Ewald-Father
Sigrid-Mother
Stephan-Brother
Thorsten-Brother
Pia-Thorsten's Girlfriend
Marten-Brother
Wilke-Farm Apprentice
They own a mid-sized dairy and grow various crops, mostly for feed for the cows. The cows and ground are spread out quite a bit so sometimes there is a drive to get to somewhere.
It is common for children to take over the family farm and the parents to move out when this happens. Ewald and Sigrid have recently built a new house less than a kilometer away and now only the kids live at the farm full-time. I say full-time because everybody works here during the day.
I met with the former coordinater, Edith Schroder, and we started the paperwork for my visa. After the work was done, she took me on a tour of some of the town. The Heather gardens they have here have over 50 different colors of Heather growing in them. We also went and watched a shepherd bring in his flock of over 400 sheep from the field. He had to bring them in because of the wolves - I can't seem to get away from the wolves can I?
Marten was an IFYE last year to the USA, staying in Montana and Michigan. He and his brother Stephan both speak English very well, although I have to say they all speak more English than I do German so I can't complain! They are an extremely nice family and I think I will have a wonderful time here!
* * *
The educational system is a large part of any culture, the structure and effectiveness of it shapes the future generations of a country. While in Finland, I attended quite a bit of primary school because of the ages of my host siblings, but with the Hambruch family, I am going to school after high school ... back to college for me!
The first day was spent with Wilken at the farm school. In Germany, you need to get some further education to be a farmer so they devised a program that allows people who want to farm to apprentice a variety of farms nearby and go to classes once a week for the classroom portion. Wilken has been apprenticing this family since August of this year. I'll be honest, school was a bit rough for me. We sat there for six hours (with breaks) listening to lectures in total German. I did pick up the general topics of character traits needed to be a good farmer -- milk fat ratios, time logging and organization and some feed rationing. But aside from the general concepts, I couldn't tell you what we learned.
After school was done, Wilken drove me to the train station in Celle where I took a train to Gotting where my host brother Martin goes to university.
It just so happened to be Marten's birthday ( I apologize if I ever accidentally spell MartEn as MartIn, my brother's name is Martin and I spent a lot of brain power learning how to spell that right as a small child), so of course we had a small, controlled, social gathering to celebrate. It was a great way to meet everyone and have everyone practice their English and me practice my German.
The next morning I went with Marten to his introduction to physics class where most of the party also showed up. This class was a little easier to follow since numbers are the same in every language it was just the content that I couldn't figure out, as it should be.
There are some things that I regret not documenting more throughout my travels, most of which are bathroom related. It's not what your thinking. The toilets have a different flushing system in every country I go to. I think when I get home I will make a collage with the pictures I can find on Google.
Today Marten wants to show me a horse farm for jumping horses and a castle so I am certainly looking forward to all of that.
I'll end with a picture out the apartment window of a college town in Germany!
* * *
My hb Marten is the one responsible for me most of the time, and he likes to have a plan! Originally the plan was to go to Hamburg, then home, then Hannover to Octoberfest. Well I got up nice and early and was ready to go when Marten walks in and says "no today we are going to Holland, do you have your passport?" My other host brother Thorsten needed a part for the tractor from a town called Meppen which is close to the border and we were going to try to see Holland anyway to visit everyone's favorite aunt.
Meppen was the first stop and they were having a market so we wandered through the market on our way to the John Deere store. On an unrelated note, at home we have a American guy come is and chop corn with a Claas chopper which is German, it is this big beautiful machine that an American drives. Here they have a John Deere chopper, American, being driven by Germans. I found that all quite funny. ANYWAYS we get the part, the dealerships all look the same on the inside, regardless of if you are in America, Finland or Germany, which is a comforting thought. Off we went to Holland next.
All the houses in Holland look alike. It is the same nice brick house over and over which is nice looking and creepy at the same time. There really isn't much to say about this trip, the aunt and uncle are very nice, they fed us and invited me to come back whenever I want (maybe one day I will need a place to stay in Holland? I thought it was nice of them to say it though). As we were leaving, Marten told me about a firework factory that had blown up in the town about 13 years ago. It blew up blocks of buildings and set fires all over. His aunt and uncle's house was blown up -- they had randomly decided to go swimming on the other side of town when it happened. Life is crazy like that isn't it?
We dropped off the part and tried to go dirndl shopping but being so close to Octoberfest there wasn't much of a selection left. After that we met up with Kim and Bea who we're going to Octoberfest with us and away we went.
Octoberfest was fun, and surprisingly like I had pictured it in my head, large tables with German people in their national dress dancing on them and singing loudly with large, large beers in their hands. The part that I hadn't anticipated was how American the music playing was! It was a German band, mostly in their fifties singing songs like "we will rock you." They played German songs too, but that one really caught me off guard. We stayed until it closed at midnight but we only got there at 10:30 so no rowdy behavior from us!
And when my head hit the pillow that night I was already asleep, We had had a very long day and I was a tired IFYE if there ever was one!
* * *
After three days with Marten in Gotting, I rode with one of his friends and fellow IFYE Charlotte to the German IFYE meeting near Hannover. The meeting was a great three days of tours, meeting people and exploring Germany. The only downside was that most everything said to us was in German, so there was quite a bit that I didn't get. Still, I got to see a monastery, the birthplace of Wilhelm Bush, a 500 cow dairy, and tour small towns along the way.
What I enjoyed most about the conference was getting to meet all the past IFYE participants and hear how the experience is something that they still feel so passionate about.
Among the people I met was Bettina Heineman, the coordinator for my travels and with whom I have been exchanging emails for months. It was so good to finally put a face to her! She gave me my train tickets for traveling to host families, and asked if I know how to ride a train. Before I left America this was a valid question -- she deals with people straight from the U.S. usually -- but not me, no, I consider myself a train riding professional at this point...
The trains in Finland, Estonia, Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany have all been lucky enough to meet me as well as the Paris metro system which is a certainly it's own breed of monster.
Wow I got off track there! The point is I came, I saw, and I survived the German IFYE meeting, and it was super.
* * *
My last week was a marathon of work experience.
First with Sigret, she is a teacher at a school in a nearby town where she teaches cooking. In her class we make the food that they sell at the snack kiosk and any special meals for meetings. I also attended an English class for higher level students and was really impressed, Manifest Destiny, really? Even Americans don't spend much time on that!
Then on Tuesday I went to work with Pia who is a waitress and helper at a country club/bed and breakfast thing where we prepared tables and rooms and food and served and just ran around doing everything. Her job is exhausting.
On Wednesday, I went with Sigret again. Same stuff, different menu. Haha.
Thursday I helped with cows, cleaned stalls and made my taco dinner. I have resigned myself to the idea that it will never be as good as taco Tuesday with the Pynonnen family.
Friday, Marten and I went to Hamburg and saw everything we could in one day: a submarine tour, a port tour, the miniature wunderland, the dungeon, the red light district of Hamburg, and finally, the coast of the river so I could get some German sand incase I don't make it to the ocean here.
That night I packed and said my goodbyes to everyone and left in the morning at 8:00am for my next family!
I want you all to know that I had way more written about Hamburg, but then the computer deleted my draft, and I'm getting cranky with the Kindle and decided it was best to summarize and not chuck my Kindle at a wall. Google the dungeon and miniature wunderland because they were awesome.
