Going to Berlin and meeting Christiane

Today Kaelei, Kali, and Tori went swimming they taught Tori a few new swim things and swam. After they were done they went back to Quinn's and Kali decided she wanted to go to school so she went. She went to Max's class and said she didn't really do a whole lot but that it was fun. After school was over she went to Max's house and laughed and talked. While Kali was at school Kaelei and Lisha went with Quinn to help her teach her English class. It was so much fun to watch the little kids learn new words and sing and dance. Its funny to think that those cute little 2nd graders know better English than we do German. When they got home they were so tired so they took naps for a while and then Kali came home and we all packed for Berlin. At about 2:30 Anna and her mom came to get us to take us to the station. We got on a train to Hannover and then got on a train to Berlin. On the train to Berlin it was very packed full of people for a while we had to stand then we just sat on the floor until a seat opened. We got to Berlin at about 6 and Anna's aunt Christiane came to pick us up. She took us to her apartment, it is very nice and big. After we had taken our stuff in Christiane took Lisha, Anna, and Kaelei for a walk around the Kastanien Allee ( a big street with trees on both sides) we got to try some new pizza it was really good. Kali decided to stay home and sleep cuz she was tired so we brought her home pizza. While we were out we went and rented "Just my luck" and "Music and Lyrics" and then we went and got chips and candy. We came back to the house and we watched "Just my luck" it was so much fun!!!

Bergen-Belsen, Concentration Camp

Today we went to Bergen-Belsen. It is a Prisoners of War Camp, Concentration Camp and Memorial. We got to learn about the terrible things that people went through at this camp. It was awful. We walked through the grounds of the camp and there were these mounds every where. They were like these hills in the middle of a field. These hills were graves of 1,000's of people. And they weren't separate graves. It was one big hill with sometimes 5,000 people in one hill. There were several of these hills just at first site. There were tomb stones there, but they were just symbolic, they didn't mark the actual grave. Bergen-Belsen is the place where Anne Frank has her tombstone.
After we took a look at the grounds we went inside to a small museum to learn more about personal stories about people. We didn't stay long because it was hard to learn about so many horrible things at once, and we were tight on time. It was sad, but good to know.

After we got home from the museum Valentine's mom, Uschi, invited the three of us over for lunch. We had spaghetti. We go to know Valentine and Max better. They are some funny guys. We jumped on their trampoline, looked at some funny videos on youtube, and went into the city for ice cream. Kaelei had to go home do work on some homework stuff so she skipped out on the ice cream, but Karo came with us. The 5 of us went into the city for ice cream but Lisha left after 20 minutes so she could go to swim practice. Kali decided to stay with the others in the city. Lisha got back home and went with Kaelei to swim practice. We had lots of fun. Lisha might not see the swim team again while she is here so everyone wanted to get some pictures and email addresses. It was cool.
When Kaelei and Lisha got home from practice at 9:45, Kali was still out with friends and had arranged to sleep over at Anna's house.

Heide Park- Wednesday, June 25

Wednesday was SO MUCH FUN! Benny (Quinn's Husband) took us to Heide Park. Heide Park is like Lagoon. It's an amusement park. Well, all 4 of us decided to wear our Germany shirts to the park and we got a lot of different remarks. The things that people said have some explaining behind it. There is a good portion of the population here that are Turkish. (kinda like Mexicans is Utah) Well there was a soccer game for the European Cup tournament. This was the semi-finial game, Germany v Turkey. So with this game being that night we got a lot of cheering for Germany saying that we will win. We also got a lot of bad comments. Sometimes Benny wouldn't translate everything that they were saying... Ha Ha. We were at Heide Park for about 8 hours and by the time we left we were practically dead. While we were there we stoped at one of the souvenir shops and had some fun with the German Apparel.
We took the 45 minute drive home and then we got ready for the Big Soccer Game, Germany v Turkey. Kali went with Anna to Anna's aunts house. She said that it was fun to see how excited people would get during the game. Kaelei went into the city to watch the game with Max and Valentine but came home early and watched the 2nd half of the game of the game at home. Lisha staid at home with Quinn, Tori, Jeffrey, Niklas and Steffen. It was so much fun to watch because it was tied 2-2 with 1.5 minutes left in the game and Germany scored to win then game! IT WAS INTENCE! On Thursday there will be a game Russia v Spain. Who ever wins the game on Thursday will play against Germany on Sunday.
GO DEUTSCHLAND!

