas in English you say the pizza, in German you say die Pizza. Things get even more complicated when you add in the cases, these are the ways a noun can be used. A noun can be the subject (nominative case), the direct object (accusative case), the indirect object (the dative case) or the possessive (genitive case). Furthermore, the article changes based on which case you use, and the noun does as well. So in the nominative case you would say “der Vogel” but in the accusative case you would say “den Vogel”. All these additional grammar rules have definitely been an adventure to learn, but I’m making progress and have learned a ton since coming here!!

Fun

One of my earliest adventures in November was to Oldenburg, a nearby city. My host brother was at a friend’s birthday party so my host mom decided to go visit for the evening. It was really fun to walk around the town center, with its old cobbled streets and hanging lights softly illuminating everything. Plus there were all sorts of cute little shops selling lots of different handmade goods. It was just like the kind of thing you hear about in the stories-this cute little town with all these cool unique gifts and buildings and everything. I remember we saw this one shop selling these adorable three-foot tall llama stuffed animal statues, and we saw this bear stuffed animal thing that reminded me so much of Paddington. One of the coolest parts was when we wandered into this old antique store and started talking with the guy who owned it. He was from Turkey and was one of those older men who tells you to stand up straight, tuck your shirt in, say yes or no, and otherwise act somewhat proper. He was really nice and funny and he taught me two new words-“Jawohl” which means yes, and “Arsch mit Ohren” which is an old insult meaning literally “a** with ears.” It was really funny and fun to talk with this guy and he reminded me of some of the old men I knew back home in the US. We walked around and saw more that evening before heading home, but that conversation with the antique store man was definitely the most memorable part of the trip. Even today, my host mom and I still laugh and say “jawohl” instead of “ja” sometimes just for fun, it’s like an inside joke for us now, a shared memory!!

The day after our trip to Oldenburg, my host family and I hopped in the car and drove to Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city, which lies about an hour East of Bremen. I had heard a lot about the city since moving to Bremen, with lots of people telling me I should visit, but until this point the only experience I had had of the city was flying into the airport on my first trip to Germany in 2018. We spent the whole late morning until the evening walking around the city and seeing lots. We started in the town center with the Rathaus (town hall) which was really beautiful and old as many of the older Rathauses in Germany are. All around the town center you could see the crest of Hamburg, a very distinctive tiered gate, including on the sewer covers. This gate is connected to Bremen’s crest, which is a key, because the idea is that Bremen’s key is the key to Hamburg’s gate, and in a way then that Bremen is the key to Hamburg. They certainly were and still are very closely connected as Hanseatic cities. These were a group of major maritime-trade cities throughout Northern Germany that were all part of the Hanseatic Trade league and also include Rostock and Lübeck among others. Another really cool part of Hamburg is its position on the water. It sits right on the edge of the North Sea and so it is criss-crossed with tons of beautiful old brick canals and bridges which are very ambient. Plus it has a long waterfront which we walked along and it was awesome to see the sun setting behind all the ships in the harbour, silhouetting them and bathing the water in gold, it was incredibly picturesque. Another really memorable part of our trip was seeing Hamburg’s red-light district. I had up until this point never been in one so it was really cool to see all the light and night-life. It all felt very lively which was nice, because sometimes Germany can feel a bit muted and cold. I also really enjoyed seeing the city both during the day and at night, especially because some things pop out more in one or the other. For instance, the canals were a lot easier to appreciate in the day, but all the light in the red-light district lends itself much more to night. In short, it was a really fun trip and gave me a much better understanding of the city!!

Towards the end of the month I also got to experience a German Christmas market for the first time!! This was really cool for me because I have never been to a Christmas market, not even in the US, and heard great things about Bremen’s. The market is nestled in the town center around the main church, the Rathaus, and another church. At first I was a little lost and overwhelmed by the sheer size of it, because it spanned three different plazas and everywhere looked so similar with tons of tents like you see at a fair all lit up and selling tons of different things. After a while though, I finally got my bearings and along the way saw tons of cool stuff. There was a ferris wheel and another ride, but other than that, it was almost all shops selling food and gifts, unlike at Tahoe Freimarkt where it was almost all rides. Lots of tents were selling Bratwurst and Glühwein, a traditional German christmas market combo, but some places were selling different types of sausages, which were really fun to sample, some people were selling schmalz kuchen and crepes, and still others were selling chocolate or traditional German cookies which taste kind of like ginger-bread cookies. Along with all this food there were also people selling 3D origami stars, handcrafted wooden toys, hand-knitted hats and gloves, and more. It was so cool to see all this handmade stuff, especially because no two things were alike, two different stands might sell similar things, but you could tell each thing was unique which I really liked!! In particular I remember there were these wooden frog musical instruments like I played with back in Children’s Chapel years ago, plus handmade chess boards and pieces, and hand carved owl whistles. It was really cool to walk through the different tents all lit-up but no two the same, and to listen to the Christmas music people were playing on their pipes or guitars as I soaked in all the different, new experiences.

One of my favourite memories was when it snowed for several hours during one chilly November day. It had started out as I was biking to school as a very light rain/ snow mixture but it got steadily stronger throughout the day, maybe even bringing a half of an inch to an inch of snow that was sticking. This was incredible to me because as you all know it never ever snows in November in Memphis. Everyone else kept asking me if I had never seen snow before or something and they all said this was fairly commonplace weather for November. I tried to get friends to have a snowball fight with me but they all said it was too cold, so I just went out and had fun by myself. I even tried to get my physics teacher to cancel class so we could play in the snow, and told him about how we could apply it to physics, by measuring the speed, acceleration, and path curves of the snowballs in a snowball fight, but somehow he didn’t seem to buy it. So although almost no one else at the school except for the really young kids seemed to be excited about the snow, I was still able to go out in the breaks and take photos and have fun. This was definitely a highlight of the month.

My last really fun memory of the month was from my youth group meeting one Wednesday. We were baking salt dough cookies which you could put a little candle in for advent. They were going to be brought to the neighbourhood Christmas market the following Sunday where kids would get to paint them and take them home. It felt very Christmassy to be baking cookies (be they non-edible, and I should know since I tried some of the dough) and listening to German Christmas music and making all sorts of fun Christmas shapes with the cookies cutters and everything. Plus, I got to try Kinderpunsch for the first time, a traditional German Christmas drink which tastes a little like hot apple cider but with more variety of fruit flavours. The less fun part of the evening was the hour or more of cleanup that came after, and which also got me in trouble with my host mom as you will hear later. It took so long because the dough was very slow in coming off the counters, even though there wasn’t a ton of it stuck on to begin with. Plus a little Kinderpunch had spilled and was also coming up only very slowly. It didn’t help of course that we didn’t have steel wool or anything to help with the dough or stain remover to get up the Kinderpunsch, just a dish rag or two and elbow grease. The other slow part was there were only two of us, and the other person wasn’t doing a ton to help cleanup anyways. But we finally got it all finished and so all’s well that ends well and it was fun to have the Christmassy time earlier!!

Friends

Throughout November I also got closer to friends and hung out with them a few times which was really fun, like the time I went out with my friend Philipp towards the end of the month. We decided to go to Weserpark, one of Bremen’s two big malls, and it was really fun to walk around there for a while with him. Getting there was definitely cool in its own right. We used public transit to make the trip and my friend very kindly met me at my bus stop, because I didn’t have much of an idea of what I was doing. We ended up taking the bus part-way before changing to the tram to finish the journey, all of which was very new to me because I have almost never ridden city buses, and certainly not in Germany, plus I had only been on the tram once before, so it was super nice to have someone who knew exactly what to do and where to get off. My favourite memory from our time at the mall was definitely the ice cream. Right in the middle of the mall there was a do-it-yourself soft serve ice cream bar complete with 10+ flavours, a variety of syrups, and of course a boatload of different toppings to choose from. It was without a doubt one of the coolest ice cream experiences I have ever had, which is saying something, and was a very nice change of pace from regular German ice cream which is good but way overpriced. In Germany, ice cream servings are a lot more expensive than in the US, for instance, for a scoop maybe the size of a golf ball if not smaller, the price is close to 2€, which is more than $2.00-for ONE scoop. Also store ice cream isn’t a thing here, you buy a scoop or two fresh or not at all. The rest of the hangout was fun and the ride home proved uneventful, except for me almost missing the tram to throw away my ice cream cup, but that ice cream bar remains the highlight of the outing, along with hanging out with my friend. Another really nice part was wandering into a candy store selling American candy, which was so nice after so long away from home. Normally I’m not excited just by candy in the store, but seeing those American names and labels felt like a little piece of home and made me remember so many good times in the US. I didn’t end up buying any of it, but it was still really nice to have that little snippet of my old life.

My other meet-up was with another YFU exchange student and friend of mine, Frank, who I had initially met at my national pre-departure orientation before coming to Germany. He was living near Cologne, Germany, where they have a huge Karneval celebration every year and I had asked if he wanted to go to it together. It turned out YFU was actually going to be in the parade, and he invited me to ride on the YFU float together for Karneval. I signed up immediately, and was informed there was a mandatory preparation meeting in Cologne in November, and so we met up in Cologne for this meeting, for the first time since meeting in July. It was crazy how well we got along together after only knowing each other in person for a couple of days this summer. It was a ton of fun to see him and to get to see some of Cologne too!! Getting there was definitely an experience though. I had misunderstood the information on my ticket and thought it said my train arrived in Bremen for me at 9:44. Thinking this, I went up to the platform at 9:43 thinking my train would arrive any minute. I didn’t see a train to cologne listed up on the board but figured maybe it was just running a minute late. There was a train on the tracks that left at 9:44, but it said it was going to Munich so I didn’t think anything of it. It turns out that was my train.

What I had thought was the arrival time was actually the departure time, and the train listed Munich because that was its final destination, but it was making a stop in Cologne on the way. It was a couple minutes before I began to guess what had happened. I asked a few people on the platform but they couldn’t understand me and I was confused why my train wasn’t listed as coming soon. After about five minutes of waiting for my train, I went down to the information desk in the station to ask if my train was running late. That is when they told me that I had in fact, just missed my train. I was so frustrated because the train had been sitting on the tracks. I could have gotten on, but I thought it was the wrong one. The other hit came when I found out I couldn’t transfer the ticket onto the next train and that I would have to buy a whole new ticket. When buying the first ticket, in order to save some money I had elected for the cheaper but non-cancelable tickets, but this now meant I was out close to fifty dollars. I ended up just buying a ticket for the next train to Cologne, which was only about an hour later thankfully, and I made it onto that train. This was definitely a big learning experience, and now I know that train times mean departure times and that you should always check the train number and not the final destination on a train. After this first hiccup, I successfully made it to Cologne and met my friend at the train station, where he had elected to wait for and be late together with me which was super nice of him. It was awesome to see him again and even though it felt a little awkward at first because we hadn’t seen each other in so long that went away almost immediately. During our time together we also called a mutual friend from the same summer orientation who was studying in France through YFU and we had fun catching up with her too. After making our costumes for the YFU event (paint- splattered lab coats as the theme was Renaissance artists), we walked around downtown Cologne for a little bit which was really fun because I had only seen pictures. Among other things we saw Cologne’s incredibly famous cathedral, which you can see in almost any photo of the city. I had heard a lot about and seen photos of it, so seeing it in person was really cool. It was incredibly big and beautiful, with tons of tiny details carved into the stone everywhere. We also saw the Cologne Christmas market which was cool to see and the downtown pedestrian district with all of its cute little shops and restaurants and cafes. One of my favourite memories from the day is just sitting on the steps of Cologne cathedral enjoying some food we had just bought in the train station and just chatting. It felt so normal, and yet it’s crazy when you think about it. We are sitting on the steps of one of the most famous churches in Germany, and if that isn’t enough, WE ARE LIVING IN GERMANY. So it’s crazy to me that it all felt so normal, because what we are doing this year is definitely not normal. After an awesome afternoon and evening of just relaxing and having fun, it was time for me to go back. I almost made the same mistake as earlier, thinking this wasn’t my train because the end destination wasn’t Bremen but thankfully my friend realised it was the right train and I made it back to Bremen on it. Back in Bremen that night I was a little dubious about the trip back to my house because the train station is not a great place to be at night, but everything was okay and I made it back to my house around 10:30 that evening, after an incredible day.

Family

Much like the prior months, November was filled with both ups and downs with my host family. We bonded a lot throughout the month, including on the trips to Oldenburg and Hamburg, but we also had some disagreements. A memorable incident was the time I got back from youth an hour late. This was the night we had made those salt-dough cookies and had a tremendous amount of cleanup, and my host mom was really upset because I didn’t tell her I would be late. She thought something terrible had happened and was getting ready to call the police. There was also some rain and somewhat strong wind that night, and apparently trees come down in Bremen every time this happens, so she was worried I might have been hit by one. For my part, I had honestly not realised it was getting so late and was cleaning as fast as I could. I figured she would text me if she was worried and wanted an update, so I checked my phone every five minutes to make sure I wasn’t missing a call, unaware that she expected me to contact her. This miscommunication resulted in her being really upset with me when I came back, and I learned after this to always be back exactly when I say I will and if I will be late to text her and let her know. The other major incident was when she was upset at me because I hadn’t put the plates in the dishwasher. I had loaded up the other stuff but wasn’t sure if I should wipe the plates down first because there was a little grease on them, but I wasn’t sure if it was enough to warrant using paper towels since I didn’t want to waste them. I was planning to ask her in just a second because she was busy but she assumed that I was just too lazy to put them in the dishwasher. This really got to me because I was trying to help out a lot and hated the idea that she thought I was just too lazy. It was also hard because a struggle i’ve had since coming here is balancing helping out and not getting in her way, because sometimes I would try to help out and she would say I was to slow, and that she would do it, but then when I tried to stay out out of the way she would get upset at me for not helping more. It doesn’t help that she has a specific way she likes things done and so I didn’t want to interfere with her system. The plates were a prime example of this. The next evening though, almost twenty-four hours later (during which I think she was still really upset), we talked it over and she said with the plates that any amount of grease needed to come off. She was also upset because she thought she had communicated this, but I didn’t really understand until now. She was also upset because she wanted me to stop asking confirmation about what to do with things, such as which waste category different things went into, and explained she didn’t have time to answer all my questions and needed me to just figure it out. This is something I have been trying to work on for a long time: being more decisive and figuring out what to do myself rather than asking others, but it has gotten harder since I came to my host family. I didn’t want to do something wrong and many things seemed to be done very differently here from the way they were done in the US. Since this disagreement however, I have tried especially hard to work on being more decisive and making these decisions myself rather than asking others what to do, and I just figure if I do something incorrectly she will correct me.

One of the hardest family moments though, came not from my family here, but from my family back in the US. My grandparents, who are both older but were in reasonably good health, were in a car crash. Both were badly injured, but the doctors expected my grandma to make a full or significant recovery with time, they were less sure about my grandpa, he died a few days later.

This was super hard for me. When I had left for Germany they were fine and I expected to see them both again next summer. I had no idea that the few days I spent with them this summer would be the last time I would have with my grandpa. Luckily, I have an incredibly supportive family in the US, and an incredibly supportive host-family here. I talked to my parents for about an hour after I found out and that was really nice, then later that night I talked to both of my sisters for a long time each, which was also wonderful because we hadn’t been able to talk much since I came to Germany because of the 7-hour time difference. Plus, my dad texted my host mom what had happened and she came down and gave me a big hug which was super kind of her. She asked if there was anything she could do or if I needed anything and was super kind through the whole thing. We decided to light a candle in his memory, and it was nice to have something I could still do in remembrance of him from halfway across the world. The next day my host mom suggested we could take a walk to a nearby cemetery that’s really pretty and I thought this was a great idea so we ended up going there and talking together about our memories of our grandparents. It was super nice to think back on all my memoirists with my grandparents, and to hear stories of her time with her grandparents.

The cemetery where we went was incredibly old and beautiful, the nicest in Bremen in fact. It was filled with tall old trees which had dropped their nuts everywhere and streams and beautiful, old headstones. The whole thing felt very natural and peaceful, not groomed to look like a golf course the way some in the US are. It was lovely to walk around for a bit and just take in the beautiful fall day and think about my best memories with my grandpa.

I also learned about German cemetery traditions. In Germany, you do not buy a headstone, you merely rent it for a number of years. When the contract runs out, unless you renew it, the headstone is taken away and recarved according to the specifications of the next customer. Likewise the place where you were buried is not yours forever, after several years, someone else will be buried in the same spot.

Anyways, the whole walk through the cemetery was very peaceful and the best part came towards the end. My host mom and I spotted a huge leaf pile, maybe eight feet across and 6 feet tall. There were one or two people walking past it when we got to it, so we waited for them to pass a ways then I jumped in a few times. It was so fun to just be jumping in a leaf pile again and feel like a kid, and just having fun. To just have that freedom, and that fun was so incredible, and helped me feel so much better. It was definitely the highlight of the entire day and was a big bonding moment with my host mom, who took several photos of me jumping in it, to remember the 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 at trexlertb1@gmail.com 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 Townley Bakewell

DECEMBER 2024

Hello Troop 13!!

I hope you’re all doing well and had a great winter break and holiday season!! Mine definitely made me appreciate what people mean about the highs while studying abroad being higher, and the lows being lower. My December was filled with lots of fun and new experiences, adventures, and bonding, but parts of it were also incredibly hard. In particular, my host mom and I had more conflict in this month than we had had in any previous month. Also, not being home for Christmas was hard, and Christmas season did not really feel Christmassy at all here, so it feels in a way like a l never exactly had Christmas this year.

