A Long-Overdue Update

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry I've been so absent these past few weeks- it's been a busy month. At the beginning of the month, I had a million things due (and by 'a million', I mean two papers and a presentation), then I was in Prague with my bffl (best friend for life) Katie, and then I had an oral final for one of my classes, then I had a performance for one of my classes, and then everyone left.

I'll break it down for you:

Prague

Katie and I hadn't seen each other since our birthdays in September, and we decided to meet up somewhere, and we somehow (after entertaining the idea of just about every other city in Europe) ended up deciding on Prague. We were in Prague in the summer of '08, so it wasn't a totally new experience for us, but it was still a lot of fun. We didn't do so many touristey things, and instead wandered around their Christmas markets, drank tea, found bagels (!!), ate Indian food, and went to a museum about Communism.

It was a good weekend, if stressful- I flew, and my flight was delayed, and finding Katie at the train station was a struggle, and then we found out I had booked our hostel for thursday and friday, not friday and saturday, so our reservation had been lost. Thankfully we were directed to another hostel...across the river, not 10 minutes from where we had just come from.

Bagels were a huge success, in that we found them and then ate a bunch of them and then came back the next day early in the morning to buy some to take home with us. The Communism museum was also something I would (and have) highly recommend- hearing the Czech version rather than from the American point of view was very interesting.

Oral Final/Performance:

My oral final was in the class I have with Herr Dörr- it's a reading, listening and understanding course where we write a lot, and practice reading articles and such things that increase our proficiency. So the final consisted of picking two of the articles we had read during the semester and reading them aloud to him, and then he would ask us questions about the Inhalt- the content, and the Vokabel- vocabulary. I was very nervous and prepared for it as such. I thought it went fairly well- he told me that my reading was very nice (I tried to hard to use all I had learned in both my phonetik courses) and, I'm warning you right now that the next sentence is me bragging: I was told by Herr Doerr that Dan and I had the best oral finals of the class. I felt so validated!

The performance was for one of my Phonetik classes I'm in- it was a performance of excerpts of Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language" or "Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache"- which is really funny, especially if you've ever tried to learn German. We were all assigned parts to practice and then we performed it in front of Heidelberg alumni on Friday. I also sang this little ditty here. That was most nerve-wracking for me, because it was an a cappella solo. We did well, I think.

Everyone leaving:
After Mark Twain on Friday, Haleigh and I headed to Annika's to make dinner, exchange Christmas presents, and then bake cookies before heading to Aaron's for a good-bye party. It was surreal, the whole weekend, saying goodbye to everyone, even when we were helping Annika pack up. After dinner, presents, some baking and some cleaning/packing, we headed to Aaron's where we met up with Aaron, Stefan (his roommate), Mattheis (Aaron's Sprachpartner, my and Dan's friend from church), Brian and Dan. Megan and Anne were in Paris for Megan's birthday, so they were unfortunately unable to come.

We ate pizza and drank beer and then at the end of the night said bye to Aaron and Stefan Mattheis and Brian, and headed back to Ringstraße with Annika and Dan to spend the night with Annika finishing packing and cleaning and all that needed to be done. After waiting outside her apartment for a while since she forgot her keys and it was two thirty, we got in and packed and cleaned with Annika until four, when we went to bed for 45 minutes in order to get her up and to the train station to meet Aaron and go to the airport.

I forgot to mention earlier that I fell down some icy stairs Friday morning (I have some great bruises). This will come into play in a few seconds. We gathered all of Annika's stuff up, including the bags of things we were taking from her and a box that was our Christmas present from her, we headed to the Hauptbahnhof, booking it because we were a tad late. In our hurry, I slipped down some stairs outside of the Ringstraße building (like I said, awesome bruises) and fell, meaning I had to limp power walk the rest of the way to the station. We got her on, and then found out which car Aaron was in to go say bye to him. I may or may not have cried as soon as the train pulled away...

Haleigh and I got home around six, and immediately went to bed. Later that day, Brian and Dan and I hung out since it was Dan's last night- watched Flight of the Conchords, went to Yufka's for dinner, and talked until it was time for him to go back to his apartment to get picked up. Mark left the next day, as did Megan- Mark and Haleigh and I hung out on Sunday night, and then Haleigh and I went over to Megan's in the morning to say bye to her.

All in all, a sad weekend. It was really not fun to say goodbye to my friends I've made here- it feels like I've known them forever, but it's only been three and a half months! It's pretty insane. The upside is that now I have friends all over the country and have more of an excuse to go travel to the Midwest and East Coast now. See how positive I'm being?

Christmas is coming!

A Story About How...My Life is Like an Action Movie

Here's a story for you all:

I nearly die almost every time I try to do anything in my room. I cannot tell you how often I nearly fall off my bed or out of the window. It's a death trap. Much like the Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof, but that's another story.

This morning I decided to be productive and do some more laundry, as our washer was recently repaired and it is now a viable option as opposed to the sink. I did the cycle, and as I usually do, decided to hang it to dry in my room. This is because a) it's easy b) it makes my room smell good c) it's good for the environment d) our dryer is a piece of crap and e) the dryer takes forever and I don't have that kind of time.

As I was hanging my sheet across my curtain rod, balancing on the edges of my bed so it doesn't collapse again, I lost my balance and fell into the window. Thank goodness a) my bed didn't crash and b) the window wasn't open/didn't break. I don't actually think I could have broken the window, but it's still unnerving, especially since this happens often. Every morning when I, half-asleep, balance on the edges of my bed to crack open my window, inevitably, I teeter and catch myself just in time not to fall and give myself a concussion.

Point is, I live my life on the edge. I do no-excuses laundry...

A True German Thanksgiving...er, what?

Well, as I'm sure you all knew, yesterday was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is probably one of my most favorite holidays of all. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, it's awesome, but I also really love Thanksgiving. I love that all my extended family gets together in Berkeley to spend time together and be loud and rambunctious, and I love that I also get to have a Thanksgiving with my other side of the family that is smaller and I love that my mom, stepdad, brother and I now have a tradition of serving Thanksgiving in the City (San Francisco).

Enough about how great my family is, let me tell you what thanksgiving is like in Heidelberg: anticlimactic. I got up, went to work, went to my internship (where I got to make a bear hand puppet out of a brown paper lunch bag and I got to color and it was really fun). I watched the Macy's Day Parade online with Haleigh which was awesome because it was so traditional and

American, and we laughed at the cheese factor of Matt Lauer and Katie Couric. Matt Lauer actually said "what's more American than Pizza?"- there was an actual pizza team! What did they do? twirl pizza dough.

Our program had a dinner for us at a restaurant in the area (fun fact: they've had Thanksgiving in the same restaurant for 24 years), which was a lot of fun- we dressed up a little, and got to talk in English with our professors who pretend like they don't know English the rest of the year. My table was especially fun- Aaron, his parents and his Pfarrer, Frau Heckmann (our resident director), Herr Doerr (the most amazing German Professor ever), Brian and Dan.

Dinner was pretty good for it being a German Thanksgiving, but it was nowhere near as good as a real Thanksgiving dinner!

It snowed on Thanksgiving, although it was only for a little while, and it didn't stick. It was still really exciting for me. As you can see from the pictures, it's Christmas in Heidelberg! The last one shows the show on the top of a mountain in town. It's unbelievably beautiful here right now. I'm loving the snow!

France again and Harry Potter

So last Friday Dan and Brian and I were going to go to France, but Dan got sick on Thursday night, so Brian and I went alone. It's free for us through our semester pass which lets us use public transportation for free within a certain area, so it became a premiere destination :) It's about two hours by train, and I created a handy-dandy googlemaps image to show you how you'd get there if you drove.

