Washington State NOT D.C.

I am on the last day of my first weekend off. I have been staying at my friends', Becky and Alyssa, home in Kandern at the same place I stayed over Christmas break. It's been very relaxing and refreshing. They are both art teachers at BFA. Last night I had the chance to go out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Lorrach (a bigger town nearby) with Becky and some of her and Alyssa's German friends from their church. Thankfully there were a few who spoke English which were the ones I talked the most to. Becky is very good in German so she talks to them in a mixture of German and English. It was, sadly to say, the first time I got to meet and socialize with German peers. It was really fun and I hope to get to hang out with them again on a future weekend or day off.

So, for a funny story...Today I went into Lorrach to get my German driver's license. A lady at the school fills out all of our paperwork for things like this and then we just each had to go and pick up our license's as soon as we got a card in the mail saying they were ready to be picked up. Cara (my Co-RA) thankfully came with me because I wasn't sure where the place was and how it all worked and such. Instead of waiting in a large waiting room and then going up to a window like the licensing places in the States, here you wait in line and then go into someone's office. So Cara and I went into a ladie's office when it was my turn and I told the lady right away (in German) that I don't speak much German. She spoke at least a little English which turned out to be helpful. She plugged some of my information in on the computer and was looking at my Washington driver's license and started making a couple phone calls and then went over to someone else's office. I wasn't sure what was going on because I knew that Washington state has full reciprocity for getting a driver's license over here. She came back into the office with another man and they started to say that I needed to take a test. As we start to talk about this, with basic and slow English, Cara catches on to the fact that they are talking about Washington state vs. D.C. Ever since I've got here I'm always careful to say that I'm from Washington state because I know that they will assume D.C. if I just said Washington. But now the lady is saying that they need proof that it is Washington STATE. I tried to explain that because it's the state's name that the license isn't going to say state on it. She starts making more phone calls, meanwhile Cara is on the phone trying to get someone from BFA to explain in German to these people the difference between state and D.C. The lady leaves the room again and Cara sees the guy who had come in to help Google Washington state with a look of "awww" come over his face when he started to understand. Thankfully, when the lady came back in she said they sent a fax or something over to Washington (not sure if she ment state or D.C.) and they confirmed for her that I was in fact from Washington state not D.C. This was a HUGE relief because they were tring to say I would have to take a test in German, which is very expensive, if I couldn't prove I was from the state. During part of the confusion Cara said to me, "you would come from a confusing state" and I said, "I know, I know." All this to prove that D.C. really has made it quite confusing and hard for us TRUE Washingtonians.

pictures

I've added some new pictures from the Holiday season! We have been keeping very busy. I included pictures from our RA Thanksgiving (we celebrated as RA's on the day of American thanksgiving), Christmas banquet, and a flag football game our girls played against another girls' dorm. This is the last weekend with the students and they all start leaving on Thursday and Friday for their Christmas break. I will write more and add more Christmas time pictures after they leave and things will be calmer then.

fun weekend

This last weekend was a fun one! On Friday night, the high school had their annual Fall Party. Each year they have a theme and this year it was 'opposites'. Many of the dorms do some form of skit or performance to represent the theme and ours decided to do a dance off performance of nerds vs. girly girls. We had a lot of fun and apparently the judges liked it too because our dorm won! We were very shocked, but also excited.
On Saturday we left some open time during the day because we knew there was a lot going on the rest of the weekend. One of our girl's parents came to visit who live outside of Paris and they made Mexican food for our Saturday night dinner! It was truly amazing! We do not get much of any Mexican food here, so it was a blissful occasion for those of us (particularly me) who have a deep love for Mexican food. During the day, Cara (my co-RA) and I moved couches and comfy chairs outside to set up for an outdoor movie! After our Mexican fiesta, one of the other girls' dorms (Storch) came over to watch Sister Act II on a screen we put up on the side of our shed outside! We served popcorn, hot cocoa, and cookies. It was a seriously awesome time.
On Sunday we went to church and then afterwards stayed in town for a town festival (that's the only word I can think of to describe it). It is called Budenfest and they set it up in the Blumenplatz (kind of like the town center area). Budenfest is pretty much just a bunch of booths selling different types of food. All of the dorms stay in town after church and all of the kids and staff get 5 euros each to buy our own food. It was definitely a fun German experience.
All in all, it was a great weekend! It was also very tiring with all of the activity, but it was well worth it. I have updated my pictures with some of the things I talked about such as the Fall Party and the outdoor movie.

new photos!

