hallo famile
ich schreibe euch hier es auch nochmal
bitte checkt ganz dringend eure mail, ok? das isganz dolle wichtig im moment.
antwortet mir bitte so schnell wie moeglich!

hab euch alle ganz dolle lieb,
daniela

I finally found some time to upload some pictures that I took at our last dance. Hope you enjoy! I’ll write more soon…

I can’t actually believe that I’ve really been there. Chicago. An awesome city, that scares, amazes and overwhelmes you and is just a great place to go to. We spend today there with German Club after we visited the Chicago Christkindlmarket which is a christmas market based on the one in Nuernberg. It smelled like home and a lot of the exhibitors were from places in Germany such as Plauen, Schoenwald and Stuttgart that are not far away from where I (used to) live. After we walked around the market we began to dicover Chicago which was quite exciting. We saw a lot of really tall buildings, Chicago’s rush hour, yellow cabs, scary streets, got to get to be asked questions by some random street musicians like the one above and didn’t really know where to go first. Tomorrow I’ll go there again and can’t wait for it. One’s for sure: More pictures are gonna come!

It’s one of the cities where you get lost really easily. It’s a huge city and it’s just awesome, but it can also be dangerous. I got so excited and did’t even realize that it was nearly negative 15 Grad Celsius. A great experience. There’s a lot to discover and you get to know a completely different part of America. Poor and rich live close together. You realize that when you see all the homeless people on Chicagos streets and on the other hand the rich ones that buy hats for 98$ at Macys. You start to ask yourselve why the world is so unjust and realize how good your own life though is.

Sorry guys. Right now there are only two pictures that capture my 2008 Thanksgiving experience. Turkey pictures as well as my impressions of Black Friday will be posted later on. 

Ok, here I go again. Finally I find time to tell you about the experiences I had on Thanksgiving. My first impression was that Thanksgiving is a widely celebrated familyday in the States where the whole family comes together and has a good time. It’s a great opportunity to take pictures as well and here are some of those we took.

Thanksgiving celebrates the arrival of the Mayflower, but if somebody would ask me…It’s basically tree days of eating and spending a great time with the family! We had two big turkeys, ten pounds mashed potatoes, pies and the norwegian specieality Lefsa. It was sooo good and dinner was awesome that day. Just eat, don’t stop and don’t care for calories.

After the big dinner on Thursday your’re eating leftovers for the next couple of days and get ready for Black Friday as well. Shopping, big Sales and a lot of fun! We got up at four in the morning and went shopping until 9 a.m. It was so much fun and there were pretty good sales at several stores. People fought over toys at TOYS ‘R US after they stood in line for 2 hours. They just went crazy! Thanksgiving and Black Frdiay are days I’ll never forget, because the whole family was together and we just had a great time. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Ok guys. Der naechste grosse State der ausgezaehlt wird ist Florida. Da Obama vorausichtshalber die gesamte Westcoast gewinnt (California) und schon Staaten der Ostkueste hat und unteranderem Ohio und Pennsylvania muss er nur noch Florida gewinnen, um President der USA zu werden. In Wisconsin hat er zumindest gewonnen.

Ich kann euch sagen, es ist hier gerade verdammt spannend um 9:10 p.m. Ortszeit. Ihr koennt euch nicht vorstellen, wie genial es ist hier zu sein, wenn entschieden wird, wer die Welt die naechsten vier oder auch acht Jahre anfuehren wird. The most powerful guy of the world.

Das nur ein ganz kurzer Bericht aus den Staaten heute, nachdem ich in der Schule fuer Obama gevotet habe und auch eine richtige amerikanische Pollstation besucht habe. Es ist verdammt spannend! In Deutschland bekommt ihr um drei Uhr morgends bestimmt nicht so viel mit, aber hier gluehen die Newsstations. Wir werden sehen, wie es ausgeht… ich verfolge die Nachrichten jetzt weiter.

GO OBAMA!

