Pictures

This Page will take some time to load because of all the pictures on it. But it is worse the time.

OK here are some of the pictures I made during my exchange year in the US in Ohio to be exact here close to Fayetteville. I will write some things to every picture. And hope you will enjoy my little coments. I some times wrote them in an order which always goes from left to right.

These are some of the cows that are around all year. Some times when I woke up they stood infornt of my window.
Every morning they looked at me I wonder if they ever realized that I was the same person every day!?!??

OK now you see that the driveway really is long. And I had to walk down the driveway every morning on school days to catch the school bus. This Picture was taken a few moments after the first one. On the left you can see some of the old farm buildings most of them are not used any more.

Ok this is the House where I lived slept ate and did other things you might not want to know about. This picture was taken in the late fall of 1999. You can see 3 of the 4 cars and the end of a long driveway.

A beautiful sunset. You see you can have great sunsets even far away from the ocean.

I have to admitt  thought that I cheated a little bit on theis picture and made the colors more intense.

Now down the drive way I look to the south and see the sign "JCT 123" And that was the easiest way to describe where I lived. Close to the interjection where State Route 123 ends on State Route 251 in Ohio, or in the middle of nowhere.

The House again this time from a different angle in the evening sun. You can see how big the house is. It is w huge and old farm house, Beautiful and peaceful. Sometimes a little too peacefull. ;-)

The two peacocks which made great sounds and also looked very beautiful in the spring time when they did their thing with the feathers. There are also a few chickens somewhere in that cage.

The hall way from the back where my room was. It is just to the right of the position from where the picture is taken. This hall way was never so bright that is the flash from my photo aparat. It was really really dark and in my first days in the house it really scared me and I still think it is a perfect seeting for a Scary movie.

That is the library also one of the dark rooms in the house. But when the sun sets it makes great light effects from the window you see in the background on all the old dusty books nobody never ever read.

This is a picture taken of the snack corner of the kitchen and also of the table where the computer stands. The table in the background with the copy machine on it is the place where the computer stands and where I am sitting right now. With my feet on top of one of those fans you see under the table.
By the way the picture was taken before the computer was there. So don't look for it you can't find it.

This is a picture of the living room where in the background you can see the table we ate on.
To get an idea of the house well walking down the hallway you saw before turn to left and you will see the library and than walk through the library and you will see this.

And if you would have turned left in the library you would have see the music room. With a pile of notes (some are mine) on the little table and the two re sting cats as well as the old furniture in the back it gives you a perfect idea of the old and peacefull life style of the time I was there. Some thing I know I will miss.

This are some people from my advanced math class (the only class where my grades did not improve from first to second semester but only because I lost some interest in that class.) This picture was taken when we all got ready for the pep rally and painted our faces green and white (school colors). The third person from the right is Jenett Abdul Karim the other german exchange student at the school.

LEON - he is a character. I will write more about him somewhere else because I only have limited space here between these pictures. This is the position Leon spent most of his afternoons or early evenings. Leon was 83 when I was there and a very lively person for his age. He was giving voice/singing lessons and was also very active with his animals. Oh and he was my host dad.

This was our christmas. You see John, my host brother, unraping his gift and his wife Christa is watching him.
On the far right you see the back of Don's head. Don is my other host brother and lives in Washington DC and is a really nice guy.  :-)

And the unwrapping continues. This is Maryellen my host mother. 65 at that point. She could talk your head off, but she is also a very sweet and caring mother. She can be very dierect and has her times when she is in a bad mood, but I think every one of their exchange students, and they had about 8(?), indcluding me was glad to have such a great host mother like her. She is a tiny little old person who still has so much life energy left that I was amazed everyday.

This is Leon again while he is conducting parts of the messiah on a christmas mess in the Methodist church of Fayetteville, Ohio. He worked out the whole thing by him self. Got people together to do it and practiced with them and all this at his age. I can only say over and over again. "I am so amazed by him." I just think it is a shame that only such a small number of people came to hear it. Sure it wasn't perfect and to try to do portions of Handels's Messiah with a choir of 20 people might sound insane, but for insane it was a great job those people did.

OK now to this picture there is a very long story and I will tell it sometimes but not here and now. Only the basic concept. This is Mark Hubbart he works at YFU and once was a priest. You also see Gavin his Son at the age of 2 and Grace, the baby, at the age of almost 1. I know the family hubbart because I stayed with them for about one month before I came here to the family Jones. As I said it is a long story and is better told some other time.

This picture is still christmas and what you see is my bed and on it is the christmas packet, wich came, thanks to the either the german or the US mail, almost in the middle of Januar. I really liked that bed, because it is so high and just looks nice. It just was too short, but had a nice width.

This is the computer. A few thinges changed like the chair is not the same any more and the copy machine is now on the righ and on the left is a big mess from me.
I spent most and according to My most mom "too much" time here on the computer. Where I am right now while typing this.

This is the view from behind the computer. YOu can see the screen and the keyboard on the left side. The table with all the stuff on it that looks like a huge mess are medicaments and other important things Leon uses.

This is a picture of the Clermot County YMCA. I went swimming there a couple of times. They have a big indoor pool and an even bigger outdoor pool.
I always tried to keep myslef fit and going swimming was one of the things I did.

And I had to keep myslef fit with all the coke I drank. This is Amanda trying to get an order in all the empty coke cans. A few seconds after this picture they all fall down and make lots of noise and after that moment I gave up to order them and just threw them into the corner. When I cleaned that up I had more than 500 empty coke cans and other cans.

This is Cincinnati from top. I made this picture when I was walking through downtown and took a closer look around together with Mike a very good friend of Don.

