Rotary Update For January/Early February

After my return from the Alps, I started doing a social work project with my school. This project involved different work for each student, mine was at a soup kitchen run by a Convent in the downtown area. I went each day from 7:30 until 12:30, the first 45 minutes being for set-up, then we served breakfasts. The breakfasts consisted of bread, tea and juice, along with sweets and cakes later on. If they were willing to pay 50 cents, they received a coffee and four slices of cheese and meat. They were also given butter (not margarine, as was often pointed out!), jam, honey and Nutella for free. At 11 o'clock we'd serve a pot of soup, which often went unfinished, but on one occasion was empty in less than 2 minutes, but it only took that long because one guy came 30 seconds after the line ended. There was enough soup for between 15 and 20 people. At 11:30 all the guests had to leave. We spent the next 45 minutes cleaning up, mopping, preparing things for the next day, setting out butter to thaw, etc.

This schedule was repeated Monday-Friday for two weeks, after which I was required to write a report, six pages, in German. The two weeks was a lot of fun. The two nuns who worked there were really nice, as were the volunteers that came in each day. There is also one paid employee who does all the heavy lifting-type work. At the end of the two weeks, even though the social work went really slow, it was a lot more fun than many days at school and that made it a little sad to be done. It made it kind of funny walking around town when I'd see these people, because the first thoughts through my head would be "Did they actually go for breakfast today", or if I see a panhandler who I hadn't seen coming for breakfast, I still wonder why they don't go. One of the large bakeries in Aachen has a long-standing program to donate cakes and other sweets to the soup kitchen, due to a family member being treated well by the nuns while in the hospital. As a result of this program, they recently had the idea to sell little coins for 50 cents that could be given to panhandlers for a "big breakfast" - the one with coffee, meat and cheese.

The week following the social work, we had a visit from 25 students from the Czech Republic and Leipzig, a town in the east of Germany. Although I wasn't directly involved in this group, most of my classes were cancelled due to my teachers being involved (most classes still ran, just not mine). The organizer let me tag along with the group, which included the students and their hosts. We did a media project, my group made a poster depicting fruit with funny expressions. That consumed Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. On Monday afternoon, I was treated to a free guided tour of the Town Hall (and stood in the room where the 7 Years' War was ended!) and the Cathedral, where we were able to see a part that's not open to those who are just wandering through, the throne of Charlemagne.

On Tuesday, the exchange students were gone for a trip to Bonn, but the Aacheners (that includes me too, apparently) went to (almost) normal classes. This was probably the saddest day of the month for me. In the break during my double period of computer programming, I was talking to a friend about Rugby and iPods. He had the new iPod Nano, I have the original Nano from the day they started selling them, making it almost 30 months old. We were looking at it and a few people commented on how that's almost a year longer than most iPods last. Murphy's law, being the great friend that it is ensured that after I switched buses on the way home, since my friends went on different buses, I pulled out my iPod, to discover that the screen was broken. The LCD was cracked, with only the bottom left quarter still functional. It still plays music, but now it's a big iPod shuffle (with four times the storage). The amount that I've come to rely on my iPod on train and bus rides meant that that moment was not fun. In the evening, we went to a soccer game in a big group. I once again had problems with my ID, they didn't believe that mine is real and accused me of making a fake ID to buy an adult ticket. They were mad at me for paying a higher price that comes without increased benefits, a very confusing situation. They only checked ID because I had an adult ticket as well. They would've checked if I had a child ticket as well, because I look to be about 18. After I finally convinced them that it's a real ID in Canada, I was let in. The game went pretty well, but wasn't played with as much passion as normal (it was an exhibition game). It ended in a 1-1 tie, not too shabby since the other team is first division and Aachen is second division, the equivalent of an AHL team tying an NHL team. Afterwards, some of us went for donairs, then went home rather late.

