We bought a penthouse!

Some of you may recall posts fro several months ago in which we were looking for a house--wanting to own again now that we have permanent residency and are pretty confident that we will not have to move away (I have actually lived at my current address longer than I lived at any other in my lifetime).

We started off thinking we would buy a single family, detached home. Something small, two or three bedrooms, all on one level.  It didn't take long to realize this is an almost impossible find in our highly desirable area.  
I don't have a car now and do not want to add the hassle and expense of one to the budget when we move--so that limited us to living in larger towns along the main "Bergstrasse" area and not little residential areas out in the Odenwald Forrest--where property prices are lower but the only public transit provided is a bus running out to other towns about once an hour or less.
In the main towns, there are very, very few detached family homes on the market-even lots for sale meant to build "single family homes" on are often such that you are required to build one wall attached to the adjacent home.  Those zoned in such a way that a truly detached home could be built were all more costly than our budget allowed.
The only already build detached single family homes on the market were either very costly (and also generally very large) or in need of extensive renovations like new roofs, heating systems, pipes, electrical, etc (which, really makes them costly as well by the time necessary upgrades are managed).

We had not even considered condos initially, but it eventually occurred to us that, especially if we would be sharing walls no matter what, a condo offers much of what we really want: low maintenance and less for me to clean since Dave travels so much and lawn care, etc all falls to me most of the time, and we hope I can travel with him more often than not once Rio is out of school.  We don't like having a lot of "stuff" and often find that we are quite happy in a small places that are laid out well, even really living in just a small part of where we rent now.  We DO like to spend time out doors though, dining, just sitting and chatting over drinks, etc.  So, the small balconies that most condos have felt a bit limiting. We eventually focused on penthouses with large terraces and small interior spaces.

By the time we knew we wanted a penthouse, we had also looked enough to have narrowed the field of locations to just three towns that I liked best.  We learned quickly that the better penthouses, with good floor plan layouts, sell long before construction is done and the best way to go is to buy early and patiently wait.

So, when a small parcel of farmland was rezoned for a new neighborhood in one of the towns, we started haunting it, driving through weekly, looking for builder signs and when we found that one lot is indeed going to be a condos with three penthouse units, we jumped at the chance.  Here is what it looked like when we first saw the lot:

And a few weeks later, after we had decided to buy:

Over the course of a few weeks, we ironed out details of some minor changes to the layout and secured financing.

Financing a home in Germany, for us Americans, was an education in and of itself.  In the US, the most common home loans are for 30 years (either at a fixed rate, or an adjustable one which starts low for a few years but then inflates higher, or to whatever the going rate is when the time arrives--these are best for people likely to sell by the time the adjustable rate goes up, or those planning on refinancing down the road).  In either case, the loan is designed so that after 30 years of payments, the home is fully paid off. For the first several years, unless you choose to pay extra towards the principal, nearly all of your payments will be interest and very, very little goes towards the principal of the loan (unless you choose to prepay above the amount due and have that go towards the principal, which most US loans allow, in any increment, at any time, so that simply rounding up the monthly payment to the next $100 every month can cut a few years off of the total duration of the  mortgage).

In Germany, we learned that most home loans are for 10 or 15 years.  The entire home will not be paid for when the loan is up--there is a lump sum payment due at that time (you can then either pay it off in cash, or get a new loan to cover the new, smaller amount).  Typically (nearly every option we looked at) about fifty percent of your mortgage payment from day one will go towards the principal on the loan, which means you build equity much faster.  You can prepay (in most loans) but are generally limited to no more than 5% of the total loan amount per year and it must be done in one lump some no more than once per year or in lumps of 1000€ or more but can be done more often depending on the bank and specific loan terms--in either case, simply rounding up payments does not appear to be possible under normal circumstances.  

We signed the paperwork for our loan just before we left for our summer trip to the US back in July (actually, 3 loans through one bank: one government sponsored very low interest loan because the house is very energy efficient, the majority of the rest as a 10 year loan at a lower rate and a bit as a 15 year loan at a slightly higher rate--this spreads out the lump sum pay offs at the end nicely, and the overall rate with the three combined is 2.01%, which is much better than I ever thought I'd see when we lived in the US) and on Friday, we went in for the German version of what we call a closing in the US.

