Education Systems and Superbowl Monday?

One big disadvantage of going to Germany in the spring is the fact that you miss the biggest NFL game of the year, rather, you have to stay up until 00:45 to watch the game on monday in Germany. This still is the only disadvantage I can think of though. It has been pretty funny to hear what my host family thinks is appropriate game time food, Arizona iced tea, oreos, other cookies, and etc. I told that we usually have nachos or something and they must have realized it was a good idea because their faces lit up with that epiphany.

I missed out on the Haribo expedition on Friday because I was able to see a friend, who I knew lived in Germany but didn't realize Bonn, and talked for a while. My friend studied in Texas as a foreign exchange student while we were juniors in high school so it was pretty interesting talking to her about the differences between the education systems here and in the U.S. She was telling me that in Germany, kids are separated a little before high school, or something like that, into schools for the more "academically inclined" kids and the lesser. This seems like the grammar schools and normal schools in Great Britain, but I'm not certain about that. The separation seems a little cruel to me, as having grown up in the Texas public school system, because it almost sounds like you are banning the "lesser" kids to a life of, at best, mediocrity. I still do not know enough about the education system here to make that statement, but it does seem like that to me with my current knowledge. On the other hand, this is like what public schools do by offering AP courses, because some kids just aren't interested in taking more in depth courses, and I guess that is the same mentality here for the kids in the 'other' schools. This is something I definitely want to look into and that I might get back to you guys at a later time.

Also, my friend said that she is about to go to Switzerland to work a car show where she will get paid 17 euros an hour. If that is minimum wage in Switzerland then sign me up! This brings up an interesting point about the EU and Europe in general(note, Switzerland is not apart of the EU). In the U.S., people can stay within the country, even within a state, for most of their lives, missing the chance to experience different cultures and ways of thinking. In Europe, it seems like everyone has been somewhere and can understand what and how people from neighboring countries think, AND they can work in neighboring countries for ridiculous wages. Even though the EU has almost created a single European identity, I haven't seen a conglomeration of the european identity. The English still have tea time, Germans still make lots of cars and eat meat a lot, and the French are still... well they are French and they and everyone else know it.

In conjunction with our History of medicine class, I have to think about the example Dr. Wasser made of American mentality towards socialized medicine. Some people still think that socialism is equivalent to communism, which is, excuse my french, bologna. Just like the man who held the sign telling the government to keep their hands out of his medicare, there is an ignorance in America that needs to be addressed, and I think that the experience of going to another county is a great idea and I am glad that I have the opportunity to be here and learn.

Contradictory, right?