February 18-23
The past week has been pretty calm in comparison to the previous weeks. I didn't travel anywhere this week. I actually spent the whole week in Kiel. I didn't have a whole lot to do with my classes this week, as many of them were taking tests and such.
Tuesday, Kathrin, a friend I made in Heidelberg, sent me a message and is now coming to visit me on the 19th of March before Natasha gets here! I'm really excited to see her again and to show her around Kiel, even though she has been here before. I also talked to my host family on this evening because I had been wanting to invite them over to show them my apartment and cook dinner for them. The end result was that I now have a lot of things planned for the month of March, which will be fun.
I was late to school on Wednesday. This was the first time I have been late to class. There wasn't really a reason, I just for some reason thought that I didn't have class until 4th period and on the way to school remembered that it was only like that the week before because my 3rd period was cancelled. After realizing this, I tried to cycle as fast as possible to get to school halfway through 3rd period. When I walked into the classroom, the kids all started clapping and shouting"Vanessa is here!" I thought this was really sweet and funny at the same time. I had felt like an idiot for being late, but this made everything better. To top it off, my teacher didn't even ask why I was late. He just said "no problem" and we continued with the lesson. He is very laid back and therefore didn't want to make a big deal about it.
Wednesday night, I called a friend, Katharina, who is teaching near Nuernberg, in the south, because I am planning to visit her in April. It was nice to talk to her again, as the last time I saw or talked to her was when I left Heidelberg in January of '06.
On Friday, I had prepared a nice lesson for my 12th graders on "The New Colossus," the poem at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty. We discussed the poem and talked about immigration and then I gave them a caricature that had George Bush as the Statue of Liberty with a satirical comment on immigration and migrant workers replacing the poem. The kids loved this. Bush is not very popular in the image of Europeans and they therefore get a kick out of caricatures like this one. We compared the two and discussed problems associated with immigration.
Friday night, the other assistants and I went over to Dee's and we cooked a meal together. I brought over a cherry cake that I had made and together we made chicken curry, rice and stir-fry veggies. It was delicious. We spent the rest of the night just laying around and relaxing. Siobhan played the guitar and sang us some songs and we even made up some lyrics.
Saturday we went for a walk in Schrevenpark. It is one of the biggest parks in Kiel (there are many) and is very pretty. We spent a lot of time just being silly as usual and then we went food shopping and headed home.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Open-Air Museum, Me English is no good, Birthday party and more
February 10-17
On Sunday, I was invited to go to the Molfsee Freilichtmuseum with one of the teacher's at my school and her two little children. The museum is an open air musuem on an extensive plot of land that consists of old farm houses and barns from every time period and every area of Schleswig-Holstein. When in full operation, it also has blacksmiths, basket weavers and other artisans of interest. In addition, there are farm animals of all types. It is the perfect place to take kids and spend the whole day. Unfortunately, my teacher got tied up at a friend's and after three attempts (every hour I rode my bike to her's, it's about 5 min. from my apartment), she finally called and said that she was running behind. A little before 3p.m. she picked me up. She didn't realize that the museum closes early in the winter and is therefore only open until 4. This didn't stop us though.
When we arrived there, my teacher met an old man at the ticket counter who was originally from England, but who had been living in Germany for over 40 years. He was speaking a mixture of German and English with her and she introduced me to him. Meanwhile, the kids grabbed a wagon and we were off. Once we got to where the goats were, Kirstin got out apples and carrots and started cutting them to feed to the goats. The kids were loving it. One goat became really excited and kept jumping on Kirstin as she was trying to cut up the carrots. She said she had never had that happen before, but she wasn't scared, she was just laughing about the dirt he got on her coat. After feeding the goats, the kids went to play on the playground and after a while we sat on the seesaw with them until this became boring and they wanted to play down by the lake. We were down there for quite some time and then decided we should start heading back as it was nearing 5 o' clock. On the way to the exit we stopped at the Blacksmith shop, which was surprising still open and she had a short discussion with him about chemicals and their burning points. Kirstin teaches English, Bio, and Chemistry and is writing an article about Harry Potter and the chemicals and such discussed in the book, which I found to be quite interesting. Finally, after taking the kids to see the rest of the animals (donkeys, peacocks, rabbits, chickens and more) it was time to go since the sun was starting to set. Kirstin explained to me that the museum is losing money because not many people are going there anymore. I can't seem to understand this, as it seems like the perfect place for families and for anyone interested in the history of the state. This disappoints me and I hope that this will change because I would hate to see something like this fall apart. On the way home, Kirstin invited me over for dinner and the kids tried to get me to stay the night again, though this wasn't possible on that evening. All in all, it was a fun day spent with my teacher and her two children.
Monday it was really foggy, but Dee and I decided to go for a 2 hour walk along the harbor anyway. We saw that flowers were starting to bloom in the parks because of the warm and sunny weather the last few days and hoped that they wouldn't die because it is cold once again. You couldn't even see more than 15 feet out onto the water of the harbor, but we enjoyed being outside in the fresh air. As we were heading down to the harbor, Kirstin (the teacher from the day before) rode by on her bicycle and yelled hello to us. This made me laugh, because it seems that I don't go a day in Kiel without seeing one of my students or a teacher at my school.
On Tuesday, I had to teach a lesson on store conversation to my sixth graders. I brought in some materials for this (fruits, magazines, books, etc) and the kids had to come up to the counter and ask for things and make purchases. This went really well and then the kids had to split up into pairs and do this with their partners. They have a week to practice and next week I will be grading them on creativity, naturalness, memorization, and grammar. My grade 13 teacher gave me some essays to take home and correct for the next week. This is always fun because you can't ever tell the kids that it's wrong without providing a reason and sometimes I just don't know the reason, but I know it is wrong. Lots of times it is because they try to directly translate from German to English, which a lot of times doesn't work. I also had to tutor again after school. I talked to one of the teachers about one of the students I tutor and she said that she has already noticed that she is more self-confident and participates more in class. This makes me very happy to know and am glad that I can be of help. I hope that the same goes for my other students which I tutor.
A funny side note to English in general: the other assistants and I have come to the conclusion, that we don't speak English as well as we used to. Some of the errors that our students/teachers make, we have started to make ourselves and we don't even realize it until the others notice it and say something. I guess if you hear the same mistakes a lot then it is possible that you start to use them. This always makes us laugh and we say that our German isn't getting much better and our English is only getting worse!
