Glück auf!

Well the past week has been overall swell. Last Tuesday, I met up with a fellow American exchange student from Utah. I ended up meeting him through Facebook after he was befriended by Mike (from Braunschweig.) I know...Facebook is making the world one giant network. That was a fun get together...and really nice to speak with an American!

And so the weekend was the next thing worthy of mentioning. An exchange student from Australia, Chris, came to Krefeld. We explored Düsseldorf on Saturday. We had seen an ad for "Nacht der Museen" (Night of the Museums). And so we decided it would be an interesting, worthwhile experience...more creative than the club we had planned to go to. And we went to a birthday party for one of my peers in between (yes we drove to Düsseldorf twice in one day)...but it was a great Saturday. We ended up seeing art in a Tunnel, a Karneval museum, and modern art...and I never looked at art so thoroughly, so it was certainly something new. :-D The pictures are from Chris's camera because mine had died during the party.




On Sunday, Chris went back home. And I went to two museums with Barbara and Claude. The first was a Coal-mining Museum in Bockum (the title, "Glück Auf" is how they would greet you in the coal mining (der Bergbau)) and then a Water Tower Museum (all about water) in Mülheim an der Ruhr. Both museums were worth the visit, although they didn't reach the "expectations" we had. It was nice to learn a bit more about the area of Germany I'm living it, das Ruhrgebiet (even though I technically don't live in the Ruhrgebiet, rather next to it.)Click here to learn more about the Ruhrgebiet By the way, the Ruhrgebiet is the Cultural Capital of Europe for 2010. And so I had enjoyed the Mother's Day (Muttertag) in Germany. It's not celebrated quite as extensively as in the USA. Some families treat it like a completely normal day.





Monday and Tuesday have been a bit stressful because my future came knocking at my door. I had to pick classes for college and take two language placement exams for Spanish and German. I just realized that I'll be starting college before I know it. Last time this year, I was really excited about going to Germany, and now I'm starting to get excited for college. But before I get back to the USA, I gave on Friday and Tuesday my first three presentations about the United States to students in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. It was a nice change from the same old classes. And I got some good feedback from the students and teacher! :-D So despite the stress, I feel like I've had an optimistic perspective on the past few days.

I'm going to Berlin on Thursday!

Bis dann!
Matt

P.S. I just realized that in the US, quite a few people refer to me as "Matt Knoth" rather than just Matt, which is what everyone calls me here. Perhaps the reason is because there are fewer "Matt"s in Germany.