Frohe Weihnachten!

I can't believe that it's over already! It is now the 26th and the time has flown! I have been already contacting Helen for my flight home and can't believe that it will soon be time for me to actually take that flight!

To catch up on the last month!

On the 9th of December, I made cookies with Ursel! Christmas cookies! They were Vanille Kipferl. They are moon shaped cookies with sugar (powder or regular) sprinkled on top and they are good. :) It was good to make them - Germans make many many different kinds of little cookies during Christmas time and Ursel had already made some before. They are so cute!!

On the 10th, my friend Edi was teaching me how to play the guitar!

On the 12th, Friday, it was snowing. Went to small groups Christmas party thingy. Was very nice!

On Saturday, the 13th, went to Nürnberg with the other exchange students. We planned it ourselves and went to the Documentation Centrum (Nazi museum) and the castle on the hill (although it was closed and too dark to take good photos) and the Christkindelsmarkt which is the big Christmas market in Nürnberg. It was really great! I wished we could have stayed at the museum longer, because there was SO much information there, but it was nice to rush around and get stuff done, rather than our usual standing in once place for an hour! :P It was great! After that, Edi and two pastors from the US picked me up from the train station in Gmünd and we walked around the Christmas market there for a bit. It was interesting to talk to the two pastors. They were working on this conference project for next year and I was talking with them while we drove them to their hotel. It was nice!

On Sunday the 14th, the one pastor from the US did an English sermon in church. It was nice to hear an English sermon, and not need anyone to translate. Alfred translated the whole sermon to the other people in church. It was great and I totally sympathized with him - I can imagine, that translating a whole sermon to the whole church is a little strenuous! Then after church, the Messners took me to a castle - Hohenrechberg - in Gmünd. After we came back, we had tea and then went to a Bach concert in Stuttgart (the Messners love Bach) and it was good. It was nice to go somewhere and do things with them!! :D

On the 16th, I showed the Messners some photos from Canada, which was nice. I only had school after lunch so I got to sleep all day, which was great! :D

Wednesday the 17th was the Rotary Christmas meeting. We had it at this old monestary in Lorch. It was really really cold. But interesting. And it was nice to talk with the rotary people again. I realized that I could understand a lot of what people were saying. (My German has been improving a lot!) and there was a small service type thing before we ate, then after we ate, I helped them clean up a little and we got home at about 12.

Thursday, Ursel let me sleep in, because we got home late the night before, and it was also the last real day of classes before the holidays! So it was a nice feeling to look forward to no more school!!! Although I had a really strong sense of homesickness that day, especially at the end of the day. I cleaned my room and sorted Christmas gifts.

On Friday, it was so silly at school. There was this Christmas celebration thing that was supposed to be going on, but it was basically just everyone sitting around and talking. I went home after about an hour and a half. But then! Edi picked me up and we went to Stuttgart! We went shopping on König Str. first and ate Pho! And then we went to The Nutcracker ballet from the St. Petersburger Stadt Ballet! It was really great! I was so excited! It was so great of Edi to come with me! Then we drove to Ludwigsburg to Edi's brothers house and stayed there over night.

Saturday the 20th, Edi, me, Andi and his wife Gini, walked around Ludwigsburg and looked at two of the three castles there. Then at 1:30pm, Edi and I took the English tour of the Residence Castle! It was great! It was a great tour for what you paid and the tour guide was good as well. After that was finished, we went to a Gospel choir concert at a church there in Ludwigsburg! It was nice! The singers were from the US.

On Sunday, the 21st, Daniel, one of the Messners sons came over for Christmas and was here. I went to church and then in the afternoon, I went with Edi to this family Christmas celebration, and then to a youth group event that the youth organize here, called Impulse. It was great, there was a speaker from Austria and the music was great, and there were lots of people. I was amazed to realize that I could understand a lot of what the speaker was saying to me, even without Edi translating for me! It was nice!

