Kategorie: America

It is the day I´m leaving short after midnight and I´m writing my last entry from this location in the USA. It was such an incredible year full of memories and awesome people. The time since my New York Trip has gone by so fast and was full of great memories. I attended the biggest graduation with about 8000 people and more than 600 graduates, went to many open houses of Graduates, visited Chicago again, had a great a week in Muskegon and hung out with friends a lot. The graduation was overwhelming. About 8000 people were in the huge hall called Delta Plex to celebrate 605 Graduates. It was a long ceremony, because all names had to be called, everybodies hand had to be shaken by our superintendent and pictures had to be taken from everyone. The walking over the stage of graduates went without break about one hour and we had speeches from the important people in the school and our class. The best part of the night, though was the awesome after graduation party, which started at 10pm and ended at 4.30 in the morning. We had an hypnotist, who did a show. There were ten people in the front, but I also got hypnotized. It was really interesting and weird to actually feel that I couldn´t open my eyes, although I felt wide awake. It got a little blurry in my mind for a few moments, but people around started laughing and that dragged me back into full consciousness. We also had a ton of great food, a casino to win tickets for a raflle, and other great activities. After this great night I slept till 2pm and it messed up my sleepcycle for a few days, but it was totally worth it. A few days later I went on a one day trip to Chicago with exchange students from Germany, Malysia, Japan, and Thailand. We went with the host mum of one of the students, took the car to Michigan City, IN and then the train to Millenium Station downtown close to the bean. The weather was really hot and almost no clouds. We saw the bean and then did a boat trip up the Chicago River and out to the Lake Michigan. The views were great and made us hungry for some stuffed Chicago pizza. Giordano´s is a popular pizza place and has great food. I ate 4 big pieces and was so full I could barely walk, but walking down the magnificent mile and visiting all the different locations like the Water Tower Mall or the Hershey´s store helped a lot. We took the train back and arrived home at midnight after 17hours. It was a great day with great people. The trip to the Muskegon State Park with the Stones and their neighbour´s daughters was a great time.The weather was beautiful and the location was very nice. We visited the USS Silversides, which is a WWII submarine, which patrolled in the Pacific and was quite succesful in fighting the Japanese. It was very interesting to see how the layout was and how the 72 men lived in this tight space of 300×16 ft or 100×5.3 m . We went to the Silver Lake Dunes, as well, and it was like I was there at the start of my year. I nice coincidence. The last few days were filled with packing, planning a goodbye party at my house, which was great, and saying goodbye to a lot of people. The party was last night and about 20 people came. A great size. We had pizza, pop and German candy from Meijer. Meijer is a big chain market like Walmart. We played baseball in our backyard and had a barnfire to make smores. Today was a great day, too. I went to the mall for some last minute shopping, went out to eat with the Playfords, Robin and Grandma Phyllis and broke the record of $7.63 for a frozen yogurt at spoonliquors with a 16.2oz or more than one pound and $8.18 monster. The record was done by Holly last year. She was pretty impressed. Tomorrow I will fly out at 3pm in Grand Rapids and have an 17 hour journey back to Germany. It´s gonna be a sad day, but I know I will come back and see everyone at least once next year. The pictures from the last weeks are in the picasa album under the link: https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

