Old Friendship, New Place

Look at me, three posts in one month! I'm feeling quite proud of myself right now :-) Also, I bought a new camera, so you can once again enjoy photos!

Last weekend (11 June-14 June) I went to England to visit my good friend TJ. TJ and I worked at Camp Wesley Woods together, and I had not seen him in almost 2 years, so I don't need to tell you that I was very, very excited to spend time with my old friend--in fact, my trip to England was the first flight I booked after I came to Germany.

It all started on Thursday. I had a late flight (19:45), so I spent the morning finishing my packing, talking to Kevin, and cleaning my room (I hate coming home to a messy room!) At 14:00, I started my long journey to the airport. I was flying through a company called Ryanair, and although the website says that the airport is in Düsseldorf, it is really in a town about an hour outside of Düsseldorf called Weeze. On a good day, it takes two trains, one bus, and about three hours to get to this airport from my flat. Of course, it was not a good day, and my second train was running about 20 minutes late (which is oh so typical for Deutsche Bahn--I can't wait to get my car back!), which caused me to miss my bus. The bus only runs every hour, and we missed it by about ten minutes, so I was looking at standing (in the rain) at this bus stop for about 50 minutes. Instead, I took a taxi with 3 other people who also did not feel up to waiting, and they ended up paying for it, telling me not to worry about it! Yay free taxi ride! Actually, this was my first taxi ride. Ever. Once I got to the airport, I sat with my new taxi friend, Florian, and waited to board that plane. Florian shared his headphones with me, and we watched "Gray's Anatomy" on his laptop. At this point, I feel the need to inform all of you about Ryanair. Ryanair is the cheapest airline ever. Seriously. I flew to Manchester and back for €20, including all taxes and fees, and it is amazing what a person will endure to save money. First, there is no assigned seating--everything is first-come-first-serve (of course, for a small fee, you can be one of the first people to board the plane). Once you enter the plane, you notice that there is really no space, and it is amazing how many people they cram into this tiny plane. There is no leg room, the seats do not recline, and you are sitting very close to your neighbor, and I was truly thankful that I have short legs and that I am a small person in general. Next, everything is covered in an obnoxious yellow color and advertisements, and you have to pay an outrageous amount of money for food or beverages (3€ for a can of coke?!?!?!). The worst part? No air conditioning. It's not too bad once you get up into the air, but I honestly thought I was going to be sick because the heat really worsened my motion sickness (I remember closing my eyes and thinking "Please don't throw up, Please don't throw up"). Luckily, it was only an hour long flight, and it was only 20€.

Once I arrived in Manchester, I found an advantage to being a non-EU (Europen Union, but you should already know that) citizen. There were significantly fewer of us traveling, so the customs line was non-existent :-) I was asked what I was doing in England, how long I was staying, where I was going when I left, what I am doing in Germany, what I am studying, etc, then I got another stamp in my passport (yay!), and I went out and found TJ! When we got to the car and TJ was putting my bag in the trunk, I opened the door and started to get in when TJ said, "Oh hey Danielle, I'm going to drive." Haha, driving on the other side of the road (even as a passenger) took quite a bit of getting used to. Actually, I never really got used to it: while we were in London, I saw a car pull up to a red light and freaked out because there was a little boy in the driver's seat! But then I sheepishly realized that he was sitting on the left side, which is the passenger's seat in England :-)

Enjoying the beautiful sunset :-)

After TJ picked me up, we went to a grocery store for Krispy Kreme doughnuts and then drove out to an overlook to watch the sunset. We just missed it, but you could still see the colors on the horizon. It was so nice and really reminded me of home (as did many things that weekend). The we went to TJ's house where his mother made me cheese on toast which was absolutely amazing! I know what your thinking, what's so great about cheese on toast? Well, let me tell you. First, she started toasting the bread in the oven, then she took it out and put a big pile of freshly grated, yummy white cheddar (Americans have no idea what they are missing when it comes to cheese) and worcestershire sauce on it, then she put it back in the oven and let it get all melty--Yummy!

