germany is so AMAZING! i can't begin to describe it. the country itself is clean and rich and whatnot. but the school is....beyond words. so far only about half of the people are here and no one has been a stranger. we are all a big family already. i am in a room with 9 other room mates/......NINE! but that means we are going to be the most awesome room. their is a huge Canadian-American battle as for who is better and so far the american's have been less than victorious. still, as always, we shall overcome. so far i have classmates from korea, turkey, latvia, germany, asutralia india and more to come. we all keep saying how amazing it is to be here...so awesome!
i have become known as William the welcomer because i already knew people so well from facebook and i always run to meet the new students. it is way too exciting to be wasting my time by being bashful. the school is awesome too. the staff are really nice and we can see the lake and the swiss alps from our balcony.
staying at the hostel was amazing because 8 of us were bodenseehoffers and we all ate out together. SO FUN. well i am really afraid i am missing something cool so i am going to leave.
Showing posts with label bodenseehof. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bodenseehof. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
here at last!
well, i am sitting in the hostel as i write this, using paid-for internet. apparently, cafe's in America are the only ones who let you use wireless free of charge. this is most unfortunate.
anyway...i will start at the beginning of the journey. i packed a lot of stuff. a lot. so getting through the airport was jolly good fun. after i made it through the checkpoint, i found my way to the gate and checked in. i soon boarded the plane, only to find that though it was incredibly long, the space between the seats was less than two inches. i somehow got myself crammed into a seat and sat. as we were about to take off, the captain told us there was a small vent that needed to be fixed and they couldn't find any allen wrenches that fit. after an allen wrench was found, we started to takeoff. as soon as we had gotten up speed, we stopped. they said they had some sort of warning and we had to go back and have it checked. when it was finally checked, we took off. at 645. the flight was supposed to take off at 420. grr.
about an hour into the flight the tv screens started working. i watched probably five movies and barely remember any of them. i slept for about thirty minutes but that was about it. i was totally cramped. eight hours later, i got off the plane only to find that i had missed my connecting flight by a very long amount of time. they set me up with another connecting flight scheduled for one oclock. i had a couple of hours so i put my carry on luggage under my feet and slept with my head on my lap. it made things, if possible, worse. when i woke up, i was a zombie.
on the flight was another bodenseehof studsent. wee began chatting and found that we were both staying at different places. there was someone else waiting on the flight with us who was reading an American book so we assumed he must be a student too. he wasn't. but, he lived right near the school and knew all about it. he told us he could take us to wherever we were going to stay that night. admittedly,scenes of the movie taken flashed through my mind as i thought of accepting a ride from a stranger, but when we got to friedrichshafen, he called the houses we were going to stay in and got directions. i assumed this meant he was actually going to take us there and not kidnap us. his wife was there to pick him up and we found out that they were really good friends with the staff at Bode and went to church with the students. they were really awesome and refused to let me help pay for gas.
then i got to the hostel and forced myself to stay alert through a shower and supper. then i slept for 12 hours. although my sleep was interrupted frequently by roommates coming and going, children screaming and so on. then i had a short breakfast and bought some internet time and blogged this. i am tired again and would like to sleep. more bode students are coming today to the hostel and we are all planning on eating dinner together tonight. then the bus from Bode will pick us up tomorrow morning. until next time!
anyway...i will start at the beginning of the journey. i packed a lot of stuff. a lot. so getting through the airport was jolly good fun. after i made it through the checkpoint, i found my way to the gate and checked in. i soon boarded the plane, only to find that though it was incredibly long, the space between the seats was less than two inches. i somehow got myself crammed into a seat and sat. as we were about to take off, the captain told us there was a small vent that needed to be fixed and they couldn't find any allen wrenches that fit. after an allen wrench was found, we started to takeoff. as soon as we had gotten up speed, we stopped. they said they had some sort of warning and we had to go back and have it checked. when it was finally checked, we took off. at 645. the flight was supposed to take off at 420. grr.
about an hour into the flight the tv screens started working. i watched probably five movies and barely remember any of them. i slept for about thirty minutes but that was about it. i was totally cramped. eight hours later, i got off the plane only to find that i had missed my connecting flight by a very long amount of time. they set me up with another connecting flight scheduled for one oclock. i had a couple of hours so i put my carry on luggage under my feet and slept with my head on my lap. it made things, if possible, worse. when i woke up, i was a zombie.
