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.

Day 62

Today was so fun!

Uncle Michael picked Liv and I up at Bismarck Square at 11am and we drove to Bad Schwalbach for lunch with Aunt Romana and Andy. Aunt Romana made a delicious meal. We had spagetti with a cheese sauce, chicken, and vegetables. And it was followed by the best dessert ever. Her milchkaffee is my favorite and we had tons of little pieces of cake. We were so stuffed afterwards.

Then, we went with Uncle Michael to a meeting at a monastery nearby. He does concerts there and he said the meeting would be really short, but it ended up being two hours. Liv and I didn't mind though, we entertained ourselves the whole time by walking around the grounds and visiting the museum. The museum was huge and had so much to look at so we didn't even realize that much time had passed until I realized I hardly had any cell phone reception and Uncle Michael had tried to call me. Everything worked out and we ended up intercepting him at the car.

On the way home, Uncle Michael told us that he is driving to Italy on Friday and invited us to come, I'm not sure if he thought we would at the time, but we decided that it was an opportunity that we can't pass up, so Uncle Michael, Liv, Greg, and I are leaving Thursday night/Friday morning at 4am and driving to Italy. We are seeing some sights and then Uncle Michael is meeting with a Count, then we are driving back to Heidelberg and plan to get in around 1am Friday night/Saturday morning. It will be the most exciting and longest Michael Vaccaro Blitz Tour I have ever taken. I am looking forward to it.

Day 60

Dear German Population in My Apartment Complex,

Please stop blasting "Sweet Home Alabama"!

Love,

Tired Alysse Who Just Wanted To Go To Sleep Early (4 hours ago)

Ok, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It's a Friday night at 2:30am, so I really can't claim class or anything tomorrow, but I really just wanted to catch up on sleep. I know how lame that sounds, so this is probably the only place I am going to complain. Thank god I finally got internet in my room tonight, or else this would be torture. I mean, it's still a form of torture right now, but at least I can blog about it and talk to people online.

I didn't have class today and my friends and I decided to go to the american army base. Jenny's dad is retired, so she is allowed to go there and she can have up to four guests. Last time she was there, she saw a Taco Bell, and then she made the mistake of telling us about it. We insisted she take us to Taco Bell today. It was quite the adventure and we had a lot of fun. Then, we hung out and finalized our schedules with Dr. Tracy. After that, I brought Liv, Liz, and Margaux back to Neuenheimer Feld to my apartment complex where something was supposed to start at 5pm. There was no one there when we got there, so we waited until 6:30 when a few people showed up and got a piece of cake and cup of gluhwein and headed back to the altstadt. We cooked grilled cheese at Livs and just hung out for a while, but then Meghan and I were tired so we went back home really early. I did not know that while we were gone, the party directly outside of my building got huge. There are over a 100 people there and I don't know if they will ever stop. It will be 4am soon and they are yelling the words to whatever song is playing right now.

Day 56

Oh man, I haven't updated in a whole week. It has been a very busy week too. It's gonna be a long one. On Wednesday last week, I tried out two more classes a cultural studies class and a media class. Both were pretty hard to understand, because the professors talked really fast and the material was very dense. After the particularly frustrating media history class, we were told that we weren't allowed to take the class, so it felt like a complete waste of two hours.

Thursday is my busiest day in the week. I have class from 11am to 8pm with a few short breaks. Thankfully one of my classes, Deustch in Filmen, didn't start on Thursday, so my day was easier than it will be. In the morning, Liz and I met up to walk to our Lit class together. The class was too full and the professor kept trying to get people to leave, but he seemed nice and funny, so no one wanted to. We sit in a U-shape and a lot of class will be discussion, so that will be good for getting better at speaking german. We all had to introduce ourselves and say why we wanted to study literature. I even raised my hand and spoke about the text we were discussing, even though I knew my german wasn't perfect. Then, we all hung out during the day until Frau Heckmann's class at night. That class is nice because it is all AJY kids, so we are all already comfortable with each other, but it will also be harder, because she expects more of us and will know when we are doing the homework for her class or not. Almost everyone in the program is trying to take her class, so she is trying to get people to drop it as well. We have 4 homework assignments and a mini presentation on how we used the library this week for the second class. Hopefully there won't be this much homework the entire semester. After class, we had a meeting/party with our language partners. Viviane and I had a good conversation, and then she took Liv and I to this bar where they give free champagne to girls. It was way too crowded and way too loud, so Viviane went home and Liv and I went to another quieter cafe to get a drink. We sat there and talked for an hour or so, then we met up with a few friends and went bar hopping for a while. Liz, Liv and I had a sleepover.

