Ich bin ins Deutschland, again!

hello one and all!!

disclaimer: if there are z´s where y´s are supposed to go, and random ß ö ä ü inserted, i apologize - the keyboards in germany are different than english ones!

but, i seem to have made my way back to germany, again, and am loving it all the same! i think that if i really had a completely open choice of where to study this semester it would have been in germany (the language issue pending, of course). its far more interesting - the english kind of hate americans and are pretty resistent - the germans are much more friendly, and the small-old-town feel of germany is really nice. that, and they go crazy with christmas stuff here, and christmas is myfavorite holiday!!

i spent this past weekend in Wolfenbüttel with some Oxy friends. We stayed with Connor at his apt both nights. And contrary to what I had imagined it to be, it was actually really spacious. Connor is living with the other American player on his team (the guy who took Sam Bettys place last year) and a New Zealander. Both guys were really cool, and fun to hang out with! We went to the Hergözes game on Saturday night, which was so much fun! They ended up losing, which was a tad depressing, but it was still fun to go!! The gym was relatively small, but packed. The other team just got this American who had 41 pts, and shot 56% from the field, ridiculous! I guess you cant really compete with that...
Wolfenbüttel itself it a nice little town - lots of buildings from the 16 and 1700s, a couple whose walls were literally angled outwards with the roof lines slanting in one direction or the other from the foundations not holding...haha
Yesterday we ventured into the Stadtmitte to look at the Weinachsten Markt, which was so cool! there was a mini ferris wheel with 4 carriages for kids, and there was lots and lots of amazing German food, beer, mulled wine, crafts, Christmas decorations, etc.
The one down side to all of this - its freezing!!! LITERALLY as we were walking around yesterday I stopped being able to feel my toes for a while, and my nose... and my hair wasnt competely dry from washing it (BAD idea...). But, I can put up with the bitter cold for a few more days here in Germany, and it'll possibly be a bit milder in Norwich, and then back to SUNNY and WARM cali in 12 days!! (I can't believe it!!!)
Made it back to Anja's today (Mom, Dad and all, she sends her love). She's so hospitable and nice! And I get a real kick out of her boys, and Wolfgang, her husband, is good company as well. We are going on a Christmas market tour (thats what I'm calling it) over the next few days - Celle, Braunschweig, maybe Lüneburg, and possibly another. They will all have similar things, have a similar Disneylandísh feel, but I'm pretty excited about it! I'm also planning on going back to the Gymnasium for a few classes - to Wolfgang's class on the Ar-Israeli conflict (which I need to know a bit about as far as the US perspective so I don't make a fool of myself being completely ignorant to it, even though I honestly don't know much - Dad, Elke, your summaries please... haha); to Georg's English class (where he pretends to not know me because I'm really a friend of Mr. Marquardt and no kids know that his Dad is a teacher at the school); and to the advanced English class. So, that is the basic plan for the next few day - and trying not to completely overeat and gain weight the way I think I did in september with all of this amazing food around and the lack of real (purposeful) exercise...

but, thats the update of the last few days, and a brief glimpse into my future!!

and Cambridge was cool to see last friday - the entire place is colleges - there are 31 different ones!! its one of the oldest towns in England, and the roads show it! they are tiny, and windy and there is no city planning... a fun place to visit!!

Tschüss!