Sunday, November 14, 2010

Naja.

So.
Life.
Yeah.

Currently my life is consumed by: College Applications. College Essays. Homework: AP English, AP Calculus, & Physics. Cleaning. Practicing for All-State. Maybe some work & skype too.
Can't wait for things to slow down a bit.
What I want to be in my life more: Swimming. Hanging out with friends. Reading. Creative Time. Chill Time.
Soon. Hopefully soon.

Ciao.
Em.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Mrrow.

The world is good to me,
And so I thank the world,
For giving me, the things I need
The sun, and the rain, and the apple seeds
The world is good to me!

<3

Du machst mich glücklich.
(:

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Autumn (:

The crunchy leaves entice me
Laying on the sidewalk clear
The buzzing little bee
Sees me running far and near

Squish me, squish me, squish me
The leaves sweetly say
for is there any more glee
than a leaf-stomping fall day?

Himmel Rouge


On a whim the setting suns turns the sky ablaze.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Free Willy.

You make me smile.

(:

Monday, August 16, 2010

Haiku

Blue as the soft sea
Barefoot footprints in the sand
Then I disappear

Life...?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell.

I can see I haven't updated this in foreverrr.
But, in my defense, there are like 5 different posts started on here that i never just finished. And are now irrelevant.
So. Life. It goes on, right?

No more Germany. Miss it like crazy. Sometimes. Other times its not that bad anymore. The US is cool too. Camp is awesome, when I'm there. (Not meaning it's not awesome when I'm not there, I just mean I'm not there all the time.) Met and made friends with some of the coolest people on the planet this summer. :D

There's so much to say, but I'm not really sure how to say it. So maybe I'll just start keeping my blog again, and we'll just have a gap for the few months i forgot. I think I probably only really blog when I'm bored though. Or when there's no drama at least. Which makes this less exciting. Oh well.

So now, home from camp, in Bar Harbor. Oh the ocean! How dearly I've missed your salty shores! I'm not sure if anyone else has this feeling, but i just can't fathom not being able to get to the ocean within a day if I needed to. A knapp hour and a half drive from my house. But in Germany, oh, i just can't stand the feeling I can't get there. And I longed for the ocean. So much. Even though normally I don't go that often, even though it's soo close.

Emily <3 Ocean

(I almost wrote Coda, cause I still think of myself in third person like that. Niice.)

Welll that's all for now folks.

love,
em
<3

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Skypen =D

Sarah ist ja cool! xD
Ich mag voll viel skypen.
Ist doch viel besser als allein sein und weinen wenn mir jetzt traurig ist dass ich heim gehen müss.
Ich will euch alle nicht verlassen.


:D

Friday, May 28, 2010

Bonjour Monsieur! Oú est H&M?

Soooo... since I last updated my blog I have done a couple of things. I was in Paris, and did the normal touristy stuff there. I was with Sabine, Reinhard, Niki, Eva & Svenja (a friend of Evas from school). It was basically really funny the whole time, and we had so much fun! And then on the way home I was in Straßburg, where we went in the EU (European Union), and got a tour and were able to sit inside as the actual EU was in session! We got to speak to Frau Grässle, who is the representative there from our region of Germany.

Other news; when I speak to native english speakers that don't know I'm from America, they don't think I'm from America. I can't even say how cool it was to be in Paris, and not be taken for an American tourist. There were three encounters with English speaking people (two groups of Americans, one of Brits), during which we spoke english. Apparently I have a bit of a German accent in english. The coolest one I would have to say was when we were on our way down from the Eiffel Tower and had to wait for the elevator: I was fooling around with Niki, sorta doing the thing 'if your hand is bigger than your face you could get cancer' and then hitting them in the face, which ended up being us just trying to smack the other ones hands into their face. So in front of us in the line there were two Americans, a teenager and her mom. Her mom said, Oh you guys are very entertaining. So then i said quickly in english, Oh Niki you're just so little. And then Niki said something in broken english, which I forget. So then I said to the people, Niki's english isn't so good. So what did they say? Oh, you must have had many more years of english than him. I laughed. I'm an American, I said. They said, What? Really? Well, you've picked up a German accent then. So the we had a conversation about exchanges and everything. :D

