Well my last week with the Nelles family went pretty good. Monday was a
normal day in german school ... which probably included several
cancellations and substitutions of classes with other classes. after
school i went to dance which i really like ... it gets me out of the
class and i laugh alot at how bad i am. Tuesday i went to school for 4
classes then we were done so i thought ok well since im broke ill walk
to the bank and get money out of american account... i walk all the way
to the bank and figure out i didnt bring my american credit card... so i
walked all the way home empty handed and slept for over 3 hours.
Wednesday i had my normal school hours and then came home and went
shopping... i went to bank and the store and then across town to the
other store to buy pumpkins to carve with my host family. i walked in
expecting to see the normal selection of things at a grocery store and
maybe a bin of pumpkins... no i walk in and i see aisles and aisles of
Christmas stuff and TONS OF ADVENT-CALENDARS! there were
advent-calendars that were bigger than 4 ft tall no lie. they are
freaking huge! after walking around the store 4 times i found the
pumpkins... they were in a tiny bin on the floor ... there were 4 (i needed 3) ...
and they were about 6 inches tall. i was like you've got to be kidding
me this is it. i wasnt expecting ones bigger than my head but i wasnt
expecting these either. but nevertheless i bought them, and took them
home. while standing in line to buy them there was a girl in front of me
who saw me and smiled at me... i didnt know who she was but she kinda
looked familiar.... turns out she was one of the people i randomly added
on facebook because she went to my school and i talk to her a little on
facebook. the day after buying the pumpkins she talked to me again and
asked if it was me at the store .. and then i saw her later that week in
school and she gave me that friendly "hey i know you" smile... All of the people from rotary told us facebook is bad it only
makes you upset and all of this stuff but i think its really helpful.
first you make friends at school just like i did. second it provides so
much support.Being an exchange student has provided me with so many
more families than just my family at home, i have all of my host
families, my home district's exchange students, my host district's
exchange students, and my facebook families; I have several groups of
exchange
students, rotary and non-rotary, and they provide such an amazing
support system ... while i may never meet
them, they understand what i'm going through and theres always someone
there no matter what time of day it is. so anyway.... i took the pumpkins home and maurice and i carved them. Christel wanted to use all of the pumpkin for soup so i got the ice cream scoop along with all the knives and everything. Maurice looked at me like i was insane for getting the ice cream scoop and laughed... when he was the one that was scraping all of the pumpkins guts out he realized how good it was and had that light bulb moment. then his friend came over with a pumpkin and i helped him carve his too. i think they enjoyed it. Julie carved hers the next day... i helped her too... she didnt quiet understand that the knife doesnt just go in circles when the thing that you are cutting is an inch thick so she ended up kinda destroying it but nevertheless she was as proud as i was when i made my first pumpkin by myself. she ended up having to use sewing pins to hold some pieces in place... ok alot of pins but we just called them piercings and laughed about it. i baked the seeds from the pumpkins and shared them with the family... i dont think they were big fans but hey... Christel made pumpkin soup... im not a big fan but hey... so that was thursday... which by the way was supposed to be my last german lesson but guess who didnt show up again... this time he didnt see the email i sent him the night before that told him what address i was at so he thought that i forgot about him... so now we are having a skype session on saturday... if he adds me. i think if this one doesnt work then we should just give up. so then friday i finished off all of the useful things in my german book in school so i just sat there in history while everyone else was taking a test and i ate pumpkin seeds the whole time and watched the teacher. it was kinda like watching a little puppy while its family is watching tv and not paying any attention. the would sit down look at papers stand up walk round the class, sit on a table, go stand and look out window, go look at the papers again while standing, move a table all quiet to sit on then grabs a big book and looks at it a few seconds then tosses it back to the other table where it makes a really loud thud and makes half the class jump. i just kinda laughed at him the whole time. then we only had 5 periods of friday (for the second week in a row) so i had to sit in the lounge room thing for an hour and wait for my german lesson... it turned out that last week i was alone because the others couldnt find the room and waited in the stairs for 20 minutes ... they were at the wrong stairs, but they found it this week. since i finished my book, Mrs. Thelen gave me a new one so now i get do see if its any good. i tried to spend alot of time with the family this week because it was my last week. most of the time was spent carving pumpkins and watching tv but it was good. saturday i skyped with mom and we went over the "stuff to take to germany for kate" list for dad. that was the day that Pennsylvania got snow (multiple inches) in OCTOBER ... so they didnt go shopping for the stuff that day like they planned on. then while we were webcaming, her picture froze, it was hilarious so i took a screenshot and posted it on facebook, then signed into her facebook (i know her password but she doesnt lol) and set it as her Profile picture, and she didnt know how to change it back until my dad helped her lol. it was extremely funny ... this is why:
