Baseball

!!! There are some pics under my pic blog - check em out!!!

Now I really feel my year coming to an end. My third sport, Baseball, is over. At least JV season, and this is what I played most spring. 3 Month ago, when I decides to try B aseball, I thought "Oh mty Gosh, what am I doing, I can never hit thsi small Ball". But I should be prooved wrong.
I had a great year and I actually hit the Ball a couple of times. I got one person to score (RBI), I scored myself. I also got hit one with the Ball (hurt pretty bad, but not as bad as I thought!). Than I also had a walk (advancing on base through 4 balls) . I baseicly had everything accomplished I could ever dream of. I would even say, this season exceeded my wildest dreams. So now I am pretty happy that I did it, and I would ever do it again.
Baseball was my third sport in my Year. Starting with soccer in fall over swimming in winter to Baseball in spring.
I cant really say which one I liked the most. I thinl swimming was the biggest struggle. Getting up at 5 every morning is just not my thing. But other than that it was a great experience.
Im glad I did all those sports over the year, and everything was really lots of fun, in its own way.
Im glad I did, what I did. Especially with Baseball!

Prom

!!!2 pics are under my pic blog - more to come!!!

"It all started with a dance and it all ends with one!" Living after this american high school slogan we had the last dance of the school year this past saturday. It just was an awesome day. The weather was a perfect, without any rain, only the wind was blowing fairly strong, letting some of the girl's hair struggle to remain its original beauty.
But like one of the teachers said, "if this is the only think we have to worry about, we are all good".
So I started my first and only Prom out by playing Baseball. Yes, you did not misread, we all had a Baseball game at that mornig. This meant for everybody cutting down the beauty sleep and gettin up at 7 to play some ball. At leats we did not have no double header so we got done fairly early, but still to late to just cruise home and get ready with all the time of the world.
So I came home and I basicly had no time to rest. It was time to shower and then jump into my tux, I rented a couple of days before! After I got all dressed up, my date and me took some pictures with some other kids, before we headed downtown to the promplace. We even got a horsecarrige ride to our restaurant! Even the food was not too good, I will never forget it.
After that we got a ride back and the actual Prom started. Party, music, dancing - Inside and outside - the perfect place.
It was just an incredibble evening and time just flew by.
At around 10 they announced King and Queen. I wasnt king but at least I was on court, which ment that the kids chose the Prom King from a group of guys, I was voted in.
I will never forget this day!

Winter

Ok, after this really kind of wierd winter i decided to just write a blog abput it! But who cares!!!!
Anyway. My first winter in the US. I all started with the days gettin shorter and the weather gettin colder somewhen last November! I thought fine, an other season. This time without sking! So far so good! Then of course we all had that very nice hot winter break on the Bahamas and in Florida. But after that the weather seemed to hate us!
It snowed a lot and all these windy nasty days. It just wasnt nice. Im glad its gettin hotter now! That kinda was my winter o6/o7. Not much to say. Thats why this post is the shortest so far. I got two words for you: snow (0ver 35cm) cold (about 2o°C (MINUS) - thats about whats happinin!

SHS swimming

After soccer was over I started to swim! I never really swam in my life so I was a fierly new experience for me! But it is pretty cool! I swim for 3 months now and it really is kind of fun! But now the season is almost over so I thought Im gonna write something about this new sport for me!
In the beginning I never thought I could do that! Because swimming ment getting up at 5.00 am, and this is normally way to early for me! But I did what I never thought I could do. So I got up everyday at 5 o clock and jumped at the pool at 5.30! We then had 1 and a half hour swimming, and swan about 3 km every day! And then about one time a week we had a meet. That means we swam against a other swim team from a other school! We won most of our meets and that was pretty cool!
I really like swimming now and i think it is kind of sad that it is already over in like 2 weeks. But than Baseball starts! Yeah!

San Francisco

Not enough of travelling!!! Read this!!! After 2 weeks at home I went away again! This time the West coast was the goal of my trip! All the CBYX students met in san Francisco for the mid-break meeting! I went there on a Friday morning! That ment that I had to get at 3.30 am in order to catch my flight! So I flew out of Indianapolis over Ohio to San Francisci! I landed on San Francisco Intl. airport and met some other germans right away! We then were transfared to our hotel on Fisherman's wraft. Our hotel was really cool! We stayed at the Radisson SRS and guess what i did not pay a single cent!
On our first full day, we went over to Alcatraz which is located only one mile outside the beach in the San Francisco bay! After seeing that old and dangerous prison we went back to the not so scary part of the city! We saw the whole city, the Golden Gate Bridge, the old cable cars, the beach and diufferent parts of the city! And of course we also went downtown! I really love this city! In the evenings we went downtown or to Pier 39 and saw the seals, which was pretty impressive! On the Sunday this weekend this weekend we had some meetings and talked about our expierences in the US! We also went trough the city again and it was just really cool! (as you can see on the pictures!) On the next day we all had to go home to our hostfamilies!
For me, my trip home was pretty hard! First of all my flight out of San Francisco was delayed for 55 minutes, but finally I got my flight to houston! But there were some worse news waiting for me! I could not fly out of Houston to Indianapolis, what ment that i was stuck in Houston over night and had to stay at the airport! After this very bad night I flew out to Indianapolis in the morning! The cool thing was that I didnt have to go to school on that Tuesday but I also was very tired!
Thats about all I have to say about my trip to San Francisco! Go and visit this cool city!

Florida, Universal Studios n Bahamas!!!

