these are the best people

this is my favorite picture in all the earth.

end

well. it is over. all my friends left today and i am here for ten more days on staff to help clean and stuff. i miss everyone so much. i never knew people were capable of loving each other so selflessly and so deeply until i came here. 

e camp and birthday

well i reached a new poingt of exhaustion at english camp. i could basically barely function at all. i would literally pray "god make words come out odf my mouth because i have no idea what i am saying or doing. i lived on coffee and adrenaline the whole week and did the most absurd hyper things all day, letting myself crash for an hour each afternoon so that i could get out my anger and exhaustion. well not really anger. that was mostly a joke.
but adrenaline and god kept me alive all day every day. i did the most ridiculous things that week. we did a skit where i found my piece of gum that i laid aside and ate it after it had been chewed by a friend, up a friends nose, on the sock of another friend and sat upon by another friend. disgusting. i may have barfed had it not been for sheer insanity. insanity was a great asset in this time. i was on the worship team and on the drama team so i did skits, dramas and helped lead worship every day. who knew i would ever? anyway. a lot of good fun.

it was amazing to see the kids worshiping in a language not their own and really meaning it. about ten kids came to Christ at the camp and that was really amazing! i prayed with one boy who wanted to accept christ...so cool.

well, e camp came and went in a blur of adrenaline. then we were back and school is almost over. days fly past and weeks are gone before i realize it. my birthday smacked me in the nose, seemingly from nowhere. i had a relaxed day. nap, shopping in friedrichshafen and going out to dinner wiht friends were basically all i did. i ended the night with a lot of games in typical bitterman fashion. however, it turned into a full four days of birthday. the next day we biked to langenargen, a small lake town. it was a really nice day and the weather was perfect. we packed a picnic lunch from the local grocery store and stopped at a beach for lunch. a family let us have their fire when they left so we ate lunch by a fire on the beach. it was basically magical. we also got ice cream taht night at school so perfect day.
then sunday.

on sunday night, i was talking to hannah about basically nothing. then matt and justin put a duvet cover over me and threw me in a wheeelbarrow. i was pushed roughly and somewhat painfully arouund the parking lot. then i was dumped unceremoniously on the doorstep of april and steve volle where i was pushed through tthe door and unveiled. my friends had kidnapped me and brought me to april and steve's and my frined Ye Chan Do taught me to make sushi. it was basically the best birthday present. then monday we celebrated in my k group and i got a present from another friend. great four days of birthday. 

alicante pictures.

here is a link to my alicante photos. they are few and of poor quality. oh well.
https://picasaweb.google.com/bittermanwill/Alicante?authkey=Gv1sRgCO6m56Pzx9SvMQ#

so singing?

well it may surprise you but i am singing. sang. well, anyway, i sang last night in front of the whole school and several guests. me and my good friend Malia hacker of seattle washington belted out If i can't have you by etta james. youtube this song and be amazed. it was a lot of good dun and i got a few complements so it must not have been too earth shatteringly horrid. plus, i joined the english camp worship team and the english camp drama team. i am satan in a drama and i will be doing the male Rosales for worship every day. as you read this, some of you may laugh, some of you may cry, but nonetheless, i will sing!
the occasion for my song was the sixth hour. it is a program students do twice a year every year. we just get up there with videos we've made and songs we sing.  it was so much fun! me and malia did the first song of the night. it was well recieved. i have yet to see what it was like. there are several videos of it...you might get to see them. it depends. well. i need to go. busy day.
ps. mama, we are already planning an east coast bode students 2011 reunion for this summer. guests are already confirmed!

alicante!

well we just had travel weekend. it was awesome. and only 66 euros.

so, i was not planning on going anywhere for travel weekend seeing as i had a low cash supply but when my freind derek found a trip for us that was only 66 euros to alicante spain, (the number one place i wanted to visit  in all of europe) i could not refuse. our group of four grew to a group of 16. 16 great people.

so our trip started out at 4 am thursday moring. this was after we had all stayed up until well after midnight packing. the taxis came to the bode and we loaded two of them. we got to the train station and as soon as the third taxi arrived we all yelled...where's molly!? we left her. we panicked and called everyone we could but never got a hold of her. luckily, she caught a later train and met us in memmingen at the airport. theresa, a staff memorable from germany was with us and it was her first flight. so that was cool. our flights and trains and all were flawless.

