Paris

So. As many of you may already know, I spent the last weekend in Paris! It was an AMAZING weekend, and I guess many of you want to hear about it, so I suppose I'll write. And if you're interested in seeing pictures, click here to see some of the highlights.

The trip. We left Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler a little after 11 o'clock at night to pick up Vedashree and head to Cologne to catch our tour bus. My host mom, Heike, had found a very cheap tourism service that would drive us to and from Paris, give us a hotel, breakfast, and have optional tours that costed more. We had booked the tickets several weeks in advance. Anyway, on the way we realized that Vedashree had forgotten her passport, so her host father (my old host father, Thomas) was an angel and brought it to Cologne for us. Our bus was about an hour late, so we left around 1.30 Saturday morning, but that was okay. We made a stop in Aachen (another German city right on the border of Belgium) to pick up the last of our crew and then headed for Paris! Of course, this was an overnight bus. And very uncomfortable. Vedashree and I shared a seat, and we spent most of the night trying to orientate ourselves so we could sleep. Also, there was a couple in front of us (Russian, we later found out) that kept trying to push the seats back, which didn't work because there wasn't any legroom even with the seats up. We probably argued enough with them that they hate us now, but whatever. It was rude of them to keep trying to push the seats ALL THE WAY BACK. I didn't much mind a little tilt, but when I can't move my legs at all for six hours, that's.... not cool.

We stopped about 60 miles out of Paris at 6.45 in the morning. We ate breakfast and cleaned up, then made our way back to the bus!! The tour guides gave the rundown of the weekend's program, and Heike, Veda and I decided to opt out and explore Paris on our own. We were let out somewhere, and it happened to be down the street from the Arc de Triumph, which we took a few minutes to photograph. We headed down to the subway and managed to easily find our way to the Louvre.

Sometimes I wish that I had done my exchange at 18, but most times I'm extremely glad I did it with 16 and 17. Why? Free entrance to pretty much everything, or at least reduced. The Louvre was an example. Once we were in, we did the basic tour: Mona Lisa (which I found kind of lame after all the hype), Venus de Milo, and the glass pyramid. I think we spent 1 or 2 hours there. It was so GORGEOUS! With so many epic paintings and such. It was also mindblowing to be in pretty much the most famous museum in the world.

After that, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. That was actually kind of funny -- we were walking from the subway station, were looking for the tower, and then suddenly BAM! There it was. Completely random, but still kind of cool. There were a ton of people there, of course. And there were so many people selling souvenirs! I thought Gettysburg was bad, but these people would seriously follow you around for ten minutes before they gave up on you. I even got called Lady Gaga and Veda Rihanna by one guy trying to flatter us. Uhmmm, no. Anyway, we finally made it to a line, which surprisingly we only had to wait in for 20 minutes before we were able to buy our tickets. Then another 10 or so minutes waiting for the elevator, and we were up! We only went to the 2nd level because we were kind of short on time and wanted to see a lot of Paris, but the view was still AMAZING! We took the normal tourist pics and then headed down. We looked around a little, bought a few little Eiffel Towers, and then ate lunch. I had a really disgusting hot dog which I couldn't finish, so I bought a crêpe for dessert. Yum. Oh, by the way, Paris is EXTREMELY expensive. My hot dog? It cost 5,50€ with fries. And the crêpe, which I only had with sugar, was 3,50€. Crazy.

The next stop was Notre Dame. It was pretty nifty, although the inside wasn't anything unlike any other church I've seen in Europe. I know that sounds snobby, but it's true! The inside was really cool, though. I'll always prefer the Cologne Dome instead :D

We took a break from sightseeing next to go SHOPPING! Yes. That was fun.