I have figured out a way to show my photos on the slideshow on this page! The slideshow you see on the top right titled "Wittlingen" are my pictures from the dorm. This is where I will be updating my photos. If you click on a photo during the slideshow you can look through all the photos yourself.

photos!

Go to this link to see my first photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007791&id=124400046&l=c6adf7dda7

the first 4 days

I am safe and sound in Germany! I arrived last Monday night and was welcomed by the rest of the resident life staff! It wasn't too long of a trip with the flight from Seattle to London being between 8-9 hours and then from London to Basel being less than 2 hours. God blessed me greatly by not feeling much of any jet lag! I've been able to sleep each night and make it through each day just fine.

It is VERY beautiful here. Kandern is the town where the actual BFA school is and all of us res. life staff have been staying in one dorm in a village called Holzen. We all needed to stay together because Janz Team has English camps for local kids and they have been using the other dorms.

<>

As I said, I arrived on Monday night and then jumped right into the schedule on Tuesday. The basic schedule for each day this last week was me and the other new staff went to a German class in the morning, came back to the dorm for lunch @ noon, had devotion time with everyone @ 1, driving practice in the afternoon, then dinner altogether back at the dorm. We then had some down time at night. There are 3 other new RA's, but only 2 of which are here yet. The 3'rd is hopefully coming this weekend. We did not know which dorm we were going to be in until Thursday. The Howe's (a couple who are the head of res. life) sat down and got input from the dorm parents on Wednesday night and then they made the official decision on their own. We were told are dorms then at devotion time on Thursday.

My dorm is.....Wittlingen! The dorm name is the same as the village it is in. It is a very nice and small village and a very easy drive from the school. This is a picture of it >
There is one other RA I will be with who is a returner. She isn't here yet, but I have talked to her before. She will be here on Monday. My dorm parents are a great couple from Texas. There names are Brant and Laura. Brant took me on a tour of the dorm on Thursday afternoon while the kids from the camp were gone. We will be moving into our dorms on Tuesday.

It's been a crazy, but awesome week with lots of new experiences. The German language hasn't been too hard to pick up on because the class we took this last week was very helpful. Please continue to pray as I keep practice driving as I had not been an experienced driver of a manual car before here. I am starting to pick it up and find my way around, but it will still take a little more time for me to get it down. Please also pray that my co-RA, Cara, will arrive safely and that we will bond quickly. I already know she is going to be a wonderful coworker and friend because she had gifts waiting for me before she even knew who would be her new co-RA! (She's pretty great!).

Today we have some down time, so the returner RA's are going to take us to a town nearby to spend the day and hang out there. We were going to go on a field trip, but it is rainy today, so the plans have changed. Last Wednesday night we were able to go into Basel, Switzerland to walk around while the dorm parents met here. It is a very cool town and it was neat to walk around it. I haven't taken pictures yet since it's been so busy, but I'm going to start today! So, I will post a link to them once I get them up and running. That's all for now!

leaving Sunday from Seattle!

I have WONDERFUL news! As of this morning, I am officially leaving for Germany! in 5 days!! The Lord provided 80% of my support to be filled and I was able to get a plane ticket out of Seattle for Sunday evening! I leave Seattle @ 6:50 pm and fly straight to London to arrive there Monday morning. I then have a short layover and fly from London right into Basel, Switzerland/Mulhouse, France. It is very nice that I don't have to connect many places and also that I get to fly straight into Basel where I will be picked up rather than having to take a train into there. I was also blessed to be able to fly with British Airways who have wonderful missionary fares and gave a good deal on the flight and best of all...allow a free 3'rd bag!! This makes packing a lot less worrisome.
I am also grateful that I get to be home 1 more weekend and get to say goodbye to my church family on Sunday. Since I don't fly out until the evening, I am going to church Sunday morning and then my parents will drive me up to Seattle right afterwards. It all worked out wonderfully! Of course it did, God DOES know what He's doing ; )
It's been amazing to see God work through this whole process. I was tested with faith to stay strong and believe He was going to get me there on time and it feels wonderful to have that faith pay off and come true.
Please be praying for my travel, packing, and adjusting to life "across the pond". Also, please pray for the relationships and new friendships that I will be making over there. Thank you to all of you for your prayers and support!