Things that happened in my second week

I have now been in Germany for two weeks!! Gahhhh

Tuesday I went to Bonn with my language camp to the Haus der Deutsche Geschichte (The house of German History) which was really cool.

Today the head of our program came to visit our class, so naturally I had to RAP BATTLE TO THE DEATH.

Also in school we are making a 'product' that we have to sell by making a poster/slogan and a commercial in German, so that's fun.

This weekend is Gamescom in Köln so the trains have been packed with people dressed like video game characters which is interesting. Tomorrow I'll go to Köln to hang out with my friends and I'll probably have more to say about that..

Tonight I cooked "American" food for my family, and by that I mean I made fajitas. Which we ate with    banana juice-beer (Am I the only one who had no idea banana juice existed??) and more importantly, with our fingers. Jule and Alex learned how to do the burrito fold ("Cool, Origami!") and then they went back to using a knife and fork while I happily ate as messily as possible. I really hope neither of them thinks I have no manners, but I am never going to be able to eat burritos, sandwiches, toast, or anything of the sort with a fork, no matter how classy I try to be.

ready for the rap battle

cooking

jule with fajita and banana beer

some cool museum pictures

a pigeon in the subway. i think this is really weird but nobody else was that impressed.

the weekend

Friday night Julia and I went to a 'beach' beer garden, which was fun.
Saturday the three of us went to a barbecue at Jule and Alex's friends house in a town about 30 minutes away. It was cool because Julia and I took a tour of the old town which was filled with cobblestones and fachwerkhaus ( I dont know how we say that in English but I'll show pictures and you'll know what I mean) and then we ate dinner and everything was sooooo good (as usual) and we had grilled feta cheese and ohmygosh. Sven, the party host had a nineteen year old son, so after dinner I went with him to meet some of his friends and we walked around the city for awhile and guys! Now I have some real German friends, how cool is that?
Today is Julia and Alex's anniversary and they took me to the town they used to live in, Wuppertal (welcome to Wuppertal, the rainiest city in all of Germany), where, surprisingly, it was raining. We rode around on the schwebebahn, which is the only train in the world that has rails on the top, and it was incredibly cool. Then we met Alex's parents, who were really sweet, and then we went to Ethiopean food and it was so so good.
And that was my weekend!

Language camp and pictures of stuff

So first day of language camp, we did some get to know you activities, we took a tour of the hostel our camp was held in and then walked to the nearest U-Bahn station, and then we took a placement test in German to see where we needed to start and it was pretty difficult. I think I'm right in the middle, a lot of people know a lot less than me but some people know wayyy more. I think I learned more German taking the bus/train/subway to camp and then going to a pub with (American) friends after than I did at camp, but I think today it will be better. Also, YEAH, I took the bus train and subway there and back by myself and it actually wasnt that scary or hard although I did stay on the train one station too long and have to loop back around. Haha

Okay, and here are some pictures of things!

Look at the little people! So cuteeee

That's my walk to school every morning oh gosh it's so pretty.

Those are a few of the pictures from the sky tram. That's the Cologne Cathedral in the back of some of them.

We tried to eat coffee and apple kuchen outside and ended up having to share it with like twenty really aggressive wasps and it was not fun.

A bridge where you can put a lock to show your love (and at the other end of it is the cathedral). That is Greta, my mom's best friend's three year old who is The Cutest Thing Ever.

That's my cat Lucky looking really cute and sticking out his tongue but don't let him fool you he is not a friendly cat.

Oh I almost forgot, that is the sauna that you can go to and be naked while people watch you from the sky tram COOL RIGHT?

I got lost and it was scary and also I hate titling things

Today I went to language camp and then walked around a cool part of Dusseldorf with language camp friends and then at 5:30 I got on the U-bahn to go home and after switching to the train and then the bus I should have been home around 6:15, but instead,

After being on the train for the normal amount of time I ride the train for, I looked up and realized that I had absolutely no idea where I was. So, I did the normal thing and got off the train and got on one I thought was going in the opposite direction, only it turned out that I was at the last station for that line and that to go back what I should have done was just stayed on the train. So I ended up going even farther in the wrong direction, which I realized right away and got off the train, only I was in the middle of nowhere, and it took forever for another train to come in the right direction.

Eventually I was back in the original wrong place, but it was a big station and instead of one platform it had three or four and I ended up going to every platform like twice and feeling really awkward about it before I finally found a sign and figured out which platform the train I needed was on, and at that point my phone died and I was really upset because I had one of those portable chargers that you like, precharge, but I had left it in the apartment, so thank goodness I had already texted Alex that I had got on the wrong train and would be late. Anyway, I waited for a long time for that train, and then eventually I got back to my original starting point, where I figured out that YEAH there actually is a difference in the way the trains are labeled but wow I hadn't noticed that before.

So then I got on the right train, and the train-police happened to pick the day that I got lost and was in a horrible state of freaking out to make sure everyone had paid for their tickets, and even though I knew my ticket was okay I had to worry about it and I was just freaking out about everything and I ended up getting off the train at the stop before I was supposed to and having to wait another twenty minutes or so for the next train, during which I realized that I did afterall have my portable charger the whole time, but it ended up not really mattering because my phone was dead, and when your phone dies with a simcard in it, you can't use it again unless you put in the simcard password, which of course I didn't have written down with me, so I was really hoping that my parents hadn't called or texted worried about me.

