Another day with Thilo. First stop of the day, after a wonderful meal with his family, was to take care of some yearbook business. Afterwards, it was into the city. He forced me to eat raw meat, we got ice cream, went shopping for new sunglasses for him, had some beers at the English-speaking gathering he goes to, and then met up with a friend of his for bar-hopping.

It was lots of fun, aside from the fact that after I started consuming alcohol, I was informed that there would be no more English spoken to me. Thilo’s goal is to help me, but my German is limited. I don’t have the vocabulary yet to follow a conversation, understand puns or jokes, so I kept zoning out. Thilo really tried and I was forced to dust off some of the German I do know yet forget I do.

Tomorrow it looks as if it is going to rain and we are hoping it won’t because we were going to go camping with lots of drinking and nobody having to stop *cough.. Thilo* so they could drive home. But alas, it looks as if it will so I’m not sure what the night is going to look like for us. I am trying to give Thilo the positive reenforcement to spend time working on his portfolio and don’t want me being here distract him too much so I told him we can’t go out tomorrow until there is progress made. His work is great so it must be completed.

Thilo is trying to sleep and I am afraid my typing is keeping him up so this will again, be quite short.

Today I spent the day with Thilo and it was amazing. He showed me the city of Hannover and we found adventure in everything we did. Including the experience of me and red wine. Anybody close to me knows how I act on wine. And not only was this the first time we have ever drank together, but red wine, my most silly drunk.

We went to the modern art museum, we went to the gardens, and really saw the beauty of the city. I’d say that it was more about us catching up than just me seeing Hannover and that was wonderful. It instantly was as if we weren’t apart and that’s what happens with great friends! I love Thilo’s family so far.

After our day in Hannover, we went to where he actually lives and I met the rest of his family who are also all great. Love it.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. The kids and I played outside for hours. We played on the swings, played in the sand box, played hopscotch, tic tac toe and covered the patio in chalk. We laughed and sang and danced. Laura and I spent some time alone playing games later in the day as well. One of the games left us counting our chips in the end to see who had won and I randomly counted in Spanish and she looked at me confused. I asked her if she’d ever heard Spanish and she shook her head. She could count in German, English and Portuguese but didn’t know a lick of Spanish. She loves language and was very interested in learning them. She’s close to having them memorized now!

I also taught Jan something today–how to pump his legs on the swings himself. He was always a little afraid of leaning back and by encouraging him to try to hit my hands with his feet when he came forward, he got the hang of it.

I should note that I’ve also taught them both how to pound it. Jan loves it and asks to do it daily, usually at the dinner table.

I’m so excited for tomorrow. I’m a little worried because the shared car lady hasn’t emailed me back today so I am planning to call her first thing in the morning. If that ride isn’t working out, I will have to figure out the train and well, that will be a far greater expense. I am already planning to spend on the train from Thilo to Johannes and Johannes to home. But I get to see the boys!

I’ll be away for a week–can I keep up with a yeast free diet?

I need to get into some trouble. Nothing too crazy, but all of a sudden I’m at home all day, socialize with children who don’t speak my language and if I say Obama they think it’s a funny word. I contemplated going out tonight, perhaps to a pub in the city (Offenburg), but my knee is killing me like something serious so I thought it best to just not. I want it to rest up because I’m sure I’ll need it next week! But seriously, some crazy adventure, some new friends, something I wouldn’t want photographed and presented to everyone in my family. Okay, I know my family reads this blog, but you have to understand that I’m both twenty and living a year abroad, crazy is the reason I’m here and is adventure is what I’m after.

Until next time, Guten Nacht.