random

-fenni also speaks platt deutsch a dialect and my host grandparents speak it always

-i'm going to osnabrück again tomorrow for the day after school

-my class in known as the "schwinne grippe" class in my school because we have 2 definite cases and a most likely third and an additional 6 people sick haha

-my bball team is playing a boys soccer team who thinks they can play bball too like next week or so

-they eat 5 gum here too

-they have special french frie eating mini fork things here that are SO useful

-kids here say "eeeeeeee" instead of "ewww" and i tried teaching them ew and they cannot say it at all haha

time is flyingggg

ok so im riding home with a boy from my class just like every day adn then we come up to the intersection and the little red bike is there so we cant cross so we stop and my bike is a little high so i hop down like usual. ten seconds later i fall over with my bike. i have no idea how it happened. but good news is that only 4 other people saw. plus every car that was passing. but it was extremely embarrassing but im not hurt mom, dont worry. :)

ok so now i should probably write what ive been doing for the past week.

my host family and i flew to Vienna, Austria last friday until sunday! it is the most beautiful city ive ever seen.

also apperently Sacher Hotel is world known but i didnt know it but we ate Sacher Torte s in the Sacher hotel cafe and its like this chocolate cake with jam in it made form some weird fruit i think and then its covered in like hard chocolate. but it was okay ahha.

and we went to Stefansdom which is a huge church in vienna and its awesome

we also went to Sisi's castle

and i ate my first spätzle for the year!

and visited the big ferris wheel taht i think vienna is also kinda known for? but it just seemed like a regular one to me.

we were outside the Spanish riding school for horses

and lastly we went to the hundertwasser house which was awesome im not sure i have the whole story correct but an artist designed / made this cafe on a corner and its with a bunch of bright colors and wacky shapes and stuff.

so school:

-failed a math test ahha

-failed a physics test but got 1 question right and beat another kid in my class by one point!

-took an egnlish test adn didnt get it back yet

-got 16/38 or so points on a german quiz!

-eaten 2 kinder happy hippos and they are great

-got an art drawing back and didnt understand what teacher said but i understood at the end he said good drawing. so i guess it was decent. now were drawing people but only with dots like copying a picture and its kinda fun but after 10 minutes not.

so im meeting with another exchange student on friday and saturday im going to brunch for fennis mothers bday and sunday baking chocolate chip cookies with friends!

also 8 kids from my class are out sick :O

and its like a joke here too people saying "Schwinne Grippe!" aka swine flu

so yeah but im healthy!

and still have basketball thats fun but im not good haha im not allowed to play in the games cause im an auslander (foreigner) but thats ok cause i dont know any rules.

also in my town there was like a fair for 4 days which was really cute like full out rides and everything.

ok yeah so things are great here!

Hamburg!

so i went to Hamburg for the weekend with my host family! we walked all through the town and saw the rathaus and the harbor (largest in europe) and it was BEAUTIFUL.

also i brought the wrong adapter so i cant charge my camera so yeah the pictures will come later i took them on host brothers camera.

ok yeah so then we went to THE most delicious restaurant ever. they serve tastings of everything! so you sit and they keep bringing more things to eat and its so gooooddd. everything was incredible. also fenni and i took the u-bahn (like a subway) back to go back to the hotel and then we had to take a bus to get completely back to the hotel and we took the wrong one after asking two people that said it was right adn then we didnt have any more time so we ended up just going back into the city for dinner ahha but that was an adventure :)

then the next day we went into the city again and walked around and then went to a planetarium!

so that was awesome.

i'm going to Vienna from friday til sunday this weekend!!!

more stufffff

oh also its freezing here. it was 32 degrees F the other day, today is nice its 51 but its windyy. theres frost on the ground every morning! i found out today that germans also check the radio for school closings or late openings when it snows so im excited for that but apparently it doesnt snow here often, but its going to be superr coldd. it snowed in south germany this week!

