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
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
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
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
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Buddies, Karaoke, and Attending Weddings of People I Don't Even Know...
Hello,
It's been another eventful week!! I'm happy that things have picked up in the last couple of weeks. It got to feeling a bit hum-drum for a while there.
Wednesday night I went to the movies with some friends! We saw a movie called "Our Earth" which was a documentary type film showing a bunch of animals all over the world. The main focus was the polar bear and it showed how one polar bear tried to get some food and the ice melted away underneath him and he swam for weeks and lost half his body weight. He tried to kill a walrus but they overpowered him and he finally lost all his strength and died. It was sad... apparently, if the climate were not warming up, the polar bear would have found some food... *sigh*
After the movie, we went to an Irish pub in the old town... I sang karaoke :-) I chose a song from the first page with lyrics that seemed fitting for me at the moment: Dixie Chicks' "Wide Open Spaces". I've only sung karaoke once before in my life and I got $10 for it, ha ha... this time, nuthin. My friend Anna taped it, but honestly, I'm not going to upload it to Facebook because I sound terrible lol.
Thursday morning at 10am I met some friends for breakfast at the Extrablatt. This was the third time I'd been there for breakfast and it is just SO YUMMY!!! This time I actually paid full price (no 2 for 1 coupon this time, darn) and it is definitely worth it. They really have everything you can think of or wish for or want for breakfast. Amazing. I must again express my love for the Extrablatt!!!!! Although I was saddened to have seen on Thursday that they raised their happy hour price on cocktails from 3,50 to 3,90... still the best deal in town, especially if you order the ones that normally cost 7,90... but still, no one likes to pay more for something!!
The rest of Thursday I did pretty much nothing, lol. No exercise, either. I did 31 miles this week, though :-)
Friday I exercised as usual (6 miles!) and at 1:45 Philipp came and picked me up and he, I, and Fred (Philipp's roomie) headed north... traffic was baaaaaaad after we dropped off Fred in Cologne, and it took us a total of 6 hours or so to get to Bremen. We went to Philipp's youth group at his church; it was pretty neat. It definitely reminded me what it feels like to be the new kid in church, going to youth group for the first time!! Afterward, I helped set tables for a wedding, which we went to today at 2pm. It was really different... the wedding was actually focused on each person equally, not just the bride-- the bride and groom walked down the aisle together and sat in chairs at the altar. We sang 5 praise/worship songs and hymns, there was a short sermon, they did not exchange vows but simply answered "yes" after the guy asked if they would accept each other as husband/wife. There were also no bridesmaids or groomsmen. The little reception afterward was nice, too, a buuuunch of people had brought in cake and there were two cakes on each table and we all just went from table to table eating whatever cake we wanted... it was pretty much a dream come true!!
Anyway, now I'm here...
Love,
Caitlin
It's been another eventful week!! I'm happy that things have picked up in the last couple of weeks. It got to feeling a bit hum-drum for a while there.
Wednesday night I went to the movies with some friends! We saw a movie called "Our Earth" which was a documentary type film showing a bunch of animals all over the world. The main focus was the polar bear and it showed how one polar bear tried to get some food and the ice melted away underneath him and he swam for weeks and lost half his body weight. He tried to kill a walrus but they overpowered him and he finally lost all his strength and died. It was sad... apparently, if the climate were not warming up, the polar bear would have found some food... *sigh*
After the movie, we went to an Irish pub in the old town... I sang karaoke :-) I chose a song from the first page with lyrics that seemed fitting for me at the moment: Dixie Chicks' "Wide Open Spaces". I've only sung karaoke once before in my life and I got $10 for it, ha ha... this time, nuthin. My friend Anna taped it, but honestly, I'm not going to upload it to Facebook because I sound terrible lol.
Thursday morning at 10am I met some friends for breakfast at the Extrablatt. This was the third time I'd been there for breakfast and it is just SO YUMMY!!! This time I actually paid full price (no 2 for 1 coupon this time, darn) and it is definitely worth it. They really have everything you can think of or wish for or want for breakfast. Amazing. I must again express my love for the Extrablatt!!!!! Although I was saddened to have seen on Thursday that they raised their happy hour price on cocktails from 3,50 to 3,90... still the best deal in town, especially if you order the ones that normally cost 7,90... but still, no one likes to pay more for something!!
The rest of Thursday I did pretty much nothing, lol. No exercise, either. I did 31 miles this week, though :-)
Friday I exercised as usual (6 miles!) and at 1:45 Philipp came and picked me up and he, I, and Fred (Philipp's roomie) headed north... traffic was baaaaaaad after we dropped off Fred in Cologne, and it took us a total of 6 hours or so to get to Bremen. We went to Philipp's youth group at his church; it was pretty neat. It definitely reminded me what it feels like to be the new kid in church, going to youth group for the first time!! Afterward, I helped set tables for a wedding, which we went to today at 2pm. It was really different... the wedding was actually focused on each person equally, not just the bride-- the bride and groom walked down the aisle together and sat in chairs at the altar. We sang 5 praise/worship songs and hymns, there was a short sermon, they did not exchange vows but simply answered "yes" after the guy asked if they would accept each other as husband/wife. There were also no bridesmaids or groomsmen. The little reception afterward was nice, too, a buuuunch of people had brought in cake and there were two cakes on each table and we all just went from table to table eating whatever cake we wanted... it was pretty much a dream come true!!
