Christmas day!

It was a lazy day to start with. I woke up around 10am and came downstairs. Our neighbour, Heinz who is a little bit crazy with here for coffee and to exchange presents. He stayed for a while and talked to us. After an hour or so, Julia's Oma came over for lunch. Heinz left and then we exchanged gifts. I gave a handmade glass Christmas decoration and she gave me a print of a painting I said I liked when I was at her house. She also gave me a lovely bracelet.

We all got dressed... And then set the table for our Chrustmas lunch. When everything was ready, Julia's dad cut the ducks up using garden clippers... I thought it was hilarous, so I took a photo. We set the table and put everything out. We ate soup first... I'm really not sure what it was, perhaps chicken? I know it had little alphabet noodles in it though. Then we ate salad with salmon, prawns and cocktail sauce. Then came the duck! We ate it with red sauer kraut, the apple and chestnut stuffing from the duck and these German noodles things...

We sat around and talked for a while, basically to avoid going out into the cold walking. After a while, we all got up and went outside. We walked through the village and then down a track near the railway line. Miak found a log which later broke in half. It was nice because the sun was shining down.

We came home and sat around the table for ages. We talked, drank coffee and ate biscuits. We talked about the trip to Berlin that Julia and I are going on. The coffee machine also broke down, so Julia's parents got out the old one and got it working. Julia's Oma was still here, but a family friend came over to exchnage presents. She sat and drinking coffee for a little while. Everyone left after a bit and we went into the lounge to sit and relax. I got into my pyjamas and then Julia told me at 9pm we were going sledding. The family was wathcing Ice Age 3 together when we left. We walking down the street and met some of the other girls. It was -10 degrees when we left the house. We walked near all the paddocks at the back of the village and near the track line, then found a perfect hill. After going up and down it a few times, smashing into bushes and so on, we walking up further to near a play ground. We went down with giant mountian of snow that was in the middle of it and then walked to another place. It was sort of like a really hilly street at the end of the village. It has a lot of corners in it. We went down it a few times and then had to walk the whole way up again. At about 11pm, we all headed home. Julia and I sledded down the streets home and then finally gave up because it was too slow.

We came home and took off all of our snow clothes, which were really quite attractive. I got to use my hot water bottle for the first time and took it to bed with me. :)

Christmas so soon!

Today was out first weekday of holidays. :) We all had a lazy morning, waking up after 9am and sitting around. I ate cereal in the kitchen while Julia read the newspaper. We decided to go to Frankfurt by train at 11.40am, so we hung around the house. I did some letter writing and tidied up my new room, that is right upstairs in the attic/roof part of the house.

At 11.40am, Julia and Hannah weren't ready to leave, so we left an hour later. I watched TV with Paul and waited around, finally it came time to leave and we got drink to take with us and walked to the train station. We got on the train and sat down, it was nice and warm inside. The train we took wasn't an express, so it stopped at every stationa and took nearly 2 hours.

When we finally got to Frankfurt, we had to walk against massive crowds of slow walking people. I thought Melbourne was bad, but this was horrible. We got something to eat and then caught another train into the centre of the city.

We walked around a bit, went to H&M and then throguth some of the other shops. Hannah needed to go to an ATM, so we had to walk all the way back and get money out. We bought some Christmas presents and went into another building with a collection of shops.
We ended up leaving the city after 5pm and catching a train back to the main train station. We spent a while trying to work out which train to take home. I scares me that the German trains are hard for Germany to understand... Hannah and I got something to eat while Julia worked out waht to do. We were walking off to do something else, when we saw a train that went to Marburg, so we rn to it and as soon as we got on there was an announcement that it would be delayed by 10-20 minutes, so we just had to wait until it left. There were no seats left, so we sat on the steps. The train was a regional express and only went to the main stations along the way.

It was still a very slow train. It took over an hour to get to Marburg and then all of the other trains were delayed, so we had to get picked up from the station. Julia's dad picked us up and drove us home. Julia's mum was nearly finished cooking when we got home and they had got a new toy too. It is a racing track for cars. I remember when I was 8 and came to Germany, one of the older kids that I met had one too.

We had chicken lemon curry with rice for dinner and Julia's dad ate it with potatoes, he is very anti-rice. After dinner, we sat and watched Bonanza and then it was time for Bauer sucht Frau.'
Whilst we were watched, Julia did some ironing... Paul stayed up past him bed time, but when to sleep just after we finished watching TV.

It was about -1 degrees most of the day, but when we got home from Frankfurt it was -8 degrees.

