Wow..

It's been like a super long time since I've posted anything..like since January. A lots happened, I've been pretty busy lately. First of all I'll be home on June 10th!!! You all better be waiting for me I can't wait to see everybody!! Anyways I'll talk about the past few months haha..so
January/February
During these months, I was a part of the craziest festival I've ever seeen lol. Fasnet. It's crazy but sooo much fun. I got to dress up as whatever I wanted to every weekend and we'd go to some parade and an after party. It was the best, I hope I can come back for Fasnet someday...So Fasnet was pretty much the highlight of these two months other than that not much..I switched host families in early January to the Raasch Family they're soo nice! My host mom owns a dance studio so I go to Jazz dance every wednesday..accept for recently she broke her shoulder and can't teach, so I've been teaching my jazz class cheerleading haha...they love it. In the end of Feb. Mom and Britt came to see me, it was sooo good to see them again. They surprised me at my school and I made them come inside to meet all my friends before they went to Physics haha mom and britt felt a little awkward but all my friends were soo excited to see them!
March
Mom, Britt, and I left for Paris on March first it was so much fun..I can't wait to go back there on my Euro tour. We stayed for 3 days and then Mom flew back to the U.S. and then me and Britt went back to Ehingen and she came to school with me for a couple of days. After Britt left, the following Monday I went to Munich to pick up Ruthie! It was soo good to see her again too! Her train was late though and I waited at the platform but when it was like a half hour late I went to ask somebody about it and they said nope it should be there so I waited a little and then started to walk around to the other ones to check...I tried calling her but her phone wouldn't work in Germany and I was freaking out a little bit because our train back to Ulm was leaving in like 5 minutes...then out of no where I saw her and screamed "Ruthie! Come, now! We have to catch this train!" hha so we ran to the train and hopped on lol...Then we got to give our hugs and say hi and what not lol She was here in Germany for a week and went to school with me and we just kind of chilled. It was cool to be able to just hang out with somebody and just chill out because Europeans don't really do that...When you hang out with your friends you have something planned to do and stuff. So after Ruthie came here, we both went back to Croatia to Bjelovar.. The train ride was soooo long like 10 hours! It was crazy but alright because Ruthie was there too..We got to sit in what we decided is called a "Harry Potter Box" so that was pretty awesome too lol. In Croatia we only had to go to school one day and we had to give a presentation the next. On Easter weekend we went to the coast it was sooo pretty and kind of warm too. It was so cool to see water again haha I miss our lakes soo bad! I hate living with out them. Other than that we just bummed around which was fun anyways..
April
So this month has been kind of busy.. In the beginning I went to Erika's house because it'd been soo long since we'd hung out with all our visits and traveling and stuff. Of course we had fun like we always do...She also told me to say hi to all my "blog - readers" for her haha so Hi from Erika! She might be stopping by in Michigan before she goes home to California I really hope she can! You guys would love her haha. I had a rotary meeting which wasn't too exciting but I have to give my presentation later this month..My birthday was pretty good, all the girls in my class were so nice they all made cakes and cookies and gave me hugs and it was a good day lol. The Saturday after that I had my party and Erika and Megan came too. It was a good time. This weekend we have our orientation for the Euro tour I'm really excited to see everybody again! They're all coming here tomorrow to Ehingen so thats cool I don't have to go anywhere haha. Then in about 3 weeks I leave for Euro tour I can't wait!

Well that's pretty much everything! I miss all of you sooo much, only 61 more days until I'm back home!!

Love,
Courtney

Sorry.

It's been like a month since I last wrote..so I guess there's a lot to say..
First, Christmas. It was pretty cool but I missed home a lot for a couple of days which I expected..so it wasn't too bad. Not much happened over Christmas..We ate a lot, but thats about it haha.
After Chirstmas Betsey came to visit! We had so much fun she got to meet my friends over here and stuff, it was pretty cool. We traveled a little bit and just hung out..it was really cool having her here and getting to see one of my friends again! Rotary always told us not to have friends come visit because we would just get homesick again, but honestly I think it was a good thing she came. We had a lot of fun and it just reassured that my friends are all still the same back home. When Bets had to go home we had no way of getting to the airport by 4 am because my old host mom couldn't take me for some reason, no clue why and Megan's host dad said they had no room for us, and trains don't run that early, so we had to go to Stuttgart 10 hours before Betsey's departure lol. We were sooo bored and tired. Erika came with too, but anyways it was a lot of fun.
The day I got back from our airport adventure I had to change houses, so I got home and started packing but I was soo tired because I hadn't slept in about 30 hours or something like that. So I packed and had my last meal with the Veitingers it was nice. Then we packed up the car and and took me to my new host family's house. The Raasch family. They're really nice I have a host mom and dad and a host sister. My host dad Helmut is really cool and laid back and has a lot of cool stories. My host mom Sabine owns a dance studio that I go to a lot, I take her jazz class and step aerobics lol it's a lot of fun. She said sometime before I go home she wants to have a cheerleading day with a real American cheerleader lol so yeah she's also really nice. Then there's my host sister Franziska or Franzi is what most people call her she's going to America next year so it's really cool to live with her because we can relate a lot. She'll be 16 this Saturday.
So other than that, right now is Fasching/Fasnet/Karnival, and it's pretty exciting. I'm not exactly sure how everything works, but I was in Ulm the other day and there was a bit parade with all of the different groups that belong to Fasching lol and they were all dressed in their costumes it was so chaotic but so much fun. They would come up and rub all this confetti in your hair or just pick you up and throw you over their shoulder and take you with lol. It was so crazy they kept picking me and Megan up and swinging us around or one time they put us in this wagen thing that was round and then the started spinning it really fast lol it was so much fun.
That's about all that is new though. I'm still playing basketball...we're getting better lol but Yeah, not much else...Ask if you have questions!

