random photos from Peter & Christmas

Dear College Applications,

you suck.

snowboard.

Today Leonie left for Brazil at 4:00 am.. DAYUM. hahah
I woke up around 8... and went to the grocery to get some apples, hehe
then I made pancakes for my famiiiilyyy
THEN Evy, Emily and I went to the indoor ski hall in Neuss- and now the adventure begins.....
I learned to snowboard.. btu that was short lived..
Emily can snowboard.. and I fell on my ass ALOT .. so im sure that I will be in pain tomorrow..
any way.. when we started to use the ski lift.. I got really freaked out because of Mitzies accident last year -and I would kill myself if I couldnt move for 8 months.. no thank you!!!
any way.. the leg movement with a snowboard is so awkward and uncomfortable.. it totally distorts your legs..
So the first time we got off the ski lift.. i kind of fell and twisted my leg.. and i said helllllls to no
so I switched for skiis..
I will take the pretentious reputation skiing has.. because it's better than snowboarding!!! hahaha

Meine Liebe Gastfamilie:you have been LONG JOHN-ED.

CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY:
is celebrated the night of the 24...
so on December 24 this is what I did...
1. It snowed a bunch.
2. I ran
3. Leonie and I went to the movies with Nico, Tobias, and my Japanese friend, Misaki. We saw Rapunzel. Which was actually funn. Leonie and I wore our braided christmas hats teh entire time.. we also convinced the people at Burger King to give us crowns-which we wore OVER our santa hats hahaha.. it was so funny.
4. Came home.. watched half of a movie with Emy and Leo..
5. baked Christmas cookies
6. Evy had an emergency call with one of her clients. It was this woman with 3 kids and she has AIDS.. she was having stomach problems.. but it's all okay now. So Evy got home around 7:30 ish.. the salad was already made... everyone finished wrapping their Christmas presents..
7. We had Salad..
8. Opened presents.. which was absolutely hilarious. They LOVED the red long johns.. which they had never seen before.. and later that night Leonie, Emily, and Peter put theirs on!! hhaha
9. What I shockingly got for Christmas- I wasn't expecting anything at all.. any way.. I got red raybans.. a squash raquet.. raspberry vinegar..and a really cool italian/german picture dictionary!!!!
10. We ate dinner dinner.. FONDU.
11. We sat around.. hung out.. everyone was exhausted!! so we all went to bed around 12..
it was an absolute amazing Christmas!!!!

Chopstick Salad

so yesterday I came home from school for about 20 minutes until I left for my German class in Dusseldorf.. I left teh house early because we didnt have anythign to eat.. so I went by the grocery store and bought a small back of salad...
then i get to teh Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof and realized that I didnt have a fork.. and i thought hell no im not buying silverware hahah so i went by this asian sushi to go place and i asked (in german!!) if I could have a pair of chopsticks..
well I wasnt thinking adn forgot that chopsticks are Essstäbchen in German.. so Im sitting there speaking Denglish.. so I did a chopstick hand motion and was succesful..
so I ate my salad out of a bag with Chopsticks.. 
i saved the chopsticks too... hahah

Ornaments

I have acquired 5 ornaments in the past month..
that's more than I have ever gotten in a year at home...hahah

mmmmmisakiii

Today Misaki gave me a gift during our German class. I didnt open it until I was home. She gave me a picture frame.. and the card was an origami heart with a message inside! it was so nice..
i also learned today that Misaki is epileptic.. she was going to go back to Japan in April.. but now she is going back in February because she doesnt have any more medicine for her Epilepsy..
something doesnt seem right here...but I suppose it was a language barrier misunderstanding!

English Christmas Party

Today we had a christmas party in english..that was fun
and my English teacher gave me a gift.. for being away from home on Christmas hahah
that was nice of her!

Wolfgangs photos from Ice Show...

