Happy New Year!

Although it's exactly one month after New Year i thought i had to post this blog, because i was actually working on it since January 1st in the middle of the night but i had so much to write that i first finished it one month later :D so i hope you enjoy :)

Oh my... another year has passed  by SO fast and i still can't believe that it is 2014 now :o short befor twelve i was just sitting on the floor/carpet in our livingroom (i somehow like sitting on the floor more than on the couch :D) and i didn't really notice that is was short before midnight and the beginning of the new year! but i still had a great time this evening, just relaxing wih my family, watching a movie, talking, eating together and stuff like that.  i wrapped some presents for my friend i'm going to visit tomorrow (that's the reason i didn't go to a party because i have to get up really early) and i'm going to sit on the train for 7 hours... hopefully it won't be to boring... but still, i'm SO excited to visit her because i haven't seen her in over a year :( 

As i already said, 2013 passed by SO fast and i can't believe how much i experienced this, well actually now i have to say last year! 

April 2013

I was allowed to go to a language study travel in South France for two weeks, well actually my parents wanted me to go because i was really bad in french... but... i wanted to stay at home, celebrate the confirmation of the confirmands, a few leaders and me led on a weekend before.  that weekend was so much fun!  i learned so much about the faith of young teenagers and what they think about God but i also learned more about myself.  the best thing was that at the beginning there were 27 teenies who didn't really believe in God (only 2 really did) but at the end of the weekend almost everyone from those 27 teens said that they want to learn and work more about and with God! so that was awesome for me to have the feeling that you moved something in other people!  

but back to my language study travel in south france.  in the end i guess i have to say that it was an amazing trip!  the family i stayed at was great!!! although there were 5 daughters, a mother, another exchange student and me in a very small appartment with two bedrooms, a livingroom that was also a bedroom, a tiny citchen and a small bathroom we had so much fun because we sat together and talked (in french of course :)), played games and cooked together.  the whole family was so nice and we felt very welcome there!  the classes were from 9am to 2 or 3pm, i don't really remember :D but the time went by really fast and we had nice teachers so that was good.  we drove to different places near the town we stayed at with the classes, as an example to Nice, Monte Carlo/Monaco and Cannes where we had loads of fun! 

this is me in Nice.  we had a really sunny day while at home it was snowing :D.  we went for a "little" shopping trip and had a really nice day doing our thing while practising french :)

thats was in Monaco at the castle where we watched the guards change their shifts.  unfortunately we had a rainy day there... but we still had a great time! :)

but we didn't have to do things with the group all the time. when we had spare time in the afternoon or evening my exchange sister and me went for a walk through the town and mostly to the beach.  

we also found a really tall and big sculpture made out of letters as you can see on the picture.  that was our last day and we didn't want to go home!

 one thing i really love about the area where we werewas the architecture! i probably never saw so many pretty houses! there were sweet little ones but also villas near the water. just AWESOME!

one thing probably everybody knows about france is that they make great crêpes! i had this one the last evening before we had to go home again but i definitely took a good memory of this home with me and not only about the good food they had but also about the awesome people  i was able to meet there and that made my life better! at least a tiny bit ;)

Mai 2013

from march to mai i was able to make a really good friendship with the exchangepartner from a very good friend of mine!  she was just like me! we are both crazy, laugh about everything try to make the best out of everything and so on.  i'm so glad i could hang out with them and improve my english a little more :)

June/July 2013

in the end of june and the beginning of july i went to TAIWAN for two weeks!!! that was the first time i visited Asia and i was really excited!  i got an exchangepartner through a program and she's only three weeks older than me and we got along really well together! we almost drove around whole Taiwan and i also got to meet so many cool people there! my host family was really generous and lovely! they took good care of me and the grand-mother was SO cute! since the food was pretty new and interesting for me she took me to european restaurants and bought food from KFC although i normally never eat there :D everyone was so nice and they were really excited to meet a European girl with naturally blonde hair :D some foreign people came up to me and asked if they could take a picture with me, that was really funny :D the temperature is nothing in compare to Europe! i felt like melting every day except of in my room where i had 28°C which is 82°F and normally i already feel like melting by that temperature :D outside we had 40°C (104°F) and a lot of air humidity so that was really exhausting...

me infront of the highest building Kaohsiung's
on the first day

that was the first evening where we took a walk along the river

second day when we visited a famous sight of Kaohsiung :) SO beautiful!

also on the second day when we visited a traditional Taiwan-Museum :)

I look just like the people in the earlier days ;D

Another day we visited a park full of mosaik sculptures and Yvonne and me had a lot of fun :D

I even got interviewed by the Chinese TV :D Never happend to me before :P but cool experience, i mean, when do you get interviewed by the chinese tv! :) 

Selfie-Time :) a picture in a picture in a picture? :D

in the second week we drove to the east of Taiwan for three days, without parents, only with 12 classmates and us two :) that was soo much fun, but way to hot for me :D

well, that's us during a short break :)

I was allowed to feed monkeys!!! i've never done that before and i was pretty scared but everything went well :)