After the lovely three or four hours of shopping, it was time for dinner and Sacre Coeur. We ate at a cute little café, where luckily they had the menu in English as well as French. Because none of us speak passable French. Anyway, Veda and I had toast with ham, cheese, and a fried egg, while Heike had an omelet. It was pretty tasty. We then climbed a few stairs to get to Sacre Coeur, a huge church. It was very different from many churches I've seen on the outside, because it was rounded in a lot of places. The inside was also cool, because it was FILLED with candles. Really awesome. We hung out there and in the little part of the city surrounding it for a few hours until it was dark to get a few shots of Paris in the night, because Sacre Coeur is on a hill and overlooks all of Paris. The little city was adorable, exactly what I would imagine when I think of Paris. We bought ice cream and it was DELICIOUS!! We also sat on the steps for awhile and waited for the darkness as it ever so slowly got dark. It took forever, but it was pretty.

We headed back to the hotel after dark. We got there around 11 or 11.30. Our hotel was decent, I suppose. Our room was on the top floor, and the ceilings were sloped. Especially in the bathroom, where I kept hitting my head during the shower! One huge surprise, though, was when I went to go pass out on the bed. It rippled. It was a waterbed! I hadn't seen one of those in YEARS. Veda and I ended up sharing because we only had two beds in the room. I personally slept like a rock, but she said she woke up every time I moved because of the water moving :D. We slept through the night, and then ate breakfast in the hotel before being picked up by the bus to go to Versailles.

Versailles was... amazing. Epic. Overdone. Awesome. I can't really explain... I saw the room where Marie Antoinette lived! I had read so much about her when I was about 13, so actually seeing the place that I had read so much about was amazing. We spent a few hours there, then left to go get lunch (baguettes) and went along the street market. I bought a few gifts for people :)

Then we were picked up by the bus and headed back to Cologne. It was really a WONDERFUL trip. One of the best weekends of my life :)

Liebe Grüße

Signe

Well....

Hey guys.

It's been awhile. As usual. But what else is new?

I know I never finished posting about my Germany trip, but you can get photos from it here and here and also here, even if you don't have Facebook and/or aren't friends with me.

So I'm pretty much down to my last month .. 32 days to be exact. My time is completely filled until then. I have to laugh a little every time I look at my calendar, as I hardly seem to have any free days left. How can this be? How can things all be wrapping up so quickly?

Last weekend we had our last official Rotary Exchange Student get-together. That was really sad... I think I finally started to realize that I would probably never see most of those people again in my life, despite the fact that we've been through so much together and spent an incredible amount of time together. I'll definitely miss them all and the different lessons that I learned. However, I also know that I will see a few of them after this year. It would be unforgivable if I didn't :) They have every right to be ranked right up there as my best friends along with those that I still have back in Gettysburg.

So... what do my last days hold for me? Well, tomorrow is pretty low-key: we're going swimming. Then on next Thursday, David, Vedashree and I are going to Phantasialand, a giant amusement park that's only an hour or so away. My second host family (who were also the family for David and Veda) gifted us tickets for Christmas, so we figured we wouldn't waste those :)

Then Friday, Vedashree, Heike (my host mother) and I are headed... to Paris! Heike was able to find these great tickets. Friday night we head out from Cologne with the bus, drive to Paris, have all of Saturday in Paris, sleep in a hotel, go to Versailles in the morning, and drive back to Cologne late Sunday evening. Awesome! I'm really excited. Paris was the one thing that I was completely and totally excited about that I haven't yet seen... I mean, Paris pretty much IS Europe, right??

The weekend after is two parties (both for current/future exchange students) and probably a field trip with my Rotary club here in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. Should be fun :D And then the weekend after I go with Vedashree and David and my first host family (the Gaudians) to Dresden! Most of you may have not of heard of Dresden. It's a pretty big city, actually, right in the middle of the old East Germany (the DDR). It's also GORGEOUS with awesome architecture and a great atmosphere - it was one of my favorite cities on our Germany tour. Anyway, the Gaudians have told me that there is a HUGE festival the weekend that we're going, so that should be really fun!

