Sunburnt Suburbia

Susan the German scholar

Earlier tonight I took Susan to the airport. She flew off to Düsseldorf for 3 weeks on a Federal Government scholarship. She will spend 5 mornings each week at a German language school affiliated with the University of Dusseldorf, and each afternoon and each Saturday on a cultural activity organised under the scholarship. 

She won the scholarship when teaching at Old Orchard Primary last year, and became part of a Government initiative to improve the standard of language teachers in Australian schools. Susan will not be on holiday, which is why I decided not to go too. This will be longest time apart since 2007, when Susan went to Europe to pick up the children from their German exchange. 

To and from Germany

A Wednesday evening a few weeks ago Marlen came for dinner. We got to know Marlen when Johanna came to stay in 2008. Marlen and Johanna became friends at Mt Waverley Secondary School. Then in December last year we had dinner in Munich with her family. Now she has finished her secondary school years, and before heading of to University she returned to Australia for a holiday. 

We liked that she wanted to come have dinner with us, so we had a family dinner with Marlen. Then Bryony teased me about making a blog entry of the event. So a I took a photo and finally got to writing an entry.  

Hello from Bryony

Hello Everyone, sorry I haven't been keeping in contact as much as Callum! I've been really busy!
School here is a real challenge; It's not like being a new student. It's often very hard to keep up with what the other students are saying, and of course, it's difficult to make friends. Groß-Zimmern is about an hour bus ride from Darmstadt, and the buses don't run very late back, so if I wanted to go out in the evening, Christiane (My host mother) would have to drive out to pick me up. But that's okay, coz most days I feel like relaxing in the evenings; thinking in another language tires you out really quickly.
Every school day, we wake up at about six in the morning if we have a lesson first period. Of course, I don't have to do French or History (because History is in French), so that means I have more free periods a week than Pia or Johanna (Pia is my younger host sister, and Johanna is my host sister, she's the one who'll be staying with us in Australia). For the first month, while the other Australians were here, I was in
Johanna's class, but now that the Study Tour is over, and the Exchange begins, I have to move down into a class where I am more capable of doing the work (Johanna is in Year 11). I found that a little annoying, as I had already made some friends in Johanna's class, and now I had to start again. Christiane agrees, and says it would have been better for me to start off in the class I'll be working in during the longer time period. So I got moved down into a Year 9 class, where the students are 14, so about my age. Coincidentally, I'm now in Pia's class. It's a bit harder to communicate in this class, as the students haven't been learning English so long (Of course, I speak German whenever I want to say something, but if I don't know a word, like highlighter or something, I have to say it in english, then of course, they don't understand.) But I had lots of fun in the English class yesterday, the teacher was away, so the students had some worksheets to do on word order. I didn't do the work for them, just told them if they'd got it right or wrong. It was interesting seeing people struggling to speak a language I know so well. It must be exactly how they feel about my German (which, even if I do say so myself, has improved).
All in all, I'm still having lots of fun, even though it's more day-to-day things we do now, less tourist-y things.
Next weekend (Fri 2nd - Sunday 4th) we're travelling to Cologne (Köln) to visit Gregor's parents. I'm really looking forward to it. I am going to buy more postcards (I have 20 so far. Though I have started writing
and sending them. I want the people who get postcards to keep them for me, so I can steal them when I return and stick them in a scrapbook of the Exchange I'm planning to make.)
Well that's pretty much all for now,
I'll update you again soon!
Bryony

