Goodbye German Adventure!

Merinda woke me at 3:45 am to eat breakfast and get dressed.  It's 4 am and we're leaving for the airport.  Goodbye German Adventure!

Wednesday June 19

Today after school, I went to Tom's house to go swimming in his pool.  I was really excited because I would be able to see Tom before I go, and I would be able to swim too!  It seemed like forever before we got in the car but it was less than five minutes!  Even the short drive there seemed to go in slow motion, I must have been jumping out the window of the car with excitement!  Finally, after what felt like hours, we were pulling into his driveway, and I was ready to spend as much time as I could with Tom.

Tom and I almost reached the speed of light running to the pool!  His sister and her friend were already there so we had a fun time jumping in and splashing them until we were all even more wet than the water in the pool!  Then we took two diving rings, threw them, and swam after them.  When we all came up, Tom had one and his sister's friend had one, so we all started wrestling one another to gain possession of both rings.  After about a half of an hour, we all got out to dry and rest.

Tom started showing me more magic card tricks.  It was amazing to watch cards disappear, then reappear, then go back into the shuffled deck only to be drawn out again.  He even taught me a few but I failed most of the time and dropped all the cards or something like that.  After that, we went upstairs to play Mine-craft on his computer to show me his house he made.  All too soon, it was time to go home, but not before getting his Email address!

Tuesday

On Saturday, after the birthday party, I found out that I am coming back to America on Friday!!!  It was a bit of a shock when I realized I was leaving my new family and my friends, and Friday is so soon I do not have enough time to say goodbye to my friends, to satisfy me!  But then, I thought of my American family, friends, and home and I was excited to see them.  Now, today, my heart is torn between staying here in Germany forever, dodging police my whole life if I have to, and coming home Friday!  I know I do not really have a say in the matter, but I can still dream!

Last night, I made a card for each of my Tuesday teachers.  I still have to get one to my Art teacher because I do not have her again this week and I did not have any of the cards ready on Monday.  And today my Philosophy teacher was gone and I do not have him again this week so I will have to get his card to him sometime this week too.  I hope I can reach them before Friday because they are really nice teachers and I would hate it if they did not get a card.  If I can not get to them before Thursday, I will have to give them to my friends to give to them or something like that.

There are reminders everywhere that I am going on Friday.  The biggest one is that my stuff is quickly disappearing into my suitcase.  Before I know it, I will not have anything left except my underwear!  But I have to at least, put most of the stuff in my bags.  That is fine with me because Merinda organized my stuff for me so I only have to put it in my suitcase.  How nice of Merinda to do that and make it easy for me.  Still, it is another reminder that I am leaving my new home.

Sunday June 16

Today was probably my favorite day this whole trip!  We went to visit the Eltz castle, which is said to be the most beautiful castle in all of Europe!  I would not be surprised if it was the most beautiful castle on earth, even though it was not big, it seemed to hold a majestic area around it.  I could not believe my eyes when we rounded a sharp corner and there it was, shining and sparkling in the sun as if to say:  come to me, explore my rooms and halls, come and live in me forever and that is all you will ever need or want.

It seemed like the blink of an eye before we had to go and I think none of us wanted to leave the amazingly, magically, beautiful castle!

Check out this video on YouTube about Burg Eltz:

http://youtu.be/mnaTBf2Izaw

Saturday

Today was Simon's birthday party at last!  I got up, ate breakfast, got dressed, and Merinda took me to the bus stop.  The whole way, I was giddy with excitement!  He had said in the invitation that we were going "summer sledding".  I had heard of these bobsled-like things that go down a small track but I had never been on one and did not know how fast and how safe they were.  When I got to the school, I waited for everyone else to come and last of all, Simon and his dad drove up.  But it was only Simon, Mark, Lukas, and me because Resul, Denis and Yasin could not make it.  Too bad, they really missed out!

When we got to Simon's house, we did gifts first and faster than you can say "Jack Robinson", we were driving to the summer sledding.  When we got there, we bought tickets and got in the bobsled.  There was a big stick between our legs on each bobsled, this was the brake when pulled back and the accelerator when pushed forward.  We went countless times down and then getting pulled up two-hundred meters (one thousand feet) by a chain.  We even found a camera hidden just off the track taking photos of us going down and started waving at it, making funny faces at it, and even just sticking our tongues out at it!  We all had a lot of fun and hardly wanted to pause to eat we were so excited to go again, but it was too good to last.

When we got home, Simon got out a pack of strange looking cards.  These were apparently cards to a game called Werewolf.  After several rounds of Werewolf, we decided to go outside and play with the water guns Simon had given us.  I was on a team with Lukas and we ran off as fast as we could to find a good hiding place while Simon and Mark counted.  It was fun to run around without shirts squirting each other when they least expected it.  I am glad I went and we all had tons and tons of fun that will stick in our memories forever!

Friday

Today I did not get up with Kyra to go to school again.  Jörg was planning to take me to see the office, this time with copies of my parents passports so we could apply.  But then, he got called into a meeting before he could take me so Merinda dropped me off at the bus stop to go to school.  If we had known Jörg's work would call before he could take me to the office, I might have caught the first bus with Kyra!  But I am not complaining because I got to sleep in and not to mention read a few chapters of my book!

After school, Duncan came over and Liam automatically suggested that we play with his cars.  But a little later, he wanted to practice karate with Kyra and me.  So we all went outside and stayed long after Kyra went inside again.  We found our wands and set out on an amazing journey trying to keep evil wizards away from the Fire Staff.  We also picked up a lot of friends along our quest, facing betrayal and gaining information;  false and true.  It was a ton of fun and I reluctantly let him go when his mom came but it sounds like we hopefully will get together. 

Thursday

Today when Kyra's alarm clock went off, I got up and started to get dressed.  But she stopped me and said that I would miss the first part of school to go to the office again.  So I got back into bed to wait for Jörg to wake me up to go.  A few hours later, Merinda came in to wake me up and gave me a list of things to do including:  eat breakfast, brush teeth, do a page of math, and change my bed sheets.  By the time I had done all that, we were about ready to go.

When we got there, I was so nervous but I did not know why, these people could not hurt me.  Jörg talked to them for a while saying some things.  I recognized things like "Das ist schade!"  (that is a shame or what a pity).  I was giddy when we got out of there.  If Jörg was saying "What a pity", that probably did not mean good news.  I was right.  We could not even register because we did not have a copy of my mom's and dad's passport.  No wonder Jörg was saying that.

I finally got to the last two hours of school.  I got off the bus just as one of my school friends Resule got on!  And when I stepped on the pavement, I came face to face with two other girls from my class!  What was going on, were they ditching class?  Then they told me that the last two hours had been canceled because Mr. Horn was making a big test for SL and the homework hour had been canceled too (for some odd reason).  So much for catching the last of school!