trier

Well the weather yesterday definitely could have been better. It was freeeeeeezing cold (high was 58 F but I don't think it got there) and rainy. The day started out with us having to wait another hour for our buses to show up here in Bonn. Apparently one of the bus drivers had overslept. Wish I could have done that considering we all had to be up at 6am that morning! But it wasn't too bad because it gave us an excuse to go eat breakfast and drink some more coffee. The bus ride was almost three hours long which certainly was not my favorite part of the day, but I was able to sleep most of it, so that was good.

Once we actually got to Trier, we picked up a tour guide who rode along with us on our bus for a bit, we drove around to a really awesome lookout point overtop of the city at the top of this mountain with a vineyard growing down all sides of it. Sadly, there was fog and rain and not a whole heck of a lot to see... We drove by the old amphitheatre set into a hillside. All the stone for the seats and whatnot was long gone because monastaries had used it as a rock quarry. The amphitheater was actually lost for many years until it was rediscovered hundreds of years later. The Romans originally settled the area sometime around 18 B.C. The original Roman bridge pillars are still there, and still used. It's cool that one side of the pillars are rounded, and the side facing into the current is pointed to break the ice when the river (the Mosel or Moselle in English) froze over. The Porta Nigra is also still standing which is the entrance gate to the old wall of the city. The wall is long gone, having been used for building materials for the middle ages houses and cathedrals. But this gate still stands. It's called the Porta Nigra (or black gate) now because it was made of white sandstone back in the day which has weathered and turned black. No idea what they used to call it.

After the tour, we had a few hours to ourselves to explore the city. Stacy, my friend from Ohio who lives in my dorm, one of the German girls who works for the International Office who was one of our "chaperones," and myself went shopping. I'm hoping to be able to get back to Trier because it's right on the border of Luxembourg and my friends in Metz, France are also quite close. Stacy and I are thinking about making a trip to France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands. You can get weekend passes to go through all of those countries on one ticket.

We also have a plan in the works to head to Spain week after next. Our intro course will be done this next week on Friday, and we don't start classes until the following week Monday. So Stacy, myself, and a girl in our class Alicia (who thankfully speaks Spanish...) are thinking about heading there for the week. Ryan Air has cheap tickets, or I'm thinking about buying a Eurail pass so I can go wherever I want within a few month span and just not worry about it. We'll see.

Well hey, look at that, two posts in one weekned! Look at me go haha. Love to all.

whoops...two weeks

Well, it seems that almost two weeks have gone by now and I haven't had a chance to update. (Or haven't gotten around to it... :) Last weekend I had a couple of friends from Cocoa Beach who are currently studying in Metz, France, come visit me. I met up with them for Cologne and we spent the day being touristy, taking pictures of everything and walking all over the city. We actually got our picture taken for one of the local newspapers while we were sitting on the grass by the Rhein eating ice cream. I was never able to figure out which newspaper it was, though...so let me know if you see a picture of me and an ice cream cone anywhere!

Last week Friday we went to an open air museum in a nearby city Kommern. It was a collection of old village houses and a replica of how life looked hundreds of years ago. I have pictures which I will post soon, I promise! (I'm not in any of them though, I don't think...)

This week classes got a bit harder...we had to do oral presentations and then write a short paper on genetic enginering (new vocab!). However, I enjoy my teacher a lot, she makes things interesting. I'm trying to get into a class with her at the university. As soon as I get a class schedule together I will post here what kinds of classes I'll be taking. At the moment I'm trying to figure out how many credits I'm earning back home from the classes here because it's not a similar system of credits and grading.

Tomorrow we're heading to Trier, oldest city in Germany, so that should be loads of fun. I'll be sure to get pictures from that uploaded shortly thereafter. Much love to all!

time flies by...

Well I've been here a second whole week now, and it's flown by. We went to Marksburg this past Friday which was a lot of fun. The Burg (fort/castle) was cool to see, it's the oldest origonal castle in Rheinland because it was never destroyed in bombing so the entire building is exactly as it was when it was built. After that trip we went to a Vineyard nearby called Mayschoss. This is apparently the largest vineyard in Germany, and while they're most famous for their white wines, they actually produce more red wine than anything else. Interesting. After seven or so glasses of wine, life was good haha. The wine wasn't all great, but we bought a bottle of the Mayschosser Riesling Spaetlese which was the first and best wine of the evening. Florian, a French guy in my class guided me through my first real wine tasting, instructing me on exactly how I was to swich my glass, sniff, taste, and either drink or toss out the rest of my wine glass, and which foods to eat with which wine. It was a lot of fun.

Last night I went to Cologne for dinner and hang around in the downtown Altstadt. It was a lot of fun, although sadly sleep was a mutually exclusive option. And I forgot to bring my camera! I'm bad at that I know.

