Guten Tag!

Good morning! How about that economy??

Just wanted to update really quick --

Last night was pretty fun, except I didn't do anything except mope once again. I am still not feeling well today either :( Oh, well... But Brandon's computer was re-installed with Windows XP from Windows Vista, Uncle Gene didn't like Vista :)

But I worked on that and am now waiting for Brandon to get off so I can fix it more. Also, I am working on my German vocabulary this morning. I have three pages of words, so I'm quite busy :)

Okay, will write more later :)

Richard :)

Yesterday!

Sorry I was late posting today.  I slept until about 1130, because I am still not feeling up to par, but hopefully tomorrow will be better :(  

I am looking forward to getting all my papers finalized here in the coming weeks.  If all goes well, I hopefully will be able to come home for the month of February.  This is only if my German and math is able to pass the entrance exam for the college.  If not, then we will be looking at doing more practicing during this time :)  But, it's all up in the air right now anyways.  

Yesterday was okay, except I moped all day long and watched 8 episodes of House ha ha...  Fun stuff :)  I just wasn't feeling to good.  Today I took a practice test for the math in the college, and it wasn't too good, but I still have time to practice.

Okay, that's all for now!

Richard :)

Last night

Hello! Just a quick update this morning. I'm not feeling to well this morning, I think I really am getting sick :(...

But last night I went over to my friend, Ben's house and we played some Mario Tennis on the Gamecube, and I'm not much of a video game player, but that was okay :)

Then, I went to someone's birthday party across the street. I think she was turning 24 or something like that... It was fun, though, because she put on some music and she started dancing, so we locked her outside on the balcony ha ha!

After that, I caught the 20:58 bus into----Wait, yesterday was Saturday. I forgot the buses don't run at the same times as they do during the week. It came at 19:17 and 23:43, but not anytime else during the time I was wanting to leave. So, the people I was going out with actually came out to Mölschbach and picked me up, which was really nice of them.

We went to a Spielhalle (a casino) and played pool for two hours or so, then we went out downtown. It was fun, and I met about five new people that want to hang out a lot now :) So that makes me happy!

But I got home around 3am, and I just got up around 12, so I slept a long time. I had better go eat something :)

Until later!

Richard :)

Fun fun fun :)

Last night and yesterday was a lot of fun :) I started out by working all day downstairs, I was creating a tutorial on part of the program, then I relaxed for a bit before going into town for food.

After we ate our nacho kits from a really good mexican restaurant, I hopped on the 20:58 bus into town. I was going to just walk around for an hour or so before I went to the little club place I was intending to go to. Instead, I walked by another place and saw someone I knew inside so I went in and we ended up staying there until about 12am... It was fun though.

Then the other person I met, Kathi, we went walking around the town a little bit, because the other guy was tired and he went home. We went to McDonalds on our walk, and we got some coffees. She wanted to pay, but I was going to pay, but the cashier asked for a 5€ and I only had a 10€. So she ended up paying anyways, and I was mad, but she was happy she was able to.

Then we went out to the bus stop and sat and talked (mostly in German, so I think my vocabulary is a bit better today ;) for an hour about different things. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Tonight, I have three offers to go out and do something.

If Ben doesn't call, then I will probably take up the second offer with Kathi, she said she was going to go do something in the city, and if I don't do that, I'll go with my other cousin, Melanie, somewhere. So today is up in the air, but looks like I'll be doing something. Hopefully I'll feel up to it, though. My throat is really hurting this morning. Same symptoms Uncle Gene and Aunt Debbie had. I took some medicine for it, and it feels okay now... I hope I got it in time :)

Okay, that's all for now!

Richard :)

Good Morning!

Sorry I didn't write yesterday! I was really busy :)

I first started with an hour of my German programs yesterday morning. It must be working, because I've been getting a headache after each one :) Then we went down to work, and we finally got the translation program to work okay. That's good news, because it would be really hard to do my job without it :)

Then I also got to using a program that tracks your mouse and creates a video out of it, so that I can do tutorials for customers. It was really neat as well!

