12/15

Today, and I use the word "today" in a broad sense, I flew from Fischbach, Germany to Auburn, California. It took a total of 27 hours. Thus the broad sense of the word "today". First, a group of us were up by five and to the airport via Bode-provided caravan by six to catch the 7:10 plane from Frieds to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt, everybody split up and Erik and I had a few hours before we could get in line for our next flight, so I worked on my computer and he napped.

Erik wasn't feeling too great, just coughing the whole time and people would look over at us critically, haha it was funny, but I felt so awful for Erik. He was just miserable :(

In Frankfurt security, the lady was extremely thorough with the pat down and I felt rather violated. 

Once we made it through, we filled out cards for U.S. customs, at which point I realized that bringing an African Horned Cucumber secretly from Germany to the U.S. as a Christmas present for Joshua (the kid we dared to find and eat one in the States. He called like nine grocery stores and none of them carried it!) would probably be frowned upon. However, out of fear of missing the flight from Philly cause of customs, I didn't mark down my cucumber on the card.

The first flight was nine and a half hours long. It was so much fun to get back into America. All of a sudden, I saw people wearing sweat pants, it was hot in the airport, there were Spanish subtitles on all the signs, and I could understand people's conversations! Haha I accidentally eavesdropped on so many conversations 'cause for the last few months, I've gotten excited hearing anyone speak English in public at all :)

The whole time we stood in line for customs, I was thinking about what to do about the cucumber. I didn't wanna lie, but I also didn't wanna have to wait for them to analyze my cucumber! When I went through, the guy asked me if I had any food and I said no without even hearing the question cause I was so tired. I had to correct myself and he looked at me critically. I had decided to tell them about my cucumber on the basis that honesty is the best policy and probably other childhood mantras that will ring in my head forever. 

He looked at me even more disapprovingly, put a big red 'X' across my sheet and sent me on my way without another word. At the next gate, they told me to go somewhere different, and the guy at the  counter looked up German cucumbers and apparently there aren't any big vegetable diseases going around in Germany, cause he let me through just fine!

We only had about a 45 minute layover in Philly, but there was internet, so we enjoyed it! The plane ride from there to San Fran was another six hours and it was just so uncomfortable! I felt greasy and stinky and just all-around gross from being up and in public for so long. Erik's mom kindly picked us up from the airport and brought us back to Roseville, where we immediately grabbed some In-N-Out. 

I went to the bathroom to try and clean up at least a little bit and there were like ten girls in there in skimpy Christmas outfits.  Erik said in the guys' bathroom, some kid was getting made fun of by his friends for only being able to handle three shots.Culture shock anyone? :D

From there, we headed to my house. Got there about 12am I think. Aly was asleep and had been expecting me two days later, so when I went in her room and said hi, she did a little sleepy confused double-take before hopping out of bed and giving me a huge hug :) 

She came out and said hi to Erik and we had a champagne toast before Erik and Mrs. Delgado left.

It's so good to be home. Dad and Aly decorated everything with Christmas lights outside..I went into my room to find it clean like I left it and a Christmas night light on my desk all lit up..the house smells like Christmas tree and I can't wait to see more of the people I love!

1 John 4:18

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

12/14

This morning, Steph and I woke up at an ungodly hour and got all dressed up warm to pick her mom up from the airport. Have you ever realized you had to pee right after getting all dressed up? I do it all the time. I'm becoming extremely talented at holding it.Unfortunately, her mom missed her plane, but I always enjoy spending time with Steph, so it's all good.

We spent this last day here mainly in the room packing up, cleaning up. There was some crazy singing and goofing off and saying goodbyes in there, and we all really treasured and enjoyed our last day in the room together. It was sorta sad too though :/

For dinner, we had the agreed upon favorite meal of  Tzatziki Chicken and Cinnamon rolls for dessert.

It was a late night and I got about a half hour of sleep, but it was still totally worth it to write my illustrated goodbye note to the roomies and Steph, who was sleeping in my bed so I could say goodbye when I left at 5 am.


Colossians 2:6-7
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

12/13

Today Steph and I went to Kaufland again to pick up a few extra things to take home for family and friends. Then we met Erik for his birthday coffee at Hopker. Lia showed up a little bit later. She'd just gotten her nose pierced, and it's really cute :)

Steph and I shared cake, and I got a hot chocolate that was so thick it was almost gross, like spit, but completely not at the same time =)

When we got back to the school, I curled my hair and slipped into the dress that Jess loned me just in time for the Christmas banquet we had tonight. Afterwards, I worked more on packing up the room and wrapped some more Christmas presents, for Annelie, and Steph, James, and Mary.


