Friends!

As predicted, good things have been happening here in Germanland.  Friday was super fun from start to finish.  I picked Piet up from school and we came home and made tasty sugar cookies.  He was a great helper and it was nice for just the two of us to do our first big project.  I'm thinking tomorrow will be fort extravaganza day using chairs and blankets.  We'll see how that project compares to the first.  After that we played for a while then went swimming at the local public pool.  It's got one outdoor pool and two which are indoors and are surprisingly fancy. There's a huge slide and a nice hot tub. In the smaller indoor pool Piet and his mom take a little class together where Piet learns how to swim and dive.  I went to the bigger pool and tried to swim laps, but it was family swim time so most of my exercise came from dodging the little boys who eagerly jumped over me.  I enjoyed the swim, none the less.  Afterward, I came home, got ready and hopped on the bus to Oldenburg.  There, I met the family's past au pair, Mallory, who was kind enough to introduce me to her friends and let me tag along for the night.  She's been working at a hotel in Greece for a while and was just stopping by Germany to see her friends.  I think she's heading to England now but she'll be back before she goes back to the U.S. and we've planned to meet up again.  She was super cool, as were her friends.  One of them lives in Oldenburg and offered to hang out any time I'm in the city, which is at least two times a week for class. So Yay! I finally have a friend in Oldenburg!  Anyways, Oldenburg at night was cool, but apparently most people were at a big festival in another part of the city that we meant to end up at, but didn't make it to.  I think the distance plus the cold weather made the flashy lights of the Ferris wheel lose their appeal.  So we walked back to one of the girl's apartments and the next morning my host family picked me up and we drove about 2 hours to a city called Hannover.  They have friends there who have an au pair from California and they all wanted us to meet.  I'm glad they created this opportunity for us because the au pair, Julie, is awesome and we got along great.  She's only been here two months, so we had fun relating our experiences and commenting on the strange aspects of our jobs to which we are still adjusting.  We watched the cheesy movie "Sweet Home Alabama" which I secretly adore and had a good time playing with the kids.  Their family has three kids and she swims on a water polo team, so she's super busy.  The kids were really cool though.  They remind me of country kids, tough but super bright and good at entertaining themselves.  I'm still working on toughening up my only-child Piet, but we'll get there.  It's too bad they live 2 hours away and Piet can't be around the other kids more and I can't hang out with Julie more easily.  We are hoping to do something together for Thanksgiving, like make a huge dinner for both the families and then force them to watch "It's a Wonderful Life."  Should be fabulous.

So, we got home late and I went straight to bed.  I haven't had that much activity since I got here and it wore me out.  I felt great today though and was able to run for over 5 miles.  It feels so amazing to have the time to do that again.  College ruined me, but I'm getting it back here and I've signed up to run a 5k with my host dad in Oldenburg on the 18th.  It's going to be flat, since everything here is flat, and cool so I should have no problem since I'm used to running in the Georgia humidity and up and down hills.  Too cold might be bad though, so I'm hoping for a pretty day.  I plan to run a lot between now and then, so expect to read about it.  And if you're not reading about it, get on to me, because that means I'm being a sissy and not doing it : )

After the run we went to Oldenburg where I bought some boots and walked around.  The rest of the day I played with Piet and listened to This American Life stories, my favorite radio show that's available on the internet.  It should be a nice week since we're visiting Piet's grandparents on Wednesday and going to Berlin for the weekend.  I love the small random trips that pop up so often. I'm enjoying myself a lot here and feel more comfortable every day.  My room is a tad bit messy which is kinda nice, it looks like I'm actually at home here, which I am.  Jorn and Catrin are quirky, but they're incredibly inviting and have done a lot to make their home my home.  I am unbelievably lucky to have this opportunity and I'm loving it.