Everyone watching the BIG GAME at Quinn's house:

Tori Jeffrey Steffen Niklas

Shopping in Hannover

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 Lisha: Kaelei and Tori got up early and went swimming at 6 AM (good job Kaelei!) Kaelei taught Tori some swimming things so she could get faster. Then she swam to get her work out in. When she got home Kali and I were just waking up and starting to get ready. By the time we were all ready the three of us got on the train to Hannover to go shopping! It was loads of fun! We found lots of GREAT deals! With the dollar being weak if we spent 10€ it would be like spending $16! So everything we bought had to be on a GREAT sale, but don't worry we found some AWESOME sales. We bought some Germany/Deutschland shirts. It was lots of fun! CAN YOU BELEIVE IT COSTS €1,10 TO USE THE WC(bathroom) AT THE HANNOVER TRIAN STATION! AHHH! Well after we were done in Hannover we took the train back to Burgdorf. When we got home Anna took us into the city (of Burgdorf) on our bikes and we went shopping some more. We didn't buy anything else, we just got some stuff that Quinn needed. By 7:00 PM we got back home and went on our way to swim practice by 7:30. It was so nice because everyone knew us better from being at the 24 hour relay last Saturday. Everyone was talking to us and we had lots of fun... there was only one problem... we went outside and practiced in there 50 meter pool that wasn't heated! IT WAS SO COLD!!! We only swam in the outdoor pool for 30 minutes, then we went back inside for the rest of practice (yay! much warmer!) After practice got over with at 9:00 we talked to some of the other swimmers and we told them about the HUGE spider! They laughed and told us that we are funny when we tell "exciting" stories. We had a nice bike ride home and slept very well from being so tired from swim practice.

Monday

On Monday, the 23rd, Valentines mom, Uschi, took us to a Museum. It was called Deutsches Auswandererhaus, which means German Emigration Center. It took two hours to drive there, so it was a long drive. The museum was all about Germans and other Europeans that emigrated to America. We were there for about 3 1/2 hours. We got to learn about what it was like to be an emigrant from Bremerhaven, Germany to New York, and what it was like on the ship that went there. After that we drove over to where a bunch of restaurants were and we got some chicken and fries. Then we took the 2 hour drive back home.
When we got back to Quinn's house we went to the grocery store to pick up some bread, meet, and cheese... and some chocolate of course. That night we had abent brot for dinner. Abent brot is just having a bunch of bread and a ton of different kinds of cheese, meet and spreads with it. It was way good. Then we had strawberries and ice cream! Mmmm... yummy! Then watched another soccer game, Spain v Italy, we think Spain won.

Saturday/Sunday

On Saturday Kaelei and Lisha slept in till 10 AM because we were up late again the night before. Kali slept over at Anna's house the night before because the ball that she went to ended really late. Kali came home from Anna's house at about noon and at 12:30 Anna's mom, Katharina, came and got the three of us to go to a swimming activity. Anna's little sister, Laura, was swimming in this too so she was "the cool girl with American friends". This swimming activity was a fund raiser of some sort and it was a 24 hour consistent relay, 3 PM on Saturday to 3 PM on Sunday. Kali and Kaelei were disappointed that they missed church because they couldn't see Tobi (the cute kid). There were several other teams that were involved in this relay too. The teams there were not very big compared to the ones at home. Our team was the biggest and it had about 30 people including the three of us. Each team was divided into groups with about ten people in each group. Each group (out of all the teams) were given 3 times that they were to swim. Lisha's group swam from 4 PM - 3 PM, Midnight - 1 AM, and 8 AM - 9 AM. Kaelei and Kali were in the same group and they swam from 8 PM to 9 PM, 4 AM - 5 AM, and Noon - 1 PM. So each group did there own little really for an hour at a time. We had loads of fun! We set up our own little tent with sleeping bags so we could sleep between our time sto swim.

We got to know a few people on the team. Sabrina was a very nice girl and is going to be turning 18 this year. Dimitri was nice but seamed really shy because he thought that when he spoke English that he sounded dumb. But we were able to talk to him a little bit even though he would get really embarrassed if he didn't know the English word. Dimitri looks like he is 17 or 18... but he's 15... he he. There was one boy, Jannik, that spoke really good English. Jannik is 18 and he went to school in America for a year and that's why his English is so good. Lisha talked with him nearly the ENTIRE time. If she wasn't sleeping or swimming in the water, she was talking to Jannik. Kaelei and Kali went jumping of the diving platforms in the side pool but Lisha didn't want to go with them because she was still talking to Jannik. Kaelei and Kali went of the 5 meter platform a few times. The three of us, Sabrina, Dimitri and Jannik all played ladders and Uno together. Since Lisha was always with Jannik she taught him all sorts of card games.

At the 24 hour relay the team gave us nice t-shirts with the team logo on it and team caps too! Kaelei and Kali's grope got a first place trophy for swimming the most meters out of all the groups. And Lisha's group got a second place trophy.