we landed in a desert which was slightly disheartening. however, when the airport security waved us by without us looking at our passports and when we walked outside to see a sunny sky and seventy degree weather, we could not have cared less about what the place looked like.

we took a bus to the city center and wondered why we ever went to germany. alicante was quite possibly the most beautiful city i have ever seen. it was so warm and sunny adn everyone was so laid back. we kind of thought we had found heaven. we set off to find our hostel so we could proceed to eat. we alked aournd and around forever but to no avail. google maps had led us astray. crap. we were all very tired and really hungry. this led to grouchiness in a few of us. we asked a man if he knew where the hostel was. he looked very confused and after about ten minutes of this we realized we were asking where the brothel was. oops.

so we found our hostel and took far too long to settle in. blood sugar levels dangerously low, we headed out for lunch. i was detemined to have some real spanish tapas so i was going to have them. i was getting very grouchy as were a few others. we debated for a few angry minutes and finally sat down at an outdoor restaurant. the tapas were so delicous but not all that filling. my fault. i told everyone they would be bigger. ah well. delicious nonetheless. an old spanish man serenaded us and assumed we spoke no spanish so he sang that we were no good. haha. i tipped him thirty cents.

so then we went to the beach. it was glorious. the water of the mediteranean was super clear. and only slightly super cold. we chilled on the beach. so nice. hmm. what then? we hit the street market for a while which was awesome. hmm. then? we...OH YEAH.  we climbed the mountain. it was shorter than we thought it would be which was great. we watched the sunset from the castle on top of the mountain. it was way more magical than it sounds.

after that, we were really tired so we went to a sketchy grocery store and got cheap food and cheap cigars and had supper on the terrace of our hostel. oh so nice. we were all in bed by what...eleven? we were super tired.

next day started at eight thirty where our hostel had delicious breakfast for us. we all only brought carry on luggage so we would not have to pay extra. naturally we all assumed the other person would bring soap. so no one did. we found an old bottle of pantene in the shower and we passed it around. haha! so we basically went straight to the beach. waded for a while, walked out on a sandbar...rockbar..thing. took pictures bought knock off sunglasses. we stayed on the beach and hit up the market for most of the day.  i think that twas basically it for that day.oh! except we all got dancing lessons from a woman from austria living in alicante. she knew so many languages and had just gotten back from easter island where she learned their native language and their dances. so there are incriminating videos of me doing said native dance.  then we had friday night. the latest bus to the airport was 1040 and we needed to be there at 430. so we decided to call taxis at four. this meant we had no place to sleep so we decided to stay up all night. best and worst decision ever.

we started the night by deciding to go get some real spanish paella. easier said than done apparently when one is traveling with sixteen people. we walked all over the place looking for the cheapest paella and when after we traveled around the town for a while some of our group decided to split off. so we ended up finding a super cheap deal on paella. it was glorious of course and other frineds from bodenseehof hapened to walk by so they joined us unexpectedly. we were scheduled to meet our group at the hostel at ten so we booked it back to the hostel and met up

we had so many hours to kill so we decided to hit up an irish pub. it seemed cool. everything was expensive so we all got sangria which you can get literally anywhere and for a lot cheaper. the irish atmosphere was somewhat hampered by the spanish dancing show on tv, the flamenco music blasting and the sangria. ah well. i was dying tired the whole time so i basically forced myself to stay awake. then we left to go to a club. i was very against this whole proposition and preferred to sit on the balcony of our firned's hostel. when we got to their hostel, the terrace was really awesome. you could see the whole city and the night air was great. we had only been there about three minutes when a man came up and told us they were about to start their power hour. this is when you take a shot of beer every minute for an hour. we vacated the premises immediately.

so we walked around. our RA, justin was with us and he found the biggest Chinese fan poking out of a dumpster. this provided us with temporary amusement. from there we proceeded to the barria which is where all the clubs and bars are. it was bout one oclock and the streets were just starting to fill up. just barely. all the clubs cost money to get in but we found two that were free. the first was super lame and the second was less lame. so we settled for the less lame. apparently dancing doesn't really start until about three so we were the only dorks dancing in the corner. we were laughed at. who cares? it was fun. i danced my way into a sweaty exhausted frenzy. being a free club, we had only kids in braces and trashy old guys wiht us. it was basically great.

