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..."