Day 10

This is going to be a long one, be prepared.

I have just woken up, and I hear my suitmate and possibly another person in the apartment. I have been here for 10 days and I still have not met her. Her name is Linda and she has left me very nice notes in english, so I want to meet her. I'm afraid, and I'm not really sure why, but I just propped my door open, so when she or whoever comes out of the bathroom, they will be staring directly at me and my purple pajamas. Oops, scared the crap out of her and she was in a towel.

I just talked to her for a few minutes in german. I wish it had been in english, but I really have to start getting used to and speaking more german. She is very nice and so is her boyfriend, but they are older and have jobs and established things they do, so I don't think we will be hanging out any time soon. Oh well, I'm glad I finally met her.

Ok, my last post was Thursday, before we left for the study trip. We had to get up earlier than we normally do on Friday morning and take 4 different trains in order to get to Bronnbach to check into the hotel and visit the cloister. We took a tour of the cloister. It is the only thing around for miles, only 7 people live in that "town" and needless to say, my blackberry did not get reception, so I was without internet for the first time since being here. I really wish I could find the schedule, because then I would be able to write this more accurately, but I actually don't remember much other than a lot of museum tours and walking. And it rained the whole weekend. So I remember being wet, cold, and tired. Not to say that I didn't enjoy myself, we saw some very pretty things and interesting things. Like after the cloister, we took another train to Wertheim, a larger town nearby. While we were there we got to see a live glass blowing and went to a glass museum that had a please touch part upstairs, which was really fun after a lot of standing around and trying to listen in german to explanations about architecture, that we only can grasp 30% of. Then we decided to walk up a mountain to see Burg Wertheim. It was pretty exhausting and when we finally got to the top, Liv, Greg, and I wanted to get higher and actually get on top of the remaining parts of the castle. But instead we just ending up walking in a circle around the entire castle through the woods in the pouring rain.

We got back on the train and went back to the cloister to have a nice dinner all together and sleep. Margaux, Meghan and I shared a room and it was better than the singles we have here in Heidelberg. The bathrooms were as big as our rooms here and the showers were ten times the size of our showers here. We all slept really well, but had to wake up at 7 am to have breakfast and be on the road for more sightseeing.

Würtzburg was really cool. The first thing we did was take a huge group tour of the large castle. It was restored and had tons and tons of gold covered rooms. It would have been better if the tour was at least an hour shorter or I understood what the woman was explaining about all of the rooms. Also, we couldn't take pictures so there was nothing to distract yourself with. Then, we were let loose on the city of Würtzburg. We just started walking at first in search of some cheap food. We walked the opposite direction of the tourist areas and found a small cafe. We sat and ate for a long time and just hung out and it was a good decision, because we got to see a rally! We noticed more and more police coming into the area and we were confused, and shortly we heard chanting and marching. A large group of people marched by us and gave us literature afterwards. They were an Anti-fascism group, and their slogan was, "No person is illegal, say no to a closed off Europe!" That was really cool, because we felt like we were seeing and being a part of real german culture. We decided that we want to learn more about german politics, because elections are coming up and we want to understand all the advertisements and propaganda that fills the streets.

We walked around the city a little more and saw the castle from afar, but then it started to rain pretty hard so we went back to the train station and back to Heidelberg. In Heidelberg we all went back to our rooms to put our stuff away and meet in a few hours for dinner and going out. Well, I went back to my room fine, but on the way back to the other side of the city I got lost. I was on the bus and I wasn't paying attention, because it always takes the same twenty-five minute route, but after ten I looked up because the bus turned off and I was inside the bus station, where the busses go after they are done for the tonight. I panicked, stood up, and the bus driver saw me. He was shocked, and was like, what are you doing here? I kept saying sorry and I have to get to Univeristy Square. He helped me get out of the building then left me there. I freaked out and tried to use my german cell phone, but realized I was out of minutes. Then I really started to panic, but thought harder, got out my map and finally found another bus station that took me to Bismarck and then I walked down Hauptstrasse to meet everyone. It all turned out ok, but was very scary and convinced me that I really do need to focus on learning german more to live here.

Last night was fun and we got back really late, so today I have just been hanging out in my room, writing this, talking to friends on facebook, and putting up pictures.