It was a ton of fun! Wissembourg is a pretty little town, but we knew nothing about it, so we spent a few hours walking around. I guess you could say we got lost, but because we had no idea where we were going, we didn't count it.

Brian had been craving a Big Mac, so we looked for the McDonald's that we saw as we were pulling into Wissembourg from the train. It became a game of "Find that McDonald's!" We found it, so yes, I ate McDonald's in France. It's not my proudest moment, but Brian enjoyed it so

much that I don't regret it!

We kept walking around after McDonald's, trying to find the Old City. Thankfully, Wissembourg has a bunch of handy maps of the city all over the place, so we were able to check our progress often enough that we eventually found it, and it was very cute!

Funny thing about us wandering around...we eventually wandered into Germany. No joke. It was awesome! We hopped the border a few times for pictures, and to be able to say we walked to Germany from France and back. It wasn't a particularly warm or good day for tourism, but it's cute and free, and I'd go again!

On Wednesday, Harry Potter 7 opened in Germany, and you can bet (especially because I'm telling you) that I was there! A group of us went to Mannheim to see it, and it was totally worth it. Not only because it was fun to be out with friends, but also because we got the bragging rights of seeing it two days earlier than those plebeians in the US!

Overall, it was a good week, even though yesterday I had to spend 6 hours at a choir practice for our show next week. The choir that

no one wants to be in anymore...but hey- joy, right?

Catch up!

Hey guys,

Sorry it's been so long. Some of you need to cool it and calm down about my 3 week hiatus. I've been busy, and I wanted to stay chronological with my posts.

A few weeks ago, I got to go to Wiesbaden which is near Frankfurt to visit with some friends from home: The Osiers (who are from Folsom but are living in Wiesbaden), my friend Michelle and her husband Daniel (they live in Cologne, but I know Michelle from middle school youth group where she was my small group leader) and another friend, Diane. We all know each other from Folsom, and joked that we were having a Lakeside reunion, since we all went to Lakeside Church in Folsom. It was a great time! I also got to visit the commissary which was nice, where I got some (and by some I mean a lot) of American food.

We also found a great Mexican place! It was seriously so delicious

The week after that was Halloween, and I worked at the DAI's Halloween party, which was a blast. I got to work the pumpkin carving table, so I was up to my elbows in pumpkin guts all night, but I got to hang out with some cool kids, practice my German, and meet some Germans, so it was a success. I made friends with a family I met there, which was really fun, and we spoke in a mix of German and English which was an added bonus.

I visited my friend Ashley in Mainz the next day, where she's teaching English through a Fullbright there. We played some Tischtennis (okay, she played some Tischtennis) and wandered around Mainz and went to the Gutenberg Muesum (GO THERE! I'd completely go back, we didn't get to see it all because I had to catch a train). It was great to see her, and also fun to be shown around a town by someone who lives there, as opposed to touring with a guide, or alone without any real idea of what's up.

The same day, when I got back to HD, Dan and I went to a game night at the church we go to, which was really fun. I didn't necessarily get to know as many Germans as hoped, but I definitely had a good time (I even made it into the message the next day).

Halloween was the next day, and Haleigh, Anne, Annika, three other girls and I (although really, everyone else did a lot more work than I did so I can't take credit) made some delicious pumpkin soup and had a mini Halloween party.

My grandparents came the next day, and my week got super busy! Monday my grandma and her friend Diane got in, and then my step grandparents got in on Tuesday night so I didn't see them until Wednesday. On Thursday, they all cooked dinner for my friends and me at my building, which was really nice; everyone got to meet everyone else and eat delicious food. We spent Friday shopping (I got a very nice coat from my grandma, but was unable to find shoes. It seems large footed women are prejudiced against even in Europe) and then I met up with some friends later to try (operative word here) to go bowling.

Ah, bowling. In German, Bowling, or Kegeln. We knew where a place was, so a bunch of us met up and walked there, but since it was a Friday night, the lanes had all been reserved. Megan remembered a different place in a different part of town, so we walked around HD for about 3 hours looking for a place to go bowling, and ended up stopping at Rewe (a grocery store) to get chocolate, and then heading back to the Wartburg (my building) for leftovers and talking. We talked for a long time, and it was a lot of fun, though bowling never was achieved. We have plans to make it happen though.

The next day my grandparents and I went to Baden Baden which was a nice town, and we basically just spend the day at the baths. It was certainly an unexpected and interesting experience for me. We went to a Beethoven concert the next night, and it was a really good decision. The room was beautiful, the orchestra talented, and the tickets were reasonably priced. On Monday I had breakfast with everyone and said goodbye, which was sad, but I had a good week with them!

Stay tuned for my adventures in France!

Salzburg through photos

A weekend in Salzburg

So you might remember me telling you that we were given German Rail Passes by AJY, and that I used a day to go to Oktoberfest. Well, I have 4 days left, and need to use them by the end of the month, so I need to travel, and fast! Luckily, Annika had a hankering to go to Salzburg. Haleigh, Anne, Annika and I decided to go last weekend.

We left on Friday night, caught a train from Heidelberg to Munich and then were going to take a train from Munich to Salzburg, and get in somewhere around midnight. We caught the train to Munich no problemo, chug chug chuging away (except trains don't run on coal, so there was no actual chugging) but then we stop for a prolonged time in Stuttgart. We hear that we are going to be delayed 10 minutes...then 20...5 which would have been fine, if we had more than 23 minutes between trains. Which we didn't, I'm sure you're surprised to hear. Once we got to Munich, we ran like crazy in case our train was still there, but it was just pulling away. We made haste to the ticket machine, and got our tickets for the next train to Salzburg.

After wandering around the train station for a while, we got nervous we'd miss our train, so we hopped on and found our compartment (awesome!), met a guy named Sam from Boston who was under the impression that four women traveling alone needed his help to get in their compartment, which was nice of him, but unnecessary. We thoroughly enjoyed the compartment, and got to Salzburg at 1:17 in the morning. We got out our GoogleMaps directions, ready to head to the hostel....aaaand realized it would take us an hour and a minute, which was not a big deal, we were just like "well, let's hop to it!"

We got a little lost on the streets of Salzburg, and it ended up taking us about two and a half hours to get to our hostel. We weren't stressed or anything, we were just ready for bed, but the weirdest part was how fine we all were with the fact that we were wandering around, without really knowing where we were going. It was great, I had a blast. We all agreed it was a good thing Megan wasn't there (by her own admission) she would not have dealt with that situation in the same way.

Someone was walking in the door as we got to the hostel, so we didn't have to worry about getting in (which turned out to be our downfall, but we'll get to that in a little bit). Went to the reception desk which was (unsurprisingly) not open. We called the number posted, to no avail. Eventually it was almost 4 and we needed sleep. Since we had no other options, we found a room off the foyer that had a few chairs in it, and we dove right in, Anne and Annika taking the chairs, Haleigh and I taking the marble floor (so warm I almost felt cold). We snuggled down (as much as one can snuggle with marble in a room with motion sensitive lights) and fell asleep.

I managed to sleep for about an hour before I woke up, and saw that Anne and Annika were both awake too. I sat up, the lights flickered on, and we sort of sat there, cold and tired for a little while. Eventually we put on all the clothes we brought with us, Haleigh and I laid our bath towels down to create a buffer between the ice cold marble and us, and drifted off to sleep for a short time. We woke up a little while later and once the reception desk was open, checked in, and the lady asked us "Warum habt ihr die Glocke nicht geklingelt?"- " why didn't you ring the bell?"

