Neverlands? no...not quite

Netherlands!!!

I had so much fun this past weekend with my host family. We spent four days in Westkapelle, Netherlands.


We stayed in a hotel on the beach. It had a heated pool, which was good cause the ocean was supercold! (But that didn't stop me from swimming in the ocean. And naturally I made Laura go with me...or perhaps I dunked her...)
And I had lots of fun playing with Sammy. She loves playing in the water.



Weather was fabulous! Lots of sunshine. (I have a wonderful tan to prove it.)

We also visited Middelburg, a city nearby. Tons of sailboats and ships everywhere. Also lots of old buildings. It was beautiful.

And check out all this cheese! The Netherlands are famous for their cheese.

Saturday night....dream come true
Yep, we rode horses on the beach. Galloped through the water! So AMAZING!


I loved this past weekend. It was an great finish to the end of my year here in Germany. I'm so grateful for my wonderful host family. I couldn't have had it better. :D

Great picture of Heidi and Dieter. They are awesome people!

And of course Laura and I...

Brescia: The Lioness of Italy

Life is hectic. I have only a week and a half left. Ich bin sehr traurig!

Changing things up a bit from Germany....my trip to Italy!

I traveled to Italy for a few days with my friend, Anya. We stayed in Brescia with Marco (who is a former exchange student that my family hosted when I was in first grade) and his family.
Marco and his father showed us around Brescia, and then Anya and I visited Verona and Venice on our own.

Here are a few pictures (unfortunately they don't even capture how amazing Italy is...)

Weather was a little too warm, but having the sun shining was a pleasant change from Germany. We both came back with nice tans and grateful hearts for Germany's cooler weather.

Word to the wise: Italian drivers are verrückt!
Lines on the road are simply optional. People weave in and out, going where ever their cars fit. Marco told us that in Southern Italy, especially Rome, driving is even crazier. In Rome, the street lights are just suggestions. So if the light is red, one can simply decide if it's worth waiting. Also Italians crazily/constantly honk their horns without any real reason.

Italian food: I tried out some true Italian pizza: it was scrumptious. I'm proud to say that my dad's pizza is pretty much the same. He makes killer Italian Pizza. I also ate a Sicilian Cannoli, which was heavenly. Yum yum. I love Italian food. :D

I felt so at home in Italy. I was quite happy to see that there were many people with curly hair, just like mine! And the boyz there were HOT. :D

The food, the people, the culture - all of it was great. I will be definitely going back to Italy in the future. Perhaps a study abroad program for a semester of university or something...

It's all rushing by too fast!

Update of what I've been up to lately.

Saturday April 18th - Heidi decided to put my harp talents to work or to show me off, which ever way you want to see it. She invited a "few" friends over (turned out to be about 20 people), and she went all out. (click on pictures to see a larger view in another window)

She had cheese, grapes, strawberries, chocolates, munchies (chips, pretzels, things to go with wine…) and just everything. She also set up candles around the whole dining/living room area. Then I was set in the winter garden area with greenery all around me. Wow, was it romantic or what!?!


3rd Tuesday of April - I choose my housing for BYU-Provo at 11pm my time (silly 9 hour time difference!). Yep, I'll be going to BYU starting Fall 2009. I'll be pursuing a major in Neuroscience and a minor in Music. I'm pretty excited about all that, but hey that's not so exciting as what I'm doing here in Germany.


4th weekend of April - we (Dieter, Heidi, Laura and me) drove to Stuttgart for the Konfirmation of Dieter's godson. After that we drove to Schloss Neuschwanstein (aka castle that Walt Disney copied) and Schloss Linderhof. Wow, they were cool. That was a fabulous weekend! Check out the pictures below.

Then last weekend - we were in Nuernberg for 2 birthday parties. All I have to say is...I think I ate enough food to last me a month!!! It was great to see all the relatives again, and probably the last time before I leave for the USA. All of them are extremely nice and told me that I was welcome to stay with them anytime I come back to Germany (that means I have more than 10 different places I could stay throughout Germany!!!).


Yeah, that's about it. Next week I'll be posting everyday....to give you an idea of my typical week with school and everything. :D



41 more days!