'

Tomorrow is my advent day and I think we are going shopping in Marburg for our last Christmas presents. I don't think we are going to get a Christmas tree from the forest, it is too dangerous to drive there because of the snow.

Not sure if I like snow that much...

We all woke up quite later this morning, I got up at about 10.30am. Julia had training at 11am,but we all had breakfast beforehand. We ate bread rolls with cheese and meat, the usual Sunday morning thing. We finished eating and Julia's trainer, Wilfred came inside and sat with us. We ate cake and talked. He gave me photos that his wife took on us the week before.

After Julia came back from training and he left, we went on a walk around the village a bit. We visited Hannah who was horse riding and then kept walking. We ended up covered in snow as well. We walked on tiny masses of water that had frozen and you could here the ice cracking. We walked home and their dog, Miak was getting really tired. He loves snow and eating it too.

We came home and I sat in the kitchen with Julia's brother and mum. We were talking about chestnuts earlier and they had some at home, so we roasted them in the oven and ate them. Julia's brother and I made snowflakes out of paper.

Soon we had to get ready to go to the Christmad market that was in our village. It was only tiny and went for 3-5pm. We walked around it and I bought some presents. There was food there too and I ate a waffle and a bratwurst. It was snowing quite a lot and we were all covered in it when we got home.

We went home and thena bit later Julia's borther came hoem and he watched TV while I tried to finish writing one of my letters. A while later, Julia's mum came home and finished off cooking dinner. She got carried away talking at the christmas market.

We ate goulsh with some strange german noodle thing and red sour kraut. Hannah's friend came over and we all watched Bonanza together.

I think we are going to Frankfurt tomorrow and maybe getting a Christmas tree if we have time...

Snowwwwwwww, and goodbye to Molly.

I woke up at 9.30am, have ried to avoid waking up earlier. I went downstairs first to see who was awake and then to check on Molly. She was already basically awake and I just ended up talking to her, then Julia came up and we all talked. Julia's aunty came over and I went to say hello while Molly showered.

Molly and Hannah finished packing Molly's bags and I showered and got ready to go out. We were leaving to go to Hannah's Godmother's house because it was her birthday. There was a lot of trouble working out when we should leave and when Molly was going, because it was the last time we would see her before she went back to America. I helped Julia translate a letter from German to English for Molly.

We ended up leaving after 1pm and Molly was leaving at 3pm... We had to say goodbye and everyone but Julia's brother was crying. It was really sad and Julia's mum had to go before it got worse. We jumped in the car and one of Julia's brother's friends came with us. We drove there, it took a while because it had snowed and the road was icy. We saw an accident on the way too. We got to drive through some really nice villages and we finally ended up at the house after going up a nice big hill, we weren't sure if the car would make it up there.

We went inside and got warm, said hello to everyone and gave out presents. The house was really lovely and cosy. We sat down and then decided to go out sledding because they have so much snow in the village. I don't have any photos, but we walked up a giant hill and went down on the sleds. Hannah and I went together and ended up crashing into a pile of snow half way down, then we went again and it was perfect. We went over the jump in the middle and actually got some air, then we ended up gaining way too much speed and finished on the road, with both of us off the sled and in the snow. We were coompletely covered...

We tried to dry off and went inside. We all ate cake and drank coffee together. The kids played games and then we went outside again. They have animals on the property, so cows, goats and pigs. We ened up using the sleds again and going down a hill. I ended up with even more snow on me than before.

We went into look at the animals, it smelt horrible but it was cool. I didn't know cows were so loud.. It sounded like they were dying. We walked through, there were new born calves and pigs too. We went out the back and the man that was looking after everything let the goats out of their paddock and into the stalls. They ran directly in and past us.

We started walking back towards to house, but not without playing in the snow again and ended up soaked. We went back inside, tried to dry off and went upstairs. We sat a bit and warmed ourselves up and then said goodbye to everyone. We took lots of cake home with us and started driving back. It got dark while we were driving and I think that I slept a bit.

When we got home, I sat on the couch with Julia's brother and his friend and helped them make these eye things out of wool. His friend is really interested in Australia and likes asking questions, it was really cute. She left to go home and Julia's mum was cooking dinner. We ate pork with mushrooms, potatoes and salad. We ate yoghurt and berries for dessert and then one of Julia's friends came over and I hadn't seen her since I was over last time, so that was good.

We watched TV in Julia's room and ate spring rolls and chips later on. She left to go home at about 1am and Julia and I went to bed soon after.

More snow and negative degrees.

