The trip to Germany, however, was well worth it. My host family, Familie Koetz, was amazing! They accepted my as
a member of their family, and I hada blast with them. After the bus stopped at theGaussschule (see the picture on the top-left), where Fabian (my host brother) and Jana (his sister) go to school, I met up with my host-brother Fabian, host-sister Jana, host-mother Petra, and host-dog Lu. They drove me to their house in Leiferde, a small town on the outskirts of Braunschweig.
After dinner of Lasagna and Mineralwasser, I watched The Simpsons in German with Fabian. Then his father came back from work in the Pharmacy which he owns. Then Fabian and I played Portal 2 on his xbox. I had to wake up at 6 am the next morning (Friday) to get ready for school, a task which the jet lag did not help. After a breakfast of Nutella and toast, something I would have every morning, Fabian's mom drove us to the Strassenbahn (street train) which we took into the city. On the first day of school, we started with our special German class taught by Herr Livingston, a German teacher from California and our American Chaperon, and Herr Schubert, a English teacher in Braunschweig.
After our German class, Herr Schubert led us on a tour of Braunschweig. The city is filled with dozens of beautiful buildings (see pictures on the bottom right). Afterwords, I went to the Oker Cabana, a man-made beach where people can hang out. On the weekend, I explored the city some more with Fabian and some of his friends. I saw some great buildings, had some great Eis (Ice Cream), and had my first Doenner (a Turkish dish similar to but far better than a Gyro). I also went to a ballroom dancing class, which is very popular in Germany, where they danced to different music ranging from classical to hip-hop to Lady Gaga. On Monday, I went with Fabian to his classes for the first half of the day and then went to our German class for the second half. After school all of us went to the Schloss, a mall in Brauschweig, to get some Eis and hang out. On Tuesday after going to school, we walked over to the Burgplatzmuseum, a museum filled with history from Braunschweig dating from as far back as 9th century all the way to the present. The museum was really cool and interesting. On Wednesday morning at school, we witnessed the AbiKlasse (senior class) have their AbiStreich, a sort of Senior Prank where the seniors lock up the school on an unknown date and have a carnival outside. After watching it for a while, we got on abus and left for the close by city of Wolfsburg also known as the Autostadt or Car City. Volkswagen has one of their biggest plants and their headquarter there. While there, we saw a museum showing hundreds of cars throughout history and some of the other cars VW makes for companies such as Audi, Lamborghini, and Bugatti. I also saw the Bugatti Veyron (see the last picture), the fastest street-legal car in the world. It was a great end to my first week in Germany.
An old Rathaus (City Hall) dating back to the Middle Ages in one of the town squares.
Some examples of tradition German Fachwerkhaeuser (Wood-frame houses)
The Schloss, an old palace complete destroyed in WWII which was rebuilt in the past few years and has a shopping mall and library inside.
The Bugatti Veyron, the fastest street-legal car in the world.
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