england owes me a living

it's the weekend!

well, actually. the weekend is over, but still.

on saturday i went and celebrated thanksgiving with rotary kids. i suppose the fundamental difference between rotary and afs kids (in my world-wizened opinion) is that when i get together with other afs kids we speak a weird medley of german and english that becomes more and more english as the day progresses. with rotary kids, their was no pretense of speaking german.

but the day was quite nice. it started out with a bus ride and another bus ride (part of the strassenbahn was being fixed) and then a strassenbahn ride. then, i hung out at the train station for a while, met up with a british girls and approached a clutch of people i thought might be exchange students.

they were. and so we introduced ourselves and then the brit and i took a couple of them through a crash-tour of the schloss. somehow we picked up more of them who proceeded to complain a lot and show that the reason why i don't like a lot of americans is because they are loud and annoying. they kept wanting to get on any bus and kept insisting on calling the girl hosting thanksgiving even though we knew where we were going.

so, we ate and talked and i drank really, really disgusting red wine. it was like paint-stripper. not even kidding. then i caught the last bus home and slept for a while.

i have pictures of this but they are not on my camera. forthcoming!

my host sister fell off her horse on saturday and banged herself up pretty badly, so we went to visit her in the hospital today. it's really different from an american hospital in a good way. the patients all wear their own pajamas. there's mineral water in the waiting rooms and really, really explicit books explaining procedures. in the us they draw pictures about anesthesia and surgery-- there were amazingly gory photocopied photos of all sorts of different procedures.

i was quite pleased. i also read a picture book about going to the hospital for kids. (there was only two people allowed to visit at the same time, so i said hello to doerte and then i let willi go sit with her and almut). i'll write more about that later, i promise. there were nurses wearing birkenstock sandals and wool socks. she's doing really well, so there's not much to worry about.

this afternoon we baked the first christmas cookies (pictures and recipes also forthcoming) and i studied for my history test. it's really nice the way history is taught, and i think for the first time i actually understand the cold war and it's ending.

tomorrow is school, followed by a few more days of it. on tuesday i am going shopping for a much needed pair of jeans and maybe a long winter coat. wednesday the christmas markets open and i'm going to meet them. on friday i leave for my second afs camp. on sunday is the first advent, so if i get back in time, i'll go see the concert in the local church.

that's all for now
love
katie

ps-- i'm fooling around with the layout of this blog, so i'm sorry that the pictures are giant.