Apparently, had we not been able to get in behind the young man walking in at the same time as us, we would have seen a bell that would have rung to her room, and she could have checked us in that night. Well, c'est la vie. We paid for our nights (we still had to pay for the night before, due to their cancellation policy, which was a bummer but understandable), got our linen, came back downstairs to eat breakfast and then jumped in bed for a nap.
Once we woke up from our three hour nap in the hostel, we got ready and explored the city! This consisted of us going to the Altstadt and looking at historical-ey things, like Mozart’s Geburtshaus where we took a picture and moved on (that museum=lame). We also found a Flohmarkt where Haleigh and I bought some rings and then moved onto the Festung. The Festung is the castle, and it’s got quite a hike to get up to the top, something we did gladly instead of paying 10 Euro for the bus thing. We stopped at the world’s largest Amber museum, may or may not have (hint: it happened) purchased a present for Annika’s upcoming birthday, and enjoyed the warmth of the museum before venturing out back into the cold and up the mountain.

We got to the top, and really enjoyed the view of what was directly below us and fog. Look…clouds! It was a chilly day, let me tell you. Something happened to my foot (shocked, aren’t you, Mom?) when I was at the top which made getting down the hill difficult, but we got to see the legit Sound of Music nunnery (it was founded in 714! It’s the oldest continuously running nunnery) which was pretty sweet. After we got to the bottom, we were cold and ready to eat. We remembered we had seen a restaurant earlier that day that had delicious-sounding Kürbiscremesuppe (pumpkin cream soup), and decided to go find it again, which was such a good decision. Annika and I shared a bowl of soup and pumpkin gnocci, which was all really good. The soup was aptly described by Anne as being so good “you want to cry and eat it forever.”

We walked back to our hostel and all got ready for bed, luxurating in the fact that we had beds and heat and a room that was meant for sleeping in! We talked for a while, basically having a sleepover (Anne even French-braided my hair!) and enjoyed going to bed early.

Sunday we decided to go do a few things we had missed on Saturday and then catch a train around 13:30 to head home. First we went out back of our hostel and reenacted the Wizard’s Chess Harry Potter scene with the giant board of chess pieces, and then reenacted “Sixteen Going On Seventeen” in the pitiful gazebo (wooden structure with plastic chairs in it).

We went back into the city and got our Mozartkugeln, tried to see another church (mass was in session, so we weren’t able to though) and went to the gardens where Maria and the children run through singing Do Re Me- a great decision. First of all, we found a garden of statues we all had to pose with, we found a super neat playground, and used continuous shot for us skipping through the covered ways, AND we found a maze like in Harry Potter and reenacted scenes from HP. It was fantastic.

About the park: there was this crazy looking slide we found (we were above it, looking at the gardens, and we saw this crazy looking slide. “that looks so crazy. [pause] that looks dangerous. [pause] let’s go!” We did, and it was quite the adventure to get up it. First of all, there were platforms you had to crawl up, it wasn’t possible to just use a ladder (although there was a particularly useless ladder there, taunting us at it’s potential usefulness, had the architect thought it out), meaning we had to heave our bodies up each level, precariously balancing and grasping at boards and beams to gain some control. Second of all, it got smaller as we climbed up it, a fact we should have realized when we saw it, since it was a triangle frame. It wasn’t exactly built for use by four adult sized women. Whatever, we did it anyway, and it was fine. Since getting up was so difficult, we decided we HAD to leave via the slide (something we weren’t planning on doing, since it was a particularly wet day in Salzburg). Anne didn’t want to slide down it (though she said she’d take pictures of us), but we agreed she’d take too long to get down so we peer pressured her into going first (adulthood at it’s finest).

After the park, we went to Schweedy, a Swedish candy store that opened at one, and we definitely didn’t pick our train based on when it opened, because that would have been silly. Annika was psyched to see some candy she hadn’t seen since Swedish Bible School; we blazed through there and moved it to the Hbf, caught the train, and found a compartment that wasn’t reserved until Munich. When we got to Munich, we tried to find more seats, but were unsuccessful, and spent the next few hours crouching/standing/sitting in the aisle next to the compartments.

All in all, a satisfying weekend, despite the problemos we had initially. We all had a great time, laughed so much everyone knew we were Americans (typisch Amerikanerinnen!) and experienced things that were unexpectedly awesome- a trip full of beautiful mishaps, as Annika would say.

Semesteranfang

Well, classes started last week- pretty anticlimactic, actually, but in a good way. My class schedule is pretty awesome- I don't have class Monday, Wednesday or Friday, so the Semesteranfang (beginning of semester) celebration last Monday was something I was able to go to. I was sick and not feeling well, but I figured I should, in order to get the low down on what life's like at the Universität Heidelberg. There were a million and one people there by the time we got there (we got a little lost. Neuenheimer Feld is bigger than I realized. Not the only time last week I got lost there!) but we (well, Haleigh and Anne and I were able to, but we couldn't find Brian and Annika) were able to make it into the Hörsaal (lecture hall) and find some standing room in the back.

For some reason, when we decided to go, we didn't think about how boring these things are in English, much less in another language. After we heard the speeches and presentations, we walked around gathering as much information as we could about the different clubs and options for becoming involved in the community (apparently choirs and orchestras are the go-to social interactions, I got asked like 10 times to join a choir or orchestra. It was kind of cool to be able to say "nein, danke, schon bin ich in ein Chor"- no, thank you, I'm already in a choir).

Tuesday was my first class- Wortschatz B (Vocabulary B) which is a pretty full class of international students, including a lot of AJY kids: Mark, Kaia, Dan, Aaron, Abby, Andrew, Jon and I, making a total of about 30. We'll see if there are that many who show up tomorrow, since the first two weeks of classes are really flexible and fluid. In another week I'll have Deutsche Geschichte (German history) on Tuesdays as well, but it doesn't start for another week. Thursday I went to my Phonetik (Phonetics) class, and by accident ended up in a different, but better phonetik class. I was so excited as we started taking notes and talking- it's really interesting. In that class, the first half is with all the students, then we break into two groups based on Muttersprache (mother language). I'm in a smaller group of people whose Muttersprache is English, Japanese, Turkish, and Korean.

Thursday was also the day I started my Praktikum (internship) at the dai Bibliothek (the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut Library) which was great. I'll have the opportunity to do a lot of really neat things through this Praktikum, like join a book club, be on a panel for German students to ask questions about life in the US, do story time for little kids, and just help in general around the library. Thursday night I have a class through AJY called "Übung zum Lesen, Verstehen und Schreiben"- "practice of reading, understanding and writing" with Herr Dörr, who is such a great teacher. The nice thing about this course is that it's really small- just 7 of us are in it, making it easy for us all to interact and have the opportunity to talk.

Looking at my class list, you are probably thinking I have so much free time, which is sort of true, but I've filled it up pretty well: Bible study, choir, Wednesday church and DAI events round out my week, as well as hanging out with friends and exploring.

It's nice to have a schedule again, and I'm looking forward to what the rest of the semester brings!

Fall Break

I thought Oktoberfest deserved it's own post, but it really was just the kick off to my Fall Break. Friday was Oktoberest, Saturday and Sunday Anne and I hung out and explored Heidelberg, on Monday, Aaron and Tom and I signed up for classes, and chilled in Heidelberg, and then on Tuesday I began my trek to England.