In the US, closing generally involves lots of people around a table and signing your name, or initialing things dozens of times.  I always try to read at least the typed in information which is clearly specific to us, like names, addresses and finance rates, but slowing down to try to actually read and understand all of the legalize involved has always been met with impatience and annoyance from everyone else--and before long you are just signing and initialing with only vague understandings of what various forms mean, as explained quickly by the lawyers or bankers working the closing.  I have never really liked the rushed feeling at all.

Our meeting with the German Notar was quite different.  First of all, we were mailed copies of everything we would sign weeks in advance.  There were a few blanks in there which would be filled in in the final papers we signed, but it was 98% there and available to review before we ever went to officially sign.  Then with us and the builder's representative in the room, the Notar actually read aloud the entire 31 pages of legalese to both parties before we signed it!  From an American standpoint this is kind of an unbelievable concept--but really it is kind of smart, no one could realistically argue that they did not know what was in the documents after that!  He read fast, and there were a lot of very long German words in there, so my brain felt like it mush after two hours, but the Notar did stop after each section to confirm no one had any questions (and explain anything we were unclear on if asked) and that all information was correct.  

Just look at the top bolded word in that snippet below!  That is one looooong word, and there were plenty of others like it thought-ought.  

After 2 hours of ultra fast reading of super long words, we each signed ONCE and that was that.  we'll get something in the mail in a few weeks, and again in 18 months or so once the condo is fully built and the builder's construction loan paid off at which time the Notar will do what is necessary to have us shown as owners in the "Grundbuch" (property book, THE source for all property ownership information in Germany, where US (and British, I believe) style titles and title searches simply do not exist).  

And the best news?  The foundation of the building was dug last week, so we not only got the legal things done, but it is being built now and that just feels good. It is amazing how exciting a hole in the ground can be:

The foundation of the duplex next door was also dug out last week.  I am amazed at how close together they can dig and work and not have issues (ours in on the left, their's on the right, there is about a half foot of soil in between up top and 3 - 6 feet at the base, perhaps):

And as a final bonus, we have discovered a lovely little lake, complete with public swim beach, a walking path all the way around and a few Beer Gardens along the shore--just a 5 minute bike ride away from our new home:

What more could a girl ask for?

--Hadley

More scattered thoughts on the refugee situation (part 2)

Well, my earlier post on this subject said it was part 1, which implies more to come, so I figure I better get on with putting down a few more of my thoughts, which are mostly just reactions to what I see and hear others saying about the number of refugees coming into Germany and other Western nations from Syria, Afghanistan, etc.

To those who would like to see the borders closed and refugees denied asylum because some people who are not in danger might use the situation to bypass the standard immigration process:

I would no sooner close the border for this reason than I would close down a homeless shelter or end the food stamp program because a small percentage of people using such things are taking advantage and not in true need.  You know, in this case, I struggle to wrap my mind around the idea at all----this is basically saying that allowing many hundreds of thousands of people, mostly children, to be raped and killed or conscripted into an extremist army is somehow a lesser evil than accidentally allowing, perhaps a few thousand people to immigrate without going through the proper channels.  How can that be a position any decent human being would even consider to be reasonable?  I like to think those proposing this simply have not thought it through clearly.

Perhaps it would also ease people's concerns to know that (in Germany at least, and I assume elsewhere) there is a process that refugees go through after arriving and to grant asylum quickly to those who qualify so they can begin working and starting their new lives.  Others are deported.  Germany is working on speeding up the process so those who are taking advantage can be deported  quickly, freeing up space and resources for actual refugees.


To those who fear that allowing so many refugees in will "destroy the culture of Germany:"  Well, I am an immigrant here myself, so I don't suppose I have much right to want to deny others the same chance, even if I wanted to.  But I am not really worried about a massive cultural shift anyway, and on a smaller scale cultures has never been stagnant, so this is nothing new or bad.  I think Germany can manage to maintain its heritage, its love of football, wurst and Christmas markets; its tendencies to drive fast, work hard and travel often; its manufacturing and engineering based economy; etc while welcoming in people from Syria, much as it did while welcoming those from Turkey a generation or two ago and the (largely Italian) guest works of the 1960s.  Germany has been the modern day melting pot of this world of ours, and while there are the inevitable bumps along the way, it seems to work reasonably well more often than not and I do not think it makes Germany any less German.  I liken it to the fast rise of the Hispanic population on the USA.  We might have gained some as a culture because of that rise over my lifetime, but we certainly did not lose anything.
"but, there are Muslims coming in, the cultures is too different"  Yeah, um, well the Turkish immigrants were mostly Muslim as well.  I don't have any fear of Islam, or of any other religion in and of itself.  Now, extremists, they scare me.  I would worry if we were seeing hundreds of thousands of extremists (from any religion) moving in.  As is, the refugees are fleeing extremists, so, nope, not worried.

