This is a really long one (cue for you, Josh).
When I last wrote I was wrapping my 11th grade education up for the second time in my life. Today was the second first day of 12th grade I've had, and it went fairly well. I'm going to go ahead and brag about my vacation before coming back to school, so try not to cry with envy.
I said goodbye to the friends I'd made in my eleventh grade class by helping them eat the delicious cake they made for me. Let me just say, I helped them a lot. They owe me a big thank you, because I ate a lot of cake just for them. I did it just for them. Out of the kindness of my heart. I'm just such a nice guy. I do love a good cake though.... That was Thursday. Friday I played soccer, Saturday I celebrated life and Sunday I climbed in to my family's 5-seater car with all five members of my family and embarked upon a journey that I will never forget, setting aside a situation such as amnesia or Alzheimer's. First stop: Magdeburg.
This was the city where my host mom and dad ran into each other for the second time, completely coincidentally (or was it, which is a current topic of debate in my philosophy class), after meeting each other at a Bruce Springsteen concert. I think it was the Boss, but I'm not sure. I'll ask one of them later and get back to you. That's probably not true, though. If I'm wrong, chances are I'm going to leave it the way it is. We were staying at Susan's parent's vacation house where my belt loop got hooked on an indoor tree to create a slingshot with one of the branches, which flung a small, decorative angel across the room where it met its demise on the cold tiled floor. Magdeburg was really cool. It was about 1200 years old (WOAH) and had this huge cool apartment building that I want to live in someday. Google 'hundertwasserhaus magdeburg' and that's what I want my home to be. Despite it's blatantly pink exterior it's named something like the green citadel, which ended up being because there's a bunch of little grassy spots inside all over the place.
We continued on from Magdeburg to Tropical Island, the world's biggest indoor rainforest. You pay 27€ to get in and can stay as long as you want. There are two huge pools, a jungle to wander through, a really long sandy beach, gnar gnar waterslides and every cheesy tourist attraction you could ever imagine at a warm-weather resort, all packed into an artificially heated dome. I slept two nights on the beach and had a total blast. My routine for the day: go swimming with Const for several hours; run to the really hot showers; stand in shower for about 25 minutes; stroll back to the beach chairs that were the family's territory and eat; repeat until defeated by exhaustion; lie down on the sand and go to sleep.
Next we drove to Dresden, which I fell in love with. It was so pretty there, and despite being a big, street-filled city it managed to retain the smell and taste of fresh air. Sometimes Concord even stinks of pavement, but Dresden made me feel like I was wandering around an unaging scene from hundreds of years ago. The art, the cobblestone streets, the churches, the restaurants, the people, the atmosphere- everything just seemed so perfect. I have never liked just walking around cities before, but in Dresden it was a completely different experience. I'm pretty sure locations like that don't exist in America. The culture we chose to develop is not nearly old enough to acheive that feel.
Then I came back and we lost our soccer game. My new cleats are still awesome, though. The second week of my vacation was very relaxing. I played Risk, soccer, celebrated some more, slept a lot and went to the 16th birthday party for someone who I thought was a lot older. That was weird for me but the kids I went with and I who were all older ended up making the party. Today I went back to the Schule.
I now ride my bike every morning and afternoon to and from school. I wake up at 6:27 am, fall out of bed and hope that I hit my clothes and they magically wrap themselves around me so that I don't have to waste precious energy by dressing myself. For some reason they never do, but I think it'll be a while before I give up trying this technique. I'm stubborn like that, and I'm not about to let a pair of normal pants defeat the great force of my willpower. I then take about two minutes to climb ten steps from my room to the rest of the house and collapse once more into a chair. Sometimes my aim is less than precise and I do not hit the entire seat of the chair, but I'm a little to embarrassed to go into more detail about that situation. I pour milk and cereal* into a bowl and stare at them until I realize that I actually have to lift the spoon in my hand if I want that food in my stomach.
*Interesting side note: In Germany all cereal is called corn flakes. Not all cereal is corn flakes, but it's like when we call tissues cleanex or band-aid-thingies band aids. That was a bit confusing for me at first.
Anyway, by the time I manage to get the first spoon full of cereal into my mouth it's soggy enough that I don't have to expend any energy chewing vigorously. Vigorous chewing is for morning people, and I'm not a morning person until 2:00 in the afternoon. I then shrug on a few jackets and my backpack, which I hope I packed the night before, shuffle outside, and mount my valiant steed. Well, I either mount a valiant steed or a beat-up, old, slow, too-small mountain bike on which the breaks are for some perplexing reason reversed.... It depends on how my imagination is doing on that particular morning. I begin my ride shivering through the wind and damp fog and continue to do so for approximately 15 minutes. At this point in the ride my body makes a split-second shift from telling me how cold it is to sweating all the way through the 19 jackets I'm wearing. It is also around this point when Constantin speeds by me on his moped with which. Like most mopeds, he has to use only minimal amounts of energy to travel at speeds much greater than those attainable by me on a bike at 6:20 in the morning. He smiles and waves, but I know that secretly he's cackling an evil cackle inside his warm, enclosed helmet. You can imagine my frustration. My day then begins when, after another 10 minutes, I arrive at school.
As to how it's different to be in 12th grade than 11th, the things I noticed today are few but stark. Every Monday I am at school for about ten hours. That sucks. And the kids I'm in class with are closer to my age. That's nice. There is definitely more to come in that department.
I am happy to know that I have already made a mark in Germany. All of the friends I hang out with on the weekends love the safety game (family, you know what's up) and that's what she said jokes.
One last thing: I VOTED
Love,
Tommy
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