The motherland

Soo...I still havn't gotten this whole German language thing under control. I just deleted the whole post because I pressed the what I thought was the "post blog" button. Apparently it was the delete button. Crap. So anyways I will abbreviate this message as I don't feel like writing the whole thing over again.
Sooo...this past weekend involved
-Making my dutchie friends proud and renting a brand new VW golf and driving to Amsterdam with 2 of our friends
-camping at this huge hippee campground about a 20 minute bike ride from the center of Amsterdam
-renting bikes and driving all around the city for 2 days
-getting a very sore butt from biking around Amsterdam for 2 days
-seeing the house where Anne Frank and her family were hidden during the war until their arrest
-seeing the reimbrandt collecting at the historical museum of Amsterdam.
-snaping a picture of Reimbrandt's Anatomy lesson...and then getting caught
-driving home from Holland as Bryan was tired (it was my like 3rd time ever driving standard...I'm not going to lie...I'm pretty proud!!!)
-driving 180km/hour on the autobahn and still not being the fastest car on the road
-sleeping in a school last night, and for the rest of the week this is where we will be staying.

This school is where our camp is being held this week and has a rock climbing room full of cool stuff that we will be taking advantage of on our evenings off!! It also has about 5 Steinweigh sp? pianos in it, and we're allowed to play them!!!!

Anyways...We are in the midst of planning our trip next week to Münich, Vienna and then to Prague, then back to Schwerine where my last week of camp will be.
We're hoping to hitch a carpool ride to Munich and then we will take trains the rest of the way. We are also going to check out couchsurfing.com. Its this online service where you can look up people who will put up travellers in their homes for FREE!!! It sounds like the cheapest way to do this week long adventure so we're trying to figure that out!!!
All of this takes quite a bit of planning as we are on a bit of a budget...but we've been quite successful so far!!!
Soo...Anyways...I must go...but I'll try to figure out what these german words all mean next time before I go pushing buttons and deleting things.
I miss you all lots, and Ill talk to you soon.
PS...if I don't have your home address...send it my way and a surprise might come to you in the mail...well it won't be a surprise anymore...but it will still be cool!!!
See ya!!!
Mags

We have arrived in Hambourg

Hello everybody!!
Soo...there have been a few exciting things that have happened since I last wrote. Last weekend we headed to the Baltic Sea, to Warnemüne, a beautiful beach town (pretty touristy) but beautiful none the less. When we left, we didnt think that we would have a problem finding a place to stay, but...we were definitely VERY wrong. When we arrived, big backpacks on, all of the hotels and hostels were full. Sooo...here we are lying on the beach with all of our baggage, and no home! By this time, we are willing to pay any amount for a place to sleep, but no luck. Haha...sooo...our next plan...try to find some nice people on the beach who are locals, or who are vacationers to feel sorry for us and offer a space on their floors.
So all afternoon we were scoping out people on the beach trying to filter out the creepy looking ones (we're desperate, but not that desperate), finally we see these two German guys who had been sitting next to us all afternoon. They seemed very nice, but with our luck, they had no house or hotel, they were travelling and sleeping in their car, so they offered to keep our bags and we went out with them that night and we decided to sleep on the beach in the dunes. So we went to sleep, and woke up to the sunrise, we got up, and headed to the bus station to go to Rostock to meet our boss for a brushup training on the beach in a town near by.
Our next stop was still at the Baltic Sea, in a little town called Barth. Where Jussie and I would work the overnight camp with 16 campers. One perk: this camp was a horseback riding camp. So we would ride horses, and swim in the ocean and enjoy a nice week in week cabins. We each had our own rooms at this camp. We felt pretty high class, as last week we were sleeping in tents, on air mattresses, and in this camp we have our own bathrooms and we sleep with sheets!!!! haha...anyways...this week seemed to be working without any problems. Our kids were wonderful, we loved the facilities, and the food was as good as german food gets, so we couldn't complain about anything, until Wednesday night rolls along. Jussie wakes me up and informs me that she and a bunch of her campers have been up all night with some sort of flu. In the morning we find out that 6 of our campers were up throught the night vomiting as well as 6 others from another camp using the same facilities. This seems very strange to us, so we called in a doctor, and our camp was quarantined from the rest of the camp. I was running the camp, cleaning, and trying to keep the sick kids occupied as they are starting to feel a bit better while Jussie was in bed all day very sick. Through all of this I can't decide if my queeziness is due to paranoia of catching this terrible virus, or if I have in fact caught whatever it is that is going around.
Anyways the doctor diagnosed all 13 sickies with heatstroke (kind of a poor diagnosis ) I think it's got to be the water or the food. It was 36 degrees this week, so the water could have been growing strange things. And to top off this week, this morning I woke up with a terrible headache and as though I was going to be sick! Luckily today was the last day of this camp, and we got a ride to hambourg with one of our campers.
We arrived in Hambourg tonight only to find out that all of the hostels are FULL!! This really nice lady at the hostel is letting us stay in the main room of the hostel, so we're happy that we don't have to sleep on the streets. We pay 10 euros for the floor!!! haha...oh well, that's Europe in peak tourist season for you I guess.
Anyways, I must go to bed now, as I want to wake up headache free!!
Sorry I havnt got any pictures up, I dont have a computer of my own. I hope to keep updated more often now, we havn't had internet at the last 2 camps so hopefully when we head to Hannover on Sunday we will have more frequent access!!!
Good night

