Year: 2010

In Germany, there are two major political parties in their Bundestag (our Congress):  the CDU (Christian Democratic Union), kind of like our Republican Party, and the SPD (Social Democratic Party...

I hope everyone at home is having a wonderful Thanksgiving (as well as Black Friday tomorrow)!  So yes, I did have school this Thursday and Friday.  Germany has the celebration...

It's nice to settle in to a fun weekend since I'm still thinking about our vacation from the week prior.  I'm happy that Germany as well as the rest of...

School was out for the past two weeks of Fall (October 8 - 22), my host-family and I went on vacation to the France-Monaco area.  Monaco is about a 12-hour drive...

A very BIG SLIDE. Diving in CORN!Hilden is the name of the suburb I'm living in this year, in the North Rhine-Westphalia province.  The population is around 57,000, and there...

The Hilden City OrchestraWell, I've finally gotten my school routine down.  (It only took the three weeks that I've been in school!)  Understanding German is  much easier than speaking right now.  On...

This was a very interesting, but confusing day (at least for me)!  I'm in the 12th grade (they have a 13th) at Dietrich Bonhoeffer Gymnasium (grades 5 - 13), which is a...

Now that immersion is over, I've settled in with my permanent host-family in Hilden (still in the province of North Rhine-Westphalia).  Coincidentally, there are 6 other kids besides me, however 1...

 My host-family at the "school."The Karlspreis  My exchange classmates--one of the 7 Americans is sick and not present. The month of my immersion training has come to an end.  It was...

This weekend, Elena, Teresa, Jonas, and I went to Phantasia Land!  It's an amusement park with several diverse cultural themes.  There's a section of Europe, the USA (mainly featuring the...