"How charmed I am when I overhear a German word which I understand!"

 

Some easy listening. It's very popular in Germany. 

This week has been the best so far.  On Thursday I started soccer training, and it went really well.  When I got there my host brother had to talk to the coach about me joining, but once that was taken care of I was out practicing. All of my teammates are very nice but don't speak much English. Thankfully, there is one guy who speaks decent English.  Practice lasts two hours and gets done at nine, so I'm glad I live a quarter mile from the fields because it's dark by the time I get home.  Friday was very uneventful. I had school until my lunch break at 1pm when I went to my grandparents house.  They had made lunch of beef, carrots, noodles, and rote kraut which was delicious.  After that I had to go back to school for my final class of musik.  Musik has to be the most pointless class I've ever taken. I stood around for an hour learning how to play a congo then for twenty minutes we played as a class, each person having a different instrument.  After school I took a nap then had dinner. That night we watched a movie called 'Der Wixxer' which is a parody movie. My host brother said the name was too bad for him to translate so I left it at that.  Even though I couldn't hardly understand any of it, it was one of the best movies I've watched.  While we were watching the movie Hans brought a bowl of something out for everyone.  They looked like puff corn but tasted like peanuts, but it was really really good.

On Saturday it turned out Fritz needed boots for when he goes to Russia, so we went to Oldenburg. I would have had pictures but I, unfortunately, forgot my camera.  However, on September 10 I will be in Oldenburg for a Rotary sleep-over thing so I will have some later. Luckily, Oldenburg was having their stadtfest that weekend so there were food carts and shops galore.  But even with all the spaß (fun) making, there were A LOT of people.  I almost got lost a couple times which would have been terrifying.  Once we got Fritz's boots we went home and had a quiet evening.  Then we had a very lazy sunday.  Nothing noteworthy happened.  Monday went by very quietly, except I wrote my first coherent paragraph!!!@#!@# It of course had little errors, but I was walking on sunshine for the entire day.  My host mom corrected it for me and they were mistakes that you say "I know it's not supposed to be like that. Why did I do that?"

Tuesday was a pretty ordinary day at school. I had German which I still can't remotely understand.  I also had English which is a decent class I guess.  I corrected the teacher a couple times because she says 'take decisions' not 'make decisions' but over all it's a simple class.  Chemie was horrible.  I sat the entire class time watching while my group assembled an experiment, test it, then write a paper on it.  My last class was math which is easy because it's algebra and geometry two classes that I've had for two years.  I'd say that school is, right now at least,  a waste of time.  I will explain later in the post.  After school I went to the mall to get a cell phone because it's nice to always be available for your parents.  Well when I went to buy one I needed my passport for whatever reason, but the guy didn't speak much English to start.  Then on my way home Hans and I went to Tulipano an Italian restaurant.  I will say they had some of the best pizza I've ever tasted.  When we got home I had to get ready and go to soccer practice.  Once I got there the coach informed me that it was try-out day so there were a couple more kids than usual.  Training went spectacular though and I didn't play half bad either.

When Wednesday rolled around I was exhausted from training and it felt like one of those days where you don't do much.  It actually was the opposite.  After my first class, English, all of the exchange students decided to go to Frau Finke instead of our second classes.  Frau Finke is our German teacher specifically for the exchange students.  I would say I learned more in that one class period than my whole two weeks combined in school. This is why I think school otherwise is a waste of time. It was so good Esteban and I stayed until school was over.  Once I got home My host mom, brother, and I went to the zentrum and got me a phone.  It only cost five Euros for a little pre-paid phone which is perfect.  otherwise not much happen

I'm excited because very much will be happening this weekend because it's BLUTENFEST! Blutenfest is a four day celebration for Wiesmoor's many nurseries.  They have been setting it up all week and it looks spectacular.  Taina's host parents got all of the exchange students all access passes to Blutenfest which is exciting.  So I'll be sure to have more next week.

PS: More photos at shutterfly, link in sidebar :)