Tough week..

This week has been pretty tough. I've been so homesick and miserable. I really thought that I would be better at handling this rollercoaster of emtions. When I made the desicion to come on this adventure I had been warned that I would experience my lowest lows and my highest highs.



I took this way too lightly.



I never anticipated the level of misarable-ness my emotions could produce. If any possible future exchange students are reading this, I don't want to scare you because really I do feel incredible to be here, but try to be as ready as possible for that. For real though, it does feel amazing to actually be here. For a year I waited for this year to come, and now it's here and happening..right now. I feel like more of a person. That sounds really stupid and weird, but it's true. I'm not just some 16 year old average girl in Cadillac, Michigan anymore. I've done something, I've achieved something and it feels really good.



I've started learning who are the people who will always be there for me, I like that. At the same time, it's kind of hard to be dissapointed by people you didn't expect to be dissapointed by while going through all of this. That's ok though because I have those people who are there for me to help me through it all. No matter how far away. There are also people that are kind of new to being there for me. Like Ellen and Ruthie. We never really hung out or talked a lot before last year. I mean the casual "Hey" in the hall at school, but not much more. After we all got accepted to the Rotary International program we became a lot closer, and now they will be two of my best friends for the rest of my life. Now I have Megan too. Good thing she lives close by, here and in the U.S. because I love her to death. Those three girls have definiatly helped keep me going. Don't get me wrong, my friends and family at home have helped a lot too, but they're actually here with me and it's a lot easier to talk to someone who is here going through it with me. Thanks guys :).



I don't think my tough week is going to end anytime soon. On Saturday I'm going to somewhere in the Black Forest with my host family for Jannis' (host dad) brother's birthday. That should be interesting. They said the entire side of his family will be there. That might be a little stressful. On Sunday, I have my first basketball games and they said I have to play the entire game. I am in no shape to do that. I have no clue how that is going to happen, and I kind of think it's rediculous of them to ask that of anyone to do. I mean most the game is ok, but the whole game, no breaks. That is borderline impossible for me right now. So I'm kind of worried about that.



Two weeks from tomorrow I have my first Rotary conference in Germany. It sounds pretty exciting, plus I'll get to spend a whole week with a bunch of other exchange students, and Megan too! We're going to the Black Forest. Ok, before I go on does that make anyone else think I'm in a Harry Potter book because everytime someone says "We're going to the Black Forest" I feel like I should stop them because of those really big spiders in the movie. Speaking of spiders I have another story but I'll finish about the Rotary thing first.



So, we're going to the Black Forest. We're going to visit a lot of different towns and hike a lot I guess. I couldn't understand all of what it said, but I think there are some museums and some swimming thing too. I'm happy I have something to look forward to, it seems to help keep me happy.



Alright so about spiders. The other night I woke up to get something to drink, so I turned on my little lamp by my bed and there was a MASSIVE spider on the wall right next to my bed! I freaked out jumped out of my bed doing the silent scream. You know, the one where you are like "Oh my gosh, I can't be loud but I need to scream!", yeah that one. So I ran to the other side of the room. I was so scared. I actually got on my computer and started asking people for help and what I should do. That sounds really stupid, but I was terrified, this was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my whole life and it was just like 6 inches from my face. The most common answer I got was, smash it with a shoe. Yeah right! A shoe is only about a 5 inch extention on to my arm and that is too close to that spider. So then I was actually going to hit it with a shoe and then run away, but while I was approaching it, it fell ON TO MY BED!!!!! Oh my gosh. I almost died. So I ran away again. I spent about an hour and a half trying to find it because I was scared it was going to get on me, so I would pick up a pillow, shake it off and then throw it into a corner far far away from the bed. Once I found it, it was behind the couch, so I moved the couch out and the table out of the way and found a tennis racquet. I was going to squish it with the end of the racquet but when I went to smoosh it, it ran away. This spider was impossible to kill. So at about 3:30 am, I gave up took my pillow and blanket upstairs and slept on the couch. The next morning I had to explain to them what happened and I think they think I'm crazy or something. Oh well. Anyways, that was absolutely terrifying for me. I hope it's not still in here because I never got to kill it.

