I woke up this morning to what sounded like yelling. I was so confused about who was making so much noise on a Sunday. I got ready for church in about 10 minutes and when I headed to the bus stop around the corner where I was meeting Heidi, I realized that the half marathon was today. So there was no way that the buses would be coming through there. And off I went down to Bismarckplatz. I just missed the S-bahn so I walked over to where the buses are and checked out when they'd be coming next. It was at least a half an hour! But then I was just standing there and someone was waving at me. It was Heidi! Since it was going to be awhile before the buses came, we decided to walk to church. Amazing decision! It was already 17 Degrees Celsius at 10 AM! That's around 62 degrees Fahrenheit!
Church was good and Charis brought Dan and his friend John. We didn't stay for lunch, but instead went home to work on homework, etc. I made some rice for lunch and then went to Heidi's so we could do our homework. Maressa was there too and they had already gotten started. I wanted to sit outside so I did that, but it made me sooo tired! I read for awhile (probably 2 hours or so) and then went back to my apartment and took a nap that ended up lasting about 3 hours! Whoa! I called mom and we got to talk for awhile. Her internet wasn't working so I just called her cell phone. I love it that Skype also lets you call land lines for really cheap. I had dinner and awhile later and then went over to Heidi's at 9 to take a walk. Justine was there too so she came with us! I got some ice cream for the walk (they had already had some earlier in the day) and we just kind of strolled along through town. When I got home I called dad and we talked for awhile too. Sucks that I have to call my parents at separate times, but hopefully that'll change soon!
Like the title says, it reached 71 degrees today!!! That is just amazing. Unfortunately the predictions for the week look rainy. Hopefully the weather will get nicer for our trip to Northwestern Germany that starts on Thursday morning.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Amazing Weather!!
This morning I did not want to get up for breakfast and Bible study at all. But I made it to AJY and met with Heidi and Maressa. I absolutely love those two and spending time with them. If they weren’t also staying for 2nd semester I probably wouldn’t have returned for second semester. It’s nice to make new friends and stuff, but knowing that I already have great friends here makes life just that much sweeter. I sent a mass email and then went to the post office to send a postcard to my little Parker (Jones). I also bought some more wash coins so I could do my laundry later. When I got home the washer was free so I quickly jumped on that. I was exhausted so I took a little nap and then got up around 12:30 to put my laundry in the dryer and then to meet with Simone for lunch at 1.
She had a friend with her who was pretty easy to talk to. We walked down to the Marstall Mensa, but the line was really long so we headed back up to the other Mensa by Uniplatz. I had never eaten there before and it was actually really good. They have three lines you can go through (but you have to go up the stairs to get to them) and a little TV screen that tells what each line has. One of the lines has a complete meal that you can buy, the other has another type of special and then the third is a buffet. We were starving and decided the buffet would be the best option. The food was really good and we had fun talking for awhile. Her friend speaks English really well because her boyfriend is an American. They met when she was studying in Texas for a year. She did kind of bother me by asking why I am studying in Heidelberg. It bothered me because she said it in a “this place stinks” kind of tone. I told her that I love it here and she was surprised. So I asked her why she studies here and she said “because I’m not rich and I can’t study wherever I want.” So that was kind of an uncomfortable moment. I ran home after we put our plates up and got my laundry out of the dryer and then met Simone back at the Mensa. We then went to Marstall for coffee. Simone said she had a milkshake from there a few days before and that it was really good. I was excited because I thought that maybe Germany had actually learned how to make a milkshake. When my family came in 2000, Derek ordered milkshakes everywhere we went and it became a joke to see how they would actually turn out. Every single time it was literally milk that had been shaken. So I ordered a raspberry milkshake and as soon as I saw it, I knew that it was indeed not a milkshake. It tasted like there was some sour-ish vanilla yogurt in it. I will not be ordering one of those again!! And it was kind of expensive, but we did get a Euro refund for it when we turned our glass in. It was an absolutely beautiful day and Simone’s friend Julia (who I met last semester) met up with us. I decided that I want to learn 5-10 new German verbs each week and Simone and Julia helped me think of them. Simone would ask me a verb and I knew most of the ones she said. She told Julia “she just knows too much German!” I quickly told her that I have never had the problem of knowing too much German. So we whipped out a magazine and found some random verbs that I should learn.
When I first met with Simone she said that I was a typical American because I was wearing flip flops. But the weather was so nice that I couldn’t NOT wear flip flops! I told her and her friend that I probably had more than 20 pairs at home and they said that they have three and thought that was a lot! Then when we met up with Julia, Simone told her to look under the table at my feet. And after she did she said “Typical American.” Haha That’s right.
We sat outside the entire time and left a little before 4. I had class at 4:15 so when they went shopping, I went home and then on to class. This was the first day that the professor’s computer connected with the projector so we got to watch a few clips and listen to some songs. I think this class is going to be really cool. But there are so many Americans in there…and a few of them have awful accents. I’m not at all saying that my accent is perfect, it’s almost hard to listen to them or even understand what they’re saying at times.
After class I came home and made a salad for dinner. There was a covered bowl sitting on the counter so I peeked inside. It was raw fish. Gross. Julia ALWAYS leaves stuff sitting out like that. The night before there was a pot of potatoes just sitting on the stove. I think she cooks things and then does something else and forgets that she was cooking. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case because she’s incredibly scatter-brained. I knew she’d be coming back to cook her fish soon so I tried to make my salad as fast as possible. But as I was cutting up my avocado, she walked in and started to cook. She asked if I had any flour and I told her that I did and that I’d get it for her after I finished cutting the tomato. She told me to take my time. But then a few minutes later she comes over and whispers “weizen Mehl (flour)” in my ear. I told her that she had said that I could take my time and she was like “I know, but I neeeeeeed it!” Ahhh. That girl. When I finished my salad I started working on my paper for Herr Dörr. We had to write about something funny or interesting that’s happened to us since we’ve been in Germany. I chose to write about living on my street and how it’s always so busy. I wrote that I have had many near-death experiences and about when Caitlyn and I saw someone get hit by a car. Heidi called just as I was getting started and wanted to know if I wanted to go out with her, Maressa and Charis that night. Of course! I’m always up for a girls night and cocktails! I wrote a little bit more of my paper and then went to Heidi’s. She had on a little makeup and looked so pretty! We met up with the other two and then went to Grey Stones where they had a special on cocktails. After we had been there for awhile, these two guys came in and sat down next to us. They asked us to watch their coats a few times while they went outside to smoke. Eventually they got up the nerve to talk to us and we found out that they were German soldiers just visiting for the evening. I couldn’t really hear them and they were talking fast, so I didn’t want to say much in case I misheard them. But then Maressa and Charis started talking and then Heidi joined their conversation so I was stuck talking to them by myself. They asked me if people drink a lot of hard liquor in the US. It kind of came out of nowhere so I wasn’t sure if that’s what they were really asking. I told them that at the University people drink a lot and they probably drink more beer than anything. They proceeded to tell me that Germany is known for its beer and that there’s a thing called Oktoberfest. Oh really? I think they could tell that I was uncomfortable talking to them myself. But that happens every time we go to that place! Last time these two American guys came up and started talking to us. We were getting ready to leave anyway, so Maressa and her friend walked outside. And then Heidi walked out when she was able to. So there I was. Stuck talking to these two guys. Blah!
After we paid we went for a walk along the river and then walked Charis home. Days like today are exactly what Heidielberg is supposed to be like: sunny and warm!
She had a friend with her who was pretty easy to talk to. We walked down to the Marstall Mensa, but the line was really long so we headed back up to the other Mensa by Uniplatz. I had never eaten there before and it was actually really good. They have three lines you can go through (but you have to go up the stairs to get to them) and a little TV screen that tells what each line has. One of the lines has a complete meal that you can buy, the other has another type of special and then the third is a buffet. We were starving and decided the buffet would be the best option. The food was really good and we had fun talking for awhile. Her friend speaks English really well because her boyfriend is an American. They met when she was studying in Texas for a year. She did kind of bother me by asking why I am studying in Heidelberg. It bothered me because she said it in a “this place stinks” kind of tone. I told her that I love it here and she was surprised. So I asked her why she studies here and she said “because I’m not rich and I can’t study wherever I want.” So that was kind of an uncomfortable moment. I ran home after we put our plates up and got my laundry out of the dryer and then met Simone back at the Mensa. We then went to Marstall for coffee. Simone said she had a milkshake from there a few days before and that it was really good. I was excited because I thought that maybe Germany had actually learned how to make a milkshake. When my family came in 2000, Derek ordered milkshakes everywhere we went and it became a joke to see how they would actually turn out. Every single time it was literally milk that had been shaken. So I ordered a raspberry milkshake and as soon as I saw it, I knew that it was indeed not a milkshake. It tasted like there was some sour-ish vanilla yogurt in it. I will not be ordering one of those again!! And it was kind of expensive, but we did get a Euro refund for it when we turned our glass in. It was an absolutely beautiful day and Simone’s friend Julia (who I met last semester) met up with us. I decided that I want to learn 5-10 new German verbs each week and Simone and Julia helped me think of them. Simone would ask me a verb and I knew most of the ones she said. She told Julia “she just knows too much German!” I quickly told her that I have never had the problem of knowing too much German. So we whipped out a magazine and found some random verbs that I should learn.
When I first met with Simone she said that I was a typical American because I was wearing flip flops. But the weather was so nice that I couldn’t NOT wear flip flops! I told her and her friend that I probably had more than 20 pairs at home and they said that they have three and thought that was a lot! Then when we met up with Julia, Simone told her to look under the table at my feet. And after she did she said “Typical American.” Haha That’s right.
We sat outside the entire time and left a little before 4. I had class at 4:15 so when they went shopping, I went home and then on to class. This was the first day that the professor’s computer connected with the projector so we got to watch a few clips and listen to some songs. I think this class is going to be really cool. But there are so many Americans in there…and a few of them have awful accents. I’m not at all saying that my accent is perfect, it’s almost hard to listen to them or even understand what they’re saying at times.
After class I came home and made a salad for dinner. There was a covered bowl sitting on the counter so I peeked inside. It was raw fish. Gross. Julia ALWAYS leaves stuff sitting out like that. The night before there was a pot of potatoes just sitting on the stove. I think she cooks things and then does something else and forgets that she was cooking. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case because she’s incredibly scatter-brained. I knew she’d be coming back to cook her fish soon so I tried to make my salad as fast as possible. But as I was cutting up my avocado, she walked in and started to cook. She asked if I had any flour and I told her that I did and that I’d get it for her after I finished cutting the tomato. She told me to take my time. But then a few minutes later she comes over and whispers “weizen Mehl (flour)” in my ear. I told her that she had said that I could take my time and she was like “I know, but I neeeeeeed it!” Ahhh. That girl. When I finished my salad I started working on my paper for Herr Dörr. We had to write about something funny or interesting that’s happened to us since we’ve been in Germany. I chose to write about living on my street and how it’s always so busy. I wrote that I have had many near-death experiences and about when Caitlyn and I saw someone get hit by a car. Heidi called just as I was getting started and wanted to know if I wanted to go out with her, Maressa and Charis that night. Of course! I’m always up for a girls night and cocktails! I wrote a little bit more of my paper and then went to Heidi’s. She had on a little makeup and looked so pretty! We met up with the other two and then went to Grey Stones where they had a special on cocktails. After we had been there for awhile, these two guys came in and sat down next to us. They asked us to watch their coats a few times while they went outside to smoke. Eventually they got up the nerve to talk to us and we found out that they were German soldiers just visiting for the evening. I couldn’t really hear them and they were talking fast, so I didn’t want to say much in case I misheard them. But then Maressa and Charis started talking and then Heidi joined their conversation so I was stuck talking to them by myself. They asked me if people drink a lot of hard liquor in the US. It kind of came out of nowhere so I wasn’t sure if that’s what they were really asking. I told them that at the University people drink a lot and they probably drink more beer than anything. They proceeded to tell me that Germany is known for its beer and that there’s a thing called Oktoberfest. Oh really? I think they could tell that I was uncomfortable talking to them myself. But that happens every time we go to that place! Last time these two American guys came up and started talking to us. We were getting ready to leave anyway, so Maressa and her friend walked outside. And then Heidi walked out when she was able to. So there I was. Stuck talking to these two guys. Blah!
After we paid we went for a walk along the river and then walked Charis home. Days like today are exactly what Heidielberg is supposed to be like: sunny and warm!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Running Around and Leaving for LONDON!
This morning I wrote my first paper for Herr Dörr. We had to write a newspaper article with suggestions for students studying in Germany for the first time. One of my suggestions was that you should be careful when you eat at the Mensa because they weigh the food you get. Therefore, you shouldn't get too much scnitzel or potatoes! Another was that it would be really helpful to find a German friend who you can meet weekly with for coffee and cake. Coffee and cake or Kaffee und Kuchen is such a German thing and they love going to cafes. I support that!
After I got all packed up I quickly made some lunch and then headed off to my 4 o'clock class. His computer didn't connect again today so it wasn't all that exciting. We heard a presentation about an Austrian singer named Christina Stürmer and also about Xavier Naidoo who is from Mannheim. We even got to listen to a few songs from each of them. After class I went home, got my backpack and then went to AJY to print out my paper and boarding passes. I wish that I could check in online, but since i don't have a European issued ID, I'm not allowed to do so. I hopped on the bus at Uniplatz and when I got to Bismarckplatz I quckly ran over to where the busses for the airport are. They had changed the schedule since last semester and it said that the last bus left at 5:20. No way! There are flights that fly out way later than that! I was so confused. So I went inside and asked the information desk if there were any trains going to Karlsruhe. I made a huge mistake and asked her in English and she was incredibly rude and unhelpful. I could have done it in German, but I was just in such a frenzy I freaked out a little bit. So I knew what I had to do. I sucked it up and got a taxi. Luckily the man was very willing to drive there (I think it's about an hour and a half away). Mom and Dad, when you read this don't freak out! It's what I had to do!!! But then man and I spoke German the whole time and he was very friendly. Before I even got in his taxi I told him that I needed to get some money out of an ATM. He said I could just do that at the airport when we arrived. I was about 10 Euros short of what I owed him and said that I could just give him what I had and that I didn't need to worry about the rest. How nice!!! It actually wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought it was going to be. But I learned a lesson. Check and then double check the signs to make sure you know exactly when the bus leaves!
