Weekly Post #9

Hey Everybody!

Welcome to the 9th weekly blog update. I hope you all had a nice week and weekend.

27. September 2014:

On Saturday my papa and I went into town to watch the Brossia game v. Schalka at an American pub/restraunt thingy. It was called route 99 which confused me because it's usually route 66 everybody talks about. Whatever I just rolled with that one. It was also really funny because in America we always have these Irish or German pubs, but in Germany they have American pubs. All of the pictures on the walls were either of New York City, California, or the wild wild west. I thought that was also pretty interesting to see that there was really no representation of the USA other than what is pictured in major hollywood films. Before the game I took advantage of the beautiful weather to go and take some pictures in the innstadt. To my surprise I found this group of piano players who would roll their piano around the main street and just start playing. I thought the acoustics were really cool because the sound could carry far enough away to catch people's ears. I also liked the way it echoed off all of the stores and the cobble stone even though it wouldn't be good for a paid concert it really added to the feeling in the street. Unfortunately Dortmund lost to Schalke that night so there was a bit of a glum mood in the streets after the game. Schalke is exactly like the packers and bears rivialy in the sense that they live super close together. Afterwards my papa and I met up with one of his friends and his friends son. Together we went through the innstadt until about 12pm for the 15th annual museums night. We went to the Dortmunder U, which is basically just a museum for local culture. We first went to the very top to take pictures of the city. We could see all the way to the area where our house was. It wasn't much to see by our neighborhood because it was just trees, but we could see the huge IKEA warehouse right by our house. My papa told me that IKEA is so big in Germany because it is realatively cheap and because it promotes the 'build it yourself' method. In the lower levels of the U we saw a weird furniture exhibit. Although I must say it was really cool to play on some of the things I have absolutely no idea why they were there and what some of their purposes were. A couple levels lower we saw a Germany world cup exhibit. I even got to hold the world cup trophy. (Not really it was a model, but I made you guys gasp) About a level down we saw a mean clowns exhibit which also super confused me. It confused me because not everything in there was strictly about clowns. There was also a clown laying face down in the middle of the the room. Now in America there would usually be a live person in there who would jump up about every hour to scare the crap out of everybod in the room, but this was was nice enough to be a dummy. Afterwards we walked over to an old part of the old Dortmund wall. There was also a chemistry show that was going on for kids there. We stopped in and it was acutally pretty cool. Even though I didn't understand a ton of it because there was too much background noise the things that he did were pretty cool. He used dry ice at the very end of the show to make foam in a barrel explode which was really cool. Afterwards we learned about how much chainmail weighed back in the day. This made me think about whether or not they would talk about how much our backpacks weigh today when everything is electronic. At the end of the night we went to a laser show which was pretty cool. The first song they played, One Day by Bakermat, was really intresting because there wasn't a ton of American history laid out there, yet they chose to play a song with the I have a Dream speech.

28. September 2014:

On Sunday my family didn't go out to do too much. We attempted to take a nice bike ride, but ended up getting two flats. My mama and I both got a flat. Luckily it was still a beautiful day so it was perfect to walk. Afterwards I was able to have a nice long chat with my bestfriend Lucinda. It was so nice to check in on how college life is going for her.

29. September 2014:

On Monday because of my flat tire I couldn't ride my bike to school. Unfortunately I had also forgotten what time my bus came. Because of this I ended up missing my bus for school. It wasn't as big of a problem as it would have been in America because its public transit and it comes often. I ended up walking about 15 minutes into town to catch a bus from the Mengede Markt. I actually really liked this because it is started to get that fall chill in the air and it smelled really good as I hurried along to the town. After school my YFU rep came to visit me. It is really nice to have somebody who is right in my area to help me with any problem that may pop up. Although it doesn't seem like that will happen any time soon with my family.

30. September 2014:

On Tuesday I almost ended up missing the bus again, but the bus driver was nice enough to stop and wait for me as a sprinted to my bus. I never thought sprinting with a backpack would be so hard. But as you start running it starts swinging uncontrolably until you fall into a nearby bush. That didn't happen to be but I bet it has happened to some poor unfortunate soul. My teacher for gym in the afternoon had a meeting. That meant that she left us on our own to run around. We ended up playing a bit of soccer and talking for most of the time. I didn't mind this because I feel like I really got to know some of my friends better. We are planning to hopefully take a day trip to Dusseldorf over the fall holidays. After school we spent what should be one of the last nice warm days sitting out in our garden talking with neighbors and friends. After the sun had long set my mom and I played scrabble. I used my dictionary this time. My dictionary helped me much more than google translate.

1. October 2014:

On Wednesday my mama, Justus, and I went to a famiy friend's birthday party. I got to feed their bunnies some grass and dandelions for a little while. I totally understand know why Lucinda used to sit at my house for hours feeding each blade of grass to my guinea pigs. I did the exact same thing with these adorable bunnies. I think sometime in the near future I will start volunteering at an animal shelter. On wednesday night as well I had my first dream in German. I asked why this one person's face looked different, first in English, but they didn't understand. Then I repeated the question in German. Even as I was dreaming I remember realising how cool it was. Outside of that one sentence I don't remember anything.

2. October 2014:

Thursday was my last day before the beginning of my TWO WEEK fall holiday. I was done with school at noon. My mama picked me up from school to go get our hair braided for Oktoberfest that night. I probably had about 50 bobby pins in my hair. But it was totally worth it. Our neighbor friends came over, and my host uncle wore lederhosen that matched perfectly with my dirndl. We met up with our family friends, Cam, Michael, Marco, and Christina there as well. We also ran into some of my papa's coworkers. They were all really friendly and interested in what life is like in America. I later on found out that nobody had ever been to Oktoberfest before, and they all dressed up and went just for me. I really love that they did that, it makes me feel so loved and I hope I can make it up to you guys one day.

3. October 2014:

On Friday my host aunt and host cousins came over with their dog. They ended up playing in the back yard with Justus as my papa and our neighbor repaired my flat tire. Later on in the night I read to Justus. I think this a really good way to improved my reading skills. Know that I have become better in speaking and hearing, I definately feel like my reading skills are lacking. I also found a Winnie the Pooh book on his book shelf. Winne the Pooh is spelled Winnie the Puuh here. I remember I learned to read English with Winnie the Puuh books, it only seems right to improve my reading in German with Winnie the Puuh too. That night my papa and I stayed up until 1am finishing a season of Breaking Bad in German. I really believe we are addicted to this show.

Thanks for reading!

Sandra