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.

Begin the Settling in Process

View from my language classroom. :D Yeeeeeeah!



Some of my class!


Marburg. Street view.

So, wow.

Things have continued to be busy but I'm starting to get a routine going and that's helping.
Get up 7 am. Shower. Catch the bus. Stop at the bakery. Get to class. Eat lunch. Get to other class. Then either shop/get groceries/do some other necessary thing in town before heading back to the dorm. Sleep.
Rinse. Repeat.
But I'm finding time to have fun in between!
This weekend was stellar. I got to sleep in past 9 for the first time since I got here. So Holly and I just lazed around and watched Dexter. Which is super dark and hilarious. Then we went out with Maria and tried to find the bar at Studentendorf. It took us a while, but we got it! And everyone had a fantastic time. We met up with some students from ISEP and they were super cool.
Then Dan and Connie came to visit on Sunday! It was great to see them :) and they brought me so many incredibly useful things! Like pots! And 3 seasons of Two and a Half Men!
Anyway, Marburg is beautiful. It's this awesome mixture of history and modernity. An old stone bridge stands just down the river of a super modern metal one. We went on a walking tour of the town (in the pouring rain, but it's hard to come by sunshine 'round these parts) and I was stunned. It was fantastic. There are so many adorable little shops my friends and I would like to check out. And Jen (the other Canadian) and I want to go back up to the castle when there's actually snow on the ground... then toboggan back down! Although, that could be a bad idea seeing as the walls aren't really ...there... sometimes. So, unless we get really good at steering, we might steer clear.

I'm supposed to be working on a presentation right now... I know, a presentation already!... But I'll put more later, when I've finished this homework... :D Tee hee!

Lots of love to everyone at home. Send me an e-mail or leave some love! I'd love to hear from people.

Rest in Peace Carly <3

Holy Handgrenades!

Things have moved FREAKING FAST!!!

I'll go through a day by day breakdown because there is just way too much.

Tuesday: Arrive in Frankfurt, meet with Dan, head to Kassel and chill for the night. We had a lovely dinner and then watched Two and a Half Men with a bottle of wine. Overall, a perfect night. :) A huge thanks to them for all their help!

Wednesday: Get up and ready. Connie helps me pack my stuff and drives me to the train station (hauptbanhof) and I took it to the station in Marburg. I was met by an IUSP guy named Raphael and he took me to where all the other arrivals were, while secretly telling me that the Canadians were always his favourites :D. But shh!! I don't think it would much matter in this gang, everyone is awesome. There are about 47 of us in total. Two Canadians (me and Jen from Alberta <3), a guy from New Zealand, a girl from Australia and the rest are Americans from all over. We were taken to our dorms, given keys and shown around briefly. We were given a couple hours to settle in and then meet back in town. After which I went out for beers with some pretty cool cats, Nathan, Maria and Michael. We almost got lost on the way back to the dorm (which is at the very north end of town) but thanks to Maria's and my superior directional skills, we found our way back. I don't have internet yet, so pictures will come later. I'm using a friend's computer right now.

Thursday: Get up, pay the room deposit and wander around Marburg a little bit. Then hop on a bus to Berlin for 8 hours. I really got to talk to people and get to know them a bit more during that ride so the 8 hours was ideal. Arrive in Berlin and go out for a beer. Sleep.

Friday: Get up early and get a guided tour of Berlin with a really funny guy named Wolfgang. Very informative and very entertaining. Not to mention he showed us this fantastic chocolate shop... We hung out at the youth hostel (which is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy themed) and then headed out for food and to hang out at a bar. I had a really good talk with some more awesome people, like John and Frtiz, which left me feeling just overall fantastic.

Saturday: Get up and chill in the lobby of the hostel for a while. Then head out with Maria, Holly, Jen and Beth to visit the Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, that chocolate shop... etc etc. We ended up walking around for over 5 hours having a BLAST and taking many a silly picture. Great group of girls. We stopped and got quiche and chocolate, which was like heaven. Picked up groceries for tomorrow because apparently everything is closed on Sunday and we tend to get hungry. So now, everyone is just taking some time to relax in the hostel, play some cards or just talk. So I'm going to stop being a mega loner in this corner and join them.

Tomorrow: Check out at noon and head back to Marburg by 1. Then who knows!

Pictures will be coming as soon as I get the internet up and running in the dorm. Maybe when I have more than 10 minutes in it...

Tchus!

P.S. Marburg is surrounded by mountains and I can seem them from my dorm room window. :D

Airport Madness

So break down of the last 2 days
Sunday: Got up at 4:30 am to hop in a car for 14 hours to drive from North Carolina to Syracuse. Chill with family :) <3
Monday: Get up at 7:30 am to drive 5 hours to get home. Chill with family until 7 <3. Hop in the car again for an hour to the airport. Lots and lots and lots of tears. Hop on a plane for 7 hours 40 minutes.

