Hamburg Christmas Market

Here are some pictures from the Christmas markets in Hamburg and Lübeck.. Super fun weekend with some good friends. 

Holy Ghost Christmas Market at an old hospital in Lübeck

Inside the Lübeck hospital Christmas market

Hamburg

 

Hamburg Rathaus

Beatles tribute at the Reeperbahn in Hamburg

Yummm. Mini pancakeish treats!

Lübeck

 

Ouch.

Today was a bad day. I ate milk chocolate with yogurt in it. I ate macadamia nut cream with hydrogentated yuck yuck in it AND milk powder. I ate some other fake chocolate. I ate chocolate covered corn flakes. It was a bad day. And my tummy is still trying to recover from the chocolate covered popcorn I ate on Tuesday at the Christmas market. It feels like my intestines are being beaten. Not a good couple days.

I had, as usual, a busy week. Thanksgiving last weekend was a lot of fun - we had pilgrim and indian hats that we wore and we feasted. Well, the others feasted and I stuffed myself with the gluten/milk free pumpkin pie I made. So yummm.

Met up with Ning and Adriana at the Xmas markets on Tuesday and had lots of Glühwein while talking with people from Ning's language school. Interesting crowd- American soldier, French club owner, definite German hippy, cute little Japanese chickadee, and an Afghani/German teacher.

Last night went out for Chinese Wok with Ning, Dirk, Charlotte, little Elliott, and Adriana. We ate SO much. I had never had Chinese Wok before - very different than the coconut-milk-with-veggies-wok I am used to. This is more like a giant bowl of boiling broth that you throw things into (meats, veggies, etc) and then ladle out into your own little bowl with sauce in it that you make yourself. It was a lot of fun, especially since I hadn't seen Charlotte in so long and same with Adriana.

Tomorrow leaving for Hamburg! Excited to see the Christmas markets in Lübeck, get my shop on, and wander a new city!!

Talking to Weener tonight. SO EXCITED. Haven't talked to her in forever. YAY for great friends!

I am blessed.

Busy bee.

I know I say I am busy, but I am probably not as busy as someone else out there.

Finished Outlander - pretty good book! Won't continue with the series though.. Enough historical fiction for awhile. :)

Had a LOVELY weekend at the Schödels. Ate a lot of food I shouldn't, played a fun board game with friends, visited with Anna, went on walks. Maria's boyfriend Julian was there for the weekend and so was Johanna's friend Johannes. We all had a fun time. Went to a family party on Saturday and ate some declicious cake that Oma made. Yummmmm! Went Bowling. Julian is so funny - 'This is the USA! This is exactly what it looks like, right?!' Sure, the USA looks like a bowling alley. lol. They expected me to kick their butts bowling and I must say I failed to live up to their expectations. I played rather poorly the first 2 games, but did much better the third. It cost 13 Euros to go bowling! That seems like a lot to me... Maybe I just haven't been bowling in the States in a long time and forgot how much it costs. Naja.

Christmas markets open today!!!!! So exciting. Friday I will be having a baking party with Sarah to prepare for Saturday's Thanksgiving party and then we will watch the last Harry Potter movie with the kiddos. I got the movie for O for his birthday and it got here last week, but he was kind enough to wait till this weekend so I can watch it with him. Such a sweetie.

Everyone is coughing and sniffling and so I am trying my best to not get sick.

PS. Pinterest.com is amazing. If only I could organize myself enough so that I could execute some of the craft ideas that I found on there. Hmm.. I wish I was more crafty. Need to stop saying that and just start doing some! WooooT!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!!

Brrrrrrrrrr

It has gotten COLD here! I bought some gloves this week since I lost my old ones and I looked a bit ridiculous riding my bike with my socks on my hands. :) Upgrade!

I am doing good. I am getting over the two weeks of havoc on my body that Halloween reeked.  I feel like I wrote that sentence like a German would. Hmm. Special.

