When we got to the river, the group split in half. One half went to the Philosopher’s Walk, and the other half went shopping. I tossed a coin, and then Danyelle and I went to the Walk. It was really annoying to get to, because of a stone path heading up. And we were out of water. After we got to the top and walked around for a bit, we decided to go back down and find food and water.

We went to a place where Danyelle was getting food, and as  we waited I looked out the window and saw someone using an EeePC 700! I was pretty excited, since I haven’t really seen them here (but every other Netbook is everywhere).

After we met up as a group, and were heading to the train, we realized we were late. We started to run to try and make it… and it left as we got to the platform. I think Frau Stubbs tells this part of the story better, so I’ll just link you to http://clevelandgapp2009.blogspot.com so you can read it on your own.

The next day was school, but I don’t really have to go to classes any more. I showed up closer to 8, and hung out with Danyelle (who also had no classes). After school, we went to the swimming pool, then went to my house to watch Spirited Away. At 7, there was a goodbye barbeque, which was a lot more fun than the welcome barbeque.

Wednesday, there was school. And it was raining. I wasn’t too happy to walk to school in really bad rain, but I had to. After school there was a tour of Nagold (which started in the rain, but got progressively better). I still don’t understand why we got a tour on the second to last day, but whatever. At the end, Danyelle, Amanda and I split off and got some food. We ran into Isabella (Sandra’s sister) and stayed with her until we got home, at which point us three headed off with Sandra and Madelaine to the Stern Center.

The first thing we did was find out if we could get a ticket for Danyelle. Which we could. Then we went shopping. I stayed with Danyelle and Amanda as they wandered through different shops. I finally gave in to my headache, and sat down to take a nap for 30 minutes. After waking up we went to get ice cream, then got in line for Harry Potter. It was a great movie, although we didn’t really understand as much of it as I would have liked. We got home around 12:30 (happy birthday had been sung to me in the car), and we went to bed.

All right, finally caught up. Time for today. We woke up at 5:15 AM, and left for EuropaPark at about 6:30. Our group was Madeleine, Amanda, Danyelle, Sandra, and myself. It takes about two hours to drive there, which takes us right through the Black Forest. The entire park is in German and French, with a small side of English here and there. We got there early, which worked out fine because we ran into Glenn, Maddy, Melanie, and Michael. Glenn came with us, and we went on a ton of roller coasters. There was this one blue roller coaster that had a huge loop and three separate corkscrews. It also had a heartbeat monitor on your harness, which was pretty cool. There was also this ride that was completely inside a dome, and it was space-themed. Danyelle, Glenn, and I kept joking about how it was like Portal. Then there was a coaster that had you spin around as well as all the quick falls and whatnot. It was a blast!

For lunch I had a pretty bad Pizza (pepperoni shouldn’t come with mushrooms!) At about four our drivers got tired, and decided to take us home. I packed up for the trip to Munich, and did some stuff on the computer. Then I posted this.

After our hike, we headed to my house. Danyelle and I played Magic, as well as watching multiple shows on my laptop. We went to bed around 1:30, and woke up at about 8:45. We then headed out for what turned out to be a very boring adventure, with a few slight perks. We had thought we were going to explore Switzerland. Instead, we went to Madeleine’s relatives, and visted with them for… too long to be comfortable. Then, when we finally got to where we were going, only Danyelle and I felt like exploring the Swiss city we had gone to. Without even going to the castle, we went back home.

As far as perks go, I got some interesting shots from this whole endeavor. We sat down next to this interesting fountain, which had one of those huge chess boards that people can play on. Oh, and I got to go on the Autobahn at 190 kph. That’s a bit less than 120 mph, for you non-metric people. And hanging out with everyone (when we weren’t bored and out of place at odd relatives houses) was fun. We talked about different kinds of music that we liked, did a guess that artist kind of game. That kind of thing. But overall I’d rather have stayed home, or better yet gone to church.

When we had finished there, our group went to downtown Stuttgart, where we wandered around aimlessly for a couple hours. Danyelle almost bought some shoes, but they weren’t in her size. I bought a book in German, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I barely understand any of it, so wish me luck! I also bought a lot of fudge from a candy store.

After this, we went back to Nagold and split up. That night was Sandra’s graduation, so we got dressed up all nice and went out. It was pretty interesting to watch, because it was totally different from (and better than) our graduation. There were a couple speeches from head faculty, then the students were called up by class and recieved their transcripts and diplomas. Then the studends called up their teachers, and gave them presents. It took a bit longer than our way of doing it, but I think it was a much more enjoyable experience. Then there was a huge dinner, with tons of food on long tables.

My part of the story ends at this point, because after the dinner portion I go home and go to sleep. Sandra, Madeleine and Amanda stay out until 3 AM at a party. I would have gone, but I was too tired from the day to enjoy myself. I went to bed really early, and slept in until 8:30. Which is late for me, because I’ve been waking up at 6 to go to school.

I’ll upload pictures from the Zoo later.

The road trip was fun, I spent the time talking to Danyelle, Eric, and Glenn. When we got there we got on some boats that were steered by a large wooden pole. It was a lot of fun, although once we were out on the water I discovered my camera was dead. I used Danyelle’s camera, but I don’t have the pictures to put up. The kid who was our ‘captain’ for this adventure was doing it for the first time (at least with a group). He did really well, although we ran into the trees hanging over the bank many times. And Michael got to push us for awhile, which I got a picture of. Some people (Michael and Glenn) decided that rocking the boat would be a lot of fun. And after awhile it was. Just not at first, when we didn’t know how much the boat could take. And the entire time it was leaning to the left by a lot. But it was a blast.

