Oh my goodness.

So he's done it. The guy from Pakistan asked me out. And then he popped my comfort bubble by scooting closer to me in the classroom and crossing over the OBVIOUS boundary between our desks. Next class I'm telling him I found out my boyfriend is coming to visit me for Chrismtas and I am SO excited. Hopefully he will get the hint because obviously body language (scooting my chair as far away from his as possible) isn't universal. Bah!

Katie and I went and bought our tickets to Prague today! WOO WHOOO!!! And then the cleaning lady at her house who is a beazy told me to play the piano quieter in a very mean voice because she is working and she is not at that house for pleasure but to work. She is just not a friendly person.

I got my library card! Yay!!! I checked out "the story of edgar sawtelle" and today I got the ball rolling on my bank account. Having a passport is really helpful in getting these things done. I'm also reading "inkheart" in German and although I don't understand all the words I get the gist of things so I think I'm doing good! We took a test on Monday in class and I left half way through the class because: 1. I don't need to take the real version of the test and 2. I was bored to death because it was quite simple. Turns out I got a 39 out of 45 on the first part which according to my teacher was "sehr gut!"

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving - HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! Seeing as the only thing about thanksgiving I actually like is the desserts and getting together with my family it's a bit difficult for me to make a thanksgiving dinner. I shall try though.  We are going to do a "thanksgiving" dinner on Sunday. Their last au pair is going to be here starting on Friday and she will be here for just over a week before flying back home to the States. She has been walking the pilgrimage to Santiago for the past two months. Crazy! Anyways. I'm doing good, life is good.

Who's the piggy now??

I got my Visa!!!! I can leave the country!!!!! WOO WHOOOO!!!

Sunday Katie and I went on a long bike ride to outside of the city to a small town called Höchst. It's still part of Frankfurt but in total we were gone for over two hours so I think it was a pretty good ride and after we got through the stinky smelly factory areas it was quite beautiful! 

I'm pretty sure Emily has the swine flu. She has had a slight fever since Friday and has been home this week so far. She got tested on Friday for Swine flu but we are still waiting on the results. Needless to say I'm pretty sure she is stuck at home this week. Maybe when Oscar was a bit sick two weeks ago he had the swine flu. Who knows. Andrea and Phillip leave Thursday evening for Istanbul and will be back on Sunday so I will have the kids this weekend. The plan was that they would both stay the night at a friends house on Saturday night so I would have 24hrs free but I don't think that will be happening with Emily sick and all. I'm healthy! I made the mistake of giving my Pakistani friend from my class my number and now he keeps texting me. He's very kind. He called last night while he was at work to see how I was doing and told me to be careful with getting sick. Oh dear.

Art projects: Snow flakes, sparkly ornaments, and painting! Lots of crafts! Emily took this picture of the birds. I thought it was very well done!

Last night I went to Monday movie night and met up with one of the Americans I met there a few weeks ago. His name is AP (short for apopolis or something crazy). He has been here for two years almost through the full birth scholarship teaching English in German schools. I'll be hanging out with those teachers a bit and getting ideas from them on ways to stay here longer! :)

Emily fell asleep in my arms the other day while we were dancing to Abba. I didn't know whether I should be offended or just think it was adorable. I'll go with the second option. She is a total cuddle monkey. My new favorite cuddle buddy. She has also decided that my boobs are her pillows. Oh dear.

I find not eating yogurt EXTREMELY difficult. Especially when the kids have it almost every morning. To compensate I'm eating an OBSCENE amount of schokolade. I love chocolate. Something strange - I eat veggiemite almost everyday. Weird..

Quick Update

Happy Friday the 13th! That means it's time for an Aussie Turkey Party!!! I miss you girls!

Incidents on the bike this week:
 - Yesterday I was riding my bike down the path on my way to Katie's and I'm coming around a curve of the path and there is a hedgehog hanging out and I'm very distracted looking at it that I almost run into a guy coming around the corner so thinking fast I yell out "There's a hedgehog!" I'm sure he understood me. Not.
 - On my way to class on Monday I was riding past a person on the Ziel who frightened a pigeon that then decided to run into my bike wheel. I ran over a pigeon. Ooops. I didn't look behind me but instead just kept on riding straight ahead, pretending that I did not feel that bump. Needless to say, I didn't see any dead pigeons later on that day in that general area.

