An exchange student in
Glenwood City High School

I'm Johannes Dewender from Germany. I went all the way over the ocean (or flew) to be here in school for the year 2001/02. For that year I was in the school's Junior Class. Two month after the school year, I will go back to Germany and finish school for the next 3 years.

I write all this and my own web page in english. That is only that more people are able to read it. Normally we speak German in Germany, but many Germans understand english, because we learn it as the first foreign language in the 3rd grade.

In Germany I live with my family in the city of Berlin, which has a population of app. 3 million people. My family is in the district Treptow-Koepenick. That part has only 200 thousand inhabitants, but that's still a lot bigger than Glenwood. The district is the biggest of Berlin and includes most woods , nature and a big lake. I lived in an apartment in a house with 5 floors and about 200 people living in it. I can reach downtown Berlin in 45 minutes or be out in the nature in just a few.

By the way: you can click on the pictures to see better and bigger versions of them.

I'm born in Berlin and lived there with few exceptions (like this year for example) my whole life. What can I say. I love Berlin. It's my city. In Berlin I go everywhere with the public transport system which is very good in Germany. I could go by car, too, but it actually is faster and cheaper to use the trains (street trains and high rails) , busses or the tube. It is also less exhausting and you can use the system every time in the day.

Every week I go to some party, to the cinema or a concert. Mostly I do that on friday or saturday. I have a choice out of many clubs here. Around my neighborhood there are some "youth clubs". They are pretty cheap and the kids hanging out there mostly range from about age 14 to age 29. The drinking age in Germany is 16, so it is common to drink beer in those clubs. The same goes for cigarettes. Some of these clubs and bars are very "smoked", but you get used to it. The bands playing there are mostly students from around or from Berlin. Admission is sometimes as low as $2. I have a punk club where I go to very often. It's about five bike minutes from my home and I hang out there with my friends.

About once a month or something like that, I go to the movie theater. For the normal popular movies I choose from the 3 ones around. When I want to watch a movie that's independent, less famous or in another language, I mostly find it in one of the dozen theaters in the city.

I like to go to big concerts in Berlin. It is a big advantage to live in a big city. Every band which is famous, will sometime play in Berlin. I go to American, European or sometimes Asian bands. I can't do it that often so, because a ticket is an approximate $25. When I don't have any money, I can still go to the local bands. That is as much fun with all the stage diving and pogo dancing.

Once a year in the summer, I like to visit the Love Parade in Berlin-Tiergarten. That is a big procession with dozens of Trucks playing very loud techno music and over 1 million people around them on the street. The party itself costs nothing excepts the beverages you buy and many people from all over Germany and also some of other countries come there. Around the parade there are usually extra events in the clubs of Berlin. When the people stop dancing on the street sometime in the morning they go to some chill out club. There are also other parades around that time. There is the antagonist of the Love Parade. It's sometimes called Hate Parade or F*** Parade. It's about heavy music and has not as much people as the Love Parade. We also have the Carneval of Cultures in the summer. That is about music and cultures from all over the world. The last Parade I mention is the Hemp Parade. As the name tells you: It's about Hemp and Hemp Products.

If there is really nothing to do, I hang out in one of the many parks, play soccer or basketball. Sometimes I go to soccer games. That's the Germans most favorite sport "Fussball". Not the table soccer thing, the real sport.
I also do my own sport. I'm in a swimming club and I go to practice twice a week. We do most of the sports outside school in a club. In Treptow-Koepenick many people do water sports. That's not surprising because we have the most water.

www.berlin.de
official berlin page

As kids here I also have to go to school in Germany. You have to go to school for 10 years minimum. After the finished elementary (from 1-6) you get to choose between 3 school types. "Hauptschule" (Main school) is the first one goes to the 9th grade and is made for going to work right after school and learning there for some years. That's the lowest possible graduation. The next one is the "Realschule" (Real school). People also go there for 10 years, but it is a lot more difficult. Many people in Germany have this kind of graduation. The last kind is the "Gymnasium". The word don't has anything to do with sports. That's the most difficult and also longest kind. You have to work 13 years altogether to graduate there. This is the only graduation which allows you to go to university afterwards. You don't have to pay for going to university in Germany. I'm in this type of school and will be in 11th grade when I come back. There is also another type which includes all the other kinds. It's called "Gesamtschule" (All school). You can go there 10 or 13 years and you can get every kind of graduation. What you get in the end, depends on how your grades are. Grades are different in Germany. We don't use letter grades, we use numbers. They range from 1 to 6 with 1 being perfect and 6 being very, very bad. You normally pass classes only with a maximum of 4.

My school is the "Alexander-von-Humboldt Oberschule". Many schools here have the name of important persons in history. We have 800 students in the school and the building has 5 floors. Every morning I have to be there at 8 am. Because I live very close, I walk only 10 minutes to school."
We don't have a school mascot, a school color or a school team. Team sports are mostly practiced outside school. We sometimes have competitions, but we compete against each other in school. I am swimming club outside school since 11 years. Many others are in soccer or kayak clubs. We don't have an official school band either, but we have many students playing an instrument and we actually have some rock and punk bands put together by students. Every December 5th we do a big school play and everybody has to help with something.
We can't choose all our subjects until 12th grade. Since there are many classes everybody needs to take, we form classes of about 30. We've have between 2 and 5 in every grade. In this time we can choose only some classes individually. The rest we do together with all the people in our class. Once a year we usually make a class trip. In 12th grade you choose all your subjects and you have to make valid combinations for your graduation. In 12th and 13th grade, everything you do counts for your graduation and will be shown on the sheet. The former classes are not unnecessary, because you have to pass all the other one to even get to 12th grade. From 11th grade on, we don't have to go to school anymore and we can leave the school during school time. All that counts are the tests and grades there. With the age of 16 we are also allowed to smoke on a designed place in the school territory.

www.avh-schule.de(in german)
Alexander-von-Humboldt Oberschule (Gymnasium)