On Monday, the 22nd, I went to German school, but the teacher didn't show up. So I was talking to another student that showed up as well and waited until my bus came. Aga and Tobias (the other son of the Messners) were here when I got back, and we spent the evening together. It was nice. Daniel and Tobias and I played 'Risiko' (Risk) which was great. :)

On the 23rd, I wrapped my Christmas gifts and Aga, Tobias and I decorated the Christmas tree. it was a nice tree. It was filled with straw stars that Willy loves to make and real candles. I love the real candles! They are so nice! Of course, you have to be careful, when you light them. We ended up lighting them only when we were opening gifts on the 24th, and you can't leave the room of course, but even though they only last so long, they are really nice to look at in the evening!! :) They are made specially, so that the wax doesnt actually drip over the sides of the candles. They are really cool. I am hoping to bring a set back with me! :D That night, I was invited to a Christmas hang out night with the small groups youth group. It was great. We had these two little cook thingers where you had your own little pan and put different things in the pans, and you made them hot or fried the stuff you put in the little pan. It was great!

On the 24th, it was a family day. We all were really relaxed. Aga made this Polish cake-bread thing, with poppy seeds that was good and we ate that for tea time. We went to church at 4:30pm and after we came back, we had a dinner of Brätwurst and Kartoffelsalad and leaf salad. Then we gathered around the tree and read Luke 2 and opened gifts. It was nice. It was very relaxed and pleasant. It was nice to have some family time all together. We went in a circle and whoever gave the gift, took it from the tree and gave it to the person it was for. But we went around. It was nice.

On the 25th, yesterday, I spent the day with Edi's family. They had invited me to their home after church and for the day to celebrate Christmas with their family. It was really nice. We went to church, came home, ate lunch, sat around, took some pictures, went for a walk, came back, talked, sat around, opened gifts, had tea and coffee, looked at family pictures on a slide prjector, ate somemore! and just sat around, enjoying eachothers company! It was so very nice! I love their family! They are so great! They had all drawn names for Christmas gifts, so that only one person bought something for one other person. And they were all put in a basket with the name of the person, and the person that opened their gift, went up and picked a present, read the name, and then gave it to that person - so that no one would find out who gave the present (although sometimes it was pretty obvious....haha). It was really really nice! :D

Today, I was a little sick in the stomach, so even though we were planning to go look at other towns, we didn't end up going because I went to sleep. I had a dizzy episode and actually threw up, but everything is much better now. I think tomorrow we are going to tour around a little bit, which will be nice. :) I am glad that I am in the Messner family for Christmas! It was also very nice to get a feel of two different families Christmas'. Edi is such a great friend and his family is so great to me! I am so blessed to know them! :D

I missed my family during this family time of the year, but not as much as I thought I would. I guess I didn't think about it too much, so it wasn't as bad as I thought. But I phoned home and everything was better when I did. So, things are good.

I have been told by many people that the second part of the year is the best part of the year! Well, I am looking forward to it with all my heart and am excited to get to know what more this year has to offer! I truely believe that I am over the hardest parts of the exchange year and am anticipating what this next part will hold! I am so very thankful for all the Christmas wishes and new year encouragements and every other kind of support and encouragement that I have recieved! I am thankful for the cards and gifts that were send my way, through email and post! Thank you all so very much! It has been so great knowing that I have loving people to come back to in Canada!! I pray that your Christmas celebrations were also lovely and that you have much joy and happiness in this coming new year! Jesus is awesome and I am so thankful for His birth! May He bless each and everyone of you!

Thank you! And have a very wonderful holiday!

k

NEW HOST FAMILY!! Und Geburtstag!

Okay!!! Wow! This week was extremely tiring and full of stuff! I have not been getting the sleep that I need to function well, BUT I think that's a good sign, because it means that I have been keeping busy!! So!! 

God has been teaching me so much these last couple months!! It's amazing! On the 18th, I realized that I need to forgive, forget, and move on. Yes, sure, it wasn't going so great with the first host family, but I need to work on having the right attitude to handle things! And it was so great, once I realized this - it made things SOO much easier! (I understand now, the importance of not fussing over the little things and the crucial positive attitude you need as an exchange student! ....once again, Rotary is right!) 