I started the book P.S. I Love You while I was at the airport and then read it on the plane as well. The trip was super short and I was on the bus at Stansted before I knew it. For some reason in London you have to give them all of this information about what you're doing there and how long you're staying as you go through passport controll. I love having an American passport because I don't have to wait in the super long European passports line. Instead I have to go to "other" passports. Works for me because that line is usually really short!!! I grabbed a mozarella and avocado sandwich before getting on the bus and it was pretty good. Really reminded me of how much I love avocados!
The worst culture shock I've ever had always happens in London. I just can't get over the fact that they drive on the other side of the street. I sat there on the bus and just cringed every time we made a turn. I could've sworn that we were going to hit a light pole or a person or SOMETHING! It's just so FOREIGN to me and I'm definitely not a fan.
I got off the bus at Victoria station where Laura and Jess said they'd meet me. Last time I came, Caitlyn was sitting there reading a book and waiting for me. But Jess and Laura were nowhere to be found. And honestly, I was really scared. It was about 11:30 and there weren't too many people around. So I stood at the top of the stairs and walked up and down for awhile. I walked to the other side of the station to see if they were over there, but it was even more deserted so I came back to where I thought we were meeting. I thought I saw them a few different times, but it of course wasn't them. A little after 12 I look down the sidewalk and hear them saying "Is that Alison??" It was them! I was so relieved! I ran over and hugged them and then we headed off to find a bus to take us to Laura's flat. We got a little lost (Laura had only been to Victoria station once and it was really late so she didn't exactly know where to go). But we eventually found the bus we needed and a little while later made it to her flat. Hers was totally different than Caitlyn's...especially since she only had 3 other roommates. They had a little upstairs area where their kitchen and living room was. Really cute! I had some bread with peanut butter and we talked for awhile. We stayed up pretty late and finally crashed around 2 or so.
Meeting up with friends in foreign countries is one of my favorite things! Especially when they live there! It's so cool to see where they live and what they do. It's also great to see friends that I usually see everyday, but haven't seen in a long time. LOVE IT!
After I got all packed up I quickly made some lunch and then headed off to my 4 o'clock class. His computer didn't connect again today so it wasn't all that exciting. We heard a presentation about an Austrian singer named Christina Stürmer and also about Xavier Naidoo who is from Mannheim. We even got to listen to a few songs from each of them. After class I went home, got my backpack and then went to AJY to print out my paper and boarding passes. I wish that I could check in online, but since i don't have a European issued ID, I'm not allowed to do so. I hopped on the bus at Uniplatz and when I got to Bismarckplatz I quckly ran over to where the busses for the airport are. They had changed the schedule since last semester and it said that the last bus left at 5:20. No way! There are flights that fly out way later than that! I was so confused. So I went inside and asked the information desk if there were any trains going to Karlsruhe. I made a huge mistake and asked her in English and she was incredibly rude and unhelpful. I could have done it in German, but I was just in such a frenzy I freaked out a little bit. So I knew what I had to do. I sucked it up and got a taxi. Luckily the man was very willing to drive there (I think it's about an hour and a half away). Mom and Dad, when you read this don't freak out! It's what I had to do!!! But then man and I spoke German the whole time and he was very friendly. Before I even got in his taxi I told him that I needed to get some money out of an ATM. He said I could just do that at the airport when we arrived. I was about 10 Euros short of what I owed him and said that I could just give him what I had and that I didn't need to worry about the rest. How nice!!! It actually wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought it was going to be. But I learned a lesson. Check and then double check the signs to make sure you know exactly when the bus leaves!
I started the book P.S. I Love You while I was at the airport and then read it on the plane as well. The trip was super short and I was on the bus at Stansted before I knew it. For some reason in London you have to give them all of this information about what you're doing there and how long you're staying as you go through passport controll. I love having an American passport because I don't have to wait in the super long European passports line. Instead I have to go to "other" passports. Works for me because that line is usually really short!!! I grabbed a mozarella and avocado sandwich before getting on the bus and it was pretty good. Really reminded me of how much I love avocados!
The worst culture shock I've ever had always happens in London. I just can't get over the fact that they drive on the other side of the street. I sat there on the bus and just cringed every time we made a turn. I could've sworn that we were going to hit a light pole or a person or SOMETHING! It's just so FOREIGN to me and I'm definitely not a fan.
I got off the bus at Victoria station where Laura and Jess said they'd meet me. Last time I came, Caitlyn was sitting there reading a book and waiting for me. But Jess and Laura were nowhere to be found. And honestly, I was really scared. It was about 11:30 and there weren't too many people around. So I stood at the top of the stairs and walked up and down for awhile. I walked to the other side of the station to see if they were over there, but it was even more deserted so I came back to where I thought we were meeting. I thought I saw them a few different times, but it of course wasn't them. A little after 12 I look down the sidewalk and hear them saying "Is that Alison??" It was them! I was so relieved! I ran over and hugged them and then we headed off to find a bus to take us to Laura's flat. We got a little lost (Laura had only been to Victoria station once and it was really late so she didn't exactly know where to go). But we eventually found the bus we needed and a little while later made it to her flat. Hers was totally different than Caitlyn's...especially since she only had 3 other roommates. They had a little upstairs area where their kitchen and living room was. Really cute! I had some bread with peanut butter and we talked for awhile. We stayed up pretty late and finally crashed around 2 or so.
Meeting up with friends in foreign countries is one of my favorite things! Especially when they live there! It's so cool to see where they live and what they do. It's also great to see friends that I usually see everyday, but haven't seen in a long time. LOVE IT!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
I have the best Sprachpartner...ever!
Yesterday Heidi and I decided we'd have breakfast together at AJY. Since my classes are all later in the afternoon, I find that I have been just sleeping in most days and then don't get a whole lot done. So we're working on having things in the morning...reasons to get up I guess. She brought the butter, jam, etc. and I brought the bread. I also brought some yogurt that I had in my fridge since I wanted to get rid of it before going to London on Thursday. Maressa came too and I actually drank coffee! I did put some milk in it, but no sugar this time. Whoa. I don't drink coffee. I don't understand this!
I was SO tired and didn't really want to get up just to eat breakfast, but I did and I'm glad that I did. The three of us had fun talking and stuff and decided we'd make this a regular thing with a Bible study some mornings. Jenny Craig (haha), an AJY Alum and Uni. Heidelberg Grad Student came in and asked if it was a breakfast club. Not necessarily, but sure. I stayed at AJY for a little while and then went home to clean my room a little. Heidi called shortly after wondering if she could do her laundry at my place since the washers in her building were always busy. She came over looking like Santa Claus with her big bag of laundry. We had to wait a half an hour for the washer to be free. We had to be back at AJY at 1:15 for our bi-weekly meeting. Between the time after the meeting and 2 I booked my trip to Scotland in May! I'm SO excited. #1) I get to go to a new place. #2) I get to see Jessica and where she lives/studies #3) I don't have class on Fridays, Monday is a holiday and my class on Tuesday isn't until 6 PM so I am flying back on Tuesday morning #4) The tickets were relatively inexpensive (20 Euros each way) and I get to fly out of Edinburgh both times! So a good thing all around!
At 2 I met up with Simone. It was just so great to see her again. We went to Marstall for lunch and coffee. I ate lunch (she didn't) and I gave her the gifts I had gotten for her in the States. She loved them and also the magazines that I passed down. We're going to watch the movies together sometime soon. I am liking the Mensa (dining hall) much better this time around. They had good food today and I wanted a little of everything (almost). Then we went to the other part of the Mensa and ordered Latte Macchiatos and cake. Those Germans love their coffee and cake. It's what they do. Like all the time. So I had the Black Forest cake. Oh my gosh! Sooo good! We had a lot of fun catching up and just talking about life in general. I feel so lucky that we have become such good friends. She likes watching a show called Greek (American show) about sororities and fraternities. She was telling me about it and all of the "crazy" things that they do such as snapping, theme parties, matching shirts, different rules, big and little sisters and more. She was in awe as I told her that all of those things are actually real and that we do each and everything thing she talked about!!! There were a few things that had been stretched pretty far, but for the most part they were true. Now she wants so badly to study in the US and to join a sorority. I loved telling her all about it because she was so interested in hearing about all of the different things. She also asked if it was true that we stand in a circle and pass around a candle when someone is engaged and if their boyfriend gives the girl their letters. Umm yea! One of my favorite things we do! So now I'm going to have to watch this show with her sometime.
When we left the Mensa there was a lot of noise and it looked like there was a protest of some sort on the street. But it was a bunch of Lidl workers (discount grocery store) who were taking part in an unusual march where they declared that Lidl is a great place to work and that they liked working there. Lidl has been in the news lately for spying on its employees and even hiring private detectives. Lidl says they did these things to combat shoplifting, but many employees feel violated. So that was kind of interesting. After over 2.5 hours Simone and I said goodbye and went out separate ways. Heidi had my keys since she was washing her clothes while I was with Simone so I ran by her place to get them. We had class at 6 so I went home after a bit and then back again to AJY.
I didn't take Herr Doerr's class last semester because I didn't really like him during the intense grammar class. He just intimidated me a lot and I thought he was kind of mean. But I figured I might as well take his class this semester. It's a writing class (kind of) and we have to write one paper each week. That will be a challenge, but there isn't a test at the end, which is really cool. I mean, we do write 14 papers over the course of the semester so I think that's fair enough. Right before he ended class he asked if anyone had any questions and then looked at me and asked if I was living in the same room this semester and if I got to leave my things here while I went home. I answered yes and then he said a few more things to the class and then it was over. How random!? Totally threw me off! But then after class we talked for a few minutes about the vacation he took over the last few weeks. He was somewhere a little north of Madagascar and it was really warm and sunny. It was good that I got to talk to him because each time I do I get less intimidated and realize that he really isn't mean, just pretty sarcastic and blunt. I got ice cream with Jason, Jessica, John and Tara after class. Wow. There are so many J names in AJY! haha Later I went home, had dinner and did some homework for tomorrow.
I was SO tired and didn't really want to get up just to eat breakfast, but I did and I'm glad that I did. The three of us had fun talking and stuff and decided we'd make this a regular thing with a Bible study some mornings. Jenny Craig (haha), an AJY Alum and Uni. Heidelberg Grad Student came in and asked if it was a breakfast club. Not necessarily, but sure. I stayed at AJY for a little while and then went home to clean my room a little. Heidi called shortly after wondering if she could do her laundry at my place since the washers in her building were always busy. She came over looking like Santa Claus with her big bag of laundry. We had to wait a half an hour for the washer to be free. We had to be back at AJY at 1:15 for our bi-weekly meeting. Between the time after the meeting and 2 I booked my trip to Scotland in May! I'm SO excited. #1) I get to go to a new place. #2) I get to see Jessica and where she lives/studies #3) I don't have class on Fridays, Monday is a holiday and my class on Tuesday isn't until 6 PM so I am flying back on Tuesday morning #4) The tickets were relatively inexpensive (20 Euros each way) and I get to fly out of Edinburgh both times! So a good thing all around!
At 2 I met up with Simone. It was just so great to see her again. We went to Marstall for lunch and coffee. I ate lunch (she didn't) and I gave her the gifts I had gotten for her in the States. She loved them and also the magazines that I passed down. We're going to watch the movies together sometime soon. I am liking the Mensa (dining hall) much better this time around. They had good food today and I wanted a little of everything (almost). Then we went to the other part of the Mensa and ordered Latte Macchiatos and cake. Those Germans love their coffee and cake. It's what they do. Like all the time. So I had the Black Forest cake. Oh my gosh! Sooo good! We had a lot of fun catching up and just talking about life in general. I feel so lucky that we have become such good friends. She likes watching a show called Greek (American show) about sororities and fraternities. She was telling me about it and all of the "crazy" things that they do such as snapping, theme parties, matching shirts, different rules, big and little sisters and more. She was in awe as I told her that all of those things are actually real and that we do each and everything thing she talked about!!! There were a few things that had been stretched pretty far, but for the most part they were true. Now she wants so badly to study in the US and to join a sorority. I loved telling her all about it because she was so interested in hearing about all of the different things. She also asked if it was true that we stand in a circle and pass around a candle when someone is engaged and if their boyfriend gives the girl their letters. Umm yea! One of my favorite things we do! So now I'm going to have to watch this show with her sometime.
When we left the Mensa there was a lot of noise and it looked like there was a protest of some sort on the street. But it was a bunch of Lidl workers (discount grocery store) who were taking part in an unusual march where they declared that Lidl is a great place to work and that they liked working there. Lidl has been in the news lately for spying on its employees and even hiring private detectives. Lidl says they did these things to combat shoplifting, but many employees feel violated. So that was kind of interesting. After over 2.5 hours Simone and I said goodbye and went out separate ways. Heidi had my keys since she was washing her clothes while I was with Simone so I ran by her place to get them. We had class at 6 so I went home after a bit and then back again to AJY.
I didn't take Herr Doerr's class last semester because I didn't really like him during the intense grammar class. He just intimidated me a lot and I thought he was kind of mean. But I figured I might as well take his class this semester. It's a writing class (kind of) and we have to write one paper each week. That will be a challenge, but there isn't a test at the end, which is really cool. I mean, we do write 14 papers over the course of the semester so I think that's fair enough. Right before he ended class he asked if anyone had any questions and then looked at me and asked if I was living in the same room this semester and if I got to leave my things here while I went home. I answered yes and then he said a few more things to the class and then it was over. How random!? Totally threw me off! But then after class we talked for a few minutes about the vacation he took over the last few weeks. He was somewhere a little north of Madagascar and it was really warm and sunny. It was good that I got to talk to him because each time I do I get less intimidated and realize that he really isn't mean, just pretty sarcastic and blunt. I got ice cream with Jason, Jessica, John and Tara after class. Wow. There are so many J names in AJY! haha Later I went home, had dinner and did some homework for tomorrow.
Monday, April 14, 2008
If Only I Could Pronounce German 'R's Correctly!
I have been collecting my plastic bottles for quite awhile (since at least December!) and I figured that I should probably turn them in and get some money back! So I went to Rewe where they have an automatic bottle exchanger (no idea what you call it in English) and just as it was my turn, the machine started beeping because it was full. As one guy went to get someone to fix it, about three other people walked up and were in line behind me. I felt really bad because I had so many! But I ended up getting 6 Euros back so I bought some more water and even found a big bottle of Cherry Coke. I kind of felt like I was in a Third World country when I saw the Cherry Coke. I got so excited for some reason!
Something I've noticed a lot lately is that when older people (or kind of unkempt people) walk past a trash can, they always stop to look around inside. They are looking for bottles that have a refund. I know that happens in the US with cans and such, but I notice it ALL the time here and it bothers me for some reason. Especially when it's elderly grandma-looking ladies. Anyway.
