What's been happening (Sort of an online journal......)

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Dec. 17, 2001: Lets see....what have I been up to? I have, of course, been working a lot on this site. Um...last weekend my host parents to me to a "Weihnachtsmarkt" (Christmas market) that was right next to a castle. It was at night and everything was all lit up. There was a band playing, and they played only instruments that were used in the middle ages. It sounded a little bit Irish. I enjoyed it a great deal. This Friday I am going to a party, and it is only a week until Christmas!

Just for an update on cool German traditions and things, sense I haven't ever written before.....on November 10 it was St. Martins. It is a religious holiday, but I enjoyed it. The story of St. Martin was that he gave his cloak to a homeless guy, so he became a saint and then suffered so odd death, and now we celebrate for it. All the kids have little paper lanterns on a stick and they go from door to door and sing and then they get candy. Sort of reminded me of a cross between Halloween and Christmas Caroling.

On December 6 we all celebrated St. Nicholas, and that is based on the bible also. Actually, this holiday celebrated here evolved into the "hanging of the stocking" at Christmas that we celebrate in America. The kids clean there shoes the night before, and then St. Nick comes and puts something in the shoes. I got a chocolate man and 3 pairs of underwear!

For those of you who haven't seen a picture of me or anything lately, I cut my hair (again!) really short about a month ago. I really like it! It is short, but cool!

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Feb. 18, 2002:Long time since I updated this, sorry you guys. I have been spending more time working on the technical stuff of this site than on the contents. Man, I´ve got quite a lot I´ve got to tell!

Christmas was nice. I find that here in Germany it is very low key and more about the religion, so I personally found it a little boring. New Years was a blast! (Despite that since 2000 it has always made me depressed.) And my host family went to Sylt again. It was cold but absolutely beautiful.

January went by fast and nothing much happened. Eric broke-up with me, but that is a subject I don´t want to stay with.

February (now) is nice. The weather is heating up a bit and the sun is shining. From the 8th to the 12 was Karneval (Carnival) and that was a lot of fun. Definitely a German Kultur experience. Here in the Rhineland it is celebrated differently than the rest of Germany. It was a little like Halloween, except no Trick-or-treating and more dancing and alcohol. I enjoyed it, but 4 days of non-stop party is a little much.

On Wednesday of this week I am going to Weimar, where the first congress of Germany was held. It was apparently set up by Hitler. Anyway, I will write more about it when I get back so that I can give you the right info. All of the Congress-Bundestag students (all 300!) will be there, so I´ll get to meet a ton of students from all over the US who love Germany as much as I do!

The weekend after that I´m going with all the exchange students in my area (about 15 or so) to London for 3 days. I´m getting really excited about that! So I´ll give you all the stories on those things next time I write. (Which will hopefully be sooner than the last time!) Keep well all of you!

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