I managed to get my laundry done today and do a little more exploring in my neighborhood here. This evening I think I'm headed in the city to watch a couple of American football games with some of the other exchange students and a couple of German students. We watched soccer games with them yesterday afternoon so fair's fair! haha. All is going well otherwise. I will try to keep you all better updated. Check out my pictures from Marksburg in the links to the right. Much love to all!

My first week in Bonn...

Well my first week has gone by pretty quickly, even if at moments it seemed to take forever. It has been a good week too, for the most part...minus some very aggravating moments where my bank locked my ATM card and I had no money, to the internet set-up guy in my building standing me up for our meeting to get my internet started.

Tuesday morning I reported to the International Office here at Bonn University where I had to check in. The people there were all very nice, and while they had a lot of information for me, they weren't great with letting me know where I should be and what I should be doing. There was a lot of standing around for a little while. I had to pay a course fee as well as a security deposit and my first month's rent for my dorm, so they sent me trotting off to the bank to withdraw the cash to do so. I was able to withdraw a whole 150 Euro before Bank of America locked up my ATM card. It wouldn't run as a credit either when I got to the Studentenwerk building where I had to pay my rent. Sadly, I had just transfered all the money that had been in my Suntrust bank account into my newer Bank of America account since supposedly BOA is supposed to have a partnership with Deutsche Bank so that I can use their services when abroad. Come to find out, the only thing it does for me is "supposedly" means I can use the Geldautomat (ATM) for free, although service charges for using it have shown up in my account. After running all over the city back and forth between the bank, the Studentenwerk, and the International Office, I was exhausted. But I finally got moved into my dorm that afternoon and promptly took a long nap.

The rest of the week has been easier, thank goodness. I'm all unpacked in my room, and I did a little grocery shopping so I have some stuff to eat. I still need to go to Ikea or some place so that I can get a few more things for my room, like hangers and a little rug (the floor is tile and COLD!).

Orientation classes start on Monday for real. We took a placement test and were separated into our groups by Friday, but all we did were introduction activities. There's about 100 international students here who have come to study at Bonn for either a year or a semester. There people from Japan, China, Taiwan, Turkey, Bulgaria, Norway, Australia, the US and I'm sure many more. I've gotten to know a good amount of people, mostly from the US. There's a group of people from the University of Kansas (I believe, whichever state uni is in/near Topeka?). There's another guy from University of Florida which is the school I'm technically from since I'm doing this program through UF, not UCF. And there's a couple of people in my dorm who I've gotten to know from Ohio State and Washington State.

This morning I went and opened a bank account at Sparkasse so that the Studentenwerk can deduct my monthly rent from that account. I think it will also make life easier if I transfer most of my money there so I can use ATMs anywhere. There's only one Deutsche Bank in the center of Bonn, but there's a Sparkasse on every street corner it seems. It was actually a pretty easy process.

I'm speaking quite a but of German these days, pretty much 24/7. A bunch of us here have made a pact to only speak German to each other since that's the only way we're going to get any better is if we speak it all the time. I'm usually great at understanding what everyone else is saying, and there's only been a few times where I just really had no idea how to say what I was thinking. I'm hoping my intensive language course, which is this orientation course, will help me with vocab and whatnot. Although I'm thinking that after meeting the other students in my class, I want to move up at least a level or two. I'm with a couple of people who can't string a whole correct sentence together 9 out of 10 times. And while I don't want to be snobby or anything, I'm not paying all this money so I can sit in a classroom and help other people. This course is supposed to be preparing me to take classes in the university, and if my German hasn't improved by the end of the month, I'm not going to do as well when I'm confronted with a whole classroom full of only German-speaking people.

Okay well I think that's it for me now. There's a carnival going on called Puetzchens Markt which is Bonn's mini Oktoberfest. (I like how Oktoberfest starts in September and lasts until the beginning of November...) I think I'm going to meet up with some of the people from my dorm and we're going to walk over there. More from me later. I miss you all!

P.S. After a conversation with a British Literature MA student here, I've decided to erradicate (or attempt to) the verb "get" from my vocabulary entirely. You should do the same.

INTERNET! how i've missed you

I didn't realize how attached I was to my internet connection until I was without it this week. I could have survived just fine if I was at home, but being here in Germany in a new place missing home, it's nice to feel connected somehow to my friends and family at home. And of course Skype requires internet to call my mommy and daddy :) I will update on all events this weekend when I have the time. For now I'm going to sleep. It's almost 1am here ah!

arrived in germany

Well I'm here. The process was not quite as painful as last summer, thankfully, although it did come with some trying moments like hauling my two extrememly large suitcases up two levels of the airport to find the currency exchange place closed. And then being unable to open the door to my hotel room. Apparently, German keys to doors escape me. Go figure. But I am now (somewhat) rested and showered and ready to tackle finding dinner. I hope to update regularly and post pictures of all future adventures here in Bonn, my new home for the next 6 months.