Post Semester Travels

Hi! I have spent the last two weeks seeing Europe! As I said earlier, my trip took me to France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic. I’ll try to sum it up as best as I can! My boyfriend, Clayton, joined me on this backpacking excursion once we were both done at our universities. Day one brought us to Strasbourg. This was by far our most hectic day as far as trains go…we got stuck at one of our connecting cities due to trains not running properly with the recent snowfall. So we spent 7 hours getting there, rather than the 3 and a half that was planned! Nevertheless, Strasbourg, France is an amazing city. My overview of it would combine the houses of Germany, the quaintness of Brugge, and the canals of Amsterdam. One of my friends from Uni Koeln lives there so she gave us a short tour of the city before we headed off to Karlsruhe to stay with my relatives for Christmas. We stayed there for two nights and enjoyed our first German Christmas…which ended up being pretty similar to an American Christmas. We attended mass at their church, had a wonderful fondue dinner, and were able to join my family while they opened their presents. We headed out on the Christmas morning to our next city, Zurich. The city was really nice and we were able to see the main sites in a few hours. It was pretty cold, and barely anything was open because of Christmas, so we ended up keeping our sightseeing to a minimum and ate at an American bar. Not exactly the Christmas feast I would have liked, but it was still nice J We only spent one night in Zurich before continuing onto Florence. Our next 3 days and 2 nights in Florence were absolutely wonderful. This was my first time to Italy and I was just stunned by the quaintness of the town and the unique architecture. We visited the Duomo and climbed the bell tour for an amazing view of the city, visited a bunch of other churches, walked along the river, and enjoyed our first taste of authentic Italian food. One highlight for me of this city was seeing Michelangelo’s sculpture of David at the Academia gallery. The statue is absolutely magnificent; we spent at least an hour just looking at the statue! Our next stop…Rome! We were able to spent three nights in Rome; we visited the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain, Vatican City, San Angelo Castle, the Spanish steps, and many other places. Rome was my far my favorite city…it is so unique in the aspect that there are so many randomly placed fountains and statues around the city that I feel like I am constantly walking in a museum! Along with Edinburgh, it was one of my favorite cities in Europe and I HIGHLY recommend going to it! It was also our warmest cities, with temperatures in the high 40’s, so we definitely enjoyed that! We next headed to Venice. Venice was a very nice city, but I wasn’t a huge fan of it. Except walking around, we couldn’t find that much to do to fill our time. We took our one and only night train between Venice and Vienna, which we quickly found out was not worth the money that we saved on not getting a hostel. Once we got to Vienna, we visited Schonbrunn Palace for a few hours, then headed back to our hostel and rested for the remainder of the day. The next day, we visited the Zentral Friedhof, where Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, and Schubert are buried. We did our own walking tour of the city and were able to see the Opera, town hall, the Freud Museum, and a bunch of other stunning buildings also. Vienna is so clean and the buildings all look so new that we were both amazed! Clayton and I were also able to meet up with another one of my friends from Uni Koln and spend the day with him. We of course ate Wiener Schnitzel for dinner, which was pretty good! After Vienna, our last stop was the Czech Republic. At my high school, we had an exchange student named Erika, who is Czech and currently lives in Prague. She brought us to our hostel, gave us a walking tour, and accompanied us for most of our time spent there. It was a real treat to see her and to be shown the city by a native Czech. We visited the Prague Castle, the old town, Wenceslas Square, the astronomical clock, and a few churches while we were there. Prague is a beautiful city and I would highly recommend it! Overall, the trip was very tiring, but that means we saw as much as we could. I was very glad once I didn’t have to stay at hostels anymore! I spent my last 2 days in Cologne with my relatives. They were so gracious to let me stay there and I’m going to miss them so much! A word to the wise…Clayton and I both agreed that we aren’t sightseeing in winter anymore! We had some pretty chilly days…brrrr! Either way, it was great and I saw more of Europe than I had seen all semester. I apologize for no pictures..AGAIN! If you have facebook, check out my page :)

Berlin!

