Nurnberg.

Hallo All,
    This weekend I went to Nurnberg to visit another exchange student. It was only about an hour by train which is not very far at all. Jaque and I went together to stay all weekend. We met our friend's host family they were so welcoming and nice. We put our things upstairs and then we sat in the kitchen most of the night just talking about our families what we miss and about our exchange year. They have a daughter who is on exchange with Rotary. She just happens to be in Fairfield, Iowa. How crazy is that. She loves the school and most everything about Iowa. It truly is a small world. Later that night the family had the neighbors over. We all played Phase 10 together till 12pm. It was so nice and great to get to meet new people. This year is deffinately about meeting new people. No matter where I go or for how long I am in a place I always manage to meet someone new.
    On Saturday jaque, Marina and I went into the city to walk around and look through the shops. We also took the subways and went to another exchange students house who lives right outside of Nurnberg. We hung out with him for an hour or so. Late that night was a birthday party for another exchange student from Mexico, Vicky, She turned 18. There were so many exchange students and Germans. We danced all night and talked to everyone and met tons of new people. At the party I met a girl who goes to school in Bayreuth. Jaque and I are going to meet up with her after school sometime and maybe go out on the weekend together. She is from Argentina but she is with AFS instead of Rotary.
   In about 2 weeks I will have been in Germany for 5 months. The time has gone by so fast for me.To my mother I am sure it seems like 5 years but Skype is a great friend of ours. I still don't know exactly when I my return flight back to the US is. As soon as I find out I will post it on here. As for Euro tour right before I go on the trip I will post my agenda so you can follow me and see where I am at on everyday. I haven't decided if I am going to take my laptop with me and try and blog after 2 days or so because one post about an entire Euro Tour is a gaurntee to be super long. I know everyone doesn't want to have to spend 30 min reading all of that. I also dont want to spend 3 hours typing all of it. Maybe I will write it all down in a journal and then only post day by day when I get back. I have some thinking to do.
This weekend I broke the smallest of my 3 suitcases so I have to figure out what I am going to do about that. I have a list of things I need to buy in the super market but  I have no desire to go and buy them. Tonight I am going with my family to Sherlock Holmes a play done by a school in Bayreuth in English tonight.
Sorry for the grammatical errors. I am still really tired from this weekend and getting only a few hours of sleep.
Auf Wiedersehen.
Allysa Spear

Tanzen

Hallo all,
Today is the morning after my ball. It was a very long night and I am still a little bit tired but I wanted to blog about it so all of you could enjoy reading about my night. Ok so I think I should start with Friday night. I was trying on my dress to make sure everything was still ok before the ball on Saturday night. While I was trying it on my straps kept falling down. This is just something you can go with the flow with. I had to fix it. I tried saftey pinning it but it was just not going. So I decided to give my good ol' grandma a skype call. She always fixes anything wrong with my clothes or dance costumes during dance recital and I really needed to fix my dress. She explained what I had to do and I tried my very best to understand and stitch my dress and the same time but in the end I got everything taken care of with the dress. The straps were a little bit off but you couldn't tell with my hair down. Now that I had the dress fixed I had to find new shoes. The shoes I had planned on wearing didn't really match like I wanted them too. So Saturday morning Jaque and I went into the city right after breakfast and went shoe shopping. We went to a total of 4 stores but I found a pair. They were very cute and cheap. The best way to go. The ones I ended up buying were black with a little bow on the side. They also had heels. I originally didn't want heels but Jaque helped convince me that they looked really good and would be the best ones for the ball. So its about noon and I have my dress fixed, shoes to wear, showered, and eaten lunch. After lunch I just chilled and played games on my computer to not think about the ball. I was starting to get nervous. When I looked at the clock it was going on 6. I was supposed to be at the dance at 6:20. I did my hair, make-up and got dressed really fast. I was ready to go. I got to the ball and had to wait for my partner to arrive. He had to bring me flowers. I got red roses. They are sitting on my desk in a vase. After I got my flowers and I gave him his chocolates. We went inside and I met his parents. They were so nice and tried their best to speak English with me. I told them it was ok if they spoke German. We took photos with his parents and then just me and him. We just used his parents camera. Then we went upstairs and had to take group photos. It was very crazy and there were so many people to all fit in the shot but we got in done in 5 shots. Easy and painless. Then we went and got lined up for then entrance and beginning dances. I was really starting to get nervous at this point because the dance practice we learned all of this I was sick and couldn't go. The dancing began and it was fine I just had to watch the other girls for a few times and then I got the hang of it. We Waltzed first this is my worst dance but it was fun. The rest of night we just danced sat at our table and talked with friends. In the middle of the night I had to dance with my partners dad. It was so cute. It turns out that his dad was the president of Roteract here in Bayreuth so he knew about my exchange and how things worked. My dance partner and I also got individual pictures taken. It was funny a lot of the kids in our class were watching us and the lady was giving me directions in German and I didn't really understand everything and they were laughing at me but it was a lot of fun. The night was a great success. I met new people and danced the night away. My dress didn't fall apart and I didn't fall while dancing. My feet are still killing me from my shoes but it was all worth it. I will put pictures up as soon as I can. I have to get the pictures from the other kids.
Thanks for reading,
Allysa Spear