Well, this is really long, so I will post another some other day. Thanks for reading.

Love,
Courtney.

Austria.

Today I went to Austria. It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen. We went to the Lake of Constance which was amazing. This lake is bordered by Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. It's HUGE! So we rode up on this hanging car thing to the top of this mountain. It was so hot! After we got up there, we walked around and saw a lot of wildlife. Like mountain goats, goffers, cows, wild pigs lol, it was pretty cool. Then we went to this bird show thing where they had this Vulture who had like a 10 meter wing span, it was huge! It flew like 2 inches away from my face and I was freaking out.
On our way home Ute, my host mom, was telling me about this island that has a lot of flowers and beutiful scenery. She said thers this butterfly house where there are like African butterflies that are really really big and she wants to take me there. I really hope we get to go there.

Well I better get to bed, I just wanted to post that real quick about my day in Austria.

My Weekend :)

This weekend has been so good compared to the rest of my days here in Germany. So first I'll tell you about Friday..

So Friday, the girls invited me to go to a party with them and before we went we were all going to Teresa's house. First Sophia came and picked me up and we went to Teresa's house where Elisa was already there. She's so crazy and funny. They all are. So we were there for a couple hours and then went to Kirchen or something like that. Literally it means something about a church lol and I have no clue why. It was kind of weird to me. There was this big room that looked kind of like a gym, but not. There was lots of music and dancing and all that good stuff. It was a lot of fun. When we got there we saw a lot of the girls from my class 11a which made me so happy to hang out with all of them because now I think they got to see a little more of me instead of just the exchange student in their class. They kept telling me about things they want to take me to or show me so thats pretty cool. I can't wait until Monday to see how it will be with the girls knowing who I actually am a little more. So that was a lot of fun.

Today I went to Ulm and went shopping with Megan, FINALY! I got my coat but I still didn't get any shoes, well basketball shoes, but that's it. I got lots of cute clothes and we had a lot of fun just being in the city. First we just went shopping around town. I don't know why, but we found it somewhat difficult to shop in Germany lol. Oh well, we managed. Then we took a little break and sat down outside at some cafe and had pretzels, they were so good. We went inside Ulmer Munster, only the tallest church in the whole world haha. I never knew that until I came here, but it was still really cool. Then we shopped some more and when we were sick of walking around we went and had pizza at some little pizzeria, outside again. We were taking advantage of the nice weather. It was really good and we managed to order in German. While we were eating, there was like a mini Oktoberfest kind of thing going on down the street and I heard them yell TIKI TAKI TIKI TAKI! So I said oye oye oye lol, but really quiet then I told Megan the whole Disney World story and bla bla bla lol. I was just so excited that they actually said it, I was so surprised. Then we walked around some more, went into a couple more stores and stopped for Spaghetti Eis :) It's this ice cream that they put in this machine and makes like noodle looking pieces of ice cream, like playdough, ya know? And then there is strawberry sauce and these little candy things that are supposed to be like the parmesean cheese. It's soo good. After that we wanted some water. It is so hard to find water, regular water here especially if its past 9 o'clock and almost everything is closed, so it took us like a half hour. That's ok because it was way worth it.

So pretty exciting weekend so far. Tomorrow I'm going to Austria, pretty cool huh. We're going to see some lake, the Lake of Constance or the Boden See (Auf Deutsch). So that should be pretty cool.

Good night :)

Past few days.

They haven't been very eventful lol. Pretty boring actually. I go to school, sit there, looking up definitions that go with the lessons in my little dictionary. I did get invited to go to a party with those girls in my class though. I'm pretty excited about that. I was invited to go to Ulm this weekend with some kids too. I hope I can go because it means so much to me to have friends. I've never been with out somebody there to call or talk to and I'm getting pretty lonely. I honestly thought I knew the meaning of friendship and how important it is. I thought wrong. My friends and family mean everything to me and it took this for me to know how much they really meant. It's not like I didn't appreciate them before I left, i just never know how much I do. I miss you all so much, thank you for being there for me when I needed, and I'm sorry for not knowing how much you all really mean to me.

