The third day that I was in Amsterdam we took a tour to a Belgium town called Bruges. the bus ride lasted for three hours but we had a great tour guide who, once we arrived let us loose to wander the town. Bruges is famous for to locally made chocolate and the beer. There was a shop for one or the other (sometimes both) on every street corner. The town was packed with tourists. We spoke with two couples from New York City who had been trapped in Europe by Super-storm Sandy. It was amazing just how many people there where in that predicament.

As we walked through on of Bruges many great cathedrals we saw the Madonna and Child carved by Michele Angelo. It was the only piece of his work to leave Italy while he was still alive. the only thing protecting it from the outside world were a pair of elderly ticket sellers and a pane of glass. I was astonished that belgium had so few worries about a terrorist attack.

O, and Happy Halloween. I REALLY missed it.

Germany is awesome! For the past two weeks I have been enjoying a school break. October was wonderful and the fact that I had no school made it even better. For the first week I simply enjoyed being in Germany, but the second week I went to Amsterdam. Plus, a bonus is that I finally was able to charge my camera for the first time, so here are the pictures. 

 This is the Amsterdam Central Train Station. It was quite busy. 

       The Anne Frank house (short one in the middle) was really interesting. We had to wait in line for an 11/2 hours but when we got in, it was worth it. On the walls were quotes from her diary. The entire house was silent. In her room, the pictures she had glued on the wall are still there. 

      When we went downstairs again we got to see the actual diary which is covered in red checked cloth. We were NOT allowed to take pictures, sorry. 

Every house in Amsterdam is built tall, thin, and squashed together. 

Holland is famous for two things; wooden shoes and windmills. Both of which can be found on every street corner. 

Seen from the train window.

       We passed through the Red Light District, but just to say we had been there. I saw nothing. For those of you who don't know what this is, the Red Light District is the section of town where the "dirt of society" works.

       Note: prostitution and marijuana are both legal in Amsterdam so you can guess what is to be found in this area of town. When taking that walk, I watched my feet and held my umbrella very low over my head. So that was day one and two of my week in Holland.

     This past weekend was really fun! I taught my neighbors how to play Cribbage after we built two Cribbage boards. It took us all afternoon but we had a great time. I have only played the game once before, but now I have won two times in row!!!! I really like the game.

: this is a slightly nicer version of what we built.

"That rounds up the usual aspects" of my daily life in Germany.

           On Sunday we did something I have always wanted to do!!!!! We went to a fox hunt.

       If you have ever seen the movie "Mary Poppins" you will know the scene when cartoon characters are riding horses and are with their hunting hounds while they chase a fox.

          That is exactly what we got to see. The start was at the home of a family friend. The house is actually a small castle or fortress. Its really cool. I actually have been able to stay there on my previous trips to Europe.
   
           The grounds outside of the moat were covered with riders and their horses. Everyone was dressed up in the English style riding outfits, and they looked very professional.

           Then, there was one woman surrounded by thirty or so hunting dogs. The animals were milling around in a large group and from time to time the lady would throw them a treat. This caused a lot of jumping and scrambling over each other. There was one dog who was digging a hole, I have never actually seen a dog do that before and it was quite picturesque. But aside from this they were all very well trained!

           When they took off everyone trotted by in pairs of two and at the end of this prosession came the dogs in one huge pack. It was awesome!

      The week of Investor (the game) is over, thank goodness!!! I didn't really understand any of the material for my german is very limited, but I was in charge of the creative aspect of our group.
   
      I got to design to Flyers for our product, I put together the powerpoint, and I filmed the movie/commercial we were required to make. Our movie is going onto the school website because it was in English!!!!!! Unfortunately, it is not up yet.

(This picture to the left is my school.)

      It started raining on Monday of last week and hasn't stopped yet!! I have never seen so much rain in my life!! The rain isn't even the good kind, it doesn't rain hard enough to be awesome and there is to much of it to just ignore. Now I can see why everything in Germany is covered in moss.

      This past Wednesday was a national holiday for the reunion of East and West Germany. So instead of having school, we got to go to the zoo. I took a friend and we ran around for three hours. It is a very nice zoo with tons of trees and walkways. In fact, it is the nicest zoo I have ever been to.

     There is one part where you can pet fish!!!! You know the kind of huge, gray fish that are in Canyon Ferry Lake, well they were in a shallow tank and when you put you had in they would swim up to you. When I rubbed them, they pushed up against my hand and wiggled. It was sooo funny!