Fun

Despite its very hard parts, December also had some really fun moments. Throughout the month I grew and became more independent, I learned more about myself and my city, and I bonded even more with those around me.

One adventure that particularly stands out to me was when I went for this really long bike ride into neighbouring Niedersachsen by myself, for two hours, in the dark, which towards the end I could only see about 10 feet in front of me. Despite this, I had a ton of fun and this was an awesome solo adventure. It all started that afternoon because I wanted an adventure and thought a long bike ride would be good, but wasn’t able to find a particularly exciting bike path to follow. Instead I just started on a bike path that I had biked before and just figured I would ride it as far as I could and see what I would find. I ended up riding out for about an hour, about which time it started raining. I hadn’t brought a rain jacket thinking I was fine without one, and only had my orange down jacket. Unfortunately, while down keeps you really warm when it is dry, when it gets wet it becomes virtually useless. On the bright side, it never rained very hard, just a constant drizzle, and I was having too much fun to really care. After biking for about fifteen minutes I turned off the path I had been following and went to a side road to see what lay in another direction. It turned out to just be lots of farms, and rural land, something that originally would not be particularly exciting for me, but tonight it all seemed new and cool. It also astonished me that there were so many farms so close to the big city, I had no idea all this was here and had previously just assumed it was suburban neighbourhoods. It was a little worrying as it got darker, especially coming back, because if i car was behind me i often would not hear it until it was very near and then would need to get over very quickly, and if there was a car in front of me, I had to pull over until it passed because the headlights blinded me to the extent that I could see nothing else, only darkness around the car. As I biked I passed all of these cute little farm houses with soft, yellow light coming out of their windows and Christmas trees up in their living rooms. It all felt so cozy and I thought a little about stopping and knocking on a door or two and trying to make some new friends, but wasn’t sure how the people living there would react. Honestly, this bike ride was probably one of my favourite solo adventures in December. It was so freeing to get out of the city and just be surrounded by all of this rural land with nothing but cozy farmhouses and crying geese and tall trees, and the occasional, god-given Porta-potty for which I was deeply grateful. I can still picture that trip in my mind, the quiet, curving road leading off into darkness, the grassy slopes dropping off on either side of the pavement to little dells or ponds, the darkness enveloping everything leaving only silhouettes and shades of black and blacker. After about an hour I turned around and went home so as not to be late for dinner, but I’m so glad I got to have this adventure!!

Another hi-light of December for me was exploring the Christmas markets all by myself!! Sometimes after school when I had time before dinner, I would hop on my bike and ride into the town center to wander the Christmas markets and see all the different crafts people were selling. Some were practical, like brooms or serving utensils, some were creative, like little wooden swords or egg warmers shaped to look like animals, some were really funny, like wooden spoons three feet long which I still have no idea the use for. The sheer diversity of it all was so cool to see and made for some very fun evenings!! I also loved seeing the rows of Christmas lights hanging in the streets casting a yellow glow on the cobblestones below. It all made for a very cool scene and was especially cool to see after never having seen something like this în Memphis, except for maybe at Crosstown Concourse.

One of my favourite memories from these outings was the day I got my new running shoes. While this may not sound particularly exciting, it was for me. I had just had lots of fun poking around the Christmas markets and had found more Christmas gifts for people, which I was very happy about, when I realised I still had enough time to go get new running shoes and check out a running store which I had heard about before but had never seen. This was so exciting for me not only because I had been meaning to get new running shoes for a long time, but also because it’s always so cool when you find a local running store because everyone working there typically is there because they love running, and so it makes for a great way to connect. This time proved no different, and while it was nice to have a good pair of running shoes again, the part I enjoyed more was talking with and getting to know the people who worked at the store. They were all so friendly and I loved connecting over running. It turned out the guy who I talked to the most was actually from Gambia and had moved to Bremen four years ago. One thing that totally surprised me was that he said he liked Bremen for the weather and had actually moved here exactly for that reason. This was utterly astonishing to me because just about everyone here hates the weather and mentions it as one of Bremen’s worst traits, and to this day I think he is the only person who I have met who actually likes it. He explained it reminded him of the weather back where he was from and it was really cool to hear a little about his backstory!! I ended up talking to him for a while longer while he helped me find the right pair of shoes and it was so nice to connect with him. That experience of connecting with the running store people, more than any other part of that evening, stands out as one of my favourite experiences from December. The irony, i would later discover, is that after all this work and decision making to get my new shoes, my host mom said I wasn’t allowed to run outside until it warmed up because it was so cold outside and I hadn’t really consistently trained in the fall, so the new shoes have yet to be tested. That’s okay though, maybe the running is just the friends we made along the way, because that, I definitely did do!!

Friends

Throughout the month I also bonded more with friends from a variety of places. Early in the month I met up with my friend Jo who is another US exchange student living in Germany through the same program as me. We had met up once before, in October, but it was really fun to meet up again!! We walked around Bremen and saw quite a lot. We walked through both of Bremen’s Christmas markets, and she found a few gifts for her family back home in the US. Plus we sampled some very good pastries from the Christmas market and it was really nice to have warm food on that cold day. Later that day we saw a modern art gallery which she had heard about and which sounded cool, but which turned out to be pretty underwhelming. A few parts of it were very cool though, such as the little don’t touch signs scattered throughout the exhibits. They would say not to touch the exhibit, but then would also give you a challenge, like touching your tongue to your nose. We both really liked this interactive element, and it was definitely a highlight of the museum. During our visit I also learned how to write with a typewriter. The final exhibit had a type writer you could use and my friend knew how to from years working on record keeping for her family business. It was really cool to learn how to use one because I had always seen them and thought they looked really cool, but had never had the chance to actually write with one. Later in the day we also visited the Viertel, Bremen’s culture mile filled with an assortment of quirky shops, cute cafes, beautiful museums, and delicious restaurants. It was really cool to walk past all these different places and see so many different things. Off to the right side cute little allies with old town houses lined narrow, cobbled streets. The main strip itself was really colourful and fun, an effect that came from the combination of tons of different shop signs, as well as lots of vibrant street art. It was really fun to see this bright cultural strip brimming with life!! Not long after my friend and I said goodbye, but it was really fun to hang out together for the day!!

Another fun memory with friends was with my local church youth group here. It was just the pastor, another girl with her friend, and me, but it was still lots of fun!! That evening we snacked on various traditional German christmas cookies and baked LOTS of sugar cookies before painting them and then OF COURSE sampling them. All the while, I got an introduction to German Christmas music, particularly older, church Christmas music. This was really cool for me because up until this point I had heard almost no German Christmas music in my life. It was really pretty and was super cool to have this new experience. The whole evening felt like a very traditional German Christmas: listening to German Christmas music, baking our Christmas cookies in the kitchen, and practicing German talking about all sorts of different things. I also learned a lot more about the pastor from talking to her that evening, including that she spoke a number of languages fluently and had spent significant time in a variety of places, which I had had no idea of until this point. Plus, I learned she has a step-daughter who had just done a year abroad in Alabama. This was really cool for me to learn, because I really enjoy meeting other exchange students and we often end up connecting a lot through our shared experiences of living abroad. In short, the whole evening was very interesting and I enjoyed it a ton!!

Another fun time with friends came when I was visiting the Horn (our neighbourhood) Christmas Market, with my host family. While not as big as Bremen’s main Christmas Market, it was still really cool to walk around and was filled with all sorts of handmade or locally produced goods and foods from cute crochet dinosaurs, to fresh, local honey. It felt very Christmassy to be walking around this cute little neighbourhood Christmas market in that cold crisp December air filled with the neighbourhood Christmas market in that cold, crisp December air, filled with the aroma of hot Glühwein and grilling bratwurst. We walked around for at least forty five minutes and even saw a few neighbours. We also saw the mayor of Bremen there, which was really cool!! After walking around for a bit though, we decided to go home, but I ended up coming back ten minutes later. It wasn’t a long walk from our house to the Christmas market, maybe ten minutes, and I had forgotten my wallet at home when we came the first time, so I decided to go back with it and see if I could find good Christmas presents for people. The second time around was even more fun, because I felt like I could move at my own pace a little more and wouldn’t be keeping my host family. Plus, on the way I had put on my earbuds and played my favourite Christmas music so I was already feeling even more in the Christmas spirit. It was so cool exploring all the little tents, sampling honey and Spekulatius, a German Christmas cookie, in one, then visiting lots of adorable, little crocheted stuffed animals in another. My favourite part was when I met a group of teenagers just a year or two older than me running a bake sale and dancing to their Christmas music. I started talking to them and it turned out they went to my school and were just a year or two ahead of me. They were doing a bake-sale to raise money for their post Abitur celebrations. I ended up buying some food to support them and had tons of fun talking and listening to Christmas music with them. They were all super friendly and it was really nice to meet people my own age at a place where for the most part I had only seen middle-aged adults. Plus, they shared their water and snacks with me which was super nice of them!! I talked with them a while longer about lots of different things, from the US and Trump to their Abitur and life in Germany. It was a really fun bonding experience to just chill with these guys and listen to Christmas music. Honestly, this is probably one of my favourite memories from my entire time here; I only met these guys for about an hour, but they were so friendly and outgoing from the start, it was so nice to feel like I really connected with them!!

Another fun friend’s meetup was at my youth group. For a last big hoorah the adults in charge organised a little party for the end of the year which was lots of fun!! It was lots of fun meeting other youth because after the first time I was there, there had only been one or two kids at the meetings each week, which made this a very nice change of pace. It was here that I learned about the German tradition of Raclette, typically reserved for New Year’s, where you have a two-tier griddle in the middle of the table and cook meat on top then in tiny skillets underneath you can cook cheese or potatoes or whatever you want. This was really cool to experience because I had never even heard of it before coming to Germany, but it’s huge for New Years. Later that evening after we cleaned up, the pastors also gave us little gift bags which was super kind of them, and we played a little game together where you have a pile of wrapped presents (typically things the giver does not want anymore) and in order to get one you have to sing a song or tell a story or do some other kind of small performance. I didn’t have any kind of performance to give, because I knew no German Christmas stories or poems or anything, but the pastors were totally chill with that which was really nice of them. After that we all went our separate ways because it was getting late and after my previous experiences, I didn’t want my host mom to worry about me, but it was a very fun evening!!

A final adventure with friends was with a few friends who lived in nearby regions of Germany. We hadn’t seen each other since language camp and so decided to meet up in Bremen for a little get together. A friend from the program who lived nearby and I organised the whole thing and contacted everyone in the region to see who wanted to come, but unfortunately a few people couldn’t make it because of pre-existing plans, or in one case, all the trains being cancelled last minute. Despite this, it was still a ton of fun!! We all met up at the central train station before heading out together for lunch and exploring. Some of the highlights from the day included having hamburgers at a restaurant near the train station, which were very good, and which were especially nice after not having American food since leaving in August. It was kind of funny to me though, everyone else was getting impatient after about ten minutes of waiting, which felt like nothing to me after waiting twenty-six minutes for that little hamburger in Hamburg with my host family. After this we made our way to the Bremen Christmas market and walked around there for a while, which was fun, and enjoyed poking into all the little stalls and seeing all the new things. Later that afternoon, we ended up in a cafe to get out of the cold and the wind. We had a lot of fun chilling in this very retro-feeling cafe with its leather bar stools and checkered floor, and warm, inviting light, drinking our hot drinks and heating our fresh pastries. It was also really cool, the waitress who served us turned out to be from Atlanta but had moved to Bremen a few years earlier. She was just a few years older than us and was thinking about moving back to the US for college. It was so cool to meet this other American and she was super friendly which was really nice. She mentioned that’s one thing she missed about the US, the outgoing nature of the people. After a while I had to go because my host mom was expecting me, but i had lots of fun during this meet up and it was really nice to see a few more Americans!!The Abitur

The Abitur

The Abitur is a huge test taken by many German kids at the end of high school and it decides largely if and where you can go to college, and really shapes the trajectory of your life. Kids start prepping for the test officially in 11th grade, but are often raised their entire lives to do well on this one test. A good score is incredible and is internationally accepted, but a bad score is REALLY bad. Some kids elect not to take the Abitur (the Abi for short) and instead finish their schooling after 10th grade then go into the workforce or start learning a trade. This route is often taken by kids who do not feel they will do well on the test and/or are not interested in going to university and would rather start working early. This approach certainly has some advantages, such as being able to retire earlier, because you started working earlier. In Germany, to receive good government retirement money you must work for forty years, and so the sooner you start, the sooner you can finish.

Family

Of all my months with my host family here so far, I would say this one definitely had the most valleys, but also the most mountains!! I connected a lot more with them through shared holiday traditions, trips together, and more.

Two of the earliest Christmas traditions I learned about here were advent calendars and St. Nikolaus Day; while these both exist in the US, they are both much more popular here. For the advent calendars, my host mom hung little bags with a chocolate or two, or else tiny fireworks for new years, up for us. There were twenty four little bags for each of US, and the tradition is to open one up per day, from December first to Christmas Eve. This was a really fun tradition to learn about and it was so nice having these little surprises every morning. This is definitely a tradition I want to take back to the US with me. Another big Christmas tradition here is St. Nikolaus Day. We did this in my church back in the US, but here everyone does it. The story is St. Nikolaus comes in the night and puts gifts and sweets in your shoes, which is pretty awesome. I got lots of wonderful little gifts including some very good candy and a Bremen crewneck which i love. This was another really fun tradition and I plan to bring it back to the US with me.

These were definitely highs, but the same day as the Nikolaus gifts, I also had a big low in the form of a major fight with my host mom. It started when I asked after dinner if I could go out that evening to walk around the neighbourhood and get a little fresh air. She told me that no, I was not allowed to go out, and was really upset with me because I had been biking out in the rain without a rain jacket the other night and came back totally soaked. She was also really upset about a bunch of other things and I think it all came to a head at this point. Anyways, things just went downhill from there that night and when I went to bed I felt pretty much like I had failed. To make matters worse, the last thing I said to her before going to bed was “I’m sorry I’ve been such a failure to you,” and she said “yeah, I am too,” which was really hard to hear. Starting that night though, I promised myself I would fix all these problems that she had mentioned, and really lock-in, which is exactly what I did going forward. The next morning she calmed down a ton and gave me a big hug which was super kind of her, then we watched a bit of a show together that morning while waiting for her sister and her sister’s husband (my host aunt and uncle) to arrive. As hard as the night before was, I’m glad that it happened in some ways, because it showed me a lot of things I needed to work on, and helped better our relationship.

Later that morning my host aunt and uncle arrived so we had a really nice brunch with them before going out all together (except for my host brother who stayed back because he had lots of homework to do) for some adventures. That day we walked around Bremen all together and saw the Bremen Christmas markets plus tried some very good meat called Batzen being sold at one of the Christmas market stalls. It was really fun to walk around together and to see all the cool little gifts and stalls and lights, especially when it got dark. In the evening when everything outside was really dark you could see the streets lit up with tons of hanging Christmas lights in lantern shapes, and all the stalls filled with a soft yellow glow shining out against the darkness surrounding everything. That evening after walking through the park with its reindeer shapes draped in Christmas lights, we headed home for a lovely dinner together at the Italian restaurant right up the street which I had seen so many times but had never actually been in. This was really cool for me because I had always wondered what it was like inside after biking past it so often, but had never actually been in. All in all it was a really fun day and my only complaint was that I still had this irritating cough which made itself known every few minutes and which persisted for several more days.

The next day was a ton of fun too, although not quite as active as the day before. Some of the things I particularly remember are when we went to this car gallery where you can see all different types of cool old cars and we had fun joking about which ones we would buy if we could. This is also where I learned my host mom used to have and ride a motorcycle, which is so crazy because I had no idea until this point. It was so much fun joking around with these old cars and was definitely a big bonding experience.

Another good thing that came out of that afternoon was an idea from my aunt where we alternate speaking only German or only English every other day. This way, I would improve my German, and my host family could practice their English. This was especially good because one of my host mom’s big complaints in our fight two days before was that she felt I was neither trying to nor getting better in my German speaking. This way, I would definitely improve. It came up because my host brother was practicing a presentation in English for his class later that week and we were giving him lots of tips about how to make it go better. This got us thinking about language and from this was my aunt’s idea. We don’t really implement it as much anymore but when we did it definitely was a big help!!

The last hi-light of the day was when I got to explore the Christmas market by myself alone that evening and just have some time. My host family had gone to see a comedian in Bremen before my host aunt and uncle went back, so after we said our goodbyes I had lots of fun wandering around the Christmas markets. My host mom told me back in September and was apologetic and that I couldn’t come but explained they had had to book the tickets two years in advance, that’s how big this guy was. While they were out, it was nice to just have some me time and just do whatever I wanted. I called up my folks and talked to my grandma for a little bit which was really nice because I hadn’t talked to her since the summer. Plus I had fun seeing all the little goods being sold and was able to buy a few gifts for my host family for Christmas. It was so fun and made me feel so independent roaming the old Christmas market by myself, stopping for anything I found interesting. Then fun continued later that evening when I went home and watched part of a movie, in English, which was really fun. Up until this point I hadn’t really watched movies by myself in Germany, and most of the stuff I watched with my host family was in German, so it was wonderful to just have this time for me!!

Two of my favourite memories from the Christmas season were baking cookies with and watching German Christmas movies with my host mom. I remember one night in particular doing this, because we baked something like five or six batches of cookies of a variety of types that evening and definitely bonded a lot. While the cookies were certainly good, and were nice to snack on later, the best part of it was the actual baking, which I hadn’t been able to do very much in Germany, and which I missed, and the bonding with my host mom. She taught me the German names of the different baking ingredients and we chatted a lot about our favourite things to bake and our favourite Christmas cookies. It was so nice to connect like this, standing at the kitchen counter mixing the dough and rolling out little balls of it to be baked, experimenting with different things in the different cookie batches like nuts and cereal, or else coating some of them in melted chocolate. My host mom was incredibly patient with me even if I accidentally did something incorrectly like dipping the cookies in the chocolate instead of just coating the tops, or when I used the incorrect grammar in German teaching me a better way to say it. I really feel like we connected a lot that night and am so happy we got to have that time together!!

