Hence, I will do a quick recap of all things important.
I can't even remember the last thing I wrote about...wait as I mache a Pause to reread my blog haha.
OKAY so it seems that I haven't mentioned that I started school! Ach sooo. Four weeks ago, bright and early, I went with my host brother to start my year at Gesamtschule Harburg...and FEG (I don't know how to pronounce the whole thing, or frankly, even what it's called, so I just go with the abbreviation). I go to two schools: here, schools sort of share classes sometimes. For example, Samir takes French and Geography at FEG and the rest of his classes at GSH. My first day I went to Spanish, where I met a fellow American exchange student, Kate. From Spanish we went to Geography, where the class was given a paper to read and dissect. While the class read the paper and discussed the topic, Kate and I used the time to translate...the first sentence. Perhaps we got a bit into the second sentence, I forget.
What it all boils down to is this: I understand almost NICHTS in any class, so I started bringing my German book to study. I'm trying to take Spanish in both FEG and GSH because it's the only class I can participate in. Olé!
Fast forward through boringness to the end of the week, when about 60 of the kids in my grade and I went to Rome.
Okay, so obviously the German schooling system has its pitfalls. Let's face it: they have 13 years instead of 12, and they only have 6 weeks of summer vacation. That sucks. However, let's not get too down on them. They have one very important advantage on the American schooling system, or at least Skaneateles's; they know how to TRAVELLL. Starting in kindergarten, the kids go on week long trips to "bond." I mean, that's legit. Here, the classes are smaller and the kids are in the same class for almost their whole scholarly life; you better like those people, or you're gonna be prettttyyy miserable, eh?
Anyways, I digress. Let me throw out a fun fact: the "senior trip" (and here I must put quotes, because the trip is laughable at best) at Skan is- are you ready to be blown off your feet- A WHOLE DAY AT DARIEN LAKE!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, what is that? No, really. I mean, come on; even the EIGHTH grade trip was 3 days to Boston.
The point is, here they don't half-ass the trips. There was my trip to Rome, a trip to Venice, and one to Barcelona, all for a week. This happens every year here, not just in the senior year!
So we all hopped on a bus at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon, embarking on a whopping 24 hour trip to get to Rome. My muscles atrophied by the 15th hour. I ask all of you who drive to Florida: what the hell are you thinking? Did you know you can get there in 3 hours by plane? Just saying.
After a whole day of my life that I will never, ever get back, we finally arrived to Roma. We all stayed in bungalows of 5 people in this camping/bungalow site thing.
THE bungalow
The row of bungalows occupied by rowdy Hamburgan German teenagers
Second fun fact of the day: People that live in Hamburg are called Hamburgers. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that always gives me a good laugh.
Soo I stayed in the above bungalow with four other girls, who were all veryy nice. Everyday they helped me learn a little more German... in fact, I learned my favorite German word while there. Anyone who has learned or attempted to learn a foreign language knows that after you learn how to say hello, the next thing you learn is how to swear. This is a fact, and I challenge anyone to tell me otherwise. Therefore, everybody was more than eager to help me enrich my vocabulary. And that's how I learned fickpflaume. What does that mean, you ask? It means f**king plum! HOW GREAT IS THAT? Really, if somebody calls you a f**cking plum, how do you respond? "ah..pfff..your mom!" I mean, it's so British I loooooveeeee it.
One of the girls, Sophie, even heard me speaking German in my sleep. Apparently I had the urge to practice my past participles, as she reports that I was saying, "ge...ge...gehört." All that means is "heard" and I have absolutely no idea why I was saying that, instead of my more colorful vocabulary. Obviously my subconscious has to get some priorities straight.
Anyways, we did our thangg, ya know, saw the Colosseum, some catacombs, the Forum, St. Peters, the Pantheon, ate some pizza, etc. And, of course, we all bought the "I Love Roma" sweatshirts- alas, what is a trip to Rome if you don't have the sweatshirt when you go home? That rhymed.
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I'm pleased to say that this was my photography skill
So all in all, the trip was a really good time and I enjoyed getting to know the kids in my class. What I enjoyed even more, though, were every single one of the 28 degrees Celsius that Rome gifted us. Compare that with the 12 degrees that I regularly suffer in Germany, and you'll understand me.
Upon arriving back in the 'Burg, I had the overwhelming urge to hit the gym. This is where the title of the post comes in.
First of all, I am a proud member of what I consider the most sarcastically named gym in existence. I belong to the McFit fitness center. Tell me that the creator of this gym was kidding, please. MCfit? Yeah, let's go get MCfit then hell, let's hit MCdonalds, buy the MCmenu and get MCfat while we're MC at it. Germans, I'm telling you. I don't think one year is long enough to understand these people.
Nevertheless, I believe I was on the quadricep machine when it really MChit me: McFit is a brofest. The man:woman ratio, if I had to estimate, is probably 10:1, no lies. Then my brain made the next logical leap, and I started to think about Jersey Shore, and, of course, GTL. If you don't know what that is, stop reading my blog, I'm not going to explain. Go get a life and learn the fist pump.
PAUSE. I must do my good deed for the day right now.
ATTENTION ALL EXCHANGE STUDENTS, AND/OR PEOPLE WHO LIVE OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES AND WANT TO WATCH THEIR FAVORITE TV SHOWS ONLINE.
If you are like me, you have probably tried to go to a site, such as mtv.com, for example, to watch, as another example, Jersey Shore. And there, you have encountered the infuriating notice that, "We're sorry, but this video is not available outside of the U.S. due to privacy laws." DO NOT DESPAIR! I don't know how many of you guys have figured this out, but there IS a way to get around this! I wish I knew this before I bought the season ticket to JS on iTunes, but okay whatever... my German friend enlightened me to the fact that proxy websites work for watching TV shows. We've all tried proxies to get on Facebook at school where it's blocked, but I never thought to use it to watch stuff online. SO, just google "proxy websites," choose one, connect to the website and enjoy!
Anyways, I started thinking about the Germans' proficiency at the GTL routine. I came to the following conclusions:
G: From what I can see at McFit, the Germans got the G down. They would do the Situation proud. I can't testify to the fact that they have the situation that Mike does, but from what I can see, they're trying.
T: The T in Germany is an ABSOLUTE FAIL. I do not support fake tanning in any way whatsoever, but come on, people; spray tans don't look to orange these days, ya know? There is a point where white is TOO white, and many Germans have missed that exit and are on their way to albino.
Now, I realize that it's not their fault that they live on the 54th parallel and the sun rarely shines, but for god's sake!
[[Fun fact of the day number 3: Indeed, Hamburg is on the 54th parallel. I was under the wrong impression when I thought that New York and Germany were in relatively similar locations. In fact, NY is around 43˚, just about where Rome is. New York is cold enough for me, so I'm not liking the 54˚ness here. My level of happiness has a direct relationship with my distance from the Equator. The closer I get, the happier I am. The opposite is also true. I'm all for the "Midnight Sun" phenomenon, but get me the hell outta here if I'm only going to see daylight for 6 hours everyday during the winter!]]
L: Their score on this one is iffy. I don't know if it's hygiene or laundry that's the issue here. The clothes look clean enough, but the smell contradicts that...
