January ist Langweilig :S

So, since Caitlin posted something yesterday, I think i should too :)
soo, yesterday meine klassenlehrer told me that pretty much i failed more than 4 subjects
but at least i got a 4 in chemistry :D.
It was snowing a lot yesterday night, so that's
why i didn't go to school today, it was too cold to go outside this morning haha
I haven't seen Caitlin in almost a week, and that's depressing, I don't have anyone to talk to.
So i'm starting to do my homework and everything in school, since finally i can understand almost
everything. I participate a lot in class too and my teachers are happy about that.
I can't believe I only have 4 months left, time is running really fast. I don't know why,
I wanna go home right now, things with my host family feel a little bit awkward, even though
they are amazing. I love them. I know they do everything they can to make me feel at home.
I guess I'm feeling this way cause the weather it's depressing. It is really hard to go out, cause its freezing.
I can't wait for spring!!!!
oh yeah btw
kakao ist so geil :)

Learning to love it

Sitting at the dinner table or having a cup of coffee with my family are things that I have really come to appreciate with my 2nd host family. At first I was unsure he because it was clearly a lot different then being with my host family. If anything, I would say that it's a little more what one would see as a typical German family. My host dad is always more of the decision maker in the house. Although quite different and not anything i was used to, I have really come to appreciate my 2nd host family like I did my first, although in a different way. I guess it's really apart of what this exchange year is about. I have really learned a lot about my host family and I really enjoy talking to them. Not to mention they have helped my German make huge advances. I love sitting in the kitchen talking to my host mom as she's cooking dinner. It seems like we never run out of things to talk about. When my host dad comes home a little later it's nice to talk to him to and really understand more about where they both came from as well as our clearly opposing political views.
Things that I first though were sometimes unfriendly I have come to realize are sometimes misunderstandings or even cultural differences. I think the increased level of comfort goes both ways too. My host parents really have learned to trust me too. If anything I appreciate this because of the way in which I earned their respect. Ok sorry, I probably seem like I am babbling. But nonetheless I just felt a lot more frustrated before I sat down and had a nice conversation with my parents about all the general stuff. They showed me that they really do try to help me and make me happy which is something I totally appreciate. Things like that help me understand what I sometimes I take for a little bit of paranoia haha. Days like today make me feel so accomplished in being an exchange student, I love it.
Today we also discussed the idea of not only improving my German, but also my host families English. Afterall, always room for improvement right? My host dad has really good english and really just wants to improve some of those grammatic errors that any non native speaker makes and I think it's cool that he really wants to make his english better. Also my host mom never talks to me in English but I think she can speak quite a bit, she just feel nervous that it's not as good as I think it should be or something. Either way, she's going to learn a lot from me! Also, they have agreed to correct all of my German so that my grammar and vocabulary will get even better, not that they don't do it now, just not to the extent that they will. I am actually kind of excited for this because I really like helping people with their english whenever I can. It really challenges my German when they don't know a word or something and I am looking forward to the challenge.
Anyway! I would say all is pretty well in Germany. Starting on friday i will be staying with another family for a week while my host parents go skiing in Austria. It should be interesting to stay with them and they have a daughter that's 2 years younger then me who is i guess excited to spend time with me. Over the next 2 weeks I will definately be busy. I decided to attend a hardcore German learning school which in monday to friday from 9- 1 30 every day in Berlin. Another exchange student is currently doing one for a month and he said that it has helped his German to no end. I look forward to getting some much needed help with my grammar, which I think is like the hardest part about German. It is soooo much different than english adn once I master that I know I will have a way better understanding of German. Also, the day after I finish my German bootcamp, I leave for London with my advanced course English course! It's gonna be really cool to spend some quality time with my class and see London too of course. Well that's all I have to say for now, Tschüss! By the way this is Caitlin and I am gonna force Maria to write something today too :]

Good Times

soo, this is both me and maria, we decided that updating our blog when w are together would be cool. Last night we went to santiagos house because he can't do a lot right now, poor santiago had surgery on his leg and is pretty much stuck not doing a whole lot so we brought the party to him! It was pretty cool though, a bunch oif exchange students as well as germans showed up which always makes things interesting. His mom cooked a yummy lasgna haha. anywayy, maria has all this month something called praktikum where you pretty much volunteer in doing something but you don't get paid. Maria is working in a dentist's office. Sadly i don't have quite the same thing although i do have projekt woche in which get to visit museums for a week! Me and Baptiste are doing the same one. Right now it is really really cold in Germany, because of that i guess we don't really do as much as we used to but that will start again soon enough! So Maria is a little messy and so she is cleaning her room as we speak. Maria has A LOT of clothes, she pretty much always go shopping. I try to be stingy about that so whe i really like something i can buy it. As is usual me and maria had our classic breakfast. We always have brötchen at her house and today was no different. Maria loves her frisch käse and i like just butter and jam. We also split our last brötchen to kekep tadition running. Oh how i love a typical saturday morning! Maria said that she agrees.

