Day trip to Koln

Here are some pictures of Koln, like I promised. I'm pretty proud of myself for getting them up the same day I wrote about it :)

It turned out to be a lovely day, I was so happy the weather was nice! Koln is a very pretty city and I really enjoyed my day there. I walked along the Rhine river for a while and just took my time. There are a lot of boats that go up and down the river. The pictures of the Dom Cathedral make it look very old, and part of it is. But the city and cathedral were almost completely destroyed in WWII, after being bombed by allies retaliating for the bombs in London. So a lot of the city's structure and buildings are newer, but you can tell what has been preserved. There's a lot of shopping in Koln, but on Sundays all the stores are closed. It's probably a good thing, though! The weather turned bad early in the evening though, so I killed some time at the train station then headed home. I think it was a perfect amount of time spent there :) 

The last few weeks

Well a lot has happened since Bavaria and I've meant to post a new blog but obviously that didn't happen! So here we go...

October 13-16 I went to Berlin!! I went with my host mom and sister, Marie. It was 3 packed full days because there is so much to do and see there. I could have easily spent a whole week there, but I guess that just means I'll have to go back again! But we got to see all the major sights. The first day was supposed to be the nicest of the 3 days, so we walked abound the city and saw a lot from the outside, such as the government building, the brand new main train station that's made 90% of glass, and the Bradenburg Gate. It was actually very cold though, but the next few days of weather were worse so it's a good thing we went to see those sites when we did. We also saw many parts of the Berlin wall (not just today but throughout our trip in the city).

The next day was all about history. We went to the Holocaust memorial and museum and Checkpoint Charlie. It was quite the experience, going through both museums. I actually learned quite a bit and it's something I wish I could have seen after taking extensive history classes. But this was better- reading all the facts and personal stories from those times.  We also went to a chocolate museum. It was small, but we did get to make our own chocolate! It was so yummy. We put gingerbread and honey crisps in ours. It sounds like it wouldn't make a good combination, but it was perfect. Me and Marie were quite proud of ourselves. :)

The following day, our last day in Berlin, it was rainy, windy, and COLD! So we went shopping, haha. Well, not really. We just went to a mall and walked around, so we didn't necessarily shop because we didn't buy anything. We spent most of our time in one store, I can't remember the name of it, but it is huge!! A bigger department store than what I've seen in the U.S. and I couldn't believe it. It had 6 levels  and just about anything you could ever want. I think its kinda like our Macy's. After that we went to another mall, not quite so big, and saw this really neat clock that operates by water. I know, that sounds weird and probably doesn't make much sense but if you saw it, you'd know what I meant.

So that was my time in Berlin!

Last week I  worked on my project and spent a day at the University and did a lot of research for my traveling time after  I leave Italy.  I leave Frankfurt in 2 weeks! I can't believe how fast this is going. I'm over half way through my trip! I plan to be in Italy for about 2 weeks and then I have some time after that for more traveling, so I'm trying to decide what I should do- there are so many options and places I'd like to see, it's hard to know what's best to do!

Yesterday I took a day trip to Köln! It's only an hour and a half train ride to get there, so I took an early train there and evening train home. I saw the famous Dom, walked along the Rhine river, and went to another chocolate museum! I'm really getting a lot of chocolate in this trip, and I have no problems with that! Good thing I walk around cities all day, though. And, I made the hike up 500 steps to the top of one of the towers in the Dom for a beautiful view of the Rhine and city.  I don't have the pictures from yesterday up on my computer yet so once those are up, I'll post them in another blog :)


Well that's in for now... a very very brief update of my travels, but the highlights. 








"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are." -Samuel Johnson

Trip to Bavaria!

Well I am trying to get better at updating, but there is so much that has happened in the past week that it's going to be hard to keep this blog entry short! And I have lots of great pictures to share, too!

Last Wednesday, me and a few members of my family left for a short trip to south Germany, or, Bavaria. My host dad had to go there for work and took the rest of us with us, it was perfect! After getting up early to make the 4 hour drive, we dropped my host dad off at his work and made our way to the Neuschwanstein Castle. This region of Bavaria is absolutely beautiful. It's very hilly, with the German Alps right there on the boarder to Austria. This area is very typical German. When you think of something as being German, you are probably thinking of Bavaria. All of the old farm houses and small towns make it so picturesque, especially with the mountains in the background. 

Anyways- back to the Neuschwanstein.The castle was built in 1869 by King Ludwig II on the side of a mountain. The view from the castle is stunning, overlooking all the small towns and valley below. And Neushwanstein is the model castle for Disney! I can see why. It's the perfect castle, with a renaissance style of decoration and design. Only 16 rooms in the whole castle are complete because construction on the rest of the castle stopped after the King died. But we got to take a tour of the 16 completed rooms. I was bummed that you couldn't take any pictures inside the castle, but I guess that is understanding considering everything is original, and I think nothing had even been moved from it's original place! So these are just pictures from the outside of the castle. It was so much fun going there to see this castle though. It is so famous and it's so beautiful!

