Dresden- Day 2
So, as I was lying in bed last night, drifting off to sleep, I think to myself: “My, this corner of the Neustadt is quite noisy.” And I was lulled to sleep by the sweet sounds of heavy metal from the bar below and the laughter and chatter of those drinking at said bar. Then, as with yesterday when the Neustadt/hostel kept outdoing itself, I was awoken between, I’d say, 2-3 AM by CCR’s greatest hits blasting from somewhere outside our window and a drunk girl yelling along with the lyrics. And this lasted for about 20 minutes. Hahaha. Since I like classic rock, this didn’t bother me too much, but I find it quite hilarious. And that was only a Thursday night- I dread to think what tonight is going to be like! Also, I’m not 100% sure it was CCR, but it was classic rock and I knew all of the songs, so it’s possible. I was trying to figure out who it was as I was listening, but I couldn’t get it, and CCR came to me in my sleep, so I’m thinking it was, in fact, them.
Anyway, I awake this morning and, boy, was it a slow-rise. Number one, my bed was super comfortable. Number two, I was (and am…) quite tired from all of the traveling. I peeled myself out of bed and got ready for the adventure of today. I took the tram back to the Altstadt area (I bought a day-ticket) and immediately went for the Frauenkirche. This is the famous church of Dresden that was burnt down in World War II, kept as ruins in the GDR as a reminder of the horrors of war (plus they had no $$$ to rebuild) and then rebuilt quite quickly once Germany reunited. Now, I must say, I find this church hideously tacky. It outdoes any other church I’ve ever seen- the inside looks like a wedding cake exploded everywhere. Baby blue and pink are, seemingly, the only two colors they used, and everything is adorned in gold. Blech. Pictures weren’t allowed in the place, and I would have tried to snap one, but there were guards everywhere. Anyway, I had to get out of there STAT. So I went to have to some breakfast at a nice little restaurant near the Kreuzkirche, apparently (as my map told me) a good antidote to the Frauenkirche. Low and behold, they were right!
The Kreuzkirche is gorgeous. It’s going to have to take spot #3 for most beautiful church in Europe. It’s simple and the inside looks like it’s all simply plain stone. The altar is simple and smaller, but very nice. I got a picture of this place (even though I wasn’t supposed to) since there weren’t any guards around. I went to the top of the tower here (for a ¼ of the price of the Frauenkirche) and enjoyed a nice view of Dresden.
From there, I walked around the Altmarkt a little bit and did some window-shopping, which was nice and relaxing, but it was really hot… Then I made my way to the Fuerstenzug, which is the world’s largest picture made out of porcelain. It’s on the side of the Residenzschloss (which is being renovated) and it’s pretty neat! All of the old baroque sites are kind of piled on top of each other, so it was hard for me to find my way around and figure out what was what. But I eventually found the Zwinger, which is pretty much a fairground complex that has now been turned into museums. There is a glockenspiel with porcelain bells (the famous Meissner porcelain comes from here) and it’s very pretty.
I then decided I should take in some art at the “Alte Meisters” gallery in the Zwinger. I should not have decided this. I sort of talked myself into it because it’s something that you’re “not supposed to miss” but it’s really not my kind of art. Although, I did get to see a special exhibition of Carl Gustav Carus, whom I had never heard of but was pals with my man Caspar David Friedrich, and it’s quite obvious. As I was looking at one of Carus’ paintings, I thought “Geez, this looks like Friedrich did it” and low-and-behold, once I turn the corner, there was a little info piece about how Friedrich heavily influenced Carus. Anyway, Carus is pretty good. I really like Romantic art- most pieces are of landscapes or cityscapes and people just happen to be in the picture but are hardly ever looking at the viewer. It creates an interesting effect. Also, I got to see Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, which is the gallery’s most famous piece. It’s the one that has those cute, little super-famous cherubs at the bottom, ya know? Anyway, after I saw that, I booked it outta there because I couldn’t take the art anymore. Sadly, the “Neue Meister” gallery, the one I would have enjoyed much more, is undergoing renovations after the 2002 Dresden the flood, which destroyed a lot of the building and works (not to mention a lot of other places and houses in Dresden).
So with the entry ticket to the art gallery, I got “free” into the Ruestkammer, which is August the Strong armory. This was super neat! I got to see tons of old swords, guns and armor. And even though I had no idea what any of it meant, it was fun to walk around and pretend that I lived in medieval times haha.
From there, I explored the Zwinger a little more and found the “Nymphenbad,” where in the old days, people had to sneak of to in order to kiss and stuff. It was actually quite pretty. Then, I walked to the “Bruehlsche Terrasse,” also known as the “Balcony of Europe,” which is situated between the Elbe and all of the Baroque sites. Quite nice.
Then I took the tram back to the hostel as I was getting hungry and had to use the bathroom. I decided that I would eat at the famous currywurst place in Neustadt. I found it easily and was very satisfied! They have this homemade, signature “peanut sauce” that they put on their wurst- yum yum! The place reminded me of BTB in Ann Arbor, as it was a small, little dive place but very cozy J. And to make things even better they were playing Asher Roth’s “I love College” and it reminded me of all the wondrous nights in 1225 (shout-out, heyy!). Of course, I then had to end my day with an ice cream from Café Komisch- this time I got strawberry twisted with vanilla! Good choice! I enjoyed it once more in the Alaunpark, which was as always, full of people. Again, I wish I had come here with friends so that were could grill and hit around a shuttlecock, as so many groups of locals do.
Tomorrow, I’m going to eat breakfast at the hostel, which they have for 3 Euro and make my way to my to the train. Another long day of trains ahead of me!
All in all, Dresden has been a satisfying trip. I’m glad I stayed in the Neustadt, because it’s much less full of tourists and has locals everywhere. Thank goodness for the “local” map that I got at the hostel- otherwise, I wouldn’t have done any of the things I did in the Neustadt! I’m glad I got to see the historic and beautiful sites of Dresden. There were some paintings in the “Alte Meister” gallery of Dresden in it’s heyday, while August the Strong ruled (he built up the city to what it was post WWII and without him it’d still be a little village), and I think Dresden would have been extremely fascinating in his time, but alas it is 2009 and therefore, I am enjoying my modern experiences in the trendy Neustadt J. I really would love to come back here again with friends and do some of the “local” things that I didn’t get to do.
I was going to reflect on my trip in general now, but I think I’ll save that for when I get back to Freiburg. I really miss that place… even though I know it’s going to be so weird going back there and none of my friends will be there. Hopefully SOMEONE will be around the guesthouse, otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do with myself…
Anyway, until next time…which will be from Freiburg!
Cheers,
Alaina
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
And I looked for you up in the tallest of trees - (Luebeck and Dresden updates!)
Sorry all, this is a super longggg entry! but worth it ;)
Luebeck- Day 1
Greetings! Wie geht’s? Where yesterday was full of art, today was quite full of churches…and marzipan. J
The day broke early, as I was waking up every 15 minutes (or so) because I wasn’t sure what time it was and I had to be checked out by 11 am. I ended up just getting up, dressing and packing and by the time I got downstairs, it was still only 9:15 am. I checked out anyway then went to the common room to check on my travel plans, check my email and of course Facebook for a little bit. My train to Luebeck was at 10:28, so at 9:50, I headed to the Hauptbonhof to buy my ticket, get some brekkie and head on my way. My first, and only, connection was in Hamburg, so the first train was super crowded. Luckily, I got a seat to myself and since on (most) Regio trains, my luggage fits nowhere, I had to keep it on the seat next to me. I always feel a little guilty for doing it, but I enjoy sitting by myself, ha.
In Hamburg, I had a 40 minute layover, so I just hung out on the platform and when the train arrived 10 minutes before it was supposed to leave, I walked all the way to the back, or front depending on which way you look at it, and got on. I was glad that I did this because I was 1 of about 8 people in that entire wagon, so I didn’t feel bad for taking up two seats J. Altogether, the trip took about 2 hours with train time, and 2:30 with waiting time.
As I got off in Luebeck, I had a good feeling. I was armed with a decent map, and it didn’t seem like it was too far to the hostel. The second I got out of the Hauptbonhof, I fell in love with the city! It’s not too big, and not too small and although it is much smaller than Bremen, it is packed full of life! (Or is it tourists?) The city reminds me a lot of Freiburg, but with less cobbled streets (though they exist!) and with more cars and bus transportation. Anyway, as I predicted, the hostel was simple to find and I didn’t get lost once! As I was checking in, a cute Irish boy was, too, but I sadly haven’t seen him since… I immediately went to my room, dropped off my stuff and decided to take advantage of the lovely weather. I went first to the tourist info place, where I proceeded to buy a map and a popsicle. The info office is located right by the Holstentor, which has a large grassy field in front of it, so I decided to plant myself on the grass and relax for a bit. Did you know (I didn’t!) that Andy Warhol used the Holstentor in some of his art? I imagine in a series of silk-screens, in which he would have repeated it in different colors. I’ll have to look that up later. Anyway, I almost fell asleep in the hot sun, but I soldiered on to begin yet another walking tour provided by a tourist map. As I was crossing the street, I received a shock as I noticed the Ampelmaennchen, the famous, unique, cute crosswalk men that are used in East Berlin. I didn’t know it was an entire East Germany thing, but apparently it is (and that makes sense). It was like a little piece of Frau Barner saying Hi to me haha.
Luebeck is full of sites, mostly churches, so the walking tour brought me to a lot of (all of?) them. None of them are too spectacular, but they are all so old that it’s hard not to appreciate them. The first one, Petrikirche, is all white on the inside, and it reminded me of the church in Heidelberg, albeit not as magnificent. There is a lookout tower, so of course I went up and got some nice pictures of the city. In the distance, I could see a bunch of windmills, and it reminded me of Freiburg, except that there are many more in Luebeck, they move a lot faster and are not on top of mountains, rather flat, flat land as far as the eye can see. From there, I went to another church, the Dom. It was very nice here, and in a lovely, quite neighborhood. The inside, however, smelled damp and it reminded me of the basement in my cottage up north haha! I liked this church the best. From there, I went to the smallest church in Luebeck, St. Aegidien, which smelled lovely inside, like some sort of incense. Then, I went to the Huexstrasse, which is nice street with some trendy shops. I cut my walking tour short here, I hope to finish it tomorrow, but I was too hungry and a little bored of a map leading me around. So, I went straight for the marzipan!
Luebeck is famous for their marzipan, but I’m still not sure what it is… Anyway, the famous marzipan café is called Café Niederegger, which is located on the Rathaus-markt. I enjoyed a marzipan cappuccino (which was yummy!) and a piece of marzipan cake (also yummy, but by the end way too sweet) and then headed to the St. Marian church, which is right by the Marktplatz. This church is the tallest brick-stone church in Germany and looks pretty old. Nothing too spectacular on the inside, but it’s pretty intricate. Outside, there is a statue of a devil, weirdly enough, with a cute local tale to accompany it (but I still find it somewhat counterintuitive…). Apparently, the devil thought that they Luebeckers were building a wine bar, so he joined in to help, since he loves wine so much and wine has been the cause of many people being “sent” to him. Well, once he found out they were actually building a church, he got pretty pissed and tried to throw a huge stone at the church, which lies outside of the church to this day. From here, I walked along some streets, just browsing, and found the internet café. For 50 Euro cents per 15 minutes, I kept it as short as possible and chatted a bit with my mom, Emi and Hil and Facebooked for a hot second.
From there, I went back to the hostel and got my jacket because it was getting pretty chilly. I picked up a Doener and headed to the Holstentor grassy field and sat down to write this entry. I’m feeling pretty tired today after so much traveling and exploring in Bremen, so I probably will read on the grass for a little bit then turn in (to read in the hostel…) and go to bed early.
Speaking of my hostel, it’s in a really nice (easy to find) neighborhood, which also happens to be “the only street whose historical facades have been preserved fully intact”! So there! Tomorrow I think I’ll check out a few museums (Fey’s Historic Puppet Museum!…and others) but I haven’t really found anything in the way of art, which is good I guess since I’ve seen so much lately haha.
Anyway, I leave here Thursday early-ish (I have to check out by 10 am) and then I’m making my way to Dresden! It’s a 7+-hour train ride with regional trains, but I might pay the 20 extra Euro (I think it is) to take an ICE and arrive about 2 hours earlier, but we’ll see. I’m staying there Thursday and Friday night, but I think I might also stay for Saturday and leave really early Sunday, since it’s going to take me a while to get back to Freiburg. Plus, only one full day in Dresden will probably not be enough.
Well that’s all from the first day.
Cheers,
Alaina
Luebeck- Day 2
Hello! Today (well, yesterday now… I’m writing from the train!) was a lazy kind of day. By this time, I was getting a little bored of the sites, so I decided to start off the day by just walking around the city. I considered continuing my walking tour, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to it, ha. So I went to the bakery, bought a pastry and a coffee and headed once more to the Holstentor grassy field, which I have taken a liking to. After eating and reading a little bit, I decided I might as well make my way around the city. I started with the Holstentor museum, which I was quite disappointed with. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was boring- it was all about the city in the “old days” when it was used as a fortification, blah blah. The coolest part was the models of all of the old ships hanging from the ceiling. Back in the museum shop, I found a postcard of the Andy Warhol art with the Holstentor- very cool. Of course I bought one for myself and a couple to send…
Also while in the Holstentor, I picked up a brochure of museums in the city. While browsing through it, I noticed the St. Annen Museum (which I had dismissed yesterday) contains art from Caspar David Friedrich and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Naturally, I had to go check it out. Though the gallery was small, it was nice to see work from these two artists.
After that, I walked around for quite some time just exploring the city. I actually go a pretty good feel for the layout of the place, since it’s so small and pretty easy to navigate. By this time, of course, I was getting hungry. I pulled out my trusty guidebook so that it could recommend me a place to eat. The first restaurant I went to said it was supposed to be open, but it wasn’t. The second one I went to was completely empty. …I’m starting to think my guidebook is not so trusty after all. So I went down the Huexstrasse and found a nice little sushi place and got some California rolls. Not as good as the kind from Kroger at home, but still delicious J.
After this I walked around a little bit more, took some pictures and considered buying a book but instead went back to the hostel. There, I ran into the Korean woman that I shared a room with. She’s very friendly, has (at least) one son at home and has been traveling for 3 months already! She started in Egypt, which she regrets, then went to Greece and has been in Europe since then. The Japanese girl (woman? It’s hard to tell with Asians sometimes) that also shared our room showed up and she quit her job and plans to travel for 1 year all over the world! She started in Australia, went to the UK, is now on Europe mainland and is next going to South America. I don’t think the fear, or wariness, of traveling is engrained in them as much as it is engrained in Americans. Or perhaps, they don’t have as much to worry about since they aren’t Americans… Either way, they both had some good stories!
