The Wall, Swimming and The Final Game

This morning we slept in till about 11:30 AM. But Lisha said that she woke up at about 7:45 or so. Lisha was board of waiting for ever so she went and woke up Anna, Kaelei and Kali. After we ate breakfast we walked to "The Wall Museum". It was a small museum telling about the development of the wall and how people tried to flee from East Berlin to West Berlin. We got to see part of the wall and the "dead zone". The "dead zone" is the area where a lot of people were killed by the boarder. Many times people lost there lives to border patrol men and land mines by the wall. At first, there was no wall, it was just a barb wire fence. There used to be several houses next to the wall, and before they were torn down people would try to jump from the Windows and tried to land on the other side of the border.

After seeing the wall we went swimming. It was interesting because the pool that we went to was at a lake and the pool was inside the lake. It was different. But we had lots of fun. We were all trying to find cute guy but we didn't have any success.
After swimming we headed strait to the train station. We got on the train in Berlin at about 7 PM and got on our way to Hannover. At 9 PM we switched trains in Hannover and went on our way to Burgdorf. We were all very anxious to get home because the Final game for the European Cup started at 8:45. As soon as we got to the station in Burgdorf we got off the train and Anna's mom, Katharine, and we all ran to the car saying, "We are so glad to see you but hurry, we don't want to miss anymore of the game!" So Katharine drove us home and we got home just in time to watch the entire 2nd half. Well... Germany lost to Spain with a score of 0-1. Quinn's family was over and they all left kinda sad but I think we will live.

Touring Berlin and the GAY PARADE!!!!!

Today we woke up and we had bread with Nutella it was so good! Then we left for downtown Berlin first we went to the TV tower and we went to the very top which was 238.2 meters high it was really cool. After we met Kaelei's relative Jason and he spent the rest of the day with us. After we saw walked by the Gay parade it was a very VERY new experience! This parade is ONLY once a year and it just happened to be today. Lucky us! (sarcastically) Then we went to the Dom which was a church it was cool but we didn't get to go inside. Then we went and ate at conniecenter and we ate. After we went and saw the Hololcaust-Mahnmal there were big cement blocks there were 2,700 of them it was really cool! We also went to the Brandenburger Tor and Paris place this was the gate you could go from the east side to the west side. We got to see where some of the Berlin wall used to stand and we stood in both the east and west side at the same time. We saw a memory church called Gedaehtnickirche it was a church that got bombed a long time ago. Then we took a subway to Check point Charlie and Kaelei and Lisha got their passports stamped it was awesome! We also saw the Gendarmenmarkt, in like the 1800's the police used to put their horses there, on either side of it there were 2 doms, one of them was Germany's and the other was France's. After we said goodbye to Jason and we went back home and we got DONER'S they are SO GOOD!!!!! And then we watched "Music and lyrics" it was really good!

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

Swimming and Fun

Well there was a little more that went on Thursday. From 7:30-8:30 PM we went to a swim practice. Anna Rust has a little sister named Laura and she is on a swim team. The practice realy wasn't that hard but we were DIEING and gasping for air. Well.... that's what we get for not having practice for 3 weeks. And we haven't had an actual SWIM practice for 4 months. But as you might have guessed, we are still alive. There wasn't a lot of people there, about 10 people, but therer was another soccor game. This soccor game was part of the European Champianships and this game determined if Germany went to the finalls or not. It was Portugal v Germany and we won 3-2. Kaelei and Kali went the city park to watch it outside with Anna and her friends. It was crazy because the city goes WILD for this game. You could not belive how crazy it was. Lisha stayed home with Quinn and Benny's family and whenever a goal was made by Germany the house went into an earthquake with noise and people jumping up and down with excitement. Becasue this was such a big game the swim practice was cut short. Usualy it goes till 9:00 PM but it was shortened to 8:30 for the game. Tori (Quinn's daughter) came with us to swim practice but didn't swim with us. Lisha asked Tori how long the pool was because it looked about 25 yards but she knew it had to be in meters or someting. Tori said 50 meters. There was NO WAY it was 50 meters! We've seen a 50 meter pool! So Lisha and Tori went back and forth a few times arguing about how long it was becasue she KNEW it couldn't be 50 meters. So she asked one of the other swimmiers (in German) how long it was. "25 meters." He was laughing while he said it because he knew English quite well and knew exactly what they were talking about. Lisha was all excited and was teasing Tori a little bit about how she was right. But Tori was fine with it becasue she made some jokes about it after.

