ꯐꯣꯉꯈ꯭ꯔꯦ꯫: 14.09.2019
Blog entry Nr. 4 p>
Hollllaaa p>
how are you doing in Germany? p>
Hopefully very good. p>
I'm doing pretty good here, even though I sometimes get homesick more than I thought. p>
But that's normal and I just need lots of things to do and distractions. p>
So today I will tell you about a few things that I have noticed here or that I have experienced. p>
p>
Okay, it's currently winter / spring here, although you only notice it sometimes. p>
The weather here is very changeable. p>
During our first days here it was really, really cold. I'm a bit sensitive to cold myself, but we all froze, even though there were exchange students from countries like Finland, who are used to even colder temperatures. p>
In our main common room there was a fireplace that saved our lives. p>
You can imagine it like this: p>
About forty people stood around a small fireplace and tried to warm up while it rained most of the time outside. p>
p>
In Salto it was a bit warmer, but still too cold for me. p>
Now the temperatures are quite varied and it really depends on the sun whether it's warm or cold. p>
However, I have already been told many times that it will be unbearably hot in the summer here and that I won't want to leave the house anymore. p>
I'm excited. p>
p>
We have 4 months of summer vacation here, precisely because it gets so hot, which means that I have to occupy myself for 4 months. 4 months. b> b> p>
I mean, I really like vacations and free time and sleeping in, but that's really long. p>
YFU has given us tips on what to do and should do. p>
It is certain that I will definitely do a voluntary month somewhere, meaning that I will work somewhere and since I am not allowed to work for money here, it will be voluntary. p>
I hope there is a good organization here in terms of environmental protection or animal rescue or something. p>
p>
But now I still have school until November, about which I will tell you a bit. p>
My school day is Monday to Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. p>
That means I'm in the "morning shift". p>
Here it is like this, one half goes to school in the morning and the other in the afternoon. p>
I am in 5th grade here, there is elementary school from 1st to 6th grade and then secondary school, again from 1st to 6th grade. p>
There are also different orientations here, such as biology, math, art and more. p>
I chose art because we also have music and theater there. p>
There are 2 other exchange students in my class. One from Germany, Clea, who is also here with YFU, we met on the plane and we are now good friends.
p>
And one from Norway, Mari, who has been here for half a year and can already speak Spanish well, I also get along very well with her and we are good friends. The rest of my class is also very nice, although it is not easy to communicate because hardly anyone speaks English. p>
There are the normal public schools here, but also many private schools that you have to pay for. p>
I am at a public school that only goes from 4th to 6th grade. p>
Everything I am telling you now naturally only relates to my school and my experiences, I know that it is very different at other schools. p>
So at my school I have the feeling that school is not taken too seriously. p>
I have been in school for 3 and a half weeks now and we haven't done much yet. p>
And of course, I don't understand much, which doesn't make it any more exciting. But we have Wi-Fi in our school, which I partly use well (translate things or learn Spanish grammar) and partly not so well (social media, ...). p> For example, when I was very bored in class, that's what happened. Yeah I know, not very exemplary. For example, my class is currently doing an art project where we paint a wall in our classroom. We spent a lot of class time on this. We started with it in art class and then just continued in the other subjects. p> And the teachers didn't mind. p> What is different here is that the teachers are addressed by their first names and not by Ms./Mr. and the last name like with us. However, most of the time they are just called Profe. p> In addition, being late is seen very casually here. Perfect for me. p> However, I have now become so used to it, or even more used to it, that I really don't know how it will be when I come back. p> I mean, I was never really punctual, but here it's really taken to another level. p> And something that would never work at home: when it rains heavily here, no one goes to school. p> The Uruguayans are pretty lazy, they say that about themselves too, and that's why when it rains here, almost no one goes to school. p> There are three alert levels, depending on how hard it is raining, which you can look up on the internet. p> With yellow you should still go to school, with orange almost nobody goes anymore and the teachers are not allowed to mark you as absent anymore and with red I don't know what happens yet, but I can imagine that not even the teachers come then. p> (That happens more often anyway) p> It just happened that it rained for the first time during school hours and we had orange alert, I walked to school instead of my host mom driving me. (I wanted to be a good role model and go to school despite the orange alert) p> So I left the house with a raincoat and winter shoes, unfortunately without an umbrella because I didn't know where they were. p> I have to walk for about a quarter of an hour and after not even half of the way I was completely soaked. Even my shoes were one big puddle. p> When I arrived at school, I had only one goal: to go home again. p> About 5 people from my class were there, 3 of them were us exchange students and we just sat around and did nothing. p> So after about half an hour, I made my way back home, as I then got cold and it really wouldn't have brought anything to stay there. p> I learned from that. When there was orange alert again this week, I just stayed at home, like the rest of the class. p> I am currently totally exhausted and sick. My nose is running non-stop, which is why I wake up several times at night and because it is so irritated, I have also had nosebleeds several times in the middle of the night. I now also have slight headaches because of this. In addition, I have a cough and because that's not enough, I also have really bad sore throat every time I swallow or cough. p> I hate being sick. p> I even drink tea here with ginger-lemon flavor, even though I can't stand ginger, hoping that it's not just ginger flavor, but really ginger inside, which is supposed to be very healthy and healing. p> Because of this, I haven't been to school on Thursday and Friday, which is always great in Germany, but somehow really boring here. p> So I only spent 2 days at school this week. And next week we have vacation. p> That means that while school started again for you and work begins, I can relax here. Sorry not sorry. I just hope I get well quickly, the weather here is good, and my friends are here and not all of them are busy. p> So that's it for now. I think you have a pretty good idea of what my school is like here and how I feel when I'm sick. Extremely exciting I know. p> Have a nice weekend my dears p> Besos, Mara p>
p>
p>
p>
p>