Funny side note to my classes: Sometimes when teachers ask me if something is right or wrong or if it can be said in a certain way, I am unsure. The meaning can be completely clear when reading what the students have written, even if it is written in a way that we would never write it..... This makes it very difficult. I also think that the teachers overcorrect (sometimes correcting what is right) and this makes my uncertainty even worse at times. I do get aggravated every now and then when I tell a teacher something and they don't believe me and then they look it up and act suprised that I am right. This makes me laugh. What is even funnier, is when the teachers ask me for a translation of a German word that I don't even know. Sometimes they think I should know more than I do. In addition, they also use a lot of British English terms that I have never heard of and ask me if they are correct. How should I know?! Do I look like I am British? This is usually my response to that.
Thursday, I was invited to one of my teacher's daughter's birthday party. She turned 5 on Valentine's day. I had to tutor after school, so as soon as I was done, I went to the store to get a small gift for Mathilda. I found a coloring book with farm pictures and animals (which reminded me of our trip to the Museum on Sunday) and so I bought this and some crayons, wrapped them and went over to their apartment. When I arrived, there were 5 little ones running around like crazy dressed up in costumes. They were really cute. I got to join the table of children and eat with them. Mathilda unwrapped her present and didn't seem to be too excited as she apparently had already recieved a coloring book. But then a few minutes later she opened it and realized there were animals and people in it and decided that she would color. Arthur, her six-year old brother decided to help and I joined in the fun. After it started getting late, Kirstin got the kids ready for bed and she got out an English book so that I could read them their good night story. This was really sweet and I was shocked how much they understood. They are really smart kids. After they went to bed, Kirstin, her husband Julianus and I watched some German and British comedy and then I headed out for the evening.
Friday, I was invited to have breakfast with one of the fifth grade classes by my mentor teacher. They were starting a new unit on table conversation and she thought it would be nice to invite me as a guest. The class can't speak much English. They have only really begun this year. They were able to ask me a few questions though, such as my age, name, etc. This made me think back to being in Croatia where the children start English in the first grade and can already ask these questions. Interesting to note that at least in the early stages of language learning, Croatia beats out Germany. They really sweet though and attempted to speak English the whole time as they were told to do. In the afternoon, I had my 12th graders with which I had them do a debate on whether or not tuition fees should be required. This turned out really well and the students ideas and opinions were quite impressive. Why this is a hot topic for them: up until now, education, i.e. University level was free to all Germans because it was supported through taxes (I believe Germans pay the second highest rate of taxes in the world), however, things began changing in 2005, while I was in Heidelberg. Tuition fees started being initiated in the southern states and have worked their way up the country. The only state currently without them is Schleswig-Holstein, where I live. This is one reason a lot more students than usual are studying in this state. This will probably change in the near future though when the state will finally have to cave in to external pressure. When I say tuition fees though, I am referring to about 2, 000 Euro or so per year. This doesn't sound like much in comparison to the U.S. and it really isn't, but keep in mind that students don't get room and board on campuses here, since the whole campus/dorm-life is non-existant.
In the evening, I met up with the other assistants from Kiel and we went to the movies at the cheap theater that costs only 2 Euro. We watched the movie Sternwanderer (Star Dust). It was long, but good. Later in the evening we had a spaghetti dinner at Dee's and all stayed the night.
On Saturday, we decided to go for a walk and enjoy the sunshine even though it was still very cold. We walked over 2 hours and then sat at a cafe on the waterfront where we had cake and coffee. We overheard the guy at the table next to us speaking German in a really bad accent and then after hearing him speak English, realized that he was American. He overheard us talking to and asked us before he left where we were all from and what we were doing here. I explained to him and he told me that he was from Philly and had met his girlfriend, who is German at a bar there and decided to move to Germany. I found this to be quite impressive, as I don't know many men in the U.S. who would do this, especially if they didn't speak the language. He told me that he got his master's in Hamburg in Media (classes in English). After we left the cafe, it was starting to get chilly so we headed back up to Dee's. Later we went out to get Doener for dinner.
Sunday, we (myself and some of the other assistants) travelled to Eutin for the day. Martin, from England, had his birthday the week before and we wanted to take him out for cake and have him show us around his city. We spent the day touring around. First we went up to an old windmill that Martin explained is now a pub. I thought this was funny. The Germans can turn anything into a bar! (this isn't meant to be sterotypical, just funny) He showed us his school, which looks very nice on the outside in comparison to mine. Then we walked past the watertower, which resembles a light house. After that we headed down to the lake, where Dee and I climbed a tree and we all were skipping rocks off the frozen top layer of the lake. The rocks made lovely music as they hit the ice. From the lake, we went into the city center where the palace is located. We walked around the courtyard and then starting to get cold headed for one of the only cafes open in Eutin on a Sunday. It was quite full, but we were able to find seats and warm up. After this we had to head out because Dee was meeting up with some of her teachers in the evening.
I decided to spend Monday relaxing, after a long weekend of running around. When I went to go shopping for food, I saw some random people crossing the road carrying a manequin. I'm not sure why, but it seems that there is always something strange going on in Kiel...
On Sunday, I was invited to go to the Molfsee Freilichtmuseum with one of the teacher's at my school and her two little children. The museum is an open air musuem on an extensive plot of land that consists of old farm houses and barns from every time period and every area of Schleswig-Holstein. When in full operation, it also has blacksmiths, basket weavers and other artisans of interest. In addition, there are farm animals of all types. It is the perfect place to take kids and spend the whole day. Unfortunately, my teacher got tied up at a friend's and after three attempts (every hour I rode my bike to her's, it's about 5 min. from my apartment), she finally called and said that she was running behind. A little before 3p.m. she picked me up. She didn't realize that the museum closes early in the winter and is therefore only open until 4. This didn't stop us though.