Friday
Because we were up kinda up late Thursday night Quinn let us sleep in. We woke up at 12:30 in the middle of the day. We were a so supprised that we actualy slept in that long! Not just one of us slept in that long, ALL THREE of us did! It was quite funny. Today we all went different ways Kaelei went to Pauline's, Kali went with Anna to get her hair done for the ball that night, and Lisha went rock climing with Steffen. While Kaelei was at Pauline's house she had a ton of fun, they played the wii and then they watched a movie in german so she could start learning the language. Also one of Pauline's friends came over to hang out with her, her name was Carmon. She was happy to get to know new people. Later on at around 8:00 they started playing Ligretto Kaelei LOVED it! They played it until around 9:45. Then they took her home. (Kali will add to this post later about what she did). Lisha went rock climing with Steffen, Quinn's brother in-law. She had a lot of fun. She said that going up the wall was so much fun, untill she got to the top and didn't really know how to get down. Steffen told her just to fall backward and the rope will catch her but she was till scard. It took her about 3 minutes to get ready to fall but she did it and repelled down the wall. She also went through an obstical chors that made her very tierd but it had a zip line that was tones of fun. She went all the way down the zip line up side down. CRAZY! And she had her camera but forgot to ask Steffen to take any pictures of her climbing, so she doen't have any pictures of herself climbing! But oh well, we'll have to live.

Beach and Home!

Wednesday June 18, 2008

Today we woke up at about 8:00 because we had to leave early to head toward Westerland, Sylt! We all just kinda threw our hair up because it was pointless to make ourselves all gorgemous if we were just going to go to the ocean to swim!Our train got dealayed about 40 minutes so we had to wait, but we all had books to read so it was all good! After we got on the train we sat there for about two and a half hours! When we got to Sylt we discovored it was really windy which sucked cuz that would mean it was going to feel colder in the water. When we were walking to the beach Kali and Lisha watched a seagul fly towards this guy and take the food he was eating right out of his mouth! They were laughing so hard!!! When we got down by the water we went to go see how cold it was and it was cold but not terribly. So Kali, Rolf and I decided we would go in the water and just get wet up to our legs, well that didn't happen we ended up being soked from head to toe! It was FREEZING! By the time we got out of the water we were purple but it was well worth being cold for how much fun we had! Lisha didn't really want to get in and freeze her butt off so she didn't which was toatally fine, she stayed on the beach and took some pictures of us being dorks! When we were done playing in the ocean we went and got döners they are so good!!! We ate and then decided that we would go home because we were exhausted so we went home! After the long train ride we made it home and we decided to watch Pride and Predjudice we had tons of fun giggling and laughing!

Thursday June 19, 2008

Today we woke up early again so we could get off on the train. We said bye to Rolf and Moni and then set off toward Quinn's. We first caught a train to hamburg when we were close we got off the train, we looked everywhere for our next platform and couldn't find it anywhere so we asked one of the people who worked there where we should go and he didn't speak any English but he was kind enough to print off another paper for us since we miss the train we were supposed to catch. We didn't understand where we were supposed to be so then Kali went and asked another guy and he spoke English we were so happy! He told us that we were supposed to stay on the last train for one more stop which was the main station so we got on a train to go there and then we got to the right train. It was such a relief when we got on the right train. We stopped at Ulzen, Celle and then we made it to Burgdorf. It is so nice to be back!

So many trains....