On Sunday after the relay was over, Katharina took us all back to Quinn's house had we were kinda lazy because we were so tired from not getting very much sleep with the relay and all. We watched an intense soccer game, Spain v Italy. It went into over time and it was still tied 0-0, so it went into a shoot out. Spain won 2-4 and it was a great victory because Italy won the world cup two years ago. The game went late so we went to bed late... again. And we were about to go to bed when this HUGE SPIDER came in the room. Now we are not exaggerating when we are saying that it is GINORMOUS!

The Spider Story, as told by Kali with the help of Kaelei and Lisha:
It was about 12:22 at night and we we sitting on our beds, talking. When out of no where an ENORMOUS spider crawled sinisterly into the room. DUHN DUHN DUHN DUHN (organ sound) ...then Kaelei said, "OMG YOU GUYS THERE'S A HUGE SPIDER SITTING BY LISHA'S SHOE!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Kali screams like a damsel in distress as she lunges onto Kaelei's pillow, saying with wide eyes, "Sorry 'bout your pillow, Kaelei, but my butt's on it now!" Then as we contemplated the horror of the situation, we realize that we need to do something before it crawls into Kali's half packed suitcase and is lost forEVER. "Who's gonna squish it?" we ask. "I will if I HAVE to," Lisha squeaks bravely. "I won't! I would cry," Kali says almost in tears. "Me neither," Kaelei says, "but here's my shoe, Lisha." " THANKS a LOT, Kaelei," Lisha groans. "You're welcome, have fun," Kaelei responds, grinning. Lisha slowly stalks the spider, tail sticking straight up in the air, tensing for the kill, when all of a sudden..."Guys, I can't DO it! It's eyes are looking straight into mine...and it looks so BIG!" she wails pitifully. We sit there, plotting for about 5 minutes. "What should we do?" we ask. "Let's get Benny!" someone suggests. "Maybe he'll hear us if we yell!" Kaelei says hopefully. "BENNY! HELP US! THERE'S A BIG HUGE SPIDER!" Nothing happens. "Darn it." "Kali, go wake them up! They're YOUR relatives." they suggest. "Not by MYSELF! What if there's MORE?!" "Ok fine," Kaelei snaps, "I'll come too." "What about Lisha?" Kali squeaks pitifully. "Oh yeah, just leave me here to DIE!" Lisha exclaims, "when you get back, make sure to pay for my funeral!" So, Kali and Kaelei left, making the long trek up the stairs, leaving Lisha at the mercy of the terrifying spider.



Lisha with the sp-sp-spider (as told by Kali and Kaelei while Lisha diligently helps Quinn with her math homework):

So, while Kali and Kaelei are upstairs doing who knows what, Lisha is downstairs sitting on her bed carefully watching the spider for any movement. I really want to get a picture of this spider, Lisha thinks, but my camera is in my shoe, right next to the spider. Oh well, I'll try it anyways. So she creeps down to Kali's bed and perches precariously on the edge, trying to find a way to get the camera without disturbing the spider. She looks into the spider's eyes, engaged in a crucial staring match with the spider, "No, I can't do it. It's just too scary!" she says out loud to no one in particular. Then suddenly the other girls showed up with reinforcements. The scare was over.



Back to the other girls: tap tap tap...Kali, quiet as a mouse goes up to the bedroom door of Quinn and Benny and softly taps on the door. She's afraid to wake them up, but she's even more afraid to leave them asleep with the danger in the basement. "Quinn?" she softly whispers. No answer. "Quinn?" Again, no reply. "QUINN?!" "What? What happened? What's wrong?" Quinn says groggily, sitting up in bed. "There's a HUGE spider downstairs in our room and we don't know what to do about it. Will you help us?" Kaelei cackles like a witch, thinking how hilarious the whole situation is. "Yeah, sure, just gimme a second," she says, getting out of bed. So, we hurried down the stairs to rescue Lisha from the utter peril of the beast. "OH MY GOSH!" Quinn exclaims, finally awake, "THAT THING IS HUGE! You guys weren't kidding! That's the biggest spider I've ever seen!" So, Quinn goes to fetch a jar to capture the spider with. "HOORAY FOR SPIDER-WOMAN!" we cheer, semi-quietly. (Don't forget, we wouldn't want to wake up the little ones.) Then we took pictures of the spider, now at OUR mercy, in a transparent glass jar. Kali got an awesome close-up picture of the horrendous hairy monster. Then we flushed it down the toilet and went to bed.



***Author's Note: We will post a picture of the spider later, for now, just use your imagination.***

Testing pictures...this picture was taken at Heidelberg Castle when we were staying with Coni and the girls