Well, I'm injured :/ But first I'll talk about the week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were normal school days, nothing special happened. On Thursday there was blizzard, so we didn't have to go to school. Friday was actually a pretty cool day. In first block chemitry we blew up some hydrogyn-oxygen balloons. Then we went to Arcadia to play a basketball game. I had a very good game and I was in the starting 5 even tough there was varsity player in our team who was on the bench instead of me. Well I made a reverse layup. That was pretty cool. And I was surprised that I made it ,too :D Well in the beginning of the second half I was going for a layup, and I'm not sure what happened, it felt like someone tepped on my foot while I was jumping. Anyway, I was laying on the freethrow line holding my ankle. It hurt like hell! I didn't realize what was happening around me. Well a trainer came and my teammates helped me to get to the sideline. When I god up everybody was clapping. In the hospital they did an X-Ray. Luckyly nothing was broken, but my ankle i spread pretty bad. I guess my basketball saion is over and I don't know if I will be able to snowboard :(
Today is Saturday and we have our first christmas party. I'm sure it'll be fun.

Fred

I just wanted to add that we went to a cool restaurant. I cant remember if it was Chinese, Thai or whatever.. It was asian :D
Well, in the restaurant there were these long tables, and right in front of the table, were we sat, there was a kitchen. After we ordered the cook started cooking right in front of us. He did some very cool tricks with his knifes and fire. For example, he made a vulcano out of onions, and put something in it, so it started to burn :D
It was very cool...and of course it tasted very good too!

Well, here am I again. A little bit more than one week until christmas.... I'm excited :D
Well, school is going pretty good, I've got straight As. Just four more weeks left in the 2. term. Basketball is pretty cool, too. We have already had 8 games, 4 wins 4 losses. The last game we had was yesterday against BRF (Black River Falls). We won. I had a very good game and scored 5 points. But my defense was better because I had a couple good steals and rebounds.
The varsity team is 8:0, so they won all their games. They went to state last year and I really think that they can do it again, because they're playing very good!

Today I got up early and I called my sister. Her birthday is today. Actually it was a little bit embaressing because I was still in bed when i called, and suddenly my uncles, aunts and cousins were there too. Well we talked for about half an hour and then Hunter Reggie, Donna and me went to Galesville to ring bells to get money for charity things. It was fun, but cold.

I have bought my first christmas presents, but I still need some more, I hope I dont have to buy last minute ones, I just have to get to the mall sometime soon.

In our cooking class we did some pretty cool cakes. They looked and tasted very good. But I really liked the eating part better ;D

Tonight I'm gonna go to an ice hockey game of a College Team (I guess It's a college team). Hunter got a free ticket because he'll sing the national anthem before the game.

Fred

Hey,
in the last 2 weeks some cool things happened. First of all I'll tell about my basketball training and the games. We had 4 games and we're 2/2 right now. I'm not the on who makes many points, but I get about 8 assists and 6 rebounds every game. But I have an average of just 3 Points per game.Training is going pretty good and I learn many new things, especally defense. I never played zone defense in Germany although I'm pretty good at it now. A bad thing is, that I lost my starting 5 position, because one guy in our team quit, so we needed an other player. After one week a varsity player joined us, and of course he's better then me. An other things is that I'm one step closer to dunk a basketball on a 10ft hoop :D
Now I'm able to grab the rim every time i try...almost every time :) no just a few more inches and I'm good :D
Last practce we had a little contest with the C team. We played them, we had a shoot out and a dunk contest on an 8ft hoop. I was dunking for the GV Team. And I won. I went under the hoop, and made a "reverse up and down dunk" or whatever. I think this name describes it the best :D
Well, tomorrow is another game and I hope I will score more points this time.

And after waiting so long (about 4 weeks) my parents package arrived here. After I saw it I was happy that It even made it here, because it looked soo bad. The sides were ripped open, everything was scratched and dirty. But the content of the box was fine. My parents sent me some "Adventskalender" for me and my family, and a bunch of sweets. They also sent me my snowboarding outfit: snow goggles, snow pants, a scarf, and some long underwear. Some of the underwear was new, and I think you aren't supposed to send new thinks, so the guy from the custom check (Zollkontrolle) wrote a little note, that he should have taken the new things out, but he saw the sweets and figured it was for christmas, so he didn't take them out. I thought that was pretty cool :D

Ok, the next thing I'll tell you explains the heading. Last sunday, I was watching the Packers game. They played the Vkings and won !! While me and the other family members were watching the game, a woman asked us to come out and help them catching two cows.
Two cows from a farm nxt to our house (well.. about 600m away) escaped and ran across the highway, peoples yards and right through the woods. So we tried to make the one cow (we split our group because one cow ran across the highway, the other in the woods) which was in the woods to walk away from the roads and then to the farm. We had a hard time doing that. I took us about an hour and a half to bring the cow back to the farm, but when I think about it it was fun! A neighbour gave me a ride home with his fourwheeler. We just went through the field. That was pretty cool, too.