When we arrived there, my teacher met an old man at the ticket counter who was originally from England, but who had been living in Germany for over 40 years. He was speaking a mixture of German and English with her and she introduced me to him. Meanwhile, the kids grabbed a wagon and we were off. Once we got to where the goats were, Kirstin got out apples and carrots and started cutting them to feed to the goats. The kids were loving it. One goat became really excited and kept jumping on Kirstin as she was trying to cut up the carrots. She said she had never had that happen before, but she wasn't scared, she was just laughing about the dirt he got on her coat. After feeding the goats, the kids went to play on the playground and after a while we sat on the seesaw with them until this became boring and they wanted to play down by the lake. We were down there for quite some time and then decided we should start heading back as it was nearing 5 o' clock. On the way to the exit we stopped at the Blacksmith shop, which was surprising still open and she had a short discussion with him about chemicals and their burning points. Kirstin teaches English, Bio, and Chemistry and is writing an article about Harry Potter and the chemicals and such discussed in the book, which I found to be quite interesting. Finally, after taking the kids to see the rest of the animals (donkeys, peacocks, rabbits, chickens and more) it was time to go since the sun was starting to set. Kirstin explained to me that the museum is losing money because not many people are going there anymore. I can't seem to understand this, as it seems like the perfect place for families and for anyone interested in the history of the state. This disappoints me and I hope that this will change because I would hate to see something like this fall apart. On the way home, Kirstin invited me over for dinner and the kids tried to get me to stay the night again, though this wasn't possible on that evening. All in all, it was a fun day spent with my teacher and her two children.
Monday it was really foggy, but Dee and I decided to go for a 2 hour walk along the harbor anyway. We saw that flowers were starting to bloom in the parks because of the warm and sunny weather the last few days and hoped that they wouldn't die because it is cold once again. You couldn't even see more than 15 feet out onto the water of the harbor, but we enjoyed being outside in the fresh air. As we were heading down to the harbor, Kirstin (the teacher from the day before) rode by on her bicycle and yelled hello to us. This made me laugh, because it seems that I don't go a day in Kiel without seeing one of my students or a teacher at my school.
On Tuesday, I had to teach a lesson on store conversation to my sixth graders. I brought in some materials for this (fruits, magazines, books, etc) and the kids had to come up to the counter and ask for things and make purchases. This went really well and then the kids had to split up into pairs and do this with their partners. They have a week to practice and next week I will be grading them on creativity, naturalness, memorization, and grammar. My grade 13 teacher gave me some essays to take home and correct for the next week. This is always fun because you can't ever tell the kids that it's wrong without providing a reason and sometimes I just don't know the reason, but I know it is wrong. Lots of times it is because they try to directly translate from German to English, which a lot of times doesn't work. I also had to tutor again after school. I talked to one of the teachers about one of the students I tutor and she said that she has already noticed that she is more self-confident and participates more in class. This makes me very happy to know and am glad that I can be of help. I hope that the same goes for my other students which I tutor.
A funny side note to English in general: the other assistants and I have come to the conclusion, that we don't speak English as well as we used to. Some of the errors that our students/teachers make, we have started to make ourselves and we don't even realize it until the others notice it and say something. I guess if you hear the same mistakes a lot then it is possible that you start to use them. This always makes us laugh and we say that our German isn't getting much better and our English is only getting worse!
Funny side note to my classes: Sometimes when teachers ask me if something is right or wrong or if it can be said in a certain way, I am unsure. The meaning can be completely clear when reading what the students have written, even if it is written in a way that we would never write it..... This makes it very difficult. I also think that the teachers overcorrect (sometimes correcting what is right) and this makes my uncertainty even worse at times. I do get aggravated every now and then when I tell a teacher something and they don't believe me and then they look it up and act suprised that I am right. This makes me laugh. What is even funnier, is when the teachers ask me for a translation of a German word that I don't even know. Sometimes they think I should know more than I do. In addition, they also use a lot of British English terms that I have never heard of and ask me if they are correct. How should I know?! Do I look like I am British? This is usually my response to that.
Thursday, I was invited to one of my teacher's daughter's birthday party. She turned 5 on Valentine's day. I had to tutor after school, so as soon as I was done, I went to the store to get a small gift for Mathilda. I found a coloring book with farm pictures and animals (which reminded me of our trip to the Museum on Sunday) and so I bought this and some crayons, wrapped them and went over to their apartment. When I arrived, there were 5 little ones running around like crazy dressed up in costumes. They were really cute. I got to join the table of children and eat with them. Mathilda unwrapped her present and didn't seem to be too excited as she apparently had already recieved a coloring book. But then a few minutes later she opened it and realized there were animals and people in it and decided that she would color. Arthur, her six-year old brother decided to help and I joined in the fun. After it started getting late, Kirstin got the kids ready for bed and she got out an English book so that I could read them their good night story. This was really sweet and I was shocked how much they understood. They are really smart kids. After they went to bed, Kirstin, her husband Julianus and I watched some German and British comedy and then I headed out for the evening.
Friday, I was invited to have breakfast with one of the fifth grade classes by my mentor teacher. They were starting a new unit on table conversation and she thought it would be nice to invite me as a guest. The class can't speak much English. They have only really begun this year. They were able to ask me a few questions though, such as my age, name, etc. This made me think back to being in Croatia where the children start English in the first grade and can already ask these questions. Interesting to note that at least in the early stages of language learning, Croatia beats out Germany. They really sweet though and attempted to speak English the whole time as they were told to do. In the afternoon, I had my 12th graders with which I had them do a debate on whether or not tuition fees should be required. This turned out really well and the students ideas and opinions were quite impressive. Why this is a hot topic for them: up until now, education, i.e. University level was free to all Germans because it was supported through taxes (I believe Germans pay the second highest rate of taxes in the world), however, things began changing in 2005, while I was in Heidelberg. Tuition fees started being initiated in the southern states and have worked their way up the country. The only state currently without them is Schleswig-Holstein, where I live. This is one reason a lot more students than usual are studying in this state. This will probably change in the near future though when the state will finally have to cave in to external pressure. When I say tuition fees though, I am referring to about 2, 000 Euro or so per year. This doesn't sound like much in comparison to the U.S. and it really isn't, but keep in mind that students don't get room and board on campuses here, since the whole campus/dorm-life is non-existant.
In the evening, I met up with the other assistants from Kiel and we went to the movies at the cheap theater that costs only 2 Euro. We watched the movie Sternwanderer (Star Dust). It was long, but good. Later in the evening we had a spaghetti dinner at Dee's and all stayed the night.