Anyway, now I'm here...
Love,
Caitlin
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Booze, Soccer, Castles on the Rhine, & Worms!!!
Hello to the faithful!
Well, the last week or so has been pretty packed... I don't think I've had this much to do since I got here! This is how its been going down lately:
Wednesday I got my computer back and went to Liane's where we all had a delicious lunch together. Alex cooked a curry dish with tofu (I think) and it was great!! That evening was Happy Hour at the Extrablatt; we hadn't been in two weeks!! I had a margarita for mom (per her request ;-) ) + my favorite cocktail, but limited myself to two and went home an hour earlier than usual... I really love that cafe; it's become the favorite amongst the internationals here, too. I can't wait to introduce the new internationals to it!
Thursday I wrote the translation for our final exam, and didn't do too much else the rest of the day, aside from my usual workout. The next few days were going to be busy so I decided to chill at home.
Friday I slept in pretty late (felt nice!!!!) and got in 6.5 exercise miles, so about 100 minutes. What a great way to start the day! That night, I went to my first ever SOCCER GAME!!! It was freeeeeezing cold and as hard as I tried to dress warm, I was still underdressed for the weather we had last week: this week, we're in the low 40's during the day, last week, we hovered around 28, even though the sun was blazing away! Afterward, one of my new friends Anna and I ordered pizza and though our intent was to eat pizza and watch a movie, simultaneously, we never got inside her apartment!! Her parents were locked inside; that is, they could not open the door. The locksmith was there for the second time apparently, and it took him over two hours to open the door. They ended up taking out the entire lock mechanism and replacing it, costing the landlord over 500 Euro ($750!). So we ate our pizza in the hallway, and it was GREAT!
The next morning I got up and we went to visit Schloss Stolzenfels, this really nifty looking castle in the mountains on the Rhine. It is medieval in style, but apparently it was built back in the 1200's as some sort of toll booth and then received by a king in the 1800's who was just a fan of that age and had it remodeled to that look. It was also SUPER cold on Saturday!! Saturday night, I went to Cologne to the end-of-semester party one of the professors of the English department at the university was throwing... it was interesting... I didn't get in my workout that day so I was extra tired, plus I ate some chocolate and gummy bears, that couldn't have helped much, lol... the chocolate was amazing, though, I tried a new Ritter Sport variety called dark milk chocolate, with 40% cacao.. it tasted dark, but not gross like so many dark chocolates out there. YUM, chocolate. I think I'm going to try the strawberry creme variety next week (how about one candy bar per week, that works, right!?!)
Well, I didn't get into bed until after 2:30am Sunday morning, so I slept, slept, slept until 11:30, then got up and exercised! That felt good to sweat, sweat, sweat! I went to see another new friend, Christian, who I am helping with pronunciation (English). He made German pancakes, and they were pretty good! Definitely not as good as the ones we get at IHOP at 1am, but hey, we don't have IHOP here!!! I chilled for the rest of the evening...
Some recent pictures have convinced me that my hair has once again gotten too poofy and thick for my likings, so I decided to go get it cut on Monday. Getting a haircut here is EXPENSIVE! I got my hair washed and conditioned and cut for 18,50 WITH a 2,50 discount... that is about $27. I never pay more than $15 for a haircut at home! EVER!!!! The Euro sucks. SO many people tell me "oh I bet it's expensive here for you because of how weak the dollar is"... and I always say "guess what, its just as expensive for you, too!" because it IS! The dollar may be "weak" against the Euro, but the dollar can buy a helluva lot more than the Euro ANY day!! I think people just hear the word "weak" and automatically think negative. Who's paying $7 a gallon for gas?
Monday night I decided quite spontaneously, since I had no plans for Tuesday, that I'd GO somewhere. In looking through my Fodor's Germany 2007 guidebook, I had marked several cities I wanted to check out. I decided that since it was too short of notice to find anyone to come with me (although I did ask a few people), a city close by and not too big would be my best bet. So I decided on the historical city of Worms! This is where Martin Luther was summoned for the Diet of Worms to plead his case before the king, and where he supposedly uttered the famous words "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me, amen!" Of course I just googled it ("Why YES, google, I did mean...) and apparently he didn't really say that, and APPARENTLY, Martin Luther hated Jews. Some of his statements were allegedly revived during the Nazi movements as propaganda to corral people... interesting.
Speaking of Jews, the oldest and largest Jewish cemetery in Europe is located in Worms. I visited it. It was VERY creepy. All I could say to myself was how glad I was that the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and that I was not here at night, LOL. Tomorrow my only plans are to post pictures on Facebook, so keep an eye out (I'll also post the links here for you non-Facebookies).