I showered and then got ready for class. Since it's less than a 2 minute walk from my apartment, I just wore my flip flops and no jacket. It was actually nice enough that I didn't need a jacket and my feet weren't even cold. But when I opted to wear the flip flops I knew that Voigt-Zimmermann would say SOMETHING about it. And of course she did. As soon as she walked in the door she said "you do know that it isn't summer yet?" Yes. But I'm an American and we wear flip flops all the time! haha We had to interview someone we didn't know in the class so I got to know a girl from Bulgaria named Vesselena. She was interesting. Then we had to get up in front of the class and tell them about the other person. We weren't supposed to say "um" or "eh" or anything like that, but once we were aware of it, we said it a lot! I had written most of what I was going to say out on a sheet of paper, so I didn't "uh" really, but I guess that wasn't really fair since most of them were just speaking. Then again it was only like three or four things of information. There are only 8 girls in the class and three are from the US, three from Hungary, one from China and the other Bulgaria. After that we had to read Der Nordwind und der Sonne. One by one we went in front of the class and she recorded it. Since I was one of the ones who had taken her last class where we read it a lot, she had me go first. I was happy to get it over with! Then we sat there and analyzed how we did and how much we breathed as we read. She had us pay attention to the different sounds that we make when we breathe. For example we had to determine if we were breathing out of our noses or mouths. I breathed 11 times during my reading. We counted 18 for one and then 5 for another! Quite a wide range! Voigt-Zimmermann doesn't hold anything back and she even told Katie Wachter that her R's were really bad and that she shouldn't speak any English because it's really affecting how she speaks. But it didn't really sound any different to me than how she spoke last semester. She told her to not talk to me as much...and I wanted SO badly to say that we NEVER talk and NEVER hang out, but I didn't. But German R's are so hard in some words and she told me that was what I needed to work on too. Sarah rolls her R's ALL the time and she apparently never knew it. Voigt-Zimmermann wanted to prove it to her so we listened to her recording again. That was one of the first things I noticed about Sarah! Her mom is German so maybe she got it from her? Voigt-Zimmermann said that it was wrong and she shouldn't be rolling them from the front at all. Man. We have so much to learn! We were also given a new text for next week and we have to practice reading it as if we were reading it aloud to three different groups - children, adults and then elderly people.
I came back and had lunch and worked on my homework for awhile. At 6 was Frau Heckmann's class and we learned about Kanak Sprak which is like slang of a language usually spoken by the minority group and in ghettos. We learned that in Germany it is usually spoken by Turkish boys. I've noticed on the bus a few times that the Turkish boys speak a little differently and that their German is kind of weird and now I know why! Not to say that all of them do it or that it is just Turkish people, but they are the majority. A lot of school-age kids use it too. Patrick and Davor thought it was really cool and want to learn how to speak like that too. Frau Heckmann just kept saying how bad it sounds and that it is not something that they should aspire toward. My favorite phrase we learned was something like "what are you looking at? Am I am movie (Kino) or what?" It sounds better...well not better, but it works better saying it in German!
I feel like I learned a lot today and I like both of my Monday classes a lot. Alexander came after class and was showing off his new French skills because he's taking an intro. class. I just don't get that language and all of the weird sounds!! Maybe someday I'll learn it too, but for now I'm just going to stick to German! I have enough new words rattling around in my head!
Something I've noticed a lot lately is that when older people (or kind of unkempt people) walk past a trash can, they always stop to look around inside. They are looking for bottles that have a refund. I know that happens in the US with cans and such, but I notice it ALL the time here and it bothers me for some reason. Especially when it's elderly grandma-looking ladies. Anyway.
I showered and then got ready for class. Since it's less than a 2 minute walk from my apartment, I just wore my flip flops and no jacket. It was actually nice enough that I didn't need a jacket and my feet weren't even cold. But when I opted to wear the flip flops I knew that Voigt-Zimmermann would say SOMETHING about it. And of course she did. As soon as she walked in the door she said "you do know that it isn't summer yet?" Yes. But I'm an American and we wear flip flops all the time! haha We had to interview someone we didn't know in the class so I got to know a girl from Bulgaria named Vesselena. She was interesting. Then we had to get up in front of the class and tell them about the other person. We weren't supposed to say "um" or "eh" or anything like that, but once we were aware of it, we said it a lot! I had written most of what I was going to say out on a sheet of paper, so I didn't "uh" really, but I guess that wasn't really fair since most of them were just speaking. Then again it was only like three or four things of information. There are only 8 girls in the class and three are from the US, three from Hungary, one from China and the other Bulgaria. After that we had to read Der Nordwind und der Sonne. One by one we went in front of the class and she recorded it. Since I was one of the ones who had taken her last class where we read it a lot, she had me go first. I was happy to get it over with! Then we sat there and analyzed how we did and how much we breathed as we read. She had us pay attention to the different sounds that we make when we breathe. For example we had to determine if we were breathing out of our noses or mouths. I breathed 11 times during my reading. We counted 18 for one and then 5 for another! Quite a wide range! Voigt-Zimmermann doesn't hold anything back and she even told Katie Wachter that her R's were really bad and that she shouldn't speak any English because it's really affecting how she speaks. But it didn't really sound any different to me than how she spoke last semester. She told her to not talk to me as much...and I wanted SO badly to say that we NEVER talk and NEVER hang out, but I didn't. But German R's are so hard in some words and she told me that was what I needed to work on too. Sarah rolls her R's ALL the time and she apparently never knew it. Voigt-Zimmermann wanted to prove it to her so we listened to her recording again. That was one of the first things I noticed about Sarah! Her mom is German so maybe she got it from her? Voigt-Zimmermann said that it was wrong and she shouldn't be rolling them from the front at all. Man. We have so much to learn! We were also given a new text for next week and we have to practice reading it as if we were reading it aloud to three different groups - children, adults and then elderly people.
I came back and had lunch and worked on my homework for awhile. At 6 was Frau Heckmann's class and we learned about Kanak Sprak which is like slang of a language usually spoken by the minority group and in ghettos. We learned that in Germany it is usually spoken by Turkish boys. I've noticed on the bus a few times that the Turkish boys speak a little differently and that their German is kind of weird and now I know why! Not to say that all of them do it or that it is just Turkish people, but they are the majority. A lot of school-age kids use it too. Patrick and Davor thought it was really cool and want to learn how to speak like that too. Frau Heckmann just kept saying how bad it sounds and that it is not something that they should aspire toward. My favorite phrase we learned was something like "what are you looking at? Am I am movie (Kino) or what?" It sounds better...well not better, but it works better saying it in German!
I feel like I learned a lot today and I like both of my Monday classes a lot. Alexander came after class and was showing off his new French skills because he's taking an intro. class. I just don't get that language and all of the weird sounds!! Maybe someday I'll learn it too, but for now I'm just going to stick to German! I have enough new words rattling around in my head!
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!
This morning I got up around 8:30 to call Caitlyn while she was at Elonthon. She didn't answer, so I went back to sleep for a little while. I didn't leave myself too much time to get ready for church, but I got ready pretty quickly and then ran out the door to catch the bus. It was leaving just as I got to the stairs so I walked to Bismarckplatz to find another bus. I found one there and on my way to the train station I saw Maressa, Heidi and Maressa's friend Mona walking. I guess they had missed the bus too. I found Charis once I got to the train station and then we waited on the others to arrive. Allison and Sarah walked up a few minutes later and then we all took off for church. We all sat near the front and almost filled a whole row. I really like that this church sings a lot before the sermon. Most of the songs were in German and I didn't know the ones that were in English. We did sing a song that I heard last semester at Campus fuer Christus called 'Grosser, Herrlischer Gott." I really like that song. Church was pretty long...I think an hour and a half? The pastor spoke in English and his wife translated for him. She isn't quite as good as the translator from Victory International, but she was entertaining. After church they have a free lunch, but it was going to be a half an hour before it was ready and I knew that we would probably be there forever if we stayed. So I took the bus back and got a nice tour of Neuenheimer Feld and the town across the bridge. It was actually kind of nice to just hang out on the bus for a bit and see what else is in/around Heidelberg!
Anna was at our apartment with her mom and grandma when I got back. It was really great to see her again. We talked for a few minutes and then I tried calling Caitlyn one more time. I found out that she actually wasn't doing Elonthon for 24 hours because she was leaving for Las Vegas today for a conference. But we got to talk for about a half an hour and it was so great to catch up! A little while later Mattias knocked on my door to see if I wanted to see some of his pictures. He showed me pictures of his family, including some of his grandmother when she was a child. I had to laugh a little in my head because of the wide variety of pictures he was showing. He also showed me some from when he was in the army for 9 months. German guys have to do some sort of military work after graduating from high school. He just had a desk job, but still had to wear a uniform and go through some training. Pretty interesting. I have a kind of hard time understanding him, though. His vocabulary is much greater than the people I normally talk to and he speaks kind of fast. I had to laugh again when he asked me what other pictures I would like to see. I noticed that he had folders for Russia and Paris so I suggested one of those. And to that he said "or Poland?" Umm sure. So we looked at pictures from Poland. He then wanted to know if I had any pictures that I could show him so I just showed him the ones that I have hanging in my room. Then his friend came over and then went on a really long bike ride.
After he left Julia, Anna and I talked for awhile. Julia of course complained about the Internet, Mattias and everything else in life. I really just don't understand this girl. Anna told us about a show that reunites people. One of her friends, Johanna (who lives upstairs) studied in Australia for awhile and met a guy there. They dated for awhile and then kept in touch when she came back to Germany. But the distance was too much, so they broke up. Well a few months ago Johanna's roommaes Rabea wrote a letter to this show and a few weeks ago they contacted Johanna and Nick. So tonight the show was on TV with them. Nick and Johanna had stopped by and told Anna all of this and Anna was of course so excited. She gets excited about a lot of things and this was no exception! Pretty cool, though!
Maressa stopped by for a bit after she dropped her friend off at the train station. We talked for a few minutes and then Heidi knocked on the window. We hung out for about a half an hour and then they both left to do homework and stuff. When Matthias came back from his bike ride, ate dinner and showered, he asked if I could show him some more pictures. I asked if there was anything in particular that he wanted to see and he said "pictures from America." So I showed him ones from graduation, football games, Elon, Lake Norman, etc. He thought the cheerleaders from the football games were cool because he'd only seen them in movies. He also liked the pictures from graduation where everyone was wearing the robes and then from when we threw our hats in the air. He's pretty much interested in learning anything he can about American culture, which is pretty cool. I feel so bad sometimes because I don't know exactly what he's asking me and I don't really know how to explain what I want to say. Sometimes I just explain things in English, but usually I try in German and then he can kind of fill in the blanks when I don't know what to say. Hopefully talking with him more will help improve my German. If only I could remember the words that I lear from him!
Anna was at our apartment with her mom and grandma when I got back. It was really great to see her again. We talked for a few minutes and then I tried calling Caitlyn one more time. I found out that she actually wasn't doing Elonthon for 24 hours because she was leaving for Las Vegas today for a conference. But we got to talk for about a half an hour and it was so great to catch up! A little while later Mattias knocked on my door to see if I wanted to see some of his pictures. He showed me pictures of his family, including some of his grandmother when she was a child. I had to laugh a little in my head because of the wide variety of pictures he was showing. He also showed me some from when he was in the army for 9 months. German guys have to do some sort of military work after graduating from high school. He just had a desk job, but still had to wear a uniform and go through some training. Pretty interesting. I have a kind of hard time understanding him, though. His vocabulary is much greater than the people I normally talk to and he speaks kind of fast. I had to laugh again when he asked me what other pictures I would like to see. I noticed that he had folders for Russia and Paris so I suggested one of those. And to that he said "or Poland?" Umm sure. So we looked at pictures from Poland. He then wanted to know if I had any pictures that I could show him so I just showed him the ones that I have hanging in my room. Then his friend came over and then went on a really long bike ride.
After he left Julia, Anna and I talked for awhile. Julia of course complained about the Internet, Mattias and everything else in life. I really just don't understand this girl. Anna told us about a show that reunites people. One of her friends, Johanna (who lives upstairs) studied in Australia for awhile and met a guy there. They dated for awhile and then kept in touch when she came back to Germany. But the distance was too much, so they broke up. Well a few months ago Johanna's roommaes Rabea wrote a letter to this show and a few weeks ago they contacted Johanna and Nick. So tonight the show was on TV with them. Nick and Johanna had stopped by and told Anna all of this and Anna was of course so excited. She gets excited about a lot of things and this was no exception! Pretty cool, though!
Maressa stopped by for a bit after she dropped her friend off at the train station. We talked for a few minutes and then Heidi knocked on the window. We hung out for about a half an hour and then they both left to do homework and stuff. When Matthias came back from his bike ride, ate dinner and showered, he asked if I could show him some more pictures. I asked if there was anything in particular that he wanted to see and he said "pictures from America." So I showed him ones from graduation, football games, Elon, Lake Norman, etc. He thought the cheerleaders from the football games were cool because he'd only seen them in movies. He also liked the pictures from graduation where everyone was wearing the robes and then from when we threw our hats in the air. He's pretty much interested in learning anything he can about American culture, which is pretty cool. I feel so bad sometimes because I don't know exactly what he's asking me and I don't really know how to explain what I want to say. Sometimes I just explain things in English, but usually I try in German and then he can kind of fill in the blanks when I don't know what to say. Hopefully talking with him more will help improve my German. If only I could remember the words that I lear from him!
Saturday, April 12, 2008
No Rain in Heidelberg!
I slept in a bit today and then just bummed around my apartment for awhile. The sun was shining and there was no way I could pass that up! So I grabbed my computer and a few other things and headed outside. I got a iced chai from a coffee place and then went to Marstall (student cafe/cafeteria place) and sat at a table outside. I wrote some on my blog and had a few visitors. Alexander stopped by as he was walking through and then awhile later so did Mona and Maressa. The sun started to fade after about an hour so I walked over to Heidi's to see what she was up to. But there were all of these guys just sitting outside on her steps and I didn't want to go over there and ring her bell in case she wasn't home. I probably should have just done it, but I just went home instead. I finished blogging and then did a few other things. Heidi stopped by later and we talked for awhile. I was planning on going out with some other AJYs, but she didn't want to so we walked to PennyMarkt so she could get some food for dinner. I really didn't need to buy anything, but I got some bread and one or two other things. I ate when we got back and then we headed over to AJY. She went home and then I met up with Maressa, Mona, Eric, Janelle, Dan, Jeff and Charis. We tried a few different places and they were all full so we went to the Vespabar. There was practically nobody there, but that meant that there was enough room for 8 people! A little while later Peter, John and Anna showed up. I just got hot chocolate, but it was some kind of specialty hot chocolate that was really thick. Yum! Mona got some kind of Banana Beer. It was actually really good! Apparently you can get all kinds of beer with fruitiness added to it. I'll have to keep that in mind for next time! We stayed for quite awhile and then talked about going somewhere else. I had told Heidi that I would come by her place if we weren't doing anything very exciting so I went there and most of the others actually went home. Heidi and I ended up watching Freedom Writers, which she loved. I knew she would since she wants to be a teacher! I totally recommend that movie to anyone!
