sunday was not my best day. i woke up and went down and ate breakfast. christel said that maurice was going to a friends, julie was going to the stables, and her and gregor were going hiking, and asked what i was doing. i said i dont know and so she said i will go hiking... i hate hiking. i went hiking... for 5 freaking hours. during the first half an hour i was not a happy camper (i am keeping this polite) i mean theres 9 adults and 1 16 yr old .... how do you think that its going to be a fun time for me i felt like that 5 year old kid that mommy and daddy have to drag with them everywhere and never gets to do what they want. i had no one to talk to and i was climbing over mountains in really hot weather. definitely not a happy camper. i think christel realized i wasnt happy and started talking to me so maybe i wasnt so bored. 3 hours later we came to a small town where we were supposed to eat lunch. that didnt work out too well. we went to 2 places and they were done serving food (sundays in german are not days for any business to be open) so then we went to another place that was supposed to be open for a while longer.... we get there and they are closed because they were on vacation. so we sat at the tables that they had outside and ate trail mix and drank water, apple juice, and wine (yes wine... gregor took a bottle of wine in his backpack i was like wow i am definitely in germany). all of these people go hiking together twice a year... they have been doing it for like 24 years. i was like holy crap why would you put yourself though that. so after our "lunch" we started hiking again... this time it was all up hill and off the beaten path... literally. after seeing it was all up hill i became furious and forced all my rage into keeping up with the guy leading everyone. i was with him the whole time the whole 2 hours. when we finally got back to the beaten path we had cut out about 4 km and saved a lot of time which i appreciated a lot. we finally got back to the car and went for icecream which was the only thing that made the day better. that and the ice cold shower after ice cream. oh yeah and i had people take pictures of me so i had proof that i was actually hiking.

monday i had nothing to do so i decided to go into the city and needed to pick up a few things ... i get there and realize its a freaking holiday and every store is closed except the cafes. so i went to a ice cream place and had a waffle with bananas and a scoop of ice cream. one thing i miss from the US is the sundaes... they have big ice cream dishes here but not same thing as a sundae. so then i went home. later i was supposed to go to a dance class that is being offered through the school. so i get ready and i walk to the school (got lost a little but i made it). i get there and no one else is there... i waited a while to see if anyone showed up and they didnt so i walked home. i guess i got the wrong information (again) and so i have no clue when it actually starts. on the way home was when i discovered the true reason why i did an exchange. in my application for the rotary exchange i wrote something about how you always hear about people backpacking though europe and how cool that would be. well between the hiking and the 2 unnecessary walking trips on monday i realized i would have never survived the backpacking through europe. i chose the exchange program to LIVE in europe... backpacking would have caused me to DIE in europe. i dont understand why people would want to backpack through europe. you get dirty and sweaty and waste a ton of energy. i would be ok with hiking for maybe 2 hours but definitely not a month or what ever these people do.

tuesday what was supposed to happen that day actually did. i went into town and the stores were actually open so i got the stuff i needed. then stopped for an ice cream cone for the way home. then i went home and started getting ready for the Rotary dinner meeting with the governor of district 1810. i ended up being ready an hour early but at least i was on time. i put all the pins on my jacket which added like 3 pounds to it. andreas picked me up and we went to the meeting. Anke gave me pins from Buga (all the shops were closed when we were actually there so she bought me some and brought them to me). i met the governor and shook a bunch of peoples hands... some people like killed my hand i was like omg take it easy on the bones they do break. after the speech from the governor we ate and then had dessert then i gave the president from our club and the governor my club banner and i got one from Montabaur club for Chambersburg club and the governor gave me a pin. i gave all the Rotarians my card with my blog address, cell phone number, and email so all of them should be able to keep up with me and contact me if they want to. after the meeting andreas, anke, and another guy idk his name went and had drinks so i had a fanta. after that andreas took me home (after stopping by the house to pick up a letter that came for me from tiff... she put some crazy address on it idk where she got it because i sent her nothing like that). 

today is just a lazy day... i got up at 11:30 and only left bed to eat breakfast. my plans for today are to finish the blog, upload the pictures on here and facebook, do laundry and thats bout it.

