:)

HEY EVERYONE!! Here’s the update...i’ll just do it by day coz that’s easier, argh, lot to catch up on. First of all I’ll just say I’m having an AMAZING time, being with Rachel is awesome, she’s just gorgeous and so easy to live with, and her family is lovely too. Her mum I get along with great and she teaches me Deutsch everyday which is...interesting lol.

Oh...Rachel says...”I’m sorry for stealing Sofie...actually, no I’m not really sorry, coz it’s awesome having her here”...nawww my own personal cheer squad hehe.

So far...

- I’ve learnt that ‘slugs’ are called ‘Nacktschnecke’...which means...wait for it...NAKED SNAILS...bahahaha I love it. - In the toilets the buttons for the flush are massive!! - Public transport is ludicrously expensive and complicated (for me anyway) - They have words that are English words but mean something totally different lol. - Every view is amazing, the houses are amazing, everything is....pretty spectacular looking J - The German words I thought I knew I’ve had to learn all over again, because I’m not pronouncing them right. Say “ich bin”, like we learnt at school. I can tell you now you’re doing it wrong lol. Unless maybe you’re Emily or Lucy (stone) :P - They say ‘s*** happens’...all the time haha I just thought that was funny - Whoever said Germans are unfriendly obviously were not in a good mood or in Germany lol. The ones I have met are all WONDERFUL, and speak English too which is great :P two relations of Eva (Rachel's mum) have given me money (!!) they all smile a lot and joke and laugh and wish me a great time, such nice people. - I have noticed though that people don’t really say ‘hi’ to each other on the street if they’re passing, that’s different. - And this one’s for you soph/chris/tom/anyone else from work – not ONLY do the checkout ppl here get to sit on lovely comfy chairs, but they also don’t have to pack the bags, at all, or really acknowledge you lol. - Ohhh AND the cigarettes are just sitting there for people to grab. Actually at one of the checkouts there was kinda a vending machine thing and a guy pushed the button of the one he wanted and it came out a shoot and onto the counter!! Wooh...:P

K, now for what I’ve been up to. It’s been....14 (?) days now. I cannot believe that I feel like I've been here for ages and I’ve done so much lol...time for...a very short RECAP :D 6th July Monday – went to rachel’s school, she only had two classes and English was first. I read a bit for them from a text they were studying, they’re doing pretty hard stuff!! 7th Tuesday – went to school again, sat through their ‘School without Racism, School with Courage’ assembly. And then participated in a mass thing on the oval with the hundreds of students, and we made words and they photographed us from the sky with a crane and mini helicopter lol. Then went to Karlsruhe which is a beautiful city, from every street you can see the ‘Schloss’ (Chateau) which is beautiful.

8th Wednesday – Drove to the Pilgrim place for the monastery camp, 5 hours or so in a car with 4 other girls lol. Fun :D they were really nice. The one that was driving went 170kph!!!!!!!! (in a 120 zone!! Argh)....got to the place and did some talking and stuff with our guide Sebastian, and sat in on the monks ‘prayers’. Lol there was this really quiet bit and one of them sneezed, oh my gosh I nearly lost it in a fit of giggles, it was terrible.... umm we have our own rooms and the place was really nice.

9th Thursday - prayers at 6:30, breakfast. And then embarked from 8am till 6:30pm on a 29kilometer WALK. Argh. It was so long and hot and then rainy and then storms and lighting and then sun and then rain again lol. But it was so much fun, even walking 5kilomerters uphill mostly in the rain!!! Got to know a few of the girls and they were so lovely and we spoke very simple English with some Deutsch thrown in lol. Conquered the walk after getting lost for a couple of Ks L, lucky I had Dorothy with me ekk...