Monday morning we got ready for the day and helped Quinn get her kids ready for school. All the sudden Tori called home from school and said that Niklas never made it to school and she didn't know where he was even though they rode their bikes to school together. About two minutes later Niklas came in the door crying. Nothing was wrong, he was just upset that Tori was going to fast for him to keep up and so he turned around and came back home. Quinn left the three of us with Tyler while she drove Jeffery to school. Boy... that was a crazy morning!
After things settled down a little bit around the house Kali and Kaelei rode their bikes to the store so they could pick up a few things for Quinn while she worked on some things on the computer. At 11:20 we headed down to the train station, which is just down the street (about the distance from our houses to the High School) so we could go to Rolf and Moni Maichel. Rolf and Moni are friends of my mom's(Lisa's). At 11:30 AM we got took a train from Burgdorf (where Quinn's family lives) to Celle, then another train from Celle to Uelyen, then from Uelyen to Hamburg, then finally Hamburg to Pinneberg. We met up with Rolf at the station in Pinneberg. We didn't know what he looked like but he easily spotted us out. We were the only people with travel bags. So how had can it be to pick out three American teenage girls with bags? Within 30 seconds of being there he walked up to us and asked us “is one of you Lisha?” So we must stand out in the crowd. After we met Rolf he drove us to his house he he showed us to our rooms. There are two rooms. Kaelei and Kali are sharing a room with one king size bed and I have my own room with a twin size bed in it. We also have a bathroom just for the three of us. It is quite nice. The rooms are decorated for their grandchildren for when they come to visit. After he showed us our rooms he asked us if we have ever read any Jack Weyland books. Lisha and Kali like his books so he went and got a few and we each picked one. We all dove into the books. We took a break from reading so we could go eat dinner. We had something similar to spaghetti but the sauce was more like a Chile with out beans but more ground beef. It wasn't the greatest but we liked it for the most part. After dinner we went back to reading again. We all staid up till about midnight reading. We kept reading till about 10:15 PM and then Lisha went upstairs to watch the last 20 minutes of the soccer game while Kali and Kaelei called home to tell Gusti and Mark happy birthday. This soccer game was Germany against Austria and Germany won 0-1! It was an exciting game. After the game was over we had a prayer together then went to bed... but we didn't really go to sleep... we read some more. Kali and Lisha had some smaller books so they finished that night. Lisha says that she never just sits down and reads like that.

Tuesday morning Rolf asked if we like the books and we asked if he had any more by Jack Weyland. He said no but his daughter did and that we would drop by her house later to pick some up. For breakfast we had cornflakes, oatmeal, yogurt and bread. Moni asked us what kind of cereal we liked to eat and when I said something like Fruit Rings (German Fruit Loops) she was nearly floored because “it has so much sugar in it!” After breakfast we put our shoes on and went out the door to go to Hamburg (which is near Pinneberg for those of you that don't know). To get there we drove to the train station, took the train to a bus stop, the the bus to a boat dock, took a boat to another dock, got onto another boat to head up river... then we made it to Hamburg. Hamburg has the 2nd or 3rd largest port in the world! Many people like to use it because they are very fast and that draws people in. We walked down the harbor to look and some different boats and things. It was hard to keep up when we walked because Moni and Rolf like to walk very quickly and the three of us like to take are time so we can relax and look at things. And with our relaxing, a few times we had to jog a little bit to catch up. The boats were cool and there were lots and lots of cute guys every where... well, not everywhere because there were some old guys too but there we a lot more than anywhere else we have been. Kali and Kaelei were trying to get pictures without being obvious that they were taking them. They didn't get any good pictures because they were trying so hard to hide the picture taking.
We noticed that the German's have a lot of the window flags and over half the cars have the German flag on their car. Rolf said that the flags will only but up for a short time. When ever the European Soccer tournament starts, suddenly everyone feels patriotic and the need to support their countries soccer team. But after we looked at some of the boats Rolf and Moni walked us to the mall and let us do some shopping. We couldn't find much that we liked and wasn't too expensive (CLOTHES HERE ARE SO EXPENSIVE!!) but we found some small things to get. After we finished shopping we started to head back to the house. On the way we stopped by a church called St. Peter's. It is the largest church in Hamburg. It is also one of the only churches that didn't get destroyed during the bombings of WWII. We were all getting tired of all the walking around so we finished going back to the house. On the way home we took a ten minute stop by Rolf and Monti's daughters house. We can't remember her name but she was very nice and spoke very good English She let us borrow two movies and some Jack Weyland books. We got home and read some more while Rolf and Moni went to a church meeting so we had dinner a little late, about 9:00 PM. While they went to their meeting we watch one of the movies that we borrowed from their daughter. It was called “The Cutting Edge”. We liked it a lot. Kaelei and Lisha kept pointing out all the really funny things in the movie. We would want to watch the funny parts again so we would rewind it and watch that part again and again. We had dinner at about 9, but we didn't mind it being late. It was nice because we ate dinner outside on their back patio It was still light out and the weather was great so it was a nice day to eat outside. For dinner we had some mashed potatoes (real ones, not instant) and some fried chicken with some sauce on it. It was very tasty. We are tired from all of the walking that we did today but we still might not get to sleep real early tonight because we are all so into the books we got.

