Apologies and highlights...

Hallo!
Ok so I'm a horrible blogger, clearly, and I'm sorry to have totally abandoned it after three lame posts!!

I think it's my laziness about writing since I'm taking time off the full time student lifestyle.  Now that it's nearly December there is so much I haven't written about so I'll make this a highlights post.

September:
The whole month was essentially spent at my intensive German course which was very helpful actually!  Bildungsverein is a really good school for future reference!  I also had a great time celebrating my birthday with my lovely friends here in Hannover who made it a great night.  I pulled my first all nighter ringing in my 22nd birthday.

October:
My mom came to visit for a week and a half at the end of this month, it was SO great seeing her and we had adventures all over the place while we were on the go.  Rome, Florence, and Berlin were our destinations and each one offered some fun.  Pictures are on facebook if you haven't seen them yet!

November:
Now to bring us up to speed to present day.  I just got back from an overnight in Dresden, it was amazing!  The Weihnachtsmarkts there are really fun and the whole city has a nice feeling to it.  We stayed in the Neustadt and walked across the bridge to sightsee in the Altstadt.  I actually really enjoyed the area we were in since it had less touristy things to do and had a lot of interesting shops, unfortunately they were all closed since most of our visit was on a Sunday.  There is an AMAZING tearoom there called England, England.  I definitely want to go back again some day, so much stuff I would do there.

As I head into December I'm very excited as the atmosphere in Hannover is very festive now that Advent has started.  I'll be home again in just over 3 weeks but I think the time will go by very quickly!

From here on out, I will try to be a more faithful blogger.  All my pictures are up on facebook for anyone who wants to see them.
xoxo
Kendall

Sorry!

Ok, so anyone is reading this has been hopefully not checking in because I've been awful about updating...

So, moving on, hi people!

I did go to customs, on Tuesday, it was again a long trek but at least this time I knew where in the huge building I had to go.  I got there to find out, once again, how much bureaucracy and customs bothers me!

My lovely coat was sent as a gift by my mom directly to Germany but any "gift" exceeding 45 euros in value is subject to a tax.  To gain my coat's freedom from customs I had to pay, thank goodness everyone takes visa!!! I love my coat and though I don't want cold weather yet, I think one good thing about it will be wearing my pretty loden (forest green color) coat around.

Oh and silly Kendall, the class that I thought was supposed to start today, the school's website said the 25th, actually starts Montag....aka neunundzwanzig August.  Oops.  I got all the way to the school before I had this error pointed out to me.  It was my fault for not realizing because the slip said the date but they DID change it from the website that I'd been referring to when signing up for the course.

Ah well, another two days of leisure isn't so bad!  I took it upon myself to go to the tourist center by the train station since my mom is planning her trip to visit me in late October, now I'm armed with tons of tourist information about hotels, sightseeing etc...yay!

Alright, that's all I have to update for now, once I really start my class I'll let you know how it goes!

Kendall 

Customs-woo!

Hello people!

I have been rather boring of late getting into a daily routine so I haven't really had anything to post on here.

I still don't really but I will!  I have an epic saga ahead, well it's still boring but it certainly is a saga.  Time for round 2 with customs, they enjoy detaining my "parcels" as they tend to call it in their British English lessons.  So I will make the journey either today or Monday (takes nearly an hour on public transport) to get my winter coat that LL Bean shipped here without registering with German customs. To use a phrase we're all familiar with: "D'oh!"  So I shall retrieve it from it's ivory tower asap.

Next up we have the current event of my intensive German class starting next Thursday the 25th, it's 4 days/week for 4 hour/day.  If I'm not speaking German to a degree after 16 hours a week from next Thursday until September 30th I don't know when I will!!

Bye for now!

A start to my year abroad...

Hello to anyone reading this!

I left home on July 13th so it has been three and a half weeks, most of that was spent traveling.  I just arrived in Hannover Thursday July 28th.  Glad to be back but also happy to have all my stuff now that the bag my mom (thanks mom!) shipped has arrived.

Getting back to Hannover was very fun, Lennart spent all afternoon beaming at me and I was very happy to see him again!  As well as the rest of my German "family" after a year apart.

It's great to be back, the last two Fridays I went to the Machseefest and sampled Lüttje Lage which is a Hannover tradition.  Shown below, the glass with clear liquor is tilted into the shot of beer as one drinks it.  A bit messy but traditional!

Not much else to report yet.  Hope all is well with those reading this!  Please keep in touch, I'm all over facebook and always happy to skype with the people I left in California/USA.  (Note: It is 9 hours from CA to Hannover!)

Oh and visitors are also MORE than welcome...

<3

Kendall
p.s. Thanks to my Cousin Jen and her husband Justin for the blog name, I was having writer's block!