Ok guys. We don’t really need a lot of words here. Halloween is awesome and Trick or Treating is awesome. We had so much fun today and came home with a lot of Candy. I bet it’s more than one kilogram.
Just let the pictures speek…

(Click to enlarge)

It was great to experience the spirit Americans showed and it was fun to see alll the decorated houses. Some people were even dressed up when they opened the door.

Fright Fest. You might not exactly know what that is, but I can tell it’s awesome. As Halloween comes up on October 31st, America is getting ready for this event with the opening of Hounting Houses and Fright Fests where you get scared and frightened and where people usually have a lot of fun. I went to one of those Fright Fests last Sunday with the Cultural Exchange Club of Hamilton, located in the Roller Coaster Park Six Flags Great America, Chicago. We had lots of fun riding all those roller caosters and enjoying the atmosphere of Halloween.

It was just awesome! We rode all of the thirteen Roller Coasters such as Vertical Velocity or Ragin Bull which was by far my favourite!

I experienced my first loops and I was quite suprised that it was so much fun! I now can understand why people can get addicted to Roller Coasters . 

It was such a great time we had there, even though we often had to wait more than 30 minutes to get on a ride, but the atmosphere of Disney that was created by Bugs Bunny and Goofie Figures relieved the waiting time. We certainly wanna go there again before I head home for Germany next year!

Homecoming Week was fun and everybody was looking forward to the game on Friday and the dance on Saturday. Mee too as everybody told me how much fun it would be and I was ready for it after my dresshopping on Monday. Hamilton won the game on Friday which took pressure from the football players and which made the dance even more enjoyable.

Our evening was quite fun and it wasn’t as formal as I expected it to be. Simply the music made that difference. As you can read in books about exchange years in America everybody is excited for the homecoming dance. Even I was excited when the group that I went to the dance with met at a friends house to make some pictures and to go out for dinner later.

After the pictures were taken we went to a pizza place, had dinner and went to the dance at Hamilton. It started at 7p.m. and ended at 11p.m. It was really much fun and one of the experiences in the States that I won’t forget.

It’s nearly unbelievable for german students to dress themselves in school coulours just because somebody determines a day as Spirit Day. Well…it’s unbelievable for american students that students in Germnay would hardly dress up for those days.

What is right, what is wrong? Nothing. Different Cultures, different attitude, different spirit. Spirit Week is a great experience for exchange students. At least it was a great experience for me. I think most of you can’t imagine how crazy american schools get during their spirit week and for all I’ve experienced american students have much more school spirit than german students do. Sprit week is the week before the Footballs Hoemcoming Game at american High Schools when the school determines the particular days certain spirit days.

Spirit Week at Hamilton High started at September 29 and ended up on October 3. Honestly I wished that week wouldn’t have ever end. The first day of Spirit Week was “Malibu Monday” where everybody in school was supposed to wear a beach outfit or at least sandals and shorts . But as it was the first spirit day it wasn’t suprising that people dressed hardly up. Even though some of them were wearing shorts and sandals and others had put their swimsuit over their clothes, the from me expected american spirit stood away. Well…the next day should be better.

It was! Tuesday was “Moviestarday” where people could all in all dress up as whatever they wanted to, but most of them tried to  be a Movietstar such as TV Detectives, Marylin Monroe or Sportstars.

On Tuesday was the first day where nearly all students of Hamilton went crazy as is was “CrazyDay”. Put a bunch of clothes together that doesn’t match and you’re good to participate in that day. You could even put 24 shirts over each other or dress up as a bee.

Thursday was “Rockstar Day” and some of Hamiltons Students transformed theirselves into Rockstars such as Nickelback or simply brought their blues harp to school.

Friday was the day that amazed me the most as the whole school was dressed in Black, Red and White as it was “Charger Pride Day”. It was a lot of spirit that the students and also the teachers showed during that day and the “Pep Rally” that prepared us for the Homecoming Football Game at the evening brought even more spirit in. Faces were painted and nearly everybody was wearing school clothes with the Hamiltonlogo.

The games that were played during lunch such as “Pie in the Face” or “araokee”made it even more fun to eb part of the school during this week. It was exciting to experience that different interpretation of school.