Italy and Skiing = Perfect Life!

First off I must say that it's not my fault this is months late! I've been waiting to get the pictures from a friend of the Hameyers... and I finally received those pictures last night.
But anyway, here is the story of my week in Italy. INCREDIBLE!!!! Just everything, food, sights, people, cute Italian boys (oh yes, they were H-O-T!!!), and yeah. Italy was amazing.

So my host family goes skiing every year during Karneval time (in late February). They go with a group of people (teachers, students, parents) from Schloss Hagerhof, the school I go to. This ski trip is a week spent in Northern Italy in the ALPS. They stay in a lodge that is up in the mountains and is only accessible by ski lift (yep our vehicles were left at the bottom of the mountain). This year I was able to join in on the fun!

Well, I'll start with the food. Yum! I didn't get pictures of all of it, but enough of it to give you an idea... (Remember you can click on the slide show to view the pictures individually.)

And then moving on to skiing...

So we were there in Italy for a week. Of course we couldn't ski 24/7, although we did ski about 6-8 hours a day, so what did we do in our free time? Lots of fun stuff. We played games, went sledding/rolling down the hills, played table tennis, ate lots of good food, slept, etc.
Also on the last evening, there was the "Ski Taufe" or "ski baptism." It was really silly. One of the teachers (dressed up in random clothing and ski accessories) was the "Holy Priest". Then all the new people, who have never been skiing before with the Hagerhof group, are given a big welcome. This welcome consists of going up to the chair where the Holy Priest is, having the end of a ski put in your mouth, and then having a concoction (made up of random ingredients found in the kitchen) poured down your throat. After you swallow the horrible stuff, you must loudly declare it as "Lecker!" (delicious). Then you are given a ski name. And yep, me being new, I went through it. It was quite hilarious.
Here are a few pictures from our free time, the Ski Taufe, and other stuff.

Well, finally I got those pictures up. Hope you enjoy! I'll be going back in Italy in the middle of May. I'm super excited!

Nürnberger Dialekt

Nay, ich weiß es net. Ich habe es nimmer gemacht.

I really do enjoy the dialect/accent in Nürnberg, and it's funny to hear my host parents slipping into it as they chit-chat. Well, I had a wonderful weekend in Nürnberg with my host parents. Unfortunately, Laura wasn't able to go with us, and Matthias is...well... is Matthias. So, it was just me with Heidi and Dieter. (and did they spoil me? OF COURSE!!!!)
The purpose of our trip was to join in on an uncle's 70th birthday celebration. However, Heidi was super sweet (as usual) and decided that I needed to see Nürnberg and surrounding area. So we extended our stay for a few days, which were filled to the brim with awesomeness.

Friday: Drive from Bad Honnef to Nürnberg. Left at around 9pm, arrived at 12am. As usual during our trips to Nürnberg, we stayed with Heidi's parents, who are to be called Oma and Opa. (Both Heidi and Dieter grew up and lived most of their lives in Nürnberg.) I really do love it there, and of course Oma and Opa love to spoil me too. I am a very loved exchange-child and exchange-grandchild. :D

Saturday consisted of Allegra Bel sleeping in until 10am and thoroughly enjoying it. (It was well deserved after a very hectic week of school), and the birthday celebration, which lasted 3pm-10:30pm. The celebration began at the uncle's house with lots of coffee, cake, talking, and drinking alcohol (well, not me) in the afternoon. Then there was dinner at local restaurant, and then nicely ending the evening back at the uncle's house with more talking, smoking and drinking. I finally crashed in bed around 11pm with a massive headache from the strain of trying to understand and comprehend the many surrounding German voices and conversations (of course with that Nürnberg accent). But, yeah, it was a pretty great day full of delicious food.

Sunday was a personal tour for Allegra Bel by the two nicest Nürnberger people (Heidi and Dieter) of the Nürnberg Innerstadt (downtown). We visited the Kaiserburg (Imperial Castle) and walked around the city. I learned all about the history of Nürnberg - a wonderful and old city.