If you look at my blog titel you'll be able to see my extent of the french language. Well, that's about it. The most important stuff right? Plus: Oú est Niki? Niki est la. Niki est ici. Oder, Tu es bête. Das wars. Oh, and another important phrase: Warum haut dein Vater immer ab?! Er ist wie Chau Yi wenn sie betrunken ist! Or: Alle. Alle. Alle. Alle alle alle. Eine Straße, viele Bäume, ja das ist eine Alle. :D

Then last weekend (or Sunday to Monday), Mirko and I went in the mountains, and tenting. We really wanted to climb the highest mountain in Deutschland, but because of train complications, we went on a spontaneous whim to Füssen instead. And we camped on a lake, and it was pretty.

In other news, we're reading Das Parfum in German class, and it's actually a really good book, though a bit challenging for me. (What they read in school for german class, like what we read in school for english class.) I recommend it very highly, I only have about 50 pages left (yahooo!). In english it's called Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.

And right now we have two weeks of vacation! A little bit of chill time is nice, especially since after vacation basically every second is already planned. I think my first really free weekend after this one is after I get back from camp. Wow. :D

And only 1 1/2 ish months in left in germany... wow... That's something right there. I'm not even sure how I feel about that..

lovee,
em













Thursday, May 20, 2010

Love.

I can tell you the exact moment I fell in love with Germany. Really in love. Like when I knew that I have to come back here again at some point in time.

It was a Sunday. On Sunday in Germany everything is closed, the stores, everything except cafés and restaurants, and they aren't open as long as usual. On this Sunday, maybe about a month ago, I was visiting Nürnberg. It was pouring rain, but a bit of sunshine was shining through. We went up to the castle, and into the gardens, where despite the rain, the flowers were as bright as on a sunny day. As I walked along the castle wall, seeing the flowers and Germany down below, it hit me. I've fallen in Love with Germany. And I can tell you, there are a few places I love, but not a humongous number of them. There are still a few places I love more than Germany, like Farnsworth, but I can tell you, Germany will remain in my heart forever.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Regentanz ;)

sooooo... eigentlich wollte ich eine post vor ein paar wochen schreiben.. woops.
anywho...

The weekend before last weekend was my birthday party. And I'll just leave it at that it was absolutely amazing. The Sunday after that I went to Nürnberg with Mirko, which was fun, even though it rained the whole time and since it was a Sunday everything was closed. But it was really pretty :D





Then school & I was sick and stayed home on Tuesday. I had bronchitis actually (I went to the doctors). We had our monthly exchange student meeting in Ulm. Basically I just didn't catch up on sleep (and I haven't yet). Otherwise it was a pretty normal week.

This weekend we went to Salzburg. It was sooo pretty! :D We had like a six hour train ride to get there (which was pretty funny), and sung a lot there, and in Salzburg. We went to Mozarts House and the house he was born in. And up to the castle. And we walked around the old city. Just sooo pretty.



Then we went to Berchtesgaden, where we spent the night (the youth hostels in Salzburg were already booked). We went for a long walk there and it was soo pretty. We played Uno and just hung out really. When I woke up I could see out our window as the sun came up and the mountains and it was just amazingly beautiful. I wanted to take a picture, but I was still too tired to get up, so a slept a little more, and when I woke up there was a bit of fog, so you couldn't see the beautiful part from earlier, but at least I got to see it. I talked to a guy from England at the youth hostel, who was doing hiking. He said I had a bit of a german accent. I guess it must be true then.



Then we went to Munich for the FC Bayern soccer team party. :D (aka, my favorite german soccer team; I now have a nice scarf from them.) It was a big party. And they gave out 10,000 liters free beer too. (:D) Then home a long train ride home.

