Hunting for that Denny's

Again I have to cover two weeks... I try my best to post next week again.

Monday the 12th of December we had our first snow day! Incredible isn't it?
School was first supposed to run on a two hour delay but ended but being completely canceled. I certainly didn't mind and went sledding in a little park at the edge of the town.
This week has after an unusual start become an even more unusual week.
For the simpler part we had two presentations in English/History, one was a review and the other one was about the 1920's I think.
And for the sad part, of the week, somebody I knew in Switzerland passed away. It was a really difficult feeling to handle for me, being so close because you can never leave home and the people you're connected with but also being at the other side of the globe at the same time.
It was one of those moments when the saying "distance means so little" really was true and no matter how many miles were in between I had a hard day and days to follow.

The schoolweek ended with me watching a basketball game at the school and the Vikes won, YAY :)
And after I went to see the new Star Wars Rogue One which really is a good movie, go watch it if you haven't done so yet!
And then something I have never seen in my entire life before, during the movie it had rained ice, so when we went out we had to scratch all the ice off the car and then drive real slow because the roads were like an ice field.
At home I ran around in the street and slithered around and had a ton of fun, at about 1am in the morning...

And then the weekend and Saturday came up and the story that gave todays blog it's title happened.
Mike and I wanted to go to the mall in Fort Wayne. So we did. We figured we would eat in a Denny's since I love that and haven't eaten there since I came 5 months ago.
So we punched into different websites and found some different locations. Turned out there is no Denny's in Fort Wayne, but we checked 3 locations that the wide web had given us.
The first one was in the middle of the country and as we drove there we thought that it would be really surprising to find a restaurant out here, it was literally in the middle of a bunch of woods and fields. The exact location actually didn't even have a building, so no luck out in the country so we decided to drive into town and check the address there. We ended up finding a Taco Bell in that exact spot but no Denny's again.
After a tiring and unsuccessful search we ate at Red Robins and after a little wait we enjoyed our meals, for me this war a burger with an egg in it which still is amazing to eat but a huge mess in the end.

After a short shopping experience, neither Mike nor I like shopping at all, we drove home and went to out neighbor's christmas party. We had such a nice time and they have a basement in their house, which is rare here, and the basement jus absolutely made me feel like in the Bierhalle at home.
The basement is a little man cave with a bar and poker table and the walls are full with beer brands and other fun little man like things.

And then the last 3 school days before break came in.
We didn't have regular class but had to take our finals. It was kind of weird and stressful but I passed all my classes so it's all good I guess.
Christmas break started on Thursday and Thursday and Friday I had practice in the morning and  used the afternoon to relax a little bit.
And before I had time to blink Christmas rolled in.
Saturday we celebrated with Karolees Family and I think I never saw as many presents in a room as I did that day. The present opening follows the age and I actually got some presents, the popcorn standing right next to me, and so many other things :) I had a really nice time and enjoyed seeing some people of the family I haven't met yet.

Now today Sunday was a bit more relaxed and after Church, during which Mike sang a song he wrote, we served some food and visited his mom in the afternoon.
We ended the weekend with some Sunday night Football and I finally ended it with writing this blog...
I hope everybody had a merry Christmas and a wonderful time with their families and since I won't post until next year, a happy new year and great rest of 2016!

Two weeks and not a whole lot of sleep

So it has been another two weeks since the last post again, I will definitely try to post next Sunday.

Let’s start with Monday two weeks ago when I went back to regular wrestling practice. But it certainly didn’t last very long. Tuesday I was back on the bike again and had another appointment with the doctors scheduled.

So the week went by without wrestling practice for me.

But there were a few cool things happening besides that.

I went to Campus Life and met new people, I think so far I always had a good time with campus life.

Karolee and I went and picked up my sports jacket and also brought it to a lady to stich on the letters and all the other things.

