September 26, 2011: Just Because I Feel Like It...

I know in the past I've been really bad about blogging, but I'm trying to get better and more frequent about it. Am I doing an okay job? I'm trying, so be patient with me.

I really don't have a lot to say today, I am just writing because I have no clue what else to do. The rest of the family is in bed, and I'm just not ready for that yet.

Oh.... So you remember that genius idea I got about going down that monster hill? Well... I think I can't count it as me conquering the hill anymore..... So, obviously, a hill has two sides, right? This particular hill has one side that is very much steeper than the other. Usually, this is the side I go up, and then go down the other side. The other day though, I went down the steep side. I was all cocky of course, like, ''Yeah, I got this!'' And then I took my skate off, and started going down doing the one foot thing. Now, I have what I believe they call ''Road Rash'' or maybe road burn on my heel, and I owe my host sister, Geraldine, a new pair of socks. Going down that side of the hill, first, the pavement was very cracky, and there are many trees here right now that are loosing dead leaves, and small twigs, so I had to dodge those and slugs, and small rocks, and the like. Then, I had Geraldine holding onto my back and she ran over my heel a couple times with her skate, but it was all good, neither of us were hurt in the adventure down the hill. By the time I got down, the entire heel of that sock was worn down, and it was just a big hole. Oops...... Sorry Geraldine, I'll try to knit you a new pair. If/when that doesn't work, I can always get you some for Christmas. Maybe in eight separate gifts. ;D

I forgot to talk about it in my last post, but, last week on Thursday, my host dad, Bodo, came up to me and was like, Anna, we have a surprise for you. I was psyched, of course, because I love surprises. I waited, and about an hour before we left, Bodo was like, ''Yep, we're bringing you to the dentist.'' I did not believe him for a minute. Probably because he had a very mischevious smile on his face when he told me that. We left, and soon pulled into the parking lot of an old farm that has been renovated (by Bodo) into an inn. Super cute, and as we parked, and were greeted by Bodo and Anja's friends, I saw an open carriage with two beautiful brown horses attatched. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the surprise was a ride on a horse drawn carriage. I literally have no clue where we went, but we went pretty far, I'd assume. The ride was gorgeous, and the weather was perfect. I was wearing a tank top, and I remember everybody else was huddled up in coats, and freezing. They asked me probably twelve times, ''Ist das nicht kalt??'' Nope, it was not cold at all. The only way I can describe it was perfect, and also funny because we got chased by two different dogs, and tested out our mad ''Horse Power'' on the country roads. A Porsche passed us doing about 200 kph. Richtig geil.

Oh, I almost forgot. So yesterday, I was inline skating with Geraldine, and right as we got to the monster hill, my skate got caught on something, and I swerved to my right. Guess what was to my right? A big patch of poison ivy and stinging nettle about a foot and a half tall. I went in, and started going down a slope which led to a small ditch that was also lined with nettles and ivy. My face was about eighteen inches from my kneecaps, and I was about to sprawl facefirst into all that pain when a nettle twisted around my front wheel, and totally saved me. I got out okay with only a small rash making it's way through my pant leg. I think that may be why I know have seven small cuts on my leg from shaving today. Damn irritated nettle skin. What happened on the way home though was even crazier. So, I learned only today how to use the brakes on inline skates. Before today, I was stopping on walls, and fences, and people, and other objects I could grab hold of. Yesterday, it was a lamp post, but I was going a bit faster than usual. I got my hands on the post, but my momentum carried me past it a little further from where I needed to stop/turn. You remember that weird dance that you always saw Goofy do in the old Disney cartoons when he went ice skating and almost fell over? Yep, I did an exact replica of that good old dance, except, I did not fall head first on the pavement and recieve a ring of ice around my neck. I managed to keep my balance again, and save myself from a nose bleed, and possibly broken teeth. I almost fell one more time yesterday. Amazingly, I saved myself again and got hold of a fence just in time with my butt about two inches from the pavement.

Don't you just hate unexplainable bruises? I have on right now on the back of my knee. I have no clue where it came from.

Tomorrow, by the way, I am making my host family an American Apple Pie. The legit thing that isn't a sheet pastry with apples and marzipan. Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it.

Oh! And I finally bought a multi purpose solution for my contact lenses today, so once I wax my eyebrows, I think we'll be seeing more Anna Eyes around Kamp-Lintfort. Although, I wore my contact lenses yesterday for the first time in a while. I had to open a new pair because when I opened my contacts case, I found that the solution I had in since the last time I wore my contacts had like evaporated or something, and it was gone, and the contacts that were in there were brittle teensy little pieces of plastic. Whoops. Oh well, they were the wrong prescription/trial lenses anyways.