Mother Nature sure provided me with the most stressful trip I've taken yet! A friend and I were scheduled to fly out of Cologne on Thursday. My commute to the airport is composed of three hours, including 2 buses, 1 tram, and 2 trains. After arriving at the airport, going through security, and getting on the plane, it is announced that the airport crew is clearing the runway due to the "large" amount of snowfall. After another three hours of us sitting on the plane, we were told that we needed to exit the plane. We got back into the airport, only to be told that our flight as been canceled because the airport is closed for the rest of the night. We waited in a extremely long ( and I mean LONG) customer service line for 3 hours, and we only made it halfway. Then we had the genius idea to use a public computer and attempt to change our flight to tomorrow. The only thing that went right that day, was that our new flight was only a full 24 hours later. So we headed back to Cologne, and after 13 hours of traveling and waiting, we were finally back at my apartment. The next day, we headed back and did the same thing over again...except this time we finally made it to Berlin. (( Newsflash, my travel buddy was informed a few minutes ago that all of the airports in Cologne are shut down today due to massive snow storms...so hopefully I will be able to make it back to Cologne tomorrow...the amount of snow we are getting is a normal amount for Minnesota, but Germany is so unprepared that only a few inches could shut down the airport )) After our 24 hours of travel, we were exhausted! We met up with our friend, Alex, who is studying in Berlin and let us stay at his place while we're here. We ate at a brauhaus for dinner, walked through a few Christmas markets, and called it a night. Saturday, we did a lot of the main sightseeing trips. We saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Jewish Memorial, Humboldt University, a gigantic mall that is very comparable to the MOA, we walked along sections of The Berlin Wall, walked through more Christmas Markets, and went out to dinner. We met up with another group of our friends from Cologne who drove there. We ate at a really good Brasilian steak house, hung out at their apartment, and called it a night again. Today was extra cold; keep in mind that Europe has a fairly mild climate...it was below zero FARENHEIT today!! It was ridiculously cold and my body isn't used to that type of cold yet, so we had to make frequent stops in stores and shops just to warm our hands and feet. Today we saw Checkpoint Charlie, a few Christmas Markets, a flea market, and the bunker where Hitler lived and died. Berlin is a city full of history and background that I have absolutely loved being here. It is also a huge city, and I can say now that I enjoy the "smallness" of Cologne! You can still experience the difference between the East and West sides of Berlin and its amazing to me that all of that stuff happened only twenty years ago. I need everyone to say a little prayer for me tonight that I make it back to Cologne on time...its a real problem if I don't because Clayton flies in about 4 hours after me, so if he gets there and my flight is delayed, its a problem! I hope all are having a wonderful Christmas season! :) And I apologize for no pictures, I'm writing this on my friend's computer!

The studying has begun...

These past few weeks have been pretty "uneventful". Don't get me wrong, I have had my fair share of fun and have still managed to see my friends a lot...but unfortunately, I've needed to start studying. In the past two weeks, I've made at least 7 trips to the library and have spent most weekend days studying all day! Luckily, I have been able to convince people that we should go to the Cologne Christmas markets, so we've been going to them at least 2-3 times a week. They are just wonderful!

The tradition is to get a mug of Gluhwein (hot, mulled wine) and a typical German snack (my favorite is Reibekuchen, which is essentially a deep-fried potato/onion pancake) On the bright side, I'm almost done...once Tuesday rolls around, I'll be able to take my 2 oral exams, and then I only have one paper left which isn't due until January! And once Tuesday is here, the fun begins again! This Wednesday my friends and I are planning a night for us all to get together for one last time before everyone leaves to go home for the holidays. Then my friend, Katie, and I are off to Berlin for the weekend to visit our friend, Alex. Which should be a great time, because another car-load of my friends are also going that weekend! Once I arrive home on Monday, Clayton flies over from Manchester, I will spend the next 3 days saying my good-byes and packing, then we're off on our 15-day European adventure! I'll back up a little bit to last weekend though. It was kind of a bummer because I wasn't able to do any overnight traveling due to my procrastination when it came to booking. But I went with a friend to Munster last Saturday. Its a town about 2 hours north of Cologne by train. It was nice to get out of Cologne for a little bit and see something new.