The huge romantic cathedral in Worms was, as my guidebook promised, awesome. It was not only huge (and under construction, as have been ALL cathedrals thus far, ha ha), but beautiful, too! I took pics inside, even though I probably wasn't supposed to... there's a crypt downstairs and THAT was creepy. It was barely lit inside (stay tuned for a video on that) and there were about 12 stone boxes and a list on the wall of who was in them. There were similar looking structures placed on the front lawn of the cathedral, but appeared to be nothing but benches. They even had a pressed penny machine in front! I got a smushed 5 cent piece for 1 Euro! Yeah, tell me about it, EVERYTHING's more expensive, even defaced currency! Back home, those suckers cost 50 cents + a penny! Ridiculous. Just in case you're wondering, 1 euro equals about $1.47 at this time.
The other thing I visited in Worms was the Nibelungenmuseum. Before a few weeks ago, I'd never heard of the German epic/saga/poem/whatever the Nibelungenlied. Well, after two hours in this museum, you'll know more than you ever cared to know! Ha ha, it was a cool place, though, really technologically advanced. We all got headsets and you walked around to different areas to hear all about the story. After a while, I got bored. It was neat being in the building itself, though, since the whole museum was built into some old wall and two towers attached to it, renovated for safety of course.
Took a slow train home, missed the bus, of course. I finally got on one, and as soon as I did, this child in the back starts incessantly and LOUDLY screaming its head off. The mother kept telling it to stop it, but alas! to no avail. I was about to get off at the next stop and walk, NOT kidding. Maybe that's why the German overall birthrate has declined in recent years... after a ride like that, I'm not going to question it. Anyway, I can't express how cool it is to just get on a train and go someplace! I love it.
Finally I got home and I decided to exercise after all. Been doing pretty good with my miles; Sunday through Tuesday (today), I've completed 17 miles! Considering my 7 day total last week was a measly 22.5, I think I'm doing great!
Tomorrow I'm going to see the film "Our Earth" at 8pm; before that it is my plan to get in some more miles, then head to campus to add all my new pics and videos. Thursday morning I'm having breakfast with three friends at the Extrablatt...and following with some more exercise miles, LOL. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet, and they have everything. Even the bread is warm... yum! Friday afternoon/evening I'm headed up north to Bremen with my buddy Philipp. I'm really looking forward to that. We're going to do some traveling together.
If you're interested in seeing my future travel plans, check out the list on Facebook--it has dates (though subject to change) of most of my planned trips thus far.
That's all for me for now!
Hugs,
Caitlin
Well, the last week or so has been pretty packed... I don't think I've had this much to do since I got here! This is how its been going down lately:
Wednesday I got my computer back and went to Liane's where we all had a delicious lunch together. Alex cooked a curry dish with tofu (I think) and it was great!! That evening was Happy Hour at the Extrablatt; we hadn't been in two weeks!! I had a margarita for mom (per her request ;-) ) + my favorite cocktail, but limited myself to two and went home an hour earlier than usual... I really love that cafe; it's become the favorite amongst the internationals here, too. I can't wait to introduce the new internationals to it!
Thursday I wrote the translation for our final exam, and didn't do too much else the rest of the day, aside from my usual workout. The next few days were going to be busy so I decided to chill at home.
Friday I slept in pretty late (felt nice!!!!) and got in 6.5 exercise miles, so about 100 minutes. What a great way to start the day! That night, I went to my first ever SOCCER GAME!!! It was freeeeeezing cold and as hard as I tried to dress warm, I was still underdressed for the weather we had last week: this week, we're in the low 40's during the day, last week, we hovered around 28, even though the sun was blazing away! Afterward, one of my new friends Anna and I ordered pizza and though our intent was to eat pizza and watch a movie, simultaneously, we never got inside her apartment!! Her parents were locked inside; that is, they could not open the door. The locksmith was there for the second time apparently, and it took him over two hours to open the door. They ended up taking out the entire lock mechanism and replacing it, costing the landlord over 500 Euro ($750!). So we ate our pizza in the hallway, and it was GREAT!
The next morning I got up and we went to visit Schloss Stolzenfels, this really nifty looking castle in the mountains on the Rhine. It is medieval in style, but apparently it was built back in the 1200's as some sort of toll booth and then received by a king in the 1800's who was just a fan of that age and had it remodeled to that look. It was also SUPER cold on Saturday!! Saturday night, I went to Cologne to the end-of-semester party one of the professors of the English department at the university was throwing... it was interesting... I didn't get in my workout that day so I was extra tired, plus I ate some chocolate and gummy bears, that couldn't have helped much, lol... the chocolate was amazing, though, I tried a new Ritter Sport variety called dark milk chocolate, with 40% cacao.. it tasted dark, but not gross like so many dark chocolates out there. YUM, chocolate. I think I'm going to try the strawberry creme variety next week (how about one candy bar per week, that works, right!?!)
Well, I didn't get into bed until after 2:30am Sunday morning, so I slept, slept, slept until 11:30, then got up and exercised! That felt good to sweat, sweat, sweat! I went to see another new friend, Christian, who I am helping with pronunciation (English). He made German pancakes, and they were pretty good! Definitely not as good as the ones we get at IHOP at 1am, but hey, we don't have IHOP here!!! I chilled for the rest of the evening...
