various amounts of progress on various things

Dear Diary,

It's the hardest to write in you when there's a lot going on--precisely when I should write in you the most! At any rate, the last few days have been full of nothing particularly new but progress on a lot of fronts. What fronts? Well, there's the Unterwasserhockey front, for starters. I have been promoted to the advanced practice group, wahoo! And I actually played, and did good things that helped the team instead of hurt them. I actually think I've never liked a sport more! There's something particularly satisfying about out breath holding people while wearing perhaps the most ridiculous outfit in the world. I find it exceedinly satisfying that in my life I have played not just one but two sports which make use of the most ridiculous looking head gear in the athletic world: the water polo cap. And I'm still young...

Additionally on the UWH front, I am finally starting to be able to recognize people behind their waterpolo caps, diving masks, and snorkels, and making some friends! And due to the unusually communal nature of the locker rooms, I find myself oft involved in what I would normally term girly locker room chat with the whole team! Also on the "friends" front, I've been meeting some other people. I have been a very active fake participant in most Erasmus student activities, which is the governing body of the European exchange program and has offices and actual staff in every city whose sole job seems to be to plan parties and events for exchange students. Yesterday we went on a brewery tour of the Paulaner Brauerei, which was interesting but hard to follow because our tour guide kept flirting with the spanish language translator that another group had brought along. The best parts were: tasting the barley malt, going in the giant refridgerator room where the beer is aged, and seeing the giant assembly line where the bottles are filled and labled. Ah, the beauty of mass production. And of course, there was free beer for all, which was rewarding as always. And this weekend I am going with a group of Erasmus students to the Alps to stay in a hut for two nights. It's going to be...interesting. I have a feeling there won't be all that much sleeping. Hey, you only live once...

Yes, so my life has been off-and-on sleepless, and of course there's been fun with my host family and I'm starting to think about internship options. And last but not least my family is coming to visit next sunday! I can't really believe it's already the middle of November...when I left it seemed like such a long time away that they were coming to visit me, but here we are and I will be thrilled to see them.

So that's all for now, although I'm sure I'll add more later as, well, there's more to say...friends, boys, school, the usual aspects of life (at least mine). Until then...tschuss!

Emily