2-4
王薇晴
Stepping Into
Waldkirch
My adventurous journey to Germany has
only one word worthy of describing:
unforgettable. Therefore, as far as I am
concerned, this country does look
completely exotic: from the dreamy
design of the streets and houses, the
white weather washing the green with
frostbite, the salty flavor of the
meals, and the burning passion of the
people making contrast with the freezing
wind. Once there, I didn't actually want
to return, and it took me all my
strength to finally brush off the last
of my inner struggle and follow the
route home. If I ever get the chance,
I'm definitely going again.
It all started in summer vacation, when I found
out that the school was picking twenty
students to make an exchange of twelve
days to Germany. I was really excited,
and I really wished to go. After
consulting with my parents, I was out of
my mind when I knew I could go. Later,
we were told to make presentations about
Taiwan, so that over there in Germany,
we could show them our hometown. Even
though we took a lot of time and sweat
to prepare this Power Point
presentation, and create a script out of
thin air, we did our best and, thus, the
learning started then and there. Three
weeks passed by, stressful but
successful.
From the beginning, on November 9th: Twenty of us
students and six school staff, including
the school master himself, gathered at
the airport, ready to start out with
Germany as our only destination.
Thirteen hours on plane seemed
thrilling, even though as uncomfortable
they felt to be, the excitement of the
trip got my head. It was the first time
I traveled without my parents; however,
I was the least scared. The anxiousness
kept me at ease, no matter how
controversial. We arrived in the early
morning, when the sky was still dark and
the first rays of the sun were gleaming
soft. It was really touching to see a
handful of students and staff welcoming
us after the tiring journey. The air was
stabbing cold on my legs, because for
some dumb reasons I wore a pair of thin
stockings. The scenery was all dreamy,
with big wood houses of every color, and
flora sprouting merrily, as if
everything was drawn out of a fairy tale
story. It took us a couple of hours to
arrive in the school, and the rain was
crawling its way down on our skin.
The time I spent with my home stay was extremely
sweet. I had so much fun with them. It
was composed of a mother (Gaby), my
partner (Marlene), and her little
brother (Vincent, but in short, Vini).
And I would see his little brother's
best friend (Sebastian) almost every
day, with his red hair and freckles. And
the structure of the house was weird for
me, since it had three floors and a
basement. On the basement were the
lavatory, the stock room, and her
mother's chamber. On the ground floor
was the living room (tidy and sweet,
with a chimney in which Vini lighted up
for me to see), a kitchen, and two
bedrooms. I was surprised to see the
bath separated from the toilet, forming
two little quarters on their own,
because normally in Taiwan, they were
together. On my very first day, we
walked around town and went to see the
small village church they had there.
Their thinking and the spirit was so
different compared to ours. Their
church, even small and simple, was well
respected with their silence, as we
whispered through the church. I told her
that in Taiwan, we generally had
temples, since most of us followed
Taoism, and we celebrated our gods the
noisy way. Later on, we planned for the
week. They took me to shopping, seeing
snow (for the first time I had touched
it and balled it and threw it), skating
on ice (boy, that was so hard for a
rookie like me, my inner voice kept
screaming “why in heaven can't you keep
your legs together?” and I remember that
my exchange partner later on told me
that some guys were watching me at the
skating hole and she overheard them
discussing that I was cute, goodness, I
flushed bright red), and baking cookies
(not my first time baking but I really
felt it was fun, since I consider
handmade things nice, even though we
talked too heartily that almost
overcooked the poor cookies).
On the other hand, I think that their education
system works really excellent. I truly
believe that eastern-styled way of
teaching by far the best for naughty
students like us, since they have the
space to learn being more independent,
creative, and pursue the knowledge by
themselves. Besides, they are not bound
by the information on the textbooks;
instead, the students take notes on
their own and write handouts. And not
forgetting to mention that they leave
school very early, about one and a half
p.m. unless they have opted for
specialized classes, and I think it is
awesome, due to having more time for
oneself or maybe for some other
extracurricular activities to culture
talents. I loved the diversity of the
English classes we took together and the
flexibility of the teachers when dealing
with students. I remember the first
English class, a girl named Jasmine had
to do a report in English about
something she read on the newspaper
about the exploding of women in poorer
regions of Asia. I respected her
courage, and she wasn't afraid to speak
and be corrected by the teacher. And I
believe that is something students of
Taiwan lack and need improvements on.
