Weekly Post #21

 Hey everybody!

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas. To all of my friends in college, I hope you guys are safely home enjoying your time with your families. The Packers winning against the Lions yesterday was a late Christmas present for all of us Wisconsin fans. To my Lion fan friends, sorry 'bout that (hihi).

22. December 2014:

Monday was my first official day of my two week Christmas vacation. I felt almost back to normal from my cold thanks to the anti-biotics. What did I do my first day of break? College work of course. I don't mind though, now that I know exactly what my plan is. If I went to college last year I wouldn't have been happy going to UW-Milwaukee, because I wanted to go to University Twin Cities. But I really wouldn't have liked Twin Cities, because it's too big. I would have also studied business, which isn't what I find truely enjoyable. All of this would also have been very expensive. Lesson learned: Do what you love always with an open mind. That night after little Justus was in bed, my mom and I wrapped presents. I have always been the gift bag type of person. All of the sudden I have become the master gift wrapper. Maybe it is the German food.

23. December 2014:

On Tuesday we set up our German Christmas tree. In America normally people have a string of 800 lights or more. When my parents pulled out a box of 21 electric candles, I immediately thought, "The tree is going to be so empty!" My family also has enough ornaments to rotate them every three years. Here we only put on maybe 30 ornaments. Besides a green fir tree, the German and American Christmas trees are completely different. Even though they are very different both are pretty.

24. December 2014:

On Christmas Eve my host uncle, aunt, cousin, mom and I went to the church service. When we came home we ate sauerbraten. It's marinated beef in English, but a very German dish. I thought it was very tastey in the way that it tasted different. After dinner my host cousin distracted Justus with the race track that my dad and I built earlier that day. While they played the rest of us set up the presents around the tree. We spent the rest of the evening talking while Justus played with his new presents.

25. December 2014:

Christmas Day my family went to my host grandparents house. It was a pretty big get together as usual. Although they are getting less overwhelming. I think it really helps to know even the names of the people around me. Everybody seemed really happy, outside of the drama of sharing new toys among the kids. It is still hard to always concentrate on what everybody is saying when they are in a big group. I often take 'brain breaks' while everybody is conversing. It is nothing against anybody, I just do it so I don't run out of energy by the time noon comes along.

26. December 2014:

On Friday my family and I built Justus' lego presents. The age suggestion on the box said 6-12, I firmly believe a 6 year old would not be able to build the police headquarters. Although I did have a bunch of fun putting it together. I can't imagine how cool that job is to create these set ups. Lego has so many specialized pieces to make use of all the tiny nooks and cranies. Later that night family and friends came over to help eat the rest of the gyros we got from Christmas Day dinner. We played several games on the ps3 and race car track. It was such a nice night to close off our Christmas celebrations.

27. December 2014:

On Saturday we stayed home to avoid the throngs of people who would be in the city exchanging their Christmas gifts. Later that night Kristina and Marco came and we played this game called Buzz. It was alright, even though it was a mix of German and world music trivia.

28. December 2014:

On Sunday Kristina and Marco met us at Monkeyland. Monkeyland is a sort of into play park thing. The first thing I tried out was a little sky bike thing. As I got off I fell down the flight of stairs. I wasn't seriously hurt, just bruised all over. But I swear December is trying to kill me. Non-stop colds, and a flight of stairs. Needless to say, I am fed up with it. The Monkeyland got me a bit confused though. From what I have seen Germans are super clean, but these indoor playlands are notorious for being germ infested. Are they just kept super clean?

Thanks for reading!

Sandra