Black Sabbath concert!

This week I spent mostly in New York, because Black Sabbath played in Brooklyn. I spent the day walking along the riverside on Manhattan island, and ran into Wall Street without knowing that it was there. The day after the concert I walked along 5th Avenue, so I could see the flatiron building, and some nice parks. On Wednesday I went to the American Museum of Natural History, which was really nice and huge, and spend there basically the entire day, until I had to go back to the apartment because we had to go back to DC.
I told all of this in advance, since the best comes last:
On the 31st at 6:30pm, we finally entered the Barclay's center, where Black Sabbath would play later! I was so unbelievably excited! At 7:30 the opening band, Reignwolf, performed for about 45 minutes. Only about 15 minutes later Black Sabbath entered the stage! I was so excited, and I was cheering for them. This was the first time I saw my favorite band and it was awesome! I just can't find the words to describe it! They played many songs and the atmosphere was really great. The finale was when they played Paranoid, which was fantastic. In the end they played for two hours, which is not too bad in the end. The drummer they are touring with was also really amazing and all together they had an incredible show! This was definitely one of the best nights in this year!!

My 16th Birthday Party

Even though my birthday is on the 25th, I had my birthday party was on the 23rd of march. As I mentioned before even my friend from Richmond came, many of the neighbors, and friends and I am very glad all of them where at the party. There was a lot of food, and almost everything with peanut butter (really good!), like cookies, brownies, sandwiches, M&M's with pictures of me on it (!) and a very an awesome cake! Nicole's friend even had one of these old cameras that "print" the picture right after you took it (I don't know how these cameras are called), so now I have many pictures that like kind of old and retro, which is really cool! I also got a lot of really nice presents, for example Nicole had different people from all over the world sent me birthday wishes, which is really nice because now I have so many interesting cards.
I had a nice time with all of them and I am thankful that all of them came, and I want to say thank you especially to Nicole, who organized all of it! :)

Disney World!

I finally get to do this blog post: Max took me to Disney World last week! We left on Wednesday to Florida, and after we got into our hotel room we left right away for the first park we went in, the Hollywood Studios. Of course there is a lot of waiting in Disney World, but luckily every once in a while we could use a Fast-Pass, which helps you to skip parts of a line. Two of my favorite rides in the Hollywood studios were the Hollywood Tower and the Rock and Roller Coaster.There also were some great shows, for example a Indiana Jones Show and many others that were great. The next day we spent in Epcot and the Magic Kingdom. Epcot was fun, because parts of it is about the future, and very educational, and when we walked at the waterside, we came by different "countries" that were represented (there also was Germany). I liked that because it was about traveling and they made it look really realistic. We had lunch in Italy, where I had so amazing pasta! The Magic Kingdom was the park which was the most about Disney, because there was the castle, and there were many Disney rides. We spend a lot of time with going on some rides, sometimes we even had to wait a really long time, but it always was worth it! The third day we went to Animal Kingdom, which obviously is about animals. We went on a "safari" ride, and also a very fast one, which I liked the best. There were two very cute shows, and the whole park had a tropical feeling. Then we went back to Epcot, because we had diner in Germany! It was a lot of fun there, because the whole atmosphere was just amazing! It was kind of Bavarian, they had music and the food was not bad, but obviously not as good as in Germany. To make it more realistic, all the waiters were from Germany with German accents. It really was a lot of fun! In the evening we saw some amazing fireworks from Epcot.

The last day we spent again in both, Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, doing some last rides, that were so much fun again. Then we had to leave, to get the plane back to DC. At home I there was my friend from Richmond waiting for me, because she came to be at my birthday party the next day!

Ski trip

On Friday I went with my other exchange student friends and their organization to a ski trip in Pennsylvania.
We left on Friday and arrived at the house we would live in at around 8 or 9. All the other people from that organization were really nice and spend time with them that evening. On Saturday we finally got to ski. First we had a 1 hour lesson, but since I skied once already, I know all the stuff the teacher told us, but it was still good, since I don't remember that much either. I skied the entire day, we had a break for lunch and then continued. At 4 I showered and then there was diner already, and most of the people there would continue skiing after diner, and I really wanted to too, so I just changed back and we went night skiing. That was really a lot of fun! First it was a little creepy, especially because it was a little more icy, but after we went for a few runs it got more and more fun. I really enjoyed it a lot.
We still went skiing on Sunday, until around 12. Then we had to leave for lunch and to pack our things, and we finally got on the bus. It would have been nice to continue skiing since it was so great, but it also was good to sleep in the bus, since I didn't had so much sleep that weekend. 
I'm glad I joined the trip :)

Most fancy diner I had so far!

