Was gehts?

It's been a bit, but I've been busy doing things here in Germany. And as the days go on I may start writing less and less. It's what normal happens here. You forget about keeping in touch as your having a life over here in a different country in a different language. Which is a great experience, so I'm going to apoligize in advance because I know it'll happen. It's slowly happening know.

Ummm let's see I went to school like always had a bbq in Tanning Bush on Friday, hang out with the group on saturday, and sunday went to Nat's house for her birthday party. Yesterday of course we had class and we meet up with 86 german students and really hung out with them the whole day. there were only 21 of us so they trippled our group. it was cool because i've meet someone that lives in freiburg and meet others too. They'll try to hang with us during the week they'll call us, but it'll be hard as we have class and they're kind of on vacation.

i found out today that i'm going to a gymiansime (sp) from 14.9.09 - 31.10.09 so it's really only about 6 weeks and then i'm off to work at the hospital which is cool. my second host family lives in freiburg so i can find my way around and then my long term host family lives outside it. the bus is only funf mintuens away from the house so that isn't bad. and figuring it out i think the bus runs every zwanzig mintuens.....maybe i'm not sure i haven't checked the bus schedule since i'm not over there yet.

Wow

So this week went by fast it seemed like the days ended quickly. Monday we went to class and did our thing which was learning German and I don't think we did anything besides that. Tuesday we talked to Hartwig about our cards and how we are now Bonner citizens. Wednesday we had to watch a movie and that was okay, it was all about the Rhen bridge that we were going to visit Friday but the weather was going to be bad so we did our tour today. The bike ride was about zwei uhr long. It was very good. Tomorrow I'm going to get up early do yoga, go to class, after class go to the Haribo factory or the gummy factory and then see HP with the group or whoever wants to go. On saturday Em, Lydia, and Kayden and maybe rob well come visit me for the day and spend the night in the hosue and i'll show them around. and um that's pretty much it.

Tschuss,

Grace

The 1st week

(Thanks for the comment mother....)

Okay so this week I didn't start class until Wed. and it was only 3 hours long. Once class got down we would have about an hour for lunch and then sometimes go on a tour if there wasn't any tour we would just wonder around Bonn chilln with our duners (sp) there like subs and our fanta soad's which are really good over here. Most of the time we spend back in the AIB if it rained. They don't kick us out until like 7pm or sometimes later it all depends on how soon the person that has to lock up wants to leave.

Friday was the welcoming party which had all the people who ran the AIB and the students who were in the program with their host parents to come. It was very croweded and my host parents played there. Some how we ended up playing musical chairs it was mainly my group, nina, and 3 other host siblings. The last 2 people were David and R Kelly. Of course it was extreme and very funny to watch R Kelly end up winning the game.

On Saturday we decided to celebrate Austin's b-day even though he didn't turn 19 until tomorrow. We went to his host parents house and had supper which was really good all veggie meal. While we were waiting for time to pass we told stories of our past; kelesy, lindsay, and myself ended up giving people massages I didn't mind because it's fun when your bored. When 9pm rolled on by we headed off to the train station to head back to Bonn as we were going to go clubbing in our large group and had to split up so it didn't look suspicous that a bunch of americans want to go to the same club. Most of us got in before 11pm and didn't have to worry about paying. They played a lot of american songs, some techno, and german rap. At one point there I think a German drinking song that everyone including us Americans sang even though we had no idea what we were singing it was fun. We left around 2am to head back home.

As we waited for the train, David, Alex, and myself we realized we were on the wrong platform and had to wait another hour for the next train to arrive to bring us home. We all got home safely tired, but safe. I never realized how exhausting dancing for 3 hours long. Of course my legs are getting a good work out from walking every where and at times running to catch a train. The calves are showing some improvment getting strong.

Today I slept in until 1pm and got up to eat lunch with my family. Oma, and the eldest daughter came over to join us. Since it was the eldest birthday a couple days ago. It was interesting to meet them and hear an old person speak german. A couple hours later Ralf took me and Nina out to eat we got pizza. After that Nina and I headed to Bonn to meet up with some people in our group to watch an orchestra. They played The Planet's all of them exculding Mecury, Earth, and Pluto. It was good, because I remember that my band in high school had played Mars and Jupitar at one point of my high school career.

That's pretty much what happened this week/weekend. Oh it did rain every day it was nice at times and other times it was just really annoying. Tomorrow it shouldn't rain it's supposed to be sunny out. Hopefully it will be nice but not to warm as I still don't have my shorts, or capris to wear.

Night,

Grace

[P.S. There's something wrong with my MP3 it doesn't charge, and when it does it says that my music's bad even though it's not.]

(FYI: you can leave comments, and/or ask questions....i'll answer them)

Yesterday we walked around Bonn learning where everything is. Which is nice. I'm not the best with directions but I have found out that if you keep turing you'll eventually get back to the middle of the city where the Main Train station is. I do know how to get to the AIB which is good, and I'll always be on time since my train leaves ever hour on the minute...say it was 7:01 the next train would arrive at 8:01 and so on until it says differently on the paper. Since my german class starts at 8:45am I'll be about 35 minutes early...give or take a few minutes depending on how fast I walk to the AIB, and if my train comes on time or comes early.

