First Day with the Host Families!

     To be honest, today has made me NOT want to leave Germany in a few days. The adventure to Tripsdrill with the German host students and a ton of people from the band and my first ever public viewing of a soccer game in the Bietingheim mall was just plain shocking. It's difficult for me to explain Tripsdrill, but to explain it simply, it is a smaller theme park with a large wooden roller coaster called "Mammut"(German for "Mammoth), a few larger water rides (imagine Splash Mountain but with bath tubs and the raft ride in Six Flags), an animal park a very short walk from the park itself, and a few other rides. The rides were a lot of fun and we had such a blast being with the host families for the day!

     The animal park part of Tripsdrill was absolutely amazing and you probably cannot find anything like it in the United States. Tripsdrill is surrounded by a large forest so they were able to put the animals in their natural habitats basically and allow us to get very close to them or even pet them in certain cases. A few people in our group bought deer food for a few euros and we were able to coax the deer over, they ate right out of our hands, and we were able to pet them if they allowed us! Imagine a buck or a doe coming within three feet of you in some cases. All in all, the trip was amazing and I am so glad that I got the chance to visit the places that we did today.

     Jumping forward to tonight, my host, Elisabeth H, Kaitlyn W., and PJ O. and Faisal K., and their host went to the public viewing in Bietingheim was one of the most shocking yet fun experiences of my life. To imagine the intensity of the fans of soccer here in Germany is to combine the intensity of the fans of football, baseball, and basketball and combine them. The amount of people that were at the viewing was amazing and for my first viewing of a soccer match on television, it was so much fun. Every time the Deutschland team scored, the Germans would start chanting words we could not understand and would go absolutely insane yelling, waving German flags, and throwing things into the air to celebrate the goal that had just occurred. Deutschland won the game against Denmark and on our way to our car, almost every person in the parking lot was honking their horn to celebrate and were yelling "Deutschland" out their windows. To say this day was fantastic would be an understatement and I cannot wait until tomorrow for the U.S. Army Band Clinic and Heidelberg. Thank you to the German host families and those that made tonight such an amazing night for all.

Gute Nacht Amerika!