week 1 in Shieder

I know it has been a while since I posted last, but I will skip ahead to about a week ago, in order to keep this interesting. 

            I arrived at my host family last Saturday, at about 1:00 in the afternoon.  I live in a small town called Shieder, and I go to school in a town called Blomberg, about 11km away.  I am in Nordrhein-Westfalen, about an hour by train southwest of Hanover.  When I arrived at the train station, I still didn’t know what my host family looked like.  I knew that I had a retired host dad, who lived at home, and two older host brothers that live with him on the weekends.  Other than that, I knew nothing.  So, I got off the train, and headed towards the main section, where my host dad came up and introduced himself.  We then got in his car, and drove about ten minutes back to his house, where I met one of his sons.  The first few days were very awkward, because I can hardly speak any English, and he can only speak some English.  That being said, there were no major issues within the first few days.  On Sunday, I met his older son, who speaks English very well because he works at NATO.  I would have normally gone to school on Monday, but PI had not yet contacted the Gymnasium to tell them that I was coming.  So, we went to Detmold, a city near us because my step dad needed to go to an eye exam.  Meanwhile, I wandered around the city. 

On Tuesday, I went to school with my host dad, but we only talked to a counselor and then left.  Wednesday would be my actual first day of school.  I received a schedule that was exactly the same as someone else’s in my town, so that he could help me find my way.  My first day went well, although I didn’t really know what was happening most of the time.  My second day was a little bit more interesting.  On the way to school, the person who I had been following around got sick, and had to go home.  So, I was left wandering around by myself asking where different classes were.  I survived though, and made it to every class.  Again, I was thoroughly confused all day, considering I hardly speak any German at this point.  One class in particular had me stumped: Latin.  Yeah, that sucked, to say the least.  I hardly know any German, and I don’t know a word of Latin, so I basically just sat there looking like a fool the whole class.  Needless to say, I will try to switch out of that class ASAP.  Friday went a bit better, since my schedule buddy was back in school.  Still confusing, but not as bad. 

            So almost every region in Germany has some sort of fair or festival each year.  Well, ours, Willbasen, happened to be from Friday until today.  So, I went to this fair on Friday, with one of our neighbors and some of her friends.  The best way to describe this would be a German State-Fair.  There were carnival rides, biergartens, and hundreds of merchants selling everything from sweets to atv’s.  I stayed for a few hours, and then my host dad came and went home with me, while the others stayed until early the next morning. 

            So, this basically brings us to today, which I have off from school because of Willbasen.  Today, I helped my host dad plant a new garden by the house, which will hopefully be much bigger by the time I leave in June. 

Side note:  Sorry I haven’t been very good at posting recently.  I will try to post once a week, so that I can keep everybody more informed.