The next morning, TJ's mom made a delicious breakfast of bacon (which is what we Americans would consider country ham), sausage, eggs, and toast. That was really the first hot breakfast I've had since coming to Germany, and I enjoyed every moment. That day, TJ and I went to a really pretty park, Tatton Park, with his Golden Retriever (I've missed playing with dogs so much!), and I really enjoyed just walking around in nature.

Pretty

She really liked playing in the water

We saw so many stags that day, I couldn't even begin to count them!

After returning Becky to his house, TJ and I went to Little Moreton Hall, a historical building in his town. It was really a cool place, and I enjoyed learning the history of it. I also enjoyed the nice garden in the back--I think Dortmund is leaving me severely nature deprived.

In front of Little Moreton Hall

The courtyard inside

Momma duck sitting on her eggs behind the hall :-) Yay nature!

That evening TJ took me to the bar/restaraunt where he works, and we ate dinner. I had a delicious steak and mushroom pie, along with a glass of cider. After eating, we sat at the bar where I drank a hot chocolate with Grand Marnier, followed by black current juice. I've never had black current before--I've only heard of it because we have a scent at Bath and Body Works called "Black Currant and Vanilla" (I not a big fan of the scent because I don't like vanilla). It was quite nice :-)

The next day was a big day--we got up early and went to London! TJ's brother lives in London, so he came with his girlfriend and showed us around the town. We only had 7 hours to spend there, so it was truly a whirlwind tour! Here are just a few pictures:

Tower of London

The bridge wasn't that exciting (apparently the original bridge was bought by a man in Texas and moved there), but this statue was kind of cool

Globe Theatre!

St. Paul's. One of the only buildings not destroyed in the fire.

Buddies

Walk to the Palace. All of the flags were out because it was the Queen's official birthday.

Pretty

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben. The name actually refers to the bell, not the clock.

I caught him sticking out his tongue :-)

Saturday evening, TJ and I went to his friend's birthday party, which happened to be a fancy dress (British for costume) party. I had so much fun! We danced, we drank, we ate delicious food, and I really enjoyed the luxury of hanging out with a friend that I've had for longer than 3 months. Oh the things you take for granted! I actually enjoyed a lot of luxuries that weekend: playing with a dog, staying in a house with a family (that speaks English), riding in a car instead of depending on public transportation the whole time, spending time in nature, a home cooked breakfast, among other things. It actually made me quite homesick because it was much more like home than Dortmund, and getting that little taste of home just reminded me of what I am missing. Not much longer, and then I can get the chance to be homesick for Germany :-)

Don't we look great? TJ kept commenting on how the costume fit the contours of his body perfectly... :-)

So much fun!

Sunday afternoon (oh too soon) I was back on a plane to Germany, and I just wasn't ready to give up all of these reminders of home but classes were calling. England is wonderful. Go there. I plan on returning, one day. I actually like it so much, that I think I would like to live there one day. Seriously.

One thing I know all of you are thinking: What did Kevin think of you going and spending four days with another guy? I would like to use this moment to announce to everyone that the man I am marrying is wonderful. He trusts me and had no problems with me going to see TJ. In fact, he was a little jealous ("You get to go see TJ? I wanna go see TJ!"), and it was actually really nice to spend time with a friend that actually knows Kevin.

Also, I've gone back to many of my blogs and added a link to my Facebook albums so that you can see more pictures. Adding pictures to my blog entries is actually a fairly long process, so you don't get to see the majority of my photos. Here is the link for my England Adventure.

Tschüss!

Dear München, You were wonderful. Please take care of my camera. Love, Danielle

So I promised a timely post about Munich (called München in German), and I guess my body really wanted to keep the promise because I was wide awake at 8 this morning, and I don't have class until 12. I'll start at the beginning, prepare yourselves for a typical super-long post:

We left the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) around 8:30 Friday morning, and by "we," I mean myself and 14 others. There were 7 German girls, 2 American girls (including me, naturally), 1 German guy, 4 American guys, and 1 French guy. It was really a great group, and we got along quite well. On the way to Munich (it was a 6 hour trip on a high-speed train), we decided to keep up the German tradition of drinking on trains and made White Russians. Of course, you usually only see people drinking beer on trains, and that really would have been much more German of us, but we decided to be classy--plus we only needed 2 bottles of liquor for these drinks instead of a ton of beer bottles. So to summarize the train ride to Munich, we were drinking yummy mixtures of Vodka, Kahlua, and milk at about 11 in the morning. Good way to start, right?

