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!

Bukowski's in Europe - Part 2

Well, another week has flown by. I am sadly on my way back to Cologne from a weekend in Karlsruhe. I just parted with my family after 9 days of being together, which was pretty sad, knowing that I won’t see them again for three months, or as my mom likes to say, “none of this 3 month stuff, only 74 days!” I had such a great time while they were here though. Last Thursday, I took a train and met up with my family after classes in Heidelberg. We went to dinner in the Old City and called it a night. As a word of advice to people who want to go to Heidelberg, do NOT attempt to drive in the old city. I’m pretty sure my family and I drove our car down streets that were pedestrian zones and it was incredibly difficult to find a good parking spot. The next day, we ventured up to the Heidelberg Castle. This was definitely one of the coolest castles that I have toured so far; the city of Heidelberg has done an amazing job of restoring the castle and the tour that we took was excellent. A few interesting facts about the castle…back in the day, it was extremely unsafe to drink water (they still didn’t know that boiling gets rid of the bacteria and diseases). Instead of water, they drank wine.

This wasn't even the biggest barrel, the other one was at least twice this size!

The wine barrel in the castle held nearly 230,000 liters of wine, the largest wine barrel in the world! Needless to say, they drank A LOT back in the day. One of the rulers of Heidelberg was also a big wine drinker. He weighed 500 pounds, couldn’t walk by himself, and insisted on being carried by his servants down into the city everyday! It took us about ten minutes to drive up to the castle, so you could imagine how long it would take to get to the bottom…while carrying a 500 pound man! We then continued on our journey and stopped in Baden-Baden. Baden-Baden is known for its casino. You can only take tours in the casino until 2:00 pm, then the gambling starts. You pretty much have to be a high roller to even be let into the casino! The city was pretty ritzy and very clean…I would definitely recommend it, but you won’t need more than a couple hours there. Our last stop of the day, and where my family and I stayed over the weekend, was Matthias and Simone Langerdoerfer’s house. I had stayed there before, and quickly found out that these people are extremely hospitable! We went over to Matthias’ parents house for a dinner of pumpkin soup, spaetzle with venison, and chocolate mousse. The Langerdoergers are not very closely related to us. I believe that Matthias’ parents were cousins with my Grandpa Herm. Nevertheless, they are the closest thing that I have to family in Europe so I take advantage of that! There was a huge language barrier because his parents do not speak English and my family and I speak little to no German. We made do with our helpful translators and it turned out to be a great night. The next day we started with a wonderful German brunch. We then hopped in the car and headed to France! We toured another castle (if you haven’t guessed by now, Europe has a lot of them!), which again was really cool. I’m blanking on the name right now, but it was somewhere near the town of Strasbourg, France. We then headed to Strasbourg, France.

Strasbourg is a town that is influenced by both France and Germany. The architecture was absolutely stunning to see houses influenced by both architectural styles of the two countries. We toured the Cathedral, walked in around “La Petite France” or the historic city, did a little souvenir shopping, and took a canal tour. I definitely could have spent at least a full one or two days there! It was one of my favorite cities so far and I would highly recommend it! It is also known for its Christmas markets, so I would love to go back when Clayton and I go backpacking over the Christmas and New Years holidays. Our time was short in Strasbourg because we needed to make it in time for our dinner reservations. The specialty of the restaurant that we ate at was Flammkuchen. It’s a somewhat difficult dish to explain, but it’s a very thin dough crust covered in sour cream, with toppings like onions, cheese, garlic, bacon, and other spices. It is to die for!! The dish is specific to the region that we were in, but I am still going to seek our places that have it in Cologne! It was a great meal to have with a large group of people because we would order one Flammkuchen for the group, cut it into 8 slices, and order another once we were finished! It was so delicious; I will probably attempt to make some when I return to the states, so if anyone is willing to be my guinea pig and try it, let me know J When we arrived back at their house, Matthias showed us the family tree that he has been working on for the past few weeks. We have been able to go pretty far back in our lineage so its been very cool to see where I come from! On Sunday morning, we were able to drive to the town of Beitigheim, where my grandpa was born. Matthias’ parents still live in this town and it was pretty close to where Matthias and Simone live. It was weird to think that if my grandpa hadn’t come to the United States, I probably would have been living in that small town! We saw a few houses where my great-grandfather and some other relatives lived. We then ventured on to our last stop of the day, a horse race track! The afternoon was spent betting on horses and eating delicious German food.