Afterwards, we got to wander around the city for an hour and a half. I went off with Danyelle and Glenn to just walk around and have fun. We got some ice cream, then ran into Goofy (nickname as used on the blog of Frau Stubbs).  He was really out of it, and I felt that we should watch him until he found a buddy. We found his mom (who has just arrived), and left him there, but he wandered off again. Feeling our good deed was fulfilled, we continued to wander around until we found a Spiderman sitting next to a tree. Intrigued, we went to investigate. As I looked into the store, I saw that we had stumbled upon the only gaming store in Tübingen. They had Magic cards! And Firefly! And World of Warcraft! It was a really cool store, and the manager gave us at least $20 in discounts (I don’t remember in Euro). I got a lot of Ravnica packs, while Danyelle and Glenn each got a deck. And when I saw a lot of Ravnica packs, I mean a LOT. My dad should know what I mean. I don’t think I need to buy one of those any more, I just got one.

After this expensive run, we headed back to the bus, came home, and split up. Tomorrow we go to the zoo, which should be a blast. I think this is one of those trips that we get to wander around on our own a lot.

Nothing really happened during the mid-school meeting with Frau Stubbs. Those who might be going out of the country were given their passports, and then we did some practice work in German with each other. I guess some of the families are complaining that their students aren’t speaking German, based on how Frau Stubbs was telling us how we should be speaking it a lot more than we are. After that, we went back to class. Glenn helped Michael with his English during that class, then we went to the computer room and hung out.

When school ended, I met up with Danyelle, and we hung out until 6. During that time, we played Magic, wandered around Nagold, tried to do some shopping, and generally had a good time. It kept trying to rain, but never made up its mind. At about 6, Sandra took her home, then I spent the rest of the day in my room.

Oh, for lunch/dinner, I had some meal that was sort of like meat balls and tomato sauce. It was from Hungary. If anyone knows what it’s called, I would be grateful. All I was told was what it was made of. It was okay, but I don’t like tomato sauce that much.

After this meeting, I’m supposed to follow Michael. Danyelle doesn’t want to follow her host, so she asks her host and Ms. Stubbs if she can follow Michael. However, the odd thing here is that after this is all set up, and we’re about to go to class, we learn that Michael has finished school for the day. So Danyelle and I just hang out in the home room playing Magic. She couldn’t leave because Monika was her ride home.

After school, we split up, and I walk home. I eat lunch, then Sandra comes downstairs, saying something along the lines of our plans being very confused. The girls were going to go shopping, and I was going to go over to Glenn and Michael’s house. But now the girls don’t want to go so they can be back in time to see the Michael Jackson funeral (at 7, and at this point it’s 2) and they don’t think they would have enough time. And I still don’t know where Glenn and Michael were, but they weren’t at home.

So after all this, the weather was too varied between raining and sunny, so going out wasn’t considered. I didn’t really realize how long it had been until I looked at my clock, and I have been playing video games for nearly two hours. And I have gone through multiple albums on my Zune.

This is a very strage day, indeed.

That place is really cool! The city itself is kinda normal, as far as a German city, but the palace is amazing. It was first meant to just be a hunting lodge that looked like a palace. And even then, it was concepted as a fortified castle, just never built that way. When we got inside, I found I had a problem. Because everything inside was genuine from the period, no flashes were allowed. But if I used auto mode (as I have been), all the pictures were blurry. So I switched to shutter speed priority, and hoped that I could pull some detail out of the very black pictures. Hopefully I can figure it out for the ones I’m not posting right now. And if you look carefully, the interior pictures are still slightly blurry.

The interior was also amazing. The walls had gold all over, with statues and paintings everywhere else. Our guide was great, and taught us a lot of the history behind the palace. The Duke’s private chambers were covered in mirrors. Any way you looked, you saw yourself four times. I can imagine the room never really being that dark, as any light would just get caught and reflected to no end.

After this, we went into the gardens. I wandered around with Danyelle, enjoying the photography. We found a fantasy garden, and then Eric and Glenn playing around in a fountain that shot out at people. 45 minutes just wasn’t enough time to see everything, though, and we had to head back.

After we got back, I was on the computer for some time. Sandra left to work on applying to a university, and at that point I came upstairs and had a very long conversation with the rest of the family. It was great, because instead of using my very odd dictionary  we used Google Translator. This made everything easy, and I got a lot better at comprehending. Many of the holes in my vocabulary were filled, with such words as ‘if’ (wenn) being used commonly. I stayed up until about 11 PM, at which point Isabella had to go to bed, as did the mother (the father already went to bed, as he has to wake up at about 3 AM). We all said goodnight, then went our separate ways. I spent some time talking to people, realized I was exhausted, made that filler post, and went to bed.

I’ll talk about today later tonight, after this evening’s events.

After we got home, we had lunch. It was pork (which tasted like more like ham than the other pork we’ve had) and potatoes. It was delicious. Isabella made a dessert for everyone, but as of this writing mine is still sitting on the counter. I wasn’t hungry at the time, and they understood. Sandra helped me with my German a bit, with grammar mostly.

Currently, Sandra is too busy with studying that we can’t go do much of anything. So I’m going to enjoy being lazy for the first time since getting here. It’s an odd feeling after not being able to be lazy for so long. I think I’ll work on my writing, I’ve got a new idea for my story.