i am having technical difficulties uploading photos i will put them in the next entry.

its been a long 6 days since my last post. friday was the beginning of the inbound weekend. i got out of school and went to the store and bought 20 euros of candy and a monster. the monster i drank on the way to the weekend, the rest i shared during the weekend. i got home ate and packed in a half hour which i never thought was possible for me. when i was even ready a few minutes before peggy showed up to take me to meet the other 4 exchange students. so then we met them (aina, Carina, Taylor, and Alejandra) and drove like 2 and a half hours to Bad Berleburg. we arrived before 7 and everyone didnt get there until until like 745 because they rode the trains. so we got first pick of the entire gym floor where we were staying for the next 2 days lol. after everyone else arrived (all together in district 1810 there are more than 50 inbounds (40 were here) and in the US they were excited because we had 18 outbounds which was a lot.... i was like holy shizzzz theres 50!) we just hung out gave out our business card and pins and talked and messed around until dinner... then we ate soup... after dinner people started dancing and and we just had a relaxed fun night. around 230 they told us it was time for bed... then the sleeping bag rolling races began lol. they told us that the next day we needed to leave the school at 8 am and go to the castle for breakfast and then a tour... so some one decided to set their alarm for 7 and it went off at 7 and continued on and on until 720 after everyone else was awake except the kid who set the alarm. so we all were up and getting ready and then we never left until 830... it was freezing... we got to the castle (they had like 3 van to carry more than 40 exchange students so it took a while to get everyone there... i was in the first group and we had to stand outside til the others got there) then we all got to go on the tour... for 2 hours... without breakfast! minus the starving part it was a nice tour we got to see most of the castle which royalty still lives in. after the tour we got to eat... bread and meat and cheese and nutella ... shocker. and we also got chocolate milk boxes the size of my head to drink. one kid was walking about and he was holding the box too tight and it was going all over his shirt and he didnt even realize until someone told him. then we walked around and took some more pictures and stuff then we were off to the SLATE MINE!!! yay. we got there... waited for the rest of the caravan then we got to go inside... with our hard hats on... and we got to go on a tour. there wasnt all that much to see there was a hole with alot of black rock and no one really could understand the guy because he had an accent. then we got to see how they made shingles out of the slate in the old days which was kinda cool. after the slate mine we loaded back into the caravans and headed to Bosch Brewery. we ate lunch there... well some of us did... we had sausages and they were probably a inch and a half in diameter and some people were making fun of they way they looked which in turn caused some people to lose their appetite... they werent all that good. after lunch we had a tour of the factory. the owner (who is also a rotarian) was telling us how the beer was made and he passed around a container of hops ground up into pellets and had people taste them... me= extremely sick. they were so disgusting! i put it in my mouth and i was like oh its not all that bad then my mouth got so dry and i had to keep myself from throwing up. then we went into another room and he passes around a couple mugs of beer for everyone to try... the taste was still in my mouth + beer = me trying not to throw up again.   we went into the 2nd distilling room which was like 34 degrees F then into the bottling room. the bottles they use can be washed and reused up to 100 times so they are a very green factory... and not only because the hop pellets turn your tongue green. then the guy gave us all radlers (beer and sprite or beer and cola) for free... the inbound coordinator was there so i dont want to hear anything from anyone bout us drinking. after that we went back to the school and hung out for a while and ate most of the candy i had left. then it was time to listen to the rules ... in the process of the 5 D's (drinking, driving, dating, drugs, downloads) (the things we arent supposed to do) he left out drinking... so i guess our district allows it lol. after the rule i dug out PIT. now for all of you that dont know PIT is a card game that is base on the stock market... you have to trade the stocks to try to corner the market.. now this isnt like trading in monopoly this is screaming and yelling until someone hears you and trades the same amount of cards with you. we played for 2 hours... there were constantly people coming and going so i had to keep saying the instructions over and over... taylor, frank, awesome (his name is daniel but he kept asking us if we wants his awesome card or his awesome pins and he kept saying hes from awesome brazil... so now taylor and i call him awesome) and i played the whole time... the whole 2 hours... by the end i had no voice. it was a lot i mean a lot of fun though... we were going to play before dinner but it was ready so we all went and were