Hello from Bryony

Hello everyone! Here's all you want to know about Greece!
Frankfurt airport is HUGE! Seriously, the board showing the plane names and their destinations was massive! About three times the size of the one in Melbourne airport! I only recognised about one quarter of the city names, and they were all the obvious ones like London, Paris, Dublin, Oslo, Tokyo ect ect.
The flight was really nice and relaxing, and they gave us chocolate for dessert! It was Johanna, Pia and Carolin's first flight! There were no mini Tv's, coz it was a short flight.
We're staying in the Peloponissos (pronounced Pello-po-knees) which is the southern part of Greece, shaped like a big hand with only three fingers. The two holiday houses are in two different towns, one on the thumb, Korfos, and one on the pointer finger, Monemvasia.
The road down the hill to Korfos was really windy, and made of dirt. It was scary driving down it at 4 o'clock in the morning! It kind of reminded me of the Great Ocean Road, except there was no barrier between the road and the cliff-face! It actually took me a while to realise it was water to the right of us, not just wilderness hidden in darkness!
The landscape of Greece is very rugged, like Outback Australia, the stones are red, yellow, white or sometimes grey. The dust is red, too. It made me feel very homesick:
'I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains...'.
OR
'No matter how far,
Nor how wide,
I roam,
I'll still call Australia HOME!'
We went swimming in Korfos EVERY DAY. It was nice and warm (The Beckmanns called it hot, but being an Aussie, I knew better. Perhaps Greek summers are as hot as Aussie ones? It's almost winter here.).
Unfortunately, there are all these horrible black, round, spiky sea-plants thingies called 'Sea Egels' or something of the like. I got stabbed by them a couple of times, it's lucky I'm not allergic.
The first time was kind of ironic. I fell over and got stabbed in the hand, but I wasn't wearing protective footwear at the time (The Beckmanns all wear those shoes that are made for sailing and the like. Waterproof shoes made out of wetsuit material). I got some afterwards (this was only the first day). It only stung for a few minutes. It feels wierd swimming in shoes. I can't kick properly.
The beaches are all pebble beaches, but nevermind. And there's no waves what-so-ever. We found our own private spot though, where there were no pebbles. Just flat rocks that didn't move around, and grass and a bench.
There have been jellyfish too, nice big ones. Pia and Johanna are terrified of them.

Greece is swarming with wildcats, they're everywhere! In Korfos we had 5 that visited us, especially aorund mealtimes. They were pretty shy though, and didn't like being patted. We called them Momo, Sheila (Gregor wanted an Australian name, and it was all I could come up with), Jill, Mona and Mowgli.
There are loads of goats too, that wander around with bells on their necks. I got a nice video of a herd charging past the car, close enough to touch, which I would have done, had they not been dirty, and had I not been videoing them.
There's a rooster that crows, too.

On Tuesday, we went to Epidauros, an Ancient Greek city, with a theatre! Some guys were singing at the bottom (for fun), and we could hear them really well, even though we were on the 50th row, only 6 from the very top!

On Thursday, we visited Mycenae, another Ancient Greek city, this one on a hill. It was very interesting, all built of white-greyish-yellow stone.The museum was particulary interesting, with all it's artefacts, and explanations of the area of the city, and it's history. I took quite a few photos (though most of them aren't very good).
It was very inspiring.

On Friday we drove from Korfos to our new holiday home in Monemvasia. It's very beautiful, like the 'Pink Hotel' in Lorne. Four apartments and a pool. Unfortunately, the pool doesn't connect onto the sea, like I thought it did. The angle of the photo I saw before I left was very misleading, but it's a lovely pool anyway, just the right size for Marco Polo.

There are cats here too, a special minature type, they look like kittens but are fully grown.
They're called Shirley, Jinx, Toni, Jackie and Isobel. They are all brave enough to be patted, picked up and cuddled, expect Isolbel. Carolin particularly loves them. They love being near us so much, in fact, that they sit right by the door, and climb up the flyscreen! We think it's hilarious, but Christiane thinks they're trying to see what we've got on the table to eat!
Unfortunately, milk is expensive here.

On Monday we went into Monemvasia, the origins of the modern city. It's situated on a island just a little out of the bay, but there's a bridge for pedestrians. The Island is pretty much this huge rock, and the city is built into the side of it. The wall is right on the edge of the cliff, with pointy rocks below, so we stood a while and watched the spray go shooting all over the place. The streets are narrow and cobbled, and practically all of the orignal houses are still there, even the one along the main road are now shops for tourists like me. Very Expensive). It's very beautiful and romantic.

On Wednsday we went to Monemvasia again, this time to climb to the top fo the rock. It was really stunning, and nice and warm. You could see shining blue sea for miles and miles around. The cobbles on the staircase were worn shiny and smooth by the milleneas of passing feet.
Apparantly, last summer it was 42°C here, and no rain for 5 months, so everything was dry and dead.
It made me miss Australian summer, so I'm glad I'm not misisng out on hardly any of it!

