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.