PICTURES OF THE WEEK

mac and cheese!

and another:

the last time i posted was 12 days ago (or something like that) ... i know i am behind... so lets do a quick catch up...


Sunday i get up get ready and we head out to grandmas... but stop in koblenz on the way... we ate and walked along the rhine. now its october here... that means its really freaking cold and theres alot of wind. so im walking down the Rhine with a hoodie on and freezing my butt off. plus theres a ton of wind ... we get to grandmas (i slept the whole hour and a half there) and grandma and grandpa arent even there... there's Christel's sister and her husband and baby. so christel and gregor leave (which i didnt know that they were just dropping us off so we could have a babysitter i thought it was a family vacation.... minus Julie because she had to stay home to take care of the horse) and maurice and i are sitting there for 3 hours by ourselves, with no tv or anything. maurice played his DS the whole time and i went through the newspaper looking at the pictures then stared at the wall. grandma and grandpa got home and they didnt even remember that we were coming. so... we were supposed to stay until wednesday and all there was for us to do was play games because they dont like to watch tv (and german tv has nothing good on during the day), which i am ok with playing games i like games. sunday i went to bed rather early for me and i slept until like 10:30 monday... got up ate breakfast, played games, ate lunch took a nap... i wasnt feeling too well (from all the wind ... gave me ear aches). so after nap i get up and we immediately go to the other grandmas house who lives in the next villiage... maurice said we are Driving there... yeah rite ... we drove 5 minutes and then walked a half hour ... if i wouldnt have been sick and the wind wouldnt have been so strong i would have been ok with it but grandma just couldnt seem to understand that i didnt feel well.... and then it was another 30 minute walk back to the car. you've also got to remember that i only brought hoodies with me and i bought a rain coat i dont have these ginormous coats that everyone here has. so the rest of the time i slept pretty much. christel and gregor got back tuesday night... i told christel i had ear aches and so she went all german mom on me and cut up onions, wrapped them in a dish towel and made me hold them over my ears... and to get rid of me head ache i had to sit at the table (alone while everyone else went in the livingroom) and breath in peppermint in hot water for a hour. then she let me stop breathing in the peppermint and go in the living room. now inorder for the onions to work on your ears they have to be warm... so she made me put the hood of my hoodie up and because the is no string in the hood she went and got a scarf and tied it around my neck... i felt like a dog with a cone on. then she wanted me to sleep like that... i attempted to to see if it would actually help but theres no way i could sleep with 2 huge onion lumps on my head... not to mention the smell... my hair spelled disgusting. so the next day i told her it didnt help and she left me alone... other than feeding me medicine... which of course had to be liquid i dont know why they dont have pills it seems like everything they have here is either liquid or a home remedy. so then we didnt leave until thursday around 7 p.m. so i had 3 days left of the my fall vacation and i attempted to make the best of it. i made a day trip to Cologne on saturday and spent the day with several other exchange students. it was just what i needed after the week at grandmas. we just sat there in the grass and talked and had fun. no schedule, no pleasing host parents, no one telling me to this or to do that... just a day to relax and talk to my friends. I even found out that other people have issues in school with the kids not interacting with them too. i think their issues are mare than mine but at least its not just me. thats what i love about being with rotary no matter what you are never the only one that goes through something theres always someone who is or has gone through the same thing. it makes you feel better about yourself kinda like your not a complete screw up and your not alone. all my friends in colonge are just now getting ready to start their fall vacation (they are in a different state so they have a different school schedule) so they were all excited and im like thanks guys im going back to school in 2 days and your all talking about going to france or belgium or where ever... (-.-) but yeah that took up a bit of my allowence (40 euros for the train) but i think it was worth it. but so i went back to school on monday ... ughhh... i hate that its still dark when i walk to school which by the way is completely horrible its soooooo cold... ive worn 2 hoodies and my rain coat and gloves to school everyday this week. also i have one less subject to do now because geography is now in german until after christmas break (it switches every quarter)... so now theres english and art and thats bout it... i attempted to keep up with math put they go too fast... ive already learned the stuff but we did it using graphing calculators (because its graphing functions that form hyperbolas) and they actually do the math for like 20 points and then graph it all ....i looked at it and i was uh no im going back to learning german. i take notes in physics and geography though... geography so i can catch myself back up... physics i have no clue why i just do ... maybe because we draw a lot of pictures... but its nothing like the physics i had last year... last year we learned about the mathematics behind everything... here they are learning how and engine works and now how electricity works to power a light bulb... does that even count as physics... if this was our physics class last yeah i wouldnt have had an issue with physics... so during school i work in my german book... i think by the end of november ill have it done if i dont get bored with it again and start drawing in the middle of class. today we had ate instead of history and no one had there art projects because we took them home to finish them on tuesday and no one knew about the change in the schedule until they got to school... i walked up to clara and in a really kid-likespeed and tone i said " clara! clara! will you pleasssssssssse make halloween decorations with me!?" she just kinda look at me like i was insane and said whaaaaaaaat!? ... but yeah so i made spiders out of paper ( i learned it from "Barney"... where you fold a piece of black paper in half, trace your hand cut it out and cut off the thumbs, open it up and glue on eyes and a mouth... just look at the picture below if you cant understand my description lol) and started on a sign that says happy Halloween. i want to hang it in the class window.



