Sommerferien ist Vorbei

This was the last week of summer vacation for Baden-Württemburg. My state is one of the last to start school; states in the north started in the first days of September! I'm pretty sure Bayern starts school tomorrow too.

On Tuesday we woke up early and went to Ludwigsburg to see the Schloss. Clara and I walked around the garden in the front for a while, and we thought there wasn't anything else to see. But when we were walking towards the exit, we saw a map of the Schloss and apparently there was a giant garden in the back! They had a "Fliegen" pumpkin exhibit, and had a bunch of things related to flying made out of pumpkins, like space ships and planes. There was also a Märchengarten, which was for kids. It had little houses that played recorded fairytales, like Snow White and Cinderella. It was really cute!

Ludwigsburg Schloss

The back (maybe it was the front?) of the Schloss

Wednesday was pretty uninteresting, but on Thursday Clara and I went to work with Susanne! She teaches German as a foreign language (which is what I want to do with English!!) at a school nearby. Since school hadn't started yet, we just helped her set up the classroom. Later Clara and I took the train home, and we rode our bikes to the next town over. There's a church on the top of a ginormous hill, and we climbed all the way to the top of it. It took ages, but the view from the top was beautiful, and you could see really far away! After dinner that night we watched Howl's Moving Castle, thankfully with German subtitles. It was a really cute movie, and I understood a lot! Ghibli movies usually aren't too complicated, and the subtitles really helped.

The view from the church

On Friday we all went to Karlsruhe and Clara and Andreas played street music. Clara plays the harp, and Andreas plays the flute. They were pretty good, and made almost 30 Euros! After dinner Clara and I went back to Karlsruhe to meet one of her friends, Anna-Lena, at a bar. We didn't order any alcohol; just some fruit drink. Anna-Lena is really nice, and she likes k-pop too :) Later we went to the movies and saw Hitman: Agent 47. It was really weird, and Clara said it was terrible. It was dubbed in German so they had to talk pretty fast, and I didn't really understand anything at all. I couldn't tell who was the bad guy and who was the good guy the entire time, and people kept dying! It probably wouldn't've made much more sense in English. One weird thing was that popcorn here is sweet, not salty. Clara and Anna-Lena said pretty much nobody in Germany likes salty popcorn. It tasted good, but I wasn't expecting it!

We cleaned the whole house on Saturday after breakfast, and then Clara and I went to school to see if the class lists were posted. I'm in class 11a, and there's 93 people in my grade! It's not an outrageous number, but still a lot more than Centreville. I'm actually kind of excited for school; I miss having friends!! I like Clara's friends, but hanging out with them makes me miss mine back home.

Today was the last day of vacation, and we went to Bruchsal for the Heimatstage parade! Every Landkreis (kind of like a county) was represented, and almost every single one had a marching band and a group in traditional clothing. It was a lot of fun, and really interesting to see all the different places from Baden-Württemburg! Each Landkreis was similar, but different at the same time. There was an Asparagus Queen, real lederhosen, a float handing out fresh apple juice, and even a float giving out some kind of alcohol. I'm still moving the pictures from my phone to my computer (I took almost 300...), so those will be added later.

School starts at 8am tomorrow, and judo starts tomorrow too!

Gastfamilie

So now I've been in Germany for about 3 weeks, and a lot has happened. In my last week with Kristina's family, I went hiking in the Black Forest, went shopping in Lahr, went to Freiburg and saw a really old church, went swimming a lot, learned a lot of games, rode their horse, ate a lot of Döner, and did some kind of sport thing with Kristina, Diego, and Ragna.

The church in Freiburg was really beautiful, and you could go all the way up into the bell tower and a viewing platform. You could see the entire city!! It was really hard to get a nice picture though, since there were wire gates on all the windows. The stairs to the top were really small, and there was like 170 of them. I was scared I was going to fall the entire time, but luckily I didn't. I really wish I would've gotten a good picture, though.

I'm not really sure what the sport thing I did was called (they told me like 3 times and I still forgot), but I had to swim 25m, 800m, do a standing long jump, and a running long jump. Since I used to be on a swim team I though 800m wouldn't be a big deal, but I quit the team like 5 years ago... I was basically dead after 100m. I finished it in 20 minutes though! Not bad for how long it's been since I swam like that. I couldn't jump far enough for the standing long jump, so I had to jump rope 20 times instead. I think I at least got the bronze medal, but I honestly have no idea when I'm getting that information.

