Luxembourg Pictures

Here are the pictures from my second family in Luxembourg, Family Thielen. Click here
I'll try to post the pictures of my last family soon.

21 days and counting!!!

It's true, 3 weeks for this very moment I will be on a plane at the Luxembourg airport!

I'll start with an apology for being really, really bad about keeping you all updated during my stay in Luxembourg. You can thank Matt for finally yelling at me enough to write something and post some pictures, although it's still taken me almost a week.

My first family in Luxembourg had a dairy farm and they also raised potatoes. They ate boiled potatoes everyday with the noon meal. Even if we were having pizza or spaghetti or something they had potatoes. Their house reminded me of the Hand County Courthouse. My host dad spoke a little bit of English and was really funny. He reminded me of a mad scientist. My host mom didn’t speak English, but apparently thought I spoke German because she always yelled at me or gave me commands in German. I didn’t like that very much. She often treated me like I was a 4 year old. Whenever I tried to help around the house I would be doing it wrong even if it was a simple job like peeling potatoes. I finally stopped helping because I was sick of getting yelled at. My actual hostess was a 33 year old girl/lady who still lived at home. There was a 32 year old sister who was married and had a little girl that turned 4 while I was there. Sarah, the little one, and I spent a lot of time together. She’s in preschool so I’d pick her up from the bus stop. I even went to preschool one day, but she was sick that day so I had to go alone. We also spent a lot of time coloring and playing UNO. I think I’ve had my fill of UNO for the next few decades. When I was with this family I went to France, but it was really kind of boring. I’ve been getting car sick a lot on this trip so long car rides really aren’t that much fun. I did get to see some Charolais cows in their native land of France. I also got to see the Chablis wine region.

My second family was a relatively young couple with a 4 and 6 year old. They have a huge new house. She is a teacher and he works from home selling insurance. The dad enjoys mountain biking so the first weekend I was there I went on a 27km ride with him. I was only with that family for a week, but I will go back to them this weekend for another 2 ½ weeks.

My third family also has a dairy farm. They have 3 kids ages 18, 15, and 13. Everybody speaks pretty good English. Frank my youngest brother is just starting to learn English, but he tried very hard to talk to me in English. He’s a super awesome kid. He does Judo so I’ve even gotten to watch him when they have Judo practice. Everybody thought I was going to come to Europe and find my future husband, but I’ve already told Cindy I’ve found Maddy’s future husband. The kids are all in scouts. Rather than having boy & girl scouts they just have scouts, but it’s like boy scouts. The first day I was here I went to scouts with them and I learned the secret Luxembourgish scout language. The first week the kids were all in school, they had last week off and are back in school this week. I’ve helped on the farm some. I’ve power washed the room where they milk the cows several times, I’ve fed the bulls they are fattening up to eat, I’ve gone to the pasture to bring in a cow that was about to calve, and I’ve mowed the lawn and raked leaves. Last I went with my oldest host brother in the tractor to this recycling place. There is a place to drop off grass clippings and tree branches right next to our house and my host dad gets paid to haul it to the recycling place. Last week we went shopping in Germany and we also went to Brussels Belgium. In Brussels we went to Mini Europe a place where they have small models of famous buildings in Europe. We also went to the Atomium, a building in the shape of an atom built for the 1958 World’s Fair. Last Saturday there was a dinner for all the people that had hosted people this year. This family is very, very interested in history, especially WWII. This area was right in the middle of all of it so that’s partially why. The Battle of the Bulge wasn’t too far from here and my host grandma had US soldiers living in her house during the war. They’ve told me how sometimes you’re still able to find grenades or other remnants from the war buried in the area. They have some US Army helmets that they have found in the woods. Yesterday was the 20^th anniversary of the Berlin wall falling so we watched a special about it on tv. I thought that was pretty cool, especially when they pushed over the wall they’d built like dominos. I’ve learned a lot of very interesting history with this family.

Luxembourg reminds me more of home than Austria did. I think it might be because Luxembourg has been influenced by so many different cultures. Yesterday the “Schwan’s man” was here. It wasn’t really Schwan’s, but it was a similar company.

For those of you that don’t already know I’m going back to school when I get home. I’m going to the University of Wyoming in Laramie to get my master in geography with an emphasis in GIS. I have to take some undergraduate geography classes so I can get a better base understanding that geography is more than where places are in relation to one another. Also they’re required to get into the program. Those will be the classes I’ll be taking this spring in preparation for the real deal next fall.

I haven’t been doing nearly as much running as I would like, but I have finally updated my maps on the left of where I am along I-90.

Greece Pictures

The second half of my free time I spent with 2 other IFYEs in Crete Greece. After a month and a half I've finally sorted through the 455 pictures we took and am providing you with the condensed version. Click here

Random Thoughts...