Well, now that it's eleven thirty, and four paragraphs more than what I thought I would write, I think I'm going to go to bed. I have first period free tomorrow, and am looking forward to sleeping in until 7 o'clock.

Until my Next Post, Tchüß.

Mit Freundlichen Grüßen,
Anna <3

September 24, 2011: BOP; Continued. And Some Other Stuff Too. ;D

So, back to BOP.

Tuesday... Oh wait. I already talked about Tuesday. Okay, so Wednesday. Wednesday..... Just kinda sucked. It was the worst and most boring day of BOP and literally felt like it would NEVER END! It was the day that I was Service. Ugh. First thing I had to do was put on a stiff white shirt, a black vest three sizes too big, and a long black apron. Now, that would not have been too bad. The clothes did not look bad, they were a little uncomfortable, and very unflattering, but they looked fine. The thing that made it suck was that it was probably 25° Celsius in the room we stayed in. That is 77° Fahrenheit. That really isn't so hot, but I'm the kind of person who is comfortable wearing a tank top in 50° weather. Let's just say.... I was not exactly rushing for my jacket like all the other girls who were freezing to death. It's weird  how cold these Germans get so easily. Well, I guess somebody from Florida would be cold here too. So, after being in these clothes for a while, people started arriving. It was then that I realized I really have a lot to learn in German. We were supposed to be selling coffee and brotchen but I could not understand half of what people were asking for. After a while, the other Service people sent me in the back to make the coffee. I was pleased to stay there for a while. When things slowed down a bit, it was just us sitting there for two or so hours at a time. I was relieved when the day ended, or when somebody brought a dirty cup or plate to us just so I had something to do.

Thursday was infinitely better. I got to wear my normal clothes, which of course was none other than a blue shirt, black skirt, grey nylons, and my combat boots, and a white apron. That day, I made coffee in the morning as usual, did some dishes. Well a lot of dishes. And then, I made an apple pie. It was a really, really, really, REALLY weird apple pie. First off, we didn't make dough, we made like a weird batter type thing. It was like half dough and half batter because it was really thick, but I would not have been able to hold it in my hands, or knead it, but it probably would have broken a spoon if I tried to mix it too much. So we made that, and then spread it on a big cookie sheet, so it was like a sheet cake. Then we cut up like fifteen apples into little slices and laid them side by side on this battery stuff. On top of that, we put little pieces of Marzipan which tastes much better when you bake it on top of apples. Then, I took a teensy weensy teaspoon and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top of the whole thing. That day, I also learned an important German word for anybody who wants to be a baker or cook anything in Germany. The word is Zimt. Which means cinnamon. Yeah, I didn't realize the importance of cinnamon either until I did BOP in Germany. But believe me, since that day, I have needed the word Zimt more than once. We baked our 'pie' at 135° Celsius, and it turned out delicious. That same day after going home, I also went inline skating with Geraldine. Not for the first time, but for the longest time ever. We've been going  regularly since then, and it is so much fun!

Friday was uneventful and boring. The last day of BOP lasted only two or so hours and we just got into groups and talked. I was just totally lost the entire time, and made quite the fool of myself when my ''group'' was like, Okay, just tell them you thought folding the napkins was good. And of course, I didn't know what they told me to do, and I had no clue how to say napkin, so it went a little like, they looked at me to say what I was supposed to say, and I just kind of stared back and read a random thing off the poster and said it was fun. Luckily, ''Serviette Falten'' does mean napkin folding, but everybody still stared at me like, okay... And? Then they were like, Oh wait, she's the exchange student who can barely speak German, duh! And then they moved on. It was quite awkward.... After that strange adventure was over, I walked home with my friend Sheryl, and another new friend I made from my class named Maxi. We dropped Sheryl off at her house first, then Maxi walked me most of the way back to my host house until we had to part ways because he was going in the opposite direction. I have to say, he speaks the best English of all the Germans I have met. Besides the English teachers. And I know, slap me on the wrist for speaking English and not German, but he wanted to practice his English with me. I have not ever met another person, and definitely not a guy, who knows so much about Twilight, Rap, and American films. I was happy that the conversation never stopped. That is usually a problem for me, I never can seem to think of anything to talk about, but this conversation just flowed. Now, I'm glad to say, I have a good new friend. Maxi. :)

Now I'm just trying to remember the other crazy things that have happened since I last wrote...... Oh, here are some, not neccesarily in order.

