Translation of Ziegel

I like writting you messages although most of it is really pointless. I mean it is very good for my English studies, but except that I could not understand why you would be interested in reading it.
Did you hear about the earthquake this morning in Greece. This is really terrible, I think that quite a few viligars lost their lifes and many more lost their homes. I am really sad for all of them.
We could not find a nice hotel so we just took whatever we found in the center of town. We were a little upset with the entire stress, so that we had left our bags in the cab when it drove away.