My other favourite Christmassy bonding memory together was one Friday evening when we watched several German Christmas movies together. It started because she was decorating the Christmas tree and we chatted for a bit then she asked if I wanted to watch a German Christmas movie. So we ended up putting on “The Little Lord” about this young boy who lives in New York but ends up moving to England with his mom when they discover he is the heir to a huge estate in the English countryside. It was a really heartwarming movie, because the boy brings so much joy to everyone he meets and was really nice to watch. Plus, it’s a very traditional Christmas movie in Germany, so it was cool to see another German Christmas movie. After it finished, I thought we would just end up going back to business as usual, but my host mom then asked me if I wanted to see another German Christmas movie, so we ended up watching two more!!

This was so fun, and even more so because we almost never watch more than one movie, so it was fun to just sit there and chill together for the whole evening. Later, she made dinner for us and we had dinner while watching one of the movies which was a really nice change of pace because typically we all sit around the table to eat, but this time felt more relaxed, which I really liked. The whole evening was really fun and I feel like we bonded a lot throughout it. It remains one of my favourite Christmas memories from this year.

While on our way to Rostock for Christmas, we made a brief stop in Lübeck, another Hanseatic city in northern Germany. The city is famous in Germany and the world for the variety of roles it has played throughout German history. For one, it was part of the Hanseatic trade union (a trade union connecting several North German cities) that existed in Germany in the 1300s and 1400s, playing a crucial role as a center of commerce in the region. In addition, it served as a major location for the filming of the movie Nosferatu, an incredibly popular early vampire movie filmed in Germany. People continue to come from across the world to see where this sensational movie was shot. Perhaps most important of all though Luebeck is the home of the German dessert marzipan. This is an incredibly delicious confection made from almond paste and sugar often covered in chocolate. It was in Lübeck that the iconic sweet was invented, and it is Lübeck that continues to be the leading centre for marzipan production in the world. These three historical highlights continue to play a huge role in the city’s culture, shaping the atmosphere and the ambiance of this iconic place, just as much as the red brick buildings and brown cobbled streets that form its old Town or the river, which cuts through the city.

Anyway, Lübeck was on the way to Rostock, so we made a stop there for a few hours to see the city and especially the Christmas Market, which my host mom had said was super cool. The market was certainly nice, but my favorite parts of our visit were seeing the city, and of course, the marzipan. In particular, when we went to Lübecks most famous marzipan store, Niederegger, which is internationally recognized as one of the best marzipan stores in the world. It was filled with every imaginable Marzipan-related treat from marzipan shaped to look like fresh fruit, to marzipan eggnog (eier liquor), to chocolate covered marzipan bars called schwarz brot. I didn’t end up buying anything, but had tons of fun nonetheless. To this day, I remain astounded by the sheer variety of wonders they created with this simple dessert.

One really cool part of my time in Rostock was talking with my host grandma about what life was like under the GDR (German Democratic Republic), which was the government of East Germany. This was really interesting to me because in America I feel like you just hear about how West Germany was good and East German was bad, so it was cool to hear from someone who had actually lived in east Germany. She explained how everyone had work and homelessness was not a problem because the government provided housing to everyone. She said that despite its bad reputation, she really liked living in Germany under the GDR. It was also really cool to look back at how Rostock used to be and to hear her stories from back then. She had a couple of books with lots of pictures of Rostock since the Second World War and its reconstruction under the East German government. I really enjoyed seeing places in these photos where I had actually been, and it gave me a better understanding of the city’s history and geography. I loved hearing about my host grandma’s experiences and memories in the city, and she has lived there almost her whole life, so it was really cool to hear from her how the city has changed through the decades. After seeing all these old photos and learning the stories behind them, it was so cool to see the places in person while walking around the city, because I knew them already from the book and so could better appreciate each location’s history.

Christmas was very different here from the US, but still tons of fun!! In Germany, stockings are not a thing because Santa (der Weihnachtsmann) comes on December 24th, which also means that people open presents then and do all their Christmas stuff th.

For our celebration, we all dressed up nice and had Christmas tea time at my host grandmother’s house similar to typical German Kaffee und Kuchen, just fancier, for Christmas. Then the Weihnachtsmann (my host uncle) visited and we all trooped into my host aunt and uncle’s living room to open presents together. The atmosphere of the room had been set – the curtains were drawn, candles lit up everything, the tree was totally illuminated by Christmas lights, it had all been made cozy for Christmas Eve. Before opening presents, my host aunt read the story of the Christmas Mouse to us, an annual tradition with my host family. The story itself, however, is a traditional German Christmas poem often associated with the season. While I loved learning about all the different traditions and cultural differences, my favorite part of the whole evening was of course opening presents. I wasn’t expecting many or really any presents, my host family had taken me in, given me a place to stay, had given me food, and had given me a family. That was a better Christmas present than anything I could ask for. Despite this, they still gave me several incredibly thoughtful gifts; I was so touched. Likewise they loved my gifts for them, so that was so nice to see. My favorite thing was a photo album my host mom had put together with pictures of all my host family and I’s experiences together since I arrived, complete with dates and captions reminding me of different highlights from each of our adventures. It was so thoughtful of her, and made such a nice way to reflect back on all our time together. After opening presents, we had a really nice dinner together, cooked by my host grandma who is an excellent chef and played several rounds of a traditional German chance game called Würfel before turning in. As I fell asleep I knew I’d had a really unique, amazing Christmas.

Despite Christmas Day not being particularly important in Germany, mine store had a few big highlights, like a family Poker tournament.

The day before, my host brother had gotten a full poker set as a Christmas present, so today everyone was really curious and wanted to play. We started soon after breakfast and continued all the way to lunch, and would have kept on playing, if everyone was not already pretty hungry. So my host uncle and I, we were the only two still in, ended up calling a stalemate, ending an incredibly competitive tournament which had almost the entire extended family involved. One of the most memorable parts was one of my host cousins, who works for a Swiss bank, ended up losing all his money in the game. This was incredibly ironic because he works for one of the best banks in the world and yet couldn’t hold on to his own cash. I don’t think my host uncle and host cousin will ever let him live it down.

While on break I loved getting to see lots more of Rostock and the surrounding area, especially after hearing about the city so much from my host mom and host grandmother.

Wanna Munda is the old fishing and shipping industry district of Rostock, which has since shut down and become impoverished since Germany came together . Despite this, you could still get a feeling for the way it once was, in my whose moms stories helps to complete the picture.

As we walked, she pointed out to places that were still there from her years as a kid growing up in the city, from a chicken restaurant she and her family went to sometimes as a kid, to the basement discos where she would go dance on the weekend. It was super fun hearing her stories from the way Rostock was, and was overall a big bonding experience for my host family and I. We also visited the historical culture district of Rostock which was super cute and filled with old, cobbled streets and old-fashioned lanterns, casting a soft yellow glow on the surroundings. It felt like something straight out of a different country, so unamerican, which I guess it was.

But despite being halfway across the world from my country, I still managed to experience a little piece of back home – an American football game. I’m not normally a big football fan, I’ll watch a little bit but I’m not serious or anything. This time around though, when my host uncle and cousins asked me if I wanted to watch it with them, I was so excited. I had been totally surrounded by German culture for the past several months, and while I love discovering everything new here, sometimes I love to have a little piece of America again. I don’t remember much about the game itself, but just sitting there on the couch with my host family remains one of my favorite memories from here, uniting my old and new lives in one picture.

Another one of my favorite memories from our time in Rostock, was walking along the river shore one evening with my host family and getting to see the Rostock old town center all lit up from across the water . It was early evening and the sun was sinking slowly towards their Horizon, but it was still light enough that you would think it was still mid-afternoon. On our walk I got to talk more to my host mom, host aunt, and host brother which was really nice. More than anything though, my host mom was in a good mood and we were getting along really well. Because this was not a particularly common occurrence these days with her being stressed about the holidays and all, I really enjoyed this time where she wasn’t upset and frustrated at me. At some point the sun went fully down and the lights of Rostock came on across the water. It was beautiful to see the soft yellow glow reflecting across the dark wide expanse of water . This beautiful scene was completed by my excellent company making the whole walk incredibly fun. Along our walk I also learned that there are wild boars living in the same neighborhood as my Grandma, the same neighborhood in fact that we were walking through right this minute. this was astonishing to me because she lives in a normal suburb. I had no idea there would be such rural wildlife in such an urban setting. I also learned that Bremen had its own major wildlife- wolves had moved into a few of the outer neighborhoods in the city, and needed to be on the lookout if one was going through these neighborhoods in the evening.

German Pools

On one of the last days of December, I got my second real experience of a German pool, which was really interesting because they are very different from American ones in some ways. My host mom decided we should go to one after learning that I’m not a big swimmer and am not particularly good at it. She explained it was a requirement in East Germany when she was growing up to be able to swim well and felt it would be good for me to get more practice. The whole experience was very new for me because I had only been to a German pool once before-when I was at my language camp in Bad Sachsa. One of the biggest differences between US and German pools is the hygiene standards. In Germany these are a lot higher, for instance you take a shower before going into the pool as well as when you are finished. This is mandatory and is seen as totally normal here but was a huge shock to me, because as you all probably know, in most US pools you just take a shower after. I remember my host mom asked me if I had remembered to bring body wash and was astonished when I said I didn’t realise I needed it, so I hadn’t packed any. Very kindly, my host brother let me use his but I remember my host mom was horrified at the idea that people in the US don’t shower before going into the pool. The idea was unthinkable here and so she had thought I would just know to bring soap. Also, you leave your shoes in a designated room along with all your stuff instead of just by the pool side the way you do in the US. The idea behind this is again sanitation and not tracking shoe germs into the pool room.

More than that the pool largely resembled a nice American pool, with both indoor and outdoor sections separated by a double insulation layer of meat flaps, but some things seemed nicer than in the US, the outside water, for instance, was heated against the cold and you could even see steam rising off it in a way i have never seen in the US. Also, there was a little pool for wading unlike anything I have ever seen in the US. It’s only about ten feet long and three feet wide, but it’s freezing cold, and I think it’s supposed to help your muscles. The most memorable feature though for me, was the diving boards. I have always just grown up going to a pool with a diving board about three feet above the water and that was really cool to me. Here, they had three levels, one at three feet, one at 9 feet, and one at fifteen feet, which was really crazy!! It was kind of scary for a second looking down at that water fifteen feet below, which I had never thought was very far to jump, but now that I saw it resized, it was in fact, much longer than I had thought. The nerves weren’t the bad part though, the impact was. Even despite all my efforts, I somehow managed to smack that water like it was concrete. I remember just going under and feeling every inch of my body tingling and burning. This was without a doubt one of those experiences that’s great to have once, but that you never want to go through again.

Throughout the day I also made my breaststroke much better with tips from my host mom. Up until this point I had rarely or ever swam like this and only partly understood how to, but at my host moms suggestion I decided to try swimming this way and after three hours of practicing it, I had improved a ton. I remembered feeling super proud of myself and of the improvement I had made in the space of just a few hours.

After getting back to Bremen from Rostock, one of my host family and I’s last adventures before school started back was making a road trip to Bremerhaven about an hour north of Bremen. Despite being physically separated, Bremerhaven is still legally together with Bremen, forming Germany’s smallest state. This was my first time going to the city, despite having heard about it ever since my first evening in Bremen. On the way I got to see Bremen Nord, another area that I had heard about but had never seen. As the name suggests, this is the northern part of the city, but it is quite a ways from most of the city, including the city center, so I had never had reason to drive through there before.

The trip to Bremerhaven was as memorable as the visit itself, and felt like it was almost out of a story. The road was mostly empty, and a thick fog covered everything so you could barely see what was in front of you. Meanwhile dark, tall trees lined both sides of the road, adding to the fairytale feeling. Much of the trip was filled with this feeling, and except for the fact that we were in a car, and driving on a highway, it felt like we had stepped into a Grimms fairy tale.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I got to Bremerhaven. I had heard that it was small, incredibly poor, and largely devoid of things to do, but that was definitely not the way I found it. As we drove into the city you could see the grey ships resting on the water, the old cranes towering over them, the water itself lapping gently at the quay, it was just the way I imagined a Harbor to look in the stories. To complete it all, the fog that we had driven through the whole way there was present here too, if not to the same extent, and a grey sky reflected the same color of the city. Despite not normally liking seeing so much bleakness, today it was very fitting, because it seemed to frame the city very well. The adventure had started.

Some of my particularly memorable experiences from our time there were walking along the waterfront, visiting the KlimaHouse, and buying my first ever real fireworks.

The city proved very cool in a gritty, mysterious sense that came from a mixture of the Harbor feeling, the fog still lightly blanketing everything, and the overall greyness of the city. But for all that I had heard about the city’s tremendous poverty and overall lack of excitement, I found it really cool. The town center was well organised and easy to get around, you could see lots of different cool things, and it proved to be a really fun experience.

After briefly visiting the Christmas market and enjoying some baked fish, we went for a walk along the Harbor front which was really cool. Although we only saw one or two ships, you could feel the Atmosphäre of shipping in the air-something about the grey feeling, and the smell of the sea, and the lap of the water on the walls of the wharf. It was here that I learned Bremerhaven had actually been the departing place of people all over Europe to get to the US via ship, which astonished me because of its small size and relative insignificance now. I had no idea this city once played such a huge role in international travel. This also felt a little like a full-circle moment for me: I had come from America to Germany to live as a German and see things as a German, and now I stood on the same stones and looked out at the same sea as so many Germans had decades before, before embarking on the opposite journey to discover a new life in the USA.

At one point along our walk we came to a memorial for German soldiers who had died working for the US following the First World War. My host mom explained that after the Germans lost the war, German soldiers were forced to work for the Americans on their ships and a large number of them had died. This was incredibly saddening to me, and was also deeply surprising because we had never learned about this in school in the US. This has been one of the really cool things about coming to and living in Germany, you learn things you would not learn in the US and it gives you a more well-rounded perspective of the world.

One of my favourite movements from the whole trip came when we were taking a short ice cream break in the city’s main mall. We had visited a gelato shop in the mall, the whole bottom level was Italian themed with fake Mediterranean townhouse facades lining both walls and fake cobblestones making up the floor, all of which my host mom found very charming, but that I felt was a bit too fake.

Anyways, we were sitting on a bench in the mall enjoying our ice cream when I started hearing a familiar voice singing a familiar song over the speakers. After a second I recognised the lyrics, it was Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown.” This seemed an incredible coincidence to me, because the song is about a city that was once thriving, but that descends into poverty and hardship when the main business leaves. This is exactly what happened in Bremerhaven, a once relatively important Harbor town, but that has since dried up and suffered terrible poverty because shipping is no longer a major industry here-everyone goes by plane instead now. This song that came on could have been written about Bremerhaven, and it was so crazy to me that it was here, in Bremerhaven, of all the places that I heard it.

Another adventure that day was when my host family and I visited the KlimaHouse. This is Bremerhavens most famous museum, and is a huge part of the downtown. When you drive into the city it immediately catches your eye with the sleek metal outside and modern architecture striking a stark contrast with the more muted and older buildings which surrounded it. The idea of the museum was to depict various climates from all across the world, and although it is targeted mainly towards younger children, it was still cool. It was very interactive which I liked, allowing you to do a lot more hands-on activities and everything unlike most museums, which I liked, but it did also feel a bit fake. Because all the exhibits were targeted at young children and so very simple, and because almost everything was made out of plastic, it was hard to feel like you were actually seeing the real climates and ways they affected people’s lives, and not just the fake museum version. Nevertheless it was fun to have the experience and it was cool to see the museum after hearing lots about it.

After visiting the KlimaHouse we made one less stop in Bremerhaven before heading home: fireworks. You can buy big fireworks here in the grocery store, in the days leading up to New Years, a product I have never seen in American grocery stores regardless of time of year. This was super new to me and so cool. So many different kinds of fireworks, and so cheap!! This was like a second Christmas for me-discovering fireworks in the supermarket of all places, that go up 150 feet into the air, and that cost only a little more than 10 dollars. I don’t think I have ever loved living in Germany more than at that moment. Needless to say, I made sure to buy a good box, and that is probably the best 11€ I have ever spent.

Another really fun family memory from my time in Germany has been celebrating New Years, which is really big here. It was really cool to learn about German traditions for the holiday and even set off big fireworks myself which was a first for me. A big German tradition for new years is the Swiss Raclette which I explained earlier with the youth group party. For a little refresher, it is where you have the table-top, two-tier, griddle and slow cook things throughout the evening as you want. We cooked cheeses and breakfast sausages and other meats, sitting together around the kitchen table. It was very cosy with everything lit up only by the soft, yellow Christmas lights hanging on the wall casting a warm glow over everything. It was really fun to do this with my host family for new years and it was very cool to learn about actual German new year’s traditions as someone living there. I feel like in the US there are just these stereotypes of how Germans celebrate everything-beer, pretzels, and lederhosen, so it was very cool to see actual celebrations.

Later that evening I learned about another German new years tradition-Dinner For One-a movie about an aristocratic woman who thinks she has guests so her butler plays along and acts as each guest for, in a very amusing comedy. This is an older, but much beloved movie in Germany for New Years and certainly did not disappoint.