Busy busy - I have been having fun at work, as usual. Love my kids. Love the people I work with. Have I said this before? Probably. This weekend was pretty relaxing. Met up with some friends for GLÜHWEIN! So excited about the xmas season around the corner. Two weeks till Xmas markets start. Woot!

Today I made some cookies that I can eat! They are super yummy and basically just peanut butter or almond butter. Only other ingredients - raisins, smashed up walnuts and almonds, and some coconut flakes to coat them. Semi-healthy and I can eat them! And eat them I did. I got the idea from this Recipe, but basically just through in what I had around. Em's doesn't like the PB flavor so next time I am thinking of adding some honey and cocoa? We will see...

Emily and I hung out a lot today. We played hairdresser and I must say I made a pretty awesome wrap around french braid. Kayleen would be proud. Then we took a nice walk to a Gelato shop. It was very cold outside, but since it has not rained in, I don't know... 2 months?, it was a beautiful blue sky walk kicking up the crunchy leaves on the ground.

Finished The Second Short Life of Bree Tanner aka Twilight book last week and it was decidedly too short. Oh well. Finished The Little Prince, which is everywhere here. Now I have started Outlander. I have heard of it before and so far so good.

Parent teacher conferences this week, dinner party, Laura Marling concert, Eichstätt this weekend (SO EXCITED!), Breaking Dawn movie release next week with 18 friends, Thanksgiving at a friends next weekend (I am in charge of making the pumpkin pie and it will be gluten and diary free. Woot!), Hamburg the next weekend, and Regensburg the next. Then it is basically winter break. Who is coming to visit me?

Love and Miss.

Halloweeeen

Germans are catching on to Halloween. Here you have to be dressed up scary though. Today I was a "dead" Schweinsteiger, because dressing up as a soccer player was not scary enough. Or scary at all. The teachers put on a good show - zombie's, grim reaper, vampire, pippi longstocking, minnie mouse, a cheetah, and a robber to name a few. We had the kids bring in cakes to sell during a dance party and brought in over 300 euros that will go towards outdoor equipment. The dancing was a lot of fun and it was scary how much cake there was being eaten by the little ones. And there was SO MUCH left over. I came home with a sugar high and a stomach ache. My kiddies are out now doing some trick or treating and then we will eat my favorite pumpkin soup. Yummmm..


This weekend my friend Beth was in town and stayed here and we got a lot of shopping in. I really integrated her in and got her to bike ride all around town with me. She did a great job. Woot!

I found 2 winter jackets, jeans, and leggings this weekend. I am a shopping queeeeeeen ever since I put it in my budget. ;)

Pictures of my darling students will probably be available upon request.

lovelovelove

I just got home. I ate a whole bar of Rittersport chocolate in 5 minutes. Then to counteract that sugar I ran downstairs and shoved three fermented garlic cloves in my mouth and made some tea. I have a problem.

My birthday in Heidelberg

Today I didn't work at the camp but helped with the city school library. Yay! Sarah and I met up and had choco croissants and coffee and a french bakery and then walked over to the school to help organize. I will be doing a lot of this same organizing/barcoding at my school next week. Oofti.

Drinks tonight. Tomorrow making pizza at camp and then going to a museum. Busy busy busy.

Pathetic

I have been here for three months and I didn't run in my park Grüneberg until today. Pathetic!! I forced myself to after looking at pinterest and reading all the stuff about exercising. It was a pathetic run, but it was a run none the less. A couple push ups in there and some other do´dads. THEN I was semi awesome and cooked zucchini and eggplant, which I bought bc I thought I needed to introduce some new veggies into my diet. It took a long time, but it tasted good. Wooot.

This week I have been working at a food camp that I am doing with Susanna. It has been supremely laid back and fun with a group of 5 kids. So chill. We did potato art today, made some waffles, walked in the forest and made bow and arrows and watched some videos on how different foods are made. PS. I love Jaime Oliver's Food Revolution. Need to catch up on those episodes. 