Sigh.  It happens that in this moment in history there are a fairly large number of Islamic extremists, and far too many of them have power or deep pockets (or both).  I suppose this results in people thinking that the extremists represent the religion as a whole, but this is simply not the case (I write this as someone who counts a number of not extremists Muslims among my friends).  Extremists, whether in the form of Warren Jeffs and his fundamentalist LDS sect, the Branch Davidians or ISIS are scary but none of those things represent the larger religions from which they sprang.

and, speaking of ISIS, to those who feel refugees should not be give asylum due to the risk of ISIS exploiting the situation:  I work with USA Girl Scouts Overseas in our area.  We have a private facebook page which only registered girls and their families, as well as leaders, can access which we use to post meeting dates and locations and the like.  We get 4-5 add requests from perfect strangers a week.  The VAST majority of those are from men whose home pages are in Arabic.  I figure this is just a tiny example of how militants are targeting youth and persuading them via use of social media. I see articles all the time talking about how social media is being used as a tool to recruit for Jihadists and to shake up morale among those fighting extremism, etc.  I think this needs to be taken seriously and steps taken to counter act it, but I do NOT think facebook, Twitter, etc should be disbanded; nor do I feel refugees should be denied safety because some extremists might possibly capitalize on the situation.
Honestly, my bigger concern is to figure out why it is that extremists seem to be able to sway so many of our Western raised young people to sympathize with or even fight for them--whether that be in person or through social media.  Why are so many so susceptible and how do we counter act that?  I highly doubt that leaving hundreds of thousands in serious jeopardy out of fear of their religion or culture is going to be the magic elixir which stops that draw towards extremism--if anything, it might push more towards it if we Westerners are so frightened by those who are different that we will sacrifice the lives of children to keep the difference away from ourselves.

So, I guess the sum of my scattered thoughts is that I am proud of Germany (and others) for taking in the refugees and doing the best they can to help people and I hope those nations who have been unwilling to do much step up and do more.  I hope the situations in Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, etc improve and stabilize so that people no longer must flee their homes..  I hope those who have left and are now trying to rebuild their lives feel welcomed and are welcomed into their new communities and helped to learn about the culture they are becoming a part of while also getting to teach their new neighbors about their heritage.   I hope refugees and citizens  are understanding of the missteps that inevitably happen as communities struggle to provide for the influx.  I hope we, as humans, can pull together, as we have been doing thus far, and help one another and help make this work out for all.  And I intend to help to the extent that I am able.

--Hadley

A few scattered thoughts on the refugee situation part 1

So as most of you have probably seen on the news, refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere have been flooding into Europe, including Germany recently (it has been a steady stream for quite a while, but the pace really picked up this summer).  We have quite a few staying in former military housing here in Heidelberg--last week the paper said there are 3700 people staying at Patrick Henry Village alone. Here is a photo from the Rhine Neckar Zeitung in July---people are packed in even more tightly there now:

So I guess the first scattered thought I will share, is that other than occasionally seeing people at a train station, a doctor'S office or near the PHV entrance, etc. even knowing refugees are here in large numbers, and looking for it, and living less than 5 minutes from such housing, there is really no effect on day to day life for us here in Germany (and my friends in Munich say the same).  I still feel completely safe taking our local public transit (which is running on time and not overcrowded) and walking and riding my bicycle around town, even along the edge of PHV.  The news likes to make it look like chaos has broken lose here in Germany, and I don't know if it might really be problematic along the borders with some of our Eastern or Southern neighbors neighbors (I admit I am in no hurry to take a driving trip that way, in case borders are closed and/or some violence erupts) but within Germany things are not really different for the typical inhabitant or tourist.  I am fairly confident that any major hassles in Munich over the next few weeks will be from the influx of tourist for Oktoberfest and not from refugees.  

So in answer to all of those who have asked, yes it is safe to take your planned business trip or vacation in Germany right now.  