Schwerine

Hello from Schwerine,
Well we have finally started working at a camp that is not training, and the first daz went pretty well. This camp is sort of funny, and disorganized compared to the paradise camp of SLC at home. So it will take some getting used to, but the kids are awesome, and we are having lots of fun.
We ended up getting placed at a bunch of different places, instead of working in Berlin. We are doing a camp this week in Schwerine, which is about 2 hours north of Berlin, and next week we will be working a horse riding camp at the Baltic sea. It will be my first experience at the ocean, and I am looking forward to it!
We finish this camp on Friday, and because we are working at the Baltic sea, our boss will pay for our trip there, and we will spend the weekend there on the beach vacationing a little. We are planning on spending weekends in the Baltic sea, Poland, Prague, and we ended up having 2 weeks off so we want to go to Italy, France, and then we are hoping to work a week in Austria, or else we will have another week off to explore Europe, and hopefully get to switzerland to the mountains!!!
We will spend 2 weeks at camps in Hannover, and then back to Schwerine for one more week. It was nice to finally get a little bit of direction so that we can start planning.
So we're safe and sound, sleeping in tents this week. The camp is half day camp and half overnight camp. We are only working the day camp and there are 16 kids who sleep over and a girl who comes in for the nights so we can head to town.
Last night we watched the France Italy game, and the night before we watched the Germany Portugal game in Berlin. The city WAS CRAZY!!!! It was awesome to just go anywhere and people were cheering and chanting for Deutchland!!!
We have met up with a few other counselors who are pretty cool. Jussie and I especially get along with this one Canadian guy and a guy from Manchester. We only get to work one week with each of them as we were switched from the Berlin camps, but it will still be fun, and we will meet up with them in Prague and Poland hopefully.
Sooo..this is where we're at now...still no pictures as I have forgotten

Wow...we've arrived

I can't believe it...it really is still sinking in the I am in Germany with Jussie. After waiting 20 hours in the toronto airport without sleep, and missing the Germany Argentina football game, we finally borded the plane with many new friends (who were also Dusseldorf bound). A flat tire on the plane and poor PR skills were the cause of the delay. Jussie and I are going to attempt getting some free stuff from Air Lufthansa, and then we swear to never fly with them again!!! In dusseldorf we ran through the airport not being able to read very many of the signs nor being able to ask anyone directions to get our next bording passes, trying to catch our next plane which left 40 minutes after we landed. Mission accomplished...we watched our luggage get loaded onto our plane (VERY reassuring) and borded our second and final plane to Berlin.
Once we arrived, we called our camp coordinator to get directions to her house, we wandered the Berlin Bus-subwaz-train station for about an hour and a half going up and down, and then back and forth before we were on the right track. It was quite the sight to see Jussie and I attempting this only knowing 1-2-3 in German. There was plenty of laughter.
When we got off of our train another counsellor from ESDC noticed us and approached us and showed us the way to Sabine's (the coordinator's) house. Her house has beautiful fruit gardens, much like many of the houses in Berlin.
We then were greeted with our host families, before they arrived, we were told one family would give us a bike and we had to bike to school in the morning, I willingly volunteerd, and the others were glad, as they so foolishly assumed that they would be driven to school in the morning.
My host family for the week are soooo sooo nice and very generous. There is a mother, stepfather, and 2 girls and 2 boys. The girls are only here on the weekend and the boy is here during the week. The father and the oldest girl speak verz good english, and the boy is becoming more fluent as I speak with him. He is in my group in the camp this week.
We are training in a school, I have 6th graders, and Jussie has 3rd graders. They are angels. Very disciplined.
Last night, my host family invited me to go to a Rock concert with them. They asked if Juss wanted to come with me I said yes. So I got Jussie to call me after training and her host spoke with my host as we could not explain what we needed. So we picked Jussie up and went to Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg (the province where we are staying). Training is in Michendorf a small town of 4000 people about 20 minutes outside of Berlin. We will be here until Friday night when we will move into our apartment in Berlin. We have a flat, where all the Berlin counsellors will stay. We are not sure if we will be in the Berlin camp or the Hamburg camps, If we work in Berlin, we will have at least 2 weeks in Hannover, (lower saxony) and if we work in Hamburg, we have the opportunity to teach at a horse camp. They need lifeguards in Berlin though, so we are hoping that we get to stay here and work Hannover.
We are both very excited, and we laugh about everything. There are 3 other counselors who are training with us and they are very strange people. One, is the prime example of the most right wing New Yorker you've ever met (a teacher, 28 years old), one is a snob from New York, one is a student from california, origionallz from somewhere in Africa. There are 2 people that are returning, and they are super cool counselors, one from Scotland and one from Manchester. They are also working in Berlin, and that is why we are hoping that we get to work in Berlin.
I am slowing catching onto the language as it is similar to english. Jussie does a great impression, of just sluring english words together. She sounds very german, but when we try to make the sounds for real...we butcher their language. My host dad and I have words of the day and we quiz eachother. Yesterday his was 'spit the pit' (spitting the pit out of the cherry) and mine was richen which means to smell. Today i learned numbers one through ten.
We also learned that saying I am hot means, I am horny. Jussie learned the hard way!!!hahaha...very funny.
Anyways if I told you all of the embarassing things that have happened to us, we would be here all night, and I have to wake up at 6:45 tomorrow so for both you and I I will stop.
Thanks for reading this far, I will try to stay updated so it is not so long every time. Pictures to come someday...haha...
Gooten Nockt (not the proper spelling but that is how you pronounce goodnight)
Maggie

