I think I'll build an airplane.

I was just reminded of one of my favorite childhood books, titled "Bored, Nothing To Do", in which two young boys decide to gather materials from all over the neighborhood in order to construct an aircraft in the backyard. Fond memories... But I am not all that bored. Simply relaxed, which is rather impressive being that it was my fourth day of German school. But I only had class until 12:35, and I didn't do any work all day. In German we had a breakfast party sort of thing with bröchten and nutella and Früstuckuchen, so that was quite delicious. In Physik one of the students, Lukas, did a presentation on the Dampfmaschine, which I believe is something along the lines of a mechanical water wheel. But I didn't understand all that much. Then I had double art, and people were doing all sorts of cool self-driven 2d projects based on famous paintings- we had about 5 to choose from. So the teacher asked me what I liked to do and then listed a couple things but I only recognized the word for 'to draw', so that's what I chose. So I am now drawing a sketch of a painting of a china doll or a very china-looking girl. I'll upload a picture when she's done... but it might be a month or so as I only have art once a week and I have 2 weeks of vacation. In math, Lukas got up again and explained a problem to the class... so I sort of spaced out. But I asked the math teacher some questions after class and she answered all of them and told me that I didn't need to worry about not understanding because it will come to me quickly. After school I biked down to Frohnau and bought a Thursday treat- a Pfannkuchen, which I believe is like a jelly donut except much better. I enjoyed it quite a lot. I biked around the little Frohnau town circle- there wasn't much to see. A church, an apothoke (I don't know exactly what this is but they're everywhere!), another bakery, a fruit and vegetable store, a little grocery store, a lotto store. And a post office. It was raining (as usual) so I went home and watched some German tv for a while- some Nickelodeon shows that I recognized vaguely from the US, a little Zack and Cody and Hannah Montana, and a German show interviewing kids who were doing their Praktikum. That was cool for me because I'm thinking about trying to do mine with a veterinarian or something of that nature, so it was neat to see what other kids are doing. I also spent some time reading my first journal, which spans from the beginning of August to a week and a half ago. I stopped reading once I got to October, but it was actually kind of cool to see how my emotions progressed. In the beginning there were a lot of pep-talks that I'd written to myself about how awesome this is all going to be and how I'm going to understand German before I know it. Well, I'm not sure about that, but now I don't feel like I need a set date for when I'm going to be fluent. I've kind of settled in here and I'm okay with the fact that I probably won't understand everything that goes on in school until after the Christmas break, and that I'm going to be missing a lot at home. Tonight at dinner I actually understood a lot of the conversation, which was pretty entertaining- Daniela was making fun of Simon because last year in the military he ran every day and was fit and trim, and now he sits at home and eats. He's not fat, but it's a funny thing to talk about in the German sense of humor. But I feel like the family is starting to open up a little more around me- as though they've gotten used to the fact that I'm going to be around for 9 more months. It's really quite cool.
Tomorrow I am leaving school early (which isn't saying that much as I've done that every day except today already) so I can take the bus to Spandau for my orientation!!! I'm so excited!