Other happenings:
- Katie and I went out last night to an Irish pub called Waxy's that had some live music that was definitely not Irish and the bartender was definitely Asian. He did a lot of cool bottle throwing tricks though and gave us free shots since there was about 6 people in the bar - two people making out, their third wheel looking miserable, Katie and I, a Lesbian with her tongue and nose and eyebrow pierced (who hit on Katie hard core), and the three musicians.
- I went for a walk today in heels. . . who am I?!
- Emily is sick and a bunch of schools are closed because most of the students are infected with the piggyflu. Oh great.
- I have stopped eating milk products (except chocolate because that is just not possible) in order to support my younger brother who can't eat just about anything since apparently he is allergic to everything. Super lame.
- I miss my wonderful family and friends.
- Planning a weekend trip to Nürnberg and Heidelberg in December with Katie and a friend of hers who is coming to visit.
- I picked up my Passport today - I finally have my visa!! It says I can stay here until next November. . with this visa that is! :)

The parents are super busy every Friday and Saturday night until after Christmas which means I'm in babysitting. Stinky winky. Next week they are gone for four days in Turkey for a Wedding! Yikes! I'll get one night off while the kids are off to a friends for a night. I'm babysitting tomorrow morning for the family we visited in Austria on our way to Northern Italy. I babysat for a neighbor on Sunday night. Just some extra cash for buying my cute boots and saving for trips!!!

Lovelovelove

Riding a bike with heels on - EASY.

The kiddos got sick this week and spent the better half of 2/3 days at home. Oscar was "more" sick with a pretty constant fever but now they are up and running! The new aupair - Maike's replacement - Katie and I have been hanging out a bit. She is from South Carolina and we are kind of similar in the sense that we can't make the small decisions. It's a disaster when we go out. Ok not really but it's funny. We both come from 5children families so maybe that has something to do with it. We went out to a bar on Wednesday night and had some new drinks - one was a delicious strawberry shot that is pictured here w/ Katie.
The bartender likes us. We've named him Fabio. Get the picture? Quite an interesting character. Low cut V neck shirts. Yeah. Anyways we had fun. The next night we just chilled at her place and had some wine. and some little Feiglings!! I missed these cute little shot drinks. They are like a sweet vodka with less alcohol. Very tasty. Katie bought 2 bottles of wine the other day and guess how much they cost. . . 4.98 euros. Ridiculous. We'll see how they taste!
Yesterday one of Amy's childhood friends came into the city to hang out with me. Her name is Katherine and she has been an aupair for an American family in the army about an hour from Frankfurt for the past 2 1/2 months. . She is leaving in a week though - way to short of a stay if you ask me! We wandered the city. The weather was pretty crap so that stunk. We went to the Frankfurt Museum for Modern Art and let's just say with both agreed we just don't understand modern art. Nope nope nope. I think the modern art museum in Chicago was much better. The featured artist was some guy from the States. I forget who it was. I'll work on that. Katie met up with us for lunch. We went to a place called Vapiano which is kind of like a buffet but classier. Maike told us we had to go there. It was so good Maike!! Katie and I split a spinach pesto pizza that was delicious. Then we wandered some more around the city.

We headed into the Katherine's church on the Hauptwache and we ended up getting to watch a huge choir/orchestra practice some songs! It was pretty cool! Katie and I might go back next week - she took not of their practice time so we'll see if they will be there again! Made me think of Singing Christmas Tree - I'm going to miss it another year! Sad day. We took Katherine to the river so she could see the famous Main and of course that is when the weather cleared up the most for the day. Ended on a good note!
We dropped off Katherine at the train station at about 5 and then stopped by Katie's to pick up some goods and then Katie got on the bike for the first time in a long time for her and we biked to my house and helped with getting dinner ready/entertain the kids because they were having 10 people over for a dinner party! It all went pretty smoothly. Got the kids to bed and then Katie and I headed out to the middle of the city to go out. We ended up going to Helium's again which was where we were on Wednesday so Fabio recognized us naturally ;). Then we spent a good half of an hour being assaulted by a guy from Ukraine and his "best friend" from India. Let's just say it was very entertaining. The Ukrainian couldn't speak English, Katie couldn't speak German, None of us but the Ukrainian could speak Russian, and the Indian guys German was pretty crap and his English was okay. The bartenders were just laughing at us. On of the bartenders, named "scary hairy" due to his hair situation kept a good eye on us. We felt nice and protected. At one point it seemed the shirt of the Ukrainian was coming off but that disaster was averted. We headed out shortly after that. Got home and Phillip and Andrea were still up talking to two of their guests so I hung out and chatted with them then we cleaned up a bit and headed to bed - crashing at about 2AM. Late night! lol.


