Oktoberfest

Friday afternoon, twelve friends and I traveled to Munich, Germany for Oktoberfest. The festival is HUGE and a fun way to celebrate German culture. I have never seen so many people excited about beer and pretzels. Here's a picture from when we entered the festival, pretty early in the morning before it had filled up.

Some other K students, who are studying abroad in Budapest, Hungary, had flown in earlier. They told us they were in the "International Tent" so we waited in line to get in. After a lot of shoving, pushing, and being yelled at in German, we finally made it in. We heard our names being screamed, and looked up to see our friends calling us from the 2nd floor of the tent. It was amazing to see one of my best friends, Claire, after having not seen her or any of my close K friends since I left Kalamazoo in the Spring. 

Reunited with ClaireBear

We managed to talk the very grumpy security guards, who did not seem to speak 

English, into letting us onto the top floor. Jen and I hung out with the K kids for a while and then met everyone else at smaller tents outside later.

View from the second floor of one of the largest Oktoberfest tents

Inside the tents, barmaids were running around carrying up to eight liters of beer at a time. Pretzels and German cookies were everywhere. Every few minutes I would hear the crowd start cheering and look over to see someone standing on a table gulping down a whole liter of beer.

Reunited with K friends!
From left to right: Frankie, Dana, Paige, Claire, Zach (who studies with them in Budapest but not at K), Me

Hanging out outside with my friends from back at Kalamazoo College and my new friends from Lewis & Clark College was my favorite part of Oktoberfest. 

Jen, Kathleen, and I went on the ferris wheel, which allowed us to see the entire festival from way, way up high. 

So overall, Oktoberfest was great. Darling parents, here's one for the Christmas card: 

Tutoring with Taylor Swift

In addition to taking a class language class to improve our French, two classes on French society, and two option classes (mine are on food and advanced vocabulary words), each student in my program is required to do an Intercultural Research Project (ICRP). In the past, students have volunteered in bakeries, florist shops, schools, with street vendors, and more. I was really nervous when I first heard about having to do the ICRP because the thought of having to walk into a store and explain, in French, what an ICRP is and what I would like to do for them, as well as what hours I can work, sounded terrifying. With the help of my program director, I wrote to an English teacher in a local international high school and asked if I could help out in the classroom for a few hours a week. However, when I was talking to my host mother about the project, she said that her daughter, Marie, and a few of her friends would love to work on their English. I decided that I would tutor them, and possibly my host brother and his friends, in addition to (hopefully) helping out in the classroom.

Today, I had my first tutoring session with my host sister and her friend, who are both fourteen. I loved it. The girls were so eager to learn! They were constantly asking questions, which made it really easy to teach them new words and phrases. I learned that my host sister would love to study in the United States during high school, or spend a summer there, which is why she is so excited to learn English. Her friend had been to several cities in California as well as the Grand Canyon, and was happy to tell me about her trip.

            We started with introductions/questions. I would ask one girl, for example “What is your name?” then she would answer in a full sentence and ask her friend the same question. Her friend would then answer in a full sentence, and ask me.

• My name is.. 
• I am … years old.
•  I go to (name of school).
• My favorite school subject is …
•  Favorite hobbies (In my free time I like to.; I enjoy…; etc.)
• When I grow up, I want to …
• Siblings (I have … sisters and …brothers)My birthday is on…

We also brainstormed other ways you could present yourself to a person you are just meeting. Next, we watched Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” music video and re-watched it while they explained to me what happened. I choose that video because the story is very easy to follow, and I’ve heard my host sister blasting TSwift from her room. We moved onto physical descriptions during which I showed them pictures of celebrities (Jean Dujardin, Maggie Smith, Lady Gaga, Will Smith, Audrey Tautou, Zach Galifianakis, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Beyonce), and they described their physical appearances as well as their careers. I thought it was interesting that the girls knew more about all of the American actors than the French actors. They couldn’t even name Audrey Tautou when she came on the screen, but called her “Amelie."

            Next, I asked them “What is your favorite movie? What is your favorite book? Who is your favorite celebrity?” and they had to answer in complete sentences and then come up with their own questions. We worked on the conjugations of to go, to do, to see, to want, and to be able to. Although I wasn’t planning to work on any tenses other than the present, the girls had a lot of questions about the future tense, so we worked a bit on that as well. We also talked about our daily lives so that they could practice the days of the week. They each walked through the week explaining what activities they do on that particular day. For example, “On Monday, I go horseback riding. On Tuesday, I have dance class.” It was difficult for them to understand the difference between discussing something you do consistently vs. something you do on one particular day. We ended by discussing their likes and dislikes. I gave them a few topics to start with (foods, animals, activities, colors) and then they thought of a bunch more on their own.