Some recent pictures have convinced me that my hair has once again gotten too poofy and thick for my likings, so I decided to go get it cut on Monday. Getting a haircut here is EXPENSIVE! I got my hair washed and conditioned and cut for 18,50 WITH a 2,50 discount... that is about $27. I never pay more than $15 for a haircut at home! EVER!!!! The Euro sucks. SO many people tell me "oh I bet it's expensive here for you because of how weak the dollar is"... and I always say "guess what, its just as expensive for you, too!" because it IS! The dollar may be "weak" against the Euro, but the dollar can buy a helluva lot more than the Euro ANY day!! I think people just hear the word "weak" and automatically think negative. Who's paying $7 a gallon for gas?
Monday night I decided quite spontaneously, since I had no plans for Tuesday, that I'd GO somewhere. In looking through my Fodor's Germany 2007 guidebook, I had marked several cities I wanted to check out. I decided that since it was too short of notice to find anyone to come with me (although I did ask a few people), a city close by and not too big would be my best bet. So I decided on the historical city of Worms! This is where Martin Luther was summoned for the Diet of Worms to plead his case before the king, and where he supposedly uttered the famous words "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me, amen!" Of course I just googled it ("Why YES, google, I did mean...) and apparently he didn't really say that, and APPARENTLY, Martin Luther hated Jews. Some of his statements were allegedly revived during the Nazi movements as propaganda to corral people... interesting.
Speaking of Jews, the oldest and largest Jewish cemetery in Europe is located in Worms. I visited it. It was VERY creepy. All I could say to myself was how glad I was that the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and that I was not here at night, LOL. Tomorrow my only plans are to post pictures on Facebook, so keep an eye out (I'll also post the links here for you non-Facebookies).
The huge romantic cathedral in Worms was, as my guidebook promised, awesome. It was not only huge (and under construction, as have been ALL cathedrals thus far, ha ha), but beautiful, too! I took pics inside, even though I probably wasn't supposed to... there's a crypt downstairs and THAT was creepy. It was barely lit inside (stay tuned for a video on that) and there were about 12 stone boxes and a list on the wall of who was in them. There were similar looking structures placed on the front lawn of the cathedral, but appeared to be nothing but benches. They even had a pressed penny machine in front! I got a smushed 5 cent piece for 1 Euro! Yeah, tell me about it, EVERYTHING's more expensive, even defaced currency! Back home, those suckers cost 50 cents + a penny! Ridiculous. Just in case you're wondering, 1 euro equals about $1.47 at this time.
The other thing I visited in Worms was the Nibelungenmuseum. Before a few weeks ago, I'd never heard of the German epic/saga/poem/whatever the Nibelungenlied. Well, after two hours in this museum, you'll know more than you ever cared to know! Ha ha, it was a cool place, though, really technologically advanced. We all got headsets and you walked around to different areas to hear all about the story. After a while, I got bored. It was neat being in the building itself, though, since the whole museum was built into some old wall and two towers attached to it, renovated for safety of course.
Took a slow train home, missed the bus, of course. I finally got on one, and as soon as I did, this child in the back starts incessantly and LOUDLY screaming its head off. The mother kept telling it to stop it, but alas! to no avail. I was about to get off at the next stop and walk, NOT kidding. Maybe that's why the German overall birthrate has declined in recent years... after a ride like that, I'm not going to question it. Anyway, I can't express how cool it is to just get on a train and go someplace! I love it.
Finally I got home and I decided to exercise after all. Been doing pretty good with my miles; Sunday through Tuesday (today), I've completed 17 miles! Considering my 7 day total last week was a measly 22.5, I think I'm doing great!
Tomorrow I'm going to see the film "Our Earth" at 8pm; before that it is my plan to get in some more miles, then head to campus to add all my new pics and videos. Thursday morning I'm having breakfast with three friends at the Extrablatt...and following with some more exercise miles, LOL. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet, and they have everything. Even the bread is warm... yum! Friday afternoon/evening I'm headed up north to Bremen with my buddy Philipp. I'm really looking forward to that. We're going to do some traveling together.
If you're interested in seeing my future travel plans, check out the list on Facebook--it has dates (though subject to change) of most of my planned trips thus far.
That's all for me for now!
Hugs,
Caitlin
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Recovering from Almost a Crisis, and Plans
Hi!
I am a happy, HAPPY person right now.
Last night my laptop suddenly stopped working altogether and I brought it to the computer people this morning who told me that it's likely a hardware problem and that for the amount I paid for it ($300), it's probably not worth getting looked at and repaired... saddened, I began a search for a new computer. Most people are happy to get new computers, but I am not. Why? Because that means I have to learn something new all over again, and load a bunch of crap onto it again, etc. etc. When I have a technical item that I like, I use it until it breaks. I thought that was the case. I purchased the new laptop. At lunch today, I handed my old, supposedly dead laptop to my friend David, who offered to copy my stuff from it (thankfully I had already saved all my pictures onto a USB three days prior!!) onto a disk. Later this evening, I had my mom call to make sure they'd send it out today and I'd get it before I left town next week to travel. They were going to mail it out today. I got a message from David who said that he FIXED my laptop! Turns out, he opened it all up and saw there was dust inside all over the place, which he cleaned off and once he put it back together, it worked just fine! Unbelieveable! Stupified, I had to beg my mom to call the company I ordered from to cancel the order. I really did NOT want a new computer. I even walked all the way home from the store today because I thought I wouldn't get my workouts in for the next few days (need a DVD player). I'm picking up my "baby", as David called it, tomorrow morning, just in time for a workout!!