We walked through many Christmas Markets, went to the city museum, went inside a few cathedrals, got an Asian food lunch, and went to their palace. The "palace" was the coolest part, but it technically wasn't a palace. I'm still not sure what to actually call it, but I think royalty used to live in it, but now the University owns it so its not open for tours. The outside was beautiful and the landscape was pretty awesome.
So, once Tuesday rolls around, it is going to get pretty hectic for me. I will try my hardest to post after Berlin! But if I can't, I may as well tell you now about my post-semester travels. Clayton and I decided to use a 15-day Eurail pass to see Europe! Our first destination will be Strasbourg, France. One of my ERASMUS friends lives there, so it will be my final time to say goodbye to her. I've already been to this city, but it was so wonderful that I want to bring Clayton there! And I've heard that the Christmas markets are just wonderful! That night we will head to Karlsruhe and spend two nights with my relatives. On Christmas morning, we will head to Zurich for a night. Then in the next 10 days, we will visit Florence, Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Prague. It will be very stressful but so rewarding at the same time, I can't wait for it! I hope all is well at home, that everyone is surviving the snow storm okay, and have a wonderful holiday season!!

Thanksgiving!

I can definitely say that last Thursday was one of the most home sick days I've had since I got here! Knowing that my family was together enjoying a wonderful meal and I couldn't be there was pretty tough. So, my friend Katie and I decided to put on our own version of Thanksgiving! I was thankfully able to get through actual Thanksgiving day with occupying myself with class, pilates, visiting a Christmas marketing, and seeing Harry Potter 7. We attempted (successfully, might I add) to make our own Thanksgiving dinner.

Katie, me, and our Thanksgiving dinner!

We ran into so many problems as far as ingredients go...we needed to make a bunch of stuff from complete scratch because Germany simply doesn't have the ingredients we needed! So we made stuffing, apple, and pumpkin pie from complete scratch! Also, it was no easy task when needing to do conversions...needless to say I did more conversions last Saturday that I have ever done since high school chemistry! All we had as far as American measuring went was a tablespoon and teaspoon...so measuring out the flour for our pie crusts required me to spoon 64 tablespoons into the bowl, oh joy! And considering that neither of us has ever made a full Thanksgiving dinner before, it was a great success! My apartment didn't burn down, and we managed to feed 14 people without ruining any of the dishes! We served stuffing, mashed potatoes, a carrot dish, green bean casserole, apple pie, pumpkin pie, bread, cranberry jam, and 2 baby turkeys. All of the cooking was so worth it knowing that I could give my friends a little taste of an American tradition. A few times I found myself running to go "wash dishes" at the sink because I got so emotional because I miss my family a lot, and knowing that I won't be able to see my wonderful Cologne family a month from now. Its going to be so hard to leave, these people have made my stay here the best that it could have ever been..they're the best :) So if any of you are reading this blog, I love you guys! Okay, enough with the mushy stuff. We headed later that night to the Christmas markets in Cologne, which was a perfect ending to our holiday night :) I would try to attempt to explain what the Christmas markets are but we have nothing like it in the States. This is the best picture that I have for now.

Cliona, Katie, and I at the Neumarkt Weihnachtsmarkt

My friend and I are attempting to travel to Hamburg this weekend. Even if it doesn't work out, we're planning on doing a day trip to a big city near Cologne and possibly a party night in Dusseldorf! I hope everyone's holiday weekend brought cheer and happiness :) Bye for now!