On Wednesday the 19th, all of the grades (I think of all Baden Württemberg) 12 and 13 got to go to a University, or further schooling of their choice to check out what they want to do. So I went with Josie and Selin (and this dude named Philip, who was a friend of Josie and was from grade 13...I think.), from my class to Stuttgart. We walked around mostly, and didn't really pay attention to the information being offered, then before we headed home we did some shopping in Stuttgart. It was so nice to hang out with Selin and Josie outside of school. We could talk and not have to worry about being quiet because the teacher said so! :P It was really great! 

On the 20th, a Thursday, Alex, Bärbel's daughter had phoned me to invite me for hot chocolate after school and talk a bit. It was really great, because Alex told me that Bebe wanted to talk to me that night, and Alex was going to mediate between us two (which I thought was perfect, because then it would be kept rather rational) and I told her my side of the story about living in the Sporys family and Alex could then get boths sides. And it was really nice to have an ex-excahnge student understand, having been through some similar situations herself. And the talk was alright. I was really glad to have Alex there. I mostly listened to Bebe talk, and afterwards Alex (and her mother) had offered me to come to their house for the week until I went to the Messners, but I decided against it, just to get some closure from this first family, and try to make things smooth before I left. So as much as I wanted to leave, I stayed. I believe it worked out for the best, because by the time that I left, a week later, things were much better between us all and even though I didn't spend a lot of time with the family, I didn't have such bitter feelings towards them anymore (which is a good thing, and something I knew I needed to work on and now things are great).

On Friday the 21st, I went to Youth Group and then went to a Iris's house (a girl from youth group) with some other people and hung out there for a while. It was nice to get out of the house and to spend some time with other people! 

On Saturday, I went to dance, and then when I came back, I was supposed to go with Julika to a choir concert that her cousin was in, but it was snowing and the trains didn't go anymore. So I stayed home. Which was probably the best anyways. I watched Indiana Jones (most of it, anyways) with Ralf and Nils...there's just something about watching English films in a foreign language, with the voice overs that really get to me...But it was okay. 

Then on Sunday the 23rd, I went to church and dance, and then Edi had invited me for cake and coffee at his house in the evening. Toli and his girlfriend were supposed to come too, but they ended up not showing up, but I had a great time with Edi anyways. I brought my picutres along with me from home and we talked and ate cake, and it was really great! It was so very nice to find someone that I can really talk to. (Edi understands English because he went to Canada a couple years ago...I can't remember if I already said that....)

Anyhow, then Monday I went to visit the Messners! It was so great! I was really looking forward to coming then! Bärbel drove me and we had tea with Ursel and it was so great! :P 

Tuesday the 25th, Bärbel and Alex came over for a visit (and brought me some winter boots! yay!) and I went to Enchiladas with Edi for dinner - we discussed different places to go and things to see (I brought like a thousand pamphlets of stuff that I wanted to do!) :P  

Wednesday, I went to German school, then afterwards, Daniel from dance asked me if I wanted to go to his choir with him. It was so great! Here is the website: liederkranz-unterkochen.de . It was really great. It was funny too, because I was trying to sing 'Winter Wonderland' but the German version, and I found that 'erschroken' is such a hard word to pronounce!! It was great though! The ladies were funny. Hehe!

I was supposed to go to this Monestary (spelling??) on Thursday with the Rotary club, but that was cancelled because the lady doing the tour had an acciedent. 

Friday, I went to Small Groups (every second week they do small groups and every other week they do youth group) at Iris's house and then hung out with Edi afterwards and just talked. It was so great! (even though I didn't understand a lot of what they were saying, but it was nice, once again, to hang out with friends!) 

Saturday was the big SWITCH!! It was the 29th of November! Finally! After a month of waiting! It was so great! I basically packed the whole day, then went to dance, and right after I got back, Willy picked me up! Things are going SOOO much better now! I am really feeling comfortable being in Germany, and I am really starting to like it here now. The Messners have two sons, but they are grown and are out of the house. I will meet them when they come for Christmas though. And they are completely different people, and are very patient and trusting. I lied...Ursel is actually retired. But she was a teacher. And it's so great! We barely speak English (although I don't say a lot in German, just because I don't know what to say yet, but it's only been a week and a bit...) and I understand almost EVERYTHING that they say. They speak nice and slow and high German, so it's really great!