I'll put pictures up later but the line to check in was RIDICULOUS! It spanned basically an entire section of the terminal because of some poor planning on Air Transat's part. Three major international flights flying within 15 minutes of each other = chaos. Luckily the staff handled it really well and it only took an hour and a half to check in then 10 minutes through customs. No big deal!

However I've cried so much that my contacts are now sticky and blurry.

Anyway, I'm now sitting at my gate waiting to board, chilling with an Arizona ice tea and a Rolling Stone magazine with True Blood on the cover. Good to go! I'm planning to sleep on the plane so I'm not so zonked when I get to Frankfurt. I'm excited to see Connie and Dan :D They've been so amazing so far, Connie even prepared a room for me at her place!

Well the pilots have just arrived. I'll definitely miss my family and friends but I'm ecstatic to have their love and support behind me as I go off on this adventure. I'll bring back presents :D.

WIN!

So, Friday night I get an e-mail from Marburg saying that my bank is not authorising my registration payment. So I called Scotia today to get it all fixed up while my boss was messing around in the office instead of filming but that's a different story. I was on the phone with Scotia for only 15 minutes and the lady I spoke with was incredibly helpful. Turns out it's a problem on Marburg's end and not from here. Anyway, it just felt good to get that all sorted out. Being productive FTW!

Another thing that makes me happy today: I found my sunglasses! They were tucked away in a pocket of the camera bag I use for work and not punked by my sister... a ha... :D ... So Jenn, I take back my accusation... sorry!

I had better start packing and sorting out what I'll need immediately and what I'll need to get my parents to ship to me. I guess I won't need my skates immediately.... *sigh*

A little thing that kind of got me really excited for the exchange today was reading over the e-mail they sent asking me to fix money stuff. Weird, I know. But it said "Dear ladies" and that reminded me of all the new people who I'll be meeting which made me go "YAY!!!" but internally. Or else I would've gotten weird looks from the people in the office.

Also, Connie messaged me on Facebook asking a bunch of questions and that got me thinking about Germany and all excited again.

Basically, if I even think I hear a plane I get excited. I'm pretty jumpy these days.

Some sobering thoughts: I won't be seeing the friends who I've seen basically every day for the past 6-7+ years for a full year. Kev mentioned that this would be the first year we wouldn't have any classes together since grade 9. He also mentioned that I wouldn't be there to laugh at him when he came in late to class all frazzled or to mock the professors with him. Sad day :(.

THIS IS WHY EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET SKYPE STAT! And add me. Oh! Apparently there are two accounts so call me/text me/smoke signal me and let me know that you've got Skype. Both have my exact birthday so be warned. Ah screw it, my account name is bexxter27 (someone had already taken bexter27...the jerk.)

Anyway, here is a picture of who I will miss the most.

More Pictures!

Only 4 days of work left. WOO!
And even better .... ONLY 36 days until I fly out! DOUBLE WOO!

When I said "pictures" in my last post it really turned out to be "picture" and I got some flack for it, so :P Here!







All pictures taken from here: http://www.uni-marburg.de/iusp/practicalinformation/pictures

The LowDown

Ok, here's the deal.

In 41 (!!!) days I am off to do a study exchange in Germany until either June or August of 2011. I'll be back in June if I can't get a job there and August if I can. This blog is for anyone who is interesting in what's going on and partially for myself as a record of what should be a pretty big event in my life.

School: Philipps Marburg University in Marburg, Germany.

Dorm: I really hope so.

Mini-trips while there:
1) Ireland - maybe around St. Patty's Day? hmm... something to ponder
2) Croatia
3) Switzerland-France-Italy (with my fabulous cousin Katie!)
4) Istanbul (if possible)
5) Munich for Oktoberfest!
6) London and Scotland

I don't care if I have to beg, borrow or steal. I will be going to these places.

Hopes:
That I make the most out of my time there. Learn and explore and generally have a life-alteringly good time.

Fears:
That I suddenly get really shy and don't talk to anyone.

Thing that makes me happy today:
I've been in contact with the Laurier student who went to Marburg last year and he said it's amazing. Also, he said that if I'm staying over the winter then there should be an ice rink in Marburg and some in Kassel. So, I don't care what else has to stay here, my skates are coming with me!

Still to do: (oh god :S)
1) Call the bank
2) Call my doctor and optometrist
3) Get a student line of credit
4) Get a new VISA
5) Pay my parents back for the gas money they've fronted so far. Thank you! :D That $1,500 odd will be coming your way soon, I promise!
6) Pack! Someone remind me to take my camera or else I will forget it. Also! need to get socket converters... BUSY BUSY BUSY.

Closing:
I will really try to keep this updated! Maybe if I put a little quick link or something in my browser...

Also, here are some pictures of Marburg :D