the first ones to get food so then we started playing while everyone was eating... i think they kept getting mad at us for being so loud but we finally were louder than the brazilians lol. after that we went and socialized and hung out and danced and sang and everything else... eventually i ended up talking to a girl from the us whos got a boyfriend back home and is going through the same exact issues that i have been going through so we talked for a while. then we realized it was like 230 and went in the gym and everyone one was laying down in bed so thats where i went... until 7! am when someone else's phone rang... we didnt have to be up until 830... so i went back to  sleep kinda there was always people getting up and making noise so... then we packed and ate breakfast... the girl whos host dad was taking us home didnt call him until 1130 and we were supposed to be picked up at 1230.. it takes 2.5 hours to get there so while everyone else left we stayed and drank more giant milk boxes then they took us to the castle that we toured and we got to sit along side the road for an hour. while sitting there we talked about how we looked like hobos with our bags and sleeping bags and camping mats... then i beat carina with the really gross muffins that they gave us in our lunch sacks (they included a piece of bread - if it was normal bread it came with 2 muffins, the giant milk boxes, an apple, and a bottle of water) we also tryed to get pictures with all of us standing along the road with out thumbs out like we were hitch hiking and we asked an old guy if he could take a picture and he kept trying to put the camera up to his eye and look through the lense and hes like i cant see anything and we all just kept laughing at him because he didnt realize there was a screen and then he was like wait for my wife and she can do it and so we did and she wasnt any better. the guy finally arrived and we all piled in ... i mean piled we had stuff on our laps and everything ... germany cars are not made to be exchange student taxis... which has inspired me to, when i am older, get a car and have a personalized license plate that says "RYE TAXI" ... it'll probably be a van... one where you can turn the seats and have a table in the middle lol. so i sat in the middle of the back seat and couldnt sleep like everyone else did because i had no place for my head and it was really hot...we got to a sports club where we were meeting taylors host mom... me taylor and carina had to pee from the milk boxes so we went in... carina went in first (it was only a Water Closet so only one stall) taylor had to pee bad so she went in the guys bathroom! when she came out she peeked her head out the door then jumped out really fast so no one saw lol. then taylor left and we went to carina's house... then her host dad drove me back to montabaur. so i was extrememly tired that night and then we ended up going out to eat ... which in germany they go out to eat around 730 and it takes like an hour for the food and then an hour to 2 hours to eat and socialize... and we ate with another family that my host family knew and it one of the girls is the girlfriend of one of the kids in my class so... then i came home and didnt go to bed until like 11 or 1130. the alarm clock here is still dumb and so i ended up sleeping until 645 on monday. went to school came home and spend hours working out the details of going to THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS LIVE IN COLOGNE ON OCTOBER 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i bought my ticket last night for 82.60 euros and its standing so i might be able to work my way to the front row. im going with Taylor and Carina and Frank and maybe some other exchange students and im sooooo excited! ive never been to a concert so yay for me. john is so jealous though because he love the RHCP but i told him i would try to get him an autograph. but yeah that is why i didnt get this entry done on monday sorry people red hot chili peppers is more important lol. so thats what all the talk is about with everyone right now... tomorrow i am going to buga (a big flower festival in Koblenz) with Anke and then friday starts fall vacation so yay thanksgiving vacation comes early in germany. 

on another note... ive noticed that germany is a lot greener of a country than the u.s. they recycle and everything and they try not to use as much electricity... my new host family only has a washer and they hang the clothes to dry.... me being raised with a washer AND dryer have never not once hung my clothes... so it took me like 40 minutes to hang my first load of laundry... i say first because the washer is extremely small and i had to do 2 loads.  another thing i cant figure out is why every room i live in (including in the USA) has a slanted ceiling. i seriously dont like it in germany. the other day when my alarm was being dumb i sat up really fast in bed and smacked my head off the ceiling... then i stood up and i was still have asleep and now had a concussion so i stumbled and hit my head off the ceiling again! i do it all the time im going to come home without any brain cells! ... but yeah now its time to upload the... PICTURES OF THE WEEK!!!! tschüss! p.s. new pins coming to blog accessories soon.



                                             PICTURES OF THE WEEK!