Friday, April 11, 2008
An Afternoon in Weinheim
Last night Sarah told us about a free "beginning of the semester" breakfast at the Anglistiches Seminar aka place where classes in English are offered. Heidi stopped by this morning and then we walked over and met Sarah. Just your typical German breakfast that I absolutely love. A wide variety of rolls with butter, jams, cheeses and meats. Best way to start the day! The three of us planned to take a little trip to Weinheim for the afternoon. I went back to my room a little early so that I could grab my camera and they picked me up on the way. Weinheim is a cute little town that's not too far away. We can get there with our Semester Tickets (a ticket we buy at the beginning of the semester that lets us ride busses, trains, etc. for free within a certain area. Good stuff).
My stomach hurt really bad while we were on the train so I wasn't too talkative the whole way there. But as we walked around the town some I started to feel much better. We were going to have some coffee and cake at a cafe, but the one we went to was really full and the only available seating was in the smoking room. No thank you. So we walked outside and Voila! An Ice cream shop! So of course we stopped there and even got to eat our ice cream outside! I got cinnamon and mango. Weirdo combination, but those two flavors are so yummy. On our way into get our ice cream, a little girl was sitting outside with her mom and said "Die Kinder wollen auch Eis." And in English she said "The children want ice cream too!" HOW CUTE?! So yea. We were children for a little while. Heidi and I both got two flavors of Eis. Sarah had only gotten one and then decided that she'd go back for another, but instead came back with two!
We walked a little down the street and bought a few postcards. Then I saw this sign for an Ampelmann store. Ampelmann literally means little traffic light man. The Ampelmann is a symbol from East Germany and when Germany was reunited, the East Germans protested to save the Amplemann and now he is used at pedestrian crossings in Berlin and many other cities throughout Germany. There were three of those stores in Berlin, but I never made it to one and I was so bummed. So you can imagine how happy I was to see that there was a store in this little town. I talked to the woman in the store for a little while and she said that there are only four stores. Three in Berlin and then the one we were at. Why they decided to have one in Weinheim, I will never know! So I bought a postcard and a keychain and was so happy!
The rest of the afternoon was spent browsing and walking through the town. There are at least three castles there that add to the beauty of the town. I think the town is a little bigger than Heidelberg, just not as many people...or tourists! We walked down to the train stop just in time. After we got on, my stomach started hurting again. A bunch of AJY people were going to the Opera tonight, but I didn't really feel like going. I was going to just suck it up and go anyway, but decided that since I didn't really feel that well and I needed to do a few things at my apartment anyway, I would just pass on this one. I'm sure they'll go again. And if not, I can just go by myself if it's something I really want to do. The fact that it was basically pouring when we got back didn't help the situation either! We were all going to dress up and I didn't want to shower and get ready just to go back out in the rain! So when we got back to Heidelberg I went to the bank and then the grocery store. I rode the bus back so that I didn't get completely soaked. I sent a few emails that I had been meaning to send and also started working on the calendars in my room. I love those calendars because then I can really see what I have planned and what my schedule looks like for the new few weeks. I also watched Blue Crush. Such a great movie! Makes me want to surf!
My stomach hurt really bad while we were on the train so I wasn't too talkative the whole way there. But as we walked around the town some I started to feel much better. We were going to have some coffee and cake at a cafe, but the one we went to was really full and the only available seating was in the smoking room. No thank you. So we walked outside and Voila! An Ice cream shop! So of course we stopped there and even got to eat our ice cream outside! I got cinnamon and mango. Weirdo combination, but those two flavors are so yummy. On our way into get our ice cream, a little girl was sitting outside with her mom and said "Die Kinder wollen auch Eis." And in English she said "The children want ice cream too!" HOW CUTE?! So yea. We were children for a little while. Heidi and I both got two flavors of Eis. Sarah had only gotten one and then decided that she'd go back for another, but instead came back with two!
We walked a little down the street and bought a few postcards. Then I saw this sign for an Ampelmann store. Ampelmann literally means little traffic light man. The Ampelmann is a symbol from East Germany and when Germany was reunited, the East Germans protested to save the Amplemann and now he is used at pedestrian crossings in Berlin and many other cities throughout Germany. There were three of those stores in Berlin, but I never made it to one and I was so bummed. So you can imagine how happy I was to see that there was a store in this little town. I talked to the woman in the store for a little while and she said that there are only four stores. Three in Berlin and then the one we were at. Why they decided to have one in Weinheim, I will never know! So I bought a postcard and a keychain and was so happy!
The rest of the afternoon was spent browsing and walking through the town. There are at least three castles there that add to the beauty of the town. I think the town is a little bigger than Heidelberg, just not as many people...or tourists! We walked down to the train stop just in time. After we got on, my stomach started hurting again. A bunch of AJY people were going to the Opera tonight, but I didn't really feel like going. I was going to just suck it up and go anyway, but decided that since I didn't really feel that well and I needed to do a few things at my apartment anyway, I would just pass on this one. I'm sure they'll go again. And if not, I can just go by myself if it's something I really want to do. The fact that it was basically pouring when we got back didn't help the situation either! We were all going to dress up and I didn't want to shower and get ready just to go back out in the rain! So when we got back to Heidelberg I went to the bank and then the grocery store. I rode the bus back so that I didn't get completely soaked. I sent a few emails that I had been meaning to send and also started working on the calendars in my room. I love those calendars because then I can really see what I have planned and what my schedule looks like for the new few weeks. I also watched Blue Crush. Such a great movie! Makes me want to surf!
Thursday, April 10, 2008
All Emotional
I slept in again today. Really need to do things in the mornings so that I don't spend half of my day sleeping since my classes aren't until later in the afternoon most days. Heidi stopped by around 12 and wanted to go get coffee or something since she didn't have any classes. But I was getting ready to walk down to Bismarckplatz to meet with the head of the German American Institute about my internship. Since she didn't have anything going on, she walked down there with me and just read while I had my meeting. I was really nervous about the whole thing because I didn't really know what I was doing. We had emailed a few times this week, but he just told me to come to his office, 2nd floor. In Europe, the 2nd floor isn't the same as it is in the US. If there are stairs, then the floor that you get off of when you walk up the stairs is the first floor. The one below that is just the bottom floor. So I wanted to make sure I went to the right 2nd floor. There weren't any signs on the walls directing me as to which office belonged to whom. So luckily there was a guy walking around and just ask I got ready to ask him where this guy's office was, all I could think of was his first name! So I had to ask for the Director by his first name. Ahhh. He of course knew who I was talking about and took me there. The Director, Jakob, was so nice! He was very welcoming and friendly from the moment we met! We talked about all kinds of things and what I wanted to do for my Praktikum. I really don't know exactly, but we decided that I'd create my own event for the Institute and then would develop the PR materials and then oversee the event itself. I'm going to work some with the library to try and create a program in that department. Sounds like a challenge, but also very interesting. So if anyone has any great ideas, I'd love to hear them! The whole meeting was in English, which was nice since I was so nervous and wanted to make sure that I understood exactly what I would be doing. But Jakob started off in English immediately and I didn't even have to ask to switch. I will be spending 8 hours/week there and I think it will be very beneficial.
As Heidi and I were walking to a cafe, Jeff rode up on his bike. We asked if he wanted to come too and of course he did. I felt kind of bad though because we were walking and he was on his bike so he had to go really slow. That's kind of frustrating and hard to do on the street we were on because there are cars and bikes everywhere and the street is really little. But we made it and we went to a little place called the Drugstore. It was nice, I just really don't like the name! This is mainly because it isn't fitting at all. The cafe seems pretty classy and has a few chess boards on the some of the tables. But the woman told us that they have a student discount, so that's something we can totally handle! We sat there talking for probably an hour or so and then went back to Heidi's. She was letting Jeff borrow some of her German CDs and we listened to them as she suggested different bands and artists. Jeff and I had class at 4:15 so we left after awhile and headed back on my busy little street.
There were SO many AJY students in this class! I'm thinking around 12 or so. It's called German language in songs and pop music. A few of my friends took it last semester and really liked it. I saw a few people I recognized from last semester and that was really exciting. The professor seems really cool, funny, nice, etc. I think I'm going to enjoy this class a lot. After class I heard someone calling my name as I was walking down the hall. It turned out to be my friend Erin who was in the film class with me last semester. She said she was worried that I wasn't coming back and that she was so excited to see me. We talked for about 10 minutes about all kinds of things. She's sooo nice!
Since class got over somewhat early, I just went back to my apartment and hung out for awhile. Heidi and I were meeting our new friend Allison at the train station at 7:30. Neither of them were there when I arrived so I waited a little while and then got some chocolate for the walk to Charis'. We were starting up the weekly Bible study again and were going to walk to Charis' with Allison. As I was leaving the train station, I saw Allison walking up and then as we started walking again, I saw Heidi. It was all sort of confusing, but we all got together and made it to Charis'. We started at John 1 again and we had really good discussions and I learned some new things. Tonight was the biggest group we've ever had. Pretty cool!
For some reason i was super emotional tonight and was in a weird mood. After I split off from Maressa, Heidi and Maressa's friend who was visiting, I started to cry. I really want to make this second semester worth it, but as of yet I don't feel that I am. It haven't spoken as much German as I want to and it's just weird having all of these new people here. But then I have to remind myself that I have only been here for one week and half of that time was spent in Berlin and recovering from Jet lag! And I had also asked Heidi if she wanted to come back and watch a movie, but she said she was going to go home and read. That just made me feel kind of crappy. You ask someone to hang out, but they'd rather read? I tried to reason with it in my head and think that if there was a book that I was really into, maybe I would want to just read too instead of hanging out. So I cried for a little while and then after I calmed down, I heard a knock at my window. Of course it was Heidi. She said that she got home and realized that of course she didn't want to go home and read and that she did want to come over and hang out. So then we talked about why I was so upset and it just made me cry more. For some reason I miss home more this time around. I miss my friends and I miss my family a lot. But it's only a few months and this is something that I really want to do. Heidi and I also talked about how I can make sure that I make the most of my time here. I think one of the main things is just speaking German more and not being nervous about doing so. We figured out another one of my problems is that I don't really like change and there's been quite a bit of change since I arrived. Like 20+ new people! I hope I'm done with this whole crying thing, because it's totally not me. I mean, I am quite emotional, but not usually like this!
As Heidi and I were walking to a cafe, Jeff rode up on his bike. We asked if he wanted to come too and of course he did. I felt kind of bad though because we were walking and he was on his bike so he had to go really slow. That's kind of frustrating and hard to do on the street we were on because there are cars and bikes everywhere and the street is really little. But we made it and we went to a little place called the Drugstore. It was nice, I just really don't like the name! This is mainly because it isn't fitting at all. The cafe seems pretty classy and has a few chess boards on the some of the tables. But the woman told us that they have a student discount, so that's something we can totally handle! We sat there talking for probably an hour or so and then went back to Heidi's. She was letting Jeff borrow some of her German CDs and we listened to them as she suggested different bands and artists. Jeff and I had class at 4:15 so we left after awhile and headed back on my busy little street.
There were SO many AJY students in this class! I'm thinking around 12 or so. It's called German language in songs and pop music. A few of my friends took it last semester and really liked it. I saw a few people I recognized from last semester and that was really exciting. The professor seems really cool, funny, nice, etc. I think I'm going to enjoy this class a lot. After class I heard someone calling my name as I was walking down the hall. It turned out to be my friend Erin who was in the film class with me last semester. She said she was worried that I wasn't coming back and that she was so excited to see me. We talked for about 10 minutes about all kinds of things. She's sooo nice!
Since class got over somewhat early, I just went back to my apartment and hung out for awhile. Heidi and I were meeting our new friend Allison at the train station at 7:30. Neither of them were there when I arrived so I waited a little while and then got some chocolate for the walk to Charis'. We were starting up the weekly Bible study again and were going to walk to Charis' with Allison. As I was leaving the train station, I saw Allison walking up and then as we started walking again, I saw Heidi. It was all sort of confusing, but we all got together and made it to Charis'. We started at John 1 again and we had really good discussions and I learned some new things. Tonight was the biggest group we've ever had. Pretty cool!
For some reason i was super emotional tonight and was in a weird mood. After I split off from Maressa, Heidi and Maressa's friend who was visiting, I started to cry. I really want to make this second semester worth it, but as of yet I don't feel that I am. It haven't spoken as much German as I want to and it's just weird having all of these new people here. But then I have to remind myself that I have only been here for one week and half of that time was spent in Berlin and recovering from Jet lag! And I had also asked Heidi if she wanted to come back and watch a movie, but she said she was going to go home and read. That just made me feel kind of crappy. You ask someone to hang out, but they'd rather read? I tried to reason with it in my head and think that if there was a book that I was really into, maybe I would want to just read too instead of hanging out. So I cried for a little while and then after I calmed down, I heard a knock at my window. Of course it was Heidi. She said that she got home and realized that of course she didn't want to go home and read and that she did want to come over and hang out. So then we talked about why I was so upset and it just made me cry more. For some reason I miss home more this time around. I miss my friends and I miss my family a lot. But it's only a few months and this is something that I really want to do. Heidi and I also talked about how I can make sure that I make the most of my time here. I think one of the main things is just speaking German more and not being nervous about doing so. We figured out another one of my problems is that I don't really like change and there's been quite a bit of change since I arrived. Like 20+ new people! I hope I'm done with this whole crying thing, because it's totally not me. I mean, I am quite emotional, but not usually like this!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Reunions are the BEST!
Slept in a bit today and then did some intense emailing. Not even halfway done yet, though. Many more to send tomorrow. I also figured out the classes I need to take for next semester. Looks like 3 Comm. classes and then Intro. to Marketing. That just leaves three classes for the Spring, but then I'll be able to take something else that's interesting or have an open spot in case I forgot something! One of my favorite things about studying abroad is that we get to register for classes early. Oh how I love that! It really helps because then I get the times and teachers I want. And then that means I may be able to get first priority for 2nd semester since there are two classes I absolutely have to have then. Ohhh how great life is!
