These are the real logs, i can't remember enough detail to make up ones from individual days, these will be scattered and confusing, but they are all i have at this point. July 28th/29th (There is no time) I miss all of you already! WHere you are it is only 8 PM or so but here I am, and in a few hours it will be late morning and i will be standing on the other side of the earth from home. It feels as though i have stepped into another world, like everything i loved back home, all my good times with friends, everything; that it never happened at all or happened a very long time ago. this is a world of turbulence, cold food, and toilets that have rotating covres so you never have to sit your bare ass where someone else's once sat. this is a world of sitting on land with gray carpet for grass in a gray chair that is leaking stuffing to watch the river of nameless warm bodies that you barely notice and will never see again flow by quickly, or trying to swim in this river. This is a world where time is inconstant and irrelevant. I am sitting here, needing to pee quite badly trying not to notice the incredibly gorgeous German guy sitting across from me trying to relax and pretend like I'm confortable in the abck of this plane unable to stretch out my legs. Amazing coincidences, [ommitted. instead, here is a memory that came to my head, and i had not remembered to put down in the log. on the shuttle between parts of the airport in frankfurt, it was very very crowded, and some man standing next to where i was sitting (i believe he may have been in the military, he was wearing camo.) had a cigarette in his mouth like he couldn't wait to light it, talking rapidly in German. the bus lurched, and the cig flew out under where i was sitting. i reached down and got it for him, gave it to him, he smiled at me, thanked me kindly in german, and went back to talking rapidly. i don't know where this memory came from, but anyway...]Damn turbulence, I really need to take care of some things...I guess this stupid log will end up being cherished, and hopefully not lost like my favorite Orance Beach...I still wonder what happened to that book. my, how times change. i haven't even talked to golly in a good two weeks or more, people come and go from my life so quickly, it seems. Being the [can't read the word] that i am, i left the stupid addresses at home. hopefully we can have the neighbors go into our house and get them, or something, and email them to us. well, i don't have much else to write... love, becca. Sunday August 1st? 8:01 Sorry that i have't written in so long, but i have been impossibly busy, and tired!! There is so much to do and so litle time, it drives me crazy! I could not start the Odyssey on the plane as planned because i was too tired to understand it. I was happy to leave St. Louis on a good side with everyone. I slept none on the plane, didn't use sleeping pills, I was too afraid I would do something embaressing in front of the hot German guy behind me like snore or drool. That was the first time I had seen a sunset and sunrise in sucession and within a few hours of each other. The flight seemed days long, mostly because i had to pee very badly and the pilot simply WOULD NOT turn the fasten seat belts sign off for hours and hours. Finally I couldn't take it any longer, and I went anyway. The flush was very loud and it made me jump. I actually began to look forward to turbulence, anything to make things less monotonous. We rented a VW Touran, which Dad had trouble driving "The German Way" at first. Their speed limits are so high! 70 KMH on a narrow windy road without lanes, it is madness! We have driven on the autobahn and we get passed often. Th epeople here are actually quite friendly. We have received help from a good British fellow and two German women to find where we are going. Germany is beautiful. Everything about it. There are wildflowers everywhere and sometimes cows and sheep, with half timbered houses backing up to mountains. The cities are beautiful too, every building has many balconies with flowers spilling off of them, and there are big trees and benches everywhere. There is an abundance of grafiti (its everywhere i look) and i actually find it charming, and some of it moving. Most of it is in English. I've seen a lot of "fuck yous" and I wonder if the teenagers here do that so that only some can understand. The most moving one to me was a red, simple "NO WAR" that has been tehre for who knows how long. I also saaw a girl's name followed by "for my love" Everything here is so old, I love it. The restaraunt we ate in yesterday was over 400 years old! I shall write more later, the shower is open. August 4th 21:10 God, so much has happened! I will try to describe everything, I am so mad at myself for not writing enough. The stay at the Vonderbanks house was wonderful but tiring. They had us seeing so many things each day! Here is what we did each day: Day 1: arrived at their house after a long drive and met the rest of the family, i stayed in Christina's room which was awesome. We got a tour of the house and the BEAUTIFUL garden (looked like something out of better homes and gardens), ate lunch and went to Siegburg. We saw our first real castle from far away on the way there, and we were very excited about it. We sat St. Michael's Abbey, which sat on top of a small mountain, and took a very long climb up a narrow spiral staircase to the top of the tower, and went on the walkway, which was scary because it was so high, but we got some good pictures and slowly made our way back down. Then we had icecream in the town while listening to traditional Australian music (weird, i know). We went to bed after the adults drank beer and Christina and I drank French Cider on the terrace (it tasted awesome! I couldn't taste the alcohol, but it was there) and then we went to bed. the next day, July 30th; they fed us way too much breakfast (breads, cheeses and meats that i have never seen before) and then we went to Bonn, to a German museum of recent history, which i believe was good; it is important to see other points of view in case your government is lying to you like how the American soldiers were told the Treaty of Versailles after WWI was fair and they were supposed to tell Germans while in Germany during WWII that. This information came from an original guide to Germany and the people of Germany for the American soldier for WWII. We ate at a traditional German restaraunt where I was happy when Christina was astonished to hear me say an unaccented (or so she said) danke. I ordered a pan with potatoes, cheese, and bacon, with a salad. Dad got the same and Mom got a bratwurst and sauerkraut. I tried coleslaw and it made me almost barf. Then we walked around Bonn, and I went shopping. I got four shirts and a homecoming dress, all of the clothes great deals. We also saw Ludwig von Bethoveen's house before going back to the house and playing games. I went to bed after the first one because I was so tired. Also, earlier that day we went to the Haribo factory (Haribo is an AWESOME candy company) and got bags and bags of candy. I am saving most of it for America. I got some bags for friends, too. July 31st- We went early to see Burg Eltz, which is a castle over 800 years old. It was beautiful, looked like something out of a fairy tale. We took a guided tour of the inside, but didn't understand much because it was in German. Throughout our trip up to that point we had seen a few other castles [it stops here, looks as though the intention to write more was there, but it was never finished. i hope that sometime in the log i talk about the rest of the day, and koln, because that was one of my favorite cities.] i will add more logs later, like anyone wants to read them anyway.