Author: Kristyn Fratus

I counted down the seconds until the clock struck 3:02PM, a cold, metallic shrill cried out three times to grant my freedom, and I was released from what had been an abstract concept to me as little as week ago.  It was the second day of school and I already had my routine down.  In stark contrast to three years ago, I didn’t get lost looking for my classes anymore.  I knew where to sit at lunch, working my way up to having the dubious privilege of sitting under the robust oak tree exclusively reserved for the senior class.  

I don’t feel like a senior though.  I feel neither younger nor older, just out of place in a world that used to be my own.  My boarding pass is still tucked inside my passport holder.  It’s less a passport holder than a memory in its own right, its eclectic possessions mirroring a scrambled mind still trying to make sense of its last adventure. 

Inside my passport holder:

• One passport
• One Paris metro ticket
• Two medals of St. Christopher (the patron saint of travel)
• One Panda Express fortune cookie reading.  Panda Express tells me that I “have the urge and ability for major accomplishments.”  I hope they’re right.  

The first day of school (only a day after returning from Berlin) was difficult.  The jetlag may have played a role, considering I went to sleep at 6PM that day.  More telling was how I went from being one of three Americans at my school to one of two thousand nine hundred.  No one asked me about Los Angeles anymore, or how many movie stars I had met that week, or even if it was really possible that Trump could win the election.  I just went back to being normal, but feeling far from it.

It was bizarre to go from a German speaking land back to one completely devoid of the language.  I miss German.  More importantly, I miss the community that made German what it was for me, a fast paced novel rollercoaster and an overall good time. Back in Los Angeles,  looks of admiration have turned into looks of confusion when I tell people I’m teaching myself the language.  Oftentimes, I’m simply asked why I’m doing it in the first place.  It’s a valid question, one I’ve asked myself at length too. 

Before my trip three weeks ago, I would have told them that I started learning because when I went to Switzerland last year, I simply couldn’t understand anything the locals said and I wanted to understand.  After going to Berlin, that’s changed.  My rationale for learning the language has been strengthened by the fact that I now see a concrete reason to continue, a linguistic light at the end of the tunnel that justifies the past ten months of self study.  

Simply put, the Germans I’ve met have fueled my desire to improve.  It’s been the brief conversations on the trolley, the intense pick up soccer games and the fiery political discussions on long walks that have personalized this beautiful language for me.  I realized that a classroom can’t teach these moments, or the individual meaning behind them.  I’m sure I learned more practical information this summer than I will this school year.  Physics and Calculus are necessary, but not noteworthy.  I don’t have the same passion for limits and derivatives as I do for languages, and that’s ok.

That’s why on my wall, printed and neatly taped in each corner, is an email from the program director explaining why I didn’t receive the certificate for the language level I wanted.  Ich habe noch Luecken in Bezug auf Grammatik.  I still have gaps in terms of grammar.

I have no shame about this.  It is displayed on my bedroom wall for all to see, a trophy for the conquering language warrior back from a foreign land.  This email tells me two paramount truths.  The first is that I’ve reached a high level of German by myself.  The second is that there’s still plenty of work to be done, starting with those fateful words on the page.  

So, I continue to learn German because I must.  No matter how much I may want to at times, I can’t leave a project unfinished or a goal forgotten.  I need to make my Panda Express fortune mean something.    

In my first article for Greenheart Travel, I wrote that my goal was to make as many international friends as I could and to speak as much German as humanly possible. 

Mission accomplished.  

But my journey is far from over.  In fact, it’s just begun.  Los Angeles isn’t the same anymore, nor is my school.  They’re just dots on a wider map, specks in a bigger world I’ve only just started to explore.

Sam Gorman is 17 years old and lives in Los Angeles, California. His goal during his language program in Berlin, Germany is to “make as many international friends as I can and to speak as much German as humanly possible!  The only way to really improve in a language is by speaking it, and I plan to put that into practice by using the city as my classroom and by getting out of my comfort zone to improve my language skills. ” Follow Sam’s adventures in Germany.