Philippians 4:4-9
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

12/12

Today we went to the Stuttgart Christmas market.

Because I couldn't find the plastic ziplock bags to put over my feet to keep them from turning into solid blocks of ice, I was, of course, late to make it outside.

Because of this, the last available seat on the bus was with Matt Tingly. I found this ironic, because the last time we took a bus trip, I sat next to him and really enjoyed talking to him, but I question whether he shared the sentiment =P

Still though, we had yet another series of fantastically engaging conversation topics. Tingly is just one of those people that, when you look at him, you know he's gonna have some interesting things to say. And he does. It wasn't a boring 2 hour bus ride to Stuttgart.

When we got there, I started off with Mary and Elizabeth Berkening, the girls from Washington. After 30 minutes or so, we found Steph, Jess and Autumn, and everybody went to get Starbucks. I sorta have an internal argument of logic buying coffee I'll be able to buy every day of my life after Germany, while I'm in Germany.. But I didn't make any arguments, and Starbucks is always enjoyable.

Since Mary and Elizabeth needed to find some presents for family, I went with Autumn, Jess, and Steph. By this time, we were hungry and bought some sausage sandwiches and fries. Then Jess found some of her friends and Steph, Autumn and I headed off for an adventure =)

As you walk through the market, there are wooden stands lining both sides of the street. On the rooves, they're all decorated with pine branches, Christmas trees, and little figurines, some of them mechanical.

I bought some candied almonds for myself and Autumn and Steph got these long gummy stick candy things, It was really cold outside. Our toes were all numb pretty quick, which was nice, but then we found a stand that sold puzzles (like wooden 3 dimentional puzzles, and that sort of thing) and Steph got talking to the guy working there about solving rubik's cubes and he challenged her to solve it. So there Autumn and I were for like 45 minutes doing our little holy goodness our toes are going to fall off it's so cold dances. During the course of that, by the way, I solved one of those puzzles out of boredom. I feel sort of awesome for doing that, not gonna lie, but that's mainly cause in my mind, I like to think it was the hardest puzzle at the booth. In reality, it's possible that it wasn't I guess...

After we were finished watching Steph almost solve the puzzle, we went to go find somewhere to defrost. First, we found a shoe store, but the ladies were suspicious cause we accidentally sat down in the men's section. So we had to be all sly about it and one of us was always up and looking at shoes. I always forget that pretty much everybody there speaks English and can understand me. So when I was looking for shoes and I joked about a pair of boots with little fuzzy balls hanging off of them, I wasn't expecting a grimace from the extremely somber-looking store owner.

We went into the mall across the street afterwards -it was really pretty and had interesting architecture- and Autumn and I went to the bathroom and I swear there must've been eighteen babies being held in the waiting area of that bathroom.

Then we found a little indoor farmer's market. There was a booth right inside with handmade Turkish Delights. I know they're Turkish delights because that's what the witch in the Chronicles of Narnia said they were called when she fed them to the scary-looking kid. Yes I remembered that and wanted to try it since the very first time I saw that movie. And I finally got to :D

So there we were three American girls sitting in front of a fountain eating Turkish delights. Lots of old German couples smiled at us like they thought we were cute. Maybe Stuttgart Germans are friendlier than the ones from Frieds? =P

As we were sitting there, we watched some people talk at a flower shop next to us. The sign had the print of a fern on it. All of a sudden, Steph looks over and says, "Hey that's creative! They used a mascara brush as the insignia on their sign!" When I told her it was a fern, Autumn asked what a fern was. This is a beautiful portrayal of our friendship.

After we ate our Turkish delights, we finished walking through the indoor farmer's market. We passed several meat stands, each of which had one gracefully positioned pig's leg in front of it. As we passed one and were analyzing it, the guy inside said in a heavy accent, "You like our giraffe leg?" We thought he was serious.

Also, I'm developing a strong interest in tropical fruits I've never heard of. I'm not sure why..

We went back outside to the Christmas market and I passed a stand with pretty wooden cupholders and hot pads and stuff and it reminded me of Aunt Donna and Uncle Ron, but was too expensive to buy as a present. Unfortunately, my hands were too afraid of the cold to take a picture of it.

Then I bought some gluwein. It's like spiced hot wine. It's the only drink we're allowed to have during school cause it's a classic German drink. Autumn doesn't like the taste and Steph has agreed not to drink til age 21, so I drank it while they enjoyed some hot apple cider.

I want to bring home some German things to try for my family for Christmas, so I bought some more of the candied almonds that were all over the place at the market and I found a good looking plate of cookies to bring home.