The two of them went off on their way, and I went on mine. I went to the river and read for a while and people watched. Then, I made my way to the Marktplatz to enjoy a beer…and read some more. It was about 9:00 by then, and I was getting pretty tired, so I went back to the hostel. There…I read some more (and finished HP7! So sad…now I have no book to read) and went to bed. A pretty uninteresting day, but it was nice.
Well, Luebeck was a very nice city. I liked it better than Bremen because it felt more ALIVE and I felt like I did more, even though I’m sure I didn’t.
Today I awoke, packed up and checked out. I bought my train ticket to Dresden (with Regio trains, 43,70 Euro and take 7:46 hours, with an hour layover in Berlin) and got on at 11:04 am. I am currently (at the time of this writing) on a train from Bad Kleinen to Berlin, takes 2 hours and 30 minutes, it is stopping every 5 minutes. The train plays a jingle before ever stop, and a small, annoying child is loudly singing along each time… Should be a nice trip!
And since I’m running out of money, losing my patience with sites, and want to be back in Freiburg, I am leaving Dresden on Saturday morning. The trip will take a very long time- just like the trip up here. But I get to stay on 1 train for 5 hours, which is better than changing every hour. I’m not sure how those two Asian girls, or anyone for that matter, can travel for so long in this way. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mindset this week, being so sad that a bunch of my friends just left Freiburg. I’ll definitely do it again in the future, but still… traveling for 3+ months or a whole year! Whoa….long time.
Anyway, that’s all for now.
Until next time…
Cheers,
Alaina
Dresden- Evening 1
The train ride to Dresden was pretty easy. I had an hour layover in Berlin, which was pretty neat. The Hauptbonhof there is HUGE! I was shocked! I decided I should venture outside a little, since I had been cooped up so long in a train from Luebeck/Bad Kleinen. And boy, was I glad I did! From the door of the Hbf, I could see the Reichstag, a new gov’t building that wasn’t there the last time I was in Berlin and the big radio tower. Cool! The station was also crawling with riot police, though I’m not quite sure why. As I was getting off my train, however, I did see them ushering out a huge group of what may have been Neonazis? I’m not sure- they all had Mohawks and dressed real strange… But all the riot police made me a little nervous! Then on the train trip from Eltherswede, a crazy guy got on and started bugging the poor guy sitting across from me. When the guy tried to leave, the crazy guy went to hit him on the head… I don’t know, it was all very dramatic, but the situation ended fine.
Once I got to Dresden, I was tired and a little overwhelmed, but the station is gorgeous! From the Hbf, I was recommended (by the hostel brochure) to take the tram to get to the hostel and I’ve very glad I did. For one thing, it was way too far for me to walk with all my crap. For another thing, I got a nice little tour of the city as we went over the Elbe. See, my hostel, Lollis Homestay, is in the “Neustadt,” which is actually older than the “Altstadt” (the place that has all the sites). I had a little trouble finding the hostel because I was looking on the wrong side of the road (duh…) but I found it with ease. The place is amazing! The outside is painted and the inside is decorated so eclectically, I immediately took to it! The lady behind the desk has major dreadlocks- I was impressed and a bit jealous that she can pull them off. Then, just as I was thinking this place couldn’t possibly get any cooler, I walk towards the door to the stairway. AND THEY HAVE A “HOSTEL” (the movie) POSTER ON THE DOOR! Ha. Ha. Ha! For those who don’t know, “Hostel” is the movie in which foreigners kidnap innocent, traveling Americans from hostels and torture them. Wow! I thought that was hilarious.
Anyway, again as I’m thinking, “this place is the shit” it again outdoes itself as I open my dorm room door. The place is decorated like my dream room- magazine cutouts all over the wall, yellow wall painting (like my bedroom actually is at home J) and just awesome. Beside my bed there is a little Hinduism symbol painted on the wall, and it makes me feel rather peaceful. And! Again, as it things couldn’t get any better here, there is a little stuffed animal tethered to my bed to keep me company at night! J Ahhh!!! Perf!! My dorm is a “girls only” room, so I wonder what the “guys only” rooms look like… Anyway, it’s awesome. I wish you all could see it! I took some pictures of the room, but it just doesn’t convey how COOL it is.
Alright, so I changed real quick and headed out to explore the Neustadt and to get something to eat. The map they provide us is “made by locals” so I went by it instead of the stupid guidebook (which hasn’t help me too much thus far). One of the funny things it says is: “Waiting for ice cream here on a summer evening is like waiting for bananas in the old GDR days: the queue goes from the shop until around the corner.” Hahaha! I took a class on the GDR, so I find this especially funny and I like that they are kind of poking fun at their history. As in Luebeck, the cross walk signs are all the Ampelmaennchen (so it IS a GDR thing) and I think that’s cool. So I used the map’s advice and went for Indian food! Yes, Indian food in the old GDR- does anyone else find that as comical as I do?? Anyway, the place was sweet and the food (I got something that I don’t remember the name of, but it was baked cauliflower) was great!
From there, I went to the ice cream place that had the funny advertisement in the map and it was good, as ice cream always is. Then, I become more “local” by going into the Alaunpark (conveniently about 5 minutes from my hostel) to eat it and just chill. It was getting pretty dark by then, but there were still a lot of people out there grilling and having a good time. And now I’m here! I still have to pay for internet, so I won’t be updating tomorrow and I’ll just wait until I’m in Freiburg…
So far, I like the place. The Neustadt is the “trendy” neighborhood and “some Neustaedter only cross the river to the Altstadt five times per year, because their aunt happens to live there.” Hahaha. But I’m a little intimidated by it. By “trendy,” I’m not sure what they mean because this is not my idea of “trendy”- this is definitely my idea of hippie, Haight-Ashbury kind of stuff. But it’s cool. Thus far, this is the one city I really wish I had come to with a group of friends. It seems like it would be a lot more fun to share the eccentricities of the Neustadt (and I assume the amazing sites of the Altstadt) with someone other than myself…and a camera. But tomorrow is going to be a long day as I try and squeeze in all the required sites of Dresden to make it out of here Saturday morning and back to Freiburg by Saturday night!
Hope all is well at home! Love you all!
Until next time…
Cheers,
Alaina
Luebeck- Day 1
Greetings! Wie geht’s? Where yesterday was full of art, today was quite full of churches…and marzipan. J
The day broke early, as I was waking up every 15 minutes (or so) because I wasn’t sure what time it was and I had to be checked out by 11 am. I ended up just getting up, dressing and packing and by the time I got downstairs, it was still only 9:15 am. I checked out anyway then went to the common room to check on my travel plans, check my email and of course Facebook for a little bit. My train to Luebeck was at 10:28, so at 9:50, I headed to the Hauptbonhof to buy my ticket, get some brekkie and head on my way. My first, and only, connection was in Hamburg, so the first train was super crowded. Luckily, I got a seat to myself and since on (most) Regio trains, my luggage fits nowhere, I had to keep it on the seat next to me. I always feel a little guilty for doing it, but I enjoy sitting by myself, ha.
In Hamburg, I had a 40 minute layover, so I just hung out on the platform and when the train arrived 10 minutes before it was supposed to leave, I walked all the way to the back, or front depending on which way you look at it, and got on. I was glad that I did this because I was 1 of about 8 people in that entire wagon, so I didn’t feel bad for taking up two seats J. Altogether, the trip took about 2 hours with train time, and 2:30 with waiting time.
As I got off in Luebeck, I had a good feeling. I was armed with a decent map, and it didn’t seem like it was too far to the hostel. The second I got out of the Hauptbonhof, I fell in love with the city! It’s not too big, and not too small and although it is much smaller than Bremen, it is packed full of life! (Or is it tourists?) The city reminds me a lot of Freiburg, but with less cobbled streets (though they exist!) and with more cars and bus transportation. Anyway, as I predicted, the hostel was simple to find and I didn’t get lost once! As I was checking in, a cute Irish boy was, too, but I sadly haven’t seen him since… I immediately went to my room, dropped off my stuff and decided to take advantage of the lovely weather. I went first to the tourist info place, where I proceeded to buy a map and a popsicle. The info office is located right by the Holstentor, which has a large grassy field in front of it, so I decided to plant myself on the grass and relax for a bit. Did you know (I didn’t!) that Andy Warhol used the Holstentor in some of his art? I imagine in a series of silk-screens, in which he would have repeated it in different colors. I’ll have to look that up later. Anyway, I almost fell asleep in the hot sun, but I soldiered on to begin yet another walking tour provided by a tourist map. As I was crossing the street, I received a shock as I noticed the Ampelmaennchen, the famous, unique, cute crosswalk men that are used in East Berlin. I didn’t know it was an entire East Germany thing, but apparently it is (and that makes sense). It was like a little piece of Frau Barner saying Hi to me haha.
Luebeck is full of sites, mostly churches, so the walking tour brought me to a lot of (all of?) them. None of them are too spectacular, but they are all so old that it’s hard not to appreciate them. The first one, Petrikirche, is all white on the inside, and it reminded me of the church in Heidelberg, albeit not as magnificent. There is a lookout tower, so of course I went up and got some nice pictures of the city. In the distance, I could see a bunch of windmills, and it reminded me of Freiburg, except that there are many more in Luebeck, they move a lot faster and are not on top of mountains, rather flat, flat land as far as the eye can see. From there, I went to another church, the Dom. It was very nice here, and in a lovely, quite neighborhood. The inside, however, smelled damp and it reminded me of the basement in my cottage up north haha! I liked this church the best. From there, I went to the smallest church in Luebeck, St. Aegidien, which smelled lovely inside, like some sort of incense. Then, I went to the Huexstrasse, which is nice street with some trendy shops. I cut my walking tour short here, I hope to finish it tomorrow, but I was too hungry and a little bored of a map leading me around. So, I went straight for the marzipan!
Luebeck is famous for their marzipan, but I’m still not sure what it is… Anyway, the famous marzipan café is called Café Niederegger, which is located on the Rathaus-markt. I enjoyed a marzipan cappuccino (which was yummy!) and a piece of marzipan cake (also yummy, but by the end way too sweet) and then headed to the St. Marian church, which is right by the Marktplatz. This church is the tallest brick-stone church in Germany and looks pretty old. Nothing too spectacular on the inside, but it’s pretty intricate. Outside, there is a statue of a devil, weirdly enough, with a cute local tale to accompany it (but I still find it somewhat counterintuitive…). Apparently, the devil thought that they Luebeckers were building a wine bar, so he joined in to help, since he loves wine so much and wine has been the cause of many people being “sent” to him. Well, once he found out they were actually building a church, he got pretty pissed and tried to throw a huge stone at the church, which lies outside of the church to this day. From here, I walked along some streets, just browsing, and found the internet café. For 50 Euro cents per 15 minutes, I kept it as short as possible and chatted a bit with my mom, Emi and Hil and Facebooked for a hot second.
From there, I went back to the hostel and got my jacket because it was getting pretty chilly. I picked up a Doener and headed to the Holstentor grassy field and sat down to write this entry. I’m feeling pretty tired today after so much traveling and exploring in Bremen, so I probably will read on the grass for a little bit then turn in (to read in the hostel…) and go to bed early.
Speaking of my hostel, it’s in a really nice (easy to find) neighborhood, which also happens to be “the only street whose historical facades have been preserved fully intact”! So there! Tomorrow I think I’ll check out a few museums (Fey’s Historic Puppet Museum!…and others) but I haven’t really found anything in the way of art, which is good I guess since I’ve seen so much lately haha.
Anyway, I leave here Thursday early-ish (I have to check out by 10 am) and then I’m making my way to Dresden! It’s a 7+-hour train ride with regional trains, but I might pay the 20 extra Euro (I think it is) to take an ICE and arrive about 2 hours earlier, but we’ll see. I’m staying there Thursday and Friday night, but I think I might also stay for Saturday and leave really early Sunday, since it’s going to take me a while to get back to Freiburg. Plus, only one full day in Dresden will probably not be enough.
Well that’s all from the first day.
Cheers,
Alaina
Luebeck- Day 2
Hello! Today (well, yesterday now… I’m writing from the train!) was a lazy kind of day. By this time, I was getting a little bored of the sites, so I decided to start off the day by just walking around the city. I considered continuing my walking tour, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to it, ha. So I went to the bakery, bought a pastry and a coffee and headed once more to the Holstentor grassy field, which I have taken a liking to. After eating and reading a little bit, I decided I might as well make my way around the city. I started with the Holstentor museum, which I was quite disappointed with. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was boring- it was all about the city in the “old days” when it was used as a fortification, blah blah. The coolest part was the models of all of the old ships hanging from the ceiling. Back in the museum shop, I found a postcard of the Andy Warhol art with the Holstentor- very cool. Of course I bought one for myself and a couple to send…
Also while in the Holstentor, I picked up a brochure of museums in the city. While browsing through it, I noticed the St. Annen Museum (which I had dismissed yesterday) contains art from Caspar David Friedrich and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Naturally, I had to go check it out. Though the gallery was small, it was nice to see work from these two artists.
After that, I walked around for quite some time just exploring the city. I actually go a pretty good feel for the layout of the place, since it’s so small and pretty easy to navigate. By this time, of course, I was getting hungry. I pulled out my trusty guidebook so that it could recommend me a place to eat. The first restaurant I went to said it was supposed to be open, but it wasn’t. The second one I went to was completely empty. …I’m starting to think my guidebook is not so trusty after all. So I went down the Huexstrasse and found a nice little sushi place and got some California rolls. Not as good as the kind from Kroger at home, but still delicious J.
After this I walked around a little bit more, took some pictures and considered buying a book but instead went back to the hostel. There, I ran into the Korean woman that I shared a room with. She’s very friendly, has (at least) one son at home and has been traveling for 3 months already! She started in Egypt, which she regrets, then went to Greece and has been in Europe since then. The Japanese girl (woman? It’s hard to tell with Asians sometimes) that also shared our room showed up and she quit her job and plans to travel for 1 year all over the world! She started in Australia, went to the UK, is now on Europe mainland and is next going to South America. I don’t think the fear, or wariness, of traveling is engrained in them as much as it is engrained in Americans. Or perhaps, they don’t have as much to worry about since they aren’t Americans… Either way, they both had some good stories!
The two of them went off on their way, and I went on mine. I went to the river and read for a while and people watched. Then, I made my way to the Marktplatz to enjoy a beer…and read some more. It was about 9:00 by then, and I was getting pretty tired, so I went back to the hostel. There…I read some more (and finished HP7! So sad…now I have no book to read) and went to bed. A pretty uninteresting day, but it was nice.