There is my quick update. :) Oh, and I ate a bar of chocolate as soon as I got home from school. Oops.

love.

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” 

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”


Steve Jobs

beautiful

I could sleep there...

Clearly too lazy to write.

Ok - "quick" update! Random fact - Chocolate is not allowed at our school. Weird. I bring it everyday.

Went to Brussels with Susanna two weeks ago (Friday to Monday) to spend the weekend with some friends of hers from school. Ate a lot of chocolate (chocolate shops EVERYWHERE!!!), waffels smothered in nutella (heavenly!), and other yummies. We wandered the city a lot, eventually could give other directions. :) Her friends were super sweet and we were spoiled. It's a comic book city so a lot of the building sides have cartoons on them. Walked and saw lots of sights - the main square in the city, the Mannequin Pis (fountain of a baby peeing). the anatonium and mini Europe (has 350 miniture models of famous European buildings like the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, etc.).

German wine and Belgian Beer.

Night art event?

At Erin's favorite place in Brussels

Best Doughy Waffels w/ Nutella

The weather was AMAZING. Definitely happy about that since this past weekend was rain rain rain. We went out to a night festival called "Nuit Blanche"- an art festival that runs from 11pm-5am. There was a whole bunch of exhibits throughout the city - many of them were very strange, like whoever made them was on drugs. Yeah? Watched and cheered on the runners in the Brussels Marathon while we walked around. Reminded me of watching the Venice Marathon w/ B and Mom last year. Tender. 

Me in a nutshell.

Melting wax art.

Grand Place.

TinTin!

Anatonium and Mini Europe

 

 

Amsterdam this past week with Hanni, Sarah, and Susanna was pretty awesome in that I got a lot of shopping done. I bought boots!!! Who's proud? Not cheap boots either. Amsterdam has some pretty awesome shopping. We shopped everyday, went to the Rijks Museum, Sex Museum, a Coffee Shop, and walked a lot and shopped a lot. The library is SWEET and has an awesome view of the city. I want to live in that library. The weather was crap pretty much the whole time. Rain, no rain and really cold, more rain. The day we left the sun shined. Ugh. So Frankie is beautiful right now. Just really cold. Yay for warm sweats!!!! peace and love.

Amsterdam Church Cobblestones

the bike that seated four.

Susanna, Sarah, and Me

View from library

The trees are changing colors.

Sometimes I think I am having deja vu. Other times it is just the strange feeling that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. We have an outbreak of lice. Not the deja vu that I want to have.

3 years ago.... Unreal.

Monday I hung out with the women after school. We went and had a picnic snack on the river embankment. Ning had brought us a lot of goodies from China and Adriana sweets from Mexico. Yummy yummy. Then we went out for dinner with the husbands as well. It is the season for fresh pressed apple juice and it is soooooo yummy. Tomorrow I am going on a school trip with the my second grade class and Sarah's class  to make apple juice ourselves. YIPEEE! Shall be fun. Friday I am off to Belgium, after the dance party with my second graders. Got to love Friday's.

No gluten day three. Only chocolate w/ no milk day 3. This weekend is going to ruin me. Then I will be back on it. Promise!

I needed a hug today from Germs. Sarah was telling me about hugs and it made me homesick for my friends and family. There you go guys - it does happen sometimes. So better come visit soon.

lovelovelove
--
live simply.

Ouch

Had a get together with The Women this week to celebrate Charlotte's new baby and also to visit with Ning (who got back from China the same day) and Adriana (got back from Mexico the same day). I saw Marlene for the first time in a long time with her 4 month old too. Husbands were also in tow. Got to get me one of those... Just kidding! :)

I fell off my bike yesterday on my way home from school. One sure does feel funny as an adult getting an "owie" from falling off their bike. I woke up super early today (hence the blog) and I think it's bc of my owie adrenaline. Oh dear.

It's Thursday! How the weeks do fly! Today I'm going to do some shopping after school. Yipeeeeee! I might even by some pretty expensive boots. Who am I eh??