This week was pretty normal, and yesterday I did a presentation in Politics/Civics on how in America the government is more in the states and how in Germany its more in the federal government. Tomorrow and Friday we don't have school because of some holiday or another. But we have like Rehersal/Practice weekend for band. And then on Sunday we're going to Paris! And the Straßburg and the EU.

I still haven't gotten to the point that I wanted to write about when I wanted to write a few weeks ago... which I forgot after I wrote all that, maybe I'll write another post soon, when I have time.

love,
em
<3

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Meinem Geburtstag =]

Also. Ahhh, ich will auf deutsch schreiben! (Ahhh, I want to write in geramn!) So yesterday, as many of you who are reading probably well know, was my birthday. All I can say was it was the best birthday I've ever spent in school! (You know, seeing how I've only been to school one other time on my birthday (8th grade) and while that was good too, I just felt yesterday was different.)

So it started out in the morning when I came downstairs and Sabine says, "hey, Geburtstagskind!" and everyone gives me a hug and wishes me "Alles Gute zum Geburstag" (Happy Birthday). I got to open my present before breakfast, and from my parents I got a Spätzle maker (German/Schwabisch pasta like things that I loveeeee!), and a small "vierfruchte" bottle of schnapps. Eva, Niki, and Christoph gave me a school sweatshirt, but they haven't come in yet.

We walk to the train station, and Anja and Carol wish me happy birthday on the way. The train to school, walk to school, blah, blah, blah, normal. So I walk in and go to my place like normal and then it starts with Annika wishing me happy birthday, and then I'm suddenly ambushed by everyone already there. All the girls give me hugs, and the boys a firm handshake. Lara, Sarah, and Sophia get there, and wish me a happy birthday too. Lara gave me a picture frame with a photo of us four in it that someone took on their cell phone way back in September or October. Annika gets their and she and Kimberly wish me a happy birthday and gave me their present (Lip gloss and jelly beans). Then Tami brought in a cake lit with sparklers! I was so suprised and happy! I got a couple of little present from a couple of people, and the day went about as normal, but I was in such a good mood it was amazing!

My teachers even wished me happy birthday (well except for my history & english teachers, who I don't I like anyways). First was my math teacher (math is my second class, after history), who gave me a handshake. Then my History teacher came over to my desk and picked up my flowers (roses from Verena :D) and said (in english), "flowers. beautiful flowers." I know, he's weird. So then we had gym and in the middle of warming up (running) she jumps in front of me and says "stopp!" and then wishes me a happy birthday. And in french (and I have noooo idea how she even knew it was my birthday) she suddenly starts speaking to me in french and I get this confused-what-am-I-supposed-to-do face, and Sarah translates for me: "french, french, french" "she says happy birthday" "thank you" "french french french" "how old are you now?" "seventeen" "french french french" "oh you speak german" "yes" "french french french". Exactly.

Then I go home, and play the harmonica badly for a little bit. And then I skype Elyse (:D), which was nice. Then people start showing up for coffee and cake (aka my whole big host family). That last until late. All in all it was a really good day.

Other news? I can now play You Are my Sunshine from memory on the harmonica.

loveeee,

em
<3

Monday, April 19, 2010

Mundharmonika!

Also, erstens - Meine Geburstag ist in ZWEI Tage!! :D

Zweitens - Ich hab heute ein Mundharmonika bekommen, und es ist voll geil! Jetzt liebe ich Mundharmonikas. Eva hat heute irgendwas von Reli erklart, und eine Name von einer Babylonische Gott war echt cool, und ich hab schon entschieden das so wird mein Mundharmonika heißen, ich kann nur diese Name mich nicht erinnern weil ich nicht so gut aufgepasst habe.

Drittens - Ich habe dieses Post auf Deutsch angefangen (eigentlich wollte ich es auf englisch schreiben, aber... irgendwie ist es auf deutsch geschrieben. woops) und dann musste es weiter auf deutsch schreiben, ich kann nicht in die Mitte Sprache wechseln, das geht nicht. Also vielleicht mal irgendwann werde ich es auf englisch schreiben, vielleicht doch nicht. Es ist gar nicht wichtig, und ich glaube ein übersetzer geht schon gut für so ein einfaches Text.