I stopped by AJY this morning to meet with Dr. Tracy since I missed the group meeting yesterday. I also got my money back for the movie we saw last night. Heidi and I then decided we'd get some coffee later in the afternoon around 4. I stopped by Gino's and got a taco thing on my way home since I'm still not able to use our kitchen to cook. Should be done by tomorrow I hope!
I talked to mom for awhile and that was really nice. I am just in love with Skype and how easy it is to talk to people. I don't know what I would have done if I had studied abroad 10 years ago! Probably wouldn't have Internet in my room, that's for sure! And definitely not wireless!
Later in the afternoon I talked to Matthias for awhile. He talks really fast and uses some German words that I don't know, but I love it that we only speak German. He seems really interested in talking to me, which is cool. Julia doesn't like him and hardly gives him the time of day. She thinks he's weird. He does come off a little dorky, but I might as well get to know him if we're going to live together and share a fridge! He told me that he was born in Berlin and then asked if I took any photos while I was there. So I showed them to him and he really enjoyed it. I had to laugh because he said that he also had a lot of photos on his computers and that he would like to show them to me sometime. I suggested maybe later tonight or tomorrow and he said "or maybe on Sunday?" Umm sure! haha Not too sure what he's got going on in the next few days, but apparently Sunday is good for him!
I met up with Heidi at AJY around 4 and then we went to her new favorite cafe. She is always on the lookout for new ones. This one is called Cafe Schiller and is super quaint and tucked away. There are only a few tables inside but they have all kinds of neat drinks that are super cheap. They have a huge section on their menu with chocolate drinks. We saw some people order one where they are given some kind of white beverage...most likely milk...and then they have a chocolate stick thing that they add to it. I'm so getting that next time! This place is the cheapest I've seen so far. Well, aside from Marstall Cafe which is where the dining hall place is. But at that cafe you can smoke so you come out smelling gross. So I'm thinking I can definitely spend 40 cents more and come out un-smelly! Anyway, Heidi and I spent almost the whole time talking in German and telling each other stories from when I was gone. I was understanding things well, but had some trouble in the speaking department. Some days are just better than others when it comes to my German. I got a latte macchiato. Yummy! I haven't had one of those since I was here in December, so it was so exciting to have it again. It was a bit strong so I added quite a bit of sugar. But I needed to readjust myself to coffee since we've taken such a long break from one another. Heidi is now really into drinking straight black coffee. The coffee that this place serves is incredibly dark and bitter. Like it left a ring of brown on the glass as she drank it and even left some dirt-looking pieces when she was done. I took a sip and was disgusted. It will be a long time before I drink anything like that. She enjoyed my facial expression and later asked if I wanted to try it again. I kindly told her that I wouldn't be drinking any more of her mud. Blah!
We went back to her apartment afterward and checked emails and such. Then we headed over to see Charis. She isn't studying with AJY this semester because she finished in February and is now doing an internship here. She was sick the past few days so she didn't go to work. That worked out well for us because then we were able to go visit her! It was a total surprise and it was so good to see her again. We just picked up from where we left off. Reunions are really great in my book...definitely better than saying goodbye! So happy that she's still here and we can hang out! We left around 8:30 and then I stopped by Penny Markt on my way home.
I also got to talk to Laura tonight on Skype. Amazingly, we hadn't talked since she left for London in February. Jessica and Liesl are going to visit her in a few weeks and I may have to join them. Hopefully it will all work out!
I stopped by AJY this morning to meet with Dr. Tracy since I missed the group meeting yesterday. I also got my money back for the movie we saw last night. Heidi and I then decided we'd get some coffee later in the afternoon around 4. I stopped by Gino's and got a taco thing on my way home since I'm still not able to use our kitchen to cook. Should be done by tomorrow I hope!
I talked to mom for awhile and that was really nice. I am just in love with Skype and how easy it is to talk to people. I don't know what I would have done if I had studied abroad 10 years ago! Probably wouldn't have Internet in my room, that's for sure! And definitely not wireless!
Later in the afternoon I talked to Matthias for awhile. He talks really fast and uses some German words that I don't know, but I love it that we only speak German. He seems really interested in talking to me, which is cool. Julia doesn't like him and hardly gives him the time of day. She thinks he's weird. He does come off a little dorky, but I might as well get to know him if we're going to live together and share a fridge! He told me that he was born in Berlin and then asked if I took any photos while I was there. So I showed them to him and he really enjoyed it. I had to laugh because he said that he also had a lot of photos on his computers and that he would like to show them to me sometime. I suggested maybe later tonight or tomorrow and he said "or maybe on Sunday?" Umm sure! haha Not too sure what he's got going on in the next few days, but apparently Sunday is good for him!
I met up with Heidi at AJY around 4 and then we went to her new favorite cafe. She is always on the lookout for new ones. This one is called Cafe Schiller and is super quaint and tucked away. There are only a few tables inside but they have all kinds of neat drinks that are super cheap. They have a huge section on their menu with chocolate drinks. We saw some people order one where they are given some kind of white beverage...most likely milk...and then they have a chocolate stick thing that they add to it. I'm so getting that next time! This place is the cheapest I've seen so far. Well, aside from Marstall Cafe which is where the dining hall place is. But at that cafe you can smoke so you come out smelling gross. So I'm thinking I can definitely spend 40 cents more and come out un-smelly! Anyway, Heidi and I spent almost the whole time talking in German and telling each other stories from when I was gone. I was understanding things well, but had some trouble in the speaking department. Some days are just better than others when it comes to my German. I got a latte macchiato. Yummy! I haven't had one of those since I was here in December, so it was so exciting to have it again. It was a bit strong so I added quite a bit of sugar. But I needed to readjust myself to coffee since we've taken such a long break from one another. Heidi is now really into drinking straight black coffee. The coffee that this place serves is incredibly dark and bitter. Like it left a ring of brown on the glass as she drank it and even left some dirt-looking pieces when she was done. I took a sip and was disgusted. It will be a long time before I drink anything like that. She enjoyed my facial expression and later asked if I wanted to try it again. I kindly told her that I wouldn't be drinking any more of her mud. Blah!
We went back to her apartment afterward and checked emails and such. Then we headed over to see Charis. She isn't studying with AJY this semester because she finished in February and is now doing an internship here. She was sick the past few days so she didn't go to work. That worked out well for us because then we were able to go visit her! It was a total surprise and it was so good to see her again. We just picked up from where we left off. Reunions are really great in my book...definitely better than saying goodbye! So happy that she's still here and we can hang out! We left around 8:30 and then I stopped by Penny Markt on my way home.
I also got to talk to Laura tonight on Skype. Amazingly, we hadn't talked since she left for London in February. Jessica and Liesl are going to visit her in a few weeks and I may have to join them. Hopefully it will all work out!
Monday, April 7, 2008
Love a GREAT German Movie!
I was so exhausted from this weekend so I slept in until around 12 today. My first class of the semester was at 2:15 so I had a little time to shower and such before. Heidi was originally going to take it with me, but then found out that she had a class that got out just before then and wouldn't be able to make it on time. So I was really surprised when I walked outside and she was waiting for me! She decided not to go to the class because she got confused about the location or something. Another girl named Sarah was also going so we all walked together in the SNOW! The weather here just keeps surprising me. Kind of like in NC. Warm one day, freezing the next!
The class was Sprechlischer Kommunikation with Frau Voigt-Zimmerman. She is the teacher that I took phonetics with semester and absolutely loved. There were only 7 girls in the class - perfect size! Last semester we learned about pronunciation and this class is all about reading and speaking aloud while showing personality in your presentation. Kind of like public speaking...but a little different. She will pick texts with different moods and such and we will learn how to read them properly. Pretty cool. But the bad thing is that she is going to film us speaking. Ahhh!!
After class I came home and worked on some stuff before going out to buy posters for the calendars I'm going to make for my walls. I really liked having them last semester so I've got to do it again! I also stopped by a used bookstore and browed through the chapter books for younger people. I found Pippi Longstockings and knew I had to have it! My goal is to read 3 books in German by the end of the year. Totally doable!
Awhile later I went to Frau Heckmann's literature class at AJY. We're going to be reading from a wide variety of authors this semester. Seems like an interesting class, but nothing too special. After class a bunch of AJY students decided to go to a movie called Die Welle. I didn't really know anything about it and almost didn't go, but I figured that I might as well. AJY pays us back for it if we bring our ticket, so why not!? I ended up LOVING it. In English it's called The Wave. It's about a high school teacher who did an experiment with his class on fascism. It showed the students that if done correctly, people were easily sucked into such a system. Amazing moving. Can't wait to see it again once I get home.
The class was Sprechlischer Kommunikation with Frau Voigt-Zimmerman. She is the teacher that I took phonetics with semester and absolutely loved. There were only 7 girls in the class - perfect size! Last semester we learned about pronunciation and this class is all about reading and speaking aloud while showing personality in your presentation. Kind of like public speaking...but a little different. She will pick texts with different moods and such and we will learn how to read them properly. Pretty cool. But the bad thing is that she is going to film us speaking. Ahhh!!
After class I came home and worked on some stuff before going out to buy posters for the calendars I'm going to make for my walls. I really liked having them last semester so I've got to do it again! I also stopped by a used bookstore and browed through the chapter books for younger people. I found Pippi Longstockings and knew I had to have it! My goal is to read 3 books in German by the end of the year. Totally doable!
Awhile later I went to Frau Heckmann's literature class at AJY. We're going to be reading from a wide variety of authors this semester. Seems like an interesting class, but nothing too special. After class a bunch of AJY students decided to go to a movie called Die Welle. I didn't really know anything about it and almost didn't go, but I figured that I might as well. AJY pays us back for it if we bring our ticket, so why not!? I ended up LOVING it. In English it's called The Wave. It's about a high school teacher who did an experiment with his class on fascism. It showed the students that if done correctly, people were easily sucked into such a system. Amazing moving. Can't wait to see it again once I get home.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Berlin Day 3
We got up even earlier today and were eating breakfast by 8. Frau Heckmann sat with us this morning and she told Heidi that when she goes by Heidi she is about 8 years old and when her name is Heather then she’s her actual age of 22. So I told her that Heidi can play with Ali who is really clumsy. Heidi had done something silly earlier, which is why Frau Heckmann said that. They didn’t have any yogurt at breakfast this morning so that was a big bummer. I think that was the only thing I could think of that I didn’t like about our hostel. I'd totally stay there again!
We packed up all of our stuff and locked it in a room at the hostel and then headed out for our final adventures. We walked to the Reichstag which houses the German parliament. The word Reichstag refers to the building itself while the word Bundestag refers to the institution/Parliament. While we waited for our tour to start we walked around outside to where the Chancellor (Angela Merkel) lives and then saw the building where other government officials work. The grounds were really pretty. I think they used to have soccer fields in front of the Reichstag at one point, but I’m not positive. We had to go through security when we got in the Reichstag and then we waited for our tour guide. While it wasn’t the most exciting tour (the tour guide really liked talking and did so for a long time at each stop on the tour) it was pretty cool to see the inside of this important building. I think our tour went a little longer than Dr. Tracy and Frau Heckmann had anticipated. We had to walk quickly to get on the subway and then grab a bus back to our hostel. But there was a marathon going on so the streets were all blocked off. The buses run less on Sundays to begin with and this really didn’t help. So we all piled into taxis and off we went. I felt like I was in some kind of movie. There were 6 or 7 taxis driving in a row and it just looked so funny! I felt like I was cheating the guy as we left because we didn’t pay him, but Dr. Tracy came along eventually and gave him his money. We hurried and got our stuff and then left for the train station. We only had about 25 minutes once we got there. We had a LONG train ride ahead of us (6 hours plus) and wanted to at least get something to eat. I grabbed a sandwich and really wanted to get a few postcards, but ran out of time because the line at the bakery was so long.
I sat with Heidi for the first part of the train ride and then switched over to where Maressa was sitting (at a table) and played some speed Scrabble. Then Brett and John came over awhile later and we (Heidi too) played Swipe for awhile. They made fun of the game, but I know they secretly enjoyed it. We eventually played hangman and a few other games until we arrived in Mannheim. I felt like a complete moron because I tried to use the word ‘quiche’ in hangman, but completely butchered the spelling (queeche). I thought I was so great that they couldn’t get the word until they finally guessed all of the letters and informed that I didn’t spell it right. Bummer. We were all pretty tired and just wanted to get home at this point. We took the train to Heidelberg, then the bus to Peterskirche and when I got home I crashed.
While I enjoyed Berlin, I didn’t like it nearly as much as I thought I would. It was weird going to such a huge city with so many things to do and only staying for one full day. There were a lot of things that I wanted to do that we just didn’t have time for. I didn’t even have time to buy postcards or a snow globe (I’m trying to just buy one souvenir each place I go. Katharina gave me the idea to buy a snow globe. Love that idea!!) I guess I’ll just have to go back to Berlin someday…but probably not on this trip.
We packed up all of our stuff and locked it in a room at the hostel and then headed out for our final adventures. We walked to the Reichstag which houses the German parliament. The word Reichstag refers to the building itself while the word Bundestag refers to the institution/Parliament. While we waited for our tour to start we walked around outside to where the Chancellor (Angela Merkel) lives and then saw the building where other government officials work. The grounds were really pretty. I think they used to have soccer fields in front of the Reichstag at one point, but I’m not positive. We had to go through security when we got in the Reichstag and then we waited for our tour guide. While it wasn’t the most exciting tour (the tour guide really liked talking and did so for a long time at each stop on the tour) it was pretty cool to see the inside of this important building. I think our tour went a little longer than Dr. Tracy and Frau Heckmann had anticipated. We had to walk quickly to get on the subway and then grab a bus back to our hostel. But there was a marathon going on so the streets were all blocked off. The buses run less on Sundays to begin with and this really didn’t help. So we all piled into taxis and off we went. I felt like I was in some kind of movie. There were 6 or 7 taxis driving in a row and it just looked so funny! I felt like I was cheating the guy as we left because we didn’t pay him, but Dr. Tracy came along eventually and gave him his money. We hurried and got our stuff and then left for the train station. We only had about 25 minutes once we got there. We had a LONG train ride ahead of us (6 hours plus) and wanted to at least get something to eat. I grabbed a sandwich and really wanted to get a few postcards, but ran out of time because the line at the bakery was so long.