 I, unfortunately, didn’t win pick any winning (or even placing!) horses, but my dad won 17 Euros when one of his horses won! Even with that winning, my family as a whole still came out a loss, but it was such a good time. They brought me to the train station, where we said good bye to the Langerdoerfers, and then to my family. I didn’t cry as much as I did when I left for Europe in August, but it was still pretty tough to hold back the tears. Either way, I know that these last three months (and just for you, mom, 73 days!!) will go by in a flash. It is very weird to think that my time is almost half over here, I can’t even fathom going back to the States yet! Anyways, my friend, Steven, who is currently studying in Italy, is coming to visit me tomorrow for 3 days, and Clayton comes to visit for a week on Friday. They both have fall breaks at their University; Cologne isn’t that nice and they don’t allow us any breaks. On the plus side, I can show them the wonderful city of Cologne! Alright, I’ll wrap it up for now so you don’t fall asleep (if you haven’t already!) with my extremely long tangents. Tschuss!

Bukowski's in Europe - Part 1

Well, needless to say, this week has definitely been a highlight of my stay in Europe so far! My family came to visit me! I met up with them at the Dachau Bahnhof, and even after multiple hours of travel for both parties, we managed to arrive within minutes of each other! Our first destination was the concentration camp in Dachau. That was a place that I felt was necessary to go to while I was studying. It was an intense experience and pretty sad. After we finished that, we drove to our hotel in a small town in southern Germany, within eyesight of the Neuschwanstein Castle, otherwise known as the Cinderella Castle to Disney lovers. We went to dinner in Fussen. I was having a huge craving for Weiner Schnitzel so I was finally able to satisfy my craving! The next morning, we drove near Neuschwanstein and another castle, Hohenschwangau.

We then went on a castle tour at Linderhof. All of the three castles that I mentioned were owned by the same king, and all were quite spectacular. I also introduced my family to the traditional Bavarian bratwurst, called “Weiss Wurst”. Weisswurst is essentially a white brat, with more spices than a normal brat. They are normally eaten with mustard and a giant pretzel..and are SO delicious! We then moved onto Oberammergau, the town known for putting on the “Passion Play”. The Passion Play was started in the 1600s and is produced once every ten years, with everyone who lives in the small town playing a part or working behind the scenes. Then my mom spontaneously decided that we should go to Munich and see the Glockenspiel ring, so we did! We then drove to our final destination of the day, Salzburg, Austria. Its was very nice to be able to travel with my parents because they rented a car. It would have been virtually impossible for me to see all that I did, had I only been able to travel by train. One giant downside of our weekend…RAIN! It was raining and really cold (you know its really cold when we think its cold…and we’re from Minnesota!). The next day we toured a Salt Mine (where we got to dress in silly white suits and go down slides into the mines), went to Mozart’s Birth house, went to Mirabell Gardens (which is where “The Sound of Music” is shot during the song “Do Re Mi”), and took a “Sound of Music” bus tour. The Sound of Music tour was definitely the coolest for me. I took after my mom and am very into musicals. It’s one of her favorite musicals, which meant we listened to it non-stop as a child, so I know all of the words…to every song. The tour was four hours; it took us to various sites around Salzburg where the movie was filmed, and we drove outside of Salzburg into the country, which made for some great views. The picture of Emilie and I is in front of the house in the movie. This is only the back of the house though, the house in the movie actually was two separate houses, one for the front shot and one for the back! That night we ate at a church/brewery where in older times, the Monks brewed beer, so I don’t know how much of a church it is anymore ;) 

Our Monday was spent driving across the full country of Germany to Cologne, just in time for me to get back for class. That night, we took my German buddy, Cosima, out to dinner. My buddy has been the BIGGEST help and I couldn’t have asked for a better buddy. I have no idea how to repay her for all that she has done for me. My family loved her also, so it was a great time. The next day, I had class but was able to meet up with my family in between for a bit of sightseeing. That night, we went over to my relative’s house. Johanna and Volker are the greatest hosts and I always have such a good time when I go there. We showed them a bunch of pictures of our family, and told their curious daughters as much as we could about America! I was even able to converse a little bit in German with them too! I could understand a lot of what they were saying, but I’m definitely not too great at speaking back to them in German. 