On Saturday, we decided to go for a walk and enjoy the sunshine even though it was still very cold. We walked over 2 hours and then sat at a cafe on the waterfront where we had cake and coffee. We overheard the guy at the table next to us speaking German in a really bad accent and then after hearing him speak English, realized that he was American. He overheard us talking to and asked us before he left where we were all from and what we were doing here. I explained to him and he told me that he was from Philly and had met his girlfriend, who is German at a bar there and decided to move to Germany. I found this to be quite impressive, as I don't know many men in the U.S. who would do this, especially if they didn't speak the language. He told me that he got his master's in Hamburg in Media (classes in English). After we left the cafe, it was starting to get chilly so we headed back up to Dee's. Later we went out to get Doener for dinner.
Sunday, we (myself and some of the other assistants) travelled to Eutin for the day. Martin, from England, had his birthday the week before and we wanted to take him out for cake and have him show us around his city. We spent the day touring around. First we went up to an old windmill that Martin explained is now a pub. I thought this was funny. The Germans can turn anything into a bar! (this isn't meant to be sterotypical, just funny) He showed us his school, which looks very nice on the outside in comparison to mine. Then we walked past the watertower, which resembles a light house. After that we headed down to the lake, where Dee and I climbed a tree and we all were skipping rocks off the frozen top layer of the lake. The rocks made lovely music as they hit the ice. From the lake, we went into the city center where the palace is located. We walked around the courtyard and then starting to get cold headed for one of the only cafes open in Eutin on a Sunday. It was quite full, but we were able to find seats and warm up. After this we had to head out because Dee was meeting up with some of her teachers in the evening.
I decided to spend Monday relaxing, after a long weekend of running around. When I went to go shopping for food, I saw some random people crossing the road carrying a manequin. I'm not sure why, but it seems that there is always something strange going on in Kiel...
Friday, February 8, 2008
Dancing in the streets, chocolates that will knock you out, and interesting critique
February 2
Today we went sightseeing in Duesseldorf in the morning. First we walked around the Altstadt and then we walked along the Rhine to the Medienhafen (Media Harbor). One of the buildings that houses the TV and Radio station for the state, NRW has little figures climbing on it and the other buildings haave really interesting architecture that were built in the !980's as office units. As we were walking along the Rhine, it began to snow/rain/hail and then a short while later (after we were wet) the sky cleared up and we had beautiful weather. We went to a cafe to warm up and try to dry off. After this, we decided it was time to buy something to make us fit in with all of the people at Karneval. We went across the street to a souvenir and costume shop, where we all bought crazy hats and facepaint. We went back to the hotel to change our socks and pants and dry out our shoes. Meanwhile I painted everyone's faces for the evening.
Shortly thereafter, we headed out to Koenigsallee to watch the Tuntenlauf or Homosexual race, which involved men running along a catwalk in high heels and drag. This was hillarious and some of the men could've passed for women had I not known... We also got to see some musical performances and German cheerleaders dancing. The music that they kept playing was typical for the Rhineland and was also hillarious. I think we know almost all of them by heart now since we heard them so often! We had a rrived to the place a bit late and the crowd was already overwhelming. There was a really nice woman and her husband who let us (Helen, the other Ohioan in Schleswig-Holstein and I) in front of her so we could see the whole event and take pictures. This was very nice of them because they were literally around six feet tall and before this we couldn't see hardly anything. Helen and I stayed around after the show to get our picture with the winner because his/her costume was very impressive. We met up with the others at an irish pub and then went out into the streets where all of the people seemed to be dancing and having a good time. It was the largest party that I have ever been to. There was music playing in the streets, everyone seemed to be in a good mood, random people were dancing with us and there were some really interesting costumes. It was a fun atmosphere in general.
The only thing that I didn't like was that there was trash everywhere. It is one of the only times you will ever see so much trash on the streets in Germany. You couldn't go anywhere without walking on broken glass or bottles, until you got out of the city center. Just as Helen and I were saying that we were getting bored, along came Mozzy, a guy from Iran, to make things more interesting. He was hitting on Helen. He was Emo and he had so much gel and mousse in his hair, that I thought it might catch on fire, seeing as we were standing next to a fire-producing heat lamp. It was really random and hillarious as his first words to me were (of course in German) "It's ok I'm not going to kill her." We spent the next half hour or so talking to him and then he asked Helen for her number. This is where the conversation came to an end of course and we headed to Burger King for the Restrooms. In Germany, you have to pay to use the restrooms and if you are going to pay, you might as well go where you know they will be clean. This is where we made all of our bathroom stops during Karneval.
February 3
Today we decided to sleep in, as we knew that nothing much would be open in the early morning. We wanted to go up in the Rheinturm or Rhine Tower to get an amazing view of the city from above, so we checked the price online and were off to see it. We were impressed with how cheap the prices were and when we got to the top the view was great. We had really nice weather and decided to sit down at the cafe on the 168th floor and have coffee and cake. We spent about 2 hours up in the tower and then left to check out what was going on in the city. We walked into a Children's parade and stopped to watch a bit of it. Then we went back to Koenigsallee, where everyone else was. They had lots of stands for food and drinks everywhere and the streets were packed full of people. We took some pictures, grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to the hotel for a bit. We left for dinner and ate at an Italian restaurant that was also full of people. In the evening we went back to the Altstadt where the dancing was and joined the party. I ended up calling Ryan, the Scot who left us for Sweden, and he was really excited to hear from us. It's too bad that he couldn't have been there with us. He would've loved it.
February 4
We woke up around 6 so that we could pack and get to breakfast at 7. We were informed that it wasn't until 8 but the woman was nice and let us go ahead and eat. It was a good thing because we checked out right after that, so that we could get to the station to catch our train to Koeln for the Rosenmontagzug or Rose Parade. We wanted to get there early this time so that we would have good spots and we knew that it would be chaos if we arrived late. We got to Koeln at 8:30 and not too much was going on yet. People were most likely still in bed, but this didn't bother us because it meant that we would get better spots for the parade. We found one spot but then realized that the parade wouldn't be there until too late so we had to move closer to where the parade began. We got there just in time as it was filling up with people. We had to stand there for 2 and a half hours before the parade started and it had begun to rain. We met some really nice older German ladies. They heard us talking and asked us where we were from. We told them and then the one said that their sister has lived in New Mexico for 30 years and that she was there. We also got to talk to her and she was interested in what we were doing here. Throughout the parade they were picking up candy and filling our bags and they kept telling people that we came all the way from the U.S. This one guy who was in the parade came over and talked to us and she told him that we were from the states. We then recieved flowers and candy from him. The only thing I didn't like about where we were standing was toward the end when this really pushy German was trying to move me out of the way. I bent down to pick up candy and she had pushed herself into where I had been standing. I wasn't much at all suprised by this behavior as it seems to happen to me quite often, so I returned the favor and pushed her back.
