The last few days we have been doing pretty normal things, we went to a light house, went out on the boat, and just relaxed.  Pretty normal things here in Norway.  
     Today, however, was not super normal. It did start out that way though. Most of the crew went fishing, while Bo, Niels, and I went to the store, and a beach, and a small town.  The beach was really cool.  From where we were if we had a boat and went straight across the sea, we would end up in Greenland.  Pretty cool if I do say so myself.  Now all of this is pretty normal, the not normal part about today was the fact that, when we got back into Farsund, there was a military ship docking.  You may thing that's not to out of the ordinary; but Farsund is a small town, so its pretty out of the ordinary for this place.  The ship its self was really cool.

Well that's been whats happening. Germany plays again tonight, lets hope they win!

     Exploring. That's what we have been doing for the past few days. It's so cool here, because you can go through the trees and find some rocks by the sea and just sit there and think. Yesterday morning Pamela, Helen and I went on a walk up one of the hills, and the view was breath-taking, even though we didn't make it to the top of the hill. However one of my goals while I'm here in Norway is to get to the top of that. While we were exploring we also found a deck that would make a great place to have a bonfire. 
     We rented a boat for the next few days. It's really nice, we went out today and Pamela and Piet fished, and Marie Helen and I just relaxed. It was really peaceful.

     Over the past two days we have traveled through Denmark, across the North Sea, to Norway.  We stopped in Hamburg on Friday so we wouldn't have to wake up super early, granted we still woke up at 4 o'clock, it was later than we would have had to wake up.  While we were in Hamburg we walked around and went shopping and ate food.  We also watched the Germany vs. Greece soccer game.  Germany won, because they are awesome.  
     Getting to the place we are staying in Norway required getting on a boat and traveling for four hours, then driving another half hour-ish to where we are now.  It was totally worth it though.  After we got settled in and ate dinner we went exploring our surroundings.  Right when we walk outside the sea is right there, and so many jelly-fish are swimming there, its crazy.  And the view is gorgeous, there are so many hills, I cant even explain it. 

     Today  we were all  prepping for our trip.  Packing our stuff and getting all of the necessities for our weeks away.  Tomorrow we leave for Hamburg, and from there to Denmark. WOO! 

     I could pretty much live in Ikea, just saying. We went there today so we could get a few necessities before our trip to Denmark/Norway.  It was the first time I have been there; and I have to say, its pretty sweet.  After our Ikea trip we went to the mall, but there wasn't anything to exciting to buy.  After our little shopping extravaganza we had a lunch of Currywurst with Pommes Frites (yummm!) its kind of really delicious. (:  We came home after that and just did what ever we felt like doing at that moment; and a little while later we went to go get stuff for dinner and we had ice cream.  

     Well, yesterday was one of the more boring days here in Berlin.  We mainly just hung out at the apartment, but we did go to Helen's grade school graduation.  I have to say, it wasn't that exciting.  

     Today we made more jam, this time erdberre (strawberry) and heidelberre(blueberry.)  Both of which are delicious!  I also got a surprise today from Pam and Bo, one of Germany's soccer jerseys with my name on it!!










     I am officially ready for the next soccer game! Go Germany!

     Yesterday wasn't much of a day to blog about, it was a rainy day so we mainly stayed inside.  We did go out once, to go to the gay and lesbian festival that was happening just down the street.  Most of the people that attended that were very peculiar, there isn't really a word to explain them.
     Today was much more exciting. we had to wake up early and go to an engagement party.  Marie and I worked the party, serving champagne and wine (8 bottles of champagne and only 1 bottle of wine.)  We both got payed 50 Euros, about 63 dollars, over all it was a successful morning.  After the party we hung around the apartment a while until we got bored enough to go on a bike ride.  We rode to the Brandenburg Gate, which took about 20 minuets.  it was well worth the ride, when we got there they were already set up for the big soccer game tonight against Denmark, so it was really crowded.  we rode back home and are now preparing to watch the big game!! GO GERMANY!!!!

