Home!

Hey guys! Just wanted to let everyone know that I made it home safely! Going to England was the most amazing experience ever... one I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. It was soo much fun and educational. I learned so much about anything and everything! But i'm soo excited to be home!

Thanks for reading my blog throughout the last couple months! Hope you enjoyed it!

Have a merry Christmas!

Love,
Tiffany

The Last Week!

Hello everyone! Just a little update about the last week. This week was the last week of classes, Thursday was our last day. But back to the rest of the week..

On Monday, we had our Women's Studies Expo. We showcased our final projects to our Harlaxton Community and acted out the Vagina Monologues. For those of you that don't know, the Vagina Monologues is a bunch of stories taken from interviews with women about vaginas. The stories are amazing, some are funny, sad, and some make your cringe in horror and disgust. But the stories are soo liberating and amazing. Everyone loved them, and the expo went amazing! We had tons of people there, so many that we didn't have enough seats!

Tuesday, nothing too interesting happened. I chilled and watched movies with Leah and then we had a sleep over!

Wednesday I went to dinner at the Hiorns, my meet-a-family. It was our last dinner! We had a Christmas dinner. It was sooo good! Then, there was a snow ball party here at school. I went to that for a little bit, and then had another sleep over with Leah.

Thursday was the last day of classes! I only had to go to one, because the other one got cancelled. And then the one class I did have, only lasted 20 minutes! So it was a pretty easy day. After that we had our valedictorian ceremony and farewell dinner. The ceremony was at the local church. We got little "diplomas." It was really sad, because Dr. Kingsley was talking about leaving, and how it's gone by so fast. It was really touching, and sad. Then it was dinner time! After dinner, they had a slideshow for us, with pictures from the past semester. It was really sad to see them all go by, but it was really cool too. Afterwords, Leah, Marie and I watched movies all night.

Then yesterday, Friday, was just a hang out kind of day. We were all really lazy and slept all day. Leah and I then went shopping for a little bit. Later that night, Marie, Leah and I went out. It was soo much fun! We hung out, played cards and had a great night together.

Today was our "Family Christmas." We had Christmas dinner, and our meet-a-families were invited to come. Mine came too! I gave them their Christmas presents, Nathaniel and Alice got Badger sweatshirts! And then I gave Sue an American cookbook with American utensils (they use different measurements here). Paul likes documentaries so I gave him a huuuuge book on the Civil War. They all liked them, so I was really excited about that! At dinner we just talked and said our good-byes. It was really sad to say goodbye. But they said I can come stay with them anytime! They were a really great family, tons of fun.

Other then that my time has been spent cleaning and packing. It's hard to believe that I'll be coming home next week already! I have mixed feelings about coming home. I feel like I've grown so much here, and experienced so many things. It's going to be weird going back to the way things were before.. But I'm terribly excited to see my family, and friends! It's hard to believe it's been four months! I'm so excited!

I'm off to bed now, I have a final in the morning! See you all very soon!

G'night!

Love,

Tiffany

Germany!!

I hope that everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. And that a lot of turkey was eaten for me! I went to Germany for Thanksgiving. lol. I went to visit Laura Cardy. Now Laura & I have a funny little story considering we've never actually met each other. She went to NCCS in AZ, 2 years after I left. She's Ashley Kaiser's roomie, and she's friends with Chuck & Allison.. whom I'm still friends with today after leaving there in 8th grade. Laura & I have both heard stories about each other and have talked before.. so it wasn't like we were complete strangers! Lol. But anyways.. she's an au pair (a nanny) in Germany for a whole year.. and it just seemed like a perfect idea to go there and meet her! And it was! We had so much fun!!..

But back to the story..

On Thursday, I headed off to the airport at around 1. My roomate Krista and a couple of her friends were headed off too, their flight being earlier, I caught a cab and train with them. I just hung out at the airport for a couple hours before my flight left. The flight from London to Bremen, Germany was only about an hour long. It was basically just a hop, skip and a jump across the ocean. After I got my passport stamped (yay!!), I headed through the terminal to see Laura! Hehe. It was soo great to finally meet her. We headed off to where she lives. It was off to bed around midnight..