Friday morning, Liv and I realized we didn't have our gender film class, when the professor sent Liv an email and addressed her as Octavia. It was hilarious. So I went home and talked to my suitemate for a while then went to the train station to meet Justin and his uncle in Frankfurt for the day. The weather was terrible (so cold and rainy) and my train was delayed so I didn't get there until close to 4. Thankfully, the weather was much better in Frankfurt, so Justin and I walked around for a few hours while his uncle had meetings. I bought a really pretty colorful scarf for only 3 euro, I was so excited. Scarfs are my new obsession, considering it has been so cold that I don't take my jacket off, scarfs are my only accessory. We met Justin's Uncle Brandon at 7 for dinner. He took us to this really nice Italian restaurant, where I had the specialty, which was venison with a berry sauce. It was delicious. Dinner was really nice and we had a good time. Then, I went back to Heidelberg for the night.

On Saturday, they got into Heidelberg around noon. The weather wasn't great in Heidelberg, still kind of rainy and cold, but we made the best of it. We had a pretty typical german meal at Perkeo, a restaurant with some local folklore. Then, when we thought it had finally stopped raining, we walked up to the castle and toured there for a while. Justin and I hung out in the center for a while his uncle did a little work, then we all went out to dinner together at their hotel. Again, dinner was really good and we had more typical german food. After dinner, Justin and I wanted to hang out with my friends for a little while, but Liv was really feeling sick and my other friends were far away, so we decided to bring Liv my computer so she could watch tv in bed, because Liv doesn't have internet at home either. We ended up staying for a while and just hanging out and talking with Liv, until we decided to call it a night, because we had to get up really early the next day.

On Sunday I had to be up and on the bus before 8am. It reminded me of when I used to have that grammar class everyday and had to wake up early and I didn't like it. It was weird to see Heidelberg and Hauptstrasse so deserted, because there are normally so many tourists or just people. We drove about 2 hours to go to Rothenburg. It was a really cool little city that was really old and was completely surrounded by a defensive wall, that was rebuilt after WWII. It was not as shopping touristy as Heidelberg, but a large tourist spot for many germans as well, so it was a really nice place to get to see. We walked all along the wall and went inside a church/museum. Then, we split up for a few hours. Justin and I had lunch and went to the Justice museum, which was really a torture museum. It was really cool and we spent over an hour in there. Then, we walked around taking pictures and going in the touristy shops. We got back to Heidelberg in time for dinner with my friends. Greg, Liv, Justin, and I went to a hostel for dinner, because it is really reasonably priced and I loved what I had there last time I went when Drew stayed there. It was a chicken dish with a sweet and sour chili sauce. Everyone else had schnitzel, haha. Then the four of us hung out for a while and tried to get crepes, but the place was closed. Sunday nights are not the best nights to just be walking around in Heidelberg, because not much is open, so we all went home.

Yesterday was more of a day to relax and just hang out and the weather actually cooperated! Justin and I met up for lunch at the mensa with Liv and Liz, so he got to experience where I actually eat most of the time, haha. Then, I had to get some groceries and little things for class, like I needed a little mirror for my intonation class. We hadn't seen Uncle Brandon in a while, so we decided to meet up with him around 2:30 to do some souvenir shopping. We found things for Justin's mom and grandmom and I even got some special german dessert gummi bears for Justin to take back to Professor Deslippe who I worked with this summer. Then, we got the crepes that we had wanted, and walked down to the bridge. It was so beautiful by the bridge. It had been so rainy and cold, that the sun made it feel ten degrees warmer. We got some nice pictures and talked for a while. While we were shopping, I saw something that Justin's uncle had eyed, but said he didn't have enough room in his suitcase for, so once we spilt up, Justin and I went back to the book store to get the calendar for him and I will ship it to them as a thank you, because he took me to dinner two of the nights. Then I had to write a little paragraph for my online class, so Justin and I went back to the center for a while. We had dinner at an Italian place, then met up with Liv and Liz at Liv's where they had been baking cookies. They didn't use measuring cups and had been trying to make chocolate chip cookies, but they actually ended up tasting exactly like snickerdoodles with a few chocolate chips in them. They were really good. It was getting late and Justin had to be up really early for a full day of traveling today and I wanted to do a little homework, so we called it a night.