Ed'nbur-ah

Hi all! Last weekend I ventured to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It was absolutely wonderful, I easily could have spent at least a week there! The only downside to the trip was getting to and from Edinburgh. The airport I flew out of is 2 hours away (aka 2 buses, 2 trains, and a tram), and needless to say, I didn't realize this until I booked my flight! But I was also flying with a low cost airline so it was somewhat worth it. So anyways, after leaving my apartment at 9am, 3 buses, 2 trains, a tram, and a plane flight later, I was finally in Scotland at 6 pm! A side note, I did this whole journey by myself which was extremely nerve wracking for me!! Clayton was waiting for me when I finally got off the bus, and all we could do was a quick hug before we ran to our hotel because we were both freezing! The temperature wasn't too bad, but the wind was so strong that at one point, I fell forward (and caught myself, thankfully) from a strong gust of wind! So after we checked into our hotel, we headed out for dinner. We went to a cheap, chain restaurant/pub where I ate a traditional Scottish meal of Haggis and chips. Haggis is a meat pie and I'm thankful that I didn't know any more than that...I found out later that they used to make it out of brains and intestines, ick! The next day, we ventured out and went on a Sandemann's free walking tour of Scotland. Note of advice, if you are ever traveling to Europe, check if your city has free tours by Sandemann's...the guides are paid only on tips so they're really nice tours and the guides actually care about showing you the city. On this tour, we saw basically every main sight in Scotland. The Edinburgh Castle, a few cemeteries, the Grass Market, the Royal Mile, St Giles Cathedral, etc. And most importantly, we stopped at "The Elephant House"...otherwise known as the place where J.K. Rowling wrote the famous Harry Potter series. Edinburgh is a pretty medieval city, all of the buildings are the same brown color, but I absolutely loved it!

The next day, we ventured up to Calton Hill, which is a great overlook of the city where there are a bunch of random monuments. We were able to see the ocean (or the inlet that Edinburgh is on) too! All of the monuments were really cool, and of course Clayton wanted to climb on them..typical Clayton! Our next stop was the Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Parliament building. The palace is where Mary, Queen of Scots, stays when she is in Edinburgh...roughly a whopping ten days per year. The parliament building was also really cool, but it wasn't in session so we didn't see any action. We then stopped at a cemetery where the famous economist, Adam Smith, is buried. It took us forever to find his grave, but we finally did! We then continued up the Royal Mile (the road that connects the Holyrood Palace and the Edinburgh Castle). The best thing about Scotland is their sense of national pride. I know that I'm studying in Germany, therefore a lot of my souvenirs for people should be from Germany. However, Scotland has such a huge sense of national pride, which Germany very slightly lacking, that I couldn't resist buying a bunch of gifts in their tourist shops. We saw multiple men wearing kilts and many of the people commonly wear the traditional tartan pattern. After we walked up the Royal Mile, we headed to the National Museum of Scotland, which was alright, but fairly overwhelming with the massive amount of information and artifacts. We then headed up to the Edinburgh Castle where we caught an amazing sunset, and headed back to "The Elephant House" for dinner.

Now I am going to go into my Harry Potter tangent. As I said before, J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series in The Elephant House in Edinburgh. Our tour guide said that she was so tight on money, that it was cheaper for her to go every day and buy a tea and write, rather than having the heat on in her home. The Elephant House as a great overlook of the city, so she obviously has some influences of Edinburgh in the books. The picture at right is a famous school in Edinburgh called The George Harriet School. Harriet...hence the name "Harry". The school has four main towers (you can only see two in the picture) where she got the idea for the four houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. The George Harriet school is also situated right next to a famous cemetery, where you can find the tombstones of William McGonagall (..Professor McGonagall) and Thomas Riddle (I need not explain this one!). I wouldn't consider myself a Harry Potter freak, but I'm definitely a fan and I found all of this so fascinating!

