Week 7

Week 7!: 😩

Time is just flying by, I feel as if though this is my second home country and I met my second set of parents, and incredible "siblings". I also made incredibly awesome friends.

Tuesday 24th January:

After school I had my German course, and I did not miss the bus this time! I have my German course's in the Gersthofen Library, only a few others take the course as well and there's 3 tutors but sometimes only one of them shows up. Herr Funke (Mr.Funke) is my favourite tutor, he's so cool and funny! He's the one that shows up every Tuesday.


Saturday 28th January:

Elena and I decided to meet up in Gersthofen and then go to Augsburg for a little tour and some shopping!

We visited the Rathaus and the Perlach Tower,

We also visited the Fuggeri, which is a place that the rich people built houses for the very very poor people. The houses look exactly the same, but the doorknobs are all different so you knew which house was yours in the dark. People still live there today too!

 A little look inside one of the houses bedrooms.^

 Jacob Fugger^ Who started the idea of building houses for the poor.

After visiting and walking around the Fuggeri walked towards the City Galarie, which is a great big shopping centre. There I tried Bretzel and it tastes amazing! And Elena and I did a massive shopping spree. As they say Shop till you drop!

Elena^

Sunday 29th January:

We spent the morning at home and then walked to Christina's parent's house for lunch and desert! The food was amazing, we had turkey soup, rolled beef stuffed with gerkins and something else with spatler and gravy. For desert we had icecream and a special type of fruit desert which is extremely sweet.

After lunch we rushed back home and grabbed the sleighs and drove to a little snow mountain. After sleighing we went for a walk in the snow. Let's just say Jonas and I were soaked by the time we got back to the car. We threw snow at each other and pushed each other in the snow. It was fun until we both started to eat the snow because it was being shoved in our faces. 😂

Week 6

  Week 6:

Tuesday 17th January:

After school I had my German course in the library again and this time I did not miss my bus! I got there on time and before the instrutors even got there! In the course you're either taught with a book by an instructor or you're doing the online course.

Saturday 21st January:

We spent the afternoon at Christina's sister's hosue as it was Benedikt's birthday. We had dinner and desert together with his mothers and fathers side of the family. I already know Benedikt's mothers side of the family, but I hadn't met his father's side they were very nice. Elisa, Paulina and I played Uno with their Oma (Grandmother).

Sunday 22nd January:

We walked to church, and it was -9 degrees outside, which was very cold. We listened to the priest speak and we sung songs and then walked back home. The boys got ready for their soccer tournament and they left, I was home alone doing some homework for my German course and for Wednesday for Jonas's teacher. 

Holidays are over...

Monday 9th January:

Started back at school and talked to my friends about what we all did in our holidays. I also had an hour of learning German with my tutor Katarina in school. After school I had to prepare a presentation for the next day for English class about where I come from, school in New Zealand, food, things to do in Oamaru, my friends, my family and of course about myself.

Tuesday 10th January:

I presented my presentation in English class and they loved it, they didn't ask questions because apparently I answered them during my presentation. After school on Tuesdays, I go to the Gersthofen library for German courses, I missed my bus but thankfully there was another one 15 minutes later.

Wednesday 11th January:

On Wednesdays I go to the Grundschule (Priamary school) with Jonas, Julian and Elisa. I spend 2 hours in Julian's class and then the rest of the time in Jonas's class. During the break I spend my time with Elisa and her friends playing with the snow.

New Years

New Years:

31st December 2016:

We spent the day playing games and being lazy, until half past 5 where we walked to Christina's sisters house for a New Years Eve party. I tried raclette which is a a German type of cooking food for New Years or Christmas.

We talked and ate lots of food such as salads, raclette, pizza, bread, garlic bread. After eating the men, kids and I went for a walk outside with some sparklers and little fireworks. After arriving home we played Tabu which is a German game. You take a card and there's a word you have to describe but there are 2 or 3 words you are not allowed to use which is also written on the card.

Around 10:30 we ate desert which consisted of 3 different types of icecream, chocolate, cherry and vanilla. Wafers and cake.

11:30 we walked up a big hill where we set up our fireworks, another family also joined us on the hill as we spent the half an hour talking and counting down with one another.

Finally the church bell rung at the strike of 00:00am 1st January 2017. Everyone was hugging each other and saying Gutes Neus Jahr as the whole sky was being filled with fireworks and smoke. The adults drank champane together to welcome in the New Year.

Circus and Garmisch/ Week 3

Circus:

Thursday:

Another one of our Christmas presents was tickets to the Russian Christmas Circus in Augsburg. It was amazing and we had VIP seats! The Circus group are from Moscow, and they had White Tigers with them!!!!!! I can not post the videos as they are larger than the maximum size allowed. If you would like to see the video's contact me when I get back and I would love to show you :)

Garmisch:

Friday:

The next morning we woke up very early and packed the car up. We drove 2 and a half hours to Garmisch. The car ride was full of music, energised kids, some quizzes and looking out the window at the scenery. The sun was out but it was still cold outside. We visited the oldest church, looked at the painted houses.

After lunch we walked to the Olympia Ski-Stadion.

We kept walking, and decided to check the gorge out, it was beautiful as the water was all frozen from how cold it was.

Not many photo's from the gorge as the passage was very narrow and many people were going back and going to see the gorge at the same time.

But it was an amazing time! Trip back home was tiring, all the kids and I fell asleep listening to music on our devices.

Christmas and the Holidays!!!!

CHRISTMAS!!!

Frohes Weihnachten! ❤ On the 24th of December is the big day to celebrate,

Christmas with the Hohenbichlers has been an amazing German christmas experience. From family breakfast at 8am. The kids and I prepared the fruit salad cutting up apples, pineapple, plums, oranges and kiwifruit really small into a big bowl. After preparing for dinner as well we all had a small lunch and played family games. At 3pm we visited the church to watch the children perform the Krippenspiel (Christmas play [ Jesus's birth]). 6pm Christina's parents arrived and we had an amazing dinner together!

The Christkind even decided to pay us a visit! (He's like Santa but different)

 Christina's Parents!

My Christmas presents!

2 weeks off school!

26th December

We visited Augsburg to one of the therates to watch a play "Das kleine Engle" (The small angel)

It's based off a story book for kids and the book is about Augsburg. I read the book and understood some of it but got the story, watching it was amazing, a 3 person show. 2 people performing and 1 on side effects and music.

Second Week!

Second Week!:

Sunday:

We picked up Christina's father and drove all the way to Ulm! We walked up the catherdal tower after looking around inside of the Catherdal. It's so beautiful! The tower consists of 7 hundred and something steps, but I only climbed 394 because I didn't want to go up any higher than I was. We also roamed around the christmas market below us and had some Christmas all fruit punch and some hot chips and sausages. Again I tried their spiciest sausage but it wasn't very spicy to me.

On Monday I was back to school for the last week before we have our 2 weeks break because of Christmas and the New Year.

A little wee welcome gift from the host family.

Not really much of an eventful week but school was fun, I made lots of friends which is cool, they help translate most of the lesson but then again I don't have to do the school work because it's too hard.

Anyways here's the update, enjoy until next time!😁