End of IUSP Fall 2010 + Mega Catch-up

Ok, so much has happened in the past little while that there is no way I could possibly fit it all into one post. So this is the abridged version. The Sparks notes. Ah hell, buckle in people it's going to be a long one.


December:
Rome and Prague with Kate were amazing. Turly a Euro-Rage Tour 2010! Kate got to Frankfurt a-ok and then the party started! I had to drag her to my last class with me, but this woman is a champ and ended up going 39 hours straight. I think she even won the Bro-King Card from the IUSP Bro Officials, Adam and Tall Mike. We hung around Marburg until Sunday and then made our way to Rome that Monday. We met up with Taylor and Danny for a little while once we got there before heading back to our hostel just outside of Rome proper and passed out. Summary: we did The Vatican and the Sistine Chapel (it was so beautiful it honestly brought me to tears). We lucked out and got to hear Gregorian chants and a mass in St. Peter's Basilica. The Colosseum, which I was in awe of, and the Roman Forum. The Pantheon. Delicious wine and pasta. One day we just wandered around Rome, down all the busy and lively back streets and just explored. That may have been my favourite, actually. Kate and I got out of Rome just as it started to snow for the first time in 20 years (go figure!) and made our way to Prague. Danny and Taylor were taking a train to Florence and got stuck 15 minutes outside of the city for I think 7 hours... Needless to say, Kate and I mocked them.





Ontop of St. Peter's Basilica.


Roman Forum

Prague was a beautiful city. We got around without too much trouble and wandered around the Christmas markets and had the most delicious goulash I have ever had in my life. Only downside is that it was FREAKIN FREEZING the entire time. We had to keep ducking into cafes and restaurants in order to keep from freezing to death. That seemed to work out just fine as we got to sample much of the local culture. Kate thought it was funny that I would skirt around the puppet stalls/stores but those things are creepy, ok? She ended up buying an witch puppet decoration for her mum that would cackle and kick it's little demon legs whenever someone walked by it. Karma did get her eventually though because when she was examining it to pack it, the little witch started to cackle and scared the shit out of Kate. I still laugh when I think about that.




Prague wasn't so much about the sites as just going and experiencing the city. I would definitely go back there. Rome was more so about going to all these important historical/culture sites but there was still so much I missed! I'd go back to Rome as well.

Anyway, we got back to Germany just fine but Kate had some difficulties getting out... Europe happened to be hit with a massive snowstorm a couple days before we were supposed to fly back to North America and no one was really prepared for just how much snow and ice there was. Kate's flight got canceled and she was stranded in Frankfurt until finally being able to get home 9 pm on Christmas Eve! It was a nightmare but a big thanks goes out to my friend Beth for keeping her company and to Connie and her family for their hospitality and help. You guys are amazing :).

It was nice being home for 2 weeks. I was definitely glad I got to see everyone again and have my amazing friends pick me up at the airport and then come chill in my living room. If I hadn't been really jetlagged it would've been just like old times!


January!
As happy as I was to be home, it was really nice coming back to Germany too. I missed it quite a bit. I hung out with Taylor, Beth and Lizzie a lot and that just always spells trouble. Particularly Lizzie. She's a trouble-maker, that one ;). Just kidding!
Mum, Aunt MaryLou and Aunt Colleen came to visit for a week and honestly I don't think I stopped laughing for more than 5 minutes. They are like the three stooges together. You three know it's true! I showed them around Marburg a bit, Aunt Colleen charmed the hotel owner with her man-killing lipstick and we ate delicious delicious auflauf. Then we went to visit Dan and Connie in Kassel for the afternoon and Connie took us to all the main sites, like the Hercules statue.



As my mum and the aunts found out, he is anatomically in proportion. There was some questions about that on our way up the hill. We spent the next couple days in Berlin and stayed in apartment style rooms, which was such a genius idea. We took a tour and generally just explored Berlin. We saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Holocaust Memorial and the Reichtag (German parliament) among many other things.



Next stop on the Germany in 8 Days Tour was München/Neuschwanstein. We only got to spend a couple hours in München, which was too bad because it's a beautiful city, but we made it to the Hofbrauhaus so I was happy :). The Hofbrauhaus is one of the oldest breweries in München - here's it's history. We took a train to Neuschwanstein (which is an area in southern Germany as well as a castle)and it started to snow. By the time we got to our beautiful hotel in between Schloss Hohenschwangau and Schloss Neuschwanstein. We lucked out and it snowed the perfect amount to make everything look like it came out of a romantic painting. We toured the castles and walked around a little. Shared some really nice dinners and some tasty wines.


