Letztes Wochenende war es endlich soweit – we saw the Magical World of Disney and adventurous Universal!

It’s hard to put it in words, you just have to see it yourself. I have a bunch of pictures though to show you some impressions.

There is SO MUCH so see, explore, ride and do! Characters, Live Music, Shows around every corner! Ob Mickey, Acapella Singing, Stormtroopers or Marilyn Monroe, you will always find a surprise!

We went to all 4 parks in Disney (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot) as well as to (both Parks at) Universal. Important fact: Disney & Universal are HUGE competitors! So, don’t wear your Mickey Hat in Universal!

My favorite parts of the trip:

5. Ariel(le) Musical Show

My favorite Disney movie and childhood memory put in a brief Musical / Show

4.5 Monster Inc (AG) Interactive Show

An interactive Comedy Show with real comedians behind Monsters, who include around 5 random people from the audience into their jokes (Matthew needs to buy Churros for all of us!)

4. Rollercoasters: Revenge of the Mummy Ride in Ancient Egypt & Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit at Universal

Very fun, surprising Roller Coasters with great themes and even some backwards parts!

3.  Safari at Animal Kingdom

Ever wanted to visit Africa? It’s closer than you think – Animal Kingdom! We rode in a 12 people Jeep through a real Safari environment with Lions, Elephants, Giraffs and Corocodiles plus extraordinary Trees and plants!

2. Fireworks in Magic Kingdom and Light Show in Epcot

Stunning finals of the day: The Castle in Magic Kingdom was lit up with all different Disney movie themes, according Music and a flying Tinkerbell! The Laser show in Epcot (the worlds) was deeper and very impressive, too!

1. Epcot’s different worlds -> especially the Middle East & Germany

If you enter the different worlds, you could really think you are in Maroc, Cambridge or China. It is impressive, how authentic the buildings, shops and staff are! In Germany, I talked to some German employees (Matt did, too), which was very cool and interesting!

0.5 Chinese Woman encountering

Between Cambridge and China, Giules took pictures of Matthew & me on a bridge in the sunset, when suddenly a Chinese woman joined him. Her and her ultra long lense professional camera took AMAZiNG pictures of us (under her instructions). Despite language barriers, we communicated enough to have gorgeous pictures and exchange email addresses. It was hilarious, super sweet and simply awesome! #CulturalExchangex4

I can’t believe how fast time was and is running. It feels like the fastest pace ever! Han is sitting in the airplane to Vietnam right now to visit family & friends over the summer. Which means I won’t see her before I leave and probably not within the next 2 years 🙁

On Monday, Han, Olha, Steph and I were hanging out one last time (together). We had dinner at Wild Ginger, fooled around, danced & sang and took over 300 pictures! It was a lot of fun!

Yesterday, Han and I went to Lancaster as she wanted to show me a very good, authentic Vietnamese Restaurant called Sai Gon Cafe. It was very very good and way too much! I ate like 20 % and was stuffed! I scored some points with my Vietnamese “Gammang” (Thank you, how I would spell it)! We face-timed with Olha so that she could be with us in the final moments. The saying Goodbye was sad.. both if us cried a little, especially when she told me how much I helped her, that made her try new things, made her more confident and crazy. However, she will have a great time in Vietnam, I’m excited for her. And we will skype, text and Facebook. Plus, they/she will visit me in Germany!!

 

These days, I am not incredibly busy at work (slight understatement). So what is there to do when you are free to do whatever?

Besides Blog entries, E-Mails, To-do Researches, Fb and whatsapping, I discovered DUOLINGO!

It is an awesome Platform where you can learn a bunch of languages – written, orally and also verbally (if you use the app)! It is also partly individualized -> it makes you redo sentences and words that you had wrong before. You can set daily goals (points) which you get after every session of 10 – 20 translation / listening / speaking exercises. I am rebrushing (auffrischen) my French and Spanish and I learn Turkish as well. Once they set up Greek, this will be my next step.

Everyone who is interested in learning languages should try it. Especially because it’s free! Duolingo measures your success for a week, month and total, too. You can also see your friends’ scores to get a competition boost! #ItWorks

You don’t only have fun learning languages, Duolingo also provides interesting sentences by mixing up learned vocab:

 

 

 

My first (American) Wedding! [No, not mine.]

Matthew played Piano for a funny, cute couple at his church so he took me as his guest.

The wedding itself was nice. As I’ve never been to one, I can only compare to TV weddings but it seemed kind of traditional.

First, the braidmaids (and best men) walked to the front one by one for everyone to watch and admire. Some of them, e.g. a little girl in a pink dress, could not hold back her tears while she marched #cute

Pastor’s words, formalities like ring exchanges and kisses were followed by great songs, applauses and  the Reception (=after party) at a Firehall. There, important people posed under the Wedding Archway (Torbogen) for private Paparazzis and entered the Hall. Braidmaids and best men gave Toasts (or however you say that), we ate a buffet dinner and danced when allowed. Some were reserved for married couples, some for for over 40 years married couples #cute

The highlight was she bridal bouquet & strap (Brautstrauss & Straps) throwing. Guess who caught the strap and was surprised to be asked to put it all the way up on the bouquet-catcher-lady’s leg! I had fun recording it!

 

Last First (hah) Friday was CRAZY!

We drove downtown to go to the Parliament when we saw Studio 117, which looked like an Art Gallery -> in there!

Turned out: it was a Recording Music Studio! With Pianos, Guitars, Drums and a bunch of high-tech equipment! We took full advantage of everything and even recorded songs in a professional Booth! Olha, who can sing very well, sounded awesome when we listened to the record! In fact so awesome, that the producers were knocked off their socks and offered her to work with/on her and even produce her!

She’s not going to do it as school comes first and singing is just a great hobby and passion for her  – but what a compliment! The next stops were very entertaining, too! Olha, Han and I were offered to model at a photo shooting (for free), another shop owner wanted Olha to sing for him, we met a lot of interesting people in diverse, creative shops and Galleries and ate a lot, of course! #FirstFridayLove

 

 

On Saturday, Matt and I helped building a house for York Habitat for Humanities with HACC’s Community Service Club! Perfectly prepared with work gloves, old, ugly clothes, ponytail and motivation (and unbeatable lunch), we team worked through concrete (cleaning up stones in the basement) and then started measuring, cutting and screwing drywall!

It was something very different but very fun! We had a great instructor who showed and explained us how to do everything. We worked almost 6h, got a lot of work done (and sore muscles), which was rewarded with a Pizzeria Lunch!