February/March Update!

           Hello everybody! I am happy to report that it seems like the end of winter is in sight! Praise the Lord, I was beginning to think it was never coming(my apologies to my readers Stateside who are still being pummeled with snow and subarctic temperatures). The sun was out today and the blue skies made me homesick for my sweet Alaska summers. Nothing beats Alaska in the summer, too bad you have to wait 2/3 of the year for it to come around. Here in my city, Goppingen, there are small flowers blooming in the parks. At first I thought they were oddly colored fungi, thank you little brothers for educating me on the different type of fungi that exist, but on further inspection I learned that they were small flowers growing in clumps of orange, purple, yellow, and white! Sunmer can not come soon enough. I just want to be able to wear shorts and sandals! I also wouldn't mind ditching my jacket.

The flowers that seem to be popping up everywhere in Goppingen

               One thing that will never cease to amuse me is seeing adults riding scooters. There is just something about grown men zipping around the city on scooters that I find extremely funny! Also, they never forget a helmet, safety first! Germans will be Germans. 

Spotted in the Stuttgart Sbahn Station

               Last weekend Ceara and I went and picked up our friend Sophie from the airport. She was coming back from India where she had been with Rotary giving out Polio vaccines. She is so lucky to have had that opportunity. Anyways, Ceara and I went with a massive welcome home sign and picked her up from the airport. Because we don't have family here, we are family for each other. It was basically like Sophie was our child and we were welcoming her home. 

Sophie, Fashion Icon, arriving home from India

             Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am having to switch host families again. No, I didn't do anything wrong and I'm not in trouble and my host family doesn't treat me bad. I don't really want to leave, but I have to. I will probably be moving in the next 1-2 weeks, or as soon as they find a new host family for me. It really stinks to have to keep moving like this because I'm a bit of a charity case. I feel like people take me on because they have to because I have no where else to go. I had a bad experience with my 1st host family and had to be moved early and now my current family can't host me any longer. Rotary is basically looking for anyone with a spare bedroom to host me. I kind of got the short end of the stick when it came to host family situations. No that does not mean I am having problems with my current family, I like them very much and wish I could stay longer. Isi and I are very close and she is just like my own sister. She likes to climb in my bed with the iPad and make me win Candy Crush for her. I own at Candy Crush. Probably the only game I can beat her in. She crushes me every time we play boardgames. I will miss her so much.

Isi and I, in my bed

                My mom comes in just 24 days!!! I am beyond excited for the trip we're doing when she gets here. We are going to go around southern Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and possibly Switzerland. It's going to be the best Mother-Daughter trip ever. By the time she comes I will have gone 7 months without seeing her. Speaking of which, today is my 6th month anniversary! I now have just under 5 months left until I go back to the USA. Wow the time goes fast. I don't know how it happened but half my exchange is over! The idea of going back to the US and not having my exchange family scares me but I know that I have to leave sometime.. If I stayed here forever this time wouldn't be as special.

Not the best picture of us, but it's one of the more recent ones (meaning 9 months old.. distance probs..) and I think we actually look related in it