On Wednesday, we traveled to Bonn in the morning and toured Beethoven’s birth house. Bonn, the former capital of Germany, was okay. Just the fact that it was cold and rainy made it not as pleasant as it could have been. But, the cathedral in Bonn was really cool on the inside. When we got back, I headed off to class and my family headed to the Zoo. We met up later at night for dinner with another of my relatives, Loretta. She has a two-year-old daughter named Mathilda, who Emilie successfully taught how to “pound it”. It was pretty funny, and Mathilda wanted to pound it to everyone for the rest of the night. Tomorrow we are heading to Heidelberg, and then to Karlsruhe to visit more relatives. It has been so action-packed with my family, and it’s really nice not having to plan everything for ourselves when I travel with my friends! Not to mention having a car too! The time has gone by so fast with them here, and I’m already getting sad about them leaving because I won’t see them for the next three months! But that is what Skype is for, right? 

Amsterdam

This past weekend's excursion was Amsterdam. This trip was only the 4 students from Minnesota, but a bunch of other exchange students were going as well. We saw a few of them randomly in the city though. We hopped on a train early Saturday morning and arrived in Amsterdam in the early afternoon. I had been to Amsterdam before when I was twelve, and wasn't a huge fan of it. I felt that I needed to go back during my semester abroad so that I could see it again! And boy, I'm glad I did! The city is absolutely wonderful; the architecture is stunning and the city is quite unique. The majority of what we did was wander around the city. This may not sound too fun, but I'm not very into paying 10 euro for an entrance to a museum multiple times a day. So Saturday we wandered, laid down in a park, took pictures by the gigantic "amsterdam" letters, and explored the city.

We didn't have much of a plan, but we ended up seeing the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum, the central square, the Red Light District, and many other places. Our hostel was literally a campsite. It was a 30 minute bus ride and a 30 minute walk to our campsite...the walk was quite scary because we literally had to walk through a forest with no lights! Anyways, our 4-person cabin was about 10 x 10 feet, so pretty cozy. We were also not informed that the campsite did not provide toilet paper for the bathrooms, so that made for an awesome night for Katie and I! We got a good nights rest (as good as we could at a hostel..which isn't saying much!) and headed back into the city. We first went to the Heineken brewery museum. If you are ever in Amsterdam, this is one place that I would definitely recommend seeing! They gave us a complete history of the company, how the beer is brewed, how the beer is bottled, we rode on a ride within the museum, and were given 2 beers with the price of admission. It is definitely worth the money and I'm very glad that we did it! I also realized that the whole museum was a marketing tool...I'm finally starting to think like a Marketing Major! After that we headed out for lunch...we ate at a "fast food" Asian restaurant that makes your own "made-to-order" stirfry.

We also had that for dinner the night before; it was very difficult to find something healthier and cheaper to eat so we just went twice. For the rest of the day we wandered again. I had some fries with Mayo (Europeans are very into fries..they are everywhere!) which was delicious! Once our day came to an end, we hopped on our train back to Cologne. It overall was a great weekend and I was glad I could share it with my fellow Minnesotans.
And now classes are finally starting! I had my first lecture yesterday, "Psychology of Marketing and Advertising". All of my classes are taught in English, but I did not expect the teacher to be American, and he was! I figured that he was midwestern after he said "awesome", "you guys", my office hours are from "2-3pm" rather than "14:00-15:00", and when his computer screen displayed on the overhead projector, the time was still set to the central time zone! He is young and quirky; I am very much looking forward to this class! Besides that class, I am taking "Product Management", "Cultural Immersion", and "Transnational Social Policy". A bunch of my friends are in a "Leadership and Motivation" class so I may take that as well, it can't hurt right?! Its very weird though to think that I will only be in classes for the next two months! Its also nice having my German class over now, I have a lot more free time on my hands since most classes only meet for 1.5 hours per week!