Bis den nächsten mal!

lovee,
em
<3

Sunday, April 18, 2010

März & April

Well then. Where to begin? So after my little adventure I went back to school as normal I suppose? Anything special? Oh, I got a 2 on my Ethics test! (That's like a B, woohoo!) My paper had tons of red marks though, 'cause my teacher was thoughtful enough to correct my german (we had to write a Socrates Dialogue), and I'll give in that it was easier for me than the other students and I'm graded differently but still. And my friend Sarah had her birthday at the very end and that was lots of fun. The Monday after I went to Munich and hung out with him and his family in Munich for the day (it was lots of fun!). Then just two days of school still, and then we had Easter vacation. I'm not really sure what I did at the beginning (it was awhile ago), but then we went to Switzerland! :D

So we went to Switzerland to visit my host great cousins. On the way there we stopped in Meersburg on the Bodensee (A big lake), and we went shopping and I tried to swim, but at this time of the year the water only went up to my knees, so fail. Then we took the ferry over to Konstanz and tried to drive straight to Wolfhausen (where they live) with the directions from the internet. Instead of taking us on the highway, which would have been easier and faster, it took us in a direct line through all these tiny towns. We got quite lost. But all the little towns have such funny names! Examples: Hinvil, Bauma, Frauenfeld, etc. (and I can't remember any others, but lots had -wil on the end).

When we finally got there I met everyone (except Christoph, the uncle, he was at work): Andrea(the Aunt), Magdalena(9), Theresa(12ish), Anna(13ish), and the grandparents. Later we went for a walk and saw lots of big storks in their nests, it was cool. And I got to get to know the kids better, I really like them. And Magdalena made me miss Molly. So we all hung out that night and it was fun. The next day Eva, Sabine, and I went to Zurich. Zurich is really pretty. And we did some shopping too ;D. We had taken the train to Zurich, but we took a 2 hour Ferry ride home, along the entire Zurich Lake, it was sooo beautiful. I miss being near a lake/ocean. We went back in time to go watch the girls go vaulting, and then had dinner by the other great cousins, at which point in time they found out how ticklish I am. On Thursday we went to Luzern with Andrea, which is even prettier than Zurich. We saw the seven (or nine) towers, and the covered bridges (the first I'd seen in Europe), the beautiful lion sculpture in a cliff, the glacier garden (rocks from glaciers, not the actual glaciers), and had a really nice lunch (in which I seafood pasta had, we don't have seafood so much here, because everyone hates it besides Sabine and I). On Friday we went with Andrea to her office (she does something with books but not a library or bookstore) and picked some books out. I read over half of mine on the car ride home. Then we drove home, through Austria (so I was in three different countries in the period of two hours or so. we even stopped at a gas station there).

Sooo then, the day after we got back was Chau Yi's (another exchange student, from Hong Kong) birthday. So I probably slept less than 3 hours on a hard floor? Oh well, it was fun. Then just school again and so. Andddd: My birthday is in THREE days! I'll be 17 :D. In a year and three days I'll be legally and adult. Imagine that. Should be fun! Oh, and I have a newwww iPod. His name is Sir Jacques Edward VI. Andddd I get new shoes, Purple Converse High tops! (I just have to pick them up at the post office tomorrow, I better not forget.) Until the next time (and I'll try to update more often again, I promise!)
<3

love,
em

Oh and for good music (that I'm currently listening too):

Spoonful - Barefoot Truth
Jump Rope - Blue October
Steh Auf - Culcha Candela (Whom I get to see in concert in June!!!!!!! AHHHHH)
Gone - Danielle Ate the Sandwich
The Chain - Ingrid Michaelson
Brand New Day - Joshua Radin
Wavin' Flag - K'naan
I Love You and Buddha Too - Mason Jennings
Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare - Matt & Kim
Hello Bonjour - Michael Franti & Spearhead
Hello Seattle - Owl City
Lemon Tree - Fool's Garden
Und many more, but that's a couple that just came to mind. (:

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Mainz Disaster (Und frühere Sachen)

Okayyyy, sorry it's taken this long to put up another post! It was a hectic two weeks, with Faschings, and then Mid-stay, and this last week I was just trying to get back into the normal routine of things, with missing a week of school and all.