Once we got to Munich, we checked into our hostel and headed over to the Chinesischer Turm in the Englischer Garten (a huge, beautiful park that is the biggest in the world), and I felt like I had walked straight into a German stereotype. There were a ton of people in traditional Bavarian clothing (think lederhosen), there was a band playing polka-style music, and everyone was drinking a Maß. When you imagine the huge glasses of beer in Germany, you are imagining a Maß, which is a liter of beer that I've only seen in Bavaria. It was lots of fun, and I really enjoyed it. Afterward, six of the German girls split from the group and the rest of us went to a really neat beer hall created from horse stalls that my guidebook recommended: Augustiner Bräustube. We walked in and one main word came into my mind: tavern. It was really cool, and fairly inexpensive. I drank a Maß of Weiße, ate a bowl of delicious Spargel Suppe (asparagus cream soup that is made from white asparagus), and split a huge plate of meat and kraut with my friend Tori. It was all infinitely delicious, and I felt really German :-) I also just enjoyed the chance to hangout with my friends--as I said before, it was a really great group! We got back to the hostel around midnight, and the girls all went to bed as the boys went back out to a student party (I decided to get some rest so I could enjoy Munich on Saturday).

The next day I wanted to visit the Neuschwanstein, a castle built by Ludwig II who was a crazy king who built tons of castles in Germany before he was accused of being insane. He was arrested, moved from the castle, and was mysteriously found dead face-down in a lake with his psychiatrist the next day. This particular castle was the last one the he built, and it was also the inspiration for Cinderella's castle in Disney World. It was a 2 hour train ride from Munich and only 2 people, Tori and Erin, were up for it. Despite the fact that it rained the whole time we were walking up to the castle (a pretty long walk straight uphill), it was a wonderful day. The castle is at the top of a hill with a beautiful view, and I think the fact that it was raining and misty made it even more majestic. We toured the castle, which is mostly empty (Ludwig was arrested before the majority of the rooms could be decorated), but the rooms that were decorated were amazing. I literally felt like I walking through a fairy tale--everything was covered in paint, gold, and murals, and every time you passed by a window, you saw the beautiful view. I really could rant for a long while about this castle, but I still don't think I could portray how cool it was or how much I enjoyed it. I also thoroughly enjoyed hanging with Tori and Erin, and I'm really glad they came with me.

We got back from the Neuschwanstein around 8 (we got started a little late on Saturday), met up with the rest of the group, and headed over to the Hofbräuhaus, one of the most famous beer halls in Germany. I have a friend from camp, Conner, who has an internship in Ingolstadt and just happened to be in Munich on Saturday, so he met me there with two of his German friends. The Hofbräuhaus was insanely crowded, so my group decided to go to a different place across the street, but I stayed with Conner and his friends (it is much easier to find a place for 4 than it is to find a place for 19). Let me explain this place a little more for you: the entire place was a huge, high-ceiling hall full of long, sturdy picnic tables, and you sit with a bunch of strangers wherever you can find a place. The four of us finally found a spot, and I had a great time catching up with Conner, eating Bratwurst and Kraut, drinking a Maß, and talking to and singing drinking songs with all of the people at the table. Overall, it was wonderful, and I'm pretty sure that Saturday was my favorite day in Germany so far.

Now at this point you might have noticed that I haven't posted any pictures of my best day ever. That is because my camera decided to abandon me in the Hofbräuhaus. All I know is that it was in my bag when I walked in (I took pictures immediately before entering, then put my camera back in my bag), and when I left and reached for my camera, it was gone. The only explanation I can come up with is that it fell out of my bag. This leads me to Sunday and the great camera hunt. By the time I realized that my camera was gone, the beer hall was closed, so Tori returned with me on Sunday to see if anyone had found it. We thuroughly searched the place and talked to at least 4 waiters, the manager, a waitress, the gift shop lady, and the gift shop kiosk lady, but to no avail. Apparently, someone acquired a free camera on Saturday night. It was truly frustrating, and I shed a tear or two for my camera, but there was honestly nothing I could do. At least I can take comfort in the fact that I didn't do something stupid like set it down and walk off without it, but I'm so mad because it seems so stereotypical: an American tourist losing her camera in a beer hall. Oh well.

