First Month

It has been a month since I arrived at Bonn, Germany and I have to admit I love it. I thought I was not going to like living with complete strangers and having to find my way around a city in which the language is different, but I love it. My host family is the best. They treat me as if I was part of the family by allowing me to be part of their traditions. Every night, after running, I come back and dinner is ready waiting for me at the table. I enjoy playing with my host brothers. My host brother loves to play soccer, my favorite sport, so everytime I have nothing to do we go to the backyard and kick the ball around. We play that I am the goalie and he is the best forward ever. Everytime he scores on me, he gets so excited that he screams "GOAL!" with all his lungs. The only downside to playing soccer with him is that the backyard is always wet so our shoes and clothes get dirty with mud. Regardless of that, we always have a great time. My youngest host sister does not enjoy playing soccer, but she does like to play board games and she is good. It does not matter which board game I pick, I will always be destroyed by my little host sister's talent. My favorite game to play with her so far is a game called "Blokus". The point of the game is to use different geometric figures to block the advancement of your opponent while you can only lay down your figures touching the corners of them. You cannot touch the sides of your figures with your other figures. Might sound easy, but it is not. My second oldest host sister likes to watch movies. I usually do not watch movies with her because they are in French, but whenever I have nothing else to do and I feel like bothering someone, she is the person to go to. She is also the person to go to in order to practice my german. She lent me children books in order to learn my reading and is always teaching me new words. My oldest host sister is not as social with me. My host mom blames the fact that they had to move a lot when my oldest host sister was in elementary. For this reason, she does not like to meet new people, but once she starts feeling comfortable with you, she can be pretty cool. Oh yeah and she enjoys to argue with you. You can never win, so make sure to just let her take victory. I hardly see my host dad. Whenever I am home, he is usually busy at his job or doing some errands and doesnt get back home until really late. The one I talk the most to is my host mom. I guess she feels responsible to make me feel comfortable at home since it was her idea to host a student, so she is always having conversations with me. I find it awesome that she knows like five languages, two of them being english and spanish. And what can I say about getting around Bonn. The transportation system is so easy to understand even if you have no clue of german. I remember my second day, first time I had to take the underground tram to go to the central station. Since everything was new to me, I ended up getting lost so I had to cal one of the coordinators from our school. That experience made me think I was going to get lost frequently, but by the end of that week everything was so familiar. Now, I can go wherever I want without a problem. If this first month has been great, I cannot wait to see what else is waiting for me in the next couple of months.