In Greece, along the side of the road, there are little minature churches on coloums. They look kinda like letterboxes! They have four windows, and churchy-stuff inside, like pictures of Jesus and Mary, goblets, candles and flowers.
We must have passed 100 or so while we've been driving.
I think they're really nice, a quiet place to pray if you're travelling, or maybe memorials of some kind. Hopefully not road accidents, because that would be sad.
We haven't stopped off to pray, even though the Beckmanns are Catholic. When we eat together we say Grace, except it's always the same Grace and they do the 'In the same of the Father, Son, and Holy-Spirit' thing with their hands. They all know it off by heart, and say it in unison. It's in German, and pretty quick, so I just do the hand thing, and then clasp my hands together while they say the words.

On Thursday, the Beckmanns went out for a second swim in the sea, but I didn't really feel like it, It was nice to have some time to myself. I went for a short walk and something interesting happened:
As I was walking home, I spotted something small and rock-esque moving across the road.
Enter stage left: Toby the tortoise. He was tiny, small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. He pulled his head and leggle-lets in as I approached. On impulse, I picked him up and carried him home (while worrying that I had abducted someone's beloved, if snail-pace-crawl-away, pet. Luckily, it turned out he was a fine baby specimen of a rare endangered Greek tortoise.) I made a minature enclosure for him on the outside table, with a big rock, three small rocks, two types of grass, flowers, one pasta bowl filled with water (He had his head and leggle-lets inside his shell while I was carrying him, so I mistook him for a turtle and tried to get him to swim. He didn't much like it, and scrabbled around, trying to climb out. In my defence, his back leggle-lets did look kinda like flippers. Maybe he was in an accident.) and one soup/cereal bowl turned upside-down. He spent most of the time sheltered under the cereal bowl, and no wonder, with two of the cats nosing around. Later, after dinner, we freed him into the wild, in the same place I found him, except on the side of the road, not in it. I filmed him lumbering off into the grass.

On Thursday night, after two hours of sleep, we left the house between 11:30 and 12-ish, to drive to Athens and catch our planes. The Beckmanns and I were flying on different planes, so I had a 5-6 hour wait by my gate. It's a pity I'd already read all my books (The massive library has books in English too, for people doing it in Uni, mostly. Some other nice ones too, like Meg Cabot and 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time'. There's a lot of Ernest Hemingways and I've discovered the joy of Agatha Christie).
The Beckmann's plane took a detour to Zurich, so they arrived at the same time.

I've dicovered I love several new foods: Pistasios, Fruit tea with Apple Juice and (not really new) Frischkäse, which is like Philly cheese.

Anyway, that's all I have time for now.
Hope you enjoyed my long-awaited update.
Missing you all very very much!
Bryony

