Day 90

Oh man, this is going to be a long post. First, I FINALLY SUCCESSFULLY PLAYED PING-PONG IN GERMANY! AND IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! Ok, so Liv's mom is here and I will get to that later, but she decided not to go to ping-pong and I had to think for a few minutes and convince myself to go alone. But I did it. I showed up too early and walked around the block and waited to see it being set up through the window before I went in. I walked in the gym and everyone was already playing, so I watched for a bit and tried to see who looked the nicest. I settled on the only 2 girls in the gym. I inched closer and closer to them and finally got up the courage to tell them that I was from America, trying to learn German and play ping-pong to get to know people. Instead of talking to me, the one girl let me have her spot for a few minutes, until I tried to make conversation again, and she told me that the boys in the front had three people and I should go join them. I was like, great, I bet they will be even less friendly. But, I was wrong. I walked over to them and explained myself again, and they were more than willing to let me play with them and were super nice. I played with Christian at first. He spoke hardly any English so we just played for a while, but Christopher and Paul spoke a little more English and slowly warmed up to me after watching me beat Christian a few times and asking me how to say serve and slam in English and teaching me the German. We stood around for a while and talked about ping-pong in germany and the us. Then we played a ping-pong game, where we had to run around the table and that was so much fun. It was a lot of laughing and being silly. I was really proud of myself, because even though I spoke English some, I spoke mostly German and had a great time.

After ping-pong, I went out to dinner with Greg's family, which was really fun and relaxing. Especially compared to the earlier part of my day. I woke up feeling terrible, because I have a sinus infection and tried to go to the doctor, but when I got there, the doctor was leaving for the day. So, I came right back home (i spent basically an hour on the bus) and did laundry and cleaned my room.

So, class last week was as usual, but then, on Friday Liv's mom and Greg's parents came into town. Friday was when I started feeling sick as well. It came on completely suddenly. I went out to lunch with Liv and her mom at the oldest cafe in Heidelberg. It was really nice, but a little too much fancy food for me. Then, Liv's mom went to take a nap and Liv tried to take me to the emergency doctor, but we got all the way there and it was closed until 7pm. Instead, I went back to AJY and hung out until Liv, her mom, Greg, Liz, and I went to dinner at the Red Ox. It was really delicious and that's where I went with Greg's parents tonight and I got the same thing both times. We went to bed early, because on Saturday we got up at 6 am to make an 8am train to Cologne. We napped on the train and went to Starbucks as soon as we got in. Then we visited the famous Cathedral and went through the treasury. It was so cool. All the gold and gem stones were really beautiful. Then we went to an art museum for a few hours. After the art museum we went window shopping and ate an early dinner. Then we did more walking around and went into Kaufhoff and found a lot of the things we were missing for Thanksgiving dinner, like sweet potatoes, fluff, and whipped cream. Magical american things that Heidelberg is too small to have. So then we went back to the train station, but missed our train and had to find a new one, because Liv bought the tickets from the wrong station. It was a lot of stress, but everything turned out fine and we got into Heidelberg around 1 am.

Sunday, I slept in and went to AJY around noon to meet for the scrapbook club. Then I headed over to Liv's for American Thanksgiving brought to Germany. It was delicious. Liv and her mom spent all day cooking and made 4 turkey breasts, 3 pumpkin pies, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, corn, stuffing, and cookies. There was so much food and the germans loved it. I wonder how AJY's Thanksgiving on Thursday will compare. I'll let you know and update about the big 2-1 celebration. I have already gotten quite a few cards and packages. I haven't opened anything yet though, I want to do it all on my birthday, but it is all creating a pile in AJY because I don't trust myself to bring it home and not open it, haha.