Shout out to: My parents back home for understanding how my busy life is here and taking my seldom contacting as a good thing and understanding that no news is good news. :)
My welcome host family! you guys are great and really made my first month awesome and helped me learn so much in my first month! (P.S. I'm still in contact with them now)
To my Aunt Carole and Cousin Kelly, you guys are great and helped make this dream come true, and support me while I am here. :*
To my Aunt Julie and Uncle Joey, you guys send me cards for every holiday and I love it, they all hang on my well. Its always good to hear every once in a while how missed I am.
My friends back home: You guys stayed in contact (you guys know who you are) and I really appreciate it that even though your lives are continuing you're all still thinking about me. You are all great and deff my BIFFYS.
My new host family/permanent host family. You guys are awesome. We get along perfect. I've been living with you all for 4 months now and I can say that I really feel like "one of the family" you all treat me as if I was and it finally feels like "home" to me. I feel comfortable being myself around you all and can't wait to spend another 5 months together :D
And to all of my new friends, you guys are all awesome! I'm so glad I've met each and everyone of you.
Next thing I wanted to talk about just because I feel everyonee that I know asks me this:
"Have you rode on the Autobahn?"
Autobahn translates to Highway. There is not just one Autobahn. Although many of us think that. There are highways everywhere. Sometimes in Germany there are no speed limits. I've cant count how many times I've been on the Autobahn but I would say that its almost a day thing. Which brings me to my next topic....
Street lights. And I'm pretty sure its just Germany that does this and if anyone from another countries reads this and is like "no, it is like this in my country too" please comment and tell me because I'm curious as well as not wanting to false inform someone.
When you are sitting at a street light and it is red, before it turns green the red light stays on and the yellow light comes on for a second and then turns green. To me, it reminds me of a race track. All of Germany is a racetrack. 'On your mark, get set, GO!'
So I guess my first topic will be school:
The good, the bad, the worst:
School is extremely hard for me. But of course coming to a country where I had no previous knowledge of is going to be hard to learn from. I'm learning some things that I didn't learn in English, so it makes it extremely hard to learn in German. But some things I've already learned and I'm just relearning in German which is cool to compare the words/ terms for it all. Although my classes may be hard that isn't what I found hardest. I had a lot of trouble making friends in school. I'm not quite sure when it was a culture difference or if people don't like me. A couple of people have invited me places but most of the time they would cancel their plans. It really started to bum me out in fact started to make me super homesick. One day I was at home, alone and I just felt alone. I cried. But its normal, I hadn't really felt homesick up until then. I took a walk with no iPod, no phone, nothing except a key so I could re-enter my house later ;)
It really helped me get a grip on my homesickness because at the point I just wanted to be home. Where everyone understood me completely. The fresh air and just looking around. Taking it in, this is Germany. Something I wanted so bad and worked so hard for while I was in the US. I wouldn't let just one bad day make me throw it all away. School is getting better, and more and more people talk with me when I go up to them first. I've taken many test ones that are honestly impossible for me to do, like my politic class, it was reading a text and interpreting it and responding with what we learned in class. Not possible for the German part of my brain.
Next subject. I have the worlds HEAVIEST accent. I can't say 3-4 words to someone new without them asking me "where do you come from?" But I don't mind because normally people can understand my accent very well.
Okay now to the Holidays:
Thanksgiving I made pumpkin pie for my host family... There is no such thing as "canned" pumkins. I got two jars of cubed pumpkins and smashed them all myself. The kitchen was a mess by the time I finished, because I had to make my own dough too. It was a super huge project, and I ended up forgetting ingredients in both of my pies but they both tasted very good :D (anyone that knows me I have trouble making things out of the box) I always forget something or burned it. That was all we pretty much did for thanksgiving but I didn't really miss it that much because normally I end up working anyways. (6 months of no working, and I'm not missing it)
Christmas: I had an Advent Calender with little presents everyday up until Christmas day, consisted of nail polish, fuzzy socks etc. Christmas presents are opened on Christmas Eve, I got a Everyday Calender to learn more german with. A necklace with 2 charms (A dog, and shoe) I got a little dog because I always joke about how I want a dog and they say if we got one I'd have to take it back the US with me, and I say I can't because it wouldn't speak English, and my family doesn't speak German. (which is very logical) So they said this one was small enough to fly home. I really love it, it was so thoughtful and is something I'll always have to remember them by. We have this little fryer and then you can pick food put it on a stick and fry it. So for the dinner I saw all this raw food on table and I was like oh my gosh. I've tried many things but I just can't eat raw meat. I don't think I could get myself to do it. I was thinking I'll just eat the entire veggie plate of cucumbers and peppers. After I found out we were frying the meat I told my host family. It was a very scary 2 minutes for me. Christmas day, my oldest sister and her fiance came to us and we opened more presents. We spent the day together and then had a delicious dinner all together.
It was completely different than my normal christmas with my huge family, crazy and loud. It was very different and I missed my family, a little ;) but I wasn't homesick. It was a great experience to see how other families celebrate. My host sister, Mara and I went to the Church christmas evening for the christmas service it was very ineresting and I enjoyed it very much. I even got to sing silent night in German (Stille Nacht)
After Christmas, My family and I traveled to the Netherlands to visit the rest of our family. We spent a week there, I even learned a couple words in Dutch ;) Spent a day in Amsterdam it was very cool to hear so many different languages all of the place within the first 5 minutes there some lady come up to me and asked me where something was, good thing I'm a natural at speaking english ;) but it also felt good speaking in a language that not everyone there could unterstand "my undercover language" A very pretty city and I enjoyed the day there, and the good pizza we ate.
Pictures from Amsterdam
My normal weekend involves going out with my best friend here, my host sister Mara. I'm so lucky to have her she is truely my BFF or meeting with other exchange students.
Mara and I :D
Oh I also wanted to say I finally worked up enough courage to step on the scale and since I've gotten to Germany I've only gained 2-4 pounds, I call that a win :D
My German & My English:
German gets better, english gets germanized. not much more to say.
Future plans:
Half time camp PPP/CBYX starts on my birthday. What better way to celebrate than on a train for over 4 hours :D :D :D JK but I'm okay with it. You win some, you loose some ;)
In the past 2 months I've had many exchange students fly home because their time was up, and I'm so glad that I've gotten to meet them, they were all amazing people.
If there is anything special you want to know just comment below and I will try to blog about it I know that it has been way to long and that I'm forgetting a lot of things.
XOXOXO
With much love from Germany,
Your new German-American Friend
Nola :*
Thanks for reading<3
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