The following entire week is my last week of school in a German Gymnasium. I have to say that I'm looking forward to an American school again, I like the levels of interaction in my Gettysburg high school more. However, it will be sad/weird to say goodbye to all of the friends I have made. And then that weekend (my last weekend!!!) is Rheinkultur - a big festival along the Rhine River in Bonn with a lot of music (or so I've heard). Anyway, it's basically going to be the major party spot for the exchange students that are still in Germany at that point. Plus, David's parents and brother are coming, so hopefully we'll help a little in showing them around too :D

Then Vedashree leaves. And two days later, I leave. CRAZY PEOPLE, CRAZY.

For those of you who must know, I will be back on the 8th of July at 10.25 in the evening at Baltimore Airport. I'm flying from Cologne --> Amsterdam --> New York JFK --> Baltimore. Intense, right? Should be a nice, long day... but I've still got awhile!!

Love you guys... see you soon :)

Liebe Grüße

Signe

DeutschlandReise

Well. It's been a crazy two weeks. I'm left here two days after we get back sick, because who doesn't get sick after spending two weeks in the same bus with the same sixty-one people? That part doesn't really matter, though; all that matters is that I had two of the best weeks of my life.

I'll start from the very beginning, because apparently, it's a very good place to start. We all met in a street behind the Bonn train station at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning... the 27th of March to be exact. "We" consisted of five chaperons and 61 exchange students from all over the world -- Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Georgia, Sweden, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, Venezuela, Canada, India, and the U.S.A.. (Sorry if I forgot any nationalities!!) We all packed our rather large bags into the bus and scrambled inside to try to get the best seats (it was a double-decker). We then went to the Haus der Geschichte (or the House of History) museum and had a guided tour through, which was interesting even though I had already been there before. Then it was on to Brussels, Belgium. The drive took a few hours, and when we got there, we were given a little free time to get souvenirs and eat. I was with my friends Kelsey, Hannah, and Vedashree (U.S.A., U.S.A., India), who were to become my regular roommates throughout the trip. We bought a few things, then ate french fries and Belgian waffles. Both were some of the best things I have ever eaten in my life, really. If anyone ever says they're making Belgian waffles in the U.S., I will seriously laugh, because I have never had a waffle that compares to the one I ate in Brussels. Anyway, after that delicious little distraction, we had a guided walking tour through Brussels. We saw the famous Mannequin Piss, which was cool. We also saw a lot of Brussels, which is GORGEOUS and old and beautiful. We headed to the hostel. It was not a good introduction to hostels, as the bathrooms were communal and the food was sub-par. At least we had a sink in our room! And the view wasn't so hot either -- a view onto a construction site. Oh well. It wasn't horrible, and we managed to sleep through the night.

The next morning we ate breakfast, packed up, and were hustled onto the bus to head to the Atomium. That's a giant atom made out of metal. We took normal tourist pics from a distance and then had a bus tour through Brussels. That was okay, but it started the tradition of sleeping during bus tours because no one had slept that much the night before. Directly after the bus tour, we drove to Koblenz, stopping at a Pizza Hut on the way for lunch. I want to take a moment and apologize to all of the people who work at rest stops on the highway and have to deal with groups such as ours. It really must be a horrible experience to randomly get a full tour bus pouring into a relatively small facility. Anyway, when we arrived in Koblenz, we went the the Deutsches Eck, or German Corner, where two rivers meet. We took an official picture of all of us and then walked around a little and ate crêpes. Then it started to rain and we headed back on the bus and went to our hostel for the night. This one was much better -- we even had our own shower in the room. Plus the food wasn't all that bad. We had a little introduction thing in the basement, which took forever because there were so many of us. Then we had a little party downstairs, with a dancing room, pool, table tennis, and foosball. It was fun enough.