The other day, my host mom, Anja, asked me and Geraldine if we wanted to go on her run with her. Both of us were just like, running, um, hell no, but we went, and used our inline skates instead. So we started by going down the driveway, around the corner and such until we got to the florist. From there, we continued to go straight, and I noticed some things about Kamp-Lintfort that I had not noticed beforehand. Next to the local florist which I had already been to twice, and passed by everyday on the way to school, there is a shop which sells tombstones. Very beautiful marble tombstones. This was the first time I ever saw a tombstone store before. I wanted to take a picture, but I did not have my camera with me. Oh well, next time. Next time. We continued down the road, and about two hundred yards later, there was another store that sold tombstones! Along with the option of a nice little rock filled fence around the coffin location. Now, I've already been to the local cemetery and the war veteran cemetery in town because I'm one of those weirdoes who finds cemeteries the perfect place for photos and quiet thinking, and this shop probably has more tombstones than the whole cemetery of Kloster Kamp, which is the big ancient cathedral of the town that all the young people like to hang out at because the gardens are beautiful, and it's got many good places to talk. Yeah, that many tombstones... At least they arrange them in an aesthetically pleasing way, placing the one of a bony, skeletal Grim Reaper holding his scythe under some guys chin next to a big cross. We continued down the road, passing cows, and grass, and trees and other naturey things, and we came to a fork in the road. Usually, this is where Geraldine and I go left and head back towards home, but Anja kept running straight, so I followed. About fifty feet later we came to a highway crossing, and we turned left there. That's when I thought to myself, ''Oh, dear....'' At the end of this long stretch of sidewalk was the bottom of a hill that kills me everytime I walk or ride a bicycle up it. Anja started running up it like the champ she is, and I just kinda stood there for a second and dreaded the hill. Then I started skating. For those of you who have ever inline skated, you know it is not in any way easy to skate up a hill. Five minutes, and many cuss words later I reached the top where Anja was waiting and Geraldine had just finished also. Then, we had to go down. I would have gone up that hill twelve more times before going down the other side alone once. I thought about taking the skates off and just going down in my socks, but Anja had a better idea. She took my hand, and Geraldine's and we started down. Ten feet later I fell so hard on my butt that I had a bruise the next day. After getting back up and picking up the pieces of my shattered pride off the concrete, we came up with a better method. Geraldine held onto Anja's waist, and I held onto Geraldine's waist, and we went down that way. It worked pretty well and then we were home, and I promised myself that I would conquer that hill alone before I left. Little did I know I would so soon, because I just did last night. Hooray!

Before we get into that, I have another story. So, you remember at the end of my last post, I had to go because we were picking up walnuts in the backyard? Yeah, we did that, and then we needed to give the chickens water, and.... Well, a fox got in the hen house. We opened up the door and there were seven dead chickens in various forms of bodily mutilation. Bodo, my host dad, had to come with his pitchfork and take them all out. I think one of the chickens that was still alive ran away, but I'm not sure, they might've gotten it back in. I can now say I know what a chicken with it's head cut off looks like. It isn't pretty. You definitely do not want to see what it looks like if you haven't already.

Did I already say before that I've ridden a horse with Geraldine? If not, I am now. I rode horses with Geraldine. Twice. Barebacked. Heck yes. I was so psyched. Although, both times, I tried riding Cindy, the black pony, first and she would not move an inch in the right direction for me. She just wanted to eat, or turn around and walk the opposite direction from where we were going, and it was just awkward. But then, I rode Schneewittchen, and she was not mean to me. Well, okay maybe a little. The second time we went riding, Schneewittchen just did not want me to get on her back. She kept running away every time I tried, and she ended up stepping on my foot. Talk about pain. This was worse than when I broke my arm in third grade. Just, don't get stepped on by a horse.... It hurts. And Schneewittchen is not even a full sized horse, she's just a pony. I can get on her back without a stepping stool, or anything, just straight from the ground. Avoid hoof to foot contact at all costs. Other than that, once I got on, she worked with me. She ran when I made a weird clicking noise that Geraldine taught me, and everything was fine, dandy, and very stellar.