I sat with Heidi for the first part of the train ride and then switched over to where Maressa was sitting (at a table) and played some speed Scrabble. Then Brett and John came over awhile later and we (Heidi too) played Swipe for awhile. They made fun of the game, but I know they secretly enjoyed it. We eventually played hangman and a few other games until we arrived in Mannheim. I felt like a complete moron because I tried to use the word ‘quiche’ in hangman, but completely butchered the spelling (queeche). I thought I was so great that they couldn’t get the word until they finally guessed all of the letters and informed that I didn’t spell it right. Bummer. We were all pretty tired and just wanted to get home at this point. We took the train to Heidelberg, then the bus to Peterskirche and when I got home I crashed.
While I enjoyed Berlin, I didn’t like it nearly as much as I thought I would. It was weird going to such a huge city with so many things to do and only staying for one full day. There were a lot of things that I wanted to do that we just didn’t have time for. I didn’t even have time to buy postcards or a snow globe (I’m trying to just buy one souvenir each place I go. Katharina gave me the idea to buy a snow globe. Love that idea!!) I guess I’ll just have to go back to Berlin someday…but probably not on this trip.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Berlin Day 2
This morning we had to be at breakfast by 8 since we were leaving around 8:30 to start our day. I had some yogurt and then a roll with jelly. Yum yum. One of our first stops this morning was the Brandenburg Tor. We learned a little about it from Dr. Tracy but I kind of zoned out while he was talking. We also went to the Pergamon museum that has middle easter and islamic exhibitions. It was a huge museum that has original sized monumental buildings that have been reconstructed from original parts. The Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate are two such buildings inside. We were all given headsets so we could listen further about the exhibits. I enjoyed sitting on the steps in the main entryway and people watching the most. While some of the things were interesting, I didn't like it all that much. The entire AJY group went on a covered boat ride through the center of Berlin. The tour guide made lots of jokes that I didn't really understand, but it was nice to sit down for awhile and take in some of the sights. We had free time after the boat ride and I went with Maressa, Eric, Jeff, Kayla, Brett and Janelle for lunch. We ended up sitting in the smoking section. It was a covered area outside and it looked nice. That is until we realized that everyone aside from us was smoking. Yuck. I ordered a small cheese pizza and it was really good. I also had a Radler (beer with Sprite) to drink. I just still can't get over the fact that alcohol is cheaper than water here! We had a fun lunch and really enjoyed talking and just taking a break for awhile.
After lunch Kayla, Jeff and I headed off to the Zoo. Jeff's initial instinct told us to go the wrong way on the train so after a few stops we got off and then went back the other way. We got a discount at the zoo and then also bought tickets to the aquarium. The Berlin Zoo is home to the famous polar bear Knut and is also the zoo with the most species. We had hoped to catch the crocodile feeding, but we waited and it never happened. It really was an awesome zoo. The thing that fascinated me most was its location. It's just right there in the middle of the city. You look up and there are giraffes and elephants and then in the distance you see skyscrapers and other buildings. And there are hardly any huge cages. There is just a little fence that separates the animals and the people. Of course there is usually water or a ditch after the fence, but still! I felt like the animals were just so right there in front of us. As we were walking we ran into Heidi and Sarah. I forgot that they were coming there too! She didn't have aquarium tickets so she mainly hung out with the lions/tigers. They were being fed when we got there and man was that gross! Just a huge slab of meat. Blah! One of the tigers was really mad because he wanted to go outside. He was roaring and making all kinds of noises. I felt really bad for him, especially because some little kids were taunting him and their parents weren't doing anything about it. The only thing I was set on seeing at the zoo was Knut, but by the time we got to him, he had gone inside. I was so bummed! Heidi saw him earlier though so at least I got to see her pictures...and the place that he lives. Sarah wanted to look at things very slowly so we had separated earlier and decided on a meeting point and time. Jeff, Heidi and I found a cool little playground and Jeff took a try at the cool spinning ride. He eventually fell off, but it seemed like a lot of fun. I knew that if I had gone on it that I would've felt sooo sick! So I just took some pictures.
When we met up with Sarah we got some Bratwurst before we got on the train to go back into the main part of the city. There was a soccer game that night so there were fans everywhere. I really want to go to a German soccer game because the atmosphere seems great. All of the cheers and excitement are so cool.
We found our way to the concert hall where we were all going to see a concert that night. We got there on time, but nobody else was there. Finally Dr. Tracy and the others showed up. JUST IN TIME. We ran to the bathrooms and then took our seats just as the concert was starting. I don't know a whole lot about music, but I enjoyed it. Those who are well versed in music liked it so I figure that it had to be really good! Afterwards I went with Maressa, Alexander, Sarah, Anna, Peter and John to a bar that John had been to before. Once again we were put in the smoking room because of the size of our group. The waitresses were pretty rude to us, but we had a good time. There was a group of Swedish men sitting at another table and they kept talking to us about our German and the fact that Anna knew a few words in Swedish. We hung out there for quite awhile and then took a bus home. I was slightly annoyed by the end of the evening, most likely because I reeked of smoke and I was really tired. One of the guys also gave me a hard time about only drinking one beer. Whatever. My tab was much less than his! We did ride on the top of a double decker bus and that was cool. Maressa had never done that before and I was surprised to see them in Berlin. I think they're a little more scary when you're in London because they drive on the other side of the road, but it still felt like we were going to run into light poles and such.
Everyone in our room was asleep when Sarah and I got back, but I had to shower because I could not stand to smell myself. I think it was about 3 AM when I finally got to sleeep!
After lunch Kayla, Jeff and I headed off to the Zoo. Jeff's initial instinct told us to go the wrong way on the train so after a few stops we got off and then went back the other way. We got a discount at the zoo and then also bought tickets to the aquarium. The Berlin Zoo is home to the famous polar bear Knut and is also the zoo with the most species. We had hoped to catch the crocodile feeding, but we waited and it never happened. It really was an awesome zoo. The thing that fascinated me most was its location. It's just right there in the middle of the city. You look up and there are giraffes and elephants and then in the distance you see skyscrapers and other buildings. And there are hardly any huge cages. There is just a little fence that separates the animals and the people. Of course there is usually water or a ditch after the fence, but still! I felt like the animals were just so right there in front of us. As we were walking we ran into Heidi and Sarah. I forgot that they were coming there too! She didn't have aquarium tickets so she mainly hung out with the lions/tigers. They were being fed when we got there and man was that gross! Just a huge slab of meat. Blah! One of the tigers was really mad because he wanted to go outside. He was roaring and making all kinds of noises. I felt really bad for him, especially because some little kids were taunting him and their parents weren't doing anything about it. The only thing I was set on seeing at the zoo was Knut, but by the time we got to him, he had gone inside. I was so bummed! Heidi saw him earlier though so at least I got to see her pictures...and the place that he lives. Sarah wanted to look at things very slowly so we had separated earlier and decided on a meeting point and time. Jeff, Heidi and I found a cool little playground and Jeff took a try at the cool spinning ride. He eventually fell off, but it seemed like a lot of fun. I knew that if I had gone on it that I would've felt sooo sick! So I just took some pictures.
When we met up with Sarah we got some Bratwurst before we got on the train to go back into the main part of the city. There was a soccer game that night so there were fans everywhere. I really want to go to a German soccer game because the atmosphere seems great. All of the cheers and excitement are so cool.
We found our way to the concert hall where we were all going to see a concert that night. We got there on time, but nobody else was there. Finally Dr. Tracy and the others showed up. JUST IN TIME. We ran to the bathrooms and then took our seats just as the concert was starting. I don't know a whole lot about music, but I enjoyed it. Those who are well versed in music liked it so I figure that it had to be really good! Afterwards I went with Maressa, Alexander, Sarah, Anna, Peter and John to a bar that John had been to before. Once again we were put in the smoking room because of the size of our group. The waitresses were pretty rude to us, but we had a good time. There was a group of Swedish men sitting at another table and they kept talking to us about our German and the fact that Anna knew a few words in Swedish. We hung out there for quite awhile and then took a bus home. I was slightly annoyed by the end of the evening, most likely because I reeked of smoke and I was really tired. One of the guys also gave me a hard time about only drinking one beer. Whatever. My tab was much less than his! We did ride on the top of a double decker bus and that was cool. Maressa had never done that before and I was surprised to see them in Berlin. I think they're a little more scary when you're in London because they drive on the other side of the road, but it still felt like we were going to run into light poles and such.
Everyone in our room was asleep when Sarah and I got back, but I had to shower because I could not stand to smell myself. I think it was about 3 AM when I finally got to sleeep!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Berlin Day 1
Got up bright and early this morning to finishing packing and meet the group at the train station by 8:30. Heidi and I had planned to meet at the bus stop around 7:50 and I got there just in time. Actually, the bus was just getting ready to pull away and he stopped so that I could get on. How nice! At first I didn’t see anybody I knew on the bus, but then I heard Patrick and Davor in the back. Heidi and Maressa were back there too so I joined them. At first I thought Patrick was Doug (he was here last semester). I was excited and confused all at the same time. When we got to the train station I was able to meet some of the new AJY students. What a diverse group! I was a little nervous, but we all talked a bit before getting on our first train to Mannheim. Once in Mannheim, we waited for a bit to catch our train to Hannover. I talked to a guy named Brett for awhile and he seems really nice. I think he goes to school in Wisconsin.
On the train I sat next to Heidi and we listened to music and played Sudoku. Patrick, Davor, Jesse and Alexander were sitting at a table diagonal from us and at our 10 Davor whipped out a bottle of wine and they had a little mid-morning drink. Too funny. Of course I had to get a picture!
Maressa, Jeff, and Kayla were playing travel scrabble so after a little bit I went up and sat with them. I LOVE scrabble. Actually any game, but Scrabble is one of my favorites. We played that for awhile until we arrived in Hannover. From there we had to take a train to Berlin. The train was so full, but we had reserved seats. The problem with that was that there were people sitting in our seats and they got all mad when we asked them to move. Frau Heckmann was actually the one to ask them (she’s German) and they were just really rude. They knew that the seats were reserved because it said so on the placard above. Those Germans.
On this train I sat with Sarah, Justine and Jason. A much more quiet group, but nice nonetheless. When we got to Berlin, we took a little walk through the city to our youth hostel. Katie Wachter met us in Berlin because she had been visiting her boyfriend in the north. She met him in October and when her parents were here visiting awhile ago he asked her dad if he could marry her. WHAT?! Crazy stuff. I do think it’s kind of funny though that this is happening because on our first day in Heidelberg Katie told me that it was her goal to find a German boyfriend. But she’s really happy so that’s good.
Our youth hostel was really big and had a nice game room that we are able to use. While we waited for Dr. Tracy to check us in, we hung out in there and a few people played some Tisch Tennis. I stayed in a room with five people including Heidi, Katie Wolfe, Justine and Sarah. We had a few minutes to unpack and then we met back up downstairs. On our walk we saw the Berlin Dom (I think that means Cathedral) and Museum Island (part of town where there are tons and tons of museuems) and Humbolt University. It was a nice walk, but kind of boring since we were mainly just standing outside of buildings and talking about them. We were all really hungry and couldn’t wait to go to the restaurant.
We ate at a really German place called Tucholsky and I had schnitzel. There was this weird fish eye looking thing on my plate that I did NOT eat. Turns out, it was a sardine. Gross. The schnitzel and potatoes were good, but noting spectacular. I was still recovering from some jet-lag and was really tired. I think I was a little overwhelmed from everything and was again missing home. I was sitting at a table with Heidi and Maressa, but they were talking to each other and I didn’t really know the other people sitting around me. I guess I kind of felt left out and out of place. My stomach was also really hurting. I think it was because I was so hungry before we ate that when we actually ate, it still hurt a little. So I got a little sad and when one tear fell, I couldn’t stop the rest. So I put my face in my hands in order to make it seem like I was just tired. I stopped crying and tried to wipe my face off, but then I started crying more and decided I should go to the bathroom for a minute. Within two minutes of crying in there, Heidi and Maressa came in. I didn’t really want to talk to them, but they made me feel a lot better and helped calm me down. I just don’t know what it is with me! Ahhhhh!!!!
Courtney came in a few minutes later and told us that there was ice cream at the table and that it was going to melt if we didn’t come back soon. So I calmed down and then we went back out there to eat it. I guess sometimes you just need to cry and can’t get over it until you actually go ahead and do it. I felt a lot better afterwards and after dinner some of us took a walk around Berlin. We walked to the big TV tower and got tickets to go up to the top. It only took us about 40 seconds to go REALLY high up. Thankfully there weren’t any windows in the elevator. I think I would have gotten sick! But the view from up there was GORGEOUS! Berlin is a humongous city. And it looks really pretty at night. Even though I haven’t been to Paris yet, it reminds me a lot of the pictures I’ve seen. There were a lot of streets that were really long and straight and went out of the city. Just beautiful. We spent a little while up there and then continued on our walk. We stopped at the Brandenburg Tor. We’re going there tomorrow too, but heard that it was really something to see at night. Such a cool feeling to walk through it. I actually felt lucky to walk through so easily because so many people were forbidden to do so in the past. We also stopped at the Holocaust memorial. I had really wanted to go there, but wasn’t sure when I would be able to. The memorial is made up of a variety of sizes of big cement/marble blocks. They get bigger the further you walk in the memorial and the ground also goes lower. It is supposed to make you feel scared, alone and confused. It definitely accomplished its mission! The blocks are somewhat sound-proof so it’s hard to hear anyone else that is walking around. Being that it was night time, it was especially scary because you’d turn around a corner and someone else was doing the same. Some of the others didn’t really think it was a good memorial, I thought it was really great and for just a few moments gave us a VERY small taste of what the people actually felt like. I also found it interesting that this memorial was built on the ground where the Berlin wall once stood.
Our walk continued to the World Time Clock in Alexanderplatz. It was in the movie Goodbye-Lenin! That we watched in German class last year. This clock revolves and has the world’s 24 time zones with the names of major cities in each zone. At the top is a model of the solar system and it revolves once a minute. I like it when you actually get to see things from movies in real life.
Earlier, Dr. Tracy told us that it should only take us five minutes to walk from Alexanderplatz to our hostel. I think we walked for at least an hour! But it was a lot of fun. I got to talk to Peter for awhile, which was really cool. He is one of five from Gettysburg college. It’s funny to think that Elon is tied for the most amount of people in AJY. Last semester there were only two of us, but now we’ve grown to 5! Go Elon! I also talked to Alexander for awhile and he wanted to know what the best thing about going back to the US was…like in terms of things that I didn’t have here. I told him that the thing I was really happy to have was free water when eating out. That stuff is EXPENSIVE here!
It was pretty late and we were exhausted when we got back. My feet hurt SO bad it was unreal. I think they were even more tired than when I did Elonthon.
