whats up guys

happy chanukkah

I know I haven't written in a while but i havent felt like doing it.

I have since found out that german is a hard language and I am very bad at learning languages, so I am behind all the other exchange kids that came at the same time i did, but i am able to say some select sentances and phrases that I need to. A couple weeks ago, i had my second AFS camp in Tönning, which is on the north sea. I had a good time becsue there are some cool people in my region, even if the meetings are super boring. I met a couple kids that i hadnt before because they came at a different time so they had theyre end of stay camp and that was fun.

The next week, i went to the Hamburg Dom, which is a festivel with rides and candies and stuff, with Manu, from malaysia, and Lisa, from mass., i didnt buy anything because it was way too expensive and ive been spending too much recently. we also saw a couple kids from afs that we didnt know would be there. and we didnt see the poeple that we thought would be there. Boom had to move to Bremen because they couldnt find a new home in hamburg for him to move to, so they sent him away.

School is allright, it keeps going on like normal, but i have this system now. I go to all the classes that i can do like math and english and french, and a couple other. But the ones i cant do i go down to the hauptschule (the lowest level of school) and i learn german with a teacher that just teaches german to people that dont know it too well. At my school there is also exchange kids from mexico, australia, and connecticut. On mondays after school i also take an extra german class through my school with jsut me and the girl from conn.

Weatherwise, its getting colder, but not really cold, the average is around 6 degrees Centigrade and there has only been about 2 hours with visisble snow fall so far this year. However, it rains alot. yesterday, it rained all day while iw as at school and in any given week it wil probably rain 2 or 3 times.

Also yesterday, i went to temple for the third time this year, second time at this particular temple. My host moms friends are jewish and the invited me to go with them for the first time last month, where i met the rabbi, who is british and i met some of the very small congregation. at that service there were 10-15 people and i was called up to the bima to the the torah prayers because there arent too many people to do it. They have services witht he rabbi once a month because they cant do it every week due to the fact that there are so few people, and the rabbi is also the rabbi at several other temples around hamburg. But last night he wasnt there, so the cantor led the services, and there were more poeple around 20-30 because some of the kids did a little play thing. The services are held in gemran, with some russian lines here and there, and the prayers, which are somewhat the same tune, but some i dont know at all.

Since its christmas time , the family has been gearing up with some german christmas rituals that ive never heard of before. For instance, they have a calander called an adventskalander, and what it is, is that it has a little pouch for every day of december up intill the 25th and the parents but candy in it and every day you take the candy out. Also they had nikolas day the other day and there was htis huge array of candys outside my door when i woke up. It was cool. One thing i learned is that they give presents on the night of the 24th, after the christmas dinner.

thats all for now, i posted newer pictures here, and here, if you didnt see them yet.