Exactly one month left!

Many things have happened and I want to share some of it with you :)

First of all, we had our drama performances. 
Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the performances, but I will get a recorded DVD and I have a small book with pictures in it. The performances went very well and a lot of people came. It was a lot of fun. A good thing was also that here was a lot of food there for during the shows. :)

Baseball is also still going and we're now in the play-offs. We won our first game and tomorrow will be our next game. If we win against that opponent two times, we will go to the next round. If we do very good, we will go to the state championship.

We also had Prom. Prom is basically just a big dance, where a girl together with a boy goes to and they will have a lot of food there and a lot of dancing. After the event is over, friend groups go somewhere together, like somebody's house and will have fun all night long.

This is my class at prom:

And this is me, my date Talana, my host sister Madison and her date and my best friend Jack. 

Unfortunately, we had to go to Maryland again to attend my hostfathers dad's funeral. It was very nice though and the whole family was there. 

These two are my hostfathers parents: 

On this occasion, uncle Bill, Don, an old family friend, and me went to a horserace. The Preakness Steaks in Baltimore is one of the three big races of the triple crown. Only once in history one horse has ever won all three races and his name is 'Secretariat' and they made a movie about him. Anyways, the reason why so many people (500 000) go to that 2 minute race is because of betting. $49 000 000 were bet only on that one two minute race. I. personally, lost $20 because the horse I was thinking is gonna win, didn't. Here are pictures how that looks like.

This was my short update on what exciting has happened. School is gonna be over in one and a half weeks and then I only have another three weeks left until I leave back to Germany. I look forward to seeing all of you in Germany again!

Until then, have a nice time, I'll talk to you guys later.

Spring!

We finally have now spring weather since we had a lot of snow coming in the past couple weeks. But it is now all melted and it is getting warmer and warmer.

Baseball has started! 

Our high school baseball season has started and it is a lot of fun. I am fairly good for a first-year player and it is my favorite sport after Hockey.
We won 6:4, 6:0 and lost one game 9:7.
I will upload some pictures and more information on that later!

Drama!

Next Friday is our opening night for drama. We will have 6 shows total within the next two weeks and we will have a lot of people coming. It is a great musical and super good! If we do really good, we will be winning awards. It will be recorded and I will bring a copy of it with me to Germany. 

A lot of stuff like big costumes or certain props had to be borrowed from other theaters or online services. We also have an incredibly huge set. All together costed more than 50 000$. 

Our show is sold out and the tickets will bring in about 250 000 dollars.

The LCA (my school) drama department is on a professional level and very very good.Three of the actors that are currently in 12 grade are going to attend big professional Theatre schools all around the world. They are really good actors and it was very hard for them to get into those schools. Also, the fact that we were given the permission to perform a broadway show in our school, speaks for how well the department is known in the Drama-scene. 

It is going to be fun to perform and I am excited!

New Mexico!

Over Spring break (the only real break during an american school year) we went to the state New Mexico in the South West of the US. 

Before that we brought Spencer to his 'residence' where he always stays when we are far away on vacation. Spencer enjoyed the fresh air during the ride and held his head out of the window. 

View on Minneapolis from our plane on the way to New Mexico.

Flying low over Colorado.

Once we were there it was really hot and dry down there. But the nature is very very nice and we went to visit an old Indian-Reservation that was found by Americans left and empty in the 1500s.

The visit was very interesting since I learned a lot about the culture of the indians who lived there.

Some Indians built their houses into rocks. And some wall paintings are still left there. They were really small people.

We wanted to go to the Grand Canyon after New Mexico but we had to change our plan. Since my 89 year old 'host-grandfather' was transferred into the hospital after he fell down some steps. So we went all the way from New Mexico at the bottom left of the US to Maryland at the top right of the US. We flew for more than 7 hours. 

He is now fine but still in the hospital. In Maryland they have good Seafood and I ate a lot of Crabs and Shrimp and all that good stuff.

(And yes, I know I need a haircut but it has to stay long until our drama performance is over)

(This is the sunset, photographed from the cockpit on our way back to Minneapolis)

I hope you guys have a great Spring time! 

(Minnesota has 90,000 miles of shoreline, more than California, Florida and Hawaii combined. Minnesota has a lot of lakes...)