Tomorrow there will be a Soccer game rematch. Should be funnnnnnn, if I participate that is.

The famous Frankfurt car show maybe afterwards? Who knows...

different country, different rules.

View into the city from my bike ride to school

I'm having so much fun. SO much fun! Had a great week at school. Need to start writing down all the cute things the kiddos say to me. They are just darling. Had a hard core soccer game with my colleagues after school Friday. My whole body is sore from the 90minutes that we played. Afterword we had "girls night" and 12 of us met up and had dinner at a super cute trendy place that I want to go back to for drinks. I have my kiddos this weekend so we have been playing in between play dates. I made it to brunch this morning with friends - delicious, and then went over to see Charlotte and her new baby!!! So small! He is a week old now and I made sure to give Leanne lots of attention. :) My suitcase is full of chocolate. I am just really happy.  :) Don't worry - I sill miss you fam and friends! There are a few I am anxious to talk to in fact..... For now here are some fun things I would like to share with you.

Interesting things about Germany/Germans
- windows open like doors or tilt inwards and only the top part opens
- door handles are not round
- bathroom doors are always closed regardless if someone is in them or not
- staple food - bread, cheese, meat
- they (most Germans) don't like Peanut butter and don't know what a PB&J sandwich is, or s'mores for that matter
- LOVE soccer
- use bikes and trains as their main modes of transportation
- many cannot communicate in what we would think of as "friendly" English, so therefore what they say in English often comes out sounding a bit harsh/rough
- All shopping stores are closed on Sundays except for 3 or 4 times a year when there is a "shopping sunday"
- they have no problems with nudity - pretty much no big deal seeing your parents, grandparents, brothers, or sisters naked. Or anyone else for that matter i.e. naked spas, naked people in parks, etc.
- you can drink alcohol in public (on the street), starting at the age of 16 (alcohol under 10%)
- Germany is one of the top beer consuming countries (although, contrary to belief, Heineken is not from Germany people)
- windows don't just have curtains - they have these sheets of something that come down to block out all light - it is truly fabulous
- don't get their driving license till 18 (they think it is crazy that we start driving at 15 but can't drink until 21)
- there are a ton of English words used in the German vocabulary (all with a fabulous German accent) such as hi, happy, swear words, cool, and my personal favorite: sorry.
- they think that if you don't wear socks you will get sick
- don't know how big the US is - one person didn't believe me when I said you could drive all day and be in the same State. They also didn't believe me when I said I owned a bike in the States...

Bike ride to school

lovelovelove

Bis Tomorrow!

One of my darling little students has almost got the hang of saying see you tomorrow. In German you say Bis Morgen. First she said Bis Morning and now we are on to Bis Tomorrow or Bis Later. So darn cute. Today I got to take half the reception class on an adventure (read walk) in the forest behind the school. We collected stones, tree bark, leaves, and acorns. Oh the English words they can say now.... I'm almost done organizing the library with my friend - we are supposed to have it up and pretty by the opening day, when everyone and anyone can come walk through the school, in a couple weeks. Rooted out some garbage books that I don't even feel old enough to read. So we are left with two bookshelves full of books. It's a start.

Just bought a ticket to Amsterdam for the weekend after Belgium. Woot! Johanna is coming too! Yipeeeee!!!!

Saw a dead hedgehog yesterday. Or maybe it was a porcupine. What is the difference? It had spikes.

I talk a lot. Did you know this? Not as much as Kayleen and Kristin though. My "new best friend" Sarah reminds me of them because often times she just fades out and stops listening to me. And she reminds me that I mumble and she can't understand me. Which makes me think of my Mom. Oh dear.  She is also going to be my stylist. Or I will just buy lots of scarves, leggings and dresses and more toms. Red ones. :)

I was thinking how I wish I had chopped my hair off before I came here. My friend Jess has short hair and it just looks so easy. I was also thinking of straightning my hair tomorrow. Wouldn't that just shock everyone since they are already used to the "I don't brush my hair or wear a lot of make up or normal shoes" and not the "I can dress up and try and look cute also" girl that I am. We'll see.

