"Deutschland" a Germany Travel Page by Arial_27

HALLO, Herzlichen Willkommen (welcome) to my Deutschland page!!

I spent six weeks in the southern part Germany, near the city of Stuttgart on a student exchange. I stayed with a family in a small town called Beutelsbach. The son of the family, Moritz, spent six weeks in my home in Canada in the fall and then it was my turn to learn about his culture by staying with him. I found Germany to be a beautiful country; it seems like a wonderful place to live, go to school, and get an education. German students don't finish school until the middle of July, so I was fortunate to be able to attend highschool ("Gymnasiam") there for two weeks. My host family lived near the vineyards, so I would often go biking, and jogging through the grape hills and strolling through the small village they lived in which had many small boutiques, criss-cross houses (as I like to call them) and a train station. I met a lot of great people here, went on a road trip with another Canadian girl I met and visited a lot of different regions including Baden-Baden, Fussen, Munich, Heidelberg, and Bamberg.

The Germans love flowers, and many of them hang them outside the windows of their houses as seen in this photo. I took this picture on a boat tour in the river that goes through the city of Bamberg, in Bavaria. If you're ever in Bamberg and have the chance to do the boat tour, I'd highly recommend it. Its a great way to discover the city and take a lot of gorgeous pictures like this one.

My main goal when visiting Germany was to gain a working-knowledge in the language. When I first met Moritz, my exchange partner, I was 17 years old and did not speak a word of German and was concerned about how I would get on communicating with his family and peers in Germany. I bought a few books and spent about 15 minutes a day teaching myself new words and phrases that I would use in Germany.

When I arrived in Germany, Moritz was surprised how much my German had improved; and although I was still very weak in the language, it improved immensely over the six weeks I was there because I would not allow ANYONE to speak to me in English. If someone tried to speak to me in English, I'd say "Ich kann nicht Englisch verstehen, konnen Sie es auf Deutsch wiederholen bitte?" It was definately worth it in the end! There's no faster and better way to learn a language than going to stay in a place where its spoken.