another rainy Tuesday

and rainy rest of the week, for that matter. Freiburg is supposed to have the best weather in germany, but aside from this weekend (sunny and temperatures almost reaching 80, I do believe!) all we've gotten is rain. And more rain. And even more rain. And it'll rain the rest of the week. Cross your fingers for me, we're going to Paris this weekend, I hope so much it isn't raining there!
As for happenings, Saturday not much happened. Hung around. Oh! We made tacos w/ Dominik! Who is now a big fan of those too ;-) So yay for that. Sunday was GORGEOUS (saturday too but I slept most of the day... go figure) and so I took a run around the area. It was absolutely wonderful, but almost verging on the hot side of things. I mean, it wasn't hot. but it was close. And fall is in full swing so the trees are all sorts of colors and the pretty leaves covered the roads (now they're just dead leaves mushed in water) and it was absolutely beautiful. I would get much more exercise if it would stop raining.
Also! I keep meaning to post this because it is wonderful, but I keep forgetting. 4 out of my 5 teachers names are as follows: Roland (pronounced in a strange way), Volkhard, Klaus, Wolfgang. (the 5th is a woman named Anne) Can you get any more german? I love it! Classes in general are going well. Today we watched Goodbye Lenin in my German glass. yay for that movie! (very good, I recommend it to those of you who haven't seen it). I have lots of work that needs to be done, but I figured I might as well update quickly especially since I'm yelling at Seren for not updating his ;-).

*I've got to see you again*

Nicole and Me at Neuschwanstein

Nicole and Me at Neuschwanstein
Originally uploaded by thalia291.

So, as many of you know, on Friday Nicole and I pulled a "suicide day trip" to Neuschwanstein. Which actually ended up being the best thing EVER. But I'll start at the beginning...
Friday morning we left Freiburg at 12:14am. And then proceeded to take 3 trains to get to Füssen, one of the gateway towns to Neuschwanstein. They actually went quite quickly, although the 2nd was 15 minutes late coming... which is VERY late for German trains. All the people waiting by the gleis(track) were flipping out. But everything was fine. We arrived in Füssen at about 9am and then took a bus to the base of the mountains where Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau are. There, we picked up our tickets and then wandered around while we waited for our tour time. The area surrounding the two castles is absolutely gorgeous, especially now, when the leaves are turning colors and oh, the mountains were just BEAUTIFUL. We took tons of pictures, but you will have to wait for me to post them until I can get nicole's as well.
For the tours, we took them of both castles. First we visited Hohenschwangau which was very interesting because that was where the family actually lived, a private residence to "get away" to. It was cool; filled with all the original furniture and presents that the family was given by all sorts of people. Hohenschwangau actually still belongs to that same family. My favorite part, though, has to be the views. My goodness, I could never be anywhere else if I owned either castle. The views are simply awe inspiring. Unbelievable.
After taking the tour of Hohenschwangau, we walked down that hill and up another mountain to get to Neuschwanstein. Nicole pointed out that Ludwig had to be crazy to build a castle so difficult to get to, although he was probably always pulled in a carriage. When we reached the top, it was crazy because all of a sudden there it was, right in front of us! I still can't believe I was actually there! I was so excited, Nicole laughed at me because I just said, ok. I just need to touch it. And I did :-) Nicole took a picture so I'll show you me touching Neuschwanstein. Then we walked around the outside/courtyard of the castle in the few minutes before our tour started. The tour itself was very interesting, the only problem being that there were a bunch of small children that kept screaming and being loud so that sometimes it was difficult to hear the guide. Ah well. The inside of the castle is just gorgeous. The rooms are unbelieveable. It's sad that the castle was never finished because wow. It wasn't enough :-). There just aren't words to describe how wonderful it was :-)
Next, we walked through the woods, along the steepest path that we walked, to get to the Marienbrücke, from which most of the famous postcard pictures of neuschwanstein are taken. This picture of Nicole and myself is at the Marienbrücke.
After that we walked back down the mountain, looked in a couple of the shops, and then got back on the bus to go to Füssen. In Füssen, we walked around just enough to find a little cafe to sit and eat in, because we hadn't had a real meal yet all day. The one we ended up choosing was adorable and we sat there for, oy, I want to say 2 hours? in anycase, a long while.
Then, we got back on the train and after 4 of those, arrived safe and sound back in Freiburg, at 12:20 Saturday morning.
I just can't say enough how wonderful it was. We couldn't have asked for better weather, and it was just such a good time of year to be there... with everything changing colors and looking gorgeous. The weather was perfect... warm and hardly a cloud in the sky. It was just unbelieveably wonderful. awesome. So, although I've said it a thousand times, it was just unbelievably perfect and unimaginably beautiful. SO worth it. SO SO worth it.
*I had the time of my life!*

A case of the dreary.... Tuesdays?