Around 2:00pm I went into the city with Brandon and we did some shopping. However the most important thing that I was going to do (recharge my phone), I couldn't because I forgot my phone at the house. Duh ha ha :) But it was nice, and then we came back home. I was worn out, so I went upstairs and watched five episodes of House season 1, only to come downstairs and watch three episodes of season 4 :) So I'm Housed out. I think I even had a dream about it. Crazy!

Okay, well, it's off to work today!

Richard :)

Yesterday/Part of today

Yesterday was really fun...  I worked in the morning getting everything completed so I could work more easily downstairs...  My first task on the job is to translate the entire help file of the program into English, so I should be learning a lot from that alone :)

In October I get to go up to Essen, Germany for our company's exhibition, where I get to see all the other people's machines as well as our own, and that should be a real experience.  Then I get to go with Herrmann, most likely, somewhere to see how a machine is set up.  That should be fun! :)

But, I got all the programs that we needed installed, then we went out for lunch.  I got myself a pair of cool earphones to listen to my music at night, then we went grocery shopping.  All-in-all, it was a nice 4 hour ordeal :)  But it was fun anyways!

We came home and we had some really good Spaghetti that Uncle Gene fixed.  Not the type of spaghetti we're used to, but the good kind with all kinds of flavors and it was really the most amazing I've had :)  

After dinner I built a fire in the fireplace (where else?) and it felt nice to have some good heat :)  We watched a scary movie, Death Sentence, I think.  It was good...  Went to bed and started on my German lessons early this morning.  Just finished lunch, a homemade chicken noodle soup, and now going back to work!  

Bis spater! (Until later!)

Richard :)

The Happenings

Yesterday we took grandma to the airport, and I got an email from my dad saying she made it home okay, but her suitcases are stuck in Chicago... That's never anything to be happy about.

But Brandon got a bike yesterday afternoon, and we went riding a bit last night. Then one of the neighbors trying to learn English came over last night and we did some translating. She spoke English to me, I spoke German to her. It was interesting to say the least. It was a three hour 'class' :)

Today we really get into the swing of things, as we start to do our regular schedules now. So, I will keep you updated!

Richard :)

Pictures from Greece :)

Well, today we are getting ready to take grandma back to the airport to leave.... I can't believe three weeks has gone by so quickly... I'll of course be sad when she leaves, as will I be when everyone else comes to visit then leave :( Oh, well... :)

I'll try to update again tonight, but we are about to leave, so a quick entry before the pictures.

Yesterday we went on a wonderful walk in the forests, and it was a really nice day outside. We were gone for about an hour I'd say... We came home, and then almost immediately left for Cantina, a really good Mexican restaurant here in Kaiserslautern.

We came home and watched the movie The Pursuit of Happyness.

Okay, now pictures :D
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The beginning of the Parthenon (a corner)



Some pillars at the Acropolis



The Parthenon in the restoration stage



Another building on the Acropolis that overlooks Athens (A HUGE metropolis with 50% of Greece's population)



Downtown Limni, a little fishing villiage on the nothern part of the island we were staying on.



Sitting down, and this is actually a good picture, I like it :)



It almost looked mythical over the sea at Limni.



A traditional Greek lunch!



A street in Limni.



Our pool at the hotel Palmariva.



Grandma pretending to be Indiana Jones



Where we stopped for coffee on the way to Limni (Gas is €/L, so probably about 7$ a gallon there in Greece, where in Germany it's about 10$ per gallon)



I put pictures of others up, so I put mine up too :)



Another street in Limni
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That's all I can put up right now... I will update later :)

Richard :)

My Big Fat Greek Vacation!

For anyone that hasn't seen/been to Greece, you need to book a trip there soon.  It was definately one of the best vacations I've been on!  

We flew airBerlin from Dusseldorf, Germany, directly into Athens, Greece.  The hotel we stayed at (4-Stars by the way) picked us up at the airport and took us to the place.  The Greek people are definately 'worse' drivers than the Italians, using all lanes and shoulders on the roads.  It was nice where we stayed though, I will upload some pictures a bit later :)  

We ate tons of authentic Greek food (of course) and I tried everything new that I could.  We went to see the Parthenon  and all the ancient ruins on Wednesday, and I'll tell you that's turned into everything but an all out tourist attraction!  12 Euros for a ticket to see it!  But, it was well worth seeing something that was more than 3000 years old!  I really enjoyed it.