Saturday morning found me very well-rested, as I let myself sleep in. I checked my email, my facebook, read a book, and enjoyed the solitude, but after I got a little bored of being alone, I talked to Anne, and we decided to go adventure! We walked to Bismarkplatz, and just took a random S-Bahn. We didn't pay too much attention to where it was going, we just decided to see where it took us. Handschuhsheim is where it ended up taking us- the oldest part of Heidelberg (as Frau Dr. Heckmann will tell you with pride, it is something like 600 years older than Heidelberg). We hopped off at a random stop, and began walking, just looking around and stumbled upon a cute little cafe where we ate such delicious Pfannkuchen (kinda like crepes, but stuffed with spinach and cheese) and Käse spätzel. We wandered around the rest of Heidelberg and ended up at Aaron's for pizza (delivery- very exciting!)

Sunday Anne and I went to church and made a delicious (and classy, since we listened to Ella Fitzgerald) breakfast of pancakes, and chilled, enjoying a nice lazy Sunday. Finding eggs in Heidelberg on a Sunday, as well as a holiday, proved difficult, but we found a place in the Hauptbahnhof open, and while waiting for the bus outside of the Hbf, met a lady and her cute kid who showed his knowledge of the German language by shouting "Eier! Eier!" at us, pointing at the eggs in my hands. He was so cute, and every time we thought he'd forgotten, because he was looking at the buses, he'd whip around pointing at my hands- "Eier!" It thoroughly amused us.

Tuesday I got up really early (3am), walked to the Hbf (it was so early no buses or S-bahns were running, so I walked) to catch my train that would take me to the Frankfurt Flughafen (airport) where I took a plane to Amsterdam, and then a plane to London Heathrow and then a coach (British English for bus) to Nottingham. After waiting in the bus station in Nottingham for a few hours because Joanna and I couldn't get a hold of each other, I prevailed upon the kindness of a nice man in the Nottingham public transportation office who, after hearing me ramble about 16 hours of traveling and and asking about an internet cafe, allowed me to use his phone and call Joanna.

England was fine, but I definitely missed Germany. Joanna and I had a lot of fun exploring, and enjoying each other's company, and remembering what it was like to see each other every day when waking up (hello, head to foot in a twin bed!)! We went to a wine tasting put on by the

Wine and Spirits Club of the University of Nottingham, walked to a cute town called Beeston, ate delicious pastries, shopped and laughed. We went to the Goose Fair, something we had been told we could not miss, it was so awesome and make sure to see it. What was it? A carnival with English accents and an abundance of hot mushy peas (with or without mint sauce- your choice!) It was cool, but definitely not what we were expecting! The morning I left England, Joanna and I had a wonderful breakfast at a lovely (see how I just picked up the lingo? pip, pip cheerio!) teahouse in Nottingham. It was so picturesque, so naturally, I took a picture (I'm a tourist for a reason, right?)

Getting home from England was a nightmare. It was komplett furchtbar (completely terrible). I missed my plane to Amsterdam (and thus my plane home) and ended up buying a direct (which was nice, but not something I had planned on doing!) Lufthansa flight and another train ticket once I got to Frankfurt. It was definitely a learning experience, and I was so, so thankful to be home. England does not gefällt mich. I realized, through this trip, just how much I love

Germany. I love the language, the warm embrace of familiarity, and very importantly: the efficiency of the Germans (which is not rivaled even a little bit by the English). It was good to be home!

Oktoberfest

On Friday, I went to Oktoberfest with three friends, and it was maybe the best decision I've made since I got here. I had a blast!

First of all, since tents are hard to get into, getting to one early is important, and because we live in Heidelberg, about a 3 hour train ride away, we needed to take an early train. We decided to leave on a train at 4:40am, which would get us into Munich at about 8:15. Our program gave us German Rail Passes, which allow us to have five free days of travel on any trains within Germany. Aaron and I decided to come back the same day in order to use just one day, but Brian and Dan left from Munich to go on the rest of their Fall Break plans. Since we were leaving so early, and Brian and I live on the opposite side of town, we spent the night at Dan's, which is super close to the Hbf (Hauptbahnhof, the central railway station). Brian and I both slept on the floor, which was not comfortable, per se, but it was better than waking up earlier and walking 45 minutes to get to the station!

We got to the station in time to try to get our passes validated, but since it was so early, no one was there to help us. We stood around for a while, and ended up seeing 5 other AJY students who were heading to Munich for Oktoberfest, which was nice. We hopped on our (surprisingly late) regional train that took us to Bruchsal, where we transferred onto a train to Munich (due to the other train being late, we got off the regional train and had literally a minute or two to get to the other side of the track. We all got off, ran down the stairs, across the tunnel, up the stairs and bolted into a car). We lost the other AJY students at Bruchsal, because us four had reserved seats together (best €4.50 I've ever spent. or as Brian and Dan said, the best €4.50 I ever spent for them...they haven't paid me back yet) in the Großraum mit Tisch (in the big room with a table). We all slept most of the way, which ended up being longer than it was supposed to be, because the train was delayed.

When we got to Munich, we validated our German Rail Passes, and then stowed our packs in the locker area of the station. All I brought with me was monaay and my phone (I forgot my camera, unfortunately). We then set off to find Oktoberfest...but got lost. We didn't know where we were going and after a while, used Brian's phone's googlemaps ability (and a phone call to Marcus who had been there before) and eventually found it! Finding it was a lot more anticlimactic than we thought it'd be. It was pretty empty, which, for a kinda overcast and rainy Friday morning (10 am), isn't all that surprising. We went almost directly to a tent, telling ourselves there would be plenty of time to ride the rides or see the rest of what there was to see later. We ended up going into the Paulaner München tent, Dan got carded (the drinking age for beer in Germany is 15...) which was just a wonderful way to begin the day (Dan didn't really think so). We found an empty box, sat down and each ordered a Maß (a liter) of the Oktoberfest, and just enjoyed looking around and talking. By the end of the Mass, I was a little farther gone than I realized when I ordered another, and instead of receiving another Oktoberfest, got a Radler, a beer and lemonade mix (which actually tastes good, but it just wasn't what I thought I ordered). I have no memory of asking for a Radler, but after being told by Dan, Brian and Aaron (also after having received the Radler) I have to conclude that I really did order it.

The funny thing about Oktoberfest is how quickly time passes before you really know it. Eric, our graduate student assistant at AJY, told Dan and me on Thursday night when we ran into him, that you get to Oktoberfest, and you sit down, take a glance at your watch and ask yourself what in the world you'll do all day, and how you'll ever be able to spend 7 hours in a tent, and then you'll look down and realize 5 or 6 hours have gone by and you didn't even realize it. That's exactly what happened! We just sat, drank, talked, ate (the guys all had Weißwurst (white sausage), but I had Kartoffelsuppe (potato soup), which was delicious), sang (ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit, ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit!), made friends (a group of Spaniards sat down next to us, and were kind enough to order Brian a beer at one point, and me one at another) and then all of a sudden it was time to go because Brian and Dan's train was going to be coming soon.

We bought two Paulaner Krugs (what we in the US incorrectly call "steins"), and headed back to the station. It took us a little while, we were all a little shaky (some more than others) but we made it to the station after an hour or so (and a prolonged stop at a McDonalds outdoor seating area in order to let everyone catch their breath and regain their bearings). Dan and Brian headed off to Salzburg while Aaron and I waited for our train. I felt completely normal after a little while, and Aaron was feeling better by the time our train came. It was an ICE (an inter-city express) which was awesome! I loved it! I never want to travel on anything but ICE's. It was nice, and roomy, and fast, and quiet. I slept the entire time, and it was wonderful.

