Katie Brooke - NSW to Germany

Tue 23 Mar 2010

Katie Brooke comes from Roseville, NSW. She recently got back from her exchange in Germany and provided us with this summary of her experience:

I can still remember arriving at the train station ready to meet my host family. I was so nervous stepping off the train but I managed to spot them straight away and they did the same. I was welcomed with hugs and open arms, smiles all round and a lovely coordinator whose boyfriend was my host brother.

We all went out to dinner on the first night and as extremely tired as I was, I still managed to make a bit of conversation although my coordinator did have to translate almost everything for me. One of my host brothers had downloaded a German to English and vice versa translator on is iphone and so it all began.

My host family wanted to show and teach me everything. The first night driving home I learnt everything about every single German tree that we drove past and as unbiological as I am, I still managed to listen and find it interesting.

Within my first weekend, I had already visited German supermarkets, figured out my way around the small town and learnt more German than in my 3 years of school!

On the first Monday, my host mother took me to meet the principal of the school and just like everyone else I had met there, they welcomed me entirely and I felt at home almost straight away.

The next morning was my first day of school and I was extremely nervous walking into class with the principal but as soon as he mentioned ‘The Australian Exchange Student’ it was unbelievable how many free spaces there were next to people.
School ended up being a big part of my life in Germany and I’m still talking over the internet to the friends I made. Some are even coming to Australia to visit this year and next year I have decided to take a gap year and visit the rest.

When I wasn’t in school my host family managed to take me all over the place, from zoo’s in Euckermunde, to ice hockey in Berlin.. in fact.. I became such a fan of the ice bear Berlin team that they took me almost every weekend and bought me a shirt with the team logo. By the end I could chant over half the German sporting chants.

I also was lucky enough to visit an ice world, a jungle completely made of ice and my host father somehow had great connections to get me a pre-opening tour by the boss! Privately! As soon as Australian is mentioned and they see the smile on your face they melt like butter and anything goes!

My favourite part of Germany was the Christmas markets… they were beautiful, fun and everywhere!! Germans love food and making people eat cakes, cookies and chocolate and the Christmas markets resembled everything like that and more!

My co-ordinator (being my host brother’s girlfriend) was a very big part of my exchange and always spoke German to me unless necessary (e.g. first night) and we became the best of friends! I met her family and ended up spending a lot of time with them and became very fond of her family to the extent of having a special Christmas celebration with the whole extended family of hers.

Leaving Germany was one of the toughest, saddest things I have ever had to do in my life and definitely not something I was looking forward to when it came, but we promised to stay in touch and I insisted that I wouldn’t say goodbye, only see you later. One of the last conversations I had with my host father was about him coming over to Australia where he said “only when you get married”; to this I made him promise and finished with “therefore I will get married 5 times”.

I will never forget my time in Germany, nor the people I have met and I plan to revisit Germany next year to make many more good memories to keep forever.

Katie

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