So that was the adventure for today!!
I went to the zoo on Saturday, here are the pics:
Frankfurt Zoo 1
Frankfurt Zoo 2
Monday I got in a good workout and got to see a friend later that evening. Tuesday was spent, well, you know that already... tomorrow I'm headed to a Liane's for lunch, where our friend Alex is supposed to cook something yummy!! I am excited. Tomorrow evening we're headed for Happy hour at the Extrablatt!!!!! I'm bringing limited cash this time, so I don't go too crazy. Thursday I take the exam for the translation course, Friday I'm going to my first SOCCER GAME EVER, Saturday we're going to a castle, and Saturday night I'm going to a party in Cologne with a lot of kids taking English. The English professor, one of them, is throwing an end-of-semester, and I helped a lot of the students with their projects, so I got invited, too.
Sometime this week I am gonna make turkey burgers :-) Maybe tomorrow night for dinner? I am also gonna take my mom's excellent advice and do some mass-cooking for the week so I just have leftovers in the fridge to heat up and not worry about cooking every night of the week. Since Viktor went to Spain, who was a frequent guest at Cafe de'Caiti, I don't make dinner that often... and since he's not here, I don't have anyone to wash the dishes for me, either... ha ha, just kidding...!!!
Well the last week has been quite a fun and exciting week, I have to admit. I've had more to do than I have in a long time.
Hopefully next week I'll be back to report on how everything went...
Cheerio,
Caitlin
I am a happy, HAPPY person right now.
Last night my laptop suddenly stopped working altogether and I brought it to the computer people this morning who told me that it's likely a hardware problem and that for the amount I paid for it ($300), it's probably not worth getting looked at and repaired... saddened, I began a search for a new computer. Most people are happy to get new computers, but I am not. Why? Because that means I have to learn something new all over again, and load a bunch of crap onto it again, etc. etc. When I have a technical item that I like, I use it until it breaks. I thought that was the case. I purchased the new laptop. At lunch today, I handed my old, supposedly dead laptop to my friend David, who offered to copy my stuff from it (thankfully I had already saved all my pictures onto a USB three days prior!!) onto a disk. Later this evening, I had my mom call to make sure they'd send it out today and I'd get it before I left town next week to travel. They were going to mail it out today. I got a message from David who said that he FIXED my laptop! Turns out, he opened it all up and saw there was dust inside all over the place, which he cleaned off and once he put it back together, it worked just fine! Unbelieveable! Stupified, I had to beg my mom to call the company I ordered from to cancel the order. I really did NOT want a new computer. I even walked all the way home from the store today because I thought I wouldn't get my workouts in for the next few days (need a DVD player). I'm picking up my "baby", as David called it, tomorrow morning, just in time for a workout!!
So that was the adventure for today!!
I went to the zoo on Saturday, here are the pics:
Frankfurt Zoo 1
Frankfurt Zoo 2
Monday I got in a good workout and got to see a friend later that evening. Tuesday was spent, well, you know that already... tomorrow I'm headed to a Liane's for lunch, where our friend Alex is supposed to cook something yummy!! I am excited. Tomorrow evening we're headed for Happy hour at the Extrablatt!!!!! I'm bringing limited cash this time, so I don't go too crazy. Thursday I take the exam for the translation course, Friday I'm going to my first SOCCER GAME EVER, Saturday we're going to a castle, and Saturday night I'm going to a party in Cologne with a lot of kids taking English. The English professor, one of them, is throwing an end-of-semester, and I helped a lot of the students with their projects, so I got invited, too.
Sometime this week I am gonna make turkey burgers :-) Maybe tomorrow night for dinner? I am also gonna take my mom's excellent advice and do some mass-cooking for the week so I just have leftovers in the fridge to heat up and not worry about cooking every night of the week. Since Viktor went to Spain, who was a frequent guest at Cafe de'Caiti, I don't make dinner that often... and since he's not here, I don't have anyone to wash the dishes for me, either... ha ha, just kidding...!!!
Well the last week has been quite a fun and exciting week, I have to admit. I've had more to do than I have in a long time.
Hopefully next week I'll be back to report on how everything went...
Cheerio,
Caitlin
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Anything New in Germany?
Hello Folks,
Well, I've been here over four months, and the time has gone by like a flash of lightning. Does all of life go by this fast? I have a feeling that the next 6 months are going to go by even faster because it's summer soon and I might actually want to do some things that don't involve putting on 10 pounds of additional clothing before leaving. Really, it puts a damper on things! Right now, I'm sitting in my room and it is 9:12am on a Wednesday. I need to go grocery shopping and I don't even want to do that, ha! I suppose having less food in the house makes it harder to eat the wrong things. I don't even have any tomato sauce! I guess after my workout + shower this morning I will pack up and go to town for a bit, get some stuff to eat and such. All I have here right now is rice, pasta, granola bars, bread, frozen veggies, a bit of salad, skim milk, sliced cheese and salami... peanut butter?
