Welcome to the Hostel

Today is the first full day at the hostel...Orianna and I are in a room with four other girls, three from Italy and one from Belgium. They seem pretty nice, but it's always awkward living with someone you don't know, and there's also the language barrier so Orianna and I usually are in a different room with everyone else. So far, we've played a whole bunch of orientation games...which I wasn't excited about and then we had to break up into small groups and talk about our feelings, expectations and fears for the year, which I also didn't like. I get the point of doing that, but those kind of things have the opposite effect on me; I don't like them and I don't like talking about my feelings, especially when I've already thought about it on my own. Anyways, I like being with the other kids, especially the ones who were at the language camp! Tomorrow my host mom is picking me up, and then Saturday my host family and I fly to Sylt, an island that's apparently like the Hamptons, so I can't wait! And now I'll finally be able to at least communicate a little with Emmi, my three year old host sister. 

The picture is all the Americans in the hostel! 

An international picnic in Germany

Today was the goodbye picnic for all the exchange students leaving the language program. Each country made a typical dish, the Brazilians made a pudding like dessert made from condensed milk and chocolate, the Thai made noodles, and of course the Americans made apple and pumpkin pie. Graham and I made the apple pie and crusts, while Haley and Orianna made the pumpkin.  We were just planning on making apple pie, until our teacher actually asked us to make pumpkin too! She had lived in the states and missed pumpkin pie...so she wanted us to make her some. Except there was a catch. There's no such thing as cans of pumpkins in Germany. So we bought a mini pumpkin, made pumpkin purée and then made the pumpkin pie, and none of us had ever done that before. It was an experiment that actually turned out well! Then we ran into another problem. Apparently, there's no pie pans in Germany either. So we had to use a cake pan with tall sides and just try to make a pie inside a cake pan, which it actually turned out well! Overall the pies and picnic was a success. Walking back to the bus stop, I saw a slug. Which for me, is normal and nothing exciting. However, Orianna got really excited and had to examine it because she has somehow never seen a slug, and the slug I found was huge! 

Tomorrow is the last day of class, then we move into the hostel (with about 120 other kids) and also meet the other exchange students until Friday when my host mom picks me up then Saturday, my host family and I go to the beach!

  

American Breakfast

Me and all the other Americans miss good american breakfasts with bacon, pancakes and syrup so I found a restaurant with an actual choice on the menu called an American Breakfast with bacon, steak, hash browns, pancakes with syrup and toast. It was actually a Scottish pub called Scotch n Soda but the breakfast was amazing and just sitting eating pancakes, listening to English around us was great. 

Rüdesheim

This monument was created by Germany as a reminder to the French Germany won in World War One

First days in Germany

When I say Germany is the land of castles, spätzle and beer, I'm not kidding. Beer here is cheaper than soda, and there's actually a law about how there has to be a drink cheaper than beer. Then spätzle is everywhere too! After a year of it, I might get sick of it but so far I'm still enjoying it. I've been to so many castles I don't want to see another one. They're extremely pretty and I'd love to live in one, but after a month with my family then two weeks of "organized activities," which include castles, I'm good for awhile. These past two weeks have been weird. I love being with other kids my age, and learning German has been interesting and helpful but I still expect to see my parents and brother soon. A normal day now consists of waking up, having a typical European breakfast of toast with Nutella (which I'm already sick of), raspberry jam and butter with coffee (or Kaffee). Then we catch the bus at 8:30, get to school by 9, and have class until 10:30. Then there's a break and class resumes at 11 until 12:30. After class, there's about an hour of free time until the activity which varies from castles to monuments to visiting towns. Today we left Wiesbaden in the morning to visit a small village called Limburg. They put us in paddle boats and told us to paddle around for an hour.....now just imagine a whole bunch of teenagers in small boats ramming into each other. However, I enjoyed it and the view of the town and cathedral was really pretty.
Learning German is exhausting. It's amazing that I can understand the majority of it and I'm slowly beginning to speak it. I think I'm so motivated to learn it so I can speak to my little sister, Emmi, who's three and knows no English. I go to my host family Friday and I can't wait! Even though I miss the states, my friends, family and cat I know it'll be an amazing experience and I can't wait to be settled in Bonn!