Well, ladies and gentlemen, my 10 months or so in Germany is just about over. I'll be leaving on a jet-plane come this Friday at 10.00 AM German time.

Boy, what a year it's been. So much has happened - here in Germany, back home in the States, and all around the world - while I've been here that I don't even know where to begin.

I thought I'd give you a nice little recap of the year's happenings, but with so much having happened over a pretty long chunk of time, it'd be almost impossible to go over it all.

So I came up with the not-so-original idea of throwing it all down in a neat and orderly list, Momma Wacker style (this joke is only understood if you're in my immediate family. Let's just say that Mom likes making lists :) ).

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Los Geht's!! (Let's go!)

Places I've been/Things I've done:

-Oktoberfest: word cannot express how cool/fun this experience is. Everyone should go at least once in their life. And I mean the REAL Oktoberfest, not the fake one they do in Leavenworth.

-A bike tour with the ever so kind and friendly Baumann Family on the Mosel River, which is deep in the heart of the German wine country

-Berlin x4 (Met a good friend, Erin; Took two of my best friends from home, Sara and Leah, there; Fulbright Conference/Wacker Family Meeting; Met two college football teammates, Steve Martin and Drew Watkins.

-Hamburg x4 (Met my good buddies, Ian and Sean; Day trip with the Baumann Family; Met my aunt, Anna-Maria there for a 'soccer' match; Met my three good friends from the Fulbright, Ian, Alex, and Erin, there for a final get-together blowout party)

-Amsterdam x4 (Went with Alex, Ian, and Ashley - another Fulbright friend; Went with Leah and Sara; Went with two friends I made here in Bremen, Mena from Italy and Cristina from Spain; Met back up with Steve and Drew - They paid for my train tickets and place to sleep! Thanks again guys)

-Koeln (Cologne) and Duesseldorf with Leah and Sara.

-Saw a Sankt Pauli 'soccer' match with my awesome aunt Anna-Maria in Hamburg. Thanks for the t-shirt!! Then met up with Ian and chilled and threw the Frisbee around for a while.

-A field trip to a zoo with class 6B.

-A field trip to go ice-skating with the 5th and 10th grade classes.

-A field trip to go on a tour of Weser Stadium with class 6A.

-A week-long field trip with both 5th grade classes to a pony ranch (so much fun!)

-Went to a concentration camp with my family. Kind of a downer, I know, but it's something I feel is very important to learn about and be aware of.

-Had a big, huge, Wacker/Olbrich family meeting/party in Eckernfoerde (Where my mommy was born). It was the first time in the history of our families that we were all there together at once. A major big deal.

-Visit the little island of Fehmarn with my family. Both my mother's and father's families come from this island - small world!

-I met my cousins Jan, Tim, and Leif in Kiel for Kieler Woche. Great time. I spen most of the time with Jan and got to know him pretty well. See you in the Summer of 2010, hopefully!


Whew! I'm tired after just writing that!


Things that have happened since I left home:

-My sister got engaged! Of course, her fiance, Trever, had to wait until after I left. Oh well, all the same. Congrats to them! They're officially getting hitched in July 2010.

-OBAMA was elected!! (YES WE CAN!)

-Preposition 8 passed in California...unfortunately.

-China walks on the Moon for the first time.

-A $700 billion bailout of our terrible economy is approved by Congress.

-O.J. Simpson is finally convicted - of robbing two sports-memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel room.

-Pirates are back!! Jack Sparrow from 'Caribbean,' from the real ones.

-Madonna and Guy Ritchie split up after 8 years.

-Russia invaded Georgia.

-North Korea begins acting like a crazy communist country again and tests missiles and a nuclear bomb. The whole world is mad at them.

-Air France Flight 447 crashes somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, all 228 people on board were killed.

-Go Obama! Yes We Can! Wooohoo!

-I was offered (and accepted) a job to teach English in South Korea!

-One of my good friends and college football teammate, Beau Jacobson, passed away. R.I.P. Beau, I miss you brother.

-Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays (the OxiClean man), David Carridine ("Bill" from the Kill Bill movies), and Paul Newman passed away. R.I.P. folks.

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A lot has sure has happened since I left Seattle on August 23rd, 2008. I had the incredible opportunity to experience the wonders of Deutschland, thanks to the Fulbright Fellowship.

But the journey does not end here: Like I just stated above, I'll be going to South Korea sometime around the beginning of September and will, of course, continue blogging.

I'd like to thank you all for reading my blog. I know sometimes it must have been a ride of highs and lows - boring/dry at some parts and incredibly fantastic at others (only joking, probably only just fantastic, hehe). I just hope you had as much reading about my experiences in Germany as I did writing/having them.

Make sure to check back 'ab und zu' (every now and then), I may just post something worth reading during the summer!

Much love to you all-

-Russell

I know that it's already past midnight where I'm at, so it's actually Sunday for me - but it's still Saturday back home in Bothell..

Saturday, July 27th, is the late Beau Jacobson's birthday.

I just wanted to take a moment to remember him. Happy birthday, Beau, where ever you're at now. I miss you like crazy, brother.

The world is definitely a worse off place without you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTYi4I30ye0
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Stay tuned for a final post - recapping my exciting year in Germany!

Hope you're all doing well,

-Russell

The Last Days of School

This is the first post I have written while at school. I really just couldn't wait to tell you about the highlights from these last couple of days.

This past weekend I met up with my cousin, Jan, in Kiel for Keiler Woche ('Kiel Week') Here is a link to some good information on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiel_Week. I arrived on Saturday around 11.15 AM or so, and the fun immediately ensued.

There is really a lot to do and see during Kieler Woche, which is probably one of the reasons why it is a week long (it's actually something like 9 days, but it'd we weird to call it 'Kieler 9-Tage Fest' or something). All kinds of great, delicious food, good drinks, rides - one being called the Power Tower, which shoots you straight up and down at high speeds, http://www.powertower2.de/ - and so forth.

Jan and I mostly did a bunch of walking, talking, eating, and checking things out. Unfortunately, we didn't do any of the scary rides, with me being pretty poor these days and Jan having no desire (those rides, apparently, are a lot more scary/dangerous when you're about 6'4" tall!!). Later, we met up with Jan's two brothers, Tim and Leif, Tim's girlfriend, and a friend of Leif's. It was really nice to simply be able to hang out with these cousins of mine who I honestly didn't really know before I came to Germany. I think that might have been the best part of the trip. But Kieler Woche was pretty radical as well.

On Monday, I only had one class. Afterwards I spend a good amount of time doing the lame and necessary things such as returning class books and cleaning out my little locker (lots and lots of paper in the form of worksheets, etc). In the evening, at 'home,' my far too nice guest family and I had a very nice 'Abschluss' dinner. What I'm basically trying to say is that we had one last, big, and delicious dinner as a group. The two parents of the family are actually leaving Germany before I do, as they are headed over to Ireland for a couple-week Summer vacation very early this Friday morning - exactly a week before I hit the road (or..air, I guess..). Great food, great conversation. An overall good time with them. If any of you - Jochen, Sigrid, Helge, Oliver, und Devi - are reading this, I just want you to know that I can't thank you enough. With your help and hospitality, my year in Germany was much easier than what it could have been. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!!!

Today, Tuesday, was also awesome. I was invited to an Abschluss breakfast with both 5th grade classes and their teachers, and Herr Slama, who is retiring after one more day of school tomorrow. Together, we all made up the entire Pony Ranch Fieldtrip group. It was a lot of fun to hang out with the cute and funny 5th graders, whom I got to watch grow up SO MUCH in just this past year. At the end of the breakfast, Herr Slama and I were given some very nice and thoughtful gifts. I was given a small book, with the pages being made up of short letters and pictures from all of the students. Some tried their best to write in English and the most were in German, but it's a great gift. Something I can always have to remember two of my favorite classes by. I also was given a short DVD with pictures from our incredibly fun field trip to the pony ranch. Very awesome stuff. THANK YOU FRAU RAUBE, FRAU FISCHER, AND CLASSES 5A and 5B!!!

