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Hour 2Rebekah MollDecember, 5th 2009

Table of Contents

Forward …………………………………………………………………………………...…… 3-4

Memoir “One Letter” ……………………………………………………………………...……5-8

Picture-Story …………………………………………………………………………………..….9

Short Story “Love-Hate?”……………………………………………………………………10-14

Annotated Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………..15-16

Poem “Do I still dream?” ………………………………………………………………………..17

National Anthem of the United States of America ……………………………………….……..18

Poem “Ode to Maple Syrup” ……………………………………………………………………19

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Forward

Since my dream of becoming an exchange student started to become more real I had to

deal with feelings I never had before, at least not in that extent. Through this writing process I

wanted to explore more about those feelings and to deal with my new impressions. My memoir

“One Letter” for example deals with impatience. It is about waiting, something I suppose every

exchange student experiences and becomes an expert in. “Love-Hate?”, my short story is about

an exchange student from the USA coming to Germany who tries to handle all the cultural

differences, especially those you don’t see at first sight. Though my two poems are both written

in free verse they are very different. The first one, “Do I still dream?” is kind of philosophical

and plays with the theory that life might just be a dream or a game and we are all pawns in a

game. Since I have my unbelievable life hear it is very hard for me to believe my life is true

because I live one of the dreams I always wanted to accomplish. “Ode to Maple Syrup” evolved

as I fell in love with maple syrup, something I never tasted before coming here.

Sometimes it was hard to shorten my pieces, or not to overwhelm the reader with my fast,

and sometimes confusing thoughts. I felt the need to explain a lot because I discovered by talking

with friends about my experience that most of the time only other exchange students are able to

sympathize with me.

In my memoir “One Letter” I added more details about me so the reader would have a

better idea of who I am and what I look like. In that way I hope it is a better movie in the head in

which you can actually see the acting characters instead of being forced to use your imagination.

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My short story “Love-Hate?” covered originally a too long period of time. I cut a few

parts and added others so it would be a round story in the end the reader can follow without

having to suffer because I tried to fit too much time in too less room.

Lastly I will say something about my poems. In “Do I still dream?” I decided to

concentrate on one feeling instead if a whole story with different feelings. Therefore I expanded

one part and erased the spare parts so it would be more fluent to read and consistent in tone. For

the images in “Ode to Maple Syrup” I added descriptions in better words to make the reader not

only see the poem, but also taste the flavor of this wonderful, thick, and sweet syrup on his or her

tongue.

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One Letter

It was at a Sunday, and my brown eyes let tear drops run down my cheek because I had

told my mother how I felt. All my tension because of this waiting this never-ending waiting, I

was waiting for the approval from my exchange organization telling me I could go to my

exchange family. The family who my mother wrote a letter to after years of no contact asking if I

could stay with them. The family who called me when I was on vacation and who left a message

that made me scream and shout so much to express my joy that the neighbors were worried about

what happened to me. The family I emailed back and forth with always afraid to get too close

and get hurt in case I couldn’t stay with them. The family I called once in November on

Thanksgiving so excited I could barely speak. The family who I hoped would write me so bad

that it made me check my E-Mails before, and after school. The family I already loved.

My intermediate, little and super friendly exchange organization informed me in the

month of November that I have a good chance of getting approved in early December. Now it’s

February, and I still didn’t get the letter. How long can it take them? Meanwhile my organization

disclosed to me that the High School wants my full paper work before they decide if they’re

going to take me. They seemed to have had an exchange student who wasn’t that great and didn’t

want to take another chance. Understandable, but why did they have to hesitate with me? I mean,

I never ditched school and my grades weren’t bad, what was their problem? I guessed they didn’t

know how that would affect me …

I emptied the white, rectangular mailbox right away when I came home from school,

hoping for this one letter and being disappointed it wasn’t there. Sometimes there was no mail at

all, so my not too long legs ran up the two staircases expecting to be chapfallen afterwards, when

I discovered that, again, there was no mail for me. It affected my inner strength and my mood. I

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just couldn’t stand it anymore; it was like someone punched me in the face and into the ground

each day that I didn’t have mail, every single day!