Wednesday morning involved working on this project once again, and was followed by a visit to the Fachhochschule, which is essentially a trade school. I declined the offer and went home. Wednesday evening involved going out to a pub to get the whole group together and eat cheap pizza that actually tastes good. This was yet another late night.

Thursday was again normal classes, the exchangers were in Cologne for a tour through there. After school, we all met up to watch an original German movie, Keinohrhasen, which means "Hare without ears". It was a funny movie that started out quite good, but unfortunately it ended up being heavily concentrated at the girls. Upon leaving the cinema, a few of us received text messages that a friend was celebrating his birthday and we ended up staying out until midnight in order to sing happy birthday, then we waited another 45 minutes because our bus was at 12:45. Getting up at 6 for school wasn't going to be fun.

Friday was the wrap up day for the exchangers, we finished our projects and presented them, then we all went home. That evening was a pre-graduation party for another school in town. We all went there, but if you didn't have a ticket (like me, since my friend forgot to pick one up for three of us), we had to wait in line until everyone with a ticket was let in. We stayed late, allowing plenty of time for our goodbyes, then took the "last" bus home. The week was a lot of fun, because it really got the people in my school involved and they were doing a lot more socialising than is normal for the German students. They weren't worried about school work for the week, and it lifted the mood a fair bit.

Tuesday the 29th was the third game of the German Cup soccer championship. I received a ticket from my host family for Christmas and we went together. We had seats, which for me was not the best option, but was good for the kids. Most of my friends were in the standing section across the stadium, where there is a lot more atmosphere and therefore fun. The game was pretty good, with Aachen playing strong and showing a lot of spirit. They were leading 2-0 going into the 83rd minute, but had 3 goals scored on them in the next five minutes and lost the game, being eliminated from the tournament. It was truly unfortunate that they lost so late into a good game. The mood at school reflected the result the next morning.

The Thursday before Lent is the start of the street party portion of Carnival. At 11:11, school was let out and everyone headed to the town square. Most people had costumes on, but my unreliable source told me that no one wears their costumes to school. Upon arriving at the square, they searched us to ensure that we didn't have any glass bottles with us, as well as hard liquor, I believe. They were trying to avoid broken glass on the square, which is expensive to clean up, especially since the Thursday event is run by a local radio station. After the afternoon in the square (one of the coldest days since I arrived here!), we went home for supper and met up for the biggest party for youth in Aachen, held in a tent a few minutes from where I live. Friday was another pre-grad party, so we all attended that, also in costumes, keeping with the Carnival spirit.

Saturday, Feb. 2, was a snow day! I'm not sure if they'd have cancelled school had it been a weekday, but it was the first time in 2 years that it snowed in Aachen. To celebrate, we went to my host family's cottage, which is in the "mountainy" district to the south of Aachen, bordering the national park. The national park is a volcanic region that is currently somewhat inactive, but they are suspecting that in the next millenia it will explode again. Since it's higher up in the mountains, it snows most of the winter and snows in greater volumes. There was enought snow to build a small snowman, have a decent snowball fight and go toboganning. We spent the afternoon there, before coming home for a quiet dinner in the evening.

On Sunday, they had the children's parade, which my host siblings were in. We went into town to check it out and it was pretty fun. They threw a lot more candy than at a parade at home and even included foot warmers, boxes of chocolate and other completely random trinkets! Afterwards, Pierre Landry, an exchanger from Cape Breton, came to visit from Baden-Württemberg, in the south of Germany. After an adventurous train switching in order to get to my house, we had supper and talked about life in Canada and Germany. We went to a fundraiser for the Catholic Youth in Brand, a part of Aachen. The party was run by many of my friends, so we felt we should attend. Our bus on the way home arrived 6 minutes late in the middle of town. That's not normally bad, but the bus home had already left, so we were faced with an hour's wait, or a thirty minute walk. We elected to walk.

