Rotary weekend.

This weekend all of the exchange students in my district came to Ulm for a Rotary conference type thing. It was soooo great to see everyone again. I haven’t seen any of them except for Courtney and Erika since our week in Schwarzwald, which was in the beginning of October. There were 15 of us, but now there are only 14 because a girl named Katie from Arizona got depressed or something and ended up going back home. So my youth exchange counselor had to find a bunch of Rotary families to host a couple kids for the weekend. My family took Courtney and Erika of course, and all the others were paired up and sent to random host families. On Friday when they all arrived, we went to the Ulm Theater and watched some kind of play/opera thing. After that everyone had to go home to their host families, while Courtney, Erika, and I went to Julia's birthday party. We didn’t get to stay out too late because we had to wake up kind of early the next day. Saturday morning we went to a bread museum (there wasn’t even bread for us to eat!) and then we walked to my counselor’s house and he made lunch for all of us. Then we went to the Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas market) which was really cool. It really got me in the Christmas mood! Sunday we went to an art museum in the morning and then we had a free day. Everyone just got to do whatever they wanted until their train left. Courtney, Erika, Austin (from Kentucky), and Alex (from Australia), all stayed until 6 so we got to hang out the whole day. We had Subway for lunch which was sooooo amazing! It isn’t the same as it is in America, but it was still really good. Today school was the same as usual... Last week was normal too.

This weekend I realized how lucky I really am... Everyone loved Ulm and they all were saying that they want to move here and stuff. A lot of them live in tiny towns with nothing to do, and no big town anywhere near them to go shopping or anything. I have it really good to be living right in the middle of a big city because I can go anywhere or get anything whenever I want, and a lot of the other exchange students don’t have that. And the ones that got to meet my host parents said they are really cool and nice and that I am lucky to have them. My counselor told me this weekend that I don’t have to switch families if I don’t want to, because they don’t have anyone lined up right now. But he said that if I want to change, then I can tell him and he'll find someone for me. But I am not sure if I even want to switch, because I don’t want to take the chance of getting a bad family. So I think as of right now I will be staying with the Weikerts all year. The only problem I have with them is that I always have to come home so early on weekends. Whenever there are parties, or when my friends just go out to the bar or something, they don’t start until about 8 or 9, and then I have to be home usually by 11 or 12. So I only have a couple hours to hang out, and then I am upset when I have to be at home and everyone is still out having fun. I know that I get to stay out later than I would be able to back home, but I expected that it would be different here since I am only here for a year and I want to have fun. I expected that I would get more freedom that I actually have.

Oh yeah, Leona is visiting me during Christmas break, from December 27 until January 6! I cannot wait until then; it is going to be so great to see her again.

I don’t have a lot of pictures from this weekend; my camera has been acting up lately. But some of the others sent me some of the pictures they took so here you go :)

Ulmer Münster

Courtney with a camel in the middle of Ulm!



Erika, Me, Courtney, Natalia (Chile), and Sophie (Argentina)

Courtney and me with an angel at Weinachtsmarkt.