after the vacation i realize that i have no real friends in school and i need to start socializing more... so i went on facebook and added a bunch of people that are from my school.... a few asked me how we knew eachother and i told them i was an exchange student in their school and they're like oh cool... one girl had a conversation with me which was nice. so thats my first attempt we'll see how well it works out. 

spider

spider and sign... i want to hang them in the window at school

friday i got picked up at 3 by taylor's host mom (taylor is from flordia). drove to taylors house. dropped off stuff and we went to trainstation. on the way to the trainstation we stopped at the back and i took out 30 euros for stuff at the concert. we had to run because we were running short on time ... and it was cold and rainy. got to train station all three of us boarded the train. i had never been on a train before... you know us americans dont have public transportation. so taylor and i sat next to each other and her host mom sat on the other side facing the opposite direction. bout half way there 4 guys get on the train and one has a beer. taylor says" you can drink beer on a train" i say "taylor this is germany you can drink beer anywhere" as i say that the guy walks by and says "yo!" which around here is kinda like yeah or something. i know that because my host family i am in now says it and my host mom always says it before saying good bye on the phone ("yo, tschuss"). taylor didnt know this so since the guys just randomly said yo to her she started laughing uncontrollable and so i did to... for some reason i turned bright red all over it got so hot... i took my hoodie off and my arms were even bright red. then the guys walked by us again and we started laughing even more (the first laugh session hadnt even ended yet). a few minutes later after we had calmed down the guy came back and he asked us if we wanted to go to the top of the train with them (its a double decker train) and we said no along with Inge (taylors host mom) the guy looked over at her so confused ... kinda like one of those situations where you are talking to one person and another thinks you are talking to them and they answer... but then he just said ok and went back up. now taylor, inge and i are always saying yo to eachother. when we got to the cologne train station we met carina (brazil) and Frank (Taiwan). they had spent the whole day touring the city with other exchange students who live there. carina was spending the night with me at taylors house so she had bags which she put in a baggage machine thing at the other cologne train station. so we all got on the train and went to the other station and got her bags (we passed like 17 mcdonalds signs and i wanted some sooo bad) then went back to the other train station and went to the arena which was right next to it. the doors opened at 6. we got there about 6:30. there was a line but it moved fast. Inge left and we made it through all the security checks.... Frank almost didnt because he showed the guy checking tickets ID's that werent accepted then he finally showed him his bank card and they let him in ... we almost had heart attacks lol. Frank also took longer to go through the bag checking area bc he had a back pack... not a good idea for a concert... he thought there would be a locker or something. i saw a girl who had to put her camera in a tiny locker because it was too good of a camera... they didnt want her taking good enough photos to sell i guess. then we went to the stairs to go down to the standing area... got out hand stamped that we are allowed down there.. and went in... just walking though the doors into the area made me want to scream as loud at i could... carina walked in and turned around and ran at me and hugged me. it was just like i cant believe we are here! kinda like the feeling of getting off the air plane in frankfurt... minus the im so nervous im going to puke feeling. we went and stood as close as we could to the front. there was a railing that kept us back so we were no where near