The Ball

Hallo Readers,
Well I don't really have much to write about. I am sorry for that and if this is a little bit boring. This week is my ball for school. I have been taking ballroom dance classes since I got here and now it is time to show everyone what we have learned. I have to get on a fancy dress, do my hair, wear make up, and finally just dance. It is a lot different than I am used to doing. I have to worry about a partner. Not only just a partner but a boy are that. When you dance on the competition team or your school dance team you have to worry about the rest of the team and make sure that you are all together but now I have to worry about a boy and it will only be me and him dancing. We aren't doing a solo but its only us two. I know I will have a select few people looking at me. Jaque my wonderful host sister is going to be taking pictures for me and hopefully making a video or two. I am not telling my partner until after she does it so he doesn't get nervous and mess up... (:
Some other news. Jaque has a new host family. She will be switching in 2 weeks. It is truly a bitter sweet feeling. She is so niche and I can't imagine not having her running in my room just to talk , her messing with me even when I really don't like it, our long talks till midnight in my room, her using my laptop while I am sleeping, or her just being the best sister ever. She is everything to me. She will never know how much she really means to me. Right now she is in my room  using Her phone speaking in Portuguese. It is so funny. I am trying not to be selfish about the move. I am honestly bummed that she wont be here but I am jumping inside that she gets to experience a new family and moving just like I got to. It is the coolest feeling to get a new family but it also has difficulties like everything in life. She will be just fine. We are going to make dates, have sleepovers, and meet each other before school everyday and walk together.
I will write all about my ball after Saturday.
Thanks for reading, Allysa Spear

Update.

Dear Readers,
Sorry for such a long pause in not writing. I tried to upload the pictures from Munich but my computer is not working. The last few days I have been really sick with the usual winter time cold. I haven't been sleeping much and school started after the long christmas break. Like always the first week is the hardest to get back into the swing of things. Mostly just the getting up early part...As for the cold. I have been taking meds 3x daily and things are starting to look better. I hope I will be completely better soon. My ball for the school is in 9 days. I am starting to get a little nervous for it. I have to get my partner a gift and of course I need to practice my dance which I have no time for.
Today in school my English teacher asked Jaque, the other exchange student,  and I to go with him to his 5th grade English class. We all got to introduce ourselves and then all of the little kids asked us questions. They don't know very much English so we had to use our German as well. They were the cutetest little kids I have ever seen. After we all introduced ourselves I had to teach the class. I had to assign roles in a little skit and I had to read one of them. The kids were really good at it. Then I had to give them vocabulary words. I would read the words out loud and then they would repeat them after me. I felt so good inside. They were so interested and asked if we could all come back tomorrow. We unfortunately can't go every day but I talked with my teacher and he said we could go again. There was this one little blonde boy. He alwaysa smiled and waved and Jaque. He talked with her about a Brazilian soccer player. It was the best. After the english class he asked us to go to another class about American Politics. It was for the 12th grade. I was a little bit scared at first not being so confident in my Politics but I said yes happily. In the class the kids talked about our president and the amendments to the constitution. I also got asked my opinion on the death penalty. This was very hard for me to discuss with them. We all had different opinions but it was cool at understand the whole class and even learn a few things. I only embarassed myself a few times but it was fun. That is all for now.
Ill write soon
Much love
Allysa