Next week is midterm and in just 19 days Christmas is here.

Fred

Hey, I'm pretty sure, that all my last post started like: Sorry that i didn't post for a long time, but I have so many things to do....
Well that's the truth :D
Last monday I went curling again, It's still fun, and I'm gtting better. Next week theres a woman who's going to the Olympics, who shows us how to curl right.
School is going pretty good. My grades are good. On Wednesday morning I went down to La Crosse to get my sports physical. It's a letter that sais that I'm healthy. Well after that, I went to school, but I went to the world geography class. We exchange students were there to talk about out home countries. It was fun. In 4th Block Lisa and me left after half an hour to go to out gourmet foods class. On Tuesday w prepared food, and on this day, we had a gourmet foods thanksgiving dinner :D It was sooo tasty ! We had Turkey, apple pie, mashed potatoes, a good cake and so much more. I'm so glad that I took the gourmt foods class :D And we don't just eat, we actually learn something in that class too :D
Well on Thursday was thanksgiving and we're in the Thanksgiving holiday right now. On Thursday we went to Kevins sister Donna. We went there for her Thanksgiving dinner. It was very good. I'm sure I could have eaten all the time, but I was so full after 2 plates :D We watched football and we talked. After we arrived home, Donna went up to Minneapolis to bring Hunter to the airport. He had to go to Georgia for an University thing. Reggie and me went to Wandas house. We had pasta. Chris and Betty and Dwayne (grandma + grandpa) were there, too. Then we decided to drive up to La Crosse for Black friday shopping. There were some very good deals, but I really didn't want to stand in line for more then one hour. It was crazy. I guess I'm gonna go there in a week to get some winter clothes.
Today is friday and we had basketball pictures and basketball practice. It was pretty good but very hard. We worked on our 1-3-1 zone which is very good for defense. We got some new players from the first team, too. I hope I can still play starting 5. Well, well see on our next game on Tuesday :D All in all the things are goning pretty well here. And I hope My next post will come earlier than this one came :D
Fred

*And I realized that on the Thanksgiving day I was in the US for 100 days :)

Something I want to add...
Gun Deer Hunting season starts next week. Many people are going to hunt. I wonder if I'm allowed to do that, but I think it would be cool to shoot a deer :D
That would be something I'll probably never do again in my life..^^
Well, I'll see ;)

Hey,
many things happened during the last days, but I don't have time to post something everyday.
Ok, I'll start with Saturday evening. It's the night where I wrote my last post. Dyland and me went to the new James Bond movie Skyfall. At about 7 we went to Onalaska to the movie theatre. It was pretty packed. The movie is very good. The movie has a thrilling beginning and wants you to see the rest of the movie although the ending is a bit weird. I recommend this movie.

On Sunday next day I had a very good breakfast and then Daulton came over. We went outside and we shot some clay pigeons. I did pretty good - just missed once. After that we found a big old tv carton with a woman on it. It was a very big case, so we put it about 20 meters away and shout on it. Daulton hit her right in the left eye :D It was fun :D
Well, after that I did my homwork and I vacumed my room and the living room.

Monday was a normal day of school, after school - basketball. I think I showed the coach now, that I'm a good player. He speaks good about me.
Well after basketball I spontaneous decided to go to curling with Reggie. Ok, I've seen it in tv several time, but I've never curled bevore. Actually It's now that easy, but there was a woman who showed me how to do all that stuff. Most of my friends know, that when I start something or I'm in a game I really want to win it, or do it well, and so curling. I guess I did pretty good at the end. It's fun!
The next day, Tuesday, the basketball teams had their first scrimmage game scheduled. So after school we went to Altouna (or whatever...). It was a long bus ride, about an hour.
Our first game was agianst Whitehall. We totally lost that game. We did pretty bad and they did pretty good, plus they were very big and tall. I didn't score.
The second game was better. It was close. I think we won. I scored six points.
Because it was a scrimmage we played just 24 minutes against each team. So the scores were lower. After the games there was a pasta dinner for all teams. I went to bed right after I came home - soo tired..
Well, I think that was all for now,
Fred

Hey,
today is saturday, and I just arrived home from Matt. Reggie and me were at his house and we were playing minecraft and watching movies..:D
It was fun, but after a while I fell asleep because I'm not the biggest Mincraft fan :D

Well, the last week was the first week of the second term. Actually I like my schedule of the second term better than the one I had in my first Term. Now I have Chemistry, American History, Band/Choir and my 4th block class is a cooking class :)
I can relax after my first to classes. I like that, because in the first term I had American History in 4th block.
The cooking class is great. We've already done some taccos, and hamburgers...and I realized that it's perfect to have the class in 4th block because I'm always hungry after school, but now I can eat in 4th block :D Of course there are nice students in the class. It's fun to cook with them. And I actually learn something in the class :D

Offical basketball practice started too. It's pretty cool. Everyone is very ambitious and also very good, compared to Germany. The level here is much higher although I'm in the 2. team. I'm looking foreward to our first game on Tuesday.

