Weekly Post #11

Hey everybody!

Welcome to the 11th weekly post. I guess it was homcoming this past week. So I would like to do a shout out to my sister KK. Because I wasn't able to tease her about it in person, I get to tease her about going to homecoming with a boy over the webs! Sisterly love there. Anywho I'm here to talk about Dortmund. Also if you have any questions about anything you want answered please put them in the comments.

11. October 2014:

On Saturday my family and I cleaned the house and went grocery shopping at three different stores. Later on Kristina and Marco came over and I learned a new card came and taught a card game. I taught them how to play spoons. Unfortuntately I realised the card deck we were using only had ace, face cards, and number cards from 10-7. But I also learned a game called 31 which is like black jack with a bit of a twist. Playing these games made me think back to the time we did the card game simulation in the PDO in chicago, which I thought was really cool.

12. October 2014:

On Sunday my family, Marco, and Kristina, and I went to Fort Funland in Sauerland. Sauerland is about an hour away with the autobahn. I realized something too about distances with the autobahn here. I realized how fast the German Autobahn is. It is normal to go about 55-80 mph in the USA. In Germany it is normal to go about 100 mph. So even though things may seem super close they are the opposite of the stickers on the sidecar mirrors, things may seem further away than they appear. The drive to Sauerland was absolutely perfect. Sauerland is very comparable to the Kettle Moraine in Wisconsin. Except it is completely covered in fur trees, and has these cute villages living in the giant shadows of these huge hills. That morning before we drove into Sauerland it rained, because it is fall the nights are always colder than the day. Thus fall has many foggy mornings. Combine this fall morning fog with forests of fur trees, huge hills, and quiet villages. It was completely mystical. There were even parts of the autobahn where we couldn't see the road right outside our windows. We got to Fort Funland which is indian and cowboy themed. It was like being dropped into a theme park version of the 1960's The Wild Wild West TV series. There were roller coasters, water coasters, a ferris wheel, and several other entertaining things. We started out with the ferris wheel. The ferris wheel was perfectly placed. Fort Fun is in the middle of a valley, and the ferris wheel was placed at the high point in this valley. When we were at the top we could see a little town below with a hill skyline behind it. After the ferris wheel I got to connect with my former trip to Germany by riding on a Luge type thing. We did several more rides including one of the two water rides. Luckily we didn't get too wet, otherwise the rest of the day would be pretty cold. We took a little break and Justus and I went into a climbing obstacle course play place thing. (Nice description right? But I bet you all know what I am talking about) I used to love these things when I was Justus's age, so I thought, Hey ya it will be loads of fun to follow him around in it. I am like 3x as big as I was at the age of 4 and not close to being as flexable. Needless to say Justus was alway about two floor holes ahead of me. After our break there was a train show. It was mainly for littler kids, and was hard for me to follow along. But I got the gist of what was going on. The classic story of a gang of robbers run in with the sheriff. Of course in the end the sheriff won. I thought it was pretty cute for the kids. As we were getting to the end of our day Marco and I went on this flying ride. It was where they strap you into this hanglider which is hooked up to a line between two trees a good distance away. The waiting up to the ride was nerve racking, but the ride was, as Marco put it, a scene out of a 007 movie. At the very end of the day we all tried the last water ride, which was right by the exit. Thus we figured we might get a bit wet. From what we saw from people getting off, our pants would get a bit damp. But beyond that nothing major would happen. Unfortunately that wasn't the case for papa. Just as we came around the last bend of the ride we all saw it. This decent wave that was heading right for the opening of our tube thingy. But there was nothing any of us could do, because of this papa got completely soaked through. Luckily it was the last ride of the day and we immediately headed home after that.

13. October 2014:

On Monday Anna and Liam from my class in Warendorf came to visit. We went into the innstadt and ate lunch at Vapiano. I highly recommend Vapiano to anybody who wants homemake pasta, pizza, or salad. It's very tasty. It was so nice to be able to see them again and be able to share advice and talk about our experiences here. Shamefully we spoke English for most of the time, but we haven't gotten to the level where we can't talk super in detail in German. I really noticed how much of a Wisconsin accent I have while they were here. My mama also told me how funny and different I sounded when I spoke english with Liam and Anna versus when I speak English with my family. I haven't gotten to the point yet where I know where to put my inflections in German as I do with English. When I speak English with my family I also leave some out to make it more understandable. We also ended up playing 2 hours of the Bubber Ducky 2 demo game. For anybody who is interested it is a super hilarious game.

14. October 2014:

On Tuesday Anna, Liam, and I planned on going out and doing something, but we ended up staying at my house and talking. I didn't even care what we did it was just so nice to talk with them again. After they had left mama, Justus, and I went to play a game of scrabble by Katja. Afterwards I went over to my friend, Maja's, house to watch the movie Soul Surfer. I never knew they made the story of the girl who got her arm bitten off by a shark into a movie.

15. October 2014:

Wednesday was a really laid back day.I ended up watching cartoons in german for most of the day until 3 when I went to go volunteer at the animal center. I became friends with a couple of the dogs. One of them, Gini, a little fluffy white dog with pointy ears, climbed into my lap and buried his head so I could pet him. I also learned that people here need to have a class and license to be able to be a dog walker. I think that is pretty intense.

16. October 2014:

On Thursday my friend Mathilda from France who is also in Dortmund with YFU came to visit. We played some card games and PS3 games. Justus loved watching us play the PS3 games, he would go around the living room chanting the name of which of us he wanted to win. I think its so strange that she lives only several hours away by car, yet her parents can't come to visit her, and she can't go to France with her class for a day trip. Living in America going anywhere in Europe is a huge deal, but here it seems like it's something like going up north for the weekend.

17. October 2014:

On Friday Maja and I took the train into Dortmund to go shopping. I have been hearing that the train workers are going on a strike for more benefits and higher wages. Because of this strike some trains just never show up. This is a big problem for people who use trains to go to work. If your train never comes and you are late for work you are the one who gets in trouble. This also provides a problem for the autobahn. The autobahn is fuller during rush hour which could also make people late for work and cause them the same problem. I don't think I agree with this part of German punctuality. To me it seems unfair. While we were shopping I learned more about the stores and where the best deals for which items where, and which items you shouldn't buy at certain stores.

Thanks for reading!

Sandra