Austauschschueler in einem Zug, Exchange students on a train

This weekend was the first District 1800 weekend conference. It was absolutely amazing and so much fun. On Friday after school, the other exchange student in my city and I boarded the train in Wolfsburg and headed on the way to Hannover. We met Onesimo, the mexican exchange student, also in our club, in Gifhorn which is also on the way to Hannover. The three of us drove together to Hannover where we had to get off and switch trains. we met about 20 other exchange students in the train station and all boarded the next train together which would take us to Soltau, where we would be staying the weekend! With 20 exchange students on a train, there is always a party. We had a lot of fun and we were all so excited and just so happy that we were together. All the troubles in the world went away when we were together. We arrived in Soltau and took a bus to a barn where we were greeted by Ekky and had a great dinner, talking, laughing, smiling. It was just great. The dinner that they made for us consisted of food from all over the world. It was so cool and so nice that they tried to represent each one of our cultures. After dinner, we all went up, one country at a time and sang our anthem. Each country also decided to share a little bit more of their culture as well and each did a little something (America did the hokey pokey haha). After the anthems, we had a disco which was so much fun. Nothing else in the world mattered. We were together. Our family, our best friends. Together, in Germany. After the dance and an amazing first night, we met our host families, said goodbye to our friends and drove to the houses we would be staying in for the weekend. I ended up staying with 3 of my friends, also American, Andrea from Iowa, Emily from Indiana, and Summer from Pennsylvania. Our host family was so nice! We got very, very lucky. The next morning, we met the bus and the other exchange students again and drove to this really awesome park where we spent the day. We did archery, there was a ropes course, there was a beach, beach volleyball, lots of different things to do and just have fun. I didn't end up going on the ropes course because my friend Emily wasn't feeling very good and so I stayed down with her, took pictures with I think 5 different cameras, and helped people get off the course at the end. It was such nice weather too! I even got sunburned which was quite funny because the last week here was around 60 degrees farenheit and then this weekend it was back up to high 80s early 90s! After the fun events of the day, we went back and learned a dance that we would have to perform for the rotary club of Soltau on Sunday. The dance was called la vaca (the cow) and it was so funny. My good friend Emily was starting to really not feel good though and so I talked to a nice lady who had Emily go lay down. The lady came back to me later and told me that they had to take her to the hospital because one of the rotarians who was a doctor, looked at her and told her she should go. I asked if I could please come with and she told me no, that wouldn't do anything. That really frustrated me because the lady didn't speak very good English, I was translating for Emily and Emily didn't speak very good German. The other exchange students in our district are our family and so I'm her family now and all I wanted to do was be there for her so I had a really hard time not thinking about her the whole night and it was also hard to have fun. But I still did have some fun and tried to make the most of everything. We had another dance which was again a lot of fun and then afterwards we went again back to our host family's house, only this time without Emily because she had to stay the night again in the hospital. Sunday morning, we woke up and had breakfast, took pictures with our host family and said goodbye. Then we drove again to Soltau where we had lunch, performed "la vaca" and spent the morning with our friends, our new family. It was so sad saying goodbye but luckily we still had the train ride to Hannover with the 20 of us. On the train ride home, we played the guitar and sang spanish songs, we laughed harder than ever and we danced down the isles of the train. I've never had so much fun. The Germans that were also on the train didn't seem so amused though haha. But whatever, we were enjoying our lives. We all said goodbye in Hannover and everyone hugged each other. We get to see eachother again in 3 weeks so that is something I know we're all looking forward to. I love those kids so much, just like my 6290 family, I can't wait to see them again and I'll miss them and think of the times we had this weekend but knowing It won't be long before we meet again is a very good thought. Ich hab dich lieb distrikt 1800, bis 3 wochen! :) Gute Nacht