First Days in Germany

The Plattner's are an amazing family, and I feel totally comfortable with them already. The car ride home was really fun, and I was surprised that I was able to communicate fairly well in German. Southern Germany is really nice, with a lot of mountains. Krauchenwies (my town), is really small, but wicked pretty, with narrow streets and cool German houses. My (Laura's) room is huge, and Laura had made a sign for it before she left for her year in Portugal. They had put up the pictures I had on my AFS application for me, to make me feel more at home. I had a lot of help putting all of my things away, and I still can't believe how much I brought with me! For lunch we had Döner. :)
Later in the day we went to a wedding of a friend. It wasn't like any wedding I had ever been to. The bride and groom walked in stepping over hula hoops that the younger kids (and me) held. We wore red Krauchenwies hats and shirts. We then went to the reception upstairs, where we played card games, ate, and talked. Our table neighbors said they had been to Maine, and when I asked where, they said “Maranacook.” What??? Small world. We also got cards on which we wrote that we would do something for whoever found it. My family suggested I should write that I'll take a family photo. We tied the cards to balloons and set them free over the town. I was really tired during the wedding, because I hadn't really slept in 30 hours or so, so Michael brought Louisa and me home early.
I absolutely love the typical German breakfast and supper. I don't think I've eaten so much bread and cheese in my life, but it's all so good. All the food is really good. My favorite so far is Käse Spätzle. We went Sunday for a bike ride through the fields, town, and park, and it was all sooo pretty. We also went swimming in the lake, which was pretty cold.
I started school on Monday, and I always feel lost. There is another exchange student, Liisa, from Estonia, but she's with rotary. We have a German class together. My class, 11b, is really nice to me, and when I don't understand something, they explain it slower or in English. The English teacher so far has either not shown up to class, or is really late, and they don't have substitute teachers in Germany. If the teacher doesn't come, we can go. When you don't have class, you can go wherever you want. My classes are German, English, math, ethics, gym, bk (and I have not idea what that is), and art. I had ethics today, and I can officially say that Aristotle in German is really difficult... on Monday and Tuesday school goes until 3 or so, for me, but the rest of the week I get to go home at lunch. I got to go to track after lunch on Tuesday, and it was really fun. So far, I'm having a really good time!