A Broken Record..

Well, I'm back in the UAE now, on Summer Vacation!!
I probably sound like a broken record, saying that I'm going to write another post soon.. well this time I really am. I hope to be able to write an update about once a week during the Summer, just brief updates so I don't write a monster every month..

Yearbook

This is just a quick update..

So this past week back at school has been so busy. Especially this past couple days. The Yearbook is supposed to be done by now, so a bunch of the team has been working all day and night.I really enjoy it.. Something really cool is that I'll get to spend a couple days in France this coming week.. Sunday-Wednesday, Me and two other students will be going to the printers (of the yearbook) to coordinate things and get the printing started. I defiantly wasn't the first choice of people to go, but I'm really glad I can go.
And parents, thanks for sending the permission slip so fast!!
It's a 5 hour drive there, so I'm going to have plenty of time to get my homework done --and write a more thorough update of what I've been up to.

A New Year!

It's 2011. So hard to believe.. Another thing that hasn't really sunk in yet is that in a couple of days our family of 5 will be 4, then when I leave again it'll only be 3. It's funny how over a 3-4 months people can go from total strangers to brothers, just something I was thinking about when while contemplating the past months away at school. It's been so good to have a couple weeks to relax, think, get some stuff done and just have fun with friends I haven't seen in a long time. I don't really have anything big to say, heading back to the wintery land of Germany in less than a week.

Oh yeah, winter pictures will be up today. Working on uploading and posting them now..

Home...

Well, once again I apologize for taking so long to post something. Several times I started but I never finished and then finals came and life got really busy, but now I have a 6 hour plane ride to write.

I really don't know where to start, so much has happened, in the past weeks and since I started my adventure of boarding school. I suppose I could start with today and work backwards..

Pictures I

I went on a photowalk the other day and here are some pictures I took..

hit the jump for the photos.

Sorry For the Wait?

Sorry for the long wait, hopefully someone out there actually cares that I haven't posted in awhile. :) But wow. It's really been a long time since I've posted anything. I've finally found time to write, my homework is done and I am in the mood to write! A lot has happened in the past two months! It really feels like it's only been a couple of weeks. I'm finally adjusted to the schedule and flow of the school and dorm life, it hasn't been too hard.. but lots of stuff has been going on. It's really hard to be bored here! There's always something to be doing, or something that you could participate in.

I really don't know where to start.. For one thing, my schedule is reealy different than last year.. I don't stay up till 2AM or sleep in. Bedtime is officially 10:30 for Underclassmen.. I'm usually in bed by then. Some nights I have so much homework I'm up till 12. I wake up at about 7, 6:45 or so on Fridays because I help with sound at chapel. School starts at 8:50 and ends at 3:50. That's a typical day at school..

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Lots of Stuff Happening..

Wow.. it's been a long time since I've written anything.. well LOTS of stuff has been going on. Most recently, our internet has been down.. again! I've been doing lots of homework and haven't had time to do anything on here, answer any emails or check facebook..

I can't believe it's been over a month! On one hand it feels like I've just gotten here and on the other it feels like I've done so much stuff that it couldn't be only a month..

I really dont have time to write anything more than this right now, I was supposed to be working on an essay.. But I'll definatly write a more detailed post soon!

So Seniors get to go to Rome for a week and Juniors get to go to Normandy/Paris for half a week.. Freshmen get to go to WWI trenches and us Sophomores get to go to a concentration camp from WWII.. I think we get the worst deal out of everyone.

First Month..

It's been a while since I wrote anything.. Mostly because I didn't have access to a computer, but I'm also really busy with school and everything. I had my birthday on the 5th. Here at Maugenhard, the tradition is to pie them (with a cream pie) then "creek" (throw you into a creek that runs through and around town). But this year they decided to start a new tradition and "pond" me, the pond is a nasty body of parasite infested algae water a couple minutes away. I was the guinea pig and since I survived, that's the new birthday tradition. A couple other guys have also had their birthdays too. School is going good, German is pretty hard, but you defiantly learn it! It's been like a month or so and I can say my name, my address, where I go to school, where I come from, how old I am, how many brothers/sisters & cousins/grandparents I have and I can count to like infinity.

The town of Kandern is pretty small, apparently it's the smallest city in Germany. There's 3 grocery/supermarkets and a couple restaurants, but no gas station. Maugenhard is on the edge of the town, it's on a hill so we have a great view of the town and the surroundings. Everyday I walk to school.. rain or shine.. I'm not really looking foreward to walking in the snow though. It's cool to finaly see distinct seasons, leaves are turning yellow and red and it's getting colder.