I sat by Tingly again on the way home and the bus driver played the most awful music. It was one of those rides where I got just completely lost in my thoughts and it left me quiet and contemplative. The bus was too hot and we were tired and wet and cold and it just wasn't a whole lot of fun getting back to school, but we made it!

When we got back, my roommates and I worked on packing up the room in preparation for leaving so soon. I'm excited and hopeful as I prepare to go home.


Revelation 21:5
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”

12/11

There's a group of girls going to Vienna over Christmas break (which is in four days I'm soooooooooooooooooooo excited!!!), so they asked me if I'd make a little info sheet for them. I did. And it was a beautiful thing. I probably could've sold it. But I didn't. I just gave it to them. Cause I'm nice.

Tonight we had a sharing service. It makes me feel lame writing that. I feel like we should name it something awesome so it doesn't sound like a therapy technique for some sort of intervention group.. But we haven't. And it's really early in the morning right now, so I'm not going to think of anything right now.. so I guess the name shall stick!

The sharing part itself was sorta dumb cause no one really got up to speak. Usually lots of people do, but I think it was cause everybody's tired from getting ready to head off so soon and all.

After the mic was opened up for sharing, Steve Volle closed with a talk on how big things start small. He said just like the Savior of the World started as a little baby, things that will become huge changes in our lives later, might be starting out small right now. I really enjoyed it. Steve is a talented speaker, I like to listen to him.

After the service, we had our room Christmas party!! Amy had gotten some candy and snacks from Kaufland  and we all grabbed our blankets and sat on the floor near the Christmas tree and ate candy and gave each other our letters we wrote for one another and everything:)

Autumn writes in a little journal every night, and Amy does once in awhile. They both read their first impressions of roommates from their journal entries in the first couple weeks. It was hilarious. I'm so grateful that the situation worked out as well as it did.


Jeremiah 31:3
The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.

12/10

Today my dear best friend requested my help in figuring out which Eurail pass she and her mother would need to travel Europe over Christmas break, which is in five days. I thought this was rather humorous, and informed her of the steps necessary to take in booking European trains during the holiday season, but I did help her find a few passes that might work. Somehow I have a feeling the two of them will do just fine despite what my miniscule European travel experience tells me is logic. I'm looking forward to hearing all about their trip:)

In the afternoon, I played another game of chess. I figure it's kinda a win-win cause it challenges my brain and boosts my opponent's confidence.. Maybe if I lose this badly for long enough, they'll start feeling bad for me and let me win once in awhile!

Right after chess, I rushed upstairs to prepare myself for this glorious K-group picture:

Then I rushed back upstairs and got re-dressed-up because tonight was our K-group Christmas dinner! We all went to the same pizza place that we took Annelie to on her birthday..it was excellent once again and we quite enjoyed ourselves.

Psalm 68:19

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.

12/9

I am fairly confident that either today did not actually exist as a day, or that I was abducted and tests were performed after which all memory was erased.

Therefore, since I have nothing else interesting to discuss with you today, I have a couple things to note regarding hygiene:

 First, dorm room showers. Dorm room showers produce wet floors. There is absolutely no getting around that. So my challenge since day one has been to figure out how to put my pajama pants on without getting them completely soaked. The attempts have been pitiful at best. I have yet to find a solution to my problem, but I foresee myself inventing some sort of massively popular item that will completely eradicate the problem within the next decade.

Second, (and this has been a problem in my life for many years) when, in the past, I would wash my face in the sink, one of two things would happen:

1) I do not roll my sleeves up enough and therefore, water rolls down my arms into my sleeves, creating puddles where my elbows bend inside my shirt.

2) I do roll my sleeves up enough and the water flows nicely down my arms, off of my elbows, and onto my pant legs.

However, I am happy to report to you that when you stand taller and bend down farther, the angle of your arms creates such conditions as make it impossible for the water to run to your elbows. I am slightly ashamed that I just figured this out, but hey - I figure I'd better share my triumphs right along with my failures.

Here are some pictures I don't have a place for:

Floating church steeple. Mainly taken because I wasn't really looking forward to running and therefore, everything suddenly became fascinating to me.

The cuties. (Steph and Annelie)

Michael.

Amy my outstanding and artistic roommate.

Matt. (AKA Mattie-Ice)

Corinna (German girl who cleaned showers with me. She has the prettiest eyes I've ever seen.)

Simon. He grew up in the jungle.

Erik's doppelganger. A past student.

Autumn's 'I Dream of Jeannie' Shoes

Laundry with the roommate.

