One month left!?!

Friends hanging out in
Rhododendron Park!

I have been in Germany for just over three months now.  I have month left.  This idea is bittersweet.  I love being here, and I do not want to leave.  I have made many great friends here, have had many adventures, and have learned a lot.  At the same time, I miss my friends and family from back home.  I was hit by homesickness for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  It was right around when I hit the three month mark.  It was the weekend of the Kinetic Sculpture Race.   My brother was in it, and all of my family members got together to watch it.  Luckily I was able to watch it online, text my dad and look at pictures of the festivities.  Then in the next week, as I realized how long I had been here, I was hit with homesickness again.  Then last week I said goodbye to my best friend, Katie, as she went off to work at a camp for a few weeks, and again I felt homesickness knowing that I would not be able to talk to her until I got back to Humboldt.  Now that I have gotten over the three month mark, and unto my last month here, I am over the homesickness and am enjoying my last days in this beautiful country.

Playing Ultimate Frisbee!

A few exciting things have happened in the last couple of weeks:

E. Coli:
You may have heard about the European E. Coli outbreak.  Its been making international news lately.  Yes,  I live in the middle of it.  No, I am not sick.  And yes...I have eaten bean sprouts...but I think I may be past the incubation period for e. coli.  The outbreak has been going on for over a month now.  Last I checked 35 people had died, and over 3,000 were sick.  Almost all of the sick and dead are from Northern Germany.  One of my friends caught e. coli, and was in the hospital for a few days.  The officials recently found e. coli in bean sprouts, and in recent days the number of newly affected has been going down.

At the North Sea

Bremerhaven:
Bremerhaven is a town on the North Sea, and is 30-40 minutes from Bremen.  I went there last week with a couple of friends.  The city has a great zoo that has polar bears, mountain lions, harbor seals, arctic foxes, penguins and many other animals.  We spent the afternoon at the zoo and even got to watch the trainers feed some of the animals!  We also walked around the city a bit and walked along the water, which looked more like a bay then a sea.

International Breakfast:

International Breakfast!!

Last Monday a group at my school put on an anti-racism event and asked the international students to cook some food from their home countries and bring it to an international breakfast.  Each group was given 45 Euros to buy food with, and there was a prize of 50 Euros for which ever group brought the best food.  The three other students from HSU, Stephanie, Juliannah, Joannah and I decided to cook a traditional American breakfast.  We cooked bacon, scrambled eggs, pancakes(both with chocolate and without), banana bread and coffee cake.  We also brought many many toppings for the pancakes.  There were groups of students from many different countries: Spain, Mexico, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and a few others.  All of the food was delicious and we all had a lot of fun!  My group also brought pictures from places around America, and some Humboldt t-shirts.  Although many people said they liked our food, the Mexicans won the 50 Euros.  And their food was quite delicious, so I think they deserved it :).

Planet Shakers, Jeremy Camp and Joyce Meyer:

Jeremy Camp!!

Two Christian bands came to Bremen recently: Planet Shakers and Jeremy Camp!!  My friends and  I went to both.   One of my favorite parts of the Planet Shakers concert was the band that played before them, Rainbow.  Rainbow is a German Christian band, and they played mostly German music(and one English song...).  I found that worshiping in German, with Germans, is pretty much the most amazing thing ever!  And I learned that, even though this world is all broken up by language, worshiping God surpasses these barriers!

My goal for the Jeremy Camp concert was to be in the very front, so we walked right in, to the front!  Jeremy Camp is one of my favorite singers, and I had never seen him live before.  During the concert, when not talking on the mic, he looked at me and said "It's hot in here.  Are you hot?"  I nodded...even though I wasn't really hot, I think I was just too shocked that Jeremy Camp was talking to me :D.  It was really cool singing songs that I had heard on the radio, or had run slides for at church.  The concert was great and my friends and I had a great time worshiping God together!

Liandri and I waiting for the
concert to start!

On Sunday we spent the whole afternoon at a Joyce Meyer conference in Hamburg, Germany.  There were probably around 10,000 people in attendance, and it was pretty amazing worshiping with thousands of Germans!!  Joyce Meyer was a great speaker, and one of my favorite things she said was "If you do what you can do, God will do what you can't do!"  This was a great reminder that, even when I think I can't do something, God can do it.

