So the first thing that I can think of which has happened is that Kate and Marker came to visit! :) It was great to see both of them - We first met up in Cologne and spent a couple of days sampling the city's well-known Koelsch beer (a meter of beer was involved at one point during the trip). After visiting Cologne and making the mandatory stop at the Frueh brewery, we went south to Koblenz where we spent a couple days exploring the region and drinking some wine. We went to Bacharach (in-CREDIBLY difficult to pronounce in German...mostly I end up hacking and spitting if I try to say it) and climbed up to a castle and had some wine before taking a boat ride back to Koblenz (during which we drank more wine). We were about fifty years below the average age of the typical Koblenz tourist, but it was still tons of fun. :)
Marker & Kate at Frueh
Kate & I - The Rhine
One Whole Meter!
On our way back down from the Schloss at Bacharach!
Marker and I - the boat ride down the Rhine!
Shortly after Kate and Marker's visit I decided to take a quick trip to Innsbruck to visit my host family from Junior year. It was wonderful to see Erich, Elisabeth, Magda and Theresa...I was absolutely spoiled rotten and must have gained ten pounds from how much food I was fed! We basically spent the weekend driving around Tirol, eating, and we also went to a concert. It was fantastic. I had forgotten how breathtakingly beautiful that place is - I didn't appreciate it nearly enough when I was there.
In Mieming...near Innsbruck
In Mieming...near Innsbruck
Me & my host sisters
The Inn-River at night...gorgeous.
It was also nice to get a little escape from mega host family time, since Emily went down the same weekend to visit her brother who was then studying in Innsbruck and doing the same program I did when I was at ND. We went out with the students to StadtCafe, which I still cannot believe I had never been to! Lots of drunken Austrian students (and creepy middle-aged guys) grinding up against each other to techno...heh.
Emily & I at StadtCafe!
The third exciting thing that has happened (travel-wise) is my trip to jolly-old-England! My friend Sara and I scored 6-Euro (!!!) tickets from Bremen to Liverpool, so we decided to go visit our English friend Katie. The first night was spent frolicking in Liverpool - we went to the famous Cavern Club where the Beatles always played in their earlier days. It was SUPER cool because the entire night was filled with songs that everyone knew, so literally there wasn't a bad song in the set. That, and it was a really interesting mix of people. Basically a bunch of twenty-somethings, and people in our parents' generation.
There was this guy who opened for a group called the Mersey (sp?) Beatles - a Beatles tribute band which, I have to admit, were pretty legit. Well, he was a former member of the tribute band, so he was pretty good as well. He played for about an hour and then the Mersey Beatles played from like 10:30 until somewhere around 2am. We may have had more than a few rounds, so the end of the night was a bit fuzzy. It ended with us singing with a group of drunken Australian men (who were all about 35-40 years old), taking a picture with said Australian men outside of the bar at closing time, Sara tackling me to the ground in the street, and a drunken Burger King run. All in all, a stellar night if I do say so.
Katie & I - Cavern Club
The next day was spent shopping and wandering around the city before meeting up with Katie (she had Spanish classes all day), and heading off to her neck of the woods. She lives in the Cumbria region - kinda in the North and it's mostly made of very small towns and scattered small groupings of houses. I may have seen more sheep than people. We went out to dinner with her friends but were then happy to retire to Katie's house and make it an early night.
The next day we were given a tour of the Cumbria region by Katie and her boyfriend, Tom. The Lake District was absolutely gorgeous, and scattered with lots of...you guessed it - lakes. We went swimming despite the cold water, and I even joined Tom in one of his favorite activities - jumping from "stuff" into water. We went to this cliff and jumped into the river below. SUCH a rush, but I'll probably never do anything like that again. The evening ended with fish and chips and a trip to the local pub (literally, the pub consisted of a bunch of 65 year-old men and us reading trivia books to one another. heaven!)
Tom making the jump!
Tom making the jump!
Sunday was spent being lazy and staying in our pajamas all day...it was just like being at home! Sara and I helped Katie make a traditional roasted leg of lamb with all the fixings, and we basically sat around and watched movies all day other than that.
The next day was spent in Manchester, where Katie had lived for a while before she moved to Germany. Sara and I once again spent the day shopping (Manchester has one of the biggest malls I've ever seen in my life. TIRING!) We were happy when Katie was able to join us after she finished her class, and we went to some of her favorite local bars. It was the perfect end to the trip, because we all had to part ways early the next morning.
Sara, Katie and I in Manchester
Sara, Katie and I in Manchester
***SIDENOTE: I could not understand a word that most people said to me. I felt totally inept. I mean, this is supposed to be my language, for Pete's sake! I felt like if they had been speaking German I might have understood better....
Probably the last thing to report on is World Cup Mania, and how crazy Germans get about soccer. That, and how much I hate the damn Vuvuzelas - those stupid horns that fans blow throughout the ENTIRE GAME.
Okay, so as for Germans and their soccer obsession: I've never seen so many German flags in my life. And this is something relatively new. Apparently the first time that Germans really felt comfortable showing national pride and displaying flags was in 2006, when the German team went relatively far while hosting the FIFA World Cup. Whatever the case, the flags are everywhere now, and there are public viewings of the games all over the country. For example, when I went to Bochum to watch the US match last weekend, the Germany match was directly beforehand. I was on my way to meet some friends at a bar and literally could NOT make my way through the streets because it was PACKED full of soccer fans. It's kinda hard NOT to catch some of the Football-Fever here, and I've actually kinda gotten into it - especially because OUR boys have moved on to the next round!
Emily, Sara & Amanda - USA Soccer match watch at "Three Sixty" American bar in Bochum
Oh silly Amanda...
As far as the countdown goes, it's been whittled down to 5 days! Cannot believe it's under a week...ten months has lasted forever on one hand, but it's flown by on the other! It just sucks that I'm leaving now that the weather is good and now that I have some really good friends here - we now actually go OUT in Duelmen and go to BARS and can sit OUTSIDE! Literally, if you haven't experienced January and February in northern Germany you cannot imagine the amount of depression that's associated with it. I'd tell you how many hours of sunlight we had in the whole month of February, but it's too damn depressing.
That and now I actually feel somewhat accomplished because I've been given more hours at school...I'm the first English TA they've had in like 6 years, so they really didn't know what to do with me at the beginning. We've finally got a system worked out now, so it's a bit of a shame that I'm leaving now...oh well, at least I was given top marks in my end of the year review! :)
Nadin, me & Steffi at Steffi's for the Germany game watch
Stefan, me & Kai - celebrating the Germany win!
It's starting to set in that I'm going to be a student again next year - just got an email about signing up for courses, and I now officially have a UW email address! Excited and terrified! Football games....and term papers. I wonder if I even remember how to write a term paper.
Anyway, that about does it for the epic blog entry. My next post should be back in the US! (If I decide to keep this up, that is...) Well, here's hoping! See you stateside!
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