Since my last report a looooooooooooooooong time ago I have done many things...The first thing I have done since my Germany Tour was celebrate Halloween..Halloween over here in Germany is a new holiday and isn't the most popular holiday...Yet...with each year it gets more popular...So..On Halloween some friends and I all met up and we went to the city...The only people that were dressed up were two of my friends..That come from the U.S...so naturally they dressed up and everyone just stared at them....We didn't do much on Halloween, but we did eat a lot of candy..The day after Halloween was a 'German Holiday' but all the Germans just say its a day that everyone can have off to sober up from the night before....After Halloween I didn't really do anything interesting....My host family took me to an art exhibit in the forest...It was rather interesting...

Nothing more really happened until the end of November..On the 24th of November there was a big party for all schools to celebrate the Abitur which is like graduation....so many students, 16 and older from all schools went to a club and partied....My journey to the club was unforgetable...My friend and I didn't know how to get there...Well actually she told me that she knew how to get there but she really didn't..So we got lost in the city for about an hour until we saw someone that we had meet a while ago and he told us how to get to the club...Once we got there there was a HUGE line of people...There was no way that we would get in so we decided to walk to the front of the line to see if we knew anybody, but we didn't...However, someone asked us where we are from so we told her and the security guy overheard us and let us into the club....

Talk about V.I.P treatment....The club was huge....3 stories and they were all filled.....It was so hard to walk in there but it was a lot of fun....The night of the party I stayed the night at my friends house so I wouldnt have to go home by myself and the next afternoon as I was going home I was almost hit by a train....My friend and I were crossing the tracks (before we crossed we looked both ways) and all of a sudden we hear a train coming and the driver of teh train didn't even ring his bell or anything...We almost died but thankfully we saw the train in time and were able to make it to the other side before it hit us...

For the rest of November absolutely nothing happened....

On December 3rd I switched families....In my new family I have a brother Jascha(9), a sister Jana (14), a mom and a dad....They only live a couple streets away from my first family....This family is wonderful....They do so much together and they help me a lot with my GErman....Since i have moved here my German has been inproving...The first night staying in the new house was really weird....I had been to the house many times before to visit the other exchange student but it just felt much stranger actually staying there and waking up in a different room and house...but its a good thing...

ON December 6th Saint Nikolaus came to our house and left us candy in our shoes...to put it simply Saint Nikolaus is just like Santa...He comes to the house while everyone is sleeping and leaves candy in your shoe (not necessarily a good thing for exchange students) and a present if you were good but leaves cole if you were bad...Actually I was told that Santa was 'the brother' of Saint Nikolaus...Anywho....After being in my new family for only 5 days it was time for me to travel to Münster for a rotex weekend...Me and 3 other exchange students went there together by train with all of our stuff....for only going for 3 days we had a lot of stuff.... All 53 exchange students in my district plus some from another district all got together for the weekend and such a good time....WE went ice skating one day and Go Karting the next day from 11pm to 4am....

The weekend was sooooo tiring but fun....at the end of the weekend Saint Nikolaus visited us and gave us chocolate...Yum...On the 13th of December I went to a Choir Concert for my school to watch my host sister....It was pretty good...they sang mostly in English so i was able to understand.....They did a few sonds in Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and of course German...A couple of days later we went to buy our christmas tree....Oh my goodness....It takes a long time to pick out a christmas tree...I never knew it was so much work....It took us about 45 minutes to pick the tree.....When we got home we put the tree in the Backyard and that is where it stayed until Decemer 23....Well, December 22 was the last day of school and guess what....surprise surprise there was another Party....It was called 'School's Out Party'....the party itself was ok but the Abi party was much better.....and as a bonus..the secuoty guy from last time remembered us and got us in right away....being an exchange student has its advantages....

The night before Christmas eve we put the tree in the house and decorated it.....It was really pretty and simple...ON Christmas Eve my family and I went to church, which was really boring...even they thought so...and then when we went home they sang a christmas song....i plaed a song on the piano that my host brother taught me (Jingle Bells) and then we opened presents....It was nice seeing them very excited about everything they got....After opening presents we had dinner which was Salad, Salmon, and grilled cheese sandwitches (sorry if its misspelled). It was a nice Christmas Eve, but it didn't really feel like Christmas....we went to bed early that night because we had to get up early the next morning to go visit family....

So on Christmas day we went to visit my host moms family in a town called Wuppertal...It was a nice little town....Her family was really nice but with 4 kids there it got a little loud...at one point me and my host grandpa both fell asleep in the living room...we were both really tired....when we got home from visiting them it was late and we went t sleep because the next day they were coming to our house....Here in GErmany Christmas is 3 days long....24, 25 and 26. Thenext day they to us and we had a good time....a lot of eating....The day after that we went to go visit my host dads mom in a town called Osnabrück....That was an even cuter town....we talked and ate some more...o yea at all the houses we go to that parents bring a present or to to put under the tree so that you have a present to open at every house...that was kinda nice....WEll since Christmas nothing has really happened except for New Years but I will write about that really soon because i think this report is a little long....dont worry i promise it will be very soon....well until my next report....

Küsses

Chantae