So, enough with being sad, I don't mean to make you feel bad about my homesickness.

So I had my first basketball practice today, it was pretty intense considering how out of shape I am lol, but surprisingly I didn't completely suck. Well towards the beginning I did because I was really nervous and rusty too, but later on in the practice I felt more comfortable and started to play a little better. The coach said he definiatly has a spot on the team for me and that I would play quite a bit as long as the head hancho basketball guy says I can play. So thats good..

My laptop also works now, thank goodness. I like it a lot better because now I can just use my computer and it works a lot faster. So Mom, I can send you pictures throuh kodak now :)

Well time for bed.

I love you friends and family!

Ulm.

Last night was by far the best night in Germany yet. I went to Ulm to see Megan, she's my friend from the plane ride here. She's so much fun, I love her to death! So, I was so happy when my host parents said I could go because I wasn't sure if they'd let me or not. I rode on a train to Ulm at like 5:30ish. I thought the train would go straight to Ulm, but it didn't there were like 3 stops in between. I was freaking out. I was scared I'd get off at the wrong place. After a couple of stops, I saw a sign that said Ulm on it so I decided I'd get off there. Thank God it was the right place! So I got off the train into an insanely crowded platform. I had no clue where to go, I thought I was stranded on a concrete island in the middle of a sea of train tracks. So I just followed everybody else. I walked underground somewhere and then I heard Megan yell my name. I've never felt so releived in my life!


After that, we walked out of the station and to a bus stop and got on a bus to go shopping for a little while. After a couple of stops Megan goes, umm none of these stops look firmiliar to me. Then we see a sign that says Neu Ulm...crap. We thought oh my gosh, we are in a totally different city. So we got off the bus lol. We then got on the right bus as we came to the conclusion we weren't even in Neu Ulm, it was some kind of advertisement. Phew! So after that half hour of confusion and chaos, we went into a little shop, bought a couple of things and then we had to go meet some of her friends at this one staircase. They weren't there yet so we wet to get somethign to eat. I was so excited taht tehre was a BK, so we went there. I really didn't think there were any BKs in Germany, only Mcdonalds.


When her friends got there, we walked around and talked and all that good stuff. Then we went to a little cafe bar kind of thing and we ate Kasespetzle. It's sooo good. Its like some kind of noodle and this cheese stuff, I dont know how to explain it, but its gooood. We talked a lot at dinner her friends are so funny. Then we had to go back and wait for our host parents to come pick us up. It ends up we were waiting in the wrong spot, oops. We felt so bad but our host Moms just laughed and said it's ok, considering we can't speak German and Ulm is a big city. We still felt really bad. So Megan and I are going to start meeting up more and I'll go there, or she'll come here. Whatever. But shes so fun to hang otu with. I'm so happy shes here with me!


Today was a little welcome party for me. It was cool and my friends from school came. Yesterday I had to call a few girls and ask them if they wanted to come. I felt so stupid because I didn't even know if the liked me or if they were just being nice at school, but they came and said that they'd call me to hang out soon or I could call them whenever. That makes me so happy because, I don't know. I've never been with out friends for so long and to find some girls who like me and want to hang out feels soooo good!





:)

Sooo..

I have made a decision. I am going to play on the basketball team lol. I'm pretty pumped too. We have practice on tuesdays and thursdays. Pretty exciting!

I have to go, so I'll write more later.

boring day...

So today was kind of just normal. I went to school. In Sport class today we played this wacked out game. So, there is this whole obsticale course thing and at each station there is a cone. First you throw a ball and then you get through as many obsticles as you can. While you're running, the other team is getting the ball and throwing it to the girl by the hula hoop. Once the girl in the hula hoop gets the ball, she slams it down and yells "Verbrannt!" That means burned! lol. In English when the girls tried to explain the game to me they called the girl in the hula hoop the "Fire Girl" lol it was pretty funny.
So, we did that...my team won of course. Next we did this meditation exercise. That was nice. First we all layed down on mats and they put this soothing music on. Then my friend Sophia ( yes, i spelt her name wrong in the first one, oops) read this thing about clouds and colors and the sun lol. From what I understood it was pretty funny. It was like a big kid nap time. I liked it. Mind you this wasn't like a 5 minute thing. This defniatly took like a half hour lol.
Then we went to eat and it was good. After school I went to the fitness studio with Nini and Vale.

