Goodness gracious, today was my first day at a German school. It wasn't a full day though. Monika and I left at like 9:30 in the morning and unded up back home by noon. The counselor guy, Herr Opitz, was sick, so we spoke with his assistant. She assigned me a student guide named Stephi. Jesus was given a girl name Shyane. Jesus is also here on exchange, but he is from Mexico and not the United States. We also spoke with the head master, but instead of sitting in on a few classes after this we went home. Apparently there [View Full Entry]

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Today's informal culture lesson was to watch the marching bands of four of the carnival groups walk into the square between the cathedral and the courthouse and then walk out. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong. We stood around at nearly eight different places about the city before we actually figured out where the ceremony thing was going to be. We had met up with Thomas and Elke so a majority of our time was spent talking with them. The ceremony wasn't through until about midnight, then we still had to walk home. Needless to say I was quite tired. [View Full Entry]

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Language camp has come to an end. It helped me a lot, but not nearly enoughto suit my linguistic needs. It has been an incredibly fun filled three weeks, however, today was the most entertaining by far. The first half of the day was class like usual, but after lunch we played Fußball (soccer). I got totally into it and my jeans were absolutely filthy. After that was a small game of bobbing for apples. We had been split up into four groups int he first week for the scavenger hun we had and we got back into those groups for [View Full Entry]

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Oops...I missed a few days, but it's ok because not a ridiculously large amount has happened since my last journal entry. Yesterday our class took a small afternoon feild trip to Dreilander Punkt. (Three countries point. The Neatherlands, Belgium and Germany) This is where they have the giant maze of shrubberies ("Ones that look nice, but aren't too expensive.") Alicia, Nick, and I were the last one's to find out way through and that was only after we had Karl's help...and after falling and accidently rolling under a fence toward an adjacent path... The most entertaining part of that day, t [View Full Entry]

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I slept 16 hours last night. Totally crazy, yea? I went into my room at 6 to do homework, but instead I fell asleep. Four hours later Monika came in to make sure I was o.k. I told her good morning. She had a good laugh at that one. I woke up for about 20 minutes then decided it that it wasn't worth it so I went back to bed and didn't wake up until 10 this morning. I've been sleeping a ridiculous amount lately and I'm pretty sure it's because I'm flexing so many of my brain muscles. It's physicall [View Full Entry]

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At 9 o'clock this morning we all got on a train at the Hauptbahnhof that was headed for Köln (Cologne) Upon arriving in Köln the first thing one notices is the massive, gothic, 157 meter tall Cathedral. After that it's pretty much impossible to notice anything else. I never could have imagined a building more majestic than that. We climbed to the top of one of the spires. The brocures clamied that there were 509 steps. I don't doubt this one bit. Dennis and Nick felt compled to count for themselves...out loud...much to my dismay. I think it was around the [View Full Entry]

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Interesting news. Today, for the first time in my young life, I ate caviar. I couldn't exactly taste it because there was only a tiny bit, but regardless it was still caviar and I still ate it. We had dinner on a boat. It was super fancy. I wore heels. Prior to the boat ride we attended a barbeque. It was kind of like a company picnic for all the carnival participants. I hung out with a few of the other kids in my dance group. We played volley ball... kind of. I totally jammed two of my fingers. My forearms [View Full Entry]

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Well, language camp was fun today. We had a scavenger hunt type thing. It wasn't an actual scavenger hunt, but that's really the best name I could put forth to explain it. Our journey started at Elisenbrunnen. There we had to find a plaque telling the sulfate content of the geothermal water wich powered the fountains there. The rest of the challenge was the same way. It involved counting windows in a certain church or sketching a statue our teachers directed us to through their instructions. (All of which were in German.) My group was constructed of Dennis, John, and Louise. [View Full Entry]

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I was finally at home and in bed, but of course my self discipline detured me from going to sleep without first writing about my day. Language camp was lovely. Just as lovely as the first few days of it I have had this week. After dismissal a group of us went downtown for Eis (Ice Cream) Tiramisu und Schokolade...nom nom nom! The group started out large, but by the end of the day it was only Nick and me. We walked Aachen just exploring and chatting. It was really a very entertaining activity. We went our seperate ways when the [View Full Entry]

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The usual routine. Breakfast, shower, camp, lovliness. I enjoy learning German, not just because it makes me feel like less of an idiot, but because I consider it to be a very beautiful language. I'm facinated by the English language and even more so by the German one. We had two special guests come to speak with us today. We were all geared up for some important politician or George Clooney, but it was only two ASSE Alumnae. They had participated about six or so years ago. But I suppose I shouldn't say only because both of them really were very [View Full Entry]

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