Monday, June 30, 2008

Kannst du bitte hilfe? (will you please help me?)

I'm thinking of cutting my hair like this again and going darker,... you can't really tell with the black and white but it's pretty dark.. and my hair now is really light... so... help me decide k? :) thanks!!!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Fuzsbal....or is it soccer? :)

Germany (Deutchland) is in the Euro cup finals, and as i'm sure all of you know! this is a really big deal....Germany hasnt won a euro cup in somthing like over 30 years....these pictures are from the playoff game against Turkey...they have all kinds of public viewing parties the biggest one at brandenburg gate which we tried to get into but by the time we got there it was closed, there were like 500,000 people there! so we ended up going to this craxy little warehouse that just had a few screens up...but it was really fun!... the girl in a pictures is Gem, my friend who is also an au pair... :)


all is quiet...






GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!

No I was NOT drinking!.... for real

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Mcdonalds....not just for food

TOO funny...yesterday I picked up Teddy from Nursery and Johana from school, and emmediatly Johanna starts telling me how hungry she is... so i tried to stop at a backery that turned out to be a restraunt...so i told her she'd have to wait til we got home...however the traffic was so bad I had to stop for her...(she really never complains so if she says she's hungry I know she really is) anyway we stopped and I got her some fries at mcdonalds...and they both just had SOO much fun with the bags I had to share...


the touring of a Castle








so a couple weekends ago we toured a castle... it was pretty much the last, or one of the last of the prussian kings... it was actually where the stalin convention(?) (where truman and stalin and everyone else met to talk about stuff)...but more importantly it was built for the kings wife... then world war II happend and they had to leave... so they lived in it for a bout 6 years... then had to leave...then came back afterwards and lived out the rest of there days... it's really cute story...You'll notice that it doesnt really look all that much like a castle...it's because they both really loved english architecture...so the hired an english guy to Design and build it... which is why it looks like something out of snow white :)
cute huh??.... it was in a park that ran along a lake which was beautiful

Saturday, June 21, 2008

I just love my German family :)

My kids are so good...Johanna and Emma are always helping me out.. and they always want to do things..(not just sit around and watch TV) and Teddy, while crazy, is just the cutest little boy, and I totally miss him when he's not around...The other day we were watching "Enchanted", Johanna can speak english pretty well so she kind of got the jist of the movie and about half way through it she asks me "Haley, are you a princess?" HOW CUTE!!! :) I said "a princess? no" and she says "but you are always laughing like her and you have long hair"... I could have died, she's so cute. And she's always saying things like "haley, you are fe besses Au Pair in da veld" and I say "you are the bestest kids in the world!" :)

Thursday, June 12, 2008

I'm Blue...

Ok so last night I went and practiced with this volleyball team that compete's kind of nationally, I was so excited esspecially when I got there and found out they were actually good! :)....down side...completely tore up my ankle again...I'm an idiot and didnt wear my brace (because i didnt think I'd need it) so now I'm forced to walk around the unlevel streets of berlin with a busted wheel...So I took my 2 Kilometer walk from my parking spot to my language school in agony, only to get there and be yelled at by my Teacher (lehrer)! He doesnt like it when someone asks what something means and you answer for him in English, HOWEVER! before class started he was asking this other guy in my class where he bought his shirt and the guy though he was asking how much is cost. so I said "he wants to know where you got it" and that unleashes the fury that is the german language teacher!... He totally let into me, saying how I can't do that and yadda yadda yadda...so anyway I just apologized and said I hadnt realized class had started...so then through out the class everyone else keeps doing what he yelled at me for, and the whole time I held my tounge....then the last few minutes of class this guy asked what Idee means, and seriously like, everyone said "Idea!" except me, and I looked at my teacher with this "what the hell!" look....and he yelled at me again! only this time in German, and all I could make out was something about you americans....blah blah blah....then I said kind of off to the side "I dont know why he only get's mad at me" and everyone agreed like ya! why is he so mean to you??? so it's not just me, and it's not because I'm american cause there are like 3 other americans in there too....this is a problem cause I'm supposed to be taking this course for 10 weeks! and dont think i can handle this guy for that long!!!....blehhhhhhhh

Sunday, June 8, 2008

AAAAAnd 2 (zwei)

okay... on to the bus tour :)...let me just preface by saying... these pictures are terrible... and I have no idea what half of the buildings are...so I'll just try and tell you as much as I can :)

This is the Philharmonie....ummm they pretty much just do concerts here...(classical) it was in the news just befor I came here because It caught on fire...

This is Check point Charlie...there were 3 major American checkpoints along the wall the most famous is Checkpoint Charlie...I honestly dont really know why but was a really weird seeing it, because it is the original post... the wall ran along the sides of it the next picture is the original sign pretty much warning people they were leaving American protection...


This is a TV tower... they said it was one of the tallest structures in Europe...Some 300 somthing meters?... ask me how long a meter is... I dont know...











I look like a friggin cow in this picture but i wanted to post a picture with me in it so you all know that I am actually here... no one took stole my Identiy :)...except some stupid fat girl, but she'll be gone soon :) anyway!... this is the capitol building, it was under heavy fire in the war and you can still see bullet holes across from this is basically like our equivelent to the white house and the embasy's are not far either, the amrican Embasy is re-opening on the 4th of July and there is suppossed to be some big party in Teir Garden (which is like berlins "central Park")...inside is the capitol Building (ricetag) is the Parliment and it was funny because where they all sit looks a little like a cafateria.. and the chairs are this bright purplish blue, and look like waiting room chairs... the color was actually made up by the architecht and has specific name... ask me what it is.... I dont know....if you look in the upper right corner you can kind of see the dome.. that's just all windows and mirrors...here's some pictures of that

that's Amelie on the left, Tadeus, and Mathias....