An hour or two later, maybe around 9:00 that night, we went out and had lots of fun with our little fireworks. While pretty small, they nevertheless were lots of fun to light and watch, and proved to be a major bonding experience for my host family and i. We also had lots of fun watching the huge fireworks going off in the neighbourhood, lighting up everything in shades of red, green, blue, and purple. I decided to hold off on setting off the big fireworks i had bought until the next day because it was really windy and not very many things were lighting well towards the end. Despite the wind, some people were still able to set off some impressive fireworks and we had tons of fun watching them go off as we counted down towards the new years then exchanged hugs and daps. I had never actually counted down with fireworks I don’t think until this year, I had just seen it in the movies, so this was a really fun, new experience!! After all the fireworks we went back in and watched some more of Reacher, the TV show we had recently started, along with some fresh hot chocolate, which was also really fun!! In short, the whole evening proved really, really, fun, and I bonded a ton with my host family, making memories to last a lifetime!!

This concludes my December update for my life in Germany. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to reach out to me at trexlertb1@gmail.com 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 Townley Bakewell

JANUARY 2025

New Year New Family

January was rough, really rough. Sometimes being an exchange student is awesome, you’re having so much fun, bonding with your host family, and overall just being able to soak in the culture you are surrounded by. This was not one of those times.

Family

The biggest thing was that starting in January things got dramatically worse between my host family and I. I thought it would get better after a few days, then after a week, but it kept getting worse, it kept getting longer, and I kept feeling more miserable. It’s hard, when you’re only host parent says barely one word to you the entire month, choosing instead to glare at you without saying what the problem is. That was hard for me at least, every day when I had to go back to it. The whole environment was so passive aggressive, there would be times that I would call my parents crying because I didn’t want to go home, because it felt so suffocating, this passive aggressive atmosphere every day. I remember one Sunday afternoon, towards the end of January, it was especially bad. I called up my parents and told them that I could not keep going on like this, that things needed to change big time with how my host family and I interacted, or that I needed to change families. My host family must have felt the same way because the next day after school we also sat down together and my host mom told me she talked to my program that morning and told them they could no longer host me, and that YFU needed to find me a new family. You know honestly I was so relieved, finally there was a solution to a problem that had gone on way too long. We all tried so hard to make it work and now finally we could have closure. I don’t think it was my host family’s or my fault, I think it just wasn’t the right fit. We all tried our best to make it work, and sometimes it just doesn’t.

Friends

While things got progressively worse with my host family in January, they got progressively better with friends and I started hanging out with more friends and connecting more outside of school than I had since coming to Germany. Throughout the month I was able to meet up with a variety of people from school friends to fellow exchange students.

At one point I met up with two school friends/acquaintances at the local mall and had lots of fun there, from sampling the ice cream bar to eating three-year-expired Twinkies. The most memorable part was when we went to this store called House of Suites, filled with American sweets, although they were ridiculously overpriced, otherwise almost impossible to find in Germany. Even though I don’t really eat many sweets in the US, seeing all of them here felt like a little piece of home. We bought a big mystery bag together of assorted candies and we’re warned by the cashier that one or two of the sweets might have passed the expiration date but only by a day or two. As it turned out, everything expired…by a few years. Despite this most of them tasted okay and we had a lot of fun sampling. The exception was the Twinkies-for a food that has a reputation for surviving the apocalypse, a food so full of preservatives it would still be the same a million years from now, those three years were pretty hard on those poor Twinkies, and they did not look real tasty. That being said, I was not going to let that deter me, what’s life without a little adventure? Besides if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger right? Through the experience I was able to strengthen both my relationship with my classmates, and my immune system.

Towards the end of January I had my first organized YFU meet up since October. The event had been put together by a few coordinators in northwest Germany (my region) and the idea was for host families and exchange students to be able to talk to other host families and other exchange students respectively. It was a ton of fun and I really enjoyed getting to hang out with friends and being able to compare notes on our host families. I loved being able to talk to people who could at least somewhat relate to what I was going through. Besides, it was really nice to be able to chat to other kids there especially, and it felt like we all bonded a lot because we could all relate to each other through our shared experience as foreign exchange students in Germany.

Throughout the month I also made new friends from fellow exchange students to other regular German kids.

Early on in January, I was in the Bremen public library and happened to walk past the table of girls speaking really good English, because this is not really common here, I figured they were probably other extreme students and stopped to chat. As it turned out, one of them had done an exchange last year in the US, but they were all just normal German high school students. I ended up helping them with their English project for school and had a ton of fun getting to know them. Even though we were all together for about 45 minutes, we bonded a lot and are still in contact to this day.

My last particularly memorable meetup was with a friend who is also on the CBYX program, going through a different organization. We had never met up in person before, but he was really good friends with her family friend and we’ve been meaning to try to meet up ever since coming to Germany. It was a ton of fun walking around Bremen together, and I really enjoyed being able to show more of the highlights from my city. It made me really appreciate just how much Bremen has to offer, and remind me of cool places I had forgotten were there. Even better, it was great to get to know my friend who were taken train three hours so we can meet up, and we bonded a lot through our afternoon together from walking along the Weser (Bremen’s iconic river), to visiting the Kunst Halle (Bremen’s best art museum), to exploring the Schnoor, with all its quirky little shops and the smallest house in Germany, we made sure to cover bremen’s iconic landmarks. Of course, we had to make a few refreshment stops as well, from a hot cocoa break out of the swirling snow, to some delicious African food, a nice change of pace from traditional German food (although that tastes very good too). Despite starting our adventure barely knowing each other, we got along really well from the start and bonded a time together in fact come a long before we started ways that you can I already felt like I found a really good friend.

At the end of January I got my first experience of German barbers. I asked everyone I knew recommendations, and then carefully scouted out haircut ideas before eventually finding a clear photo of one that I thought looked especially good. I had chosen a barber who was highly recommended by a classmate. I researched the place myself and it looked really good. I basically tried to do everything I could do to make sure I got exactly what I was looking for. There is a joke in Germany that when you go to the barber, the chances are 50/50 you get a good haircut, but I felt completely confident my preparations would ensure it worked out well.

I showed my barber the photo and you seemed after just a few seconds to fully understand. When the electric buzzer came out though, I started to think we had two pretty different ideas. It was not until the end though that I realized just how different the ideas were. He had done a good job, the cut was clean and good, it was just so…short. It looked like my head was a little too big, or my hair was a little too small. In any case, it was not what I expected, although it certainly did make me look more German. At the time it was a little mortifying, but now it’s just a funny memory and a good reminder to be specific with the barber.

Another highlight from the month was when my host brother and I went to meet up with his dad and his dad’s girlfriend. I’d only met the two once before but really liked them already and was very excited to be able to meet up again. It was my host brother’s dad’s birthday and he had incredibly kindly invited us out to dinner. Throughout the evening I had a ton of fun talking to everyone and getting to know the others a little better. I heard little about my brother’s dad from my host brother and host mom but it was not a really topic in my host family, so it was really nice to be able to learn more. I could also tell my host brother really enjoyed seeing his dad and they were super close, so I loved seeing them both so happy. After dinner we headed back to my host brother’s dad’s apartment, and chatted there for a while before finally having to head home because of school the next day. I had tons of fun throughout the evening, and I’m so glad to be able to count these three among my friends.

German Food/Food Traditions

Since coming to Germany I’ve discovered a whole host of German foods and food traditions that you don’t really hear about in the US but that I love all the same. Döner kebab (Döner for short) is an iconic German street food that tastes delicious and is beloved throughout the country. It consists of toasted pita stuffed with shaved meat (chicken or beef), shredded, mixed vegetables, and tzatziki/other sauces. Döner shops are incredibly prolific throughout Germany and one can be sure to find at least a few of them even in the smallest German towns and many more in the major big cities.

Another German classic is spaghetti eis-vanilla ice cream put through a machine so it comes out in strands which are swirled all together just like real spaghetti, and topped with strawberry sauce. It’s typically in really big portions, it’s a definite sugar bomb, but tastes super good. if you are in Germany make sure you try it!!

One of my personal favorite foods since coming to Germany is Kartoffeln Puffern (potato pancakes) which is shredded potato in a batter fried into a thin pancake shape and eaten hot, covered with sugar or applesauce or other toppings. Certainly a food you don’t want to eat too much of come on or your stomach won’t be happy with you later (I learned this the hard way) but it is definitely worth trying if you get the chance!!

One tradition I really enjoyed throughout my time here is Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake) . This is very similar to English afternoon tea. It is basically a break in the afternoon to chat and of course have some delicious Kuchen.

One big difference I’ve noticed since coming to Germany is the portion size. In the US portions are significantly bigger and we eat three bigger meals a day. Here there’s one big, warm meal a day (lunch) and then breakfast is really similar to US breakfast, but dinner is much smaller. It is literally called Abend Brot (evening bread) and is a few slices of bread with me or cheese or vegetables. At first this was totally different to me because I was used to dinner being the big, warm meal, but now I’m used to it and really like the arrangement because I’m not as hungry in the evening’s and so the system works well.

Another big difference here is the bread. Bread is a huge part of the culture and food here, coming into all three meals. German bread also tastes a lot better overall, plus it’s way more filling. It tends to be a really dense, dark bread oftentimes filled with seeds and tastes way fresher and more natural then the store bought sandwich bread that is more common in the US. Speaking of which bread here is bought fresh and daily in the bakeries, which are super common here. Brötchen are also really popular here – fresh bread rolls which also taste really good. often eaten with jam or Nutella or fresh cheese/meat, and are very traditional for German breakfast. This delicious, fresh bread and Brötchen is something I will miss a ton back in the US.

Yours in Scouting,

Trexler Townley Bakewell

FEBRUARY 2025

Here and There and Everywhere

Wazzup Troup 13,

I hope y’all are doing well!! I’m back again with the February update for my year in Germany. I hope you all enjoy it!!

If January was a really low month for me, February was a pretty high one. For one thing, I was changing host families and would be out of this super hard situation before long. I had already started searching intensively for a new one, reaching out to anyone and everyone I knew and putting everything I had into the effort. I was optimistic that I would be out within days. For another thing I got a few desperately needed breaks from my host family – going to stay with a friend of my dad’s in Kiel, a city in northern Germany. I had fun spending a few weekends with her and her family who had incredibly kindly invited to stay with them. I had seen them in 2018 when my family and I visited Germany, and we had been meaning to get together again this spring because I was in the area, then with me needing a place to stay while my host family was in Berlin, they invited me to come.

Kiel

After we had decided I should switch host families, we decided that I should also find some place to stay while my host family was in Berlin. They were there visiting the city for school break and initially the plan was for us to all go together, but after everything that had happened we felt it would be better if I found someone else to stay with for the weekend. I was able to get it worked out that I could spend the night with a friend in Bremen and would head to Kiel for the rest of the weekend and stay with an old friend of my dad who had very kindly invited me to visit. Because my host family was leaving in the morning and I needed to leave the house too, but wasn’t meeting my friend till the evening, I had a whole day to kill in Bremen, and I was already excited about all things I could do.

The morning had gone really well, things between my host family and I felt better that morning than they had since 2024.

The tram system in Bremen is something that I had first taken for granted and had considered relatively superfluous because biking is so common in the city and is arguably more efficient, but this morning, weighed down by a full backpack and duffel bag, I was incredibly grateful to have it.

One of the things I love about Bremen town center is that it is so compact and easy to get around, so after stashing my bags in the train station lockers, it was not a long walk to get into the city center. Throughout the morning and afternoon I had lots of fun exploring and chilling, from reading in the Bremen public library, to visiting Bremen’s most famous chocolate shop, Hachez Chocolate Factory. Then that afternoon, completely by accident, I met up with a friend from school, another exchange student named Chris, who is from Canada. He was getting shown around Bremen by his host mom, and I really enjoyed chatting with him and getting to meet her. She also incredibly kindly invited me to meet out for food with them, and you know when you get an invitation like that, you do not turn it down.

It’s also crazy, she almost became my host mom too. She had seen the email sent out by my school explaining that I was looking for a new host family and almost signed up to take me before realizing they didn’t have any more free rooms-they were already hosting THREE exchange students. After chatting with her and Chris and enjoying some delicious Pommes (fries) and Currywurst that she had incredibly kindly bought us, we parted ways, hoping to meet up later that evening. The friend whose birthday party I was going to that evening had said I was welcome to invite a friend, and Chris was the perfect idea. I knew I would know almost no one there because my friend and I went to different schools and moved into different circles.So I asked Chris, and true to his word he showed up.

Later that evening I had fun exploring more of Bremen, especially the Schnoor district and all of its little shops and cafes. I loved the independence of it all. I could walk around on my own in the evening in the town center in complete safety, exploring whatever I wanted and running completely on my own time. I was so free and I loved it.

That night I went to my first German party, and I loved it. I was a little worried that it would just be a bunch of girls who I didn’t know, but it was super fun and they were actually a bunch of guys there too. Everyone was super friendly and outgoing and I made a bunch of good friends that evening!! Even though I only met them for a few hours, I felt like with some of the people that I found better friends that evening than in all of my time in Germany until this point. Throughout the night we alternated chilling inside and talking and stuff and going outside for low fresh air when I got too hot. A DJ had been hired too and people were having fun dancing a lot too. Everybody was just super friendly and relaxed and just having fun. I loved it!!

Then the next day, I boarded a train to Kiel. I had a lot of fun the whole weekend and loved getting to see them again. Furthermore, I was so happy to actually be in the house and a home where it didn’t feel frosty, where I was welcome, and where I didn’t worry about going home, unlike the way things had been with my host family in Bremen for the last month.

While staying with this family in Kiel, we did a ton together and bonded a lot, from talking about our favorite music and walking along the Kiel waterfront, to exploring the city of Lübeck. I loved my weekend and my time with them, and it felt like a breath of fresh air before going back into the Mines.

Speaking of which, visiting Lübeck was one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend. My dad’s friend’s daughter was meeting a friend there and invited me to come along with her mom. We all explored the old part of the city together, including the Rathaus (town hall), the Thomas Mann house (the house of an incredibly famous German author), and lots of cute little shops from bookstores to CD/record shops, all while chatting about everything from films to politics. The sites were really cool to see and the company even better.

For a little background, Lübeck is a really beautiful city located in northern Germany. It’s one of the Hanseatic cities – a coalition of northern German cities that formed a trade alliance back in the 1300s and remain largely interconnected via trade today. The old part of the city is beautiful and filled with cobbled streets and old red brick buildings giving the whole area a unique, historical, ambiance.

Another thing that I loved about my time in Kiel was the change in cuisine, something that I really had missed since coming to Germany. My hosts there really liked Indian food, especially and cooked with a diversity of spice and flavor I had not had in a long time while staying with my host family in Bremen. It was so nice to have more of this again after the relatively mild but tasty German food I was used to.

On the last day the daughter of my dad’s friend and I went to see the wild boars in the forest directly neighboring the house. I’d heard a lot about them from my dad and hosts but had never actually seen a wild boar before so that was a really cool new experience for me.

That afternoon, the time came for me to go back to Bremen, after a wonderful long weekend and a desperately needed breath of fresh air. I had so much fun that weekend, but more than anything I enjoyed just being with a family who actually liked having me around. They were so kind to me and made me feel so welcome, something I certainly missed before the whole month of January.

Kiel was awesome, but of course all good things must come to an end. When I got back to Bremen at first my host family and I were getting on much better, after our long weekend apart. But after less than an hour back together, my host mom started slipping into that same frosty silence that house for the last five weeks. It certainly wasn’t always like that, occasionally it would get better for a little bit and it would feel like we were getting on well together, but then they would go downhill again. All this time I was searching tirelessly for a new host family. I was reaching out to anyone and everyone I knew, asking friends, classmates, my Youth Group leaders, my teachers, everyone. I stopped doing my homework and most/all other paperwork: all of my energy was channeled into finding a new host family that I liked ASAP, and getting out of that frosty, unwelcoming situation that made me dread going home every day. I talked to a number of potential families, all of whom didn’t work for one reason or another, and what I thought would take less than a week slowly dragged into two and a half while with every day that passed it took more energy to search as the exhaustion started to kick in. Then one day I finally found what I was certain would be my new family. They lived a block over from me on a beautiful quiet street, a mom, a dad, and son my age who loved sports and went to the same school as all the friends I had met at my friends party earlier in the month. Everything seemed perfect even before I met them in person. When I did they were incredibly friendly and welcoming, but the best part came a little bit later. We had just finished getting to know each other a little bit, and I felt like our little interview or sorts had gone really well. I really liked them, and they seemed to be like me, and I was feeling more and more like this could be my new home. Then at the end my host dead goes “one last very important question: do you know Bruce Springsteen?” And that was it, I was convinced this was the family for me. I love Bruce Springsteen; I have a poster of him on my wall; he is my favorite musician in the whole damn world; his music has seen me through the deepest valleys of my time in Germany, but I had met so few people who knew of him, let alone loved him, that it was just unbelievable, I don’t even know how to describe it. This guy had been to 53 Springsteen concerts, traveling all around Europe to see him, he had been to the New Jersey bar where Springsteen had gotten his start, he had a wall-to-wall shelf of just Springsteen CDs. This was an incredible bonding experience for us, and I have never felt so close so fast with a host family before. That is one memory that I will never ever forget.