Fred

Hey, today is the day after my trip to Minneapolis. I was very tired so i slept in. After I woke up Reggie, me and Chris went to La Crosse, Reggie got his glasses fixed.

Well, on Friday I got up at about 5am, and Donna took me to Winona where we met the group.
The bus ride was very long, but i felt like it was shorter than the one to Madison. Well it was cool to meet all the exchange students again. Dimitri, Nikita, Flores (well, I see him in the school everyday too ;) Ksyusha, Nils and many others. Maybe that's why the bus ride seemed shorter, we were talking all the time and just having fun! Then we arrived in Minneapolis, a beautyful city! The first things I saw were a cool bridge and a river :D It lokked pretty. Well the first thing we visited was a science and technicalmuseum. It was fun, We saw some dinosaurs, and much Egyptian stuff. It was kinda cool to talk with a guy who worked there, because I've been in Egypt.
After that we went to a famous park called Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. That park was very cool, and in the middle there was a very small lake and a bery big spoon with a cherry. Don't ask me why, but it actually looked very cool. Then we took a group picture and we got soda. After that we went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. That was very cool. Actually I thought I'm not very interested in Art, but there were modern and old pictures. Weird constructions, random chairs or tables or Just paintings with a yellow and a blue point in it...but I liked it, I would go there again. Actually I think I should visit some more art museums because I had fun looking at all these paintings.
But at 3:30pm we went to the Mall of America! The biggest Mall in America. 520 stores and 50 restaurants and in the middle of the mall... a nickelodeon park with rollercoasters and other rides. I was big.. 4 stories, one full of restaurants. We went through all of them and it took us 1h per story. And we didn't even go to every cool shop. It was just fun to go through there. In one of the foor lockers I bought a Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt. And of course the cashier noticed that I'm not from the US. I told her that I'm from Germany. She was very interested in Germany so we talked for a little bit. Then she asked for my name and I said Fred, then she yelled: You don't look like a Fred, You look like a Don, I call you Don! :D i just thought it was very funny! Well after the conversation we went to eat something at McDonalds. After that we went to Hooters to take some pictures with the girls who work there :P Bad boy Fred :D
When we were on our way back to the meeting point (after 4 hours of shopping) me, Nils and Dimitri were stopped by a police man. But first I have to tell you that people under 16 aren't allowed to walk through the Mall of America without a person who's 21, because there were several shootings between gangs. And there was a terrorist attack planned ot the Mall.
But we were told (by Donna Ryan our CC) we just have to have a person who's 18. Dimitri is 18 so we thought we're OK. Well, so the police man stopped us and we showed our passports, the problem was, Dimitri was 18 he was OK, but me and Nils had to stay with the police man. Unfortunately noone had Donnas number (no I have it in my phone..^^) so Dimitri went to get Donna Ryan to pick us up.
Now we were in the middle of the Mall with a police man...and I have to say, it was the best time in the mall!! The police man was soo nice. He was interested in Germany, Europe and other languages, he told us about himself and his gradparents who came from Europe. Just a very nice guy, but kinda scary looking with his big gun and uniform :D
Well Donna picked us up and we saied bye to the policeman. Donna Ryan was a bit shocked, but we had a good time with the police man, so she got calm very fast :D
Back in the hotel we directly went to the pool....wirlpool :) I guess I was in there way too long, but I just felt like relaxing in warm water :D On the next moring I went to breakfast in my sweatpants and my sleeping shirt....but everybody was already dressed up. Well, I ate my breakfast and then I got dressed.
I filled out a paper with questions like how I like my school, host family, if my grades are good.
After that we went to the Dinner Theatre in Minneapolis. An old theatre where you can eat while you watch the play. We saw the play: bye bye birdy!
It was a fun play about a guy like Elvis who was drafted into the army and who should give one last kiss to a girl. The play was overacted, but on purpose, so it was ok. Actually it was a Musical. I liked it. Directly after the play was over we got on the bus and we went home to Winona. I think we should have done somethig else on this day, because we had plenty of time left. Well, in Winona I got picked up by Chris and Donna and we went to Wallmart :)
That was my trip to Minneapolis, I would always go there again. I had a good time.

Fred