MERRY CHRISTMAS and a happy new year! i love you all!!

Welcome to the last day of school until January 8th at Herder Gymnasium!!!!!!!!!!

Before school we all went and ate breakfast in a Cafe together...Here's Katha and Janin enjoying the horrible service we got (but hey, is anyone ACTUALLY surpised? it IS germany, after all...well just say they're not the BEST with customer service)

Then we headed to school (2 periods later than usual- our french teacher was just like yah, ok we won't have class on friday, come after the big break--YESSSS)

Janin and i were on board cleaning duty. i didn't really do much...
Here's my row! and i figured you guys would want to know what a german class room looks like! cooooll? NO BORING. but it just seems cooler b/c there are awesome people in the picture, you know how it is ;)

HEre's the row behind us, gina, katrin, Mona, and Janin
Then that night or class had a big christmas party in the Music room. we all ate pizza and sat around this HUGE table together to eat it, talk, listen to music. It was awesome.
SOme more of the girls from my class

Then yes, we set up our Christmas Tree. i know, i know WHAT?! because in germany they usually do it on the 24th, but they decided this year, that because i will be gone soon after christmas, we would do it now. hop hip hoorah!
they liked pretending that i was the Christmas tree and "decorating me" cuuuute. and the final product!!!!Love...andmerry Christmas to all!!

on friday i got home from school and discovered that Petra had set out the nativity scenes. oh, that's good because you know the christmas spirit and all. so i was looking at it, kinda feeling a bit homesick, ya know thinking about how andy always sets ours out with so much care and haha, but yah, and then i realized THE BABY JESUS IS MISSING!! where IS HE?!! i dunno, but i think it looks funny. so i asked petra, i was like petra, there's something missing. where is Jesus? and she gave me the WIERDEST look ever, and goes "yah, he comes on christmas eve, you know, hence the reason we celebrate Christmas" oh the change in culture....

Then On friday night it was time, yet again, for the awesomeness of JazzKlub Minden! Of course, we went in and got seated earlier in the night as to be able to have a table (earlier means 9 30 haa) so naturally Katha and i got hungry listening to all that jazz, so we got another girl to hold our table and we slipped out across the street for some PIZZA!!!!!!!! lecker war das! We got there just in the nick of time, haha and because we probably looked like super goobs just sitting there on the wall outside the jazzklub eating pizza, naturally we had to take a few pictures ;). i LOVE jazzklub minden. of course, one can't go every friday, b/c usually the concerts are like 25 euro or so, but every third friday is open play night, and these bands ( AND LOTS OF VERY FREAKING VERY VERY good looking german guys haahaaa) go and just chill. L O V E. where is that in memphis, eh? because i'm going and taking you all with me!
Saturday was much of a drag, because i had to stay home at night and babysit Justus and Josephina. Naturally at the time i was just like o m g im going to die, and it was kinda one of those homesick days, because we went to this choir concert (yes sirree bob, i sang in yet another concert! ha) and we sang these 3 English songs as a congregation, and i was just sitting there listening to everyone in the whole church sing these English Christmas songs, and i started crying. of course not that wailing stuff, but tears peacfully rolling down my cheeks, you know- romantic? no. sad. I then went home to the kids, and peter and petra left to go to a Party thing with these random people who stayed with us Sat. night and made felt then watched Mission impossible two alone on the couch. AH.

Today, as J2 saw that i made felt yesterday, they wanted to make it too. so we made a case for Josephina's recorder, and then they made two little squares just to make them. They really enjoyed it, and it gave P2 a chance to sit with the guests without the kids and such, so that's good.

