I'm worn out. That party was long.

And exhausting. But fun.

Scott and I left really early to go to the train station because the teacher emphasized that trains in the directionof his house are not very frequent, and we got to the connecting station over half an hour early. So we walked around a bit and took turns going to the bathroom (the train stations here all have public restrooms... and water fountains on the platforms) and then went back to wait around some more. The train left prompty at 9:10 like it said and we got to the train station by the teacher's house in ten minutes. He was waiting for us and we walked to the community center where his son's group meets. He had kept calling them Boy Scouts so I was a bit surprised that it was a mixed-gender group leaning more towards girls. We played some odd game that I didn't really understand and then sat around in a room and introduced ourselves and the kids were supposed to guess where we were from... one kid guessed I was from Finland. Which I guess is a better guess than the kid who said the Phillipeans, but he has also said Silke was Filipino. So maybe that was the only country he could think of. Then we got in groups and my group was lame and had no talents (the Indonesian girls had got some instruments and two grad students from Taiwan had those things you spin on a rope with two sticks... like at the renaissance fair. But Kim, Scott, Gene and Silke and I had no props and they learned (sort of) how to count in German (I thought it was funny none of them could say zehn (ten) correctly). And how to say the following in English and German:

Konnichiwa-Hello-Guten Tag
Hajimemashite-Nice to meet you-Schon dich zu sehen
Arigatou-Thank you- Danke
Sayounara-Goodbye-Auf Wiedersehen

Then we played a mutant charades-telephone game and it was weird. After the little kids group was over we walked to his house along this canal thing and through a park - it was very pretty. But kind of far.

The teacher designed his own house and it was really nice. He wanted a yard so the house is kind of small, but it has a basement with a family room and tv room, the first floor has a kitchen and a living room and the third floor is kind of like the attic - the ceiling was wood and open but it was the bedrooms. The middle of the house was the staircase and you could see from the basement to the skylights. His wife had made yakisoba (noodles with meat and vegetables stirred together) and we made california roll style sushi with egg and cucumber and avacado and lettuce and crab and tuna. It was really good. And there were shu mai. His younger kid was obviously getting really wound up and hyper and was climbing on Scott and things were getting a little hilarious and out of hand so we all went to the park across from his house and played soccer. That was a lot of fun. Then we went back inside and had some apple cake.

We walked back to the train station and came back to the dorm. I was really tired and didn't really feel like writing but I knew I would get lazy and not write if I didn't do it now.

zzz.