so then while talking to dad he tried to be nice to mom and pay me back with this on facebook:
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| that is one of those fake poses just so everyone knows. |
so besides playing "take embarassing pictures of eachother and post them on Facebook" with mom and dad, i also did my monthly report, but didnt do the letter portion until sunday. so sunday i got up at what i thought was 11 but as i found out while eating my cereal, it was daylight savings and it was only 10, so right now i am only 5 hours ahead of home which is kinda cool, but i think its only this week but hey... later that day i finished my monthly report and did laundry and started packing a little bit. monday i went to school, had 8 classes, had a cheese burger for lunch which tasted just like the cheeseburgers at school at home so i guess the whole "school lunch is never good" thing is true in germany too, then i had dance at 6, then i went to jenny's with the other girls and we had a movie night with pizza, tons of candy, halloween decorations, 'blood and brains' punch, and Nightmare on Elm Street. the girls take turns having movie nights at eachothers houses and before the movie they always do an act.... 4 of them do a skit and the other 4 do a song which include some sort of performance. i was asked not to post any pictures of it so... so we had pizza and then the performances then we stuffed our faces with candy before starting the movie. i think i was the only one who had seen the movie before so everyone was asking all of the normal questions and im just like uhh just wait 2 mins and they are going to tell you ... i wanted to say it so bad but i didnt. im not used to watching scary movies without john so i had to hold on to a pillow the whole time because i didnt have his arm to hide behind. so after the movie we went home... by the time i got home it was 1 am... i got up this morning at 10 (today we didnt have school) and ate cereal and started packing. at 11 christel came up and asked if i was ready to go and i was like no... i still need a few hours (she had told me before that i would be going in the afternoon... but she never tells me when plans change) but they were going to the Eiffel to visit her family again and wouldnt be back until later that night. she said i could go with them and i was like uh yeah and how do you expect me to get everything unpacked and settled in and go to bed at a decent time... so we called the Boekers and they said they could come and pick me up. so i stayed. Before they left Christel gave me a present, a heart shaped thing that says montabaur and a box of chocolates... i almost cried. eventhough i wasnt there a long time i still got close to the family and i hope i see them alot... even though im not leaving germany its still sad to leave them. but so then i packed and after 1 peggy came... I think we could have used Andreas too i have so much stuff... i think the next time i move it will be easier because i will have an extra suitcase that dad brings with him (which by the way hes going to be here on my 100th day in Germany...) ... hes filling it mostly with food so when the food is gone then i can put other stuff in and the one suit case wont be as heavy and i wont have to roll all of my clothes to make them fit. so me and peggy carried all of my stuff down both flights of stairs then outside and down those stairs and in the car and then out of the car and in the house.. there toby helped thank god lol. after chatting a bit, Andreas, Peggy, and i went on a walk with Merlin in the park and the city a bit. we talked and i think they are pleased with how good my german is. it feels like every 6 weeks i reach a whole new level. when i left the Boekers the first time i was just starting to speak german all the time... now i speak it all the time without even thinking about it... yeah theres those words that i dont know and have to ponder and the word order is messed up a lot but i do my best. while on the walk it was 13 degrees Celsius (55 F) and i was in a hoodie and eating ice cream... i think i am getting used to the cold weather. after the walk we came home and i unpacked... since i am going to be here for a while i decided to decorate my rooms a bit and i hung up the maps and stuff that i have and my german flag. that concludes this post mostly but i'd like to add one more thing to the weekly post... the "Noted of the Week" the things that i notice about germany and the people that is different from home so....
NOTED OF THE WEEK
Teachers in germany dress in normal clothes most of the time and not in like dressy clothes. most of the time they wear jeans and a nice looking shirt... my one teacher wears a flannel shirt everyday.
PICTURES OF THE WEEK
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| present from Christel |
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| Add caption |
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| some of the junk food from movie night |
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| blood and brains punch |
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| "i love your eyes... they taste so good!" |
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| last dinner with the Nelles Family |
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| our pumpkins... mine (left), Maurice's (middle), Julie's (right) |
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| maurice scooping pumpkin guts |
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| we read this story last year in german class and now theres a play of it in my town |
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| fall in germany... some of the pictures you can see the flowers that are still here for some reason |
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| now that i left the house heres what it looked like |
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| this is the hill i have to walk up when i come back from the city |