And I still had to pretend everything was alright. After all, I was the lucky one who could

spend her next school year abroad. My life should’ve been perfect. At least that’s what most of

the people thought. So I couldn’t really talk about it, and I guess even if I could’ve, I probably

wouldn’t have. Since I’m more the suffer-for-myself kind of person who is somewhere playing

with her long dark brown hair and thinking about one thing, trailing off to another and ending at

totally different thoughts then in the beginning.

Then it was Wednesday and after school I had voice lessons. Tabea, my teacher, is

awesome. She is one of the kindest, friendliest and most sensitive people I’ve ever known. And

she knew me well, so well that she could tell something was wrong. I told her, for there was no

way we would start singing until I got it all off my chest. She understood and supported me, and

gave me hope while I felt like I was crazy. At the end of the lesson when we walked outside

together, she wished me good luck and hoped that I would receive the letter soon. How she said

it made me feel as if she dearly wishes for it for me.

“Dear God, please, please give me the letter. I can’t stand it any longer. Seriously, I can’t

handle that and you should know that. You out of everyone. I can’t …” I prayed to God in

English. I thought maybe he would hear me then. And I prayed in German because I figured less

people speak German so the chances I stand out of all the prayers spoken around the world

would be higher. I switched languages and prayed while walking home, looking either at the

blue, blue sky or the gray floor. Though the wind was cold, it was warm, at least for a

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Wednesday in February. As I took the last turn left before I would reach home I desperately

begged God for it. This. One. Letter.

The stoplight was green for the cars which made me as a walker impatiently wait some

more. When it finally turned green I crossed the road, stepping on a little bump for waiting

walkers and crossing the second road while ignoring one more bump because there were no cars

coming so I could cross diagonal instead of taking that small detour. Five more leave-less trees

on my left side, cross one more narrow side road and I would be home. My steps quickened as I

walked down the hill to our 4 lever high white house with the dark red roof. Oh, I missed that

there were those young tiny and still growing trees to my right before I turned right onto the little

ramp leading to the door. But my goal wasn’t the door. It was the mailbox.

I grabbed my backpack from my back, searching, feeling for my key in the very front part

of my blue bag. It is lighter blue in that implied part, turning darker, shade by shade, towards the

end. As my fingers grabbed the heavy key, heavy because it was accompanied by Snoopy, a

teddy bear key ring and other useless, though important to me, stuff. I jammed it between my

thumb, index and middle finger and moved it towards the mailbox, slightly shaking.

The key was in the keyhole now and I turned it to the right. It wouldn’t work. So I turned

it to the left, and opened it a little bit so if mail would be there, it wouldn’t fall out. I put the thin

fingers of my free left hand into the slot – and felt mail. My hand grabbed it and I closed the

mailbox again. There was a white, big envelope in the very back. It had the logo of my exchange

organization on it. I ran upstairs, opened the door to our apartment and ran upstairs again calling

for my father because my mother was grocery shopping. I bunged my backpack near the palm in

the corner of our dining-room, peeled off my white thick winter jacket and ripped the envelope

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open. Despite that I was impatient to discover what was in that envelope my fingers acted

carefully, scared they would crinkle the papers inside. With caution I pulled the packet outside

and read the bold and gray highlighted part.

“Approval of your host family”

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Two days before the flight. And I neither started to pack my nor did I wrote a

what to pack. But I wanted to see all my and spend with my

. I mean, I won’t them for ten month. The last complete day I would

spend in dawned and I really had to start packing my . But it is really

complicated if you have to keep looking at the to make sure your isn’t

too heavy, since it’s already too big. At the end of the day I had with my

and then I went to . Friday, 28th of August 2009. Me and my

took the to drive to the .

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Love-hate?