we got tired of it so we left. we were scheduled to meet the rest of our group at the krusty krab for crabby patties. yes, they actually have the spongebob restaurant and actually sell crabby patties. so cool. well, we were early so we sat in the street. it was almost three so thinngs were finally picking up in alicante. we were sitting there and as we sat, we witnessed a fight in the street and multiple people peeing. so awesome. we got our patties and then climbed this huge old tree where the roots grew in the air. so cool. then we really had to book it back to the hostel for our cabs. as we waited for the cab, a man peed in the street and then came up to ask if he could pay us for marijuana or cocaine. we politely declined and he staggered away.

so we got to the airport dead and flew back to germany. and then trained back to the bode. dead. so dead. but absolutely too worth it. 

the rest of Christmas break.

i just found this...forgot to post this 2 months ago when it happened...oops.

well. i finally made it to my frined matt's. well, to his family's that is. the first night i stayed with matt and liam in his aunt and uncle's house. they were a super nice family and we just loafed around and watched tv all day. for the most part, it was only me and liam. matt and his whole family went to his grandmother's consecration. it's like when a widow wants to be a nun but can't. so yeah. me and liam stayed at matt's aunt ruth's house. we watched  the movie labrynth which through my drunken haze of sleep was less than great. at this point, i had not showered in about....three? four days? nor had i changed in about four days. i also not shaved for about a month and my hair had the 2 month shaggy business going on. i had been forced to undergo a night of airport sleeplessness due to my lost baggage. i traveled to the house by cab and train. i tipped the cabbie 4 pounds, giving him a twenty pound note. little did i realize i had given him nearly forty dollars. Ruth and Gavin later told me this was borderline insanity and that no one ever tips cabbie's. unless it's odd change from a pound. anyway. i really don't remember much of that first day.

so matt got back in the afternoon and i don't remember what we did. i think we watched anchorman. but i was too tired to actually know. i know we got chinese takeout which tasted nice. the next day i was far more coherent. matt's cousins patrick, and...his older brother...and little sister...(they were never home, so i don't remember their names) anna...and joe. that's it. anyway, they were awesome. patrick talked always and told us our british accents were rubbish. they were a very typically british family which made me happy. i soon found out that british food consists of bread and bad meat. and cakes. the bacon and sausage tastes really..off? and the cakes are delicious but not when it is all one has to eat all day every day.

our stay at gavin and ruth's was short. we were moved to matt's grandma's. oh carol. she would wake up and from that moment on, she had a wine glass and a "fag" in her hand. (she called her cigarettes fags) she lauged a lot and shoved catholicism into any nook of life imaginable. it was great. she kept her kitchen stocked with cakes and tea. that is all. oh, and the cheapest bacon tesco had to offer. we survived mainly on crumpets, toast and english muffins with fake butter. not margarine, fake butter. we watched man vs food and planet earht all day. it was great. we walked to yarm, a little historic town to get some fish and chips and some sweets from the sweet shop. again. so great. real fish and chips with salt and vinegar are one of britain's best features. oh yeah. mind you, i quite literally had no money at all and ruth and gavin paid for all of this for me, matt and liam. such awesome people. they took us to two tourist towns. york was first and it was sweet. we toured the oldest street in the UK adn got some pasties for lunch. 2 main British staple foods i was able to experience at this point. we saw a cathedral but it costs too much money to go in so we just looked around. then we went to was durham and also saw a reasonably rad cathedral. we got to climb the tower and look out overt the city. great stuff.

new years eve was spectacular. ly dead. we got thousands of offers from all of matt's relatives to go either clubbing or to a family party. we told them we wanted to experience yarm and all its pubbery so we told them we would probably stick together and do a pub crawl. this was not what we did. we were so tired and lazy taht we went to one pub and left after about...five minutes? then we came back and caught more of the planet earth marathon. we are so...naughty. and cool. anyway. england went by in a blur of laziness and unhealthy eating. good times.

so that is basically england.