London!!!!

I WAS IN LONDON!!!!!

I had the most awesome time, not only cos I was in London (in case you hadn't read it before), but because I stayed with my Aunt and Uncle, and met the rest of my extended family which I hadn't met before. It was excellent meeting them all and just spending time with them. Thanks mum and dad for letting me go, and thanks Shelagh and Laurie (Sarah and Rebecca, too) for having me!!

I'll give the low down of what happened. On Friday I flew over, and waited at the arrival part of the airport. I was getting a bit nervous in case I was late, or I would miss seeing Rebecca or someother force of nature that would cause me to spend an extended period of time in the airport. However, to my amusement, I was called over the loud speaker!! How cool! :) So I met Rebecca and her boyfriend James (who is typically English and very funny) and we drove home. Got the low down on what people have been doing for the last 10 years of their life, who is who and other stuff. Arrived home, and so did Laurie and Shelagh in the evening. We had fish and chips for dinner (for my first time in a year!). Sat talking and stuff and then went to bed cos we were all so tired. Then on Saturday, Shelagh, Sarah and I went to London (the actual city, not the outer suburbs). Wooooow! We went on the London Eye (comparable to a ginormous ferris wheel), and saw the whole city. Walked to/past Parliament Hause, Big Ben, then to Trafalgar Square, ate lunch in Covent Garden, went shopping in Covet Garden, to Buckingham Palace (saw the soldier dudes marching and everything) and the Royal Albert Hall. I rode in the decker bus, saw the phone boxes, drove past 10 Downing Street and, to end the day, tried on these awesome pair of dominatrix black boots. All in all, very enjoyable.

Then on Sunday, the whole family came round. Felt a bit nervous, cos it was only pretty much to see me (I was the first one to come from Australia to England). Ofcourse, they are all lovely, lovely people (they'd have to be seeing as they're related to me :P ). A really nice day. At this point, I will live up to my promise and say: DAD, COME TO ENGLAND AND VISIT YOUR SIBLINGS! But we've already discussed this on the phone...

On Monday I had to get up early (5am) and Laurence drove me to the airport (Thanks!!) and here I am, again in Germany.

Ohhh, I'm going to the Oktoberfest this weekend.

School's okay.

I'll be home in 7-9 WEEKS....woah....

love, alicia
xxx

Post #32

I am back from my holiday at the north of the country (Cuxhaven was the name, if you have an atlas). And we have perfect weather, which was a good thing to help our spirits considering on Sunday we had to get up at 4am to catch the 5.30 am train and then travel 15 hours, changing trains 9 times! Unfortunately, in our joy of arriving at our last changing-of-the-trains, we got off one stop too early. Had to wait an hour for the next train, realised that that train is only on weekdays and we had to wait another hour for the next train. We then walked for about 4 hours, lost, in Cuxhaven trying to find our house when in the end we called for a taxi. We slept most of Monday. Then we went to a ‘beach’. I use inverted commas because it wasn’t really a beach. It was a lot of grass and a lot of water, but about one square meter of sand. And the water was freezing (okay, I just sat on the green green grass and read, but the people who went in said it was cold). Then on Tuesday we got up at 4am to go to the 6am fish market, which we discovered upon arrival, isn’t on Tuesdays anymore. But we bought some fish anyway. On Wednesday we went on a ship to see the seals. A nice pirate (complete with Nike sneakers and mobile phone) onboard gave everyone lollies. On Thursday we did something really cool. Unfortunately, I don’t know the English word (oh, I’ve been saying that phrase a lot lately), but what do you call the kilometres of sand at the beach that is really wet when the tide is out? It’s on the whole north-east coast of Germany, but I have no idea what it’s called. Anyway, we rode in horse carriages across this expansive bit of nature, freezing our butts off, admiring the beauty of it all. (it really was very pretty). We rode the 10 kms to this island (which belongs to Hamburg, somehow) and stayed there for an hour and I bought some hot chocolate, but I when to the toilets my (empty) mug was missing. And then we rode back. We then walked through the whatever-you-call-it down the coast to the next beach. It took about 2 hours, and about half way it turned to this mud stuff were you kinda sank and got stuck (had horrible thoughts of death by quicksand) and then remember how we played ‘stuck in mud’ during swimming lessons at primary school. On Friday Franzie, Verena and I went to Bremen. Oh, wow, Bremen is beautiful!! It’s got a very old town centre (something like 1300 years old) and this tiny part called ‘Schnoor’ which is also very old and the buildings are built so close together and the alleyways are wide enough for only one person. We met Verena’s cousin and his girlfriend (both of whom are very nice) and we drank coffee (they drank coffee, me not) and then we walked around a little more and then we went to listen to the glockenspiel. That was really cool. We ate at a restaurant there and then went back to Cuxhaven. The next day we got up at 4am (the 4th day of 6) to catch our train back home. I took lots of photos, unfortunately Nathaniel, it wasn’t ‘all wet and cold and rainy and stuff’, but there’s still some cool photos. I also learnt how to count to 20 in French.

School starts again tomorrow. It’ll be good to go again and see and meet all this people, but it also means that I don’t have much longer here. I shan’t dwell. I still haven’t decided on what classes to take, or which grade to go into. I’ll see the deputy principal tomorrow.

I’m going to London on Friday!!!!!!!!!!! Yeeeehaaa! I managed to find some semi-cheap plane tickets and it fit in with Aunt Shelagh’s plan (the rest of the family is coming up from Lowestoft this weekend). Really really happy and excited. Ohh, and a big Herzliche Willkommen to Franzie and Verena, if they’re reading. And I would say that in Afrikaans for Christof, if I could…

A belated Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful Dad. But it doesn’t really matter that I’m late because every day is Father’s Day, isn’t it??

Love, Alicia