Well, that's that. Tomorrow is my last day of school here at the Heinrich-Horstmann-Schule. I've been invited to yet another Abscluss Breakfast tomorrow morning, this time with the 6B. After that, I might never work/teach another day in Germany for the rest of my life (but hopefully not!!!). Then I'll be starting the always fun task of packing my life back up into a few suitcases, closing accounts, and cleaning my room. Great.

Stay tuned for one last big post. I plan to review the year and so forth. Should be interesting, I hope.

Aufwiedersehen!

-Russell.

The Auslaenderbehoerde

Boy-oh-boy. I hope you're comfortable, because I've sure got a story for you.

On Thursday (June 18th) I had to go to the Auslaenderbehoerde in Bremen. This long and confusing word translates to "foreigners' registration office." I think the English title is pretty self-explanatory: If you live in Bremen, and you aren't a German citizen, you have to go to this wonderful place to register yourself. I've had to go here once before to get my visa extended. Had I not done that, I would have been sent home after my initial 90-day "tourist visa" had expired.

Here are some observations and complaints from my 2nd go-around at the Auslaenderbehoerde:


I arrived at precisely 6:37 AM. I know because I made it a point to check. I checked because I had been specifically told to come an hour and a half before they actually open because so many foreigners have been coming the last few weeks to prepare for the Summer break, and I had a feeling that it was going to be a long day of waiting.

I was right.

I ended up being there for almost 6 hours. SIX HOURS!!! I left the damn place at, again - this is a precise time, 12:15 PM.

Here's why I think it takes so long: Every single foreigner is lumped together into one group. It doesn't matter why you are there. It could be to get a simple stamp on your passport; it could be to pay a fee in order to have your visa extension go through; it could be to apply for a visa extension (this is pretty much what I had to do. But I only needed a 4-day extension). My visa expires on the 30th of June, and I am flying out of here on July 3rd - so there is a 3 day window where I would have been living here "illegally." Before I went, I had asked if I could simply go to the airport with an expired visa and my flight plan, thinking that they would let me go because I was going home, and that's where they send someone with an expired visa - back to where they came from; but they basically said, "No, you would subsequently encounter lots of complications from the asshole border patrol and probably miss your flight." Great.

So, I show up at 6:37, and the line has already made it's way outside. And I thought that I was being tricky by showing up so "early." HA! I get in line. After a couple of minutes I find out that the line I am standing in is the line to pre-check-in before we actually officially check-in. Once I make it to the front, I hand over my passport, they write my name, country of origin, and purpose of visit on a piece of paper that looks like it was just pulled out of the wastebasket. Then they tell me, "You can go up to 'Waiting Room #2' and wait. We will begin calling people down to 'Waiting Room #1' to check in at 7:45. So I had about a 45 minute wait before I could check-in and wait some more.

When 7:45 rolls around, a very soft-spoken man starts calling people off the list - 15 people at a time. My name gets called in the 3rd round. I am sternly ordered to go down to 'Waiting Room #1' and get in line to check in.

After standing in the official check-in line for about 30 minutes, my turn finally arrives. I start talking to the nice looking lady and explain my situation:

"Hi, I need to extend my visa, but only for 4 days. It expires on the 30th and I'm leaving the country for good on the 3rd of July. I was told by this office that I HAD to come here and do this," says Russ in a polite tone of voice.

"No. You may not do this today," check-in lady says matter-of-factly. "You have been given an appointment on the 30th to extend you visa. There are other people who are more important than you today."

"But I WONT BE HERE on the 30th. I wont be in Bremen. The appointment does not work for me. That is why I am here today. I wouldn't come here to wait forever if I didn't have to," says I.