On the train I sat next to Heidi and we listened to music and played Sudoku. Patrick, Davor, Jesse and Alexander were sitting at a table diagonal from us and at our 10 Davor whipped out a bottle of wine and they had a little mid-morning drink. Too funny. Of course I had to get a picture!
Maressa, Jeff, and Kayla were playing travel scrabble so after a little bit I went up and sat with them. I LOVE scrabble. Actually any game, but Scrabble is one of my favorites. We played that for awhile until we arrived in Hannover. From there we had to take a train to Berlin. The train was so full, but we had reserved seats. The problem with that was that there were people sitting in our seats and they got all mad when we asked them to move. Frau Heckmann was actually the one to ask them (she’s German) and they were just really rude. They knew that the seats were reserved because it said so on the placard above. Those Germans.
On this train I sat with Sarah, Justine and Jason. A much more quiet group, but nice nonetheless. When we got to Berlin, we took a little walk through the city to our youth hostel. Katie Wachter met us in Berlin because she had been visiting her boyfriend in the north. She met him in October and when her parents were here visiting awhile ago he asked her dad if he could marry her. WHAT?! Crazy stuff. I do think it’s kind of funny though that this is happening because on our first day in Heidelberg Katie told me that it was her goal to find a German boyfriend. But she’s really happy so that’s good.
Our youth hostel was really big and had a nice game room that we are able to use. While we waited for Dr. Tracy to check us in, we hung out in there and a few people played some Tisch Tennis. I stayed in a room with five people including Heidi, Katie Wolfe, Justine and Sarah. We had a few minutes to unpack and then we met back up downstairs. On our walk we saw the Berlin Dom (I think that means Cathedral) and Museum Island (part of town where there are tons and tons of museuems) and Humbolt University. It was a nice walk, but kind of boring since we were mainly just standing outside of buildings and talking about them. We were all really hungry and couldn’t wait to go to the restaurant.
We ate at a really German place called Tucholsky and I had schnitzel. There was this weird fish eye looking thing on my plate that I did NOT eat. Turns out, it was a sardine. Gross. The schnitzel and potatoes were good, but noting spectacular. I was still recovering from some jet-lag and was really tired. I think I was a little overwhelmed from everything and was again missing home. I was sitting at a table with Heidi and Maressa, but they were talking to each other and I didn’t really know the other people sitting around me. I guess I kind of felt left out and out of place. My stomach was also really hurting. I think it was because I was so hungry before we ate that when we actually ate, it still hurt a little. So I got a little sad and when one tear fell, I couldn’t stop the rest. So I put my face in my hands in order to make it seem like I was just tired. I stopped crying and tried to wipe my face off, but then I started crying more and decided I should go to the bathroom for a minute. Within two minutes of crying in there, Heidi and Maressa came in. I didn’t really want to talk to them, but they made me feel a lot better and helped calm me down. I just don’t know what it is with me! Ahhhhh!!!!
Courtney came in a few minutes later and told us that there was ice cream at the table and that it was going to melt if we didn’t come back soon. So I calmed down and then we went back out there to eat it. I guess sometimes you just need to cry and can’t get over it until you actually go ahead and do it. I felt a lot better afterwards and after dinner some of us took a walk around Berlin. We walked to the big TV tower and got tickets to go up to the top. It only took us about 40 seconds to go REALLY high up. Thankfully there weren’t any windows in the elevator. I think I would have gotten sick! But the view from up there was GORGEOUS! Berlin is a humongous city. And it looks really pretty at night. Even though I haven’t been to Paris yet, it reminds me a lot of the pictures I’ve seen. There were a lot of streets that were really long and straight and went out of the city. Just beautiful. We spent a little while up there and then continued on our walk. We stopped at the Brandenburg Tor. We’re going there tomorrow too, but heard that it was really something to see at night. Such a cool feeling to walk through it. I actually felt lucky to walk through so easily because so many people were forbidden to do so in the past. We also stopped at the Holocaust memorial. I had really wanted to go there, but wasn’t sure when I would be able to. The memorial is made up of a variety of sizes of big cement/marble blocks. They get bigger the further you walk in the memorial and the ground also goes lower. It is supposed to make you feel scared, alone and confused. It definitely accomplished its mission! The blocks are somewhat sound-proof so it’s hard to hear anyone else that is walking around. Being that it was night time, it was especially scary because you’d turn around a corner and someone else was doing the same. Some of the others didn’t really think it was a good memorial, I thought it was really great and for just a few moments gave us a VERY small taste of what the people actually felt like. I also found it interesting that this memorial was built on the ground where the Berlin wall once stood.
Our walk continued to the World Time Clock in Alexanderplatz. It was in the movie Goodbye-Lenin! That we watched in German class last year. This clock revolves and has the world’s 24 time zones with the names of major cities in each zone. At the top is a model of the solar system and it revolves once a minute. I like it when you actually get to see things from movies in real life.
Earlier, Dr. Tracy told us that it should only take us five minutes to walk from Alexanderplatz to our hostel. I think we walked for at least an hour! But it was a lot of fun. I got to talk to Peter for awhile, which was really cool. He is one of five from Gettysburg college. It’s funny to think that Elon is tied for the most amount of people in AJY. Last semester there were only two of us, but now we’ve grown to 5! Go Elon! I also talked to Alexander for awhile and he wanted to know what the best thing about going back to the US was…like in terms of things that I didn’t have here. I told him that the thing I was really happy to have was free water when eating out. That stuff is EXPENSIVE here!
It was pretty late and we were exhausted when we got back. My feet hurt SO bad it was unreal. I think they were even more tired than when I did Elonthon.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
...Exhausted...
Staying up until 1 last night was an awful idea. It actually wouldn't have been so bad had the cleaning lady not arrived at 5:45 AM. I know, I know. Boohoo. Someone comes to clean our apartment in the morning. But no. She may be in our bathroom, living room, etc., but she does not clean. As I've mentioned before, she mops and stuff, but you really can't tell that she was there. So after she finished being obnoxiously loud around 6:30, Matthias wakes up, showers and eats breakfast. Last night Julia warned me that he was loud in the mornings, but I figured I could sleep through it. Oh no. I have my own room but I swear these walls are SOOOO thin! You really can hear everything. So then when I thought everyone was done and I could finally get back to sleep (it's now 7:30 at this point in my story). But ohhh no! Why would I think that I should be able to sleep at 7:30? I hear some random dudes come into our apartment and they're talking loudly and doing who knows what. We're supposed to get our kitchen remodeled on Monday...but that's MONDAY, not Thursday. I know it's them because I can hear the Hausmeister (guy who's in charge of our apartment place) talking. His German is really muttered and I can never understand what he's saying! And THEN! Someone starts pounding on something metal and it's sooo loud. So I figure that I'm not going to be able to sleep so I get up and star unpacking some of my things. And then someone starts DRILLING. Like really insanely loud drilling. So I can't help but laugh. I tried unpacking for awhile, but I was just sooo tired I had to lay down. Because of this, I don't think I'll be able to kick this jet lag as fast as I had wanted. Ughhh!! Luckily I have a fan in my room so I plugged that in and put it on high. It drowned out the noise quite a bit and I think I'll just have to use it every night to make sure I don't wake up to all this nonsense!
After the loud noises left my apartment, I got back into bed and tried to fall asleep, only for them to begin working on the apartment above mine! At this point, sleeping was a lost cause. So I showered and got ready. I was going to have some lunch, because by now it was 11 and was hungry from being up for so long. But they had taken out the electrical plugs in the kitchen so none of our appliances worked. Cool. So I got my stuff together and headed over to AJY to check my mail. Then I went around the corner to Heidi's. I cooked two baguette pizzas for us and we looked over my mail and chatted some more. A little while later Maressa came. We had planned on going to Bismarckplatz to get our Semester Tickets so we can ride the busses and trains around without paying. But she wanted to use Skype on Heidi's computer first so I chose which classes I wanted to take and Heidi read her book. Maressa is Brazilian and talked to her mom and sister in Portuguese. A very interesting little language I must say. Sounds like a combination of French, Italian, Spanish and just a hint of Chinese. Seriously. So since I was so tired and because she talked for a really long time, I fell asleep. I think I was out for about an hour.
A little after I woke up we headed for Bismarckplatz. On the way we ran into Anna who goes to Elon. We were really excited to see each other. I told her that I always think I see people from Elon when I walk around, but then realize that of course it's not who I think it is. But this time it was! She told us that Becca (also from Elon) has the flu and might not go to Berlin with us. That really stinks! After a little bit we headed on to Bismarckplatz and had to go to the travel agency place, but payed our 100 Euros and got our tickets! Woohoo! Heidi didn't have one last semester and rode illegally all over the place. Though she never got caught, we were always worried that someone would be checking for passes. Now we can go more places together and get good use out of them!
Heidi and I went back to AJY after that and Maressa went on to meet with a family she met last semester. She is going to be teaching a little girl English. How cute! Heidi and I went back to AJY and had a little coffee date. We couldn't decide between going for coffee or getting ice cream, so we made coffee for free and then decided to get ice cream later. Great plan. As we waited for it to brew, I met with Dr. Tracy about my classes. Hopefully I'll like them and I can just keep the ones that I originally had chosen. He had me write a few others down, but I'm just not sure if they're ones that I want to take. I saw a few of the new students, but they weren't very talkative. I had to add quite a bit of milk to my coffee, but it tasted pretty good! We talked for a long time and then headed out for some ice cream at our favorite shop. Gotta love 70 Cent ice cream! There were two Americans there who couldn't decide what they wanted because they didn't know what the different flavors were so we helped them out a little. We talked to them for awhile after getting our ice cream and found out they are from Ohio, like Heidi. They were on a 7-Country European trip and were very friendly.
We just went back to my apartment after that and I unpacked. Heidi read her book and then we just talked and listened to music for awhile. Maressa came over around 9:30 and talked to a friend on Skype. Heidi left about an hour later and then Maressa and I had some bread with Nutella after she got off the "phone." I really do feel like we just picked up right where we left off and that I wasn't gone for so long. I absolutely love the friendships I've made here and can't wait to make a few more!!!
Berlin this weekend! Be back on Sunday evening!
After the loud noises left my apartment, I got back into bed and tried to fall asleep, only for them to begin working on the apartment above mine! At this point, sleeping was a lost cause. So I showered and got ready. I was going to have some lunch, because by now it was 11 and was hungry from being up for so long. But they had taken out the electrical plugs in the kitchen so none of our appliances worked. Cool. So I got my stuff together and headed over to AJY to check my mail. Then I went around the corner to Heidi's. I cooked two baguette pizzas for us and we looked over my mail and chatted some more. A little while later Maressa came. We had planned on going to Bismarckplatz to get our Semester Tickets so we can ride the busses and trains around without paying. But she wanted to use Skype on Heidi's computer first so I chose which classes I wanted to take and Heidi read her book. Maressa is Brazilian and talked to her mom and sister in Portuguese. A very interesting little language I must say. Sounds like a combination of French, Italian, Spanish and just a hint of Chinese. Seriously. So since I was so tired and because she talked for a really long time, I fell asleep. I think I was out for about an hour.
A little after I woke up we headed for Bismarckplatz. On the way we ran into Anna who goes to Elon. We were really excited to see each other. I told her that I always think I see people from Elon when I walk around, but then realize that of course it's not who I think it is. But this time it was! She told us that Becca (also from Elon) has the flu and might not go to Berlin with us. That really stinks! After a little bit we headed on to Bismarckplatz and had to go to the travel agency place, but payed our 100 Euros and got our tickets! Woohoo! Heidi didn't have one last semester and rode illegally all over the place. Though she never got caught, we were always worried that someone would be checking for passes. Now we can go more places together and get good use out of them!
Heidi and I went back to AJY after that and Maressa went on to meet with a family she met last semester. She is going to be teaching a little girl English. How cute! Heidi and I went back to AJY and had a little coffee date. We couldn't decide between going for coffee or getting ice cream, so we made coffee for free and then decided to get ice cream later. Great plan. As we waited for it to brew, I met with Dr. Tracy about my classes. Hopefully I'll like them and I can just keep the ones that I originally had chosen. He had me write a few others down, but I'm just not sure if they're ones that I want to take. I saw a few of the new students, but they weren't very talkative. I had to add quite a bit of milk to my coffee, but it tasted pretty good! We talked for a long time and then headed out for some ice cream at our favorite shop. Gotta love 70 Cent ice cream! There were two Americans there who couldn't decide what they wanted because they didn't know what the different flavors were so we helped them out a little. We talked to them for awhile after getting our ice cream and found out they are from Ohio, like Heidi. They were on a 7-Country European trip and were very friendly.
We just went back to my apartment after that and I unpacked. Heidi read her book and then we just talked and listened to music for awhile. Maressa came over around 9:30 and talked to a friend on Skype. Heidi left about an hour later and then Maressa and I had some bread with Nutella after she got off the "phone." I really do feel like we just picked up right where we left off and that I wasn't gone for so long. I absolutely love the friendships I've made here and can't wait to make a few more!!!
Berlin this weekend! Be back on Sunday evening!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
I'm Baaaaaack!
I cannot believe that I'm actually going BACK to Germany for 2nd semester. I really do feel so lucky and am incredibly excited to live in Heidelberg for another few months.
This morning my mom and I finished packing my carry-on and other bags. I swear I'm taking way more than I initially did! But the small suitcase was full of gifts and other random things that I won't be bringing back with me so I think it's ok. And since I'm coming back for Derek's graduation in June I will be able to take a bunch of stuff home then. My flight wasn't until 4:30 so we had some time to just hang out a little in the morning and I could take my time getting ready, etc. I wanted to buy and print a train ticket for when I got to Frankfurt, but of course the Internet wasn't working. We hadn't had any problems with it for weeks but the time I really need it, nothing. Boo. So I had to drop some stuff off to Wendy at Scrap Shack and figured I would try to buy the ticket on a computer there. But it was so complicated and I was a little stressed at the time and it was going to take a lot longer to do than I had thought...It would have helped if I remembered my username and password! I just decided to get the ticket at the airport when i arrived and said goodbye for the millionth time. Since it was April Fool's Day, Wendy said she thought I had come in to say "Just kidding! I'm not leaving!" But of course that wasn't the case. Before we even got to the Shack I started crying a little. I just can't believe that over three months have gone by since I left Germany. And two of those months were spent at home. The time went so fast! Of course I am ready to go back, but it doesn't feel like it's time yet.