The next morning, we had a train at 11 am for Cologne. We went there for the parade, which is the biggest one. The Cologne street party is supposed to have over a million participants, which was easy to believe packed along the parade route. In Cologne, we met up with Alana Nafthal, another Nova Scotian, who was up with her host sister from Italy. The rest of our group was made up of a girl from BC who's in my district, and who was hosting Alana (her "host brother" is living with Alana's family in Nova Scotia, who provided the invite to visit), and a friend of hers who's backpacking in Europe. The parade in Cologne was quite enjoyable, they threw complete boxes of chocolates, roses to the girls, and very few sugary sweets. At the end of the evening, we went up to Solingen, where the girl from BC is living. We went out for Mexican food and had a good discussion in english. Alana's host sister was a little lost, but everyone was lost if Pierre, Alana and I decided to try our best to speak like the stereotypical Maritimers/Atlantic Canadians. Pierre and I missed our train back to Cologne, and enjoyed walking around Solingen (with nothing but the Henckel knife factory, which was too far away to see), for an hour, after midnight. Back in Cologne, we went to our hostel and quietly got into bed. We'd left our stuff earlier. The hostel was nice, except for the fact that the lockers didn't lock.

On Tuesday morning, we woke up early, due to the 9 o'clock checkout policy. We had our free breakfast and headed for the train station. We parted ways, and Pierre returned to Baden-Württemberg, and I slept on the train to Aachen. Tuesday evening I had an invite to visit my old host family for dinner. We once again had Mexican food and caught up on everything that was going on in Germany. They also updated me on how their son is getting along in the United States. We ended up talking until around 10, so I ended up biking home in the rain and not getting to sleep early before school starts up again after the break.

There wasn't much happening after that until the 15th, when I went to Liège to visit Jeff MacDougald, from Charlottetown. We enjoyed a Belgian "supper", consisting of Jeff and I eating waffles (traditional sugar ones and the factory-made honey filled wafer style), fries with mayonaise and chocolate. He says that they will normally bring waffles to school for lunch, but the waffles there are smaller than at home, but surprisingly filling. We stayed up rather late speaking with his host family, who were asking us many questions about Canada, as well as how we found the differences between Canada and Europe.

On Saturday, we went to a water park with the Belgian Rotary districts. During the hour-long stopover in Leuven, we took the opportunity to take photographs in front of the Stella Artois brewery. The water park was fun, we started with a presentation on the talent show that the club in Spa (where the famous Spa-Francorchamps Formula 1 circuit is located) hosts. It is a professional done show for the Belgian exchange students to show off their talents. It was at this point where I realised Jeff's district is a lot more involved than mine. We had 3.5 hours in the water park, which was a lot of fun, but probably an hour too long. There's a law in Wallonia that prevents people from wearing swim trunks, a speedo-style garment must be worn, for sanitary concerns. This was not exactly warmly received, but we were told in advance. In the evening, we toured Liège, including climbing over 400 steps up to the war memorial, which provides a splendid view of the city. Liège was curiously built down by the river, with a small fortress being built on the mountain once cannons became common. This is quite different from the traditional method of building on the top of the mountain and just having the port by the river. After an early night, we returned to his village and went to bed. We were both extremely tired, even though it was only 12.

Sunday morning we slept until 11:30, then got up and got ready for a visit from his host-grandfather. After serving for the Allies in World War II, he moved to the Belgian Congo for many years, where Jeff's host mother was born and lived until she was 16. The American student who lived with the family until Christmas also came to visit, and we had a big African dinner, consisting of chicken, rice and a purée of an unknown vegetable, as well as bananas and heaps of spicy sauce. After dinner, Jeff, the American and I went outside to play frisbee and chat. Finally, at 7 o'clock, I took my train back to Aachen, a quick trip. Liège is closer to Aachen than Charlottetown is to Summerside.

With that, we return to the present! I anticipate sending a letter right before my German tour in March, then a big German-tour specific update afterwards.

Ben