Je suis allée en Allemagne.

So this weekend a group from my church went on a trip to:

Germany!

The drive was so pretty! But reeeally long--it took 8 hours! 

Bless you!
German looks so funny.

This here is a "landhauskuchen"

    We drove right by Frankfurt, but our destination was a small town called Friedrichsdorf.

    It was a nice, quiet little place--the autumn leaves were so beautiful. I really wished I could have stayed a couple of days and explored, the near-by woods was a'beckoning!

     Because I just went up for Friday night, I can't really say much about Germany other than their cakes are more bready tasting than French ones, and that everything was super cheap compared to Paris. The few German people I encountered were nice and very confused when I spoke Afrikaans to them with an American/French accent. Afrikaans is the only sort of German-sounding language I knew words in....so that was fun.

So why were we going to Germany again? To visit the temple!

   In my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--a mouthful, I know) temples are super important places where we not only worship God, but also make sacred covenants with Him. They're different from our chapels where we worship on Sundays, because anyone can attend a Sunday service, but temples are limited to worthy (meaning you follow God's commandments) members.

   The reason we went all the way to Germany is because it's the closest one to Paris. Back in the U.S., I'm lucky enough to have several within an hour drive, so it was really beautiful to be able to travel with the lovely people over here who make major sacrifices of both time and capital to accomplish the things they believe in, and also to see how blessed I have been. On the temple grounds there's some housing in a sort of hostel set-up, so I got to share a room with 8 other ladies and that night there was the most melodious snoring concert. Just kidding, it wasn't melodious. You can't snore melodiously. sorry to break that to you.
    We went to the temple and then spent the evening exploring the town! Unfortunately the town was totally shut down by about 8:00...so we just had a fun picnic-style dinner in the hostel kitchen. We went to the temple again the next morning, wandered the town again (there was a nice little Saturday market), and then piled on the bus, suuper excited *sarcasm hand* for the 8 hours back.

     The ride was actually quite fun, I sat next to some kids my age and I got some major French conversation practice. I have a hard enough time communicating with people my own age in English, let alone French! One of the girls is really funny and sassy and was always making sarcastic comments...I definitely didn't pick up any of them. So that was a nice reality check, I had been getting all excited about how my level of French has improved...well nothing to get excited about folks, I don't have a sense of humor in French. Great. However, I did understand what words she was saying...just not what she meant? Well, I'd better get back to studying. 

 So that was my little taste of Germany.  I really want to go back and do some real exploring! Ja!