As for the parade itself, there were lots of bands, cultural entries, political floats (which is one of the things that Karneval is known for), tons of flowers were thrown out and massive amounts of candy. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Helen and I were taking pictures and we would get hit in the head with boxes, yes I said boxes of chocolates. When the Germans do something they go all out. They don't just throw out piddly pieces of candy, they throw out chocolate truffles and big bags of Haribo!! They had vans full to the top of boxes that were filled with candy and flowers. It was a sight to see! We came away with lots of sweets as you could expect. One guy even tied a rope to his umbrella and dropped it down from his window and was catching candy in it upside down! Unfortunately, we only got to see the first half of the parade which lasted three hours! I would have loved to stay for the rest, but in Schleswig-Holstein we don't get vacation days for Fasching so we all had to leave to catch our train. This time we managed to get decent prices for the fast trains. There were people sitting in our sits that we had reserved and we had to tell them to move. They were hesitant at first, the guy actually stood up read the sign that said reserved and then sat back down, but we finally got them to leave.
February 5-8
School was pretty boring this week so I don't have too much to talk about there. A lot of my classes were cancelled and I didn't have to teach any lessons this week. I was however, informed by one of my teachers that my lesson on the "use of hyphens" was not interactive enough...she said that I didn't have the students talk enough. I was a bit puzzled as to how on earth you are supposed to motivate the students in a class to have a discussion when the topic is hyphens!! Here I am from the U.S. and could talk about anything with them, but no...the lesson she has me plan is about hyphens and then she critiques it by saying that?? Of course I just laughed at this after hearing it. What else are you supposed to do. I don't mind hearing feedback from the teachers, but I like the feedback to make sense. I would love to see her do the lesson differently. Other than that, I just sat in on a few lessons and tutored my three students after school.
Thursday night I went out with my roommate and some of her friends again. The weather has improved over the last few days. The sun is finally shining in Kiel and not just for a few minutes! It feels like spring is on its way and there are flowers starting to bloom, which makes me happy. My roommates have also returned from their world adventures. Nicholas was in Canada and Anke was on a cruise to Fiji and Togo.
Today we went sightseeing in Duesseldorf in the morning. First we walked around the Altstadt and then we walked along the Rhine to the Medienhafen (Media Harbor). One of the buildings that houses the TV and Radio station for the state, NRW has little figures climbing on it and the other buildings haave really interesting architecture that were built in the !980's as office units. As we were walking along the Rhine, it began to snow/rain/hail and then a short while later (after we were wet) the sky cleared up and we had beautiful weather. We went to a cafe to warm up and try to dry off. After this, we decided it was time to buy something to make us fit in with all of the people at Karneval. We went across the street to a souvenir and costume shop, where we all bought crazy hats and facepaint. We went back to the hotel to change our socks and pants and dry out our shoes. Meanwhile I painted everyone's faces for the evening.
Shortly thereafter, we headed out to Koenigsallee to watch the Tuntenlauf or Homosexual race, which involved men running along a catwalk in high heels and drag. This was hillarious and some of the men could've passed for women had I not known... We also got to see some musical performances and German cheerleaders dancing. The music that they kept playing was typical for the Rhineland and was also hillarious. I think we know almost all of them by heart now since we heard them so often! We had a rrived to the place a bit late and the crowd was already overwhelming. There was a really nice woman and her husband who let us (Helen, the other Ohioan in Schleswig-Holstein and I) in front of her so we could see the whole event and take pictures. This was very nice of them because they were literally around six feet tall and before this we couldn't see hardly anything. Helen and I stayed around after the show to get our picture with the winner because his/her costume was very impressive. We met up with the others at an irish pub and then went out into the streets where all of the people seemed to be dancing and having a good time. It was the largest party that I have ever been to. There was music playing in the streets, everyone seemed to be in a good mood, random people were dancing with us and there were some really interesting costumes. It was a fun atmosphere in general.
The only thing that I didn't like was that there was trash everywhere. It is one of the only times you will ever see so much trash on the streets in Germany. You couldn't go anywhere without walking on broken glass or bottles, until you got out of the city center. Just as Helen and I were saying that we were getting bored, along came Mozzy, a guy from Iran, to make things more interesting. He was hitting on Helen. He was Emo and he had so much gel and mousse in his hair, that I thought it might catch on fire, seeing as we were standing next to a fire-producing heat lamp. It was really random and hillarious as his first words to me were (of course in German) "It's ok I'm not going to kill her." We spent the next half hour or so talking to him and then he asked Helen for her number. This is where the conversation came to an end of course and we headed to Burger King for the Restrooms. In Germany, you have to pay to use the restrooms and if you are going to pay, you might as well go where you know they will be clean. This is where we made all of our bathroom stops during Karneval.
February 3
Today we decided to sleep in, as we knew that nothing much would be open in the early morning. We wanted to go up in the Rheinturm or Rhine Tower to get an amazing view of the city from above, so we checked the price online and were off to see it. We were impressed with how cheap the prices were and when we got to the top the view was great. We had really nice weather and decided to sit down at the cafe on the 168th floor and have coffee and cake. We spent about 2 hours up in the tower and then left to check out what was going on in the city. We walked into a Children's parade and stopped to watch a bit of it. Then we went back to Koenigsallee, where everyone else was. They had lots of stands for food and drinks everywhere and the streets were packed full of people. We took some pictures, grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to the hotel for a bit. We left for dinner and ate at an Italian restaurant that was also full of people. In the evening we went back to the Altstadt where the dancing was and joined the party. I ended up calling Ryan, the Scot who left us for Sweden, and he was really excited to hear from us. It's too bad that he couldn't have been there with us. He would've loved it.
