The redhead has seen the indoor pool in Schorndorf...

...and boy, was that different.
I mean, it was different from the pool I'm used to.... and the pool I am used to is the outside pool in Kutztown that is open in Summer from about 12 to 5 (or something like that). If you don't know about the Kutztown pool read the next paragraph to get a feel for it, if you know it far too well you can skip it (or still read it, I mean however you want right? Go wild).
The Kutztown pool has three seperate pools. first of course we have the mini baby-pool with a big mushroom thing that drops water in a curtain around it's base and is about a foot or so deep. Then we have the medium pool for kids that are older and want to swimm, but don't want to go into the BIG ADULT POOL that goes from about 3 feet deep to 12  (ish). It has1 very small slide that ends before you can start counting, and a diving board. We all do quite love and praise it, mostly because it is our only cool outlet besides air conditioning in the summer and overwhelming heat in Pennsylvania, (yes Floridians, I know you are saying to yourself "what a freakin' whimp" but I find summer sincerely hot and sweaty and gross in Pennsylvania). The pool costs five dollar to spend however long you want there (provided you leave before the pool closes) and it also has a small stand where the thirsty and the hungry can satisfy their unrest in nutrition with ring pops and cheese fries.
The Indoor Pool in Schorndorf, Deutschland is big. REALLY BIG. It has five different pools, one for very small babies, one for the waterwing-swimmers and their parents, one that is warmer that the others inside, one that is for swimming practice and laps and such, and the last is a HUGE jacuzzi that stands outside the building through a  small opening in the wall. It also has two different diving boards, a smaller and a bigger, and THE MOST GINORMOUS, FANTASTIC WATERSLIDE of any pool I have ever seen (though granted I haven't see many). It is big and purple and windy in a curly-Q type coil shape that goes outside the building and a stop watch clock to see how fast you went.
The pool weirded me out sometimes though, because, though at the kutztown pool we have open showers that you can take, no one uses them. At Schorndorf, they not only have showers, but to go in the pool, you MUST first shower. Something that quite puzzles me, because after all, you're just getting into water right afterwards. In the showers you will find many people who come in after being in the pool and just jump out of their bathing suit and let it all hang-out.
AT FIRST that weirded me out... and i wasn't sure how to react and then I was like, what the hell? Bodies are bodies we all have them, all different shapes and sizes and it shouldn't be a problem to be naked in front of other people, it is simply an American culture thing. In America, being naked is not natural or very liberally excepted whatsoever. I wonder why so many people have a problem with body image?
The other thing that was more funny and gross-ish was that guys here are REALLY into speedos. REALLY into speedos. Some people it was ooooooo, that boy is fiiiiine, and others it was more like.... painful. But I mean if they wanna wear a bright purple speedo, more power to 'em!
And the BIGGEST difference was in my ability of swimming. You see my sisters both were rather good swimmers,my eldest sister was even on the swim team for quite a while, but me... I tried, I failed, I switched to soccer. And I must give it to the Kutztown Swim Team, they kick ass and take names and I.... I can't really do the breathing rhythm properly.... at all. I will admit I am getting better, but as I attempted to keep up with my friends practicing for our Gym grade in swimming, I couldn't help but think, props to those swimmers. They didn't pick nothing easy.
Hang tight! Hope y'all have a marvelous week!

The redhead just won Munchkin as an Ork-Wizard with the stockings of ginormous strength.