We miss you all
We love you too

---Kaelei
---Kali
---Lisha

Chicks on the train to Hamburg

I realized that I could post a blog on here for the girls, cuz they probably won't get to write everday in Hamburg. They rode the train today for the first time and the first time I spoke with them during their travels today they thought it was all pretty easy. Meaning they made the first two transfers without any problems. Then I got the next text message saying to please call them. They had made it to Hamburg, but there was supposed to be a track 7a and they only saw 1-6. (Now that really is a problem.) However, they had already figured out how to read the arrival and departure board (we had had a quick crash course on it waiting for the train to come in this morning) and had found the underground headed for Pinneberg. So they arrived at a slightly different time than was arranged, but they arrived well in Hamburg and were met by Rolf, so all is well. Thought this would be awaited information for all mom's at home. Signed-Quinn

We're back from Coni's!

the LST band thingy

Hey everyone! It really sucked not having computer access while we were away! Here's what we did:

Monday: We packed our stuff, went to the store, met Florian at Ikea (by the way, he was really REALLY cute!), and drove down to Germersheim with him. Once we got to Germersheim (where Coni lives) we ate dinner (spaghetti) and went swimming. It was an outdoor pool and it was only us girls. Unfortunately there were NO cute guys! How sad is that? It's dumb. Coni has two little girls: Kaylee and Pilou (pee-loo). They are so cute! You should have seen the looks on their faces when we gave them the gifts we brought. It was hilarious. They wanted to put their dresses on right away! It was cute.

Tuesday: We woke up really late (10:30 or 11) and got ready quickly. After we got ready we went to Heidelberg Castle. It was way cool! We took lots of funny pictures but we can't show you yet because the card reader isn't working. Their idea of art is disturbing. Naked people everywhere! Nasty Europeans. The swim team is better than they are!!! After the castle we went to this way cool place and painted pictures. There isn't a good way to describe them but we have pictures so we will show you soon...I hope. That night for dinner we had a German/Turkish dish: Döner. It was REALLY good. Then we went shopping and before going to bed we watched Tarzan. It was fun!



Wednesday: We went to France. Strasbourg, France is a really cool place. There is a really cool-looking Cathedral that we walked through and we got cool little coins. The first thing we saw when we got to the Cathedral was some cute guys that were pointing at us and grinning (ooh la la!)...but we didn't get a picture because we were too chicken. The windows of the Cathedral are gorgeous. We took lots of pictures! After that...(drum roll please)...SHOPPING!!! We love French clothes! The biggest problem with them: they were EXPENSIVE! OMG they costed a TON! But then we found two awesome stores with good sales and we got shirts. They are sexy! After the stores all closed (kicking us out) we got ice cream and it was DELICIOUS! On the way back to the car we saw this guy doing portraits so Kali and Kaelei got their portraits done and Lisha got a charicature. They are so cool! For dinner that night we had cold cereal cuz we had spent so much that day...JUST KIDDING, MOMS! We just ran out of time...it was late. Then we stayed up joking with Coni till at least 1 a.m. She is so much fun!