This morning Oscar sneaked in about 7:30AM - "Cara get up come play." Oh no. I held him off till 9Am and then we got up and had some breakfast. Emily and I just worked on our leaf creations. We used the leaves that Oscar, Emily and I had collected a couple weeks ago and flattened in books. We had a pretty good assortment.

Tonight I am babysitting for the neighbors, tomorrow I have class and then it's Monday Night Movie night! Woooo! Love my movies. Now I have to go play the piano - Phillip said my ten minutes this morning was just not adequate. Fifty more to go. Yeah right!!

xoxoxo
C

Endlich wieder mit mienem Deutschen Familie.

I went to Eichstätt this weekend!!!!!! So much fun. Ok but I will start with before that. But that was very exciting. Last week Maike left. Sad day. The new aupair came, her name is Katie, she is from South Carolina, doesn't speak a lick of German, first heard of being an Aupair in July and two weeks later decided to come here, and is great so that is wonderful! We went out to a pub on Wednesday night as a little farewell dinner. The new aupair Katie came and then it was Maike, Tina, and I. We had the Frankfurt specialty - Apple wine! I like normal wine better but it was still good. The other Frankfurt specialty is called green sauce and you put in on potatoes (of course) and it is made of a bunch of herbs and some egg in it as well which kind of is a no go for me but I've tried it before and it was tasty! Tina was supposed to be hear till February but apparently her guest mother was a terror so she left yesterday! So now it is just Katie and I! We met up and wandered the city and had some delicious snickers brownie at my favorite cafe yesterday. We both come from 5 children families but she is the youngest. AND we decided that the children of big kid families are bad at making the small decisions but good at the big ones because she is also as laid back as I am. Trouble. :) Andrea had her trip to London so I had the kids for a night and then on Friday morning I got them a bit decked out in Halloween costumes to wear to school. Let's just say I'm not very good at decorating faces in circus makeup. Well, and they didn't want that much. But they were cute nevertheless!
Last week was my first week of German classes! There are probably a little more than 10 people in my class from all over the world. No one else from the States but instead from: Morocco, Sri Lanka, Japan, Pakistan, Great Britain, Armenia, Russia, Mexico, Korea, India, and a few others. I think it's pretty cool that the only way we can communicate with each other is in German because many don't speak English. But a few do. :) The class is super laid back - we have homework everyday but, at least for me, it isn't very hard at all. And there aren't really grades - it's more just about being at class I think. No test really. There is two tests I could take that are offered every month if I wanted to. One is free and I'm not really sure what it is for but to check your progress maybe?? and the other costs 105 euros and is a certificate which people will then use to get jobs or the equivalent of a green card here. I might do it in March.