=

This is a Memorial for the people who died trying to cross the wall...also saw the Jewish museum and the holocoust memorial but I can't find those pictures!.. it's ok though I'll go back


the rest are buildings that I have no idea what they are... but I promise they're important... :)

BLOG 1.....I'll have to post two

What a weekend!...Yesterday (saturday) Amelie and Mathias took me on a bus tour around Berlin... and I have lots of pictures and cool facts.... but that will be in Post #2, because I need to get somethings out of the way....alright first just so you know... to pronounce the O with the two dots above it you must be a magician with your mouth...you make the O with your lips but say E in your mouth....I wish i could hear all of you trying right now because you probably sound just like me which is rediculous :)....oh here's a few pictures of my flat!.. they're from when i first moved in so things are a bit more tidy now oh! and the couch folds into a bed so everyone needs to come visit :)This is the picture of the families house with the berlin wall there house is pretty much the only one you can see and the wall runs along the bottom of the picture they said it curved around just after this and went through their backyard...there were also strange places where it went around different houses property lines... like they justchose (this house will be communist and this one.. not) crazy huh?... on saturday morning we went to Emma's Feild hockey game...it was at a very exculsive club where you pretty much have to inherent the membership, or have a LOT of money ... this place was seriously cut right out of the forest...okay... on to blog two! :)

Wednesday, June 4, 2008





I took two of my friends from my Language class home today...(they are two old Gay men... how funny huh?) and on the way we passed this church...The damage was done by the bombings in world warII...I can't even describe how I felt when i saw it, it looks like it just happend...This church is in the very "trendy" part of Berlin...my friends (the gaymen) were pointing out all of the big expensive stores and then out of nowhere here is this old blown-to-bits church.. crazy huh?
I'm also going to add a video of Tadeus, cause he's just too cute :)

Monday, June 2, 2008

Americans can't speak German!

Well I made it through my first "working day" :)... I took the girls to school and Tadeus to preschool, and then found my way to my language class...I really am quite impressed with myself :)... these are not the easiest streets to get around, nor are they very well marked. I'll be alone with Emma and Tadeaus this evening so hopefully that will go well :)... The language class is hillarious... The teacher only speaks German so in order to tell us what things mean he really has to be animated, he literally broke a sweat. I feel so stupid not know what he's talking about... i mean he was talking directly to me and I had no Idea.. it's really just jibberish at this point... he was trying to explain how to pronounce a word to a student and he was saying all kinds of fast german words when i suddenly understood that he was saying "it sounds like when a cow goes moooooo" and I shouted "Cow!.. Ya! I know that!" it was like a reaction, i was just so excited that I understood something I had to let everyone know... it was really embarrasing... then he made me repeat some stuff and after i was done he said "not bad for an American" so i hope I wont have to be hearing American jokes the whole time :)....

Sunday, June 1, 2008

I made it!

Ok this will probably be a long one cause a LOT has happened in a very short amount of time...sooo I left Vegas at 11:30 on the 28th and arrived in Germany at 3:45 on the 29th... it was a VERY long trip consisting of NO sleep which leads me to my biggest problem thus far, I have the worst jet lag EVER... I go to sleep and different times but i always wake up at 2am! which would be 5pm in NV so i have no idea why my body has picked this wake up call, and I try REALLY hard to go back to sleep, but i cant... I tried taking a sleeping pill one night and I slept for 16 hours!...sooo if I could find some sort of medium that'd be great!...okay now that the bad stuff is out of the way on to the good! The Family is VERY nice...and it seems like this is a very lucky thing because some of the other people I've met or the other families that I've seen seem to be very strict and really serious. They both (the parents...the kids dont understand english to well) laugh at my jokes so that's always nice :)...I am living in a little "flat"/basement apartment two houses down from the family... It's really cute and reminds me of something you'd live in for college :)...Tommorrow is kind of my first official working day. And basically i just have to take the girls to their school, and the boy to his preschool, then pick up the girls. I drove the route myself today, which was a little difficult but i think i got the hang of it :)... the streets are very narrow and the people who know where they are going drive much faster than me. oh! and the lights are Really hard to see! when you stop at them you are right underneath them so you have to really strain your neck to see when it turns green.The Town I am in is called potsdam, this is what the main road into town looks like....and it's apparently right where the berlin wall was... there's is accutally a picture of the house with the wall running throught the back yard. here is a picture of the back yard (we eat dinner out here a lot and they listent to old german songs I swear it's right out of a movie).....And this is the area where Stalin and truman stayed during the communications about the WWII they pointed out the specific houses to me. There is also a little dutch village that is kind of like downtown potsdam, it's really cute......The kids are really cute... the older girl, johanna, tries really hard to speak english aand she really does pretty good! the younger girl, Emma, is a bit more aprehensive about it and I think this makes her not really like me very much... this morning I went with Mathias to pick her up from a friends and she said, in german, I want haley to take my bag!....She may think i am her slave... but I'm sure we'll be good friends in no time :) the little boy is SO funny! oddly enough he is teaching me the most german...so far he's taught me Kliener ball (smaller ball) Nacht Mel(again) Dogh( Ya huh!) and Diene Plotz (your seat) :).. I'm sure there's more but Miene Duetsch is not so good :).....alright i guess that's enough for now....