I miss you all!

Love,
Courtney

Moments..

Days like these are absoultely amazing, even though nothing extremely special happened. Every now and then as exchange students, we get these "moments." These days in which we will never forget. Now I'm sure these moments happen to more than just exchange students, but either way it's amazing.What makes these days so amazing are the little things like feeling like you fit in, like realizing "Oh my gosh, I live in Europe," like it finally hits you and it feels amazing. Today, was one of those days.
Like I said, nothing spectacular happened today, it was just a regular ol' Wednesday. Not to mention it hasn't been the best week, but today, today was different. I realized that I'm not just in Germany anymore, this is home. I have almost everything I normally would back home just a little different. I remember when it was so hard, when I had no friends or anything and it feels so good to have somebody call out your name and want to talk to you or invite you to come hang out this weekend. I totally took this for granted back home. I don't know how it is for the rest of Europe, but German's aren't that eager to open up or immediatly want to be your friend. They need time, which is a little frustrating to be honest, but when they finally decide to they are some pretty amazing friends.
These moments are so complicated and confusing, like I start to think about how amazing everything is here and that like wow, I live in Germany. I have a life in Germany with friends, a school, "families," everything and how terrible it will be to leave it. Then I begin to think about all the great things I get to go back to and I get so excited for what I have waiting for me back home. So I'm all excited to leave, but at the same time I don't want to. I really didn't think I would be experiencing this until a month or two before I go, but no...it's here, now.
I wish I could explain this better, but everytime I start writing nothing seems to explain it just right..Hopefully sometime I'll find just the right words so you can understand better.

I miss you all!

Love,
Courtney

Lately

I've been really good. We had another Rotary weekend, but this one was in Ulm it was a lot of fun like I expected. We went to some museums, I missed the bread museum unfortuniatly lol I had some basketball games but we won so that was cool (and apparently there wasn't even bread at the museum, it was just about bread...LAME!) Then we went to Weinachtsmarkt in Ulm it was huge and totally crowded but it was cool. I saw a camel in the middle of Ulm, that was pretty funny in fact I have a picture of it...

Yup, so there it is.. me with a camel and creepy carnie guy, could life get any better? haha just kidding.

Anyways that weekend was a lot of fun. Then on December 6th was Nikolaus day thats the day they put candy in their shoes and all that jazz. I didn't get candy in my shoes though it was in a bowl lol I wasn't very dissapointed about that. Christmas is coming, I'm kind of bummed I really suck at doing things on time so family, you're presents won't be on time, sorry :(. I am so excited to get my christmas packages though lol. I'm even more excited for Betsey to come! I totally can't believe it, like it just seems so rediculous to me lol I don't know why lol. I remember all these people saying "Are you really going to Germany, that's so crazy, I just can't believe it" I guess I know how they feel now. My friends are so excited to meet her, and I'm going to like flip out when I see her at the airport, my host family is going to think I'm a total nut case, but they probably already do so oh well.

I'm actually switching families right after Betsey leaves. They're really nice and they live pretty close so it'll be nice that I don't have to learn a whole new bus routine or anything. Well I'll try to write again soon, I know I always say that but I will lol I promise.

Much love!

and Merry Chirstmas, just in case I don't write again lol

Love,

Courtney

This will be long...