Mom and I stopped and ate lunch at Red Robin on the way. Sooo yummy! We shared a wrap and then headed on our way to the airport. My bags were pretty heavy, but didn't exceed to limit, so that was great. The day before we found out that the new one free checked bag rule doesn't apply to international flights and you can still check two bags for free. Whew! I went to the bathroom before I went through security and mom watched my stuff. Of course it was on the other side of the check-in place. Then mom and I said goodbye. I'm really only going to be gone for a few months and we know how fast those months went by before, but I still cried. I just REALLY hate saying goodbye. It makes me so sad! We got to keep talking as I waited in line and then it was time to lose the shoes and the jacket. It took me a little while to put everything back in my backpack only to realize that I would want to have my laptop out on the plane, so I took it all back out and carried my computer. I waved bye to mom and headed to my gate. I couldn't help but cry! I sat at the gate for a few minutes before heading to the bathroom to change into my pajamas. You've gotta be comfortable for an eight hour+ trip, right? And yes, I did get some stares as I walked back to my gate, but I know they were all thinking that I had the right idea...with my pink snowman pants! After grabbing a few snacks I sat at the gate for awhile just wanting to fall asleep. But I didn't and we ended up having to switch gates. It was like a herd of wild animals walking through the terminal. Luckily I was at the front and got a seat right away. But then I saw an electrical outlet and thought I could plug my computer in for awhile and at least send some emails while I waited. But the plug didn't work so I just sat there on the floor until they started calling my flight. It was a little over an hour delayed because we had to switch planes due to electric problems. At least they figured that out before we got on the plane! I was in the last zone and was one of the last to board the plane, but my seat was near the front, which I always love.
My neighbor sat down next to me a few minutes later and we started talking right away. He was German and had been vacationing in the US for a month. We only spoke English even though I told him that I study and speak German. I was just too tired to think in another language! Awhile after we took off he asked if I wanted to see the pictures from his trip. The TV screens (everyone had one on the seat in front of them!) weren't working and they had to keep resetting the system, so I figured I might as well take a look. He actually had really cool pictures and stories from California and Colorado. Dinner came and then awhile later he finished showing me his pictures. I really think he showed me every single picture he took over the last month. His English was pretty good, but I just loved one thing he always said. Instead of saying they walked up or down a hill he would say "we went upstairs/downstairs." Too funny! I really like the accent that Germans have when speaking English. So after that it was my turn to "provide the entertainment" (his words) so I showed him pictures from last semester. So in about an hour we took a trip around the world. The TVs were working again after I finished with my pictures so we watched some movies. I watched The Hearbreak Kid with Ben Stiller. It was ok. Not the best, but ok. I wanted sooo badly to fall asleep during or after the movie, but I just couldn't. I was really uncomfortable because there was little room between the seats to begin with, and then the lady in front of me put her seat back. So my knees were scrunched up against her chair. There was also some kind of box under her seat so I couldn't stretch my feet out. I sat there with my eyes closed trying to fall asleep until they brought breakfast which consisted of a log-like donut. I wasn't too hungry or interested, so I continued to try and sleep. We eventually landed and I was so happy, but my lower back was really sore. At the passport check they asked if I was there for military reasons. Not quite.
They have free luggage carts at the Frankfurt airport so I grabbed one that was sitting off to the side. After I put my luggage on it, I found out that it was broken and wouldn't drive straight...only in circles, which clearly did no good. So I unloaded everything and then found a working cart. My next mission was finding the train station. I waited in line to buy my train ticket when I noticed that the guy in front of me was having trouble buying his ticket. I knew he spoke English of what I saw on the screen so I asked him if he needed some help. So I told him what he should select and then he got his ticket. I have no clue where he was from, but I know English wasn't his first language. I got my ticket and then realized that it didn't say which platform I needed to go to or what time my train arrived. So I went to the information desk and they gave me all the answers. I got rid of the cart and headed on my way. Let me tell you. It was FUN taking two suitcases and a big backpack up two escalators and then back down two others. Then I get to the platform and am a little confused so I used the information calling thing to find out when the train was coming. I actually missed the original train that I was going to take so I had to wait about a half an hour. I cried a little because I already missed my parents and wished that they were traveling with me. So I took the elevator back upstairs and got a water to calm me down. Not long after the train arrived and I loaded all of my stuff on board. It's only a half hour ride so I put on some makeup and closed my eyes for a few minutes. I bought a 50% off train card before I left in December that gets me half off prices on train tickets, but I didn't have it with me since it was sent to AJY after I left. And when I bought my ticket I said that I had a card so that I could get my discount. I had my temporary card with me, but it expired so if they asked I was just going to explain the situation. But since my eyes were closed, they didn't even check my ticket! That worked out well! I got off at Mannheim and knew that my next train was leaving in five minutes so I had to hurry. I got all of my stuff off the train and then carried both of my bags down a flight of stairs and then back up the stairs to get to the platform where my train was. It was waiting and left a few minutes after I got on. I was out of breath to say the least! When i got to Heidelberg a sense of comfort came over me. I knew exactly where I was and what I was doing. I lugged my bags up two flights of stairs and then made my way to the busses. Originally my friends were going to meet me in Frankfurt, but when they found out that my flight arrived at 7 AM, they changed their minds. I'm so glad I was able to get around by myself!
I rode the bus without paying (Gasp!) and it took me directly to University Square. I hadn't gotten off at that stop since November because they closed it during the Christmas market. It felt sooo good to be back!! I set off down the street to my apartment. They were doing some remodeling of the Uni library on the corner so I left one suitcase behind while I walked under the scaffolding and put my other bag on the other side. When I went back to get the larger bag, a guy was walking it to me. How nice! Then the fun begins where I get to walk two rolling suitcases over cobblestones. Nice and loud and drew quite a bit of attention to myself. I got to my room and everything was just as I left it. Julia came and gave me a hug and within about ten minutes started her complaining about this and that. Nothing has changed! I put a few things away and then decided that I needed some sleep, badly! After about 10 minutes, I was woken up with knocks at my window. It was Maressa and Heidi!!! Of course Heidi came in through my window, but Maressa used the door. It was so great to see them! We just started talking like I'd been gone for the weekend. That's really how it feels. I honestly feel like I just took a weekend trip and now I'm back. So strange! We talked for about an hour and then I went back to sleep.
I think i slept for about four hours. I went to buy a few groceries at PennyMarkt before going over to Heidi's for dinner at 7. We made vegetables with rice and it was delicious. They made a great little salad too and we just sat there and caught up for awhile. Then we watched the movie Amelie (It's French, but we watched it in German). I fell asleep a few times, but I thought the movie was really good. I'd watch it again! After hanging out for awhile longer, I went back home to go to bed. Except that I couldn't really fall asleep. So I messed around on my computer for awhile and then went to sleep around 1.
Even though it was hard to say goodbye, now that I'm here I'm so happy and excited for this semester!
This morning my mom and I finished packing my carry-on and other bags. I swear I'm taking way more than I initially did! But the small suitcase was full of gifts and other random things that I won't be bringing back with me so I think it's ok. And since I'm coming back for Derek's graduation in June I will be able to take a bunch of stuff home then. My flight wasn't until 4:30 so we had some time to just hang out a little in the morning and I could take my time getting ready, etc. I wanted to buy and print a train ticket for when I got to Frankfurt, but of course the Internet wasn't working. We hadn't had any problems with it for weeks but the time I really need it, nothing. Boo. So I had to drop some stuff off to Wendy at Scrap Shack and figured I would try to buy the ticket on a computer there. But it was so complicated and I was a little stressed at the time and it was going to take a lot longer to do than I had thought...It would have helped if I remembered my username and password! I just decided to get the ticket at the airport when i arrived and said goodbye for the millionth time. Since it was April Fool's Day, Wendy said she thought I had come in to say "Just kidding! I'm not leaving!" But of course that wasn't the case. Before we even got to the Shack I started crying a little. I just can't believe that over three months have gone by since I left Germany. And two of those months were spent at home. The time went so fast! Of course I am ready to go back, but it doesn't feel like it's time yet.
Mom and I stopped and ate lunch at Red Robin on the way. Sooo yummy! We shared a wrap and then headed on our way to the airport. My bags were pretty heavy, but didn't exceed to limit, so that was great. The day before we found out that the new one free checked bag rule doesn't apply to international flights and you can still check two bags for free. Whew! I went to the bathroom before I went through security and mom watched my stuff. Of course it was on the other side of the check-in place. Then mom and I said goodbye. I'm really only going to be gone for a few months and we know how fast those months went by before, but I still cried. I just REALLY hate saying goodbye. It makes me so sad! We got to keep talking as I waited in line and then it was time to lose the shoes and the jacket. It took me a little while to put everything back in my backpack only to realize that I would want to have my laptop out on the plane, so I took it all back out and carried my computer. I waved bye to mom and headed to my gate. I couldn't help but cry! I sat at the gate for a few minutes before heading to the bathroom to change into my pajamas. You've gotta be comfortable for an eight hour+ trip, right? And yes, I did get some stares as I walked back to my gate, but I know they were all thinking that I had the right idea...with my pink snowman pants! After grabbing a few snacks I sat at the gate for awhile just wanting to fall asleep. But I didn't and we ended up having to switch gates. It was like a herd of wild animals walking through the terminal. Luckily I was at the front and got a seat right away. But then I saw an electrical outlet and thought I could plug my computer in for awhile and at least send some emails while I waited. But the plug didn't work so I just sat there on the floor until they started calling my flight. It was a little over an hour delayed because we had to switch planes due to electric problems. At least they figured that out before we got on the plane! I was in the last zone and was one of the last to board the plane, but my seat was near the front, which I always love.
My neighbor sat down next to me a few minutes later and we started talking right away. He was German and had been vacationing in the US for a month. We only spoke English even though I told him that I study and speak German. I was just too tired to think in another language! Awhile after we took off he asked if I wanted to see the pictures from his trip. The TV screens (everyone had one on the seat in front of them!) weren't working and they had to keep resetting the system, so I figured I might as well take a look. He actually had really cool pictures and stories from California and Colorado. Dinner came and then awhile later he finished showing me his pictures. I really think he showed me every single picture he took over the last month. His English was pretty good, but I just loved one thing he always said. Instead of saying they walked up or down a hill he would say "we went upstairs/downstairs." Too funny! I really like the accent that Germans have when speaking English. So after that it was my turn to "provide the entertainment" (his words) so I showed him pictures from last semester. So in about an hour we took a trip around the world. The TVs were working again after I finished with my pictures so we watched some movies. I watched The Hearbreak Kid with Ben Stiller. It was ok. Not the best, but ok. I wanted sooo badly to fall asleep during or after the movie, but I just couldn't. I was really uncomfortable because there was little room between the seats to begin with, and then the lady in front of me put her seat back. So my knees were scrunched up against her chair. There was also some kind of box under her seat so I couldn't stretch my feet out. I sat there with my eyes closed trying to fall asleep until they brought breakfast which consisted of a log-like donut. I wasn't too hungry or interested, so I continued to try and sleep. We eventually landed and I was so happy, but my lower back was really sore. At the passport check they asked if I was there for military reasons. Not quite.
They have free luggage carts at the Frankfurt airport so I grabbed one that was sitting off to the side. After I put my luggage on it, I found out that it was broken and wouldn't drive straight...only in circles, which clearly did no good. So I unloaded everything and then found a working cart. My next mission was finding the train station. I waited in line to buy my train ticket when I noticed that the guy in front of me was having trouble buying his ticket. I knew he spoke English of what I saw on the screen so I asked him if he needed some help. So I told him what he should select and then he got his ticket. I have no clue where he was from, but I know English wasn't his first language. I got my ticket and then realized that it didn't say which platform I needed to go to or what time my train arrived. So I went to the information desk and they gave me all the answers. I got rid of the cart and headed on my way. Let me tell you. It was FUN taking two suitcases and a big backpack up two escalators and then back down two others. Then I get to the platform and am a little confused so I used the information calling thing to find out when the train was coming. I actually missed the original train that I was going to take so I had to wait about a half an hour. I cried a little because I already missed my parents and wished that they were traveling with me. So I took the elevator back upstairs and got a water to calm me down. Not long after the train arrived and I loaded all of my stuff on board. It's only a half hour ride so I put on some makeup and closed my eyes for a few minutes. I bought a 50% off train card before I left in December that gets me half off prices on train tickets, but I didn't have it with me since it was sent to AJY after I left. And when I bought my ticket I said that I had a card so that I could get my discount. I had my temporary card with me, but it expired so if they asked I was just going to explain the situation. But since my eyes were closed, they didn't even check my ticket! That worked out well! I got off at Mannheim and knew that my next train was leaving in five minutes so I had to hurry. I got all of my stuff off the train and then carried both of my bags down a flight of stairs and then back up the stairs to get to the platform where my train was. It was waiting and left a few minutes after I got on. I was out of breath to say the least! When i got to Heidelberg a sense of comfort came over me. I knew exactly where I was and what I was doing. I lugged my bags up two flights of stairs and then made my way to the busses. Originally my friends were going to meet me in Frankfurt, but when they found out that my flight arrived at 7 AM, they changed their minds. I'm so glad I was able to get around by myself!
I rode the bus without paying (Gasp!) and it took me directly to University Square. I hadn't gotten off at that stop since November because they closed it during the Christmas market. It felt sooo good to be back!! I set off down the street to my apartment. They were doing some remodeling of the Uni library on the corner so I left one suitcase behind while I walked under the scaffolding and put my other bag on the other side. When I went back to get the larger bag, a guy was walking it to me. How nice! Then the fun begins where I get to walk two rolling suitcases over cobblestones. Nice and loud and drew quite a bit of attention to myself. I got to my room and everything was just as I left it. Julia came and gave me a hug and within about ten minutes started her complaining about this and that. Nothing has changed! I put a few things away and then decided that I needed some sleep, badly! After about 10 minutes, I was woken up with knocks at my window. It was Maressa and Heidi!!! Of course Heidi came in through my window, but Maressa used the door. It was so great to see them! We just started talking like I'd been gone for the weekend. That's really how it feels. I honestly feel like I just took a weekend trip and now I'm back. So strange! We talked for about an hour and then I went back to sleep.
I think i slept for about four hours. I went to buy a few groceries at PennyMarkt before going over to Heidi's for dinner at 7. We made vegetables with rice and it was delicious. They made a great little salad too and we just sat there and caught up for awhile. Then we watched the movie Amelie (It's French, but we watched it in German). I fell asleep a few times, but I thought the movie was really good. I'd watch it again! After hanging out for awhile longer, I went back home to go to bed. Except that I couldn't really fall asleep. So I messed around on my computer for awhile and then went to sleep around 1.
Even though it was hard to say goodbye, now that I'm here I'm so happy and excited for this semester!
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