A Great Autumn Break

Autumn is here!  It's been cold here for a while actually, and there were many times when I talked to people back in the U.S. and heard that they were wearing shorts or tank tops while I was absolutely freezing, but I think at this point we're all suffering equally.  Anyway, back to the positives of fall, I had a two week vacation at the end of October which was extremely nice but also very busy!  I visited Flensburg as well as the Netherlands and had a great time.

I left school a day early to travel to Flensburg and visit my first host family.  My permanent host family was in Turkey for their holidays, which I think is a popular spot for Germans to visit after Spain, and I was very happy to go to Schleswig-Holstein again and visit everyone!  Traveling with the train took a while but I was very happy to see Susanna and Lina waiting for me at the station.  The first weekend I was there, Lina and I had a Mädelsabend, which means "girls night."  We ate junk food and watched a few movies, one of them being Türkisch für Anfänger, which seems to be our tradition.

When the week started Lina had to go back to school after her break (in Germany different states have their breaks at different times to avoid congestion on the highway, or Autobahn).  I went to school with Lina for two days and the rest of the week I spent with Susanna which was also fun.  During the week I also met up with one of my friends from my orientation and language course that I had in August.  One of my friends, Angalee, is American and she's living in Flensburg the whole year.  She saw me walking in the city and she practically mobbed me.  We had a very loud encounter and I'm sure some people were thinking "Oh, those Americans" but it was fun!  My other friend, Sophie, is German and was one of the organizers of our course and she also did an exchange in France.  The three of us did some eating, catching up and walking through the city.

Sophie, Angalee and I had a lot of fun hanging out

My last weekend in Flensburg, Lina and I decided to go to a disco in Husum which ended up being lots of fun!  The two of us went with one of Lina's friends from school and her boyfriend.  When we got there the music was horrible.  It sounded like Schlager music which, from my understanding is just old-fashioned German music which reached its peak in popularity in the sixties, so you can imagine.  The music did end up being really good later on and we had a great time!  We also ran into someone we knew and we all went into the photo booth.  After the disco we slept over at Lina's friend's house.  The night before I left we went to a singing mass at the church where Susanna is part of the choir.  I really liked that we got to sing along, even though I didn't understand it all.

Susanna and the choir

After a great time with my first family, I came back to my first host family in North Rhine-Westphalia for the night and then I was off to the Netherlands the next morning to visit my family.  Unfortunately I was visiting during a week where my cousins had exams, but I did get to spend some quality time with my uncle and my aunt, which was nice!  It was especially fun to have "girls' time" with my aunt because normally she's surrounded by boys.  We had a workshop in Delft and learned how to make our own necklaces and they both turned out really pretty!

During the trip I was also on the hunt for a good winter coat because, as I mentioned, it's cold.  Luckily, my uncle knew all the right places to look and I ended up buying a nice one from a Dutch department store called de Bijenkorf.  The last night that I was there we did something special for dinner.  We had lots of food to choose from and we cooked our own meals individually on a little grill.  I thought that it was a lot of fun and something unique!

Getting ready for dinner

My two weeks went by fast, besides all of the time I spent using the Deutsche Bahn.  I had a fantastic time during my break and I was so glad to be in such good company.