also i forgot to say that in münster there were street performers like in NYC and they were like the frozen ones that dont move and then like old fashioned dressed people doing weird things but like for money. and there were hobos and i was shocked at first because my town is super small i just realized after going to münster and they are def no homeless people on the streets here.

also i saw the rathaus (town capital building? like main important building of the town i forget what that is in english) and that was soo pretty and a cathedral so that was reallyy really cool and theres a clock that is superr old too.

also in münster i finally saw people wearing uggs! and a store that sold them! so im wearing mine now because i miss wearing uggs jeans and hoodies everyday haha.

and its starting to ger dark here at 630 already and they have a fall back time like we do in the us for the clocks so cool.

i start back up with basketball training and school next week!

Zug und Essen (train and food)

so yesterday i went to Münster! i met up with another exchange student from NY :)

i took the train all by myself and that was fine on the way there but then we walked the wrond way trying to get back to the train station and had to run and that was very stressful then we couldnt figure out if that was the right train and the people i asked didnt know either so i just decided to get on and then it was SO full so i searched for a seat for like 5 minutes then found one and worried the whole time if it was right.

then it was and fenni was there to pick me up and it all was good.

also last night we had steak. ti was the thickest steak ive ever seen in my life. and it was a little different from steak at home. also we ate it with ketchup. and drank tea with it..

this weekend im going to hamburg with my whole host family! were going to a planetarium on sunday :) so cool.

Alles

heres a picture of a bridge in the town:

its perfectly normal german students to snap their fingers in the air in place of raising a hand at the teacher. everytime someone does this i like get scared for them and then they get called on and nothing happens

also i went shoppppping and now i actually have some clothes besides t shirts

oh and i went to another party and its was lots of fun!

and were going to hamburg next weeekeeendd!

oh i also went jean shopping with my host dad (horst). for him. hahahha that was hilarious.

he asked me what was "in" light or dark jeans ahaha. he like kept coming out of the dressing room and idk hes just funny haha.

also i knew this from my trip before, but you bring a basket/carrier thing to the grocery to put your stuff in because otherwise you have to pay for plastic bags.

and i think everyone? but atleast my family goes to the food store everyday to get what they need for that day instead of like once a week or two weeks like we usually do at home.

apparently i don't look american to everyone here? because a kid last night thought i was from

france haha.

oh and heres a picture of the church in the center of the in city here!

been gone a month!

that month was so fastt.

yesterday i ate a döner! (picture)

and saw the ugly truth in german!

i understood like half of it :)

Tuesday & Wednesday

ok so tuesday i gardened with fenni for a bit and went to holland to look for a picture for the living room but didnt find one. then i went to a small party at a friend's boyfriend's house and that was fun. it was like in a renovated barn kinda thing. also i had a bite of a mcdonalds cheeseburger here and its much better than mcdonalds at home haha from what i remember i havent had mcdonalds burger in like 3 years. ok so that was fun. i rode my bike to meet with the girls and it was raininggg and dark but it was all good.

then today i gardened again with fenni then went to the super market and bought food which included smacks! cereal except here its called Honey something i forget but fenni was like this isnt healthy and she tried it and was like this is so sweet! wooow. as in like bad wow. hahha whatever i had that for dinner with yogurt and fruit and raisins. now im meeting the girls and we are taking the bus to a town called Lingen to go to the movies :)

First day of Break :)

today i went to the super market with fenni and i knew before that germans turn in their empty water bottles for money so we go into this little place and theres this sweet machine that you stick the bottles in and it like scans them with birght flashes and then sucks them into it it was soo sweet. then we got all the ingrdients for a salad. and it was the best. (well not better than yours mom) but it was goood. that was the first time i had a big salad here. then on our way out we stopped at the bakery (next door) to get bread to go with our salad and then i saw a sign under something that said "Amerikaner". which means american. so then i pointed it out to fenni and she was like oh you can try it! and so we went home ate a great salad then i ate the amerikaner and it was pretty good but not better than the berliner (another cake thing) i had last week.