“So that’s what it looks like”, I remembered thinking. I would be living there for the next

year. While looking out of the windows of the train which brought me to my new home, I spotted

lots of green trees next to me; passing by fast. Behind it I could glimpse little cities, if you could

even call them cities, probably towns would be a better word to describe those tiny crowds of

houses higher than long. Through the window on the opposite side I could see vineyards,

perfectly arranged in one row after the other and also colored in bright green.

We were passing another little train station, the last one before I would see them. That

was the moment I waited for nearly a year. But with it coming so fast, the blurry sight outside the

humongous window gave proof to that, I was scared. A little bit shaky I thought about meeting

my host parents, my German parents for a year. I had a long journey behind me, at first the

‘Good bye’ to my crying parents and my beloved city, Minneapolis, then hours of flight to

Stuttgart to do, what they told me in the U.S. was a “German thing” – I took the train to my new

hometown Heilbronn: Population 8 times smaller than Minneapolis with a nearby mountain, at

least from my point of view, being used to flat, even Minnesotan landscape … I guess from

another point of view you would call it a hill, a hill named “Wartberg”.

The train was getting slower and slower contrary to my heart which appears to run a

marathon and coming out of my throat soon. The former sweet smell of my favorite gum I

bought at the airport appeared to make the air thinner, harder to breath. The wheels came to a

stop with a loud squeaking sound. I got up, took my suitcase in one hand, got my bag on my

back and tried to place one foot in front of the other one as I made my way to the door. My heart

seemed to burst out of my chest; my hands were getting numb because of the heavy suitcase. My

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long feet took one step onto the tiny stairs of the train, then a second one, and the third one on

the track.

I. Was. In. Germany.

It was bright there, my cell phone told me it was 6:46 AM, but that was Central Time.

Shyly I looked around me, two people were embracing each other, I looked away embarrassed

and glanced at a bunch of other people, a couple with a poster, a man with a r… a poster? I

suddenly remembered something my host parents told me via E-Mail what seemed ages ago;

they would make a poster. I looked at them again, the sign said ‘Herzlich Willkommen, Katy!’

Only later I should find out it said ‘Welcome, Katy!’. I headed into the direction and seconds

later the man, Klaus, my host dad, turned, behold me, started smiling, waved and therefore

gained the attention of his wife, Krista. They walked towards me, said “Herzlich Willkommen in

Deutschland, Katy” and each gave me an embrace. It became a little awkward then, no one knew

what to say, so the blond haired tall man took my case and we began heading towards the

parking lot, next to me an also tall woman, just a little bit taller than me though and not as thin as

her husband. I was too tired to really notice anything around me and in addition to that my hair

was totally messed up from the long journey so my curls were everywhere.

When my suitcase was in the trunk, Krista offered me her place in the front seat so I

could enjoy the ride looking out the small windows of the small car. Even though I was so tired I

felt bad going to sleep so I tried to keep my eyes open and surprisingly it worked quite well.

Absorbing every detail I realized how small everything was. I spotted one or two trucks, the rest

were small cars, narrower than what I was used to. And so were the streets, since the cars didn’t

need that much room. On the sidewalk were bright green trees about every 30 feet. We drove

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over a river they call “Neckar” which had the color of green, blue and brown mixed together.

The houses weren’t exactly skyscrapers but they were taller than normal houses to live in back

home. Most of them had at least 3 stories, white walls and a red roof. But since they were higher

they were, as the cars, narrower and, most of the time, side by side without a garden.

As we seem to drive more outside the city the houses started to begin to have gardens and

be a little wider, however it still looked squeezed in. The street started to go up and I spied a

mountain, though Klaus said it was nothing more or less than a hill. They told me before that

their house was at the bottom of the mountain and if you would look out of the windows facing

mountain “Wartberg”, you would be able to see the vineyards which are very pretty, especially

in fall when the leaves turn color it’s supposed to be red all over.

“… Welcome to the Land of Fame excess …”

It was 10:21 AM and a radio waked me up with that song. Nice. I hated Miley Cyrus and

her “Party in the USA”. It was freaking me out. I meant, I was in Germany now, right? Why

wouldn’t they play German music? But okay, I tried to accept that fact. One thing I set as my

goals was to not get upset as easily as I used to, and one step in that direction was to just settle

down and embrace the unknown and unexpected parts of this country.