okk, well i am gonna try to keep on updating. Since i didn't introduce myself before i should probably do that now. I am caitlin Ryan from Greenport new york. On exchange in Neuruppin as i sed, but i practically live in Berlin. Of course i love playing sports, just my thing, and sometimes people tell me i am smart, but they just don't know me. haha. Anyway, today I went with my brother and a man that my host dad works with to Hamburg. It's a city thats aboutt 2 hours from Neuruppin. Like my brother said, it's exactly what you expect a true German city to look like, from the buildings to the streets, just everything. It was pretty crazy to see a city other then Berlin for once. We started with having a really hard time finding the parking garage, and when we finally found it, we spent even more time figuring out how to get out. As soon as we walked out from it, we were at this big shopping center where we picked up our nice little tourist pamphlets as well as a coffee(it was still early) before heading out into Hamburg itself. It was so freakin cold! If there was ever a time to inspire me to buy a really warm jacket it was today. So we started off a little clueless, with absolutely no plans and then just made our way down to the harbor. From there we took a 2 hour boat tour around, which wasn't hard to do since Hamburg has like the second biggest port in Europe or something. It was pretty cool and of course i took a ton of pictures. After we stepped back out into the freezing cold, the man we were with told us about this huge building that has a bunch of exhibitions and what not in it so we went there. The first one we went into was like miniature models of different cities around the world. They had everything from Hamburg(or course) to Vegas and Florida. Sadly, they didn't do New York. It was really amazing though. I decided that i would never ever have the patience to make any such thing with that much detail. From the people to the mountains and the houses, it was so realistic. My favorite part was definitely Nederlands. One part even had a lake with a boat driving around. Pretty cool I must say. After we just went and got some food in the mall and made our way to another part of the city to walk around before we left, it was pretty late afterall. We ended up somewhere really close to the red light district that strangely enough had a ton of souvenir shops(don't ask me). All in all I thought it was pretty cool to head to a little bit more western part of Germany and just see the differences. Of course it wasn't as amazing as Berlin, but it was still really nice because it was a lot smaller city. Having my brother visiting was just a really good excuse to go places, especially on school days haha. Sadly enough, he has to leave Friday and then things will go back to normal, which i don't quite mind either. OK well I don't know what else to write so i am gonna sleep! And i will try to upload pictures!

Who are we?

Caitlin is a bitch from New York. She has something to do with Greenport . She is 17 and she is my sister :)

I'm Maria, an illegal mexican, hahaha just kidding. I come from Mexico and I speak ''MEXIKANISCH'' . I'm 15 years old and Caitlin hates my boyfriend.

We met 3 months ago. We went to alexanderplatz or something like that, and then she slept over .. somewhere.. ;) but that's another story.

It was LOVE at first sight <3333

So, Caitlin's favorite thing to do in Berlin is sleeping over and have breakfast with me :). We have a tradition, we ALWAYS have to split one brötchen. She usually eats it with nuttella und butter, I always eat mine with frischkäse.

Breakfast in my house after a crazy Friday night in Berlin is Brötchen and Vanilla Cola. Sometimes a ''kopfschmerzen'' is included.

I live in Berlin :D but Caitlin, hmmmm she lives in the middle of nowhere, it's called Neuruppin. It has a delicious döner place and a club. yeah that's Neuruppin. She used to live in Sommerfeld. Sommerfeld is a really nice small town, that has more cows than people. Then she had to change to her second host family, that's why she lives 200m away from school.

She comes every single weekend to berlin, and she stays at my house :)

and yeah, I don't have anything else to say, but here's a picture of me and Caitlin :D

our first blog

Soooo, me and maria are exchange students in Germany, Rotary District 1940! and being that we are practically sisters we decided to start keeping a blog of our crazy life here so that everyone else can get an insight into what it's truly like to be an exchange student. Everyone always hears about us learning the language, but what about the silly mistakes we make along the way, or the things we do with our free time. I would have never thought that I would hang out with so many other exchange students and have the best times of my life. And never would I have guessed that my best friend(maria) would be a crazy mexican!

So what's it really like to live in the biggest city in Germany for a whole year? Well Maria lives in Berlin , and while i technically don't, it's still my home. Anyway, the answer to that would be, amazing. It's like stepping out of reality for a year and living life exactly how you have really always wanted to. The best part about it all(especially on rotary exchange)? You have other exchange students with you who completely understand. Whether it's a friday night going out to a club or just any other day hanging out at Ben's or Maria's house, we absolutely always have a good time. Maybe one of the best things about it is the fact that Maria's host parents are absolutely amazing. When they knew about the problems I had having to go early because my train doesn't run all night, they did one of the nicest things one has done for me and offered for me to stay with them when i slept in Berlin. Now, I always appreciate it and have really come to enjoy our long breakfast 's where it seems like i learn more German in an hour or 2 than i sometimes learn in a week.

Even though I have only been here since August, I have learned more then ever, or at least it seems like it. Apart from the obvious learning to speak German, I have learned how to be a lot more responsible, having to wake myself up usually, use my bike or train to get everywhere, and maybe the hardest, I have to completely manage my own money. Managing money seems to always be the toughest, for me I think it's because of the exchange rate. For anyone who doesn't know, 1 euro is equal to about $1.40. Needless to say, money goes quick.

OK well this was just a general thing of how everything goes i guess, and i figure as i keep on writing that everything will be a little less general. Me and Maria will keep everyone posted!