And so it hurt so much more when they couldn’t take me. They explained that they really liked me and would love to have been able to, but they didn’t feel like they had the time to devote to me that I needed and deserved to acclimate into a new host family. They explained they thought it would not be fair to me for them to take me in and then be super busy and not be able to have much time for me. I remember when I first read the news, I was crushed completely. I felt like I found the best host family for me in the whole world, and now that I would never find a good one again. Until I met this family I felt like I was pretty ready to settle with a new family anywhere in Germany as long as I felt like I could even half make it work, so bad was my situation with my old host family, but after meeting this family I felt like I could not possibly find a better family for me in the entire country of Germany. This family not working was also a huge setback overall in terms of finding a new family. I had no other ideas of people to ask. I was exhausted from working so hard to find a new family in my last hope, my plan A-Z had just been crushed. I was not in a good place

As good as February was, it certainly had its lows too. That was a big one, and another was my progressively worsening situation at home, which had been getting more miserable since the beginning of January. Eventually I decided I couldn’t keep waiting and searching for more host families while every evening I had to go back to that same frosty home. I needed an out. I needed to be out of this situation that had gone on way too long. I think my host mom felt exactly the same way. A day or so after I decided this and let my program know, I was on a train to Hamburg and to a temporary family to buy me time to find a permanent one.

Hamburg Temporary Family

My bags had been packed for days ready to go as soon as I could, and my host family and I parted ways that afternoon with the understanding that we would never be living together again. As we said goodbyes there was definitely some major relief on all sides, and things were more friendly than they had been since 2024. We parted very friendly and it was evident we were all putting an effort to make sure our last time together was good. As I walked out the door and let each step carry me farther away from my old life, I felt a growing sense of freedom, as I left one chapter of my year, and entered the next. I arrived in Hamburg that evening and after a little food and a little confusion with our meeting place, I managed to rendezvous with my new (temporary) host mom, and headed to my temporary placement.

I would be staying there until Monday, when my middle of the year seminar for my program would start, where I would stay with other people on my program for the week. Even though there were only a few days between the Friday I went to a temporary family and the Monday my program started, I felt it would be way better for everyone if my host family and I parted ways sooner rather than later. The hope was that by the end of my week in Hamburg I would know who my permanent family would be. I was still waiting to hear from my last family (the Springsteen one), and I was hoping so hard they would take me. If it fell through however, I would just ask YFU to find a family for me. I was completely exhausted from searching and I couldn’t keep going on asking one family after another. Either way, whether the host family said “yes” or if “no” and YFU found me a family, I was confident I would have a new home by the time my Hamburg week ended.

The weekend with my temporary host family was a lot of fun, it was really nice to be out of my old host family situation, but a couple moments stood out in particular.

For one thing I had fun seeing the part of Hamburg where my host family lives, with my host dad. We walked around the neighborhood and he pointed out historic or unusual locations, and the whole neighborhood was very old and beautiful, and it was a very nice change of pace from Bremen. We also talked a lot about politics, both American and German, which I really enjoy. I was really interested in the topic, but my host family and I never really talked about it, so it was super nice to be able to discuss it again. Back in the US I would talk politics all the time with my dad and I really missed that. In particular, I enjoyed learning more about the German political parties and political situation from my host dad, which until this point I knew very little about.

I also got to go with my host family to the supermarket and see a totally different way of shopping. Instead of collecting all your groceries and going to the cashier to check out, you scan the barcode of each grocery as you collect it, with the REWE (the supermarket) app. then you just scan the app at the barrier on your way out. The whole system functions very efficiently , cutting down majorly on lines at the store. Whereas in the past every grocery store that I’d been in, you needed to check out with the cashier’s or self-checkout, but there you could do it all with your phone. It was evident however that shoplifting was a pretty prevalent fear, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many security cameras in one place before. The entire ceiling was covered in them, just in case anyone tried to take something without paying. It was also a good reminder and a good metaphor for our modern day technology: as technology gets more advanced as seen here, we end up paying the price for ever-increasing convenience with ever-decreasing privacy.

While staying with my temporary family, I also had fun meeting up with a friend from my program who lives in Hamburg. It was really nice to have a little reunion and even just to see another American again. We (she, her host sister, and I) had fun walking around central Hamburg together and catching up on everything that had happened since August. It was fun to see more of Hamburg, since I had only been there once before. We visited Hamburg’s major landmarks, from its beautiful, old Rathaus to the Europa Passage, a major shopping mall that my friend and her host sister really wanted to go to, and more. While walking around I also saw a pro-Palestinian information tent protesting the war in Gaza and had a really nice conversation with the people there. In the U.S. and Germany both I’ve seen very few pro-Palestinian booths/tents/etc protesting the war so it was really nice to see this one here. Also, I love talking to and connecting with other people, and this time was no exception.

My favourite part from our adventure together however was the end of the day when we stopped in the restaurant for my friend and her host sister to get some fries. There’s a big difference however between fries in the US and fries in Germany. German fries are much bigger and are often served on their own and not just as a side. Also they are often served with either ketchup or Mayo, the latter of which I was a little suspicious of at first, which actually tastes really good. Plus the fries come with these little wooden forks so that you can eat them without getting your hands dirty, and they are home-cut, meaning they are thicker than normal fries and also tend to be more filling. in fact, fries (Pommes) is in Germany a show popular here you have whole restaurants to work developed that just sell different kinds of them so with the different sources and vegetables and all sorts of things. It’s honestly really impressive, you walk into a restaurant and there are 40 different kinds of fries you can order that are all totally different.

We were in one such restaurant now. Even though I didn’t order anything, I had lots of fun talking with the others. We definitely bonded a lot that evening, talking about everything, and even though I hadn’t seen my friends since August, never had even met her host this day, I thought totally relaxed with them and I could tell we’ve grown a lot closer through the course of our day together.

The one lower part of the day was when I accidentally got home a few minutes later than I meant to and was reminded of just how important punctuality is to Germans. I was heading home with my friends, but then we accidentally missed my bus stop, it went one further than we had meant to. because of this, it took a few minutes longer to get home and then when I got to the apartment, I kept trying with the keys to get the door unlocked but was not sure which one to use, and none of them were working. After a few minutes I just had to call my temporary host mom and ask her to open the door from the inside. Because of this I didn’t actually get into the apartment until around 10:08, eight minutes after curfew. Even though this didn’t seem like a big problem to me, and I tried very hard to be on time if not early, my host mom was irritated that I was late. I made sure to apologize and explain about the bus and the key. Moreover, I made sure after that to always be there early so I wouldn’t have the same problem again.

My favorite memory from the weekend was when my host and I went to play board games with good family friends of my host family. I learned they play board games together every weekend or so, and really enjoyed that sort of thing which I had missed since coming to Germany where my former host family were not big board game players. I had a ton of fun playing Pandemic with them, and having to work together to win. There was a ton of teamwork and encouragement, everyone was super invested and in the end we had to pause it for the week part way through, because it was getting late and we needed to get home. They invited me back to play with them again next Friday, which was super nice of them and which would have been super fun if I had been able to pull it off. It was a super great afternoon and I loved meeting everyone and getting to know them as well as playing with them. Throughout the game I also got to know the family friends we were playing with, they were incredibly welcoming and fun to talk to and I really enjoyed chatting with everyone. We talked about all sorts of different things including what my host father had been doing in Seattle for a work trip and I enjoyed hearing his perspective of America, as a German. It was also fun just being with such welcoming, friendly people, having so much fun with these guys that I’d known for at most a day or two (temporary host dad) and with the others, a few hours my hosts or so. And so in between bites of pizza and saving the world from communism, a friendship was built around that I will treasure to this day.

Another thing that I really liked about February is actually starting to have a host dad at home. With my former host family, I had a host mom but no host dad. Although I did not fully appreciate it until I was in my temporary host family with two parents, it was incredibly hard having just one parent at home, and moreover having no male role model. It has always been important to me to have good male role models, I didn’t realize just how much I missed it until I joined my new temporary host family, and the difference was even more noticeable in the family I was with immediately after my Hamburg week. I had so much fun chatting with my host dad there and having someone who relates to me better. I had a lot of fun with my old host family too and really liked them, but I love actually having a two parent household again.

YFU Middle Seminar

On Monday evening I arrived at my middle seminar. After saying goodbye to my temporary host family that morning, I had fun walking around Hamburg in the afternoon with a friend from my program. I was a little dubious about the seminar itself because during the language camp I had had the previous summer, after arriving in Germany, I felt it was really cliquey that I did not fit in with any of the groups. Despite this, whenI got there everyone was super open and friendly, and it felt like we had all had a lot more in common this time around after learning what it was like as Americans to live in Germany the last five and a half months. From the start I already felt like I would connect way more with the other people and have more fun than language camp. Although we drifted apart a little as the week went on, I definitely felt like overall I cliqued with the other guys especially way more this time. One of my favorite memories was when five of us teamed up for the pub quiz on the first night and we ended up winning. We worked together really well throughout and bonded a ton. We were locked in, and I felt like I’d found a really good group of friends.

The pub quiz was definitely a highlight of the week ; it covered all sorts of German topics, from culture to history. It was really cool to learn more about the place where we were living, especially the categories I knew next to nothing about. For instance, the Pop Culture section was really interesting, especially because I knew a little about German Pop culture but not very much. It was cool if a local corny to see the memes that used to be all over Germany in the previous generation, like a plane taking off then losing its wheels mid-flight.

Another highlight was the political session we had towards the end of the week. One of the teamers (the people who ran our program) had put together a presentation on the various German political parties, how many seats they had in the Bundestag and where they stood on a number of political issues in Germany. The presentation was super informative and served as a great way to learn more ahead of the election.

The week also had some wonderful less structured highlights however. My favorite was on Wednesday, when we were given the day to explore Hamburg, with the idea that we were on a scavenger hunt to see different downtown Hamburg highlights, from a list we were given. So after teaming up with my closest friend and two other good friends from the program, we set out on our adventure. Although we did almost nothing on the list, we saw a ton and bonded even more. From making a game plan in the fanciest Starbucks I’ve ever seen, with carved wood, gold trim, and marble columns, to sampling in brownies in appliance stores and trying on $1,500 outfits, I had so much fun that day and it is by far my favorite memory from the entire week and one of my favorite memories for my entire time in Germany.

One of my favorite memories from the day was the end when we ended up at this store picking out outfits for each other. My friend and I picked stuff for the girls and they picked stuff out for us. But what we thought was just normal H&M turned out to actually be an incredibly upscale store, and was probably one of the most expensive clothing stores in Hamburg. We had a ton of fun picking out crazy outfits however, and they somehow actually turned out well, from a highlighter outfit so bright it would light you up like a beacon, to a leopard print fit that looked like the red carpet went on safari. I must say though, it takes a good bit of bravery to put on booty swim trunks, a loud button down Hawaiian shirt, a necktie, and a leather aviator jacket with leather hiking groups. It was an outfit to be sure, and it certainly made an impact. Not one, however, that I would soon put on again. Not long after, it was time to go home, but before that I had an incredible day and bonded so much with my now super close friends.

As much as I could enjoy my Hamburg week, it had some incredible sobering moments as well. For instance, before our scavenger hunt around the city, we visited the memorial altogether, to all the people sent out of Hamburg on trains to the concentration camps. The city had played a crucial role in the transportation of people to the camps, and the memorial stands where the train station used to stand, the train station where people from all across North Germany would be shipped out on cattle cars to their deaths. We learned about how ordinary Germans who worked in the station profited from this system and knew what was happening but chose to ignore it. We learned about how people made their living from this practice, from the conductors and porters getting people loaded onto the trains to the railway coordinators coordinator trains that brought people to the camps. This was incredibly sobering, to be standing on the same ground that so many people had stood on, before boarding trains to their deaths. That’s not something you forget.

After Hamburg

After my weekend humbric, returning to Gymnasium Horn, knowing I would be leaving within the week, felt very weird. I already had a little senioritis before Hamburg, but afterwards it was ten times stronger. I had just had a week with friends and no schoolwork. I did not really see a point in doing school work at all this week because I was changing so soon, so instead I just had fun chilling in class. Trying a little sometimes, but more often just listening to music, chatting, and just having fun is how I spent my whole last week at the school. I wasn’t particularly sad to leave – I felt I didn’t have many/any close friends there and was ready for a new adventure. And so after a week of waiting, putting school stuff in order, and enjoying a last breath of Bremen, the time came for me to head to my new host family. After things did not work out with my last host family candidate, I felt stranded, sure of only one thing – I was not going back to my old host family, not even temporarily. They and I both needed to separate. Incredibly lucky, before I went to Hamburg my youth group leader offered that I could stay with her and her husband for a few days after the seminar while I figured out what came next. I ended up taking her up on this incredibly generous offer and had a ton of fun with them. We bonded a ton during those days: watching soccer, talking, and just chilling. I was so happy to once again be in a place where I felt I belonged, and the week with them was exactly what I needed after my last host family.I’m so glad I got to stay with them. And at the end of my week with them, I moved in with my new host family.

Bundestagswahl

In Germany this February, the Bundestagswahl was held, after being awaited since 2024 when the old coalition government in Germany collapsed. For little background, to control the German government a party must have over 50% of overall votes from the German people. If it does not have over 50%, it must form a coalition with other parties until together the parties have more than 50%. The last coalition – the stoplight coalition – consisted of the social democrats (SPD), the Greens (Die Grüne) and the Free Democrats (FDP), but collapsed when the FDP refused completely to work with other two parties, and then left the coalition. This forced the Chancellor (Prime Minister), Olaf Schultz of SPD, to call a new election. That was November 2024, and since then the vote has been heavily anticipated with a number of parties, particularly CDU, advertising heavily beforehand.

The German Bundestag is structured differently from the US Senate or House of Representatives. It has 630 seats, and each party receives the number of seats correlating to the percent of votes it received from the German people. For instance, if a party got 20% of the votes in Germany, it would get 20% of the seats in the German Bundestag.

Voting in Germany is far easier than voting in the US due to a variety of factors, including being streamlined by the government and much better organized. This is reflected in the fact that 84% of the German population voted in the 2025 Bundestagswahl, compared with less than 50% of the American population voting in the 2024 US presidential election. Here in Germany there are two different ways you can vote in the Bundestagswahl. You can vote for a party overall, and if they make it into the Bundestag (Germany’s legislature) they will pick the candidates to represent the party, or you can vote directly for a candidate themselves, just like in the US, and if your candidate receives enough votes, they will go directly into the Bundestag to represent the party. If a party receives less than 5% of the overall votes by voters however, the party will not be able to go into the Bundestag. This year no party won more than 50% of the votes, so the parties will need to form a coalition, the most likely possible of which is a red black coalition with CDU and SPD respectively. However a variety of coalitions are possible except with the AfD. Because the AfD is so right-wing and extremist, every other party has pledged not to make a coalition with it.

German Political Parties Explained

Left-Leaning Parties

SPD (Social Democratic Party)

Head of Party: Olaf Scholz

Color: Red

Percent of Seats in Bundestag: 16.4%

Voter Base: Older people. working class, low-income workers (party of the “working man” traditionally)

Policy Stances:

Raising minimum wage
Lower taxes on working class
Raise taxes on upper class

*one of West Germany’s original two major parties

The Greens (The Green Party)

Head of Party:

Color: Green

Percent of Seats in Bundestag: 11.6%

Voter Base: Educated, urban voters

Policy Stances:

Environmental awareness and slowing climate change is historically their central pillar
Social justice
Upgrade Germany’s infrastructure
Higher minimum wage
Higher taxes on higher earners
Mandatory minimum pension

The Left

Head of Party: Ines Schwerdtner and Jan van Aken

Color: Red

Percent of Seats in Bundestag: 8.8%

Voter Base: First time and young voters

Policy Stances:

Younger retirement age
Solidarity minimum pension
Raise minimum wage significantly
Dissolve NATO
No military missions abroad
Raise taxes significantly on upper class
Stricter market regulation
Stronger rental caps
More social investment
Asylum for all refugees
- No deportations
Dissolve EU and open Europe’s borders
- Take in way more refugees

Right-Leaning Parties

CDU/CSU (Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union)

*the two are sisters parties-CSU is the equivalent of the CDU, but only for Bavaria

Head of Party: Friedrich Merz

Color: Black

Percent of Seats in Bundestag: 28.6%

Voter base: Old-school conservatives, older people, wealthier, very strong in Bavaria

Policy Stances:

Conservative Christian
Believe strongly in traditional conservative values
Ease taxes on the upper class
Stricter laws on immigration
Deport all undocumented immigrants
Tougher-on-crime approach
Strengthen German military

*one of West Germany’s original two major parties, had the first West German chancellor-Konrad Adenauer

FDP (Free Democratic Party)

Head of Party: Christian Lindner

Color: Yellow

Percent of Seats in Bundestag: 4.3% (did not make it into Bundestag)

Policy Stances:

Free Market
More privatization
- More independent businesses
- More self-owned homes
Less government regulation and authority
- No rent caps
- Lower taxes
More digitalization/development of new technology
- Fight climate change via new technology
More individual freedoms
- No speed limit on highways

Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW)

Head of Party: Sahra Wagenknecht

Color: Violet

Percent of Seats in Bundestag: 4.97% (did not make it into Bundestag)

Voter Base:Young voters

Policy Stances:

Leans Left:

Pro-Palestinain
Higher minimum wage
More social justice emphasis

Leans Right

Anti-Immigration
Climate Change
LGBTQ+ stances
Less involvement abroad
- Stop sending weapons to Ukraine

*overall is more conservative/right leaning

Alternative for Deutschland (AfD)

Head of Party: Alice Weidel

Color: Light Blue

Percent of Seats in Bundestag: 20.8%

Voter Base: Voters in the former East Germany and young voters

Policy Stances:

Extreme right-wing
Has high-profile members who were taken to court for Neo-Nazi actions/speeches
Rejects Islam in German society
Return to traditional German culture and traditional family values
Limit NATO operations to member-states
Replace EU with new organization
Germany-First agenda
Anti-Immigration
- Deport any immigrants who commit crimes
- Make German citizenship much harder to get
- Close German borders
- Large-scale deportations
- Deport all undocumented immigrants

MARCH 2025

A New Start

What’s up to 13?!

