This is the last time I ever try to use an American Recipe in Germany

My first week in Germany was a pretty full one. The last time I blogged was my first day of school, which feels like a million years ago. I have done so much in the past few days!

Wednesday I went for my first jog in Germany. I have definitely gotten a bit out of shape in the past few weeks, and I ended up just going to a park and sitting on the swings for a while instead of really jogging. It was actually really fun because I got to explore more of my neighborhood. I have been doing a lot of exploring the past few days, and I think after a week I can say that I have biked all over Wullen! I think the whole tiny town thing is gonna take some getting used to :)

On Thursday I had my second German class. Funny story about the class- I needed a very specific book, and so I come in on Tuesday thinking I have the right book, and it turns don't I don't. Its fine, I go to the bookstore with my host dad and we talk to the woman working and we order a new one. I go in Wednesday to pick the book up, and then I bring it to class on Thursday, turns out it is again the wrong book. So I go to the bookstore (by myself this time, I'm very proud) and I order the book. Hopefully this time it will be right. I'll keep you updated. (After I write that it doesn't seem so funny but I promise it was very funny to the lady who works at the bookstore)

Friday I went over to my friend's house, which was very fun. I have been lucky enough to be sort of adopted by two girls who just came back from exchange years in America. They felt bad for me because I don't have any host siblings or a buddy that the school assigned me to show me around, so they came up to me on my first day and said, essentially, "This is sad. You need help" I thought it was pretty funny, and it has been very good to have someone to sit with during lunch and breaks and stuff. It has been interesting to talk with them because they want to practice their English, and I of course want to learn German, so we have been speaking a weird like mostly English with German thrown in hybrid of languages and all of their other friends are always yelling at us to speak German and it's pretty funny.

On Saturday we went fort the first time to the Netherlands. It was so nice to be in a big city again. I miss it after only 1 week, I saw a big building and I wanted to go and hug it. There was a little farmers market in Enschede (the city in the Netherlands we went to) and almost every stand was selling some sort of fried fish, which I have been told is a Dutch delicacy. Almost all of the stalls were also selling something called Matjias, which are essentially raw herring. My host dad apparently loves them, and so he bought some to eat for dinner, and of course made me try them. Now if you've ever had an oyster, you know that the only way to describe how it tastes is "like the ocean". These fish taste like that, except a bit fishy-er and like 10 times stronger. Would not recommend.

Before we left the Netherlands, my host mom wanted to stop and buy some coffee because it is cheaper there than in Germany. So we went to this store, and it's whole thing is that it sells cheaper products like right on the border, and it looks sort of like a very small Costco, which I thought was hilarious. But, the day we were there was the "Truck Sale" where all of these people were selling stuff for cheap like directly off the pallets. It was such a weird combination of stuff like medicine and soft drinks and Hairbo gummys and then the sausage person was also selling headphones. There was also a DJ from the local radio station there and he was playing Drake and Rihanna, but he was like 80, and it was just such a funny experience.

Saturday we also had to make some sort of baked good for my AFS "Survivial Camp" that was today. I found a chocolate cupcake recipe online and decided to use that. I thought it would be simple to just convert the measurements from the American system in the German system. Oh how I was wrong. Lets just say I had to whip out a calculator, only to find out I was doing all of the conversions completely incorrectly. We eventually found a chart that did most of it for us, but the cupcakes still ended up being almost black from all the cocoa powder in them. My poor host dad had to run back to the store twice because we kept thinking we needed way more of an ingredient than we did. They turned out pretty tasty, just a little bit to dark and flat, I think because of a lack of baking powder. Thankfully the people at the orientation still ate them!

Today was our first AFS orientation in Germany, the "Survival Camp" as its called. It was just of few hours of like meet and greet type of stuff, but it was really cool to have everyone from all over the world all together. We would start talking in English, and then people would break out in Spanish and a bit of German. It was just so interesting to watch us all like moving between languages like that. After orientation, my host family and the host family of another exchange student all went to this Restaurant in Coesfeld together. It was really fun, and I the other exchange student's five year old host brother is my best friend in Germany. he calls me an alte Kuh, but I'm sure it's out of love.

All in all it was a pretty good week! I miss you guys back in Baltimore, and I hope you enjoyed this entry. Love you Mom!!