the stage... that was for the front row ticket holders. we were a few rows of people back from the rail while waiting...we stood for probably and hour and a half before it started at 8. in that time carina and i went to get a drink... every drink was 5.20 euros including water. i was like holy crap. so we shared a fanta... i paid. while we were waiting we started talking to a guy .. he was drunk and kept trying to give us beer... we didnt drink any... really we didnt. at 8 the concert finally started. a band from nigera came and played for 30 minutes... then we waited another hour. while waiting we made a plan... when people started moving during the concert we would wedge our way to the front. when the red hot chili peppers finally came out it was like omg this isnt real. everyone was dancing... kinda ... i guys it was more the drunk guys behind us attempting to create a mosh pit. the drunk guys managed to wedge his way infront of me and a few other people and i followed to get as close as i could. i tried to record all the songs but ended up running out of space on my memory card... i charged my camera but forgot to take pics off the card :(. the drunk guy saw i was recording and asked me if i could see and i said no.. he let me into his spot. i could actually see now.. carina had asked a guy if she could get infront of him because she is so short and he let her... i swear these people around us were like 6' 5" at least i was like holy crap why do all the giants have to be around us. after getting in the good spot i think the guy kept trying to get back in it but i help throwing elbows, legs, hips, to keep him back. every time a chorus of a song would start everyone started singing along and jumping and pushing forward.. i felt sorry for those girls who were against the rail... their boyfriends stood behind them and someone would fall into them and they would fall in to the girls ... i told my group that if they got to the rail dont stand right against it or you are going to be bruised. at one point the drunk guy asked me in german if he could get back in the spot and i pretended i couldnt understand what he was saying so he would leave me along hahahaha. all three of us girls wore boots to the concert which was a good thing for me bc my shoes would have been off... my feet got stepped on so many times that the toes of my boots were crushed in... taylors too... taylor had heels on her boots and im pretty sure she was the one the indented my boots... i even got an elbow in a place i dont want elbows from her lol.so the band played about 10 songs then they went off stage and before the drummer left he threw his drumsticks to the crowd... on went in our section but way behind us and the other went to the section in front of us.... i wanted one soooo bad. then everyone in the crowd started chanting something that we assumed meant "encore". the drummer came back out with the drummer from the opening act. they had a little battle then the rest of the band came back out ... they played about 4 songs i think. taylor and i fought out way through the crowd to get something to drink... it was soooo hot with all of those people and moving so much and screaming and jumping and everything... that was another 5.20 for a glass of water! we went back to catch the last song and then it was over.... then it was a mad rush to the souvenir stand. All of the Tshirts were 30 euros, hoodies 50 or 60, armbands 5, dont remember the rest. I bought a tshirt for john and and arm band for me. i definitely should have gotten more than 30 euros out of the bank... i cant find any of the tshirts online either so i cant buy one for me..

the wonderful rainy cold day we had for the concert

updated look at my jacket

Montabaur Club Banner

district 1810 governor - Gerd zur Muehlen, me, and Montabaur RC President

waffel and ice cream with bananas and cinnamon yum

the hiking group... 2nd from the left in back is christel and 3rd is gregor

the sigh read: "do you see a sweat shirt, a pair of gloves, or a pair of boots?"

ahhh im getting stepped on by a horse!!!!