12/01/2021: Today i joined my hostdad as he was holding track about the game time of a soccer at his Highschool. His team won 4:0, pretty intense game xD
12/02/21: This Christmas Stollen reminds me of Christmas in Germany. It’s really tasty and identical to the ones from there 😄😋 was a surprise that my hostmum found in the store.
Today I also had my last official college course. Next week will only consist of two finals for Biology and Microbiology. Then my study at an American College will be over 😢
12/03/21: Today i went to the Airport to pick up my host-grandmother. Then we drove around and looked at the beautiful Christmas decorations some of the houses have. To end the day we stopped at a newly open cookie place to get these delicious sweets 😋
12/04/21: It’s winter here in Florida, or at least it’s December 😁 The winter festival was today here in Tallahassee. We played really good with my orchestra and then had dinner under the many lights inside a park in Downtown. After that we enjoyed the really amazing Christmas Parade with all the beautiful cars and lights and Santa 🎅🤶
12/05/21: Our Christmas tree is now standing and glowing in all of its beauty. Was really nice to share this experience with my hostfamily. It’s a big part of their Christmas celebration to put up the tree together and decorate it 🎄
12/06/21: Today I played with the TCC City Band at the Senior Center here in Tallahassee. We enlightened the mood with some Christmas Carol’s.
Yesterday I had my first corndog with a lot of mustard at the Tallahassee Market Days. There where a lot of different vendors with handcrafted goods. Really beautiful to walk around
12/07/21: Today i cooked a nice meal with my host grandma. The green stuff here is a vegetable, rarely seen someplaces in the US. It is also called Okra and I’ve never seen it in my life. We then fried them and made some Turkey Meatloaf (Leberkäse) and beans. So good 😋😍
12/08/21: Welcome to Part 1 of „Things that look like a dachshund“ at my hostfamilies house. One could say my host family is quite obsessed with dachshunds, what I can totally understand and relate to 🐶
We start with two cute Christmas ornaments that are hanging from our tree right now 🎄
The next thing is a coaster for drinks 🍹
Number 4 is used as a door stopper, but I don’t know the original use of this distinguished shape.
Who does not love this type of dog and wants to have this sweet garden ornament, to show the love for wienerdogs 💖
Last but not least is this sweet little clip for bags of chips or everything else that needs to be closed and stored.
Look out for part 2, you won’t regret it 😀
12/09/21: Today i went to my host dad’s school and talked in front of his class about Germany. They asked me several different questions and showed them some traditions we have. In the picture you can see my Carnival Group of Dieburg I’m in (Halwe-Halwe)
12/10/21: There is this German-American wine store around the neighborhood here, where they serve pretty good food. I had some Leberkäse with Potato Salad and pickles. They also had some good beer from Germany, so I had the Hacker-Pschorr too 😋
12/11/21: Our alma mater we hail you
Sing we the old refrain
Your sons and your daughters all love you
Our voices all praise your name
For ever true to the blue and gold
Our college colors we’ll uphold
Always for thee, we’ll ever be
Loyal to TCC
That’s is the complete Alma Mater of my Community College here in Tallahassee. It was one of the pieces we played today with the TCC City Band at the Fall Graduation Ceremony. The other main piece was „Pomp and Circumstances“ and we played the whole thing 5 times during the walk-in of the graduates. It was a big event and a interesting experience for me 🎓 Gratulations to all graduates 🎉
12/12/21: That’s a house in my neighborhood. You can drive up there and then turn your car radio to a certain station and the music is synchronized with the lights of the house. That’s so awesome and it is an epic christmas song😍🎶
12/13/21: I enjoyed a nice evening with my hostdad in Thomasville, Georgia. We went for some Christmas Shopping and looked at the old houses in the main streets. We then also found a Geocache (guess where it is on picture Nr.5 😏). Nr.6 is a old benchmark from 1933. They were used for navigation and map-making before the invention of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in 1973. As in 2000 the selective availability of GPS signal to the public was lifted, it was the start signal for GPS based treasure hunting, aka. Geocaching 📶
12/14/21: These dogs are just chilling their lives. I went to my tutoring today for the last time I’m here in Tallahassee. Was a bit sad to say goodbye to all the kids there. Then I got home and joined the dogs in the garden 🏡🐶
12/15/21: Today I recieved this Certificate of Appreciation from the International Students Organisation @tcc_iso from my college @gototcc . I’m really grateful for the exiting experiences I had at TCC and what nice people I met. Thanks for having me as your Vice President and for the great time with y’all 🦅
12/16/21: Yesterday I received the Swag Reward Bundle for completing the „Kids Geotour“ trough the many State Parks of Florida. It’s a geocoin that I will keep as a memorial for the really great searching for all the Geocaches. The „adult“ Geotour will be completed really soon too 😂 I also donated some of my Blood again. This time in a mobile blood donation bus. Also a new experience for me but I’m happy to give 🩸
12/17/21: Yesterday i went with my hostmum to this really great city district in Tallahassee. It’s the Railroad District with awesome artworks of graffiti on old storage units. Crazy how time is coloring a district over the past. From an industrial steamtrain storage place to a hipster modern art district. My stay in Tallahassee is going to be over very soon, which is really sad for me. I enjoyed my stay here in this beautiful city and I’m grateful for all the experiences I lived here. Thank you Tallahassee
