ABOUT ME

Hello! My name is Benjamin Schneider and I am studying here at ECU/North Carolina for one semester, majoring in Marketing. I am an exchange student from Frankfurt/Germany and I will hopefully graduate in October next year.
I was born in Offenbach am Main, Germany. It has about 123.000 citizens and is a neighboring city of Frankfurt. Nevertheless, I grew up and still live in Neu-Isenburg (35.000 citizens), which is a relatively small town located between Offenbach and Frankfurt. When people in foreign countries ask me about my hometown I always answer them that I´m from Frankfurt, because Neu-Isenburg as well as Offenbach are not so well-known. Basically, I have nothing in common with Offenbach and I rarely visit the city. I was born there and that’s it. The cityscape ist not very nice and it is one of the most criminal cities in whole Germany. I spend my whole life in Neu-Isenburg, where we lived at 3 different places during my early years. On the weekends, I spend most of the time in Frankfurt and I love their lifestyle, including their special dialect or food/beverages. My mother as well as my older brother were born in Frankfurt and my father was born in Mainz, which is in the same federal state. All of my grandparents are also from Frankfurt, thus we are nearly all “Frankfurter”.

Interests

I play soccer for G-Vegas (Greenville, North Carolina, USA) in the PGSA season and I like good movies/music/books, tennis, golf, diving, skiing and of course Downtown Greenville. I am really looking forward to the 25 May 2013 when Bayern Munich will win the European Champions League :)

• culture
• books
• architecture
• dining
• movies
• traveling
• music
• backpacking
• scuba diving
• skiing
• soccer
• tennis
• golf
• tours
• parks

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I travelled a lot abroad and I´m kind of a globetrotter. I love to travel and to explore different cultures. I read a lot of books about traveling, adventures or living abroad in general. I am also subscriber of the National Geographic magazine. When I was younger my parents took me to a couple of places in Europe, for example Spain, France, Italy, Greece or Great Britain. I learned several things about the local culture, the habits and their general lifestyle. However, at this time I was too young to take it seriously. I had the first “real” travel experience 4 years ago when I was in Tanzania, together with a close friend of my father. We spend there about 3 weeks and visited such beautiful places like the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro crater and numerous other parks. We also drove and walked through towns or small villages and talked to the local people. I learned so much about a foreign culture as never before. I´m still in love with the country, the landscape, the culture and these happy people. One year later I was in Namibia, again with the same person. Beside Tanzania, it was the second country where I really “learned” about a foreign culture. Namibia was a German colony in the past, therefore it was kind of special for me. It is more civilized than other African countries and different aspects of the culture such as the food or the architecture have similarities with Germany. It is like a home from home. After visiting these two countries, I really fell in love with the African continent, their cultures and lifestyle. In 2010, I had my last “real” travel experience. After I finished my school, I went backpacking for 1 month around Middle Europe. I learned quite a lot about our border/neighboring countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland or Luxembourg. I just had my bag and I always slept in tents, thus I learned even more about the people, their attitudes and beliefs. About 4 weeks ago I made a roadtrip together with a friend across the states of Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina. During this time we experienced the real American life and cultures/subcultures.I was lucky enough to visit several countries in the world, especially those from the African continent. During my life in Germany and Austria, as well as holidays in Southern Europe and several trips (roadtrips, backpacking tours) in Europe and North America I learned a lot about foreign cultures and the different aspects of it. And of course when it is possible I will continue to visit even more continents/countries and places in the world, e.g. Asia, South America, Australia, Oceania, in order to explore their cultures and learn from them.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Namibia, Netherlands, Spain, Tanzania, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Austria, Germany, United States