Finally, we come to me conquering the dang hill. So, yesterday, we went out on the town with Geraldine's friends, and we went with the inline skates. On the way home, it was time to go down that monster hill again. First, I tried inching down hugging the side of a building. That stopped working when I arrived at a half wall type structure where the shingles started falling off the little roof when I tried to hold onto it. Underneath were tons of spider webs with huge spiders, so I didn't want to touch down there. (I'm not afraid of spiders, I just didn't want to break all those webs and have their rath directed at me) That's when I got an idea. I took off my right skate and started going down the hill balancing on just my left foot. When I started going too fast, I put my foot down, slowed myself down a bit, and then just went back to balancing on my left foot and coasting down the hill. At the bottom, all I could think was, ''Yes. I did it.''

Until my next post, Tchüß.

Mit Freundlichen Grüßen,
Anna <3

September 23, 2011: BOP: A Week of Crazy Not-Supposed-To-Be-Fun Fun

So, apparently if you are a ninth grade Realschule student in the loverley (not a real word, I know) land of Germany, you are required to attend a week of something that is kind of like career training called BOP. Now, I have no clue what BOP means. I know it is Beruf Something Something.... I think the last word might be Praktikum. Oh well, it is now over, so what it is called is not so important anymore. Anyway, my group seemed to be the only group that actually enjoyed their time in the BOP. My group was given a ridiculously long name that was basically gastronomy and hotel service.

The first day, we were all assigned to our groups. That was also the day that I became pretty sure that I am not actually registered as a member of my school. My name was not on any of the lists the director people had, so they told me to just go with a friend. Luckily, my friends, Sheryl and Merima, both went to gastronomy so I super lucked out. The other groups did things like computer software, cutting metal, and landscaping. We got to cook. Now, I don't really know who it is that reads this blog, but I'm pretty sure not all of you know me personally. You see, I love to cook, and bake, and that sort of thing, so this was just perfect for me. Our first day, our teacher, Frau Peterson, set a big bowl of brotchen in front of us and Nutella, cheese, and meat, and was like, here's your breakfast for today, enjoy it. If you like cereal, I'll bring some tomorrow. Frau Peterson, by the way, is just the most awesome person I ever met. She always wore her hair up in a scarf type headband with her long crazy frizzy hair sticking out the sides, and she always looked us right in the eyes when she spoke to us. I really liked and respected that about her. When we finished eating she took us into a big circle, put a bowl on her head, and walked around us looking at us and saying one thing nice to us. She came to me and said, ''Anna, you are beautiful.'' I could tell she meant it. And not only because she is German. We all took turns, and when we were finished, she made us write down six sentences that I now say in front of my mirror every morning before school.

''Ich bin selbsbewusst.'' (I am self-confident)

''Ich bin wundervoll.'' (I am wonderfull)

''Ich bin schön.'' (I am beautiful)

''Ich bin freundlich.'' (I am friendly)

''Ich bin hilfsbereit.'' (I am helpfull)

''Ich bin Liebevoll.'' (I am lovely, alternately, I am full of love)

The next day, Tuesday, I was assigned as a cook. Silent dance and song of victory please. That day was awesome, and I got very friendly with the two coffee pots in that industrial kitchen. Lets just say, if they were my kids, one of them was the good kid. Never spilled a single drop of coffee, made the coffee fast, and didn't ever burn. The other was always in the corner. I could not even put new water in it without getting my shirt and apron soaking wet. The coffee always dribbled down the sides when I tried to put it in the coffee pots. Ugh. It was just not nice. That day, I also helped Sheryl make what is called a ''Tasse Kuchen'' a.k.a. a Cup Cake. But not those tiny little things we serve at birthday parties and Fourth of July. A Tasse Kuchen is a cake where the ingredients can be measured by the cupfull. You see, Germany, kind of like the rest of the world besides the USA, uses metrics, so they usually weigh their baking ingredients, or have them in milliliters. The cup we used were just standard coffee mugs, about three hundred mL each, I believe, and the cake was pretty simple. Just add this, add that, put in the oven. I was surprised when we added mineral water to the cake. Frau Peterson said that makes it fluffier. Well, okay. :) The cake turned out really yummy. I made one in a springform pan, which is the same in German, I learned rather bashfully. When that was finished we poured melted chocolate on top, and it was really good. The other cake, made from the same batter, but on a different pan, we made a lemon icing from lemon juice, a bit of water, and a big bag of powdered sugar. It was delicious. We also made pizza which was also delicious. The day was crazy as we were just getting started and everything, but it was also so much fun.