Today, I had my second Intonation and Phonetics class. I really like the professor, she seems so nice, but she gets frustrated with us, because it is mostly AJY kids and we just can't seem to make the sounds she wants us to. I think we sound a lot better after today, but I really wish the class were more than once a week, because it will be hard to retain and practice on our own. After class on Tuesdays, we have a meeting with everyone in AJY at the study center, so we can't get lunch right away. The meetings are very informative, but also kind of scare us because it is stressful to think about credit transfer and if we don't do well in these classes. At least that's what this one was about. Since then, I went to lunch in the mensa and have been reading some things for my online class and playing on the internet. Most people are in this theater class right now, and after that is over I think some of us are going to Margaux's for mac and cheese for dinner. I wish I had internet at home, so I could go right home after that and finish up things for my online class, but I still don't have internet in my room. I also haven't seen my suitemate since Friday and I feel really bad, because she is new and doesn't have many friends. But we are just on a totally different schedule, she goes to bed around 10:30 and I don't get back from the center until then at the earliest and she gets up around 8 and i don't get up until after she leaves most days. Oh well, I will probably see her tonight.

Day 49 (continued)

I would also like everyone to know that it is HAILING IN HEIDELBERG RIGHT NOW.

It transitioned from fall to winter. Hail means winter.

I think this means I might need to buy warmer clothes, because it is hailing in the beginning of october.

Also, Liv and I just ate all the orange and red skittles from the bag. Greg is going to flip out tomorrow, ahahha.

Day 49

I had my first real class today! And it went surprisingly well. I woke up and had a bowl of healthy and delicious Kellogg's Chocos, which are just bigger chocolate rice krispies. Then I went to the study center to meet Greg and Margaux so we could walk to class together. In Germany, there is a weird rule about the starting time of classes. If the class starts on the hour, it actually starts fifteen minutes later, but if it starts any other time, it starts on time. When they first told us, we thought that every class started fifteen minutes later than the time it says on the paper. So we planned to leave at 11 for a class we thought started at 11:30, but at 11:05 when a friend came back and told us about the second half of the rule, we freaked out! We rushed to get to the building and then when we got to the room, with only 2 minutes to spare, we realized no one was there. We had to deductively reason and try to figure out where the class was, but ended up wandering around and checking tons of rooms. It seemed like forever but it only took us 7 minutes to spot other AJY kids in a room and figure that is where we should be and the teacher followed us into the room, so we got very lucky!

From there, class went very smoothly. It was a phonetics and intonations class and we had to interview a partner and talk about them in front of the class and she corrects your mistakes. One girl in the class cried and that was terrible, but the professor is a very nice woman and the class seemed like it would be difficult but very helpful for actually learning the language and eventually sounding like a german. And class was even better, because I was one of only three people that didn't get to read in front of the class this week, but has to go next week, haha.

After class, Liv, Liz, Margaux and I went to the mensa with everyone, but it was so crowded and we decided we wanted crepes instead. Then, Liz and I registered for our campus cards and then went to search and find the rooms for our classes for the rest of the week. We have four classes together. Then we sat and had a really nice milchkaffee date and talked for a few hours. I'm excited that Liz and I are getting a lot closer and have so many classes together, because she is so nice and goes to Gettysburg, so we can visit each other when we get back from Germany too. Overall it was a good first day of classes and I hope tomorrow goes as well.

Day 48

Okay, everyone knows I went to Paris this weekend, so this is going to be a long update. I had a great time.

I left Thursday at noon, and took a train to Paris. It is the fastest train in the world, and so it only took me 3ish hours to get there. Minnie and I had planned to meet at the train station at 5:30, even though I got in a little before 5, because she had class. I gave her my phone number, but I forgot to get hers. At 5:30, when I hadn't heard from her, I started to get worried. I decided that the best plan would be to hope that Phil was online and would check his facebook. Thankfully, at the same time, Minnie had the same thought and we were both getting into contact with Phil, who is in Italy. Apparently the number I gave Minnie didn't work, she had gotten out of class early and had gone to a different train station and was looking for me there. Thank god for my blackberry once again. We finally met up once Phil emailed me Minnie's number and I talked to Minnie. It was resolved within half an hour, and I didn't even know I was lost for the first half hour, because Minnie had gotten out of class early and had been trying to find me for a while, haha.