I hope you are doing well. My biggest news from here is that at the very end of February I moved in with my new, permanent family and have been settling in ever since. So for this chapter I want to spotlight my new life here, and my new home – Verden. Verden is located in northern Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony), one of Germany’s 16 States. It’s about 30 minutes southeast of Bremen with the train, but despite the relatively small geographic difference, it is very different from my old city. It is significantly smaller, with roughly 30,000 people, compared to Bremen’s close to 600,000, and it has a cute, small town feeling, which is a nice change after living in a relatively big city.

The town has a cute Old Town district, paved by brown cobbled streets lined with cafes and bakeries and thronged by pedestrians. The original town also contains the Rathaus (town hall) and Verden’s three main churches, including the historic cathedral dating back to the 1300s, all of which add to the historical feeling that makes this beautiful district so charming. Because the town is a lot smaller than Bremen it is much easier to leave and go out into nature, something I had really missed in Bremen. Here there are plenty of forest trails relatively nearby and an overall much more natural feeling. Plus you can see the stars every night clearly from most anywhere. While there certainly is still some light pollution, it is not nearly as extreme as in bigger cities. And so, on a clear night I love to be able to just walk out my front door and look up and see the Big Dipper hovering right over our house.

Dom Gymnasium

Since coming to Verden I have changed schools, and now go to Dom Gymnasium, rather than Gymnasium Horn, where I was when I lived in Bremen. I really like my new school and have settled in there really well: finding friends, attending clubs, and otherwise enjoying the whole experience.

The school itself is this beautiful, old, red brick building dating back to the 1870s, with a big old-fashioned clock mounted in the top and arched windows and doorways, a little different from my normal American high school back home. It is incredibly well known as far as German schools go and has an international reputation for its music program. The school also offers a host of unique after extracurricular opportunities which I have really enjoyed taking part in, from rowing on the river that the school backs right up to, to visiting the school goats, which are taken care of by the students along with chickens, parrots, snakes, and and a variety of other animals not typically found in normal schools.

Likewise, I have enjoyed my classes here, in particular Politics/Economics, which is my forte, and which is taught by my favorite teacher. In this class especially, I have gotten to learn about major political and economic differences between Germany and the US, and also better explain several American political and social topics not really understood as much here.

Extracurriculars

One of the things I’ve loved about my time in Verden is discovering new extracurricular opportunities, both in the school and in the community. My school offers a range of after-school clubs, something really unusual for German schools, which gives me something fun to do in the afternoons because my school ends just a little after 1:00 p.m. every day. On Thursday I play volleyball in the school club and have enjoyed getting to know this sport. I never played in the US before, but it sounded cool here and was one of the clubs for older kids, so I went one time, I liked it, and I kept going back. While here I’ve also taken up rowing, which is my favorite club offered. My school backs right up to the Aller-Verden’s main river, and so we can take the boats out and go rowing barely 200 feet from the school, no need to go to any special location. I go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (all the days that it’s offered) and have enjoyed it a ton. We have been out on the water instead of inside on the rowing machines every single time except one, when it was too windy, and the club has helped me meet and build friendships with several more guys my age. Of all the things here, this is one of the ones I will miss the most, not being able to just walk out of the doors of my school and go rowing and chilling with the other guys on my boat every other day.

Since coming to Verden I have also enjoyed playing basketball with a local group I had heard about from a school friend. The group tends to have people everywhere from my age to 30 or so, and we play just for fun, you don’t need to be good. I love basketball but I hadn’t been able to find a good place to play it recreationally in Memphis. I have loved getting to play it in the evenings twice a week here, and the experience has introduced me to people who I would not otherwise know and has helped me make more friends and shots than I would have been able to otherwise.

Friends

In my first month here I’ve made a lot more friends – in my class, and in my school overall especially. I have really enjoyed getting to know other people here and making friends has helped me settle in even better. Some people I get to know better from my clubs, because we interact more there than we normally would have in the school, while others I’ve met through certain classes or from other friends. It also helps that we have two 18-minute breaks during the school day and the whole school is mingling, so you get to talk to people more and get to know them better. Plus, Verden and Dom Gymnasium especially is a small world, so once you have friends you meet their friends and you start realizing you have lots of mutual friends. Plus, tons of people know my host siblings and have heard about me from them and so tend to be friendlier from the start, which has really helped me build my community here.

Traditions

Living here, I have enjoyed learning about local traditions and have even got to experience a few of them from a Kohl Tour to the Störtebeker Festspiele.

A kohltour (kale tour) is a North German tradition where you and your friends and neighbors get together on a cold winter day and go for a long walk through nature eventually ending in dinner together at a restaurant where kale and pinkel (a kind of sausage) are the main course, per tradition. Along the way a lot of stops are made to play games and to drink a little, traditionally from shot-glass sized mugs everyone has hanging around their necks. Along our kohltour I had a ton of fun talking to and getting to know the other kids. All the people were good friends of my host family and we had fun talking about tons of things, from differences between the US and Germany, to German professional füßball (soccer), of which there were a few important matches going on that afternoon. As we walked I got to see more of the German countryside in our region, which tends to be relatively flat with intermingled fields in the forests keeping everything interesting. Along our walk we stopped several times to sample different beverages both alcoholic (18+ people) and non alcoholic (the other kids and I), and to play a variety of team building games, from having to write kohltour altogether using one big marker and strings to move it in different directions, to having to ski down a small slope together on five men wooden skis. Our whole team bonded a lot and people who had been strangers to me just a few hours before now felt like good friends. That evening I got to try the kale and pinkel, and while it’s not really an experience I feel like I need to repeat anytime soon, I am glad to have experienced the tradition in its entirety.

While here I also got to see the tradition of the pirate Störtebecker reenacted, in which bread and fish are given out to the people of Verden, similar to robinhood. The pirate questions a number of local politicians and challenges them on issues, arguing he should be the new leader of Germany. The whole thing was really good and funny, plus my host brother’s best friend’s dad was part of the production. The show ended with the pirate giving away loaves of good German bread and whole hearings to everybody who wanted them. We made sure to get some bread but passed on the fish because we weren’t sure we would have the time to cook it in the next day or two, which is when it is best. Still, it was really cool to see the workers pulling whole herrings out of a big barrel and passing them out to people like it was no big deal. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole production and I’m glad I got to see another piece of Verden history and culture.

Host Family

Of course though, the host family is one of the most important parts of the experience and I love mine!! I met them through my youth director from when I was in Bremen – her brother is my host dad now. She had been explaining my situation to him and when they were in the cinema together, and it turned out my new host family was actually thinking about taking in the exchange student at the time. My future host dad called my future host mom that afternoon and explained the situation, and the next day they decided to take me in. I have now been with them for a month, and we have bonded so much, from cooking to biking through Verden to watching movies. I’ve had a ton of fun learning to cook all sorts of things with my host mom, like Kartoffel Gratin (a sort of casserole made from batter and super thinly sliced potatoes). I’ve also enjoyed making some good American food for my host family, like Buckeyes (peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate), which were very well liked. With my host Dad I’ve enjoyed watching a lot of good movies together, from Coppola’s The Godfather to Tarantino’s Django Unchained, and a number of others. I’ve also enjoyed going toad hunting with my host dad every evening. There is this stretch of sidewalk where toads are always trying to cross the road, to get to the water on the other side and be able to lay their eggs. There are so many that a low fabric fence has been set up by the city that stops the toads from hopping into the street and getting run over, instead they hop into plastic buckets by accident that are set into the ground which hold the toads until they are collected and carried to safety across the street. The buckets are then checked multiple times a day so that the toads aren’t forgotten and can get on their way. So every evening I have had fun helping my host dad ferry the toads to safety across the road, saving them from the cars. It’s been so cool seeing so many toads and having a totally new experience, and I have enjoyed it thoroughly. The biggest thing though with my host family is I feel completely at home and comfortable with them. It has been such a nice change and I’m so happy to be here.

Stereotypes and Fixing Them

It has also been good, just as I have learned to correct my stereotypes of Germans since coming to Germany, I have tried to correct stereotypes by Germans of the US, especially concerning beliefs that everyone in the US is racist/sexist and that all American schools are s***. In addition, I’ve explained about the economic differences between the two countries pointing out that Germans on average tend to have more money and social safety than people in the US, despite three incredibly large taxes. This financial freedom gives people here certain flexibility and security not existing in the USA. As an American and a Christian, I’ve also tried to promote a better understanding of Christianity between the US and Germany. I have met a number of people here who think that all Christians in America are fundamentalist and Pro-Trump, and so I have done my best to correct that narrative, pointing out that I and a number of my family and friends are Christian but are neither fundamentalists nor Pro-Trump. At the same time, I’ve learned a lot more about German culture and look forward to sharing what I have learned with other Americans to break down stereotypes back home in just the same way I’ve tried to do here. For instance all Germany is not just lederhosen and beer, in fact lederhosen are really only a thing in Bavaria, likewise with schnitzel and many other things considered “traditional German.” I have loved learning so much and sharing so much, being an ambassador of the U.s abroad and being able to connect with people over commonalities even though we come from opposite sides of the globe. My experience has taught me more than ever just how crucial exchange programs like this are to strengthening relationships between countries, communities, and people. Talking to my friend yesterday reminded me that I have a job to do here. I have a responsibility to share my culture and learn about German culture, and promote better understanding between the two. I came here to do that and that is exactly what I will continue to do.

This concludes my March update for my life in Germany. I hope you enjoyed it and please feel free to reach out to me at trexlertb1@gmail.com 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!!

APRIL 2025

Two Households, Both Alike in Dignity

I hope you’re all doing well!! Here things are going great, April was full of new experiences and memories. I learned new things and had new adventures every day.

Berufsbörse

At the start of the month, I got to experience the Berufsbörse at my school, which is basically a big career day throughout the whole school. You get to choose four careers to hear about throughout the day, and I had a lot of fun hearing about working as a police officer, a civil engineer, a District Attorney, and in the German military. The day, like the practicum (internship) that all German students who are in gymnasium must do in 11th grade, is preparation for later life, to give students an idea what they want to do for a profession.

The Practicum lasts a few weeks and tends to be very hands-on, the idea being it shows enough of the real job to help kids decide whether or not they want a career in it. Because all 11th grade gymnasium students must do it, the result tends to be that upon graduating, German students have a much more distinct idea of what they want to do in life than American kids do. I find this a great system and way to give students real hands-on work experience for later in life.

Of the four sessions I attended, I found the police and military particularly interesting career paths. They helped me realize I want a more hands-on, physical job that involves justice and helping others. I also enjoyed learning about how these German jobs differ from there American counterparts. For instance, police work, especially policing in Germany, places a much bigger emphasis on helping people and social justice than you see in America. For instance, here helping those experiencing homelessness is a much bigger priority than in the US.The effort is more on restorative justice, which makes these communities safer and encourages rehabilitation.

Easter Break

The next day, I started my Easter break. My host family and I would be separating for the break because they had bought tickets to go to Sicily earlier in the year before they knew me, and so I had made arrangements to go to Bremen for a couple days, then back to Kiel for the rest of the break. I had hoped during the break to take a trip through Europe with a good friend of mine, but unfortunately that didn’t workout. Despite this, I still had lots of fun throughout the break.

While in Bremen, I stayed with my former youth director from when I lived in the city, and her husband. She is also the sister of my current host dad, and was the one who had found my current host family and introduced us. I had lots of fun with her and husband, and with my friends over the weekend.

The first day that I was there, I went to visit her parents (my host grandparents) who I knew from previous visits and who I had a lovely breakfast with before helping out in the garden for several hours. This was very refreshing because it was very physical work out in nature and in the end, I could see all the progress I had made.

Then that evening, my hosts and I met up with my host dad’s daughter and her boyfriend for dinner. I had known his daughter for a bit after hearing about her from Sabina (my former youth director), because she had also done an exchange year in the US. She’d put us in contact, and since then we’d all been trying to meet up, but it hadn’t worked out until this evening. I had a lot of fun talking to her and her boyfriend and being able to compare notes with another exchange student.We all went out for steak together and afterwards ice cream, both of which were excellent and the company was even better. Until this point, I’d never actually been in a real steakhouse before, and so that in itself was a really cool experience too. It was kinda funny to me that I was actually halfway around the world from the US and was still eating one of the most American foods ever. But it tastes amazing, so I’m not complaining.

Another big highlight of my weekend was hanging out with an old Bremen friend while back in my old town. I knew her from the library where we had met one day, but because we were in different schools, we didn’t see each other that often and so the reunion was a lot of fun.

We met up in the Viertel, Bremen’s cultural and student-life quarter and saw a film before grabbing some food and walking a little through Bremen, eventually parting ways late that evening. One thing I noticed is that Germans tend to have smaller, more old-fashioned movie theaters, way different from the big Malco ones you see in Memphis. There are also bigger, more modern theatres in Bremen, of course, but fewer of them. I also learned that evening that Germans (or at least the ones in Bremen) do not know how to cook Mexican food, nor are there really any good-sized Mexican communities in Germany. In my entire time in Bremen, I knew one person from Mexico and she was an exchange student only there for the year. Anyways, I was super excited to find a Mexican restaurant because I hadn’t had Mexican food since coming to Germany, but that stuff was not it. I don’t know what it was, but it was sure as hell not Mexican. Nor was there a single Mexican working or eating at the restaurant that I could see.

Despite our underwhelming movie and food though, we had a lot of fun just chilling and catching up. Things got even more interesting later that evening, walking back through the Viertel. I had fun talking with all the guys who were coming to party there after a big win by Werder Bremen (the local major soccer team) in the stadium nearby. Everybody was super friendly because they had had something to drink, and we’re excited about the game, so it was easy to make friends, which I really enjoyed.

Even after parting ways not long after, the adventure continued. My friend’s tram had broken down and they could not get to go again for about 30 minutes. After seeing my friend on her way when the tram started back up, I turned and made my way back through the Viertel, ready for more fun. I was just passing Bremen’s most famous rollo shop, where everyone was crowded in refueling with calories after several hours of hardcore cheering during the game, when I saw the daughter of my current host with her boyfriend, the two of whom I had first met at dinner the day before.

I ended up hanging out with them for the evening and had a lot of fun getting to know them better.While together, I also met someone who recognized me for my time in Bremen and had fun chatting with him for a few seconds before he moved on. I don’t have any idea who it was, but he was really friendly and it was great to find a newbro.

Kiel

The next afternoon, after a nice laid-back day with my hosts in Bremen, my next family picked me up on their way back from their trip, and together we set off for Kiel.

For the rest of the break I would be staying with this family in Kiel, who I had previously stayed with twice in February. It was really nice to see them again and I had a lot of fun with them throughout my time there.

Kiel (City)

Throughout my break I really enjoyed getting to know Kiel better. It’s way different from Bremen in a number of ways, and it was nice to have a change of pace from Verden too. For one thing, the city feels a lot cleaner and greener than Bremen, and the sea is right there in a way that was not the case in both of my previous homes in Germany. It was really refreshing to have the Baltic so near, and to have the fresh breeze always blowing through the city. Likewise it was really mentally refreshing not to be land bound, but rather to have this huge, open expanse spread out all around me.

In my first few days especially I had a lot of fun exploring Kiel: walking the streets, feeling the wind on my face, and taking in my new home (if only for the next few weeks).

While staying there, I enjoyed making lots of day trips to other places, but also enjoyed chilling and just being on break. I loved having the chance to play some more basketball especially, because there was a court five minutes from the house so every evening I would go take my music and my ball and just hoop for a while. I loved having the time and place here to do something that I loved.

I also really enjoyed doing stuff with my hosts, from meals to trips together. Every day I would go meet my host mom, sometimes with my host sister too, for lunch and loved the good food and great company. It was great to have this time together and discover more of Kiel’s cuisine.

Ausflügen

While in Kiel I went on lots of expeditions/field trips, called Ausflüge in German. A few days after arriving in Kiel, I took a boat to Laboe about 45 minutes north of the city. Laboe is a cute little beach side town with a relatively steady beachside industry. Lots of people go there to swim in its clear waters or wind surf on its white waves, but the other main attraction is the submarine memorial there, dedicated to all those who died on submarines both in Germany and in the world in general. It is an incredibly atmospheric place, and is deeply moving. One of the most sobering parts was a room that was roped off so you could only look in. The entire room was pitch black and there were all these noises that you could hear because there was a hole made in the roof, so the sounds of the wind in the tower above and the cries of the birds roosting in the window sills all carried down through into the room. Looking into that room with those alien noises and seeing only pitch black, I got the impression I was trapped on the bottom of the ocean, completely surrounded by water, unable to see anything, trapped in this big piece of metal under tens of thousands of feet of water. You can’t go up, and all you hear is the creaking of the boat and the rhythm of the water just outside, as you realise what it is like to lie on the seafloor, in your grave. The room is itself a memorial to a submarine that was newly built and on its maiden voyage when it malfunctioned and went down, taking with it the entire crew of 500 or so people.

The entire memorial was incredibly thought provoking and sobering, remaining at the forefront of my mind throughout my time in Laboe. One of my favorite parts of the day though, was that evening, sitting on the dock, watching the sun go down and seeing the gold reflected on the water, changing the whole world into a soft orange. This, combined with the soft lapping of the water on the pier created a beautiful scene, closing out an incredible afternoon in the city before I took the ferry back that evening.