MY fist day of actual school.

So, I came into the 11th class today. I'm in class 11a. Here, they have one class and you stick with that group of kids for the whole day. So I'm ahead of myself...First Mr. Weber came and picked me up and we went to talk to my director, or principal. He was ok. I thought he asked me if I understood my schedule, but he aparantly he asked if I understood everything he was saying..close..but no. I did some how magically understand the majority of what he was saying.
So, next they took me to my class, they were in Chemie (Chemistry if you didnt figure that one out) I wasn't there for long and the bell rang. My class consists of 25 girls and 2 boys lol. At first no one really talked to me.
Then we got to our next class, Mathe and a girl asked me to sit by her! You honestly have no clue how exciting this is for me unless you have been in this situation before feeling like everybody hates you and no one wants to be your friend. So, gladly I took a seat. This was one of the few lessons I actually understood because what I could understand from what he was saying went with what he was writing and so I put the pieces together and it made sence.
So the first girl that began talking to me was Stefie. She's really nice and very helpful. After that, more began talking to me. All of these girls remind me of one of my friends at home. Its so cool lol. Theres Caroline, she is like the Maddie of my friends. Theres Sofia, the crazy Betsey of course. Stefie, the Mckenzie. She's calm and very blunt most of the time, and shes so fun. There's more, but I forget their names lol. I will tell you though when I remember.
So next we had German. This was a little more difficult to understand. I think I was tired of translating everything in my head. So that was kind of boring blah blah blah. Next was Politics. I think he didn't like me so much. This is because he has us read this thing, all in German by the way and then had them make definitions for these words and tell the class so he goes now Courtney, what is that auf Englisch. And I told him I tried to read it, but I didn't really understand what it said, then he tried explaining it to me in his bad English and I tried to answer, but he was just like...uhg, never mind and ignored me the rest of the leson.
Then, the oh so relieving class, English. My favorite class. We learned about Scotland and the UK and all that good stuff. After Englisch class, we went to lunch. The girls asked me to go with them again :) We met another girl, Alise I think was her name, she was like Ruthie when she's crazy hyper lol. We had sandwitches at some place and walked around town. If you looked at the webcam website around about 6 am your time...you would've seen me lol.
After lunch, we had Musik class. That was interesting. It's more like music theory and I we told him what our names were and if we played instruments or not. Then we sang lol. It was an English song so he had me read the pronounciations to the class correctly so they knew. Then was the dredful Latin again...I didn't have to do anything though because I am going to have other Englisch or German classes durring this time.
Next was Physik lol. This class was funny. Earlier the girls told me about their teacher and how she was a cute old crazy grandma type. So she came in the room and Caroline says that is the teacher. So I said, the crazy grandma one?! And all the girls thought it was so funny and now they all call her crazy grandma Leherin. (female teacher) She was pretty crazy too. We did some kind of experiment for no reason lol. I think I will like that class.
I'm happy to be taking physics and chemistry so that when I come back those will be good credits to have. Oh yeah and during politics we had to get in groups and discuss whether we were for or against uniforms and my group was against so we had to write down reasons they were bad so of course we had the individuality one and stuff, but then a girl goes, do you know who Hitler is? lol I go uhhh yeah lol. It just took me by surprise, I thought they were more sensitive about it, guess not. Her point was that Hitlers men work uniforms lol so I guess we don't want that to happen again, so kudos to Anni for her good thinking.

Well, that is all for now. I will have more later.

Ciao

Schoool...

