Encounters with German Police

First things first: I AM FINALLY SWITCHING HOST FAMILIES! :D Yes!

Second: the German police is amazing. And thus, a story needs to be told.

Last week, my ex host family was just acting extremely unreasonable. You may have seen from my previous posts that I was not getting along well with them. They took my cell phone and invaded my personal privacy by reading my texts, never returned the money they were supposed to give back, and created a lot of worse problems. 

So one day after school, my friend told me that I would be able to carpool with her back home, since she lived in the same town as I did. I gladly accepted the offer, and that was that. However, when I got to the door of our house, I saw this threatening sign with a lady holding a gun--I normally would have taken this as a joke, but since my ex host family was acting so weird the entire week (they stopped talking to me as a whole), I was kind of scared to even go in. Then, I saw my friend's car pass by the house again: her mom asked me if I would like to go to Celle (the nearest city) with her. I said yes, because I was so freaking hungry. Not getting adequate meals was one of the big problems at the time. In addition, I needed to buy

some cable for my computer that the school had suggested I get.

When I got to Celle, I texted the host mom to explain the situation. She never texted back, and I later learned that she had informed the police that "I was not returning home," called the school, and told the principal that I was going back to America the next day. But wait, that's not all (I know, right?).

While in Celle, I bumped into one of my friends, Victoria, who also lived in the area. We chilled for about an hour or two, and I grabbed something to eat at Nord See as well as a huge loaf of bread from Berk Werk. By the time we got to the bus stop, it was about 5. Then I realized that I didn't have my wallet, so Victoria paid for my way back. She somehow convinced me that my wallet was in my backpack, and I could definitely find it when I got home. Well, I didn't. When I got off the bus at Heideck, I dumped all the stuff out of my messy bag--it was no where to be found. I didn't dare to go home either, because then my host mom would just yell at me and get all insane, as she had in the past for pettier problems. As luck would have it, a bus came by, and asked me if I would like to go back to Celle. I told the bus driver (in my broken German) 

that I had lost my wallet in Celle..and to my surprise, he let me ride for free into the city. Praise the Lord for that! 

I retraced my steps in Celle--the wallet was nowhere to be found. My last resort was the police, because I really needed my wallet back (obviously)! There were 2 debit cards, fifty Euros, and other ID cards in it. Unfortunately, I didn't know where the police station was, so I had to ask some random person who was sitting on the bench I was sitting at before. She was really nice, and walked me to the police station. 

I proceeded to inform the police about my misfortune, and about how I had no money to ride the bus back to my house. The police then asked if it was possible for my parents to come pick me up. Well, considering the host family situation, it didn't seem like a great idea. And that's how the police got to know my host family...

After listening to it all, they insisted that I couldn't go back into that house. They even tried calling AFS Hamburg for me, but it was closed. Then they asked me if I had any friends that I could go to, so I told them about Victoria. They called Victoria's host family to see if it was OK for me to stay there temporarily. The amazing Hohl family agreed, and the police drove me back to my ex family's house to pack my stuff. And get this: my host family actually tried to lock the police and I out the house. It was actually really amusing. 

Now I'm just at Victoria's house...and until AFS finds me a new host family, this is where I'll be. Oh yeah, and the police found my wallet in a span of less than 24 hours :) Unfortunately, someone took my 50 Euros..but at least everything else was in tact.

I was so proud of myself after the day was over..I had spoken so much German, and got myself out of that horror house. I'll be signing off for now, but I've got some cool experiences to share from my current stay with the Hohls :)