I have had the absolute BEST week. I don't even know where to start!
Joe arrived last Thursday and he spent the week with me here! We did as much as we could with my school schedule, and we managed to visit Eisenach and the Wartburg castle (where Martin Luther hid after writing the 95-Thesis and translated the New Testament form Greek to German), hiked to the summit in Zella Mehlis (which was still amazingly beautiful despite the fog at the top that day- you couldn't hardly see ten feet in front of you!), and we visited the capital city of Thuringia, Erfurt, on my birthday. We also watched the Germany vs. Gibraltar European Qualifier game last night with all my friends and that was great fun as well. :)
The best part of the week was my friends throwing me a surprise party. They totally had me fooled! We have a group message all together, and everyone had posted that they were out of town or too busy to come to dinner that night. So I was feeling a little sad that everyone was busy on my birthday. Kate even posted in the group that she wasn't going to cook if none was going to show up. So me, Joe, and Dustin got home from Eisenach and me and Joe went to my room to change and freshen up. After lazing around for a while, we headed up to Dustin's room where we always eat, and to my COMPLETE surprise everyone was there in party hats with a table full of homemade guacamole and tortilla chips, Nutella rolls, and cake!! There was a happy birthday banner and string lights across the ceiling, too. It was so amazing.
I was so shocked that I couldn't even speak. I even cried. It was embarrassing. So I gave lots of hugs and we ate dinner. Then to my next surprise, Mirko revealed karaoke microphones, speakers, a projector from under a blanket. IT WAS A KARAOKE PARTY. I had joked with him earlier that week about getting the karaoke stuff for us to use, but he said it wasn't possible. But he got the stuff from the student center and it meant the world to me! We all had so much fun singing girls-against-guys style. It was such an amazing night and I couldn't stop smiling. My friends here are so incredibly thoughtful. After me and Joe left the party, I asked him why the heck he let me go to my own party without a shower and in my sweatpants, but he knew that would've given away the surprise! If I smelled weird at least no one said anything. ;)
Despite a stressful load of school work, it was a really fun week. Dustin (from Kentucky) and I gave a presentation on America for our class, and I brought homemade Betty-Crocker-inspired chocolate chip cookies to represent our love for baked sweets. I say "inspired" because I had a heck of a time finding the ingredients, especially real vanilla, so some substitutions had to be made... also the whole metric system thing makes baking a recipe from the States very difficult as measurements all had to be converted, and let's be honest, my math skills are not amazing. And what are chocolate chip cookies without Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips?! It just wasn't quite right. But everyone seemed, or pretended, to like them so that was very nice of them!!
For those who don't know yet, I am flying home on January 15th instead of in March or April. There are a few reasons for this: 1) it costs $300 to move the departure date to a later time, and 2) there's no need to move the date forward and pay $300 if all of my classes will be finished by then. So I'll be home in time to be present for all but one week of school in the Spring semester at UNA. I have been e-mailing my advisors at UNA and I am officially on track to teach high school English.
I love it in Germany so much and I wish I could stay forever, but this is what needs to happen so that I can graduate before I am 30 years old! I feel like I'll never finish college sometimes... and I definitely don't want all my friends to graduate and leave me behind! So I'm going to be really kicking in in gear with more credit hours a semester and summer classes to get closer to walking the stage.
Now I am looking forward to dad and Kristy coming to visit in a couple of weeks then mom and Tim at Christmas! I'm excited to see my family and show them what a beautiful place I live in. Joe will also be back around Christmas as well so of course I am always looking forward to seeing him!
I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, and as always, thank you for reading!
Bethany
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