July 1st...my 21st celebrated in Germany

7:30 a.m.—couldn’t sleep any longer due partially to the bright sun coming through my window and mostly due to my excitement for the day…I was celebrating my birthday in Germany!

8 a.m.—took a morning walk into the city and got groceries for the grillfest later that evening…

10 a.m.—met some friends (Chris, Melanie, and Anna Marie) in the kitchen because they made me a special 21st birthday breakfast…complete with homemade strawberry pancakes and mamossas!

12:15—met more friends (Chiyo, Resa, Fumiko—all from Japan, Renate—from Latvia, Aldo—from Nicragua, and Arielle, Katie, David—from USA)…we took a boat ride on the Mosel River! It was so much fun even though it was so hot. We went lower in the boat to cool down from the heat from the top and I ran back up quick to take a picture of the Roman Bridge and went I got back, there was a piece of birthday cake waiting for me! They all sang to me on the boat…it was so sweet!

3 p.m.—ran to the Call-shop to talk with most of my family…wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t talk to them! (I was just sad I wasn’t able to talk with everyone.)

5 p.m.—Grillfest began! We grilled in the courtyard of the dorm and had a really nice time….nearly everyone from my dorm floor came down and it just gave us all a chance to visit and get to know each other a bit better. We also watched both games…I was going for Portugal and France, so it was a good night! I also played a bit of soccer with some friends…I received some nice gifts from friends—Arielle and Katie gave me some pretty jewelry, Fumiko, Resa and Chiyo game me a Japanese hankerchief and crane, David drew me an incredible picture of Castle Neuschwanstein, Lena gave me pink flowers, and Bertrand (from Cameroon) gave me a vegetarian cookbook in German because I am always making jokes about how I can’t cook! They were all so thoughtful☺

All in all, it was a day well spent with fond memories!



Chris surprised me with homemade pancakes...with strawberries!







It was fun to be on the boat that day, but it was really hot and eventually we went down on the lower part of the boat...basically, the boat just past Trier in both directions and we were able to see a lot of the countryside and just visited, etc.





They surprised me and sang 'Happy Birthday'!






I wasn't too worried what the other people on the boat thought of me...it was fun! Right after I did this, one of the older ladies made a comment about Titanic and how she hoped this ship didn't sink too and then laughed! We had a blast!

(I can only post so many pictures...sorry there aren't any of the grillfest.)