Thank you to everyone who sent me a present for my birthday or snail mail - I love you all!!!!

Birthday Celebrations!

I had a fabulous birthday weekend! On Friday my friend Will made a huge bowl of guacamole so I was kind of in heaven. I do miss the "mexican" food aka Casa del Matador. If anyone goes there, they are always so kind as to inform me. Meanies. :) Sarah and Jess gave me a giant bday card and chocolate and Seb also got me some schoko and a gift card to my favorite Alnatura where I shop for all my delicious organic goods i.e. chocolate and almond butter. Love that store.
Woke up Saturday morning and had a huge breakfast with the fam - Andrea cooked some delicious goods and Philipp made a giant fruit salad. And I got chocolate. :) The kids and Brit had made me super cute bday cards and I got lots of great presents. After the filling breakfast I biked to the Hauptbahnhof to meet up with friends for a day trip to Heidelberg. Susanne showed up with a bag full of chocolate for me and Marcin brought me yummy Alnatura chocolate as well. And I brought some chocolate, so I was set for the day. We found the others and got on the train. In Heidelberg we walked around the shops, had some food, drank some wine, ate some Frozen Yogurt (I can't believe we found some and it was SO YUMMY!), and then headed back to the train station to meet Katja and Steffan. We then drove to Steffan's parents house and had a really nice BBQ there. I ate lots of food. So much. They are so darn cute and had bought the chocolate covered rice cakes that I love and put candles in them and sang me happy birthday. So funny. Since I can't have gluten/dairy/corn they knew that I would be just fine with these dandy treats that I eat quite often.... Had some prosecco and more food/chocolate before heading back into the city (after the boys purposely sped off to leave us to fend for ourselves with getting back to the city.. typical). Back in the city we found our way to the old bridge to watch the firework show! My wonderful new friends had invited hundreds of people to come watch fireworks with us that were shot off of the bridge. ;) And the castle was all lit up with red light. It was a celebration for something about it being burnt down?? Or for my birthday. The fireworks were pretty fabulous. Made it back to Frankfurt just after midnight.

Sunday morning was pretty lazy. I finished that dreadfully creepy Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, had a delicious Omelet, practiced Clair de Lune (will take me ten years to learn), and then was picked up by Ning in her darling hoodless Mini to go to a Bath house for the day. We picked up Charlotte - who is going to pop any days this week! - and I drove us to Bad Homberg, which is famous for it's bath houses. Something about the qualities of the Spring water... Ning gifted me a day pass to the spa. She is just so darn sweet. We swam around the warm pools. The bath house has many different pools, all of different temperatures. There are also a dozen or so different saunas, sun lamps, tanning beds, water beds, massage tables, massage chairs, beds to pass out on if you need a rest after the sauna, a restaurant, and, of course, a movie theater! So strange. It was raining outside so it was fun to be in the "warm" water and have the rain falling. After trying a few of the pools and "whirlpools" aka hot tubs, Ning and I went to go check out the saunas, while Charlotte went to absorb some Vitamin D. We tested out the Feng Shui sauna first, which was pretty empty. It was a huge sauna room and had a door that went directly outside for one to cool off. Then things went wrong. You go to a certain sauna room at a certain time for the "infusion" aka when an employee of the bath house puts water on the hot stones and fans the hot air over you. The room that Ning and I chose ended up being much smaller than the Feng Shui one and was completely packed full of bodies. We parked ourselves up on the higher steps and waited for the "Aufguss" to begin. It was SO HOT. I was DRIPPING. They make people put towels underneath their feet as well since it gets so darn hot in there. I was dying. One guy left before the "Aufguss" was finished. Ning should have left as well. By the time we got out of the sauna she immediately laid down on the ground. I quickly went back to where we had left our water and bags and grabbed some water. When I got back to her she was still on the ground, people were watching her, and she was being talked to by two people. I gave her some water and then we went and sat on the side. One of the workers left to get her a cola. She then perceeded to seizure on me - she just tipped over on me on the bench, eyes rolling back in her head, and started shaking. AWESOME. I freak out and start patting her on the cheek and about ten seconds later she stops and tells me she thought she was sleeping and had even had two dreams. Uhhhh not really chickadee! The guy comes back, gives her a cola and I tell him what happened and he said she passed out when I was getting her water too! He got pretty upset and said if she did it again he would have to call the hospital. Oh geez. He lectured her about eating and drinking enough and then we went outside and cooled out in the fresh air. Things got calm after that. Once she had regained her energy we went and found Charlotte, they got some ice cream, and then we went and watched a movie about the start of soccer in Germany and then headed home. It's so strange that there is a movie theater there. Sadly Harry Potter was only playing during the week. Lame. So basically I had a great birthday weekend that was very entertaining and... amusing?

