Hallo! Today was my first full day in Germany. We got in at like 3 pm yesterday. I’ll start by giving a brief rundown of my day- awoke, ate greakfast, then Dad and I headed to Borna with Noah. He showed us around, we ate lunch, the rode the bus back. I then ran, we hung out at the Seidel’s house for a couple hours, (I got caught in a rainstorm) then we headed into Leipzig. We, being Emma, Maria, Matthias and Dad and I. We went to the monument of the battle of Leipzig, then went to the mall and had Vietnamese food for dinner. We then headed back to Ramsdorf. Wonderful start to our stay in Germany. Now I want to dive more into what the title of this is. What I wanted to discuss today is the differences between Germany and the States. Figured it would be a fitting beginning. Something I noticed a lot was the roads. They are so narrow here, and people just drive however they want, which typically is fast. The signs are also in kilometers (of course) so I can’t actually tell how fast they are going. I feel like some of this slightly more erratic driving is due to the Autobahn, which has no speed limit in most of the spots on it. Another difference is the houses. They are a lot narrower and taller. Backyards also aren’t a big thing it appears. Bicyclists. They are bicyclists and not cyclists because there are a ton of people just leisurely riding them. Or using them are legitimate transportation. In Spokane, pretty much all the bikers I see are hardcore. Along that same vein, people don’t really run here. I think I saw one person today. In Spokane, I can’t go 30 minutes without seeing plenty of people out running. Thank goodness Emma runs. I’ll have someone to run with. She was telling me how a lot of people she talks to are shocked and amazed that she likes to run. That sentiment was confirmed by Noah as I was lacing up to go out. Now onto the family. I think this is just a my family thing, or the Seidels just have a lot going on, but nobody has been home! I woke up this morning and Noah was the only one home. The two other kids were off doing other things, Maria and Matthias were both at work. And then Noah left after Borna. It’s very strange to be, because my family is ALWAYS home. These are just some of the interesting differences to me. I’m not going to write about how they speak German. That is obvious. Preview for tomorrow- Dad is presenting and everyone else will pretty much be gone so I do not really know what to do with myself. I’ll run in the morning, then in the afternoon when Emma gets back. Besides that, who knows. Tschüss!