My family is coming to Germany in 3 days! I can't wait to meet up with them, its been so long! We are going to Munich, Dachau, Salzburg, and a few other small towns next weekend. It will be action packed and stressful, but I'll enjoy every minute of it! So be prepared for an awesome next blog! :)

My "first" weekend in Cologne

Hi all! I just realized that is has been a LONG time since I have posted, I apologize! Things have been a bit crazy here! A few hours ago, I took my final exam for my 5 week language intensive class. I definitely didn't ace it, but I'm confident that I passed the class :) And good news, I finally got over my sickness! I still have a cough, but that is something that I can deal with. My parents and Emilie are coming to Germany in a week; I am getting so excited to see them!
So this past weekend, was technically my first weekend in Cologne! I did stay one weekend with my relatives in Hurth, a suburb of Cologne, but I'm not counting it. It has been so nice to travel every weekend and see as much as I can, but I definitely was in need of a weekend to relax, catch up on sleep, and chill out. Little did I know that I was in for a big surprise! My friend, Alex, who is studying this year in Berlin, found last minute train tickets to Cologne for Sunday-Tuesday. He and I both found out that he was coming Saturday night! His train was scheduled to arrive around 12:30 pm, so I thought it would be logical if I leave about an hour early to pick him up. Boy was I wrong! There was a marathon in Cologne on Sunday, which meant that almost all of public transportation was shut down, bummer for me! So I ended up walking about 3 miles, taking maybe 5 trains, and finally getting to him about two hours later! It was all worth it though; it was nice to see another face that I recognized from Minnesota. We surprised my friend, Katie, who is also from the U of M and is also friends with Alex. Later that day, we climbed the Dom, walked across the Rhein bridge, and meandered through the Old City. This is when I realized that there isn't too much to do in Cologne for free!

This week has been pretty "normal" otherwise. I finished my German class, did my normal routine of cultural night on Monday (the Belgians made Fries and Meatloaf..delicious!), student night at a pub on Tuesday, etc. I have gone shopping a few times in the last few weeks; I am attempting to dress as much like a European as possible! Since I have been here, I've bought my first pair of fancy boots and skinny jeans! I was also very proud when I picked Alex up from the train station and he didn't recognize me at first because I dressed European..I took that as a compliment! Tonight I went to an international exchange student dinner. We each had to make a dish from our home country to share with the others. Two other Americans and I made ceasar salad. To be honest, its really difficult to find something easy, simple, and native to America. Most of what we eat comes from other places! Otherwise, it was a great dinner and I got to enjoy eating dishes from other countries. My fellow Americans and I are leaving for Amsterdam tomorrow morning. We will only be there for a night, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. I don't remember having the greatest impression from when I went last, at twelve years old, but I also wasn't in the right age category to enjoy the night life. I am hoping that this time will leave me with a better impression. I'd better get going; of course I have completely put off packing until the last minute! Tschuss!

OKTOBERFEST!