Thursday: We went to Ludwigsburg Castle and the Fairytale Garden that day. Ludwigsburg was cool, but we didn't get very many good pics cuz flashes weren't allowed. When we finished with our tour there we went to the Fairytale Garden. This is where the real fun started! Who knew we could have so much fun in a kiddie park?! There were rides and scary looking character statue thingys that talked to us and scared Kali when they jumped out at her during a "relaxing" boat ride. Let me tell you right now: it was NOT relaxing...for Kali. Lisha and Kaelei had fun on that one teasing her and making her turn red...of course. What else does Kali do? Our favorite ride was one that we THINK was from Alice in Wonderland. It was REALLY fun. It made us feel like we were spinning upside down and all sorts of crazy stuff was "falling" on us. Kaylee made us go on it 5 TIMES! We felt really sick after that. When Pilou went, she had a TON of fun laughing and smiling at our scared-looking faces. The VERY best part came after everything was closed and we were playing in a little kid park. There was a round swing that Kali went and layed on, and soon Kaelei joined her, and after a couple minutes of them laughing, Lisha decided it looked fun and went to join them. We had so much fun laughing and taking pictures on that thing! We still aren't sure what was so funny, but we were laughing a lot. We had dinner at Coni's parent's house that night where we met Tobi (Coni's BROTHER not husband) and her sister and her parents. The dinner was yummy...it's a Turkish dish called maultaschen that's just noodles with meat inside of them. Kind of like ravioli. We got to bed late that night.

Kaylee:

Friday: We woke up really late on Friday because we had gone to bed so late the night before. It was like 11:40 or so. It was Coni's birthday so while we went to a waterslide park to swim, Coni went to her sister's house with her little girls. It was Friday the thirteenth so of course we had lots of bad luck lol. The normally 15-minute drive to Coni's sister's house from the pool took her 2 hours with all the traffic and detours. And Kali got REALLY beat up on the slides because she was too small to protect herself lol and she got slammed into the wall multiple times which Lisha and Kaelei found HILARIOUS! but Kali did not. IT HURT! Kaelei and Lisha got their own share of bumps and bruises and "hilarious falls" too. Kali and Kaelei met this weird hispanic kid who claims to have been from the U.S. but when we asked him what state he was from, he said Miami. So, we aren't really sure what the real story is. He was really funny. He said he was looking for girls who spoke english because it was driving him crazy when the German girls couldn't understand him. We got away from him as fast as we could lol. So, when we went home we had a little party for Coni. She had some friends come over and we gave Coni her presents. She was happy, but she asked for stuff for Kaylee and she was SO EXCITED! She modelled every single outfit we got her and gave us a hug wearing each one. It was way cute.

Saturday: We had to wake up early on Saturday (about 5 a.m. or so), even though we were up way late Friday night. The reason for waking up at 5 a.m. after going to sleep at 2-3 a.m. last night is we were going to the temple. We had to meet Quinn at the temple, and the temple is far away. We went with a crazy old lady who was in Coni's ward. She drove away while we were saying goodbye to Coni and the door was open and it was insane! We were trying to sleep on the way to the temple, but the crazy lady kept jabbering on about random stuff so it was hard to sleep. She wouldn't let Lisha sleep at all. Kaelei and Kali did though. We are so tired....The temple was fun. Baptisms took FOREVER though. The car ride to Hannover was awful. Tyler cried almost the whole way! But it was worth it. We got to Hannover and were going to the firework show at Herrenhausen Garten. It was so much fun. There was a crazy boy band and the lead singer was dancing all over the stage--it was hilarious! Then one of the guitar players was wearing a helmet made out of a disco ball! It was so cool! And we saw a cool fountain and took some funny pictures with Anna and Laura in front of it (while we danced around and acted like weirdos). It was a lot of fun. THEN we saw this other band called Lüneburger Schrott Trommler. They were all drummers and their drums were just metal or plastic barrels and stuff like that. We'll have to put up pictures...but ANYWAYS one of the drummers was SO CUTE!!! He was the cutest guy we had seen so far in Germany. So, being hyper and weird like we were, Lisha not included, we watched their final performance and went up to the hot guy and asked for a picture with him. So, as Kali was in heaven with his arm around her posing for a picture, EVERYONE in sight was watching because they thought it was so funny. Kali is pretty red in the pictures....We didn't get good ones because the cameras were being retarded. The only good one was really dark, so you can't see him very well. :( Lisha didn't think he was very cute but Kali, Kaelei, and Anna sure did! He was amazing! lol just kidding he was cute though. They have a website (in German of course). It's http://www.trommeltraum.de if you want to look at it. The pictures are at the top. The pictures aren't all that great but its the best we can do.



