Family Blog

Where there is love there is life.
(Mahatma Gandhi)

with the best wishes from Cordula, Carmen and me...

This weekend the summertime has started here in Germany. It was a warm day (23°C) and it seems that spring is really coming now.

Philip and Manuel had a great time in Los Angeles as you can read in Philip's blog. But now Manuel is on his way back to Wisconsin.

Yesterday Manuel and his family met Philip and his family in San Francisco and they had an exiting day in Alcatraz as you can read in Philip's blog. Seven month ago they saw each other the last time.

Here in South Germany it is cold and we enjoy white Eastern this year - it has snowed last night and also in the morning. This year it is the first year I didn't hide any eggs because Carmen does not want to search them without her brothers.

Happy Eastern

For a short time you can have a virtual walk on the Berkeley Boulevard where Manuel lives. You can walk e.g. to the high school in the E. Fairmount Avenue where Manuel goes to school each day.

Spring and the first snowdrops are coming more and more. But yesterday there was a small snow blizzard with thunder and lightning over Gerlingen. After an hour it was over and the sun was shining.

Manuel wrote in his blog he met Senator Kohl from Wisconsin. And he saw a lot of attractions like the White House and other things (like a few people demonstrating against Mr. Bush).

At the moment there are no special news here from Germany except this video about "Facts about Germany" I found on YouTube.

Manuel and Philip are seniors at school, i.e. they are both in the last year at the American high school. When they come back in July they have still two more school years here in Germany before they get their final secondary-school examinations (Abitur).

This week there was an info meeting at school which was a required course for the pupils of the 11th class. We learned what school objects the pupils have to choose in the 12th and 13th class (nearly all), and which they can choose (nearly nothing). How to select the right course is a ruleset with many exceptions. There is a program "WinProsa" available, which should help the pupils to choose the right combinations but the manual for the program is over 200 pages long and it does not run on my Mac.

After 2 hours the presentation was over. How can our politicans pass such a complex ruleset? Do they have too much time to think about how to bother parents, pupils and teachers? Never heard about the KISS principle (keep it small and simple)?

One month after Christmas Philip's package with his presents and self-made calenders arrived at Gerlingen. Ok, he has warned us before because something went wrong with the calendars.

For Philip a new trimester has started while Manuel is at the end of his first semester and having his exams. Both follow the election campaign between Obama, Clinton and the other candidates. Even here in Germany you get the results of the pre-elections.

Five and a half month ago Manuel and Philip left Germany to go to school in a foreign country. The goodbye was hard for both sides but Manuel and Philip are both welcome into their new families and we felt relieved that both are happy with their new families.

In the meantime Philip writes his emails no longer in German but in English and also when we phone with him there are some answers in English. Also Manuel wrote that he sometimes forgot the German phrase but this is a good sign. It shows that both have adopted the English language.

Both are well integrated in their new families and feel very well. They got new impressions and saw in this five month in America much more than the last five years. They noticed the beginning of the American election campaign which is very different to our system. Manuel was on an event with Obama and he was very pleased about him.

What is the big difference to Germany? First, school is like more to have a job: in the morning you go to school, eat at school and in the afternoon you leave school, each day at the same time. You have a strict schedule, e.g. exactly 4 minutes to find the classroom for the next lesson (Manuel had problems in the beginning because the building was new for him). After school you go to sport training and after that you have to do your homework. The teachers are stronger and get more respected as here (which is good) and there are much more tests than in Germany (which is also good). But the bandwidth of subjects is much smaller (which is not so good). There are more common activities at school than here and the "school spirit" is much more common. At contest the students stand to their school.

Another difference is sport: we have soccer and handball, the Americans have baseball and basketball. We have VfB Stuttgart and Bayern München, the Americans have the Packers and the New York Giants as I learned from Manuel's blog.

You know you are parents of AFS students...

• ...when you send care packages into another countries,
• ...when dict.leo.org is one of your favorite web site,
• ...when you realize that there is a difference between American English and English you learned at school,
• ...when your son told you that the Australians have a funny accent,
• ...when your wife suddenly wants to know how to write an email,
• ...when you suddenly have to share your computer with other family members because they want to look for news,
• ...you get an answer about your picture of your christmas tree why it isn't decorated,
• ...when you feel your heartbeat when you try to phone with America,
• ...when you begin to register a Skype account for all members of your family,
• ...when your parents ask you about the email adresses of your sons,
• ...when you wonder how people in former times could have lived without the internet.

Today there was a carnival parade in Gerlingen. First we didn't want to go to it because carnival in Swabien is not so much fun. If you really want to see carnival in Germany you must go to the Baden area or to the big capitals of carnival Cologne, Düsseldorf or Mainz.

But our daughter persuaded us to go. One of the big difference to other parades is that the candies are thrown discrete and sparse - this is Swabien carnival.

The package for Christmas, we sent in November, has now reached Wisconsin, two weeks after the package to California has arrived Lincoln. So I guess the post ship had taken the route over India to reach the west coast of America. In the 19th century the mail needed about 10 days for 1800 miles, as you can read on ponyexpressnevada.com (California to Wisconsin is about 2000 miles), so the time hasn't changed so much.

Nevertheless, Manuel and we are all happy that the package hadn't gone lost on its long trip to America.

Merry Christmas

Can you find Manuel on this video from the Whitefish Bay High School? The video was made be a student of this school and I'm not sure but I think in two scenes you can see him.

We celebrated Sylvester with friends. We were a little above Gerlingen and normally we would have a good sight about Gerlingen and surrounding. But it began to snow and we had a limited view at the fireworks. Home again we tried to phone with Manuel (he had tried before), but it was not so easy because he was in the neighbour city. He told us that he will watch movies with friends.

In the U.S. Sylvester is a normal day. Philip wrote that he was the only one, who was awake at Sylvester, because his parents went to bed earlier, and his sister was sleeping in front of the TV!

One of our two "Christmas packages" has arrived now (after more than 5 weeks!). Philip was very relieved when he heard it in Nevada (he was at that time at his new grandparents). The other package of Manuel is still waiting for - we hope that it isn't gone lost.

Both, Manuel and Philip, have settled down well at their new families. As Jeff wrote, Philip has evolved from a"visitor" to a"family member." And Manual has also well integrated in his new family what we gather from the last letter.

Today arrived a christmas package together with a long letter from Manuel. Also a "Jingle-Bell" christmas card which squaks when you open it. In his letter he wrote that he begins to have a problem writing in German...

The package contained a lot of things I didn't know before, e.g. Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. It tastes like a mixture between chocolate and peanut butter - mmmh, I like it. Carmen is happy about the Hard-Rock-Cafe-shirt and about a pompom cap. Cordula got a nice chain and I got a picture from him which I have desired.

Philip has sore muscles from playing Wii with his sister and Dad - who says that computer games are not good for the fitness?