Wow...we've arrived

I can't believe it...it really is still sinking in the I am in Germany with Jussie. After waiting 20 hours in the toronto airport without sleep, and missing the Germany Argentina football game, we finally borded the plane with many new friends (who were also Dusseldorf bound). A flat tire on the plane and poor PR skills were the cause of the delay. Jussie and I are going to attempt getting some free stuff from Air Lufthansa, and then we swear to never fly with them again!!! In dusseldorf we ran through the airport not being able to read very many of the signs nor being able to ask anyone directions to get our next bording passes, trying to catch our next plane which left 40 minutes after we landed. Mission accomplished...we watched our luggage get loaded onto our plane (VERY reassuring) and borded our second and final plane to Berlin.
Once we arrived, we called our camp coordinator to get directions to her house, we wandered the Berlin Bus-subwaz-train station for about an hour and a half going up and down, and then back and forth before we were on the right track. It was quite the sight to see Jussie and I attempting this only knowing 1-2-3 in German. There was plenty of laughter.
When we got off of our train another counsellor from ESDC noticed us and approached us and showed us the way to Sabine's (the coordinator's) house. Her house has beautiful fruit gardens, much like many of the houses in Berlin.
We then were greeted with our host families, before they arrived, we were told one family would give us a bike and we had to bike to school in the morning, I willingly volunteerd, and the others were glad, as they so foolishly assumed that they would be driven to school in the morning.
My host family for the week are soooo sooo nice and very generous. There is a mother, stepfather, and 2 girls and 2 boys. The girls are only here on the weekend and the boy is here during the week. The father and the oldest girl speak verz good english, and the boy is becoming more fluent as I speak with him. He is in my group in the camp this week.
We are training in a school, I have 6th graders, and Jussie has 3rd graders. They are angels. Very disciplined.
Last night, my host family invited me to go to a Rock concert with them. They asked if Juss wanted to come with me I said yes. So I got Jussie to call me after training and her host spoke with my host as we could not explain what we needed. So we picked Jussie up and went to Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg (the province where we are staying). Training is in Michendorf a small town of 4000 people about 20 minutes outside of Berlin. We will be here until Friday night when we will move into our apartment in Berlin. We have a flat, where all the Berlin counsellors will stay. We are not sure if we will be in the Berlin camp or the Hamburg camps, If we work in Berlin, we will have at least 2 weeks in Hannover, (lower saxony) and if we work in Hamburg, we have the opportunity to teach at a horse camp. They need lifeguards in Berlin though, so we are hoping that we get to stay here and work Hannover.
We are both very excited, and we laugh about everything. There are 3 other counselors who are training with us and they are very strange people. One, is the prime example of the most right wing New Yorker you've ever met (a teacher, 28 years old), one is a snob from New York, one is a student from california, origionallz from somewhere in Africa. There are 2 people that are returning, and they are super cool counselors, one from Scotland and one from Manchester. They are also working in Berlin, and that is why we are hoping that we get to work in Berlin.
I am slowing catching onto the language as it is similar to english. Jussie does a great impression, of just sluring english words together. She sounds very german, but when we try to make the sounds for real...we butcher their language. My host dad and I have words of the day and we quiz eachother. Yesterday his was 'spit the pit' (spitting the pit out of the cherry) and mine was richen which means to smell. Today i learned numbers one through ten.
We also learned that saying I am hot means, I am horny. Jussie learned the hard way!!!hahaha...very funny.
Anyways if I told you all of the embarassing things that have happened to us, we would be here all night, and I have to wake up at 6:45 tomorrow so for both you and I I will stop.
Thanks for reading this far, I will try to stay updated so it is not so long every time. Pictures to come someday...haha...
Gooten Nockt (not the proper spelling but that is how you pronounce goodnight)
Maggie