Also, the George Harriet school is a charitable school that enrolls a number of orphans every year..Harry was an orphan too!
Okay, enough with the Harry Potter stuff. We had a decent meal at the Elephant Bar, I had a delicious hamburger and chips! We then called it a night. The next, and unfortunately last, day of our trip, we climbed up a rolling hill in Holyrood Park. It was raining when we did and I was ill prepared with my non-hiking boots on, but the views were so worth it! We then headed to the Whiskey Museum (and might I add, the ONLY attraction that we paid for in Scotland, everything else is FREE!!!). It was a pretty cool tour. We both were given a complimentary glass of Scotch, and even after watering it down, neither of us could finish it! There was an amazing collection of extremely old and expensive bottles of Whiskey that was donated to this museum, here's a picutre!

This sadly was the last attraction that I went to in Edinburgh. I was pretty sad to leave the city in general, and knowing that I wouldn't see Clayton for another month. Either way, it was an awesome weekend and I want to go back in the near future. I realize now that I have failed to mention a few key things from my stay. For one, it was so nice to be able to speak English! A bunch of Scots asked me where I was from and were so friendly..something I would rarely find in Germany due to the language barrier. Another thing that really surprised me about there, is how early the sun sets! I didn't realize how far north we were, until it started getting dark at 3:30 pm on the first day. Needless to say, we had to be very time efficient, due to the fact that we only had a few hours of daylight by the time we finally left the hostel each day. I also felt like I was a lot closer to America than I am in Germany. It wasn't only due to the language, but other various things (the cold weather, the more Americanized food) just made it feel more like home :) I tried my first pint of Guiness (and my first pint of dark beer as well!). Also, in Germany, restaurants and fast food places always charge more for condiments, tap water, and using the bathroom. In Scotland, condiments were never extra (which was great...I hate eating my fries without ketchup!), it wasn't looked down upon as much when I ordered tap water, and there were PLENTY of public bathrooms, free of charge! I think this about wraps up Scotland....overall it is one of my favorite cities that I've been to so far and I can't wait to go back! Anyways, I know that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday! I'm attempting to make a Thanksgiving dinner for my friends on Saturday, so we'll see how that turns out. Clayton and I are in the process of finalizing our post-semester travel plans...our destinations are Strasbourg, Karlsruhe, Zurich, Florence, Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Prague. Its going to be a very stressful, expensive, and hectic two weeks, but it will be so worth it in the end! I hope everyone has a wonderful day tomorrow, Happy Thanksgiving!!

Cemetery

Calton Hill Monument

Portion of Royal Mile, with a telephone booth!

Edinburgh Castle

Clayton's Visit

Hey there! Once again, I apologize for not having another post in 2 weeks!! I REALLY REALLY mean it this time! My boyfriend, Clayton, who is currently studying at the University of Manchester, came to visit me for the past two weeks. He was only supposed to stay from the 29th of October until the 7th of November, but then he realized that Cologne is so awesome that he changed his flight and stayed another week! So, starting out on the 29th. I picked him up from the airport, and it took us both at least a day for it to feel real that we were actually seeing each other after two months apart! The next day, we went to Aachen with a few of my friends. Its a smaller town about an hour or so by train away from Cologne. It unfortunately was raining, but it was still a fun day trip. The one thing that stood out the most to me was Aachen's cathedral. The decoration and art inside was absolutely spectacular.

