Seven Cities, One Week

After returning home from Zurich, we had one week of school before spring break. It's funny, home for me has now been Germany. During this week of school we had our final exam for our German course, which I actually have no idea how I did on that. We still haven't gotten our grades back for that, and I'm not thinking we will at this point in the semester.

The Thursday of this week Ralf and one of his colleagues came to listen to our initial design ideas for our device. After this presentation we then split up into groups of more similarly concentrated ideas. 

Then on Friday, my mom arrived in Bonn. I was very excited to see her. For the rest of my break we had a trip planned around Germany. To make things simpler, I'll just list out the places we went and what we did. 

Saturday: My mom and I took a 5-6 hour train to Berlin. I can't exactly remember what we did each day we were there. We took a walk around the city using an app with a guided tour. We were able to see almost all the highlights: the Brandenburg Gate, The Reichstag, and Museum Island. One morning we went to go eat breakfast at the Reichstag and it was great just getting to roam around on the roof afterwards. We also made a visit to the Victory Column and the Tiergarten, which is kind of like Central Park in New York.  While in Berlin, I got to meet up with an old friend from Kansas, along with her roommate. It was a great coincidence that we were both in the same city at the same time and I only found this out via Facebook. Thank you social media. 

Tuesday: After 3 days or so in Berlin, my mom and I made our way to Munich on another train ride. We arrived at the Hauptbahnhof(Central Station) in the evening and recognized right away that it was the sketchy side of Munich. After this sight I was worried that Munich wasn't going to be a worthwhile city to visit. However, I got to see more of the city another day, and thankfully it was a great city worth visiting. That night I was able to visit with a friend from high school who was an exchange student from Germany. I also met his girlfriend and friend who were also studying abroad in Germany for the semester. Later that night my mom and I made a visit to the famous, Hoftbrauhaus, which was filled with beer and lots of people filled with beer. 

Wednesday: The day after we arrived we made a day trip out to Salzburg, Austria. I was already very excited to see this city with beautiful mountain views. I was not disappointed. Salzburg is beautiful. It easily became one of my favorite cities. It's not too big, although there is a lot of tourism, which I could do without. It's also the hometown of the child prodigy, Mozart. Now I've been to the hometowns of two famous composers.

Thursday: This was the day my mom and I got to actually explore more of the city. We visited the open market, complete with a may pole and tents selling various foods and crafts. We made the trip out to the olympic stadium where we saw numerous people out running, riding their bikes and walking their dogs. We also saw the deserted stadium filled with bright green chairs, where the track and field events took place. We were also able to climb up the stairs of St. Peter's church in Marienplatz, where we were able to look over the expansive city.

Friday: Before leaving the Munich area, we made the trip out to the Dachau Concentration Camp. My mom had been there once, about 25 years ago, and she only recognized parts of it. We walked around a bit on our own before we met for a group tour of the camp. It was very surreal to be there and hard to imagine or grasp the events that took place in the longest running concentration camp. From here we began our journey to the medieval town of Rothenburg. We arrived at our bed and breakfast and shortly after we went on the famous Night Watchman tour. The Watchman took us around the inner city and explained the duties of the Night Watchman as well as the history of the town.

Saturday: In the morning, my mom and I explored the tourist-filled town on our own. We browsed through the shops of homemade goods and made our way back to the train station to continue our trip of mother-daughter bonding. From Rothenburg we arrived at our 6th city, Bacharach. While here we only spent the night and got an overlooking view of the town in the morning. Walking to our Inn, we could tell that the town was less of a tourist attraction now than in its former glory. That night we ate dinner at the inn's restaurant, where we had the choice of ordering wine from the local wine country. I had a sweet and fruity wine, which seems to be the only wine my tastebuds can handle.

Sunday: We took the train from Bacharach to the town of Mozelkern. Our only purpose for visiting this town was to hike one hour out to the Burg Eltz castle. Once arriving at the castle, we took a tour, where we could see furniture and tapestries and cookware that was up to 500 years old. At one point in the tour, my mom leaned over to me and said, "I can't tell who's more bored, you or that teenage boy over there with the unamused look on his face." I wasn't too entertained by the tour, but I'm glad we were able to do something my mom wanted. After the tour we had to hike back fast enough to catch our train. We managed to cut an estimated one hour hike to 35 minutes by frantically running and fast-walking. We headed to Cologne that night so my mom could see the Dom. By doing this, we definitely saved the best for last and my mom was not disappointed. We spent the night there and my mom left early in the morning to catch her flight in Frankfurt, while I slept in and took the train to class.