Well, Luebeck was a very nice city. I liked it better than Bremen because it felt more ALIVE and I felt like I did more, even though I’m sure I didn’t.
Today I awoke, packed up and checked out. I bought my train ticket to Dresden (with Regio trains, 43,70 Euro and take 7:46 hours, with an hour layover in Berlin) and got on at 11:04 am. I am currently (at the time of this writing) on a train from Bad Kleinen to Berlin, takes 2 hours and 30 minutes, it is stopping every 5 minutes. The train plays a jingle before ever stop, and a small, annoying child is loudly singing along each time… Should be a nice trip!
And since I’m running out of money, losing my patience with sites, and want to be back in Freiburg, I am leaving Dresden on Saturday morning. The trip will take a very long time- just like the trip up here. But I get to stay on 1 train for 5 hours, which is better than changing every hour. I’m not sure how those two Asian girls, or anyone for that matter, can travel for so long in this way. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mindset this week, being so sad that a bunch of my friends just left Freiburg. I’ll definitely do it again in the future, but still… traveling for 3+ months or a whole year! Whoa….long time.
Anyway, that’s all for now.
Until next time…
Cheers,
Alaina
Dresden- Evening 1
The train ride to Dresden was pretty easy. I had an hour layover in Berlin, which was pretty neat. The Hauptbonhof there is HUGE! I was shocked! I decided I should venture outside a little, since I had been cooped up so long in a train from Luebeck/Bad Kleinen. And boy, was I glad I did! From the door of the Hbf, I could see the Reichstag, a new gov’t building that wasn’t there the last time I was in Berlin and the big radio tower. Cool! The station was also crawling with riot police, though I’m not quite sure why. As I was getting off my train, however, I did see them ushering out a huge group of what may have been Neonazis? I’m not sure- they all had Mohawks and dressed real strange… But all the riot police made me a little nervous! Then on the train trip from Eltherswede, a crazy guy got on and started bugging the poor guy sitting across from me. When the guy tried to leave, the crazy guy went to hit him on the head… I don’t know, it was all very dramatic, but the situation ended fine.
Once I got to Dresden, I was tired and a little overwhelmed, but the station is gorgeous! From the Hbf, I was recommended (by the hostel brochure) to take the tram to get to the hostel and I’ve very glad I did. For one thing, it was way too far for me to walk with all my crap. For another thing, I got a nice little tour of the city as we went over the Elbe. See, my hostel, Lollis Homestay, is in the “Neustadt,” which is actually older than the “Altstadt” (the place that has all the sites). I had a little trouble finding the hostel because I was looking on the wrong side of the road (duh…) but I found it with ease. The place is amazing! The outside is painted and the inside is decorated so eclectically, I immediately took to it! The lady behind the desk has major dreadlocks- I was impressed and a bit jealous that she can pull them off. Then, just as I was thinking this place couldn’t possibly get any cooler, I walk towards the door to the stairway. AND THEY HAVE A “HOSTEL” (the movie) POSTER ON THE DOOR! Ha. Ha. Ha! For those who don’t know, “Hostel” is the movie in which foreigners kidnap innocent, traveling Americans from hostels and torture them. Wow! I thought that was hilarious.
Anyway, again as I’m thinking, “this place is the shit” it again outdoes itself as I open my dorm room door. The place is decorated like my dream room- magazine cutouts all over the wall, yellow wall painting (like my bedroom actually is at home J) and just awesome. Beside my bed there is a little Hinduism symbol painted on the wall, and it makes me feel rather peaceful. And! Again, as it things couldn’t get any better here, there is a little stuffed animal tethered to my bed to keep me company at night! J Ahhh!!! Perf!! My dorm is a “girls only” room, so I wonder what the “guys only” rooms look like… Anyway, it’s awesome. I wish you all could see it! I took some pictures of the room, but it just doesn’t convey how COOL it is.
Alright, so I changed real quick and headed out to explore the Neustadt and to get something to eat. The map they provide us is “made by locals” so I went by it instead of the stupid guidebook (which hasn’t help me too much thus far). One of the funny things it says is: “Waiting for ice cream here on a summer evening is like waiting for bananas in the old GDR days: the queue goes from the shop until around the corner.” Hahaha! I took a class on the GDR, so I find this especially funny and I like that they are kind of poking fun at their history. As in Luebeck, the cross walk signs are all the Ampelmaennchen (so it IS a GDR thing) and I think that’s cool. So I used the map’s advice and went for Indian food! Yes, Indian food in the old GDR- does anyone else find that as comical as I do?? Anyway, the place was sweet and the food (I got something that I don’t remember the name of, but it was baked cauliflower) was great!
From there, I went to the ice cream place that had the funny advertisement in the map and it was good, as ice cream always is. Then, I become more “local” by going into the Alaunpark (conveniently about 5 minutes from my hostel) to eat it and just chill. It was getting pretty dark by then, but there were still a lot of people out there grilling and having a good time. And now I’m here! I still have to pay for internet, so I won’t be updating tomorrow and I’ll just wait until I’m in Freiburg…
So far, I like the place. The Neustadt is the “trendy” neighborhood and “some Neustaedter only cross the river to the Altstadt five times per year, because their aunt happens to live there.” Hahaha. But I’m a little intimidated by it. By “trendy,” I’m not sure what they mean because this is not my idea of “trendy”- this is definitely my idea of hippie, Haight-Ashbury kind of stuff. But it’s cool. Thus far, this is the one city I really wish I had come to with a group of friends. It seems like it would be a lot more fun to share the eccentricities of the Neustadt (and I assume the amazing sites of the Altstadt) with someone other than myself…and a camera. But tomorrow is going to be a long day as I try and squeeze in all the required sites of Dresden to make it out of here Saturday morning and back to Freiburg by Saturday night!
Hope all is well at home! Love you all!
Until next time…
Cheers,
Alaina
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
For your information...
Blog posts will be on pause until I reach Dresden on Thursday!
Until then, devoted followers! ;)
Until then, devoted followers! ;)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Oh, I sleep just to dream...
Salutations, friends! How goes it? I'm doing well- it was a lovely, awesome day although I am in somewhat of a somber, contemplative mood. But I guess that's what happens when you spend hours looking at art haha...
Anyway, I woke up, amazingly, around 9 am. Thankfully, my dorm-mates wake up quite early and they function as my alarm clock as I, most regretfully, do not have a clock of any sort of my own. I got out of the hostel by 9:25 and made my way to the Hauptbonhof to catch my 9:55 bus to Worpswede. The ticket was 3,70 Euro one way. Sadly, or as per usual, I got off at the wrong stop and had to walk 5 minutes back in the opposite direction haha. Of course I got lost- if finding your way around a big city is confusing, finding you way around a village may be worse, but I'm not sure yet. Well, I found the first museum that I wanted to visit. It was right next door to the Tourist Info office, so I stopped in there first and bought a village map- nice.
The first museum, Worpsweder Kunsthalle, was small but nice. I enjoyed all of the art, which as per the 4-museum-large-exhibition, adhered mainly to the theme of art and soul and God, or something. Most of the art from Worpswede is of nature or of people in nature or in the countryside and from the early 1900s, so I think it most of the art contains this theme already. From there, I went to the Grosse Kunstschau, which was much better than the Kunsthalle; it had more art and the exhibitions there were amazing. Here, I fell in love with Heinrich Vogeler, and enjoyed many more paintings by Paula Modersohn-Becker, Otto Modersohn, and numerous other artists of the Worpswede community. The two exhibitions here were of Marc Chagall and Andres Fegler. Chagall, in the 1960s, did a series of work which portrayed the story of Moses- really interesting. Fegler, I had never heard of. His art is more modern- from the 70s to now- and really colorful and simple, with more of the recent stuff completely devoid of figuration. Looking at his art, I couldn't help but be reminded of Rothko and Mondrian, although his work is less structured than Rothko's and much more colorful and fun than Mondrian's.
After the two museums, and much purchasing of postcards and the exhibit's book (which is, sadly, in German), I decided to take a walking tour guided by the map which I had purchased. The directions were horrible, so I proceeded to get lost numerous times, but I got a really nice look at the village. It's one of those tiny places that makes one wonder where people buy their groceries, know what I mean? I decided that it's exactly the type of village which Wizards would inhabit unbeknownst to Muggles and I imagine Bad Aussee may be similar (one can only hope!). The church in Worpswede, the Zionkirche, which was designed by numerous artists, is the second prettiest church after the church in Neuchatel! When I visited the church, I found that the village is doing an art project of sorts where visiters to the church copy a verse from the Bible, hand written, and it will be displayed in Worpswede in 2010. Naturally, I had to take part. Of course, I made a writing mistake. Oopsie. But it was cool to be a part of it! My name will be in the exhibit! I saw some more sites, took some pics, but didn't quite finish the tour because I got lost and then got upset, which was compounded by my hunger.
At this time, I chose to eat, which screwed up my schedule because the waiter forgot to put my order in then I just took my sweet time eating/drinking. I tried to continue my walking tour, but, as before, I got lost lost lost and then it was getting too close to closing time (6 pm) of the remaining two museums I wanted to see, so I decided to drink a coffee and head for my bus. I got to the bus JUST IN TIME and made it back to Bremen in one piece!
Upon my return, I went to the hostel to chill for a little bit and then forced myself to go out to the Schlachte, because I was so tired (but I'm really glad that I went). Anyway, for the past two days I had been carrying around my bag, which had my umbrella in it, and of course when I venture out without my purse, that is also to say, without my umbrella, it rains. Not too bad though, so it was alright. On my way to the city center, I spotted one of those bags that say the city over and over (Bremen Bremen Bremen- you know what I mean, right?) in my favorite mint green color. Once I saw that the price was reduced to 8 Euro, I had to have it! Luckily I got there just in time because the dude was closing shop. Great purchase, I must say.
My trek to the city center continued... I got to take my picture with the "Bremen Town Musicians" statue. Nice. And now that I touched the donkey's leg, I'm all lucky and stuff so I'm excited to see what happens ;). I walked again through the Boettcherstrasse, because it is my favorite part of the town, and made my way to the Schlachte. I walked along the river for a bit as it got even more cloudy, which was lovely despite, or maybe because of, the weather. It's the perfect place to just walk and think, which is exactly what I did! And just as I was thinking how dead Bremen can be sometimes, I walked up some stairs and found the Schlachte Promenade, which is lined with Biergartens, and I found all of the Germans!... They WOULD be there (at the Biergartens)! I decided to join the fun and have a beer- yum! I also got an ice cream flavored "Blauer Engel": 1, because that's the name of the Marlene Dietrich film that I wrote a paper on and 2, because it looked like it would taste like Superman (incidentally, it did!). I then made my way back to the hostel and am now in the common room. For some reason, there seems to be a lot more people here today....
All in all, Bremen is a nice, enjoyable city and I'm really happy that I came. It looks like a big city that should be constantly bustling with people, but it is not. Even in Freiburg at 3 am when we're walking home from the bar, it doesn't feel as empty as Bremen does at 9 pm when I was walking home from the Biergarten. This makes it feel kind of depressing and downtrodden sometimes. Additionally, I feel quite safe here, but never in Freiburg has a random man said "Yo lady, wie geht es dir?" Hmm... But traveling alone is definitely great. It's fun doing whatever I want, at whatever pace I want and not having to worry about other people getting upset or stressed, but sometimes it's a little lonely. However, it gives me lots of time to think and contemplate life...and my next blog post ;) hahaha
Tomorrow, I journey to Luebeck. It's a smaller city, so I hope I'll get that nice small-town feel that I got in Worpswede, or even that I get from Freiburg (seems more my type of place). I'll let you all know how it goes (obviously)!
Anyway, hope everyone is well and having a good time :) Love and miss all!
Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina :)
p.s. I failed to mention yesterday, but it might not need to be said, that the corpses I viewed are nearly as old, or older, than the USA! Creepy!!
p.p.s. Hilary, you might be pleased to know that there is a MANGO in Bremen and when I saw it, I thought of you! Miss you, lover :(
p.p.p.s. I also failed to mention yesterday that the Rathaus, along with the Roland statue out front, is an official UNESCO World Heritage Site! Neat-o! (this will mean more once I post pictures on Facebook and you can see what I mean!...)
Anyway, I woke up, amazingly, around 9 am. Thankfully, my dorm-mates wake up quite early and they function as my alarm clock as I, most regretfully, do not have a clock of any sort of my own. I got out of the hostel by 9:25 and made my way to the Hauptbonhof to catch my 9:55 bus to Worpswede. The ticket was 3,70 Euro one way. Sadly, or as per usual, I got off at the wrong stop and had to walk 5 minutes back in the opposite direction haha. Of course I got lost- if finding your way around a big city is confusing, finding you way around a village may be worse, but I'm not sure yet. Well, I found the first museum that I wanted to visit. It was right next door to the Tourist Info office, so I stopped in there first and bought a village map- nice.
The first museum, Worpsweder Kunsthalle, was small but nice. I enjoyed all of the art, which as per the 4-museum-large-exhibition, adhered mainly to the theme of art and soul and God, or something. Most of the art from Worpswede is of nature or of people in nature or in the countryside and from the early 1900s, so I think it most of the art contains this theme already. From there, I went to the Grosse Kunstschau, which was much better than the Kunsthalle; it had more art and the exhibitions there were amazing. Here, I fell in love with Heinrich Vogeler, and enjoyed many more paintings by Paula Modersohn-Becker, Otto Modersohn, and numerous other artists of the Worpswede community. The two exhibitions here were of Marc Chagall and Andres Fegler. Chagall, in the 1960s, did a series of work which portrayed the story of Moses- really interesting. Fegler, I had never heard of. His art is more modern- from the 70s to now- and really colorful and simple, with more of the recent stuff completely devoid of figuration. Looking at his art, I couldn't help but be reminded of Rothko and Mondrian, although his work is less structured than Rothko's and much more colorful and fun than Mondrian's.
After the two museums, and much purchasing of postcards and the exhibit's book (which is, sadly, in German), I decided to take a walking tour guided by the map which I had purchased. The directions were horrible, so I proceeded to get lost numerous times, but I got a really nice look at the village. It's one of those tiny places that makes one wonder where people buy their groceries, know what I mean? I decided that it's exactly the type of village which Wizards would inhabit unbeknownst to Muggles and I imagine Bad Aussee may be similar (one can only hope!). The church in Worpswede, the Zionkirche, which was designed by numerous artists, is the second prettiest church after the church in Neuchatel! When I visited the church, I found that the village is doing an art project of sorts where visiters to the church copy a verse from the Bible, hand written, and it will be displayed in Worpswede in 2010. Naturally, I had to take part. Of course, I made a writing mistake. Oopsie. But it was cool to be a part of it! My name will be in the exhibit! I saw some more sites, took some pics, but didn't quite finish the tour because I got lost and then got upset, which was compounded by my hunger.
