My favorite thing about America

Well it's not my favorite. But it's up there with the things I either miss, took for granted, or realized Americas better than Europe at. 

It's a car. Not just any car, but a big huge SUV (like an Audi Q7) that gets driven everywhere. Everyone takes trains, buses or cable cars here. While that is convienent, I still love taking a car everywhere. Here, even if you do take a car, it's most likely small and definitely not the size of an Audi Q7. 

I like the fact you can take a train to anywhere in Europe, but trains and I have a love hate relationship in general. I'll always be almost late, or just plain late, and supposed to miss my train...but then turns out the train is late (trains are always late. Always.) So while I hate the amount of pushy people and just the fact there's a lot of people in general and seats are usually hard to find...I somehow have only missed one train and then I managed to get an even faster train like 10 mins later...and then my next train was 15 mins late so I made that. I make the train...but I may not get a seat  or just be crammed in with tons of people but hey at least I make the train. 

Basically, I like my big huge cars because they're more convienent for me (it's selfish I know), quieter and have way less people because even though I'm a people person, that many people is just not my cup of tea. At all! 

A whole bunch

I've been really busy, meaning I haven't had time to post anything. But hey that's a good thing cause it means I have a good life here! My host family and I spent the weekend in Hamburg for Bettina's (my host moms)  friends 40th birthday party. I saw family friends on Saturday and we got breakfast which was croissants with jam and butter and fresh fruit then coffee, so a perfect breakfast for me! Then we walked around Hamburg and went into some shops, saw the Rathaus then had dinner with the dad and Robin who had just taken his SAT (it reminded me of how much those sucked). After that the mom and I went to get coffee again after walking a bit and then I went back to my host family and we all went to the party. It was in this little restaurant and there were about 20 people and the owner was Ethiopian (I think). The food was sehr lecker (very delicious) and it was green and red lentils (the red ones were spicy), chicken legs in some sauce and then spinach which was also super spicy. I also learned that when your mouth is on fire from spicy food, sparkling water is not a good idea cause it just makes it seem all that hotter from the bubbles! Sunday we drove back to Bonn, except there was traffic and raining then at one point it started hailing. Thankfully, we were in Burger King when it started then just waited until it ended. Towards the end of the car ride, which was from I think 11:30 to 7, Emmi started to get hyper (as any 3 year old would do and she was good a lot longer than I would've been at 3), but I was watching a movie, Les Choristes, on my iPad and she leaned over and whispered "hey Sarah. In a little bit, I get your iPad! Yeah? Yeah?" And I just kinda looked at her like uhhhh....no. Needless to say, she got the iPad about 10 minutes later. 

Today, I didn't go to school cause I didn't feel well and went back to sleep until about 12. The I went to tutoring cause I felt a bit better. It was sunny then as soon as I got to the experiment office (my exchange organization where I also have tutoring), it started to pour and became really windy and nasty. So at the end of tutoring Paulo and I got Experiment ponchos! And then I had to help Paulo buy AldiTalk so his phone would actually work. So we went looking for an Aldi...in the pouring rain and wind. Thankfully we found one and the trip was successful and Paulo now has a phone. 

A lot more has happened than that but I'll write more later!