Upcoming Events:
Fourth of July BBQ!  One of the other American's and I decided that even though we are in Germany, we still ought to celebrate the Fourth of July!  We are putting on a BBQ, and invited all of our international and German friends!  Sadly, we will have no fireworks...(we don't want the police to show up to our BBQ!)

Trips to Spain and Austria!  Some friends and I are planning trips to Spain and possibly Austria!

Prayer Requests:
-Pray for me as I head into my last month here.  I have a lot of school work left to do and also would like to travel some more.
-Pray for me as I start figuring out life back home.  I have to figure out how to pay rent, tuition, bills, etc.
-Pray for me as I prepare to direct a church camp.  A week and a half after I get back I will be directing this camp.  Please also pray for the kids who will attend and the staff.
-Pray for the e. coli outbreak, that no more people will get sick or die.

Praises:
-Praise God that the officials seem to have found the source of the e. coli outbreak.
-Praise God for a somewhat better relationship with my landlady.
-Praise God for all of the opportunities I have had here, the people I have met and the things I have learned.
-Praise God for the great opportunities to see different Christian bands and speakers here!

Weekend in Poland

Wroclaw, Poland

I love to travel.  One of my life goals is to travel to every country on earth.  This last weekend I got to add a new country to the list, bringing the total to 16 countries I have spent time in!  I to Poland to visit my friends Joel, Renata, Daniel, Eric and Amelia!  I have known this family my whole life(Renata was at my birth) but do not get to see them very often, so it was great to spend the weekend with them!

FRIDAY:
At 8 pm I embarked on a journey to Wroclaw, Poland.  I got on a bus in Bremen and left for a ten hour ride.  I brought some snacks and drinks and cleaned out my iPod before I left so I would have room for movies.  I hoped that maybe I would sleep a few hours, especially considering I was going to arrive in Wroclaw at 6 am.  I managed maybe two hours of sleep...the bus stopped every hour or two, and they played a very loud Polish movie until 1 am.  At 6 am Joel picked me up at the bus stop, and I went straight to sleep at their house.  (They had planned a hike for the afternoon, so I figured it would be important to sleep a few hours :D).

Daniel, Joel and I on top of the mountain!

SATURDAY:
That afternoon Joel and Daniel took me on a hike to the top of a mountain and back.  This mountain is the highest in the area.  It is about a 30 minute drive from Wroclaw and has an interesting history of Slavic tribes.  You can find pagan idols all up and down the mountain.  Of course at some point the Christians came in and built a church at the top.  I am slightly out of shape, so the hike to the top was a little hard, but was fun.  The mountain is beautiful.  From the top you can see many towns spread throughout the valley below.  And you can climb a tower from which you can see even further.  We sat in the sun for a while and ate lunch before heading down the mountain.

Me with Poland in the background!

The trip down the mountain was quite adventurous.  We wanted to take a different trail down then we took up, so we found a route where we would start with one trail, then get on another and a little while later again switch to another trail.  So we headed off.  It started off well, we found the first trail then the second.  It was the third one that caused some problems.  We could not find it!  But we figured as long as we were heading downhill, we were going at least somewhat in the right direction.  So we kept going.  We ran into a couple deer on the way and walked along some beautiful trails.  After an hour or two we reached the bottom!  We found ourselves in a village, and stopped and asked where the town our car was in is located.  It was about 1.5 miles away!  So again we headed off, hiking through the Polish country side and through villages.  I quite enjoyed this and took many pictures.  We even made friends with a dog who followed us for a while.  We eventually made it to our car and stopped on the way home for ice cream!

PALM SUNDAY:

The plaza around the Synagogue

I attended a Polish speaking church for Palm Sunday.  Daniel helped me out by translating the sermon as much as he could.  I wanted to sing along with the songs, and though I knew some of them in English, I knew that my pronunciation of Polish was not to par...so I listened as they sang.  That afternoon Daniel and Eric took me on  a bike ride through some beautiful fields next to their house.  Sunday night Joel, Daniel and I went to a Jewish Synagogue for a Jazz concert.  It had an accordion, two guitars, a cello and a violin!  We also stopped at a Jewish coffee shop for some hot chocolate!