Hamburg

A few days into my stay in Kiel I went with my host mom to Hamburg for the day, to have a little adventure. She had a work conference and I have friends from my program there, so I decided to come along and have a little change of pace. I arrived in Hamburg that morning and had fun exploring a new part of the city throughout the day before meeting up with my friends that afternoon. Throughout the day I really came to appreciate how beautiful Hamburg is. It was filled with lovely old houses and parks, treeland streets and quiet streams and rivers spanned by old, stone and wrought iron bridges. The whole feeling of the city was of quiet luxury and a lot of old money. It was very different from just about any other city I have been to in Germany before, and it was really nice to experience a new part of it because I’d only been in the downtown part of Hamburg before.

After exploring the more residential districts of Hamburg, taking the metro in the opposite direction from where I wanted to go, and getting a little tour of Hamburg on the way, I finally managed to meet up with my friends. We had fun walking around the city’s new mall together. It had just been opened the day before, and we enjoyed sampling all the new shops, from my first German (and most overpriced) donuts ever, to waiting in line for 20 minutes at the Tommy Hilfiger outlet for free popcorn. I really enjoyed seeing the mall itself too – the architect had incorporated lots of flow and natural light into the design so the building actually felt like it fit in really well with the surroundings.

That evening we headed to Hamburg’s other main mall because we had briefly parted ways and it was a good central location to meet up, AND very importantly, to have dinner. That evening, completely by accident we also ended up sitting next to the filmers for this really popular German YouTuber and had a lot of fun talking to them. It turned out they were there because a new Döner place had just opened up in the food court, and so they had tried and then reviewed it that evening. This also explained why half the mall was lined up to try this Döner, which apart from being brand new did not appear to have any especially remarkable characteristics. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun talking to these guys, and it was great to be able to make more spontaneous friends.

On our way back from the mall to the Hamburg main train station however, there was a little episode on the Metro. We were hurrying to get to the train station before my train left, and we were waiting on the subway platform chatting, when this big guy who had never seen before suddenly walked up to me and started shouting in my face in German, before shoving hard into me and continuing on up the platform, shouting at other people. A minute or two later the metro arrived and this guy got on in the compartment ahead of us still yelling at other people. All the time that he had been yelling at me I just avoided eye contact and didn’t react, not wanting the situation to get worse. When we were on the subway though, one guy ended up calling the police via the subway emergency system on the subway cars, and when we stopped at the next subway station there were four police officers waiting with another three there two minutes later. The driver also got off and asked the guy who had been yelling at everyone, and I both, to leave the train. The guy who called the police and who had checked on me after what happened, got off along with me and my friends. After answering a few questions from the police and explaining the whole situation from the guy coming up to me and shoving me, onwards, they took photos of my ID and said we were free to go. I don’t know what happened to the guy who shouted at me, as we were leaving he was still being asked questions by the police and that was the last I saw. I also don’t know why he came up to me. It could be he misunderstood something and thought I was insulting him, I don’t really know, because my friends and I were talking English and he did not seem to speak or understand any English. Because of the whole situation, I ended up missing my train back to Kiel, and because the next one wouldn’t come for almost an hour, we decided to go try and find a place to kill the time, that wasn’t the train station, after this incident. We ended up finding our way to the super fancy hotel and cocktail bar and had fun staying there with our drinks and chatting with the bartenders. It was super chill and the bartenders were really nice, creating a really relaxing atmosphere after what happened earlier. Eventually though, it was time to go back to Kiel, and we were a little slow leaving for the train station so I ended up sprinting the last 0.2 miles to the train station to make sure I could catch my train. The rest of the night was really chill. I chatted with other passengers, got camping recommendations from one, talked about exchange with another, and overall just tried to make friends with the people around me. Everyone was super friendly and I enjoyed getting to know all of them.

After getting back to Kiel, my host sister very kindly picked me up from the train station, ending my adventure for the day.

My Birthday

Another highlight of my time in Kiel was celebrating my 17th birthday. Even though I wasn’t home in Verden or Memphis, it was still a really great birthday and my host family did so much to make it special for me. When I went down for breakfast that morning they had prepared a lovely Brötchen breakfast, complete with lots of different toppings to try, making for a really unique and special way to start the day. They’d also give me a huge bar of chocolate which was so nice of them.

That afternoon, after having lunch with my host mom, my host sister and I went to a nearby beach for the afternoon and had fun going out in the water, despite how cold it was. I ended up going in past my waist 17 times for my 17th birthday and had a lot of fun despite being worried about getting hypothermia by the end. And the celebration continued even into the evening, with calls from my real and host families to wish me happy birthday, and dinner all together at this really good Indian restaurant.

After our delicious Indian food I opened presents with my host family (from my normal host family and extended host family) capping off a wonderful and incredibly unique and memorable 17th!!

Easter

While in Kiel I also got to celebrate Easter with my host family there. We went to church for both Palm Sunday and Easter services, which was really nice because I hadn’t really been to church since starting my exchange in Germany, and we also celebrated with family and friends. The church services were relatively similar to services in the US, the big difference was they didn’t do communion at either one. This was a really big surprise to me because in the States I have always had communion with church service, but I asked my host family about it and they said that communion is sometimes given, but it’s certainly not every Sunday the way it is in the States. For Easter, we also went to my host dad’s mom’s house and had Easter Kaffee und Kuchen with the family, his mom, and his sister. We even went on a scavenger hunt around the dining room for chocolate rabbits, which was a lot of fun.

That evening my host brother’s best friend came over and he, my host brother, and I all had a lot of fun chatting and chilling together, and enjoying lots of delicious sausage incredibly kindly cooked by my host mom. The hot food was especially nice because it was cold and rainy outside and so inside it felt particularly cozy.

A big tradition in Germany for Easter is an Osterfeuer (Easter bonfire), which we had originally been thinking we would do on a Good Saturday, but then it rained the whole afternoon and on into the evening. Despite this, my host brother and I still really wanted to try wehn it eventually stopped drizzling, so my host dad went outside, and I don’t know how he did it, but when I looked outside he had got a whole bonfire going. This was really awesome and we all trooped outside to go enjoy the Osterfeuer. That evening I had a ton of fun chatting with my host family and my host brother’s two friends who had come, and it was so nice to be standing out there all together under the stars, standing around this warm bonfire, just relaxing and bonding, and eating our Pringles.

Hamburg Pt. 2

One of my last big adventures in Kiel was going back to Hamburger with my host mom. She was going to a ballet, and so I tagged along thinking I would meet up with my friends. As it turned out though, every single one of my program friends that lived there had plans with their family because it was Easter Sunday, plus almost all the businesses were closed in recognition of the holiday. Despite this I still had fun walking around downtown seeing places I’d visited with my friends during our seminar there and remembering our adventures together. It turned out to be a really nice little walk down memory lane.

The coolest part though was when I realized just how small the world can be. I walked into this Titanic exhibition hall and was browsing the brochures there for a few minutes, when I, and the couple chatting on the bench next to me were told the exhibition was closed and we needed to leave. We walked out the front doors together and said bye, but I must have had a little bit of an accent or something, because they suddenly stopped and asked if I was an exchange student, and when I explained that I was, and that was from the US, the wife explained to me that her husband had Pennsylvania State University for 35 years, and a this point her husband went on to explain (without knowing where in the US I was from, just that I was an American) that he had gotten his start in the US in Memphis. He told me that he had gotten a Fulbright to study at Rhodes College back in 1966, when it was still called Southwest Community College. This was astonishing to me, the world does not get smaller than this. Here I am, living in Germany, halfway around the world from the US and my hometown, and I find someone who studied in the very same city that I call home, and at the very same university where my dad teaches. He gave his business card and said to let them know if I was ever back in Hamburg, and I will be sure to do just that. The chances to me are just crazy though, the fact that we happened to cross paths at this little exhibition on the street, in the second biggest city in Germany. even though I’m so amazed that we meant, just like when I found that one potential host family who loves Bruce Springsteen as much as I do. The rest of the evening was good, especially that American milkshake, which hit so hard after a year of no American food, but this was by far the most interesting part of the evening. It was still occupying a good part of my thoughts later that night as I met up with my host mom and I headed back to Keele.

Back in Verden

The following weekend proved to be just as eventful as the weeks in Kiel before. After taking the train back to Verden on Monday, one day after making this Memphis connection, I was reunited with my normal host family. Despite missing my Kiel family a little, I really enjoyed seeing my friends and family again, and it was really nice to be home.

While most everything carried on as it had before, school had some surprises that I wasn’t expecting. For one thing I got at 12 from 15 on my math test which, which I would never have thought would happen this year. My previous two math tests, granted they were at a different school and when I didn’t know as much German, were a 3 out of 15 and a 9 out of 15, so I was not expecting to do nearly as well as I did. I studied hard for it and really locked in, but still didn’t think the text had gone great so this was an amazing surprise. The other adventure came a little later in the week. I’d gone back to Rowing Club again, and on Wednesday got permission to take a one-man boat out for the first time. I was super excited because I had been wanting to do this for a long time, and here was finally my chance. At the advice of the coach I took out a wider one built for more stability than the racing ones, and thought it would be a walk in the park. It was not. Every little movement moved the boat massively and I could barely row with any kind of speed, without rocking hard and one direction or the other. Plus I kept drifting into the opposite bank and had to keep rowing out again. This went on for about twenty minutes as I slowly rowed my way upstream. After those twenty minutes, I decided I should probably turn around so I wouldn’t be late. After about another five minutes of trying to turn 180 degrees while avoiding running into the bank or going in the water, I finally managed to get going in the other direction. And then I freaked. There was this big tour about, at least 20 ft wide and 30 feet tall coming straight for me. It was in the middle of the river, which is maybe 40 ft wide at the max and was only about five feet to my right. I could barely keep my boat going in the direction I wanted, let alone going exactly where I wanted and suddenly I found myself running hard into the bank, just trying to avoid getting carried in front of and crushed by this huge boat. I was worried any second I would lose control and accidentally steer into the boat. When the thing finally passed, I was really running late, and was trying harder to row my way out of the bank while praying the boat hadn’t been hurt from its encounter with the ground. I was rowing a little harder to try and get out and turn, and the boat was tipping a little, but not worryingly so. Then the next second, before I realized what was happening, I was treading water with the boat next to me. This was my first time falling in, but now that it actually happened and wasn’t just a fear anymore, it was easier to think. I flipped the boat over so the keel rode in the water, then put one arm over it and started swimming. All the time I was really scared the big boat would come back and run me over or that cottonmouths might try and nibble my toes, but I did not see either for which I am very grateful After about fifteen or twenty minutes of swimming with my oversized load, I finally managed to make my way back to the boat house, about a half a mile downstream where other people helped me get the boat to the dock and out of the water, before I manage with to drag myself out of the current and on to the pier as well. And I got to say, it wasn’t a bad swim. Granted, it was a little hard because I kept my shoes on (they were good shoes and I didn’t want to lose them) but the water was clear and tasted fine (a little got in my mouth). So it was certainly a pretty exciting but good afternoon.

Parents Visit

Less than a week later, my parents arrived. They had been talking about potentially visiting me since December 2024, And now it was actually happening. I was super excited to see them again after not seeing them since August, when we parted ways before security as I embarked on my adventure in Germany. My host dad and I picked them up from the train station after a few hours of intense communication and planning, trying to figure out how to get them to Verden from Hamburg where they were stuck because the tracks had been shut down that afternoon..Someone had been injured by an oncoming train and the tracks had been damaged too, so they were shut down, and were also the only way to take a train in our direction. This shut down at Germany’s biggest train station caused a real big bottleneck and it was certainly an adventure trying to figure out the logistics afterwards, eventually though, we were able to find a way for them to get past Hamburg, and after that it was smooth sailing. It was awesome to see them again, and felt a little surreal to be back together after so long, but this time in Germany, not Memphis.

That night they got to meet all my extended family because we were throwing a family birthday party for my host brother. And the idea was that this way we could both celebrate him and introduce them to everyone. I had a lot of fun chatting with everyone and I could tell they did too. We mingled in our little groups for a few hours with our drinks just chilling and catching up, and I even got to learn how to make an Aperol-Spritz (an Italian cocktail) courtesy of my host mom. Eventually we all settled down for dinner, with my host dad acting as grill master, and he can really grill. At the end of the evening I taught my family and extended family how to play poker. We started off playing with what little change I had, and ended up using a big box of dry pasta noodles as chips. The game turned out to be a huge success with everyone and I think we may have found our next big family activity. The whole evening was a ton of fun and it was really nice to have my parents meet my family here who they have heard so much about, and who had been so important to me throughout my time here.

The next day I had fun showing my family around my home(s), both past and present. We had a great Brötchen breakfast together, then set off for central Verden. Throughout the morning and early afternoon, I showed them around my new home, from my school with all of its animals and subtle passages and beautiful old architecture, to the cobbled streets and historic townhouses of the beautiful old fishing district, that backs up to the Aller River and is part of Verden’s beautiful Old Town. We also visited the Verden main street containing the town hall and places to meet people, as well as a variety of restaurants and cafes where my friends and I would go for food during the lunch break. And of course, most important of all, we had to make an ice cream stop. Afterwards we visited Verden’s main church, dating back more than 1200 years, and took a few minutes to appreciate the beautiful space, before climbing in the car and heading to Bremen.

Driving through the city, with the trees all covered in fresh, spring green and everything bursting with life, made me appreciate just how beautiful parts of it are. It was very different to see Bremen through new eyes-no longer as a native who lived there, but as a former resident returning to an old home.

We drove through my old neighborhood and I pointed out my old school and house, and it was like a little stroll down memory lane. I remembered all the times I walked to the grocery store down the street to buy lunch in the break, and the church where I used to walk to call my parents from because it was so quiet and peaceful. I saw all these places, each with their own story, and was reminded of how much of a home I had there.

After our car tour, we headed into the city center to show my parents more traditional Bremen. We hit all the major highlights, from the Bremen town musicians statue and town hall (Rathaus), to the Böttcher Straße, Bremen’s famous red-brick street with buildings dating back to before the Second World War, that all had significant connections to the German art world.

That afternoon, we also paid a visit to the Schnoor, Bremen’s quirky, artsy, district full of cute little shops and cozy restaurants, all tucked together into bright colored townhouses lining narrow cobbled streets. Before leaving in the evening, we also visited the Bremen Public Library, where I had spent so much time when I lived in the city, and the Übersee district, where Bremen’s history and culture of shipping are most visible, in the shipping and industry that is still there to this day.

While in the city, I took a few minutes to catch up with my friends who worked at the Döner shop I frequented when in the town center, and it was good to see them again, even if the Döner wasn’t the best or the biggest that I ever had. It was also nice just to have some time to relax in the afternoon as well, and what better place to do it than Bremen’s beautiful town square? One of my favorite memories from the day was just chilling with our drinks, shaded from the sun by an umbrella on this unusually warm day, just enjoying being together and appreciating where we are, in the middle of this plaza surrounded by the most beautiful buildings in Bremen.

That evening we finished the tour with dinner at an Italian pizza restaurant where both my host family and I are friends with the owner and which is a well-known and well-liked part of Verden cuisine. Plus my host family are really big Italian food fans and we all liked this place, so it worked out really well. It was especially nice because the restaurant is another part of my community here, and I visit the owner and chef a few times a week, so I enjoyed being able to show another more personal connection in my life here. It was also really cool, when I called that evening to make a reservation at my host family’s request, and they recognized my voice and remembered me, and that I was the exchange student from Tennessee. I’ve loved having those experiences here, making new friends and building a new community and a new home on the other side of the world. That’s exactly why I came here, and I’ve loved getting to see that play out this year.

The next day was just as fun as the first. After a lovely, laid back breakfast together and giving my host family their gifts, which my parents had brought with them from the US, we loaded up and went for a bike trip through Verden, showing my parents more of the landscape here, from the open fields, to the coniferous forests, to the glacial dunes, a distinct and unusual part of the city’s geography. Throughout the trip, I also got to see and know new places in Verden, like this memorial where it was once believed a mass execution of Saxons thousands of years ago had taken place. The memorial was constructed under the Nazi regime using tremendous amounts of slave labor, in which thousands of people were worked to death or else suffered fatal accidents while transporting the huge stones that make up the memorial, by hand because they were not provided with any machinery with which to transport these boulders. The memorial was constructed under the Nazis, who used it to further their claim that they were descended from the Saxons, and to justify their campaign against the French, as revenge for this mass execution in the middle ages, carried out by the Franks under Charlemagne, who once lived in what is now France.

The memorial itself consists of thousands of boulders rolled into place so that they line a circular path on both sides, surrounding where the mass execution was said to have taken place. Since then it has been shown that the execution was actually in a different location, but the memorial remains also a reminder of the propaganda of the Third Reich. It was really interesting but incredibly grim to discover this piece of Verden history, and to reflect on just how many people were killed building this monument in front of me.

After finishing our lovely bike adventure, we of course had to take a break for some very well-earned ice cream. We went to what my host family and I conser to be the best ice cream in Verden, and enjoyed just chilling there and talking for a few hours, with some excellent ice cream.

The rest of the day was really laid back. After getting home that evening, I worked with my parents to get everything I wanted to keep but wouldn’t need for the rest of my time in Germany, packed to go back with them. They had incredibly kindly offered this, and it was a really big help because I had a good deal more at this point then I came over with.

That evening we had a lovely, very German dinner of delicious-potatoes with asparagus and ham closing out a wonderful few days together.

The asparagus was especially good, and is certainly a speciality in Germany. Here it is a really big deal and is seriously regulated, there are even specific start and end dates for when asparagus can be officially sold, and tons of different varieties all expertly raised to produce the best unique flavor.That evening I really enjoyed getting better acquainted with this delicious and important piece of German culture.

