It's hard thinking of things to write and making it interesting. I like to write interesting posts every now and then rather than really boring posts everyday. This post may be interesting for some but feel free not to read it if you're not interested in 'Steiner education'.

School went back today, it was a bit weird getting up at 6.30am rather than 10-10.30am. My holidays were well spent relaxing and catching up with people.Going to bed at a reasonable time is also a struggle. It doesn't help that the time differences are so annoying now and basically doesn't work out at all with Australia - it's very tricky finding the time to talk to people at home.

I have to keep reminding myself that because I am in Germany it does not mean I am on holidays all the time. I would love to spend the time visiting new places, taking nice photos and meeting new people but unfortunately school and homework are in the way. Instead of taking maybe an hour doing homework it takes me 3 because my procrastination has become very bad. It is not that I don't understand it but I am just not interested and, of course, looking up words that I am unsure of takes a lot of time and effort.

I am starting to lose all my creative skills that I formed at Orana over the nine years that I was there. It's something that is really lacking at this school, and I find it sad. Its something completely normal for them and it was normal for me to write my own work book with pictures and colours every morning for nine years and then bring it home and spend more time working on it. Those books are precious and it is hard to part with them so you store them in a box until you move out. What happens here I wonder? Everything gets drilled into them with endless pieces of paper and tests, then at the end of the year all the pieces of paper get chucked out.

I never believed it when the teachers at Orana said "make your books beautiful, you will come back to them later in your life". That is 100 per cent true: its so nice to start from the class one books and flick through them watching your handwriting and the use of colours and crayons change.

To put it straight forwardly, I miss Orana but the time has come to move on and now I know that it doesn't just take a few days. The things like being outside for most of the day, going to singing every morning, talking to the teachers about things that aren't even about school - you don't realize how important they are until you don't have them anymore,everything just goes.

I guess being at this school is not only extremely different but it is also hard on me. It's impossible to be myself because most people are complete strangers and you see new people everyday. There is no sense of 'family' or even 'community'. School is where you go and learn, nothing more (I do not agree). It is also frustrating with the language because I can't say what I would like to say, only what I am able to say. I am hoping this will improve over the time (which I'm sure it will).

If anyone has any interesting ideas on what would be interesting to write about or what they would like to see in this blog, comment below or message me :)

Although we spend nearly everyday in the year with eachother apart from in the holidays, holidays are spent relaxing and hanging out with friends. The one problem that occurs is that it is so hard to find time because everyone wants to catch up with everyone and they are always 'too busy'. Its even hard finding time with the Germans even though they are the most organised people on the planet.

Who would have thought we could get eight Aussies and Germans to all hang out at once in Germany and meet on time? It was most likely a once in a life time experience but it really did happen and wow, I'm glad it did. It really is a great feeling hanging out with your classmates on the other side of the world - the surroundings are different but we are still the same people. This once in a life time experience was spent walking around Freiburg while all the shops were closed. However, that doesn't matter because my favorite shop, or shall I say restaurant was open - a small Italian place. "I can't think of anywhere like that in Canberra," said Jasper Lindell. Das stimmt ("that is the truth"). A couple of hours were spent there talking about home and all the stuff we don't really miss, no one mentioned anything they actually do miss. We then went our separate ways knowing we wouldn't get this opportunity again.

One can never say goodbye enough, so another afternoon was spent with two Aussies in Freiburg eating cake, playing card games and setting off fireworks. I travelled back to Breisach at 10:30pm after seeing Jasper leave with a bang

Portugal

16/04/14

I wrote this down when I was in Portugal...

I looked in the mirror after a day at the beach and thought ‘shit’. It was stupid thinking that the sun wasn’t strong in Europe and there is no such thing as a bad sunburn ... my back could be mistaken for a tomato, I was that stupid.

It was my first time going to a beach here in Europe. I thought I was back in Australia when I looked around at the surroundings: there were a few eucalyptus trees but then I looked at the people and knew I wasn’t in Australia. To put this straight forward, some people in Australia want to reveal everything and they may as well, but they decide to cover up in the slightest way possible. Here, who cares? No one does, so wear what you like ... or should I say don’t wear anything. Everyone was happy at this little beach even though the water was freezing, well that is what I thought but apparently it was, ‘so warm’.

