Some stories from the North

Hello, everyone! I'm taking a break from some homework, so I’ll share some of my experiences with my host family now.

My host family is from northern Germany, in a little village called Vielist, which is in the vicinity of a bigger town named Waren which is on the lake of the Müritz. The Müritz is the biggest (and, according to residents, most beautiful) lake that belongs completely to Germany. The Bodensee, Lake Constance, is bigger, but it is shared by Switzerland and Austria, so it doesn’t count totally.

My train left on the morning of the16th, and after 7 hours of traveling (and a mad dash in Berlin to catch the regional train to Waren- due to a delay, I had negative time to get to my train, but thankfully I made it), I got there. My host father, Rüdiger, was waiting for me at the train station, and he drove me to their home, which is huge. Built in 1776 (yes, the same year my country was founded), it’s the oldest house in town. At home, it was quiet because 4 of the 5 kids were with their mom at a judo tournament, but I drank some coffee with Rüdiger and his father in law (I think one of the kids later told me his name was Peter, but I just called him Opa like everyone else). We later met up with the rest of the family at McDonalds, where they go after tournaments as a reward. It was very confusing at first, because there were 3 extra kids there that weren’t a part of the family, but were friends, and it took me a little while to figure out who was who. I’ll give you the rundown: Johann, almost 11; the twins Noah and Paula, 10; Manuel, 5; Kilian, 2. Johann, Noah and Paula are from a previous marriage of Evelyn, my host mom, and Manuel and Kilian are from Rüdiger and Evelyn.

Sunday was: the kids doing chores they didn’t want to, tears, playing, excited shouting, running and hurt feelings- much like a day you’d expect from a family with 5 kids. I was woken up in the morning by Manuel who tiptoed into my room and announced “aufwachen! (get up!)” and then hung out in my room, riding the rocking chair and climbing all over my bed as I got ready. This became pretty normal: one (or more) kids would come wake me up in the morning by calling out “aufwachen!” and then waiting for me to be ready so we could go upstairs together. Once Manuel got me up pretty early, and took me upstairs to the kitchen, where there were some toys in the corner that we started playing with. Evelyn comes in, and is a little surprised to see me. “Manuel,” she says, “I expected you to be up, but I’m surprised to see Sarah up.” His reply? “Well I wanted to play with her.” I was a hot commodity, let me tell you.

The first week I spent with Paula at their church helping with a kids Easter musical. It was basically an excuse for me to play with kids a bunch and do crafts-a lot of fun, and I got to talk

with a lot of kids in German, which was always interesting. The rest of the time we did a lot of other things: barbequed with friends, went to the village Easter fire, had our own Easter fire, hunted for Easter eggs, went to the Müritzeum (a museum about the Müritz Lake) and I visited the schools of the kids and playing with them a lot.

Coming back was bittersweet- it was delightful to be a part of a family for two weeks, and I had such a good time with them, but I also was glad to

get back and start catching up on the work I missed while there. Plus coming back to Heidelberg is always a wonderful feeling of familiarity and comfort. As Haleigh once said “Pulling into the HDhbf is the best feeling in the whole world, no matter where you are pulling in from.” Genau.