The next morning, after a quick breakfast, my host dad and I drove my parents to the Hamburg airport where we said goodbye, but this time, it would only be for a few months. It was really nice to be able to see my parents again and to show them my life here that they had heard all about, both the people and the places. In addition, my host family and real family got along really well and definitely clicked. Even days afterwards, my host parents and real parents were both still talking about how much they enjoyed getting to know one another, and were already planning when they could get back together again.

MAY 2025

Der Countdown Läuft

Wazzup Troop 13,

Hope you’re all doing well and having a good start to summer. Here things are going well, May was full of fun adventures and new experiences as my year here in Germany starts to wrap up.

Kirchen Tag (Church Day)

Early on in May I attended the german Kirchen Tag (Church Day) in Hannover, Germany. This is a huge deal throughout the country, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and hosts well-known guests from Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor of Germany, to Barack Obama.The event runs for five days and is spread throughout the city, with events at various major meeting points.The day that I went, I met up with my host mom and brother there, and had fun exploring the main branch of the Kirchen Tag with them throughout the day. The occasion is filled with a variety of events, from lectures to concerts, with plenty of games and food and overall fun things for everyone.

During my time there I visited the fair-like part of the event, where hundreds of Christian groups or groups with Christian connections had come and set up tents to advertise themselves. It was kind of like a huge job fair, but for businesses that, for the most part, are distinctly Christian, and humanitarian. I had a lot of fun walking around and learning about organizations that help those experiencing homelessness, those unable to afford medical care, and those suffering from human trafficking, among other things.It was really inspiring to see just how many organizations had shown up to spread their message and help make the world a better place.

Throughout the day I had tons of fun walking around and getting to know people from all these different organizations, while collecting lovely free souvenirs like postcards and condoms, and chowing down on all the different popcorn being made by just about every stall.

The whole thing was incredibly interactive, from learning to bake unleavened bread, to sitting on a piece of cardboard on the ground with just a sleeping bag and “hungry” sign, watching everyone just pass above and ignore. While there, I also visited a German scout troop, and enjoyed chatting with them about the differences between scouting in America and Germany.

While they are similar in what they do, the two have some very distinct differences, and more of the bureaucratic parts, like rank, are handled very differently. In the German scout system, ranks are more based on how old and mature you are rather than on how many requirements you have completed. This is reflected in the emphasis in German scouting on social work and self-development rather than merit badges and rank advancement. As a scout in America, I really enjoyed discovering the differences between us and our partner organization across the ocean, thinking about how we can work together more in the future, and thinking about how I can better Scouting in America.

Münster

The following weekend I traveled to Munster to meet a CBYX friend for the day.I’d never been to the city before, and was excited to see it after hearing lots from my host family and friends.

Munster is a really old and beautiful college town, where walkability and gothic architecture come together to create the perfect picture of a German city. It’s filled with cobbled streets, towering churches, tree-filled parks, and more bikes than people. Walking through the city we saw so many college students, some playing Frisbee in the park, others reading under the trees, still others exploring the food trucks at the street food fair. It was so crazy to me to see college students doing College student things in one place, because colleges here tend to be a lot more just school and studying without the whole social aspect on campus.

Throughout the afternoon we visited lots of cool little corners of the city, from the main square and cathedral, to Münster’s main art museum. While walking around, we stumbled on this street food festival and took a half an hour to explore street food from all over the world. I also figured out where all the Mexican food I was missing had gone to, after almost a year completely without, there were 10 delicious Mexican food trucks back to back, in this little park. I swear all the Mexican Cuisine in Germany sprouted legs and moved to Münster.

While walking around old Münster, we also stumbled on a pop-up book sale organized by students there, on the very ground where a mass book burning had been held under the Nazis, roughly 75 years before. It was incredibly sobering to be standing on the ground where so much knowledge was destroyed, and made me appreciate even more these students’ work to reckon with the place’s history, now promoting literature and free thought, so that something like what happened under the Third Reich would never happen again.

While in Münster, I also really enjoyed seeing the city’s main art gallery with my friend, full of interactive exhibits and pieces from 1000 AD to the present. The museum gave me a much fuller understanding of art in the region and the way it has shaped the city over time. Plus, art museums tend to be super cool to walk through and chill in, so I usually have a good time, and this was no exception.

Throughout the day I really enjoyed discovering a new city and experiencing the really laid-back college-town vibes that I had never really experienced before in Germany. I had a ton of fun catching up with my friend as we bonded on our adventures together.

The one down part of the day was the ridiculously hard time getting too and from the city. From missing my train because the doors wouldn’t open when I pressed the button, to malfunctioning ticket machines and rude, unhelpful ticket workers, the experience gave me a much better understanding of how flawed and irritating the Deutsche Bahn (Germany’s national train system) is. Both the trips to and from Münster were incredibly eventful, but in the end it all worked out, and I learned a lot more about independence and self-reliance, something I’ve got a major crash course in this year.

Berlin

Later in the month I attended my closing seminar in Berlin for my exchange program here in Germany. I still had about four weeks left in my exchange, but this was my last seminar with YFU, my organization, and was the last time I would be seeing the staffers this year who I had come to know so well throughout my time in Germany. It was an incredibly cool week, full of amazing memories and wonderful friends, but was also a sad reminder that our time together here in Germany, both individually and as a cohort, is coming to a close.

We can’t decide when we go back.but we can sure as hell decide how. I had so much fun that week, and even though it was only a few days, my friends and I made sure to live it up like nothing else.

Topography of Terrors

I learned so much that week, both inspiring and sobering, but either way, incredibly moving. One of the biggest things we’re seeing in theory of the history of Berlin, first hand. During the seminar, we visited the Topography of Terrors, a museum standing where the Gestapo headquarters used to stand, and told the story of the Third Reich and how it was able to function from a bureaucratic perspective. It was incredibly disturbing to see all the logic and organization behind the system, and to realize it was this bureaucracy that carried out the Holocaust. It is deeply sobering to stand on that ground, in that place where so many horrors were planned. I feel like you learn a little bit about the topic in the US, but standing there, where it happened really drives home the reality of just how terrible what happened in Nazi Germany was.

Berlin Wall Memorial

During the week we also visited the Berlin Wall memorial, once again a location steeped in history and tragedy, but a history that I did not fully understand until standing on the very ground where it unfolded. Actually seeing the Wall and hearing the stories of those who had tried to cross it, helped me realize just how terrible and just how recent this was. Until only 36 years ago, Germany was two different countries, and Berlin had a wall right through the middle. Until 36 years ago you could only travel through half of the city. Until 36 years ago Berlin was ripped in half, it was two different countries.

While at the wall, it was also really cool to hear all the stories of those who had tried to cross. At first the Wall consisted only of coils of razor wire on the ground with the guard every so often and sometimes people would try to run and jump over the razor wire, although the guards always shot at and sometimes killed these people. Some had apartments that created part of the barrier, with entrances or windows on both the east and the west sides of the line. In this case many simply went through their apartments and climbed out the back, often through windows, into West Berlin. Eventually, however, all buildings on the border were razed and the Berlin Wall that we know now was built. It became more and more advanced with time, and had more security added to it every time a flaw was shown through a new escape or escape attempt. By the end the wall stood ten feet as 10 feet of smooth reinforced concrete, with the circular pipe-like shape capping the square edges, which was itself wrapped with rolls of razor wire, making climbing impossible.Tunneling was also prevented eventually, by pouring concrete yards deep underground. Even getting to the wall though was almost impossible – anti-vehicle devices that slashed tires and stopped cars were planted so you couldn’t drive close, ditches were dug in front of the wall for the same purpose, dogs were always on patrol trained, to attack anyone who try to cross, and guards armed with machine guns kept a lookout from watchtowers stationed before the wall, ready to shoot anyone who passed all the other defenses. All of this stood there only 36 years ago. Standing on that memorial made me appreciate just how terrible the Berlin Wall was: a separation of Berlin, as well as ripping apart of Germany.

Bundestag Day

One of my favorite parts of our week in Berlin was the Bundestag day, when we got to sit in on a session of the Bundestag (the German parliament), and see Frederick Merz, the German Chancellor, and later were split into smaller groups and got the chance to ask questions of representative of every major German political party. I really enjoyed this chance to speak with these people at a more personal level, who make decisions about the very program I am on.

Later on we also heard from the vice president of Germany and the American ambassador to Germany and got to ask them questions too. I really enjoyed the chances to talk to these officials about how we build a closer relationship between the US and Germany, which is the main point of my program, and a big reason I chose to participate in this exchange. While at the round table with the politicians from different parties, I got the chance to ask them about one of my major social interests – combating homelessness and poverty. I explained that I come from Memphis, where racism, poverty, and homelessness are major problems that I’ve always seen growing up. I explained that during my year in Germany, I have seen how much more successful the German government is at combating these issues than the American government is, and I asked them therefore, what Germany had done, so that I could bring their methods back with me to the US and Memphis, to help end the status quo and help those unhelped by our government and society. I explained that this sharing of ideas and values, like the right to housing, and how we make that reality, is to me a big part of building our partnership as nations, and working to make both our countries the best they can be. Now none of the politicians really answered the question, but I feel like it was still good to ask, now at least people start thinking about it more actively and what solutions are.

I also enjoyed getting a chance to talk to the vice president and ambassador about how to strengthen our partnership. I explained once again I come from a city or poverty racism and lack of good social support from the city make this program and credibly and accessible to many kids who need the scholarship the most. To apply you have to write a bunch of essays, you have to do an interview, you have to show you do really well in school, you have to get good recommendations, you have to do all this very well. This is a super competitive program, so those essays, that interview, those grades, need to be all super top tier, and to do well on all that, you need to be in a safe and supportive enough environment that you can actually concentrate on the application. For a lot of kids in Memphis, that’s not realistic. The kids who need the scholarship the most, for whom an exchange would be utterly unthinkable if it weren’t free, are the ones who don’t have the safe environment and the support they need to get through this application. Meanwhile, the kids who do have that support, who do have parents and teachers who encourage exchange, who have a much better chance than kids from poor and harder backgrounds of being able to finance an exchange themselves, are the ones who have the resources they need to concentrate on and submit a good application. For instance a kid at MUS or CBHS has a way better chance of being able to submit a good application than a kid from Frayser High School. I explained this inequality and asked them, therefore, what they thought we as Americans could do to make this program more accessible to all. They didn’t really answer, but again at least hopefully people are thinking about it now.

Later that evening we also got to visit the Reichstag, the huge glass dome on top of the Bundestag, and that was super cool, seeing all of Berlin spread out around us. That evening I really enjoyed talking to the other CBYXers, who I had mostly never met until today because they were with other organizations within CBYX. It was a lot of fun comparing notes on our year in Germany, and making so many new friends.

Afterwards, we made our way slowly back to the hotel where we were staying. Along the way we had fun with our shenanigans and combo of white girl music and country, while chatting with and out-tweaking the tweakers. All in all, it was an awesome day.

While in Berlin we also visited the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) Germany’s major intelligence agency. While there, we received a short lecture from a speaker who explained about the agency and what it does, before having a Q&A session with her. What was cooler though, was later that afternoon after the session and visiting the exhibit devoted to the history of the BND, the vice president of the agency came in and talked to us for a little bit. And of course, when I got the chance I had to ask a question. Once again relating back to my program and the American-German partnership, I asked him where Germany stood on torture, mentioning Guantanamo and the CIA, and asking him how he thought the U.S. and Germany could work closer together for the mutual security of both, balancing the need for crucial information with the maintaining a human ethics. His answer was that the best thing to promote security between Germany and the US was trust, and in the sharing of information. Germany and the US must put a lot of trust in each other, and share any relevant information for the mutual security of both countries. They must trust and help each other, they must remember their allies. As for the ethics part, he explained that Germany does not and is not by its own constitution allowed to engage in torture or any such morally questionable practices, something it has utterly refused because of its history during World War II. This is such a big thing that the Germans are actually referred to as the “vegetarians” of Western intelligence for their refusal to engage in any and all ethically questionable intelligence practices. This means they rely heavily on other countries, especially the US, for most of their intelligence, making a close partnership between Germany and the US even more important.

American Embassy Adventure

While in Berlin I learned that one cannot, in fact, simply walk into the American Embassy, something I found out after getting shouted at and stopped by the police after trying to do so myself. I had assumed that as an American I was welcome to walk into my own embassy because it’s basically my home turf, the one part of the country that is in fact American. Apparently the police did not see it that way. I had seen barriers like the ones used by celebrities, but they were only in the street and so I assumed they were just for the cars and I was on foot. It was not until I actually walked up to the embassy itself and tried to open the main door that the police started to shout at me. I walked up and explained that I thought I was allowed to go in because I am an American citizen, and I thought I was always allowed to enter and speak with the officials inside of my embassy. One of the officers was relatively understanding and by the end just thought it was funny, the other one was not. He insisted it would be like if he just walked through my front door. In the end though, they let me go and now I know I can’t walk into the American embassy wherever I want unless I’m claiming Asylum. So maybe that’s what I should do the next time I want to see the American embassy in Berlin.

Graduation ceremony

On our last evening together, we had a little graduation ceremony from YFU. We all received our diplomas from CBYX, and said our goodbyes to the YFU Teamers who had been with us since August. This was definitely sad, because I had gotten to know these guys and bonded so much with them, as had we all, through our time together, and we wouldn’t be seeing each other again on program. It was really cool though, sitting there together, realizing just how far we’ve come since August, and how much we bonded through our time together. At the end of the day though, it was just fun to celebrate too, to be with friends, to be having fun, and to realize just how much we’ve accomplished this year. It was an awesome evening, and a great way to enjoy some of our last time together.

Ruderlager

Once back in Verden it was a quick turnaround before leaving again, this time with my school rowing club on our big end-of-year trip to Papenberg, Germany, a huge highlight of the year. Throughout the week I had a lot of fun, both on the water and off it, filled with rowing, making friends, more rowing, more adventures with friends, and of course some more rowing.

The first day was spent mostly setting everything up so that it was ready to go, reassembling all the boats after disassembling them to bring them to Papenburg. That day I learned so much about how you put a rowing boat back together. It was a lot of fun as well as informative. Throughout the week, we rode seven hours a day, and spent the other time at meals, cooking, or just having fun.

Throughout the week I got lots of practice on all the different boats, from learning how to drive the motorboat, to chilling on the kaya, to rowing the one-man, two-man, and four-man boats, all of which were really fun. I had never rowed a racing one-man before, and it was certainly an experience, but I didn’t fall in, for which I am very happy, as it is always a little more fun when one can row without taking the extra swim.

We also saw the dry dock and construction of Disney’s huge new cruise ship, one of the biggest in the world. It was crazy to walk through there and think that this is where all the world’s biggest cruise ships are built, plus it was interesting to learn a little bit about the history of the area. The company that builds these ships dates back to the 1600s, it was one of the biggest and most famous in Europe, and has been building huge ships for hundreds of years. Papenburg, as it turned out, is actually the main ship-building hub for all of Europe, and it is there that we were rowing every day.

The rowing itself though was even cooler. Every morning and afternoon we rowed out of the dock and into the main channel, eventually coming to canals on either side which we often explored. The banks on either side were sprawling with industry, and there was never a dull moment, always earthmovers and bulldozers and other big machines working to clear and build and whatever else. as we rowed our way past. The weather throughout stayed in our favor, sunny and warm, until our last day on the water, which I’m very grateful for.

When we slept (for the few hours every night) it was in the boathouse of the Verden rowing club, in sleeping bags under the boats, remaining warm and dry throughout the week.

Throughout my time in Papenburg, I had a ton of fun hanging out with the other people there, from playing soccer before dinner to 3 am McDonald’s runs. In particular, I hung out with the older guys, who had all graduated that year, or else a year or two ago, and had a lot of fun going on little adventures with them every night. IT was through these adventures that I got to see a lot more of the city, especially Papengurg’s cute, brick lined main street , which was very reminiscent of the cute, red-brick pedestrian downtowns of Southern cities like Oxford Mississippi. I felt right at home. Throughout our time and experiences together, from playing the airplane game and McDonald’s until I fell asleep, to walking around with our grocery cart and mega speaker in the early hours of the morning, I got to make some incredible friends and memories that will remain with me forever.

One of my favorite memories was getting dunked in the river, an initiation tradition that everyone undergoes on their first Papenburg Ruderlager trip. You have one person on each limb and they tell you each their name, before throwing you into the water. When you resurface, you have to say all four names correctly without pausing to remember who they were or stumbling on the words. If you have to take a minute to remember or can’t get the names right the first time, you go in again until you get them all. This was so much fun and a great tradition to bring back to the US for Kia Kima. There was of course penalty dunking as well, where people were thrown into the water for breaking the rules and it was incredibly amusing and practical. If you were caught doing something you weren’t supposed to be by the wrong people, in you went. This was an incredibly good system and yet another brilliant idea for Kia Kima this summer.

All in all, this was an incredible week with so many fun times, and I’m so glad I got to take part during my time here in Germany!!

This is my last full month update from my year in Germany, as the next one will be written back in the US and will only cover my last two weeks in Germany, as well as potentially how it is to come back after so long away and the reverse culture shock that that entails. I hope you all have enjoyed these stories and snippets of my life here, it’s been an honor to share this exchange and experience with you all, and I look forward to one last text when this is done, when I’ve been here and back again, and it’s time to say goodbye. Until then, take care!!

Please feel free to reach out to me at trexlertb1@gmail.com 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 Townley Bakewell

Scouting America

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Two Households, Both Alike in Dignity

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