The time since prom has been very eventful and a lot of fun, although I already have to start to think about the day, when I have to leave my new home to go back to my old one. But I try to enjoy the time, which I think I am pretty successful at. Anyway Prom was incredibly awesome. All the Water Polo Players and I, had to change at the High School Pool at Zeeland High School, because the Girls Water Polo Team had their Districts Championship game only 2 hours prior to the Dance. Additionally the game got delayed, because there was a power outage and in the end all the Polo players and their dates were about one hour too late, but it was no problem. We still got some of the great food and missed only a few minutes of the action on the dance floor. The location was great with a lot of space, a nice garden and a balcony above a illuminated pond. Additionally the weather was a lot better than the hours before with omly a few clouds and no rain at all. Basically perfect for a great prom night. The DJ was pretty good, but he played too much country. A bit more of Rap and R&B wouldn´t have done any damage. But the dancing was great and I even got in the situation of totally failing the attempt of dancing walz with another german exchange student. A little embarrassing, but I have the defense of not have taken any dancing lessons 🙂 . After Prom, which unfortunately was too fast over at 11pm, I went with friends to an after party at a friends house and we were sitting around a barn fire, talking and freezing. But it was an incredible night, which I will never forget! The week before Prom was an Invitational Water Polo Tournament at Rockford High Schools and I went with Debbie, Robin and Robin´s dad and wife to the restaurant called „Corner Bar“. At this restaurant, one can try a Hot Dog Challenge which means to eat 12 hot dogs in less than 4 hours. I almost ate all of them, but the last half Hot Dog was too much to eat and outside I got pretty sick. It was a great experience to test your own boundaries and I am seriously considering to try it again, but not eating anything before it. It was very nice to get out of school, because I don´t have to deal with homework anymore, which was a ridiculous amount in the last couple weeks of school. It was sad at the same time, though, because I will probably see most of the people I did a lot of things at school never again. But there was no time for being blue, because the next day the flight to new york required preparation. It was an awesome weekend, although the weather was not good for the first two days. I went to the high line, which is a transformed rail road track close to the Hudson River in Manhattan, I visited the National September 11th Memorial, which was impressive and sad at the same time, I visited the Museum of Natural History with its overwhelming amount of information and history, I had a nice barbecue and I went to the New Jersey shore with nice weather, and had a really good time! Now there are a bunch of Graduation parties coming up and the Graduation itself. I am pretty sure it will be a great time with a lot of great memories added to my experience here before going home. I added some new pictures to the picasa album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

It has been about one month since I wrote the last post. I apologize to everyone who has waited desperately for news and didn´t get any. Since spring break a ton of things changed and happened. Louisville won the National Championship for Basketball, which was a great game, because Michigan lead with 38-37 at half, but lost 76-82 after the second half. There were generally a ton of National College Championships in all the different sports, but they are not as popular as March Madness. Other things, that happened in sport are the Masters Golf Tournament, which for the first time was won by an Australian player and the playoffs for Hockey of the NHL started about 3 days ago. The biggest thing that happened with national attention was the Bombing in Boston on April 15th and the one week hunt for the suspects in one of the suburbs of the city. It was everywhere in the news. Another big thing that happened here in grand rapids and area were the torrential rains for about six days straight, which resulted in the most rainfall in a month since 1896. All rivers in Grand Rapids and surroundings rose so much, that a ton of streets had to be closed, bridges had to be made heavier to not get flushed away, the two towers next to the river in downtown Grand Rapids had to be evacuated and millions of dollars in waterdamage emerged. At the dam in downtown Rockford the local maintenance people had to open gates to prevent the adjacent areas from flooding. Things that changed for me were mainly in school. The water polo team from Rockford had a lot of off season practices, which I attented just for fun. We set up the field and played for 2 hours straight every time. It was really hard to play against people, who have played water polo since 6th Grade. I didn´t have the technique and strength to guard people, which means prevent them from shooting at the goal. Swim season helped me a lot, because I´m now as fast as most of the sophomores and juniors from the polo team. I even scored two goals, but missed a lot of shots, too. It was a ton of fun and a great opportunity to get some more workout and learn new technique for when I´m back in Germany and we play water polo in school. I also played soccer with some guys from the water polo team. It was great and I´m definately more dominant in soccer than in water polo 🙂 , but after the first time I had sore muscles for four days. The Rockford Girls Water Polo Team have a great season. They had an Invitational Tournament about two weeks ago with some teams from Michigan and two great teams from Illinois. They got second overall in the Tournament and lost the final game fairly close. In about four weeks they have their State Championship Tournament at Rockford High School and hope to defend their title from last year. The next big thing coming up in just one week is Prom. It is so big! Everyone rents dresses and tuxedos, spents $50 per ticket and there are some great things going on with asking girls for prom. Probably everyone wants to know whether I asked somebody and who. I did and I asked Adrianna Craft. She is a senior and swims and plays water polo pretty successfully. She was an All American water polo player last year, which means top 100 water polo players of the nation and just got advanced in the Olympical Developmental Program to the top 50 players, out of who the top 15 girls will go to the International Junior Olympics. I asked her after one of the water polo games at home with a selfmade cake. It was just a rectengular white frosted base with Prom, a question mark, her name and the face of an otter written and sketched with frosting on top of it. She said yes and in a few hours I´m getting hopefully my tuxedo fitted for it. Now are only barely two months left in my exchange year, but I already know, that I can visit a good friend of Gudrun in New York City for a few days and I hope the summer is warm enough to go a lot to the beach on Lake Michigan. I haven´t taken a lot of pictures since my last post, but I will definately post some after the prom weekend.