Today we just talked to one of the minor majors from Bonn and took photos with him. I still have to get yesterday photo's up, and today it'll be a bit. That was cool, and also we signed a bunch of papers for our visa's, a card to get 25% off all transportation tickets we have to buy which by the is amazing. I havn't tried any of their fresh bakery food yets. I plan on doing that sometime, but of course I have all year to do that. Well that's pretty much it...unless you have questions that I hope to answer, or just mention something about the post through comment i don't mind it's good hearing from people i don't get to see for a whole year.

Day 3

Okay so today was the Gay Pride Parade it was a very interesting experience. And I had to meet everyone at the fountain today. I didn't get lost this time. Ralf helped me out in finding my way to the train station. Of course I did get turned around a little bit when I was trying to leave the station, but it was alright. The prarade was in Koln and we took THE train there. It wasn't bad at all only about 10 of us went so it was a small group. All the people on the flouts (sp) loved our group. We meet some cool german chicks that wanted the photos that we took and gave us their email we all hope to hang out with them again. I did get back on my own to my host familys there i meet Roger Mario's exchange student for 5 weeks. I must admit he's cute for a United States boy....lol

Since he also has to go to the AIB the newer one at least we both figured why not ride the train together so we have someone just in case either of us get lost. He doesn't speak any german either. We grilled out tonight it was very tasty indeed they keep trying to make me eat food when I'm not hungry. They want to make sure I don't get skinny.....lol I had my frist Italian ice cream das good. Well that's mainly it for today. going to eat. CHEERS!

Grace

Airplane/Day1/Day2

The plane ride was good I didn't sleep at all I know it was bad I should have slept but I just couldn't. A couple of others couldn't sleep and we just chatted in the back of the plane where the flight attendents kept their stuff to serive to the people on the plane. We talked to a lot of people about what we were doing in Germany and they thought it was really cool. Sadly I didn't have a window set so I couldn't see my flight into Germany, but I was okay with that I had someone take photos for me.



When we got there we walked down a street and waited for our host family to arrive it was cool because I was in Germany. It didn't sink in that I was in Germany at all. My family was the second to arrive it was cool. We chatted a little had lunch, got unpacked, took a nap, then a shower. After that we had supper. That was around 7pm their time. We had to go to this pub(bar) I didn't mind my first night thought it would be cool. I hung out with my host sister and 2 of her friends. They were all nice to me we played pool for a long time their rules are different than ours. It was very good, we didn't get home until 3am and I had to get up at 7am since I was going on a field trip the following day. It was a great first night I enjpoed my time.



The second day I got up and went to the AIB we're we went off to go explore around Bonn. We went to this village next to the Belgien. So I visited another country on my second day there. The group saw the mustard factory, (mom, dad I'll have a package coming sometime with some good tasting mustard, and jelly, possibly some sweets). After that we went bobb sliding that was fun. Getting back I slept most of the way I was tired the past 2 days I had a total of 6 hours of sleep. I got a mobile phone it's a pre-paid so we can keep in touch with one another in Germany as well as with our host family. We can use it to call home (states), but I don't remember the number to call out I'll find out monday.



The true adventure didn't start until after while we waited for others to come back to go to the Rhane Kultulr Fest (sp) it was a place outdoors with a bunch of bands playing. We got there by walking took about 46mintues. Some how our group of 12 people got split up and had to find one another....good thing we had the mobile phones. We stay there until around 11pm and decided that some people needed to get back. Me and David didn't have to get onto our train until 12:39am but thought best to go. We literally sprinted all the way back to the train station. The bus wouldn't stop for us, and we almost missed the train. We got to the Main station and Lily had enough time to get to her bus. We had to run to catch my train. I tried to get on, but it was to crowded and I had to call Ralf (host father) that I missed it. His friend Mario picked me up. Took a while to find him. I realized that I was on the oppoiste side of the train station. I had to ask the police to help me out good thing they speak english.



Anywho I never was shown the train station because there was nien time to do it. But tomorrow I'll be showed. Since I'm getting back on the train to meet up with the group to go to the Gay Prarade in Koln. Hopefully I wont get to lost, but if I do I have my cell phone to call. There ends my lovely adventure of the 2 days I've been in Germany. Miss ya'll.....^_^



Cheers,



Grace

D.C. BABY!!!!

Hey everyone! ^_^ I've made it to D.C. safely. My plane from Lansing to Chicago was actually a good 20 minutes early so that gave me a chance to find my next flight to D.C. I didn't realize that my flight from Chicago to D.C. that there was another person from my group that was on the same plane. Her name is Kelly we found out when we were waiting for our luggage. When we headed to the university it was weird because it seemed like the driver didn't know where to go and tended to forget that stop signs meant STOP! but it was fine we made it safely and meet the others. Everyone is cool it was a little awkward since none of us really know what to say to each other we had some weird ice breakers. There are some "cliques" starting, but there are a couple of us who don't really care and if you can talk to people that's good. I've gotten to know a couple of the students well after we were done being talked to that is because after it had rain it was nice cool weather and we didn't want to go inside an sleep even though it was 10pm...I think I may have went to be around close to possibly midnight, and got up around 6:50am. Not sure why I would get up so early, but I did....not much happened expect chatting about random stuff with these people and hearing about where their going and what their lives were back at home. I'm doing fine it hasn't really been put into my head that I'm actually going to Germany yet. I don't think it'll happen until I get to Germany. Many of the kids feel the same way. Well I'm off to get some breakfast I'm starving......I miss ya'll ^_^

Hugs and kiss,

Grace