Today I went to school with Valeria as a visitor. Shes in the 9th class so I was much older than everybody. I was only there to see how things work today. Tomorrow I start my classes in the 11th class. So the day started out with some class that I have no clue what it is. I think it's some kind of home room. Then we went to Latin, LATIN! Do you want to know what is harder than German, being taught Latin in German! So I kind of just sat there while the other kids did some worksheet and the teacher was just like, so you've had no Latin training?..uhhhhh no. So then, the good class came. English. The teacher was pleased that I was there. First they played a taboo kind of game and I had to keep score and be the timer in the front because I can speak English...fun...Then she wanted me to give a speach about Michigan and how it's different. So I had nothing prepared or anything. So I just talked about school and the weather and all that jazz. It probably wasn't very interesting. Although they just couldn't grasp that we have the same schedule every day lol. They just didn't understand.
So now I'm freaking out about how I'm supposed to do that tomorrow with out Vale. I'm going to get lost I think. That will suck.
Later Nini, Vale, and I are going to the fitness studio so I don't get fat because all they do here is feed me. We usually go about 3 times a week, so that is good. I really want to go shopping because everybody dresses so cute here lol. I feel so, not cool, I don't know lol. I really really need a winter jacket too! I keep telling them I need to go shopping, but then I just have to use Vanessa's coat, and I don't think she likes that because her mom told me that when she talked to Vanessa she said something along the lines of, she better not lose it.
I also need to go to get my visa before Wednesday because I need to have it within 8 days of my arrivle, but for some reason they keep putting that off...which is bad. So I need to ask, AGAIN to go do that. Things are getting a little frustrating. I'm getting homesick and I can't understand things or speak. Like when we hang out with friends I just wish I knew what they were saying to each other so I could talk back. I miss having friends to talk to and call up just to see whats going on. I just want something firmiliar. That's all.

Kirbe

Ok, so last night was Kirbe it was soo much fun. In the beginning I had to work at the Basketball tent with Vale and Nini that was hard because people kept asking me for things and I had no clue what they wanted, but it got better. Lots of their friends showed up from basketball and they were all really nice. I met one boy who said he lived in Michigan from when he was 5 until he was 8 so that was cool. Carina is Vale's other friend, she came over and spent the night shes really cool too. The family went out ot brunch today, I probably should've gone, but Vale and I wanted to sleep in because we were out so late and she starts school tomorrow.
I might be going with here as a visitor tomorrow just to see what its like and then on Tuesday I will start in the 11th class I think. I'm extremely nervous!!!! Hopefully I'll make some friends.
I still can't believe I'm not coming home for an entire year. It's so weird. I hope the language starts coming a little easier. I can understand more, but still not speak much. I'm sure school will help though.

First week

Ok, so the first week in Germany has been a little crazy. My plane rides went well. On the first one I sat next to a boy named Max. He is goign to a town near Frankfort so...hes far away lol. I slept most of the time anyways. On my flight from Amsterdam to Stuttgart I sat next to Megan and she is in Ulm!! Ulm is only 20 minutes away from Ehingen so that is good. Shes a lot of fun and is in my district :). The first day my family showed me around town and all that good stuff. Later that night my host sister Valeria took me to Casablanca which is a bar\hang out kind of place. We played pool with her friend Nini , shes really funny and cool. the next day we went into town with Valeria's Pa lol her grandpa, and we got Toffiffee...sooooo good! We had lunch at her Omi and Pas house, they're soo cute.
The other day we went to see Valeria's cousin Julious because his exchange student Michael had his birthday. That was a good day. I felt like my German was getting a lot better that day for some reason I could understand and speak more. Still not much, but more.
Some of the weird things I have notices about Germany is that the front door to our house has no handle, to open the door you use your key and turn that as the handle. Its soo weird, the windows are crazy too, but in a good way. The food here is great, but I think all of the differences are taking their toll on me. I was sick today. When I woke up to go to church I was super dizzy and had a massive headache so I stayed home and slept.
Tonight is Kirbe and I'm goign to try to go to that I hope things go ok. Kirbe is a festival in Ehingen where all the clubs have like booths or tents whre they sell stuff. I'm going to help Valeria with the basketball one. Then we will go out with her friends.
I will write more later, but I need to get ready for Kirbe.

Tschuß :)