Too cold to go in the water. So I lay on the beach and people-watched (something I love to do in new places). There was one family who really fascinated me. I couldn’t quite work them out but that is what I liked about them: they weren’t like every other family sitting on the beach. There were three kids, a mum, a dad and a family of dogs consisting of a mum and her three little puppies. The family were travelling and had a nice old camper van with a big trailer which may have had a kitchen in it. They were the type of people who I would have liked to ask a few questions and ask about their travels but it was impossible to. They had set up for the day just next to the beach on a big sand hill. No one could disturb them unless they climbed up the hill. There they sat with their washing drying on a string attached to two things; the kids were playing in the sand and the dogs were running around playing with the kids. No iPads, phones,TVs, anything; it was just the family and nature. I can’t even imagine what a better way would be to spend time with the family and really get to know each other. The puppies were also growing up with the family right by their sides.

Portugal

Portugal. A place which I can’t quite work out even after spending a week there. It isn’t like Paris where you know exactly what you’re in for the minute you step into it. Not much is mentioned about Portugal only that is a ‘beautiful place’. Yes, that is true but what are the surroundings really like? It’s a place where you really have to see with your own eyes because the place changes when you get in the car and drive for 20 minutes. It goes from lots of life and houses which all look similar, narrow roads, poor people, heaps of restaurants and then to a little town where everything seems to be dead, one shop in sight with lots of shrubby bushes everywhere. The beautiful part of Portugal in my opinion would be the beaches and the views because everything seems untouched even though so many tourists have visited the place but there are still the old rocks and ruins in their same shape. 

It was good being able to understand everything again (don’t think that I speak Portuguese). If the locals know you're a tourist there is no question about it but English is spoken. Most of them can speak English very well because that’s how they make their money through tourists. I would say most of the tourists come from England and America; all the beaches are swarming with English accents and extremely white people who then turn to red.

There isn't much to say about Portugal itself but it’s a place that you must visit to be able to experience a different culture and to see places which you don’t get any of in other countries.

Time

Sitting in French lessons and not having any idea what is going on is always a good time to think. The thought that has come to me this French lesson is, time. I remember before i left I was doubting myself if I would 'survive' these five and a half months . The truth is that I guess I really am a home body and I don't like going out of my comfort zone. "It will be a great experience Lotta, you're going to love it", they all said. My answer was always, "five and a half months is way too long, I'm going to want to come back after two weeks."

   It is amazing how one can doubt themselves so much and then the outcome turns out to be the best thing. However, lets be honest here, I wasn't the only one who doubted myself. I knew there were people who were worried about me and if I would manage it all.  I will say that the first two weeks were hard. Trying to find friends at school and not being able to be yourself because of the language problem, on top of living with a different family and trying to get used to how they do things. Every family functions differently and you just have to accept their rules or there will be major problems.
    Confidence was also a problem: I have always been the shy type of person but I had to boost my confidence or I would disappear and be left with no one.   Once i got my head around how everything worked and the differences, things became pretty easy for me.
    The time is flying by, at first I was counting each day and then week but now I hardly even remember the months. I can only just manage to answer the question, "how many months do you have left here?". When you're in your comfort zone and nothing is different you don't really pay attention to time, it either goes really fast or incredibly slowly. But by the time you know it, it is a new year and nothing has changed.
   Homesickness is one of the main problems that people come across when on exchange or away from home for a long period of time. It happens but you just have to accept the fact that you're not going home and just have fun so you can forget about it. I try to keep myself busy each day by planning things ahead so I have something to look forward to.
   You learn to live without the people who used to be in your life everyday. It started off with speaking to a few people most days but then it became less and less. The people who don't make an effort are easy to forget about. It's sad but that's something that happens when you are both living two separate lives. It is weird to think that other peoples lives aren't changing and that is why it makes coming back hard. You leave your new formed life behind and have to go back to the same old, with the same people. Also leave all your new friends behind and go back to the losers you left back home (joking, you're not all losers).
   Something else that made it easier was knowing where I was going and knowing a lot of people before hand. I have had Jasper   (a boy out of my class in Australia who is on exchange in Freiburg for three months). Saying goodbye to him will be hard,I have formed a tight friendship with him because we can relate to one another and he was always there to have a chat to. However, I still have it pretty good because Marlene ( A girl who has been living with my family in Australia for three months and comes from Breisach) comes back just in time for when the others leave. Also Oliver (another one from my class in Australia) won't be too far and he will be flying home with me so the timing works out perfectly.

