Celebrity Status, Soccer, Skip-bo and Schaum... Does it Get Any Better?

I am having an absolute blast. Let me start off with a disclaimer: I am not responsible for any tears shed in jealousy of my situation. Just kidding. But not really... ;)

I’m now playing soccer for my local club, but it’s different than what I’ve done before. This is legit competition. You have three subs per game, just like in the pros, and there are players in the league who get paid a little each month to play for a certain club. I’m not registered with the team yet, but I’ve been practicing with them and the paperwork is on the way.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Schaum (Foam) Party. It was a club atmosphere in this huge tent with loud music and lights and everything, but there was something especially extraordinary about this party. There was a huge area where a machine periodically spat out foam in which many crazy people were dancing crazily. Naturally, I felt the need to join in and was absolutely drenched after about thirty seconds. Sometimes the foam would rise over seven feet high, and Const and I didn’t come out for about three and a half hours. Now his cell phone is broken. Riley, he knows how you felt.

Oh, and a quick note to the fam: they have skip-bo here in Germany! I was pretty surprised when my host mom whipped out an old deck, and she was surprised that I knew what it was. We play every once in a while, and it reminds me of Chappy.

On to details about school. My classes are Music, Politics and Economics, Philosophy (my favorite), Ethics, Math, French, English, German, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. I don’t speak French, and the students have been taking it for about five years… Hmmm. I’ve taken tests in English and German, and I think I did pretty well in both of them. English is really fun. I hear all of these funny mistakes, but nobody is there to laugh along with me, so in that sense, it’s a little lonely. It’s okay though, because I’m usually the only one laughing, even when I’m with Americans. My favorite quote so far: “I’d like to put my finger in another subject.”

I feel really lucky to be in a situation where I can be so active. A couple weekends ago I played in a beach volleyball tournament with Heiko and Const (host dad and bro) in the middle of a city. There was definitely no beach anywhere, just a huge pit of sand in front of a train station in the middle of a city. That was a blast. I also go inline skating every once in a while, which is pretty good training for nordic. Once a week I go to volleyball with Heiko because they play soccer for the first 15 minutes or so to warm up. I go home after that, though. Then three days a week I have soccer practice, which is the jam. It’s really high level, but I’m keeping up fairly well. The team is nice, and it’s cool to be able to play with such talented athletes. Lastly, I played badminton this week, and that was really fun. My arm is exhausted, because we played for more than two hours, and it was pretty intense.

I am also now in possession of a cello. I’m really excited, because I get home from school at 1:30 each day, and I have very little to do until the evening. Const and I sit around and watch Youtube, which is really fun, but we’re running out of videos. We’ve watched “Can I Have Your Number” from MadTV about 80 times, and if you haven’t seen it, watch it right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTFZyl7hfBw

I hope everyone is well. The weather here is not quite as nice as it is in NH in the fall, and I really miss that. I hope you are all enjoying it for me!

Tommy Symmes