We got to Mannheim and grabbed a regional train to Heidelberg. Once we got back to the Hauptbahnhof, I caught a S-bahn back to Bismarkplatz, and walked home. It felt good to be home after such a long day- I really appreciated my bed!

The whole day was filled with laughter and fun and I had a wonderful time. At first, I wasn't that excited about going. I thought I'd go because it was the 200th anniversary, and I was in Germany, and wouldn't it be cool to be able to say I went? Yes, that's really cool, but at the same time, I also got to be a part of a piece of German tradition in a way that a lot of people can't say they have. It was a cultural experience that can't be duplicated, and a fun time. Totally worth it.

Juanita's chips aka why Annika is awesome

So my friend Annika is from Oregon, and her parents came and visited this week. We had talked before about how delicious these Juanita's chips are (they're made in Hood River and available only in Oregon) and how it's such a bummer they're not available anywhere else. I told her that I would pay big bucks if her parents were able to get a bag here, but due to luggage space, she said they wouldn't be able to. I was just like "oh, okay, I understand, it's not important anyway."

On Tuesday her parents arrived, and we made dinner at her apartment- a potluck that was fun- Haleigh and I made a great salad, Anne made this delicious apple dessert, Melissa brought grapes and cookies, and Annika made these mini-pizzas on bread (Megchen was sick). We got to her apartment, and I walked in, and saw a bag of Juanita's on the table! I started hyperventilating and got really excited! I may not have actually hyperventilated, but I was quite happy.

I am going to ration them out so I can enjoy them as much as possible!

Dreams come true!

End of the preperation course, a goose, and the DSH Test

Well when we left off last week, I was having a pretty terrible time, but I'm glad to be able to say I'm doing much better! I got my package on Friday, and got my Giants umbrella, some shoes and shirts my mom sent. It ended up being down this alley behind a group of buildings at the service entrance down half a block in what used to be a freight yard. How I missed it, I'll never know.

Last week pretty much consisted of Frau Said and Herr Dörr imparting as much knowledge on us as possible, and a trip to Schwetzingen! Schwetzingen is city a couple miles out from Heidelberg, so we were able to get there with a street car and a bus. We didn't see much of the city itself, just the castle, but the castle grounds were so pretty! It was actually just the summer residence of Karl III, but we all agreed we wouldn't mind spending winters, falls or springs there. We didn't really go inside many of the buildings, rather we just explored the gardens. They were gorgeous, and we had a very nice picnic next to some water which was relaxing and pretty, and then a goose decided he'd like to join. Good thing we had Herr Dörr:

It was possibly one of the funniest things I experienced that day. Props to Annika for getting this sweet action shot of him!

We spent most of Thursday there at the castle seeing the grounds, the temples (there were a few: one to Athena, Apollo, Mercury, as well as a mosque and some fake ruins. yes, they built ruins) and the wedding pictures of an American couple.

The weekend was spent cramming German grammar into my Gehirn (brain) and celebrating at the Heidelberger Herbst (Heidelberg Fall) which is a festival that happens every year on the last weekend of September- it overruns the entire Altstadt, but in a good way. There were multiple stages for concerts, tons of tents for food and beer, and a renaissance fair-type area with delicious smelling cooked something, and a building that sold Met (Mead, which ended up tasting pretty gross) but also Glühwein which is mulled wine and tastes like Christmas in your mouth. It was delicious. I also ate a delicious falafel and it almost made up for the fact that I can't get these delicious chips anywhere except Oregon.

It was a good group of us that wandered around Heidelberger Herbst on Saturday night: Megan, Haleigh, Anne, Annika, Melissa, me and Aaron. We drank some good Pilsner and enjoyed just seeing what HH is all about. Eventually we got down to Bismarkplatz but realized we wanted to be back down at Uniplatz, which is halfway down Hauptstrasse, the main place HH was happening. Because there were so many people and we were impatient, I learned the (intense) art of crowd weaving, thank's to Aaron's coaching. Three of us, Aaron, Megan and I crowd-wove through those people like crazy, and while we made great time and had a blast, we lost Anne, Haleigh and Melissa (Annika ended up crowd weaving on her own and made it to us a few minutes after the three of us crossed the finish line together) who weren't really happy we had decided to charge down Hauptstrasse. C'est la vie.

We ended up, later that night, seeing the greatest cover band ever created. EVER. They did a metal cover of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire with actual fire there to make it so much more legit! Also, they were terrible. It was a great end to the night!

Sunday I spent going to church and studying for the DSH, the huge test I took yesterday that determines what sort of classes I can take as well as what my level of German is. If I pass, I will get a certificate saying that I know German. Studying was difficult because there’s just so much to learn, but with a bunch of us, we were able to get a little done. I went to bed super early on Sunday night and woke up early (not exactly on purpose) yesterday. Once we got to the building where we would be taking the test, we were divided into two groups by last name, and then told what floor to go to, and there, we were divided into two groups again. Thankfully, there were 3 other AJY students in my room: Dan, Aaron and Marcus. Dan and I sat together, and Marcus and Aaron sat together, and we began. The first part of the test was fairly straightforward: read an article, answer a page or two of questions, then a page of grammar about the article. That section was an hour and a half and afterwards we had a brief break. Then we had the listening understanding, which was, I think, universally agreed upon as being the hardest part. After the listening there was a writing section, which was fairly easy as well. The listening part is an enigma to me. I answered the questions, yes, but correctly remains to be seen!

Whatever my grade, I’m done with that part. We have a Mündliche (oral) Prufüng on Thursday, but I’m not too worried about that. I’m just enjoying my day off today, getting some things done I can’t on the weekend, and relaxing. A couple of us are going over to Annika’s to make dinner, and I am very excited- we’re all bringing something, and I think it will be a nice change of pace to make food again ( I miss cooking!). Tomorrow we’re headed to Speyer, of which I know nothing about, so I'm sure I'll have fun facts to share with you next time!

A note on culture shock

I know I just posted something yesterday, but my day today required a new post.

I got a notification in my mailbox at the center on Friday letting me know I had gotten a package, but that due to regulations, it couldn't be delivered, and I would need to pick it up myself. The assistant director of our program, Frau Schoeberl, printed out a googlemaps map of it and wrote down which train/bus I could take and where the place was, but of course due to the hours on Friday there was only a half hour window where I would be able to go. No big deal, I thought, I'll get it on Monday. I was so busy yesterday that I forgot about getting it, and decided I would make it happen today, so after lunch I headed to Bismarkplatz to catch a train or bus to one of the stations nearest the office.

The bus was fine, I got on the right one (shockingly), got to where I needed to be, knew where I was, saw where I needed to go on the map, and started walking. As I walked, I looked around, expecting it to be fairly obvious where I needed to go, but that was an unfounded expectation, as it turned out. After wandering up and down the street for a while, I came to the conclusion that I must be confused, or reading the map wrong, or overlooking something, so I decided to call someone nearby and ask if I could come over and borrow their computer to double check. Luckily, I know three people who live in a building in the area, so I called Annika. Of course, she said, come on over.

So I walked back, all the way back past where my bus had dropped me off, to her building. I told her what I had done, and how I couldn't find anything, and we double checked the instructions I had been sent by the post office and saw there was another address on the paper, plugged that into googlemaps, and saw I had been near it while wandering around.

