201003568 - Wonchull Choi - p.50 - 1st draft

'Klassenfahrt' - a German word standing for kind of class trip taken place once in a year and one of the main alive cultures existing in German Middle- and High Schools. As a student who went to one of those in north-western city called Duesseldorf, I also have several hilarious experiences related to that culture.

This was when I first got in the country and jumped into the school as a ninth grader. Due to bad language ability, I was sent to a specialized foreign class, literally a class consisted of only foreign students and the greater part of them were those from Russian speaking countries. So was my first class trip in Germany with fully lots of Russian speaking friends who are generally well known as habitual drinkers (no offense) and its destination was a city called Maastricht in south-eastern Netherlands in the middle of November.

"Priviyatt! That's how we greet in Russian when we meet friends. Repeat you it!" Chitchatting with friends and tossing my eyes out the windows of the bus especially to scenes that it snowdusted a lot (I was kind of happy to see those snow-covered scenes, since in the part of Germany, where I stayed, it was hardly to be found but only raining by driblets.), my first experience to cross over a border not by an airplane came true and it was also very interesting to see all those minute change of scenes like all of sudden there were only signboards in Dutch put up in the buildings or Asian people were hardly to be found there unlike in Germany.

After arrived into an outwardly hostel-looking-like structure and unpacked, I and some classmates decided to take a look around the surroundings of our residence and the downtown. "Oh my god, look! Right at this moment I even don't envy god!" Viktorija, one of my classmates yelled at me and made me astonished. Right behind the hostel was a large-scaled river to be found and a big cruise ship floating around with those various national flags fixed onto its ceiling made a tremendously eyesome scene. Much similar looking to German's were the streets and people and it kind of relieved us to feel like being home. Even at Mcdonald's for quick dinner, all of employees there were capable of being fluent in German and English (they somehow seemed to be curious about the fact that I was communicating with my classmates in German language, though.) and it kind of evoked the convenience yet again to me how useful the language ability for travel is.

The absurd incident began when I found out that my Russian friends smuggled(funnily to describe) a good few bottles of Alcohol into the hostel. Even though I was elder than them, I was totally experienceless in drinking, because I'd never been interested in it above all and it was also implicitly and strictly banned among us, teenagers in Korea. 

Also, our accompanied instructors admonished about it to regulate us and prevent us from any kind of dangers. These things made me detain them by the sleeve in a fright at first when they took the bottles out of the sack, but sooner or later I, this little pinwheel, was fully convinced and caught with chaff so easily. All of sudden me drinking straight from the bottle marked a beginning of my first drinking experience and it didn't stop.

All of my classmates were startledly watching me and actually busy to handle with my acts of the drunkenness, so this continually getting loaded procedure got even worse by the time. To my surprise, now I guess I was fully enjoying this procedure and recalling the feeling that I had right in the middle of that time, it was like the more sips I took, the more steps I took away from the then current realities(like all the loneliness from that I had to care of myself all alone from cleaning to cooking or the grottiness from all unexpected racial discriminations that I had to go through a lot of times when going outside etc…) - "I don't get it why a lot of people judge others so easily only with the appearances! I never ever do that! It is so mean. What do you guys think about that?!"

I didn't have many chances to become intimate and get along with my classmates back then since I was transferred to that school in the middle of the semester and even about the relationship with the boys, I wasn't good and also not interested in sports. In addition, I never imagined I could get to know them better and deeper by this kind of way, but surprisingly I truly was sharing my thoughts with them and gaining the full of sympathy by them, even though we were speaking in a language which didn't belong to any of us as a mother tongue. At that moment, this little boy identified with all the grown-ups including his parents and probably also those number of anonymous drunkards that he'd seen so far in his life why and what exactly for they willingly drink.

Except for that I drank up almost two bottles of Vodka all alone by myself at that night and so all of my classmates had to hunker down, patting me on the back in the toilet and watering to me between whiles for the whole night and it consequentially aroused the humongous rage of our instructors and a curfew order of them, my first experience to both of drinking and class trip was just phenomenal, even though I had to chase the hangover on the following day by some cheesy oily chicken nuggets, creeping out of the hostel with some of my classmates of course and perching in a corner inside a KFC branch. - "You should look around carefully whether any instructor find us, Vicktorija!"

I till nowadays thank myself for not having even one mean drunken habit like slapping the next table guy all of sudden or shouting away noisily. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to look back on that days by chatting through Skype with my first foreign friends so gladly even to this day now and antecedently above all, my following journey to school life wouldn't be that easy and smooth among them like it indeed fortunately was!