I woke up at 6.20am, but decided to sleep for 5 minutes. I did the usual, had breakfast, dressed, etc. We walked to the train station at 7.05am and the train came promptly. It was -8 degrees when we left the house... And windy.

We walked to school and Molly and I sat in the main area, met some friends and walked up to our classroom. Molly and I stood outside our normal classroom, even though our first class was down the hall. We spoke to our friends and about how it was Molly's last full day of school in Germany.

Molly and I went to our first class, which was Bilingual Politics. We spoke about technology and being addicted to it. It was interesting, but once again I think the classes aren't overly productive and the students don't end up learning much. It is funny hearing some of the germans trying to express their opinions in English, it ends up sounding so harsh and blunt. Our teacher read us a Christmas story at the end of the class and I really didn't understand much of it, they later explained a bit to us. Our teacher wished us a merry christmas and said goodbye to Molly.

We walked to our normal classroom and waited outside because the door was locked. One of the boys in our class tricked the teacher into opening the door for us and we sat in the warm classroom.

After our break, our English teacher came in. She always has a lot to say and spoke about things she had read recently. She then made everyone get out their grammar tests and spoke through the rest of it. She kept asking me how we know each of the paragraphs is in past tense and the markers that there are in English. After we finished that, we had to discuss words that describe a woman in a movie the class had watched. Molly and I tried to translate German words, in the end we learnt a few new ones. Our teacherspoke to us about our time here and said goodbye to Molly too.

We stayed in the classroom during break, Molly left for her Religion class and kids from other classes came in. We had Religion and our teacher decided to buy us all drinks from the Cafe. We got to speak about Christmas and then the teacher got us to write a list of things we think Christmas is about. She made us discuss them in small groups and then decided that it would be a good idea for me to explain what my Australia Christmas was like... In German. I think I ended up doing an okay job of explaining it... Another exchange student in my class had to explain his and he can only really speak Spanish, so it was fun trying to work out what he was saying.

After class we walked to the train station slowly, staying inside for a bit because it was snowing and cold. We walked and ended up still waiting 10 minutes because our train was delayed. On the train we had a lot of fun and ended up singing Christmas carols. Julia attempted to get the others in our full carriage to join in, but they didn't know the words properly. They found us to be quite hilarous.

We walked home and Julia's dad had made lunch for us... It is quite unusual to see him cook. We just had chicken nuggets, chips and a nice salad. We hung around the house and soon Julia's brother's friend, who I met when I was here last time came over. It was really nice to see her. I ended up going to their Karate class. Paul forgot his bag and we only realised when we were in the middle of Marburg, so we had to turn around and go home again. I took some photos of the two of them doing Karate. Their teacher lives in our village and was really nice.

We came home and I started getting ready to go out tonight, I ate dinner and had to wait for Julia to get home from training to leave for anywhere.

Julia came home less than 30 minutes before we had to catch the train. She got dressed quickly and I forced her out the door. We both decided to wear hight heels... It was snowing... It was a bad, bad idea. Just walking to the train station which is 200 metres again was terrible. We held onto each other so that we didn't slip. One of our friends met us at the train station.
Our train was late... Very late... 30 minutes late. We tried to entertain ourselves for a while, we had snow covered feet too, it was great. An announcemnet came over the loud speaker and said how long the train was delayed and that it was coming on the over side of the station, so then we had to walk over the tracks in high heels and through the snow... Fun fun.

We got on the train... it took forever to get anywhere because of the weather. We got off at the main train station, saw another one of our friends and went to an ATM. Then we caught a taxi to the 'Fun Park' and went inside. Some of the other girls in our class were there and we talked a bit. We ended up dancing a lot and my feet were extremely sore. I had 2 thick pairs of tights on and then my shoes were a little too tight.

When it was 12am, we had to leave and caught a taxi home. You may wonder why were were going out on a Thursday night... It is a tradition to go out theight before the last day of school, I'm not sure why. We got home after 1am because the taxi took 20 minutes to get there due to the weather.

We came home and went to bed.
Tomorrow is Molly's last day of school in Germany. :(

More schoooooooooool.

This morning was a usual Monday, woke up really early and went to school when it was still dark. We caught the train to school and it was -6 degrees when we left. We sat in the main area and waited for the doors to open with some friends. When they finally opened, we walked upstairs and sat outside our classroom. We had german first period and our teacher spoke to the class about the test that they have on Monday. The class was short, only 45 minutes because it was a single period.