At this time, I chose to eat, which screwed up my schedule because the waiter forgot to put my order in then I just took my sweet time eating/drinking. I tried to continue my walking tour, but, as before, I got lost lost lost and then it was getting too close to closing time (6 pm) of the remaining two museums I wanted to see, so I decided to drink a coffee and head for my bus. I got to the bus JUST IN TIME and made it back to Bremen in one piece!
Upon my return, I went to the hostel to chill for a little bit and then forced myself to go out to the Schlachte, because I was so tired (but I'm really glad that I went). Anyway, for the past two days I had been carrying around my bag, which had my umbrella in it, and of course when I venture out without my purse, that is also to say, without my umbrella, it rains. Not too bad though, so it was alright. On my way to the city center, I spotted one of those bags that say the city over and over (Bremen Bremen Bremen- you know what I mean, right?) in my favorite mint green color. Once I saw that the price was reduced to 8 Euro, I had to have it! Luckily I got there just in time because the dude was closing shop. Great purchase, I must say.
My trek to the city center continued... I got to take my picture with the "Bremen Town Musicians" statue. Nice. And now that I touched the donkey's leg, I'm all lucky and stuff so I'm excited to see what happens ;). I walked again through the Boettcherstrasse, because it is my favorite part of the town, and made my way to the Schlachte. I walked along the river for a bit as it got even more cloudy, which was lovely despite, or maybe because of, the weather. It's the perfect place to just walk and think, which is exactly what I did! And just as I was thinking how dead Bremen can be sometimes, I walked up some stairs and found the Schlachte Promenade, which is lined with Biergartens, and I found all of the Germans!... They WOULD be there (at the Biergartens)! I decided to join the fun and have a beer- yum! I also got an ice cream flavored "Blauer Engel": 1, because that's the name of the Marlene Dietrich film that I wrote a paper on and 2, because it looked like it would taste like Superman (incidentally, it did!). I then made my way back to the hostel and am now in the common room. For some reason, there seems to be a lot more people here today....
All in all, Bremen is a nice, enjoyable city and I'm really happy that I came. It looks like a big city that should be constantly bustling with people, but it is not. Even in Freiburg at 3 am when we're walking home from the bar, it doesn't feel as empty as Bremen does at 9 pm when I was walking home from the Biergarten. This makes it feel kind of depressing and downtrodden sometimes. Additionally, I feel quite safe here, but never in Freiburg has a random man said "Yo lady, wie geht es dir?" Hmm... But traveling alone is definitely great. It's fun doing whatever I want, at whatever pace I want and not having to worry about other people getting upset or stressed, but sometimes it's a little lonely. However, it gives me lots of time to think and contemplate life...and my next blog post ;) hahaha
Tomorrow, I journey to Luebeck. It's a smaller city, so I hope I'll get that nice small-town feel that I got in Worpswede, or even that I get from Freiburg (seems more my type of place). I'll let you all know how it goes (obviously)!
Anyway, hope everyone is well and having a good time :) Love and miss all!
Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina :)
p.s. I failed to mention yesterday, but it might not need to be said, that the corpses I viewed are nearly as old, or older, than the USA! Creepy!!
p.p.s. Hilary, you might be pleased to know that there is a MANGO in Bremen and when I saw it, I thought of you! Miss you, lover :(
p.p.p.s. I also failed to mention yesterday that the Rathaus, along with the Roland statue out front, is an official UNESCO World Heritage Site! Neat-o! (this will mean more once I post pictures on Facebook and you can see what I mean!...)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
I need you like a heart needs a beat
Hello from Bremen! What's up?
Today was a nice, busy day- but not too long. I succeeded in waking up early, I was showered and dressed by 8:40, which I'm not sure how I did without an alarm clock. But since that's pretty early to go out and explore a German city, especially on a Sunday, I took the time to relax with some tea and went on the computer for a little bit to plan my day.
I left around 10:40 and walked towards the Altstadt- or the Markt and city center. Let me tell you, Bremen was dead at this point. I didn't see many people and everything was closed (I wasn't at the city center yet). I happened upon the windmill and walked through the little park around it. I stopped for a bit on a bench and enjoyed the morning :). By the time I got out of the park, the city had come a little more alive (it was after 11- I had heard the clock chiming). I easily found my way to the city center and I promptly took in all of the sites; they seem to all be crowded around the Marktplatz (pictures to come soon). The only thing I didn't really experience today was the statue of the commemorating the "Bremen Town Musicians" fairytale. You have to touch the legs of the donkey for good luck and there were always people around it, so I decided to do it early tomorrow morning. Also, sound travels, apparently, really well in the Markt, so everytime I was there, musicians were playing music and you could hear it all over the Marktplatz- first an accordian, later some jazz and also a lute-like instrument. Very nice.
So after I looked through the Markt, I happened upon the Boettcherstrasse, which has some really cool Gothic and Art Nouveau architecture- it was declared degenerate art by the Nazis. I somehow managed to find the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, which was actually really cool and the first museum dedicated exclusively to a female artist. Paula Modersohn-Becker belongs to the Expressionist movement, so her art was right up my alley. My favorite thing about Expressionist (and Impressionist) art is to get really, really close to the painting so that you can see all of the brush strokes and colors and you can't tell what you're looking at because it looks just like color splotches. It's also always interesting to see a tiny bit of orange or blue paint in a tree, grass, house or person- right where it doesn't belong. Anyway, the museum also had an exhibit of Lucas Cranach's art, who is a Renaissance artist famous for portraits and religious images. He did that one portrait of Martin Luther, which I'm sure you would all recognize (as I suspected- if you go to Martin Luther's Wikipedia page, it's the supplied photo of him, ha). Well, it sure was an interesting contrast between Modersohn-Becker's art and Cranach's. Cranach has an intense attention to detail that is totally non-existant in Expressionist art- he basically drew every individual hair and his potraits were very realistic. Needless to say, such art is a little boring for me to look at, but I'm very glad that I saw it! There was also an exhibit of the "Overbecks and Modersohn. Zwei Kuenstlerpaare (two artist couples)"- two couples of artists who worked in the nearby Worpswede and later moved to Boettcherstrasse. Paula Modersohn-Becker's art was included in the exhibit and there were a lot of landscape pieces, which was also quite interesting for me as I wrote my final art history paper on landscapes :). One piece of Hermine Overbeck's of a small, solitary tree in a field reminded me of one of Caspar David Freidrich's pieces. I found out that this museum had an exhibit on Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (who I wrote my final paper on) and is going to have an exhibit on Expressionism coming soon- I'm very sad I missed and will miss them! Needless to say, I added to my postcards-of-art collection :).
Afterwards, I made my way to the Schnoor district. I had planned to eat here, but it was a little too expensive so I decided I would go back tomorrow for a nice dinner. The neighborhood is really nice, but small, unless I missed part of it haha. There are a lot of really strange, cute shops! I resisted the urge to buy many things :) hehe.
Of course by this time, around 2:30, I was getting very hungry. I was having a hard time deciding where to eat, so I ended up choosing this "Beck's Bistro" on the Markt. There were a lot of people there and they had a lot of tables outside, so it seemed like a good choice...but it wasn't anything special. The only thing that was good was that I got my Beck's, of course extremely overpriced.
Anyway, since I hadn't gone into the St. Petri Dom, I did at this time. Sadly, one of the beautiful towers is under construction, so photos that I got of the outside are really ugly. The inside was really lovely, as usual, but I still maintain that the church in Neuchatel is my favorite :). My favorite part of the church was the Bleikeller, which was actually quite morbid. So you go down into this basement and what do you find?...... Corpses! Yes, indeed, they have 8 corpses on display- open caskets with plastic separating the viewer from the body. It was really neat, but kind of gross haha. The church has a really nice garden called the "Bible Garden" in which every flower that is mentioned in the Bible is grown there- or was it the other way around? Either way, it was nice :).
From there, I made my way back to the hostel, but not before I got an ice cream :). I was quite tired, so I planned to take a short nap, but ended up sleeping a little too late to go out again- oops. I guess I'll have to hit the Schlachte- a river "promenade" lined with bars- tomorrow night.
Tomorrow I plan to take a short, side, day-trip to Worpswede, the artist colony that the Modersohns and Overbecks were a part of. I'm going mostly because all of the museums in Bremen seem to be closed on Mondays (wtf?!) and I would like to see more art. The whole of Worpswede seems to be having an exhibit concerning "art and the soul" so it sounds awesome and it sounds be a nice day! I hope to get back early enough to tour the Beck's factory, but if not, I think I'll live.
All in all, Bremen is a lovely city. The air seems different here, which is a strange observation, but I'm fairly certain it's because Bremen is near/surrounded by water and not mountains. I think it may be the absence of humidity, but it's nice. Also, it's much more windy here (but still not TOO windy), which I like. Although, (I think this judgement may be premature, but I'm just gonna put it out there), the more and more I see of Europe, the more I think Freiburg is the perfect city. I have absolutely no complaints about Freiburg, but I can always find something I don't really like about other cities.... Hmm. Hopefully Bad Aussee measures up ;)!
Anyway, I can't upload pictures yet, sadly, so you'll all have to wait 'til I'm back in Freiburg ;). But I'm going to try to update everyday, if I can, on my trip because I don't want to have to remember every little detail after it's all over haha.
Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
Today was a nice, busy day- but not too long. I succeeded in waking up early, I was showered and dressed by 8:40, which I'm not sure how I did without an alarm clock. But since that's pretty early to go out and explore a German city, especially on a Sunday, I took the time to relax with some tea and went on the computer for a little bit to plan my day.
I left around 10:40 and walked towards the Altstadt- or the Markt and city center. Let me tell you, Bremen was dead at this point. I didn't see many people and everything was closed (I wasn't at the city center yet). I happened upon the windmill and walked through the little park around it. I stopped for a bit on a bench and enjoyed the morning :). By the time I got out of the park, the city had come a little more alive (it was after 11- I had heard the clock chiming). I easily found my way to the city center and I promptly took in all of the sites; they seem to all be crowded around the Marktplatz (pictures to come soon). The only thing I didn't really experience today was the statue of the commemorating the "Bremen Town Musicians" fairytale. You have to touch the legs of the donkey for good luck and there were always people around it, so I decided to do it early tomorrow morning. Also, sound travels, apparently, really well in the Markt, so everytime I was there, musicians were playing music and you could hear it all over the Marktplatz- first an accordian, later some jazz and also a lute-like instrument. Very nice.
So after I looked through the Markt, I happened upon the Boettcherstrasse, which has some really cool Gothic and Art Nouveau architecture- it was declared degenerate art by the Nazis. I somehow managed to find the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, which was actually really cool and the first museum dedicated exclusively to a female artist. Paula Modersohn-Becker belongs to the Expressionist movement, so her art was right up my alley. My favorite thing about Expressionist (and Impressionist) art is to get really, really close to the painting so that you can see all of the brush strokes and colors and you can't tell what you're looking at because it looks just like color splotches. It's also always interesting to see a tiny bit of orange or blue paint in a tree, grass, house or person- right where it doesn't belong. Anyway, the museum also had an exhibit of Lucas Cranach's art, who is a Renaissance artist famous for portraits and religious images. He did that one portrait of Martin Luther, which I'm sure you would all recognize (as I suspected- if you go to Martin Luther's Wikipedia page, it's the supplied photo of him, ha). Well, it sure was an interesting contrast between Modersohn-Becker's art and Cranach's. Cranach has an intense attention to detail that is totally non-existant in Expressionist art- he basically drew every individual hair and his potraits were very realistic. Needless to say, such art is a little boring for me to look at, but I'm very glad that I saw it! There was also an exhibit of the "Overbecks and Modersohn. Zwei Kuenstlerpaare (two artist couples)"- two couples of artists who worked in the nearby Worpswede and later moved to Boettcherstrasse. Paula Modersohn-Becker's art was included in the exhibit and there were a lot of landscape pieces, which was also quite interesting for me as I wrote my final art history paper on landscapes :). One piece of Hermine Overbeck's of a small, solitary tree in a field reminded me of one of Caspar David Freidrich's pieces. I found out that this museum had an exhibit on Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (who I wrote my final paper on) and is going to have an exhibit on Expressionism coming soon- I'm very sad I missed and will miss them! Needless to say, I added to my postcards-of-art collection :).
Afterwards, I made my way to the Schnoor district. I had planned to eat here, but it was a little too expensive so I decided I would go back tomorrow for a nice dinner. The neighborhood is really nice, but small, unless I missed part of it haha. There are a lot of really strange, cute shops! I resisted the urge to buy many things :) hehe.
Of course by this time, around 2:30, I was getting very hungry. I was having a hard time deciding where to eat, so I ended up choosing this "Beck's Bistro" on the Markt. There were a lot of people there and they had a lot of tables outside, so it seemed like a good choice...but it wasn't anything special. The only thing that was good was that I got my Beck's, of course extremely overpriced.
Anyway, since I hadn't gone into the St. Petri Dom, I did at this time. Sadly, one of the beautiful towers is under construction, so photos that I got of the outside are really ugly. The inside was really lovely, as usual, but I still maintain that the church in Neuchatel is my favorite :). My favorite part of the church was the Bleikeller, which was actually quite morbid. So you go down into this basement and what do you find?...... Corpses! Yes, indeed, they have 8 corpses on display- open caskets with plastic separating the viewer from the body. It was really neat, but kind of gross haha. The church has a really nice garden called the "Bible Garden" in which every flower that is mentioned in the Bible is grown there- or was it the other way around? Either way, it was nice :).
From there, I made my way back to the hostel, but not before I got an ice cream :). I was quite tired, so I planned to take a short nap, but ended up sleeping a little too late to go out again- oops. I guess I'll have to hit the Schlachte- a river "promenade" lined with bars- tomorrow night.
Tomorrow I plan to take a short, side, day-trip to Worpswede, the artist colony that the Modersohns and Overbecks were a part of. I'm going mostly because all of the museums in Bremen seem to be closed on Mondays (wtf?!) and I would like to see more art. The whole of Worpswede seems to be having an exhibit concerning "art and the soul" so it sounds awesome and it sounds be a nice day! I hope to get back early enough to tour the Beck's factory, but if not, I think I'll live.
All in all, Bremen is a lovely city. The air seems different here, which is a strange observation, but I'm fairly certain it's because Bremen is near/surrounded by water and not mountains. I think it may be the absence of humidity, but it's nice. Also, it's much more windy here (but still not TOO windy), which I like. Although, (I think this judgement may be premature, but I'm just gonna put it out there), the more and more I see of Europe, the more I think Freiburg is the perfect city. I have absolutely no complaints about Freiburg, but I can always find something I don't really like about other cities.... Hmm. Hopefully Bad Aussee measures up ;)!