February 4
We woke up around 6 so that we could pack and get to breakfast at 7. We were informed that it wasn't until 8 but the woman was nice and let us go ahead and eat. It was a good thing because we checked out right after that, so that we could get to the station to catch our train to Koeln for the Rosenmontagzug or Rose Parade. We wanted to get there early this time so that we would have good spots and we knew that it would be chaos if we arrived late. We got to Koeln at 8:30 and not too much was going on yet. People were most likely still in bed, but this didn't bother us because it meant that we would get better spots for the parade. We found one spot but then realized that the parade wouldn't be there until too late so we had to move closer to where the parade began. We got there just in time as it was filling up with people. We had to stand there for 2 and a half hours before the parade started and it had begun to rain. We met some really nice older German ladies. They heard us talking and asked us where we were from. We told them and then the one said that their sister has lived in New Mexico for 30 years and that she was there. We also got to talk to her and she was interested in what we were doing here. Throughout the parade they were picking up candy and filling our bags and they kept telling people that we came all the way from the U.S. This one guy who was in the parade came over and talked to us and she told him that we were from the states. We then recieved flowers and candy from him. The only thing I didn't like about where we were standing was toward the end when this really pushy German was trying to move me out of the way. I bent down to pick up candy and she had pushed herself into where I had been standing. I wasn't much at all suprised by this behavior as it seems to happen to me quite often, so I returned the favor and pushed her back.
As for the parade itself, there were lots of bands, cultural entries, political floats (which is one of the things that Karneval is known for), tons of flowers were thrown out and massive amounts of candy. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. Helen and I were taking pictures and we would get hit in the head with boxes, yes I said boxes of chocolates. When the Germans do something they go all out. They don't just throw out piddly pieces of candy, they throw out chocolate truffles and big bags of Haribo!! They had vans full to the top of boxes that were filled with candy and flowers. It was a sight to see! We came away with lots of sweets as you could expect. One guy even tied a rope to his umbrella and dropped it down from his window and was catching candy in it upside down! Unfortunately, we only got to see the first half of the parade which lasted three hours! I would have loved to stay for the rest, but in Schleswig-Holstein we don't get vacation days for Fasching so we all had to leave to catch our train. This time we managed to get decent prices for the fast trains. There were people sitting in our sits that we had reserved and we had to tell them to move. They were hesitant at first, the guy actually stood up read the sign that said reserved and then sat back down, but we finally got them to leave.
February 5-8
School was pretty boring this week so I don't have too much to talk about there. A lot of my classes were cancelled and I didn't have to teach any lessons this week. I was however, informed by one of my teachers that my lesson on the "use of hyphens" was not interactive enough...she said that I didn't have the students talk enough. I was a bit puzzled as to how on earth you are supposed to motivate the students in a class to have a discussion when the topic is hyphens!! Here I am from the U.S. and could talk about anything with them, but no...the lesson she has me plan is about hyphens and then she critiques it by saying that?? Of course I just laughed at this after hearing it. What else are you supposed to do. I don't mind hearing feedback from the teachers, but I like the feedback to make sense. I would love to see her do the lesson differently. Other than that, I just sat in on a few lessons and tutored my three students after school.
Thursday night I went out with my roommate and some of her friends again. The weather has improved over the last few days. The sun is finally shining in Kiel and not just for a few minutes! It feels like spring is on its way and there are flowers starting to bloom, which makes me happy. My roommates have also returned from their world adventures. Nicholas was in Canada and Anke was on a cruise to Fiji and Togo.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Darth Vader Cake, Hyphens and Karneval begins
I'm sorry I haven't given you anything exciting to read in a few weeks. Things here have been quite busy for me and seem to be staying that way, but here is an update.
January 26
I was invited over to one of my English teacher's that I work with for cake and tea in the afternoon. She wanted me to read an article out loud and record it for the English department so that they could use it as a listening exercise. I left my apartment at 3 for her place which is about a ten minute walk down the street from mine. I didn't arrive back here until 8 and could have stayed longer. In the five hours that I was there, we had tea and Darth Vader Cake (left over from her son's birthday party), recorded the reading of the article, played games with her two children (Mathilda 4, Aurthur 6), ate dinner, and conversed. It was a very nice day spent there. She even sent me home with lots of sweets, Darth Vader cake, muffins and fudge. I think they (her and her husband, Kirstin and Julianus) would like for me to babysit for them because they asked if I have any experiecne doing that and because their kids really seemed to like me. Mathilda was begging me to spend the night and asked when I would be coming back. She also invited me to her birthday party, which will happen sometime in February. She told me that I was welcome to stop back anytime that I felt like it. I spent the rest of the evening talking to family and friends from home.
January 27
Mondays I have off and so do most of the other assistants in the area so we decided to head to Preetz a very small town not too far from Kiel to visit a friend of ours from England. We hadn't ever been to his place so we decided it was time to check it out. We took the bus and when we arrived at the stop where he told us to get out, I had to laugh. It was literally in the middle of nowhere. It looked like farmland with very few houses to be seen. We started walking down a grassy path and my friends told me that this was how we would get to Chris' place. After a while, we reached an open field and there was a concrete path. We saw Chris walking toward us from a distance and were being followed by two women on horseback. We walked from there another 4 minutes or so and arrived at Chris' interesting apartment. We decided that he lived in the most remote place of all the assistants that we know in Schleswig-Holstein. It was really quite random as the building looked like a big farm house turned into apartments. There were dogs, cats, chickens, cows and horses to be seen and the best of all is that there are also peacocks/hens on this farmland. We all found this strange yet intriguing. His apartment is actually really nice. When we went to leave to walk the hour to town, we got to meet his teacher and landlady, who might have the strongest grip/handshake that I have ever experienced!! I thought she might break my hand! We walked the roads through the fields of Preetz and finally made it to the city, where we had dinner at a bar/restaurant that we had been to once before that is cheap but has a great selection. I ordered gyros which were very delicious. After this we headed back to Kiel, this time by train and walked along the harbor for 2 hours, which was a calm and relaxing end to the evening even if we did have to walk through a deserted and dark park lit with the flashlight that Alex had on him to return to our apartments.
January 28
Dee Siobhan and I had planned a Brunch at my place for the day. This involved first going to the store and buying different sorts of bread rolls and toppings for the bread. We made coffee and had invited two other friends to join us. One being Dee's German roommate and the other being Heather, the teaching assistant from England in Kiel. We spent literally the whole day eating and watching tv. We have two favorite shows. One is called Auf und Davon which means Up an Away and is about students who leave Germany to do internships or study abroad. We like this perhaps while we ourselves are doing it. It is interesting to see all of the places that they go to and how different the experiences are for each individual. The other show is called Das perfekte Dinner in which 5 candidates cook a three course meal for each other. One person per day of the week and at the end they vote who did the best job and the winner recieves 3,000 Euro. It may sound stupid, but it is actually really interesting.