I left her, went back to where I had been, and eventually saw the bright golden yellow of the Deutsche Post. Thank goodness, I thought, I've made it. I walked in, gathered my copy of the customs paper, my passport and wallet, and stood in line...only to be told by a man, in German, that "green paper collections are across the street" where? I asked "across the street." No way. I thought. I thanked him, sighing as I put my papers back in my bag, and started back up the hill to get across the street, and that's where it hit me.

All of a sudden my frustration and confusion and tiredness got to me and then I was crying on the side of the road that people use to get to this out-of-the-way post office, gasping and sobbing, hoping no one would come by as I let it out. A couple times I thought I had it together, and would get ready to keep moving, but each time another wave would come over me and I would find myself crying again, wishing I could just do something right for once, like something as simple as picking up a package from the post office. I hate you, Germany, I thought bitterly.

Eventually I did get it together enough to cross the street, and look around a little more for the other post office, but decided that I was being culture shocked, and that getting my package could wait. I walked back to the station, caught a bus back to Bismarkplatz, and walked home.

Now, 4 hours past this event, I have calmed down, and looked at googlemaps again, this time just looking for the street I need to be on. I have found that it was a mere block past the street I was originally on. I have time, I could go back, but I'm tired, mentally and physically. I have homework to do, dinner to eat, choir practice to attend, and a volunteering to learn about. I'll deal with this tomorrow.

We're good, Germany. No worries.

France for a day, and the end of my teenage years

Well, this week was a good'un. I mean, I went to class every day (except class included a trip to France on Thursday) and that wasn't so much fun because grammar makes me sad, but there were so many more good things that outweighed the pain of doing grammar.

Like I said, on Thursday we went to France as a class, and although it sounds really neat and exotic, it wasn't for fun. We went to a concentration camp in Schirmeck- Natzweiler-Struthof, which was beyond words. It was very appropriately cold in the mountains of France/Germany (give or take a war), the wind whipped through my North Face fleece; the whole effect was very sobering, as I thought of how it . Thankfully, as it was a Thursday morning, there were not many people, and we were able to take it in in silence, punctured by the information Herr Doerr gave us about it. It's something I can't even really articulate, so I'm going to leave it at it being a quiet, sad, morning.

The afternoon was a nice one, although I nearly had a Herz (heart) attack from walking up approximately 1000000 (it was literally A number of stairs) stairs in Stras(s)bourg, France. We saw a cool church, cool in that it was very ornate, and had some gorgeous stained glass windows, and then climbed up to the top. Yeah, yeah, the view was awesome, but seriously, those stairs. I mean, we could see the Black Forest, and it was really neat, so it was definitely worth it, but it was a struggle! Afterwards, we stumbled around the city, our legs wobbly with exhaustion, and after perusing post cards, sat down and rehydrated (but not really) with Monacos (beer and soda and grenadine syrup) which are delicious. I wrote two postcards, one to Lian, and one to Lauren, and sent them then so they could be sent from France, which took forever, and then we headed back, with a quick stop at a French bakery for food for the way back. And by food I mean a pastry (I actually got meringues). We ended up getting back later than anticipated which was a bummer because we all had presentations due the next day, but we lived.

My presentation was about the Interkulturelle Begegnungen (IBs- it means intercultural experiences, basically) I went to that week. Each week we're divided into the same three groups and each group goes somewhere locally (ish- groups also go to Mannheim a lot) and learn about something cultural- The presidential library of the first democratic president of Germany (last week), for example, or a police station, or this really cool cultural center in Mannheim, or a local church to find out about music (that last one was mine this week). My group and I got to go to a local church in Handschuhsheim, an area of Heidelberg, and talk to the man in charge of all the music- it was very interesting! He explained how he became an organist, and how an organ works, the differences between how an organ and how a piano are played, interesting things like that. I had a great time- not only was he nice and interesting, but I had a really easy time understanding him (always a plus).

Going to school Friday was a bummer, because Thursday kind of felt like the weekend, but it went by fairly quickly because I had something really exciting to look forward to: Katie coming! I did a lot of my homework in the afternoon, anticipating that an exciting birthday wouldn't include learning Passiv- boy was I wrong! (haha, just kidding!) Haleigh and I met Katie at the station, dropped her stuff off at my place and then introduced her to the Mensa rated #1 in all of Germany (and also ran into Melissa and Anne). We then walked around Heidelberg, and ended up getting drinks at a cafe and just hanging out and talking. We stayed up until midnight, where Katie lit a candle of mine for me, sang happy birthday and then gave me an apple she brought with me, which we immediately adopted as birthday tradition. I got a call from my dad, miss maddy and margaret who sang to me, which was awesome, and then I headed to bed.

We got up on Saturday and after breakfast with Haleigh, and a delicious Heidelberg dessert treat, we decided to climb the Heiligenberg (holy mountain). It was way fun! From the mountain is an awesome view of the city, and literally hundreds of things to do, like trails to explore, spots to stop and chill and the world's coolest see-saw in a park! We hiked and wandered for like four hours and then headed down to get ready for my birthday dinner.

We ten (Me, Katie, Haleigh, Anne, Annika, Melissa, Kaia, Dan, and Brian) gathered in my room, drank some champagne that I got for my birthday, and after Kaia got there, left to go to Indian food. Funny story...we wandered around (it was very cold), and discovered that it was closed, tried to go to about 4 places, and ended up at a place next to the Heiliggeistkirche in the Altstadt. Unfortunately, though, we had to sit outside (cold, cold, cold!) in order for there to be enough room. Although it was cold and things didn't go exactly as I had planned, I had a great night. We had a lot of fun, and I was so glad to be able to share my birthday with Katie again!

Sharing the city with Katie, being the one "in the know" was such a fun experience, and it made me see the city in a whole new way. Not that I had ever thought of Heidelberg as ugly, but she kept saying how adorable it was, and it is! I had kind of forgotten! "oh that thousand year old building? that's nothing..."

The view of the Altstadt from the Heiligenberg, and us on the mountain, taken by Katie:

This below is a Schlosskugel: chocolate-hazelnut mousse, surrounded by pound cake surrounded by marzipan, surrounded by chocolate. Already we've had to limit ourselves to going and getting these only bi-monthly!

This is a seesaw that is on the mountain, in the coolest park ever! We felt really silly for using it, as it is obviously meant for kids about 15 years younger, but were not going to let that stop us- it is so much fun! Also, later, we saw a German couple play on it and we knew we were just acting like locals!

Group shot, before the bed broke...L-R: Anne, Me, Kaia, Brian, Haleigh, Annika, Melissa, Dan

Don't worry, Brian and Haleigh fixed it, these beds break a lot, actually...the planks just kind of fall, only normally it's not because 8 people are sitting on one bed!

I'd better go, because it's late and goodness knows I need as much sleep as I can get! One more week of the preliminary course left- next Monday is the DSH, the huge test everyone needs to take before they can attend University classes- AP Test 2.0 I dubbed it today.

My motto for the week: "must relearn Zustandspassiv! Must relearn Konjunktiv II! Must..."

The Romantic Road, joy, and Kalifornien

It seems like every time I try to write another blog post, I completely forget anything and everything I did during the past week-good thing a lot happened this weekend!

We went to a monastery this weekend in Bronnbach, which isn't that far, and we can travel to for free with our semester passes, which was cool! Another really funny experience was being on the train with this group of German men on their way to a soccer game that they all get together a couple times a year to play. They were drinking wine and sparkling wine, and talking to us, and when they got out a new bottle, they got out cups to share with Annika, who was sitting with the three in the picture (she's the arm on the green bag) and Brian, Haleigh and I who were sitting with Tony, a member of their group. Keep in mind that this is at 9am or so. Only in Europe.

