This past week was a lot better than the one before (at least for me), except for the fact that I've been incredibly lazy with my homework, particularly painting.

But it was good. We had an American Thanksgiving dinner at the school on Thursday, which was absolutely delicious. It was also cool because we had several visitors from back home; Laurens boyfriend (well, fiance now) and Maggie's cousin. Also a lot of our Italian friends and professors came, so it was a lot of fun. Cory, Elizabeth, and April, three of our Three Cities friends also came and visited for the weekend, arriving just after we left the dinner at school. They got to eat some of the leftovers of our meal, but unfortunately did not make it there in time for the main meal. Later we went and watched the basketball game between Tuscania (which several of our Italian friends and our student advisor play on) and Tarquinia. Appherently it's a pretty big rivalry, although Tuscania never really had a chance and got creamed. After that we all went to the bar to hang out, and it was sort of like saying goodbye to everyone, as I was leaving the next day for...

Germany! Germany was absolutely wonderful! I kept in contact with a friend of a friend who lives there. I had actually met this guy, Patrick, over the summer because he was in PA visiting my friend Steve (they had met in Hawaii because they both helped at the YWAM base there). I had told him that I was going to be studying in Italy, and that I wanted to travel while I was there, so I might just have to take a weekend trip to Germany. And so I did. And he was incredibly kind! He picked me up at the airport at midnight Friday night (or Saturday morning, depending on how you look at it) and dropped me off at 4:30am on Sunday morning! This wasn't just a 45 min. drive, either, as I guess I got the wrong airport for my flights; so I was flying to Frankfurt Hahn airport instead of the regular Frankfurt airport. And the Hahn one turned out to be at least an hour and a half drive for hime (with pretty much no traffic). So we arrived at his house at 2am Saturday and left around 3am Sunday, and he had a wonderful day planned for the day on Saturday. And not only did he do all of this excessive driving, he also wouldn't take any money for gas, and let me sleep in his bed while he slept on the floor (in a completely different room for those who are curious and/or just plain nosy, and there's absolutely nothing romantic between us). I decided I'm going to send him something for Christmas, just to say "thanks," as words never can really say "thank you" well enough.

On Saturday we went to a Christmas Market in Heidelburg, hiked up to and walked around the castle there, and later played soccer with some of his friends, before going out to dinner at a nice little restuerant that had delicious German food. I got to meet his parents and grandmother, all of whom were very sweet. The Christmas Market was quite charming, too, with all sorts of souvineer stands and food stands, and lots of other lovely things. It was sort of like the Market in Tuscania, only much cleaner and much more charming. The castle was also very lovely, and there was a really nice view of the entire city, which was beautiful being illuminated by the bright sunshine. I also got some yummy chocolates at the grocery store to bring home to the US. Patrick definately has a sweet tooth (I think it must be a German thing), and knew all the best chocolatels to recommend. Then we went to his house, talked a bit with his parents, and left shortly to go play soccer. Soccer was incredibly fun, but I was not even close to being able to keep up. I was the only girl, and although I can keep up in the US at soccer with most guys, these people were obviously not Americans, and soccer is a much bigger deal to them. It was kind of embaressing (although still fun), and I felt bad for everyone else who got stuck on my team. I can't remember a time that I've felt more sore. As soon as we left I couldn't help but limping. You know it's going to be bad when even as soon as it's over you're already sore. So Sunday wasn't so bad since I was mostly sitting on public transportation all day. But today, today I feel like a grandma. I have to walk very slowly, and I go down stairs the slow way (you know, where you put two feet on each step) because it hurts so badly. It's fine, though, I am definately glad I played. Oh, and we went to dinner with some of his friends, and they were all so sweet. I felt bad because I was pretty tired from all the travelling and playing soccer, and wasn't so talkative or attentive. But they were all so kind and were just fun to be around. I would go back to Germany in a heartbeat; it was so much fun, and so beautiful, and had delicious food.

Today was our painting/drawing/photography class exhibition opening. It was kind of crazy trying to get everything ready, but we had a nice little opening with the Wines of Italy class professor (he brought wine and some yummy dessert). It was delicious and just nice to have people look at our artwork and tell us how wonderful we are. Haha. What's not to love about that?