My next scattered thought would be in reference to memes like the one below (or posts or comments expressing the same thoughts):

I see these things and I really hope that the poster has a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation and not a fundamental lack of compassion.

I don't know where the photo of Kurdish female fighters is coming from, but these women clearly have access to some sort of organization and likely training as well as weaponry and uniforms.  

My limited understanding of the situation in some places in Syria is that this simply is not a possibility for many; that staying "to fight" would mean almost certain death and possibly rape or torture for themselves of their children beforehand.  And in spite of many assertions on message boards and facebook about the number of adult male refugees, every article I have seen in any mainstream sources points out that over half of the refugees are children.  If their parents were to stay and try to fight both their own government and ISIS, how would the children escape rape and murder?  Or being co-opted into ISIS at a young enough age to be brain washed into fighting for them (which would add to the  danger to us all!)?  

Besides, I really cannot fault anyone for preferring to move and get somewhere safe to live their life, rather than fight to the death for the chance to continue living where they had been.  Is that really so unusual?  Do the same people posting these memes fault Jews who fled Germany, The Netherlands, Hungary, etc for not trying to fight Hitler's forces?  

I am also bothered by the sexism inherent in the post.  By making a point of comparing the women to the men, instead of simply adults, the underlying assumption is that men, as a whole should be braver, that women are somehow less likely to have that trait.  That whole idea does not sit well with me.

Moving on to more thorny topics--I am also seeing lots of vitriol on social media aimed at the various missteps and decisions that one country or another, or one official or another had made in coping with the situation.  This was most frequent when Hungary stopped trains headed towards Germany and moved refugees into camps to process paperwork before allowing them to move--I think the situation lasted only a few days but the cries of racism and comparisons to things like concentration camps went on much longer.  All of these types of over the top reactions and extreme offense and anger aimed at officials who are coping with making snap decisions with little to no time for research or consultation with others, feels really out of line to.

It's easy to sit in our comfortable living rooms and say what we think shouldn't be done.  I assume it is not nearly so simple to be faced with a few hundred, or a few thousand,  hungry people with minimal or sometimes no paperwork, half of whom are children, all of whom are likely frightened or desperate at least on some level and trying to figure out how to best accommodate and  feed all of them NOW while also keeping your country safe and following rules about processing incoming peoples, etc.  

I think the reasonable thing to do is to expect missteps, look out for them and discuss then and try to fix them as quickly as possible, but continue to appreciate and understand the various leaders being placed in the positions of making these decisions with no prior training for such an unprecedented event.  I guess basically, I wish more people would cut the leaders some slack and help them change paths when needed rather than making them the enemy when their attempts prove to be misguided.

I have a few more, equally (or more) scattered thoughts, but I think this is enough in one post.  

--Hadley

The best laid plans. . . or my adventures with the German police

Rio has been out of school sick this week.  Yesterday the doctor said he cannot return to school until Monday.  The only meeting on my schedule today was for evening.  So last night I felt justified in staying up quite late chatting online with Marika in the US, knowing I would not have to set an alarm and planning to sleep in today and eventually blog a few of my thoughts on the refugee situation.

Unfortunately the best laid plans often go a bit awry. . .

and so it was that at 6:40 I was awakened, not by an alarm clock but by the door buzzer.  I initially ignored it, after all who rushes to answer the door at that time of morning?  As the buzzing continued for one minute, then two, then three that familiar dread set in and I assumed that my landlady had decided to start harassing us again.  The buzzing continued, and eventually I dragged my reluctant self out from under the covers, threw on my robe and glanced out of the window.  I was relieved to see that it was not my landady but also alarmed to spy three policemen (as well as their car and my neighbors trying to get out of their garage around the car).

Rushing down the stairs, various scenarios flooded my mind.  Was the neighborhood being evacuated due to some toxic spill on the nearby autobahn?  Had something horrible  happened to David or Marika and word was coming to me via the local police?
One scenario which did not cross through my mind in that mad dash to the door was being served with a search warrant on suspicion of theft!  Seriously, if you had asked me to list 100 reasons why police might be at my door, that would not have been on it.  And yet, there I was trying to keep my robe on straight, unbrushed teeth and hair, three officers coming in with paperwork telling me we are suspected of stealing a cell phone and they were going to search my house.

