Guten Tag!

I'm posting from GERMANY!! I'm finally here, and it's been a busy few days! From start to finish so far...

My first hurdle was security, where the bamboo cutting board with a laser etched picture of Pittsburgh I brought as a gift for my host family got flagged as drugs :-) So, I had my entire bag unpacked by a very nice TSA agent and he almost had to unwrap the cutting board but then decided it was okay. I also lost my Rotary pin that I had pinned to the front of my passport holder, but I hope that I can get a new one when I return.

My flight to Washington D.C. was almost cut in half to 38 minutes by favorable winds, but the plane was so small it was almost a joke, and the flight to Munich was cut by almost half an hour. Unfortunately, I switched seats away from my coveted window seat to allow a couple to sit together and I couldn't sleep at all on the plane, but I did watch The Incredibles in German on the seatback entertainment screen. In other news, there were a ton of really grumpy older people, including a woman who got into a shouting match with another passenger over God knows what and requested a special meal for some reason, then declared it "trash" and threw it at the flight attendant, who then threatened to have the police meet the plane! This all took place caddy-corner from me, so I had a front-row seat to the insanity.

Thankfully, calmed down after that and the rest of the flight went just fine. I met the Schusters at the airport and we drove straight to the bakery nearest the Schusters' house (that is, in Mindelheim) to get some fresh pretzels for the typical Bavarian Weisswurstfrühstück: white sausage and soft pretzels with sweet mustard and beer. Yes, you heard me right. Beer for breakfast. For those who don't know, you can drink beer and wine at 14 years old with adult supervision, at 16 you can order/purchase it yourself, and at 18 you can drink all of the other hard liquors. So here, I'm completely legal. I tried the typical Bavarian breakfast beer (as well as a couple other alcoholic drinks) and so far I've found them all to be too bitter for my tastes. However, the Weisswurst was delicious and the pretzel was the best I have ever had.

So far, I have gone to a German supermarket and beverage market (yes, two separate things), bike riding in the fields next to the Schusters' house with Lisa (there is literally more farmland than village around here!), to Memmingen (a town nearby) with Lisa and her sister Nina to go shopping for a new dress for Lisa, and to a beer garden to watch soccer: Germany vs. France, Germany lost :-(. It was really fun to hang out with other German teenagers, even if a couple of them were a little drunk and smoking like crazy...but that's normal here.

<----A friend of Lisa's who got very excited about "American college" (He was a little tipsy ;-)

Another huge difference:  their "normal water" is carbonated mineral water, not tap water. I had expected this, but not that the carbonation and minerals added would make it taste bitter to me. So between my hesitancy to drink anything alcoholic and my ordering Leitungswasser (that is, tap water) at Nina's Abiball (graduation), I have well and truly marked myself out as a foreigner :-)

Later that evening after it was certain that Germany was going to lose, Lisa, a few friends of hers, and I went into Mindelheim and got pizza. I got my first glimpse of the beautiful rainbow of old buildings Mindelheim is famous for, but didn't get the chance to get a good picture. We'll be back, though! Nobody here seems to have any problem with a group of young girls roaming the streets alone at midnight...which is really funny to me. I guess that it's just so safe here nobody thinks twice about it. Also interesting: their cat, Dipsy, is always outside. She'll come home and get love and food and sleep, but she goes where she wants, when she wants.

I also went to Nina's Abiball, which I had incorrectly translated as "prom", but it was actually her graduation ceremony! Everybody dresses up like prom, the entire family comes and eats dinner together with various speakers throughout, then at the end the graduates receive their diplomas. Then, the graduates have a party like our prom, but Nina said that it wasn't all that great, so she went to a friend's house to party until 5:30am! She'll have another Abiball next year for her 13th grade, because the German school system is a complicated mystery to me.

I speak German here all the time, but if something is really confusing to explain in German, I speak English, which my entire host family understands. They also speak German to me all the time, and I understand maybe half, but it's getting easier and easier. We went to a play that was in English that was being put on by a friend of Nina's school's English club, but it was hard to understand because the actors and actresses all still had German accents and they learn British English, not American English, so there were sayings that were still completely foreign. It was Culture-ception! Lisa and I will practice a little English here and there, but a neighbor actually asked me to come over and help her daughter with her English homework, which was really fun.

Tonight Lisa and I might go to a disco with her friends (the same ones from the beer garden).

Bis später!! (Until later!)
Deine Megan