on the flight was another bodenseehof studsent. wee began chatting and found that we were both staying at different places. there was someone else waiting on the flight with us who was reading an American book so we assumed he must be a student too. he wasn't. but, he lived right near the school and knew all about it. he told us he could take us to wherever we were going to stay that night. admittedly,scenes of the movie taken flashed through my mind as i thought of accepting a ride from a stranger, but when we got to friedrichshafen, he called the houses we were going to stay in and got directions. i assumed this meant he was actually going to take us there and not kidnap us. his wife was there to pick him up and we found out that they were really good friends with the staff at Bode and went to church with the students. they were really awesome and refused to let me help pay for gas.
then i got to the hostel and forced myself to stay alert through a shower and supper. then i slept for 12 hours. although my sleep was interrupted frequently by roommates coming and going, children screaming and so on. then i had a short breakfast and bought some internet time and blogged this. i am tired again and would like to sleep. more bode students are coming today to the hostel and we are all planning on eating dinner together tonight. then the bus from Bode will pick us up tomorrow morning. until next time!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Preparations and panickings
I am, as you are most likely aware, leaving on September 21st to live in Friedrichshafen, Germany. here is a little bit of a backstory on the whole thing.
having no clue where my life is going and no sense of direction about what to do with my life, i chose to postpone my college education a year. this choice was made following the discovery of the torchbearer schools in Europe. after limited research, i selected Bodenseehof, a school on the banks of the oceanlike Lake Constance.
the thought of a year in europe made normal life seem dull and unimpressive. i began to see it as the light at the end of my high school tunnel. i failed to heed the warnings of wising my senior year away and wish it away i did! this had the opposite effect and the year became twelve months of slowly being pecked to death by a duck. don't get me wrong, my senior year was great, but having such a brilliant reward at the end made it seem torturous.
as my senior year whiled itself away, funding for daily life in Germany began to become a concern in my mind. i began to search for summer employment to ensure that i could travel and have ample comforts during breaks. i found two summer jobs via friends of the family. neither job turned into a glorious or glamorous opportunity of employment.
my first job was as a pizza delivery "expert" at Dominos. it was not a wholly wretched job but entailed working with some less than desirable individuals and enduring some rather uncomfortable deliveries. my other job was at a daycamp. there is little to say about this job. it was all well and good but it was a very short day camp indeed and lasted only for the month of july.
the summer crept along at a slug's pace. i began to fell that september would never arrive. then one day when i woke up, i was smacked in the face by the log that is reality. i realized with alarm that i was to depart in just over a month and had done literally nothing to get ready. i frantically made online purchases of cold weather clothing that i did not already have and i started to mentally list all of the things i did not yet have that i would need. as the to do list continued to swell and the packing list exploded into something frightening, i hit panic mode. it was then i discovered i had a seriously small weight limit for my second flight. panic mode hit with a new crunching blow. i have to fit my whole life....all of it, into a twenty kilo bag and a carry on.
after panicking, i quickly made enormous lists on my computer which helped ease my way into the vast amount of preparation i still have to do. more to come when germany gets closer. and by the way. i speak no german. at all.
having no clue where my life is going and no sense of direction about what to do with my life, i chose to postpone my college education a year. this choice was made following the discovery of the torchbearer schools in Europe. after limited research, i selected Bodenseehof, a school on the banks of the oceanlike Lake Constance.
the thought of a year in europe made normal life seem dull and unimpressive. i began to see it as the light at the end of my high school tunnel. i failed to heed the warnings of wising my senior year away and wish it away i did! this had the opposite effect and the year became twelve months of slowly being pecked to death by a duck. don't get me wrong, my senior year was great, but having such a brilliant reward at the end made it seem torturous.
as my senior year whiled itself away, funding for daily life in Germany began to become a concern in my mind. i began to search for summer employment to ensure that i could travel and have ample comforts during breaks. i found two summer jobs via friends of the family. neither job turned into a glorious or glamorous opportunity of employment.
my first job was as a pizza delivery "expert" at Dominos. it was not a wholly wretched job but entailed working with some less than desirable individuals and enduring some rather uncomfortable deliveries. my other job was at a daycamp. there is little to say about this job. it was all well and good but it was a very short day camp indeed and lasted only for the month of july.
the summer crept along at a slug's pace. i began to fell that september would never arrive. then one day when i woke up, i was smacked in the face by the log that is reality. i realized with alarm that i was to depart in just over a month and had done literally nothing to get ready. i frantically made online purchases of cold weather clothing that i did not already have and i started to mentally list all of the things i did not yet have that i would need. as the to do list continued to swell and the packing list exploded into something frightening, i hit panic mode. it was then i discovered i had a seriously small weight limit for my second flight. panic mode hit with a new crunching blow. i have to fit my whole life....all of it, into a twenty kilo bag and a carry on.
after panicking, i quickly made enormous lists on my computer which helped ease my way into the vast amount of preparation i still have to do. more to come when germany gets closer. and by the way. i speak no german. at all.
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