Afterwards, we had Maths and the class learnt new work, even though they had their test later in the day. I could understand what the class was doing because I did it class term in school. :)

During that class I also came to the conclusion that even though everyone seems to think Australian school is a lot easier, it isn't. In Germany they have 45 minute class, the only end up doing one small activity each class and they get time to work on it. Then a lot of the classes they only have once a week and get the whole week to do any homework set. I guess they do have a lot more subjects, double actually but they seem to got do much in them...
Also, in subjects like maths, they get tested so small sections at a time, but in Australia we have to learn the entire topic and then get tested on it... So we have to know it all at once.
Maybe that is why it is hard though... They don't get enought time to leanr what they have to. Also, the teachers aren't as helpful and kind as in Australia.

We had a 20 minute break and then slowly walked to our art class. I found art to be so strange in Germany. I haven't had a teacher tell me what to do exactly since I was little. The teacher tell you directly what to do. Molly and I had finished Molly's painting last lesson, so the teacher gave us another activity to do. The people that had finished had to move to the back of the classroom and he gave us all paper... He got one of the students to model on one of the tables and we had to draw them in greylead pencil. Then he asked Molly to model and then another exchange student.

After that, he made us paint another 3 models, during all of these drawings we had a set ime limit. It reminded me of my life drawing class, except the models had clothes on... I gave up on painting the figures because the brush I was using was huuuuge and just ended up drawing.

That was the last class of the day for Molly and I because Julia had a maths test for two periods. We finished school at 11.25am and then caught the bus back to the main train station... We decided to catch the train back home because it was quicker.

Molly and I were the first ones home, so we decided to make ourselves something to eat and then watch Pirates of the Carribean in German. We sat on the couch and watched it, Julia's parents came home and we ate leftovers from last night with vegetables for lunch.
Molly and I went back and finished watching the movie and then ended up falling asleep...

We both woke up later on and I sat on the stairs with Julia's dog, Miak. I helped tidy up the basement, where the family keep all the shoes and drinks.

Julia's mum and I went into the next village, Cölbe and we went to pick up an advent gift for Julia's dad, then to the bakery and butcher. We ended up at the Rewe supermarket where they have a drink supermarket... It is like a bottle shop, excpet they have every type of drink. We brought back the old bottles and got our money back for them and got more drinks.

We drove home and through this little villages, Bernsdorf. There are only about 6 houses in the whole village, it is really sweet. I have also been seeing signs about Cölbe being the direct mid point of the European Union... Let's just hope I am understadning the signs correctly.

We ended up watching Mama Mia, the songs have subtitles in German and the translation is amusing. We watched Bonanza too.

For dinner we had the bread and meat that I bought with Julia's mum and I helped Julia set the table and cut up some vegetables. Julia remembered that I loved avocado from when she was in Australia, so the family bought me some. :)

We watched some more Bonanza and Monday night is 'Bauer sucht Frau' night, so we got to watch all the German farmers on that too.

Here is a photo of Miak and then a photo from out of the kitchen window... The firemen were doing something right outside the house. We are not sure what though...

Tomorrow is my advent day! Hopefully I will take more photos tomorrow, I really didn't get the chance to take any today...

School sport, I thought I had escaped it.

Today was a short day at school. I had to wake up at 6.20am in time to catch the bus. We thought we were going to miss it, so we were it a bit of a rush. It was once again completely dark when we left the house. It wasn't overly cold today and at the moment, it is 3 degrees. We caught our train, walking around trying to find somwehre to sit and then walked to school. Molly and I checked the board with what is on for the day and then we waited until it was time to go to class. We had history first period and Molly and I didn't do too much because it is so hard to understand. After that class, we had one period of maths. The other students were doing their homework and studying for their test on friday.
During that class, some older students came into the classroom and handed everyone a chocolate Saint Nicholas. They also handed our litle bits of paper to some people with notes from other students, such as 'ich mag dich.' It seems very Americanised. Also, one of the girls in my class, Jessie gave some of us some yummy hazelnut chocolate for Saint Nicholas day. :) We had a break and then the next to classes were German. I got time to finish writing all of my postcards and I still tried to follow the class a little bit.

We had another break and then 2 periods of sport... I was expecting it to be worse than it was. Usually I dread sport, but in Australia we only really have complusory sport until year 10. The best day was realising I wouldn't have to do sport ever agin... Then I came to Germany.
The class was good though. The students have to do acrobatic sort of thing and choreograph moves to make human pyramids that are interesting. I was helping one of the jobs, writing down names so that they could remember who did what and then one of the other groups asked if I could help them becuse they needed at extra person to finish their pyramid.
I was needed on the bottom and it was quite plainful having basically 3 or 4 people on top of me at once.