We also started reading a book in english class. And without trying to offend anybody, but the way we read books here is about the way we did it in 5^th - 7^th grade. The book is about some rich guy always throwing big parties and does so only to get his teen love back in contact with him. Long story short, I don’t really like the book.

And there was some more school related stuff going on. In my forensics class we started talking about fingerprints and had to analyze our own ones. As it seems I have the most common type and am not even special :D

We also had two wrestling meets in those two weeks but in neither one of them I participated.

It still was interesting watching the matches.

Friday to Saturday I slept over at a friends house and we played some video games for a bit too long, so I was a little tired Saturday.

Saturday also a Senior Night took place. We went to the skate ring or however its called and had a lot of fun. I learned skating on those rollerskates with 4 wheels on them and even could go backwards at the end of the evening, that was about 3am.

At 4am I finally ended up in my bed and slept in the day after.

This past week started with me going to school Monday and campus life in the evening.

Tuesday I could sleep in for a bit because we saw another doctor. They told me nothing new but that it will take some more time until I can go back to regular practice..

So this week I wasn’t wrestling as well but only warming the bikes sattle.

Basically the week wasn’t really exciting until today, or to be accurate, yesterday Sunday.

Well first there was so much snowing today. It was beautiful.

But for our drive to Plymouth the snow wasn’t as beautiful but we still managed to get there.

We had a meeting with a bunch of other AFS students and we first decorated some cookies and then ate some international food from all over the globe.

As always the event was super fun even though it was only 3 hours…

After we ate we played some games, took some photos and sadly we had to say goodbye again really soon. The way back was easier and it wasn’t snowing anymore. And that’s how my two weeks ended.

Recently I learned in school that every speech, every story or every narrative has to have a title. So with this figured out I guess I should try to look for a title every time I write this blog. And I shouldn't just look for it, I should also put it.

With that being said, let's just call this episode "an unusual long blog, timewise" 
(I couldn't come up with anything better)

First time I went to a regular Campus Life meeting. It was actually a lot of fun and I got to know some new people, which I always like to do.
The Campus Life meeting was about family, so we talked in smaller groups about what our families look like and so on. It actually got me thinking a little bit since I am in a unusual situation with having a host family here in the USA.
We also had a special forensics class last week. The county Coroner came for a visit and showed us how he works and presented a case he worked on a bunch of years ago. It was an interesting presentation and I actually learned some things about his job and how he works on cases.
Also I finally went to a hospital for my ankle and as they figured out with x-rays, it's only a sprain and will just take some time to heal. It's still annoying though.
The next day we had another fog delay. It's absolutely ridiculous that we delay school by two hours only because there is a bit of fog around.
As Thursday came around I actually remembered a dream for the first time I am here. Well it was a confusing nightmare, but that's not the interesting thing about this. The interesting thing about it is, that the dream strangely was in english. Just another sign that english becomes more and more natural to me by speaking it every day.
We also had a special event on Friday in school, the so called "family Friday". So all the VNT students came together in the gym and we played a bunch of games. I didn't even get which grade won the competition but hey, at least we did something besides just sitting around and watching YouTube. We also got our grades for all the classes. Mine actually look pretty good, besides a "C" in calculus I have "A"s in all the other classes. I can live with that, I mean I am not really trying to get a 100% everywhere.
The weekend, since I wasn't able to go to the wrestling tournament, Karolee and I made a trip up north to Frankenmuth in Michigan. We met her sister in law and her daughter and did some christmas shopping, my absolute favorite activity :) But all in all it was a good trip, even though it was a long drive.  I also took benefit of the opportunity of eating a smoores crepe. It wasn't even that good, the chocolate-banana crepe was far better.
With that week finished we ran back into a regular day on Monday, but it wasn't an exactly regular Monday. The Football Banquet took place, definitely ending my american football carer in the US. We ate a bunch of delicious foods, an amazing chocolate cake with some caramel in it was my absolute favorite. We got our letters and I can now order a jacket since I earned a Varsity letter :) I am pretty excited about this.
After everybody was honored and the MVP's and other special players announced we took some pictures and I am glad that I was part of this team. I really had a great time playing and this final event was a nice finish to it all.
The next day I learned a new english word, well this really seems not interesting at all, but if the word is "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", yeah you better read it again and try to pronounce it, then it can become sort of interesting. It actually just means really good.
And now, let's just jump to Thursday or thanksgiving. We went to Marion to see more of the family and I had the pleasure of eating the worlds best mac&cheese, it really is amazing. Also I got to know more people of my new family and that is always a great and fun thing to do.
On our way back to Huntington we drove through the light park in Marion. I don't know what it is called, but it's basically a big outdoor show with a bunch of cool light installations you can either drive or walk through. It was pretty neat :)
Then on Friday Mike and I went down to Indianapolis to the Lucas Oil stadium because the football state finals took place and the high school he went to played. It sure was an amazing experience sitting in that ginormous stadium even though there were no pros playing. It sure was a fun trip though even though Eastbrook lost the game.
I thing that is about all I have to say about the past two weeks. 
Hopefully you all have a stress free Christmas time coming up starting with the 1st Advent today...