So that's the weekend. unfortunatly i'm off to babysit the nieghbor's kids tonight. hip hip hoorah... NOT.
Friday night rating: 10

Saturday rating: minus 3

Today rating: i have to babysit. POOP on that

WOW! what a busy weekend i had! but omg busy doesn't mean bad. in fact, it means the BEST WEEKEND IN THE WORLD. so after going into the Stadt w/the girls in my class to say bye to Remi, because he had to go back to canada on Saturday morning. he got spagetti eis, which made me laugh quite hard, because the last thing he'd eat at a cafe in germany was ba da da daaa spagetti eis. wow...? haha but yest now i have a friend in canada with whom i can not talk, but i guess a friend in canada convienient eitherway, right? NOT RIGHT. because it's CANADA...but either way, here's the 6 people i went with. Gina, the girl on the right, furthest back, looks REALLY scary.Then i trecked home for about 20 mintues and was picked up by me neighbor to go to Benny's birthday party. We randomly played life before everyone got there, and life is SO DIFFERENT in german than in English! it was so weird!! i would be like, WHAT are you doing, and they'd be like uhh duhh and i was likE AH! it's so different. my occupation was an artist, and i got paid 27000 a year. HA well, i guess our wish to become starving artists could TOTALLY come true w/that, eh phoebs? baaa so here's ben, the guy, and his girlfriend who are SO INCREDIBLY cute together, and that little girl is his little sister, i forgot her name.

and here's me and katha being our gangsta selves in benny's room. i know, i know, WHY do they live in germany instead of the ghetto? dont worry, we ask ourselves that every day, too...
then i was picked up and i went to the train station w/my host mom to pick up....

PHOEBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who was brave enough to spend six hours on a train and come visit me. taps to her, b/c that's def. tough for just a weekend, but o m g what a weekend we had! what a wonderful boost, and it was cool having a friend in my house, you know? it felt SO much more home like than i've ever experienced here before. oh wowzerz! even the lame weirdo boring singing german church seemed a little more fun because i knew she was there, too. oh george

anyway what a speal

so on saturday we went into the Stadt to do some shopping, and we (or more phoebe) came across THIS! poor, poor manequin...

you know, and if you're going to take a picture, might as well take two!

...or three (espically the third if the girl in it is wearing some CRUNK mittens AND a matching hat. MAN it can't get much better)

actually that dismanteled body looks pretty cool just hangin out there, don't ya think? but anyway, so we rummeged around the stadt, sat on steps watching people go up them then turn around and come right back down, searching for wool, you know the usual things people do in the stadt, and then we came home to the wonders of FRENCH TOAST MAKING! (following, of course, our making of a quite ugly piece of felt and quite cute felt balls for earrings which was indeed totally random but quite fun, and if i ever need felt again in my life, you know, i know what to do...hahaa no more target- GO HOMEMADE! yay!) oh lecker. oh i want some RIGHT NOW! but as many of you know, one needs eggs to make french toast. so we of course open up the fridge, then turn to open up the egg carton (which my host mom had most likely bought earlier that same day, considering it was full) and LOOK WHAT WE SAW! haaa aww
MMMM the finished product!

and powdered sugar and cinnamon makes them Sooooooo good!

of course, we had many random moments and such not to be mentioned here, but oh it was the best weekend ever, filled with phoebe time!! i can't wait to go to loebau!!!

then after phoebe (sadly...) left, the host fam and i went to a christmas market in a neighboring town with some of their friends, where i PROUDLY ate a half meter long bratwurst. that's right. then we watched ice skaters for a while, walked around, and did the normal christmas market thing. iloooove the weihnachtsmarkt, i do i do! every time i go i want a nutella crepe so bad, because i mean nutella is sooo lecker, but i didn't get one. sad. but here are some pictures i took at the eisschuhebahn (ice skating rink,or ring???) i didn't use a flash at all b/ c i found the lighting to be so magestic and so...winteree!! so the point is, please ignore the blurryness. aw, aren't those little kids cute? none of them are Justus, josephine, or the other kid we met there, but check out that hat in the middle! nice.

and finally, i would like to prove how incredibly weird things may be sometimes by showing you this picture. maybe it's just me, but take a look at it and SEE if you think anythings kind of WEIRD. i laughed so incredibly hard and tried to share that joy w/my host dad, but he just didn't seem to think it was nearly as amusing or as weird or as funny as i did. here's a little hint for all you non-german speakers out there..."Frische Pommes" means "Fresh French Fries"...
see the predicament?