Yeah so it's Tuesday! Which is my least favorite day of the week because I have 6.5 hours of class. Yessssssssssssss. Although the good news is that Sex and the City and Scrubs are on Tuesday nights ;-) So that makes up for it. almost.
I'm home for my pause inbetween chunks of class and I figured I might as well update because... I'd rather do that than read ;-). Today is rainy and not too cold, but cool, so it just makes me wish I could curl up in bed.
This weekend was very slow and lonely for me. For the first time in approx. 10 years I'm getting homesick. Which I'm sure has to do w/ the cycles of cultural immersion but it's not really missing america. It's missing people. I don't know. regardless, it sucks. Actually though, now that my friends are back from Bonn/Köln and classes are going it's not that bad. Although feel free to send me feel better presents ;-).
On a bright side, I really like my roommates a lot. Dominik and I chatted a bunch this weekend, and we share food/meals a lot. Today I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I guess it's the first time he had seen me eat one, and he was watching me make it with this look on his face, and finally asked, "so that tastes good?" and I said it was delicious and he said that eventually he was going to have to try it. also, Germans just don't eat peanut butter here really, so the first time he had eaten it was when he studied in Ecuador. Very depressing, to imagine a childhood without peanut butter ;-). So I explained to him how wonderful it was and how you could eat it with anything... and he said, oh, so it's just like, butter. and I said yes, but it tastes better, and he laughed. I seem to be laughed at a lot here ;-). Then again, I'm laughed at a lot at home too, so I guess that's not a huge difference.
Speaking of understanding, about 45 min ago this guy buzzes me because no one else is home and was delivering a bike for Leander. But I could barely understand him because it took him forever to just say leander's name (it's not really a common name here either ;-)) and then he eventually called leander after I insited that he wasn't here... and proceeded to say, "I'm talking to some girl who doesn't understand me... blah blah blah." So I felt stupid. It would almost have been better if I really hadn't understood. the problem was, I couldn't get across clearly enough that I wasn't sure if it was legal for me to sign for the bike or not. Blah. So now I bet Leander thinks I'm stupid. oh well :-). More reasons I should speak more german ;-).
On another bright side, I'm probably going to Munich/Neuschwanstein this weekend! hooray! Details to follow, but Nicole will definitely go with me and maybe Christine will too. So celebration! I'm so excited! Hopefully it'll have stopped raining by then.
I feel happy, I feel happy, I feel...*thud*

Berlin Update! (Endlich!)

