So I left off with Austria and I was going to write more when I realised, that there isn't much I can say any more about that trip. But I did say that I'll tell you things that are different in Germany from Canada, and one of those things are the schools. The schools in Germany are a bit more strict than in Canada but still good. A typical day for me in Canada was that I wake up at 7 or 8 in the morning school started at 9 and ended at 3:30 and we have lunch time and 3 recesses. We had those typical yellow school buses and home teachers and for subjects like health or gym, we had different teachers. Our schedule started with day 1 through 6 so that every week is different and the school year begins on September 2nd and the last day is normally June 24th or 26th, it changed sometimes.
In Germany I have to wake up at 6 in the morning, school starts at 7:45. We don't have school buses instead, we take a public bus or train, depends of course where you live. We begin our day with a 2-hour class, than a 5-minute break, then another hour, then we have a big break which is about 20 minutes, then another 3 hours of class with two 5 minute breaks, in between. We have different teachers for almost every subject, but we do have a home teacher. At 12:50 you're done and you can go home unless you have as we call "mittagsschule" where you also have school in the afternoon until 4:35 pm, but that's mostly once a week. The schedule is also different. It's just Monday through Friday, so every week is the same.
It can be tiring but you do get a good education and while in Canada once you're finished with middle school (kindergarten + grade8) you go on to High School (grade9- grade12). In Germany you go from "grundschule" (grade 1-4) to either "Hauptschule", "Realschule", or "Gymnasium" (for all grade5-grade10). They are the same age group just each type of school is for different kinds of children. By that I mean the "Hauptschule" is for those who are planning on working as a worker or a miner.
The "Realschule" is for those, who are planning on being more in the technical business like an engineer, product designer or those sort of things.
And lastly, the "Gymnasium" is for those who are planning on being in politics, lawyers, designers or who are into literature or those sort of things.
I personally like the idea of having different schools to prepare yourself for the specific job you would like to do in the future, but as you might know from my first part, I love to sleep and waking up at 6 in the morning every day can be frustrating. I hope you enjoyed part 4 coming soon!