Eichstätt!!!! So after school on Friday I came home and got my bag packs and ate a quick lunch while talking to some cute German guy that Phillipp was working with. He studied in Kentucky for three years - who goes to Kentucky?! - and then I walked to the Main train station by way of the PalmenGarten. Love those flowers! The train ride took about 4 hours and I finished my book on the train. It was good! It's the same guy who wrote The Alchemist but this one was about death so kind of depressing but still good. Called Veronika decides to die. I had to switch trains four times which would have been no big deal but since it's five minutes between each train - Ah! - a bit stressful. I made them all though. Only ran once! Got to Eichstätt - Esther, Maria, and Johanna were there to pick me up and I couldn't believe how tall Esther had gotten! She is now 14 and as tall as me and the other girls! This picture is of Johanna, me, Esther, and Olivia.
We picked up some groceries headed back to the house to eat. Benjamin had been sick two weeks with Bronchitis but is now all better. Parents weren't there - on vacation on a small island in northern Germany - but they got back late Saturday night so I saw them Sunday! Anyways it was WONDERFUL to hang out with my german siblings and just chill around the table, eat chocolate, make buttons, and chit chat. Saturday morning Maria and I were the first up so went for a walk in the crisp morning weather. Then after a delicious breakfast with everyone Maria and I went "Knipen" which is when you walk around in this freezing water from the mountains and it's supposed to be really good for your immune system or something. Anyways we biked there and did one loop in the freezing water and then got out, put two pairs of socks on, had a cup or two of tea and then biked back to the house. After lunch Johanna, Esther and I went and picked up Olivia who was Johanna's room mate for a year but has now been dating her cousin for over a year! She is adorable. She's from Spain but also grew up in Frankfurt I believe and then goes to the university with Johanna in Regensburg. So we got her and then came back to the house and made some Coconut cupcakes - yummmmm. Then we decorated them - well Johanna and Olivia did most of the decorating because I had a visitor - Anna Streller!!!!!

She came over with her boyfriend, nice guy :), and it was wonderful to see her again of course just a couple months after she was at my parents house! Then Olivia, Johanna, and I headed out to Johanna's boyfriend's (Alex) house where we would get ready for the Halloween/birthday party of Susi's (my exchange student in high school!) boyfriend. We weren't very creative so we just all through on some black clothes and black makeup and were "the three witches." Sure! lol. Alex is best friends with Susi's boyfriend Stefan and he lived literally two houses down. So we walked to the party with our delicious treats and very creative outfits and I saw Susi for the first time in 5 years! As well as a few other friends from then such as someone I named Mr. Man because his name is Herrman. I didn't remember calling him this but Susi told me that I used to always call him this. And Schneller was there and Gobsi and Nena's (who I lived with for a month 5 years ago) boyfriend Benni!
So Susi and I drank half the bowl of jungle juice with strawberrys in it and had a jolly time. Talked with Susi's sister Julia about the crap health insurance system in the States, Mr. Mann a bit, Susi and I giggled a lot, Nena on the phone because Schneller insisted on calling her, and a cute guy named Lou who is friends with Johanna and goes to school with her. It was a fun night and quite a few people dressed up. I think Alex was the scariest though as the "Nerd of Death."
We slept in Sunday and then after some coffee and a plum cobblerish thing and coffee headed back to the Schödel house to see the Parents!!!!! It was SO EXCITING to see Klaus and Waltraud again. Ah! Loved it. Maria and I got to work on making two pizzas - one vegetarian of course! Then we lunched. I love eating with this family. Everyone together and it is craziness. It's what my family is like when we are all together. Kind of. Haha. After lunch we had a short break before my other favorite time - Dessert!! We ate a Raspberry refrigerator torte that Esther and Hanni had made on Saturday morning, the left over cupcakes, and some yummy big waffle crackers that Waltraud and Klaus had brought back with them from the Island - Amrum I think - and you put whipped cream on top of them and then also some Jam made of this German plum called zwetchgen - same thing I had for breakfast. I find it quite yummy! Then Alex came over and taught us how to play a card game Dominion. I was on Esther's team! Then, sadly, I had to leave in the middle of the game to catch my train. Maria drove me to the train station and we talked about what we should do in life. :) Sad that it was such a short weekend but so grateful to finally be back in Germany and be able to see my German family!!!!!! I missed them so much.

Last night at movie night the people sitting in front of me were speaking American English so I though, what would Whitney do?, and I started talking to them. They are here for a year, the same age as I, and have been here just as long as I. One of them went to school at Lewis and Clark in Portland - crazy, and another studied at the university in Eichstätt last year - Crazy!!! But yes, so exciting. We exchanged numbers and we''ll see what happens!

P.S. It wasn't a horror movie - yipee!! Because that would have just been embarressing to have to get up and leave the theater and not talk more with my new friends because I'm such a lame-o. Instead it was the Ashton Kutcher movie Spread which, let's just stay, is a whole lot more graphic then I imagine it ever being in the States. WOW.