     Lets see, today I did a little sight seeing, just a few things around the city.  Pamela and I also made potato salad, and picked Helen up from a school trip. Later in the day we went to a big shopping center, it was really cool.  Every floor had something different. The best part about the shopping center? The cake on the top floor.  It was so delicious!  here's a picture:

looks delicious right?! Well it was.  The next exciting thing that I did was go out to eat with Marie and her friend, we went to this place called Vapiono, it was really good. It is kind of like a Mongolian Barbecue in that you get to see your food being prepared right in front of you, but they have salad, pizza, and pasta. I had the pasta, it was good.  That's about it for what I did today, tomorrow I get a balloon ride over Berlin!!! WOOT!!

     Today I made strawberry jam with Pamela.  It took about 3 or 4 hours to make 82 jars full, so that's how I spent my morning. After all the jam was made and put into their jars we went out shopping for fishing stuff....fun?  Yeah, a little, I got to see even more of Berlin it was really cool. After the fishing stuff was over we went to the grocery store. What to say about a grocery store in Germany?  There is a lot of beer, there was isle upon isle, kinda crazy.  The other thing that made an impression on me was the fact that they had a life size cow, yes cow as in big things that produce milk, right in the middle of the dairy section.  There weren't many things that we did today, since the majority of the day was spent making jam, hopefully tomorrow there will be more.

Adventure day!!

Adventure day!

     Today I woke up at 5:30, said good bye to my father and my brother and left for the airport with my mom.  When we got to the airport we checked in, and my mom left. I then went through security, with no problems, of course.  Sitting at my terminal was, boring, yet it had a hint of excitement to it.  No matter what I did, weather it was reading my book or listening to my music, the excitement was always there.  The plane ride was un eventful, yet I don’t know a person who would want an exciting plane ride

     JFK airport, what can I say about that? Well, it was boring, but I suppose anything would be boring in you sat in the same area for 5 hours. When I first arrived at JFK I had to sit and wait for the Austrian Air place to open.  It took an hour, I read my book.  When it finally opened, I checked in, got my boarding pass, went through security, and found my gate. I then had a less than adequate airport lunch, which consisted of a sandwich that could have used a number of improvements.  But what can you do about that? its not your fault airport food sucks.  When the time came to actually board the plane it went faster than I expected, the boarding process, not the actual plane ride.  When everyone was seated it took about another 45 minuets to actually take off and start our journey.  About a half hour into our flight our tv's started working so we could watch movies.  I do have to say that that part was pretty sweet.  Along with our movie we got dinner which consisted of chicken,  veggies, a roll, and a dessert of cheesecake (don't worry dad, yours is much better.)  since my movie was over so early in the flight i decided that i might as well occupy my time with something, so i thought "lets start my blog for the day," so i did.  As i'm writing this I am flying somewhere over the Atlantic ocean.  Its 9:40pm right now and we should arrive in Vienna at 8:45am their time, which would be 2:45am Michigan time.  Well I've got another busy day tomorrow, another wait i an airport, another plane ride, and a new culture to get used to.

     I really hate babies right now, I mean why would you bring your like 9 month old baby on a vacation.  its not like they are going to remember it.  There is this one baby on my flight right now and she keeps crying and I'm getting really sick of it  At this point in time I have been up since 5:30 this morning, and its midnight now.  I'm running on fumes at the moment.  But this really annoying kid wont shut up so I can't sleep. Plus its really hard to sleep on a plane.  Have you ever tried sleeping on a plane for a long flight? Because I don't recommend it, it is probably one of the most uncomfortable things ever.  Well tomorrow is gonna be interesting.

     There is not much to say about Vienna's airport except that they had really comfy chairs. The flight to Berlin was pretty easy too.  Once I got there I got my bags and met with the Strohschein's we left the airport and went to their house.  We stayed their for a while, catching up. But we all got hungry so they took me out for a German dinner. It was really good.Now we are all going to watch the Germany vs. Netherlands soccer game. 

9 Days

As of today there are 9 days until I leave for Europe for 2 months.  My mom and I are doing a trial run for packing to make sure everything is in order.  Last week was the last of my lessons for learning German, lets hope it was all worth it and I will be able to communicate well enough while I am there.