This picture says that even in Europe, somethings never change.





We had a farewell dinner with Connie, her parents and Dan's parents which was really nice. I always get excited when I can communicate better using German and Connie and her parents have been really helpful with that :). Saying goodbye to mum was sad, but it wasn't as hard as when I first came over here. I've grown as a person! Yay! Actually, it was probably more so just the fact that I knew I'd see her in a couple months, rather than the year I thought it would be originally. Wow that's a confusing sentence.. anyway!

January ended with me heading to Amsterdam with Taylor, Beth and Lizzie. What a beautiful city! It has a reputation (not entirely undeserved) as party city, but honestly if that's the only thing you go for, you miss 3/4 of it. The Anne Frank museum was incredibly powerful and something you HAVE to go to if you got to Amsterdam. The canals and streets are beautiful and the houses remind me of St. John, Newfoundland, they're so colourful. I could see myself maybe living there for a little in the future, although I'd have to learn Dutch and that seems like a feat in itself.


February:

Taylor and I decided that we wanted to see the north of Germany so we basically pulled out a map, closed our eyes and pointed to a random city. We took a train to Stralsund/ Insel Rügen (the largest island in Germany) and spent sometime by the Baltic Sea. It's cold, by the way. Particularly in February. Apparently it's a really popular place to go during the summer. It was really nice to get away from all the big, important cities and just explore a little more. Experience a little more wilderness. That's one thing, no matter where you go in Germany, there are people. Lots of 'em. Well I guess it is about the size of Northern Ontario with almost triple the population of Canada... makes sense. Anyway, we stayed in this adorable older woman's renovated farmhouse and apparently were the 2nd guests she'd had...ever. She was quite a character but definitely very sweet and always had a warm breakfast ready for us in the morning.


Once we got back, we generally just hung out. Went to Frankfurt quite a bit for Visa reasons for Taylor and delicious Indian food for me. We went to Mexical (a TexMex bar, owned by Americans) and watched the Superbowl with Carissa, Steph, Beth, Bastian and Lizzie.


Soon after the newbies came! I'm still trying to process all my thoughts around that but once I do properly I'll blog. March has been all about language course and getting back into that school-type groove. I'm starting to plan some trips but nothing solid yet. I'd like to do Dublin, Paris and Budapest if I can. And Kevin is coming at the beginning of June! YAY! We might be going to Edinburgh and Portugal, if that deadbeat ever responds to my facebook/skype messages... I guess I can't really comment on delayed updates... So after 4 months here it is!

Vienna + Essen + London

Vienna:
Probably the most beautiful city I have ever been to. It all began when I decided to do a blind booking trip (40 euro round trip flight to a random destination? why not!) with my friends Olivia and Adam. Our hostel was really well situated and filled with interesting people. Many were Australian. There was a ridiculous amount of Australians. The first night we were there the bartender was a Kiwi named Harlan who was dead set on getting us to try these drink concoctions he had thought up for Halloween. I did a shot called a Brain Hemorrhage - video below of it being made



It was delicious! Who knew a brain hemorrhage could be so tasty! It was something mixed with Bailey's and grenadine, which sounds gross but was not!
Anyway, on to the city itself. It is the most fantastic, inspiring mix of old and new. You can walk around and see a modern bookstore beside a building that Mozart would have walked by. I don't think I'll ever get over how cool that is. That's probably what I love the most about Vienna, the fact that there is so much history to it and you are directly connected to that history through these beautiful buildings. We walked around pretty much the entire city the first full day we were there. We saw both Parliaments. The national parliament had statues of people punching horses. We decided this was some strange Austrian tradition and have decided not to judge.

Saturday we took a day trip to Bratislava in Slovakia because why not! It was only an hour by bus. Fun fact: Bratislava and Vienna are the two closest capitals in the world. Nifty, eh? Bratislava was also a really pretty city. I had never been to an Eastern European city before so this was an experience. I wish we could have spent more time there. Apparently there was some kind of film festival going on but I didn't see anything about it while we were there!

Sunday we were kind of wearing out and it was a grey day so Olivia and I visited Schobrunn palace (Significance) which I think would've been worth taking the tour of, but we were too cheap and too wiped.
All in all, I love Vienna. It has been my favourite city I've visited thus far. Hands down.