The last week was kind of a struggle. I hurt my ankle in wrestling practice on Monday and wasn't able to practice all week which was kind of a bummer.

But after that practice I talked with a friend over skype for the first time since I am here, but it wasn't even somebody from Switzerland but from Sweden living here in Indiana as well.

Moving on to Tuesday, what a crazy day. As probably the whole world knows it was the election day here in the USA. So everything was a bit crazy and in front of the school there was even a Trump Yard-Sign.

At about 3am on Wednesday it became obvious that Mr. Trump won the election, I didn't stay up that late, but I got to know about the news pretty much the second I got up.

It was probably the funniest thing being on social media that day, since the whole world seems to strongly disagree with the outcome of the election.

But since I am Indiana here and Indiana is strongly republican many people were celebrating. There were even a few students in the school with Trump&Pence flags around their shoulders. The whole thing is crazy if you ask me, but thats probably just me.

After practice that day I took the practice bus home for the first time. And as it happened the bus driver somehow knew about me being an exchange student so we had a fun conversation. Her children always made friends with exchange students, so she got to know a bunch of people from all over the world.

Friday was another special day. It was the Veterans Day and for that reason the whole school day was shortened and we had a celebration in the Gym in the afternoon.

For that 3 active US Army members came in to answer some questions previously recorded by students and a few veterans came as well. 

We also spoke the pledge of allegiance and the Viking Volume, the girls choir, sang the national anthem acapella. This war the first time that I heard the anthem in the school.

In the evening, after the first practice I tried participating in again, Karolee and I went to Fort Wayne to shop. We actually were successful and I even had some fun, that's a surprise.

Saturday Mike and I went to the Mens breakfast with others from the church and got that flower wrist band, called coursage, after that. We also did some grocery shopping and then watched some football.

Then I had to get ready and go get Bailey for the Fall Formal. We took some pictures first, we matched really good and the outfits were pretty neat anyways, and then had dinner at Applebees. There were a bunch of other high schoolers there as well, all dressed up fancy. 

After that we went to the high school where the dance actually took place. The whole thing ended up being slightly different than what I expected it to be. It was super much fun though. 

I expected it to be a couple dance but it was more of a party. It was really funny though, since all the ladies had fancy dresses on and the dudes wore suits or at least parts of it and still everybody was jumping around and the music wasn't really what you'd expect seeing the clothing style.

After a really fun evening yesterday I slept in today and played, or tried to play, some golf in the afternoon with Mike and then watched some football. In the evening we watched the super moon rising and then the week was basically over...

Here are some pictures, first off, the ones from GoMad last week which I still didn't upload yet:

meeting a french and a german exchange student, awesome!

the whole Huntington North group, great guys!

