I'm working on uploading pictures and putting them into context for you guys but I wanted to throw in something more recent (the pictures I'm working on now are from October!)
First off, I will be changing host families on Friday the 24th of January.
In other news...
Let's start with school. In the classroom the general topics outside of school subjects are Pokemon and Rubik's Cubes. In Sport the last two Fridays we've done these fitness tests and all of them at once is not the road to overall best results, let me tell you. Our teacher gets that, but I think she's just using it as an endurance test to have them all on the same day.
Today we (the Rotary Inbounds, and Outbounds!) went ice skating in Hamburg and I remembered how much I like trying to teach people stuff. I also remembered how impatient I can get and sometimes just need to take a fast round before I can go on staying in the same place trying to explain forward motion on ice to someone who's never done it before.
I love meeting people on trains. The last two have been through my Spanish: one girl I met on my way back from Stuttgart whose dad was from Colombia (turns out she wants to go on an exchange as well, to America, and had many questions for me), and just tonight we met a woman from Honduras and we talked from Hamburg to Kiel and then some, just sharing our stories. Maybe I'll take up writing as a side job later on. Who knows?
No concerts coming up for awhile, but we just had a ton for Christmas so that's ok with me, happens every year.
My Australian is now back in Australia, but oh well, I'll just have to go visit her sometime.
I had a dream I was back home last night and was bittersweet-happy but also confused because 6 months were missing.
Biggest challenge: Goodbyes. Always the goodbyes.
Although the Geography class where it started snowing and we thought there break in the class but there really wasn't and by the time class ended there was no more snow anywhere, that was a close second.
Biggest surprise: How awesome the fireworks are on New Year's. It actually rains here so we're allowed to do the fireworks ourselves on certain days, and if you stand on a hill (ok so you might call it a mound of dirt but here we call it a hill) and look in any direction, there are fireworks and it is awesome! It's loud and it seems like the little sparks might fall on you when they're directly above you but I mean people smoke and stand around fires all the time, at least these have some cool-down time before they hit you. There is a lot of trash around though, even today there are leftovers from fireworks in the streets and it's a little gross.
Friends: Yes.
(and by "Yes." I mean yes I have them, and yes they are doing well, and yes they are good friends, though some of them are a little sketchy but I mean I'm friends (of varying degrees) with literally everyone in my class, so that's cool.)
And Tintenherz (Inkheart, the book I mentioned awhile ago that my host parents and I started reading around a bonfire), we've only got about 100 pages left to go!
I've been on the radio twice, once for a Spanish project and the other was a newspaper-radio interview (there was an article in the paper, yes) about how Americans celebrate Christmas.
And that's the update this time around! :)
First off, I will be changing host families on Friday the 24th of January.
In other news...
Let's start with school. In the classroom the general topics outside of school subjects are Pokemon and Rubik's Cubes. In Sport the last two Fridays we've done these fitness tests and all of them at once is not the road to overall best results, let me tell you. Our teacher gets that, but I think she's just using it as an endurance test to have them all on the same day.
Today we (the Rotary Inbounds, and Outbounds!) went ice skating in Hamburg and I remembered how much I like trying to teach people stuff. I also remembered how impatient I can get and sometimes just need to take a fast round before I can go on staying in the same place trying to explain forward motion on ice to someone who's never done it before.
I love meeting people on trains. The last two have been through my Spanish: one girl I met on my way back from Stuttgart whose dad was from Colombia (turns out she wants to go on an exchange as well, to America, and had many questions for me), and just tonight we met a woman from Honduras and we talked from Hamburg to Kiel and then some, just sharing our stories. Maybe I'll take up writing as a side job later on. Who knows?
No concerts coming up for awhile, but we just had a ton for Christmas so that's ok with me, happens every year.
My Australian is now back in Australia, but oh well, I'll just have to go visit her sometime.
I had a dream I was back home last night and was bittersweet-happy but also confused because 6 months were missing.
Biggest challenge: Goodbyes. Always the goodbyes.
Although the Geography class where it started snowing and we thought there break in the class but there really wasn't and by the time class ended there was no more snow anywhere, that was a close second.
Biggest surprise: How awesome the fireworks are on New Year's. It actually rains here so we're allowed to do the fireworks ourselves on certain days, and if you stand on a hill (ok so you might call it a mound of dirt but here we call it a hill) and look in any direction, there are fireworks and it is awesome! It's loud and it seems like the little sparks might fall on you when they're directly above you but I mean people smoke and stand around fires all the time, at least these have some cool-down time before they hit you. There is a lot of trash around though, even today there are leftovers from fireworks in the streets and it's a little gross.
Friends: Yes.
(and by "Yes." I mean yes I have them, and yes they are doing well, and yes they are good friends, though some of them are a little sketchy but I mean I'm friends (of varying degrees) with literally everyone in my class, so that's cool.)
And Tintenherz (Inkheart, the book I mentioned awhile ago that my host parents and I started reading around a bonfire), we've only got about 100 pages left to go!
I've been on the radio twice, once for a Spanish project and the other was a newspaper-radio interview (there was an article in the paper, yes) about how Americans celebrate Christmas.
And that's the update this time around! :)
