Rockyin' Around the Starfish Tree

The past week has been filled with several "last [event/activity] of 2014"s. In Big Band our director decided that for our last rehearsal of the year we'd watch Rocky since we've been working on "Gonna Fly Now." I've seen the movie before, but I must say it's a whole new experience hearing Sylvester Stallone with a German voice. 

We all chipped in and gave Olli, our director, signed drum sticks and a horse shoe.

Since today kicked off Christmas Break, school has been pretty chill the past few days. For example we had Bio zur Frühstück, which means we all brought sweets or breakfast items, sat around chatting, and listened to "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" (I'm expanding my peers' musical horizons). Today there was only first period that was then followed by all ninety eleventh graders cramming into one room for a class discussion. They're already planning the Abi Party (their equivalent of our senior class party) and it makes South's bowling alley shindig look like a cute little peasant get-together. They're planning on having the Abi Party in a castle. Yes, a CASTLE! I mean, there are more random castles just sitting around ready to cater and host your event here than in Salem, but still, a castle! That's pretty awesome.

"Tochter Zion" is definitely a German Christmas Charts Top Hit.

After they were all done chatting about the fairytale castle grad party, there was a Viktoriaschule church service. A few students and teachers intermittently spoke about the past year, all the terrible things that happened (natural disasters, Syria, Ebola, tensions with Russia), the wonderful things that happened (highlighting the World Cup), hopes to take down even more borders in the year to come (reflecting the Mauerfall anniversary), and our own small roles in it all. 

Hey, it's just like karaoke, but Weihnachten-style!

Since it was the last period before Christmas Break really started, hardly any of the high school-aged students came. That also meant when we sang Christmas carols together there was a glorious, very high-pitched, choir of children singing along. I felt like a bass sitting next to this little fifth grader dude. Very sweet, though, all together. We sang Tochter Zion, Herbei o ihr Gläubigen (Oh Come All Ye Faithful), Kommt ihr Hirten, O du frohlige, and Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen. 

Welcome to the Great Hall.

To wrap up the last school day of 2014, I visited the Viktoriaschule circus Christmas open-house event. Students from fifth through twelfth grade participate in the circus club and learn to juggle, walk on tightropes, do acrobatic flips and tricks, ride unicycles, and all the other typical circus stuff you'd think belongs under a big tent. It's pretty impressive to see both little kids and my peers doing these tricks that they make look so easy. I learned how to juggle, but by no means does that mean I can. I was given three hacky sacks to practice over break, but it might take a bit longer for my minimal coordination to catch up with my non-existent talent for all things circus.

Hello! Hola! Ciao! Ciao!

And then in the evening, I went out with some of my buddies to this club called Starfish to truly kick off vacation. Since it was an "Abilicious X-mas Edition" event which meant 16- and 17-year-olds were allowed in (usually it's 18 plus), there were a ton of high schoolers there. It actually kind of reminded me of a South dance until midnight when all the younguns' had to leave. What with chilling with the Big Band watching Mr. Balboa run through Philly to getting down to some remix of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air at Starfish, Christmas break is definitely already in full swing.