Promised on January 4th and fullfiled Jan, 27th! Thats the way to do it! So finally you al can read about that really cool after christmas vacation with my hostfamily! That vacation was everything, tons of fun, wierd, hectic, almost a drop, awesome, fearful and over all just damn cool!
But I bet ya all wondering how all that can go into 10 days! Ok let me explain! First we flew from Chicago down to Orlando into the endless sunshine! We drove over to Daytone Beach, ride at the cost, were our hotel was! I so I saw for the first time the atlantic from th "other side"! The next Ill never forget! Our day in the Universal Studios! The day we went to the Studios was just perfect1 It was not to hot and not to cold and of course the parks were just amazing! Noticed, that i said parks! Yes, there are actually two parks within one! The first one is the amusement park, with all the rides and stuff, kinda like the Europa Park in Rust (some fox might know what Im talking about!), but anyway, this section was really cool, but not that special. The thing that makes the Universal Studios special is the other section. There you can see how they made scenes in their movies, for example, you can experience how an earthquake would be, or how you would feel in a Tornado! It was just cool! They have so much stuff there you cant hardly see all in like a day! Our day ended with a huge firework and the best scenes of all the Universal movies projectored on big transparent balls swimming on a lake in the middle of the park, never saw something like this before!
After that we went over to Daytona Beach again! The next day was more or less driving, we went all the way down into the Miami Area. Our hotel was in Ft. Lauderdale, but we jyust stayed there for one night! The next mornign we went on our ship over to the Bahamas! And that was of course just cool! Stayin on the Bahamas over New Year, who could thing of something better to ride into the new year???
Our stay was really cool, we drove Jet-Ski, went snorcheling and of course party! After 4 days on the Bahamas we went back to Florida again. On the next day we all flew back to Chicago again, and so a really cool trip found its end!

American Christmas!!!

Late, but finally Ill tell u something about my first christmas out of Germany! 3 days before Christmas my family, david and me headed over to Rolla, Mo to visit one of my host brothers and his wife! But of course those were not the only people celebrating Chistmas with us. On the way there we also picked our hostsister in St. Louis up, who I never saw before! She had some trouble flin into St. Louis cause of delays in Denver but finally she made it all the down from Washington sate to the Midwest!
In Rolla we also met my other hostbrother from St. Louis and his wife and mys other hostsister living right in Rolla (not that long of a drive!) Our Christmas in Rolla was really cool and basicly just fun! David and I knew we not gonna see our friends for like 14 days but that was ok! The only think we really missed out one was on of our best friends had his big 18th birthdayparty back in Dville! After those 3 days we drove on to Pumeroij (definatly spelled wrong!), Iowa! There we met the partens of our hostmum! We met her before and she is literaly just damn cool! We drove up there on the 24th which was a bit sad because I was the whole European christmas eve day in that damn car drivin up there! And that was cause for americans the "real" christmas is on the 25th! But that was cool, and is one oif those things I call culutral experience!!! But anyway! Pumeroij was really cool and we had an other christmas party! Which was preatty cool and the 3rd time I celebrated christmas in the US!
Now I bet everybody is wondering what I got! KK Ill tell ya all! First of all the best present was really cool logitech web cam, but I also got Notre Dame stuff and the Notre Dame official football shirt 06! YEAH!!! Than I got a Illini banner and some other stuff, so that was thight!
But now to the real cool stuff! Read in the next blog about our vacation in Florida n of cousre the BAHAMAS!!!! Yeah thats the way to ride in the next year!

St. Louis

After Thanksgiving, on Friday, we went to St. Louis to visit my hosbrother and the whole family who met at his house in St. Louis! On Friday is the biggest shopping day with the best sales in the whole year. Of course David and I could not miss this big day. And so we went shopping in one of the biggests malls ins St. Louis. That was pretty cool! Then on Saturady morning all the other family members arrived in St. Louis. My other host brother and his pregnant wife from Rolla, Iowa and one of my hostsisters with her husband also from Rolla. That means with the exception of the one daughther who lifes in Wasinghton state, my host family was comlepte! That was pretty cool! And because my hostbrother from St. Louis works for Boeing there we went flying in one of the planes from the Boeing flightclub! That was very cool and my first time ever flying an aircraft! We went over whole St. Louis and it was pretty cool to see the whole city from the view of a bird!
After our flying experience we went home and watched together the Notre Dame foorball game. It was a pretty imporatnat one against USC. But they lost!
On sunday we went up the Arch! A pretty cool building. You can see it on the pictures!
After that we drove home. And with that a very cool trip found his end!

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving-over all the second biggest celebration in the US, but definatly the biggest food party during the year! Thanksgiving was this year on Nov, 23rd. On Wednesday before Thanksgiving our pricipal dismissed us early, that we have enough time to prepar for the day after it! On the actual Thanksgiving day, a lot of people start with going to church and after that to some family members or friends. Because I personaly dont have my own family over here...and allthe other members of my hostfamily are living more or less far away, we went to friends of my hostparents. About 10 people and a 22 lbs Turkey! That was more than enough for everybody! And of course we also hab all the other typical food but the turkey such as mashed potatos, pumkin pie, baked beans, gravy, dressing (stuffing) and some other stuff I cant think off right now!!!!
After the big meal everybody watches football, or takes a nap...kind of depends how u feel. Most people first watch the football and than go bed!
Thanksgiving is the biggest food and family party of the year.....30 million Americans traveled out od town to see their family.....and that in a country were the most familys live in one city and not all over the country!