Still More Fun in Germany!!

Hallo ihr Lieben! (Hello my lovlies!!)

So here's the newestest:
July 11th: Am Bodensee!
I can't say enough about how beautiful Lake Constance was and how little the photos do it justice. You could even see snow on the Alps in the distance through the fog! It borders Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, and I could see all three from the boat trip we took around the area of the island town of Lindau, Germany. I was actually in Austria for like, 15 minutes, but I didn't do anything there and didn't even get out of the car, so I'm not sure if it even counts :-)
 

 

 Built in 1422!!

In my hands, I'm holding a pretzel and a wurst, drinking Apfelschorle (like apple soda, super popular here), and sitting am Bodensee. There's not much more "German" you can get, unless I was drinking beer and watching soccer at the same time :-) Bodensee took most of the day, so I don't really have much to say other than that it was fantastic!

July 12th:

We didn't do very much, but it was still fun! Lisa and I went into town and ran errands and bought white t-shirts for the Color Festival on Saturday. It was raining and a little cold and both Lisa and I got really wet despite carrying umbrellas, but that doesn't matter.

Fun Fact: This a a tower in Mindelheim. It was built in like, 1300, and traffic goes under it all the time. A completely normal street. That's Germany for you!

July 13th:

Today Lisa and I went to school. Because she has good enough grades and is changing schools next year, she finished school super early for me. We only went today so that she could show me her school and return her books. The German teacher just yelled at the class for the entire half hour about a test that didn't go so well, the Biology teacher just taught the lesson like normal and was impressed that I could find reasons why we should protect the Earth's biodiversity in an article (written in German) when other students couldn't, and the English teacher was awesome. We talked about stereotypes the Americans have of Germans, the stereotypes Germans have of Americans, and "what the American Dream means to me", which was really hard to explain, whether in English or in German!

Then Lisa, her friend Sophie, her friend Sophie's Mexican exchange student Paulina, and I made pizza, planned our trip to Berlin together, and went to Schloss Babenhausen. It was really interesting to see all the medieval artifacts, but I couldn't understand the tour at all because the guide had such a thick accent and spoke so quickly. It was even worse for Paulina, who only speaks a little English and no German at all, but we tried to translate a little bit.

(Just to give you an idea of just how much farmland there is around here and how beautiful it all is, even if it does sometimes smell a bit like manure when it rains :-)

After that we went back to the Schusters' house to watch yet another Harry Potter movie: we're on the 5th one now! We hung out together most of the evening, then after Sophie and Paulina left, I made actual contact with home via video chat for the first time since leaving. I had texted a little bit here and there, but it's easier just to enjoy the experience and blog for everybody's benefit when I get the chance.

Honestly, I was only a little homesick at the very beginning and I was actually prepared for it to get much worse, especially considering that I've never been away from literally everything I've ever known ever or even away from my parents and family for more than three or four days. Despite all that, I'm one week in and I'm absolutely loving Germany. No homesickness, no huge language problems, a beautiful country, an amazing host family, and an absolutely spectacular exchange sister!

Tomorrow (14th of July) Lisa and I are going by train to Munich to visit the Deutsches Museum (Do I really need to translate?) which, according to Wikipedia:

"is the world's largest museum of science and technology,^[1] with approximately 1.5 million visitors per year and about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology."

Needless to say, I'm excited. We're also going to see the Marienplatz and Karlsplatz public squares, which are some crazy spectacular architectural highlights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienplatz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlsplatz_(Stachus)

More photos and updates soon! Tschüß!
Deine Megan