So I started this post over a week ago, and somehow got distracted and forgot about it. Sorry again.

So the last time I wrote was like the tenth of February. We had less snow then we do now. Anywho, we had Faschings vacation. FASCHINGS WAR EINFACH TOLL. :D Fasching is sorta of like a mix between Halloween and Mardi Gras and germanized. It's pretty awesome. I went to lots of parties and a parade (with party). I was a Mexican Pirate (which made up for me missing halloween) and a German Soccer Fan (though not both at the same time. Then after Faschings, still in vacation, we went three days skiing. The slopes were soooo short and there were only a couple. But it was still fun. And I ended up going off a jump with a bad landing, flying through the air, and landing on my face and hand, which ended up spraining my wrist. Though It's much better by now.

Then I had a relaxing weekend, a day of school, and then it was off to my Mid-stay camp in Bad Honnef (sort of near Bonn). It was pretty funny. Though my train ride took like 5 1/2 hours to get there. It's been awhile, so I don't remember a whole ton of what exactly happened. But one day we went to Bonn and the Haus der Geschichte, but we were there a little to long for my taste (history's not my favorite thing, you guys know that), and had not enough free time. We did lot of workshops which a lot of times did invovle funny skits. We were in Köln another day, and went to a Mosque and the Kölner Dom (the third tallest church in the world (though I have been to the top of the tallest, the Ulmer Munster)). And we saw a comedy show there too, about turkish immigration there and such (oh I'm noticing how funny everything looks without the nouns all capitalized), which was pretty funny (but not always). It was nice to be with americans again. Now things got exciting on the way home.

So, I got on the train in Koblenz with another exchange student, Dan, who lives somewhere in the near from me. So at first I had a reserved seat that my mom booked for me, so I sat there (the train was really full, and Dan went ahead to find another seat (we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to find seats together anyways). So then there came an annoucement, which I didn't heard because I had my iPod in, so I asked the lady sitting next to me. She said that a tree was on the tracks or fell on something ahead of us? So we would have to wait a little until the tracks were cleared, like maybe an hour. Then they changed their mind and said that we would go back to Koblenz, change direction and then go to where we were supposed to go through different tracks. Then Dan came and found me and borrowed my phone to call his parents, 'cause his battery was dead. Mine didn't have much battery left either. Then I called my mom talked to her, and decided to stay in this train. I moved my seat to sit next to Dan 'cause he did find a place with two empty seats. We waited. They changed their mind and we actually did go forward, after like a little more than an hour of waiting. So Dan and I slept some more (with some chatting inbetween). Then our train stopped in Mainz the next stop as planned. Then we continued, and at some point in time before the next stop, the train kinda just stopped in the middle of the woods. The train dude came on saying a tree had hit our train and we would recieve further information as soon as possible. So Dan started calling his parents with my phone, but it kinda died at the beginning of his call. So then we were without phones stuck in a train not going anywhere. There ended up being lots of information going on and off, and I ended up asking an old lady if I could borrow her cell phone to call our parents, she ended up asking me if I was going to call America (No, I wouldn't spend so much money on someone else's phone), but let us use it, and Dan called his host mom (I couldn't 'cause I don't know they numbers, they were just in my phone which was dead, and Dan had his written on a piece of paper), and his mom said she would call my mom (which she did). Then we kinda just slept and talked and waited and maybe worried a bit too. We decided it would have been entirely awful if we were alone, and we really glad we weren't.