Anyway, I can't upload pictures yet, sadly, so you'll all have to wait 'til I'm back in Freiburg ;). But I'm going to try to update everyday, if I can, on my trip because I don't want to have to remember every little detail after it's all over haha.
Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Und der Mond scheint hell auf mein Haus am See
Hello all! How goes it? Let me tell you, this past week was definitely the best week I have spent in the Freiburg thus far. I left you all with a thrilling account of my amazing Tuesday...
Wednesday was a really nice day, too. We finished up our speaking test in class, which meant it was a pretty chill day because we had to take turns speaking and stuff. After class, I may or may not have taken a nap, but I can't recall what I did in between class and dinner... For dinner we (Sean, Derek, Kevin, Halldor and myself) of course, went to Schnitzel. Delicious as allllllways. We planned to go to the Irish pub afterwards, but somehow that didn't work out, so we went back to the Guesthouse. There was a big street party going on that was way too super packed that a group of people ended up going to, but since it was super packed and not fun (we walked through it on the way back to the Guesthouse), I didn't go. Instead, Kevin and I watched Love Actually. Great film, as always! At 2 am, I skyped with Hilary for an hour until Emily showed up in Ann Arbor at 3 am, and then we all skyped until 4 am! It was so awesome and hilarious to talk to them! I miss my besties lots and lots and lotssssss!!! xoxo
Thursday was the last day of class- sad times! We had a breakfast party, which was really nice. Our teacher brought Schwarzwald cake which, I didn't realize, is actually the "Black Forest Cake" that we eat sometimes in the States. It was sehr gut! We also watched "Auf der anderen Seite," which is the Fatih Akin film I've been DYING to see. It was very very good! Kevin and I went to the cafe-next-to-Goethe for the last time and it was very sad. We got the results of our tests back and I passed (woo!) and will be going on to C1.1 next month! Cooool! I also finally got a copy of our class picture, which actually turned out really well. :) The day was rainy, so we pretty much just hung around the Guesthouse all day. I read HP, finalized some plans for my trip and just chilled. We (Kevin, Halldor, Ian, redhead Sean, Derek and me) went out, for the last time as a group, to Thai food. Delish! Afterwards, we went to O'Kelley's (also for the last time as a group) sans Ian and it was open mic night! Kevin got up and whistled (got 2 free Guinness') and Halldor played some SICK Flight of the Conchords (and got a free beer). It was awesome. Thursday was also the night of the "Abschiedparty" (goodbye party) at Cafe Velo, so we went to check it out. Kevin wanted to get pizza, but we stayed too late at Cafe Velo so I made some "gourmet" pasta and Ian, redhead Sean, Kevin and I hung out for a bit. Then we watched A Knight's Tale and passed out.
Friday was an amazing last day with my best guy friends. It started off hectic, as everyone had to move out of their rooms and use my room as a base for their crap haha. After that, a big group (Nassim, Maude, Sarah, Sean, Kathi, Nikita, Alex, and others) went to the Greek restaurant for breakfast/lunch as a goodbye for Kathi and Nikita- soooo sad to see them go! :( After that, Maude and Sarah left for Switzerland and Sean, Ian, Kevin, redhead Sean and Halldor and I hung out on the balcony for a bit before we decided to make a trip to the city while Kevin got in his run. We went to the bookstore, pen store and drank some wine at the Muensterplatz- very nice. The weather was crazy, though- it went from hot to cool to cloudy to cold to hot and then back to cloudy again all in the same day haha. I bought "Keinohrhasen," which is a German film that I have been meaning to see. At 5:15, we got back to the Guesthouse and then turned right around to go to Brennessel for passssta! It was so good and the place looks really nice after being remodeled! Sadly, they didn't have tiramisu ready yet, but we resolved to go back later (because their tiramisu is "bomb"). We went back to the Guesthouse and drank a bit until Ian had to catch his train at 10 pm-ish. Halldor, redhead Sean, Kevin, Sean, and I walked Ian to the train station to send him off and it was very sad :(. Then, as promised, we went to Brennessel for tiramisu (which Kevin treated us to! so nice!) and we made it the quickest Brennessel trip ever (the service there is horrible). I was proud of us haha. We went back to the balcony and drank more. Then, since Kevin was staying in my room, he had to watch Keinohrhasen with me haha. At 5:30 am, I walked with him to the train station. So sadddd! Then, I got back to my room, packed super fast and headed out with redhead Sean and Sean for my own train.
Sooooo.... my trip! It's been great so far, haha, but I haven't done anything! Sean and I were on trains (6 for him, 7 for me) all day- from 8 am until 8:30 pm for me. It was surprisingly not bad- I slept a lot and read a lot of Harry Potter, so it went by quickly for me. However, since Sean is super unlucky, he had a lot of mishaps- he had to stand on the train to Karlsruhe (1.5 hours), his shampoo exploded everywhere, he broke one of his beer glasses, hit his head on a luggage rack, got smashed in the crotch by a little kid's luggage, his "Lamy" exploded in his pant pocket, etc etc. It was actually quite hilarious- how can so much unlucky stuff happen to one boy?! Anyway, Sean is a very good travel buddy. I was sad to leave him in Hannover :(
I made it to Bremen in one piece, but I had the same problem in Bremen as I did in Freiburg- I could NOT find my accomodations. But, eventually, I did. Bremen seems like a cool city so far, but I haven't explored at all. I'm sharing a dorm room with 5 other people and I, of course, got the worst bed right near the door, but who cares, really. The internet here is free- thank goodness- and so is the tea haha. Nice, eh? The hostel is actually set up really nice and it'll be cool to stay here for a few days.
Anyway, I'm probably going to go to bed earlyish so that I can get up earlyish to explore the city! I'm definitely going to take a tour of the Beck's factory, and hopefully I'll get some free beer out of it haha. Don't worry, all- I'll take lots of pictures and a bunch of awkward, touristy ones of myself ha.
I'm already not looking forward to going back to Freiburg to find that all my guy friends are gone :(. Maude and Sarah will still be there, thank goodness!, so we'll still have a really good time but....who will I eat Thai with? Schnitzel? Pasta? Who will I drink bottles and bottles of wine with? Will I ever partake in a conversation which spans the topics of running, Lamys, LOTR/HP/other nerdy things, music, etc. again? It's just hard because I don't know when I'll see these people again, since I'm going to be in Europe for a long time. But I know I will see them again. I feel like we are at a mature enough age where we can make real friends in a 2-month study abroad program and actually keep them- I'm not sure that makes too much sense, but I know that I really like and enjoy the people that I met in the last two months and through getting to know them and getting to know Freiburg together, I have learned a lot about myself. blah blah blah, I'm being sappy or something, sorry. But I am really sad that all of my guy friends have left :(
Anyway, hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all!
Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
p.s. This is the best sentence I've ever said: "My favorite time is the time between game time and dinner time." Too many times hahaha- I think it sounded funnier when I said it though haha
Wednesday was a really nice day, too. We finished up our speaking test in class, which meant it was a pretty chill day because we had to take turns speaking and stuff. After class, I may or may not have taken a nap, but I can't recall what I did in between class and dinner... For dinner we (Sean, Derek, Kevin, Halldor and myself) of course, went to Schnitzel. Delicious as allllllways. We planned to go to the Irish pub afterwards, but somehow that didn't work out, so we went back to the Guesthouse. There was a big street party going on that was way too super packed that a group of people ended up going to, but since it was super packed and not fun (we walked through it on the way back to the Guesthouse), I didn't go. Instead, Kevin and I watched Love Actually. Great film, as always! At 2 am, I skyped with Hilary for an hour until Emily showed up in Ann Arbor at 3 am, and then we all skyped until 4 am! It was so awesome and hilarious to talk to them! I miss my besties lots and lots and lotssssss!!! xoxo
Thursday was the last day of class- sad times! We had a breakfast party, which was really nice. Our teacher brought Schwarzwald cake which, I didn't realize, is actually the "Black Forest Cake" that we eat sometimes in the States. It was sehr gut! We also watched "Auf der anderen Seite," which is the Fatih Akin film I've been DYING to see. It was very very good! Kevin and I went to the cafe-next-to-Goethe for the last time and it was very sad. We got the results of our tests back and I passed (woo!) and will be going on to C1.1 next month! Cooool! I also finally got a copy of our class picture, which actually turned out really well. :) The day was rainy, so we pretty much just hung around the Guesthouse all day. I read HP, finalized some plans for my trip and just chilled. We (Kevin, Halldor, Ian, redhead Sean, Derek and me) went out, for the last time as a group, to Thai food. Delish! Afterwards, we went to O'Kelley's (also for the last time as a group) sans Ian and it was open mic night! Kevin got up and whistled (got 2 free Guinness') and Halldor played some SICK Flight of the Conchords (and got a free beer). It was awesome. Thursday was also the night of the "Abschiedparty" (goodbye party) at Cafe Velo, so we went to check it out. Kevin wanted to get pizza, but we stayed too late at Cafe Velo so I made some "gourmet" pasta and Ian, redhead Sean, Kevin and I hung out for a bit. Then we watched A Knight's Tale and passed out.
Friday was an amazing last day with my best guy friends. It started off hectic, as everyone had to move out of their rooms and use my room as a base for their crap haha. After that, a big group (Nassim, Maude, Sarah, Sean, Kathi, Nikita, Alex, and others) went to the Greek restaurant for breakfast/lunch as a goodbye for Kathi and Nikita- soooo sad to see them go! :( After that, Maude and Sarah left for Switzerland and Sean, Ian, Kevin, redhead Sean and Halldor and I hung out on the balcony for a bit before we decided to make a trip to the city while Kevin got in his run. We went to the bookstore, pen store and drank some wine at the Muensterplatz- very nice. The weather was crazy, though- it went from hot to cool to cloudy to cold to hot and then back to cloudy again all in the same day haha. I bought "Keinohrhasen," which is a German film that I have been meaning to see. At 5:15, we got back to the Guesthouse and then turned right around to go to Brennessel for passssta! It was so good and the place looks really nice after being remodeled! Sadly, they didn't have tiramisu ready yet, but we resolved to go back later (because their tiramisu is "bomb"). We went back to the Guesthouse and drank a bit until Ian had to catch his train at 10 pm-ish. Halldor, redhead Sean, Kevin, Sean, and I walked Ian to the train station to send him off and it was very sad :(. Then, as promised, we went to Brennessel for tiramisu (which Kevin treated us to! so nice!) and we made it the quickest Brennessel trip ever (the service there is horrible). I was proud of us haha. We went back to the balcony and drank more. Then, since Kevin was staying in my room, he had to watch Keinohrhasen with me haha. At 5:30 am, I walked with him to the train station. So sadddd! Then, I got back to my room, packed super fast and headed out with redhead Sean and Sean for my own train.
Sooooo.... my trip! It's been great so far, haha, but I haven't done anything! Sean and I were on trains (6 for him, 7 for me) all day- from 8 am until 8:30 pm for me. It was surprisingly not bad- I slept a lot and read a lot of Harry Potter, so it went by quickly for me. However, since Sean is super unlucky, he had a lot of mishaps- he had to stand on the train to Karlsruhe (1.5 hours), his shampoo exploded everywhere, he broke one of his beer glasses, hit his head on a luggage rack, got smashed in the crotch by a little kid's luggage, his "Lamy" exploded in his pant pocket, etc etc. It was actually quite hilarious- how can so much unlucky stuff happen to one boy?! Anyway, Sean is a very good travel buddy. I was sad to leave him in Hannover :(
I made it to Bremen in one piece, but I had the same problem in Bremen as I did in Freiburg- I could NOT find my accomodations. But, eventually, I did. Bremen seems like a cool city so far, but I haven't explored at all. I'm sharing a dorm room with 5 other people and I, of course, got the worst bed right near the door, but who cares, really. The internet here is free- thank goodness- and so is the tea haha. Nice, eh? The hostel is actually set up really nice and it'll be cool to stay here for a few days.
Anyway, I'm probably going to go to bed earlyish so that I can get up earlyish to explore the city! I'm definitely going to take a tour of the Beck's factory, and hopefully I'll get some free beer out of it haha. Don't worry, all- I'll take lots of pictures and a bunch of awkward, touristy ones of myself ha.
I'm already not looking forward to going back to Freiburg to find that all my guy friends are gone :(. Maude and Sarah will still be there, thank goodness!, so we'll still have a really good time but....who will I eat Thai with? Schnitzel? Pasta? Who will I drink bottles and bottles of wine with? Will I ever partake in a conversation which spans the topics of running, Lamys, LOTR/HP/other nerdy things, music, etc. again? It's just hard because I don't know when I'll see these people again, since I'm going to be in Europe for a long time. But I know I will see them again. I feel like we are at a mature enough age where we can make real friends in a 2-month study abroad program and actually keep them- I'm not sure that makes too much sense, but I know that I really like and enjoy the people that I met in the last two months and through getting to know them and getting to know Freiburg together, I have learned a lot about myself. blah blah blah, I'm being sappy or something, sorry. But I am really sad that all of my guy friends have left :(
Anyway, hope everyone is doing well! Miss you all!
Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
p.s. This is the best sentence I've ever said: "My favorite time is the time between game time and dinner time." Too many times hahaha- I think it sounded funnier when I said it though haha
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
I'll be the one to hold the gun
Hello everyone! It has been a lovely, lovely week!... Saturday, for dinner, I ended up going to the "other" Irish pub with Sean, Kevin, Halldor, Derek and (redhead) Sean. The waiter there is really friendly (as I think all people must be who work at Irish pubs) but he screwed up our order :(. Additionally, it's interesting, those who work at Irish pubs are all English speakers- I hear that it's the first place displaced English-speakers go for jobs in foreign countries. Anyway, once we finally got our Irish stew, it was delicious. Paired with a Guinness- perfect! After dinner, we went back to the dorm to have a chill night in. Kevin and I ended up drinking wine and talking religion for a long time- always an interesting experience.
Sunday was another great day. I had resolved at dinner on Saturday to read the complete British version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (all 768 pages) before the movie at 10:30 pm. I woke up early, enjoyed a nice breakfast and some tea and spent the day reading on the balcony. I made a valiant effort, but only made it 453 pages :(. Around 8, Craig, Sean, Kevin, Derek and I ventured to the Thai restaurant (our new favorite place, which is incidently right across from the movie theater). We had a good meal and surprise surprise! we ran into the waiter from the "other" Irish pub! Weird!! He was like "Embarassingly enough, I'm going to Harry Potter at 10:30." And we were like "Us too, man, cool." haha strange!
