Weekend!

So I know it has been a few days since I have sat down to write on here...so this may be a fairly long blog...sorry!

Okay so I finally got some laundry done on Thursday night! I only was able to do one load though because laundry costs 3.5 eurosnand takes 3 hours for one load to finish, and the clothes still come out a little damp. Plus, the washer and dryer are super tiny so you can't even fit a lot into a load. So that's just great. I just finished my second load today and still have another load to do, but I need some change because the machines won't take paper money, nor do they give change back.

Friday at school I worked on my own with some year 7 students. During class I would take 4 students at a time to a different room to practice speaking English. One of the questions I asked each group was what they were doing this weekend. I had two boys in the first or second group telling me they were going to a friend's house to play poker Friday night. Later, I had in a group the boy who was having the poker tournament. I just feel like 7th grade is kind of young to be having poker tournaments, but I guess they do start drinking earlier here so they might as well gamble earlier too. Anyway, I did that all class and then went to my year 6 class. For the second lesson in that class we had an assembly that we took them too, so it was a pretty easy day at school.

After class, I just came back to my room and hung out for like the rest of the afternoon before meeting up with some people to go to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. The food was pretty good, and not too expensive so that was nice. After dinner we went somewhere else to have a few drinks, so the night was pretty calm and really nice.

I woke up at like 11:30 this morning and went and got some currywurst, which is super popular and very German, with Sophie and that was actually really good. Once I got back from lunch, I just hung around the dorm for a couple of hours before heading out to the Reissdorf Kolsch Brewery for dinner with a couple of people. That place was really good, but they actually didn't have a big selection for food which was kind of surprising to me. After dinner we went to Vicky's house for a couple hours and then out in Cologne.

Sunday, Evelin and her husband invited Kyle and I over to their house for brunch. We left the dorm around 10:30 and got to their house around 11:15. They had made us a very German-style brunch which was really good. It was a beautiful day out yesterday so Evelin took all of us to this castle that was about 30-45 minutes away from Cologne. The castle was really cool (pictures are up on facebook). What was most fascinating about the castle was everything it was used for in history. It started out as a rich banker's home in 1883, he built it to show off his money. Throughout history it became a boy's school, a Catholic school, and Adolph Hitler school, a hippy hang out, and more. It was just fascinating. The inside was set up how it would have been when the banker had originally built it. The outside of it was beautiful and the view was AMAZING! We had to hike up this huge mountain/hill to get to the castle, and I am for sure feeling it in my legs today, but the view and everything else was definitely worth it.

I was so worn out yesterday, we didn't get back to the dorm until about 5:30 and then I went and got some dinner with Kyle and Sophie and just came back to my room for the night. I had class this morning from 8-9:35, then came home and took a nap because I didn't sleep very well last night. I think here shortly I might go to a cafe and read for a bit.