We took the metro back to Minnie's aunt and uncle's apartment. Their apartment is so beautiful. Everywhere in Paris looks like palace's, because the doors are enormous. We hung out with her aunt, who is awesome, for a little while and had dinner with the family. She has two cousins who are 9 and 11. After dinner, we went to meet her friend Shane at a cafe. We ordered dessert and wine and just hung out for a while. Hanging out at cafes is the french thing to do, so we didn't do a lot of that, but I had to experience it. I hadn't had chocolate mousse yet, so I had to order that. It was soo good. Then, we met some of her other friends a few streets over at themed bar. The bar was called Footsie, and was themed after the British stock exchange, so the prices of drinks was based on how popular the drink was and how many people were ordering it. The prices of drinks changed every 3 minutes. It was a really cool idea, and a lot of fun, even though we were the youngest people there by like 5-10 years, haha. We ordered the cheapest beer, but couldn't drink more than two of those, and the metro closes around 1:30, so we went home and went to bed.

Friday we woke up and Minnie's uncle had gotten us croissants for breakfast. That was so nice. We sat and ate breakfast at home, while trying to decide what to do. I knew I really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, I mean, you can see it from Minnie's house, but I wanted to see it up close. First, though, Minnie had to register for classes, so we went to her university. She showed me where she hangs out and that there are tons of American programs all centered in the same area. It was really neat, and there is a really cheap coffee machine that I got a hot chocolate at. We sat in the courtyard and drank our beverages. The courtyard was really pretty and it is a really cool place to hang out, except probably not when it gets colder. Then, we walked through this really pretty park and sat down for a while.

After that we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower. The lines were so long to take the elevator and it was ten euro more, so we decided to walk up more than 600 stairs to get to the second floor, where taking the elevator is a lot less expensive. Man, I learned why! It was pretty exhausting, but I felt a lot more accomplished and truly like I had experienced the Eiffel Tower. Minnie and I took a ton of pictures of the view and ourselves climbing the stairs, which was a lot of fun. Then Minnie and I went on a boat tour of the Seine River, which runs through Paris. It was an hour long, and I got to see soo much of the city and hear about it's history. Again, I took tons of pictures, that I can show everyone and explain more. It started to get cold and dark during the boat tour, and we didn't want to get rained on, so we went downstairs on the way back because we had already seen everything on the way there. Minnie and I were on our own for dinner that night, so we went out to a nice Italian restaurant. Then, instead of having dessert at the restaurant, we went to a grocery store and bought wine and pastries and went to eat them by the Seine.

We sat by the Seine, had dessert, and people watched. It was really interesting, because we could see the Eiffel Tower directly from where we were, so the view was beautiful, but the Eiffel Tower looked very different from how it usually does according to Minnie. The top of the Eiffel Tower was white and the bottom was red, when normally the whole thing is illuminated yellow. We googled it on my blackberry, and found out that France was celebrating Turkey and having a week-long friendship and cultural celebration of Turkey and the Turkish President was visiting France. We thought this was really cool considering our love of Turkey and especially Cem. People took pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower with the Turkish flag and we watched and there were people getting off of the boats from the fancy dinner tours and we watched them as well. They were funny, because there was a huge puddle and some people stepped in it and made funny faces.

Saturday we got up early and did more sightseeing. We wandered around an area for a little while looking for the area with tons of falalfel, but it was Saturday and they are run by Israelis, so only one store was open. We waited in line for a long time and then walked around eating our falalfel. Later, we went to Notre Dame and the Louvre. We didn't go inside either one, but we went and looked at the structures and took pictures, haha. Then we got crepes, which were delicious. I got an egg and ham crepe and a nutella crepe. Then we went to see the Arch de Triumph and window shop at Champs Elysees. To finish off our day of posh Paris shopping and sight seeing, we went to the flagship Haagen Dazs shop for early dinner. We got amazing sundaes and sat and watched all the tourists around the area.

That night, we went skyped with friends from F&M for a while like Bonnie, Cem, and Catherine. Then, we went to party with Minnie's aunt and uncle for a few friends that were moving to Argentina. It was really nice, because Minnie and I just got to hang out for a while and talk, and we decided that either for new years or when we go back to F&M, we want to throw a party exactly like that. Sunday morning we woke up early and did a little more sight seeing and tried to shop, but nothing was open, because it was Sunday and France has very serious labor laws against working, haha. Then, we went to sit outside the art museum that is very modern, but it was too expensive, so we went to the train station and sat at a cafe for an hour and talked, a very french thing to do.