And she is very pleases with her victory indeed.
Thursday happened two days ago, but regardless of when it happened I am going to tell you about how it went.
You lucky duck.
SOOO, I woke up to the sound of hell on Thursday Morning (or my alarm clock, whichever you find more appropriate) and to be frank I had half a mind to slam the wretched noise maker 'til it spoke no more, quietly curl myself back into the fetal position burrowed in the deep warm recesses of covers until four hours had passed or until God hiumself had the heart to abort my sleepy eyes from the bliss into the a world filled with fruit loops and crowded public buses that smell like sweat and overly-perfumed girls. (I think I deserve quite a few gold stars for that sentence...)
But sadly, I did not. Sadly, because I am an AMAZING, DEVOTED Gymnasium student, I stood up and shuffeled my way through the motions of breakfast and shower. I Speedily shuffeled myself to the bus stop. I stuffed myself in the crowded green bug of a bus after three other people and uncomfortably latched myself to one of the posts in the bus to maintain my balance so that I was not subject to the inertia of sudden jerkiness (I learned this word in German, it's "ruckartig" = jerky, yay Physik!).
The bus stopped on Wernerstraße and let out, as usual, over 70% of it's inhabitants in a matter of seconds, something I often involuntarily compare with a bug having it's guts squwashed out.
I shuffled myself hopeless down one block to the main entrance and I first words I spoke were "Ich will schlafen" (="I want to SLEEEEP!").
Thursday is 10 periods of school for me, where each period is equal to 45 minutes.
I first two periods I had Religion, which wasn't so bad, actually because I GOT A TEST BACK.
it was my first test in Religion that I had ever taken and I had acheived to scrape a 3- all by myself without a bonus! Which turned my face from a sleepy half-grimace to the kind of smile that could warm hearts. This is because every grade I have recieved before that one that was above a 4 were all grades I got with a bonus for German being my second language and this one WAS NOT. (!!!!!) I earned this grade, all by myself, by studying and writing down what I knew. No BULLSHIT! The teacher took me aside after she handed out all the tests and explained to me that it was not differently graded, but that if it had been I would definitely have a 1 because she was very impressed with my work.
then we had Political Science and I managed to explain almost everything I wanted to say about American political happenings in the class in German! I understood most of the notes alone and if I didn't understand I asked instead of just writing it down.
Then we had French, then Math. In math we are doing Vectors at the moment and I really like it and understand it and am trying to participate as much as possible and be able to answer every question. i hope it brings my oral grade up!!
Then we ate Döners for lunch. And it is quite the art, I declare, to eat a Döner without making a total mess. (but then again I tend to be messy and the germans are not so much (usually))
Afterwards, we had NWT! Which though being at first one of my least favorite subjects has become quite the contrary. I have realized that the only reason i ever disliked it was because I wasn't accustom to it, nor understood it and therefore decided to dislike it (something very unwise to decide in ignorance). upon arriving in class we were to recieve our notebooks that we had to organize and hand in the week before on Friday. Mine, with the help of my friend Steffi was pretty much perfect, and for it i recieved a 2+!!!!!! Which is basically an A-B type grade. All the students at Gymnasium aim for a 2 in all their classes. And I had achieved it and without any different grading as the others. On top of that i also recieved a 2 for my oral grade, meaning 50% of my grade was a 2, a grade that counter-balanced the other two not-so-fantastic test grades and made my over-all grade without any bonus a 3+!!! A grade that I am still incredibly proud of!
The rest of the day passed relatively uneventfully, except for the weird discovery that my pants had somehow ripped at a strange area on my right leg..... but hey it means I get to improve my sewing skills, right?

The redhead is readjusting to school.

On Monday I fell asleep for the first time ever in a class... ever.
And I am noble enough that I will not lie and say, "I didn't sleep well the night before",
because I did.
and I'm not going to make up a story and say,"The Sandman finally found my new address after months and loaded it all on me",
because that is pretty ridiculous.
          The truth is the monotony of a history class was getting to me and my distracted tendencies, especially in day-dreaming, were no help what so ever to eliviate this factor. To make it even worse German is my second language and therefore,  I have the gift and curse that no born German could recieve quite so perfectly. That gift, is the gift of always unintentionally forgetting to listen. I know, that sounds lame, but truly, once my brain latches to a train of thought and drifts out the window it makes it doubly hard for spoken words to reach it when they are in a language that I am not always thinking in.
          As you might imagine, this is quite an annoyingly critical problem and what is worse, is that I always realize that I have done it right after that person stops talking and asks for a confirmation. I will admit at first I was prone to nod and smile and just go with it and see what the hell happens, but as I acclimated a little bit better, I realized it is better to look like a fool by asking dumb questions, than look like a fool by doing dumb things after you confirmed that you understood completely.
         My affliction has gotten less serious as time has worn on, but it is the times like these, when my history teacher has been talking in his white-sound cure for insomnia voice for over an hour that eyelids begin to droop or perhaps head droops to chest and history teacher says,"Deni?" and I go "AH! What? Oh....Sorry."
         Or perhaps when, for instance, your gym teacher gives specific instructions on the next stroke the class will be practicing in the swimming unit just as your mind is straying into the contemplation of chlorine, why is chlorine so clean and good for pools anyway, and if it's so clean why did everybody have to rinse in the shower before they got in the pool? And why is the sun so bright today that I can't see my gym teacher's face, it's kind of really annoying....wait her lips are moving... have her lips been moving the whole time? Maybe I should listen. *Silence*  SPLASH! And half the class begins swimming toward the other end of the pool, and of course I have to turn to my friend beside me, and I must look stupid because she asks me if I understood. "Hast du verstanden?" I shake my head soberly because it would take too long for the time we have to explain why I hadn't heard. She explains, because she is a good friend.
        Despite the correct instruction however, I still manage to botch the stroke awfully and fail at the breathing rhyme, because let's face it, this Pisces was nevermeant to actually swim.

The redhead has also been to MUNICH!