Wie die Zeit vergeht

Gerade heute habe ich festgestellt,
in vier Monaten ist es schon wieder vorbei mit dem Austauschjahr. Das ist schon traurig aber natürlich mache ich auch das beste aus der verbleibenden Zeit.
It is just easier and a lot quicker for me to write this in english so you guys have to bear with me.
There are a view things that I want to tell you guys about.
First of all:

Christmas:

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of it on hand right now but I might add some later on when I have time. My schedule is very full so it might take a little while until they are uploaded.
But I celebrated a great traditional american christmas. We got our presents on the morning of the 25th after we ate Dad's homemade cinnamon-rolls. I also had a "stocking" which is kind of the american "Nikolaus". Here in America, Santa comes and parks his sled on the roof and then slides through the chimney to the fireplace where everybody placed his stocking. He then fills it up and goes on to the next house. There are only small things in it. The big things are under the tree. The best presents I got were a xBox (which was for the whole family, not just me... and my dad and sister actually play more than I do, because I don't have a lot of time); baseball equipment and a calendar with amazing pictures. We had a super good Christmas-Ham-Dinner and it was just an unforgettable christmas. (But after all, german food is just better and I miss Mama's food sooo bad)


Then: New Years Eve:

I spent New Years Eve up in Silver Bay, where we had a hockey tournament. We did fairly well at the tournament and it lasted for four days so it was just amazing. Hanging around with the guys in the Hotel, playing cards and enjoying the pools and slides was just a ton of fun. On New Years eve we had a party and everybody had a blast. It was the loudest new year's eve party I've had.

Hockey Season:

We finished our season very well with a conference championship (Liga-Meister) but in the Playoffs we lost the first game. Overall, the hockey season was one of the most important things of my exchange year and it has given me a lot of good memories, friends and life-skills that I won't forget. I was looking forward to practice or games every day. My teammates were the most honest and nice people I've met. The season had a huge impact on making my year so great. The coaches were patient with me in the beginning of the year, when I wasn't that good yet, but I gave everything and it worked and it had regular shifts.

Now that Hockey is over, I am going to be playing Baseball, which I was looking forward to so much. When I came to america I thought it would be super boring and I never understood why people are watching and playing it. But now, that I've actually been to a professional game and played a little, I really want to play. It needs a lot of skill to do but I'm gonna give me best and hardest. It is actually sad, that we don't have baseball in Germany.

Drama:

(Theater)

I've joined the drama department of our school and it is huge. They have a lot of people coming and they are known for their good job. Up to 700 people are coming to every show and we are performing two weeks long. It takes up a lot of time. Whoever wants to be a main character can't do sports or anything else besides school (like working, drivers education or stuff like that). So only the best students who are really into it are the main characters. But I decided to rather do Hockey, Baseball and experience more than "wasting" all my time on drama. Even though the directors said I am very talented in acting and I could be a lead role. So then I am only in 6 out of 15 scenes. It still is a lot of fun. Again, I am pretty sad that we don't have such a good drama department at my school in Germany. I would immediately join it. Oh and by the way: We are going to perform the broadway-musical-version of "Beauty and the Beast".  Since the director said, I'm also very good at dancing, I have to do many dances during the show. And it is a musical, so that means there is a lot of dancing. 

This picture shows me and my dance-partner Ashley at drama-practice. We also competed in the school-swing dance competition, which is more acrobatic then actually dancing and we made 6th place.

I live in a suburb of Minneapolis. Minneapolis has the Mall of America, which was the biggest shopping mall on earth. But now, there is only one that's even bigger. But anyways, it is sooo huuuge. It's the second-biggest one on earth and it's just so huge you guys can't even imagine. It is probably the size of a whole village on four levels. It has millions of shops and roller coasters in the middle of it. This is a picture of the center of the mall. Everything is placed around it. The center has roller coasters, a power-tower and all sorts of things. "Welcome to the United States of America"

For your information: we have a ton of snow, it causes a lot of trouble but our average temperature is -30 degrees celsius !!!! It is so cold here!!! -30 degrees!!! 

The Minneapolis area is the coldest metropolitan area in the entire world!!

So those are some fun things I experienced since the last time. I hope you guys have all a great time and if you guys want to contact me, email me: 16eandrich@lcamn.org

I wish all of you a wonderful year and hopefully you have as much fun as I do. 

See you all at the end of June.

Here is a fun fact at the end:

welcome to america