Owie-Reports

One child hit another today. The other pushed another one down. Another one got stung by a bee on his chest. Another fell and scratched up their knee. Another ran into another and got a huge welt on his eyebrow the size of a golf ball. I got home from work at 9:30. Today is a day filled with "owie-reports."

Mainufersfest

Excited for tomorrow! Working on organizing the library and then relaxing with the family in the afternoon. Saturday - birthday breakfast with the fam and then off to Heidelberg for the day. Sunday brunch and who knows what else. Week 4 of school is almost through. I'm tired. :)

Apple wine, beer, pretzels, nutella. And popcorn.

This weekend was a bit crazy. It was the Museumsuferfest aka Museum embankment festival. The Main was covered in booths with goods to buy and a lot of food and drinks to consume. The weather mostly behaved and so I had a lot of fun wandering the river with friends and checking out a couple museums. My friend Susanne and I left school at 2:30 and headed straight to the first museum on the list, which was closed because of reconstruction. It was really hot and humid so we headed into the next museum down the river - the Communication Museum. My favorite part of this museum was seeing the SOS Morse code papers from when the Titanic was going down. That was pretty cool. We also went to the Dom museum, and the Shirn Museum, which was showing stuff about secret societies aka a bunch of weird stuff we didn't understand. After that we met up with some other friends and wandered the market - bought some funny monster key chains and chocolate popcorn - my favorite!!!! Then we headed to where we were meeting the crew to do the bierbike. There was 16 of us and it was a crazy evening biking through the city, singing/yelling out songs that our DJ was playing, drinking the apple wine/beer being served by one of the heads of the school, and dancing on the bike. It was quite fun. And ridiculous. More embarrassing pictures to come soon I am sure. After that adventure we wandered through Altsachsenhausen to a couple bars and then Sarah and I stayed over at Jess's.

