Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

This morning I got up around 8:30 to call Caitlyn while she was at Elonthon. She didn't answer, so I went back to sleep for a little while. I didn't leave myself too much time to get ready for church, but I got ready pretty quickly and then ran out the door to catch the bus. It was leaving just as I got to the stairs so I walked to Bismarckplatz to find another bus. I found one there and on my way to the train station I saw Maressa, Heidi and Maressa's friend Mona walking. I guess they had missed the bus too. I found Charis once I got to the train station and then we waited on the others to arrive. Allison and Sarah walked up a few minutes later and then we all took off for church. We all sat near the front and almost filled a whole row. I really like that this church sings a lot before the sermon. Most of the songs were in German and I didn't know the ones that were in English. We did sing a song that I heard last semester at Campus fuer Christus called 'Grosser, Herrlischer Gott." I really like that song. Church was pretty long...I think an hour and a half? The pastor spoke in English and his wife translated for him. She isn't quite as good as the translator from Victory International, but she was entertaining. After church they have a free lunch, but it was going to be a half an hour before it was ready and I knew that we would probably be there forever if we stayed. So I took the bus back and got a nice tour of Neuenheimer Feld and the town across the bridge. It was actually kind of nice to just hang out on the bus for a bit and see what else is in/around Heidelberg!

Anna was at our apartment with her mom and grandma when I got back. It was really great to see her again. We talked for a few minutes and then I tried calling Caitlyn one more time. I found out that she actually wasn't doing Elonthon for 24 hours because she was leaving for Las Vegas today for a conference. But we got to talk for about a half an hour and it was so great to catch up! A little while later Mattias knocked on my door to see if I wanted to see some of his pictures. He showed me pictures of his family, including some of his grandmother when she was a child. I had to laugh a little in my head because of the wide variety of pictures he was showing. He also showed me some from when he was in the army for 9 months. German guys have to do some sort of military work after graduating from high school. He just had a desk job, but still had to wear a uniform and go through some training. Pretty interesting. I have a kind of hard time understanding him, though. His vocabulary is much greater than the people I normally talk to and he speaks kind of fast. I had to laugh again when he asked me what other pictures I would like to see. I noticed that he had folders for Russia and Paris so I suggested one of those. And to that he said "or Poland?" Umm sure. So we looked at pictures from Poland. He then wanted to know if I had any pictures that I could show him so I just showed him the ones that I have hanging in my room. Then his friend came over and then went on a really long bike ride.

After he left Julia, Anna and I talked for awhile. Julia of course complained about the Internet, Mattias and everything else in life. I really just don't understand this girl. Anna told us about a show that reunites people. One of her friends, Johanna (who lives upstairs) studied in Australia for awhile and met a guy there. They dated for awhile and then kept in touch when she came back to Germany. But the distance was too much, so they broke up. Well a few months ago Johanna's roommaes Rabea wrote a letter to this show and a few weeks ago they contacted Johanna and Nick. So tonight the show was on TV with them. Nick and Johanna had stopped by and told Anna all of this and Anna was of course so excited. She gets excited about a lot of things and this was no exception! Pretty cool, though!

Maressa stopped by for a bit after she dropped her friend off at the train station. We talked for a few minutes and then Heidi knocked on the window. We hung out for about a half an hour and then they both left to do homework and stuff. When Matthias came back from his bike ride, ate dinner and showered, he asked if I could show him some more pictures. I asked if there was anything in particular that he wanted to see and he said "pictures from America." So I showed him ones from graduation, football games, Elon, Lake Norman, etc. He thought the cheerleaders from the football games were cool because he'd only seen them in movies. He also liked the pictures from graduation where everyone was wearing the robes and then from when we threw our hats in the air. He's pretty much interested in learning anything he can about American culture, which is pretty cool. I feel so bad sometimes because I don't know exactly what he's asking me and I don't really know how to explain what I want to say. Sometimes I just explain things in English, but usually I try in German and then he can kind of fill in the blanks when I don't know what to say. Hopefully talking with him more will help improve my German. If only I could remember the words that I lear from him!