I got home Sunday around 5 and went to dinner at Liv's with Liv and Greg. Liv made grilled cheese and gnocchi. It was delicious and it felt great to be back in Heidelberg. Then, I went home and met my new suitemate. Her name is Avila and she is a freshman, so she doesn't know anyone. Her parents had been there this weekend and went to Ikea, so the apartment was cleaner and looked like someone actually lives there. But I went back to sleep and Livs and catch-up since we hadn't seen each other in such a long time. Today, we have been hanging out at the study center getting ready for classes to start tomorrow.

Day 42

I was productive today!

I woke up late, but I did all my laundry and mopped the apartment! I also used an entire container of clorox wipes between the kitchen and the bathroom. I unpacked the toaster and plates and silverware. Oh that reminds me, I even went grocery shopping yesterday and need to bring my milk home so I can eat in my apartment for the first time. I know it may seem a little late, but I had a hard time getting comfortable in someone else's space. I took out a huge amount of trash that Linda had left behind and the apartment feels a little more like I belong there. I think I will even take pictures once I finish buying the necessary items.

I started reading the Jody Picoult book, 19 Minutes. It is so good. She is such an amazing author. I read it on the bus on the way to the center today and I was completely absorbed. Her books are really interesting because of the moral conflicts and the intense character portrayals.

I went to dinner/lunch with Charlie once I got to the center at 5. We had mensa, which was delicious as usual. I don't know why I like the dining hall here so much better than I do at F&M. I guess because it is a completely different kind of food.

Now I just have spent the last few hours answering emails and using the internet before I have to go home in half an hour.

Day 40

It is officially fall. It was freezing when I stepped out of my apartment this morning and waited for the bus. Suddenly there were tons of leaves on the ground, it's weird how it seems to have happened overnight.

Almost everyone has left for vacation, and I was one of two or three people today in the study center. It's weird to be here alone, but also kind of nice. I skyped with so many people today, it was great. It's so important for me to catch up with all my friends while I'm abroad, and I love hearing what everyone is doing, even if it seems boring to them. Speaking of F&M, Drew came to visit this weekend.

He, Emily, and Lindsay, two girls from his Freiborg program, came to Heidelberg on Friday at 1. I met them at the train station and from there I took them to see the study center and use the bathroom and then to their hostel, which was right on Hauptstrasse, the center of the Old City. When we got to the hostel, they weren't ready for us, so they gave us free beer and we sat at a table and talked. After they checked in and put their stuff down, we decided to walk towards the castle and see if we could find a playground that some friends showed me a few days earlier. We did find it and played on it a little, because the slide is built into the side of the mountain and has a really nice view of the city. We eventually found the castle by just continuing to walk up the mountain and look for signs. We walked around the outside of the castle and took pictures with the city of Heidelberg as the background, some of which came out really good. We even went into the castle to see the giant keg.

After walking back down the mountain, we decided to be more touristy and visit all the little vendors by the church, oh which we went in before we climbed to the castle. I hadn't looked at most of the touristy stuff yet, so that was kind of cool and I tried to get ideas. Then we went to a gummi bear shop, and the woman was really nice and let us try the beer flavored gummi bear, which were surprisingly really good and interesting. Then we walked down to the Old Bridge and took pictures along the Neckar with Heidelberg in the background. At that point it was chilly and time to eat dinner, so we went back to the hostel to get good and cheap german food. I ended up not actually getting german food, and having chicken with a really good sweet and sour sauce. I loved it.

We didn't know what to do at night, so we ended up just hanging out with a few kids in my program in their apartment. It was only for a little while, because we wanted to get up early to get to Stuttgart. What we forgot, was that Saturday was a holiday in Germany, Reunification Day. That means that the trains ran less frequently and we had a little bit of trouble getting to the Hauptbahn Hof, but we all made it and we all got to sit together on the train. There was a bachelor party already drinking on the train and singing drinking songs.

Once we got to Stuttgart, the train station was packed. Because it was Reunification Day, tons of people thought it was a great day to go to the Volksfest. It was hard to even move. There were tons of rides and food stands. We tried to wait in line to get into a tent, so we could sit down and dance, but after almost 2 hours of waiting we gave up. We decided to just walk around and order beers. It was a lot harder to find beer at this festival than we expected. Don't worry, we eventually found beer, bratwursts, and crepes. We walked around and enjoyed the people watching and beer. I wish I hadn't left my camera in my jacket locked in a locker at the train station. I was worried to bring it somewhere with so many people and tourists. We had a good time, and then we got back on the train to go to Heidelberg. It was so good to see Drew and be able to talk about F&M and our friends. I can't wait to visit Minnie in a few days!