Most of the days we relaxed on the beach at the hotel or by the pool, and their breakfast and dinner buffets were none the less amazing.  Some nights we would have whole fish, other nights we would have souvlaka pork, and one night we even had a seafood bake.  All of this made with a greek touch ha! :)

Another day, we rented a car and drove up to the northern part of the island we were on, to a little town called Limni.  It is a little fishing villiage situated on the west side of the island Evia (Euboa).  We went shopping there for a while, and I got all my greek 'cans' (I collect pop/beer/energy drink cans from every country I go that speaks another language).  Grandma asked why I don't just take empty ones, and I say that it's cooler to have them unopened :)  

Uncle Gene also said that Greece had a specialty drink they made called Ouzo.  So, since I'm such a nice person, I went to the little botique on the hotel site, and bought him a souveiner Ouzo bottle.  Nonetheless, he said he opened it to smell it and it all evaporated ;)  

I got some amazing pictures, and I will try to make a post later today, as those will sum up the majority of my WONDERFUL vacation!  Now I have to deal with the fact of it being close to freezing here in Germany, while in Greece it was in the upper 80's most of the week.  

So now I will be back into updating every day again, and hope people are still reading :)  

Richard :)

Gestern :)

Yesterday was great!

I worked from about 9am until around 430pm, because I worked on creating images for the startup of the program (customized for the customer) and then I also created the setup files for the program.  It was a really busy day...

But I had a great sense of accomplishment nonetheless...  :)  We had people over for dinner (we had an American BBQ with Pumpkin Pie (they don't have this) afterwards, and oooh, ich liebe das :)

I met one of Debbie's friend's sons, and we hung out for a bit and went all around the 'huge' city of Molschbach :)  ha ha..  huge... ha. 

Tomorrow I leave for Greece, so this will be my last entry for at least a week!  I will post a long post right when I get back!  Let me know by email if you can't comment, because I haven't received any, but people say they have tried...

Hope to hear from everyone, and hope lots are reading!  

Richard :)

Hi!

Good morning! Yesterday was a really nice day here, with highs about 27° C (76° F). I filled in for Aunt Debbie teaching yesterday, and it was so nice that we decided to go outside for a bit.

Grandma and Aunt Debbie went into town to go shopping while I stayed at home, and when they returned, we had a sandwich.

After lunch, we went up to Lydia and Klaus's garden, which is still remarkably nice, even though it's late in the season. We had a wonderful dinner and we played games and everything, and once again I was the designated driver :)

We came home and watched three episodes of House, then I crashed into bed :)

So, not too much of an eventful day, but it was fun, nonetheless :)

Richard :)

The fun'ness' of yesterday! :)

Yesterday was pretty crazy, in all honesty :)

We woke up and Aunt Debbie made some things, which I don't really know what they were, but they were good :) Then I went downstairs and finished putting the catalog of parts in for our customer, then grandma and I went into town to go shopping.

I got myself a nice pair of shoes, because I really needed some new ones. We then got back around 1306, and we ate lunch, and that was followed by our German class... We did that for about 1.5 hours... I'm really learning a lot though...

Then, last night, I went down to the fest with a bunch of people from across the street, because they invited me to go along, and it was really fun. We went down there for about 2 hours, then came back to the apartment to eat stuff :)

One of the people made no bake cookies and someone else made some sort of cake, and it was really good! Of course, a lot of the people hadn't tried no bake cookies before, but that was one thing that the school cafeteria always made good, and the person that made these was good at it! ha ha :) But I ended up getting home at 1130 last night, and I was tired, so I went to bed...

Okay, I will talk to this thing later I suppose :)

Richard :)

Today :)

Hello!  Today was a pretty fun day, come to think of it :)  

I got to sleep in until 9am this morning, went downstairs and had my nice coffee and woke up a bit :)  I then messed around a bit with the computers trying to figure out why it wouldn't work, but I gave up on it for now...  

