End of Week 2

Friday at school went great. I got to stamp books some more, do a little cataloguing of new books, other types of "grunt work," as J. puts it. It was a good day. I was really tired, though. Being a teacher is hard work! Getting up at 6, walking to school for 15 minutes at 7:20 in the morning, being there all day. Teachers can't leave until at least 3:20.. school gets out at 2:50. Anyhow, it was a long week. Every teacher was glad it was Friday. I heard one teacher say, "Four day weeks are worse.. it's having to cram five days into four." I never thought about it that way!

We had a "family dinner" on Friday in Emma, Kristen, and Brittany's apartment. Emma and Al made "hobo dinners," which are cooked in foil. We had the choice of chicken, potatoes, some veggies or beef, potatoes, some veggies. There was a salad, some corn, and mac and cheese. It was a nice little dinner. Jenna and I left because we weren't too interested in the game others were playing (a game of horrible dares!!). So we came back to our apartment and watched The Hangover. It's a funny movie. First time I've seen it.

Saturday we ended up not being able to go to K-town (Kaiserslautern) like we planned. The other teacher who was going to drive was sick. So on Saturday, Jenna, Emma, Terry and I rode with Kaye to Ramstein. We got to ride on the autoban! It ruled! There are some places where there's a speed limit of about 60 mph, but otherwise there's no speed limit... we went about 95 mph. It was scary, but it was so fun! There weren't all too many cars on the road, but still not light traffic either. Anyhow, I'm so glad I can say I did that! :) At Ramstein, we used the travel agency there, and we booked our spring break trips! So excited for that. On Saturday evening, Emma and I researched and booked hostels and stuff like that for our spring break trip. Cairo, London, and Amsterdam. Oh Em Gee.

Spring break is completely planned now, except for our rides to and from Frankfurt (start off and end of the trip). That shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

Saturday evening we just kind of sat around after getting stuff planned and booked. I read a little bit before bed. Got to sleep in on Sunday! It was great.

Terry picked me, Jenna, and Al up around 11:30. We went into town and ate at the Zum Stern in Baumholder.

I had my first wiener schnitzel. It was pretty good. It's pork that is thinner, but a good flavor and not dry or anything. The particular one that I got was the laegier schnitzel (or something spelled like that), which had these onion things on top. The schnitels came with fries and a salad. I also had a beer to drink. I am not a beer fan, but this beer was pretty good. It was from the tap. I've heard the beer here is less carbonated than what we have in the U.S. It also seems less watered-down. Anyhow, it was pretty good.

In the afternoon, I worked on a little bit of school stuff and then Al and I went on a walk around 3 in the afternoon. We were gone for over two hours! It was a great walk. First we walked around base for about 45 minutes or so. Saw some mole hills (there's a lot in Germany), climbed a tree. Then we decided to walk into Baumholder.

From our view up on The Rock, we can see a church steeple, so we set out to find it. We found our way up to this neat walkway with a lot of little churches and stuff in the middle of it. We ventured around and saw so much. We ventured around the little streets that go up and down hills, cobblestone walkways; it was so neat. We went into a cemetery. I was hoping it would be older than it was, but many of the death dates were from the 1980's to the present. There was one section, though, that we couldn't figure out. We think maybe this little section is for soldiers from Baumholder who died during WWII. All the stone markers were the same, the dates were from the 1940s, and in front of this square area, were different wreaths. One even was from the US Garrison Baumholder.

We made our way back during the gloomy evening as it started to snow a bit. It was a lovely late afternoon stroll.