Frohe Weihnachten!

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I am now in Kassel, Germany with a good friend of mine named David and his family. David and I met when we were matched for a foreign exchange thing a while back. We've kept in touch so far as he came back to visit me in America with his sister last summer. He's a good guy. A good, stereotypical German guy. He's very fond beer and is adamant that Volkswagen is the only way.

This is the best picture of David I could get from where I was sitting without actually expelling any energy. 

David's family was nice to take me in and host me for Christmas this year. Hearing that they were excited to do so took a large amount of weight off of my chest. Spending the largest holiday in the Christian world in a youth hostel was not appealing at all. Pretty sure it would have ended with me sharing some Pringles with a homeless guy in an attempt to have something that resembled a holiday dinner.
The German Christmas traditions are great. I think my favorite one is how you have to sing holiday songs for a while before you open gifts. Speaking of which, I got tickets to a circus and a six pack of beer as my present. I couldn't be happier, I think it's a weird combination of the fact that I can't drink beer in America and that I like circuses.
The food at all of my Christmas dinners has been absolutely wonderful here. It's almost exactly what you would expect out of German food; meat with a side of meat and some cabbage and potatoes thrown in somehow. I've eaten so much food in the past three days that I don't think that I need to eat anything in the next week. I would recommend German Christmas to anyone that wants to have a crazy, slightly different time for Christmas in the future.