There’s two things I hate very much in this world, and today I’ve experienced two of them in mass quantity.

The first on my list in long plane rides.  The second is wanting to cry.  A ten hour plane ride to Los Angeles took care of the first criteria, but I didn’t have much of a choice in that matter.  The second was different.

I rarely cry.  I’ve never thought it was proper to display strong emotion in public, perhaps inadvertently subscribing to the cold German ideology I heard so much about before coming to Berlin, but was hard pressed to encounter in reality.  As I looked at my friend from Switzerland in the hotel cantine as she said goodbye, I understood what it meant to watch someone you care about disappear from your life as you know it.  I should be used to it, but I’m not.  I’ve done this sort of goodbye before, from the end of my time in Europe last year to when I left a Yale summer program just a month ago.  I still can’t say goodbye to save my life.  I give an empty smile and tell my closest friends to come to Los Angeles, both of us knowing full well that day may never come but both of us refusing to acknowledge it.

It’s disconcerting to have a group of friends spread across countries you can’t reach.  In the very beginning, these individuals represented their country in a whirl of multicultural excitement.  I wasn’t Sam Gorman but Sam from Los Angeles, almost becoming my city in a smaller version of my world today.

As I got to know these students better, they became much more than just a flag or a city name,  He wasn’t just from Switzerland, he was Marc.  Marc taught the entire history of World War Two in thirty minutes to my friend group.  I’m sure he’ll make a great history professor one day, even if I’m not there to see him do it.  

Because at the end of the day, when I’m lying in my bed in Los Angeles after a long journey, all I’m left with are my memories; ephemeral snapshots of a better time I can never recreate.  And I don’t even want to try to redo these moments, that would cheapen the incredibly unique experience I’ve just undertaken.  

Sure, the classes were informative and the excursions interesting, but what makes a program like this special is the people who go to it.  I would have never in in my wildest dreams expected to be only one of three Americans out of seventy participants, and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience than that.  

I understood a different type of diversity in Berlin, one that transcends racial boundaries to bring together individuals from a host of different countries towards a common purpose.  Los Angeles is an international city, but in my language class I have students from five nationalities, far from the thirteen separate nationalities I encountered in Berlin.  It’s a place where a Slovenian, an Estonian, a Ukrainian, and an overly enthusiastic American from Los Angeles can room together for two weeks and become not just a group of friends, but a team.  A network, that while yes, far strung, still remains strong and ready to react to what life hits it with.

So yes, I hate to cry.  But after I spoke to my friend from the last time,  I couldn’t stop myself from shedding a few tears in the elevator.  A silent tear for the words I couldn’t bring myself to say.  Another for the inadequate words I did.  

But, I never say the word goodbye to my true friends for a reason.  That implies that I won’t be able to speak with them anymore, when the opposite is true.  Meeting again in person is clearly difficult, but staying in touch through technology is easier than it ever has been.  Thanks to Whatsapp, I can talk with my friend in France almost every day, and I still attend Google Hangouts with my Europe trip buddies from last year.  I already have a group chat with the friends I’ve made from Berlin, and while that isn’t the same as a face to face meetup, I’ll gladly take it while I can.

I’m still processing what happened these past two weeks during my language camp.  Last time, I wrote that it was the little things that made my trip worthwhile, the admirable idiosyncrasies I can’t find at home that define the adventure.  Now, I’m not so sure I can define my adventure for anything less than what it is, a wild two weeks comprised of unforgettable experiences and incredible friends. 

I’m proud to have cared enough for these people to express it in such a way, even if crying happens to be a rare occurrence for me.  It should just make it all the better when I get to return to Europe again in the future.  I’ll be ready, and I know my newfound friends will be too.