The following day, Thursday, we got up early again to drive about an hour and a half to go a little further south east, into the German Alps, to a small town. There are a bunch of small villages, but none of them are connected. There's lots of farm space between each village, where all of the cows have bells hanging from their necks, and old farm houses with beautiful flowers hanging from the windowsills. It was seriously like out of a fairy tale book!!! (That's how I felt in the Neuschwanstein, too).  We purchased tickets to take a train up the highest peak in Germany, called Zugspitze. The train actually only took us up to this point on the mountain with a nice lookout over the Alps, but then we had to take a gondola car up to the very highest point. It was absolutely stunning. It's hard to even put words to how amazing this experience was. It was breathtaking! You can see 4 different countries from here: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. We were so blessed to be there on a clear day, too... I could have spent the whole day there just starring out onto the mountains!  

After a really fun mini trip, a friend of mine who is on the same program, studying in Switzerland, came to visit for the weekend. She got in Friday night, so we spent the rest of the night catching up and talking all about our adventures. Saturday we walked around down-town Frankfurt. We took an elevator up one of the sky scrappers to get a great  view of the city- completely different from the view from the top of a mountain! I really enjoyed that view, as well. Then we  had a nice relaxing lunch and walked around the Palmengartens (a botanical garden).We didn't feel like we were in Europe anymore- more like the rain forest!  That night we went to an American football game.... haha. Enough said. It was so funny watching American football in Europe. Definitely not as big of a sport here as it is in the U.S.!! But it was so much fun. We had a really great time and it was the closest thing to like being back home. 

I could have definitely written more about each day, but I think this brief version will have to be enough. Plus, I think the pictures are more worth seeing than reading what I wrote!  Enjoy :)

Ok, so I went a little picture-crazy, but it was so hard not to!

"What we call the end is also a beginning. The end is where we start from." -T.S. Eliot

New Friends, Family, and Frankfurt

I know, I know… It’s been a while once again. I fully intended on writing sooner but the week got away from me…

Ever since being here, I’ve spent quite some time with my host family. I am so grateful for them and their hospitality. They have been so wonderful, helpful, and far exceeding my expectations. Not only to they feed me and give me my own room to stay in, but they also take me places (like the castles), show me around town, and help me with transportation. I’ve been so blessed with the conversations I’ve had with them. They have become my German family, and this house is starting to feel like home. 

Last weekend was great. Even though the weather has taken a turn for the worst (it’s been cold and cloudy every day since Friday, and rained Saturday-Tuesday), we’ve still gone out and done some really neat things. Saturday my host family took me to see another castle, but this one was very different from the one before. It’s called “Ronneburg Castle,” or, the knights’ castle. This castle was much older than the other one I saw; I think built in the 1500’s. That weekend there was an event going on with a bunch of people dressed up in Renaissance attire and they all acted and played a part. There was food and merchandise for sale, too. It was pretty cool. We climbed up the tower and got a beautiful view of Germany, despite the weather. 

This past weekend was also pretty exciting. Friday my advisor of the program visited. We went to the museum of communication. It was really interesting; there were lots of old forms of communication and some sweet old televisions (as pictured, haha). We went out to eat at a restaurant, and talked about my project. I didn’t get home until late that evening- pretty much the whole day was spent in Frankfurt.

Saturday I went to Hanau with a friend that I met through my host family. It was so much fun and we had a really great time. There was a famers market going on (there are farmers markets going on almost all the time here), and I got a bratwurst- so yummy!!! That evening we went to a handball game (of the youngest kid in the family), and later that night went out dancing!

Sunday I met up with Tim in downtown Frankfurt. We had a great time catching up and going shopping, haha. He’s a great guy to go shopping with, and was very patient. I told him most guys would never be like this when shopping with a girl, especially Kyle, haha. He laughed because he knew I was right. I went back to his house for dinner and got to meet the rest of his family. They are so wonderful and a really great family. We had such a pleasant time together and it was great to laugh and talk about Tim’s experience in the U.S. It’s so neat how this all worked out. I love that Tim lived with my family in the U.S., and now here I am visiting his family in Germany. It makes the world seem smaller… I never could have imaged having this opportunity, but it’s so sweet!

Yesterday, I spent the day in downtown Frankfurt again- only this time I got a tour of the university from a student there. She was very helpful and we had a great time talking and comparing our experiences at school.

A few days ago, water accidentally was spilled on my computer and I just about died when it started giving me problems. I thought I was going to have to bring it in to an Apple store and have to pay a big chunk of money to get it fixed- not exactly part of my plans. But praise the Lord, it was just a very minor issue that got fixed at home. I am so thankful to God, who cares about silly things like glitches in a computer, even though at the moment I was in such a panic!

Well I don’t intend to let it go this long before I blog again, but who knows, it may be awhile again! Tomorrow I leave to go to south Germany, and I will get to see the Neuschwanstenstein castle. It’s very famous. I am so excited and will have lots to write about when I get home, I’m sure!