More than half of the Spring Break is over and I´m so happy that we don´t have school. To get to sleep in is awesome. Unfortunately we didn´t go anywhere like Florida, Hawaii or California like most of my friends. It is getting warmer here though and the snow turned into rain, but you still can´t get tanned. The time after swim season was very relaxing, although my Aquatics class is almost like morning practice during season – I won´t get out of shape. And in my 500free I increased my time. Only about 2 seconds, but it felt good to see that I didn´t loose everything from season. We recently had an incredible production of Footloose in our High School. I saw it three times with different people and probably could have seen it more times. The cast was huge and all of them are so talented in acting and dancing. And the singing was awesome. Even an Exchange Student from Spain participated. Just an awesome musical. A Fiddler on the Roof from the Civic Theatre with Amanda and Andrew in Cast and Crew was a great show and super successful. The second preformance and all following ones were sold out and they added one more, which was also sold out. The reviews and 4/4 stars in the Grand Rapids Press probably helped a lot. The next performance at Civic Theatre is the Musical „Legally Blond“, for which Andrew will probably audition too and the High School will do „Alice in Wonderland“ in May. In my English class I just finished to read „Twelth Night“ by Shakespeare. The language was pretty weird and hard to understand, including the mandatory „thy“ 🙂 . It felt like reading some of the Classics in German class. Although it is still a little cold outside, we went on easter Sunday with most of the Playford family to a cornfield and started flying a training kite. It is about 3m long and even with not a lot of wind it can pull you pretty good. We even had two people getting pulled so strong they fell over. And it is almost like doing pull ups. The full sized Kite is with 12m across four times as big. I´m so excited to feel the drag from that one and eventually surf on Lake Michigan. There are a few pictures of not the best quality I took yet. They are in the Album under the link: https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