So! We made our way over to the theater and into our assigned seats. As I was about to sit down, someone yells "Alaina!" and to my surprise, Andrew was also seeing HP, along with an entire row of other people from his program. Weird! Since I had stood Andrew up on Friday for coffee, we made a date for Monday. Anyway, I made my way to my seat and the previews started. They were boring. Kevin started passing around his flask of scotch, and it was my first time trying scotch. It made me very warm inside haha. THEN THE MOVIE STARTED! It was very good- hilarious, filled with sexual tension and done, in general, quite well. The only thing I didn't like was the music. As it turns out, John Williams only did the score for the first 3 movies, and the 4th was by some other dude and another guy has done the 4th and 5th. It's sad because he doesn't use the "dun-dun-dun de dun-dun" HP theme (you know what I'm talking about!) as much. Anyway, good times. We went back to the Guesthouse, had some wine in Nikita's room and I went to bed around 3 am.
Monday, was a pretty chill day. After class, I had my date with Andrew. We got coffee at Cafe Schmidt and talked about everything, as usual. Then, I went major grocery shopping at Aldi. I bought a ton of stuff but only spent 17 Euro!! Nice! I walked around through the city a little bit and made my way home. It was a pretty hot day, so Sean and I went to the Seepark. It ended up cooling down a lot on our walk (plus it was later in the day) so I didn't actually swim, but it was nice to layout and read HP. Sarah and Maude came just as we were about to leave, which was kind of funny. After hanging out for a bit, we went back to the Guesthouse to cook some pasta dinner- yum!! The evening was spent just chilling (and I actually did a little studying!), and I went to my room pretty early. I talked to my mom a little bit online and tried to make reservations for my trip next week (I'll tell more about at the end).
Tuesday was probably one of my favorite days yet, except that I had to take my Abschlusstest (final test- yuck). But it was hot hot hot, so we decided to go to the Seepark. Maude, Sean, Ian, Kevin (his first time!) and I made our way there and it was perfect! I jumped right in off the bridge, which was an excellent idea. The water was perfectly cold, but not too cold. We laid in the sun, swam and snoozed as Kevin ran around the park. Apparently, it's odd for him to swim, but he did yesterday haha. Everyone had a great time.... except Ian who got his sunglasses stolen?!!?...
After the Seepark, Kevin, Sean and I changed real quick and headed off for my first hike on the Scholossberg- Kevin wanted to show us his "magical" spot that he found, which he said was filled with dragons haha (sadly, I saw no dragons). We were hauling ass and Kevin and Sean are both atheletes, so I was working to keep up (apparently, I did so really well as they called me a rockstar, or something haha). The mountain is beautiful and the spot to which Kevin brought us has old church ruins and a huge wooden cross- gorgeous. We got a really amazing view of the city and it was perfect. We were all quite hungry, so we didn't stay up there for the sunset, and instead made our way to- where else?- the Thai place. Yum!! After some good noodles and a couple of beers, we went back to the Guesthouse to change and head to Stammtisch.
Before we left, I did my first shot of Sambuca ever and it was awesome. So, this is what happens- you put the Sambuca in a wine glass with a pinch of coffee grounds. You light the Sambuca on fire, and swirl it around the glass until it turns a nice brown color (coffee). You then pour the on-fire alcohol into another glass and then put the wine glass upside down on a straw. You take the shot, which you think will be really hot but it's not and is actually very sweet and tastes like licorce, and then you suck the alcohol fumes out of the upside-down wine glass. Hahaha! It was fun.
So we made our way to Stammtisch and it was a typical Stammtisch evening (Kevin came out with us! He wore his nice shoes and belt in honor of the occassion haha). Cheap beer, lots of Goethe people, and just chill. The bar closes at 1 am, and Sean said "We're leaving after this game of pool" and the next thing we know, Kevin and I are the only ones left hahaha. So we grab a few leftover glasses and turn them in for the deposit- nice- then head back. Everyone was in Nikita's room so we chilled out for a bit and then I went to bed at 2:30 am.
Despite the fact that it wasn't super late, I had a hard time waking up this morning haha. But I had to go because it was the day of our oral exam! It went well- I'm allowed to move up a level! Woooo.
Anyway, so about my trip. I leave on Saturday morning at 8 am with Sean- he's going to Hannover and I have to catch a connection in Hannover so it's perfect. We taking Regio trains- small, slow, stop in every city- so it's going to take me 12.5 hours to get to Bremen. But, the difference is, it's going to cost me 18,50 Euro instead of 92 Euro for the ICE train haha. I have a hostel reserved in Bremen for Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights and beyond then, I'm not too sure what I'm doing- still have to figure it out. I want to go to Luebeck and Schwerin, but nothing is yet set in stone. I wanted to try and make it to Dresden, but I'm only traveling for 9 days, so I can't squeeze in too much, especially traveling with Regio trains. I'm really excited to get up to Northern Germany and I can't wait to travel for the first time by myself!!!
Beyond that, this week all of my American, Icelandic and Azerbaijani friends are leaving :( :( :(. 2 months is the perfect amount of time to get to know everyone just enough to start to like them a lot and want to get to know them more and now they are leaving. *sigh* At least Sarah and Maude with still be here. At first, neither of them were going to be, but thank goodness they are both staying longer otherwise I don't know what I would have done. Probably cried. ... But, perfectly enough, Brenesel (the 1,80 Euro pasta place) is opening at 6 pm this Friday with free beer! PERFECT!!!! All of my friends will still be here to enjoy our last time eating pasta together! I can't wait- I've missed their pasta sooo much haha!
Wow, sorry this post was so long. I guess I had a lot to say :)... I'm going to post some pictures on Facebook so make sure to check it out!
Miss you all! Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
Sunday was another great day. I had resolved at dinner on Saturday to read the complete British version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (all 768 pages) before the movie at 10:30 pm. I woke up early, enjoyed a nice breakfast and some tea and spent the day reading on the balcony. I made a valiant effort, but only made it 453 pages :(. Around 8, Craig, Sean, Kevin, Derek and I ventured to the Thai restaurant (our new favorite place, which is incidently right across from the movie theater). We had a good meal and surprise surprise! we ran into the waiter from the "other" Irish pub! Weird!! He was like "Embarassingly enough, I'm going to Harry Potter at 10:30." And we were like "Us too, man, cool." haha strange!
So! We made our way over to the theater and into our assigned seats. As I was about to sit down, someone yells "Alaina!" and to my surprise, Andrew was also seeing HP, along with an entire row of other people from his program. Weird! Since I had stood Andrew up on Friday for coffee, we made a date for Monday. Anyway, I made my way to my seat and the previews started. They were boring. Kevin started passing around his flask of scotch, and it was my first time trying scotch. It made me very warm inside haha. THEN THE MOVIE STARTED! It was very good- hilarious, filled with sexual tension and done, in general, quite well. The only thing I didn't like was the music. As it turns out, John Williams only did the score for the first 3 movies, and the 4th was by some other dude and another guy has done the 4th and 5th. It's sad because he doesn't use the "dun-dun-dun de dun-dun" HP theme (you know what I'm talking about!) as much. Anyway, good times. We went back to the Guesthouse, had some wine in Nikita's room and I went to bed around 3 am.
Monday, was a pretty chill day. After class, I had my date with Andrew. We got coffee at Cafe Schmidt and talked about everything, as usual. Then, I went major grocery shopping at Aldi. I bought a ton of stuff but only spent 17 Euro!! Nice! I walked around through the city a little bit and made my way home. It was a pretty hot day, so Sean and I went to the Seepark. It ended up cooling down a lot on our walk (plus it was later in the day) so I didn't actually swim, but it was nice to layout and read HP. Sarah and Maude came just as we were about to leave, which was kind of funny. After hanging out for a bit, we went back to the Guesthouse to cook some pasta dinner- yum!! The evening was spent just chilling (and I actually did a little studying!), and I went to my room pretty early. I talked to my mom a little bit online and tried to make reservations for my trip next week (I'll tell more about at the end).
Tuesday was probably one of my favorite days yet, except that I had to take my Abschlusstest (final test- yuck). But it was hot hot hot, so we decided to go to the Seepark. Maude, Sean, Ian, Kevin (his first time!) and I made our way there and it was perfect! I jumped right in off the bridge, which was an excellent idea. The water was perfectly cold, but not too cold. We laid in the sun, swam and snoozed as Kevin ran around the park. Apparently, it's odd for him to swim, but he did yesterday haha. Everyone had a great time.... except Ian who got his sunglasses stolen?!!?...
After the Seepark, Kevin, Sean and I changed real quick and headed off for my first hike on the Scholossberg- Kevin wanted to show us his "magical" spot that he found, which he said was filled with dragons haha (sadly, I saw no dragons). We were hauling ass and Kevin and Sean are both atheletes, so I was working to keep up (apparently, I did so really well as they called me a rockstar, or something haha). The mountain is beautiful and the spot to which Kevin brought us has old church ruins and a huge wooden cross- gorgeous. We got a really amazing view of the city and it was perfect. We were all quite hungry, so we didn't stay up there for the sunset, and instead made our way to- where else?- the Thai place. Yum!! After some good noodles and a couple of beers, we went back to the Guesthouse to change and head to Stammtisch.
Before we left, I did my first shot of Sambuca ever and it was awesome. So, this is what happens- you put the Sambuca in a wine glass with a pinch of coffee grounds. You light the Sambuca on fire, and swirl it around the glass until it turns a nice brown color (coffee). You then pour the on-fire alcohol into another glass and then put the wine glass upside down on a straw. You take the shot, which you think will be really hot but it's not and is actually very sweet and tastes like licorce, and then you suck the alcohol fumes out of the upside-down wine glass. Hahaha! It was fun.
So we made our way to Stammtisch and it was a typical Stammtisch evening (Kevin came out with us! He wore his nice shoes and belt in honor of the occassion haha). Cheap beer, lots of Goethe people, and just chill. The bar closes at 1 am, and Sean said "We're leaving after this game of pool" and the next thing we know, Kevin and I are the only ones left hahaha. So we grab a few leftover glasses and turn them in for the deposit- nice- then head back. Everyone was in Nikita's room so we chilled out for a bit and then I went to bed at 2:30 am.
Despite the fact that it wasn't super late, I had a hard time waking up this morning haha. But I had to go because it was the day of our oral exam! It went well- I'm allowed to move up a level! Woooo.
Anyway, so about my trip. I leave on Saturday morning at 8 am with Sean- he's going to Hannover and I have to catch a connection in Hannover so it's perfect. We taking Regio trains- small, slow, stop in every city- so it's going to take me 12.5 hours to get to Bremen. But, the difference is, it's going to cost me 18,50 Euro instead of 92 Euro for the ICE train haha. I have a hostel reserved in Bremen for Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights and beyond then, I'm not too sure what I'm doing- still have to figure it out. I want to go to Luebeck and Schwerin, but nothing is yet set in stone. I wanted to try and make it to Dresden, but I'm only traveling for 9 days, so I can't squeeze in too much, especially traveling with Regio trains. I'm really excited to get up to Northern Germany and I can't wait to travel for the first time by myself!!!
Beyond that, this week all of my American, Icelandic and Azerbaijani friends are leaving :( :( :(. 2 months is the perfect amount of time to get to know everyone just enough to start to like them a lot and want to get to know them more and now they are leaving. *sigh* At least Sarah and Maude with still be here. At first, neither of them were going to be, but thank goodness they are both staying longer otherwise I don't know what I would have done. Probably cried. ... But, perfectly enough, Brenesel (the 1,80 Euro pasta place) is opening at 6 pm this Friday with free beer! PERFECT!!!! All of my friends will still be here to enjoy our last time eating pasta together! I can't wait- I've missed their pasta sooo much haha!
Wow, sorry this post was so long. I guess I had a lot to say :)... I'm going to post some pictures on Facebook so make sure to check it out!
Miss you all! Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Hey, wenn's dir nicht gefällt, mach' neu!
Hey everyone! What's up?!
Anyway, I spent Wednesday shopping around the city with Sarah, Maude, Marilyn and Francesca. I purchase a Lonely Planet "Germany" book in English (to help plan my trip) and some postcards. We had a drink and some ice cream at Aspekt while we waited for 7 pm, which was when Jeanne arrived. Maude, Marilyn and I went to the Hauptbonhof at 7 to search out Jeanne, and we found her. We arrived back at the Guesthouse and Sarah started to cook dinner. I laid down on my bed (with my glasses on) and fell asleep for a little while until Nassim and Maude banged on my door. I was really groggy during dinner and it was hard to eat, haha, but I did it. Everyone laughed at me because I had a mark from my glasses on my nose.
Wednesday night we decided to hit up the Irish pub for a chill good time. It ended up being pitcher special night, so the girls split some tequila sunrises. Nice. O'Kelley's has the best fries, too, so naturally we ordered some. I walked home early-ish with Kevin, while the rest of the group continued to party...
In class Thursday, for the second day in a row, I was the only person to make it to class of the group that went out the night before haha. Enjoyable! In the afternoon/evening, I cooked myself some dinner and hung out with Craig, Star, Sean and Michael on the balcony for a bit. Then, since it was Thursday, we of course all got ready to go out to Kagan. It was really neat because it started storming around 2:30/3 am, and the storm was all around the club (as it is on the 18th floor and has all glass walls). We got home late, as usual, but it was fun night!
Friday, class was long. I got home and fell asleep around 2 and accidentally didn't wake up until 7 pm, when Sean banged on my door. Kevin, Sean and I went to Thai food, and it was really yummy! We also bought our tickets for Harry Potter tomorrow at 10:30 pm in English!- can't wait!!! Interesting fact: they have assigned seats in German theaters. Crazy!! Then, since Sean and Kevin kept quoting The Princess Bride, we decided to watch it. The film ended around 11 pm, and Kevin wanted pizza so I went with him to get some. A crazy lady asked Kevin if he was from Switzerland after hearing him speak 3 words auf Deutsch- weird. I was in bed by midnight- nice night.
Today, I woke early in order to meet Sabine and Susanne (Sabine is my German neighbor from the USA and Susanne is her sister)! We hadn't quite figured out how we were going to meet since I don't have a cell phone, but we decided that they would pick me up at 10 am, so I kept an eye out my window for their car. At about 10:20, I saw them roll up and I yelled out the window to them. We spent a lovely (although rainy) day touring the city- Muenster, Augustinerplatz, Markt, yummy Italian food and lots of shopping! It was great to see Sabine- like a little piece of home! haha
And now I'm here. The Guesthouse is quiet, as it usually is at this time of day. I'm thinking about getting some food, but I'm low on cash so I'm not sure what I'm going to do....