I survived Oktoberfest! It was definitely an experience I am glad I had. My justification at the beginning was, "When will I ever be back in Germany during October?!" After the trip, I needed no such justification because it was such a blast! A group of ten of us decided to rent two cars and drive to Munich. The trains were ridiculously expensive to get to Munich so renting was our only cheap option. We picked up our car from the rental shop at around 2 on Friday afternoon and began our journey. It started off pretty smoothly, after we got the GPS working. We had a VW with 5 seats and a very spacious trunk; it was like a mixture between a van and a SUV and was quite big for a European car. Little did we know that once we got on the road, we would spend the next eight hours stuck in horrible traffic and weather. Yes, it took us 8 hours to get to our hostel, located in Ingolstadt, which was still 80 Km outside of Munich. To give you a little bit of help with distances, it should have taken us about three and a half to four hours to get to Ingolstadt! We were bombarded with stop-and-go traffic, rain the whole way, and a lot of accidents. We tried taking detours, but would just get stuck in worse traffic. The other car took about eight hours as well, but they left two hours earlier. After we finally arrived at our hostel, we all got to bed pretty quickly, since it was already about 23:00. I was woken up at 5:45 am for our departure at 6:30! It took me a while to fall asleep, so I probably only got about 4 hours of sleep; I thought that I probably got the least amount of sleep of everyone. I found out the next day, that at least 3 others didn't fall asleep at all! And unfortunately, 2 of the 3 were our drivers! They were troopers though! Our drive into Munich was surprisingly traffic-free and went by really quick. We found a warm parking garage and dropped our cars off (we needed to find somewhere warm, since our cars were doubling up as our hostel for Saturday night!). Then, off to Oktoberfest! By the time we arrived at the fairgrounds around 9 am, most of the Beer tents were already closed because they were so full! We found one that was still letting people in, and somehow we got extremely lucky and got in, and found a table for 10.

We quickly ordered our beer, despite the fact that it was 9:30 am..but hey, its Oktoberfest right?! We spent the next 7 hours at our table, listening to music, talking to the people sitting around us, singing, and having a great time. I only had about 1.5 Liters of beer, so needless to say, I was one of the more sober ones in my group. Regardless, I still had so much fun! Its difficult to explain what its like inside the beer tents. Its pretty cramped, I got beer spilled on me a few times, its pretty loud, the music is obviously very German and quite polka-y, the waitresses somehow manage to carry 12 1-Liter mugs of beer, and the food is really good.

At around 16:30, we got kicked out because our table was reserved for the remainder of the night. We decided to roam around the fair for a bit. Fairs in Germany are not as over-priced as America. I got a "Weiss-wurst", which is essentially a white brat in a hard roll. This is one of the dishes that Bavaria is famous for, and I would highly recommend having one if you go there, it was delicious! We then attempted to get into other tents, but none of the tents were letting anyone in. We got split up from the rest of our group so we decided to meet up for some food. Of course, as college students, we went to McDonalds! After we finished eating, we stayed in McDonalds for a while. The reason was, it was warm in McDonalds and they had a bathroom...I felt somewhat like a hobo ;) A few of us decided to hit up the tents again. We couldn't get in anywhere again so we parked ourselves outside a tent (despite the fact that it was raining) and ordered a beer. All of the tents close down around 23:00 so it was pretty crazy getting back to our cars since the subway stations were so packed. We crashed in our cars for about 3 hours and got on the road. Yes I know, this wasn't the safest idea when our drivers had gotten about 2 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, but they would have been even more sleep deprived had we waited any longer. My car anxiety surfaced and I realized that even though I was extremely tired, I would feel a whole lot less anxious if I stayed awake the whole time. I kept the driver company the whole way home, and it actually went by pretty quickly!

 It was a very successful weekend! Another note or two about Bavaria...they have extremely strong accents and are very difficult to understand. I don't understand much when I am in Cologne but it is definitely enough to function. In Bavaria, I couldn't understand anyone unless they spoke English! Even the more experienced German speakers in our group were having trouble understanding them! Thankfully, in the beer tents, the only word you needed to know was beer! A lot of the men and women were wearing traditional German outfits..the men in Lederhosen and the women in dresses. I'm actually thinking about purchasing my own dress, to use for Halloween(here and at home of course!), and for our Karneval kick-off day. I was able to keep the trip pretty cheap as well, which is always a plus. I came home with a gingerbread-like decorated cookie that is pretty popular in Germany (my roommate said I needed to buy one!) and I also was able to smuggle out a beer mug. Don't worry, I didn't steal it. A guy was walking down the street with it, he set it down and walked away, so I ran up and grabbed it. However, the mug is pure glass and weighs about 4-5 pounds, so I will be really disappointed if my bag is overweight when I come home! I guess this is all for now...I may be traveling to Amsterdam this weekend, or spending my first weekend in Cologne! Bis dahin :)