Day by day update on what i've done so far
sortof fixed 8/24
i tried to make this really nice with lj cuts, but i couldnt get them to work right and now what i have of paragraph breaks no longer is working either, so im giving up right now, since ive tried to edit it about 4 times and only made it worse. Im really sorry this is working so poorly.
For referance:
A=Amanda (from Drew)
C=Catherine (from Georgetown)
Frau=Frau Schnieder (my host mother)
6/1
Got to Philly airport early, so mom and dad took me to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner. Then we met Amanda and her parents at the airport. After we checked in, Amanda and I hung out in the terminal for around 2 hours before we boarded the plane. It was an airbus and everyone had their own TV, which was really nice because we could pick our programming too. I watched Monk, Gilmore Girls, Friends, and I think something else off and on all night while I tried to sleep.
6/2 - Wiesbaden
We landed at Frankfurt airport around 10:30 and took the train to Wiesbaden (around 30 min from Frankfurt) right away. On the train, Amanda and I realized that we didn’t know where our hotel was besides the street address. With the help of 4 nice Germans and 3 buses (on the same line - we went the wrong direction, walked around for a while, got on it again in the right direction, got off again and realized that a couple of stops later was correct so got back on, the entire time pulling our huge suitcases with full backpacks). Around 2 hours later, we made it to the hotel. It was adorable - right on the Rhein, with comfortable beds and a nice shower, once we figured out how to work it, even if it was on the 3rd floor. After showering and resting for a little bit, we ventured out to explore the neighborhood. Down the street was a palace that now is a restaurant and a big park. Along the Rhein there are many benches and places to walk. We ate at a Chinese restaurant next to the hotel - we weren’t exactly sure what we were getting till we saw it, since foreign food names aren’t taught to students, but it was good. Then we got ice cream from the shop next door - I had pina colta, and walked through the shopping area there. We went to sleep early, around 8 I think, since we didn’t really sleep on the plane.
6/3 - Wiesbaden
The hotel had a really nice big breakfast buffet, then we took the bus into the old city part. We wandered around on the streets and found all the major old sites. We walked to a museum, but it was under construction so only the modern and impressionist art exhibits were open. They had a movie of a very elaborate chain reaction using house/garage-type objects - tires and other cylindrical objects, wood, balloons, garbage bags, and chemicals that made exploded and made fires - it was fascinating, but I didn’t really think it was “art” - more of a giant science experiment I thought. We went to a bakery and bought lunch, which we ate in a big park by a lake with a fountain and a ton of birds in front of the opera house or something like that. We took the bus around the city and found dinner in a Italian restaurant not to far from our hotel - we actually ate in a “Bier garden” but it was just the outside seating area of the restaurant (we drank cokes). We went had ice cream again and went for a walk, but it started to rain, so we ran back to the hotel, and it poured until after we were in bed.
6/4 - Trains and Trier
We had breakfast at the hotel, then packed up and left for Trier. The first train from Wiesbaden to Koblenz went along the Rhein, past lots of castles. Unfortunately, it was crowded when we got on, so we ended up in a smoking car, so it wasn’t the most pleasant of trips, but still not that bad. In Koblenz, we switched trains and sat in a really nice non-smoking car for the ride up the Mosel to Trier. Both rivers are lined with tones of vineyards, and are very scenic trips (around 3 hours total). We got to the Hauptbahnhof in Trier a little after 1, where we met Prof. Maxim and the trip coordinator as well as a few other students. A different host mother drove Amanda and I to our house, because our host mother doesn’t have a car. We live maybe 15 minutes from the city center by car or bus. Amanda and I ate some bread and strawberry cake/pie-type thing with tea, then unpacked. All 4 of us and the dog (she has a cat too) went on a walk to the park around the corner with big ponds and lots of walkways - very pretty. We had dinner of potato salad, wurst, and bread, then watched TV until bed.
Frau Schneider, our host mother is around 80 and very much like a grandmother (which she is) - she likes to feed us and tends to repeat herself a lot, as well as misunderstanding us some of the time (and its not just that our German is bad I think). She’s really nice though. We live with another student in the program, Catherine from Georgetown U, who’s in my German class and is really nice too.
Amanda and I share a room on the top floor (3rd). The room is over half the size of the floor, since the only things up here is our room, our bathroom, and a small storage space. We have 2 beds, 2 closets, 3 desks, a couch and a bunch of armchairs in the room, but no dressers, so my clothes is in a chest and Amanda’s is on shelves. The room has 3 skylights, which are really helpful since the room doesn’t have very good artificial lighting. It’s light outside till around 10:30 or so, so it helps a lot.
6/5 - Trier
We hung around the house till 1 - breakfast of bread, jam, cheese, and salami with tea and lunch of noodles, eggs and ham in a casserole. Then Amanda, Catherine and I went downtown. Eventually all the other students showed up and we went on an orientation tour of the main city highlights - 3 churches, roman gate (Porte Nigra), the palace, and various other buildings. Then the group went to a building were we sat and talked, introducing ourselves and had a very brief introduction meeting, where we were reminded that we were supposed to speak only German while here. We had a short bit of free time, in which Amanda and I found an internet café to check email and tell my parents that I was still alive. We went back to the building for dinner with all the host families and just hung out there for a while. We came back, watched some TV, then bed.
