Tomorrow I am going to Rome! I am so excited I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight.

New Job and Some Fun Facts

Yesterday I got a new "job"... although not as official and contracted like my other one, I am getting paid a lot more--$18.66 per hour -- to help someone in English. We'll be meeting about 3 times a week for the next 4 months, except when I am not here, for about two hours each time, to just talk about different topics. My job is to help build his vocabulary, straighten out his pronunciation (the best I can, it's pretty rocky), and BUILD HIS CONFIDENCE!! Most of the things that come out of his mouth are "hesitance" words, like "uh" and "um"... I hope I recognize some progress after working with him a few months.

I spent most of today sitting in front of my computer trying to finish an assignment. I needed news articles to complete it, which required some web-surfing skills... here's some of the interesting things I learned today while surfing the web, just some more nonsense to float around in my head:

1. Britney Spears' 16-year-old sister is pregnant and engaged
2. the Space Shuttle came back down last night
3. in the UK, there's a plus-size beauty queen from Surrey who is determined to beat the skinny girls in a national pageant
4. France has a new president
5. Christie's in NY will be auctioning off a nude photograh of France's new president's new wife in April.
6. It costs about 15 Euro and takes about 3.5 hours by regional train to get from Rome to Florence
7. The dollar has weakened even MORE... each one of my Euros is now worth almost $1.56



That is all........
Caitlin

Ingolstadt: Only the Strong Survive

Yesterday was a fun day. First, Gaby and I went to the fitness center and I participated in a kick-butt circuit training course--today, I am sore ALL OVER. I lifted actual barbells! My butt, chest, quads, arms, abs...everything hurts! Gaby did sort of a yoga/pilates type class afterward, but I really couldn't follow well so I sort of watched most of the time.

Later that afternoon we all went for a walk. Maxi was in a bad mood. We went to a playground in the neighborhood and I slid down the slide! It was super duper cold outside, but it felt good to get out of the house. We sort of hung out for the rest of the evening.

This morning after we all finally got ready, Maria and I took the bus into the city and I bought myself a bathing suit. Down south it is kind of roomy, but I hate it when my caboose hangs out or causes me to have a muffin top... the reason I needed a bathing suit was because the one I had ordered last week has not yet arrived... well anyway the one I picked out is super cute--a bikini--and I must admit I looked pretty damn good in it. Perhaps all that sweat was worth something after all.

I also needed a bathing suit because today we went to the indoor swimming complex. I had never been to anything like that before, except Wet n' Wild, but that is all outdoors. It was really a neat place--a wave pool, some cool slides, an outdoor heated pool, a lap pool, and some areas just to lounge. I jumped into the lap pool and found myself for a brief moment partially in my birthday suit... it could have been a lot worse. We also found two bits (morsels?) of human excrement in the wave pool and promptly exited. I would have preferred to completely vacate the premises in that instance, but alas! I could not. At first, I must admit it was hard to get used to swimming with hundreds of other people. But then I just imagined all the recently shed skin cells, toe jam, and dandruff floating around in the pool right along with me, and, delighted by the fabulous company, I perked up.

Here is a pic of Gaby, Maria, and I at the swimming complex:
This morning the whole neighborhood was covered in snow! The snow was still falling and it was windy outside. How weird that it is snowing in March! Later, the wind really picked up and it really seemed like a blizzard to me! I like the word blizzard.

Tomorrow morning I am headed back to Koblenz.....just for a while though, then its back on the road for me!

Cheers,
Caitlin

Easter in Ingolstadt...

Well yesterday I took the train down to good ol' Bavaria... took a while, almost 6 hours, but it went by really really fast. The others went to the catholic church, ähm...festivities, and I stayed home. They actually recommended I stay home. So I did :-)!

This morning I actually got to look for a few Easter eggs with the kids. Gaby considers me one of the kids in a way :-) I say that with utmost enthusiasm and joy. I gave most of my chocolate eggs to Max and Maria.

We went to the zoo in Munich today, that was a great zoo!! Here is a pic of me with one of the monkeys (click on the pictures to make them bigger):It was quite ironic that I had a banana with me at the time, actually... we even considered charging 50 cents to allow people to take pictures holding my banana next to the statues.

After a while, my cousins got so sick of having me around, they decided to get rid of me as soon as they found a trash can I'd fit into.

I helped Gaby make schnitzel for dinner when we got home, and we are about to go watch King Kong in TV. It should be a genuinely exciting evening. Tomorrow, I'm going to the gym with Gaby where I will be participating in her allegedly very difficult circuit training course--I am actually looking forward to it... hopefully, it will perk me up because I am VERY tired! Today, I had too much chocolate and NO exercise... so I wonder why I'm tired!?

I have uploaded a few videos from the zoo onto Facebook--pretty funny stuff. The cousins are constantly downloading stuff which makes it unfortunately impossible, or nearly so, to upload my pictures here--I really don't know why videos work--so I will have to wait on those until next week...

To my faithful reader (or readers, if you so exist), I hope you had a pleasant Easter and remember what it is we are celebrating-- Jesus is RISEN!


Cheers,
Caitlin

...ok, let's think positive.

I don't get it!! The weather is nice again. What is UP with this place !? It seems like Florida weather. In that case, I should be feeling at home.

I forgot to mention the other day that Hannah told me that there is such thing in the USA as spreadable cheese. I have to admit, that was one thing at the top of my worry-list about coming home--I've grown quite accustomed to spreadable cheese. The thought that I might not have any when I got home really shook me up!!

Looking forward to leaving tomorrow...

Finally finished proofing that text... didn't take me that long overall, its just tedious because I have NO idea what he's trying to say sometimes, and I'm waiting for him to send me the German version so I can translate from that in an effort to figure out what in the world it all means. He said he'd send it this week, and that was last week, and this week's almost over, so he must not be in too much of a hurry to get it done...and in that case, neither am I!

Mom, I had a margarita for you last night... they messed up the order again though so I ended up with a frozen one instead of a Golden one... but it was still better than the time they messed up the order before and I ended up with a strawberry margarita... lol.

On April 1 I am going to go pick up Lea, who is from Australia, at the train station! I'm excited to meet her! She'll be here in Koblenz for the summer, as well.


Gonna get laundry done and clean this place up a bit so I have a nice home when I get back next week...


Feeling a bit more cheerful,
Caitlin

Sometimes, Holidays SUCK

Holidays suck when you are alone, for one. Holidays suck when EVERYTHING IS CLOSED, and you couldn't leave if you wanted to--the buses aren't running barely at all, all the stores are closed...holidays also suck when its gray, raining, and FREEZING outside. This morning was so perfect, barely a cloud in the sky... and an hour later, my hopes for a nice day (for a change!) were shattered...

So here I sit, alone until tomorrow night at 8pm, with literally nothing to do except the things I have to do... wash laundry, pack, finish proofing this paper...all the while clinging desperately to my sanity...

I should write novels.

Back to the Norm

Got back from Paris on Tuesday night. Lucked out and an earlier train had a delay so we got back to Koblenz a bit earlier than sonst and I made the bus. My computer didn't work when I got back, same problem as last time... Wednesday a friend of mine, David, who fixed it last time, came over and it took him 15 seconds to fix the daggam thing. 15 seconds!! He popped out the battery, dusted it off a bit, snapped it back in, and it worked again! Ridiculous!!

Yesterday I was able to check the following important things off of my to-do list:

• extend my residence permit
• got my student ID (AND got it laminated!)
• got a new ISIC card

These things are all annoying things that have to be done in annoying offices during very specific hours. Now I only have to make it to the bank before the end of the month to show them I'm still a student so they don't start charging me for my account there.

My new residence permit pic is so ugly, ha ha... yesterday I wanted to be there at 8am and so I rushed to get ready but did NOT put on any makeup at all. Was first in the office and was told I needed a new picture, UGH. If I had received the right letter from the coordinator in the first place, I would've had my residence permit for two semesters instead of one and I would have saved myself 35 Euros, or over $50!! But, such is life, and I certainly didn't know ahead of time that an extension was going to cost another 30 Euros... so I can't really be too upset.

Last night I had a great looong conversation with Hannah which definitely reminded me why we are friends. We hadn't talked in mooooonths and I think when people don't talk for that long and don't see each other (aside from Facebook!), memories start to fade slightly and you literally forget

Today I am meeting Jenny at 5pm for drinks at happy hour :-) She is a really nice person!! I'm leaving for Ingolstadt on Saturday around 1pm, and I'll be there til Wednesday morning. Then I'm back here till Tuesday, April 1, when I leave for Rome!!!

The time here is going by like flashes of lightning! A speeding bullet! I leave on July 23. Then there are three short weeks before school starts and then...well, school starts! CRAP! Honestly though I am looking forward to getting back into a normal routine in my "regular life".


Caitlin

Yesterday, Versailles--Today, the World!

Yesterday
Vendy and I slept in and took the train to Versailles. It was crowded. We went inside and checked out the garden and then we left and went to Champs Elysees, where we ate tandoori chicken sandwiches at "Quick", which is like the French version of McDonalds, and they were really good... then we bought tickets to see "The Bucket List" for 3,50 ($5) which, if you're not familiar with the cinema in Europe, is DIRT CHEAP. There are no $1 theaters :-( At least that I've seen. The movie was definitely a tear-jerker...

Afterward we headed to the Eiffel Tower to check it out in the dark. It was beautiful--I filmed the twinkling lights come on :-) We headed homeward toward the hotel and stopped at a hole- in-the-wall Turkish place where I had some bad food and an expired soda. I went home happy.

Today
This morning I had a sluggish start, and it occurred to me that I had not done the one thing that everyone needs to do before they leave Paris--go up the Eiffel Tower. So, I got headed out. I went to the Picasso Museum, first, since I hadn't been yet. He's a cool guy--I appreciate modern art more than the Louvre-ish stuff, because this guy and many others-- Dali, as another example--broke the mold. They realized that art can be anything that comes out of their brains, not just what everyone else told them "art" was supposed to be.

I made it to the Eiffel Tower. I met some really nice people from the States in the snake, which went a lot faster because we talked the whole time. We really had a great chat. I paid 12 Euros to wait in a Disney-style snake and talk to Americans, and it was worth it. I gave them my museum pass, which expires after today, but they're going to Barcelona tomorrow and they never check ID on the passes or anything. It'll save 'em a least a little money.

We parted ways and I went to the movies, again, this time alone--on the way I stopped and got a Nutella crepes with fake Nutella... I couldn't even eat the whole thing, hardly half of it, the guy did such a crappy job. Tasted fine, it just fell apart and all the chocolate came out. The only word I could think of to describe it was "garbage"... on the Champs Elysees I bought another crepes and actually got to eat it, ha ha...

I bought a ticket to see "Taken", starring Liam Neeson (was surprised to find that this film won't be released back home until September!!) and it was GREAT... it was about Albanians who had started to kidnap and traffic young female travellers, even selling them to some sick rich folks. Liam Neeson was awesome in this film--really blew Jack Bauer out of the water. I wonder if that sort of thing really happens... the whole film took place in Paris, it was scary!!

Went to see the movie "10,000 B.C." which was definitely different than "Taken"...also a good film. Interesting how they spoke English that long ago ;-) And, if you're not already laughing at me for going to see two films by myself in Paris, it would have been three films if the third wasn't already sold out :-(.

I liked going to see the movies today. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. The cinemas on the Champs Elysees are really nice.

Tomorrow we're headed home... our train doesn't leave til 4pm which really bites, because a certain roomie of mine wanted to spend as much time as possible in Paris, and didn't consider we'd have to have all our stuff with us. Ugh. Such is life, though, and we're stuck here until then, and I might have to wait an hour for the bus in Koblenz. But at least I'll be in my nice, clean, quaint little apartment again tomorrow night, that is, at least til Saturday... I'm going to see the relatives in Ingolstadt for Easter. I'm actually really excited to shave my legs, which I haven't done in over a week, since I didn't want to spend any more time in that shower than I had to... no air!!


Signing off,
Caitlin

Montmartre, Champs Elysees

We met our friend Margriet at Gare du Nord at 10am and headed to Montmartre, which can be described as the "typical" French area in Paris, or as one imagines it. That's where I went last night, so spontaneously, and there were significantly more people there than last night. A ton. Inside the church it wasn't as pretty as last night; no music, way too many humans, just crazy.

Then, we

...spent some time in Montmartre, avoided a slew of black men harassing us and everyone else to buy handmade bracelets (we have sexy booties)...non, merci!... visited the Moulin Rouge, and ate pizza sitting on the steps of the Sacre Coeur listening to a violinist strum a string of beautiful songs. It was romantic in a way.

We took the Metro to the Champs Elysees, a wildly famous shopping street for people with lots of money (or with little money to spend so frivolously). We walked up and down and back up again, ending up on a bench eating Nutella crepes and drinking Coke. Lunch of champions.

Walked around Richville for another hour or so, even past the French president's house (name?), and ended up on the steps of the Madeleine for a bit before heading to Gare Montparnasse where Margriet caught her train at 7:30 back to her hometown.

Tomorrow? Versailles.

Monday? Whatever the heck we want. I think we'll go see original version movies on the Champs Elysees! For some reason in France there's this cinema promo going on where this Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, all showings cost only 3,50. I think we'll see TWO movies.

By Myself in Paris

I was by myself today.

I liked it that way.

1. Breakfast: totally french. Baguette with Camembert cheese... amazing.
2. waited in line for almost an hour to climb 400 stairs up the Towers of Notre Dame. view was great, liked the "gargoyles".
3. Ate Nutella crepes on a park bench by Notre Dame
4. Visited the Museum d'Orsay
5. Ate another baguette with Camembert cheese
6. Visited the Rodin Museum...
7. Bought a trashy novel in the famous bookstore "Shakespeare and Co."
8. Ate expensive ice cream in a little cafe
9. Laid on a park bench near the Eiffel Tower and read some of my bad fiction
10. Caught the metro to Montmartre
11. Visited the Basilica Sacre Coeur in the middle of a Mass, the church is so beautiful and the ambiance during the mass was amazing--they sung and prayed (in french). it didn't even have that churchy musty smell!
12. Browsed cheap gift shops in Montmartre-- realized I got ripped off paying 1 Euro for my Eiffel tower keychain AND 30 cents for postcards... oh well.
13. Ate a cheese and tomato panini for dinner (YUM)
14. Avoided strange black men
15. Took the metro home... i love the metro
    

I climbed a lot of stairs, ate a lot of bread and cheese... and it was fabulous.


Some interesting things about today:

1. in the Musee d'Orsay, this guy got a business call on his cell phone and this older French gentleman/coot starts going off in bad English about how inappropriate it is to have a conversation in the middle of a museum, and after the guy leaves to continue his call elsewhere, the older French gentleman/coot continues going off to the guy's wife, who is obviously feeling a little intimidated by the French gentleman's/coot's audacity to make such a scene...

2. i saw this younger dude on the Metro on the way home and I totally wanted to take a picture of him, his hair was AWESOME.. it was longer, and he just had so much of it... i guess you had to have been there.

3. Musicians like to hang out in metro stations...and on the metros themselves. they even come around with a cup expecting you to give them money for the service, lol... it is kind of neat to have a sax or clarinet in the metro while you're riding, i'll admit

4. I have not had anything stolen from me this entire trip so far

5. I ate too much today and I don't really give a hoot nor holler. French bread and cheese is amazing and i know I'll burn everything off when I get home!



All in all it is really awesome to be able to travel like this. Quite an expensive hobby, i must admit, though. But it's a cool feeling when you suddenly become aware for a moment you're in the middle of a city with so much history. you're really there. I am really here. it was cool today to just sit. i made it a point to just sit. if I felt like doing something, I did it. I wanted to eat bread and cheese, i did it, I wanted to leave the museum, I left. I wanted to buy a book, I did. I wanted to take the stairs instead of the escalator? I DID.

And the whole day, well, it just rocked.

Practicing Brevity in Paris

Today
1. Notre Dame
2. Didn't go up the tower; line too long
3. Crypt underground, not that great
4. Conciergerie, Marie Antoinettes supposed cell
5. Pantheon
6. Tried to go to the Catacombes, but it was closed for renovation. Dumb.
7. Went to the Science Center which was huge and kind of confusing, so I left.
8. Museum of Modern Art (Centre G. Pompidou), lots of crazy stuff made out of anything and everything. My sock taped to a poster board could pass as a masterpiece. They also had some pieces from Picasso, Dali, and Andy Warhol.
9. Went home because my feet hurt.

Other Highlights in the case that anyone is remotely interested

1. I ate chocolate covered waffles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Why? I don't know.
2. Vendy and I split up after the Pantheon, since she doesn't like modern art or science, allegedly, so I went to see those things on my own.
3. French paninis are delicious
4. new pictures online (see links to the left)
5. Rashid's postcard love note just for giggles

Tomorrow
1. Vendy is going to spend the entire day in the Louvre.
2. I plan to...

• go back to Notre Dame to go up the tower
• go to Musee d'Orsay
• go back to Rodin museum (I didn't get to go in last time)
• go to the aquarium
• go to the Louvre last since its open late head back to the Arc de Triomphe and climb up to see the city at night from up there
• go take a picture of the Eiffel Tower at night because it rocks

Caitlin

Parlez vous Francais?

Nope, not me. I don't speak a word of French. And it hasn't been a problem at all! The guy at the reception still practices his German with us, what a funny guy. I think we just LOOK like foreigners, lol... maybe it's my sneakers? Or that I'm carrying a map? Dunno.

I should mention that I'm sitting in the "Ab-Doer" as it's called, in our room :-) So far, we have no roommates. Hope it stays that way :-) The place is small enough already!

Anyway, we got up at 7:15 this morning and were out on the road by 8am... I bought a chocolate croissant which was yummy, and purchased from the first unfriendly Parisian I've met since we arrived here. We first set out to find the Eiffel Tower. We took the Metro closest to us as far as we could and started walking toward the river, since it appeared on the map that the Tower was close to the river. We walked all the way to the river and were about to cross the street when suddenly, Vendy was like "there it is!" and we were looking like dummies the whole time when it was right behind us! We even had walked by it a few times and didn't even notice. So we walked over to it and took a LOT of pictures. The wind was blowing like crazy and it even rained a while while I was munching on my croissant this morning. Not exactly romantic Paris weather.

We walked a while and found the Statue of Liberty... the smaller, 35 foot tall replica of the real thing, which was a gift (pales in comparison!) to France from some Americans. Sweet. It was so windy and although the rain pretty much had stopped and it was sunny, the wind just made us pretty much miserable. It was still cool though, seeing all of the stuff!!

Afterward we wanted to head to the Louvre... we couldn't find the Metro station, so after buying a keychain from a Turkish/Arabic street vendor, I asked him where it was. I gave him a postcard of the Metro map to write on, and he told me exactly which ones we'd have to take to get to the Louvre, and then he turned the postcard over and wrote his phone number and "I like u. kiss. Rashid". I gotta remember to take a picture of it and post it on Facebook; it's hilarious. I just said thanks, awkwardly, and walked away.


Right when we got there, we had no idea where to go. It is simply huge inside, just the reception area! I was actually really hungry, but we didn't eat; we were too excited. In a museum like that, it's really hard to look at everything because there is just so MUCH! And we have only one week, so we knew we had to spend our time wisely. Some of the highlights in the Louvre that we saw include the Mona Lisa, the sculpture of Venus, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. I still would like to see Michelangelo's "The Dying Slave". Saw a lot of stuff I remember from 10th grade (European history!). After a while we decided to leave (I was starving and had a headache because of it). We went to the Concorde square, where the 3300 year-old Egyptian obelisk is, and I bought a ham/cheese crepes. It tasted ok. We sat in metal chairs around the fountain in the Tuilieries gardens. Aside from the wind, it was pretty sweet.

After my lunch, we took the Metro over to the Arc du Triomphe, and climbed to the top! It was really cool (and cold)! You can really see just about everything from up there. The Arc itself is just magnificent; it's in the middle of this roundabout that has about 3 lanes to it, with NO markings--people just drive. It is crazy. Afterwards, we headed back towards the Tuilieries gardens to the Orangerie Museum, where Monet's Waterlilies is housed. For some reason, I thought it was just one painting... well, it's not, it's like 8, and they're HUGE! Outside the museum there is a nice replica of the Rodin sculpture "The Kiss", which I'd never seen before, and, more than anything in the Louvre, this sculpture spoke to me. I just found it so refreshingly romantic and different from so much of the art I'd seen earlier. This inspired us to head to the Rodin museum, where several other such sculptures are located. The garden there is really nice! "The Thinker" is pretty much the most famous one in the garden. We wanted to go inside the museum itself, but they literally shut the door in our faces 5 minutes before closing time, lol...we didn't know it was closing time, ha ha... another rude Parisian, but so far, that's only #2.

We wanted to go to Musee d'Orsay, but it was closing soon, too, so we just decided to head home. We were both totally tired and my feet hurt really bad. We headed back to the hotel and unpacked a bit, and went right back out again in search of a good meal. I'd read in my guidebook about an "alley" nearby that was "crammed wall-to-wall" with Indian, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani eateries, so we decided to seek it out. We found it, but only half of it, and were sort of disappointed in what we saw in regard to the selection. It turns out we completely missed the other half (saw it after we ate), which wasn't labeled "Passage Brady". That area of town had a loooottt of strange lookin' characters in it; I felt a little nervous as it started to get dark. There were lots of black people (don't take this the wrong way), but I just felt nervous, OK!? There were just lots of groups of black men standing around being loud. Lots of black hair salons and nail salons and such. We ended up eating real cheap at this Indian place (which did NOT compare to the Indian food I've eaten before)... we got Tandoori chicken, rice, some vegetable stuff, and a really good cheese "nan" bread. The water is FREE in France!! In Germany, they don't even offer it out of the faucet, and charge you over $3 for 6-7 oz. of the bubbly stuff, ha ha...

Tomorrow we're headed out a little later, since we'd like to see the city center at night.




Caitlin

Paris: First Impressions

Okay, there's wireless in our hotel and it's free, so I brought my laptop. Hooray for staying connected.

After spending about 7 hours traveling/waiting to travel, we arrived in PARIS! The Gare du Nord station is a very busy and crazy train station. We found our way to tourist information and bought our museum passes (they only accept credit cards; I am glad I did not leave mine at home!) and also a 5 day pass for the metro/train/bus. Vendy just gave me the cash, so it was ok. Now I just have to remember to pay my bill; whew, got a lot on that thing now. Since our pass for the metro is only good for 5 days, we didn't want to use it right away, since even though it was already 4pm, today would still count as 1 day. We bought regular tickets for the Metro which, in comparison to Berlin, were cheap (2,10 vs. 1,50). Here, there is absolutely no honor system for the Metro whatsoever. You have to pass through these metal gates that only open after you insert your ticket. It was scary, lol. There's no way to even get down to the Metro station where the trains are without a ticket. Absolutely no way to sneak on.

Anyway, Vendy and I are speaking German on the Metro on the way to the hotel, and the announcer said something and we didn't know what it was, and the lady next to us told us, in German, what he said. I said "thanks, that's very nice of you!" And then she continued to ask us in German where we were from in Germany, and we both told her that we weren't actually German. Well, she found out I was an American and started speaking English and was just thrilled that she could use her English and German in one single ride on the Metro! We got off the train and after a bit of wandering around, we found our hotel. Well, it calls itself a hotel, which is true, but it also has dorm-style rooms with 2 bunks in them. So far, we don't have any roomies...

The hotel is okay. We only got one hand towel a piece, and I asked for another towel and was given two large bath towels... why didn't I get those in the first place? Dunno. The blanket, well, I'm going to stay away from it. The sheets are crisp and clean, which is all I really care about, honestly. The bathroom is about the size of a bath tub... and is not ventilated AT ALL... so when you go in to take a shower, the whole place just steams up and water gets everywhere. I thankfully remembered to pack my flip-flops... there is mildew on the ceiling, in the grout on the tiling, and the shower curtain, too, not to mention it (the curtain) is several different colors. I think its supposed to be white... the guy at the front desk is really nice, too! Had no problems speaking English and also had a grand time practicing the bit of German he knows, and asking me how to say hotel things like "the room is ready", ha ha.

We got our stuff in the room and headed back out into the city. Our hotel is in the Belleview/Bastille district, which is mainly residential but has a few attractions, just nothing too major. I bought myself a panini from a little Stube on the street; it was just so yummy! I bought the mexican version, which had tomatoes, cheese, a chili sauce, and chicken. It was huuuge and cost only 4 Euro. I remember buying a tiny piece of bread with cheese on it in Amsterdam for the same price...felt very ripped off, lol. The lady at the Stube was also a very nice French person who also had no problems speaking English. She somehow knew to speak English with me, too! She even told me I had beautiful eyes...I thought the French were supposed to be stuck up? While she was making my sandwich we chatted a bit and I told her I was from Florida and was now a student in Germany. She was amazed that I'd only paid 50 Euro for my round trip ticket to and from Paris all the way from Germany. She mentioned she pays 250! That seems a little too much...

We walked to the Place de la Bastille and all around the neighborhoods there. The map we have is really good; it has all the streets listed in the back and so we just find the street, look for it on the grid, and voila! We almost got locked inside a park, and I paid 1 Euro (currently $1.53) for a can of juice at a grocery store. What a rip off, ha ha... Anyway, after a while of walking around, we decided to go back to the hotel and get cleaned up and not be out all night so we could hit the road early in the morning. We also wanted to do a little planning for tomorrow. The original plan was to go to Versailles, but after discovering that our train ticket didn't include the zone to get to Versailles, we'd save it for Monday or something, and look around the city first. There are definitely a lot of neat museums in Paris, and I'm hoping to get to take advantage of at least the most famous ones, well, and to make this museum pass we got worth it. I suppose if we went to the Louvre every day, it'd be worth it, since it costs about 11-13 Euro to get in, depending on which collections you want to see.


Okay, tired of writing, hope you two enjoyed it. I'll try to post a bit this week and report on what we do so I don't do a short post when I come home that leaves out the good details. We're hoping the weather'll be good tomorrow.

Caitlin

Kind of Blah

I really haven't done a lot this past week. Most people went home for the break, and thats mainly because here in Germany, the students take so many classes per semester they don't have time to have the kind of jobs that we are used to back home. Oddly enough, it still takes 4+ years to finish a a degree! Something's not adding up!

Basically I've just been catching up on my exercise (28 miles in four days!), reading, stuff like that. Yesterday I actually went OUT! I met my friend Jenny, who did NOT go home for the entire break, and we saw the movie 27 Dresses. I enjoyed the film, even though it is difficult to really "get" the humor sometimes when the actors' real voices have been dubbed over and stuff. Afterward we walked to the Altstadt and wanted to have dinner at this Cuban place, called Havana, which we thought opened at 5, but turns out it opened at 6, so we had an hour... we walked around... I showed yet another person the giant thumb in the Altstadt that hadn't seen it yet! So many people have not seen this magnificent thing! It is so cool.

Anyway dinner was yummy, just as expected. I ordered a burrito type entree, which the restaurant called a Rollo... it was a mixture of ground beef, potatoes, onion, corn, a cheese sauce, chili sauce, and the tortilla was baked over with cheese. Yum! It was also happy hour so I ordered a cocktail before my meal and had some ice cream for dessert. Then I went home and decided to do some strength training, something I'm trying to focus more on overall in my exercise endeavors. Yeah, if you all thought I was buff before... just wait!! Ha, ha, just kidding...

Today I slept in, exercised, and invited Niko for lunch. I made spätzle with cheese sauce, YUM... not the healthiest lunch I could've made for myself, but heck, it was good. Tomorrow I am going to have breakfast with Jenny, wash laundry, and make sure I am packed and ready to go for Tuesday's big event: PARIS!

I'll be taking my laptop with me (which will be kept under lock and key!!) because there is free wireless in the hotel we're staying in. That way, I can post my pictures as we go along. This is my first BIG trip I'm taking since I've been here... BIG as in, longer than two days in one place. I am expecting to take sooo many pictures. The weather forecast doesn't look too terrible. In fact, over the last few days it has improved. The first few days we'll probably get some showers, and the last days are forecasted to be mostly clear. I hope this is the case. The temperature will be in the mid-50's, which is definitely warmer than here...it's...WHOA its 45 out right now, imagine that! It's only 3 degrees warmer in Paris... anyway, I'm bringing a sweatshirt and some long underwear just to be on the safe side...

Vendy and I are meeting at 9am on Tuesday morning, which will put us in Cologne around 10:30, where we'll hang out and look at the Cathedral (Vendy's never been there) until a little after 12, when we'll be catching our train which will take us directly to Gare du Nord station in Paris! YEAH! I'm super excited.


Caitlin

Up North, Norther, Norther Still, & Turning 21 in Berlin

Hello!

I've decided to do subtitles for this entry, since it covers an entire week of adventures!!

A Few Days in Bremen...
Sunday we went to Philipp's church here in Bremen. The message was good -- about times in the desert that allow us to grow closer to God though we may feel farthest away. We ate with Philipp's mom who is a faaaaaabulous cook, way better than me! I honestly don't remember much of what we did the rest of the day... I just know we ended up watching the Princess Diaries in German. I didn't realize how many times I'd seen that movie-- I could recite quite a few quotes!

Monday we went for breakfast and then to a few outlet stores, one of which had better deals than I have EVER found in the USA. Seriously. And you guys know how cheap some of my stuff is. I'm now the proud owner of a $3 pair of khakis and a few t-shirts that cost $1 a piece. That is my all time record. Humbling, it was, as I have always bragged about how cheap stuff is back at home. My record at home for a pair of pants was $7! Until now, that is!! After that we went to the Universum, which is a neat science center place in Bremen. It was really cool! They had a special exhibit next door called the Schokoladium, or something like that, which showed how chocolate was made and there were even free samples of chocolate! We tried the liquid chocolate, which was served in a cake cone... yum! That night we made some frozen pizzas and watched "You've Got Mail", which I had theretofore never ever seen, and it was GREAT!


Hamburg
Tuesday we headed up to Hamburg. We stayed two nights with Philipp's really fun sister, Annette. We walked around town at night for a bit, although it was raining. We ended up having Eisschokolade at a bar, and then we went to the train station in search of food, which turned out to be gyros. Philipp and I always spend a while discussing what we want to eat and why, and he always refuses to make the decision, ha, ha! The Hamburg train station was really neat--although nothing in comparison to the new Berlin main station (see video on Facebook!).

Wednesday we headed back into town. We took a boat tour of the harbor. It was really cold and windy and rainy, so I didn't take but 2 pictures, since the windows on the boat were dotted with rain drops. We took a tour of the town hall which seemed more like a palace inside than a town hall! Then we went to St. Michaeliskirche and climbed the bell tower--really hard, lots of stairs!--where it was so windy they had closed off the highest part because it was too dangerous. I did get some nice shots of the city from way up there. The weather had cleared up, although it was still freezing and windy. We wandered back over to the downtown area, and into the Karstadt to buy some postcards (they're a lot cheaper than in souvenir shops!! 35 cents!) and we saw a sign on the door that EWAN MCGREGOR (Star Wars, Moulin Rouge, Big Fish) was going to be there promoting a new cologne...for another 15 minutes! So we went over to where he was supposedly gonna be, and there was no one at the desk, and it actually looked like they were still waiting on him. We assumed he'd gone home already, lol. Anyway, I think we went home after that because we were just super tired... later that night, we watched "The Holiday", which I thought was a great film!!!!!!

Laboe Beach/Kiel/The Logos Hope
We left Annette's apartment Thursday morning and headed up North... Schleswig-Holstein north...WAY north. We drove through Kiel and ended up at Laboe beach. We walked through a park and watched ducks fight (I could seriously watch ducks swim and play around all day and not get bored, lol) and then walked near the shore itself. It was very cold and windy!! I saw a real German U-boat and a bird's skull. I even took a rock from the water as a souvenir. We headed into Kiel after that, which is the capital of Schleswig-Holstein. Bought some 35 cent postcards at Karstadt and we wandered into the city. There was a Medieval times festival going on, where all the people selling things were dressed up. You could even buy wooden swords and shields. They even spoke differently, really playing the part!!! There were carnival rides and people selling candied almonds (I did not buy or consume any!). We ate curry wurst for lunch at this mall type place.

We spent the night on the Logos Hope (that is Philipp on the lower right in the "Ready to Make a Difference?" box lol... I wonder if he knows that...) which was a neat experience. The ship is one in a fleet of three ships for OM Ships that sail around all over the world delivering the Good News to people. Philipp spent two years on one of the ships, the Doulos. They have a book shop on board and people at the various ports of call come on board to browse, and there are teams that go out and reach out in the cities. Logos Hope is still under construction; they purchased it back in 2004. Apparently, it's come a long way since then.


Berlin
After spending the night on the ship, we went to the devotional at breakfast in the morning. Around 10 or so, Philipp and I were back on the road, bound for Berlin. We made good time. Picked up the key from Philipp's uncle, Rupert, a very nice and quirky older gentleman, who had many an interesting story to tell. When we arrived in the city, we kept seeing signs that said "Umweltplakette Pflicht" which roughly means "environment sticker required". See, Berlin now requires all drivers to purchase a sticker for about $8 that indicates how environmentally friendly your car is. If you don't have one and are caught, you get one point on your license and a $60 fine! So, that became our mission: find out where to get the sticker, get one, and put it on the car before getting caught in the city without one. They were on the hunt, too. We saw many police officers walking around and checking the cars. We finally got the sticker and went back to put it on Philipp's car windshield...thankfully, we had no fine for not having one. We didn't park right in the city, so that was probably why :-).

We wandered over to the Potsdamer Platz, where there are all kinds of bars, restaurants, a casino, and two large cinemas. We bought tickets to see the new Clooney film, "Michael Clayton". Then we went to a bar which had a happy hour, had a few drinks (two days before my 21st birthday!!! Hey Mom, this bar had like 12 different types of margaritas! I had a watermelon one.) The movie was AWESOME. I recommend it to any of ya'll.

The next day we went to breakfast with Rupert where the breakfast itself, the way it was served, looked like a million bux! Mine came with eggs, bacon, bagels, bread, butter, and a steak! I gave most of my steak to Philipp, though...not a big steak eater. He dropped the two of us off at the Reichstag, the seat of the German government, and we waited in line to get in. It's a pretty popular place. There was a guy there riding around on a bike trying to sell pretzels, which were heated by fire in his basket attached to the front of his bike. He also advertised some in English: "German bread!", he shouted. Ha, ha... inside the Reichstag it was neat. Apparently that dome way up top is not enclosed, so it was cold in there, too!

We wandered to the Brandenburg Gate after the Reichstag, which is just so majestic and cool. Right next to that is the Hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from the balcony of his room back in 2002. In a nearby gift shop, I bought a t-shirt as a birthday present to myself :-) We walked through this French-themed mall, which had nothing but French stuff (I bought crepes...) and it smelled real bad around the cheese counter. They sell cheese there that has GREEN MOLD on it! Apparently, the more mold, the better the cheese tastes. Nasty.

Anyway it was so windy that day (there was even a tornado warning and it was recommended not to leave the house!) we decided to go to the Pergamon Museum. The building from the outside was neat; you can still see thousands upon thousands of bullet holes in the walls from the war! It was really neat inside, too--a ton of Roman age artifacts. We had to wait in line for a while there, since everyone had the same idea as we did regarding the weather. No one wanted to be outside. But be outside we had to, as the museum was overfilled! So we had to wait a bit. There's a lot of stuff in there. Stuff you can't even believe existed! It's like looking at dinosaur skeletons.

We went home kinda early that night because of the weather, we thought we'd watch a movie at Philipp's uncle's house. We never got to it, though. We ended up talking with Rupert for almost 3 hours about various things. Actually, he did most of the talking, and we occasionally chimed in, but his stories are very interesting!! So we never watched the movie... we went upstairs where we were staying shortly before midnight, and Philipp came in at exactly 12 to be the first to wish me a happy birthday... we chatted for about an hour and then went to sleep.


Birthday!
Sunday morning I got a bundle of tulips from Philipp and his uncle! We then went to Potsdam (sorry Mom, no postcard from here... I have failed!) and visited the guest palace to the Sanssoucci, called simply the "New Palace". It was a really neat room. I hate it that we aren't allowed to take pics inside, there was a lot of stuff worthy of a photo... one room's walls and ceilings were made entirely from seashells!! The weather was very bad that morning but eventually cleared up for about half an hour, only to return to its previous state of crappiness... we had lunch at a cozy little Italian place around the corner from Rupert's house, then headed home to crash for a few hours. Philipp had the most enormous calzone I have ever seen (those who have been to Broadway pizza by campus know how big those suckers are)!

After our naps, we headed back out on the town to meet a friend, Marius. We ate at this fantaaaaaaastic Indian place. The first time I ever had Indian food was in Amsterdam, and then Philipp said we'd go in Berlin to his "favorite" place. And it was soooo good. The sinks in the bathroom were even amazing. They even had a PERMANENT happy hour! So I had some Indian chicken dish (forgot the name), that you can see on my Facebook video :-)... and a few cocktails. We went and saw another movie afterward with Tom Hanks called "Charlie Wilson's War", which I didn't find all that good cuz I'm not into politics, and the entire film was nothing but constant, high-speed dialog. Soooo I got a little lost, lol...

We missed the last train home so we had to take the bus. After riding the bus for an hour, we got off about 2 miles from home... Philipp had asked the driver to tell us where to get off, but we were sitting up top (double decker bus) and he never told us, probably because he thought the bus was empty... we shouldn't have A. sat up top, and B. depended on the bus driver for ANYTHING. So, we walked home at 3:00 in the morning, after trying to call a taxi and being told there were none available... we reached the square around Rupert's house where there were 3 taxis just sitting there. Ugh. Well, at least I got to walk off some of that dinner!! We finally got home and were asleep by 4am...


Sonstiges ("Miscellaneous")
We headed back to Bremen yesterday morning. Philipp had to be in court for some kind of violation at 3:30. I hung out at his house uploading all my pics and stuff...overall it was a nice evening. Despite how tired I was, I got a lot of stuff done. Viktor is coming to visit in the summer, as are my two 13-year-old cousins from Germany, so I got to do some planning on that. We're headed down to Key West for a few days and then probably taking the kids up to St. Augustine for the day before going on vacation w/ the parents (shout out to Momma!) I also bought my plane ticket HOME! I will be home Wednesday, July 23... I have one week to meet with an advisor at UCF, officially apply by application at Siemens, and unpack, before going up to New York City to meet Viktor for a few days. I want to see EVERYTHING there is to see in New York!

I am really excited about my upcoming trips: in one week, I will already be in Paris!! I am even excited about going back to UCF in the fall (my readmission went through without a hitch--I don't even have to fill out a FAFSA this year!).

This week I am getting caught up on stuff here in Ko-town, exercising, and meeting Vendy to discuss Paris plans... it should be a blast :-)


Love,
Caitlin