Monday: Spring break is over, my mom is gone, and back to the somewhat reality of classes returning. I say somewhat reality because it's still hard to believe that I'm studying abroad here.

The Smell of Canals and Heineken

Yet again, I have failed to stay up to date on my blog posts, what a shocker. There's much that has happened since my lost post and I'm trying to decide what to write about first. Let's see, there's the trip to Amsterdam or Zurich or Spring Break or the other 4 weeks I've missed. Wow, that's a lot. You'd think chronological order would make the most sense. Yeah sure, let's do that. Although, I'm probably missing a lot of the details from my trips since it was weeks ago. 

So Amsterdam, I went there with Elaine, Reagan, Shawn, Rahil, and Gunnar. The first thing I think of from this trip is this zipline we found in a park near the city center. It seems now that everywhere we go we find some type of playground. We decided to take turns going down it with Gunnar's GoPro. It was hilarious. Especially when Elaine would go and get to the end of the line and she'd be going so fast that the line would jerk her back and her arms and legs would flail everywhere, it was great.  

Oh, another thing about this trip. It was the first, and only time so far, that we've had any difficulty. We got to the hostel and the guy at the desk(I'm not sure what his title was, so I'll just call him that) was saying that we hadn't paid yet, which we thought we already did. It was all charged to Shawn's card. The guy behind the desk said that we couldn't check in till we paid there. It was frustrating. So, we decided to go get some food at a nearby place and come back when Shawn could get ahold of his parents so he could confirm that the card was charged. 

We came back and it all worked out, but the atmosphere was a little tense. So, we go up to our room and we all agree that the shower is pretty sketch because there is nothing blocking the water from getting all over the bathroom. Most of us decided we wouldn't shower while there. Don't worry, we didn't reek of BO or anything, we were only there for 1 or 2 nights. 

Let's see, other things we did. We took a tour at the Heinekine(sp), since Amsterdam was where it was invented. Gunnar, Reagan and I went to the Van Gogh Museum and I was able to see my favorite painting, which was pretty stinkin' exciting! We weren't allowed to take pictures, unfortunately, so I wasn't able to capture this momentous moment with a picture of me cheesin' next to it. By the way, the painting is called 'Almond Blossoms.'

From there I went to church at one of my sister churches. I managed to navigate public transportation and get to the right stop to meet my friend. The intercom on the tram was in Dutch, which was really the first time I heard it spoken since in Amsterdam. The city is very internationalized, so English was what I heard most often.  While at church I met a fellow Aggie, which was very exciting! We're everywhere! 

Switzerland: Home to Beautiful Views and All Things Expensive

Here's the second post of my binge blogging session to make up for my laziness the past few weeks. This one is going to be about our trip to Zurich. This trip was actually a blind booking, meaning that we were given a selection of cities to travel to on the eurowings website and we wouldn't figure out where wee were going until after we paid. This time it turned out to be Zurich. 

Let me tell you something. Everything you hear about Switzerland being expensive is very, very accurate. We noticed this when we first got to Zurich and we were looking for a place to eat. We weren't finding anything under maybe 18 Franks( 1 US dollar = 1 Swiss Frank). By the end of this trip, we realized that 18 was not a bad price for a meal. A burger from the Burger King at the train station is 16 CHF(Swiss Franks, I don't understand the symbol for it either). 

When we arrived in Zurich it was very overcast, which was disappointing because we weren't able to see the Alps that surrounded the city. On our first day there we went on a free city walk tour. It was very informational and I definitely learned things about the history that I would not have heard if I didn't go on the tour. Compared to most other big European cities there didn't seem to be many historical monuments in Zurich. Even though there may not be much to see in Zurich, in regards to the previous statement, it's a beautiful city in the mountains with all sorts of cobblestone alleys scattered throughout. My favorite part of the city is Lindenhof, a park that has a great overlook of the city on the river. That's definitely where I got my most instagram-worthy pictures. 

That next day a few of us went to the Rhine falls, which is close to the Swiss/German border. It's said to be the largest waterfall in all of Europe. When we got there, though, we all were wondering in what regard this waterfall was the largest because it certainly couldn't be the tallest. We hypothesized that maybe it had the largest amount of water going through it or that maybe it is the widest. While here, we were able to hike all around the area to get different views of the falls. Our train ride there was very interesting, in that, there'd be parts where it was snowing and then in the next few minutes we'd be in the sun. Very strange, but very entertaining we thought.