I have to go now! Geraldine and I have to go pick up the walnuts from the pony stall!! I'll finish telling you guys about BOP maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but soon!

Until my next post, Tchüß!

Mit Freundlichen Grüßen!

Anna <3

September 9, 2011: EUREKA!

Today, I figured it out. I am in the SoPed course, right? Or so I thought. It turns out, the course is SoPäd, and that is short for Sozial Pädagogik. Which in English is social pedagogy. What is that? Basically, social pedagogy is what I'm doing in Germany. Learning by interacting with others. I know, coincidental, right? This is also how babies, and young children learn their mother tongue, and usually most other things in life.

Short one for today, that was really the only interesting (maybe?) thing that happened today. :)

Until my next post, Tchuß!

Love from,
Anna <3

September 8, 2011: Sorry, it's been a while.

Hey, so.... First, I want to apologize. I haven't updated this thingy in several weeks, and a lot of people have been asking whats going on. I could lie, and say I was too busy doing stuff to write ever, but, I really have had plenty of time to write, I just have never gotten around to it. But hey, I never promised to be good at this blogging thing. ;)

The last time I wrote was several Wednesdays ago, huh? So heres what has happened since then.

The day after my last post, Kamp-Lintfort had a massive storm. Wind, rain, thunder, lighting, trees ripped from the ground. Everything, the whole shebang. No joke, I was fearing for my life, and I was perfectly safe inside. When it calmed down a bit, my host dad was like, ''Hey, let's take Carlotta for a walk.'' I remember just thinking, ''Umm...... Okay then.... Hope we don't get struck by lightning!'' Thankfully, we did not. But when we got back to the house, the power went off. Normally, I'd be all like, ''Sweet! Break out the candles!'' Until I was told, ''Oh, that's strange, this doesn't happen in Germany.'' Awesome. But we woke the next morning to no more damage done than the patio table flipped completely over, a couple broken flower pots, and a lot of debris in the pool.

After that, not much interesting happened until the Thursday before last. Wow, I just realized HOW long it has really been since I last wrote. What made this Thursday particularly memorable? My class went on a trip to Köln. You may have heard of the Köln Dom, which is a cathedral in the city of Köln. If not, stop right now, look up a picture on Google images. Okay, so you see that tall tower on the Dom? I climbed that. The Köln Dom has 509 steps in the form of a narrow spiral staircase with really only enough room for one person to walk, but has people coming up and going down at the same time. If you are going up, people coming down will gladly hog the large part of the stair, making the journey up perilously frightening because not only are you dying, and claustrophobic, but you also must hug a teeny column and only step on an inch of sagging stone step. Crazy. I would not do it again. Well, maybe I would.... I don't know. I would tell everybody to do it at least once though. But don't do it on a day that is 30° Celsius. It sucks. We also went to the Schockolade Museum in Köln. (Actually, we did that before the Dom) And let me tell you, wow. It is really crazy how much work goes into making one little tiny bar of chocolate. Oh, and by the way, white chocolate is not even real chocolate. We should start calling it sugared cocoa butter, because that is basically all it is. Of course, a visit to the chocolate factory would not be complete if you didn't leave with a postcard for your parents and family, and two giant 300 gram bars of chocolate that only cost you €2 a piece. Thats like 12 Hershey chocolate bars for three dollars. That's a good deal right? I thought so. When we were done seeing things as a group we all split up and had a few hours of free time. I hung out with my friends Kate and Creighton and just walked around. We went to a couple little stores, and shared french fries and hamburgers. After that, we went and saw something I will never forget. If you are in Köln, walk around the Dom and in between the art museum place and the Haupt Bahnhoff. Keep going straight, and you will reach a bridge with a fence on either side. On that fence are hundreds of locks. People who are in love, or have just began new families, or I'm sure hundreds of other reasons go to this bridge and leave their locks locked on the fence. Why? I have no idea. I do know though, that one day, when I have my own family, I'd like to come back and add our lock to that bridge. I'm also sure that whoever does engravings in Köln is making bank every day.

Friday was the last day of language camp. Sad, but fun. We played games, hung out, graded our teachers, and said our goodbyes.

