East, South, West of Deutschland, Sylt, Belgium, and Spain!!!

So, in the two months I have been here, I feel like I have pretty much seen the world. About a month into my exchange, my family rented an R.V. and with two other families, we went camping on the Island of Sylt, which is located on the border of Denmark, and is on the North Sea. It was really warm, and just beautiful. I took my bike with me, and on the first day I went with these two girls (one who wants to go on an exchange as well!) and we went to this really big beach and watched this windsurfing competition. We rode our bikes for like ten miles that day, just looking around the island. Then the next day I did the same with my host family. I thought my legs were going to fall off after all that riding. Three weeks ago, my state (Lower saxony) had no school for two weeks, so my host family planned the greatest vacation ever. they have an apartment in Mallorca spain, so we spent the week there! On the friday, we got in the car and drove to Aachen, which is in western germany, and on the border to the netherlands and belgium, and happens to be 45 minutes away from liege, which is the city where two of my friends from south carolina are on their exchange. Dirk has a friend there, and it was the friends daughters 18th birthday, so thats why we were there. We stayed until sunday, and then we drove to belgium. My host family said it was ok to go to liege for like an hour, so i got to see my friends for a little bit, which was awesome :) then we drove to brussels, and flew to Mallorca. I absolutly loveee Mallorca! it was so warm and beautiful. We went to the beach every day, and the water is so clear and blue. i so want to go back there one day!! the day after we got back, i left again, for a tour of germany with 40 exchange students in my district. this was the best week of my life. we went to this town called erfurt, where are hostel was, and then we drove to Weimar, and we visited the concentration camp Buchenwald. which was indescribable. to think about where i was stepping and what had happened there was such a powerful emotion, and i really cant put words to it. later, we went to lunch in the dowtown part of weimar, and i went with my american girls, to this pizza place, and while we had five hours to tour weimar, we spent all our time there. We were talking to the most amazing woman. She is a representative from the united nations for womens and childrens rights. she is from australia, and speaks five different languages. she was pretty young, but extremely wise. as we were leaving, we tried to pay, and she said no, you guys just made my day so go on ahead. then the next day we went to berlin, and we spent the rest of the week there. Berlin is just AMAZING. i love it. i saw the berlin wall, we went to the arch, and then the checkpoint charlie museum, the ddr museum, and the bundestag, and this beautiful old church. We were pretty much left to do whatever we wanted, we just had to make sure we made the 11 'o'clock curfew. On the first day in berlin we got totally lost, and spent the whole day riding pretty much every train in berlin. like three times each. but since we had the mexicans and brazilians with us, it was entertaining, because they were all singing and being loud making it fun. there are sooo many brazilians here, i feel like i ought to be learning portugese when im with the exchange students instead of german! but the trip was great, and i got to know the other exchange students a lot better!!  the day after i got back from the deutschlandreise, i went with my host family to Halle, which is in Eastern Germany, so they could meet with some old family friends. we toured the city all day saturday and walked up a billion stairs of this monument dedicated to napoelean. And this Friday, i am flying to Ulm in southern Germany. So it is late, and the link for the pictures will be posted soon. Liebe immer,
Katherine

Ich liebe Deutschland!!

So, I am a terrible blogger. I created this so I could let me know what I'm up to over here, but I've only written one blog. So I apologize to those of you who check this regularly!! So I have been extremely busy seeing the world, and have been loving every single minute of it. When I first got here I was super afraid of everything, and though I was going to get completly lost, and never understand anything. But it's totally different now. I'm starting to understand german a little bit better (i still suck at speaking, but its getting easier!) and I know my way around my city. I absolutly love where I live. Oldenburg is like a college city, and is clean and fresh and is old and modern at the same time. I think I was placed in the best city in my rotary district! There is always something going on! School is going pretty well....at first it was really interesting, because it was new, but now, not so much, and it's especially hard because I can't really follow what their talking about. So I normally write in my diary, practice my german vocabulary, and more often that not, I sleep, which drives my classmates crazy. The kids in my class are super nice, and they speak to me in a mixture of german and english. A couple of weeks ago I went with them to the biggest festival in my town, called krammermarkt, and had the most amazing time! they talk to me a lot, and ask me lots of questions, and i absolutly love how close my class is. In germany, the same kids are with each other pretty much all day, so they know each other and are really good friends! My school is really old, but i still love it <3 My host family and I get along really well. They are kind of annoyed at me, because I can't speak german yet, but this past week i kicked my german up a notch and their happier about it. My host sister Hanna, is the most adorable person ever! I love her to bits, and its like she is my little sister. We joke around and tease each other, and sometimes she will drive me up the wall, but i always return the favor. I live in the country and sometimes in the morning when I wake up I can hear a rooster outside my window. Since my family lives 30 minutes away from my school, they drive me in the mornings. Both Kathrin and Dirk work in Oldenburg, so its no problem for them. A couple nights a week, I will walk about two miles, and meet Kathrin at her dentistry at like 7 and she takes me home. The other nights I take the train from Oldenburg to Bad Zwischenan and then they pick me up from there. I take the train A LOT. And I love doing it! they dont have trains in Bluffton, but they should because they are so efficient. Since train tickets are expensive, and I use it so much, I have this youth pass, that costs 15 euro a month, and it lets me ride any train i want, as many times as I want, within my state. On mondays, tuesdays, and thuresdays I have to go to this school called AGO and take german lessons with the other exchange students in my town. And we always hang out afterwards. They are so amazing, and I love each and every one of them. They are my best friends here. We talk for hours, and are with each other on the weekends too. We normally go into the center of the city, which has some amazing shopping and we walk around, or we go sit in a cafe, or we go to the mall and sit inside after grabbing something to eat from the supermarket. Another thing-I feel like all I do here is walk, and then eat. I eat so much here it isn't even funny! But the good thing is, that I walk so much here, I haven't gained weight-yet. Its the same with the other exchangers. Here I get out of school at 1:15 except for Tuesdays and Wednesdays when I have long school until 3:45. But I have 45 minute classes, and then every other break is 20 minutes, and I get an hour for lunch, and I'm allowed to go to the center for it. I'm excused from afternoon classes on tuesdays because i have german lessons. Also another thing that i love-when the teacher is sick, and they dont come to school, there are no substitutes, so the class is cancelled. So like tomorrow my french class is cancelled, and its right before lunch, so i have like a three and a half hour break! the weather is getting colder and colder....i wear scarves, whereas in Bluffton i never would have! and during breaks at school i go stand as close as possible to the heater. germany is soo beautiful, and im so happy i ended up here :) i have been uploading all my photos onto photo bucket, so when they are all up, i will send the link :)
Liebe immer,
Katherine