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