Sunday I went to church with the Messners to see where they go to church (also because Edi, who is my ride to church now, because he lives closer to me than Kristina, sings in the church choir and they went to another church that day). It was funny. :P I thought it was great though. Hehe. It's a bit more old fashioned, but it was great to see where they go to church. Then I went to dance, and it was the last day of dance until January.  It was nice! 

On the 1st of December, Monday, I recieved my advent calender!! It's this box with a tree on top that has the windows on the side. (and it's GOOD German chocolate too!!) It's great! I also went with Ursel and Willy to this Advents party for the Hospiz organization that they volunteer for. It was nice. :P Really nice people. 

On the 2nd, a Tuesday, I took the wrong bus home from school, but I thought it was utterly hilarious! I laughed. It was great too, just because normally I might get mad at wasting time, but it was just funny to me. And I ended up talking to Lena (from the 11th class) and she walked around Gmünd with me for a bit while I waited for my bus from Schwäbisch Gmünd to Bargau came. It was nice, actually, because I walked around a little to the Weihnachts Markt (Christmas market) and that was nice. I love them. But I just walked through and didn't really look so much. It was nice, though! 

On Wednesday, I went again to German school and then to the choir with Daniel. They are such nice people in the choir. It was great. We sang more Christmas songs and 'Fame.' It was funny. When they sing, you wouldn't think they were German at all... but then they say a word and it gives it away. Hahaha. 

Thursday the 4th was my birthday!! YAY! but it didnt feel like my birthday at all!! It was so weird. But anyhow, I got gifts from the Messners - an angel and a book about Ostalbkreis, which is the area that we are living in and chocolate and a poinsettia! And also a sweater from Bärbel, an angel from Eugenio, two books with photos from my stay at the Sporys house from their family, and cards and more chocolate from other people. My favourite was the PJ's and the Socks mom and grama made for me! Thanks!! :P I ate dinner with the Messners and Edi, and then Edi and I went to Schwäbisch Gmünd and walked around. It was a nice small birthday... but was okay. 

I really appreciated all the cards too! Thanks so much to everyone! 

Friday the 5th, I went with Edi to this 'Feuerzungenbowlen' night. It's this drink and you make it in a pot over the stove (they had hot plates there) and it's wine with fruit tea, and you have this peice of metal over the pot with holes in the bottom. Then you have this clump of sugar you put on the metal and then you pour rum over the sugar and light the rum on fire. Then the sugar drops into the wine - tea - rum mixture. It was really interesting. It tasted okay...if you like wine. :P Also, they showed a Charlie Chaplin black and white film, and we had to dress up. This was at Edi's University in Gmünd. It was nice. :) 

Saturday I went to Ulm with the other exchange students. We went skating and visited the church (highest church in the world) and went to the Christmas market and drank Glühwein and Fruchteepunsch. It was nice. Then I went out with Julika, Nadine, Selin, Josie, Alex, and Lisa to Sancho Panchos for my birthday! It was nice of them to take me out. My gift from them was a Schwäbisch Dictionary. It was kind of funny...of course to them. Haha. But its great. It was nice to hang out with the girls! (they are all from my classes)  There was this crazy dude that was singing and playing the guitar at the restaurant too. It was fun. 

Then on Sunday, went to church and made straw stars with Willy, then went to Gmünd with Ursel to this Choir concert and the Weihnachtsmarkt there too. It was a nice evening and it was a nice day too. Although I am lacking in sleep!!! I need to catch up tonight!! 

Anyhow, today was an okay day. I have German school in a couple of hours and have to get ready for that. Man! I am not saying things in detail, because I just realized that I have had to catch up on pretty much two weeks! But things are going much better, and I am making friends, and things are going good and I am having more fun! It seems like I wish I had more days to do things, especially on the weekends! But I am starting to get the feeling that I don't want to come home (sorry, mom.. :D) 

Thank you to everyone for the Birthday wishes! I feel only as old as I was last week, but I know that I am changing faster in the last three and a half months than I have in six! So it's so awsome to be here and to grow and change and figure out who I am and the person that I want to be! It's so great to say that I finally feel like this is what my year should be like! I am so very blessed and thank everyone for making this possible!! Thank you thank you thank you!! VIELEN DANK!! 