Essen:
My exact (slightly censored) response when I saw the last IUSP trip would be to Essen, Germany... "What the hell is in Essen?!"
I still kind of think that... although it's connection to WWII is kind of cool. It was the place where a lot of German artillery was made so the Allies bombed the entire area pretty heavily. Really only the Synagogue survived, which is interesting in itself. I had very little interest in Essen past the fact that it was the last time the IUSP family would be taken on a trip together. They really have become like family to me. We ended up going into a mine which was kind of cool, but I realized that I would never EVER make it as a miner. Ever. I really am not a fan of the idea of being buried alive. Not a fan.
I also got two fantastic new pairs of shoes but that is neither here nor there.
We couldn't really sample the night life because of how far the hostel was from town (like a 20 minute bus ride) so we improvised. I did learn a new game which I am definitely making happen back home. It's like a combination of charades and Taboo. There are three rounds and it's too complicated to explain in a blog, but when you see me at home and you're interested I'll explain it.

London:
Score: London Transportation System: 5 vs. Us: 0 (us being Maria, Olivia, Chelsea, Holly and myself)


The London Transportation system kicked our asses from the minute we landed but I still love this city. We had a monster of a time trying to get to our hostel and eventually broke down and just paid for a cab. The driver was really nice and understanding so that helped. Actually, every transportation related person we talked to was incredibly helpful and accommodating!
Friday: Spent the day seeing all the touristy sights. London Bridge. Tower of London. The London Eye. St. Paul's. Westminster Abbey. Trafalgar Square. The National Gallery. Big Ben and Parliament. Buckingham Palace. If ever you go to London (which everyone should!) just buy a day pass for zones 1 and 2 for like 5 pounds and you are good to go. We definitely made excellent use of our passes and they more than paid for themselves within the first couple hours.

Saturday: Did the nerdy, Harry Potter tour :D Well, we started out by having a dude dressed as a zombie approach us and try to get us to take this tour (which we weren't really interested in) but he did recommend a FANTASTIC place to get breakfast! It was called My Tea Shop and it was just off the London Bridge station. That was the best 5 pounds I spent. It was a traditional English breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, mushrooms and beans. It kept us going for literally 7 hours. Back to the Potter! We went to the places where they filmed The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley (which was all Christmas-y!), King's Cross Station and Platform 9 and three quarters. We also went to the Globe theatre, which made me extremely happy even if it wasn't Potter related. That night we went to Harrods and played with THE coolest Iron Man style computer table I have ever seen. Then we hopped on a double decker bus (unfortunately it wasn't purple :( ) and eventually found the BFI IMAX and saw the 7th Harry Potter movie. How cool! And I actually really enjoyed the movie! We missed our stop on the way back to the hostel, so the incredibly nice bus drivers stopped at the lights and told us exactly how to get back. Thank you London Transportation Staff!

Anyway, Sunday was the disaster day. We were supposed to fly out at noon. We got to the airport at 11:30 and our check-in desk had closed 10 minutes before that. We had no choice but to wait for the next flight at 7 am the next morning. I have to say, for the most part, we handled the 20 hour wait pretty well. There was a good grocery store just by where we set ourselves up. We bought colouring books and crayons. I had cards. We amused ourselves, got through it and got home by 2:30-3 Monday afternoon! It was a long trip, but without a doubt worth it.

Ok, I need to sleep. I have to get up early and do school-related things. Stupid school getting in the way of what's really important over here...Pictures later.

Coming up: Nürnberg for Germany's largest Weinnachtsmarkt! Then the Frankfurt vs. Mainz soccer game. Should be a pretty epic weekend.
Oh by the by... Katie'll be here in about a week. NO BIG DEAL! Countdown to RAGETOUR '10 = 7 DAYS

Catch Up + Black Forest + Halloween

So it's been a while, eh? I got really busy there for a while with studying for 2 exams (within 48 hours of each other :S) and therefore had nothing more exciting to write than "yep, when conjugating German verbs..." which I'm pretty sure most people aren't too concerned with. But good news! I passed my German language exam with 89%! Woo! I was pretty stoked. For more on the dangers of getting stoked please check this out: STOKED. I think of this whenever anyone uses the word "stoked".

