Introduction to the Lobster

Spring has finally arrived to Wisconsin and it brings a lot of fun events with it. After such an awefully long winter with snowstorms, icy roads and temperatures below -40°F and illness it is such a wonderful feeling to be outside and do some physical work. Have you ever thought that banning wild Parsnips out of a raised bed could be so much hard work? Well, even those, apparently poisenous, creatures could not destroy my exitement about having a garden. My abandoned dream of having a garden with flowers, vegetables, fruits and herbs is coming true.

Now, let's get the Lobsters involved:
I don't know if I ever told you that I am a vegetarian, and until a couple weeks ago that meant no meat, no fish. Since my German parents are rather lazy cooks, they don't touch fish or meat at home, so I never really had any problems being a vegeterian. But life usually brings changes and after being sick so often this winter I thought about making a change to my diet. A couple weeks ago the decision fell: Iwould start eating fish and seafood again, after five years of strict vegetarianism (I must admit that I could never give up eating Gummibärchen). Though I can't tell if eating fish and seafood is improving my health, I have certainly enjoyed eating it.

On Friday I had a special experience with seafood:
Every year the special needs program at my high-school has a huge fundraiser, which is "Lobster Boil". The special needs kids, their parents and many volunteers cook hundreds of lobsters and prepair a delicious meal for their guests. In addition, there is an auction.
Since two of my host brothers have special needs it is a Lobster Boil is a tradition in my hostfamily. I didn't volunteer because I originally had something else going on that night, so I ended up eating the first Lobster of my life, and definitely not the last one. It was an outstanding experience with wonderful people because my family invited their relatives from New Jersey and friends from St. Louis. So I was sitting in between my host aunt and a family friend and both were helping me to crack the technique of cracking the parts of the lobster open, which was much hader than I had expected.

 My host daddy cooking lobsters.

This was a great beginning to one of the most special weekends of my exchange year...

Thanksgiving

Unfortunately, it wasn't as happy as this holiday is supposed to be. But I can't complain, because I experienced the main part of Thanksgiving, which is the food.
It was a lot of food. It was so much, that I can't remember all the different things we ate. Of course we had a turkey. For me, as a vegetarian, this part was less interesting. I ate a lot of different food with cranberry sauce, which can`t be missing on the Thanksgiving table either. And after I was so full, that I just wanted to take a nap, there were three pies, that I had to try.
I really enjoyed the meal, but I felt terrible afterwards. I was told, that this is also part of Thanksgiving.

This is the Thanksgiving story:
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/history/first-thanksgiving/

The next day our frinds came over to our house. We ate dinner and played games.

My first week abroad

Tja, jetzt bin ich schon seit einer Woche hier und ich fühle mich pudelwohl hier. Ich verstehe mich bestens mit allen und Englisch bereitet mir auch keine allzu großen Probleme. Den Jetlag habe ich mitlerweile auch überwunden.

Ich habe echt viel erlebt:
Natürlich musste ich erstmal auspacken und mich ein bisschen einleben, aber viel Zeit hatte ich dafür nicht.
Ich war in Arrowhead, das ist echt eine riesige Schule. Ich glaube, ich werde mich am Anfang die ganze Zeit verlaufen.
Dann habe ich Johanna, eine gute Freundin von Anna kennengelernt. Ich stelle fest, dass Annas Freundeskreis genauso verrückt ist, wie meiner in Deutschland. Es wird also lustig.
Außerdem waren Micah, Anna und ich Schlittschuh laufen, es ist echt komisch im Sommer Schlittschuh zu laufen, aber wir hatten Spaß.
Wir haben eine verregnete Fahrradtour gemacht und ich habe endlich mexikanisches Essen probiert, awesome!!!