Friday morning got up early and headed off for Munich! (Munchen as it's pronounced in Deutsch!) We stopped at the bakery for breakfast.. mmm.. yummy doughnut! Lol. It took us about 8 hours to get to Munich. The whole time we listened to Christmas music. I think the drive was my favorite part actually! I got to see soo much of the beautiful country side.. Germany is gorgeous! I saw the cute little town, with the cute little churches, and the hills.. oh. it was pretty! Loved it!

When we finally got to Munich, we headed to Dachau. Dachau was the first concentration camp of the Nazi, and was mainly a male camp until the end of the war. This was the main reason we went to Munich, as I truly wanted to go to a concentration. And I'm so happy I was able to go and be there.. The day was foggy and it was getting dark as we were walking around, it was also terribly cold. The look and the feel of the day helped to better understand the men's lives in the camp. We walked around in the barracks, and saw their cramped living quarters.. saw pictures of the men.. saw the gestapo posts.. the wall around the camp.. the train tracks that they were brought in on and the dead were taken out on.. The whole experience was mind-blowing. I was in awe as I stood in the roll call area and tried to picture the camp with the men, in their prison outfits,.. seeing the camp and the pictures makes you wonder how people can be so cruel? And how they were able to hide it for so long.. It seems unimaginable. Visiting Dachau makes me want to go to other concentration camps to learn more... they just seeem so horrible to imagine, but once you've been to one.. you can't imagine how people could do those things to another human being.

After we left Dachau, we checked into our hostel! No worries! We had a very good one, one of the best in Munich. We have very good stories compared to the horror stories that we've heard! And! There were no bed bugs!! :) I checked! Lol. Laura and I hung out that night and got to know each other. It was such a fun night!

Saturday, we again went to the bakery for bfast. I got another doughnut, and this time a German pretzel! It was soo delicious! We headed back to Dachau to finish looking at the things we didn't get to see the day before. Then we headed to the city centre to look around and do some shopping. We waited to get into the parking garage for like 40 mins! It was crazy!! Luckily though, as soon as we finally got in, we found a parking space right away. We then went and did some shopping! And we walked around the market on the street. Laura got some roasted nuts.. they smelled very good! But I hate nuts! Yuck! All the stores were decorated for Christmas! It was soo cute! We were on a mission to find a German braut while I was there.. but we couldn't find one. :( I wanted a true German one from a street vendor, not from a restraunt, and I couldn't find one. It was very sad! But that just gives me more reason to go back! :) After we found the things we wanted, we headed back to the car for home!

The drive home was a little long since some of the autobounds were closed. But we did make it back! We stopped at McDonald's for dinner, and it was amazing!! They had FREE REFILLS AND CRUSHED ICE!!! The drink fountain was out for the customers to get their own drinks, so heck yes i got free refills!! Lol.

Sunday morning it was back to the airport. My flight was only about 40 mins. this time.. Yay! I had to wait an hour until the next train came, but it was ok. I read my book. Krista and her friends were on my train again, so we took a cab together back to school.

The trip was truly a great time. I had a wonderful time with Laura, and in Germany I did everything I wanted to do. I hope that everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving and enjoyed their time with their families.

This week in school is really low-key. It's the last week of classes, and people started finals on Saturday. We're all starting to pack and get ready to go home! I have a little bit of mixed emotions about going home. I'm soo excited because I miss everyone greatly and can't wait to have everything normal again. But I've had an amazing time here, and will be sad to leave my new friends. There's soo many places I haven't seen yet either, which gives me a million reasons to come back again!

See you all VERY soon!
Miss you!

Love,
Tiffany

Sir Harlaxton

Hey Everyone! Last night in the Bistro they have a "Sir Harlaxton" contest. Except there was a catch.. it was in DRAG! lol. So the boys dressed up as girls and participated in the contest. And then the girl were dressed up as boys. Ooh goodness.. was it ever hilarious!! Cameron, one of the professor's son, he's 9, won the contest. He was funny,.. but the older guys were hilarious!! And they looked a lot more like girls some of them.. Oh goodness too funny.

Nothing else is going on here. I leave for Germany tomorrow. Yay!! I hope that everyone has a happy Thanksgiving. Eat lots of turkey for me! Thanks! :)

Miss you all!

Love,
Tiffany