So then they finally said the tree was away, and that we would go back to the last train station. So we made our way back painstakingly slowly, so a tiny little train station (our train was a fast train and only stopped at the big train stations) in the middle of nowhere. (Okay, so not really the middle of nowhere but a tiny little station wayyy on the outskirts of Mainz.) Then they said we would most likely not be going further, and if we had options of somewhere near hear to go then we should do it. Some people left. The train kept getting emptier and emptier for the next hour-ish. Dan and I just weren't quite sure what to do. We contemplated leaving, finding a pay phone, and a bus into the city among other things. Just as we were about to leave and try our luck they annouced that there would be an S-Bahn coming that would take us to the Mainz Hauptbahnhof (Main train station) and that everyone should take it as this train would most likely not be going anywhere. So as we were leaving, the doors refused to open. How cool. But lucky some lady got them open just in enough time for us to get our butts over to the other track while the S-Bahn came. We took it too Mainz.

So the plan was to find a pay phone. We have good enough luck that we found one right away. But then the problem that we couldn't figure out how it worked. Then we went to find an ATM or something to check if Dan could get some money. (He didn't have any money with him (I had about 40 euros), and had to pay back 25% of his ticket on the first train 'cause he forgot the card that made it cheaper, so he didn't have any on his account either. But it was actually really cool 'cause when the lady came to check our tickets Hillary (one of our councelors, not actually called Hillary but we called her that anyways) talked in an american accent too, so that maybe the lady would be nice to exchange students. But sadly it didn't work.) He couldn't. Then we went back and observed some people using it, and figured out how to actually use it. He called his host parents, and they said they were going to try and call AFS and then for us to call them back in a half hour. So we went to get something to eat, I had a Döner (yummmm) and a Bier, and Dan ate McDonalds (bleh). So then we went back and called his parents, who couldn't reach AFS, and told us to go talk to the people at the train station information/help/service center. So we wandered around looking for it for a bit (first we found the sketchy bathrooms in the basement and such), and finally took the escalators wayy upstairs where we immiediately saw a HUGE line of people at this stand.

So we started making our way to the very back when we heard a familiar voice scream our names. It was Mariah, Amanda, and Johannes! Apparently they were stuck here too! Their train was the first train ours had passed that had a tree fall on it too. And Mariah had seen me through the window as our train had slowly passed theirs, she recognized my awesome rainbow hat. She said she was like "Whatttt, they get to keep going and we're stuck here?!" But we ended back up at the same place as them, just a long time later. So we waited in line, and then talked to the train guy (and Johannes did most of the talking, which was cool), found out their were definitely no more trains going home for any of us that day, got our tickets good for tomorrow, and asked if they would pay for our hotel. (We had also called AFS but apparently everyone in the Mainz area was too busy to help a couple of all alone stranded americans.) Then Johannes and I figured out we could put my Sim card in his phone, because he accidentily locked his phone, but mine worked, my actual phone just didn't have any battery. And Mariah had the sheet with everyone's home number on it, so I was able to call my mom, (And this was actually during this whole last thing, so I called her every now and then as we went through stuff.) So then we bought some sweets (chocolate and gummi bears), and decided the only thing to do was to go find a hotel. We left.

So once we got out of the train station we looked around trying to find a hotel. We found one, but it seemed really expensive, and we asked if we could just get one room and some of us could sleep on the floor. They said no, but the guy was nice, and suggested a cheaper one a little bit around the corner from the train station. So we went and found it and talked to the guy there. Johannes did most of the talking again, and I think the guy felt sorry for us, so in total we ended up getting it 20 euros cheaper (but not per person). I won't write the name of the hotel though, because the man there asked us not to tell anyone about that. And it was a rather sketchy hotel too (but not too too sketchy). We were on the fifth floor (a WHOLE bunch of stairs), and the guys and a two person room, and we had a three person room. Johannes and I went back to the ATM to get money for the rest of the hotel, because only us two had access to money, so he paid for half the hotel, and I paid for the other half. Then we went back to the hotel. Amanda bought some internet time (for about 2 euros or something, we got it cheaper again), and so everybody had a short go on Facebook, and Dan skyped his dad and asked him to put some money in the bank.

