We stayed in a lovely hostel at the edge of the city that made me feel incredibly European and exchange student-ey. Our chaperons (I don't really enjoy this word because it makes me feel like a 2nd grader on a field trip instead of a grown up lady-person in Europe but whatevs) consisted of a educator named Wolfgang (who claimed to also be a mayor but I have my doubts), a very intellectual Berliner who wore turtle-necks and knew things, and an American artist who has lived in Germany for quite some time and also knew many things.
Our days would go something like this:
- 7:00-8:00 stumbled out of bed and woke up the other 2 roommates so we could get to the cafeteria while the brötchen were still warm
- 9:00-12:30 went somewhere really interesting in Weimar and learned things
- on the 14th we had a not-so-romantic Valentine's Day and visited the Buchenwald Concentration camp, just a couple of bus stops away from the city center. Visiting concentration camps is an incredibly surreal experience. I think it's even more complex to an exchange student because we have both the German and non-German cultural mindset to affect how we see everything. The German education system are brutal in making sure their students understand their history. My English teacher told me that when she was in 5th grade, they would be forced to watch videos the American troops made when they liberated the camps. Although those videos are no longer shown to children, the same sentiment is felt when learning about the Holocaust. Meanwhile, history lessons and textbooks in America are 1984-esque propaganda when compared to those in Germany. We are pretty much taught that Andrew Jackson gently tugged the Native Americans through the Trail of Tears and that racism and prejudice were minor oopsies and will never happen again so we have nothing to worry about. It is a requirement for a German student to visit a concentration camp at least once and I definitely know why. One could always read books and watch movies but it's a different feeling when you're actually there. Even then it's impossible to completely grasp what was going on. We stood in our down jackets and mützen and tried to understand what the cold must have felt like to the prisoners there. I can't say if I really enjoyed it, but the experience was definitely eye-opening and humbling.
- On the 15th we got down with Schiller and Goethe, two very big deals in German culture. Friedrich Schiller was one of those historical guys who did pretty much everything. He wrote William Tell and had a really cute house in the middle of the city. He was also bros with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who did even more things and is arguably more well known. Having written Faust, Goethe is the name that comes up when one thinks of German literature. He's the guy cursed by German teenagers in school. We visited his even cuter (and bigger) house and hung out in a museum which featured everything he's done. I found a really cute mechanical pencil that he used and bought a really cool puppet which I later used in a very interesting video. It will be inserted somewhere at the end of this post.
- On the 16th we learned about Bauhaus architecture and found where Ikea got pretty much all of its ideas. The idea of Bauhaus is epitomized in the saying "Form folgt Funktion", or "Form follows function" and highlights the beauty in practicality. The museum, although as minimalist as its exhibitions, was very interesting and I found a chess set that costs about $1000.
- 12:30-2:30 lunch and free time. For me and my friends this time was spent either hanging out in someone's room and sharing our stash of candy and junk food, or napping to regain our energy for later cultural integration.
- 2:30-3:00 coffee and cake time! One of my favorite German traditions.
- 3:00- approx. 5:30 actual sit-down seminar with the adults. We discussed our end-of-the-year seminar in Berlin and a presentation we will have to do, and had talking circles where we discussed our experiences so far. I have to say, speaking German with other Americans is even more unnerving than with Germans. There's a certain unmentioned competitiveness when you notice how much everyone else's speaking has improved while you still have to mentally sing the Preposition Song from German 1.
- 6:30-7:30 dinner! I happened to fall in love with the chicken wing guy but said love was not reciprocated.
- 7:30-11:00 we pretty much had free time until curfew (12 on the last day). In this time we were welcome to tour Weimar by ourselves and do some of our own "cultural integration". Much of this "cultural integration" was spent in bars or on the streets, looking for bars. We found an Irish Pub not too far from our hostel and enjoyed the chill atmosphere. The Milchbar was my personal favorite. It was a somewhat hip hangout with billiards (at which I suck) and a wonderful beverage called the White Russian. Having nights off with my friends was a great feeling because it's something you really can't have as a teenager in America. Mainstream society in the states doesn't acknowledge the nightlife for anyone under 18 or 21, which is bullshit because it encourages adolescents to be even more rebellious than puberty calls for. It's not just the legally bought beer talking when I say that Germany is definitely raising its teenagers in a more logical fashion.
Although a big chunk of the trip was completed with no sleep and a lot of "cultural integration", I thoroughly enjoyed the city. Weimar is not a big place and one does not need a lot of time to stumble over uneven cobbled streets to get back to their hostel before curfew. I also loved seeing everyone again! My fellow exchange students are some of the greatest people I've met, and I feel so close to them although we've all known each other for less than a year. I really can't imagine how my year would be, had I not befriended the same people. You guys are amazing and I can't wait to see you again in Berlin.
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