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.

A Superb Saturday

My day:

Woke up early, cleaned my room, and then ate a delicious breakfast. After that I borrowed Matthias' bike and rode about 8-10 miles along the Rhine River. It was absolutely gorgeous!!! I can't believe the thought that I'm actually here in Germany, riding a bike along a river I've previously only heard of in books. I am so grateful for this opportunity to be staying here in Germany. (And I'll be posting pictures of the Rhine River soon... Sorry I haven't done it yet Shannon!)

After my refreshing bike ride, I took a shower, and then ate a scrumptious lunch. Heidi made noodles and some kind of chicken sauce. She is such a wonderful cook and makes delicious food.
After that Laura and I went to Bonn. I was planning to go just so I would be out of the house and seeing Germany. Laura decided that she wanted to tag along, and I was more than happy to have her with me. (She is such an awesome little sister and a great friend). While where there in Bonn, the missionaries from my church called me and wanted me to meet with them. So we met in front of the McDonalds in front of the Hauptbahnhof (the main train station in Bonn), and then went to a nearby store/restaurant. There they taught me a lesson (when they have lots of appointments drop out, they like to meet with members and practice teaching lessons. Yep, so we were there for about 30 minutes. Then after that Laura and I walked around some more in Bonn. Then since she had horse jumping lessons at 4 pm, Dieter picked us up at 3:30pm and took us home.
Right when I got home, Meg (a exchange student from Iowa who goes to my church) showed up with a few of her friends from her exhange program. They have a seminar this weekend in Youth Hostel in Bad Honnef, about 7 minutes from where I live. They had to complete a "Better or Bigger" activity, and since Meg knows me and my host family, she called Heidi and asked for help. My host family was super amazing, they gave Meg and her friends tons of things for the activity. (I really do have a perfect host family!)

After this, about 20 minutes later, two friends from school came to my house. We made Snickerdoodles (with my awesome Baking Soda and Cream of Tartar from the US) and Rice Krispy Treats. Yum yum. Then we also watched a movie and played a bunch of games. We had a lot of fun!

Then when after they left, I went up to my room. There, outside my door, I found a package of gummy bears (no longer an unusual event). Dieter always sets chocolate or gummy bears by my door. I am seriously so spoiled in this family!!! Oh yeah, then tonight Dieter was also talking about traveling to Paris and Belgium. YAY!

My life right now

So life is pretty normal. I'm finishing up the second week of school of this new year, and things are going better than ever. My German has improved significantly over the past month, and I suppose it helps that I study my piles of German grammar books everyday for at least 1-2 hours.

At the beginning of this week, I dropped Biology and changed to Chemistry because I was having some major difficulties with understanding and working with the Biology teacher. It didn't help that he played the "you're an invisible person and I don't answer your questions" game. But yeah, I really like the Chemistry teacher. He's very funny and explains things really well, and he noticed that I was in his class. I don't know why I didn't take Chemistry in the first place, since I really enjoy Chemistry after having such a fabulous teacher at Dobson High School.

Last week we got back grades on our finals in all of our classes (well okay everybody else did - I didn't do all the finals since my German writing skills are not so good). However, I did take the English and Math Finals. And guess what? I got a 1+++ (meaning an A+++) on my English Final. My teacher said, "There is no question on your command of your native language." And then I received the second highest grade, a 2+ (an A- or B+), on my Math Final. I'm sure I would have done better if I had completely understood the word problems (word problems are bad enough in English...but when they're in German, I just play the guessing game). Overall, I'm pretty bored in Math since I've learned what they are now learning when I was in 7th grade... However, I do really enjoy and often spend time at school tutoring people in Math. I'm getting pretty good with all the German math terms.

This past week I've did tons of baking. I made snickerdoodles (4 times in one week), pound cake (birthday cake for my hostmom....it was so scrumptious!), biscuits, and lots of other yummy things. I'm so grateful that I have the most wonderful parents in the world, who were so thoughtful and sent me cream of tartar and baking soda. Life is good now that I am baking my favorite foods again. hahaha...now all my German friends are demanding my snickerdoodles.

Not that I'm counting down or anything, but I have 153 days left in Germany. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing...

Christmas in Germany

Yeah, this post should have been done a few weeks ago...but it wasn't.

So probably my favorite thing about the Christmas season in Germany is the Christmas Markets (Weihnactsmarkt). These are located in the downtown of bigger cities. I went several times to the market in Bonn and one time to the market in Köln.
These markets are full of Christmas things (ornaments, signs, candles, etc), other random things (clothes, scarves, hats, house decorations, statues, boomerangs, and everything), and lots of really good food. I took pictures of the Köln Weihnachtsmarkt, but most of them didn't turn out...but I hope you get the idea from the pictures below.







Oh yeah, on the way back to our car from the Köln Weihnachtsmarkt, we passed a really good looking ice cream parlor. So of course we stopped and got ice cream cones (since Heidi loves ice cream...and me too because German ice cream = AMAZING). That was so awesome: Eating ice cream cones while walking outside in the middle of winter. It was hilarious because I kept seeing people staring at us and a few commented about how it’s ice cold and we’re sitting there eating ice cream. It was delicious though. :D




So Christmas Eve day. I was feeling a little homesick (okay, not a little....it was the worst it's been the entire 5 months I've been here). However, the Hameyers saw I wasn’t doing too well, that I was homesick, and of course they made a bigger deal out of it than it was…and Dieter gave me his phone and told me to call my family. My mom answered, and I said "Hi Mama." She was quite surprised to hear me on the phone and said “Oh my gosh it’s Allegra Bel. It’s Allegra Bel!” Then I talked to everybody, and that was really cool.
Then later that evening we opened our presents and had an amazingly delicious dinner, because, in Germany, all the festivities happen on the 24th. The pictures below are from Christmas Eve.

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!!!