 Just some family shots for the sake
of it :) 

Attitude

It is safe to say that Gymnasiums and Steiner schools cannot be compared. Perhaps a Grammar school could be compared  to the school I am at now but not a Steiner school. They are too different and both have extremely different views on learning. However, peoples attitudes can be compared. After spending over 2 months at this new school I have started to get to know the people. The first few weeks I understood close to nothing so my days were spent looking around the classroom and observing.

The bell rang and everyone got to class on time (not anything to do with Germans being punctual ) it was because there was no time spent stuffing around. When someone is late, they are at the very most only four minutes late.  Five minutes isn't spent trying to find an excuse because that would disrupt the lesson. People are so focused on doing their best at school and always aim to get the highest mark possible. If they don't that's OK, they will just try harder next time.  There is none of this "oh who cares if I get a bad mark, i don't really care about this subject anyway" feeling. Everyone is involved in class discussions (apart from me most of the time of course) and they will express their knowledge even if it may be wrong. There is no being shy or you will get bad marks. I discovered this in English when i got my marks back and the teacher said I need to speak more in class and contribute more. This is a strange feeling...Do I not want to speak English? or am I just too shy? I thought it would look stupid if I put my hand up in English class and gave the answers or expressed my opinion on global warming or political cartoons. One way to change it all- I am just going to have to speak English.
The first sport lesson surprised me the most. Everyone participated even if they were like me and didn't have a clue about volleyball or should I say 'wollyball'. No one had the wrong shoes or clothing. They were there to give everything a go, learn, and have fun. perhaps they are like this because they don't know any different but you still don't have the girls who sit in the corner and talk (like we do at home), that would just be strange and people would get angry. It is all attitude and you can achieve everything if you have the right attitude, just like the people here.
Learning all these important things at a young age would have made a huge difference to the way learning is approached. Back home no one knows any better, most of us have been at Orana since kindergarten and haven't experienced something else.  It is normal to muck around in class and not respect the teachers or not do work and participate. All these are such small things but they are so hard to change if you don't know any better.

Edited by Jasper Lindell 

WHY ENGLISH IS HARD TO LEARN (not written by me by the why)

We'll begin with box, the plural is boxes,

But the plural of ox is oxen not oxes,

One fowl is a goose, and two are called geese, 

Yet the plural of moose is never called meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a house full of mice;

But the plural of house is houses not hice.

The plural of man is always men, 

But the plural of pan is never pen. 

If I speak of a foot, and you show me two feet, 

And I give you a book, would a pair be a beek? 

If one is a tooth and a whole set is teeth, 

Why shouldn't two booths be called beeth? 

If the singular's this and the plural is these, 

Should the plural of kiss be keese? 

we speak of a brother and also brethren, 

But though we say mother, we never say mothren. 

The masculine pronouns are he,his, and him;

But imagine the feminine...she,shis, and shim! 

WHY GERMAN IS HARD TO LEARN (for me anyway) 

We learnt how to sing nursery rhymes in German, We learnt how to do a skit of sitting in a train, we learnt how to make a plane ticket and many more unnecessary things.  I can briefly remember learning about the mistakes i now make. It would have been extremely helpful learning the difference between- Freund,Freundin, Freunde and Freundinnen. To avoid confusion I try not to mention the word friends, they probably think I have none. However it is better not saying anything than saying I have a girl friend or boy friend when I clearly don't. 

Nouns come equipped with genders, learning the genders would have been a great help. televisions are male but the news is female...its too confusing to even think why. There is also neutral but I'm certain it just adds to the confusion. 

It is easier said than done "Der is the definite article for male nouns, die for female ones and das for neutral." They all say its simple but it is clearly not, its one of the hardest things to learn but practice makes perfect. Oh hang on, it doesn't end there 'dem and den'...I have no idea what they are even doing. 

People say here that English is a lot easier to learn than German is so why do we not have German classes like the English classes they have here? Less singing and more learning I would say. 

Credits to Jasper Lindell for helping me out, check out his extremely good blog http://jasperlindell.blogspot.com/

I guess I can say that i was back in Australia yesterday, not physically but mentally. One of the Steiner schools in Freiburg had a circus show and I went with some family and friends. The sense of community all came back to me, the friendly people who are all individual, the ones who wear no shoes because they are a waste of money or the ones with dreadlocks down their backs.  The buildings surrounding me had no straight lines and were filled with colour and happiness,it was a good feeling. The circus show which i watched was amazing, all the kids showing the community their creativeness and skills and they were all so supportive of each other.
It seems to be a problem that the most used word in my vocabulary is 'ja' (meaning yes). Don't really know what i got myself into but tomorrow I am running in a marathon..I am not at my fittest state considering the amount of junk I have been eating while i have been here but i thought 'why not?'. No backing out now, I've got the school t-shirt and I am all set to represent the school. I am also filled with bruises because of my soccer game today. We lost 4-2 thanks to a black horse..or bus or bulldozer (whatever you want to call her, she fits every description) on the other team. You could hear her coming from a mile off and also smell her. I was the lucky one who had her marking me. When i got the ball i went around her but she tripped me over EVERYTIME from behind. Oh well..thats all involved with soccer.