also you have to go to the post office here to mail stuff and fenni was schocked that we have trucks that pick up our recycling stuff.

i also feel extremely successful because i met all the girls in the city. first off im riding and i get over this one bridge then cant for the life of me remember which way to go so then i called fenni and she clarified and so then im going for awhile then i come across the bridge im supposed to take and its kaputt (broken). and i cant read the signs because they had weird words. so i go where the other people are going which is right for like 5 minutes and that was no correct at all so i turn around and go back and take the other choice which was right again but under another bridge(there are a ton of bridges in my town)and go for like 10 minutes riding and that was reallyyy wrong. so i call lea but she didnt answer

so i ride back to the broken bridge and see the sign has an arrow saying to go back where i originally came from. so i go and then see these little girls go over a tiny bridge and follow them and went through this little alley way and then found my way through the city to the ice cafe where i met everyone!

then we went into the super market to show me all the yummy german candy and i found these raspberry/blackberry little thingers that are SOSO good. (mom and dad the things that i always get in the poconos in penny candy that are red and black and gummi in the middle)

yeah and brought the german equivalent of scor/heath bars. so GREAT.

THEN i had to order a book for my sprachcurs

(language course) and i did that successfully AND bought Winn-Dixie in german to read ! :)

another GREAT stop.

after that we were walking around a shop and i remembered i needed toothpaste so i bought that!

and finally! i had to go to the post office because of forementioned (is that a word?) reasons germans dont have mailboxes (well we don't).

so yeah we went there and lea helped me but i successfully mailed letter and handed in something for fenni. so yay!

this is the longest post ever sorry.

if you're still reading, i then made my way back to the house by myself in the rain and it was a good day.

Sonntag

ok the the oktober fest was hilarious. it was like 30 people tops drinking huge beers and a couple people in traditional lederhosen and derndels. it was like on one corner the cutest thing ever. and a blow up jumpy thing for kids hahaa it was great. moon bounce!

then i slept over Saskia's house (hey saskia :) hahah).

then today i went to my host oma (grandmom) and opas (grandfather) house for coffee and cake.

also the bike riding is getting old already haha just because its so windyy here haha.

but now i have fall break from school and language course and basketball for 2 weeks!

Samstag (Saturday)

im going to holland again with a friend today :)

then to small oktoberfest !

also germans use a ton of smileys when talking on the computer.

quick

1. im going to a small oktoberfest tomorrow in the next city over

2. you can never ever get sick of chocolate

3. i miss hot sauce so much

4. i can now itch my nose successfully while riding my bike without hitting anything

pictures

Geburtstag(birthday)

ok so my birthday was great! the girls in my class baked a cake for me and the entire calss sang happy birthday and we ate th ecake dure breaks haha and germans hug the birthday person. every single person. it was so weird haha they all lined up but it was cute. then i had gym adn we played hockey and that was fun.

so then after school 5 girls from my class came over for cake and candy and champagne and that was a ton of fun they made me a survial kit for germany :)

also we were sitting there eating and stuff and all of a sudden we hear a thud and look and A BIRD FLEW INTO THE GLASS DOOR.

it was one of the funniest things ive like ever seen ever. it was exactly like a commercial for windex and so there was the bird laying there. ill upload a picture. so yeah that was hilarious

also i got a house like ump suit, bike basket, tank top, and a purple sweater from my host family!

don't worry Fenni didn't know before that i hated purple but it came up the day before my bday and she was like ohhhh.. you hate purplee..? haha so we're going to exchange it.

yeah so then i had speaking course and its boring and 2 and half hours long but i learn like 3 wrods from it . but it will get bettter its really funny because its all adults and me and this chinese kid that goes to my school and the adults always answer out loud out of turn adn get angry at the person who didnt know the answer and like scream the answer at them.