I climbed out of the not-queen-sized bed in a room smaller than half of what I was used

to, painted in boring white. At least the color of my red hair wouldn’t interfere with the color of

the room; I have been a bit worried about that part before. Next to my room was the bathroom, a

toilet, a shower and sink. Unlike at home, here, I had to share the bathroom with my host parents.

There was a bathroom downstairs, too. But it was just a very tiny one used when you’re

downstairs or for friends, from what I learned yesterday, since it didn’t have a shower or bathtub

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or anything like that. As I already discovered yesterday, for flushing the toilet you have to press

a button in the middle of the top of it. After taking a quick hot shower I went down the spiral

staircases. Fortunately Krista was downstairs making breakfast. As she heard the second-last step

squeaking she swirled around and wished me a good morning. I just mumbled a good morning

back, I wasn’t a morning-person and the jet lag wasn’t overcome yet. I asked if I could help her

somehow, too tired to really notice that I spoke English, but as she answered I got astonished.

Krista spoke English! She didn’t say one word in English to me yesterday. “You speak English?”

I asked in amazement. The expression on my face must have been funny, I probably had my

mouth still opened and my green eyes were likely to be gaping wide open, focus on her mouth.

She started to laugh, “Yes, I do. Klaus didn’t want me to speak in English to you because he said

it’s important for you to learn English fast and in order to not interfere with that process we

shouldn’t get your brain confused by talking bilingual. But you were kind of speechless

yesterday so I figured it would be easier for you to understand if I would speak English with you,

at least today.” I really was speechless. That was something totally unexpected. “And if you

want, we can go and see a movie later, I found a movie theater where they show movies in the

original language. How do you like that idea?” she suggested. “I love it. With popcorn and

everything?”, my eagerness was unmistakable. She laughed again and promised me to my bowl

of popcorn.

Two hours later I stood between a bike I got from my host mom and the movie theater.

Don’t ask me how someone would come to the idea to take the bike to a movie, but fine. Inside

the theater Krista paid for our tickets, and we went to stand in line to get popcorn. When we were

finally our turn she ordered a maxi bowl of popcorn and handed it to me with a grin. As we went

into the theater I was we were up to see ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’, a movie I never heard of

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before, but I was opened for something new. We sat down and as the first advertisement start I

grabbed some popcorn. The next thing I noticed was the weird taste on my tongue. It wasn’t

salty as I expected, it was the opposite, sweet. How come I got sweet popcorn, I didn’t heard my

host mother ordering sweet popcorn, just popcorn. Who would want sweet popcorn anyway? I

knew no one who likes that. Must be another difference, like chocolate called Nutella on your

dark breakfast rolls with seedling instead of peanut butter on toast bread. Accompanied by

sparkling water, with no question if I would want normal water. It made my tongue feel funny

and hurt a little bit while swallowing what caused me to drink it in very small parts. That not

driving here, what was that all about? Turning of the car when being stopped by a railway

crossing gate just added to those weird things. Why did I leave my beloved country in which I

knew what to expect? I didn’t know a thing here, my German was so bad we had to watch a

movie in English. Why didn’t they speak English anyway? And why didn’t my exchange

organization mention something about lots of those things. My exchange organization …

Suddenly I remembered reading something in the Welcome flyer from the partner organization

who is now responsible for me:

“Be quick to observe, but slow to judge.” (Experiment e.V., Germany)

That was right. How could I forget about that? This one little essential sentence, utterly

important. I was here for about twenty hours, that was not slow to judge. I decided to talk to

Krista about those observations after the movie and grabbed another hand full of popcorn.

“Herzlich Willkommen in Deutschland, Katy” – “Welcome to Germany, Katy!“

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Annotated Bibliography

AFS USA. “About Germany”. AFS Intercultural Programs USA. 2008. 19. Oct.2009.

www.usa.afs.org

It begins with a quote of a former exchange student from the USA who has been to Germany and describes not only the difficulties but also the results of his exchange year. It provides information about a lot of different topics like lifestyle and educational system. The website is biased because it wants to give people a realistic but mainly a good impression about Germany so they consider going there as exchange students.