Sound out the top word. German is a fantastic language.

German spiders.

My Bible Study place down in the basement.

Psalm 25:5

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

12/8

Today Steph, Autumn and I made a video for Aly as if she spend the day with us! "She" woke up in my bed, ate brunch with us, took the bus to Frieds, went Christmas shopping and walked through the Christmas market with us.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you.. Brunch:

Yeah...that kiwi doesn't really make up for the carbs and fat that completely fill that plate. It tries, you know what I'm saying? But it's sorta fighting a losing battle..

Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

12/7

Today I finished writing the letters I started yesterday and since all three of my roommates just happened to be in the room all day, we had sort of a chill room hangout time. I love my roommates. I really do, I'm so blessed to be in this room with them.

A week or so ago, Brynn found a fake little Christmas tree for 5 Euros at a market she went to. We decorated it with ornaments from the dollar section in Kaufland and put a paper star on the top and now we've got the most festive room in the whole place! Every time you walk in, someone's got Christmas music on:)

Today since we were all there, we set up Amy's camera and took a classic family Christmas picture sitting around our Christmas tree. When she posts it on Facebook, I'll put it on here.

After dinner, we all went to the lecture hall for rehearsal for tomorrow's community Christmas service. It's kind of like The Crossing, only for Christmas.

After this, Steph and I had another of our awesome talks. I love that girl. I know I've said that before, but I really do, she's pretty darn awesome. Since we've been here, there's been several times when I've gotten frustrated by her for no apparent reason. That happened tonight and instead of just being grumpy and going to bed after reading the advent devotional that Smith sent us, I told her I wanted to talk about it.

How incredible of a friendship do you have with someone when you can explore with them why they get on your nerves sometimes, identify how those things reflect issues in your own life, agree to help each other work through those types of things, apologize, and end the night scaring one another joking about how the coat rack at the end of the hall looks like a serial killer, all without a single hint of awkwardness the whole time? Pretty incredible.

Steph and I have been friends since Sophomore year. She befriended a socially awkward girl whose legalistic faith was the center of her life. I befriended a fun, popular girl whose priorities were not the same as mine. After three years of close friendship, I enjoy shopping, have friends, put on makeup, am joyful and can joke, and have learned what it means to live by the rhythms of grace:) Together, we have shaped one another, balanced each other, helped, encouraged, challenged, complained, grown alongside each other. And we're both still growing with each other's help.

David and Jonathan's relationship in the Bible always made me sort of uncomfortable. In fact, when you Google "David and Jonathan", the third thing that comes up is "David and Jonathan homosexual lovers?" Haha..oh world, why not spend time fixing the problems you've already got rather than making up new ones for yourself? 1 Samuel 18:1 says that after David finished talking to Saul, directly after having killed Goliath (actually, while still holding his severed head..sort of epic..), "Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself."

That sort of friendship love has always made me sort of uncomfortable. Steph will tease me and try to hold my hand cause she knows it weirds me out =P But I'm learning how valuable this friendship and friendships like it are. Haha I'm getting all soft and emotional at Bible school! It's good though. I thank God for blessing me with this friendship.


Proverbs 17:17
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.



Proverbs 27:6
Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.


Proverbs 27:9
Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice.

12/6

Well today was one of those all the girls are emotional wrecks at one time days that I've spoken of in days gone by.. Now I know that sounds scary, but I would describe it more as sort of painfully but humorously ironic. In an eccentric way, it improves camaraderie.. ok enough about hormonal girls. Needless to say, our room was entertaining today.

I spent the first half of the day writing letters to various people, including all three of my roommates, Granny, Aunt Dyan and Uncle Bill, Elle and Dan Derr, Mary who I took to coffee, James who I wash dishes with, and my secret sister who I am not allowed to name under ANY circumstances NO MATTER how secure they may be =P

The snow that fell today was weird. I don't say this out of my own experience because I don't have enough experience with snow to really comment accurately. I say this out of James' experience. James says that the snow is rubbery today, like packing peanuts. (by the way, why peanuts? seriously, of all the things you could call those..peanuts??!! I think I'm gonna call them popcorn from now on. It just makes the most sense.)

Steph and I went to Bahnhof again today to Skype Joshua. It was fun to see him again and have just a fun chat with him. I found out today that he and Steph have been having a little competition type thing-each has to complete a pre-decided task by the end of the week. So this week I got to participate and we challenged Joshua to find and eat an African Horned Cucumber like the one I ate awhile back:

We shall see how he fares.