Check out the following slide show for pictures of the castle and other views of the city. (oh, and you can click on the slide shows to see the pictures better)

Monday was '"cave spelunking" day! It was way awesome. We went to two different caves, which were about an hour away from Nürnberg. The first cave, Teufels Höhle, is the biggest one in Germany, and it really was ginormous!

I really enjoyed the drive from the first cave to the second cave. It was typical German countryside. The second cave was also pretty amazing. And my favorite part: it had a harp inside! Check out the pictures.

The pictures are hardly captured the amazingness of the caves. After visiting the caves, we had lunch and then headed to the movie theater/IMAX in Nürnberg. That place was incredible! I believe it's the biggest theater I've ever been to. The whole entire thing was underground, under the city! We watched an IMAX film about the ocean. It was pretty cool.

Yeah, that was my amazing weekend adventure. I really do love my life here in Germany.

Bis später!!!


P.S. I will be positing my Feburary Italian Ski Trip soon.... I'm still waiting on getting the pictures.

Köln Seminar!

Sorry that it's so long! There are pictures at the end. :D

We (the CBYX group) had a blast at our seminar. However, the weekend was not enough time for us. It was super awesome to see everyone, see German language improvements, and catch up on everything that's happened since language camp.

We all arrived at the Youth Hostel Thursday evening around 5pm. My host dad was super awesome (like always) and drove me there.

So here are snippets of the weekend...
Donnerstag/Thursday:
-got our room assignments. I had a room with Jedel, which was very cool!
-huge reunion and tons of talking
-ate dinner
-2 hour seminar (Seminar rules explained and funny experiences shared)
stayed up super late just talking and talking

Fritag/Friday:
-breakfast at 8am
-took Bahn (train) to Bonn. Jedel and I missed the train, because of a misunderstanding. We had thought our group was meeting in the Lobby at 8:45am, but no... we were supposed to meet at the Bahnstation outside, down the road. Oops! So Jedel and I finally figured it out, after looking around the whole hostel for our group. We ran to the Bahnstation, only to see the train pulling away. It was quite funny. Luckily Jedel lives in Köln and knew her way around. I live in Bonn, so once we got there, I knew the way. It was awesome teamwork. We actually ended up taking a different route to Bonn, and we got there about 10 minutes after our group did, instead of 30 minutes later if we had taken the same route they did.
-There in Bonn we split up into different groups and had the Aufgabe (task) to visit several museums. It was lots of fun.
-back at our Hostel in Köln at 5pm
-dinner
-Seminar: Reflection over our day in Bonn, Feedback about our host families and schools.

Samstag/Saturday:
-breakfast
-train to downtown Köln (Jedel and I were the first ones to the train station, we were not about to miss it again...)
-In Köln we broke up into smaller groups and were given free time with the suggestion to visit a museum. We also had to answer a few random trivia questions about the city. My group went to a really cool Köln history museum.
-at 1pm, back at the Hostel and ate lunch
-2pm, Seminar over our expectations versus realities. Then we had the dreaded Sprachtest (language test)...most of us bombed it. Seriously it was unfair! The whole first page was over all the different states and state capitals in Germany. Whatever, it wasn't that big of a deal.
-short break
-seminar again. Talked about our day/experience in Köln.
-dinner
-another Seminar... were talked to about what we can do better as exchange students.

Sonntag/Sunday
-breakfast at 8am
-Free time for church or whatever we wanted to do
-lunch at 12pm
-Seminar: Again we were lectured about what we need to do better as exchange students. Then we talked about our final seminar in Berlin in May. Given strict guidelines about our behavior and appearance while visiting the Bundestag.
-short break
-Seminar: Gave feedback about our weekend and the seminar.
-dinner
-Free Time!!! I went with one of the teachers and 2 other kids to the Köln Philharmonie. It was really really cool. I felt bad for the harpist. She only played for about 5 minutes in the 2 hours, and it was impossible to hear her.
-Curfew at 11:30pm

Montag/Monday:
-breakfast
-saying goodbyes... schon wieder (once again)
-journey back to our host families

Midyear Seminar in Koeln

It was fun! Our CBYX group of 42 people was gathered together the past weekend. It's been almost 5 months since our language camp. It was great to see everyone again, but I can't believe how much we've all changed.
We stayed in a youth hostel nearby the Rhine River for 4 days. Most of the seminar was participating in group discussions. We discussed and gave lots of feedback over our lives so far in Germany. We also spent time in several musuems in Bonn (my home town) and Koeln. I'll post pictures later.