Sam Gorman is 17 years old and lives in Los Angeles, California. His goal during his language program in Berlin, Germany is to “make as many international friends as I can and to speak as much German as humanly possible!  The only way to really improve in a language is by speaking it, and I plan to put that into practice by using the city as my classroom and by getting out of my comfort zone to improve my language skills. ” Follow Sam’s adventures in Germany on his weekly blog post updates.

The first time I spoke German face to face with someone was when I hopped on the plane to Berlin and asked for water, soaring high in the clouds in a Lufthansa airplane, a midway point between the familiarity I was departing from and the novelty I was arriving to.  I ended up ordering sparkling water by accident, but it was alright.  I was just excited to be able to use my German in a real life environment, one outside the Skype application on my phone where I had spent countless hours practicing with native speakers, but never seen a German in my city of Los Angeles. 

To step outside of the comfortable realm of Skype was a daunting task, I’d have the perfect system for my weekly chats:

• Grab a glass of water at 8:26AM. 
• Take out my German notes at 8:28. 
• Talk for an hour and then write down new vocabulary

I learned until 10.  It was all a system, a game that definitely ended the second I stepped onto my ten hour flight.  I can’t speak with locals for an hour on the street here in Berlin.  My conversations are shorter, more formal, more foreign to the informal slang I’ve learned to love over the past ten months of my language learning adventure. 

The Reality of Learning and Speaking German in Berlin

I learned how to use the formal tense on the long plane ride here, as a self learner of German I’ve had the freedom to choose what to learn from the language, and I’ve always had a simple goal in mind.  I want to connect with people in the language I’m learning.  I’d rather make a native speaker laugh than memorize all fifteen tenses of his language.  One could say I’m a linguistic wanderer, going through the motions not for the destination but for the journey instead.  

I’ve learned that mistakes in a language are an amazing thing.  I’ll never forget the time I called a book a “bush” by accident in German, and asked my friend if she would please lend me her bush because I had lost mine.  Let’s just say I won’t make that mistake again.  But this type of attitude has allowed me to see Berlin in a whole different light, and appreciate it for what it really is.

One week into my stay in Berlin, I can comfortably say that it’s challenged me at every turn, helping me grow in the progress.  Leaving the small subsidiary of Los Angeles that I live in, I knew I was in for an interesting time when my dad labeled it “a real city.”  Having grown up in the Bronx, only a coveted handful of cities have merited this prestigious title from him, Los Angeles not included.  

Week 1 of My German Language Classes

“Wir fangen in Deutsch an?”  “We’ll start in German?”  

Those were the first words I heard when I arrived at my language institute, and I loved it.  Far from the Ameri-centric environment I was expecting, I was immediately thrust into an environment that rivaled Berlin itself for diversity, with only three Americans present and the other sixty students coming from across the world.

Perhaps that has been the most rewarding aspect of this trip for me so far, not necessarily all the monuments and memorials (Which are still important) but the melting pot of cultures and languages I find myself in today.  Travel has an amazing way of rewarding you with what you least expect, and for me it was allowing me to speak endless hours in French with my new Swiss and Parisian friends.  I came to Germany to speak German, but even from my first day I was able to speak French and Spanish with other students from France and Venezuela.  I’ve learned a handful of Russian words, mostly bad ones, from my Estonian and Ukrainian roommates.  These short linguistic snapshots have added meaning to a place I previously only knew in name only.  

And that’s not to discount German in anyway either.  Just like with the sparkling water I accidentally ordered on my way to Berlin, I’ve made plenty of mistakes in the brief period of time I’ve been here for.   Even culturally, it has been quite bizarre for me, from having to remember not to tip waiters to stumbling upon a nude beach and regretting my life choices for the rest of the day. But German has been beautiful, an imperfect representation of the perfection I haven’t reached and the practicality I strive for. 

It’s produced wonderfully impactful but short moments, like perusing a bookstore and talking about literature in German with the shopkeeper for a memorable fifteen minutes.  And the icing on the cake, I remembered not to call a book in German a “bush” this time as well.  

