Birthdays

Birthdays are celebrated a lot differently here than what I am used to.
Since I have been here, we have celebrated 4 birthdays.
If the birthday is on a free day or a weekend, then people are invited over for coffee and cake at 3pm. Coffee is ALWAYS at 3. For my birthday, we had brunch because it was a free day in the middle of the week.
People eat cake, drink tea or coffee, and sit around and talk. Around 6pm or so, supper in ready and we eat chili, or casserole here. When we were at one of the grandma's house, she made a bunch of very delicious foo that I'm not exactly sure what was. It was meat, noodle things, beans, salad, and some other stuff that I can't entirely remember.
The guests sit and talk for a while more, and usually at about 10pm, the last people start leaving.
It's interesting and fun for a the first couple hours, but after a little while I get tired of listening to German. When it's really late, I can barely speak German at all. My brain is just too exhausted.

Last week on Thursday was my host mom's birthday. They strangest thing was that her brother and sister-in-law came over for a little while. They stayed and had cake and coffee, and then they left their two little girls for us to watch while they went dancing. I thought that was the strangest thing in the world.
"Happy birthday, watch my kids". They're fun and cute, but VERY loud, and I just thought it was a little strange.
Yesterday was my host sister's birthday, and I ended up sitting on the couch at 10 playing games with her 10  and 14 year old cousins. None of these people speak English, and my brain was dead.
Today, Maike's friends are coming over. We're going to go somewhere in my town and do something that's kind of like bowling, but the balls don't have holes for your fingers. Should be fun.

More later.

Alaskan Food

When my host family first found out they were getting an exchange student from Alaska, they first thing my host mom asked was, "What language does she speak?". 

This past weekend, I cooked "Alaskan food" for my host family. I made them salmon, rice, and salad, and pan fried apples for desert. They apples weren't so much Alaskan. They're just good. 

I seared the salmon fillets in butter with salt and pepper, and drizzled them with lemon after they had cooked. The rice was just regular rice, and the salad had a sour cream, paprika sauce. 

I have to say that I was very happy with how it turned out. My host sister (who doesn't like fish) even said that she liked it, and would eat fish if it was made that way.

Running

Today I had sports class. I was really excited because I was pretty sure we were going to be unicycling again. I have a lunch break before sports, so I went to the supermarket with some friends and then we sat in the library and ate our lunches, talked, and looked at magazines for a little while. When it was time to go to class, I gathered my things and walked outside to the old sports building. There were people waiting outside, but none of them were in my class, and none of my friends from the library were in my class. I waited around for a little while, but no one came. I called a girl who is in the same class as me, but she didn't answer.
After a while, I decided to go back to the library and ask my friends if they had any idea where my class might be. They didn't. So I just went home.
I figured I should least get a little bit of sport in since I didn't have class, and I'm not going to volleyball on Thursday (It's my host mom's birthday). I decided to go running through the part of our village that I know the best. I started running, but ran out of familiar territory way before I was ready to turn back. I ran in a couple circles around the block and then I simply started taking random turns and not really paying attention to where I was going. Just going.
After about 20 mins of "just going" I looked around from intersections and street signs to know where I was. I had no clue, but it's really hard to get really lost. I had been running uphill, so I simply turned around and started running downhill (Which is SO much easier). By the time I reached flat ground again, I knew where I was and headed home.
Excited to see my accomplishments, I got out my map to look for where I had ended up running. After about 5 solid minutes of me blankly staring at the map, my host mom came over and pointed out where we live. That made things a lot easier.
The map was very disappointing though. It made my exhilarating run seem like nothing when it was all layed out like that, but nonetheless, it was good.

"Disco"

My host sister is in a dance school. Every weekend, they have a "disco". Today, I went with her and her friends. We got there a little bit after it started, and my host sister immediately showed me the basic steps of Disco Fox and Cha-cha.
When the next disco fox came up I danced it with Maike, and I learned the first parts of it. After that, I danced with one of Maike's friends and she taught me the rest.
After dancing for a little while, we went outside to get some air, and there Maike showed me the next part of the Cha-cha. I danced it with Maike's friend when we got back inside and it was really a lot of fun.
And now I know the Disco Fox and Cha-cha.

Unicycling is hard, too.

Developed during the late 19th century and once seen strictly as a method used only by performers, in recent years the unicycle is rapidly becoming a popular for of travel for a growing number of enthusiasts. 
This unnecessary form of travel is now also available in your local German sports class!

Today in sports class, we unicycled. Last week we rode wave boards and did handstands. So far, I can say that I like sports class here way more than in America. 
There's only one downside. 
The sports hall is the single hottest building I have ever been in. The minute I walk in there, I start sweating. So on top of having to learn how to unicycle, it's insanely hot.

All in all, it's a lot of fun and I look forward to a fun year of sports class.

Deutsch ist schwer (German is hard)

I am taking three German classes currently. One of them is in school and doesn't really help me much. It's like taking and English class in American highschool, and it mostly literature and composition based.
My other two classes are for people learning German as a foreign language. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday I go to Bad Homburg, Germany for class. It's about a 30 minute train ride from my town, then I take a bus to the building where I have class.
We just finished out two week break from school and German class for the Fall Holidays, and I went to class for the first time since then on Monday. I had a conversation with my German teacher beforehand and then we worked out of our workbook and  learned some German.
After the three-hour class, I was packing up my bag to head home when my teacher came up to me and started talking to me (in English, but I don't exactly know why. I think she likes to speak English). She told me that she noticed how much my German had improved over the break, and she was impressed.

That made me happier than anything I've heard in a long time.

Except maybe for fact that I'm getting my favorite powdered soup mailed to me. That's always an amaxing thing when you're coming down with a cold.

All in all, I've a very happy camper.

More later.

Post Adventure

I have now received three boxes from my wonderful mother, with things that I needed or left behind in Alaska. I figured it was about time to return the favor, so I got together all the best German goodies I could find and packed a box. I packed things in to some old shoe boxes; one box for my whole family, one for my brother's birthday. 

I got the boxes all wrapped and taped up in brown paper, filed out the necessary paperwork for Customs, and headed to the post office with my host mom. We got there, and my boxes were all something ridiculous like .1 grams overweight. So we took them back home and I unwrapped all of them and took some stuff out. In one of the boxes, I ended up opening a pack of gummies and my host brother and I ate half of them. (Sorry Joe!) Everything else was good, and I went to take them back to the post office. I kind of knew the way by this point, and it had stopped raining, so I walked alone. 

I made it there with absolutely no problem, but the post office was already closed. 

I started to walk back, but I took a wrong turn somewhere, and the 10 minute walk took me twice as long. It wasn't hard to get home once I found a main street, but little German neighborhoods are very twisty and confusing and no one was around to ask for directions. But all in all, it was a fun experience, and now my boxes are on their way. 

More soon.