Proverbs 30:8

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

12/5

I had coffee with Mary today again at Schwartz. Each time I talk to her, I feel like she gets a little bit more comfortable telling me things that she needs to get off her chest, and the more I talk to new people like this that I don't know very well, the more comfortable I am keeping a conversation going. This is something Steph is very good at and ideally, she could just gift me a little bit of her talent for Christmas and I won't have to worry about it. But on the off chance that that might not quite work out, I'm practicing =)

Our speaker this week is Richard Dahlstrom. He's from Seattle and is a lot of fun to listen to speak. I'd say he's probably the most liberal of the speakers we've had so far, which I actually enjoy hearing about even though I disagree with him on some things. Right after coffee with Mary, we just moved our stuff over to the big table in Schwartz and joined his little group coffee question time there. More students showed up to his scheduled coffee than ever have for anybody else's, it was pretty impressive!

For some reason, maybe because he tends to think very philosophically and deeply, I was silent throughout their conversation and am still feeling a little overwhelmed with all the new information to process. It's so nice to be able to place my hope and faith in God to lead me to a better place as he has so often since I've been here.


Proverbs 18:4
The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream.

12/4

Judith is from Seattle I'm pretty sure. She's hilarious, with a beautiful sense of sarcasm that I might be slightly in love with. She also struggles with some anger toward God. Her dad died two years ago, when she was 18. She was very close with him. He went in for a routine surgery and never woke up. It's difficult even to imagine the pain and transition that she's had to go through as a result.

I went to get coffee with her today, just because sort of her sense of humor and the way she carries herself reminds me a lot of myself and I wanted to get to know her better. We talked about her family, and things we miss back home and told a few stories and guess what? We are very much alike, just like I thought! I'm actually really excited to get to know her better over the next few months.

After coffee, I had agreed to play a game of chess with a boy named Josh Rans. Josh is small and seems a little awkward at first, but he's actually a genuinely funny, humble, good guy. I got to know him a little bit at English came and I really like him. Unfortunately, Josh is not very good at chess. He wants to learn, but of course playing with the genius chess kids at Bode isn't much help to him, so he wanted to practice with me, haha! Poor us, we started the game quietly, just the two of us, and ended up with four guys crowded around us giving advice and chuckling at our move choices..not a great learning environment, but it was fun:)

Psalm 51:17
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

12/3

Today I took another walk with Miranda. It snowed a lot last night, and it's been snowing all day today, so here's what the lakeside looked like:

We had a really good talk..one of the things God has been teaching me lately is to sort of just relax and let Him organize the things in my life. I think too much of this attitude could be dangerous for me only insomuch as it could make me apathetic, but for now, I've seen Him just place people and situations in my life that might be awkward or inconvenient or even undesirable to me, but the fruits of those things are proving more valuable than I could've ever expected. I'm learning a more and more pure definition of faith.

Tonight after dinner, we went caroling. I put on my 18 sweaters, 3 pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, hat, jacket, and soccer cleats because I'm from California and they're the most waterproof shoes I own. It was stinking cold outside. It snowed the whole time. Luckily, my feet were numb within the first half hour, so the only really uncomfortable part was defrosting them when we got back.

It was slightly disheartening trying to sing to people tonight..I guess a lot of people assume we're asking for a handout and don't answer their doors. But the ones who did listen were very excited to hear us sing and seemed very friendly:)

Ironically, the soccer cleats that I've run in for countless hours during my Junior and Senior years in high school, when combined with the extreme cold, produced a painful knot and/or muscle pull in my left leg just under my knee within just one hour of caroling. It's sort of funny, cause I can walk on it like there's absolutely nothing wrong, so I'll forget about it hurting! But then when I try and conquer the stairs, I sort of crumple in agony and then pathetically drag myself up or down using the hand rail =P


Isaiah 64:3
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

12/1-12/2

This weekend was a lazy indoor one for me. Because it's been snowing outside (which is just beautiful by the way) I've been catching up online, hanging out with friends and just taking it easy. It's been refreshingly relaxing, but it's a little alarming how quickly the time can fly by. I want to make sure I'm making the most of every moment I'm here.

Here are a couple pictures of the very first snow:

Michael, our Israeli student, was so excited to be experiencing snow for the first time in his life! He has a girlfriend who's from Germany and renowned at school for being absolutely gorgeous, and he did  this for her first thing upon going out to play in the snow. Amy, Autumn and I were all three at the window watching the cuteness =P

(It says Merry Christmas! We're kinda excited about the holiday season already:)

Psalm 36:5

Your love oh Lord, reaches to the heavens; your faithfulness stretches to the skies.