Munich

Dear Readers,
I have been on a 4 day trip with my host family to Munich. I got to see many things and eat tons of good food. I don't know how I will fit it all  into one blog. This one might be really long and I will upload pictures after I am done typing.
Monday January 3, 2011 I got up normal time and had breakfast with my family. After we all finished we packed our things into the car and were on our way. The drive to Munich is about 2 hours away. There we parked in a parking ramp and took the train into town. The first place was Residenz Museum. This museum has a very big collection of things from the Wittelsbach family. There are many different buildings including a super Theater. It was full of gold and the chairs were a deep red velvet. The rooms were full of metal works, crowns, glass sculptures, and ivory things. After we spent most of the day in the museum we walked  down the main strip of shops in the inner city Munich. There were so many shops for everything and everyone. In the middle was Munichs town hall. It was very big and very awesome. There were sculptures and a giant clock that went off every hour. My host family and I took the train back to the parking ramp and were off to our Guest House. Jaque and I got our own room. It was so nice. We watched German TV and sat up really late just talking and laughing.
Tuesday the 4th of January the second day of the trip the first place on our agenda was Bavaria Film Studios. This was very neat even though I didn't know any of the flims but still seeing the sets was amazing. We went in a submarine, in an hotel, some people even got to make a movie in space. I of course did not take part in that because of my not so great German. We walked around the studios the beginning part of the day. It was so cold I couldn't even feel my toes. After The Bavaria Film Studios we were off to BMW World. The buildings were so modern. One of the buildings was a tall tower and it looked like some part of a car. I don't know enough about cars to tell you what it is. All I know is it was way sweet. We went in the museum full of cars and you could sit in them and do whatever you pleased. They had old cars, new cars, motorcycles, and even a car you could costumize if you were interested. After spending about 2 hours in the car museum and eating lunch my host family and I went to a Sea Life exhibit. There were all types of fish. There was one part that was completely class or plastic not sure but you could see all around you the different fish, sharks and even a giant turtle swimming. In one section of the Sea Life tour you could feed the fish. Isa feed a few but I didn't want to so I just watched. That took up the rest of the day. We had supper at a little restaurant and Ice cream for desert... it was delicious.
Wednesday January 5th, Deutsches Museum. This is a building you could spend 3 days in to cover everything. There was things for every person. I found the Astronauts and airplanes the best. I wish my family could have been there to see all of it with me. There were life sized planes, boats, and equipment used on rocketships. They also had mini boats, factories with the workers, and games you could play. This museum was my favorite part of the trip. I was like a little kid on christmas seeing all of my gifts under the tree. After spending the first half of the day in the museum my host family and I went into the city with all of the shops on the main strip. Jaque and I went by ourselfs looking through shops for 2 hours. Everything was on sale. I bought a belt and a t-shirt. When the 2 hours were up we met back with our host family and went out to eat together. We went into a very typical Bavarian restaurant. The women were wearing the german dresses and everything was made of wood. You could see the colors of Bavaria all around the room.
Thursday January 6th was the last day or our trip. We packed all of our things up and put them back into the car. On the way home we drove into the ALPS and visisted the Neuschwanstein Castle. It looks like something out of a fairy tale. We got a tour around the castle and see the rooms that were finished. Kind Louis I was a fan of Richard Wagner. Which is awesome because Wagner built an opera house in the town that I am living now Bayreuth.
This was the best I could do on telling you about my travels in the winter break. I hope you enjoy. I will upload pictures as soon as I can.
Thanks for reading,
Auf wiedersehen. Allysa Spear

Sledding in the dark.

Hello Readers,
     Tonight I went sledding the in dark. It sounds kind of dangerous but it was actually tons of fun. There was a group of about 20 people and we all met in a forest. I wasn't so sure of how it was going to work when we first got there but as the night went on all was ok. We all walked up as a group and on the way we placed candels or other various lights to light the path down the hill in the forest. There was a cleared path so we didn't have to make our own. Which is a good thing. I only went down the hill 3 times but this was enough for me. The climb back to the top of the hill was quite a ways and it was very very dark by the time we could have went a 4th time. The first time I went by myself and very slowly, the other two I went with my friend Louisa. We went very fast and hit two boys the first time and the second time we couldn't see anything because the lights were going out and it was snowing so there was so much snow in our eyes it was impossible to see anything. We didn't crash and made it safely to the bottom of the hill. It was a very good night. After everyone was finished we went to a cafe and ate supper together and then we arrived home. Tomorrow my family is taking Jaque and I to Munchen for 3 days.  We are going to visit many places. I will unfortunately not be able to blog in this time. I will write as soon as I get back.
Thanks for Reading,
Allysa Spear

Photographs,

Isa and Jaque making cookies for Christmas.

All the gifts for my families and counselor here in Germany.

My host dad playing Christmas songs on the 24th.

Jaque and I singing Christmas songs in German... Ok well mostly just attempting.

Me infront of the Christmas Tree.

Opening my package from Iowa..(:

Sledding with my host sister Jaque.

Manger scene from Africa.

Real candles on the the Christmas tree.

Rocklett.

Jaque and I wasting our hour of spare time.