Here are some pictures from yesterday, Fall Formal

exchange student squad, swiss, australian, swiss

And a picture of the moon tonight, not exactly satisfied with it though

it should be the biggest tomorrow morning

I am a day late, again. But thats only because I had an amazing weekend in Fort Wayne and had to make up some sleep.

But lets stay in order here, I will begin with the beginning of the week when we turned in our football pads after school since football sadly is over.
After that I went to my first wrestling practice, after some talk about the rules in that room we begann with different techniques and some conditioning.
I really liked the practice and since the room is warm everybody is sweating like crazy.
The people on the team are really nice and welcomed me warmly and I had great practices all week long. Another thing in wrestling is, that you go into competitions by weight, so weight matters a lot. And I was surprised when I only put a 165 pounds on the scale.
After practice I went to the Campus Life Dodge Ball tournament in the field house of our school. It was super fun, even though my team lost quite fast and we didn't make it very far in the ranking. But I had a great time and that matters the most.
I also got to know a bunch of new people and that always super much fun :)
Moving on to Tuesday we had presentations about our current American Studies project about national parks. My group and I talked about Channel Islands National Park down in California and now i actually really want to go there, probably that will happen sometime. But the whole project made me admire nature and hoping to visit a bunch of of those parks.
Well but anyways, the third day of the week we had a funny little exercise in speech. It's called the Penny Speech, everybody has to talk for 2 minutes and for every mistake made the other guys drop a penny into a bowl. It was a fun little thing and we actually could learn about each other and what they like and so on.
Friday the GoMad camp in Fort Wayne started and it lasted to Sunday noon. All in all it was a great time and about a thousand other teenagers were up there from all over Indiana.
We had a great time and there was live music and games and we just had time to hang out and talk and I could say that this was a weekend well spent when I came back home at Sunday.

I guess that was about everything that happened this last week.
I will post some pictures, as soon as I downloaded them from my phone

I kinda forgot to post a blog last Sunday, so I will just make up for it today and cover both weeks.

The week before the past one my friends snail had babies and she told our foreniscs teacher about it. And it happened that she said that snails need a day to get each other pregnant and our forensics teacher said the "Oh, I wish we humans could" and it was quite funny.
We also had a so called community service on Wednesday. So we jumped in the school buses and drove to a skate park and a playground. So we split up in two groups and one painted the skate park while the others spread out some new wood splitters things on the playground.
After we were done one dude found a little baby car thing in the woods and it came as it had to be and we drove down the ramps with it.
It was a fun morning all in all.
On Friday I went home with the school bus for the first time. And exactly that day we had to do a fire drill in the buses. So we all had to jump out in the back of the bus and then sit back in and go home. Americans are funny with all those drills. The past week we had a tornado and then a fire drill. And we will have one drill every month. If I think back to Switzerland, the only fire drill I ever experienced was in 4th grade and once last school year the fire alarm went off and the teachers would just continue to teach and nobody evacuated the building.
Last Saturday it was Kiaras Birthday, so we had a bunch of people here at the house and it was nice seeing them :)

In the past week we had a morning football practice. We started at 5:45 am and it was freezing cold, but it was a fun practice, and after the first 10mins we got warm from the movement.
And on Friday the game we prepared for two weeks took place.
It was the first sectional Game and since we lost it after a hard fight the football season is now over.
I am sad that this great time is over, but I am also excited to go on and try new things.
Playing with the football team was an amazing experience. It was so much fun playing with all those great people and getting to know them. They made me love the game and being excited every day for going over to the field and practice hard.
I want to thank all the players and coaches for making the time as great as it was.
Yesterday on Saturday Mike and Chris and I went for 18 holes of Golf, and we drove them and I like the carts quite good. We all didn't play too well, but we definitely had fun and laughed a lot. Since it is fall we sometimes had a hard time finding our balls even on the fairways because there are so many leaves on it making it hard to see the difference between a ball and just a leave.

This was short version of my two weeks with the little funny highlights.