Day 103

Hello! Sorry I haven't updated in such a long time. Things around here really picked up! Jess came last weekend for my birthday and we had a really fun and relaxing time. I picked her up at the airport on Friday afternoon (she had to find me, haha). We took the train back to Heidelberg, because we didn't think it would be a good idea for her to walk around in Frankfurt with her bags. Then we went into the old city and walked around. In Spain, Christmas isn't a big deal like it is in Germany. Christmas markets (weihnachtsmarkts) are everywhere in Germany and Heidelberg has a pretty good sized one. We had dinner at the very german Pizza Hut and then went to AJY to see if anyone was around. She got to see the Heidelberg nightlife and go to Metropol and Coyote Cafe. We went back to my house pretty early, so we could get up and do the touristy things. We walked up to the castle in the morning. I had never had a tour in english, so we took an audio tour and it was pretty hilarious and I learned a lot. Then we went to the christmas market and got crepes for lunch and did a lot of christmas shopping. We went all up and down Hauptstrasse and found pretty much everything we were looking for. We had a quick coffee with Uncle Michael and then went back to my room to rest for a while before dinner. We went back to the greatest restaurant in Heidelberg again, and then went back to my room for some crazy times (watching the beginning of the 5th season of gilmore girls) before we had to go to the train station at 2:30am. Getting there was pretty easy, but waiting for the bus was a little strange, because we thought it was coming, then it wasn't it, but she got on ok and hopefully made friends with the girl that was also waiting there, haha. I got back to my room half an hour later and slept until 1pm the next day. Overall it was a great way to celebrate my birthday, and a familiar face was needed. This week I have been trying to get work done and get over a sinus infection. I have been sleeping a lot and am finally feeling better, but I have two ten page papers due on Wednesday and Thursday, and I had a 5 page one due last Thursday. It is pretty much constant work for me for the rest of my time in Heidelberg. I had a really good time while I have been here and have learned a lot, but now it is crunch time, and I have to show it.

Day 90

Oh man, this is going to be a long post. First, I FINALLY SUCCESSFULLY PLAYED PING-PONG IN GERMANY! AND IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! Ok, so Liv's mom is here and I will get to that later, but she decided not to go to ping-pong and I had to think for a few minutes and convince myself to go alone. But I did it. I showed up too early and walked around the block and waited to see it being set up through the window before I went in. I walked in the gym and everyone was already playing, so I watched for a bit and tried to see who looked the nicest. I settled on the only 2 girls in the gym. I inched closer and closer to them and finally got up the courage to tell them that I was from America, trying to learn German and play ping-pong to get to know people. Instead of talking to me, the one girl let me have her spot for a few minutes, until I tried to make conversation again, and she told me that the boys in the front had three people and I should go join them. I was like, great, I bet they will be even less friendly. But, I was wrong. I walked over to them and explained myself again, and they were more than willing to let me play with them and were super nice. I played with Christian at first. He spoke hardly any English so we just played for a while, but Christopher and Paul spoke a little more English and slowly warmed up to me after watching me beat Christian a few times and asking me how to say serve and slam in English and teaching me the German. We stood around for a while and talked about ping-pong in germany and the us. Then we played a ping-pong game, where we had to run around the table and that was so much fun. It was a lot of laughing and being silly. I was really proud of myself, because even though I spoke English some, I spoke mostly German and had a great time.

After ping-pong, I went out to dinner with Greg's family, which was really fun and relaxing. Especially compared to the earlier part of my day. I woke up feeling terrible, because I have a sinus infection and tried to go to the doctor, but when I got there, the doctor was leaving for the day. So, I came right back home (i spent basically an hour on the bus) and did laundry and cleaned my room.