The other week we went for an overnight camping trip to a place called "Sausenburg" the hike was about 2ish hours uphill. We camped at this tower place that was once a castle or compound of some sort.. There was a tower and some old walls. Climbing up the tower was toatly worth the view.. you could see all the surrounding towns and villages. That night, we had 2 chickens, bread and a couple dozen brotwurst to eat, there were only 12 or so of us, so there was alot of food.. I think I had 7 or so brotwurst. It was really nice, the stars were so clear and beautiful but it was really cold! In the morning, there was alot of mist/fog so it looked like we were on an island of land in an ocean of mist. Walking back we passed some fruit trees and everyone got either an apple or a couple of plums, we also refilled our water bottles at a fountain place. I love how there's literal (drinking) water fountains scattered around. We came home to a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and hashbrowny things.

We had a long weekend this week, yesterday some of us went to the nearby city Freiburg. We went for Ikea, Subway and Starbucks. I had a good time walking around with a couple other guys. I wanted to find a poster store, because so far, I don't have anything on my walls.. My room is the only one with nothing on the walls, so it's plain and boring.. Today (Monday) we had a game of (American) football with one of the other guy dorms (HBR). A lot of other people from other dorms showed up to watch, it was funny because no one in our dorm had ever played before so we were totally unprepared. I didn't really get into it that much, I did play defensive linesmen a couple of times.. Last year they played rugby and a couple people had to go to the hospital. This game wasn't too violent, it ended up as a tie even though there's some dispute over that. I don't really care, it was fun and it was something to do.

Study hours are over for tonight and I want to get a good sleep, so I'm done writing for now. I'll make sure to update soon!

Internet Troubles..

So I'm here at the school in Germany.. First day of REAL school is tomorrow. So far it's been really awesome, rainy but its not too cold yet. Unfortunatly, some students used the school computers/school internet to download music illegaly so the internet access has been restricted for all students. Im not sure what kind of access I'll have, but hopefully I'll be able to post occasionaly.

Here today, gone tomorrow.

So today I started the real journey, right now I'm on a plane over the British Isles; its another hour or so till we reach Franfurt.. from there we'll rent a car and drive about two hours to Ludwigsburg, Germany where we'll be staying with some friends for a couple days, then we drive another two hours to Kandern, Germany -BFA. I found out what dorm i'll be in, it's called "Maugenhard". Unlike most of the other dorms, it's in the town/village of Kandern and it's about a kilometer (about half a mile) away from the school itself.

Todays plan is fly from Detroit to Frankfurt, drive 2 hours from Frankfurt to Ludwigsburg.

This plane ride (Detroit-Frankfurt) has been not bad, pretty empty so I get two seats to myself. The food was okay.. it was a lactose-free one which for some reason means it has to be healthy or something, the main course was a vegetable dish of some-sort, with rice and instead of a brownie I got fruit, no bread, just a rice cake..  I'm not against healthy food or anything, but the differences are interesting. The only sad part about this flight was saying goodbye to my Grandparents and my Sisters.

Breakfast is being served now, it's 6:46(AM) in Germany and 12:46(AM) in Canada. So far I've watched  "Mr. Fantastic Fox" and "Iron Man 2" I honestly don't know why I watched Iron Man 2 again.. Mr. Fantastic Fox was pretty good, exceptional as far as stop motion goes. The story was pretty good.. it reminded me of Chicken Run in some ways. Yippe yay.. it looks like breakfast is a vegetarian breakfast burrito/tortilla with a couple pieces of mellon and applesauce. What?! I get like 3 pieces of mellon and my Dad gets strawberries and kiwi?! How do they have milk in them? Haha -the wrapper on my burrito thing has three different "special meal things, VGML-Vegan Vegetarian Meal, VLML-Western Vegetarian Meal and NLML-Non Lactose Meal. Apparently western vegetarians aren't true vegetarians.

The other funny thing is, everyone addresses me in German.. like the guy was offering me coffee and then even when I replied in English, he asked if I wanted sugar or milk in German, same thing happened when we were in Switzerland. It'll be interesting when I get to Passport control because I'm entering Germany on my Swiss passport (because I can stay unlimitedly because even though Switzerland isn't in the EU, they allow Swiss citizens to have the same rights as an EU citizen) hopefully they won't question my Swissness because I don't speak German.
So I just had to show him my passport.. he said thank you, have a nice day and I just said "Danke" -thanks- back.

More, after the break:

And so the journey begins..

Yesterday, I left the UAE and I started the adventure of boarding school. I flew from the UAE to Frankfurt, Germany; after waiting around for 7 hours, in which I drew, read and wrote mostly.. The thing that drove me crazy was watching the same exact news-cast over and over agian.