Everyday Life

Having now been in Germany a little over three months, things have begun to settle into everyday life. I'm over my "honeymoon phase" and have begun to accept that I'm going to be here for seven more months. Homesickness has been a very big obstacle in this stage of the year, but I've settled into a routine and everything is starting to feel normal again. Except for the fact that I can hardly understand anyone. Adjusting to the language has been much more difficult for me than I expected it to be. Everyday I pick up new words and phrases and I am starting to be able to understand people better but I am still having a lot of trouble speaking. German is such a complicated language and a lot of the time I feel like I will never get the hang of it, especially the grammar. I so desperately want to be able to speak and communicate with the people around me but it is just taking so much more time and effort than I ever imagined to get it would to get to that level. But I'm sure it will get better with time and practice. Anyways, I have two weeks left in Riesa before moving to my new host family in Berlin. There is so much going on in these last two weeks that I'm sure the time is going to fly by. On Wednesday, I'm going to Leipzig with my host family and we're meeting Kevin, a boy from my exchange group, and his host family there. Kevin and I have the same local cordinator who will also be there. I think we're all going ice skating together but I'm not sure. Anyways, it will be really fun. Then, next Thursday is Thanksgiving. On Thursday, my French teacher decided that we're having a little Thanksgiving party in class even though it has nothing to do with French. I'm really excited to share Thanksgiving with the kids in my class and I think I'm going to try and bring in a pumpkin pie and an apple pie for the class. Since Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Germany, we still have school that day, so I will not have time to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for that night. Instead, I'm going to cook a big Thanksgiving meal on Saturday for my host family and host grandparents. So far this proves to be easier said than done. Since Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Germany, it has been very difficult trying to find all the right ingredients needed for the traditional Thanksgiving meal, such as a large turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie ingredients, etc. Hopefully, I will be able to find everything and make it as authentic as possible! The day after this big Thanksgiving celebration, I say goodbye to Riesa and my incredible host family here and head up to Berlin to start the next chapter of my exchange year! It will be very bittersweet to leave Riesa and the people here but I am so excited to go to Berlin and experience life in Germany's capital!

Tschüss,
Dani♡

Herbstferien

So for the past two weeks I have not had to go to school. Why you may ask? Because Germany is amazing and has a two week long fall break called Herbstferien. For the first week of break I didn't have much planned and mostly hung out at home. We were dog sitting for some friends who were on away on vacation and it was so great to have a dog in the house again, I miss mine a lot. I went on a day trip to a place called Festung Königstein with my host family. It is an old fort about 20 miles from the Chez Republic border and the view was absolutely breathtaking. The fort overlooked a river and a couple small towns as well as the mountains. All that combined with the fall colors made for a gorgeous view. On Monday, I took a train to Dresden by myself for the day and went shopping and walked around the city. It was really fun to explore the city on my own. I love public transportation in Germany because it makes it so easy to do things like go to Dresden for the day! A few days later I drove all the way across Germany with my host dad to visit friends in Wiesbaden, a city outside of Frankfurt. We spent a night with them in Wiesbaden and then walked around Frankfurt the next day before driving back to Riesa. That night we went to a party at a the house of the friends we had dog sat for. It was really fun to see all of them and get to know them better! On Tuesday of the second week of break, my host family and I went on a trip to Hamburg. It is an absolutely gorgeous city! The first night we were there, we were walking around a mall because it was rainy outside. We go into this little shop where they sell tickets to all the events in Hamburg. Long story short, we somehow managed to get 4 tickets to the sold out Bruno Mars concert that was starting in an hour. We hopped on the train to get to the arena and got there about 20 minutes before the show started! Sadly, I wasn't allowed to bring in my camera so I don't really have any good pictures of the show but it was absolutley amazing nonetheless! The next day, we walked around the harbor and downtown Hamburg some more. On Thursday, we left Hamburg and drove to Rostock, a city on the Baltic Sea. First we went to a beach town called Warnemünde and walked around for awhile. Then, we went to the friend's house where we stayed for the night in Rostock. The next day, we went into downtown Rostock and walked around for awhile. We then started the long drive back down to Riesa. All in all, Herbstferien was amazing! I got to see so many places in Germany and I had a great time spending time with my host family, I'll miss them!

Tschüss,
Dani♡

The view from Festung Königstein

Wiesbaden

Frankfurt

Hamburg

Warnemünde

Rostock