Ok so I figure it's about time for me to let you all know about my adventures in Berlin. So here is what will probably be the longest post ever written... I'm pretty much copying it out of my journal so I'm sorry if some of it doesn't make sense?
aaaaaaaaaand we're off!
Sunday: I accidentally set my alarm for 6 pm instead of am (brilliant, just brilliant) so I didn't wake up until they buzzed me literally 5 minutes before we had to be at the strassenbahn stop. So we're talking, lightning fast getting ready. I honestly don't know how I did it. Fortunately, I had pretty much everythign packed already. Unfortunately, I got halfway down the street and brent reminded me that I forgot my passport (which we had to have with us to get into the Bundeskanzleramt) so i literally had to sprint all the way back and then sprint to the strassenbahn stop. In the morning, when it was very cold. Seriously, no clue how i did this. I do know that sitting on the strassenbahn I was definitely tasting blood from breathing so much cold air. But it's all good :-). Fast forward a VERY long busride. (like, 9-10 hours). Full of hearts, euchre (yay for like, all of my friends (minus Jayme and Krista) being from the midwest!) and Siedler playing. After having arrived in Berlin, we went to an italian place to eat and then back to the hotel. Speaking of hotels (really youthhostel) and german showers, dear goodness do they always make it as complicated as possible. The knob was litterally one of those timed things that you had to keep pushing every couple of minutes. Fabulous.
Monday: The day was cold and rainy, but it wasn't too bad because we took a bus tour of the important touristy things, starting with the Protestant Cathedral and surrounding buildings/museums. (Pictures can be seen on my site). We also saw the old royal buildings and the Palace of the Republic (for former east germany). Next we visted the Brandenburger Tor, which I think is just the coolest thing ever, and then drove through Checkpoint Charlie onto Potsdamer Platz. After hanging out there for a while we drove by the Reichstag and other parliament buildings, as well as the road that many diplomatic houses were on. In the afternoon we visited the Bundesamt für Statistik (center for federal statistics) and took naps. That evening we decided to go out exploring so we went to Kurfürstendammstrasse (ku-damm for short). Kudamm is very interesting because it looks very american... walking down the street I almost feel like I'm walking down michigan avenue. almost ;-). We ate dinner there, and went on to Potsdamer Platz, which looks amazing at night all lit up! (again, I refer you to pictures ;-)). From there we walked back to the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag for night pictures. It was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, my camera battery died as I was taking pictures of the Reichstag which resulted me standing in the middle of the lawn in front of it screaming not very nice words. oops. :-). So the rest of the week I was without a camera so you have everyone else to thank for those pictures. To top it off, on our way home we got on the wrong S-bahn and ended up having to walk for like an hour through not so great a part of East Berlin (our hostel was in an old factory). I just can't explain how frightened I was. I could barely breathe the whole time. fortunately, there were a bunch of us and all that stuff, I just worry too much sometimes :-)
Tuesday: Began by visiting the Wannsee conference house (where a conference that they have documented took place that is one of the few places where they actually discussed the "final solution to the Jewish question" ... sorry, they = the nazis). Then we went back to Kudamm for lunch followed by a tour through the "Story of Berlin" audio-visual museum. Which was very cool and interested except in ended in a tour through an actual nuclear shelter - interesting, but frightening because they had very strange sound effects playing and even stranger lighting. For dinner, we went to a Thai restaurant. I am still unsuccessful in my quest to find Pad Thai here. I miss it so much and I don't know what they call it here, or even if they have it here. I'm beginning to think it's a made-for-america dish. Then we played pool downstairs, the 2nd floor of the former factory is a bar. (the hotel/hostel doesn't start until the 3rd floor) And that's it for tuesday.
Wednesday: Went to Potsdam and walked around the town before visiting Schloss Sans Souci (means: without worry) which was built by Frederick der Grosse. It was pretty, but also very extravagant. In the evening, we were tired so stayed in and played Siedler and cards and just hung out. Matt and Megan went back into the town together and took some really nice pictures of the top of the Reichstag, also to be seen on my site :-).
Thursday: Visited the bundeskanzerlamt. which is ummmmmm, like the white house sort of. Basically, it's where the offices of Schroeder and various Ministers are. It was actually pretty nice inside. Highlight of the tour, when our guide said "This trainstation has been in the works since 1910 but there were some wars and a wall that got in the way." hahaha!. right. ok. We ate lunch in Potsdamer Platz, then visted an art museum full of Picassos, Matisses and Klees. Some were nice but I'm just not a huge fan of abstract art... I prefer impressionist stuff, like Monet, etc. however, it was free so no big deal. As Brent, Jayme, me and Matt (I think that's who it was) were waiting outside, a film crew for some german news station asked us to pretend to be walking out of the museum so we were on german news! woohoo! Then we went and hung out in Kadewe (huge mega store thing, but like, very upscale one) and afterwards went back to Checkpoint charlie and took some pictures and such. That night we went to a bar that had cheap cocktails but was kind of strange. There was a bed in the bar. Even stranger: the bed had handcuffs on the headboard. Very odd. But, it was fine while we were there, at least, nothing creepy or out of the ordinary happened.
Friday: We took a tour of the Documentation center for the Berlin Wall. Which was cool because they rebuilt a replica of how the wall looked at the end of its era, w/ deathstrip and all. Very interesting. In the afternoon we took a tour of topographie des terrors, which talked about the nazis and the ss and such. Very very interesting. Friday night we saw the Blue Man Group, which was AWESOME. Then we wanted to climb up the Reichstag so we started walking in that direction, but on our way we ran into the Fest for the Day of German Reunification... and the amazing performance of THE CLOGS!!!!! Think.... queen but even stranger. The lead singer wore a robe at the end. Seriously. they were awesome. Not exactly the greatest, musically wise, but just hilarious and awesome. They can only be understood when you see the pictures of them. Also the picture of me, Jayme and Krista on the screen! Because we are awesome and Brent managed to get a clear picture of us on it. So that was super exciting. We weren't able to go up the Reichstag cause there were just too many people, but oh well.
Saturday: didn't do all that much, Walked around Alexanderplatz and surrounding area in the morning, then went to Kudamm yet again. Later, we went back to the Fest and hung out there before Jayme, Brent, Krista and I waited in line to climb up the Sunday: drove home, blah blah blah.
So that's my trip to Berlin :-) woohoo! I hope you enjoyed reading about it! (if you even got this far!) Soon, I will update on stuttgart. my fingers need a break from typing though.
*humming song from an ebay commercial here*

