Instead of going to school this morning, everyone met at the bus station where we took a bus to Saarbruecken, a 45 min bus ride. When we arrived, we went to a big government building where we were told how a debate (Parliament) room was set up. Their chairs, colors, and positions are all symbolic, like "we all see to eye to eye", then the numbers of chairs on each side is for the amount of representatives from each political party, not sure if I'm spot on but its something like that. Then we moved to a dining area where croissants and apple juice were served while we listened to 5 men have a debate. Everything was in German so it was hard to understand what was going on, honestly. People (NB from Frau S: 3German GAPPies and 3 American GAPPies) then volunteered to do short interviews about their stay in Germany so far and their opinion on specific things and we had to walk back out and in the building for video purposes. (NB from Frau S - the news crew from Saarland Rundfunk was with us all morning so they needed a shot of us coming inside the building for the news broadcast)
After being at the government building (NB from Frau S - we were in the Saarlaendische Parliament Building and also visited their chambers and met the President of the Parliament), we walked across the bridge to the shopping area of Saarbruecken. This area had so many shops and Eiscafes and little alleys to go down filled with even more shops. We were not able to shop much because we only had a little over an hour, so we walked to the Europa Gallerie - a 3 or 4 story mall. On our way back to the meeting area I tried my first German Eis. My expectations were way too high, but it was still pretty good and a lot cheaper than Whiteys.
Later that night Clara and I had no idea what to do for her party. There was a chance of rain and we weren't sure what to do for decorations. Luckily, it barely sprinkled and we were able to set up the picnic tables and we made pink sparkling water with sliced lemon and peppermint (it looked really cute) AND we found a bunch of pink candles so our themes was "PINK 16". This was Clara's friend party so it was very chill and her dad made a little BBQ. Nearly everyone stayed until around midnight and the Germans saw a lightning bug and got real excited since they aren't everywhere like in Iowa. German birthday parties are similar to American ones. German marshmallows smell, feel, and taste slightly different than American ones, but they aren't bad, just different.
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