You can find these little dwarfs
 all over Wroclaw

MONDAY:
Today Renata took me on a tour of Wroclaw.  Wroclaw is a very interesting city with a diverse history.  Much of the city was destroyed during WW2, and due to Communism they were not really able to start rebuilding until 1989.  So now Wroclaw is a growing city with a lot of construction going on!  It was interesting to see the mix of old and new buildings as well as some war ruins.  There are also a lot of beautiful fountains around the city, and many interesting places to shop and eat.  One thing interesting about Wroclaw are the dwarfs you can find all over the city.  There are hundreds.  You can find them next to stores, restaurants and around other parts of the city.  These dwarfs were a form of protest against Communism during the 1980's.  A group called the Orange Alternative in Wroclaw would paint smiling dwarfs over Communist propaganda.  The statues showed up in Wroclaw in 2005 to remember the work this group did.

At the Japanese Garden

TUESDAY:
This was my last day in Wroclaw.  Joel, Daniel, Amelia and I went into Wroclaw to find a way to tire me out before my 10 hours bus ride that night :).  We ended up walking through a really beautiful Japanese Garden!  It had giant fish and beautiful paths to walk along. That night I headed back to Bremen.  Getting home was a little exciting...the bus line I was on, Sindbad, had about 10 buses show up all at once...so Joel and I ran around trying to figure out which was mine, none of which were.  Mine showed up about a half an hour late, and they did not have my name on the list.  It ended up that I accidentally bought a ticket for the next day.  Luckily someone didn't show up for the bus so they let me on!  I was able to sleep a little more on this ride,
and arrived back in Bremen safely and just in time to take a nap! 

Prayer Requests:
-This is my biggest prayer request: Lately I have found myself dreading going back to my apartment.  When I'm with friends or at a restaurant or store, I dread the idea of going home.  Not because I want to stay where I am, but because I am scared to run into my landlady.  Almost every time I come home she either tells me something I have done wrong or I come into my apartment and find that she has been in there without my permission.  I understand when I do something wrong, she has to tell me, but its not a good feeling to feel like you are always doing something wrong.  And, I don't like her invading my privacy by coming into my room without my permission.  Please pray for this situation and that God will give me wisdom on how to handle it.
-I have had a soar throat for a couple of days, please pray that it will get better soon!
-I have a lot of school work to do in the next 2.5 months.  Please pray that I will find time to do it all!
-Two friends and  I are traveling to Amsterdam and Belgium this weekend.  Please pray for safety as we travel.  We rented a car and depending on if the company can get us an automatic or not, I may be the driver.
-Pray for the Euro to Dollar exchange rate...right now its not moving in my favor!

Praises:
-Praise God for many opportunities to travel over this two week break from school!
-Praise God for the opportunities I have had to not go to places just as a tourist but to actually get to spend time with local families and getting to know their culture!
-Praise God for the relationships I have been able to build here in Europe and the opportunities I have had to share the Gospel with people!

Where I will be living: Bremen, Germany

In three weeks I leave for Germany!  I leave Arcata on February 28, arrive in Bremen on March 2, and return to Arcata on July 13.  I am excited, nervous, and a little sad about the people I am leaving back in the States!  


I will be studying Computers at Hochschule Bremen, and will be living with a family near the university.  The house I will be living in is near the river, the school and the church I plan to attend!  It also has a garden and a washing machine.


While in Germany, I plan to travel around Europe. I plan to go to the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, and anywhere else I can!  Many of you know that I love to travel, and I am taking this as a great opportunity to travel around Europe.  


I will be updating this blog at least once a week, possibly more often.  You can also keep up with me on Facebook.  


What you can expect from this blog:
- Weekly updates on where I have traveled, what I have experienced and what I have learned.
- Pictures of fun and cool places I find around Europe.
- Updated prayer requests and praises.
- Stories, lots of stories!


What you can learn about Bremen:

River Weser

- 547,685 people live in Bremen.
- The metro area population is 2,400,000.
- The city is 126.15 square miles.
- Bremen is along the river Weser.
- Bremen is 37 miles south of the North Sea. 


What you can be praying for:
- I have a lot to do as I prepare to leave.  Please pray for time, and energy, and patience.
- Please pray for safety as I travel.
- Please pray for me as I adjust to a different culture, language, currency, and a new place to live.


What you can be praising God for:
- The school found me a place to live that is much closer to school, church, and most everything else in town!
- I will have my own room, bathroom, and kitchen!
- I have found an English speaking Protestant church near my house!

Citations: 
Facts and picture of Bremen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremen,_Germany
Picture of Europe: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3997.htm