I’ve now been living with my host family for more than three
months, and gradually, sneakily, my life here has become just that, life. I
look around and am surprised to feel the warm, worn feeling of familiarity in
everything from the view out the dining room windows and the smell of my
bedroom to the sound of the dishwasher opening and the girl with the glasses
and the braid on the afternoon bus.
It’s pretty beautiful, this progress, too slow to notice
when it’s happening, but with an obvious result, like your body warming a
chair, or the ocean wearing away rock.
So, yes, it’s just a regular old Tuesday* for me from here
on out.
Of course, there are still events that stand out. A couple
weeks ago, for example, I had my sixteenth birthday party (to which I kind of
impulsively/accidentally invited a whole class of people whom I don’t know
(well, I invited half of them, the other half claimed I invited them)). But
that’s just the kind of thing that happens when Camilla (refer to earlier blog
posts if you don’t know who Camilla is) is in town. So for my party we made
soooooo much food (which we devoured once the party had become enough of a
success that we didn’t feel the need to socialize aggressively anymore),
decorated the cellar with all kinds of lamps and white Christmas lights, laid
pillows and mattresses on the floor to create a really chill atmosphere,
emphasized by the dim lighting, and set up the foosball table in case things
got desperate. I invited a random mix of people from my bus, my village, my class,
my soccer team, and, yes, that other class that I talked to for like five
minutes the day before the party. There were actual plenty of people there
(probably just weirdos that wanted to get a peek at my room or eat free food,
but I lost my qualms somewhere between America and
I-don’t-care-I-need-to-find-real-friends (which I’ve actually managed
now...it’s wonderful.)) A good half of this blog post is in parentheses,
buuuut, whatever. The party was such a conversational success that we didn’t
even need to utilize our “Games that take a long time and don’t require
enthusiasm” list. And to top it all off, my many admirers (vague acquaintances)
provided me with enough chocolate to last...maybe a week. It actually was a lot
though.
So that pretty much covers November..and October..and
everything else I didn’t write about..or none of that at all, but I don’t care.
So December. Well, in December every tiny village with a ridiculous name that
doesn’t even officially exist has a Christmas market. A lot of Christmas
markets have these super duper cool medieval stands where people play jolly
tunes on ocarinas, roast meat on spits, twirl burning batons, and sell all
kinds of wares made out of leather and wood and metal in rustic colors that
look like props from Pirates of the Caribbean/Lord of the Rings. Besides that,
you can guestimate a city’s population by the number of crepe stands to be
found at its Christmas market. For example, in Cologne I walked past at least
four before I gave in to temptation, whereas in the little place where I go to
school I had to actively search for a solid 7 minutes or so before I located the
only one. You can pretty much find the same general types of booths at every
market- knitted stuff, statues of Santa in every possible position, handmade
jewelry, food (hot waffles, hashbrown-type things, warm stuff made out of some
form of bread or potatoes pretty much), weird instruments and statues sold by a
hippy, candles and honey from bee farmers, those heart-shaped cookies with
messages in icing that taste awful, etc.
Another thing that everyone in Germany participates in
during the holiday season is Advent calendars. That means a calendar with one
piece of chocolate (or ‘encouraging messages’ or some crap, but people really
just want chocolate) I have two. Just ‘cause.
In other news, I’ve diagnosed about half of my classes at
school as unnecessary, (something I really should have done years ago, because
it’s fantastic) and spend them absorbed in my dictionary (or in coloring the
whole front and back of my homework notebook with a ballpoint pen) but I’m
still getting graded in German, English, French, Math, History, and Music, so I’ve
got my hands full enough.
Overall, things are better than ever and keep getting even
better.
Hm, I forget what I should write in this blog. Should I
write like I’m emailing my parents, Skyping my friends, updating my Facebook
status, scribbling in my journal, or reflecting generally on life and the
world? Well, whatever the case, I think this is enough to satisfy all you
hungry readers out there. Or maybe not. If not just leave angry comments, but
be sure to use good grammar, otherwise I will not be able to take them
seriously.
Yours,
Anne
* Regular Old Tuesday
For those of you
who didn’t catch my drift, I say it’s a ‘regular old Tuesday’ now because I
find Tuesday to be the most ordinary of days. Not in a bad way, but rather in a
gray-English-skies/office-job/morning-coffee-and-newspaper kind of way...if
that helps clear things up...
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