“Heute Kommt der Nikolaus, seht, er geht von Haus zu Haus mit dem grossen Sack, den Traegt er hucke pack!
As you can see, today is Nikolaus Tag!!!!
I shall translate- this is one of the many songs that the children go around from house to house singing to get candy!! (kind of like Halloween!!)
“today comes Nikolaus, see! He goes from House to House! With the big sack he carrys the great Pack!”
WOAH!
Haha so here’s what happens:
You clean your boots on the 5th night, before you go to bed…

Then you set them out downstairs for Nikolaus to come down from heaven…
Then the next morning you wake up and your nice, clean boots are filled with candy from Nikolaus!!

Can i please say WOAH!!! again? haha

So Happy Nikolaus tag to all!!

As you all know, i went to Nurnberg this weekend with Judd and Colby. IT WAS SO MUCH FREKAING FUN, and a break from daily life was more than welcome. After playing with these zillions of santa clauses with Justus, I headed out to catch my train. After like 3 hours or so, i reached nurnberg where i was greeted by these two goons. please notice the mug that colby's holding. haha i have one, too. so you pay a 2 euro deposit on the mugs so that you walk around then bring them back to the little stand, so we were like oh ok. so we buy the drink and give them the 2 extra Euro and drink out of these AWESOMLY cute little mugs. then we go back to return them, AND THE LITTLE STANDS CLOSED! ha like, what? but either way, we got two awesomly cute 2 euro mugs! i want to drink out of mine all the time! awww a little shoe! here we were all in the Youth hostel common room, and i think it was..hmmm...3 am saturday morning or so. haha yah.

Here's us in the common room of our youth hostel. it was so cute and aww. haha judd had never slept in a youth hostel before, so he was really suprised when we went to bed and there were 12 other people in our room. haha ignorance is bliss? trozdem haben wir spass gehabt, und ich habe unsere Jugendheberge total Klasse gefunden. Of course, it took us like an hour to find our youth hostel, and we asked these police officers wehre to go, and they were like oh yah, straight ahead! and THERE WAS A WALL THERE! like what? ok, police men...oh our way looking we saw this, and i mean, judd just couldn't resist.
ok so on saturday night, we were on our way home from the Nurnberg Stadt, but we had to take the bus b/c our hotel was a little out of the main city. it was about 1 or so, and we had to wait 20 mins for the next bus. the bus stop was on this 6 LANE HIGHWAY, where there were absolutly NO cars AT ALL! haha so we of course couldn't resist taking pictures, because honestly, would that EVER happen in the USA? i think not. i'm not dead.

Saturday afternoon, we saw the Nazi rally grounds of Nurnberg, they're quite famous, but we had to walk along this HUGE street called "the big street" haha or Grosse strasse, auf deutsch, and we asked this guy if where we wanted to go was in walking distance, and he was like yah yah, no problem! so we were like cool, so we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked for like 45 minutes along the grosse strasse, then WALKED SOME MORE. ahhh haha it was sooooo long and soooo cold, and i got a little string of Hypoxia, so i just started cracking up at everything,and i think judd and colby both think im crazy. naturally i had to take a picture to commimerate (i cant spell) our long journey! haha i think judd had more fun than colby and i? umm yes. he did, though, hahaaaa find out that his hat was made in canada.
on our way home one night from the Weihnachtsmarkt, we came across THIS! and there were like bikes like this, just hanging out on the bike racks! HA

We went into this famous museum thing, so here's Judd and colby....being judd and colby? haa

and finally the Weihnactsmarks, which is more than beautiful in Nurnberg. when they say big, though, they mean BIG! there are these things that are famous in Nurnberg- 3 wurstchen in a brotchen or something like that, so we naturally had to eat those, and gingerbread cake is made in Nurnberg, so i brought some home for my lovely host family! MM lecker! this is simply a small taste of what a Weihnachtsmarkt is really like-especially the biggest/oldest one in Germany! LOVELY!
But now i am again home, ready to take on the adventures of LIFE! WOOHOOO!!!!! slash prepare for christmas slash get excited for the 24 slash EVERYTHING. i'm more ready now, i hope. yay christmas time! it really has flown by....