12/18/21: Today I performed a oil change together with my host dad. It’s actually not that complicated to do. And then I watched my hostsister compete in a tennis tournament. She won the first place 🎾
After that we spent the evening together watching some classical American Christmas movies, like „Elf“ and „The Year without a Santa Claus“ 🎅
12/19/21: Yesterday I spent the whole day driving to Huntsville, Alabama to visit my hostgrandparents over Christmas. I stopped at some Geocaches on the way and the Troy University, as the brother of my hostdad is also named Troy 😂 The last picture shows the room I’m staying in, it’s pretty sweet ☺️
12/20/21: Today I spent the whole day together with my hostgrandfather exploring the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. Pretty amazing to see the historical artifacts that lead, among other things, to the moon landing (piece of moonstone in the second picture) and Perseverance on Mars. They had two Saturn-V rockets there, one standing up and another one horizontally. If I would be young again, I would love to attend the Space Camp they offer here, looked like a great experience to me 🚀
12/21/21: Yesterday’s start in the day was a delicious breakfast at iHop. My first all American breakfast 😋 then I went with my host grandmother to a shopping trip in Huntsville. On the second picture you can see the living room from their house. I think it looks so cozy 😊 to end the day I was invited for dinner to a friend of my hostgrandparents. We had a great evening and also refreshing some of their Deutsch-Skills
12/22/21: First stop today was the Burritt Mansion on top of the Round Top Mountain here in Huntsville. A pretty nice retirement home 😂 with a nice view over the city. Then I went to the Downtown and walked around between a lot of Christmastrees that where put up from local organizations and shops. At night all these trees are also enlightened 🎄 I also visited the oldest, still active Hardware Store in Alabama. Really retro there
12/23/21: Lynchburg, Tennessee is the hometown of the one and only Jack Daniel’s Distillery in the whole world. They store their whiskey in the 90 barrelhouses, after it was filtered through sugar maple charcoal. Pretty interesting touring the whole plant there. On the way back home we stopped in Fayetteville to look at some nice antique stores. To end the day, me and my hostgrandma drove through the „Galaxy of Lights“ in Huntsville. A big light instalation with over 200 different works. Really beautiful 🎄
12/24/21: Today I visited two different churches around Huntsville, AL. The first stop was the Saint Bernard Abbey. This is an abny with Catholic Benedictine monks and a beautiful church. The next church was at the Shrine of The Most Blessed Sacrament. This is based on Its foundress, Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, as she was inspired to build a shrine honoring the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Really beautiful golden interior. In the evening we drove to Cullman, AL. A town based on German influence by siedlers in 1873 that has a big Weihnachtspyramide 🎄
Have a merry Christmas and enjoy the time with your family and friends 😊
12/25/21: On Christmas Day, my hostgrandma prepared some delicious Southern Pecan Pies and we started to bake some sugar cookies. And in the following two pictures you can see the two toy-Pudels Rudy and Abby begging me to pick them up. After we exchanged some gifts, which was really nice 😊 we had a southern chicken dinner, with a gravy sandwich, mashed potatoes, green asparagus and fried chicken. Very tasty and a nice Christmas celebration 🎉🎄
12/26/21: Here you see me holding Abby and Rudy in their Christmas outfits 🤶🎅 after a really nice church service we went for lunch to the restaurant called „Ol‘ Heidelberg“. It’s amazing to eat food that tastes like home in a country/city that is so far away from my actual home. I had a really great Jägerschnitzel with Spätzle 😋 Later today my host uncle and his family + two new dogs came in and we had a nice evening together, where I showed them how to play Wizard 🧙
12/27/21: In this picture you can see one part of my hostfamily. We had a great time together and I’m grateful for having the opportunity to meet them and spend Christmas with them 😊 During the day today we went to see the new Spiderman movie, which was really awesome and then we went to play some Golf 😂 It’s TopGolf and you try to hit those round targets on the green ⛳
12/28/21: I am nominated to be the german participant of the month December for the CBYX Program. I feel very honored about this and I am really grateful for all the experiences I lived so far with this exiting program
12/29/21: Yesterday I met with another participant from my program @cellysurfinusa . I picked her up and we drove to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the USA (founded 1565). It is a beautiful city with lots of historic places. The first place is the old lighthouse build in 1874. The next stop was the Castillo de San Marcos, an old Spanish fortress build in the 17th century. And the last picture is one of the main streets there, with lots of souvenir shops 🤗
12/30/21: Some more impressions about St. Augustine, we visited the Ponce de Leon hotel and the Flagler College. The beautiful inside is the dorm and the dining hall from this beautiful college. Afterwards we continued our journey to Miami, where we arrived in the evening and spent some time on the beach of the John D. MacArthur Beach State Park 🏖️
12/31/21: Last day of 2021 in Miami was a great time 🎉 We enjoyed the downtown city today and then went to the Bayfront Park. There was an all spanisch concert evening with different artists from South America. Then we reached the end of this amazing year and started 2022 with big fireworks and great music. Thanks for all the experiences of 2021 and I’m looking forward to all the new ones in this year 🎊