We went with Max and Nicole's friends to a very fancy restaurant, because one of their friends knew the owner. It really was kind of fun to dress up for a restaurant. At the restaurant we had really good food, which was just in the right portions, so we were full in a positive way in the end, and didn't have the feeling to explode because of too much food. It also tasted very good, and the waiter prepared my caesars salat right in front of me.Then I had pasta, which was fantastic too. For desert Nicole and me ordered Crepes, and this the waiter also prepared in front of us. He even did that thing with alcohol which made it burn for short. That was a really awesome evening with amazing food.

National Museum of Natural History in DC

...is where we, Max, my friend Madina and me, went on Saturday! It is a really huge museum and we easily spent the whole day there. There are so many different sections to look at, for example minerals and stones, ocean animals, mummies, bones, a photo gallery, insects and so many other different sections. It was so much, we haven't even finish the whole museum yet! We did most of it though, including the shows. We saw a 3D movie about surfing, which I though was really nice, because they also showed the nice locations of Tahiti. There was a special exhibition about genomes, and we could do observations of if we are super-tasters ( someone who can taste finer than others, which I'm not) and how similar the little details in our DNA is (e.g.: if we have dimples, how close our pinkie fingers are while holding them together, a.s.o.), and it turned out that Madina and I are more similar than we though ;).
We went to a restaurant for lunch, and then up the tower of the old post office in DC. Right after we went back the museum and continued looking at all the exhibitions. By the end we went in a butterfly "house" basically where were butterflies all over the place. That was really nice and perfect for taking nice pictures!
We were there from 10 in the morning to 5 in the evening! That was really a lot of fun!

The Pentagon

On Martin Luther King Day our neighbor John took us to the Pentagon! He is working there, so he is allowed to bring a certain amount of people in there and he gave us a 2 hour tour of the bulding.
 It is such a huge building, which has convenience stores, jewelry stores, suit shops and several food courts, doctors and a gym inside, because the employees who work at the Pentagon often work really long, so that they have no time to go to things like doctors or to do grocery shopping outside of work, so having all these things in the Pentagon makes it much easier for people who work there.
 We saw the chapel, and walked by the post office. There are 9 Starbucks and 683 bathrooms ( the number of bathrooms was needed twice because it was built when Virginia was still segregated, meaning divided by race). There were lots of history/art installations,quilts, photos, flags, military artifacts like uniforms, weapons, etc on the walls.
I'm glad I got to see it, since it is such a huge and important building!

Casino Party

Last weekend my Max and Nicole's friend Marianna had her birthday party. The theme of her party was Casino, so it was a casino party! She and her husband really organized the whole party great, there was music, food and drinks, great decoration and there were 5 different casino games, that could be played, and we were even playing with chips (obviously we weren't playing for real money). I never played any of these games before, and the one I played first was Black Jack. I had no idea how to play it, but luckily there were people who could explain me everything. After a while I understood it, and it was really a lot of fun!  I played it a while, then I wanted to stop and check out something new. There were a lot of people, so there was also the opportunity to talk a lot, and afterwards I played Roulette. This game was much easier to understand, and also a lot of fun, but I got bored of it a little faster. In the end though I was playing a long time, and I really enjoyed it!

