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