Swimming season is now ultimately over. Last weekend was the State Meet in the Holland Aquatics Center. We got overall 4th and the Champions were from Saline. They are swimming all year round, so they are much faster. In every individual event, except for the 500free, Saline had the #1 ranked swimmer after the prelims. And they won 2 out of 4 relays. The gap between place 1 and 2 was only 4 pints, though, which is not a lot. Our divers did really well with 4th and 9th place and we had about 8 people in the top 16 combined. Tuesday we had our after season banquet. It was an awesome night. We had so much fun with videos featuring the seniors from something called jibjab. It was hilarious. Parks made really funny jokes about members including Courtis, who goes after the summer to Hameln, Germany for one year. He said I should tell not to dress too stereotypical and showed a picture of two men in leather pants. And the seniors made awards featuring funny things that happened during season. I finally got my Varsity Letter with all the patches to sew on the Varsity Jacket. I actually got the Jacket as a present from Debbie and Robin. It´s just incredible, that they did it and I´m so thankful for this present and the opportunity to participate in this program. Finally the spring has come to West Michigan. The sun is shining and we finally get rid of the snow. The temperatures rise and you can stay longer than 2 minutes outside without gloves. The first week of the third trimester was super easy. It was ACT and other standardised tests for the Sophomores and especially Juniors. We had tuesday and Friday off and a late start on wedenesday and thursday. It felt like a perfect week with too much sleep. It sounds impossible, but I could barely sleep at 11pm, because I slept so much over the days. My classes are great. I have a great government teacher and we are four exchange students in his fourth hour. He always says: „It´s like in the United Nations“. We are reading Shakespeare´s „twelth night“. The language and vocabulary is as bad as German Classics compared to standard German. First hour is still Aquatics for me. We do workouts, that could be a part of swim practice and I definately feel, that I didn´t train as much in the last three weeks. My second hour is Structual Engineering, in which we will build storage sheds and learn about the process of building residual homes. My fifth hour is Statistics. It is really fun to learn about the different things you can learn about data and whether a statistic is representative or not. Now, that swimming is over, I have a ton of free time and sometimes I´m bored, but I hang out with friends a lot, I watched Silver Linings Playbook and Beasts of the Southern Wild, which are both great movies, and do things with my family. This sunday we just had the time switch, so it pretty dark in the morning, but at night the sun goes down much later. I´m so excited for the end of this trimester, although it means I´m not a lot longer here then, but we get to go out of school earlier and I probably don´t have to take 2 out of 5 final exams. And the Graduation will be awesome. First we have Spring Break at the end of March and Prom on May 11th. Exciting stuff!

Last weekend we won the OK Red Conference Championship. All six schools are competing in a final meet and the winner of the most meets over the season gets the final award. We won the last meet with 426 poinst and 60 points lead to 2nd place. I also had something to be happy about. I improved my 100free time from 57.63 to 57.26 and broke my 25 with 24.84 in the 50free. In my 100back I dropped about 3 seconds from the last time, but I was still about 1 second off from my time I swam in Zeeland. It was probably the pool, because Zeeland has a much faster and better pool than Grand Haven, where our last meet was. The last week of the second trimester in school was really relaxing, bc I had more time and I was less tired without long practices. We had another snow day on wednesday and the final exams went very well. At the side of the streets is so much snow now, that I built a huge face out of a snowpile. It looks kind of creepy, when you drive by it at night, but I really like it. On Friday Fiddler on the Roof at the Civic theater started. Amanda is working in the Crew and Andrew is part of the Cast. The show was so awesome and got a great Review from the Grand Rapids Press. It is a really long show with 3 hours and one intermission, but with a lot of jokes and a ton of action. The Choreography and the dancers are just amazing! This saturday was so awesome too. I finally cooked the first German things over here. I had help from Andrew and Phyllis, who is Robyn´s mum. She was in Germany before with her deceased husband and has a spätzle press. We had onion tarte, Cordon bleu with messed up Spätzle, and for dessert Kaiserschmarrn. The dough for the Spätzle was unfortunately not of the right consistency, so they mostly clotted together or they fell apart. But the onion tarte was great and the Kaiserschmarrn was just awesome. Pictures of these great things are under a new link in the picasa album. It is: https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

In just 2 days the swimming season is over. Right now we are in the final phase of taper, in which we train much less and just get ready for the final meet. I like it much better than regular season, because I don’t get soar muscles all the time and we get out of practice much earlier. Another thing of preparation is shaving. Girls love it and boys hate it. Before the Conference meet all swimmers have to shave their legs, arms and upper body. It helps one to feel the water better and so to swim better. I just did it. Right now it feels super weird and I´m sad, because several years of growing are gone now :/ . Anyway our last practice was super easy and we only swam about 1400yards. As well our second trimester is almost over. The final exams are next week thursday and friday. A little update on Basketball and other sports. State destroyed Michigan a few days ago with over 25 points lead. Unfortunately Spartans just lost by 4 points against number one Indiana. Hockey is still going and almost every night there is a interesting game going on. Unfortunately there are no new pictures in the album, but I hope, there will be some good ones from the Conference meet. The winter is still here with 8inches of snow and we just had an day off, because of icy roads. And there is another storm coming from the south, with snow and icy roads.