On my last day at Kristina's I went hiking with Christof, Julius, Jeanette (Julius' girlfriend), and Maria in the Black Forest (at least I think so). It was soooo hot; I pretty much died. It was really worth it though, because the view at the top of the mountain was beautiful. Christof tried to teach me the names of some trees, but I kept forgetting five minutes after he told me. After dinner he took me riding in the forest!! It was really fun, and the forest around Friesenheim is really beautiful. After dinner Ragna came home from work, and they gave me a present!! A travel Wizard game and a bag of Haribo candy :) I also got lots and lots of books, mostly kids books (because I can't understand much else).

The view from the Black Forest (the mountains in the back are in France!!)

On Monday my permanent family came to pick me up!! I was super nervous, and meeting them was kind of awkward. We all had lunch together, and then we left for home. Clara and I went swimming after I unpacked, and after dinner we went with Susanne and one of Clara's friends to get ice cream and walked around Weingarten a little bit. They said it's small, but it's still a lot bigger than Centreville! I really like the city, and I think living here is going to be great :)

The front door when I got home - it says "Herzlich Willkommen" ♥

Then on Tuesday I biked to Stutensee with Clara, and she showed me the school. We couldn't go in though, because they were doing construction. After we got back, some of Clara's friends came over. They're a little bit weird, but still really nice. One of them brought some really good cupcakes! I also met Magda, my other host sister. On Wednesday we went to Karlsruhe with them to see the Schloss and go shopping. I actually bought a shirt - but I can't really wear it now because it's getting colder :( Thursday morning I went to Karlsruhe again with Susanne to get registered at the immigration office. I really didn't understand anything they said to me, but I guess it all worked out. Then Clara and I went swimming in the lake again, and we talked a lot. In the evening we watched Sherlock, dubbed in German. It was super weird to see their mouths speaking English, but hear German. I could understand a little of it, since I've seen it before, but it'd be better if there were subtitles. They just talk too fast!

Karlsruhe Schloss

Friday morning morning I made ~American breakfast~, but it didn't really turn out like normal. I made biscuits and pancakes, but the biscuits needed to cook longer and the pancakes were too sweet. They don't have liquid vanilla here - only vanilla sugar (as far as I know). It was still good, but I think I need different recipes. Then Clara and I went to Bruchsal to see the Schloss! We took the train there, but took our bikes with us. We rode around the city a little bit, got ice cream, and went to the library. They have a couple shelves of English books, but none of them were very interesting. Then we rode back to Weingarten. I think it was 12km, which is about 7.5 miles. In the evening we went to Karlsruhe again for a light show on the Schloss for the city's 300th anniversary. It was really cool, and I met Johannes, my host brother, and his fiancee (whose name I forgot). 

On Saturday we had breakfast, and then went to Biberach to visit my host grandparents. They all live in the same town - even on the same street! We had lunch with Susanne's dad and her brother, had dinner with Andreas' parents, and then took a walk with everybody. I talked a lot with Clara, mostly complaining about German. We spent the night at Susanne's dad's, and then went to visit her other brother after breakfast. He lives on a farm, and has some really adorable kittens! We went back to Susanne's dad's for lunch, and then went back home. When we were saying goodbye, I thought it was really weird that everybody shook hands instead of hugging. Don't people normally hug their family? I guess it's just a German thing. When we got home I skyped with my family before dinner, and then we all watched Tatort afterwards. I watched it at Kristina's too, but I didn't understand any more than before. It's a crime show, and it's super dramatic. Like 7 people died in the last episode. 

Today I went to Stuttgart with Clara! We visited Andreas at work and helped him organize his office (I think maybe he moved?), and then he bought us Döner for lunch :) I still don't know what he does exactly, but it sounds important. Clara and I walked around the city for a while, and saw two (!!!) castles, and I bought some birthday presents for my mom. 

Everything has been going really well so far. German is getting a lot easier, and I'm getting more comfortable with speaking. Before I left even asking for water made me nervous, but I can actually have real conversations now. I haven't really been homesick; I think I miss my cat more than my family...maybe that's bad. I miss Kristina's family, but I really like Clara, Susanne, and Andreas. School starts one week from now. I'm really excited because I want to make some friends, but I'm also a little nervous. I have Chemistry class, but I never took it in America... I'm not getting any grades anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. 

Some of the things I think are different from the US:

• The post office sells food??????
• The light switches aren't switches, but box things instead
• Nobody has boxes of kleenex; they use the little travel packs
• The toilet flusher isn't on the toilet; it's a box thing on the wall
• Lunch is the big meal instead of dinner
• Apparently you can't get liquid vanilla
• There are cigarette vending machines everywhere - so many people smoke here!