Yesterday I spent time just getting stuff DONE... I had a boatload of homework left, well, a bunch of tedious things. Got that all done, washed a ton of laundry, got in a 90 minute super-sweat fest, finished a book, and ate healthy all day! I was happy about that. Viktor left Koblenz on Monday evening, and he's a guy and loves to eat a lot, often. Since he's not here, it's easier for me to eat healthier. I miss him, though. I think I'll go to Spain in April. Fitting in that trip's gonna be tight, that's for sure. It looks like I'll get back from Rome eeearly on a Wednesday morning, have to re-pack my things that night to catch the bus back to the airport at 8:40 the same morning. It'd put me at the airport at 9:50am and my flight doesn't leave until 1pm... maybe I can get a ride a bit later than 8:40 so I can have a little extra, oh, TIME! Ha ha... oh well, it'll be fun and exciting!
Last Friday I helped Viktor with his going-away party at his house. We got a bunch of baguettes and cut them in pieces and in half to make little frenchbread pizzas. We had a bunch of sauces and toppings, like corn, salami, fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, pesto, ham, cheese... set out on his kitchen table and everyone made their own little pizzas. We put them in the oven and let them bake. They were delicious! We had about 12 people or so come in total and were worried that we had too much food, but we barely had any leftovers! It was quite the success.
The next morning we got up before 6am so we could catch a train to Frankfurt! We wanted to check out the city like regular tourists. We made a few little pizzas to take with us for breakfast :-) It was SO COLD in Frankfurt. The sun came out though, eventually :-) Our first stop in Frankfurt was the Senkenberg Natural History museum, which was HUGE and I loved it!! We actually left early without seeing everything there because we were so hungry. We spent over two hours there just looking at everything. I am pretty sure they have a stuffed version of every type of bird that ever existed at THAT museum!! Even flamingos! Every type! Viktor didn't like the bug exhibits, but we looked at them anyway, WOW there's lots of different horned beetles out there. I think one of my favorite parts of Frankfurt was a bit out of the way-- we went to this quaint little English-style park because on the map it said there was a castle there... it took us a while to find the castle, ha ha, but when we did it was worth it. It was a small, house-like castle with a little moat around it surrounded by ducks and lots of shady trees. We also made a special trip "off-the-beaten-path" to the Jewish cemetery. I've never seen a cemetery quite like that one. Jewish people put stones on top of grave markers instead of flowers on the grave, so there were rocks and pebbles all on top of the markers. The markers were very old and tattered looking and the whole cemetery just had a different look to it than others around. I've never seen so many grave clustered together as in that cemetery. The walls had small markers in it as well, each with names, dates, and places of death of Jews that died in the Holocaust. So many of them just said "unknown".
This Saturday, a few friends and I are splitting a weekend ticket and heading BACK to Frankfurt to visit the ZOO! I am psyched because I love zoos. It only costs 4 Euro to get in for students. Tonight I am going to a game night with some friends, and will probably have to learn how to play a bazillion games in German, fun, fun, fun. But it's something to do, right!
Well, time to get started on my day: on today's "menu" is of course, exercise, getting laundry put away, uploading pics to Facebook, and grocery shopping!
Caitlin
Well, I've been here over four months, and the time has gone by like a flash of lightning. Does all of life go by this fast? I have a feeling that the next 6 months are going to go by even faster because it's summer soon and I might actually want to do some things that don't involve putting on 10 pounds of additional clothing before leaving. Really, it puts a damper on things! Right now, I'm sitting in my room and it is 9:12am on a Wednesday. I need to go grocery shopping and I don't even want to do that, ha! I suppose having less food in the house makes it harder to eat the wrong things. I don't even have any tomato sauce! I guess after my workout + shower this morning I will pack up and go to town for a bit, get some stuff to eat and such. All I have here right now is rice, pasta, granola bars, bread, frozen veggies, a bit of salad, skim milk, sliced cheese and salami... peanut butter?
Yesterday I spent time just getting stuff DONE... I had a boatload of homework left, well, a bunch of tedious things. Got that all done, washed a ton of laundry, got in a 90 minute super-sweat fest, finished a book, and ate healthy all day! I was happy about that. Viktor left Koblenz on Monday evening, and he's a guy and loves to eat a lot, often. Since he's not here, it's easier for me to eat healthier. I miss him, though. I think I'll go to Spain in April. Fitting in that trip's gonna be tight, that's for sure. It looks like I'll get back from Rome eeearly on a Wednesday morning, have to re-pack my things that night to catch the bus back to the airport at 8:40 the same morning. It'd put me at the airport at 9:50am and my flight doesn't leave until 1pm... maybe I can get a ride a bit later than 8:40 so I can have a little extra, oh, TIME! Ha ha... oh well, it'll be fun and exciting!
