Week off update!

Helllllllooooooo out there!
 
    Last week we both worked at different camps and neither of us got to go to Frankfurt to watch the US women’s world cup game.  I put on all of my red white and blue and painted my face with another counselor who I worked with and went to a local bar to watch the game.  Josh also watched the game, but at the house of the people he stayed with. It was a bummer that we didn’t get to watch it together, but it was still cool being able to show our American pride in an foreign country. 
    Josh was in a small town called Waffensen last week for camp and I was in Wolfsburg again.  We both had a some what difficult week as far as the kids that we had.  The language barrier is more of an issue in the smaller towns outside of Berlin.  I had a group of kids who really didn’t want to participate in any camp activities and who refused to speak English with me.  They also figured out that I really didn’t speak any German, so they could say whatever they wanted to about me and I wouldn’t know what they were saying.  They thought that, that was really funny, but I reminded them that there were other counselors there who spoke German and they told me everything :).
    While we were in Wolfsburg we went to two different water shows at the Autostadt, the grounds of the Volkswagon facility.  The show runs all summer and changes each week.  The first show was incredible, but the second show was amazing.  The Bellagio does not even compare to how incredible it was.  There was fire and water and lasers.  They projected parts of movies and images on walls of water and had everything synched to amazing music.  Each show was probably 30 minutes long and at the end we always wanted it to keep going!  We all met in Berlin again this weekend and went out on Friday night.  We went to this great little bar that we call the 24 hour bar.  It is a little hole in the wall that has such a diverse range of people that go there.  There were old men who had been going to the bar for 27 years, Turks, British people, old women and men, young people, and of course us.  We once again stayed out until the sun came up and then decided to leave.  On our way home from the bar I realized that my wallet was no longer in my purse.  I’m not sure where I lost it, whether it was at the bar or on the train somewhere, but it was gone and all of my stuff was gone.  We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to go to prague still, but my boss was gracious enough to give me an advance on my next week’s pay and we were able to make the trip with what she gave me!
     We’re stayed in an old school house that was turned into a huge hostel and it was packed full of people around our age.  Our first day we went down to old town Prague which is full of really old buildings that are so incredible to look at.  It is such a fairytale kind of place that I kept expecting people in huge dresses riding horses to come around the corner.  We visited the Charles Bridge and the old Castle and Church.  Everything was so picturesque and incredible that we were in awe the whole time.
    On our second day we went down to the old Jewish Quarters of the town and walked around the areas where we had been the day before.  Just walking around through all of the streets we saw such beautiful buildings.   A lot of the buildings have extremely old architecture and some have gold coating or intricate drawings/paintings on the sides.  After we walked around for a little bit, we went back to the hostel and relaxed a little bit and then we went back out on the town.  As most of you know, Absinthe is illegal in most of the States and there are a lot of rumors about how strong it actually is.  Well, Absinthe is not illegal here and the Czech Republic is notorious for having the best Absinthe in all of Europe, so we thought we better get some.  All over town we’d seen Absintheries where they sell and make drinks containing the alcohol.  Josh wanted to buy some to bring back with him and we both wanted to see if all of the rumors were true.  We went into one of the shops and ordered an Absinthe Lemonade and an Absinthe Energy (Absinthe with Red Bull) and sat down to drink them.  They didn’t taste that strong or different from other types of alcohol, but after we finished the drink we both felt a little funny.  It didn’t seem as strong as we all of the rumors made it sound, but it was definitely strong and didn’t have the same effects of straight alcohol.
    We got back to Berlin yesterday after a 5 hour bus ride and we were so happy to have the flat to ourselves that we stayed in and watched CNN all night because it was the only English station we could get.  I feel so informed on world and American news that I don’t even know what to do with myself.  We got up this morning and went to some friend’s house in another part of the city and had coffee and tea and they made lunch for us.  Berlin is starting to feel sort of like home and our comfort zone in all of this.  People were even asking us for directions yesterday and we were actually able to help them out a little bit.  It’s funny that only a couple weeks ago we were the ones that were completely lost in this big city.
    Josh is at the Real Madrid and Hertha BCS game tonight. I couldn’t go with him because I didn’t have the money to get a ticket, but he went and scalped a ticket for a pretty good price!  He was like a little kid in a candy shop all morning because he was so excited to go watch Real Madrid live! Tomorrow we’re going to rent bikes and go see some of the sites around Berlin and then Sunday it’s off to the next camp, which we work together!
    Hope all is well with everyone state-side!! Miss you all and see you soon :)