Weekends are the Best

A lot of people are going out dancing tonight, and, as I have no wish to dance to terrible American pop nor the rhythm to look decent while doing it, I've finally managed to get a laptop and have enough time to really use it, so I'll go into more detail on all the stuff I've done here.
Buster's sitting here making up a song about the out of tune guitar and it was wonderful.
My memory's terrible, so I'll grab highlights from the paper journal:

July 31 (the day of arrival)
In DC, there was a "Wall of Concerns" that we were supposed to put questions on. Mary put things like "When do we get to eat?" and "Does buying someone a drink constitute soliciting prostitution?" Legitimate concerns, but the panel failed to respond to them. . . .
August 1
I feel like I've been here at least a week. I can barely keep track of how long it's been sice I've done things, because I'm doing so much more than normal. . . Mark led us on a tour and showed us all sorts of useful things (like where to make the cheapest phone calls and where to exchange money and bookstores and the best bakery in town). . . After dinner we discussed our feelings and Swantje (I'm still working on that pronunciation) told us it was important to write down our feelings so we'd remember. I'm so excited I can barely sit still, and I just want to learn what's available to me so I'll know what I want. I can still barely believe I'm here, but I love everything about it. Honeymoon indeed. We made our door sign prettier with crayon drawings and I've been talking to my roommates for a while. I went in a German grocery store today! It was exciting. I bought water.
August 2
After waking up late 'cause Emily's clock was wrong, I hung out with Rose until it was time to go to SIT (Sprach Institut Tuebingen). It seemed pretty far going there, but we made it, despite the rain. We were early and had to wait a bit, then we went to our classes. I was with Rose and Jenny in group F. Scott and Kenzie were in another, but they switched to ours.
August 5 (yea, I got lazy for a few days and didn't write)
Roomies and I went in a rowboat and I got us stuck in a blackberry bush and we were all pitiful at rowing and Mary doesn't follow directions well- she ran us into a gondola once, and nearly hit one another time. School's pretty cool, too- yesterday the Greeks were away and we had new people- one from Switzerland (the French-speaking part and she had an awesome accent) and from Isreal and a nun from Croatia and a girl from France and one from Japan. It was really cool to talk with people from so many countries- I wish I had records of all our conversations. It was back to normal today, but it was still pretty interesting- we talked about education and also about the low birthrate in Germany. . . I'm in the Art AG Group with Mark and we met last night and it was all girls and we drew portraits (I drew Bevelyn) and Rose and Dustin and Buster (the local troubadors) mae an "Art Club Sucks" song, and then made a Bero song that's actually really catchy and I love it and I wish I were talented like them. I love the way Rose sits in her window and plays guitar and sings and we can hear it all over- even from the rowboat on the Neckar! Rose and Dustin were working on a song for Swantje that's awesome and they plan to do one for each Betreuer. . . We watched some strange movie that was apparently co-written by Tom Tykwer and it was confusing but I sort of liked it. I've successfully done laundry here as well. It was simple but cost 3 Euro. I've been helping other people I bit with their Deutsch- Mary's working on hers now and I'm helping her on pronunciation (like my accent's so great). We got totally lost on the way to lunch yesterday- there's a circle and like 8 streets and we tried so many and couldn't find the restaurant and finally we went around a corner and found it and it was funny but also pitiful and I laughed.
Friday Night
Emily, Casey, Mary and I went and bought a bottle of white wine and some cups and a corkscrew and took it to the park. It was a little strong for my tastes- Mary had two glasses, Emily one, Casey a little bit, and I had about 3/4 of a glass. We also had frozen eclairs that we didn't bother to let defrost, and it was so peaceful to sit in the park and watch the ducks and drink wine and talk and it was beautiful. We ran into Austin and Blair and talked to them for a bit and then headed toward town. It was getting dark, and we wandered looking for a restaurant because we were a little hungry and wanted to also try a little German beer. We ended up at the Biergarten right on the river where you can sit outside and we got one beer to split and some weird cheese and bread. We settled in and I actually rather liked the beer- it was certainly better than the wine, although Mary hated it. Our Betreuers showed up and it's really weird to drink with one's counselors, but it was fun. It started to rain a bit and Bero said our cheese tasted like sweaty feet, so we gave up trying to eat it, and Bero told us Karnival stories that we all giggled at and we finished our beer and went for ice cream and it started raining really hard and we were running back to the hostel sheltering our delicious ice cream (mine was hazelnut) and we got back soaked and Casey and Emily went roller skating in the hall and we started watching some movie or another and fell asleep. Definitely an awesome evening.

Now for today's events! We got to sleep in a little later- 7:15 or so, and got up to get breakfast and pack our lunches and head off to Lake Constance. It's a 2 hour bus ride to Meersburg, and we got there and took a tour of the castle (the tour was boring but the castle was pretty awesome to see- it's old and still privately owned) and then Casey and Emily and Mary and I wandered around the city for a while. It's very pretty and I took pictures and I'll upload them later. We went to some gorgeous baroque church then, and they wouldn't let us take pictures, but it was full of gold and murals on the ceilings, and marble that was 4 or 5 colors all at once, and it was so so pretty. We then got to take an unexpected side trip that made me so so so happy- Monkey Mountain! It's this place where they have all these monkeys that you get to feed, and they come up and sit on the fence and take the popcorn right out of your hand and it is so cool. Carly and Allyson and I had so much fun, and John seemed to keep scaring the monkeys away and Mike befriended them and the monkeys make this aggressive face when they're upset that's so so funny and I think Mike got a picture of it- I didn't take my camera in because I wanted to focus on the monkeys- I want one so bad. I also want a duck- the Neckar's full of them, and swans, too, and weird black swimming birds that have this funny head wobble when they walk. Back at the hostel after the monkeys, Christian barbecued for us and it was so delicious and I have a happy full belly and I'm tired and Buster's singing praise songs in the hall and Mary wants a turn, so I think I'm going to go shower (I really need to) and maybe just relax tonight.


Billy- do you know "I Can't Stop Falling in Love with You?" Buster's singing it in the hall right now and it sounds awesome- the Sparrows might like to do it.