Last Friday I helped Viktor with his going-away party at his house. We got a bunch of baguettes and cut them in pieces and in half to make little frenchbread pizzas. We had a bunch of sauces and toppings, like corn, salami, fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, pesto, ham, cheese... set out on his kitchen table and everyone made their own little pizzas. We put them in the oven and let them bake. They were delicious! We had about 12 people or so come in total and were worried that we had too much food, but we barely had any leftovers! It was quite the success.
The next morning we got up before 6am so we could catch a train to Frankfurt! We wanted to check out the city like regular tourists. We made a few little pizzas to take with us for breakfast :-) It was SO COLD in Frankfurt. The sun came out though, eventually :-) Our first stop in Frankfurt was the Senkenberg Natural History museum, which was HUGE and I loved it!! We actually left early without seeing everything there because we were so hungry. We spent over two hours there just looking at everything. I am pretty sure they have a stuffed version of every type of bird that ever existed at THAT museum!! Even flamingos! Every type! Viktor didn't like the bug exhibits, but we looked at them anyway, WOW there's lots of different horned beetles out there. I think one of my favorite parts of Frankfurt was a bit out of the way-- we went to this quaint little English-style park because on the map it said there was a castle there... it took us a while to find the castle, ha ha, but when we did it was worth it. It was a small, house-like castle with a little moat around it surrounded by ducks and lots of shady trees. We also made a special trip "off-the-beaten-path" to the Jewish cemetery. I've never seen a cemetery quite like that one. Jewish people put stones on top of grave markers instead of flowers on the grave, so there were rocks and pebbles all on top of the markers. The markers were very old and tattered looking and the whole cemetery just had a different look to it than others around. I've never seen so many grave clustered together as in that cemetery. The walls had small markers in it as well, each with names, dates, and places of death of Jews that died in the Holocaust. So many of them just said "unknown".
This Saturday, a few friends and I are splitting a weekend ticket and heading BACK to Frankfurt to visit the ZOO! I am psyched because I love zoos. It only costs 4 Euro to get in for students. Tonight I am going to a game night with some friends, and will probably have to learn how to play a bazillion games in German, fun, fun, fun. But it's something to do, right!
Well, time to get started on my day: on today's "menu" is of course, exercise, getting laundry put away, uploading pics to Facebook, and grocery shopping!
Caitlin
Sunday, January 20, 2008
SWF Seeks Adventure!
Dear Friends,
Okay, I realize the title is lame, but I'm running out of creative ideas, folks!!
Last Saturday I took my first daytrip by myself. It was GREAT! I ventured to Mainz for the day, which is the capital of the state, Rhineland Palatinate. I got myself a map, a museum day pass, and I trekked through the whole city for about 6 hours. I definitely got my exercise and I saw some really cool stuff (pictures to come!). The whole point of taking this trip by myself was to get over the fear of traveling alone. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of people here that have the time and/or money to travel, so especially to get around and see the cities in Germany, I may very well be on my own.
So I successfully planned a trip to Rome, that is definitely on, and I've fully prepared an itinerary for a week in Paris! I have found someone to go with, finally, and I think the most fun part so far has been sticking to a budget... we set a budget for 350 Euro for one week (6 days, 7 nights), including all entry fees, transportation, and accommodation, and the total is 277 Euro! That is crazy cheap... that leaves plenty left over to try out some French food, get some souvenirs, etc.
I found out there is a card for 60 Euro you can buy that allows you into ALL the museums and landmarks, etc, unlimited for 6 days, and you don't have to stand in line!!
Over the weekend I went to Amsterdam with my friend Philipp from class. We had a lot of fun. We stayed in a houseboat and did a ton of walking. There are soooo many canals and bridges in Amsterdam, and only one of them is natural! They have to circulate the water manually. And there are 92138185623 bikes in Amsterdam, too. I saw a postcard with a machine pulling a crapload of them out of one of the canals. They also have really cheap flowers there... they have a flower market which is an entire street set up with merchants selling 50 tulips for $10, souvenirs... they are really good at making souvenirs... I wanted to buy everything!!! We went to the Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh Museum, but skipped out on the Rijksmuseum because it was huuuuge and we didn't have enough time. The french fries in Holland are AMAZING, there are little joints all over the place that sell JUST french fries with like 20 different sauces. I got low fat mayo, ha ha... Saturday night we went out for Indian food, it was my first time eating it and it was soooooo good!
Here are the photo albums I haven't posted here yet, just in case someone still reads this and wants to see them, ha ha...
Trier (Part I)
Trier (Part II)
Koblenz (City, Uni, etc.)
Bonn & Köln
Nürnberg
More Random Pics of Friends (Part II)
A Very German Christmas
Salzburg, Austria (Part I)
Salzburg, Austria (Part II)
A Grand Day Out
Daytrip to Mainz
I am trying to get the Amsterdam pics loaded, keep an eye out for them in Facebook...
Here is my travel schedule as of yet:
February 22--?: Headed up north with Philipp to just drive around, options and points of definite interest include Berlin, Kiel, Copenhagen, London, and definitely Bremen (he lives there :-))
March 11--18: Paris
April 1 -- 8: Rome
April 22--27: Poland (visiting a friend!)