So then after a little bit of chilling Dan, Johannes, and I went out to find a bar. After wandering around for a bit, we ended up going to this nice little spanish restraraunt across from the train station that had a bar. It was later by then, and pretty empty, except for two middle aged guys who started talking to us when we went in. Apparently the recognized me from my rainbow hat from the train too, and then I remember I sat near them in the train before I moved to sit by Dan. So then we talked with them for a bit, and they bought us beer. We talked about American government (and got a little bit showed up) and German government and such. We were there until about 1 am talking, and we had to be back at the hotel by one anyways, because then the guy there locked up. At the end they ended up saying they hadn't talked to young people such as us before, with so much interest in politics and such, and who knew about it, and our opinions, and that we could even use "du" with them (because in germany there is "du" unformal, and "Sie" formal, for you, and we had been using "Sie" the whole time). It was the first time anyone that we had to use Sie with told us that before. We left and went to our respective hotels, and will probably never see them again.

I went right to sleep when we got back, and we got up at about 10 am. (Normally we were supposed to be out by 10 am, but they guy was nice again, and said that we could leave at 10:30.) We packed all our stuff up again, and headed out. The day before we had thought that maybe we would take a later train home, so we could see Mainz that day, but we all just wanted to get home by this time, and headed to the train station to check train times and eat breakfast. The first train for any of us was Dan and mine at 11:15, with a 15 Verspätung, so we all went to get breakfast. (I ate pizza, it was yummy.) We headed down to the tracks and said our goodbyes, promising to back our facebook statuses that we got back safely as soon as we got home. Dan and I got on and found to unreserved empty seats together (which was a bit of a challenge), and can you guess what we did? Sleep. Then there were a couple of changes, that our train wasn't going to stop somewhere (but a different stop as ours), and we ended up having to get off in Stuttgart and catch another train to Ulm there, but it was okay. In the train on the way to Ulm, we sat near a bunch of business people speaking englisch (and I talked to them shortly, but they weren't really the talking to teenagers sort of type). So then as we got to Ulm, I ended up getting off really quickly to catch the next train to Hermaringen. (A train leaves Ulm every hour, but I just wanted to be home by then, and didn't want to wait for another hour, even though it wouldn't have been much of a problem, I know Ulm pretty well.)

I caught the train home, and after a painstaking half hour, 45 minutes, got to Hermaringen, and walked home. It was about 23 hours after I should have been home.

I'll post a post soon about the month of march, sorry this one just took sooo long to write!

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Oops.

So I have started a post, but like like super long, with a super long story, and I haven't finished it yet. It'll come eventually... hopefully.

Buttt....

IT FEELS LIKE SPRING!

:D

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Ich will Frühling!

Ich bin verliebt in der Frühling!


Yes, very true.

Ich bin verliebt in der Frühling!

And I bet you are too!

Well, so last Donnerstag, Freitag, and Samstag were beautiful! Well, not super super beautiful, but it was warm, the sun was shining, and I could feel spring in the air! Now I'm hooked, it's like a drug. I NEED spring now! It's back to being cold-ish (cold for Germany, but I know all you guys back home wouldn't be wearing a jacket). But the birds are still singing, so I haven't given up hope! I wrote this poem on Friday because I was so excited/wanting spring:

