Today, for the first time in quite a while, I attended a normal day of school in Celle. No, I haven't been skipping school, but due to a series of events, I've been underway and away from school. The first week of this period was spent skiing in Austria. I wrote a blog post about that adventure already. The week after comprised of two normal days of school followed by a three day mini vacation from school to mark the halfway point of the school year and for parent-teacher conferences. I used those five days to rest up for my next out-of-school journey.
For the two weeks that followed, my classmates all did internships in local companies that interested them and that worked in an area that was a potential career option. These internships are a great chance to find out if you really enjoy the work a certain company does, or on the flip-side, realize that the job you thought you would like is extremely boring. One person in my class went to work for VW in Wolfsburg, one spent her two weeks in the big hospital in Hannover, one worked at a delicious local restaurant, and the others spread themselves out in other public and private jobs around Celle. However, I didn't have an internship for these two weeks due to my lack of complete German proficiency and the fact that I found out about the internships after most people had already secured their spots.
After much thinking of what I should do during those two free weeks, I came up with the idea to take a German course to help my German skills get even better than they are now. I looked around for local courses, but unfortunately to no avail. Then I had the idea to go someplace new, a larger city, where there are many German courses to choose from. I decided to combine my desire to learn and travel during the period of two weeks I had. The city I chose was Hamburg. I found a highly-rated German school in the heart of the city, registered myself as a student there, took a test to determine my level, and finally booked my train tickets.
My course ran everyday from 8:50 to 13:00 and was taught by two experienced teachers. The school was actually much bigger than I thought. The school consisted of four or five buildings, had at least forty classrooms, and offered classes in many other languages than just German. Over the course of the two weeks with my class of twelve, we learned the rules of word order in depth, reflexive verbs, conditional verb forms, and other things in addition to getting many opportunities to practice our German with a teacher who'd correct every little thing that we said incorrectly. My experience was definitely worth the tuition.
The added benefit of taking my German course in Hamburg was that after my class was finished, I had the opportunity to explore the city every afternoon. I would be amazed to know how far I walked during those ten days I spent walking through what seemed like was every road in the city. I saw everything anyone would ever want to see in Hamburg. The highlights I saw include the numerous churches, the downtown shopping area, the notorious nightlife district, the warehouses by the water, and my personal favorite, the largest and most detailed model train display in the world. I took over four hours admiring the realistic landscapes and the advanced automation technology at the model train exhibit called Miniature Wonderland. I recommend that place to anyone, young or old.
Now I'm back home and back into the swing of things. I have four weeks of normal school and sport now, then we have yet another vacation in which I'll be visiting Tunisia with my host family. I love the German school schedule. They might have a shorter summer break, but many more days off throughout the course of the year. Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, I've lost over forty pounds in five months. I'll hopefully write another blog post soon.
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