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!