January 29
Today I recieved a new schedule at school so I am not sure how things will go. Hopefully just as well as the last half-year.
January 30
I prepared a lesson on hyphens for my year 13 because my teacher told me to. Yay, how exciting...it went well though. The kids have problems understanding when to use them so I gave them a few exercises and we went over the rules together. In the afternoon, I was invited by the mother of a girl that I will be tutoring to come to their place for tea. I found this a bit odd at first, but then assumed that she didn't want just anybody tutoring her daughter if she was going to be paying for it. I went over to their place after school. The mother is Turkish and so is the daughter. She is married to a German man now and has a 6-week old daughter to him. It was a great experience for me to be invited to their house because this is exactly what I wanted to do my research on while here in Germany, the identity of Turkish-Germans or Germans with migration backgrounds in general. The mother was very nice and offered me Turkish tea and sat out a plate of cookies as soon as I had arrived. We talked a bit about ourselves and then about her daughter, who I will begin tutoring next week. I was impressed with her German skills, but did find out that she has been living in Kiel for 30 years. Her mother called while I was there and the two of them spoke Turkish to each other. Her mother understands very little German. When the daughter came home, it was interesting to observe their interaction. The mother was speaking in Turkish to her daughter and the daughter was answering in German. I found this intersting. Later the husband came home and shortly after, I left feeling that there was not much more to talk about and not wanting to overstay my welcome.
January 31
I started tutoring my Turkish student and also another girl in the eighth grade, who one of my teachers recommended me too. Now I have three students, whom I tutor. Other than this, the day was spent packing and preparing for Karneval (German Mardi Gras), since I am leaving tomorrow for it. I have been wanting to go to German Karneval ever since I learned about it in my German classes in High School and at Bethany. I decided to send out an email and ask if any of the other assistants wanted to join me and 4 others responded. Together, we planned the weekend and booked a hotel.
February 1
I taught my 12th graders about the American Education System today. Talk about a difficult topic to explain because of its non-consistency throughout the U.S. For almost every question that the students asked, I had to respond that it depends! The American Education System is so diverse and the regulations differ state-to-state and therefore are impossible to generalize. This not only makes explaining it difficult, but also understanding it. It was a great class, however. My 12th graders are on of the best classes that I have, in that they are so curious and ask many questions without having to be pushed to participate. This makes me happy. My next class was conversation practice again and we discussed the film Forrest Gump. This also went smoothly and afterwards, I had to bolt out of the school, to make sure that I would catch my bus. I had less than an hour to get back to my apartment, pick up my stuff, get to the train station and catch my train. I was in a hurry and the bus took a bit longer than expected. I had to check the address for the hotel that we were staying in on my computer and in doing so forgot my ticket which was lying near it. As I boarded the bus to the station, I realized this, but there was no turning back or I would miss the train and throw us all off schedule. I decided I would just get a new ticket ticket if need be and use the other one some other time. I had to take the train to Hamburg to meet the others because I was the one with the latest day of classes. I made it to Hamburg just fine and met up with three of the others, but Andrew hadn't arrived yet. He told us he would meet us on the train, but didn't end up catching it. He arrived as it was pulling off and had to find his on way down with the latest version of hitchhiking in Germany. This is called "Mitfahrgelegenheit" which translates to Carpooling. This is another form of transport often used in Germany. I have to admit that I have never used it, but many of my friends have. Basically, people post on the internet that they are driving from one city to another and that they are willing to take other people along and then the people pay them a certain price for the trip for gas and such and get dropped off at a destination. I know you are thinking that this wouldn't work in the U.S. because people would get robbed, but guess what...Germany doesn't have a right -to-own-guns law! this makes the chances of this happening slim and to be honest crime in general is not a problem in Germany like in the U.S. Anyway, we took the slow trains and had to switch 4 times in places I had never heard of (also in the middle of nowhere) because we bought cheap group tickets that are only valid for the regional aka slow trains in Germany. It took us 7 hours to get from Kiel to Duesseldorf, but we paid less than half the price we would have had to pay if we had gotten there quicker. I was a little disappointed when we got to the main station in Duesseldorf, as I was expecting craziness to already be taking place. This was however not the case because the station is not in the center of the city where Karneval takes place, and because it was Friday night instead of Saturday. After arriving, we went directly to our hotel, which was not at all hard to find. We checked in and waited to hear from Andrew, who would be arriving soon. He finally got there an hour or so after we did and we brought his stuff up to the room. We were hungry after the long day of traveling and went in search of food. We ended up at a Chinese place. The food was good and the owner was complimenting us on our German. I had to laugh about this because here is a Chinese man who speaks broken German complimenting us on how good we speak. Well it was sweet anyway. He was a friendly man and we talked with him for a little while. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and crashed so that we would be ready for the next day.
January 26
I was invited over to one of my English teacher's that I work with for cake and tea in the afternoon. She wanted me to read an article out loud and record it for the English department so that they could use it as a listening exercise. I left my apartment at 3 for her place which is about a ten minute walk down the street from mine. I didn't arrive back here until 8 and could have stayed longer. In the five hours that I was there, we had tea and Darth Vader Cake (left over from her son's birthday party), recorded the reading of the article, played games with her two children (Mathilda 4, Aurthur 6), ate dinner, and conversed. It was a very nice day spent there. She even sent me home with lots of sweets, Darth Vader cake, muffins and fudge. I think they (her and her husband, Kirstin and Julianus) would like for me to babysit for them because they asked if I have any experiecne doing that and because their kids really seemed to like me. Mathilda was begging me to spend the night and asked when I would be coming back. She also invited me to her birthday party, which will happen sometime in February. She told me that I was welcome to stop back anytime that I felt like it. I spent the rest of the evening talking to family and friends from home.