We stayed at the Euro Youth Hotel, which I would definitely recommend to any of my friends or anyone in general. It is a great place. Sadly, we only had two days in this fine city and since one was New Year's Day and the other was a sunday, we were not going to be shopping. But that was fine, we were savingour shopping for Alexander Platz.
After we arrived in Munich at about three after our one hour train ride in which I had discovered the playlist "Ibe blackish" on my cousins iPod, we checked in and then wondered about aimlessly, checking things out and looking for somewhere to eat. The city is just really pretty first of all. It is big and tall and crawling with giant old buildings and public tranportation.We ended up eating at a KFC.... just because my cousin can't exactly get fried chicken in Azerbaijan. In the morning we took the NewMunich tour of the Dachau Concentration Camp. Our tour guide Kai was very friendly and spoke fantastic English even though he was originally from China and had never been for English exchange anywhere.
We boarded a train to Dachau and then took a bus to the concentration camp itself. Löki, taking every chance she could get of drinking a quick cup of coffee while she could, treated me to a hot chocolate as well from a big hot drinks machine in the cafeteria area before we walked down to begin the actual tour. We got a basic, yet somehow very thorough background of Hitler, the third reich, and the holocaust. then we walked through those gates with that message that everyone knows, that has been translated to so many languages and every language knows that on those gates it is a lie.
"ARBEIT MACHT FREI"
"WORK MAKES YOU FREE"
Kai also breifly explained about the alternative entrance to the concentration camp, a small pathway around the gate wall, put there for the survivors who come to visit the place afterward. put there so that they do not have to walk through those gates ever again.
The camp was big. Before the gates stood a wide, open, empty lot which was the place where all the prisoners of the camp came twice a day to assemble and stand at attention. Prisoners that could not walk were carried out to their spots, as were the dead bodies of those who had died the night before because if just one prisoner was absent from their assigned spot in the line up, the remaining prisoners could be whipped for hours on end while standing at attention. The museum was set up to begin in the room all the prisoners themselves would have started in and continued that way from being human beings with pictures and house deed and names to numbers in color-coded prisoner garb that did not fit correcting.
We learned about the tortures they went through... count to 20 in German, each number punctuated with a hit from a metal rod. If you didn't speak German or pronounced the words not exactly the way the guards wanted you would have to start agian, and again, and again until you got it "right" or you passed out. Or the Tree where a prisoners were tied to the high rafters with their arms behind their back for hours or days causing arms to never again work the same way or perhaps never again move. Or the last where prisoners were placed in a small closet-like space where they were forced to stand for days without food or water.
We saw the re-built versions of the barracks and the rows and rows and rows of block foundations that were once all barracks for the prisoners of 1933-1945 and the gas chamber and the creamatorium. It was an excellent tour and long elightening day plunging us into the realities that real humans lived and died in for over a decade. It was quite unbelievable and hit me probably the hardest as I thought of my family. My family, that, were they subject to it, would never have survived the holocaust wholeand reminded me how lucky I am to have my family, to have clothes on my back, to have a warm bed.
And the next morning we left for the airport early bringing our trip further into the depths of Germany to discover the themysteries of Berlin!

The redhead was in Füssen.

As you all know, I was gone for the last week and half or so on an epic adventure through Germany. I went with my very beautiful cousin Löki Gale who has been spending her time in the Peace Corp in Azerbaijan (SCORE, I spelled that totally right without using Google!). If you want to know a little more about her or about her journey there you can click her name and it will take you to her blog!
   Now that I'm done shamelessly promoting, back to the travel shizz.
     We saw Füssen, Munich, and Berlin, which admittedly is only a very small snippit of Germany, but it was definitely a pretty one and  it made it even more wonderful to see a member of my family a little after christmas. In Füssen we saw the main tourist attraction... or tried to, because you see there are two big castles there, both owned by this prince who became king but didn't like his first castle so he ordered for a new one to be built for him. it took about 17 years (if I remember correctly) to build and when it was done he only resided in it a few months before his death. Oh...and this second castle is one of the main inspirations for the Disney Castle!
      Unfortunately, the original disney castle was closed for the three days we were there (over new years). We got to see the first however, Hohen Schwangau (The High Swans). It was quite fancy, with gold everything and murals and this REALLY, REALLY old loaf of bread which was sent as a good luck charm to the kind a very, very long time ago and has not yet, and probably will not mold... Which I find a little to creepily like McDonald's french fries to be ok with it.

     The whole time we were in Füssen we walked all over the place, tiring our legs and feet and selves out. Needless to say, I napped quite a bit, which was quite ok with me. On New Year's Eve the town had a party in the main square with a live band, Glühwein, and "street meat" (in this case, a Rotwurst in a Brotchen). The night was cold, but exciting and fun. the band played some fantastic songs including TNT by ACDC, Proud Mary by Tina Turner, AND TIME WARP FROM THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. It was epic. We danced a lot and as it approached midnight children and teenagers and drunken adults flooded the square and the streets surrounding it letting fireworks loose into the air.
    That really freaked me out. Fireworks were being thrown and lit every which way and all I could think was AHH EXPLODING FIREY THINGS!!! Löki was a little bit calmer, which was great because that is probably the only way I kept my head on. Once we had toasted the new year and walked back to our hostel the fireworks echoed on throughout the night lighting up the sky through our thin cutains like it was daylight.
    The next day we boarded our train in the leftover debris of past fireworks and candywrappers and left for MUNICH! See the next one for the continuation of our journey.....