I can't post pics now, but in the future sometime, I will!! Okay, so that's all for now, but until next time!

Gruß 

K

Laughing for the First Time in Two Months

Things have just been so busy and yet not so busy. I guess it's just been taking me some training to get over procrastination! Okay, so for the last months update for the two weeks!

On the 4th of November: I had a talk with my host parents. Together. I expressed my feelings about how I felt about my exchange so far and that it wasn't going so great. I expressed willingness to try to fix this. I was caught off guard by my host families replies and reactions and just their thoughts on how to fix the problem. I realized after the talk that I needed to change host families. I could not just skim the surface of an exchange, I don't want to; I want to dive deep and really taste the real meat from which I have only smelt the wafting aroma from afar. It was a difficult decision for me because I am always hopeful that things will get better. However, being almost three months into my exchange now, I don't see things with my current host family getting any better anytime soon. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they HAD to take an exchange student, but they didn't necessarily WANT one.

So I emailed my counsellor to tell him what was up (after receiving my request for him to search a new host family for me, he passed on that responsibility to my scheduled second host mom...they have really odd ways of doing Rotary in Germany...not that they are wrong, but I don't particularly agree with everything. I am really glad I am from district 5060!!!!!!!! I love you guys!) . And in the next couple of days, I heard from him and my second host mom, and they said that they have another host family that I could go to in a couple of weeks. I was so overjoyed!!

On the 6th, my current host mom had an art exhibition to set up for for the weekend. So I helped her a little bit with the set up.

On the 7th, I helped her out again, and then afterwards, went to Göppingen for a Rotex weekend! It was the first weekend the exchange students from the district met for the weekend! it was so much fun! I had such a wonderful time with them! It is such a wonderful feeling to know that they are going through some of the same things as you; learning the language, some family problems, club problems, cultural differences, etc. So it is really comforting that you are not alone on this and you have someone that understands you right now! There are about 20 or so inbounds in the area. We are all fairly spread out, so we can not really see each other without spending at least 20€ on a train ticket (which is a real bummer!) and host families aren't too keen on driving us places, I am sure...or at least my family isn't. I have been hearing about places the other exchange students have gone already, and have been really wondering if my family is the one not-so-great family I will get for this year. I have been told that every exchange student has a bad family, and I am comforted by that. I just wish that it would end already...but I have been trying to learn to be patient.

Anyhow, so the Rotex weekend was so great! I have posted pics. It was the first time in two months that I have really laughed. Honestly. I mean, other than maybe some forced laughs and some little ironic chortles, it was the first time that I laughed and really meant it and enjoyed myself! It was a great feeling, and yet a sad one at the same time.

We met on the Friday, and that night we went to a youth hostel on the outskirts of Göppingen and we did some introductions (auf Deutsch of course! But hardly any of us could speak worth anything!) and we did some other stuff, talked and basically just hung out. It was so nice to hang out with people around the same age that spoke ENGLISH and WANTED TO KNOW YOU!!! (that was the biggest thing...just being interested in getting to know you) On Saturday, we woke up fairly early and went for a walk after breakfast to this castle (Hohenstaufen) that was very small. But there was this guy there that gave us a little tour and there were a whole bunch of instruments that were upstairs from the middle ages and he was playing a few. It was really neat. (hence the Fox bagpipe I am holding up in the pic to the right hahah!!!) When we got back from the castle, we took a catapult and a bunk of the Dickemann marshmallow things and were throwing balls at the circle to make them go in the air, then we were supposed to catch them in our mouths! That was fun. Although it was really, kind of hilarious, because no one caught it in their mouths, because the marshmallow things were WAY bigger than any ones mouth! Then we had a lot of free time, which was spent mainly taking funny pictures and waiting and talking, and stuff. Although we were practically dying of starvation (well, maybe just me) the whole weekend because they barely fed us! (Germans eat a lot and far between...I like to eat small yet often..so it doesn't really work for me..but I have been trying..what more can I do??)