      The fish were not stingrays. I think they are called carp. But they are the ugliest, most boring fish I have ever seen in real life. (Meaning I have seen uglier fish in pictures). They look a lot like huge gray goldfish.

Flossy Nossy Vanilla Philip Vacation.

The front EU building



Here are a few photos that I forgot to upload last week.

The back of the EU building.

            This week my class is playing an Economy game. We have to start and run a company for an entire week.

            Every morning we go into our homeroom and have everything explained to us, then we break up into groups and fill out the worksheets that we are given. This cycle repeats itself about every two hours. I can't say that I understand much(if any) of what is going on, so my week isn't turning out to be that interesting.

            But there are some things that I do understand!! We get to make a commercial for our product (a massage chair), fliers for the company, and a logo. I am proud to say that I came up with our logo and I get to create the flier. I think making the movie is going to be fun, we can do whatever we want. I have a great group of kids to work with. On Thursday every group must give a presentation at the assembly and I have no idea what I am going to do! But thats life.

I think the way to sum this week up is to say that it is the best of times, it is the worst of times.

After arriving at the teen hostile on the edge of Germany and unpacking our stuff my friends and I walked over to France! We ended up in the outskirts of Strassburg, which we were to tour the next day.
The park that we sat down in was beautiful but not as well kept up as the german side. While we were messing about in the grass a little by came up to us and started speaking in French. MY FIRST FRENCH PERSON!!! he understood no german or english but the girls from my class who had been taking French spoke to him. I think it's amazing who 50 meters of water can separate two languages.
We also saw a French model. No, seriously, there was a lady modeling in front of the brick wall that ran around the park.

The next day we all went in a bus to Strassburg and took a tour. The tour guide was german so I found the whole thing to be quite boring. But we got to go through the Cathedral Notre Dame, even though it was not the famous one in Paris. The houses are all very thin and tall and built right next to each other, the left wall of one is right wall of the next. That afternoon we went and walked around the European parliament. The building was super cool!

Day three had us driving for a hour to an eight hundred year old castle. We go to go all the way through it. It was made from stone and was built up on top of a hill so when standing on the tower wed had a view of 50 km.

Day four we went to the Disney Land of Europe. The theme park had a section for each country and the rides showed the speciality from it's host nation. We ran from Greece to Victoria Station in ten minutes!


Day 5 we drive the seven hours back to Melle. All in all, I liked the trip but prefer the absolute comradery of the St. Andrew Sal et Lux better.

School is fun!!! But it is also long. It starts at 8 just like schools in America but runs until 1:20. We have six classes a day and two breaks, one after the second class and one after the forth class. Unlike most American public school the stubents are only alowed to pick two of their classes. On a normal day I have German, English(the language), Math, theater/art/sport(PE), and one of three sciences. Every student takes Chemistry, Physics, and Biology during the same we. So far my favorite class is science(s) and math.

Even though this school has no uniform policy, the students have inflicted upon themselves a uniform stricter then that of St. Andrew. Every student wears skinny-jeans (boys and girls). Sometimes the jeans are a bright color. They wear flat shoes (the ones that all the girls in the tenth grade at St. Andrew wears if its not TOMS.) And them a semi-baggy shirt. It is suprising how much they would compain if they were actually given a uniform.

As a side not GERMANY HAS NO TOMS :) :)   The end.

Upon arriving in Deutschland late Sunday I have been thrown into the mix of German society. Living in a modern neighborhood for the middle class has been a new experience all together. For the first time in my life I have a multiple friends within a five minute walk and a school house 500 meters away.

The neighbor hood is beautiful with tons of sidewalks for pedestrians and small, curving roads that run this way, that, and the other. most(all) of the houses are made of red or white brick. I can not say that that they are some of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen, but their all right.

At night time every window in every house is shuttered. But these are no ordinary shutters!! They look like garage doors and they function in just the same way. Another odd quality of these houses is the color coordination. Normally the walls of every room is white with a single strip of bright red, blue, green, or yellow running around the middle of the wall. The strip will widen out around a picture to a square shape to give the frame of the picture a frame. In the kitchen everything is wood/metal and square from the door handles to the celling lights.

All in all it is hard to tell if you have been brought back in time or put into a movie of the future.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a young girl in possession of a good mind must be in want of an audience." 

Upon being throw into the whirl-wind of a european school what else is there to do but learn as much, see as much, and laugh as much as possible.