America

Well, three weeks of relaxing in America was pretty darn sweet. The German family and I divided our time between Washington and Seattle. It was partially a business trip for Martin, my German "dad," so we went to a few wineries for the grown-ups to do tastings. Returning to being a minor after achieving adulthood was a tad annoying, but Sandy and I played with exciting things like forklifts and other winery machinery.

Almost without fail, the weather was awful everywhere we went. Washington is aptly named as the Evergreen State. We had a lot of rain and I didn't need any of the sunblock I bought especially for the trip. The worst weather was, of course, when we went to the beach. We spent a few days in a small seaside town, called Seaside. We created a fabulous sand castle but then decided we needed a moat. We moved closer to the water. 30 seconds after the castle was finished, a big wave washed up and swept it away.

We went to a Boeing museum which was fabulous. Unfortunately, Sandy was a few inches too short for the tour of the factory, but we had fun in the museum anyway. They had an actual cockpit for people to play in. I knew pilots had a lot of buttons to press, but boy do they have a lot of buttons. The cockpit kept Sandy and I occupied for a good long time. They had a viewing platform which we had to check out, because planes captivate Sandy no matter what they're doing. We went up to join eight old men, looking very serious with their binoulars and notepads. They seemed vaguely unimpressed by Sandys enthusiastic outbursts of, "Look, a plane!" Sandy got a souvenir pilot hat; I was bitterly disappointed the gift shop only had children's sizes. The master plan was for Sandy to wear his hat, along with his pilot jacket, as we went on the plane on the return flight. He got a bit shy, though, and only wore it in the tunnel between airport and plane. The greeting stewardesses thought it was very sweet.

We visited a lot of malls. I spent far too much money. And had a fabulous time doing it. The children's shops we visited were pretty darn awesome too. We built massive towers in a fabulous Lego shop and had heaps of fun in Build-A-Bear.

Since I was in America, I had to eat a Twinkie, to see what all the fuss is about. I don't really see how they got such a cult status.. It was just a sweet candy bar-thing. A little addictive though.

Everyday, after spending the morning at the mall or beach or museum or some other interesting place, we'd come back to the hotel for a relaxing swim. Sandy swims with floaties and can do short distances without them so we did lots of swimming practise. He was very impressed that I could do passable underwater handstands and rollypollies. He impressed the rest of us with bombs and unintentional bellyflops.

The only downside to three relaxing weeks of holidays, was missing three weeks of my German course. I had my books to study from and some real live Germans to practise on, so it wasn't too bad. We arrived home the weekend before the final exam, which is a little nerve-racking. But she'll be right!