Superbowl... monday?

Sorry. I've been busy. You know when you know that you have to do something but you keep... not doing it and then you put it off even more because you've already put it off for so long? Well, that's the way I've been feeling towards my blog over the past 5 weeks since I last updated this. However, there is no escape from blogging today as approximately 85% of the inhabitants of Bodenseehof (... thats all of the North Americans) are currently sitting in the lecture hall watching the immensly anticipated Superbowl. Some people avoided the internet for the week inorder to not accidentally stumble across the score. Personally, I could care less about the score and went on facebook anyways, and I'm sure somebody posted the results and I'm sure I saw it, but it didn't register. I'm really just in here for the commercials... As I type, people are gawking over repeats and fumbles or something football-y like that... I just look up every one and a while. You can't tell but I just took a break because it went to commercials, I give those my full and undivided attention. But since theres more game than commercials anyways, this will be a long one to make up for the lengthy break. (... or not because as soon as I wrote that it went to yet another commercial, what's up with that?)

So much has happened since I last updated this thing that I honestly have NO idea where to start or any insite into what you all might find interesting or relevant. But I'll give it a shot.

I think that I am almost ready to come home to real life. Being here is great and I'm having a blast but getting ridiculously sick of routine over here. Everything here is on a schedual. It's not to say that we don't have free time or anything but even the free time is scheduled. I would also wish that they believed in spares here at the Bode because it would be really awesome if I didn't have to be somewhere at the exact same time every morning. If there is anything I I am definately not a routine person. The freedom to eat whatever you want and whenever you want is probably something I am very much going to appreciate once I come home. There are sometimes when you just CRAVE something so much and knowing that the only way you can get it is to fly halfway across the world is starting to become frustrating. For example slurpees. I would love to do a Sev-run right now and be sitting here with a slurpee... but I can't. I also can't watch tv whenever and as I am sitting here I'm wondering if commercials have always been so ridiculously lame (but AMAZING at the same time) and I'm just noticing now because I've been away from real media for so long and they're all brand new and awesome. 

This past weekend my sing team went on our final outreach to Schonwald (with a little double dot thing over the o) in upper Bavaria or, as Peter Reid puts it, 'We're heading up to German Siberia.' There was A LOT of snow there. Probably the most I've ever seen in one spot. There was about 3 feet in most places and they said that it had been melting for a while before we got there... it was insane. There were some spots beside the streets that had been plowed where the snow was almost taller than I am. It took us about 7 hours to get there... including the 40 minutes we spent sitting at a standstill. We had a couple chinese firedrills, they were grand. We got to the church in Schonwald and had a late dinner (it was like 8:30?) and then went home to our host families. My host family consisted of: Danica, a 14 year old Konfi - very cute and pretty good at english; Damijan, her 8 year old brother - INCREDIBLY ADORABLE and not so good at English. He showed me his english hw book and it was just basic simple stuff like 'hi, how are you' 'what is your name' 'my favourite colour is blue' etc. but he knows more English than I know German so I was undoubtebly impressed. He also played some guitar for me, it was also just beginner but he was pretty good at that as well. He also spoke to me a lot, but I didn't understand anything... it all sounded nice though. Sometimes when he wanted to tell me something important he would run out of the room and ask his Dad or Danica and then come back in and repeat what they said to me... when he did that his accent was so perfect I had a hard time believing that he didn't actually speak english; Rudi, the father. I'm not acually sure how its spelt. He was really nice and talked to me about porcelain. Apparently Schonwald is the practically the porcelain capital of the world and he is a designer at one of the major companies; The mother. I feel terrible, however I can't remember her name. She was really sweet but she didn't speak much english. She tried though, it was nice. I liked my host family. On friday morning we all got up super early went out, in the cold, and handed out invites with a mini rittersport chocolate attached to our 2 open evenings at the church. I wonder if German children were ever told not to accept candy from strangers... 'but they seemed nice...' Friday was a busy day - we went to a middleschool and spent 45 minutes with a class of 9th graders and then we went to a special design school that started out as a porcelain school but has expanded to include snowboard designs, incredible graphic desgin stuff and car/motorcycle desgins. They said that people from huge companies like BMW and Mercedes come and hire students right after they've finished the program all the time. One guy showed us this motorcycle that he was making (he took apart a simple one inorder to have all the basic parts and then was adding his own stuff to it) and said it was a cross between his own ideas, a lambourguini and some special motorcycle.. or something... it was sweet. After the design school we went to sporthalle and then to our host families for dinner and then back to the church for the open evening which meant: we sing, the dramma team ... drammas? there was a message and then we mingled... or not so much on the part of some. On Saturday we hung out with the Konfi kids and then went to ‘the Basillica’? … some old church. It had this library that was built like 700 years ago.. it was old and sweet. We had a tour guide which made it a lot more interesting as well. However, the best part of the afternoon was definitely not the church, though it was sweet, the highlight was stopping on the side of the road to take pictures behind the boarder sign. I can officially say that I have been to the Czech Republic!! Check the Czech! :) It was sweet. On the way there and back… and half way home on Saturday, Amy, Braeden and I played the country game (where you say a country that starts with the last letter of the previous country) with Harry Potter terms… lame? Yes. Fun? Also yes. Took our mind off car sickness? Most definitely. It was a great diversion. After that we had dinner with our host families again and then came back to the church for a second open evening. Church in the morning was cool because it was in a church that was originally built in the 14/1500’s they said that it has been renovated a bunch since then but everything in it was crazy old. They also gave us all mugs as a thank-you gift. Germans are so nice. The ride back wasn’t as bad as the ride there and seemed to go by way faster, it was great.
So, ya. That was a basic summary of my weekend. I have no idea how on earth I am supposed to summarize everything that has happened between today and January 5th. So maybe point form of the things I can remember off the top of my head? Note: these will not be in correct chronological order.
- Trip to IKEA, it was grand. Although I forgot my camera which was a bit of a bummer

- Movie night: the emperors new groove

- new roommates: Randi and Katie… Kareen for a week

- burger king twice with amy after failed attempts to find ipods at media mart and the apple store

- photo scavenger hunt with konfi kids

- Mexican food with josh, Austin, amy and Stephanie

- k-group breakfast for dinner

- social event: make a movie

- superbowl party

- lots of food

- igloo building

- snowball fights

- work duty

- h&m adventures





… my computer is running out of battery and I cant remember anything.

I’ll update this… eventually. But no promises :P