It doesn't look like much, but that little piece of paper carries a lot of weight

(and I wasn't about to take photos of officers here, so that is about the only picture I could think of to break up the text in this post)

Not really knowing the protocol for being served with a search warrant, I was offering the officers seats and coffee, opening blinds and turning on lights so we could see, and trying to wake my mind up enough to follow what they were saying.  Something about some town I am not familiar with, and a phone being stolen from the train station there.  I was fixated on not even knowing the town and asking where it was and the officer was fixated on trying to explain to me that records show I have a teen son and parents often don't realize what their kids are up to and they just needed to search for it since it was last used on the day it was stolen from our IP address.

I thought they said this happened on the second and I pulled the calendar down, wanting to double check my memory that all of us were still in the US on the second (which ought to be easy enough to prove) and then I heard it happened JULY 2nd.  Just as I was flipping back to see where we might have been that week, the name of the cell phone's owner got mentioned and suddenly things started to make at least a little bit of sense--it's Marika's best friend, a wonderful young lady we all love, one who is here so often the guest room is often referred to as her room.  The phone appeared to have been stolen when she was on her way home from spending the night with us and luckily  Marika had written her name down on our calendar when they made plans for her to be here so that made it obvious we really do know her.  It is an unusual name and the fact that it had been written there prior to the officers' arrival did set off some light-bulbs for them as well and the tone took a rapid change, thank goodness.

I still had to awaken Rio and he was questioned.  His cell phone was removed from its case the the serial number checked and the two officers (the third was apparently a witness).  Both his room and Marika's were searched a bit as well as the hall closet and many spaces in the living room.  We were told that under normal circumstances they would have to go through EVERYthing, but since there was clearly a little bit of a mix up since we knew the person whose phone it was, they were just checking more obvious places and not putting us through a full search and the ensuing mess.  Thank goodness for that (and I should explain the officers were kind and professional throughout; I don't fault them).

Half an hour later the officers and witness left, leaving me a copy of the search warrant and results that I had had to sign and instructing me to go down to the station in the afternoon with my IDs (I wasn't clear on why).

Left alone, the first thing I did was email David and ask him to call when he got up.  I was fairly shaken up by all this and just wanted to hear his voice.  I only ask him to call from his work travels two or three times a year, but today qualified as one of those times.  And next, of course, I messaged the friend and asked her to call me (and then I posted on facebook--which may seem strange but it felt like talking to someone and I wanted to talk to someone).

Having spoken to the young lady whose phone is missing, and combined that with what I understood of what the officers said and what is written in the warrant, this is the best I can piece together:

Our friend spent the night here and left late the next morning.  She was logged into her skype account while here.  She rode her bike to the train station, took the bike on the train (as she usually does), had used her phone on the train (so knows it was with her when she left), put it in her bike basket and once arriving at her destination (this town I am not familiar with but nearish where she lives.  Maybe this is where her boyfriend lives?  I honestly do not know why she was there, though the police asked me this afternoon to try to explain that. which seems odd).  As she was leaving the train station a crowd jostled her and ran into her and after that she found her phone was missing.
Her boyfriend looked up her skype account and saw a log in from an IP address that they did not recognize that evening, so when she went in to police to report the theft they took the IP address, assuming the log in was from the phone.
I should take this time to point out that I do NOT fault the friend at all for any of this.  It makes sense to report the theft and also to have looked for possible information and share that with the police when reporting.  She's a great girl and felt horrible about this whole thing, which is silly as it is not her fault at all.

What bothers me a bit though is that it would seem that ALL it took for a police officer to ask for a search warrant on our home and a judge to agree and issue it was one person reporting a 179€ missing cell phone and bringing in an IP address that had logged into the skype account shortly after the phone is believed to be missing.  No one even called her after tracking down the owner of the IP address to ask if she had been in our town or knew anyone here.  No one spoke to us.  There was no call made  from the phone traced back to us after it was taken.  Presumably, no one looked at the history to see that she often visited us and our IP address would show up on her records pretty frequently.
One missing phone, worth less than 200€ and one piece of information about a skype account log in found by the people making the report (not the police, as I understand it--perhaps they verified this and I was simply not told) and that is enough to issue a warrant for a full search of our home?  That just feels like a little much, you know?  I am surprised and saddened to learn that apparently so little is needed in Germany to send police over on a search.  And had Marika not written her friend's visit down on the calendar, then I suppose we would have been subjected to a full and intrusive search (which would not have turned up anything, no I do not have anything to hide, but that does not make it pleasant to have people going through everything including your underwear drawer and then have to put it all back away again after).