This source is not helpful if you want to find negative aspects about Germany, but for a general overview of some cultural differences especially as far as lifestyle is concerned it is the perfect source.

“Claire goes to Deutschland”. 26. Oct 2009. clairegoestodeutschland.blogspot.com. 30 Oct 2009

This is blog from a 16 year old girl named Claire from Pennsylvania who is an exchange student in Germany for the school year 2009-2010. She writes in this blog like a diary and shares her feelings and reactions to unfamiliar things and her new experiences with the reader. Since she only provides what she thinks about it; it’s a biased source.

This source is very funny and thought-provoking. It is very interesting how she sees things you never questioned and starts to think about things she herself hasn’t questioned. You have to keep in mind though, that her experiences and thoughts are her own and don’t necessarily represent the broad majority.

Blashfield, Jean F.. Germany. Children’s Press, a Division of Scholastic Inc., 2003

This book provides the reader with information about nearly all aspects of Germany, from history and geography to the school system and traditions. It gives an overview and basic knowledge about Germany and the Germans. Because there are lots of pictures, the reader gets a better imagination of this country.

This source is very helpful to get an overview over most parts of Germany, its culture, heritage and so on. It’s fast to read and provides few details.

Stadt Heilbronn. “Sehenswürdigkeiten“. Stadt Heilbronn. 19 Oct 2009. www.heilbronn.de

This is a German website representing the city of Heilbronn. It is a short summary why you should visit Heilbronn; a little bit about its history; what you can do and see there and how you can get everywhere. It is a biased source because it wants people to become interested and visit the city.

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This source only gives you a few names with extremely short descriptions about some sights. You either have to know them or research more what interests you. All information are provided in German.

Billigfluege.de “Liste aller verfügbaren Flüge“. billigfluege.de. 19 Oct 2009. 19 Oct 2009.

www.billigfluege.de

This is a German website where you can get information about air connections. You have to enter a date (can’t be in the past or very far in the future) and the airports you want to start and land at. It then searches you bids from different airlines and gives you various possibilities in price, length of flight and airports in which you have to transfer.

This source offers cheap prices to book a flight if you’re early enough and provides information about various airlines. For further information you have to research somewhere else. It is a service in German.

DB Bahn. “Verbindungen – Ihre Anfrage“. Deutsche Bahn AG. 2009. 19 Oct 2009.

www.reiseauskunft.bahn.de

This is a German website provided by Germanys Train Company. You have to enter the date, time and the train stations you want to start and end. It then provides various different train connections in a certain time frame of which you can see details if desired.

This source gives you possibilities how you could travel. It does not provide details about the railroad track or the cities you pass. All information is in German.

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Do I still dream?My dream already lasted three month

And still it seems like yesterdayI arrived just a couple of hours ago

In the land of my dreamsTo do what I dreamed of

Sweet dreams waiting to come trueAm I really here or is it a dream

So much has happenedToo much for one night of dreams

Ten months seemed longOnce upon a dreamSeven months leftTo life my dream

To enjoy itAnd to start believingThat it’s not a dream

But my life

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National Anthem of the United States

of AmericaOh say can you see by the dawn's

early light

What so proudly we hailed at the

twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright

stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched

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were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the

bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that

our flag was still there.

Oh say does that star-spangled

banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the

home of the brave?

Ode to Maple Syrup

With Pancakes or French Toast

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Everyone eats itWith English Muffins and Oreo’s

That is just meMy mouth waters

When my nose smells itThis dominant sweet scent Eyes staring as it spread outCautious though unstoppable

And you think you can imagine the tasteBut then your hand

Moves the object of desire closerAnd closer

Out of nowhere the sensation hits your nervesThe rich thick and unbearably sweet taste

It completely overwhelms youEvery time

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