Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I know you've all gotten a lot of snow over the past few weeks, but today is the first snow for us. I'm pretty excited about it, actually, because most of the people I know think that frost counts as snow. Hopefully, now they'll see the difference between frost and snow.

I'm sorry I havn't updated in so long, I know, I should have, but the mood just never struck me. So heres a rundown of the things that have happened in the past month.

I went to Heidelberg and Mannheim for class. They combined two classes together for the trip, and the other class had things to do in Heidelberg, so the people in my class got 5 hours to bum around. It was good, the Christmas Market was there so we drank lots and lots of glühwein and went shopping. We found a pizza hut, but didn't eat there (I think we all wanted to, but nobody wanted to suggest it.) we did eat at this nice little thai place. Everything in Heidelberg is in french, english, and german, which is good for tourists, but a little annoying for us. We went up to the top of the cathedral there, which was super fun, though the stairs were really tiny. Peter hit his head on the way up because the stairs were also built for people who are only 5'5" or so. it was pretty funny. I was really disappointed that we didn't get to go to the castle in Heidelberg. I kept saying "Guys, I really want to make sure we get up this castle..." and everyone else said "oh, we have tons of time!" which, we all know is code for "we're never going to make it up there". It's a good thing i'm going back sometime in the next two weeks. Mannheim was nice, but we only got to see the Mosque there. It was a really beautiful Mosque, but by that time in the night we were all ready to go home and get to bed.

Ali, my friend studying in Spain, came to visit for a weekend. It was the tops. She came in on Thursday and left on monday. We had the best time. We took lots of walks and ate good flammkuchen, went to a movie (the golden compass... it was AWFUL), watched some TV, cooked for a bunch of my friends. It was so nice to see someone from home. Especially her, because we didn't have to do anything to have a good time. It rained the whole weekend, but that didn't stop us from climbing jesuitschloss or schlossberg. I can't wait to go visit her in Spain.

My friend Peter held a christmas party, which was super fun. I met a lot of new people that I hadn't met before, including some really rude French girls. It's very strange to meet the French here, theres a lot of tension between the French and the Americans... even amongst those who are friends. I've had french people tell me to burn my passport upon meeting me, and these girls at the party grabbed a pen and wrote "Stop The Iraq War" on Ryan's arm. He was telling me about how even though he agrees with that statement he found it extremely rude, as do I. My french is quite awful, (I only know a few phrases, such as 'what time is it?' and 'I don't speak french. do you speak german or english?') and it makes me scared to go to france. Whenever we do go to france, we usually try to speak in german as much as possible, and try not to let on that we speak any english. we shouldn't have to be embarrassed to speak english in front of these people, but we all are. My friend Jenna is coming soon, and she wanted to go to a smaller french town... It would have been ok for a day trip, but not only was it far away, but being a small french town put me right off. I'm ok with sticking to the larger/tourist cities such as Straßbourg and Paris, because there are many other germans and americans there. especially in Paris, where we might be american, but at least we're not the loudest. Anyway, Peter had this party, it was fun.

All of my room mates went home for christmas, so I've been hanging out by myself. I'm really enjoying the downtime. I've gotten to watch lots of movies, cook for myself, watch lots of TV without being in anyone's way. It's all very exciting. I spent Christmas with the local stray cat, "Willie/Wilhelm" or "Mishka" depending on who you ask. He's very sweet. He came by last night while I was making dinner for myself, and I fed him and let him sleep on the couch, until I had to kick him out for the night. In the summer, we just leave the window open and he comes and goes as he pleases. He came back this morning, and I let him in, he's been following me around ever since (climbing all over my keyboard, playing with my shoe laces, attacking the pillow on the couch). Right now he's fallen asleep next to me. He could use a little bit of a bath, but i'm not about to take on a task like that.

On the 2nd, two of my good friends from home are coming to visit, and I'm really excited about that. We're going to go to Heidelberg, Straßbourg, Basel, Shauinsland, and maybe Stuttgart. It's going to be the best. I can't wait to feed them flammkuchen and show them all my favorite hang outs. My roommates all speak a little english, which will be good for my friends. I'm excited for them to meet my roomies, they're all really fun.