Part one

Hallo! I've now been living in Habighorst for about a week. Habigorst is a very beautiful, little village with lots of farms and traditional German houses. My host family is very nice and I like them a lot. I went to my host sister's vaulting lesson (on horses), which was really cool. All of the little kids there were really curious about me and asked my host sister who I was. She explained to them that I was her family's exchange student and that I am American so I don't understand very much German and when you speak to me you have to talk very slowly. I found that quite amusing. Then they all came over to me and began asking what various objects were in English and then teaching me the German word. With my other host sister, I go for bike rides with her and we've been watching Der Herr der Ringe (lord of the rings) in German with English subtitles everyday after school and homework. My host mother is very nice and we have a lot in common. She recently published her first book which is a fantasy, romance novel that takes place during medieval times, which I think is super cool. My host father is also very nice and is very patient with my often slow German and explaining words I don't understand.

I have language school in the nearby city of Celle mon. thru Fri. 9 to 12. I've been learning a little bit in my class, but a lot of it is things that I already learned from Rosetta Stone (by the way if you really want to learn a language, I recommend Rosetta Stone because I did it about everyday for three months and my German is just as good as a girl in my class who had been taking German for three years in school). I've noticed that there are some cultural differences in how the class is run. For example, our german teacher gets upset when we ask a lot of questions that are off topic and she'll say All of that is later, now we are learning this. or she'll completely ignore the question and keep going with her lesson plan. After school I usually hang around Celle for an hour or two with some of the other exchange students. Everyday we go to a German bakery that we recently discovered and enjoy the cheap and absolutely heavenly joys of German pastries. Then we wonder around, find new places, and have fun. I've had quite a few stupid American moments in Celle, but I'll only tell you about the most amusing one because it would take too much time to write about them all. So, one day I went into a store called the New Yorker (an ironic place for a stupid american moment) and I was looking for a warm jacket or sweater and finding none that I liked I attempted to exit through a door. An alarm went off, so I quickly shut the door and realized I had tried to go through the emergency exit door, which was clearly stated in big bold red letters on the glass door, but I hadn't seen it. So with the composure of a clueless American I ask a sales clerk Wo ist die Tür für drausen?. She gives me directions with a straight face, which i am sure was hard to do and i successfully leave the store without setting off an alarm. Anyway i found that quite amusing. After hanging out in Celle I take a bus home (which I can now do all by myself!), do homework, read children's books (and looking up lots of words) and watching lord of the rings.
Part two will be posted later
Tchüss!