Anyhow, then after dinner, we went outside for a walk in the dark with these long candles on a stick. It was nice. I got to know this one guy from Mexico and was talking a lot with him. He is a really nice guy. Then we had a little fire (although it was SOOOO cold outside! My toes were frozen solid!) and after we went inside. We were supposed to have a dance with costumes or a movie night, but the rotex people were not very organized, because they had no CD player or movies! So it was a bust. A lot of people didn't have costumes either, which was disappointing too. I was a Spanish lady and I borrowed the costume from my host mom (she had a whole wack of costumes that she has made for shows for peoples birthdays). It was really nice of her to let me borrow it. Jorge (from mexico) was trying to teach me to Cumbia dance. It was fun. But after playing a game of musical chairs, everyone vacated to different rooms and the party was dead. So yeah. The boys were having a little party in their room and most of the girls were sleeping (we have 6 girls, and so its really nice! We all were in the same room and we have bonded so nicely I think!!)

On Sunday the 9th, we went to the Marklin Museum after clearing out of the hostel and eating breakfast. Marklin is a miniature train company that is famous, apparently, and very very expensive. It took us all of a half an hour to look around the whole place because it was very small. So then we walked to the train station to drop people off, and we went home. I had dance that day too, and it was good, as always. I love dancing!

That next week was pretty boring, and honestly, I can't really remember what I did last week...just normal things, I think. Nothing spectacular. Oh, but I went to Schwäbisch Gmünd to get some information about touristy things to do. I decided that since my family wont take me places, I will find things to do and see if other people want to come with me! So I went and I actually wanted to go to this ballet and asked about 6 people, but no one wanted to come. So I bought a ticket for myself and on Friday the 14th, I went alone. It was okay. I was fine with it. I mean, it would have be so much more fun with someone else or a friend, but I loved the ballet so much! It was so great! It was put on by a Russian Ballet Company...and they played Romeo and Juliet! It was so beautiful! I would go everyday if I could!!! I loved it so very much! The ticket was really cheap too. It was nice. And there weren't a lot of people, so most of the expensive seats (the front rows) were empty. (So I could see!!)

On Saturday, was the Rotex Round Up. I had to email Janis about my submission. I was hard to make it sound really cheery, when things haven't been. But I was honest and tried to be positive and help out the exchange-students-to-be so it was okay, I thought. I just wish that I had more positive things to write about my last two and a half months. Hopefully things will be getting better though!!

Also, I went to Stuttgart with some of the other exchange students. It was so nice to hang out again. We didn't really do much when I was there, just walked around the town and enjoyed each others company. I had to head back early for dance, and dance was really really good. I had fun. (I am going to plan for my classes to be during the week, so that I have time on the weekends to stay longer with the students for example!) Then on Sunday, I went to church, went to dance, and then went out for dinner with my first and second host families and their two couples of friends. It was okay. We ate duck. It tastes like chicken...or turkey...which made me miss home because of thanksgiving dinner!

Today was okay. I almost lost my beloved red mittens, but it was an okay day. I had German lessons, and have really grown to like the teacher. She is such a sweet lady. She offered her help if I need to talk to her or about the host family situation. I am very grateful for her and even though she is not a part of Rotary I think that at some point in the year, I will take her up on her offer. She is such a nice lady!

Anyhow. That's all I have for now. I haven't been doing anything exciting really. I have mostly been staying home and doing nothing. I should be studying German, but I find it very overwhelming especially when no one really wants to speak High German. But I think that in the next host family, it will be 100% better (the mom is an elementary teacher and has lots of patience!!). So. Thank you for your prayers and all your support! Things are starting to look up within the next couple of weeks, but I am fearful about my birthday not going so well...Anyhow! Thank you so very much! I don't know when I will post again, but hopefully before my birthday, or right after. OKay! So until next time!

K