Black Forest: Is in the south of Germany! Maria and I are took a train down to Freiburg (a.k.a The Gateway to the Black Forest ... oooooOOOooo) which is maybe an hour train or so from the French and Swiss borders. It's such a gorgeous area. It reminded me of a mix between northern Ontario and the lower hills of the Rockies. We stayed at this ADORABLE little hotel/hostel where the staff were incredible. I have never had service like that. Quite literally anything they could do to help us out, they had thought of and were probably already on it before either Maria or I had even considered it.



It was in Nimburg, which was a bit of a hike to get to the Schwarzwald proper, but the staff dropped us off and picked us up at the train station whenever we wanted. We visited Triburg, a small touristy town that has Germany's highest waterfall, and Gengenbach, which had a lot of older buildings and then Freiburg. We were both exhausted by the end of the weekend but it was definitely worth it.


Black Forest cake in the Black Forest!





Halloween!
Not such a big deal in Germany. But I am in a group with a bunch of crazy Americans so we carved pumpkins and made ridiculously awesome decorations like we were 5 years old. We even taught a friend of ours from northern Germany how to carve a pumpkin! It was really interesting actually. It was kind of a funny experience walking to the bus stop. People were slowing down their cars in the middle of downtown just so they could gawk at four crazy girls with pumpkins. We did end up going to the student bar SchwarzWeiß and they had an awesome Halloween party going on. The place was packed and everyone was in costume and having a great time.





Coming up: Vienna!!!!!! Perhaps the Sound of Music tour while there :D. Then the last IUSP group trip to Essen, the "cultural centre of Germany". And then.... HARRY POTTER PREMIER AT THE LONDON BFI IMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <-- I can not put enough exclamation marks to show how excited I am for this. It's going to be epic.

Lots of love <3

Rüdesheim am Rhein

Rüdesheim! In the heart of the best wine country in Germany. Awwww yeah.
It's a gorgeous little town but it's full of 40+ year old tourists, which is kind of a clash to the university town I'm living in right now and lead to one of the weirdest clubbing experiences of my life. Weird, but definitely hilarious.

First off, I love the Rhein river. It's lined with castles :D. Fritz, Olivia, Maria and I were joking around about dragons ("Hast du meinen Drachon gesehen?" translation: "Have you seen my dragon?") living in the castle and/or using a dragon to break into the castle that we could see right across the river from our hostel.




Highlight: Being crowned Wine Queen (I knew I'd make you proud Uncle Mirko and Aunt Christa!) when we went to a wine tasting. I was given a little plastic tiara and scepter and a HUUUGE goblet with half a litre of wine in it. And tasty wine it was!





We also went out a boat tour down the Rhein, visited a pony farm (inside joke in
the IUSP - "Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof" translation: "Life is not a pony farm"), sat by the river and ate ice cream.






A solid weekend, all in all!

München Oktoberfest 2010

First of all, this experience was definitely one that you have to do AT LEAST ONCE.
That being said you might want to start planning and booking stuff a year in advance and not taking a 9 hour train ride there and back.

Steps to a Successful Munich Oktoberfest:

1. Book a hostel/hotel to stay in WELL IN ADVANCE. Trust me, the getting up early to catch the earliest train to Munich and then staying up all night to catch a train back will wear you out. It'll be easier (and warmer!) to just stumble back to a hostel with a nice comfy bed and pillow. If you're up for an adventure though, go the train route. Be prepared for obnoxious drunk people on the trains to and from Munich, no matter the time you go.

2. Arrive at a hall before 8 a.m. Any time later than that will make it nigh impossible for you to get in. Unless you bribe one of the bouncers like some of my guy pals did. The girls I stuck with did not bribe anyone but we ended up with pretty decent seats outside between two large heaters and beside a pair of friendly Greek men.

3. Bring a set amount of cash and definitely no credit cards. A single (freaking huge) beer costs ~9-10 Euro. Not cheap. If you have endless amounts of cash then ignore this rule. If you're on a budget then this is the way to go. You can easily get sucked into the "Let's drink more!" atmosphere and end up penniless on the streets.

4. Drink. Plain and simple. Experience what this festival is all about.

Anyway! My experiences. Overall, I feel like I'm really glad I did it, but I probably won't do it again. At least not without some serious planning, a ticket into a hall and no backpack. There are so many stories that have come out of this trip, all of them funny in hindsight, but at the time I was just too tired to take everything that happened in stride and laugh. It probably would have been a different story if it had been a warm, sunny day instead of the 10 degrees Celsius and rainy and I had had more than 3 hours of sleep.