Anyway, hope all is well in the US! Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
Anyway, I spent Wednesday shopping around the city with Sarah, Maude, Marilyn and Francesca. I purchase a Lonely Planet "Germany" book in English (to help plan my trip) and some postcards. We had a drink and some ice cream at Aspekt while we waited for 7 pm, which was when Jeanne arrived. Maude, Marilyn and I went to the Hauptbonhof at 7 to search out Jeanne, and we found her. We arrived back at the Guesthouse and Sarah started to cook dinner. I laid down on my bed (with my glasses on) and fell asleep for a little while until Nassim and Maude banged on my door. I was really groggy during dinner and it was hard to eat, haha, but I did it. Everyone laughed at me because I had a mark from my glasses on my nose.
Wednesday night we decided to hit up the Irish pub for a chill good time. It ended up being pitcher special night, so the girls split some tequila sunrises. Nice. O'Kelley's has the best fries, too, so naturally we ordered some. I walked home early-ish with Kevin, while the rest of the group continued to party...
In class Thursday, for the second day in a row, I was the only person to make it to class of the group that went out the night before haha. Enjoyable! In the afternoon/evening, I cooked myself some dinner and hung out with Craig, Star, Sean and Michael on the balcony for a bit. Then, since it was Thursday, we of course all got ready to go out to Kagan. It was really neat because it started storming around 2:30/3 am, and the storm was all around the club (as it is on the 18th floor and has all glass walls). We got home late, as usual, but it was fun night!
Friday, class was long. I got home and fell asleep around 2 and accidentally didn't wake up until 7 pm, when Sean banged on my door. Kevin, Sean and I went to Thai food, and it was really yummy! We also bought our tickets for Harry Potter tomorrow at 10:30 pm in English!- can't wait!!! Interesting fact: they have assigned seats in German theaters. Crazy!! Then, since Sean and Kevin kept quoting The Princess Bride, we decided to watch it. The film ended around 11 pm, and Kevin wanted pizza so I went with him to get some. A crazy lady asked Kevin if he was from Switzerland after hearing him speak 3 words auf Deutsch- weird. I was in bed by midnight- nice night.
Today, I woke early in order to meet Sabine and Susanne (Sabine is my German neighbor from the USA and Susanne is her sister)! We hadn't quite figured out how we were going to meet since I don't have a cell phone, but we decided that they would pick me up at 10 am, so I kept an eye out my window for their car. At about 10:20, I saw them roll up and I yelled out the window to them. We spent a lovely (although rainy) day touring the city- Muenster, Augustinerplatz, Markt, yummy Italian food and lots of shopping! It was great to see Sabine- like a little piece of home! haha
And now I'm here. The Guesthouse is quiet, as it usually is at this time of day. I'm thinking about getting some food, but I'm low on cash so I'm not sure what I'm going to do....
Anyway, hope all is well in the US! Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
"Bich!"
Hey all! How's it going?!
Let me tell you- I had a wonderful weekend in Switzerland! At 6:15 pm Friday, Maude, Sean, Amanda and I grabbed our bags and made our way to the Hauptbahnhof. The ticket there was suprisingly cheap- 24 Euro with my BahnCard- and it wasn't a bad ride, either! Very scenic!! And I learned a lot of French vocabulary from Maude, haha. When we arrived in Neuchatel, Maude's brother already had a party in full swing. We cooked pasta, because we were starving, and starting playing some entertaining drinking games. We all went to bed pretty early, but we also had to wake up early the next day. Maude generously let me stay in her room- very cute! Her entire house is just so... European... I love it! And the view out of her backyard is the ALPS! Come on, how cool is that?!
We spent Saturday walking around Neuchatel. We went to the river and the market place, where Maude used to work. The "boss" gave us some free wine and proceeded to tell us that he can speak 10 languages. Maude said he was lying haha. Neuchatel really is beautiful- a lovely lake, with Alps in the distance and surrounded by rolling hills/baby mountains. Gorgeous! (see Facebook for pictures!)
Saturday night, all of Maude's friends came over and we grilled! We made shishkabobs and the ladies (Amanda, Maude and me) made a delicious pasta salad that everyone loved! Again, I went to bed early, but Maude was up with her friends until 5 am and every 20 minutes she'd wake me up with her yelling... but it was funny. Also that night, Maude's friends wouldn't stop yelling "bich"- which means "deer" in French, so now it's a nice inside joke I have with some cool Swiss people haha.
Sunday was our tourist-y day.... Maude, Felix, Lionel, Fabris, Sean, Amanda and I all went to Creaux du Van, which is sort of like Neuchatel's Grand Canyon haha. The drive up the mountain was crazy and then we had to hike through herds of free-roaming cows to get to the place. Very fun! I got tons of sweet pictures (see Facebook album!) and had a really nice day. We ended it by eating traditional Swiss fondue and it was delicious!!! Did you know you're supposed to drink something warm, like tea, with fondue so that you don't get a huge ball of congealed cheese in your intestines? I didn't!
The train ride back was pretty hectic as it was more expensive to go from Switzerland to Germany and we didn't buy our tickets beforehand. We ended up missing our connection to Freiburg in Basel and had to wait 1.5 hours in Switzerland and got back at midnight. Though, it wasn't too bad. Maude's best friend Marilyn came back with us and is here for a week and she's really cool. She knows as much German as I do French (which is obviously not a lot) and she doesn't know English so we communicate in a funny way. But she insists that my French is great (ha.) and Maude says I learn quickly...but I can't speak French at all, I can just say things haha.
Anyway, Monday was a boring day in class, although I am trying to pay more attention in class haha. I decided during the day that I wanted to cook pasta for Sean, Maude and Marilyn, so after class, Sean and I went and bought supplies. After that we went to the river for a little while because it was so hot and humid- very nice and relaxing. I hung around in my room and napped for a little bit then around 6:45, the cooking commenced! I cooked spinach and ricotta tortellini and sauteed mushrooms, broccoli and onions for the basil sauce, with cheese sprinkled on top, of course. Then I made a really nice tomato and mozzarella salad. Delish! I made too much so Kevin got leftovers when he came back from his run, which he appreciated. It was really nice to make a meal for some friends :)
Last night, we went out to a little bar called Brasil and chilled on the couches for about two hours. "The girls"- Maude, Sarah, Marilyn and I- went a little early and while we were there, it started pouring rain so we weren't sure if everyone else would come. But they made it (.5 hour late and soaking wet)! Later, we went to Agar. I said "Let's leave now!" while it wasn't raining and half hour later when we actually left, it wasn't raining but 5 minutes into the walk, it was pouring. The group was 4 girls and 4 guys.... 2 guys had umbrellas........and shared them with the two other guys hahaha. So the girls were soaked- that was cool. But we all had a really fun time! We got back late, and went to bed late. Today, I was the only one in class haha.
Tonight, Maude is supposedly cooking dinner- I hope so! Otherwise, I have something planned haha. Also tonight, Maude's friend Jeanne is coming for the night, so we'll all be going out.
Anyway, I'm pretty much 100% better now. Yay! And I'm really jealous that my mom and sister saw Harry Potter last night. I have to wait until Sunday night to see it in Freiburg in English.... :(
So I have a 12 day break coming up between July and August and I'm trying to plan a little solo-trip through North Eastern Germany! I'm pretty excited. I'll let you know how the planning goes...
Ahh I guess that's all for now! Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
Let me tell you- I had a wonderful weekend in Switzerland! At 6:15 pm Friday, Maude, Sean, Amanda and I grabbed our bags and made our way to the Hauptbahnhof. The ticket there was suprisingly cheap- 24 Euro with my BahnCard- and it wasn't a bad ride, either! Very scenic!! And I learned a lot of French vocabulary from Maude, haha. When we arrived in Neuchatel, Maude's brother already had a party in full swing. We cooked pasta, because we were starving, and starting playing some entertaining drinking games. We all went to bed pretty early, but we also had to wake up early the next day. Maude generously let me stay in her room- very cute! Her entire house is just so... European... I love it! And the view out of her backyard is the ALPS! Come on, how cool is that?!
We spent Saturday walking around Neuchatel. We went to the river and the market place, where Maude used to work. The "boss" gave us some free wine and proceeded to tell us that he can speak 10 languages. Maude said he was lying haha. Neuchatel really is beautiful- a lovely lake, with Alps in the distance and surrounded by rolling hills/baby mountains. Gorgeous! (see Facebook for pictures!)
Saturday night, all of Maude's friends came over and we grilled! We made shishkabobs and the ladies (Amanda, Maude and me) made a delicious pasta salad that everyone loved! Again, I went to bed early, but Maude was up with her friends until 5 am and every 20 minutes she'd wake me up with her yelling... but it was funny. Also that night, Maude's friends wouldn't stop yelling "bich"- which means "deer" in French, so now it's a nice inside joke I have with some cool Swiss people haha.
Sunday was our tourist-y day.... Maude, Felix, Lionel, Fabris, Sean, Amanda and I all went to Creaux du Van, which is sort of like Neuchatel's Grand Canyon haha. The drive up the mountain was crazy and then we had to hike through herds of free-roaming cows to get to the place. Very fun! I got tons of sweet pictures (see Facebook album!) and had a really nice day. We ended it by eating traditional Swiss fondue and it was delicious!!! Did you know you're supposed to drink something warm, like tea, with fondue so that you don't get a huge ball of congealed cheese in your intestines? I didn't!
The train ride back was pretty hectic as it was more expensive to go from Switzerland to Germany and we didn't buy our tickets beforehand. We ended up missing our connection to Freiburg in Basel and had to wait 1.5 hours in Switzerland and got back at midnight. Though, it wasn't too bad. Maude's best friend Marilyn came back with us and is here for a week and she's really cool. She knows as much German as I do French (which is obviously not a lot) and she doesn't know English so we communicate in a funny way. But she insists that my French is great (ha.) and Maude says I learn quickly...but I can't speak French at all, I can just say things haha.
Anyway, Monday was a boring day in class, although I am trying to pay more attention in class haha. I decided during the day that I wanted to cook pasta for Sean, Maude and Marilyn, so after class, Sean and I went and bought supplies. After that we went to the river for a little while because it was so hot and humid- very nice and relaxing. I hung around in my room and napped for a little bit then around 6:45, the cooking commenced! I cooked spinach and ricotta tortellini and sauteed mushrooms, broccoli and onions for the basil sauce, with cheese sprinkled on top, of course. Then I made a really nice tomato and mozzarella salad. Delish! I made too much so Kevin got leftovers when he came back from his run, which he appreciated. It was really nice to make a meal for some friends :)
Last night, we went out to a little bar called Brasil and chilled on the couches for about two hours. "The girls"- Maude, Sarah, Marilyn and I- went a little early and while we were there, it started pouring rain so we weren't sure if everyone else would come. But they made it (.5 hour late and soaking wet)! Later, we went to Agar. I said "Let's leave now!" while it wasn't raining and half hour later when we actually left, it wasn't raining but 5 minutes into the walk, it was pouring. The group was 4 girls and 4 guys.... 2 guys had umbrellas........and shared them with the two other guys hahaha. So the girls were soaked- that was cool. But we all had a really fun time! We got back late, and went to bed late. Today, I was the only one in class haha.
Tonight, Maude is supposedly cooking dinner- I hope so! Otherwise, I have something planned haha. Also tonight, Maude's friend Jeanne is coming for the night, so we'll all be going out.
Anyway, I'm pretty much 100% better now. Yay! And I'm really jealous that my mom and sister saw Harry Potter last night. I have to wait until Sunday night to see it in Freiburg in English.... :(
So I have a 12 day break coming up between July and August and I'm trying to plan a little solo-trip through North Eastern Germany! I'm pretty excited. I'll let you know how the planning goes...
Ahh I guess that's all for now! Until next time...
Cheers,
Alaina
Thursday, July 9, 2009
My friends say I should act my age- What's my age again?
Hey everyone! Happy Thursday!...
Anyway, Monday was full of laundry! Three loads! OMG! But it's nice to have everthing clean again haha. After laundry, I slept more and ended up cooking myself some veggies and rice. A bunch of people grilled for dinner, so I hung out with them and snagged some food- yum!! I wore a green dress that I haven't worn yet and everyone complimented it, which was nice considering I was sick haha. We pretty much just hung around the guest house all night and I went to bed by 11:30 because of the sickness.
Tuesday was also quite a chill day- because I was sick, I skipped school and slept allllll day. At 5 pm, I went to drink coffee/tea with Sarah and Maude at Aspekt. Ice and Nassim showed up and by 6 pm, they were heading back to the guest house and I went on my way to meet Andrew for dinner (date #3? or 5??? who knows haha). We actually ate at Aspekt, and it was delicious! Tomato mozarella baguettes.... yum! It was a really great time- we always just bullshit for a good hour- and as we were walking back, we ran into Sarah, Maude, Ice and Nassim, who were eating outside at some restaurant. It was a little awkward. Andrew and I parted ways and then I headed to Neukauf for some orange juice. I ran into Nikita and Kathi, who were buying my two favorite things- wine and cheese! They invited me to their room for wine, cheese and Frasier and I couldn't turn it down! Some wine turned into more wine and next thing I know, I'm (along with Nikita) teaching a bunch of non-Americans (Kathi, Nassim, Sarah and Maude) how to play Kings. Needless to say, it was a good night. We made our way to the Greek restaurant, which is a 30 second walk from our dorm. We accidentally met up with a bunch of other people and had a good time just doing nothing. We all went back to the dorm and then Maude and I decided to go for a walk around the block. Nice.
Wednesday, we all went to class late (except for Sean who is always on time and Nassim who never goes haha) and it was boringly long day. After class, I bought honey and tea to help my throat and some Bounty because I was craving coconut (weird!) and relaxed with Sean on the balcony for a bit. Then, I took a nice, long nap and felt very refreshed afterward. I made some food (again veggies with rice haha) and drank a lot of tea. Kathi, Nikita and I watched part of Watchmen, but that movie is long. We paused it for a bit, and I shared a glass of wine with Kevin on the balcony. Kathi made Nikita (and me!) some food (which was delicious) and then we watched more of Watchmen, but by then it was about time to go to the bar for Sean's girlfriend's (Amanda) birthday! It was a pretty good night- I had a few drinks but stayed under control, because I'm sick, hung out with Maude all night, and went to bed happy.
Today at school we had a test. Nothing too difficult- I'm sure I passed ;). After class, I went to Aldi to get some cheap food (I'll be eating for a 4 days on 10 Euro of food haha) and also picked up some cough medicine that a friend from class (Alex, from Russia) recommended to me. I'll let you all know how it goes ;).
And now I'm here, sitting on the balcony, drinking tea, bundled up to keep out the cold and the sickness. I'm going to make tortellini tonight and it's going to be yummmmy. Sadly, since I'm traveling tomorrow and I really want to get well, I have to forgo the weekly all-nighter at Kagan tonight :(. I'm sure it'll be ok ;). Maybe I'll watch a movie! :) Sounds good!