So, class last week was as usual, but then, on Friday Liv's mom and Greg's parents came into town. Friday was when I started feeling sick as well. It came on completely suddenly. I went out to lunch with Liv and her mom at the oldest cafe in Heidelberg. It was really nice, but a little too much fancy food for me. Then, Liv's mom went to take a nap and Liv tried to take me to the emergency doctor, but we got all the way there and it was closed until 7pm. Instead, I went back to AJY and hung out until Liv, her mom, Greg, Liz, and I went to dinner at the Red Ox. It was really delicious and that's where I went with Greg's parents tonight and I got the same thing both times. We went to bed early, because on Saturday we got up at 6 am to make an 8am train to Cologne. We napped on the train and went to Starbucks as soon as we got in. Then we visited the famous Cathedral and went through the treasury. It was so cool. All the gold and gem stones were really beautiful. Then we went to an art museum for a few hours. After the art museum we went window shopping and ate an early dinner. Then we did more walking around and went into Kaufhoff and found a lot of the things we were missing for Thanksgiving dinner, like sweet potatoes, fluff, and whipped cream. Magical american things that Heidelberg is too small to have. So then we went back to the train station, but missed our train and had to find a new one, because Liv bought the tickets from the wrong station. It was a lot of stress, but everything turned out fine and we got into Heidelberg around 1 am.

Sunday, I slept in and went to AJY around noon to meet for the scrapbook club. Then I headed over to Liv's for American Thanksgiving brought to Germany. It was delicious. Liv and her mom spent all day cooking and made 4 turkey breasts, 3 pumpkin pies, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas, corn, stuffing, and cookies. There was so much food and the germans loved it. I wonder how AJY's Thanksgiving on Thursday will compare. I'll let you know and update about the big 2-1 celebration. I have already gotten quite a few cards and packages. I haven't opened anything yet though, I want to do it all on my birthday, but it is all creating a pile in AJY because I don't trust myself to bring it home and not open it, haha.

Day 84

Hey Everyone! My weekend of traveling was great!

We took an IC train from Heidelberg to Hamburg and it took about 6 hours to get there. Greg, Liv, and I read and talked on the train ride and it wasn't bad at all. I even got a lesson about the architecture of north german houses versus south german houses from Greg. Very intellectually stimulating train ride. We got into the train station around 3:30 and our hostel was supposed to be a ten minute walk, but we printed directions and not a map. On top of that, it was raining and we had our luggage in addition to our backpacks. After an hour and a half of trying to find the hostel, we finally went back to the train station and started again using different directions and found the hostel within ten minutes. It was so frustrating.

After drying off for a little while, we ventured back out in search of food. We walked about half an hour into the old city and ate at an italian restaurant. The food and wine were good and Greg and I ended up having a debate over dinner that lasted for two hours and spilled into the street, so we wandered around for a while before heading back to the hostel and calling it an early night, so we could get up early the next day to sight-see.

We woke up early to get breakfast at the hostel, but then realized it wasn't included like we thought. So we walked to the train station in search of something that would be open. We got pastries and walked to the enormous art museum, but even it wasn't open yet. We were a few of the first people inside and stayed for more than 3 hours. It was an amazing museum and I felt like it was never going to end. After the art museum, we got something quick to eat and walked to three different churches to study their architecture. On the way we stopped to watch a protest against Scientology, where all the protestors were wearing Guy Faulkes masks, but they were a few days late, haha. They were interspersed throughout the city and we ended up walking a lot and getting stuck somewhere where there wasn't much to eat. We finally found a chain german restaurant and settled in for a while. The food was good and we ordered the local beer, which I liked a lot actually. We even got apple strudel. After we had sat for over two hours, we figured we were ready to do some more exploring and venture to Hamburg's famous red light district. We had already walked a lot on Saturday and it was a far walk to St. Pauli. We walked around the street for a while and just enjoyed being tourists before heading back for the night. It took us almost an hour and a half to walk back to the hostel and my feet were burning by the time we did get there. I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

On Sunday we knew much wasn't going to be open so we got up a little later and had breakfast at the hostel. We walked to the harbor after breakfast and just hung out for a while looking around. Then we walked into the city and decided to take a 2 hour boat tour. After the boat tour, it was too early for dinner, so we window shopped and sat at a cafe. Then we tried to go to a german bar for dinner, but we walked for a while in the rain and nothing was open, so we decided to just have Italian again. We stayed at dinner for over three hours, enjoying our last night in Hamburg. I actually got China spaghetti and it was really good. We walked back to the hotel pretty early and just hung out for a few hours talking and playing 20 questions. We went to bed early, because we woke up at 7 to get the train.

