Christmas time and goodbyes...

Well, its Christmas time in Heidelberg--my absolutely FAVORITE time/place ever! It has been the most amazing past few weeks here! We had thanksgiving dinner at our restaurant...and life has just flown by since there! Some of my favorite things I've done since Thanksgiving are:

1. The last trip of the semester to Interlaken, not to jump out of an airplane this time though. We went bowling one night and then the next day we went EXTREME sledding in the alps! It was so foggy that we couldn't tell the difference between the sky and snow, we made it off the slopes regularly, it was AWESOME! We got soaking wet in the snow, and so we combined our dry clothes and I ended up in a tobagon with a flower, a sweatshirt, and one of the guys basketball shorts, tall socks, and my tennys. I was called Lebron James the whole trip back haha.

2. Decorating the christmas tree! We all gathered in our reception room (where we have church) and played christmas music, took pictures, and decorated our HUGE live tree that was cut down personally by one of our professors husbands right outside of heidelberg!

3. We hada christmas banquet at a really nice hotel. We ate goose and dumplings! Then we had a party back at the house where we had a visit from St. Nicolaus! We exchanged gifts with our secret santas, and then we went and hung out at the castle.

4. The MOST amazing part of all of this is the CHRISTMAS MARKET! All of Heidelberg is decorated with lights and christmas trees. The christmas markets are found in all of the main squares of the altstadt, and when you stand in them you feel like your at the North pole or something! It smells of christmas, theres chirstmas music, and everyone is standing around eating a bratwurst of sipping on gluhwein. Its the best feeling ever!

5. We had an amazing last weekend of hanging out, going to the Christmas market, and saturday night 42 of us went to Karaoke! It was so fun--quite the bonding experience!

It has been absolutely the most amazing past few weeks ever! We've had some hard times, people are getting tense just with finals and anxiety for home. But luckily we've gotten past it enough to enjoy our last few days here, and we're excited to reunite after the break. We have all bonded so much, and although I'm SO excited to come back to America (and go watch the eagles play some football on saturday!) I am getting really sad to leave my family here! Being away from each other for a weekend is hard enough, but a whole month! I have spent every minute of everyday with these kids, which is definitely enough of a reason to need a break, but I'm still going to miss everyone.

But anyways, I'm so ready to land tomorrow at 2:30 pm...see my family...eat at La Madeline...and go shopping for new jeans because all of mine have worn holes....i pretty much am at the point of looking homeless and I'm in need for some american shopping! I leave tomorrow morning at 6:15 for Frankfurt, and then my flight leaves at 10:30 am (which is really 3:30 am in america)....and Lord willing, 11 1/2 hours later I'll be HOME! See you all very soon!