Alright so first things first, Thanksgiving was last Thursday. That was interesting but fun. I cooked my first turkey well and my first Thanksgiving meal, so that was a lot of fun. Megan came over and helped me cook and ate with us. We had dinner with my rotary youth councelor guy and his wife and then my host family and me and Megan. They liked all of the food a lot except for the pumpkin pie that was odd because it was soooo good. We had to teach them how to eat sweet potatoes too which was also kind of weird considering the amount of potatoes these people eat. So that went pretty good. Here are some pics from my Thanksgiving...

Pretty much things are going A LOT better. I can like somewhat speak German, enough to communicate so people understand me it's not always correct or anything but at least people can talk to me and understand what I say back lol. I'm getting more friends, like friends who call me to hang out lol so that's cool. I'm really starting to like things here.

Last weekend was Erika's birthday, same day as dads (Saturday 24. Nov.) so we all stayed at Megans in Ulm again. I love her host family they are so nice. They have all boys so I think Suzi (the host mom) likes having us girls around. They call us daughters 1, 2, and 3...I'm tochter 2...lol we're going there again next weekend for a rotary thing in Ulm and all of the students are staying with familys so of course me and Erika are staying with Megans. I'm so excited for it!

Oh and if you have any ideas about why American christmas is different than other ones, please let me know lol because in my English class we are having a christmas party and my teacher wants me to come up with some things about American chirstmas that we can do..

Ok well I was going to write something else but I totally forgot so when I remember I'll write it down ok

Liebe grüß!

Courtney

So..

It's been a while, sorry. I'm not gonna lie and say I never have time to update this, because well honestly...I do. Lots of it. I've just been kind of lazy lately. I even have things to write about.. I guess I'll start from where I left off, Ferien.

We went to Zwiesel, a little town in Baveria near the border of the Czech Republic. Pretty much we hiked and went up a couple mountains, some museums, and spent a day in the Czech. For the most part it was pretty good. Very different than the sit by the pool vacations I'm usually on lol. Speaking of sitting, I don't really remember how it came about, but just so everyone in my family knows, we're the "sitter" family. In the black forest some how we started talking about stuff like that and I noticed how we sit a lot lol. Outside, in Rome, living room, air ports. That probably really sounds normal lol, but I don' t know lol. It doesn't really matter, so moving on.

The day after we got back from the trip, we went on a 24km hike...that's 15 miles. I was kind of in a bad mood. I really just wanted a day to relax, but I had to go. It was ok, glad I went just because...but still I would've appreciated a day of rest lol. Oh, and I bought a Dirndel lol It's pink. I like it a lot.

So this week has been kind of crappy. A lot on my mind..So lately, I've been watching a lot of Grey's Anatomy lol I love it. I never watched it at home, but I'm watching it here and it's good, really good. I'm also reading a book. I know, very odd for me, but it's very good. This weekend I actually have a life, just for the weekend though. Tomorrow I'm going to Sophia's house and then we're going to a party. On Saturday I'm going to Ulm to see Megan and spend the night there, and Erika's coming too! I'm so excited to hang out with those two again, I love them to death. It's gonna suck when we go back to the states and it's not as easy to hang out...At least Megan's only in Chicago, but Erika's all the way in California! Oh well, we'll figure it out. For real though, we're going to have a blast. We're spending the night at Megans and coming home Sunday...then school again. Schade. (bummer)

Well, just ask if you have any questions, I don't really know what to talk about lol, and I've gotta head out to basketball soon so, Hopefully I'll talk to everyone soon.

Love and miss you all.

Love,
Courtney

Ferien

Ferien is pretty much when we have a break from school. This time it's the fall break and I'm pretty pumped for the whole no school thing. So today Megan came to Ehingen and we just hung out and bopped around town. It was fun of course. We were sad Erika couldn't be here though, she's in the Netherlands for Ferien.

When we were in the city today, Megan and I, this little girl heard us speaking English and asked if we were auslanders (from another country) and we told her that we were exchange students and what not and then she asked if we were from England lol and we told her no, we're from America and she was so cute. Then she gasped and said "Amerika?! Amerika ist ein Traumland!" (America! America is a deam land/country) Finally, somebody who doesn't hate America, it was cool and she was adorable.

So tomorrow I leave for my vacation. We're going to a little town in Bayern that's like 10 km away from the Czech Republic, I'm pretty excited. We're going on like a 24 km(15 mi) hike though, I don't know how excited I am for that, but at least it's doing something. A couple of the days we're going over to the Czech Rep. to go shopping and doing touring and stuff. Apparently things are a lot cheaper over there so I can't wait to go shopping lol.

Sorry there aren't so many updates all the time, not much is happening so there's not much to update on. I'll have probably a really long one after I get back. I'll have 5 days of vacation to report on lol. So, that should be a good one with lot's of fun pictures!

Here's a few from today.

Ok, well I will talk to you all soon!

Miss and Love you guys!

Love, Courtney