After that class, Molly and I were finished with school for the day, so we quickly got changed into our normal clothes and walked off to the bus stop. We saw Hannah on the way and ended up catching the bus with her and another girl in our village. On the bus Molly and I discussed American and British English. Molly thinks American English is much more logical and harder to learn... I think the opposite. The schools in Germany are supposed to teach British English, but if you look at the school books everything is Americanised...
Molly also seems to think my accent is funny, nearly British. I refuse to believe that I actually have an accent. Molly and I have also discovered a language barrier between us. Words like, 'jumper', 'daggy' 'texta' and 'bogan', she can't understand and I have to explain them.
I think it holds true that America doesn't have muchof an influence from other countries, whereas our English does because most music and movies come from America.

We got off the bus and walked to the train station. Some boys were having a snow ball fight and we were all hit multiple times. We caught the train together and found seats. Molly and I were speaking with Hannah and Molly was trying to work out past tense because she hasn't learnt it yet. We were also trying to pronounce Cölbe and Köln... The lady sitting next to us was laughing at us...

We got off the train and Molly and I took the fast way, and Hannah went to long way. We got home quickly and sat down to eat lunch. Hannah was just wlaking down the street with snow all over herself and lots of people were throwing snowballs.
We all ate bread rolls with cheese and meat for lunch and then I walked to the postbox to post all of my postcards from today.

We sat at home mostly, and later on Molly and I watched 'Kein Öhr Hausen', which is a really sweet German movie. We had dinner at around 6pm and ate pork chops, salad and potatoes...
We had to peel the skin off the potatoes ourselves and Molly had a bit of trouble doing that...

Later on I went to the stalls where the horses are to 'help' feed, clean and give them water. Miak came with Hannah and I. I wasn' much help, but I didn try to carry the water... It was extremely heavy.

Hannah and I also made a mini snowman. I am hopeless at rolling the snow, so I only had to do the small one on top. :)

Tomorrow is my advent day and we might be going ice skating, depending on the way things turn out. :) I only have two periods of school tomorrow, so 90 minutes in the middle of the day. :D

Meine erste tag in Deutschland.

This morning I woke up at 8.56am exactly. Without an alarm as well, just in time to get ready.

Firstly, I went into the kitchen and got myself some breakfast. I love German breakfast food, the breads and the different cheeses... mmmm...

I had my much needed shower and then layered on my clothing, getting ready to go outside. I wore a long sleeve top, a short sleeve top, a hoodie, a ski jacket, thick tights, socks, jeans, mittens, a beanie and my doc martens. When I finally went outside, only my exposed face was a bit cold. It wasn't even that cold today.

I went for a walk, but firstly I needed to go to the bank. I was a little worried about communicating what I needed and if the man would be able to understand what I wanted done, but it was perfectly fine and he understood straight away.

I decided to walk around the village the way I had gone when I stayed here last time. I took 2 of my cameras with me and took a lot of photos... a loooooot. Over 200... It is really pretty here with all the snow covering the houses and trees.

The walk around the village is decent, you walk near the train line, through a tunnel, near a flour mill, over the train line, through farming paddocks and then you eventually walk through the other side of the village to get home.

There are two paddocks with goats in them. Last time I was here, we fed the goats because one had just had a baby. They all came running towards me and tried to jump over the fence. Soon they warmed up to me and I was able to pat them.

When I actually got home I had to pleasure of opening the front door by myself... All I had to do was open an old German door... easy enough, I thought...
I thought wrong. That door is satan. I spent 10-15 minutes attempting to open in, wondering why the key turned so much and wondering what the trick was to opening it. Needless to say, I never really got the door open. Multiple cars drove past and people walked past, wondering why I was standing there trying to open it. In a small village, I guess it would be strange to see.

Finally I gave in and asked one of the neighbours who was sweeping snow off the footpath to help me. He thought I was trying to break in and it didn't help that the dog started barking when we came to the door, but I had to explain that I was from Austrlia on exchange. I got into the house, he opened it so easily. I made a note to learn how to open in when the family got home and there is a trick to it. Later in the afternoon, I made cookies with my 'exchange mother' and she had also bought a gingerbread house kit, so we put that together as well. One of the neighbours who is about 8 years old came over to help out and he and Paul, the son asked to use my camera and take photos around the house. We had a lot of fun.

We had bread with different meats and cheeses for dinner and then some of the aunties came over to catch up. I found out that christmas dinner or lunch will have more than 12 people attending. It should be interesting to have such a large get together.

Oh and here are some pictures of the advent calendars! I get a present every 3 days, how exciting. The first day is tomorrow! :)