Mein Deutsches Leben mit Familie Friese (My German life with the Friese's)

Viele Grüße!

I can't wait to tell you all about this month! It's been a crazy month, but I absolutely love it! The typical "blues" that strike exchange students in November didn't resonate with me. In fact, November might have been the best month of the program yet!

Arved and our
puppy, Austin

Here's "the latest":

Be prepared for 10000
pictures of Christmas markets!!!

A little over a month ago, I changed host families. My prayers were answered and I was blessed with a wonderful family. My  host brother, Arved (12), is our little German movie star. He's currently playing the lead role of Timm Thaler in Timm Thaler (in German theaters Dec 22, 2016). He's absolutely adorable and a ton of fun to be around. My post parents, Jenny and Hilmar, are also wonderful. We quickly bonded over a passion for skiing (we're going on two ski trips to Austria this year!) and over love for talking quality politics. On the weekends, we nerd out and read the newspapers, then discuss the articles and politics behind the articles. We also discuss a lot of American politics (i.e. Donald Trump and guns) and let me tell you-talking American politics in German can be a challenge. It's made my German really  improve though.

View of the Christmas Market from our hotel room

Adventskonzert
at the Frauenkirche

A pic at a Christmas market

Over the past couple of weeks, I've done a lot with my host family and have really bonded with them. We went to Dresden for a weekend to attend an the Adventskonzert at the Frauenkirche (a beautiful cathedral recently rebuilt entirely from private funds.)  While there, we went to a black tie event and toured a museum at midnight, ate our way through Dresden's Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets that look like tiny villages within a city. They are my absolute weakness) and even visited our recently born Australian Shepherd puppy, Austin! I also went on set with Arved for a day and explored the world of cinematography. It was fascinating seeing how movies are filmed and how many takes it takes to nail a scene. I have mad respect for the                                                       system. 



                                                          Gossip Girl- German Edition









Last night, Annika and I joined Arved and his friend at a circus premier. It was a riot! We sat front row and some of the animals (lions, tigers, but no bears, oh my!) were at a arms length away from us. With my luck, I was called on to be a volunteer in an act that. I had to do a little dance and shake my booty and completely roll with whatever the clowns wanted me to imitate (I am also slightly terrified of clowns.) Oh, I forgot to mention, this was in German in front of an audience. My host brother, Annika, and I just about died of laughter. It's one of those strange "one time, when I was in Germany..." stories my friends are going to quickly grow sick of at home. But hey, it was probably on of the craziest nights and guess what? I got to ride a CAMEL! My life = complete! 

Ice skating at a Christmas market
with Annika

From the Berlin Bitches to you,
Merry Christmas and from Noah- Happy Hanukkah

This month was also the first time where I truly feel like I've settled into my German life and established a routine. I go to my internship where I work with three incredible, inspirational women and work on managing their social media, developing their marketing plan and have started working on proposal writing. I'm learning a lot about how the "real world" works. There's a lot off trial and error, but I'm glad I'm learning that now. After work, I meet up with the "Berlin Bitches" and go to the gym to start burning off the German pudge! After that, I normally head home and veg out with the host fam and watch the Royals or Netflix. I introduced them to Netflix and there's no turning back now...On the weekends, I usually go out with my friends or travel. There's never a dull moment.














The holidays are right around the corner. To all my college friends- enjoy pulling those all nighters studying for finals. I'm glad I don't have to deal with those for another year! :p To everyone else, Merry Christmas! I hope you have a relaxing, fun-filled holiday season. :)

Deine Kirsten

Wo ein Wille ist, ist auch ein Weg (When there's a will, there's a way)

Guten Morgen Mein Lieblingsmenschen,

Today's post is going to be about tennis and dive deep into the psychology of exchange students, brace yourselves...

To start off, let's take a trip down memory lane to last Spring, my last season of high school tennis. I should have been pumped. I was playing the as captain and top seed for Rocky and there were lots of freshmen I was excited to lead and teach them my love for tennis. However, just as the year before in the same position, my season quickly unraveled into a series of long matches filled with fighting, but ultimately losses. I wasn't a happy camper...The agony and frustration took over my love and appreciation for Tennis-a sport I began to play to just have fun. It wasn't all bad- my private coaches and team still made it fun and filled with vibrant memories, but the feeling of loss really took an emotional toll on me. By the end of the season, I was ready to set my racket down and "retire." If only I knew during the season how grateful I would be for the outcome of the season and the lessons I learned from it. So what does this have to do with being abroad right now? To be honest, I've probably had my nose stuck in too many entrepreneurial and motivational books, but still! I can hear all of my tennis coaches' voices in my head saying "Ahah! You finally got it! Tennis is more than a sport, it teaches life skills! Told you!" So to my wonderful tennis coaches and First Serve, THANK YOU! I have finally realized what you've always been saying.

The ugly truth behind what this has to do with the present: Life is cruel and unfair. So what? Roll with the punches, learn from your lessons and keep running. The people who succeed at this, succeed at life.

BOOM! Just like that!

This year has been incredible so far. I'm immeasurably blessed for the friends-both American and German-I have made here, the travel and experiences that have already emerged. But for a time there, I was also faced with some really difficult circumstances that took a harsh toll on me. Once upon a time, I was placed into a Taiwanese, Canadian, slightly German but also lived in Norway, Japan, and Boulder, CO host family. They're completely different from me in the fact that they're completely left brained and introverted, but that's life. Everybody's different and we have to coexist. But, at one point, I was either going to bed or waking up to incessant bickering amongst the parents and their son in English. This was the breaking point. They were polite and respectful to me, and I to them, but there's only so much I could take. I felt uncomfortable there. So what happens when you're an exchange student in this situation?


These people mean more than anything to me

Well, you have a couple options: keep treading the water and make the most of it, find a way to change the situation and move out, or give up, letting every ounce of your happiness go. My choice: to fight through and look for a way out. I didn't feel comfortable at home, but I had incredible friends on the program in Berlin with great host families who I reached out to. I had Berlin-my favorite place to be, at an arm's reach away. So, just as tennis taught me, I took advantage of the positive aspects and let those fill my life. Rather than being at home, I was with friends who became family and explored every crack of Berlin (well maybe a small fraction of this city because it's so big!) Or I traveled, and that my friends and I did quite well. By doing that, I was able to be happy until I could move out. I looked for families and reached out to connections from home and asked other host families here for help, and ultimately, the program found me a replacement family. One that exceeded any of my expectations and that I quickly bonded to.






Selfie with new host fam plus Area Rep Grit

I moved three weeks ago now, and since then, I've been 1000000x happier and have learned to count my blessings. My new family is AMAZING! They welcomed me into their house and family so quickly and warmly. We quickly bonded over our love for skiing (we're going to Austria twice this winter!), politics (talking American politics in German was a challenge excepted) and by just talking and sharing stories. I'm immeasurably blessed. Finally having that bond with my host family has me for a lack of words. Going through a bad host family situation worth it. So, in closing, to anyone who's an exchange student or going through a hard time, just know it will get better, just stay positive, reach out to the people who love you, and have faith that it will get better. Thank you tennis for teaching me how to do that and apply it to parts of my life.

I'm thankful to have learned how to fall on my face and get back up and be stronger. Tennis taught me how to do that and made it much easier for me to do it while here. I'm sure it'll be a lesson that'll be applied several times in life.

So after that little motivational tangent, have a good weekend!