            Overall, I think that the tutoring was really successful. The girls were laughing and seemed to be having a lot of fun. When I asked if they would like to continue each week, they said “Yes! Yes!” I asked them what they would like to learn more of and here’s what I got:

• More future tense
•  Life in the USA
• American teenager life
• American personalities
• American celebrities
• Another song like the Taylor Swift one
• Sports in American high schools
• American TV shows
• Writing
• Reading

So… maybe this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. However, every time they ask me about an aspect of the US I can ask them something about France, which gets them talking and helps me learn more about my host country. Before we ended Marie had one last question she was dying to ask: “What does the Times Square look like?”

Friday's Excursion

Last Friday, my sturdy abroad group had our first excursion to a World War II memorial and the Château de Haut Koenigsbourg. We started the day at the Le Mémorial de l'Alsace-Moselle, a memorial that was set up in a way that brings visitors through a day in the life of a person from Alsace during World War II. As we were brought back in time, we felt how the people of Alsace had been forced to continuously change nationalities from French to German and German to French. The  rooms in the memorial/museum allowed us to feel the fear of the Alsatian people through dark lighting, loud gun shots, and replicas of their trains and living quarters. I think this especially helped me understand the stories being told, seeing as the entire tour was in French. Although it was difficult at some points to follow, I was able to understand the gist of it. 

German propaganda 

View from the memorial 

After the memorial, we got back on the bus and went to the Château de Haut Koenigsbourg. After a lot of joking about how we felt like we were in Beauty and the Beast, we got a tour of the castle. The inside was incredible in that there were so many intricate details in the architecture and facts to learn about the uses for each room. 

We had a lot of fun in the room with all the swords and armor: 

Jen picks out which sword to use on her next victim

From left to right: Lucas, Connor, Lucas

And even more fun with the cannons: 

Lucas 

Hilary

Me channeling Vanna White? 

One of my favorites parts of the excursion was the view we got from the top of the castle: 

For dinner and a little exploring, we headed to Kayersburg. The town, which, as you can probably tell by the name, was very German. A few friends and I walked around and learned about wine while we were France's wine country. 

Overall, it was a great day with good food, beautiful scenery, and awesome friends. 

Photo credit to Kathleen

Photo credit to Kathleen

Photo credit to Kevin 

A Weekend in Lyon Part II

(Continued) 

We all made it to the top! We didn't even leave Sarah behind this time. 

At the top of the hill sits the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière. Some of us were brought to tears by the beauty and intricacy of the design. Each stone and smear of paint was there for a reason. It was one of the most incredible buildings I have ever seen. 

The next day we discovered the traboules of Lyon, which are now homes, but were originally used by silk manufacturers to easily transport their products. The traboules are marked by large green doors, and visitors can walk in and out, searching the seemingly secret passageways by themselves. 

After walking through the passageways that silk workers used years and years ago, we went to some modern silk shops. 

Live silkworms doing their thing

We spent the afternoon at the Museé des Beaux Arts de Lyon. 

"Woman Seated on the Beach" by Pablo Picasso 

Here was my last view of the Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière very far off in the distance as we walked back to the train station. My first weekend of traveling was fantastic! 

A Weekend in Lyon Part I

I've heard that everyone has some sort of disaster story when it comes to traveling and I'm hoping this was ours: Saturday morning four friends and I were planning to leave for Lyon France for the weekend. Four of us made it... we kind of left Sarah behind. Ironically, she was at the train station before us, was the one that completely knew where she had to be, and was the one who did not sprint down the streets of Strasbourg, get off at the wrong tram stop, then take another wrong tram. But when we called saying we didn't know where to go, she got off the train to meet us, we didn't know she had, so we got on the train. Long story short, Sarah was able to get another train a few hours later and by 2 pm we were reunited in Lyon.

The city is amazing in that the natural beauty of the hills and rivers meets the mad made beauty of the cathedrals and statues. I'll walk you through the trip in many, many photos.

While Liv, Kathleen, Jen, and I waited for Sarah to meet us (as if nothing else could go wrong for her, the train she took brought her to the airport instead of the train station), we checked out a market and got some fruit for a snack.

From right to left: Jen, Kathleen, Liv

Then, we walked around Le Parc de la Tête d'Or, which has a zoo and botanical garden. It was so nice to see fields of grass and flowers again; being in a city has made me miss that. 

Kathleen is cute.

Yay! This is when we finally got Sarah back and started to explore the center of Lyon. Here are some pictures of the centre-ville. 

I'd be lying if I denied that one of reasons we chose Lyon for our weekend trip was for the food. Liv's host mother told us to look out for restaurants that say "Bouchon Lyonnaise," which are a type of restaurant that serve traditional Lyonnaise cuisine, which is often very heavy and revolves around meat. We all had a "tarte" dish which had different ingredients melted over bread. Mine was tomato and mozzarella cheese. For dessert, we had cooked apples with a chocolate-caramel sauce. We were right to come to Lyon for the food. 

After late lunch/early dinner, we walked to the top of one of the hills Lyon is situated on and got one of the most memorable views of my life. 

Darling parents, please DO NOT use this for the Christmas card. Thank you :)

(Continued in "A Weekend in Lyon Part II)