10th Friday – we did some reflecting with the group, which was interesting coz I couldn’t understand anything they were saying and they were all laughing lol. Umm then we all wrote on things for each other saying nice things, and they wrote in English for me, so sweet. One said “For me you are like Charlie Chaplin, a little bit.” Haha. Then we drove the 4 hours home. Lots of singing ‘Wicked’ in Deutsch while I sung in English lol. Arghh fun fun fun :D after we came home me and Eva dropped Nam off at the airport (Nam was their other student that had lived with them for a year, she was LOVELY and I wish she could have stayed longer coz we really got along well. Haha we’d try to talk german together (which is her third language!!) or English...which was hard lol. Then me and Eva went to her parents place, Oma and Ompa (grandma and grandpa).

11-14th Saturday-Tuesday - We were in Frankenberg (rach couldn’t come coz she had a meeting on the Sunday). In that time picked wild blueberries and mushrooms, saw a couple of hours of “Paddy Goes to Holyhead”, which is an AWESOME German band, that sing Irish rock kinda songs and in English, so so ooooo good. They were extremely talented musicians. Went to the festival there, saw some old churches. Had some ‘Bratwurst’, the traditional sausage of Frankenberg (I think), which was really nice. Eva taught me some guitar!! I’ve learnt, D, A and G....doesn’t sound like much but I’ve never been able to play G as a chord and then change and it was so nice to nearly kinda get it lol. We ate lovely food and talked (well they did). Rachel’s grandparents are just lovely, didn’t speak much English at all but we got on fine. Hmm, then we came home etc, rach has dyed her hair red!! She looks gorgeous hehe.

And...the 15th of July – Wednesday – was pretty amazing. Rach knows some people who are doctors, and she asked if she could do some work experience with them. And since I want to be a nurse I thought I’d tag along as well. We got there and had breakfast with the doctors who had just had rounds. If at anytime I wished I could speak Deutsch, it was now, or even understand it, because it was frustrating not knowing everything they were saying, like rach translated what she could but it’d just be awesome if I could hear if straight off. After breakfast we got on our lovely green pants, tops, shoes (like crocs), hair net things and masks and proceeded to watch some surgeries. So so interesting, we were right there next to the tables and watching the guy do the operations. They had ones where they put a camera inside so they could see what they there doing, WOW the body is incredible. They asked us if we’d like to help, rach had already felt a little sick so she said she wouldn’t but I volunteered. I had to wash my hands like crazy, walk around with my arms out so I didn’t touch anything, put on the gown and gloves, hehe then I was ‘sterilised’ and was able to stand right at the table with the surgeons and hold the camera going into the person for them. The big screen was right in front and it was just incredible. But I was really hungry by that point and the room was really walm and dark and I was standing side by side with the surgeons and the table with all the instruments and completely close in. Ok, so I nearly fainted :S...i felt so dizzy, not coz of the blood, but just the heat and being hungry having to stand still for so long, man I was so annoyed!! They said it happens to everyone but I was so embarrassed. I told them I felt dizzy and they took over and I had to go sit down, then I met up with rach and we had lunch then they said we could go home coz it was all kinda finished for the day, but we’ll be back tomorrow to do some more stuff. Wow, lol I never thought I’d be in a hospital seeing these things when I planned my trip. :D

today i did work experience again there...and i got to hold open a massive cut in someone's stomach with two fork like things while they tried to remove a hernia, well i think that's what they said..!!! haha and then everything started to go black again because they were burning the skin underneath for something and it smelt really bad and it was hot and i had the mask on and all that again....:(and i nearly fainted...AGAIN...i was so so sooo embarassed and annoyed!!! we also got to see the inside of some guy's arse lol which was pretty werid, they stuck a camera up there (arghh!) and then we could see inside...very interesting lol. that grossed me out more than all the blood and holding open the wound and all that lol.

My love to everyone, please let me know how you’re all going, my days are so long and full here that i havnt been blogging as much as a thought I would. Be then again, when the weather is so awesome I don’t really want to lol. Family I miss you dearly, but I’m being very VERY well looked after so don’t worry. Friends, I miss having you around, I’ve got one friend here and she’s incredible but I still miss you guys to bits, what’s been happening? Any news? Any new men to talk about girls...or girls to talk about nick? Hehehe LOVE , HUGS AND HORDS OF GIRAFFES. Sofie xoxoxoxooxx