Happy one month Anniversery! I´ve been here for a month now, and it´s been fantastic. The first Rotary weekend is this coming weekend and I am so excited. I can´t wait to meet the other exchange students from the area. And trade pins, you can´t forget that. I´m working on a presentation for that weekend (every exchange student needs to make a presentation about their country, themselves, etc), and on a presentation I need to give to the Rotary club soonish about Rochester, New York, and the USA. Yeah powerpoint!
On a slightly different note, I´ve noticed that Chuck Norris jokes are popular here now (they were popular in Brighton probably about 2 years ago). I was quite suprised. For example: When Chuck Norris falls in water, Chuck Norris doesn't get wet. Water gets Chuck Norris. If you feel so inclined, there are hundrends of them on the internet. I have heard these jokes more than one time, so I assume that they are in the upswing now. People at dragenboat (similair to crew) were telling them, and people at the Jugendkreis (youth circle (in church)) weekend I went to this weekend (singing, praying, playing games like volleyball and crab soccer, eating, etc).
Another random point, in gym, every friday, we run about 3.5ish km around a pond in the Neue Garten. The past two times have been practices, and I think the next time is the real thing. It reminds me a little bit of cross country, except shorter. Fun times.

Hello everyone. I still haven´t figured out the whole photo post thing yet, but I´ll keep trying. So, last weekend, there was a school festival (medium sized), a clay-ish festival, and a nice bike ride. On Saturday, I went to the school festival (the 11th graders job was to set up). There were different stand for different grades, like a baked good stand, a jam stand, a make your own lip balm stand, a mixed drinks without alcohol stand, a fortune telling stand, a face painting stand, and so on. It was fun. At the same time, practically across the street, the clay-ish festival thing was going on. There were 2 or 3 streets full of stands on either side with stuff made out of clay (pots, vases, plates, little animals, etc). It was held in the Hollander section of Potsdam (the houses built for the Hollanders to live in so that they would move here and work). The biking was on Sunday. It was beautiful. Potsdam is practically an island (it is surrounded by lakes, rivers, and canals, the first two created by the ice age), and we rode on the edge of a couple different lakes and rivers.
Last wednesday was the first day of chorus. We have chorus every wednesday. When I first agreed to be in it, I was a little sceptical of my ability to sing in a chorus, but after that practice, I remembered how much fun it was to me in a musical group. We practiced a christmas song made of of many christmas songs (it was in english, but most of their other songs are in german). This chours is a really good chorus. They´ve won competitions and last summer they went to Rome ( I think they go somewhere exciting every summer). We´ll be making a christmas CD and selling it around christmas time. The people in chorus are really nice too. It´s easier to have the chance to get to know people there because in class, the only time to freely talk is before and after the lesson, and during break.
Well, that´s about it for now. I´m going to go and try to get the pictures of of my camera.

My First Day of School

It´s been a great first week. I´ve already had a nice little trip to Berlin, and gone to a fantastic music festival. On the topic of school (the title of this emtry), my first day of school was today. I´ll be in the 11th grade, and I will take German, Math, Gym, History, Art, Physics, Chemistry, Spanish, Philosophy, Geography, and Chorus. Exciting! On the first day alone, I´ve met 3 german students that were exchange students last year (2 in America, one in Australia) and lots of other students seem to be away on exchange (when we took attendence in class, the other students kept saying "Ausland" when students sames were called) Most people go on exchange in the 11th grade here, so that is why so many people are missing.

My first day

Hello everyone! I´m glad to say that I traveled safely, and now I am living with a fantastic host family. For some reason, I am unable to post pictures right now, but once I figure it out, I´ll post some of my first day. My host father picked me up from the airport, along with his daughter, and we spoke german almost all the way home. I´m a little tired, so I will write more a little later to fill in some of the details.