So first of all I would just like to apologize for not writing in such a long time. Things have been pretty busy but now I have some time.

Well lets go clear back before Christmas. I switched to my 2nd family around the end of November; which was only a temporary home until my next 'official' family could take me. For the two weeks i stayed with a member of my hosting Rotary Club. Then on December 9th i moved to my next 'official' family; which i am currently in now.

My current family consists of my host-parents, host sister, and a big dog. :) They are a wonderful family and really nice. My host father works for a big company that sells measuring tools and other gadgets and my host mother stays at home and does house work and so on.

Christmas in Deutschland was very relaxed and a little bit different than in the U.S. On the 24th we went to a candle light Church service, ate dinner and then opened up Christmas gifts. And i got a really beautiful neclace from my host family and a little ' räucher mänchen ', that is german for smoking man. And you put a little incense in the middle of him and then the smoke comes out of his mouth. On the 25th we had a really relaxed day. We had a big Christmas dinner and then just hung out the rest of the day. New years was pretty much the same in the U.S.A. too. Nothing really to tell about there.

Things have basically been going pretty good. I am really liking the German culture and the way of living. When I first came to germany i thought there wasn't much of a difference between cultures;but once you get really intergrated with everything I realized how different it is. My german is prettygood and i understand pretty much all of it. I have traveled many places with Rotarians my Rotary Club, and host family. We have went to Köln, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, The Netherlands, Bonn, and Aachen. And i have also traveled to many places with friends and other exchagne students by train because it is so easy to do. It is so great to learn about the history of Germany because there is so much to learn and every place has so much to inform you about.

Last weekend i was in Düsseldorf for a big german tradition called Karenval. Karneval is a big tradition that dates back into the 1340's. At karnival all the people dress up in fun constumes and have lots of fun in different cities all around Germany. The two biggest Karneval festivalsare in Düsseldorf, and Köln (Cologne). Every so often Rotex, ( which is the people who went on an exchagne and are around the ages of 19 - 21), puts together a big weekend where all of the exchange students get together and we hang out and go to different places. So the last one was last weekend at Karneval. We all dressed up on monday and then we went to the ' Alt Stadt' (old city) of Düsseldorf and we watched the parade and had fun. I dressed up as a Blue Smurf and there were many other costumes. It was a great time.

I am going on a Europe Tour in 36 days with Rotary. We are going to places like Rome, Paris, Budapest, Niece, Prag, Venice, and a few other places. We will be traveling for 3 weeks with a bus and there will be about 40 exchagne students on the bus. We definatly will not be getting to much sleep. But it should be a great time and i am looking forward to it.

It is amazing how fast time flies here. I have already been here 6 months and a few days and i will be home some time in the middle of July. I cant believe it! I guess time does fly when your having fun.

Well i guess i have written a lot already so i will write again soon. I promise!

Thank you Rotary so much for making this exchange possible! It is a once and a lifetime chance and it is awesome!

Love you all and i will talk to you later.

auf Wiedersehen!

Liebe Ashley