This went on for a couple of minutes, for the lady could not comprehend that I was leaving and that I wouldn't be in Bremen on the 30th (I will be in Bad Salzuflen, at my Uncle Wode's). It took some explaining and stern words, but I finally got her to cancel my appointment and check me in for that day. This is where the waiting OFFICIALLY began.

By this time, it is around 9:00 AM. I had already been there for almost 2.5 hours, and I just now started actually waiting. Sweet.


This is where I want to give you a little list of the types of people you might see at the Bremen Auslaenderbehoerde:

-Lots of babies who cry incessantly.

-85-90% Turkish/Kurdish people.

-Turkish/Kurdish parents of the babies who cry nonstop who stare at you, also nonstop, while ignoring their babies. This after having been given the, "What the F are you looking at!?! I know, it's strange - there's a white, german-looking man at the foreigners' registration office" eyes.

-A fair amount of Africans.

-The crying babies. I can't stress the crying babies enough.

-Posters of known and wanted terrorists. Not actual people in the flesh, I know, but it's just really strange to see these all over the walls.

-Old women who have a deep, manly, "I've been smoking for over 50 years" cough. Also, they don't cover their mouths once while presumably hacking up icky stuff from the depths of their lungs. I think I switched chairs about 5 times.

-One REALLY attractive Georgian girl - not the state, but the country. I managed to get a peek at her passport while in the 'pre-check-in' line. This girl was really gorgeous. I wouldn't mind running into her, or any of her other Georgian friends for that matter, again.

-One long-haired, bearded, German-looking white dude. Sitting alone and looking supremely annoyed.


So the waiting continues. The number of people waiting slowly trickles down, until I am one of 3 people left. Finally, at PRECISELY 12:03 (Again, I made it a point to check) I was called. Oh, joy! I go to Room 44, sit down, and talk to a guy behind the desk. I explain my situation, once again, and here is what he says, "Oh okay. This is easy. I can simply write a short letter saying that you are allowed to cross the border because you're leaving and you have your flight plans along with you. It should take 5 minutes. Go back to the waiting room and I'll call you back in."

Sure enough, 5 minutes later, Mr. Nice Dude calls me back in and hands me a single sheet of paper with no more than 30 words on it. That's it.

At the Bremen Auslaenderbehoerde, 6 hours of waiting gets you a 5 minute sheet of paper.

I stepped out of the building at exactly 12:15.

I am now allowed to leave Germany.
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I hope you had a lot more fun reading my story than I had experiencing it. You would think places like that in Germany would be more fluid, seeing as how Germans are normally known for their efficiency. But, no. Not the case here.

That's one place I WONT be missing when I get back to the US of A.


Have a good Friday, everyone!

Cheers,

Russell.

What a day!

Hi folks!

Please, don't say anything. Don't even think it. I know I'm a slacker. You don't need to remind me because I'm already ashamed.

And to add a little salt in the wound, this post isn't even about all of the truly awesome stuff I've been up to. I'll be trying to get to that later this week before I meet my cousin, Jan, in Kiel for a big, week-long party called Kieler Woche ("Kiel Week," and we're only going for the weekend, not the whole week).

This post is about the incredibly weird/random day I had today. Normally I'm full of great and descriptive words for things, in an attempt to keep you interested and make me sound a little more literate than I actually am. But this time, I'm almost speechless. So here goes:


So school these days has been pretty lax. There is a week and a day left, so many of the class periods are pretty easy going, open-conversation ones. I must also say that most or all of the students have lost any of the little bit of desire they once had to learn and are now completely unruly. I've got absolutely no control is a couple of classes. I've tried anything. But, luckily, I'm to also to the point where I'm okay with just putting my hands up and saying, "whatever, you've all taken your finals. If you don't want to listen and learn, it's your problem."

