Hüften schwingen in Uelzen und deutsche Mode

Another week done! Tomorrow will be exactly one month after I left all that was normal and started my ambitious journey. Last weekend I attended AFS's late orientation in Ülzen, a town of similar size, but far less charm than Celle about an hour away. Other people in my position from all over the world and I participated in monotonous, but mandatory workshops including "When to say 'No!'", a personal favorite of mine in a lovely youth hostel. Yes, lovely is a good word to describe it. Fortunately, some of the more boring activities were paired with quite a bit of fun. My personal favorite activity was being downtown Ülzen with a series of peculiar tasks we had to complete. These tasks were everything from taking a picture with someone in a red coat, to trading an apple we had for "something better". The AFS volunteers were great and my fellow exchange students were even better. Being the politics junkie I am, I took this opportunity to talk to Ignacio from Venezuela about the upcoming election, with Victor from Colombia about the peace talks between his government and the FARC, and with Seda from Turkey about the recent violence betweens the Turks and the Kurds. Ok, I know some of you probably think that's boring, but to me it was a highlight. On a more interesting note, I was taught how to move my hips to Latin American hits last weekend as well. How often do you get to have a spontaneous dance party with a bunch of Latinos in Germany? I've never heard so much Spanish music in my life! Overall, I enjoyed the opportunity to be able to speak English for a couple of days, meet some neat people, and share stories from our adjustment period to Germany.

Now it's time for something completely different. No, it's not Monty Python, but the section you've all been looking forward to about the clothing here in Germany. If I had to describe how people dress here with two adverbs, they would be nicely and femininely. Nicely is easy to explain because people wear nicer clothes everyday to school than we do in America. I say femininely in the nicest way possible. I even would argue that because they dress more "femininely" they look nicer. Tight shirts, scarves, excessive cardigans, and a lot of hair gel would be looked at strangely if they were spotted in America, but now I am wondering why that is? I'm not planning on changing my fashion too much, but perhaps I will be in the market for a scarf sooner or later. In addition to a scarf, I need to buy new pants as well. In the short month I have been in Germany, I have lost six kilograms. I was 104.5kg. (230lbs.) when I left, now I am 98.5kg. (217lbs.). My pants are literally falling off of me. I have even had to make new holes in my belt! Back to German fashion now. The popular companies that I have noticed are Hollister, We Are the Superlative Conspiracy (WESC), and Jack & Jones. All three of these companies most people think are American, when in reality only one is. Hollister, which is in fact an American company, is moderately popular back in Vermont, but not anywhere near as popular as it is here. Hollister is THE thing to be seen in here in Germany. WESC and Jack & Jones both sound pretty American and the clothes look like they are from the USA, but that is not the case. WESC, a company from Sweden, and Jack & Jones, from Denmark, are capitalizing on the demand for American stuff by selling American-like clothes for ridiculously high prices that the consumers don't know aren't American at all. I find it quite funny when I tell someone that we don't have any Jack & Jones in America and I had never heard of it before I arrived in Celle.

Hope you all enjoyed my post. Here it is only 20:00, 8:00pm for those of you who are scratching your head in confusion because you think the hours only go to twelve, and I am already tired. Constantly thinking in German makes me so tired. My brain is getting an intense workout 24/7. Anyone, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, (Austrian, not German), would be impressed by my brain workout routine. Ich bin immer müde! Well, good thing it's the weekend.

Please reread my "Was? Warum?" post if you haven't already. I will continue to add things to my list as I think of them.