The monastery is literally one of three things in the town. There is also a restaurant/bar

and a hotel. There are probably a few houses for the people who work at these places, but there is nothing else. We saw about six cars in the parking lot of the monastery and were joking that this was the high season, and when we saw a car driving, that it was rush hour. Poor Bronnbach, all we did was joke about how little it is! But really, if you don't wave the train down at the station, it doesn't stop because no one goes there, and you have to tell them to stop for Bronnback when on the train. It is very pretty though! The monastery is, naturally, very old and very beautiful. Out tour guide took us through the monastery and although we didn't see any real monks (or fake monks, for that matter), we learned about what their lives looked like back in the day. Very simple, as one might imagine, and very interesting. I thought it was a great tour, probably the best of the trip, but that's not saying much, really (we'll get into Wuertzburg later).

After our tour, we went to Wertheim, which is a(nother) beautiful city on a river (the Tauber) where we walked through the city, saw the beautiful church to the right, and then divided up into groups- one went to the castle/mountain, one went to the glass museum, and one went to a Jewish memorial. I know, you're all expecting me to have gone to the Jewish memorial but I'm zigging when you think I'm going to zag! I went to the glass museum! See how spontaneous I am. Not that I didn't want to go to the Jewish memorial, but the glass museum was also super interesting-sounding, and I was really glad I went. The guy there was really funny, and spoke in German but threw in English when he could (he was explaining it had been a while since he had been in school learning English so he was rusty, which was funny). We were able to watch him, and Mike, a guy in our group, got to make a glass pig! It was really interesting.

Three of us, after the tour of the museum, decided to climb to to the top of the Berg where there was a pretty view, and although it was steep, it was totally worth it- it was so quiet on the top! We laid down on some benches/the grass, and had quiet time. We didn't speak, it didn't need to be spoiled with words, and eventually, lulled by the faint sounds of the city below, and the whisper of a breeze in the trees, fell asleep for a short time. It was a wonderful time, with no hustling of getting to trains or trying to get all I can out of a city, but just enjoying it.

We went back to Bronnbach later that day and ate dinner at the one (you think I'm kidding) restaurant in the town, and ate a sub-par meal, but in great company, so it was definitely worth it. The best part of being on trips like these is the laughter. Our language professor, a fairly proper German man, on a school sponsored trip, in a different language, told us this joke at the train stop that had us cracking up for a long time. He started off by telling us that he knew a joke, but that it wasn't necessarily appropriate, but being the 20-somethings (well, almost) that we are, we encouraged him to tell it anyway: "A little boy comes home from school and complains that cigarette prices have gone up, and, a little worried, his mother inquires about when he began smoking "oh, around the first time I had sex" he replies. "When did you start having sex?!" asks his mother "oh I don't remember, I was really drunk". "

While this joke alone might not strike you as hilarious, our graduate student assistant, Eric, piped up and said "that wasn't a joke, that was Herr Doerr's childhood" and that made it all the funnier to us. Maybe you had to be there...

The next day we headed to Wuertzburg, and got the worst tour perhaps ever of some castle. Okay, by "some castle

" I mean the Residence, which is very pretty, but we had a terrible tour and thus, were unable to fully appreciate the beauty and history of it. After, we had some free time and decided to get some lunch, then wandered around the city, appreciating the music festival happening. We stopped on the main bridge for a while and then decided to climb to the top of the Festung

Marienberg- the Marienberg Fortress, which Herr Doerr had said we wouldn't have enough time for, but being the way we are, we decided to try it anyway. We totally dominated that fortress! It was a beautiful view of the river and the city, and we sat there and looked, and absorbed, and talked and looked for a while, which was very enjoyable. My friend Annika snapped this picture

of all of us watching below, and it just might be my favorite picture of the trip. From L-R: Anne, Me, Brian, Haleigh, Dan, Melissa, Megan. I swear this isn't green screen, although it looks fake!

My friend Becca asked me the other day "what has been joyful about your experience so far?" and I thought I'd share my answer here. The answer is a lot. Joy comes in the small experiences for me: meeting new people; being able to communicate with a real live German successfully, navigating a foreign place with no knowledge of public transportation; walking through the city on my way to class in the morning before the hustle and bustle, watching the sky, smelling the fresh air and listening to my iPod; seeing beautiful places; climbing a monstrosity of a big hill and then relaxing in the quiet and spending some time with God; travelling with friends on trains; taking walks with no destination.

I am so thankful to be here, and to be able to experience this.

Today, as in a few minutes ago, I went to the grocery store (German-style, I only got 5 things and will be back in two days) and as I walked back, down Hauptstrasse alone, I saw a bookstore I have seen before but never have gone into. I stepped in, and took a look around, breathing in the smell of a bookstore, and after taking a few minutes to look at the "foreign" books, wandered deeper in and found myself in the travel section. As I was about to turn away, a book caught my eye. The picture caught my eye really: a picture of poppies. Poppies. It was a travel book on California, and being me, I picked it up, flipped through it and was about to put it down when Sacramento caught my eye. Reading through their recommended places to eat, visit and see made me smile (and want some Tower cornmeal pancakes). I left the bookstore and continued down Hauptstrasse, and what should I hear as I was about to turn down my street? A German street musician, foot tapping out the tambourine, playing the guitar and singing his heart out. What was he singing? Hotel California.

California was calling me today!

The week where I explore Mannheim, go to a wine festival, and watch a castle get (fake) burned down.

<- I visited the castle for class! This is me with my friends Megan, Haleigh and Anne.

Well, I've had a good past week (I know this week has already started but let me have this), I explored the area some, which was very enjoyable. On Friday, we (5 of us: my friends Anne, Haleigh, Megan, and Melissa) took the streetcar to Mannheim for dinner and just to wander around. Mannheim is just a 40 minute ride on the streetcar, although it's a mere 18 km away (googled it. I don't actually know the metric system). We had a pretty fun night, although I think only the 6 of us thought so.

The set-up: we were all tired and hungry by the time we got to Mannheim, so we walked around the downtown area in order to find somewhere to eat. We eventually decided to just go to the next cafe/restaurant we saw, which ended up being a tapas (as well as "real" food) restaurant/cafe/ bar. We ordered drinks and our entrees, and then Anne realized she'd like to try a cocktail, so she ordered the one that a) was the cheapest and b) sounded really good: a B-52.

The problem: Anne didn't know it would be lit on fire, so when we discovered this fact, we decided to commemorate it by snapping a few photos of it (although in the light, the flame is barely visible). Unfortunately, we took too long, and the glass had had enough of being on fire, so it broke.

The proof:.

The decision: between peals of laughter and quickly blowing out the flame, we wondered aloud what we should do, how we could possibly explain our ineptitude to our very German waitress, so we decided to hide the piece from

her until we could formulate a sentence. It was a great plan until she appeared and, very confused (and maybe mad? It's hard to tell. Die spinnen, die Deutschen!), asked "was ist passiert?" (what happened?). Unable to really explain that we didn't know how this drink was meant to be imbibed, we just floundered for a while in broken German and laughter until she sort of nodded, shrugged and frowned her way away.

The lesson: Americans are very noticeable.

We were the only people laughing anywhere within the 4 blocks we walked, and our approach to what happened clearly baffled our waitress. it was definitely an experience, and I have to say, I don't mind reacting the way I did, because we, at least, enjoyed ourselves.

(Note: we later googled how to drink a B-52 and discovered it should be drunk very quickly while lit. or something like that.)

