Meet the Fam!

(Jeannette, Luisa, Me, Uwe, Lina, and Lina's friend Paula)

So this is my new family! I hope you like them 'cause I do. In this picture we're in the center of town which is surrounded by little shops that sell mainly sausages, bread products, chocolate, and cheese. Welcome to my new diet!

So I didn't give you any pictures of my new pets, but let's be honest they look like any other cats, rabbits, and guinea pigs, and fish in the world. Well on that note, time for my random fun fact of the week! In nearly every German TV show you watch, American music sporadically begins to play in the background... The favorite these days is "Just The Way You Are," by Bruno Mars. For anyone who can understand the lyrics is it quite apparent that the songs have nothing to do with the show, so I find it rather amusing everytime I hear them.

I don't think anyone hates reading a continuous paragraph more than me so here's a picture of Spaghetti Eis. Haven't tried it yet...

And we digress... Today was Wandertag. Yes, "Hiking Day" gets its own word in German because it is such an exciting event. And no, hiking is no more enthralling in Germany than in America but it   means no school which is always a good thing. My class spent Wandertag meandering through nearbly towns, stopping to play Fußball, get coffee and ice cream, and to eat butter and cheese sandwiches. I suppose there was no real hiking to be done.. Oh well, it was a lovely excuse to miss school and was... the English word eludes me... well it was fun. Hmm... it seems that my English vocabulary is shrinking at an alarmingly rapid speed here in Deutschland. Perhaps I should read something besides fashion blogs.

By the way it is definitely true that Germans love them some bread. Please take a moment to view this bakery on wheels that comes by every Tuesday and smile with me:

Until next time then, tschüß!



So they really do eat sausages...

I feel like I haven't posted in forever but then I realize that I've been here for less than a week. Weird. I feel at home now, not that I didn't earlier, since my family is so fantastic. So yeah. My German life... Today is an exciting day because I correctly spoke in the past tense for the first time! About five minutes ago I ate lunch with Oma and Luisa and I told my Oma that I talked to my friend Kat on Skype last night. I think I said it mostly correctly but most importantly I said "spoke" instead of, "Yesterday I speak to Kat." Oh the milestones of learning another language...
Anyways I realize now that I haven't introduced you all (whoever is actually reading the blog...) to my family. Hmm... I'll get on that and hopefully have a lovely little post with pictures of everyone and the pets in the next few days.

Look! My cute town! I took this picture from the top of the castle in Schleusingen. Fun fact of the day, that little green lump in the middle-ish background area where the mountains dip is called the Seven Trees (there are six but ok...) and it's where witches were burned once upon a time. You can kind of see my house in this picture... Here's a close up:

Mine is the fluorescent orange one in the middle. :)
Anyways, about that post title. I just wanted to let you all know that Germany is exactly how I pictured it, which is a good thing. There are definitely surprises everyday but before coming here I thought Germany was a distant place where everyone ate sausages and bread and loved beer. So true. Germany is a lot more than that but maybe once I leave I can make a little post about similarities/differences for future exchange students or anyone else who would like to know about that sort of thing.
I feel like this post is rather long now and I would like to add more but seriously no one wants to read a blog that has that many words so I'm going to throw in some pictures of my life now and call it a day. Tschüß!

It's Deutschland Time

Tomorrow is finally the day I fly to Germany! I'm so excited to meet my host family, but not especially nervous about leaving the US anymore because I've been sitting in this... riveting orientation since Tuesday. It's time to go.
So what is going on in my life these days... Well, I went to meet my representative to Congress yesterday in the rain. I met with Tim Ranstrom, "Legal Correspondent/ Staff Assistant" to Richie Neal... whatever that might entail... He was a cool guy and his office had a puppy that chewed my friend's coat so I'd say it was a success. And I got a free pass to see the House of Representatives Gallery (no not an art exhibit as I imagined) out of it so two thumbs up to Congress.
Anyways, I would really like to get on that plane now... but since I have another 17 hours here I guess I'll post some pictures from my weekend in DC with my parents, and some extraneous sights from the city (because who actually reads blogs anyways). ;)

Oh, and before I go I'd also like to say thanks to all my friends for throwing me a "surprise" party! They baked me this sweet cake and everything.

My Last Day at Home

Today, if you haven't guessed by my very creative post title, is my last day at home... I'm flying down to DC tomorrow morning with my parents, but I won't be checking in at orientation with CBYX until Tuesday. As you might have guessed I'm super excited for this year abroad to start, but feeling rather depressed about leaving my friends and family behind. Luckily tonight I get to say goodbye to everyone at my "surprise party" that turned out to be not so much of a surprise. More about that later I suppose. So for those of you who don't know me well, I got a scholarship from the State Department to exchange to Germany this year and before this summer I didn't speak a word of German, besides "auf Wiedersehen" or course because I watch Project Runway religiously. This summer I met with the best tutor ever, Anke, once a week to learn some useful words and such... Here we are saying goodbye, awww.