I woke up at 6:20AM and decided it looked beautiful outside and I would bike home. Well, this is where things went wrong. Jess lives above a restaurant. In order to get into her place you enter through a door into a tiny room where there is another door to go into the restaurant or one other to go upstairs to where the tenants in the building live. I head down the stairs and out the tenant door. I try to open the door to go outside and it is locked. The restaurant door is locked. The tenant door is locked. I have no key. I start digging in my purse for my cell phone to call Sarah to tell her to come get me. I can't find my phone. I left it upstairs. I am stuck in a 6'x 4' room. Two of the doors are solid metal and the one to outside has a window that has the glass that you can't really see straight through. I knock on all doors to no avail for about 10 minutes. Then I'm over that so I just sit on the floor and decide I'm going to take a nap till someone comes out on their way for a run/walk/to go to church/to save me. Five minutes I'm thinking - no this is stupid. So I get back up and start banging a little harder on each door in turn. Then I search through my bag again - still no phone. I try my own keys in all the different doors and none of them will turn. I try to swipe all of the cards I have in my wallet - hey it works in movies. Didn't happen. Then I sit back down. Eyes closed for about 10 minutes. Nope, I won't have it! I get back up and start calling out (at intervals) in English and German "Help," "I'm locked in a room with three doors," "I'm stuck in the entrance of this stupid building," and "My friend lives here and didn't tell me I needed a key to get out." Not a peep is heard anywhere, except from me. My knuckles start to hurt so I switch to banging on the doors. I sit down and eat some rice cakes and the rest of the delicious green olives. I get up and start banging and hollering again. Eventually I spy a guy outside and start banging real hard and he comes over, tries to open the door and says "It's locked" and then walks away. REALLY?!!?!?!?!?!? Bad karma coming his way. Maybe a half hour later, after I have enjoyed leaning against the window watching buses pass by (remember I can barely see out this window because of the weird glass), another person walk by and I catch their attention. They ask me about five time how in the world I have got myself in the situation I am in and I explain multiple times (yelling, because apparently the door is very thick and hard to hear through) that I stayed the night at a friends and then got stuck in this entryway and left my phone upstairs. And no I do not have their numbers. I ask him to yell up at the windows Jessica and he backs away from the door and very quietly says "Jessica" and then comes back to tell me the windows are all closed. I know the windows are opened - they are just covered by shades so they look closed. Apparently, this is not translated. Then he asks me how I got stuck in their again. I mean really mister, I can't explain it any other way! A couple minutes later he brings over a person who happens to be a lady who has come to clean the Restaurant and low and behold she has a key and I am out of the panic room I have been stuck in for, after we check her watch, two hours. I ring the bell up to Jess's place (why didn't I just tell the people to do that for me before, don't ask), they let me in. I get upstairs and Jess & Sarah ask me where I went. Well, since saying goodbye to you Sarah, I have been stuck downstairs in a cell for two hours.

The rest of my Sunday went much better, with a picnic on the river w/ some new friends and many skype calls. I was ready to pass out at 5:30PM. Hopefully next weekend goes smoother.

There are naked people in the park.

Staff BBQ - Kicking the ball around.

Surprisingly, I haven't been through my favorite Grüneberg Park that often yet. Today, on my bike ride home from the bus stop, I went through Grüneberg after hitting up the Rewe for some groceries. As I am passing through the park I look around and there to my right, not that far away, is a nice man all splayed out hoping to get a suntan. Naked. This should not be shocking to me, as I know the park and that this area often has naked people laying out when the weather is nice, but clearly I have been in the States for a while and am not used to seeing a lot of naked adults lying about. Not 20 minutes after I got home it started storming and thundering like crazy and looked like it was 8PM outside (besides the crazy bright lightning) so I can only imagine what happened to all those lovely naked people. :)

Walk in the forest next to the school!

The school is huge.

I have been having such a great time here. I can't believe it has already been over a month since I got here. And, as I have said, I am so at home. The family is like my family so it is easy for me to feel right at home. Work has been crazy. Three days a week I do not get home till almost 8PM. I can't say enough how much I like the people I work with. They are so fabulous. Every Friday two people bring treats for the rest of the staff. Every week there has been a BBQ/Volleyball game. This weekend we are going on the beer bike around the city. I have a trip planned with one of the other TA's to Belgium in a couple weeks. There is a group of us going to Heidelberg on my birthday to watch fireworks. I adore some of the kids that I get to teach and work with two amazing teachers. I am so fascinated by how well they can teach!

Kayleen is going to have a baby any second and I am so excited. I'm sad to be missing out on the birth of her first baby girl, but I am still so stoked to meet her over skype. Yay for me becoming a crazy auntie!!!!

Not too much to report besides the daily grind. Worked a house warming party last weekend - was fun to cut rocks with the kids. Walked around the town and went to my favorite restaurants/shops. Swimming this weekend if the weather behaves.

Don't forget to write me.

The kids aren't allowed to go on the grass yet. Proves to be a problem when kicking balls around...