They learned English as long as we did,
besides, English wasn't their first
language either, so how come they can do
a project in English by themselves and
present it to the classmates, and we
couldn't? It really made me wonder, and
I felt a little bit like a failure. And
I remember that on one English class, we
had to read an article and take on the
characters the teacher assigned us; we
had ten to fifteen minutes of discussion
to design the skit we had to perform in
front of the whole class. This was a
role play, but I think of it more like a
debate, ince it was discussing about
salary, overtime work, and safety issues
in a workplace such as a factory. That
was amazing.
Something I will never forget is the Zumba class.
It was the best physical education class
I ever had! Zumba is a kind of warm up
exercise combined with different kinds
of music like reggae or salsa. It really
wore me out, but on the bright side, I
believe it is really efficient for lazy
people like me. And I am planning to
draw some The church located opposite
the Waldkirch organ museum. spare time
every day for Zumba, since I believe
doing exercises helps much better to
lose weight than go cropping one's diet.
Moreover, we visited the SICK Company, and I was
awestruck at all that automation, the
willpower from each single employee, and
all those genius people creating
artifacts at such young ages, especially
that absolute resolution you could next
to never expect on Taiwan's youngsters.
Our tour guides throughout the company
were mere high school students as well!
On the other hand, the natural fresh air
piercing through my lungs felt so
intriguing. Germany was so clean, so
fresh, and so pure that it almost
frightens.
Before I forget to mention, we were taken
to see the major. He was a man of
responsibility and nationalism. He
talked to us about the city of Waldkirch,
about its people and students. He even
handed out souvenirs to each one of us
with his own ands, a show of total
respect and welcome. It was a really
warm act of his to take. Later on, we
walked our way to the organ museum.
Throughout our way, people greeted us
while we passed by or waved at us with
sweet smiles. And the organ museum was
awesome in itself as well. We saw some
organs that were hundreds of years old
and still played beautiful music! I
drank in the melodies with good pleasure
and danced with some of my friends to
the resonance of the bright notes.
On the last three to four days of the journey,
and almost coming to the end, our tour
guide took us to, literally, see the
world. So as to speak, the
Neuschwanstein castle was overwhelming.
As you may know, I am a girl living on
fantasy, and to believe that I was
walking on the same floor as royalty of
the medieval times did, it drove me
crazy. I could even close my eyes, and
find the maids rushing to and fro with
buckets of water or baskets of laundry,
footmen trotting with dirty leather
boots squashing on the tiles, knights
swearing their loyalty and
ladies-in-waiting frolicking all over
the place, noble ladies fanned their way
slowly and stopping to watch the scenery
through the windows while lords and
merchants bargained merrily, but most
importantly, the king… The young and
playful king, wearing all those layers
of gorgeous skin, dancing his way down
the spiral staircase and The
Neuschwanstein castle. I could keep on
but it would never end. Therefore, it
gave me the new inspiration of starting
yet another of my own fantasy novels.
Oh, that beauty should I never forget!
While I recall, we went to the Titisee as well.
There were lots of ducks and birds I
didn't recognize, so I crouched there
and admired the tiny things. I
remembered to have some crumbs of bread
left on a plastic bag, so I shared them
with the ducks, and funnier still, they
even pecked on me and my friend when we
stopped feeding them while we took a
group photo. The sky was clear and
beautiful on the horizon, but the winds
slapped us so hard everyone's hands and
face were stinging cold. One more place
I remember clearly to have gone is
Austria. We went wandering the streets
at night. To my horror, the people there
were a little over passionate, which was
a bit scary, but the diversity left me
awestruck; the weather was still hard to
live with, yet putting all that aside,
it's a really beautiful experience.
In conclusion, the whole visit was
vigorous. I have traveled to many places
on my fifteen years of lifetime, but
that was my first time visiting Europe.
Even more than what I expected, it was
breathe taking… and heart wrenching when
I knew that we had to leave. November
20th on 2013, a day I would never
forget, because on that day, my
Eden-like twelve days went back to
normal and I had to step back on reality
again and make up for the things I've
missed. But that's okay, I spent the
time and money with no regrets, and
earned myself something much more
valuable than just test scores, do you
know what that is? It is an
unforgettable golden experience.
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