The First Full Week

Hi again everybody! Time for another instalment. I know it's only been a few days since the last one, but it feels like an age to me, plus there's so much to tell! I ended with Nikolaus last time, so since then...

I have been to school. It's gradually getting easier, understanding things as well as fitting in with Lea's friends, but I think I'm going to talk to one of the teachers tomorrow about getting my own timetable. Apparently (according to Megan, one of the girls who went on exchange last year) it makes all the difference in making you feel more independent and make your own friends. So yeah, I'll try to make that work. It's a bit scary, the idea of not being with Lea the whole time, but I know that I have to start being less reliant on her. With her friends, I get annoyed because I can feel myself drifting into my shy-Camille-on-exchange persona rather than what I'm usually like, which is frustrating because it means that, in turn, her friends are slightly less outgoing. We're getting there, though. There are a few of her friends that I really like, and once I get more of a handle of the language and get a bit more confident with it, then I think I'll be heaps better.

I have also been to a ballroom dancing lesson! I was really nervous that it would be awkward and no one would speak to me, but it was so much fun. 6 girls including me, plus one young male instructor that everyone was clearly in love with. He was really funny and asked me a bit about New Zealand, while trying to teach me tango and jive. I can remember a little bit. Although I felt awkward and gangly, he said I was pretty good, and learnt in an hour what the other girls had learnt in a few years haha!

Beforehand, Lea, her friend Nadine and I all went through another Christmas market (they.are.everywhere) and splurged on some delicious fresh fruit and chocolate kebabs.

Fresh raspberries. How could I resist?

On Friday afternoon, some of Lea's friends came round to bake Plätzchen, or Christmas cookies. It struck me just how similar it was to NZ - a bunch of teenage girls, hanging out, baking, listening to music, gossiping about boys, giggling. Although I didn't understand much of the conversation, I felt like one of the gang.

We woke on Saturday to the first proper snow I'd seen. It wasn't particularly heavy, but nonetheless very exciting! Lea, her boyfriend Budi, her friend Luzi and I went wandering about to do film something for Budi. I really wasn't that sure of the details, but it was fun playing with the snow a bit anyway. 

Sunday morning was very quiet - Lea, Budi and I had been out at a friends the night before and it seems like weekends are mostly a time for relaxing here. The afternoon, however, was one of the best yet. Lea had to stay at home to study because she's got tonnes of tests this week, but Johnny and Lissi and I went out to do a sort of tour of Munich. We wandered down a few shopping streets (everything was closed because it was Sunday. I thought that only happened in little towns!) and saw a few sights along the way, such as this beautiful Baroque church, just built in amongst the other buildings on the street.

We also visited another Catholic church that was entirely white inside. So different to the other one, but both stunningly beautiful.

As well as a bunch of other little things, including a building built in the 1200s (old buildings are very rare in Munich now because so much was destroyed in the war. You forget sometimes that Germany, oh-big-momma-bad-guys, actually suffered a lot too.)

Finally we went for a walk through the Englischer Garten, the most massive park right in the middle of Munich. It houses the parliament buildings and royal houses I think, plus great expanses of green.

We stopped at the kiosk to have a warm drink, as it was freezing - Johnny and Lissi had Glühwein, I had a hot fruit punch with whipped cream on top. It was absolutely delicious.

Finally, we went to the Schwabinger Christmas market by night. It had the most beautiful atmosphere - live music, chaotic, tonnes of arts and crafts and hot food and paths that went everywhere and lanterns strung up all over the place.

These are called Flammbrot. And they are really quite peculiar, but rather delicious. The smoke behind us is from the oven that they're cooked in.

My favourite joke of the week: Johnny, my host dad, asked me, in German, if I liked eating kiwis. Cue an incredibly shocked, disturbed, incredulous look from me, a confused one back from him, and general hysteria once we figured out he meant the fruit. Teehee.

Hope everything's going well at home, gearing up for Christmas! Miss you all.

Alles Liebe,

Camille xx