Well, other than that, traveling and such, I am still sticking to my fitness goals and am now focusing more on eating. I've recently embarked on a quest to kick my sugar habit, that is, I no longer keep it in the house. I am going to kick the cravings in the behind!!! We have our exam in Translation in 2 weeks... I am excited to have really nothing to do, ha ha... I'm supposed to be getting more translation assignments from the VP soon, so at least I'll have something keeping my brain juices flowing during the semester break. I found out that I am actually going to miss the first day of school for the summer semester because I will still be in Rome... lol... but the professor knows and is okay with it as far as I know. Last class I got a little peeved by the professor because he said that "the political row between the UK and Russia has today escalated" was a good sentence and would likely be found in newspapers... whereas I had written down "the political tension between the UK and Russia escalated today"... I actually went home and googled "today escalated" and compared the hits located to "escalated today"... and there were THOUSANDS more hits for the latter (my sentence) than his... I just emailed him about it, I'm anxious to see what he says... I made a strong case :-).
Well it's getting late and I don't feel like sitting at the computer, maybe those pics'll get uploaded one day later this week... sorry, Mom :-(
Love,
Caitlin
Okay, I realize the title is lame, but I'm running out of creative ideas, folks!!
Last Saturday I took my first daytrip by myself. It was GREAT! I ventured to Mainz for the day, which is the capital of the state, Rhineland Palatinate. I got myself a map, a museum day pass, and I trekked through the whole city for about 6 hours. I definitely got my exercise and I saw some really cool stuff (pictures to come!). The whole point of taking this trip by myself was to get over the fear of traveling alone. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of people here that have the time and/or money to travel, so especially to get around and see the cities in Germany, I may very well be on my own.
So I successfully planned a trip to Rome, that is definitely on, and I've fully prepared an itinerary for a week in Paris! I have found someone to go with, finally, and I think the most fun part so far has been sticking to a budget... we set a budget for 350 Euro for one week (6 days, 7 nights), including all entry fees, transportation, and accommodation, and the total is 277 Euro! That is crazy cheap... that leaves plenty left over to try out some French food, get some souvenirs, etc.
I found out there is a card for 60 Euro you can buy that allows you into ALL the museums and landmarks, etc, unlimited for 6 days, and you don't have to stand in line!!
Over the weekend I went to Amsterdam with my friend Philipp from class. We had a lot of fun. We stayed in a houseboat and did a ton of walking. There are soooo many canals and bridges in Amsterdam, and only one of them is natural! They have to circulate the water manually. And there are 92138185623 bikes in Amsterdam, too. I saw a postcard with a machine pulling a crapload of them out of one of the canals. They also have really cheap flowers there... they have a flower market which is an entire street set up with merchants selling 50 tulips for $10, souvenirs... they are really good at making souvenirs... I wanted to buy everything!!! We went to the Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh Museum, but skipped out on the Rijksmuseum because it was huuuuge and we didn't have enough time. The french fries in Holland are AMAZING, there are little joints all over the place that sell JUST french fries with like 20 different sauces. I got low fat mayo, ha ha... Saturday night we went out for Indian food, it was my first time eating it and it was soooooo good!
Here are the photo albums I haven't posted here yet, just in case someone still reads this and wants to see them, ha ha...
Trier (Part I)
Trier (Part II)
Koblenz (City, Uni, etc.)
Bonn & Köln
Nürnberg
More Random Pics of Friends (Part II)
A Very German Christmas
Salzburg, Austria (Part I)
Salzburg, Austria (Part II)
A Grand Day Out
Daytrip to Mainz
I am trying to get the Amsterdam pics loaded, keep an eye out for them in Facebook...
Here is my travel schedule as of yet:
February 22--?: Headed up north with Philipp to just drive around, options and points of definite interest include Berlin, Kiel, Copenhagen, London, and definitely Bremen (he lives there :-))
March 11--18: Paris
April 1 -- 8: Rome
April 22--27: Poland (visiting a friend!)
Well, other than that, traveling and such, I am still sticking to my fitness goals and am now focusing more on eating. I've recently embarked on a quest to kick my sugar habit, that is, I no longer keep it in the house. I am going to kick the cravings in the behind!!! We have our exam in Translation in 2 weeks... I am excited to have really nothing to do, ha ha... I'm supposed to be getting more translation assignments from the VP soon, so at least I'll have something keeping my brain juices flowing during the semester break. I found out that I am actually going to miss the first day of school for the summer semester because I will still be in Rome... lol... but the professor knows and is okay with it as far as I know. Last class I got a little peeved by the professor because he said that "the political row between the UK and Russia has today escalated" was a good sentence and would likely be found in newspapers... whereas I had written down "the political tension between the UK and Russia escalated today"... I actually went home and googled "today escalated" and compared the hits located to "escalated today"... and there were THOUSANDS more hits for the latter (my sentence) than his... I just emailed him about it, I'm anxious to see what he says... I made a strong case :-).
Well it's getting late and I don't feel like sitting at the computer, maybe those pics'll get uploaded one day later this week... sorry, Mom :-(
Love,
Caitlin
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