Please excuse my lack of updating the last 13 days. So on the third friday of every month there's this like open stage night at the Jazz Club minden, so after much begging and saying O M G what else are you going to be doing on a friday night, i finally convinced some other girls in my class to go with me. it was AWESOME. the guy from Guana played these Bongos like you'd never freaking believe EVER. it was amazing. every band played two songs, and they were all this crunk jazzy feel, of course, except for the bongos and this one guy played some aaron clapton on the accoustic guitar. It really didn't fit, but he was quite good looking and so were all the friends he brought with him to watch, so we didn't complain. It felt weird to take a picture inside the awesome jazzy atmosphere, but here's the outside! cool. OH! on the way there, my host dad was like, yah, when we pull up, you have to look really cool, because i mean this is a jazz club, and i was like oh ok. so we pull up and i open the door to get out as he starts BLASTING this HORRIBLE techno music. BA thanks. but i laughed, a little red, but kein thema.

Saturday i went into the Stadt with another exchange student from Equador. We walked around for like 5 hours, and while she tried on various coats and such, i tried on HATS! haha here's an AWESOME one, might i add, in the H & M. Then we were there when everything was closing (HA at 6 on saturdays) except this one guy at the T mobile store who was on stilts making big balloon animals for small children and semi odd adults. i found it interesting, and he was quite annoying to "us locals," but still he was tall and brought a little laugh out of me
Sunday i spent literally from 10 to 5 in the kitchen making Thanksgiving Dinner for my host family, Oma, Opa, and Holger (of course) This is me with the turkey that i made, and may i please say that i never EVER want to cook a turkey ever again in my life. it was horrible. it was the thought that this thing used to be alive and it was lying there in my sink. it looked like a small dog. then i had to TOUCH it to clean it???? EW i made my host dad get me some rubber gloves, but still i just couldn't do it. I went to get reinforcements (aka OMA) and she just went at it with her bare hands- CLEAN THAT TURKEY! but then she had to leave, and everyone had to leave and i was just there and i had to put it in the oven and poke holes in the skin to put the herbs through and rub butter and salt on it. E W. but still, it was a big hit. as you can see, both Justus and Petra really liked the meal. They said the stuffing was AWESOME, and even asked me to make it for christmas! YAY! so that's awesome! On the other hand, because i am indeed me, i couldn't get through the entire preparation of a meal without a)cutting my thumb with the apple peeler (OW!!!!!!!!) and b) burning my index finger on the top of the oven while trying to baste the turkey. yay? it was a good meal, none the less, but i didn't do anything cheesy like make them go around the table and say what they're thankful for. all those who are in my real family know EXACTLY what i am talking about...

I've continued to decorate my room, now that i got 51 pictures developed for 6 EURO! that's right..>>SIX! cool, so compare from last time. every star has its own little picture that means something special to me!
i just think that's kind of a randomly cool picture there....kind of freaky, but still kind of cool and pshycadelllliiic!

I had a dream the other night that i was back home. it was so weird. i woke up and was kind of a little bit suprised, but it was just me and emily hangin out like we used to, going to see everyone and just being...US. awww OH! and today i got my class test back that i took in German, and i did quite well on it! YAY! the teacher didn't give me a grade (12345 or 6), because i don't tecnically need one, but he still graded my paper and said i did well! YAY! he ignored, though, the german mistakes and looked soley into the content of my work, but he told me he was very pleased that i was able to understand and analyze a German poem! YAY! sure, i didn't really understand it all, considering that was THE ONE DAY i left my Dictionary at home, but still i am quite proud that im able to write a 4 page poem analyzation in another language.