The next week was my week of Summer vacation. I spent a lot of it outside, hanging out with Geraline and her friends. They are all very nice. One night, we went camping in the backyard of Geraldine and my friend's, Sheryl's house. Wow, what a blast. We roasted marshmallows over this little tin foil type tray that had cole inside of it. We stayed up late talking, and woke up to a super yummy breakfast. With delicious bread. The next three nights, we camped in Geraldine's backyard. Good times. :)

On Friday night, we all went out. There was a carnival in Moers, and we all wanted to go. Bodo and Anja went with some friends of theirs, so I went with Geraldine, my host brother, Denis, his friend, Jesse, and Sheryl. We mostly just walked around and looked at everything, but the sights were so beautiful, so fun, so lively, it made me forget everything except where I was. We went on a ride that went so fast it was painful how much force Geraldine and Sheryl were putting against my body. But, nevertheless, it was amazing, even though it just went in one conitinuous circle. We bought half litres of Pepsi for €0,89, and then left. That was also the night I had my first experience with Burger King Happy Hour. Lets just say, three full sized burgers for €6 makes everybody happy.

The next day, we went to another get together sort of thing. I really have no idea what it was called. It was in Kamp-Lintfort, a little less than a kilometer from where I live, I think. The get together was held at Kloster Kamp which is the old church. There we little kid rides that were no taller than me (and I'm pretty short), and a lot of food, wine, and good spirits. I had delicious french fries with mayonnaise and ketchup. I still remember the first time I had french fries here, my host family set out only mayonnaise and put it on their fries, and I was just like, ''What?'' But really, its good. Amazingly good, actually. They gave me so many, I felt bloated when I was finished, and then my host mom was like, ''So, do you want a waffle now?'' No, I did not, but I was happy to go and wait with Geraldine at the waffle stand and just smell the fresh waffles being cooked to order. Good smells.

Yesterday, school began.

I don't remember if I have alread said this, but I am sixteen years old. If I was still in America, I would be in the eleventh grade. In Germany, I am in the ninth grade. Funny, I swore I would never go back to that school year, but now here I am. Ugh. Oh well. My teachers, and my classmates are all very nice people, so I don't mind that much. :) My schedule is as follows, Monday morning, first hour, I begin with art, and move on to Politics. A double hour of German is after that, and my last two hours are SoPed, which I have no clue what the class is about, first it seemed like sociology, then psychology, and now I am just not sure. Last hour is biology. Tuesday, my first hour is free, then I have history, math, double english, and chemistry. Wednesday, I have art, math, double english, physics, SoPed, and a double hour of PE. Wednesday, I have double religion first thing. I think I'm in with the Catholics right now, but I think they're going to move me to the PP class. I think that is what it is called. It's for the ''non-believers.'' After that, I have double German, and then WP2, which is like an elective. I don't know what I'll be in yet, but I signed up for Theater, and then Home Economics if that is all full. Friday, I have history first, then SoPed, (I really need to figure out what that class is) double math, politics, and my last hour is free. Yes. Then the weekend, and we do it all over again. Yesterday, two interesting things happened to me for the first time in my life. First, I was asked, ''Are you single?'' I laughed, because that is definitely not something I have ever been asked. Second, somebody told me, ''I love your accent!''

Now today, good day. I began with Religion. I was late today, because I had no clue which religion class I was in, or where the teacher's classroom was. Turns out, Frau Leonis is very nice, and let me come into her classroom, and draw my ''Life River'' and all that jazz. German was hard. But everybody else seemed to get it fine. One good thing about not knowing the language at all, is I don't get called on. So I don't make a fool of myself. :) But I know this will only last so long. :P After German, I was finished for the day!!! Geraldine had two classes left though, so I tagged along to her math class, and then to English as well. The math was easy stuff for me, stuff I remembered from sixth grade Algebra. English was fun. We went over the classes homework from yesterday, and then I got to read a bunch of questions for them to answer. Then, the teacher wrote ''The USA'' on the board and ''Cities'' ''States'' ''Countryside'' ''People'' ''Sights'' and ''Typically American.'' They all said the big cities, New York, Las Vegas, LA. Somebody said Arizona in states, and Niagra Falls in countryside. Under people went Barack Obama, and Kinnsman, a German who is now the American National Soccer Team coach. Under Sights went The Statue of Liberty, and..... Now I cannot remember what else. At the end of class, I was asked what I would say for each of those things, first things in my head. I answered, Portland, New Jersey (sorry Oregon, I love you too!), Redwood Forest, Gerard Way, World's Smallest Park, and of course, hamburgers. Then the bell rang, and the day was over. I came home, and now I'm writing this long and way overdue blog post.

Oh yeah, by the way. I rode a horse. Barebacked. I was scared to no end, but it was amazing.

Until my next post, Tchuß!

Love from,
Anna <3