December 20,2010

Today I woke up and though to myself "Sowie fällt Heute aus". I checked my Email, updated my blog and had my morning cup of coffee with cinnamon. I realized after my walk from the train to school that the water-proof spray on my TOMS had worn off and my toes were now freezing. The bell for school rang and I trekked up 3 flights of stairs. There I was greeted by Russian/German twins (sounds like a horror movie..) that are in my SOWIE class... after waiting 10 minutes we found out that in fact SOWIE fällt Heute aus...I love "Magical power day". I decide to take the train back to Mettmann and bum around town - I needed stamps any way. I plant myself on a stool in a bakery downtown. I was sitting down sipping on a diet coke and reading Sarah Vowell's " The Partly Cloudy Patriot" when I paused and looked outside. Directly in front of me was a pile of snow a little smaller than I was; however, surrounding the pile were the people of Mettmann. Despite the snow adn -2degrees Celsius everyone was out and about. Mettmann was buzzing with life today. It's mostly elderly people, but there are the occasional sleds with kids in snow suits. I looked back down at my book adn found it hard to concentrate because I was tuning my hearing in and out. The conversations in the bakery sounded exactly like what you would hear on a language CD. At that moment, I was taken back to German Class Sophomore year. My back was turned to the customers and counter, but all I could hear was the coffee machine grinding and steaming. Meanwhile others are asking for bread "ja morgen, ich hatte gerne ein brotchen" ..."ja gerne, 2.80 bitte"....etc. I decided that I didnt have the attention span to read so I focused on the conversations around me. The German language has a particular flow to it. There are certain tones one is to use when asking a question.. you would stress certain parts of the sentence. I was talking to a friend from my program who has had a relatively rough time with his exchange year and he told me that he likes the country, but not the people. This guy speaks German... btw... anyway.. that's what you get for building expectations.. PLUS that's so American. We are used to having people be friendly and fake to us every day. I feel more German than American.. but what is an "American" supposed to feel like?? America does some things right.. yes, that's true... but I find myself being more ashamed and embarrassed of my Country, then proud. For example: several people here have done exchanges in the US.. when they got to their host families.. their host families (talking DOWN to these people) showed their host students teh kitchen.. and explained what a fridge, microwave adn an oven were... like these kids didnt know!... THAT'S MORTIFYING.. I have absolutely no justification for that because I had never heard of that before I came here. I would try to defend stereotypes that Germans have of Americans... but honestly.... they are quite true. Of course not evrey American proves the stereotypes right.. but let's get real here... the vast majority are your stereotypical American. Yes, Kentucky PLEASE build that giant ass arc then I can read about it again on the FRONT PAGE OF THE GERMAN NEWS PAPER. Traveling has made me realize just how dysfunctional and counter productive a lot of the systems are in America and no one specifically is to blame. German people might come off as cold at first, but they are just trying to figure you out- nothing personal. But when you become friends with a German.. then you have a friend for life.. a real, reliable friend. Whereas in America.. most relationships are so incredibly fake. I have rarely felt any sort of patriotism.... Even when celebrating the 4th of July..no one actually THINKS about what we are celebrating.. Americans just focus on finding matching American flag paper napkins, plates, cups and plastic silverware. It's never why? it's always how much and what? Absolutely impersonal. 
Just one of those thinking days I suppose.. I would go on and on.. but that might give me a headache.:)
THEN.. I was getting my stamps right.. out of these little nifty stamp machines.. adn when i finished an old man (missing his glasses) asked me to help him get his.. well what he wanted just wouldnt work on this machine.. so after about 5 minutes I was like Im sorry I don't know whats wrong with it! .. then we walked down teh street a ways.. and he was like you arent german,(DAMNIT!)where do you come from?? I said America.. and he was like oh blahblhablha... then he said goodbye adn wished me a merry christmas

twas a nice departure.. and afternoon..
when i got home i let my feet thaw out.

Birdie

The past two mornings.. a tiny bird has somehow gotten in my room..

Things coming uppppppp.....

Today is my last SOWIE (politics class) before break.. it's really boring..haha
Tomorrow I have English(talking about American christmas traditions..woho!) Spanish and German class
Wednesdayyyy.. is my last Spanish class before the break..
THURSDAY: NO SCHOOL! but.. we are going to an indoor skiiing hall.. where I will learn to snowboard..then later is my Christmas party with my German class.. THEN we are buying a Christmas tree.. it's also Christmas Eve in Germany

FRIDAY: CHRISTMAS IN GERMANY!!!!!!! well.. that evening..
SATURDAY: dinner with Evys family in Bonn
SUNDAY: nothing planned.. probably chill day...
MONDAY: CLAIRE COMES.
Tuesday-Thursday.. who knows...

Jan 2--- it's OFF to Austria to ski for a week
let's get this party startedddd

8 days around the world!!

Last night my betreuer, Wolfgang, took me and his Thai exchange student, Build, to an ice skating show in Neuss called 8 Days around the world.. it was definitely a kids show but it was still cool because it wasnt a production put on by professionals.. it was kids who skate in their free time.. and it was pretty cool for something people do in their free time.. they created 500 new costumes just for this productions.. it was cool any way the countries represented wherrrre:
1- Germany
2-Austria
3-Russia
4-India
5-China
6-USA(Las Vegas, San Fran, and New York...)
7-Scotland
8-Neuss festival thing

Soccer Tournament..

Saturday I had a Soccer tournament in Wuppertal... although it was hardly a tournament hahah
there were 5 players on teh field at one time (this was on a gym floor...) adn games were 10 minutes each..
we were there from 1-6.....and had 3 games....

Janikes birthday..

Last Thursday was Janikes birthday...it was also the same day we were going to have a snow chaos.. well Janike lives in Erkrath.. so Leonie, Nico and I walked an hour in a half to Janikes house hahah

snowsnowsnow.