Hello from Callum: Sechs

Hello All
So Robin's farther Rainer drove Robin, Lucas and I to Munich.
First place we visited was the soccer stadium. It resembles a large white tire made of bubble wrap.
We walked around in it while Rainer pointed out the famous soccer players. Then we went into town and saw the town hall which had a glockenspiel that little figures came out and playing a tune at 12:00.
We walked around the streets and markets for a bit. As we passed the oldest beer brewery in Munich, we saw the beer wagon. Pulled by a team of 6 horses covered in decorations and bells, the beer wagon traditionally took the kegs of beer to Octoberfest. Then we took the subway to catch a glimpse of Octoberfest that we would be visiting the next day.
We stayed with Rainer's brother and his wife and child. Then in the morning we went to Octoberfest. Imagine The Royal Melbourne Show except more beer, no animal competitions, more gingerbread, no showbags and most people wear traditional clothes which is lederhosen for men and low cut dresses for women.
Lucas, me and Maximilion (Robin's cousin) rode the biggest rollercoaster there then we spent the time in one of the eating halls. An interesting experience. The hall was filled with bench seats at narrow tables. In the aisles the pretzel sellers, souvenir sellers and waiters carrying trays of food walked around people trying to find seats.
There was an orchestra on a platform that played traditional German songs that if you knew the words you would stand on your seat, clap, wave your beer and sing along. We ate half a chicken each and had a few sips of beer.
The next day we left Rainer's brother's house and drove to Kochel am See, a country town by a large lake under a ridge of mountains.
We stayed at Jodlhof a bed and breakfast in a building that is a farm house barn cross that resembles a cookooclock except without the clock or the cookoo. Jodlhof was in a place just outside Kochel called 'ort' which means ‘place’ in german so highly amusing for Robin and Lucas and me once I remembered what ort is.
While we stayed at Jodlhof we went for a couple of walks. One in a narrow gorge that had a tunneled path cut into the side and white rapid water below.
Second day we climbed up to the peak of one of the mountains and saw the view over Kochel and the higher larger lake and went to the swimming pool in Kochel which was only just heated but had fun waterslides and a diving board.
Thursday we drove to Lindahof a tiny palace with extensive grounds. It was built to copy the palace of Versailles. Then because the Gps navigator plotted a silly U shaped route we took a beautiful short cut through Austria to Neuschwanstein castle. It was a 10 min walk up the steep road. All pictures you see of Neuswanstein have been cleverly taken from the top of a neighbouring mountain.
Interesting fact i found about Neuschwanstein is that it is not completed. The king died so construction stopped so the chapel or the imposing keep was never built.
We were given a tour by a man who spoke a swiss dialect of german. The beauty of learning high german and then taking a holiday in a region that speaks dialects of it. Inside There was a magnificent view over the plains, painted walls of myths, heros and saints. Through a hidden door in the kings bedroom there was a section of cave with stalactites and then finely furnished rooms again.
Then we drove to Stuttgart to visit Robin's other grandparents. Stuttgart is a city where Mercedes Benz, Porshe and Chrysler have headquaters there so you don't have to walk far to find how one is trying to get more attention than the other. For example Porshe parked one of their sportscars outside the shopping centre to win. Chrysler flanked it with a couple of theirs then down the road Mercedes stuck their badge ontop of the main train station tower to rotate shiningly for all to see.
That night we watched 'what women want' possibly one of the best films to put voice overs over since most of the dialogue is what women think.
Slept, got up today, ate, packed and drove back to Darmstadt. Played Halo and wrote a long email.
Callum

Hello from Callum: Fünf

hello all
Wednesday I went to french class instead of Latin I understood nothing because they were doing a test. Later there was the official school goodbye evening. Good food and quite a few speeches but not the best of evenings. Being loud patriotic Australians we sang Waltzing Matilda and The National Anthem. I think I was the only one who knew the verses to waltzing matilda.
Thursday morning in the meeting there was no need for lights, the flashes of cameras were enough. It was time to take loads of group photos. Later Matt, Ally, Alex, Glen, Gemma, Emma, Emily, me and their German hosts went to an Irish pub for a better goodbye party. The place included a Kareokee so All the Aussies sang ´Down under´ (I would attach the video but it is too big) but apart from that we were determining the difference between the chips and the wedges, yelling at the Dj for pronouncing Aussies as 'Owwsees' and Gemma as 'Gem ma'.
Friday the rest of the australians went home, school went as usual and later I watched ´house of flying daggers´in german which was interesting because those films have complicated enough plots.
Saturday we went to Heidelburg. The carpark was so packed we had to cheat and park in the Women's carpark which bemused me for the rest of the day.
The reason why it was so because there was a large second hand market in town as well as an entertainment festival. We watched a magician place three dice in three cups then take them out. I didn't understand what the trick was meant to prove but we could hear the plastic dice hitting the bottom of the metal cup in his left hand while he took another dice out of another cup with his right.
Sunday the parents of my hostfather visited after their holiday in Rome. We went to see Lucus play handball and he won 16\10. Then we drove to Oldenwald, had lunch at a resteraunt and went for a walk thorough the woods that were marked with giant round stones.
The legend is that there was a giant who lived on that hill and another lived on the hill opposite and they disliked each other so they threw the giant stones towards the other hill. The ones that didn't make it formed this massive tumbling channel of stones. Naturally being a nice sunny sunday there were plenty of children navigating their way down towards the bridge while those who didn't rock climb took the track down. Then what goes down must come up so we climbed back up the rocks which was easier that climbing down.
Tuesday we went to the horseriding club for the evening and talked around a table in the cafe there.
Wednesday was Freiertag, a public holiday celebrating the reunification of germany. I spent the day finishing my Romeo and Juliet Essay and working on my Book report for english in Australia.
Today, Thursday I need to go buy some new trousers because apparently people who wear trackies or jogging trousers are thought to be eastern europeans which happens to be most of my wardrobe. The reason why this is a problem is because next week in the holidays we are going to munich and octoberfest and when you do that maths:
beer +underlying racism +person who can't speak german that well = me buying new trousers.
Callum