Today: Today we sang in the Hannover Ward. We sang Walk Tall, You're a Daughter of God. It was pretty scary, but apparently we did well because we got lots of compliments. It was weird. Young Womens was first, then Sunday School, THEN Sacrament Meeting. We skipped YW to practice our song for the first time ever. Class was way fun. There was a cute guy in our class and the teacher tried to translate the lesson into english for us, so that was cool. It was funny the way we got introduced to the kid. Quinn's brother-in-law, Steffen (shteffan) was talking to us and we told him about the cute drummer kid and then out of nowhere he was like Oh you need to meet my friend Tobias. And he turned around and it was the cute kid! So we were talking to him and it turns out he's 17, he's a convert, Steffen baptized him, and he's taking a trip to California this year. Then after we talked to him we tracked him down because we decided we wanted a picture of him. He blushed and was acting really self concious but we got a pretty cute one of him. It was awesome! We hope we can see him when we go to church again, but we don't know. He asked us if we would be there next week and when we said no he looked really sad. It was funny. After he left we were talking to Steffen and he turned to Kali and he was like so do you want to date him? And she was like NO! I'm only 15, sadly. She was so sad lol. But maybe we will see him next time. We sure hope so. Then he asked Kaelei and she was like I'm not 16 YET but I will be next month... hee hee. Then Kali was like NO WAY, LOSER! HE'S MINE! Then Lisha was like he's my age...but I have a boyfriend. So Kali said, "HA!" and we still fight about it. (jokingly, of course)
Well, the apple pie is done! Haha suckers you don't get any! BYE!

Vulnerable by Secondhand Serenade

No computer this week

Hey everyone we won't have computer access untill saturday because we will be at Toby and Connie's house and their computer broke. We are leaving for their house this morning and it will take about 4 hours to drive there. The guy we are going with is named Florian, but we still haven't met him. Lisha is the only one who has seen Uncle Benny. I hope we get to see him today. He's cool. Anyways, we are going to the temple this week and won't be able to get on the computer for a while. The humidity is driving us crazy! It makes us all sticky and sweaty and uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that our hair is wigging out! Our hair is all puffy and curly and no matter what it won't stay straight. We love you all, don't forget to tell people to check our blog out. Talk to you soon!
Thanks! Kali, Kaelei, and Lisha

Stop and Stare, by One Republic (Kaelei and Kali's new favorite song)

Church with Anna and the BBQ

The first picture is of Pauline's house. She will be staying with Lisha's family. The second one is of Anna. She probably wouldn't like the picture, but it's funny. The third one is Kali with Tyler. The fourth one is just to get an idea of what everything looked like at Pauline's. The fifth one is of us in front of Anna's church. It was really bright, and that was the best picture we could get. Jeffrey is in that one with us. The last one is of Anna's church. It was really cool-looking on the outside, and even cooler on the inside, but we didn't get a good picture of the inside. Sorry. ;-P