8 days skiing in Austria in the Alps was absolutely incredible.

So time for catch up. The last week was so much fun. Skiing everyday! The normal day was waking up between 7 and 7:30am, getting ready, eating breakfast, putting on all the warm clothing, walking down to the ski kellar, putting on ski boots and skis, then skiing down to the first lift. There we would meet the Pokorny family (family friends) and get on the lift. Then we would ski until around 12pm. Then we would go to the lodge, eat lunch and relax for a little. Usually after us kids (Fabian, Lena, Laura and me) were done eating, we would play “Bloody Knuckles” or “Uno”. Then after our lunch break we would ski for a few more hours until 4pm.
After the 2nd day, skiing got much better for me. I could ski for longer periods and not be tired and I began to have lots more fun. I fell quite a few times, but it was always laughable.
The views of the mountains and valley and everything was astounding. We got some amazing pictures. :D


Check out the slide show (click on it to make it bigger).




Happy New Year everybody!!!

Leipzig, Germany

August 16, 2008

Today was a very fun day. We went to Leipzig, Germany, which is a little over an hour away from Hedersleben. We had breakfast at 7:30 am, then boarded our charter bus, and left at 8:30am. The German countryside and all the tiny little towns on the way to Leipzig were very beautiful. We passed lots of corn and wheat fields… and everything was very very green.

Once we arrived in Leipzig, we walked to a museum where we had an appointment for a guided tour. Since our group of 42 kids plus teachers was too large, we were divided into two groups. Then we were given little headsets that were synched to the guide’s microphone. I think that was pretty brilliant idea because then she could talk very softly, but we could all hear her loud and clear. I was very grateful that she spoke in English because I was able to understand everything and it was very interesting. This museum focused on the time period after Hitler’s dictatorship: the time when Germany was divided into West Germany and East Germany. More specifically, the museum’s focus was on the resistances against the East Germany government. It was very interesting to see how different people reacted and how even some sacrificed their lives, in trying to change their situations. Some people just wanted to escape East Germany, some wanted to completely abolish the government, and others wanted to revise the Socialist/Communist government. I thought it was really neat to see the German perspective on this portion of history.

Okay, so after the museum we were given free time until 4 pm (sharp!!!...this was clearly emphasized), which was when we were to meet back up at the bus. Also another rule was that we had to go in groups of 4 or more, and we were given a map of downtown Leipzig with our leader’s handy (cell phone) number.

Weird thing: right when we walked out of the museum, there was this crazy festival/parade thing happening right out in the middle of the street. It was a bunch of mostly Indian people (country India) and some white people dancing around and singing interesting music. They were dressed very in bright colors and had odd streaks of paint or makeup on their foreheads. Also, they were handing out fruits and cookies.

Anyway, Leipzig was pretty awesome…especially since it’s the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach. I went and saw a monument of Bach, and also the church where he is buried. It was so cool! Also when we went in that church, St. Thomas Kirche, we got to see a wedding. It was really funny, because we saw lots of tourists all sitting very quiet in the back of the church. I noticed that the front of the big church was blocked off, but I thought that it was just because we weren’t allowed up front since it was so old or something like that. So we just sat down with the other tourists and listened to the organ music, which stopped shortly after we arrived. Then suddenly I noticed (way up front, I had to squint to see it) a priest stood up in front of two people, a bride and a groom. Then he married them, then music started playing, and then the wedding party marched right down the aisle. I got to see a wedding in Germany, or more like I walked in on a wedding accidentally. But the bride and groom didn’t seem to mind all the tourists, they just smiled and waved. Pretty awesome. Later the front of the church was opened for tourists, so I took some neat pictures of Bach’s burial place.

Also, we went to the Nikolas Kirche (lots of neat carvings, paintings, and windows) and we walked around the downtown area.

There were tons of cute little restaurants and shopping centers (most things were very very expensive).

Yep it was a fun day.