Then I got on the right train again and got off in the right place finally and took the right bus home and it was 8:30, which in case you are bad at math is three hours, which is like, almost an hour and a half longer than it should've taken.

(Also Alex went to bed soon after I got home but he saved me dinner of open faced sandwiches with vinegar, tomatoes and oregano with salami on the side and it was the best thing I have ever eaten).

I am too tired to think of a title that makes sense

Soooo, I've been here a whole weekend, and I spent it with my wonderful host family and I'm not just saying that because I know they read my blog, they are actually the sweetest people ever. Julia and I went to Cologne/Köln one day with her best friend and her family and we took the train to Dusseldorf the other day so I would be prepared to get to language camp on my own and then walked around the river a bit and it was a good relaxing weekend and this is what I have learned about Germany:

German "walk" signs have little walking men and/or bicycles on them and "don't walk" signs have men that aren't walking and its really cute and also DON'T EVER JAYWALK BECAUSE IT'S BAD. My host parents are very concerned for my street-crossing safety and I think Julia is on the verge of buying me one of those cute little leash-backpacks.

Germans are very direct in their speaking and nudity is okay in public.

I was warned that there are a lot of Muslim people in Germany which is very true (because there's a really big Turkish population) and I wasn't sure why I was especially warned about that and then I realized, it must seem like Americans hate Muslims (most of us don't, by the way).

Uhm, I had other things but I forgot. Anyways, I will upload weekend pictures when I am on my phone, probably tomorrow.

Also to look forward to tomorrow, the amazingly short story of my first day at language camp, but for now, I will sleep. Love you all!

Germany!

I am officially in Germany (!!!) 

The first thing we noticed at the train station/airport is that Germany does not have drinking fountains. My host dad tells me that Germans would never ever use a drinking fountain, because, eww, germs, and also everyone here just drinks bubbly water anyway. But us Americans were thrown for a loop, because dammit why would you spend precious money on water when you could drink it out of the tap? 

The second weird thing was that our train to Dusseldorf came five minutes late, which was unexpected because Germans are Always On Time, we have been taught. 

But anyway, the train ride was really short, at least it seemed that way, and the country side was ohmygod so beautiful and then we were at the station and it hit me that we were about to get off the train and see our host parents and then everything seemed really crazy. We were in Germany! 

My host dad Alex met me at the station and we drove fifteen minutes to the little town of Monheim, right between Dusseldorf and Cologne, and by little town I mean forsure bigger than Eureka. 45,000 people, I think. 

We spent the day trying to keep me awake so that I'd adjust to the time difference, which was difficult seeing as I'd slept for only forty minutes on the plane. We came home to a really cute apartment (the building has a set of really sketchy hallways that lead up to the tiniest elevator--you can barely squeeze two people in it--and my host parents really don't like it which I totally sympathize with because it's kind of dirty and ugly but it makes me feel like I'm in a spy movie or something. Haha) and my room is really cool and I really love it. Anyway, I spent the afternoon unpacking my bags, and then Alex and I drove around the city for something to do, we drove to the Rhein and then past my high school, and then we picked up my host mom, Julia, at the train station on her way home from work. We came home and had welcome Grace cake and then Alex made dinner, which was wiener sausages and potato salad and watermelon, a traditional German meal that is really similar to traditional American meals. And then I gave my parents their presents and went to bed at eight, because basically no sleep for thirty hours plus nine hour time difference plus new culture equals zombie. 

This morning I woke up at eight, and Alex and I attempted to go get my visa but we didn't have enough of the paperwork so Alex said he could do it for me on Monday while I'm at language camp. We got my visa picture taken at a photo studio which was actually really fun even though I'm horribly awkward at pictures. Then we drove out to see the mustang Alex is restoring to look like the mustang in "Gone in 60 Seconds" and then we ate lunch at a German fast food place, where I ate currywurst, French fries, and coke, and Alex ate the same thing but with a soda called mezzo mix, a mix of fanta and coke. And now I'm home writing all these blog updates. So that's my life. 

Kaffee und Torte mit Mandarinen 

The Rheine

Alex and his mustang

What it will look like in three years :)

Currywurst mit pommes frites (yum)

Washington DC

Monday, Val and Reed took me back to Union Station where I met with the rest of the Northwest United States CBYX group, fifty kids from Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Alaska and Hawaii. We only spent three days together, but everybody was really sweet and I made some really good friends. Besides orientation, we visited the senators and representatives from our areas to talk about the CBYX program, we toured the capital building, and visited the Smithsonians, (I went to the Natural History Museum which was really cool), visited the State Department to learn more about CBYX, visited some of the monuments, and I went to Chipotle for the first time. Then we flew to Frankfurt, where our group split up into our language camp groups, and fifteen of us headed off to Dusseldorf. 

The Hope Diamond

My crown for when I become Queen of the Universe.

Einstein, sitting on a statue of some old guy.

Rawr

Maryland

I took the train from Charlotte back to DC where I was met by Uncle Jim, Aunt Marge and Reed. Reed and I spent the night at their house on Kent Island and the next day we met up with my cousin Val and her husband Ray and we went sailing around the Chesapeake Bay on Uncle Jim's boat. Then we all had a cookout at Uncle Jim's house and I spent the night at Reed and Val's house. 

Pictures!

Me and reed on the boat

Bunnies in Marge's Garden

With Val's miniature cows

Okay that's it, bye.