January 27
Mondays I have off and so do most of the other assistants in the area so we decided to head to Preetz a very small town not too far from Kiel to visit a friend of ours from England. We hadn't ever been to his place so we decided it was time to check it out. We took the bus and when we arrived at the stop where he told us to get out, I had to laugh. It was literally in the middle of nowhere. It looked like farmland with very few houses to be seen. We started walking down a grassy path and my friends told me that this was how we would get to Chris' place. After a while, we reached an open field and there was a concrete path. We saw Chris walking toward us from a distance and were being followed by two women on horseback. We walked from there another 4 minutes or so and arrived at Chris' interesting apartment. We decided that he lived in the most remote place of all the assistants that we know in Schleswig-Holstein. It was really quite random as the building looked like a big farm house turned into apartments. There were dogs, cats, chickens, cows and horses to be seen and the best of all is that there are also peacocks/hens on this farmland. We all found this strange yet intriguing. His apartment is actually really nice. When we went to leave to walk the hour to town, we got to meet his teacher and landlady, who might have the strongest grip/handshake that I have ever experienced!! I thought she might break my hand! We walked the roads through the fields of Preetz and finally made it to the city, where we had dinner at a bar/restaurant that we had been to once before that is cheap but has a great selection. I ordered gyros which were very delicious. After this we headed back to Kiel, this time by train and walked along the harbor for 2 hours, which was a calm and relaxing end to the evening even if we did have to walk through a deserted and dark park lit with the flashlight that Alex had on him to return to our apartments.
January 28
Dee Siobhan and I had planned a Brunch at my place for the day. This involved first going to the store and buying different sorts of bread rolls and toppings for the bread. We made coffee and had invited two other friends to join us. One being Dee's German roommate and the other being Heather, the teaching assistant from England in Kiel. We spent literally the whole day eating and watching tv. We have two favorite shows. One is called Auf und Davon which means Up an Away and is about students who leave Germany to do internships or study abroad. We like this perhaps while we ourselves are doing it. It is interesting to see all of the places that they go to and how different the experiences are for each individual. The other show is called Das perfekte Dinner in which 5 candidates cook a three course meal for each other. One person per day of the week and at the end they vote who did the best job and the winner recieves 3,000 Euro. It may sound stupid, but it is actually really interesting.
January 29
Today I recieved a new schedule at school so I am not sure how things will go. Hopefully just as well as the last half-year.
January 30
I prepared a lesson on hyphens for my year 13 because my teacher told me to. Yay, how exciting...it went well though. The kids have problems understanding when to use them so I gave them a few exercises and we went over the rules together. In the afternoon, I was invited by the mother of a girl that I will be tutoring to come to their place for tea. I found this a bit odd at first, but then assumed that she didn't want just anybody tutoring her daughter if she was going to be paying for it. I went over to their place after school. The mother is Turkish and so is the daughter. She is married to a German man now and has a 6-week old daughter to him. It was a great experience for me to be invited to their house because this is exactly what I wanted to do my research on while here in Germany, the identity of Turkish-Germans or Germans with migration backgrounds in general. The mother was very nice and offered me Turkish tea and sat out a plate of cookies as soon as I had arrived. We talked a bit about ourselves and then about her daughter, who I will begin tutoring next week. I was impressed with her German skills, but did find out that she has been living in Kiel for 30 years. Her mother called while I was there and the two of them spoke Turkish to each other. Her mother understands very little German. When the daughter came home, it was interesting to observe their interaction. The mother was speaking in Turkish to her daughter and the daughter was answering in German. I found this intersting. Later the husband came home and shortly after, I left feeling that there was not much more to talk about and not wanting to overstay my welcome.
January 31
I started tutoring my Turkish student and also another girl in the eighth grade, who one of my teachers recommended me too. Now I have three students, whom I tutor. Other than this, the day was spent packing and preparing for Karneval (German Mardi Gras), since I am leaving tomorrow for it. I have been wanting to go to German Karneval ever since I learned about it in my German classes in High School and at Bethany. I decided to send out an email and ask if any of the other assistants wanted to join me and 4 others responded. Together, we planned the weekend and booked a hotel.
February 1
I taught my 12th graders about the American Education System today. Talk about a difficult topic to explain because of its non-consistency throughout the U.S. For almost every question that the students asked, I had to respond that it depends! The American Education System is so diverse and the regulations differ state-to-state and therefore are impossible to generalize. This not only makes explaining it difficult, but also understanding it. It was a great class, however. My 12th graders are on of the best classes that I have, in that they are so curious and ask many questions without having to be pushed to participate. This makes me happy. My next class was conversation practice again and we discussed the film Forrest Gump. This also went smoothly and afterwards, I had to bolt out of the school, to make sure that I would catch my bus. I had less than an hour to get back to my apartment, pick up my stuff, get to the train station and catch my train. I was in a hurry and the bus took a bit longer than expected. I had to check the address for the hotel that we were staying in on my computer and in doing so forgot my ticket which was lying near it. As I boarded the bus to the station, I realized this, but there was no turning back or I would miss the train and throw us all off schedule. I decided I would just get a new ticket ticket if need be and use the other one some other time. I had to take the train to Hamburg to meet the others because I was the one with the latest day of classes. I made it to Hamburg just fine and met up with three of the others, but Andrew hadn't arrived yet. He told us he would meet us on the train, but didn't end up catching it. He arrived as it was pulling off and had to find his on way down with the latest version of hitchhiking in Germany. This is called "Mitfahrgelegenheit" which translates to Carpooling. This is another form of transport often used in Germany. I have to admit that I have never used it, but many of my friends have. Basically, people post on the internet that they are driving from one city to another and that they are willing to take other people along and then the people pay them a certain price for the trip for gas and such and get dropped off at a destination. I know you are thinking that this wouldn't work in the U.S. because people would get robbed, but guess what...Germany doesn't have a right -to-own-guns law! this makes the chances of this happening slim and to be honest crime in general is not a problem in Germany like in the U.S. Anyway, we took the slow trains and had to switch 4 times in places I had never heard of (also in the middle of nowhere) because we bought cheap group tickets that are only valid for the regional aka slow trains in Germany. It took us 7 hours to get from Kiel to Duesseldorf, but we paid less than half the price we would have had to pay if we had gotten there quicker. I was a little disappointed when we got to the main station in Duesseldorf, as I was expecting craziness to already be taking place. This was however not the case because the station is not in the center of the city where Karneval takes place, and because it was Friday night instead of Saturday. After arriving, we went directly to our hotel, which was not at all hard to find. We checked in and waited to hear from Andrew, who would be arriving soon. He finally got there an hour or so after we did and we brought his stuff up to the room. We were hungry after the long day of traveling and went in search of food. We ended up at a Chinese place. The food was good and the owner was complimenting us on our German. I had to laugh about this because here is a Chinese man who speaks broken German complimenting us on how good we speak. Well it was sweet anyway. He was a friendly man and we talked with him for a little while. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and crashed so that we would be ready for the next day.
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