The train was an ICE, so it was even faster than the one going to Hamburg. We got to Heidelberg by 2 and Liv and I went to the study center. We hung out for a little while, and then got an early dinner before ping-pong, but alas third time was not the charm. Again, we couldn't find it, but this time we were determined. We finally found the reason, we had been showing up two hours late. It started at 4, not 6. Next week we will finally taste victory!

Day 78

Happy Birthday Mom and Evan!

I am sitting here eating a Milka bar and have come to the realization that I will need a dentist appointment when I go home, because a piece of one of my teeth fell out and now I am experiencing pain after I bite down on something sweet, and the pain is lingering. I'm pretty sure that is a very typical sign of a cavity, and I really shouldn't be surprised considering the amount of chocolate I eat. I should have given myself type 2 diabetes by now. Anyway, back to my original post. I really don't update this enough. Last night was really fun. I threw a birthday party for one of the guys in the program, John. We went out for a quick dinner, then went to a bar to hang out for a while. We just sat, talked, and had a few beers and it was a lot of fun. I think we have to do that more often while we are in Germany and have easy access to good beer. I slept over at Liv's because the buses don't run later on weeknights. Then, I went to class right from Liv's this morning. It was so weird not having to wake up super early and have to take the bus in the morning. My culture class was not as hard to understand as usual today, so I wasn't as frustrated. Then, I went home and did laundry and then went back to the study center for dinner. Meghan and I went to the Hard Rock Cafe and then Liv and I watched a tv show together at the center. After that I came home and was able to skype for a while. Now I have to work on a little bit of homework for tomorrow and think about packing for our trip this weekend.

Day 75

Happy Birthday Allison!

My experience in Germany is already 2/3 of the way done and it really feels like it. Yesterday I had a fun day, even though the weather was terrible. We used our semester train tickets and went to the city of Worms. It was fun to just walk around and take pictures. But halfway through our exploration, we sat down in a beautiful church and as we were talking, realized the rest of our weekends in November are planned and we only have 2 weekends in December, and all of our work for the entire semester is due in December, so felt like we were out of time. It was a weird feeling considering we are all looking forward to going home, but we don't hate it here and wish we could go home immediately like some people in our program. The weeks go by so quickly, because I only have one class Tuesdays and Wednesdays, then 3 classes on Thursday. So I have a four day weekend that flies by and this build-up until Thursdays, which are terrible. Today, I have goals of cleaning my room, picking a paper topic, updating my blog (haha), uploading pictures, and going to the Heidelberg film festival. Let's see which of those actually get done considering I didn't wake up until noon.

Day 70

Wow, I can't believe it is already November! This weekend was Halloween and we had a lot of fun just going out and hanging out with each other, even though it was so different than it would have been at home.

Funny story: Liv and I tried to play ping-pong last night, but failed. We went to the gym at 6, but as we approached, we realized it was in the main gym and we were walking there in jeans and boots. We immediately started freaking out and wanted to turn around we were so embarrassed, but we didn't. We crept along the trees and watched from a window, and it turns out that we were right. Everyone there was in full athletic gear! We turned around and went back to AJY. We felt so ridiculous, we didn't even consider that we would have to wear special clothes. Hopefully next week we will actually succeed in playing a game.

I read an entire play in german over the past two days and it has made my head spin. I'm feeling very frustrated and overwhelmed today. I do work, but it just seems like more and more keeps piling on. I feel frustrated right now, but that isn't my main feeling. I know it will pass. Like when we have dinner tonight, everything will be okay. Like last night, when Greg and I walked home from the study center for 45 mins and just talked, the majority of the time here I do things I enjoy, so I need to just stuck it up and realize that work in inevitable again, it's just that we've had a long break since the steady work of the grammar class and it's hard to get back into the groove.

Day 66

Quick post before I am off to bed. Uncle Michael called and said his meeting was cancelled, so we aren't going to Italy in a few hours. Maybe we will go next weekend though. Hopefully I will finally be able to get a good nights sleep.