Anyways. I'm in the class 9A today in the 4th period. Most of the students are great in this class. All year they have, more or less, sat attentively, completely awestruck sometimes, while I tell them about all of the "strange" things in America. Today's class was very easy. Okay, I'll be honest. We didn't do anything. The teacher had nothing planned and everyone was just sitting around and chatting. Four girls were even playing a board game. I did my best to chat in English, but really, at this point it's a lost cause with these kids. After some time, the teacher got interested in one of the students who likes to think of himself as "emo." (If you don't know what that is, look it up.) She started asking him a couple of questions, just simply interested in what it was. While they were chatting back and forth, some of the other students were really antagonizing the kid in question whenever he answered. They would just chime in with snide, rude comments at every opportunity. One student in particular, a Turkish kid, was being the the aggressor in these antagonizing comments. It got to the point where the "emo" kid said something (too fast for me to understand) that basically amounted to a challenge. Like, "want to fight?" Or, "I'll kick your ass if you make another smart ass remark." Something like that. The Turkish kid accepted the challenge. Now, instead of walking around the row of desks to face his foe, the Turk picked up a chair and HURLED it across the room at the other kid! No kidding. This kid, in the middle of class, picked up a classroom chair (they're like, what, 10-15 pounds? Maybe 20?) and tossed it at the kid. And if that wasn't enough, he picked up ANOTHER chair and threw it at his target. By the time chair #2 was being picked up, it kicked into my brain that I should step in. By the time chair #2 had landed, the two students were face to face, doing the "middle school fight." This basically amounts to something that looks half like aggressive hugging and half like terrible ballroom dancing. I hurried over and put the chair-hurler in a full headlock and twisted one of his arms up behind his back and told him, in soft-spoken English, that it would be in his best interest to cool it. And, as quickly as it had escalated, it was over. The two seemingly having forgotten that they hated one another. Five minutes later, class was over and they all left cheerily (probably because they knew they were one hour closer to Summer vacation).

The second strange thing happened to me while I was in the city eating dinner at my favorite Turkish restaurant (I swear there's no relation between the Turkish kid and the restaurant I was at. I just really like their food. If you haven't tried Turkish food, I recommend the Adanas Plate - super good).

I'm quite the regular at this place and all of the dudes who work there know and like me. We always have pleasant conversations and a merry old time. But today, well, today was different. While I was half eating/half reading my new book (by David Sedaris, he comes highly recommended from yours truly) this crazy looking guys walks in and immediately starts talking (more like yelling) to everyone there. Every person in the building was automatically his best friend. Now, this man was absolutely, positively, flamboyantly homosexual (Achtung! I am not homophobic in any way, I'm totally cool with gay people. I'm just describing this fellow). He had that super homosexual walk that almost looks like he's competitively speed walking in the olympics, but without the heavy arm movement. His legs were like wet spaghetti and his hips bounced from side to side as if he was walking down the runway at a fashion show in New York City. Before he ordered anything (which only ended up being 2 Becks beers) he went around to EVERY SINGLE person in the shop, telling all of us how "sexy" we were, while slapping our shoulders and kissing our cheeks. I managed to evade the first round of cheek kisses, but was sneak-attacked after he returned from a bathroom trip. I'm not, in any way, exaggerating, people. It turns out that this guy is a French Canadian from Quebec and was speaking an English/French/German mix to everyone, regardless of who they were.

"You so sexy!" "Danke schoen!" "Sexy Sexy!" *Kiss on stranger's cheek" "Sexy!"

Again, I'm not exaggerating. This had had to be about 15 drinks deep. Or just really, really, REALLY homosexual.

Anyways, this went on for about 15-20 minutes. All the while, every single employee and customer were laughing/looking around in confusing/completely at a loss of words.

And then, as quickly as the chair throwing began, and as quickly as our gay French Canadian friend appeared, he vanished. Apparently he had a "reservation" in Cuxhaven and had to catch his train.

After he left, no one knew what to say - so we all just went back to eating/cooking food.

I think he said his same was Dominic.
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In other news:


Psyche! I'm done writing. Stay tuned for another post later in the week.

I half-promise that I'll write it.

Ciao!

-Russell