I know it has been a very long time since I've actually written anything and I still haven't posted pictures from Greece. I have a lot of random thoughts running through my head that I want to share, since they are so random maybe I'll do them in list style.

1) Last week my host family cut silage. Most people probably wouldn't consider this to be very exciting, but it brought back a lot of memories from when I was younger. The time my dad thought I feel out of the tractor and got eaten by the silage cutter. Coming home from school and riding in the silage truck with my mom, working on my 4-H record book in the silage truck, running around on the silage pile, having my brother through corn cob chunks at me, and of course the delicious smell. Apparently you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl.

2) I spent Wednesday and Thursday in France. My hostess had stayed with a family there twice for 6 weeks when she was 16 and 17, so we went to visit them. I got to see a lot of the French wine country. I also got to see Charolais cows in their native habitat. There I go again with the country girl thing. Two observations: Their fields in the crop land area are much bigger than those in Luxembourg or Austria, but smaller than home. Their fields are incredibly rocky! You could make a fortune as a rock picker there.

3) Today I milked a plastic cow. An organization my hostess is involved in had a booth at the shopping center promoting milk and informing people how little the farmer gets paid for the milk. They had a plastic cow that you could milk. First you had to guess how much milk you could get in one minute and then you had to put your skills to use. I guessed I could milk half a liter, but only got 0.35 liter.

4)I saw the movie The Proposal in English last weekend. It was pretty much the most amazing thing ever! 90-ish minutes of uninterrupted perfect English. Plus who doesn't love Betty White? She's my hero!

5)I love my mommy!!! I got my first real letter of the entire trip in the mail today. She was even kind enough to mail me an elastic exercise band because I was complaining about my situation not making easy to get in running time.

6)I'm currently playing the 3rd wheel on a date. This is the 3rd time I've found myself in this situation and since they don't converse in English I find it very boring. Fortunately this time I was smart enough to bring things to entertain myself; my computer until the battery dies and then the 1084 page book I bought today.

7)I found a book store that sold books in English today! I am by no means a fast reader, but when shopping for books over here I've taken to this strategy: find the biggest book at the best price that seems half way interesting. I bought Ken Follett's 1084 page(relatively small print) book The Pillars of the Earth. When we were visiting the cathedrals in Germany Sheila mentioned she had read this book last winter. About all I know so far is that it's about the construction of cathedrals. I'll let you know more when I get into it more.

8)I love swinging! I maybe 24 years old, but I still love to go to the park and swing. This afternoon I went for a walk and found myself at the park so I had to give the swing a go for awhile. It was very invigorating in the crisp fall air.

9)It's no Spearfish Canyon. Luxembourg is beautiful in the fall with the trees changing colors and the crisp fall air, but believe me it's not Spearfish Canyon, even if the canyon is snow covered.

More Pictures

Here are my final pictures from Austria: Click Here

And here are the pictures from my first week of free time. My parents and our family/friends from Wisconsin came to visit. We were in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. We covered a lot of miles, saw a lot of things, ate a lot of food, and had a good time. Photos

Why I'm here

Before I left many people asked me what the reason for this trip was. Was I going to be going to school or working, what was I doing? My answer was always, 'No it's just a fun trip to learn about different cultures.' What I didn't know was that it actually was a secret school and nobody had told me. I've been considering whether or not this is the truth or awhile now and today I decided to confirm that, yes it is true and write about it. I am spending 5 1/2 months in Europe at the school of 'How to be a housewife'. This was confirmed today when my host dad who doesn't speak a lot of English told me, 'You make a really good housewife.' My current family has an organic market on their farm that is open all day Friday and on Saturday morning. Since my host mom works in the market she doesn't cook on Fridays. That means since today was Friday I got to cook and clean up afterwards. I had cooked at other families before, but normally I got to take a trip to the grocery store to buy the items I needed to make one of the meals I typically make knowing I can buy all the things I need here. This time I wasn't granted a trip to the store. I was allowed to use the things they had in the house, things I could find in the garden, and things I could find in the market. I think since this is my last family in Austria this was the top secret test. And I passed! They were a bit baffled by my corn bread and the fact that it was sweet, but my pasta with tomato sauce, zucchini, tomatos, green pepper and onion got me by with flying colors! So in case you were still wondering what I'm doing here, I'm at the school of How To Be A Housewife.

Congratulations Megan!

I wanted to give a congratulatory shout out to My Megan who is now a home owner and employee of the Campbell County School District. Watch out Campbell county this woman will soon be teaching your children! Congratulations Megan! Sorry I couldn't be there to help you with everything.