the trip

in case you were wondering why i went to germany, here is where i already explained.

okay. while i was there, i did some very detailed typing here on my computer. like blog typing, only i couldn´t post it here right away since my computer never connected to the internet at my hosts´ house. here it is >

October 29th

I am in Germany!!! The trip was the longest ever. We had about a 10 hour bus drive from Rakvere to Klaipeda [Lithuania] where we had our ship waiting for us. It took us straight to our destination - Kiel, Germany.  Now guess what! We were on water for 23 hours. Longest boat trip i have ever been to. Compare it to going to Stockholm which is about 16 ours. Anyway, our ship was stupid. First, it was a very small one and full of truck drivers, hahaa. Second, there was no wifi! NO WIFI! i had my laptop with me and all, and when i went and asked for any internet connection on the ship they looked at me like i was retarded. i guess wifi isn´t that common outside of estonia. so we had nothing to do. lucky me for having taken my book with me. as a side note - yes, i am reading a book! because i have to. in fact, it is a good one and i can keep up with it pretty well. if interested, it is called the hunger games. uhuh, in english! moving on, we didn´t have cabins because we would have had to paid extra money. instead we were accomodated in a large room with seats like on airplanes. it is meant for those who don´t want a cabin, it is the cheap way. we were lucky since the room wasn´t full so we got to spread a little. i grabbed two seats to sleep in. to my surprise -> i have back problems <- it wasn´t the worst. only my legs got sore every now and then. and our 9th graders wouldn´t shut up so it was a bit loud at some points during the night. the rest of the time we played cards, read our books and ate and chatted. we went out on the deck a few times but it was too windy and chilly to stay there longer than about 10 minutes. it was somewhat a dull trip. i have been to better, hahaa.

so now we are here in Kiel. each student from our group got a host family to live with during the next 9 days. some got paired up, some are on their own. like me. oh well, i have been in this kind of situation before so it was not a big deal. we met our families inside their  school building. i got a very nice one. i was at first a bit scared of them but they turned out to be very easy going and cool. my hosts are the Diehls. father is Mattias, mother is Brigitte and brother is Fabian [16]. in addition there are two older sisters the ages of 20 and 23 who i haven´t met yet. one of them should be home sunday. we don´t quite live in Kiel but in a little village about 10 km outside of the city. it is very lovely around here.

today we didn´t have a program put together for us so we all had to spend time with our families. the mother and son of mine took me out for a tour in the city of Kiel. we walked down the biggest shopping streets and stopped at two of the biggest sopping centres here. they were huge and reminded me of America so much! at some points i really felt like i was back in Port Huron. especially since Kiel is located next to a channel. only there is no Canada on the other side but the other half of Kiel. guess what! i found oreos! only they have the same little package like they did in russia.

31.10.11

Where did i leave off yesterday? after the shopping centre tour we went out to eat. it was a place called vapiano which should be american but i had never heard of it before. neither did we ever eat there while my stay in the usa. anyway, it was the best pizza i have had so far. what is weird is that i have lost a bit of my weight here. very weird, because i eat more than i do at home. the mother of my family cooks amazing food so it is impossible to say no. i just remembered it is haloween today. it never used to be popular here in germany before but they slowly got into the tradition so now they do the trick or treating and decorating  just like americans. my family is prepared for tonight! 

today was a fun day. it was the first day with an actual program. Fabian and i got droped off at school by 8 in the morning. the 10th graders had prepared several presentations about all kinds of interesting things. 10th graders are the oldest in the school that ours is in partnership with. the  whole program originaly was for 10th graders from the german school and 9th & 10th graders from ours. but i was lucky and got involved a bit so i got to go with them. anyhow.

.. and this is where i left off. i just didn´t have any time to continue. or my computer would piss me off.

so, i rather want to post pictures now than keep going with the boring talk. i will make sure to add notes though.

i hate the flash, hahaaa

i had no idea duff beer actually existed!!!

kevin and i  -  a very funny guy from our school!

an inside joke that was so funny i ended up laughing in tears

helina, kevin, me

heinrich and helina. i ruined their picture.

me with fabian!

kristel, fabian, me

most of all of us!

my family was the best and i was so happy to stay at their home! we promised to meet up in the united states one day. i am sure it will happen. it was an exciting trip. excluding the boat and bus trip back to estonia. now i am home and can´t wait for christmas!

> picture credit goes to my classmates helina and kristel