Hello from Callum: Vier

Hallo all
Last week was pretty busy and this one the rest of the aussies are returning home so not as many outings and long emails.
Tuesday 18th September we went for a cruise down the Rhein. The ship was pleasant with a upper deck for walking about and a lower deck for eating. We saw many castles and quaint riverside towns however I missed the famous white castle in the middle of the river. After the 3 hour cruise we stopped in a town called St Goar and had lunch half going to one italian restaurant the other groups going to another. The second restaurant had a waitress who disliked them, refusing to give them a candle and telling them off for eating the pizza with their hands when she went to get cutlery.
After that we walked up to the castle and had a look around. The German teacher giving us a guided tour. When we were on the highest tower with great views of the Rhein, (on a good day), it started raining and we returned to the town, the train and home.
I returned and had a tennis rematch against the wall, it won again.
Wednesday It was Phil's birthday so we ate cake as you do in germany. In German class i had to read out the text which was difficult considering all the long german words. After school I had tennis training and it was difficult to understand the coach but once i know his rotuine I will be alright.
Friday we went to Mainz the home of Johann Gutenburg the man who invented the movable printing press and mass produced the bible. First half of the day we went on a tour with a not very knowledgeable uni student. Later we made prints with the gutenburg machines, I made a few such as a rose, 3 cats, a pigeon and a horse with a thank you message to my host family.
Saturday and Sunday There was the 80 year anniversary riding competitions at the Horse riding club which my host family are members so we were there for both days helping out. It was pretty boring for me since i don't know horses and there were less jobs than helpers so i couldn't just do something. There were highlights though. There was a dance rotuine comp where a pair of riders dress up and perform to music. The winning pair did Michael Jackson one was the young him the other was him now. I have now seen a horse moonwalk. After that was the jumping comp which both Robin and Larissa participated in.
The highlight of the second day was the end when there was a feast with all the remaining food. Good food was joined by interesting events when a 5 legged locust found it's way to my plate that was then content on crawling over people for a good 15 mins.
Monday we went to Straßburg a town in the french provence of Alsace, a region that has been german then french and back for a number of times in history as a result the town has both french and german architecture.
The formal language was french and most people spoke a dialect of german. So all those students who were not speaking german with their host families found it challenging because only the tourists spoke english.
One group who were English who claimed that the Aussie Cricket team sucked. The one person who stayed to chat and say this was sent on his way with crys of `Ashes Mate!`and `5 to 0`.
Apart from talking to the other tourists our group climbed the 66m to the veiwing platform of the cathedral which was fine once you got there but the tight spiral staircase with the large open windows down was a bit daunting.
After completing the equally or more daunting journey down stairs we went on a cruise through the channels which was interesting because 5 mins before the cruise started there was the unbroken stream of different languages telling those who understand which channel to turn their headset to understand the rest of the cruise. The highlight would have to be seeing the river defence systems first hand.
Once we were back on land we were told we had 2 hours free time and in that time we were meant to complete a worksheet. Which no one completed fully. I had the brilliant idea of just going to the tourist info centre and getting the answers from them. After waiting a while and giving up on the slow service, I got the answers from a nice woman at the nearest bakery.

We returned by train again annoying other passengers by being loud and I beat Lucus at chess.

Today in the meeting we had a big discussion about our experiences here in germany, It mostly comprised of someone stating something they noticed about german life and a number of people agree.
This afternoon I versed Robin's friends Patrick and Conrad at tennis. Patrick is a natural but has only been playing for 6 weeks and Conrad hits the ball too hard so I beat them each 6,0 in singles.
That's basically my life's story from tuesday 18th to tuesday 25th for the full version it costs $39.99.
Callum