Well, today we didn't go to the LDS church, we went to church with Anna, who goes to a Protestant church. It was cool-only an hour long. We had really great timing, Anna was performing on the flute for the hymns, and the mayor of the town of Burgdorf came to speak after the meeting. We got a picture with him! Quinn says she has lived in Burgdorf for 10-ish years and she says she's never even seen him before, so we really were lucky. We went to Anna's house for the first time and hung out with her and her family for a few hours and then went home to change out of our skirts before the BBQ. Again, did I mention we went to church by bike? Well, we did. Have you ever tried riding a bike to church in a skirt? I wouldn't recommend it, it sucks. Anna's house is way cool though, and we love riding bikes everywhere-it's so nice! The only thing that could make it better is if we had our cell phones, but we're happy anyways. Today after Anna's house we went home and changed into better clothes before we rode our bikes (again!) to the BBQ at Pauline's house. Her house is HUGE! Her back yard is ENORMOUS! It was a LONG bike ride from Quinn's house to hers, but it was so fun that it was worth it. At her BBQ we met Valentine and his family as well as Pauline and hers. We ate sausage and bread and french fries and noodle salads and all sorts of yummy stuff (lots of meat). The dessert was AMAZING! Quinn made it. It's called Quarkspeise. (kwark-spiza) There was a pool in her backyard (a tiny one) but we didn't know about that before we came so we didn't bring our suits. :( But Kaelei and I are going in the morning so it's all good. Lisha didn't want to go (for some odd reason...but honestly, isn't that what summer is for? To swim even more? Just KIDDING!!!) The pool isn't very far away so we will just ride bikes again at 6 a.m. We are very excited for Southern Germany tomorrow, we still need to pack tonight. The jet-lag is horrible! We have been so exhausted lately that we are completely crazy! It's hilarious! Anna is so much fun. We have missed her a ton. There was a soccer game tonight, and the city literally shuts down during games, and we went on a bike ride with Quinn during the game. The streets were empty. I think we passed a grand total of 3 cars and a couple people riding home quickly on their bikes. It was really quiet untill a passing train just about scared us out of our pants went by. There is a train station down the road that we pass all the time when we ride our bikes. Tomorrow, instead of going to Germersheim (Toby and Connie's home town) by train, we are going with some college kid who needed and extra seventy-five dollars and heading the same direction, so he's giving us a ride. Apparently they do it all the time in Germany, but it still makes me nervous to be going with some random guy who posted his car available on the internet, but whatever. There's safety in numbers, and there's three of us, right? Anyways, we need to pack. We miss everyone! Love you!
-the girlz

We got there, that's all that matters, right?

Well, we got here safely. None of us were able to sleep on our ten hour flight to Paris, France. We had a big, bright, STUPID(!) TV screen right in front of us and it was so bright that we couldn't sleep! And it's hard to sleep on the plane anyways.We were all laying there with our sunglasses on trying to block the light but it didn't work very well. So, our total amount of sleep on the fifteen hour flight was about an hour. Each. How gay is that?! So, we watched movies all the way to Paris. It was very boring. On our plane from Paris to Hanover, Germany, we were stuck in the plane for an hour and a half while waiting for clearance to take off. It was very boring! So our flight was delayed. When we FINALLY reached the airport, got our bags and all that fun stuff, my Auntie Quinn and Anna (my German buddy) and her family were waiting for us. Quinn said that her whole family wanted to meet us at the airport but there just wasn't room for all of us in the car. The kids were waiting at home and ran out to meet us. After we put our bags away and had dinner, we went to the "city" (Burgdorf) and got some groceries at a store called Aldi. After we finished getting stuff for Quinn, we explored the city a bit and had ice cream. Did I mention that we went by bike? There were six of us who actually went to the city. Me (Kali), Kaelei, Lisha, Tori (Victoria, my cousin), Anna (my German buddy), Laura (Anna's little sister). Quinn's last name is so cool...it's Schulze. Okay, this keyboard is driving me nuts! The z and the y trade places on the German keyboard and all of the symbols are in different places and there are extra letters. It's really hard to type. The past two days sort of blur together since almost all we did on Friday was sit in a plane, as well as most of Saturday. Anyways, I'm probably boring you. The point is, we're having a great time. We miss you all! Have an amazing summer! Love, Kali, Lisha, and Kaelei.

In Delta Airlines we trust

Well they are officially on their way. Since they are literally still in the air I thought I would give their blog a jump start by posting fun pictures that Lisa took at the airport before they left. I can't wait to read about their adventures! guest blogger-Gusti