Thought I should add some photos of the things I have been doing because I'm not going to write about everything i have already done. These are just the highlights from the trip (I'm making a powerpoint of  all the photos. I will post it when I get back to Australia)

This guy thought he was the coolest. Going skiing in lederhosen..

I'm still looking at this photo and thinking 'Did I really take that?' 

A visit to an art museum in Basel.. very inspiring and interesting 

A Day In the Life of Lotta

The alarm is set for 6:11am because 6:15 is just that little bit late. Some days such as Monday morning it’s better to keep sleeping but other days I know i have to get up. I always feel very popular in the morning thanks to the time differences, lots of notifications are waiting so I do my morning routine and read this really interesting newspaper called Facebook.  No problem choosing what clothes to wear in the morning as i have a limited choice which may be a good thing. Breakfast consists of a small bowl of muesli and some strawberries just to add some taste.  I need extra time to make my bread for school because the butter is so hard, the bread is ruined by the time I’m finished and the butter is still in big blocks on the ripped bread. Butter is so important to Germans but it is impossible to use.. I don't really understand.

After going to a Steiner school for over 9 years I have to say it’s a bit strange going to a 'Gymnasium' which is a secondary school with a strong emphasis on academic learning. I like to say it is a school filled with smart arses because it basically is. They are all extremely intelligent and know everything; I don't think they understand that what they are doing is so much different to what I have ever done. I'm not really sure what they think of me when I try and do the work, I mean I can't even copy things off the board because the teachers hand-writing is messy. Thankfully my class is really nice and helpful and I always have someone there to help me out.  Back in Australia very few people can write a sentence in German; I don't blame them because we were never pushed hard enough to learn the language. Rudolf Steiner has made it hard on us, yes the way of learning is possible but not in the time we have. The very first English lesson I had I nearly fell over when the teacher said 'analyse this political cartoon and tell the class your thoughts'. No one said it was too hard they all did it with very few mistakes. No one gets away with not doing anything at this school and there is no such thing as slacking off and not doing the work. They get pushed and pushed, the kids who fall behind a little bit go to someone outside of school to get help because they can't continue getting bad marks. So everything is different to what I am used to but I quite like observing the differences and maybe when I go back to Australia it may be similar at my new school.

My afternoon activities include...eating and soccer. I have soccer two times a week and a game on the weekend. I really enjoy playing with the team I am on. I've played 4 games and I've scored 5 goals so hopefully I can keep it that way. 

Introduction

I was never going to start a blog but i thought 'why not'? It's a once in a life time experience and people can see what i'm up to without looking at my photos on facebook and getting a rough idea.

I am now 2 months into my 5 and a half months here in Germany.  I'm finding it hard to remember the first few weeks and the days are just flying by. I really should have started this blog at the beginning of my stay because now its going to be hard to find a place to start from. A nice introduction would be:

Life in Germany 

I am not in Australia anymore, I can not walk around with no watch or even have my mobile a few minutes late and then forget that it is not the real time. Buying a watch was the best idea that has come to me in a while. Peoples lives revolve around getting to places on time and leaving everything until the very last minute. Being 'too early' or 'too late' does not exist. People speed walk everywhere, checking their watch every 7 seconds because they have left it until the last minute to get on the train. I would not like to see a typical German trying to catch a bus in Canberra. Firstly you have to leave 15 minutes before departure time because the bus may be 15 minutes early or 15 minutes late. Secondly, It takes 1 hour to get to a place which is 15km away. I can't see this life working for a German, they lose it when the trains are 2 minutes late. 

Yes Germany is on the other side of the world but its not that different after all. Facebook is still called Facebook, I have internet here, I have phone reception, the toilets are the same, I have friends. All these questions were asked before i left. However, Germans also have dumb questions about Australia. There is one girl in particular:

Her: Can you speak English? 

Me: of course I can, I am from Australia. 

Her: But don't you speak Australian there? 

I hope this trip will be a learning experience not only for me but for people in Australia and Germany too.