We began the trip Friday night at Raphael's, who was gracious enough to put us up for the night as his place is much closer to the train station than our dorms. We were just about to sleep when everyone else in the IUSP group showed up. Big John and Fritz started jamming together, which was awesome and hilarious (John's a really clever lyricist), but made it really difficult to get to sleep.

We got up around 4:45 and were on our way to the train station by 5. Eight hours of train (and chanting soccer hooligans for the last 2) later and we arrive. It's cold and rainy and packed! There are tons of interesting things, drindls and pretzels for sale EVERYWHERE. I got a few souvenirs for people :D. We finally made it into a Biergarten outside of one of the massive Brauhauses but we were happy once the beer came around.




There were as many benches crammed together as humanly possible but there were arena-style heaters overhead so that was cozy. We were beside these two really nice Greek guys who were giving me pointers on where to visit in Greece and at what time of year. We ended up walking around a bit more after that then heading back to the train station once the rain really started to come down.

The other IUSP people had the same plan and we ended up cuddling up with them, getting food and taking over a large section of the floor while we were waiting for our 2 am train. We chilled and random people took pictures with the crazy North American students passed out on the train station floor.

Once 2 am FINALLY rolled around, we were all done. Everyone seemed ready to head back home to Marburg. I slept most of the way home, but just before we had to change trains in Frankfurt I started talking with two guys from Africa (one from Ethiopia and the other from Uganda, I think) who were in Germany working and learning the language.

Anyway, as soon as I saw the castle from the train I felt a huge amount of relief. It made me realize how quickly Marburg has become a home to me. I'm intrigued to find out what coming home to Canada at Christmas is going to feel like.

Oktoberfest Update + Dorm

After much kerfuffle and the suggestion that we'd have to pay 400+ euro to catch a train to Munich this weekend (HA HA HA soooooooo not happening) we bought Schones Wochenende (Beautiful weekend) tickets, which cost us 20 euro each, and we are good to go! The Schones Wochenende is 39 euro and covers up to 5 people at a time, it's a fantastic idea. We originally had it split between 5 people, but our fifth pulled out suddenly, just before money was being handed over. This irritated me quite a bit as the 5th person was fully informed of our plan (which involves no sleep and very early trains) before we even reached the Hauptbahnhof and committed to going with us anyway. Ah well, now we have one extra seat open for whoever.

But before that... WENDY IS COMING!!! She'll be here around 6:30 tomorrow evening and I'm incredibly excited :D. Michael is making dinner tomorrow and we'll be back to my dorm just in time for yummy food. I'm going to be running around Marburg like a chicken with it's head cut off though, because there is just so much I want to show Wendy and I'll only have a few hours in between classes!

Yet another awesome week in Marburg. :D


Also, because I didn't post pictures of it earlier...

Karaoke + Köln

Karaoke...

Yep, that's right. The IUSP students took over the Mexicali bar in downtown Marburg Thursday night. And it was EPIC! Taylor started off the night with Sweet Caroline, which could not have been more perfect. Everyone got right into the song and started singing along. Maria and I had agreed on singing Piano Man by Billy Joel when we were on the bus. We got a little crazy picking out songs (Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Sonny and Cher, Billy Joel, Madonna, Queen.. etc.) and it was a blast.

Examples of the Song List:
- Sweet Caroline - sung by our own Taylor
- Bohemian Rhapsody
- Piano Man - sung by Chelsea and Nathan!
- American Pie - kind of the theme song for the IUSP gang
- La Bamba - sung by two Latin American guys. It was awesome :D
- I Want It That Way by The Backstreet Boys - sung by Maria, Olivia, Michael, Mike and me

The next day was a little rough because we didn't get back to the dorm until around 1 am but it was definitely worth it. Stories will be told about that night for many years to come.







Köln...

Now on to Köln! We had to catch a 5 am bus from the dorm so we could get to the train station to catch a 6:15 am train... :S I do not function well in the morning but with help from Fritz and Raphael we got tickets and hopped on a train. On the train to Köln we had a fantastic talk about the American political system, which was really interesting to hear from an American student's perspective and a German perspective. We had to change a few times but we made it to Köln by 9:30.

Plenty of time to wander around, climb the bell town (Quasimodo was proud), visit the Schokolade Museum (Chocolate Museum), sample a brew house's specialty and get ice cream.
And I may or may not have bought a new purse... But I need it for school!

The chocolate museum made everyone incredibly happy. There were free samples everywhere and who could not be happy after Lindt free samples? Yes mum, dad and Jenn, I did get you gifties :D.