Learning German in the heart of Berlin has been a fascinating experience to say the least.  The people here, whether German or not, have made this city one near and dear to my heart and one I know I’ll travel to again in the future.  Thankfully, I still have one week left. I don’t know what adventures I’ll have gone on by then.  I just know one thing.  You’ll be finding out with me soon!

Sam Gorman is 17 years old and lives in Los Angeles, California. His goal during his language program in Berlin, Germany is to “make as many international friends as I can and to speak as much German as humanly possible!  The only way to really improve in a language is by speaking it, and I plan to put that into practice by using the city as my classroom and by getting out of my comfort zone to improve my language skills. ” Follow Sam’s adventures in Germany on his weekly blog post updates.

Greenheart Travel is excited to send a group of amazing high school students to language camps overseas as part of our 2016 Travel Correspondent Scholarship awards. To help introduce our inspiring writers, we will be doing a series of spotlight interviews to help you get to know a little more about who they are, where they will be headed and what inspired them to learn a new language abroad.

Read on to meet 17-year-old, Sam Gorman, our Greenheart Travel Correspondent from Los Angeles, California, who’ll be traveling to Berlin for his summer language camp in Germany!

Have you traveled abroad before?

Last summer, I was fortunate enough to travel to England, France and Switzerland as part of an amazing scholarship opportunity!

What got you interested in learning German and traveling to Berlin?

It was actually during my time in Switzerland that I decided to learn German.  I was in Davos, a completely German speaking area, and just wanted to understand what they were saying.  I taught myself a few words there so I could manage the basics, but it was really only after I got back that I decided to seriously teach myself German.  After learning for a few months,  I started pursuing opportunities that would take me to Germany so I could fully immerse myself in the culture and language, and was so excited when I found out I would be able to travel with Greenheart Travel to Berlin this summer!

What are you most excited to experience during your language camp?

I’m most excited about meeting German people and getting to practice my language skills whenever I can!  I have yet to meet a German person in Los Angeles, and while I can meet people over Skype, it’s not the same as speaking in person.  I hope to hear about German culture firsthand and forge long lasting relationships with the people I’ll meet there this summer!

Why do you feel it’s important to travel to a new place and learn a new language?

I feel that in today’s globalized world, we can no longer afford to adopt a strictly Americentric point of view.  While the United States is a powerful country, it’s crucial that Americans appreciate cultures different from their own and take the opportunity to travel whenever possible.  And even though English is widely spoken across the world, there’s a vast difference between trying to speak English with an exasperated Parisian salesclerk and surprising her with your flawless French.  Languages open doors, introduce you to extraordinary people and places, and allow you to understand the world through points of views you would never have encountered before.

What are you nervous about as you prepare for your language camp?

I’m not a huge fan of plane rides, or airports for that manner, especially when I’m going by myself.  But I know that I can overcome any apprehension I may have in order to get to my destination.

How well do you speak a second language at this point?

When learning a language, my focus is always on speaking and I make sure to learn what I need to talk with people as naturally as possible.  I speak French at an advanced level, and I’m able to communicate without serious problems.  My German is upper intermediate, around a B2 level using the European Framework of Reference.  And after attempting to teach myself Spanish in a week recently, I speak Spanish at a conversational level as well.  That’s where I’m at right now, but I hope to add Chinese to the list too in the next year!

How do you think you will change the most during your time abroad?

The beautiful thing about travel is often one can come to certain destinations with a fixed idea of how to experience it, and fly home with a completely different story to tell.  While I can hope that I will emerge with a better worldview and appreciation for foreign culture, I can only imagine the ways this trip will change me that I would have never been able to anticipate before going.

Sam Gorman is 17 years old and lives in Los Angeles, California. His goal during his language program in Berlin, Germany is to “make as many international friends as I can and to speak as much German as humanly possible!  The only way to really improve in a language is by speaking it, and I plan to put that into practice by using the city as my classroom and by getting out of my comfort zone to improve my language skills. ” Follow Sam’s adventures in Germany on his weekly blog post updates.