It has been quite a long time, since I wrote the last entry. Swimming apperently takes up a lot of time. The weather is still unstable and changes between 40 degrees and 15 and clear and snowing. Just the typical Michigan weather. Swimming is going great. Our last four meets weren´t always easy and we lost another one against Zeeland High. Parks was putting pressure on us yesterday, because we swam against Hudsonville. They are team number two in Conference and have some really good swimmers. Over all we won, but it was much tighter, than our usual results. Anyway, we have our last meet before the big Conference and we start tapering next week. Tapering is a short period of time before the last and big meet, in which we train less harder and get more rest. After this one can swim much faster. It´s a common technique to boost the results at the end of the season. Another big thing was our last home meet three weeks ago. It is called senior night, because all seniors on the team get honored. We got pizza, cake and a lot of candy after it. It was an awesome night! School is doing great too. No failed classes and no complains from my teachers. Last week I had an orientation from YFU. It was about our goals and how we can still change things and it was really interesting. At night we went to a Grand Rapids Griffins Hockey game. It was the same great atmosphere as in Hamburg about 2 years ago. There is now finally the NHL playing and College Basketball. A lot of TV time is occupied by sport. I love it! 🙂 There is still nothing big going on in politics and the news are unfortunately still only local crimes and the newest forecasts. I try to find new topics to talk about, but I´m kind of stuck. Suggestions are welcome 😉 . I added new pictures to the picasa Album and if one wants to see a team picture it is under the link: https://sites.google.com/a/rockfordschools.org/rockford-varsity-swimming-diving/home . The album link is https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

The first week of school went pretty good. It was not really easy to get back the routine of waking up at 5:40, but meeting friends again was great. We had two swimming meets this week at home. The first was a home meet with West Ottawa and we literally destroyed them. The final score was 69 for WO and 219 for us. This Saturday we had our invitational swimming. There were four other teams from west Michigan. It went great for us. We made first place and had a lead if almost 200 points to second place. A little update on my times. My fastest hundred is now a 0:58.15, in the 200 free is with 2:10 about 3 seconds faster than before break, and my 50 free time dropped to 0:25.58. After the long days with four hours of practice during break, the after school practices seem much shorter. Unfortunately here we don’t get snow again after new year. A bit more about recent sport events and games. After the end of College Football season, which ended with an awful defeat of Notre Dame in the Championship game from Alabama, now there is almost every day one or more Basketball games on tv. In high school is now basketball season, too. The Games are very exciting and Rockford is pretty good. We just defeated Forest Hills with about 20 points in lead. The only thing, that is recent and interesting too, is the weather. This is already the second season with a winter, which doesn´t really feel like a winter. We just had 50 degrees again and it rained. Almost like home. Finally I updated the picasa album. It’s under the the link: https://picasaweb.google.com/108204582564821266521/ExchangeYear201213?authkey=Gv1sRgCMiYt_DT6prcwgE

My birthday was awesome. We went to Craig’s Cruisers, which is a big hall with a lot of games, indoor carts and laser tag. It was so much fun and the all you can eat pasta and pizza buffet was great. It was an unforgettable day. The new year started great. We had a nice fondue party with friends and watched the ball dropping on Time Square. The second week of swim practices went really good. I tried the test set for the A- Team and made it finally. The last couple 100s were not really fun and I was dizzy for the next few hours, but it definitely worthed it. Our last three hour practice before next Monday the school starts again was really fun. We did something called „Iron Man“. It‘ s not a several hour long triathlon, but a summary of most of the events in a usual meet including diving. People with about the same speed are racing each other and the first four places out of eight get points. The one, who has the most points after all events, wins a trophy. Really fun! In politics everything got relatively calm after the big issue of the fiscal cliff, which was avoided by congress with a long bill. Unfortunately not much snow fell in the last few weeks. Usually Grand Rapids gets about 31 inches till start of January, but we got only 8 till now. The weather gets weirder every year. Pictures are still in progress, but almost ready to upload.