And I started to wonder, had they come on Monday when Dave was heading to the airport, would he have been allowed to leave or would he have had to miss a 500€ flight while the search for a 179€ phone took place?  Had Rio not been sick, would he have been allowed to go to school on time, or would he have missed first period while his room was searched and he was questioned?

Even with really nice officers who seem to realize there must be a mistake somewhere, it feels awful to be under such suspicion.  To have to go into the station to make a statement (that was what the meeting was for) and sign that statement even though I did not understand fully and completely every single German word in it (legal terms relating to theft, pleas and warrants are a definite hole in my vocabulary, though the officer did try to explain to me and I did not press it much, at the time I thought I would leave with a copy at least and I do trust that he is representing things fairly) and to be told I cannot even have a copy of what I signed, legally I apparently have no right to a copy (which feels odd to me), to know that there is a file out there, probably in duplicate or  triplicate at at least two precincts which shows we were suspected of a crime to such a level that a warrant was issued, it just feels crummy and unsettling and here it is past 6 pm and I have not quite gotten over the shakey feeling yet.    Maybe part of that is because even though the friend called and emailed the officers to explain it was not us and she had been here earlier but we were not at the station where her phone was taken, the officer who took the report is on vacation and until she returns my understanding is that  the case is open and we are still technically under investigation and suspects.

I don't know.   One thing I can say, I will be happy when it is all over and I hope we get something in writing saying it is closed and we are no longer suspected of anything--it would make me feel better to have something.  And I think about how shaken up I am, and I think about the big story going around yesterday--in which a 14 year old who built a clock and took it to school to show a teacher was handcuffed and arrested and initially charged because it looked like a "fake bomb" to someone at school and I wonder how shaken that poor kid was.  Thank goodness no one put handcuffs on me.  No one arrested or charged me.  The officers were very polite and nice at all times.  What must it feel like to be 14 and accused of much worse than taking a phone, and suspended and handcuffed and taken away from school in a squad car?

The police do a lot of good hard work both in the US and Germany and I think most are good people trying to do an important job.  I hope no one reads this and thinks I feel otherwise.  But it sure feels awful when them doing their job results in good people being searched or worse (and yes, in the US we have many examples of that small but significant percentage who are drawn to the profession for all the wrong reasons and need to be removed from forces or retrained and not ever protected as sometimes happens--but that is not what this post is about--this is just about my experience today and how crappy that feels and how much worse it must feel to be treated in any way less polite and respectfully than the police treated me today and how badly I feel for anyone who is regardless of how valid or not the reasons were).

--Hadley

Free University in Germany--it's probably not what most Americans are envisioning

One of my excuses for the recent neglect of my blog is that it was a lot of work and effort helping Marika decide what to take back to the US with her and pack up and sort and then we all went over to the states for just over a month (which is the longest trip I have ever been on) to visit family and drop her off at University in the US.  Yes, my little girl has moved back to the states, and yes, it does feel weird living on a different continent than my teenager.

Dropping Marika off at school was a lot of fun, but while we were busy moving her into her dorm room and attending parent orientation, I couldn't help but think of the many conversations we have had with her friends here in Germany about how very different the university systems in the two countries are, and wondering how that (along with the much higher taxes in Germany) play into the debate about "free university" in which i so often hear lately that the US should offer free university, "just like Germany" does.

 (it should be noted that I absolutely feel university costs have risen far too high and too fast in the US and that something needs to be done to stem this;  however I think when looking to what other countries charge, it is important to know what we are comparing to, and I think many, if not most Americans that I hear speaking about this are imagining US style universities offering free tuition, which is simply not the case in Germany--thus my blog post).

Taking my cue from The Sound of Music, perhaps I should start at the very beginning: The (potential) Students.
In the USA the vast majority of students attend highschool together.  Some may take more rigorous course loads and some less, but that is decided primarily by the student and on a year by year basis, and all of the various courses are in one building, one highschool which is for ALL kids in that area.
Nearly any student who graduates from high school can go on to college if s/he wants to and is able to finance it.  Those with better grades and test scores and AP classes are more likely to be accepted into the most prestigious universities and to receive substantial scholarship money, but even lackluster students who took pretty simple classes and bombed their SATs (standardized tests whose scores are often used when determining college acceptance in the US--they can be retaken many times in attempts to get the best score possible) can probably find 4 year schools to take them (often school which offer a great education, by the way) and there is also the option for a low performing student to take classes at a local community college for a year or two, show a good track record there and then transfer into a 4 year school (and receive credit towards the degree for the classes taken at community college).

While the Americans are busy getting ALL (or nearly all) kids ready for university and pushing that option for nearly everyone--the German system is set up very differently.  The standard German system tracks kids at the end of fourth grade (yes, you read that correctly, FOURTH grade, primarily 9 year olds) into one of three schools for the remainder of their pre graduation years.  Only the top track (gymnasium)  eventually goes on to attend university (and in recent decades there is an option for graduates of the middle track to then go into the top track with an extra year and possibly go on to university, but my understanding from speaking with many teachers and parents is that this is almost never done).  Even once a child "makes the cut" into the gymnasium track, they can be demoted down at any time if they fail to keep up and maintain strong grades in German, English, a third language, math and history at a minimum--estimates I see often in new articles are that 80% of students have at least one paid outside tutor for most of their years from grade 5 and up in order to maintain this.  Most do stay on track though, and take the abitur exam as 12th graders (it used to be in grade 13--this is a recent change).  This is a ONE time exam taken over several days and scores on that will be the primary factor which determines what fields someone is eligible to study in.

So, I guess that the first major thing that I think many Americans fail to understand when speaking about how Germany offers free university, so why doesn't the US is: Germany provides a free university education for a pretty limited number of its citizen (I never could find a definitive number when googling but approximately 30%, up from only 10% as recently as the late 60s, seems to be the most thrown about number).

Germany does also  take in qualified foreign students  tuition free (for the time being, at least)----largely to attract talent to the country in the hopes that people stay (and enough are doing so right now to make it worth while to continue).  I wonder if this will continue with no extra fees for foreign students if all the recent publicity about Germany "no longer" charging tuition brings in a much bigger number of foreign students on a long term basis?  (my hunch is that this tide will be short lived, and I put "no longer" in quotes as even prior to the new ruling tuition was non existent in many states and only a few hundred euro per year in the others).
  I find it an interesting commentary on the German lower school system that it is entirely possible for students who would not have made it into the German gymnasium system if born here, to use their foreign credentials to attend university here.

Alright, so everyone should know that Germans tend to be taxed much higher than in the US, and now you know that the German system expects to put a much smaller percentage of people through university than the US, but I think it is also important to understand that university in Germany and university in the USA are really very different things anyway:

In the US we talk a lot about "the college experience" and it is an experience which is in many ways unique to those attending university.  American universities are designed, by and large, to create communities.  Students are meant to feel like they belong, like they are a part of the campus.
Most American college students live on campus in university owned housing (dorms) for at least the first year (many universities require this) where there is an onsite resident adviser to help a lonely student through homesickness or squabbling roommates work out an agreement if needed and meals are eaten in communal dining halls during set hours;
they belong to clubs or intramural sports teams on campus,which often practice in university owned facilities or have a staff sponsor to oversee things;
 they attend football or basketball or other sporting events featuring the school sponsored teams in school owned stadiums or gyms or ride buses as a group to watch away games held in stadiums or gyms owned by other universities;
 they wear clothing in the school colors bearing the school logo or mascot (a large variety of which is available for purchase at on campus "book"stores);
when ill, they receive medical treatment at fully stocked on campus health centers where the anxious or depressed can be given counseling treatment as well;
and so on.

Marika in her on campus dorm room, which comes furnished with the basics seen here

and the same room after she rearranged and brought in a pick up truck load of extras to make it hers

In a nutshell, undergrad programs in the US are about so much more than just learning a particular subject (in fact, many students do not even know what they want to major in when they begin and many more change their majors midway through anyway--this is possible partly because the vast majority of US universities have "core" requirements in a broad range of categories for ALL students).  US universities are set up to be about growing independence, learning who you are and what you are good at, trying new things, volunteering, meeting new people, building a community, getting exercise (nearly all have lovely recreation centers full of great equipment and gyms which they love to feature on tours), etc.
And the learning which takes place can be in large lecture halls with little to no interaction between professors and students, but MANY universities have moved away from that model even for Freshmen courses and have smaller class sizes and more discussion based approaches.  Marika is taking 18 credits (6 classes), one has 80 students but her other classes have around 20-25.  All of her professors provide office hours for extra help or simply to further discuss class ideas, the university provides free math tutoring if needed, a writing lab for free help in with essays, and a myriad of other support systems to help students achieve at her school and virtually every school she considered no matter how briefly--this is the norm in the USA.