Semester-Beginn Party

... is their big party for all the first semester students to come and dance and have fun. So, because approx. everyone I know is in Bonn/Köln this weekend, I decided to go w/ Charlie (also american and w/ IES) and my two guy roommates.
It started out as a pretty nice evening: Charlie brought down some wine and we had nice chit chatting time for about an hour, get to know you time. Then we went to the party which turned out to be just a party of waiting. We had to wait like an hour standing in line to get tickets to get inside. Then we had to wait to put up coats, and wait to get drinks, and it was just lame. There were far too many people to be able to really move, and since everyone came in groups there really wasn't that much of meeting people. I did eventually meet one guy, who was italian and nice but somewhat almost creepy? Not really, but after talking to him for like, 15 min I said Ihad to go meet Dominik and Leander (Charlie we lost while waiting for drinks. Seriously. The most packed crowds ever) and so I left to go stand by our meeting point. Just my luck, the italian guy found me again and while waiting offered that if I couldn't find my friends I could just spend the night with him and his friends in the youth hostel in Freiburg. Let me tell you how hard that was to turn down. Fortunately, Dominik appeared in a couple of minutes and we left shortly thereafter.
Moral of the story: smaller parties are so much more fun. don't go to parties by yourself, it sucks. the safety of having a circle of girls around, to save you from creepy guys and to have fun with, just can't be beat. mmmmm. unless it's a circle of really hot guys ;-).
*are these times contagious?*

Quick evening update

So I now have my 3rd and final roommate: Leander (?) I think that's his name. He seems nice enough but we didn't really talk or hang out that much. Another good thing, Dominick plays the guitar and he's actually pretty decent. like, he's playing right now and I can hear him and it's pretty cool.
Mmmmm that's it.
*still singing lover boy* ;-)

Berlin Pictures

Pictures from berlin are finally uploaded! See and enjoy. http://community.webshots.com/user/thalia291
Life is going pretty well here I guess. I have a new roommate: Dominick. He's nice and friendly, so that's good. Tonight he is cooking some Bavarian specialty (he's from Munich) so I'm happy at least that I don't have to cook :-). Except I'm really hungry right now and I think I just heard him say on the phone that he didn't have any hunger pains. So bleh. Maybe I'll eat some joghurt to tide me over.
Speaking of food and appliances, man do I miss American washing machines and dryers and oh my goodness, do you REALIZE what a wonderful invention the microwave was?! Like, it is the most frustrating appliance to be missing. Reheating leftovers in an oven takes FOREVER and also stuff is just so much EASIER to make. Grrrrrrr.
I promise to update on Berlin and such this weekend, as I will be doing absolutely nothing. (everyone else is going to Bonn and Köln) So get excited!
*oooooo love, ooooo lover boy*

ok seriously

WHY do they even HAVE all of this stuff LYING AROUND THEIR FRONT YARD?!?!?!!?!?!

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/10/07/babysitter.attacked.ap/index.html

Various things

Ok so I PROMISE I'll write my Berlin update, but it's going to be frikin long so I haven't yet. Also, I don't have pictures yet (for reasons you will discover soon) so that's another reason I haven't. Some of my Berlin experiences were strictly audio-visual. But in a wonderful way. Hahahahaha. I promise, explanations will come soon. Maybe Berlin will have to be many little updates, so I can show pictures and explain.
In anycase, as for this past week, school started. woohoo! Actually, I think it'll go pretty well, none of my classes seem all that difficult. And of course, no classes on friday so I'm finished at 2:30 on thursdays. Yesssssssss.
So yesterday I was good and took my laundry to the laundromat (yay dryers!) which was interesting. First of all, I will never, ever, ever (read: probably) complain about expensive washing/drying machines in america, because to just wash a single TINY load of laundry costs 3,60 euros. Which is roughly, maybe just SLIGHTLY under 5 dollars. They drying is 50 cents (euro) for 15 min. also frikin expensive. But I guarantee you my body will love me when I get to put on non-cardboard underwear, socks and pants.
Then I cleaned the bathroom w/o a shower and the floor of our kitchen. Which took forever to do cause this mop thing is so weird here. it's like a swiffer, but different. You actually have to take the cloth off the plastic part of the mop every few minutes to like hand rinse/wring it out. Then you put it back on the plastic thing (which is difficult and takes skill) and you mop for like a bit, and then you have to do it all over again. I wish I could explain how it works better, but maybe I'll just take a picture story and show that. Then again, that would make me the strangest person in the world. But if you have interest, I'd be glad to.
I'm guessing that's about all I have to share by way of experiences this week. It was pretty slow.
*irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann*