Weird Germany

Hi Everyone,

Firstly I forgot to post my most recent albums... don't forget, you can find new pictures in the old albums, too, for example I posted new pictures in Life in Münster recently.

An Afternoon in Osnabrück
Bayern Part I
Bayern Part II

So... I got back from Ingolstadt yesterday evening. What a whirlwind of a weekend. The train ride was quite pleasant, and it didn't seem long although it was more than 5 hours. Sitting at a desk all day really teaches patience, though. I changed trains in Hannover to a super nice ICE train, they are so ridiculously fast. Lots of leg room, too. I'm glad I paid for a seat reservation. It was weird once we got into the mountains though, my ears started popping a bit. Later in the weekend I asked Gaby if it bothered her ears too, but she said no, so I guess its because Florida is relatively flat, ha ha. So is Münster, actually.

On the first half of the train ride I experienced something extraordinary... I can't really explain it, but I really wanted to just cry, I'm not sure why. Not sad tears, don't misunderstand... I think I just really felt at that time awesomely blessed, almost overwhelmed. I never thought, say, five years ago, I would be in the middle of Europe on a train going wherever the heck I wanted to. It is a great feeling! This whole trip so far as been such a lesson for me. I am learning so much and it has not all been easy. I haven't loved every minute of it, but I wouldn't trade a single minute of it for a minute anywhere else. Well, there is a lot more to say but I don't know how to write it without sounding illogical, ha ha.

I got there Thursday at 5pm and was met promptly at the train station in Ingolstadt by Maxi, Maria, and Gaby, who all had tons of sweets just for me! We chatted at home for a bit, I got the grand tour, and once Tobi (Gaby's husband) got home, we went out to dinner. It felt weird because Max and Maria were not allowed to go, and I felt like I should have stayed home too, ha ha... it is weird finally being an adult and getting treated like one, like oooh I can stay up late and chat with the grown-ups, and actually like it. Ha ha. We went to this really eccentric restaurant where you pick a sauce, then you get a bowl and you go to this buffet of raw meat--everything from kangaroo, crocodile, squid, and hey, even chicken-- and fill your bowl. Then you give your bowl to the cook and then sit down... the waitress brings you your food back to you cooked with the sauce you chose at the beginning. I've never experienced anything like it! The food was wonderful!!

When we got home from the restaurant I was shocked to see tobicomedownstairsinawhitebuttondownandaturquoisethong, NOT KIDDING... I felt very awkward. And no one said anything... I don't know if I reflected my nervousness or not, but it was there... lol

I got to work out the next morning, some cardio then a spin class... pretty sweet. Showering at a gym in Germany is a little different (I actually mean "weird") than in the US, we'll say... a little more...totally naked in front of everyone. Ha ha, it was strange at first but seriously, no one looks at your butt, at least not for a long time. And yes, men and women had separate showers. But it was still weird. Weird Germany...

They (we'll just call them cousins) are sooooooooo nice its almost bad... I had not a single moment of peace the entire time I was there. I suppose it was good practice, but it is exhausting. I spoke German the entire time and they had so many questions I spent all day talking. It really does make your head hurt after a while. And I got frustrated with myself sometimes because I didn't know how to explain something, or the words were not coming as fast as I wanted them to... learning a language is freaking hard, man!!! Its like your mind is running instead of walking briskly, having to process the information in a different language and then answer in that same language. You retrain your brain...when you first start learning a language, you need to translate everything into English or your mother language first, then formulate the English answer to the English question, then translate it back into German without mistakes. THAT is even harder... but as time goes on you learn to think in the other language (even dream in it sometimes) and it goes faster. But it is truly exhausting.

Saturday was a castle (see pictures) and the English Garden in Munich... I was really too tired to see the rest of Munich, but I will be back in Ingolstadt for Christmas this year (I can't decide how I feel about that just yet) so there will be plenty of time to see everything then.

Well I bought 10 days on the train pass and I have only used 3. Ha ha! better safe than sorry, though. I'll use it twice this weekend and twice next week, so it will total 6 days... I would have used it yesterday too, but Gaby and Tobi insisted that they drive me back instead. I guess that was a good idea, otherwise I would have had to either A. Get on a train at 2pm and change trains 2-5 times, with a trip time total of 7 hours or more, all alone, or B. Get on a train at 5:30pm, change once in Dortmund with a more than an hour layover, and finally arrive back in Münster at midnight. Considering I went to bed at 10:30 last night, that wouldn't have been much fun...

This weekend I am off to visit my future home, Koblenz. I'm leaving Friday afternoon and coming back Sunday evening. I'm looking forward to it!! Then there's one week left until I am home after this weekend. I'm headed to Düsseldorf Friday the 27th to stay overnight... I am saving my Euros to get a taxi from the station to the hostel Friday, and another from the hostel to the airport Saturday eaaarrly morning. I want to be there by 7:30am. My flight leaves at 10:40am in the morning Saturday the 28th; I arrive in Ft Myers at 2:45pm Florida time. Then its a 3.5 hour long drive to Orlando, FREUDE (JOY)!!! But I will be with Mommy so its cool!

By the way it is really hot today... I really think I prefer cold over hot, just because I don't have to sweat all day, ya know?? But I finally got to wear shorts to school. Well, I am gonna blow this popsicle stand called the Internet and find something else to do... tootles!

Many greetings from across the pond,
Caitlin

Cait geht diesmal nach Bayern!!

Hi everyone,

I am writing to you like a true traveler this morning. I am sitting in a ghetto internet cafe across from the also ghetto main train station in Münster, about to get on a 5 hour long train ride to the most beautiful part of Germany I have ever seen, Bavaria! I am soooo excited I just can't stand it.

Well, I just wanted to check in, it costs a whole Euro for 24 minutes on this computer so I gotta make this quick. There is so much to tell but I will save it for later.

Miss you all,
Caiti-cait

A Sunny Day in Münster

Greetings,

It's a sunny Sunday here in Münster. I couldn't stand it to be inside, so I walked to the internet cafe to check email and such. Its happy hour so its like 1.50€/hr to use the internet. Much better than lugging my laptop to the nearest WLAN hotspot, hmm??

Osnabrück was cool, I spent a total of 3€ and the lady finally stamped my rail pass. Good exercise walking around all day, for sure! Mom, I got you a postcard :-)

A week or so ago I bought the Neues Leben Übersetzung des Neues Testaments, which is the German version of the New Living Translation... last night I read 1 John and it meant something completely different to me. German in general as a language is very direct, no frills. I don't have the book with me, but at some point I will translate some of it for you guys so you can see the difference. It was pretty wild.

I finally washed my laundry yesterday, ha ha ha... I really mean it when I say people don't care as much here as they do in the USA... i wore the same pants at least 4 times and no one noticed, I hardly did, either. Heike has a dryer but it is loud so my washed clothes are currently hanging on a "laundry drying rack" in my room. She does some weird things, ha ha... for example I am almost certain she flushed leftovers down the toilet once. She also has a Bart Simpson sticker above the toilet, and Bart is mooning. I love living there though because she could care less about how messy my room is, and she never gives me a hard time about anything. We talk all the time, too, for example last night we talked about global warming.

I LOVE ICE CREAM and it is soooo cheap. You can get an ice cream cone for 70 cent. It is great.
Well tomorrow it is back to school, but only til the break on Thursday, then I am going to see my cousins in Ingolstadt. We'll most likely be in Munich over the weekend. I booked a night at Backpackers Düsseldorf the night before I leave. I will most likely try to get a Taxi to take me to the hostel and then to the airport the next day... my suitcase is simply too heavy to lug through trainstations and on and off different trains.

Speaking of trains, yesterday on the way to Osnabrück the train was so packed, the conductor had to request that some people go take the slower trains or else it wasn't going anywhere, lol... we still ended up standing in the hallway cramped though, but Osnabrück is only about 25 minutes away from Münster.

Well I am going to post the pictures from Osnabrück now so hopefully those are enjoyable for you...

Until next time,
Caitlin

2 Week Update

Hi everyone,

Things are well here, the weather is bad, but it's still a lot of fun, and better than the heat, for sure. Yesterday we went to visit some water castles in the area. Here's the link to the album, Water Castles in North Rhine Westphalia. I also posted a view videos on Facebook, but unfortunately it doesn't give me the link... hmm...

This weekend I am either going to go to Essen or Osnabrück. I haven't decided yet. Next weekend I will be in Ingolstadt and Munich, YAY, I can't waiiiit to go there. It will be a long weekend next weekend. I am leaving school Thursday at 10:30 to catch a train at 11:30 so I will have to pack everything Wednesday. It is a loooonng ride though, 5 hours and 20 minutes, estimated, by train.

We are working a lot with prepositions in my class and it is soooo hard! Sometimes it is discouraging when it doesn't make any sense to me, but then I remember that I have never been taught any of this stuff. I didn't take very many semesters at UCF. I am making it my goal to learn all those verbs and their appropriate prepositions... an example is this:

Scientists don't often die of tropical diseases (what we would say)

in GERMAN, they say...

Scientists don't often die AT tropical diseases

STUPID stupid stupid, it really makes no sense, but I have to learn it at some point. I will just memorize it all, I suppose.

I made my own pillow yesterday! Before now I was using my little travel pillow, since the one I had was flat and huge... I rolled it up and put it in my pillowcase from home, with another folded up blanket and it's pretty much a pillow now, it's SWEET. Life with Heike is quirky yet cool. She has a couple cool friends that come over and they are all really nice. Some old, some young. I think I will make a video tour of the apartment when I get a chance... so you guys can see my living conditions, lol... tonight I'm meeting some friends from school.

The Germans eat a LOT of carbohydrates. For example, yesterday I had a "doughnut" for breakfast, tortellini and roast potatoes for lunch, and pasta for dinner. TERRIBLE, I know, but I don't feel any physical effects. I am taking vitamins though, so maybe that's why.

For some reason these postings have not been updating to Facebook in a timely fashion, I have to find out why...!

Well that is it from me for now, I will post again soon if something interesting happens!

Love,
Caitlin

Back in Münster

Hi again,

So soon I am writing again! Well, that's ok. I met my host mom's daughter today, she is really nice. I wanted to post links to my Facebook albums since it simply takes too long to download pictures to two different albums...

Life in Münster
Backpacking in Bremen, Part I
Backpacking in Bremen, Part II

Make sure to click the next button in the corner, there are more pictures than what shows on the screen in the beginning.

I loved the train ride today, except we sat in the smoking section on accident so I noticed people lighting up and uuuggggh my throat hurts now. Tomorrow I'm getting a new class... hope its not toooooo hard and that its still enjoyable.

Next weekend we're doing a day trip to Köln (Cologne)... taking the train in the morning and then coming back in the evening. Should be fun! We decided not to stay overnight after all... Then the weekend after next I'm going to visit my cousins in Ingolstadt. I can't wait for that!

Hope you guys like my pictures. I miss you all and hope you are enjoying your summer. It's cold here, I've had to either wear a jacket or a sweater every day, and I sleep with three blankets! The weather in Bremen this weekend was amazing though, it was just great. What a fun fun fun weekend. I can't believe I have only been here one week! Oh man, mom told me that the 3 minute phone call I made from the airport cost $42! I can't believe that... my phone card wouldn't work so I used the number on the phone itself and maaaan... mom can just worry a bit before I get charged that much again!

Oh yeah the lady stamping tickets today didn't stamp our railpasses! So instead of having 8 days left we still have 9 days left on it... which I think I won't be able to use all of any way, but its cool. The train rocks man... so comfy and quick!

Last night we hung out with some Swedes in a cafe and one of them turns to me and the first thing he said was 'are you a Christian?' and I said 'yes, why?' and he said that the others told him I didn't like curse words... kind of funny how the first thing that came to his mind was that I must be a Christian and not a person who simply does not like curse words... and he started talking about how there should be more people like me who 'live like I do' but that they should not do it for God but for humanity, and he made a gesture as if to be pushing God aside... and said again, to focus on humanity... !?? I said no, that God created Humanity and to just push Him aside is obviously not a smart thing to do and I would never do it. Then he stopped talking to me, I think I turned him off to further conversation... but hopefully I turned him on to further thought.

In Bremen yesterday I talked to a guy who had a table set up with a bunch of literature about Jesus... I picked a couple pamphlets up and we talked briefly. I got this little comic book written in German about this guy who dies or dreams that he dies and meets God, who looks for his name in the Book of Life but does not find it... then he wakes up and becomes a Christian or something. You'll have to see it, its pretty neat.

It's 10:45 here and you guys are probably in the middle of Ground Zero if we had it today... aw, I miss ya'll! Well I am gonna go for now but hopefully I can keep up to speed with this here blog and picture stuff...

Love from Germany,
Caiti

Hanging Out in Germany

Hi everyone,

This is my second update and its from the hostel lobby in Bremen. We're waiting on a load of laundry after coming back from an awesome day in the city. Bremen is a lot easier to navigate than is Münster... give me a map and let me ask the receptionist a few questions and I am good to go! We walked the whole way, first to the fairy-tale-like area Schnoor (amazing pictures to come!) and the found the river Weser, which at the time was holding a nice little flea market. It was kind of cold there and we were worried the weather would be bad, but it cleared up and got warmer as time went on. We made it to the Fußgängerzone (no cars allowed) and walked around, ended up getting some lunch in the ENORMOUS department store. Then we went to the market square which was quite the site. Again, pictures still to come! I took lots, though. Oh yeah and last night after we finally found the hostel, which is amazing, we went to this place called Taco, which doesn’t actually have any tacos… I got baked macaroni.

Things are great here, though, I really love it. I finally can read the confusing map well enough to get around town and I feel more at home with my host mom. She really is nice, she’s kinda querky but down to earth nonetheless. The city in Münster is great though. I am moving classes next week from the middle class because it is too easy, I mean, I was learning some words that I didn’t know before but usually I knew them all. And the kids in my class took a very long time to say just a simple sentence, so it was frustrating for me. Well it’s a long story, but we all took 100 question tests and I only missed 6, and for some reason they thought the middle class would be difficult for me, but it wasn’t. Anyway….

I first thought I wouldn’t want to come back in the fall to Koblenz, but if things keep feeling this good I really think it will be just fine. Plus since I won’t need to speak English most of the time I will learn a lot more, a lot quicker. Its cool I can hang out with kids from UCF, we get along great and have fun together, but I use English a lot in the afternoons.

The hostel here is just beautiful, it opened like a month ago and it is GREAT. There are 6 beds in our room and the other girls in our little group are in the loft part of the room. It’s very clean here, too. I am glad we picked Bremen for the first backpacking trip. No one really wants to go to Cologne so I am going to call and cancel my reservation.

Well that is it for now, not much else to say… I wish you all were here! Becky called the other day too!

First 3 Days...

Finally, I know you've all been waiting to hear how everything's going... sorry no pictures yet, I'm in an internet cafe now and the keyboard is weird, the z is where the y is on ours, and the # where the ' is, all kinds of crazy stuff. Tomorrow I proooomise to get my cell phone worked out so you guys can call if you want to, there have been some complications. In a nutshell...

-very cold (only at first today, not the last 2 days)
-windy
-rainy
-was very sad on Sunday due to exhaustion, and very emotional departure from home
-there are rabbits EVERYWHERE
-food is good
-host mom is TACKY...
-making new friends, the backpacking trip has grown quite a lot, I think there's 6 of us going now
-beautiful town

I was very freaked out as was everyone else because we didn't know how to get anywhere. Now that we know which buses to take, though, it's a lot better. So I am happier and always have something to do. We got a bus ticket for the whole time we are here so you just get on the bus and show the ticket and you can ride as much as you want, its sooo cool, I love it.

Tomorrow we are going to look for a jacket, ha ha... it is just so cold and I already have on a light hoodie and a windbreaker, and jeans. I can't imagine how cold it will be in Koblenz...

I wrote in my journal last night that this, going alone w/ a HUGE and HEAVY suitcase for two hours in different trains is very very difficult. Then getting picked up at a shady-looking train station by someone you have never seen before is terrifying. Then I realized I had never really been genuinely fearful of something. It sneaks up on you, really. My entire life I have lived in comfort and have never left that comfort zone since...ever. Even last time I was in Germany, Nina met me at the baggage claim with her dad who had a car and I never went anywhere alone. It has been wonderful though, so far. Yesterday was better than today, mostly because of the weather, though.

Classes are good, very easy though... and I wish I could speak German with the people I hang out with in the afternoons, but I can't (still love you guys though!!!)

Well it is 10:40 and almost all dark now so I am going to check train times and go home... on the NachtBus!!!

Happy trails,
Caiti