About 400 students heading across campus towards one of the on campus dining halls during one of several "new student orientation" sessions this summer.  Orientation is two days long and includes campus tours, working with advisers to sign up for classes as well as learning about many on campus clubs and activities, talks from campus police, campus health care, etc.  

By contrast, German universities are mostly all about providing that education, primarily in the same large lecture format that gymnasium students proved themselves able to learn from from an early age.  Students enter into one degree program and it is virtually unheard of to change majors--and if it does happen it is nearly always a very minor shift, such as switching from one focus in Computer Science to a slightly different focus still in Computer Science.  On campus housing does not really exist (though universities can usually point students toward lower cost housing meant for students, and often maintain lists of those looking for roommates).  There are no school sponsored sports teams.  No mascots.  Few recreation centers and no  large lists of clubs and organizations vying for student attention.  The university is there to provide the classes needed to earn the degree, and proctor the exams.  If you happen to want to have fun or build a community at the same time, that is up to you but the university is not really putting resources towards making that happen.  Nor is the university interested in helping students learn to live on their own and making it easier with that home away from home step of housing, on site meal plans (there are lower cost cafeterias though), etc.
And if you cannot keep up with the course load for whatever reason (anything from it just moves too fast, to you failed to show up for most of the lectures), well, just sign up to take the test at  another time instead of this session and redo the class, only the final test score will show up in the end, not how long it took you to decide you were ready to take and pass the exam--heck you never specifically sign up for course anyway; you just decide what you plan to take and show up for lectures (at least, this is how Marika's friends at a nearby technical college tell us it works and they seem to be under the impression this is pretty normal nationwide and not some special program).


Both systems have their pluses and minuses. I am not posting this blog to argue that one is better than the other--only to point out that they are tremendously different and should not be compared without a decent understanding of how they also contrast.

--Hadley

Today, let's celebrate

14 years ago today the world witnessed a terror attack on a scale so large that even sci-fi movies had rarely imagined it possible.  When reality struck, we were shaken and scared, but also energized and hopeful.  Before the World Trade Center Towers even fell, and as they did and after: fire fighters, police, medics and countless others, whether it was a duty inherent in their job or not, rushed towards the scene of the impact to help in any way they could.  Passengers on flight 93, learning of their intended fate, took matters into their own hands to at least spare the lives of more on the ground.  New York mourned as a city, the nation mourned with them and the world mourned with us--but we did not stop caring and loving and crumble as the attackers intended for us to do.

So, today, 14 years later--as we are still standing proud for who we are: still free to disagree on politics and religion and policies and even minor things like style choices or TV shows, openly and honestly; today as we are still a nation of diversity and a Western World of democracy with free flowing exchange of ideas and ideals--I can think of no better way to honour the lives of those who lost theirs on September 11, 2001 than by celebrating all the goodness we still show to one another day in and day out, in spite of, or maybe even sometimes because of, our differences.

So today, when you pause for a moment and recall where you were when you first heard the news 14 years ago, also think about how many people you see every single day out there helping one another out in small ways and big, official and unofficial, regardless of their differences---and celebrate that Al Qaeda, and ISIS and the Klu Klux Klan and the IRA and the Boko Haram and any other "lone wolf" or well organized terror organization will NEVER take the essential love and kindness and caring that infuses humanity away from us.

I challenge each and every one of you who reads this to share (on facebook if you have it, or talking to someone or in the comments here or anywhere that works for you) at least one thing you see others doing to help each other out today.  Let's not toot our own horns and talk about what we ourselves do--but spread the warm feelings from witnessing someone else's goodness.  Whether that is something big, like knowing a friend who is hosting a refugee or small like seeing a teen help little kids carry their raft up a hill at the water park--SHARE IT.  CELEBRATE IT.  Honour giving and love and overcoming our differences in ways big and small and never, NEVER letting terrorists take that from us.

--Hadley