I only was used to the big cities in Taiwan but when i saw this scene out of the train i got really excited! :) 

but unfortunately we came back to Kaohsiung with quite a sunburn D: :D aren't we cute :))

on one of our last days we visited the Budda museum which was pretty interesting :)

me trying to copy Buddah :D

After those two amazing, fun and interesting weeks i had to fly back home buuuut i took Yvonne with me :)

the first three days were pretty cold for me because i was used to really hot weather, although we had a really hot summer in germany too so that was funny because i was driving on my bicycle with a warm sweatshirt and long pants and a man was working in his frontyard without a shirt and short pants :D but Yvonne was even soo cold that she got a cold :O 

this is her infront of a famous castle near where i live :)

this is us on our way to another castle (we have a lot of castles in our region and in Taiwan they didn't have any so we showed her several) 

this is Yvonne trying to touch a goat but she was soo scared it was hilarious :D i can't remember if she even touched it :P

July 2013

The fourth and fifth week of summer holidays i went on a two week vacation trip with my church.  destination was: SOUTH-FRANCE :))  we were about 40 teenagers with 8 leaders and a little group of cooks.  in the morning we all ate breakfast together. afterwards we had bible study and after lunch we had free time until dinner.  the leaders prepared some workshops for us but we could also go swimming in the pool at our holiday house or we went on a bicycle tour with friends :-) in the evenings we watched christian movies and talked about our faith and God.  it was very warm the whole time and it only rained one evening.  i got so tan that my makeup didn't fit me anymore :D  we had soo much fund and i'm really looking forwards to this years holiday trip with an even bigger group! :)

this was the football pitch where we played soccer, but also some action games or just laying there and enjoying the sun.

that was our pool behind our house *-* one afternoon we had a poolparty where we had to do different challenges.  SO much fun :)

one evening we had a casino evening where we had to dress ourselves up.  first we all ate to dinner and afterwards we started playing russian roulette and stuff like that - i wasn't that good but we still had loads of fun :) 

this is Tim and me on the fancy dinner evening :)

this is Elli and me at the casino evening.  she's my little but taller sweetie :)

on one of our last days we went on a bicycle tour and took several pictures.  this is one of them with Jule and me :)

this is Laura, Tim, Jule and me on another bicycle trip to a lake near our holiday house.

on departure day we drove to Avignon for the whole day because the bus driver who had to drive us home had to rest for ten hours.  

we visited some sites there and about noon we went on a traffic island which was huuge.  we layed down and tanned ourselves, unfortunately the car drivers saw us and whistled and honked the horn :D 

we kinda got a little sunburn :P

when we went back to our meeting point we sang some spirituals and people came watching these 40 teens sing on a meadow so that was really cool :)

in all we had soo much fun! the canoe trip, shopping, Avignon, Saintes-Maries de la mer, and soo many other trips and experiences i was allowed to make! :)

August 2013

this year i came into sixth form or 11th grade! i had to chose my main subjects in march and then i got my new timetable for this year. my main subjects are English, French and Biology.  until now i'm having loads of fun in school (weird that i'm saying that but it's much cooler in 11th grade then it was all the years before because i was allowed to cancel some subjects - i canceled physics, chemistry, music and art but instead of music or art i've got theatre lessons :) ) my teachers are pretty cool and my schedule is also really good, except that i have two hours of free time on mondays in between two other subjects and every second week wednesdays i have to wait from 1pm to 3:45pm for another two hours of school... but other than that i'm really glad that everything is going on well with the new schoolsystem, teachers and grades! :)

September 2013

SWEET 16!!! :) finally! almost all of my friends are older than me and in september i finally turned 16! now i can go on parties with them and stuff like that :D 

October 2013

in october 2013 we went on vaction! at first we visited my grandma and after three days she, my mum, my dad, my brother and me drove to an island where we used to go ever year about two times, but because of some circumstances we couldn't go there for two years... we all missed the place soo much and although we only stayed there for five days we did so much stuff, visiting the beach most of the time, but i also did a lot of sports and all kind of things.  i'm really excited because we already booked another vacation there over easter and again autumn! :))

November 2013

november was a pretty normal month, we had some concerts with the choir i sing in, but i also had to do a lot of schoolwork... i wrote nine big exams (each two hours and with the content of august to november...) which was really exhausting... although i was pretty stressed out i was lso looking forward to christmas and started decorationg my room and the house with my family :)

December 2013

ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!! i was soo excited for christmas break because school was a lot in the last month.  my grandma came short before christmas and we spent such a great time as a family together! i also got some really cool presents :P on new years eve i could't really believe that a year had passed by SO freaking fast and five minutes before 0:00 i packed a present for my friend i visited on january 1st .  that's why i also stayed at home over new years because my train left at 11:30 the next day.

what a great year! i had a lot of ups but also some downs but all in all i can say that i feel soo blessed that i was able to do soo many things and visit other countries in only one year!  i am soo thankful for the new people i got to meet and made friends with, what i wouldn't have believed in 2012! so THANK YOU to my family and my amazing friends!  hopefully 2014 will be even more exciting! :)