Spending time in Canada

The other days, we spent in Canada, we did many nice things. For example we had christmas on the 26th (that was the only day, all family members could get together). To me it was really fun, to have Nicole's whole family over, and we were having diner, and unwrapping the presents. Even though it wasn't my family, I spent christmas with, I spent it with some great people!
We also got to meet some of Nicole's cousins. One of them had a very cute little daughter, we went to lunch to one of the cousin's houses and we went to the cinema with two others, who were both around my age, which was really fun too.
Max and I went to Dungeon Castle. This used to be the home of a rich family, and we had a tour, in which we could look through the rooms, and the guide explained the history. The castle was really nice, and the tour was really interesting, and the tour reminded me a little bit to school trips we did in Germany.
One day Nicole's parents, Nicole, her nice and me went to a market, with a library over it. I did enjoy all the walking around and looking around and talking. Nicole, her sister Noelle, Chloe and me also were supposed to go shopping one day, but for any reason most of the stores were closed on Mondays, so we looked in every store, that was open, and went to a restaurant for lunch.
I had a lot of fun, and really a good time, even though it was really cold, but at least I got my white Christmas!

Niagara Falls

On Christmas, the 25th, I got to meet Nicole Sister and her family. She and her husband have very cute daughter, Chloe and a Rottweiler, what I was excited about. We had breakfast and opened the stockings (of course I forgot my stocking gifts, so I had to give them later). Afterwards we went sliding with Chloe and had a amazing hot chocolate afterwards.
When we left, we drove to the Niagara Falls. Coming close to them, I already could feel sprinkles form the falls. They looked really amazing, but because of these sprinkles it also was very cold. The water was frozen on my hair and jacket. I enjoyed the view though, and then we left, to buy another Hard Rock Cafe souvenir :)
The evening we spent with diner (Nicole's dads made some great eggnog!) and watching movies!

Canada/Toronto

For christmas break we drove up to Canada, to visit Nicole's family. We lived in her parent's house, which was about 30 minutes away from Toronto and right at lake Ontario.
We spent the first two days with living in and preparing and wrapping Christmas presents. The third day, which was the 24th, so "Christmas" for me, we went to see Toronto. It is a very nice city, but it was so cold. We went to markets and which were all inside, and it makes sense, that there is this area, in which stores and things like that are underground. There also was this gorgeous, "Flatration Building", in a great color and a nice shape, which was really beautiful. For lunch we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, and I was very happy I got another T-Shirt from it. There also is a very nice mall, and we got to see some more Christmas windows of a store, that I really enjoyed. Next to it was the Nathan Phillips Square with an ice skating range. In the end, Max and I went up the CN Tower. There was a very nice view over the whole City and lake Ontario. There also was this glass floor, on which you could stay and see how deep it is under you, which was pretty scary, and even though I tried, I couldn't really go on it. Nicole was waiting for us downstairs. We drove to the parent's house and had diner there. Definitely a Christmas Eve I've never had before!

Richmond christmas lights

The Saturday before Christmas break we drove down to Richmond to see all the crazy decoration of the houses (we really looked at much decoration now ;) ) and to meet my friend Leonie, who is also an exchange student I met at the preparation weekend of my program international experience back in Germany.
We picked Leonie up and went for brunch, and walked around Richmond afterwards. We even went into a store with pretty German decoration, which was really fun, because we saw things I haven't seen here in the US, but know from Germany. And there also was a Döner place!
As soon as it got dark, we got in the car and drove to the first house on our list. These were two houses, and it was really crazy! Both had almost everything you can imagine in the front yard: santa clauses, dogs, penguins, elfs and so much more, that the whole front yards were full! Even the trees had light on them, which were so high, that we wondered how they came up there! I honestly do not want to know, how much all of that costs!
The next house we saw was one, that's lights were moving to the music of a radio station. It were so many light too, and we drove through another one, which also moved to music.
The next house was also incredible, it kind of looked like a gingerbread house, and had just like the first house so much stuff standing around, that it was almost too much to look at! They even had a guest book, free candy cane and dog treats, and a Santa! It was so much fun too!
The next house we saw was a small house my itself, but of course also stuffed with everything that was a light and had something to do with christmas!
We went to that Döner for diner, which was okay, but not as good as the ones in Germany. At least we know that there is such a place in the US, which is good, because I haven't seen such a place here before.
The last thing we saw was a whole street, with almost all houses decorated. It was unbelievable, because they all looked amazing! In the end there was one more house, that had lights moving to the music in the radio. That was a really good house too, especially combined with the whole street, which was so bright!
In the end we dropped my friend off and drove home. It was really a fun experience!