School. I’m getting a little better at understanding what’s going on in class. Last week in German I had to read a section of a story out loud. It was a difficult story, even for the Germans, so basically I just sounded out every word since I didn’t know most of them. When I was finished, the whole class clapped for me. It must be funny for them to hear me speak German. The math test that I thought was going to be in English was actually in German, and I’m pretty sure I bombed it. For the biology test, I understood about half of the questions because Chiara’s Opa helped me study the day before. I ended up getting a 5 on it (a 6 is the worst), and I don’t feel that bad about it because two other people in my class got the same grade. And they know German a little better than I do. This week and next week we have Herbstferien (Fall break). I’m going to Munich with my host family on Thursday, and I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do there but it will be cool to see a different part of Germany.
Food. I don’t think I’ve found anything that I haven’t liked. Some of the typical German foods I’ve eaten are schnitzel, currywurst, pretzels, and kuchen. Oh and of course the chocolate and gummi bears. Here in Germany the candy is so much more delicious, I don’t know why.
On Friday after school, I met my AFS friend Astrid (from Norway) in the city. We shopped of course, and ate lunch at Subway because she had never been to one before. By the way, the food is the same there. After I paid for my sub, I grabbed the tray and Astrid looked at me and asked if we were eating at the restaurant because she hadn’t paid to eat there. I was so surprised. Since when do you have to pay extra to eat at the restaurant?! Apparently even McDonald’s charges you for a table. So I put the tray back and just took my sub. Then we found a bench outside where we could eat for free.
I went to the city again on Saturday with a friend from school. I was so proud of myself because I managed to take the right Bahn to the right stop, and then walk to the right place in the city to meet her. We got Chinese food for lunch, then took the bus to the Maschsee, where we were going to go boating. I guess it was too late in the season for boating, so we just sat by the lake for awhile and talked. We went back into the city for ice cream (which is actually gelato). Right when we were about to go home, I got a call from Chiara asking if I wanted to dye my hair with her and two friends. They were somewhere else in the city, so I decided to meet up with them, which required a 20-minute phone call and two different people trying to give me directions. I finally got to the right place and was talked into dying my hair. Here are the before and during pictures (we don’t have any after pictures because Chiara didn’t like how hers turned out):
Yesterday (Sunday), we went hiking with four other families from the neighborhood. At 9:00 am we took the train to Hameln, a smaller city about a half hour away. We hiked (what seemed like) mountains all day. I was wearing brand new shoes so now I have blisters in addition to sore legs. However, it was nice to get to meet and talk to all of the neighbors. They were all very nice and spoke slowly for me. Once we got to the top of the little mountain, we could see all of the farmland and hills and houses. It was really cool. Then we climbed up a steeper mountain for a really long time, until we reached the top, where there was a little restaurant. I had an order of Pommes (fries), which came with a tiny little fork that I had to use. Also, the little ketchup packet cost an extra 20 cents. Before we left, I climbed up the tower that was a part of the restaurant with my host brother, Luca. The view from there was really pretty too. After walking back down the mountain and finally reaching flat land, we walked for a long time on a path that went through farmland. It was a really quiet area, with houses spread far apart, and was really different than from what I’m used to here in Hannover. We needed to get to the Bahn station, and the path was going the wrong way, so my host dad thought it would be faster to cut through the cornfield. About five of us went with him. We had to walk through three different fields and jump over a muddy stream, and by 5:00 pm we arrived at the station. I could hardly walk because my legs were so sore, but since they don’t go hiking very often I wasn’t the only one.
My next post will come after the trip to Munich :)
This all looks like so much fun! Hope your legs have recovered from the hike. And, what color is your hair now??
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