The ceilings were solid mosiacs with such intricate detail that we spent at least 45 minutes just looking around (to put it in perspective, the cathedral wasn't that big..). Aachen is a smaller city so we only ended up spending a half day there. Then came Sunday the 31st...Halloween! I hosted a party for my friends so that my American friends and I could show our friends how Halloween is done in the states. Germans typically don't get that into Halloween because Karneval happens about two weeks later, but I'll get to that in a little bit. We had class off on November 1st due to All Saint's Day (the only day I get off this semester...I didn't think it was possible to have less days off than at the U of M!). For the rest of the week, I attempted (and hopefully succeeded..ask him!) to show Clayton as much of Cologne as I could! We went to the Dom, the Old City, walked along the Rhein, etc. My surprise for him was a lock. There is a bridge in Cologne that joins the east side with the west side over the Rhein. Tradition is to go with your boyfriend/girlfriend and put a lock on the bridge and throw the key into the Rhein. I felt very cheesy as we did it, but it was cute. That Saturday, we ventured to Bonn, the former capital of Germany. I had already been there with my family, so I showed him Beethoven's birth house, the cathedral, and the other sights of Bonn. Again, there isn't too much to do in Bonn so we stayed for a half day, then headed back to Cologne. That night, was the "Lange Museum Nacht" in Cologne. Translation is that all of the museums in the city are open from 7pm-3am and for just 15 euros, we could get into all of them. This was a steal considering that most museums cost around 7 euros for students. We visited The Chocolate Museum, The German Sport Museum, The Dom (we went into the treasury and the catecombs), the Roman Germanic Museum, and the Museum Ludwig. The last one is pretty well known for its modern art, and boy, it was pretty out there! By about 2am we were completely drain and called it a night.

The next day, one of my friends organized a trip to a castle. I feel stupid, but I honestly can't remember the name of the castle! It was in a small town called Konigswinter. The castle was pretty cool and very well kept, but it was also only 150 years old so it wasn't anything super ancient. Then the next week came and went. We didn't have much to do, besides class for me, so we mostly just hung around my apartment and spent some quality time together that we had been lacking the last two months. However, that Thursday was 11.11, otherwise known as the Karneval "kick-off". Karneval is a religiously-affiliated holiday that happens in the lenten season. But, the kick off for that week is on 11.11 at 11:11 am. For Germans, Karneval means you dress up in a costume (I wore the same as Halloween!) and party all day long. Cologne is known for being the center for the Karneval partying. The Karneval kick off isn't nearly as intense as the real Karneval which is a week long! Clayton and I were exhausted by 5 pm that we called it a night! It was a really fun experience and I was so glad that Clayton got to spend it with me. The picture below is from Heumarkt, one of the main places where the Karneval celebrations happen. There was a band and so many people! The last few days of his visit, we spent mostly just recovering from Karneval and hanging around. I organized a trip with my friends to the Augustusburg Castle in Bruhl yesterday. It was more like a palace, and unfortunately it was only by guided tour, in German!

Needless to say, Clatyon didn't get much out of it, and I caught some of it, but struggled most of the time! I just got back from bringing him to the airport, so I need to stop for now and catch up on everything I haven't done in the past two weeks! I hope all is alright at home (I hear Minnesota got multiple inches of snow?!). I'm going to meet up with Clayton again from Wednesday until Sunday, but this time we're going to Edinburgh, Scotland. So, another post will come soon! Bye for now!

Random thoughts...

Guten Tag! I hope all is well back home! These past two weeks have absolutely flown by! My parents visited as I told you about in the other posts, and my friend, Steven Rosenbaum, who went to my high school and is currently studying in Italy, came to visit me for 3 days! I literally am with people (not including my exchange friends from MN) from Minnesota for almost 4 weeks straight! Tonight is one of two nights that I have from October 15-November 7 that I am not playing host to someone. I love having people visit though, I always do my best to show them the wonderful city of Cologne. Steven and I were able to get tickets to a FC Koeln futbol match this Tuesday. Going to a futbol match was one thing that I NEEDED to do while I was in Europe because at the professional level, futbol is virtually non-existent in the states. The fans were pretty crazy (though quite tame when compared to what you see on TV) and there was constant singing and cheering. FC Koeln is actually one of the worst teams in Germany, but surprisingly, we won! On Wednesday, my German buddy, Cosima, had me and a few other exchange students over for a typical German dinner. We had wurst(pretty much breakfast sausage), sauerkraut, and potatoes; I don't think you can get any more German than that! It was a really good time :) Sorry no pictures for now, my laziness has take over! Clayton is coming to visit from tomorrow night until Sunday the 7th. I am so incredibly excited to see him, two months apart is a REALLY long time! Tschuss for now!