Die Vögel singen voller Freude
Und ich will nicht in ein Gebäude

Alles grün und alles froh
Nichts mehr von dem alten Stroh

Der Welt scheint mit neuem Leben
Jeder will Umarmung geben

Der Winterzauber wird verwehen
Und Frühling wird nie wieder gehen

I wish we could just have spring weather all year round! Das wäre supi! So anyways, later I'm going to go to the February AFS Stammtisch, and it's Faschings themed. Faschings is sorta kinda like Halloween and Mardi Gras? Keinen Ahnung, but everyone dresses up and parties, thats it. I'm going as a mexican pirate (well, I was just going to be a pirate, but then i found this AWESOME sombrero, which I have taken to occansionly wearing). Friday is Halbzeit! (half time) Five months in Germany! We're (the other exchange students and I) having a little party in Heidenheim to celebrate it. Just hanging out, playing some games, listening to musik, and eating a little. Nice relaxed, just to celebrate it together. And then next week we have Faschingsferien! :D We're going skiing for three days! Yay! And some Faschings stuff on the weekend/monday/donnerstag too maybe? Then the next week mid-stay camp. whooo. In Bad Honnef. Was gibt es da? Ich weiß nicht, aber ich werde überhaupt nichts raten. Well, another week without school! I'll only have to go that monday. But it's like a five hour train ride... not so much fun, maybe I'll knit. And I have to (yes, I have to, I don't want to) do a talent for the talent show then, and I have no idea what to do.

Well, that's all, now I have to decide if I want to read my book (Harry Potter und die Kammer des Schreckens), write nonsensical poetry, knit, or go jogging. And it snowed last night, meh.

<3
tschüss!

em

P.S. I want to learn chinese now. And spanish I'll learn first of course. But not french, I'm learning it a bit now, but I think after this year I'll be done with it, it's not my favorite language. And Eva/Yiwen says that I can say the chinese words quite well, I get the right pronounciation on the first try. Ta ta for now!

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Stray Thoughts - Good & Bad.

In the last week I've been doing a lot of thinking. And not thinking. Or whatever the opposite of thinking is. I'm not sure. I don't think I've ever felt such an emotional rollercoaster in my life before I came to Germany. I think I had a pretty chill stressless life. Here, well, everyone seems more stressed out.


I've come to the realization that I'm not really a big party person. I would prefer a night staying up chatting and playing board games with friends and family than out at a party with dancing and drinking and such - hands down. I would love to just have a hang out night with my friends, like I'm used to. But, sometime soon I think I'll have a girl's movie night with Yiwen, Chau Yi, and Fernanda (exchange students), and that'll be really good for me.

Sadly enough, I can't seem to make good friends of my own here. Basically, in school in Germany, they have been all together since the fifth grade. And I don't mean like in American high school together. I mean, like a small class, that one would teach, with the same people, every single class, every single school day, for the past six years. So they're all pretty close. Really close. And they know who've they've got for friends, and who they're not friends with. Everybody is really nice too, but no one needs another good friend, that's already all taken care of. They all have all of their own things, friends, stuff to do, and no one has time for the newcomer.

I also had a little bit of Heimweh this week. (Homesickness) I especially really really really miss my friends from America. And especially my bestie, Alison Ayen. I think that one can go through something as long as they have their friends there for them. I was never so stressed out or sad or anything in the US before. And I went through things, that while looking back on them, seem much, much harder to go throught than things I'm going through now. I was always the one who was constantly happy, almost always had a smile. The one who cheered the others up. Here, I can be overly silent. Often enough, people show/say that I should smile, that was my job in America, not the other way around! Don't worry, be happy - that was something that I could have lived by. It just seems a lot harder to do here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not alone in Germany. I still have all of my wonderful exchange student friends, and my german family. But, its hard to coordinate schedules with the exchange students and sometimes, well, we don't have exactly the same agenda. And other values. And my family is wunderschön, but well, man braucht auch Freunde dazu.

Now, I'm not trying to be all negative and such, I'm still loving and enjoying my time in Germany. It's just made me see all these things that I would normally take for granted. Oh, speaking of that, I'm really really really glad that I went (and will go to again next year) an American high school. I just don't like how the german one works. Maybe part of it is that I've picked up a bit of that thing from my mom - seeing how things could be better run and whatnot, not exactly sure what to call it. But she knows. And the other part is that it is all so boring. So so so so sooo boring. Like in Germany it seems that they don't know how to make school a little bit exciting. I think I might like to be a teacher someday, and if so, I vow never to make my lessons as boring as these german ones. And there's more I'm not a fan of about german school, but that probably needs its own post as a long rant.

On the upside, I think I'll finish Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen today. Then maybe I can start the second one! :D

Well ta-ta for now,
With love and greetings from Germany,
Your faithful friend,

em
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