But not only learning about history from the German point of view, I got to meet some of the best people ever. Don't get me wrong I love the people I work with and they do all they can for me. But the people I met this past week get it, they understand the troubles their are by being an out lander. Its not many but I mean there was a night when there was a group of us sitting around and talking about our time here and even during the seminar we talked about the things. For example a lot of Germans with discriminate against us, I have never experienced anything more then dirty looks, some of the others hadn't noticed anything, but others had comments made at them, like one guy was talking about how some random old guy yelled at him on the street to go back home. We talked about how our German co-workers are sometimes not sensitive to things, and I explained about the time my on co-worker made a comment along the lines of "Well you can't go home so of course it [what days we get off] don't matter to you" and we talked about how hard it is/was to learn German. You know again I love the people I work with on a daily basis but it was just nice to be around people who are in the same place who I can say these things to and not have to explain it. We even touched on the topic about how we sometimes feel alone. I mean it was great and we also had a lot of fun times too! It was almost like being at band camp, you spend time with these amazing people with one purpose and it is a short time and most of the time you don't keep in touch with them but they touch your life in a special way. Although I do hope I get to stay in touch with some of these people they were truly great and I had a MUCH better time then I thought I would and I hope to go to another seminar sometime!
So this past week I had to go to a seminar, its a thing I have to do as part of the year here. I have to say at first I was dreading it I thought I was going to be stuck sitting in a room for hours having to listening to people talk in German about things I don't care much for, but it was quite the opposite. It was a group of 30 and none of us were from Germany, in total we were all from 16 different countries, I was the only one from the USA but I wasn't the worst at German, defiantly far from the best also though. Plus we were talking about the different governments we had and the problems and then about the German government and it was in a mix of German and English. On Wednesday we went to this museum on WWII which was really cool. You know honestly I only know the basics about world war 2, Hitler came to power awful things happened and we won in the end (I know more then that but that's the jest of it). But it was so cool seeing it from the German's point of view and how it wasn't a great time for them either. I mean even now they try to distance themselves from it as much as possible. For instance did you know in Nuremberg there is a building that looks similar to the coliseum but bigger and this whole area actually that Hitler got and was planing on building these humongous things, I mean really they were way out there and their uses were totally unpractical, but just to build these things were amazing, although some of them never got finished I think it was cool. Yes the reason for these buildings being built was bad and how they were built (by the prisoners of war)was also bad but they are/were there. The ones that were not finished were taken apart and other things were built on top of the grounds, but the ones that were finished are pretty much not in use. I mean part of the giant coliseum is the museum and then is rented out as a storage place for some big company. The others things are barely used because they don't want the rest of the world to see it as trying to worship Hitler even though that is not what they want. But that's the difference between countries I guess.
But not only learning about history from the German point of view, I got to meet some of the best people ever. Don't get me wrong I love the people I work with and they do all they can for me. But the people I met this past week get it, they understand the troubles their are by being an out lander. Its not many but I mean there was a night when there was a group of us sitting around and talking about our time here and even during the seminar we talked about the things. For example a lot of Germans with discriminate against us, I have never experienced anything more then dirty looks, some of the others hadn't noticed anything, but others had comments made at them, like one guy was talking about how some random old guy yelled at him on the street to go back home. We talked about how our German co-workers are sometimes not sensitive to things, and I explained about the time my on co-worker made a comment along the lines of "Well you can't go home so of course it [what days we get off] don't matter to you" and we talked about how hard it is/was to learn German. You know again I love the people I work with on a daily basis but it was just nice to be around people who are in the same place who I can say these things to and not have to explain it. We even touched on the topic about how we sometimes feel alone. I mean it was great and we also had a lot of fun times too! It was almost like being at band camp, you spend time with these amazing people with one purpose and it is a short time and most of the time you don't keep in touch with them but they touch your life in a special way. Although I do hope I get to stay in touch with some of these people they were truly great and I had a MUCH better time then I thought I would and I hope to go to another seminar sometime!
2 Comments
Akash Bisht
11/15/2014 07:26:30 am
Hey, this was really great to read your blog. Yes I do felt the same during the seminar. It was really awesome to meet you ''THE CHICAGO GIRL''.
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11/15/2014 07:43:10 am
I am very proud of you for taking on this service! It's great that you were the only person to represent the USA at this Seminar You're quite the role model, working so hard to get there and for your courage to trail blaze the unique opportunity Sven & Circus Pimparello have provided. The Show Must Go ON! Love, Paul
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JesseThis is going to be everything about my trip. From how I feel to what is going on. Archives
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