6/6 - Trier
Our first day of classes - A, C and I got to the Uni very early for class. I have one class (intensive advanced German) m-f from 9-12, with a 15 minute break. There’s 5 students in the class - 4 girls and a guy. Our professor teaches full time at Trier, although most of the other classes are taught by American teachers from Georgetown. It was about the same or a little easier then the classes I’ve been taking at Drew, so I’m happy, because while the class will require work, it shouldn’t stress me out a ton, like the German class I dropped last semester. My class (plus Amanda) ate lunch together in the Mense (cafeteria). A, C and I went to a computer lab to use the internet, then C and I walked through the store area of the campus before coming home. (A had class). I think I hung out at the house, did some homework. I wanted to go for a walk and explore the neighborhood more - go through the park and there's a church around that has more parks by it, I think, but when I told Frau S, she told me to take the dog too and go with her brother, so I did, but that meant that I couldn't go very far, especially since the dog Eike is old and liked to lie down and wouldn't get up for a while, so I gave up and came back home. Frau made us dinner - leftovers from Saturday. A, C, and I were really confused because we thought that we were supposed to by our own dinner every day, but she made it around 7:30, which is when we decided to go into the town to find food. We had come downstairs to leave, and she saw us and said to stay and eat before going out, so we did. Then we decided to go into town anyway, but the bus doesn't come during the 8 o'clock hour, so instead of waiting for an hour, we decided to walk in. It took us a little under an hour, going somewhat indirectly because we only had a vague idea of where the town center was from our house, but it worked and we got there before the bus would have gotten to our stop. We wandered around for a little while until we ran into another student who told us where the group would probably be. In our information book with times and places we have to be for the trip, there also is suggestions of things to do at night, which for now at least, the group is following. So we went to the Irish pub that was having a karaoke night. It was horribly smoky there, but some students were waiting to sing (including C) so A and I waited. I had a small (hard) cider there - it actually wasn't to bad, which is a fairly positive thing for me to say about something alcoholic, as I really tend to not like anything. We left around 11:30 to catch our bus home, and I stayed up late to finish my homework. At some time during the afternoon or evening I lost the month bus pass and couldn't find it anywhere, so I'm using the week long one that's technically only good for the last week we're here in July. The drivers only glance at it at most, and I really don't want to spend 50 some euros to replace it.
6/7 - Trier
Had class all morning, lunch in the Mense, then went to the official welcome of the Uni president of our group in the city. came back to the Uni for internet before going home for homework, dinner (split pea soup, which I hate, with waffles as bread). We stayed home at night - I started typing up this summery and recharged my computer and batteries somewhat.
6/8 - Trier
In class the Prof gave us a giant (probably close to 500 pages) that has all the things we're doing this semester plus more, since its the packet for the normal full semester class. So afterwards we (the students) went and had it bound into 5 spirals - one for each theme plus one with other info and activities. Right now we're discussing Germany immediately after WW2. its not really the most practical vocab for us to know, but that's what we're supposed to be doing. Before we left on the trip, everyone who came to Trier had to sign a pledge that they would speak only German while we are here. but everyone breaks it almost as soon as we're out of the professor's hearing. at home, A, C and I do tend to speak in German mostly, but we do lapse into English or just speak in both - its amusing when I'm talking in English, but accidentally use German grammar, which has happened more times already than I would have expected. I came home after using the internet at the Uni and ended up being the first one home, and I felt somewhat homesick (or rather, drew-homesick), so didn't really get much of my homework done. We had bread and leftover pea soup, which I didn't eat for dinner, did the dishes and worked on more homework, then went into the city to find something for me to eat and see if we could find the others. I got a hamburger and coke at the McDonalds (the only fast food that was open and not ice cream at 9 at night). I think Trier is as bad as Madison with everything closing early, which is pretty annoying since I tend to try to do homework in the afternoon and go out at night. We found the others and wandered around for a while before going into a bar that had been quiet until we showed up - there were probably about 15 of us there, all speaking English. It wasn't smoky, which made me really happy because all day Tuesday i was coughing from all the smoke I inhaled the night before. We just sat around talking - the majority of the group is going to Paris this weekend, which greatly amuses me since A and I planned to meet Cathy, who's in Spain, there this weekend about 2 months ago. One of the guys had a German girl flirting with him, which the rest of us teased him about, and I discovered that one of the guys on the trip went to the same high school as Jason and thinks he knows my honey. I had a rum and coke, which was really good - I am definitely a froufrou pirate drinks kind of girl. We came back around 11:30 again and I was bouncy so I talked to A for around an hour or more before settling down to finish my homework (just recopying a page long thank you letter as if I lived during WW2 in Germany.
6/9 - Trier
class, lunch at the Mense, and then A and I went to the grocery store to buy some snack food for our room, tissues (there are none at the house) and fabreeze so our clothes won't stink from cigarette smoke. I tried to find the others in my class to do homework, but I think they ended up doing it elsewhere from where they said, so I came to the computer lab to type this up.