Saturday, January 5, 2013

19.11-25.11: Thanksgiving, a birthday, and a reunion in Stuttgart!

I pretty much spent the entire week at Sabrina's. Don't know why. It just kind of happened. I had so much stuff at her place I would have needed her to drive me home to get it all back. So it was just easier to stay at her apartment :)
This week I had 2 presentations to give. Terrifying. Both were in German. One was for my German language class. We had to present on a country. I chose France because... I don't really know why. I just felt like it wouldn't be too difficult. The presentation went fine. I wanted to die (even though there are 5 of us in the class and I'm friends with all of them...). But I survived. The other presentation was the next day. Dayna and I presented together to our family structure and socialization class. We talked about the big differences between American and German families. The class was really really nice about the whole thing. No matter how many times we stumbled (okay... I stumbled) or the countless errors we must have made, they were extremely respectful. I will talk about the presentation, and the big things we talked about in another post. There's a lot to say about it all :)
Thursday was Thanksgiving. I thought it would be a rough day, knowing my family and friends were all home enjoying time together. But honestly it wasn't that bad. Everyone at home kept asking if I had a good day, and truth be told, it was only another Thursday. Nothing was different about it. Dayna and I were going to try to cook a "Thanksgiving meal" to our best abilities, but it was just too much work, effort, and not the most cost friendly meal in the world. I will have many more Thanksgivings to come, so I'm really not that worried about missing out on one. Besides... I'm studying abroad in Germany. That beats Thanksgiving just about any day!
This weekend when we went home to Adelberg, it was packed full of fun!
Saturday morning Sabrina had to go into Stuttgart for her biology class. She had been gone the night before too for a reunion with the people she went to France with this summer.  I spent the morning being lazy and then getting ready for a birthday party.
Saturday was Sabrina's youngest cousin's, Nico, 8th birthday! The way birthdays work here is way different. But that's a whole different post!
We spent the entire afternoon and evening at her aunt and uncle's house celebrating Nico. He got a ton of Legos and ran up to his room to start working on them. There weren't many people our age there, so Sabrina and I just went up to hang with the kiddos. Tom, her other young cousin, is 12. Then there is Nico who is 8. There were 2 little girls there too, but they are just family friends. The four kids, Sabrina and me worked on building all of Nico's new lego star wars ships. Brought me back to when my brother was younger!
Me, 13, and John, 8, in Bad Nauheim summer 2005

He can't be more than 2 years old here. Look at those chunky cheeks!!
Why can't he still be this cute?!?
 Sorry, back from my trip down memory lane... Where were we?  Oh yeah, we were helping Nico build his legos. Kid has soooo many! And he got soooo many more! He was in total birthday bliss.

 Nico gave Sabrina one of the bows from his presents and told her she was now a princess. Why does she get to be a princess and I don't? So unfair...
There were multiple kinds of cake and coffee. Then we spent time building legos with the kids. Then we played Uno Attack with the kids and another one of Sabrina's cousins, Kim, who is a few years older than Sabrina. Uno got interrupted by dinner (sausages, bread, salads). After dinner we went back up to the kids rooms, where there were pillow fights, more games, and rummikub. We left around 10 pm. Man. A loooong day.
Sunday I woke up and got ready. I was going to Stuttgart to spend the day with Marianne Jozsi. We've known each other for practically forever! Our parents have worked together for quite some time now. She was studying in London and her and her flatmate decided to spend a weekend in Germany! How fun! She was flying out of Stuttgart and had a few hours on Sunday to meet up before her flight. I found her and her flatmate Sarah at the train station. Because it was Sunday, none of the hundreds of shops in Stuttgart were open. Bummer, no shopping today. We walked around, decided we were hungry and found this cute little restaurant to eat at. I had texted Sabrina asking where was a good place in Stuttgart to get a traditional Schwäbisch meal and she sent the name and location of a place. It was actually the restaurant we had just passed! So that was where we decided to get some grub. It might have been a little pricey, but getting a great meal was totally worth it. Marianne got Käsespätzle, Sarah got Wienerschnitzel, and I got a whole plate of different things, the best part was the Maultaschen. Oh my. To. Die. For.
After our late lunch, we kept walking and found a Starbucks. We each got a little something and then found a bench to sit and chat. After about an hour we decided it would be best to head back to the train station so the girls could get to the airport to catch a flight, and I could head back to Schorndorf so Sabrina could pick me up. By the time we got there I had all of a few minutes to catch my train! I briskly walked the track and hopped on the train right before the doors closed and it pulled away. It took me a moment to realize that the train had left 3 minutes early. At first I didn't think anything of it, until we came to our first stop and it dawned on me I was most likely on the wrong train! Gah! What was I going to do? I texted Sabrina in a panic. At the next stop I was able to see the sign saying where the train was going, and the major stops it would make. One of the city names stood out to me... Göppingen.... Göppingen... Wait! That was close to Adelberg! The other side of the mountain. Schorndorf is on one side, and Göppingen is on the other. I texted Sabrina letting her know the train would be going to Göppingen and could she pretty pretty please pick me up from there? Of course she said yes. Phew. Bless her heart. In the end it was fine. I figured out that the train I was supposed to be on came right after the one I had gotten on left. But it all worked out fine.
Crazy busy but fun weekend!

Lots of love from Germany!

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