After the fruitless search for my camera, Tori and I went to the Nyphemburg Schloss, which is called the Versailles of Germany. Tori bought me some ice cream (she is truly a beautiful person, and I'm glad to call her my friend), and we sat outside the water and watched some baby swans playing. It was really relaxing. Afterward, we went to an art museum because they are only 1€ on Sundays, but neither of us were really that impressed because everything was from the same time period and looked exactly the same. It was cool for the first couple of rooms, but became monotonous. Then it was time to head home :-( I was very sad because I loved being in Munich and because leaving was officially admitting that my camera was gone.

Overall, I must say that, apart from losing my camera, it was the best weekend I've had since coming to Germany. Munich is wonderful, Maß are wonderful, my friends are wonderful, and I've never been more in love with Germany.

Aachen and the Dreiländerpunkt

Ok, I want to start off by stating that I am well aware of the fact that it has been an obscenely long time since I’ve posted. Honestly, there hasn’t been that much to post—I guess you could say that I’ve finally fallen into a routine and sometimes things feel so normal that I can’t think of anything to tell you. This last Friday, however, I went on an exciting adventure, and I’ve decided to write about it.

As I think I told all of you earlier, every student at Dortmund University gets a “Semester Ticket” that allows them the travel second class anywhere in our state for free. Lately, I’ve been trying to take advantage of this ticket and really see the NRW (Nordrhein Westfalen) before I leave, and this past Friday, we went to Aachen, a really cool town in the Southwest. When we first arrived, we checked out the Dom (cathedral), and it was really cool. Definitely one of my favorites (and I’ve seen a lot of them since arriving in Europe!) The inside was absolutely gorgeous—the entire ceiling was covered in beautiful mosaic art. I tried to get a few pictures, but my camera was not very cooperative in the dim lighting. Oh well, if you want to know what it really looks like, you should just go to Aachen. After checking out the Dom and eating some lunch (very reasonably priced and yummy Chinese food), we headed out to the Dreiländerpunkt (“three country point”). I actually only recently learned about this, and it is the point where Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands all meet—pretty exciting. It was a bit of a walk from the Innenstadt (inner-city), and I loved every minute of it! We walked down a road with fields on either side of us, and I almost felt like I was back home, walking down the road past our farm in Virginia. I’ve been having some serious homesickness lately, and this was exactly what I needed. After walking past fields for awhile, we went through a forest, which also felt like home—I could’ve been walking down camp road :-) I had forgotten just how much I love the smell of the woods. Finally, we reached our destination—the Dreiländerpunkt! It was so much fun—we all took turns standing/sitting/laying in any combination of the three countries, and some people took the opportunity to buy and eat some form of food in each country. I had such a wonderful time, and I think it is so amazing that I live only 2½ hours from such a neat place. It was also nice to just spend some time with other international students. Our traveling group had six different countries represented: US, Hungary, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Turkey. Here are some photos from the adventure:

The outside of the Dom. I thought it was so cool, and there is a little dome in the middle that is shaped like a lemon juicer :-)

A lot of the Doms have a miniature version outside of the door. I decided to bust out the Danzilla on this one :-D

One of my only decent pictures of the inside--that design on the ceiling is a mosaic.

The road through the fields. The road was named Dreiländerweg ("three country way").

Yay cows!

This was next to the road in the forest. We were the only four brave enough to play on it, and it was epically fun. There is a different country in each corner: Anil (far left) is from Turkey, Balazs (on my left) is from Hungary, and Thiébaud (on my right) is from France.

Sitting in 3 countries--the green lines by my butt and my foot are the borders. Germany is on the left, the Netherlands are in the middle, and Belgium is on the right.

Group Pic :-D

Tomorrow I will be leaving for Munich, one of the biggest cities in Germany that is considered the second capital. It's supposed to be really cool, and I am super psyched, so expect a post when I get back! (No really, I promise to write about it within a few days of returning)

Link to my Facebook album

Tschüss!