Saturday we (pretty much the same people as before, Megan was sick and, Annika came) went to Wiesloch for a wine festival one of the professors told us about on Friday (yeah, they tell us where to go to party- there were lists up of bars, clubs, discos to go to on the weekend up in our Center. Pretty strange!), and it was a ton of fun! We were a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people in the streets and the sheer lack of room through which to move around the people, but we persevered, and made our way to a tent where we were able to nab a tall table. We bought a delicious pizza-like item, and glasses of Neuer Wein, which was delicious.

As we wandered, we found a church having a Flohmarkt, a flea market, and stopped in to see what gems we could find. And what gems we found! I purchased about 10 postcards and a very well preserved poster (circa 1997) of Leonardo DiCaprio that had clearly been torn out of a magazine by a young German, many years ago, for a mere €1.5

0. It now graces the wall over my bed, and I will most likely leave it as a welcome present to the lucky person to inhabit my room next year.

Saturday night was a pretty big deal: there was the Schlossbeleuchtung (the lighting of the castle) which commemorates when the castle was burned down (at some point in history, I don't know when exactly, but it's celebrated three times a year). To celebrate, or remind, I'm not sure which, people gather around Heidelberg, in the Altst

adt, and watch the castle. The lights are turned off in the city and the castle is lit up with orange, yellow and red lights that

makes it look like it's on fire. The castle lighting itself was less than exciting, but the fireworks show was the best I've eve

r seen. Some friends and I stood near the Altbruecke, which was where the fireworks were shot off from, making the show that more amazing. Even though I was super cold, because of my proximity to the river and the fact that it's Germany in September, I had a great time talking to my friends and watching. My mouth was literally hanging open during parts of it. Fireworks shot out of the water and into the air. OUT OF THE WATER! I was amazed! I did not take the photo on the right, I found it on google images. Check it out if you want some neat pictures!

I'm headed to a monastery this weekend with my group- should be fun, we get to spend the night!

Ineptitude update: bought some cotton balls today: don't know how the package is opened. Sweet.

My birthday is a pretty big deal in Germany: there's going to be a party on my birthday put on by the transportation agency in the Heidelberg area...no big deal.

I hope you're all having a good week!

Hey guys, I just put this on facebook, but I've just gotten myself a german phone number (believe you me, it was a struggle, just like everything I do here)! I just wanted to make sure everyone knows so no one tries to call me or something and, due to my not answering, believes me to be dead in the streets somewhere.

Also, I got my first piece of mail today! It was very exciting!

Home in Heidelberg

Well, I made it!

After a long flight, which included some very unwelcome turbulence at the end, I arrived in Frankfurt, called my parents (quick phone call! $1.60/minute? I don't think so!) and after a little confusion, managed to find the passport stamping people before the rest of my flight did, making my walk through the line very short. I got my bags and, worried about getting through customs, hurried through the doors...only to find I was done, and that there were three people from AJY waiting for me: two students and one in-charge person. We waited for a long time for everyone else in the group to get there, a few flights were delayed, but eventually we got on out bus, and drove from Frankfurt to Heidelberg, about an hour drive.

When we got to HD, we were shown to our rooms. Mine is on the Untere Neckarstraße which is right near the river (the Neckar) and around the corner from the AJY center (meaning I have a really short commute in the morning) and right near the Mensa (cafeteria, and some of the cheapest food in town).

The weekend we spent being oriented, both by AJY and with Heidelberg in general. This week we started our preliminary course of language learning which, while pretty boring, is probably going to be really helpful. The German-only rule (we can only speak German in the center, so during classes as well as whenever in the building just hanging out, which a lot of us do) is also really helpful, even though it's unpopular. It helps me a lot to be forced to think in German all day (or at least a good portion of the day).

So far, I've explored thealtstadt of Heidelberg a lot, mostly the Hauptstraße and surrounding streets because it's so close to my dorm. I went to the castle yesterday which was fun! It's up this steep hill, but once you get up there, it's so unbelievably pretty! Today, we (Megan, Haleigh and Anne, three other AJY students and I) went to the top of the tower of the Heiliggeistkirche, which is in the middle of town, or at least in the middle of the altstadt, and what a trek! It was crazy, I seriously thought the steps (they were these really narrow wind-ey steps up like a thousand feet) were never going to end. I saw these scenes in my head of not being able to go up or down and like withering away on the steps. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I was wondering how much longer we had to go. Of course, I whooshed through them on the way down...

I'm working on getting a sim card for my phone, but other than that, I'm pretty much set on things. Haleigh, Megan, Anne and I basically go to the store every day, first because it's something to do and we have a lot of free time at this point and secondly because we keep discovering new ones and exploring them like they're tourist attractions and thirdly because we need breakfast and snack food.

I'm not sure how to live in my dorm yet, like I don't understand how things work yet, but I'm getting there. I blew a fuse in my room a few days ago and was so flustered and embarrassed that I just went to bed and hoped it'd be fixed by morning when I'd have light outside my window to help me. That didn't happen. I ended up just like putzing around my room until, thank goodness, a guy came to my door to introduce himself and be like "hey, I'm ____ (I was so flustered at having to understand and respond, I have no idea what his name was) and what's yours? and how's your room?" and I had to be like "welll....actually..." and then, probably completely out of pity because I sound like a completely bumbling idiot every time I talk to someone other than Americans, he showed me where the breaker is, and I'm sure I'll have to use it again!

I'm also fuzzy on how to use the bathroom. Weird, right? You think "well, duh. you use it." not like that, I just mean there are two rooms, and I don't know how to handle them. It's like this: there is a room, and inside that room is a room, which is where the (one) toilet is. There's also a sink in that room, but the sink to use is in the bigger room, which is also where the shower is. So if you shower, no one can use the toilet, and if you need to use the toilet, but someone is in the shower, then it sucks for you. Except there is another bathroom, but it's on the other half of my floor and I don't know if I can use it... Don't even get me started on how to use the kitchen...

I promised myself this wouldn't be insanely long, so for that I'm sorry, but thanks for sticking by me if you made it to the end!

Maybe next week you'll get to hear about how I (maybe) went to France, or about the reenactment of the burning of the castle. there will be fireworks! fireworks!

Bis dann,

Sarah

My last day in the United States

Hello all!

I'm down to my last day in the U.S. for a year, and I'm getting pretty excited. It's crazy to think that I'll be in Germany in two days (flying takes a day up). I just have a few things left to do: hang out with my Georgia family, go to the dentist (thank goodness Michele Tomseth keeps sending those reminder emails. hopefully they'll continue while we're abroad, reminding us of things we need to do before we leave), finish packing (it's all still pretty much done from my flight from California) and do some laundry. I've got a dentist appointment in half an hour, so that's one checked off, and the rest I'll do today.

I got my housing assignment yesterday, and I found out that I'll be living in the Untere Straße in the old city, which isn't what I was hoping for, but after I got out my grumpiness about it yesterday when I found out, I'm excited about living there, especially since Kaia's (the other person from Linfield) in the old city and will be near me as well.

For those of you who don't already know, let me outline what this semester will look like. I get to Germany on the 27th (this Friday) and then on Monday, I will start a preliminary course of German learnin'. After a month, I'll take a test to categorize my level and then I can start looking at classes to take and register. My semester starts on the 11th of Oktober, and ends sometime in late January/early February with a three week break at Christmas.

I'll do my best to post weekly, or at least bimonthly! I know I'll get super busy and lazy but hopefully I'll keep keeping you all updated. Let me know if you have particular questions, and I'll do my best to answer them so everyone can know what's up.

Next time in Deutschland,

Sarah