Anyway, the weather here is suprising me again. It's been chilly for the past 3 days, and I don't think that's helping me get well, but I'm staying bundled up. Germans have this thing about keeping their necks covered so as not to get sick/so that they get better from being sick. I have embraced this German trait. I think it's helping a bit haha.
Also, Harry Potter 6 comes out here soon and I can't wait to see it! I've recently found out that they always show the movies here a few times in English, so a big group of us is going to see it! Yay can't wait!!! And tomorrow I'm going home with Maude to Switzerland!! Should be a really great, relaxing time!
Alright.... time for a get-well nap (that's how I'm excusing away all my napping lately haha)! Until next time!!....
Cheers,
Alaina
Anyway, Monday was full of laundry! Three loads! OMG! But it's nice to have everthing clean again haha. After laundry, I slept more and ended up cooking myself some veggies and rice. A bunch of people grilled for dinner, so I hung out with them and snagged some food- yum!! I wore a green dress that I haven't worn yet and everyone complimented it, which was nice considering I was sick haha. We pretty much just hung around the guest house all night and I went to bed by 11:30 because of the sickness.
Tuesday was also quite a chill day- because I was sick, I skipped school and slept allllll day. At 5 pm, I went to drink coffee/tea with Sarah and Maude at Aspekt. Ice and Nassim showed up and by 6 pm, they were heading back to the guest house and I went on my way to meet Andrew for dinner (date #3? or 5??? who knows haha). We actually ate at Aspekt, and it was delicious! Tomato mozarella baguettes.... yum! It was a really great time- we always just bullshit for a good hour- and as we were walking back, we ran into Sarah, Maude, Ice and Nassim, who were eating outside at some restaurant. It was a little awkward. Andrew and I parted ways and then I headed to Neukauf for some orange juice. I ran into Nikita and Kathi, who were buying my two favorite things- wine and cheese! They invited me to their room for wine, cheese and Frasier and I couldn't turn it down! Some wine turned into more wine and next thing I know, I'm (along with Nikita) teaching a bunch of non-Americans (Kathi, Nassim, Sarah and Maude) how to play Kings. Needless to say, it was a good night. We made our way to the Greek restaurant, which is a 30 second walk from our dorm. We accidentally met up with a bunch of other people and had a good time just doing nothing. We all went back to the dorm and then Maude and I decided to go for a walk around the block. Nice.
Wednesday, we all went to class late (except for Sean who is always on time and Nassim who never goes haha) and it was boringly long day. After class, I bought honey and tea to help my throat and some Bounty because I was craving coconut (weird!) and relaxed with Sean on the balcony for a bit. Then, I took a nice, long nap and felt very refreshed afterward. I made some food (again veggies with rice haha) and drank a lot of tea. Kathi, Nikita and I watched part of Watchmen, but that movie is long. We paused it for a bit, and I shared a glass of wine with Kevin on the balcony. Kathi made Nikita (and me!) some food (which was delicious) and then we watched more of Watchmen, but by then it was about time to go to the bar for Sean's girlfriend's (Amanda) birthday! It was a pretty good night- I had a few drinks but stayed under control, because I'm sick, hung out with Maude all night, and went to bed happy.
Today at school we had a test. Nothing too difficult- I'm sure I passed ;). After class, I went to Aldi to get some cheap food (I'll be eating for a 4 days on 10 Euro of food haha) and also picked up some cough medicine that a friend from class (Alex, from Russia) recommended to me. I'll let you all know how it goes ;).
And now I'm here, sitting on the balcony, drinking tea, bundled up to keep out the cold and the sickness. I'm going to make tortellini tonight and it's going to be yummmmy. Sadly, since I'm traveling tomorrow and I really want to get well, I have to forgo the weekly all-nighter at Kagan tonight :(. I'm sure it'll be ok ;). Maybe I'll watch a movie! :) Sounds good!
Anyway, the weather here is suprising me again. It's been chilly for the past 3 days, and I don't think that's helping me get well, but I'm staying bundled up. Germans have this thing about keeping their necks covered so as not to get sick/so that they get better from being sick. I have embraced this German trait. I think it's helping a bit haha.
Also, Harry Potter 6 comes out here soon and I can't wait to see it! I've recently found out that they always show the movies here a few times in English, so a big group of us is going to see it! Yay can't wait!!! And tomorrow I'm going home with Maude to Switzerland!! Should be a really great, relaxing time!
Alright.... time for a get-well nap (that's how I'm excusing away all my napping lately haha)! Until next time!!....
Cheers,
Alaina
Monday, July 6, 2009
Just beat it!
Hey everyone! Happy 4th of July Saturday!!!! :) Hope it was great for everyone- I'm sad that I missed the traditional fireworks and other festivities... but we still managed to celebrate.
Anyway, last Tuesday was just chill- nothing too exciting happened. Except! I made a delicious dinner for Sean and myself- rice with sauteed mushrooms in some packaged sauce (which Nassim passed along to me)! Yum yum!
Wednesday was really fun. Class was class, as usual, but we (Maude, Sean, Anna [FL] and Derek [CA]) actually tried to make it to the Seepark on Wednesday, couldn't find it, turned around and then it started DOWNPOURING on us. Luckily I had my umbrella and a towel (since we were trying to reach the beach) so I stayed moderately dry, but it was baddd. We got back, changed and just hung out until the evening when we decided to take over "Stammtisch". The big night at Stammtisch is Tuesday night, so on Wednesday NO one was there except for our group (Kathi, Nikita, Nassim, Ice, Maude, Sarah, Sabri, Paulina) and we got to play pool and dance around the place. They were playing a lot of classic rock, so I enjoyed dancing around by myself and I ALMOST beat Sabri in pool (it got down to the 8 ball), but I think it was a fluke because I play pool worse than I bowl.
Thursday, we again planned to go to the Seepark, but actually didn't try. I, instead, met up with Andrew in the city and we got ice cream and coffee and did a little shopping. It ended up downpouring, as usual, so the Seepark wouldn't have happened anyway. When I got back to the dorm, Kathi and Sean were waiting for me and questioned where I was. I cooked a really yummy dinner (sauteed veggies, rice and cheese- yes, I'm quite the chef nowadays) and then took a nap. Also this day, Sean's girlfriend Amanda arrived in Freiburg. In the evening, we hung around at the pizza party for a while and then the group headed out to Kagan. It was David's (Spain) birthday, so a lot of people were in town and it was a good night.
Friday, class was long and difficult- but I made it through! Afterward, I took a very long, satisfying nap, but the evening was still pretty chill. Maude, Sean, Amanda, Kevin, Viv (Kevin's girlfriend) and Halldor headed out to the Schlossberg Biergarten for a lovely view and a beer. After that, the group split and half went to get Schnitzel. Let me tell you, the Schnitzel was great! I'll definitely be going back soon. While we were out, I saw Andrew randomly in the city! Funny! So... Maude and I had hoped to watch Slumdog Millionaire in French with English subtitles (I have seen the movie enough times to know what's going on haha) but it didn't quite happen because this really strange movie about aliens was on TV and dubbed in German (it was bad). So I went to bed at midnight.
Saturday I woke up and made coffee. It was a nice, chill morning on the balcony and I enjoyed it. The day was also quite lovely as Maude, Sean, Amanda and I finally made it to the Seepark. Swimming was perfect and I got a little bit of color. Between 2-6 pm, clouds started rolling in so we decided to pack up (but it didn't actually rain! miracle!!). Once we got back, Maude and I finally watched Slumdog with Sabri and Nassim (playing his video game). As always, it was sehr gut! So, since it was the 4th, we had some plans. We changed and then headed out to this American-themed party at a brewery in the area. It was very nice and I enjoyed celebrating with my fellow Americans!! The walk home was very nice as people were everywhere and on a whim/as a joke, our whole group stopped by the local sex store to check it out! HAHA! Once we got back, we changed and headed out and it was a boring night. We ended up at Agar but not a lot of our friends were there, so it was a pretty early night. But! While we were out, I saw Andrew twice around the city!!! We've been in the same city for 1.5 months and I had never seen Andrew around the city until this week and I saw him two days in a row!! haha
Sunday was also relaxing. Maude and I went swimming again which was a very good decision as it has been super hot all weekend. We got back, and ate, for our first time, at the Greek restaurant that is a 30 second walk from our dorm. It was delicious and totally worth the 7,50 Euro!! After that, we pretty much just chilled- we took a 15 minute nap on the terrace, in the sun, which was lovely and just bummed around the guesthouse with friends. At 11 pm, Maude took the S-Bahn home, and I waited with her at the stop, since it was so late. After that, I went to bed because I was beat, and getting sick.
Today, the impending, inevitable, feared sickness has finally reared its ugly head. I could barely talk in class, and it was miserable, so I left early to get some rest. After a small nap, I woke up to finish this blog entry. Sean has offered to do my laundry for me, since he is super nice haha, and I have to rest up so that we can actually make it to the Weinfest tonight (but it'll still be an early, easy night)!
Anyway, Freiburg is very hot nowadays. We keep trying to find ways to cool off, and so far it has been swimming and being lazy. Part of everyday is sunny and super hot, just like it is rainy haha. But all is well here. I'm getting to know some people better but I'm starting to feel a little homesick, especially now that I'm not feeling well. It's nothing too dramatic, though.
Also, it's hilarious because since his death, it's been Michael Jackson 24/7 over here. Same for you guys?
This coming weekend, I'm going home with a friend, Maude, which is a pretty funny concept because she's studying in a foreign country but can still go home for a weekend. She lives in the French part of Switzerland, so I'm really excited!
Well... love and miss you all! Hope all is well!! :)
Until next time!
Cheers,
Alaina
Anyway, last Tuesday was just chill- nothing too exciting happened. Except! I made a delicious dinner for Sean and myself- rice with sauteed mushrooms in some packaged sauce (which Nassim passed along to me)! Yum yum!
Wednesday was really fun. Class was class, as usual, but we (Maude, Sean, Anna [FL] and Derek [CA]) actually tried to make it to the Seepark on Wednesday, couldn't find it, turned around and then it started DOWNPOURING on us. Luckily I had my umbrella and a towel (since we were trying to reach the beach) so I stayed moderately dry, but it was baddd. We got back, changed and just hung out until the evening when we decided to take over "Stammtisch". The big night at Stammtisch is Tuesday night, so on Wednesday NO one was there except for our group (Kathi, Nikita, Nassim, Ice, Maude, Sarah, Sabri, Paulina) and we got to play pool and dance around the place. They were playing a lot of classic rock, so I enjoyed dancing around by myself and I ALMOST beat Sabri in pool (it got down to the 8 ball), but I think it was a fluke because I play pool worse than I bowl.
Thursday, we again planned to go to the Seepark, but actually didn't try. I, instead, met up with Andrew in the city and we got ice cream and coffee and did a little shopping. It ended up downpouring, as usual, so the Seepark wouldn't have happened anyway. When I got back to the dorm, Kathi and Sean were waiting for me and questioned where I was. I cooked a really yummy dinner (sauteed veggies, rice and cheese- yes, I'm quite the chef nowadays) and then took a nap. Also this day, Sean's girlfriend Amanda arrived in Freiburg. In the evening, we hung around at the pizza party for a while and then the group headed out to Kagan. It was David's (Spain) birthday, so a lot of people were in town and it was a good night.
Friday, class was long and difficult- but I made it through! Afterward, I took a very long, satisfying nap, but the evening was still pretty chill. Maude, Sean, Amanda, Kevin, Viv (Kevin's girlfriend) and Halldor headed out to the Schlossberg Biergarten for a lovely view and a beer. After that, the group split and half went to get Schnitzel. Let me tell you, the Schnitzel was great! I'll definitely be going back soon. While we were out, I saw Andrew randomly in the city! Funny! So... Maude and I had hoped to watch Slumdog Millionaire in French with English subtitles (I have seen the movie enough times to know what's going on haha) but it didn't quite happen because this really strange movie about aliens was on TV and dubbed in German (it was bad). So I went to bed at midnight.
Saturday I woke up and made coffee. It was a nice, chill morning on the balcony and I enjoyed it. The day was also quite lovely as Maude, Sean, Amanda and I finally made it to the Seepark. Swimming was perfect and I got a little bit of color. Between 2-6 pm, clouds started rolling in so we decided to pack up (but it didn't actually rain! miracle!!). Once we got back, Maude and I finally watched Slumdog with Sabri and Nassim (playing his video game). As always, it was sehr gut! So, since it was the 4th, we had some plans. We changed and then headed out to this American-themed party at a brewery in the area. It was very nice and I enjoyed celebrating with my fellow Americans!! The walk home was very nice as people were everywhere and on a whim/as a joke, our whole group stopped by the local sex store to check it out! HAHA! Once we got back, we changed and headed out and it was a boring night. We ended up at Agar but not a lot of our friends were there, so it was a pretty early night. But! While we were out, I saw Andrew twice around the city!!! We've been in the same city for 1.5 months and I had never seen Andrew around the city until this week and I saw him two days in a row!! haha
Sunday was also relaxing. Maude and I went swimming again which was a very good decision as it has been super hot all weekend. We got back, and ate, for our first time, at the Greek restaurant that is a 30 second walk from our dorm. It was delicious and totally worth the 7,50 Euro!! After that, we pretty much just chilled- we took a 15 minute nap on the terrace, in the sun, which was lovely and just bummed around the guesthouse with friends. At 11 pm, Maude took the S-Bahn home, and I waited with her at the stop, since it was so late. After that, I went to bed because I was beat, and getting sick.
Today, the impending, inevitable, feared sickness has finally reared its ugly head. I could barely talk in class, and it was miserable, so I left early to get some rest. After a small nap, I woke up to finish this blog entry. Sean has offered to do my laundry for me, since he is super nice haha, and I have to rest up so that we can actually make it to the Weinfest tonight (but it'll still be an early, easy night)!
Anyway, Freiburg is very hot nowadays. We keep trying to find ways to cool off, and so far it has been swimming and being lazy. Part of everyday is sunny and super hot, just like it is rainy haha. But all is well here. I'm getting to know some people better but I'm starting to feel a little homesick, especially now that I'm not feeling well. It's nothing too dramatic, though.
Also, it's hilarious because since his death, it's been Michael Jackson 24/7 over here. Same for you guys?
This coming weekend, I'm going home with a friend, Maude, which is a pretty funny concept because she's studying in a foreign country but can still go home for a weekend. She lives in the French part of Switzerland, so I'm really excited!
Well... love and miss you all! Hope all is well!! :)
Until next time!
Cheers,
Alaina
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