They had a nice fest in Molschbach today, so my grandma and cousin went with me and we went to see it and we walked a bit.  It was nice :)  

We came back, and then we got ready to go to Lydia and Klaus's house for dinner, which, let me tell you, they are really fun people to be around...  We were there from about 5pm until 9pm and we had the best time :)  We played some games, but best of all, he used to be a baker, so he really knows how to make a good cake :)  

Came back and we just finished watching two episodes of House Season 4 on DVD :)  It was good!  More tomorrow! :)

Richard :)

Yesterday

Well, so far so good on me remembering to write in this thing frequently :) Yesterday was a pretty busy day. I was woken up at 930, when I really didn't want to sleep that late, and we sat around for a bit while we all had our super good, super strong, super black German coffee :)

After I finished that, I went downstairs to start work. It was actually pretty fun :D I liked it, and I think that it will be something fun for me to continue doing! I worked from about 10 until 1230 yesterday, and then we came up for some lunch, which we had some really good soup!

Then I had to take a little nap, and I think my uncle did as well. It was well earned by both of us though... More him, though :) ha ha.

Then all of Brandon's friends started showing up, and it got really crazy around here for a little while, as they all wanted me to play with them, and we played some Frisbee.

For dinner, we made 5 pizzas and set them out on the table, and within 10 minutes they were all gone... :) They were good, though!

Then, while I was waiting for my cousin to go out into the city for a festival, Troy came over. If you don't know Troy, he's a bodybuilder and he's really cool... But he came over and brought my uncle his belated birthday present. It was some kind of Cognac, and lemme tell you, it was actually pretty good, as the smell really can deceive someone.

Then my cousin finally called and she arrived at the house. We drove with a friend, Tina, and she's really nice too. We waited for Tina to get dressed, then we headed off to the city, where there were huge crowds and tents and bands playing; it was really neat. After that was over, we went to this place called Olli's.

While we were there, we met one of the people I met previously here in Germany, his name is Franz. He had gone off to the German military before I left this summer. But turns out he bought everything last night, but I made him agree to let me buy in two weeks when he comes back :)

Then we saw some American guy outside of a club that didn't have a shirt on, and he was getting yelled at by the MP (Military Police) (From the US Military). Turns out that we stood there and talked to another one of the guys I had met this summer right next to all the police, so I could hear their conversation with the shirtless guy, and the conversation we were having with our friend ha ha (our guy wasn't involved with the police, he just was in the club by them).

Then we caught the 115 am bus home, and I got home around 145. So, it was a fun, interesting, and amazing night :) More to come later, as pancakes are in the process of being made! ha!

Richard :)

Thursday, September 4

Today was actually a pretty eventful day. Of course, like I said before, it was Uncle Gene's birthday, so we didn't do too much in the way of work. However we began our German class around 2 and went until 3. Grandma even sat in on this one :)

After that, everyone went to get ready for the nice dinner we went out to. It was a restaurant in a hotel, but the service was really slow tonight, because two of the waitresses were gone, and the owner was filling in. But, nonetheless, it was good :)

I got to be the DD tonight, and we came home and cut the cake and had some really nice coffee :)

Off to bed for now! Richard :)

Trip here and Lately

Well... First entry into a blog which one of the guys I used to work with suggested :) So, I guess I will 'try' to start doing this...

I flew Air India over to Germany, landing in Frankfurt, and don't let the name deceive you. It actually has really great service and the flight/food/people were very nice.

We got to Germany to find that it was definitely not as warm as home was, a mere 55° for the high that day... But I felt better yesterday, when it was warmer here than at home :)

I went out and redid my entire bedroom here yesterday. In fact, it used to be my cousin's office room, but he moved down to the real office and I made it into a more livable bedroom instead of the basement. I've always enjoyed basements, though :) If I can figure out how to, I will post pictures of the new room and possibly even the house :) Does anyone know how?? If anyone even reads this ha ha.

But I got a new bed, nightstand, lamp, and a really cool Route 66 light :) And that was my task yesterday, to put it all together... I'm kind of sore this morning, though. Going on a 1.5 mile walk in the forest sure didn't help my legs though...

Today it is my uncle's birthday, so no work for any of us :) Even though I really am going to enjoy work. I may even get to go to the company's exhibition in October in Russia! But we may go out for dinner tonight, with me being the DD, however, I don't mind, because I LOVE driving their car! It's an Audi Q7, if you wanted to know... But maybe I won't have to drive... ha ha...

But, anyways, I will try to write frequently, and if possible, every day :) Until next time!

Richard :)