Bryony's Exchange News

Callum has posted lots of news and so now everyone is keen to hear about Bryony. She is well and very happy and busy. She is enjoying having 3 sisters and Christiane tells me that she is dilligently trying to speak German, although it would be easy to speak English since the Beckmann family speak English.
We talk lots on skype and Bryony has sent emails with news in amongst practical questions etc. so with a bit of cut and paste here is some news from Bryony.
Wednesday 19th: I had my first Spanish lesson today and was a bit frustrated because it was really difficult. Learning another language through a language that isn't your own is VERY VERY HARD. I was thinking it’d be easier if I had a Spanish to English dictionary, or even a Spanish to German dictionary, seeing as I have a German to English one.
Friday 21st: Today in Mainz (I think that's what the town was called.) It's on the Rhine, have we been there before? We actually went to Burg Rheinfels, so we told the others we had been there before, even though I didn't believe we had at first, until Callum proved it to me. It looked different in the rain.) We went to the place Gutenburg lived, and got to do this fun printing-press workshop with yellow, blue and red ink on rollers (they didn't mix well, so that was pretty much all the colours we had to choose from) and I made gifts for Amy, Linda, Emma and Hannah. Our finished artworks are getting sent back to Mount Waverley, which is kinda sad, because I made one for Carolin too.
Tomorrow, Saturday, I'm seeing Johanna perform in a gymnastics competition.
On Monday I am going on an excursion to Straßburg.
On Tuesday I'm going horseriding with Pia and Carolin
The other day, we saw pictures of the houses we'll be staying in in Greece! THEY'RE SO BEAUTIFUL! The one we're staying in in the second week has a swimming pool that joins onto the sea! The other one is only about 5m from a small beach, and 300m from a big one! They're such big houses, which can house 6 or 7 people!

Hello from Callum: Drei

Hello all
Time flys quicker than I can email. On Wednesday we went to Würzburg with the german host students. Würzburg is a large town on the Rhein, i think. It came into being because it had the only bridge for kilometres. The Prince bishop lives in Würzburg. He is the german equivelent of the archbishop of Canterbury. We went to his massive mansion with it's famous stairs and ceiling painting. Then we went to the Cathedral which was half roman and half gothic. After that we were allowed free time to do what we wanted in the town. So Robin and I went down to the Rhein to eat lunch then i bought an ice cream and we walked around for a while. Then we went to the Castle. Before the mansion was built the prince bishop lived there. Everyone complained about the climb up all the stairs to the castle but the view was great and we were entertained by Alex, Matt, Glen and Farbien racing down the hill.
Friday we had to get up at 5 to catch a train into Frankfurt to catch a fast train to Berlin. The trip was comfortable enough in the fast train although i think my salt intake per hour was to high due to all the pretzels i ate. The german school principal was our tour guide for the weekend because he knows it well. We went to Potzdamer platz a newly built area that used to be no man's land. We followed where the wall was and found some remaining pieces. We went to a outside museum called the topography of terror which was the uncovered excavations of the gestapo headquarters, we went to checkpoint charlie and the destroyed church. We stayed the night at a youth hostel and ate at a local italian resteraunt. I had a very nice Salmone Alla Mediterana.
Saturday we went to Potzdam. A historical town where the prussian kings had their summer residence. We saw two Palaces a large one story one called sans sacci but before that one that was built after to show off how wealthy the king was. The thing is, it was built after I think the 7 years war. He was broke but still wanted to show off how wealthy he was so he painted on brick patterns on the outside walls when it is really made of concrete. Then we passed through the estate church, Orangery and chinese tea house. I think the whole park is something like 4-5 km wide. In the Potzdam town there was a smaller brandenburger tor.
Sunday we walked to the reichstag, the german parliment building and went up to the glass dome to get pretty good views of the city. Security was tight so it took a long time to get in and out. Then we went to the real brandenburger tor and a memorial to the Jews whose families were broken up. The design of the memorial was a couple of hundered rectanglar concrete blocks of varying height in straight rows. The effect is a strange quiet alone maze. Next to the brandenburger tor was a group of street performers who break danced and skate boarded. A welcome entertainment to those who don't like looking at old buildings. We then walked through the streets visiting several historical sites. The last of which was where the Nazi's burnt all the books and intellectual documents. There was a sign with a quote from a hundred years earlier than the war by a famous german philosopher which goes along the lines of: ‘It is only the beginning to burn books, soon you then must burn men.’ Then we went to the train station picked up our things and caught the fast train home. Got to back around 11pm. Got to sleep the night before around 1 and 11 again on friday so today i fell asleep in latin.
Callum

B.R. in Berlin.

Callum snapped this shot of Bryony in Berlin.