This is Cincinnati from top again. This time more to the right.
Cincinatti was the closest town to where I lived. It also was the town where I landed after mi flight from Frankfurt and the town I flew away from. There is another storie to that, too.

Snow, something I was told I would see alot but didn't well thats how it is. I took this picture because you can see how high the snow is on the car. And that was the only day where we had no school because of snow and I wanted to show how much snow it takes to get out of school. There is also another story.

Some of the 211 acres that belong to the farm where I lived Covered in a blanket of snow.

A so called natural bridge. It is almost like a cave. Just isn't because the definition of a cave is: That it becomes totally dark. And as you can see it does not here . So I guess you can call it a half cave or something.

This is the end of the "Half Cave". I took those pictures on the caving trip I went on with the Hardesty family. It was my first time caving ever and I have to say it was a great experience. And I want to thank them that they made it possible for meto have that experience. It sure was a hard and long day. But also a great day. THANKS guys.

This is the kitchen. It is a big mess, but somehow Maryellen was able to cook delicious meals everyday. And that was another thing with what she amazed me. I still don't know how I didn't become fat with such good food and all that coke. Well I managed it somehow.

That would be me and Amanda's father, Mr. Hardesty. And me in a cave. Or a so they called it "snake hole".  Amanda took this picture of us. And I think it is one of the best pictures of me, maybe because it is all blurry and not one of those closse portrats.
I just don't really like my face and am happy if you can't see it too close.

And once again the house, but this time from the back. The last window, the one on the corner was my room. In the middle of the picture you were supposed to see some beautifull spring flowers but you can not see them well on here.

And thats me. It really is. And it is also one of those pictures that are the reason that I don't like pictures of me.
I heard people ask me questions after they say this or other pictures of me. I will answer a few of them right here.
Yes I am really "only" 17. I don't know why but people tell me all the time that I look older. Do I really?
OK for now there is ony that but incase there are others that come up I will add those here, too.

The School-Bus is coming. Every morning I had to be there at least at 7:17AM even so the bus sometimes didn't come till 7:25. Sure on a sunny day like on the picture I enjoyed the time on the fresh Air, but when it rained and stormed and was cold it wasn't too nice to wait there not knowing when the bus would come.

Some times after a big rain the Little Miami river became a rather"Big" Miami river and knocked down trees and bushes on its banks.

The Little Miami river was one of the trade marks that were used to border the 211 acres of the Farm.

The Bike I used to get some exercise on. I think I kind of took the bike through some terain that is not normally seeing bikes as you see it is in the middle of the wilderness right there.

Some more spring blossoms. This tree stands right infront of the front door, this and other spring blossoms smalled great and put a first smile on my face when I left the house to go to school and smelld the nice fresh air and the greatflowers.

Who knows what that is? it is supposed to me a flower blossom with other spring flowers in the back ground. I need some minutes to figure out the right angle and finally took this picture laying in the gras. It was supposed to look very beautiful.
You see the results there. It looks great but not the way it was supposed to.

The Holy Mother Maria was standing in the front yarn. Surrounded by nice little spring flowers.
Religion was present everywhere and any time. Living as an athiest in a family where she is a catholic and he a methodist jew did never bring up any confrontations.

Mrs. Bronner, she was my english teacher for that school year. She is a character nice and carning but she sometimes just might try a little bit too hard what makes her unpopular among some students. She also was the director of the Drama Club even so her acting experience and skills in directing have never been the best.

The Cincinnati Music hall. After I took this picture I heard "Im Sommerwind" from Anton Webern and a "Concerto for violin and Orchestra" by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. And after intermission
P.I. Tschaikovsky's 5th Symphony, it was great.

Hey have you ever wondered what the back of my head looks like? Well now you know. :-)

This picture was taken at a concert of a band. That made a program against the use of drugs. It was part of a program against drug use and drunk driving. The day before the concert some students and a big amount of public service people like Firedepartment and police showed a fake car crash to show the danger of drunk driving. I really liked the effort the school put in all those t hings.

A picture of the US Air Force Museum. We went there with our American History class with Mr. Bronner. Mr. Bronner is a great guy and really knows his way around in history. He has a different way of teaching than his wife what makes him more popular, but in my opinion this way does not help the students.

What else could I write but the names? So here we go:

Left: Laura Clein
Right: April Casteal

And again only names.

Left: Jodi Grooms
Middle: Amanda Cox
Right: Anne Wallman

And more people. Nobody knows.

Left: Deseree Barber
Right: Ricky Garrison
Behind Deseree you can see Aaron Finkbeiner sleeping in math class and on the right you can see Chelsea behind Ricky.

On the left you see Chelsea Smith again. Than:

Left: Brian Smith alias Joe
Middle: Amanda Hardesty
Right: Becky Souders

Pure irony it is that the playground is closer to the hight school than it is to the middle school.

The Soccer and on the right the Baseball and Softball fields of Fayetteville Perry High school.

The student parking lot now empty. Was always filled with cars and one of the main topics to talk about somebody's new car or who's car it was.

Fayetteville itself. What else is there to say.

When I descibed Fayetteville to people I always said it is two gasstaions a school and some houses. Well that is one of the gasstations. If you watch closely you can make out the prizes.

And well this is the other gasstaion. A family business based on some tradition. It also is the place where people "hang out" in Fayetteville.

Some thing I found very interesting was that sometimes the terain was very hilly and in downtown Cincinnati sometimes even like LA. But it also was very flat sometimes and all that changed in just a couple of miles.

Now it is totally flat. And looks like the southern part of sweden.

A big hill that does not look as big here on the picture. But it was a land mark I will not forget. It was the last hill before being home.

LOL Well that is my room what else can I say but: "I am a messy person"

It is all cleaned now.

Go back to My Homepage   go back to Main Exchange page