Living in Germany, By Morgan Stockdill, Age 11

Hi, I'm here to tell you all about the good and bad things that by living overseas as a military child may happen to you. My dad is a 1st Sergeant in the Army and I live in Schweinfurt, Germany. I am a sixth grader in Schweinfurt Middle School, home of the Golden Nights. I am not the coolest person in school, but I am smart. I am an average looking person with brown hair, brown eyes and freckles. I have one younger brother, one older sister and so I'm the middle child. I was born in Fort Polk, Louisiana in 1998 and lived there only one year and then we moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. My brother was born in Fort Benning, Georgia in 2000. We stayed there for almost two years and then moved to Germany in 2001. I lived in Germany nine years and I am still here. It's amazing— Most people move in about three or four years, but I've been stuck here forever. These are a few facts about me and what I'm about to write about. I hope you enjoy my story.

My family and I have traveled to many places around Europe and we even took an 11-hour plane flight to Japan (which gave me a headache). This is one of my favorite things about living abroad. When I go home to the states and tell my cousins about all the places I've been, their eyes like pop out. My cousins told me that they have only been to Florida, Canada, and Pennsylvania, where they live. I thought Columbus showed us that the world is not flat and that you won't fall off the edge if you travel too far. So why don't people in the USA travel on a plane and go somewhere new, so they may even learn something? I’ll bet that many people in the USA don't even leave the continent of North America. Leaving North America is only one advantage of living abroad. While traveling, you can learn about different cultures, customs, and languages. You get to see great things like the Mona Lisa in Paris, the Blarney stone in Ireland, the Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Tulips of Holland, Mt. Fuji in Japan, and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. All these things I have seen. Do you think that the people in the U.S.A. kind of live in a bubble? Some people think that there is nothing more than where they live and what they have seen. Traveling is my favorite thing about living abroad.

Living abroad is very different than living in the USA. There are many things you have to get used to. While living in Germany, I have learned how to look for certain things. For instance, if I was looking for a gift for my friend, I would have to go the Post Exchange, because over here we don't have a mall, book store, or Toys R Us. We don't get all the products that can be found in the U.S. The people here learn English in school, but sometimes are not the best at it. So when you live here you learn how to speak German also. Staying in touch with friends and family is sometimes a pain in the butt, but we make it. Sometimes I wish that we were in the U.S., but then I remember how many things I love over here.

I would like to tell you about Germany and other ways it's different from the USA. First, all the stores are closed on Sunday and on most holidays. A lot of people ride bikes around here. My dad and I have ridden from my house all the way through Schweinfurt to where my mom works on base (which most of the time takes an hour). In spring, every town makes a May Pole, which is a big wooden pole that shows the different stores that are in the town. In my town, once a May Pole split in half. Schnitzel is a common German food as is bratwurst, which is a sausage-like hotdog. If you came and ate German food, you would never want to leave.

These are a few facts about Germany. Maybe one day you could come here and enjoy these things yourself.

I hope you now understand why living abroad is so cool, fun, fantastic, and awesome. Germany is just one of the places you could be stationed abroad. Living abroad may be full of challenges, but it is worth it.