The next morning, we drove for an hour or so to get to the Marksburg, a castle. We had the standard guided tour through, which was cool. I feel slightly bad saying this, but I felt like I'd seen it all before, because I've already been through several castles from the same time period and in the same region. It was still cool. We then went to a grocery store and bought snacks and things to sustain us in the bus. We drove on to Heidelberg, and had a walking tour through the city. It was one of the best walking tours we had. The tour guide was pretty awesome, and told us a bunch of random little anecdotes. It started at the old castle ruins and then worked its way down a few hundred steps into the city. The city itself was gorgeous, with old buildings everywhere. I saw the University in Heidelberg, in which 20% of the student body are foreign exchange students. I will definitely be looking into that. Anyway, then we went to the youth hostel for the night. The Rotary chaperons took us out into the city after dinner and we all went to a bar. We didn't stay too late, and then went back to the hostel to sleep.

The next morning, we got up earlier than normal to head to Strasbourg (spelled Straßburg in German), which is in France. When we got there, we began the day with a tour of the European Parliament, which was really cool. We saw the main meeting hall and some of the smaller rooms that they work in. The building was very modern and very cool-looking. After that, we went into the city and ate lunch and had free time. After that, we had a guided walking tour around the city. It was going relatively well until it started pouring, so we ran into a church and our guide told us little stories about the history of Strasbourg. Sadly, we had to leave shortly after that and had to drive a couple of hours to our hostel in Stuttgart. It was a relatively quiet night, which was nice.

Wednesday's mood was slightly more reserved than it had been previously, as we went to Dachau, one of the largest concentration camps from the Nazi regime. I can't think of the right word to describe how that was... it is a difficult thing to describe. Knowing that so many people died in this one place is unsettling. I've grown up in Gettysburg, where over 51,000 people died within three days, but it's not the same. Those people were soldiers, and killing each other was their job. The prisoners of Dachau, however, had no idea, no say in what they were doing. They were literally worked to death. One wrong move, like your hat falling off of your head, could get you 25 strokes of the whip. Some people were put into solitary confinement, where the cells were tiny ... less than a square yard. We also went through the crematorium, which held the gas chamber and the incinerator for the bodies. All in all... not pleasant. I feel like I learned a lot, but I didn't exactly enjoy learning it. After those two and a half hours, we headed into the city of Dachau and had a little chat with the mayor. He talked about how Dachau is such an artistic city, and said almost nothing about the concentration camp, which I found interesting. The highlight of the visit was getting free pretzels -- a specialty in Bavaria. We then drove a short distance to Munich, where we visited the Allianz Arena, a soccer stadium. The soccer team Bayern-München plays there, and the stadium is AMAZING. It can turn different colors on the outside, and inside, it is HUGE. We got to go to the locker room of Bayern-München, and we also went to the sponsors' club inside and of course got to sit for awhile in the stadium. It was big. And awesome. We then headed to the hostel in Munich and stayed there for the rest of the night.

Alright. I'm cutting this off for now -- I promise to post the rest later!

Liebe Grüße

Signe

Because time keeps slipping through my fingers...

I have now been in Germany for 202 days, give or take a few hours. And I have 128 days left to go, if my calculations are correct. My time here is way more than half over, and now as every day comes to an end, I feel a little sadder. 128 days may seem like a lot to some, but to me, it will be over before I know it.

To put it simply, I love it here. My life has been touched by so many different people and so many different things! It really has become my life, just as I had my life back in Gettysburg. I've made friends that I hope I will keep throughout the duration of my life, and I also carry memories that I will never forget.

I'm not saying that I don't miss home. There are a ton of things that I miss about home... the number 1 thing right now being food :D Mexican food, for example, or just things with random spices. I will be pigging out the first week that I get home (which I'll probably need, considering I'm still losing weight seven months later after arrival). And of course I miss my family -- and should probably send them emails every once in awhile (sorry Dad). Friends, too. There isn't anyone in Germany who can replace those crazy people that I just happen to randomly call friends...

Anyway. Am I hoping to get anything accomplished in this post? Maybe. I want to talk about some stuff that's coming up in the future, and how it relates to now. First off, I'm planning on living these last four (NOOO) months in Germany to the fullest. It would be ridiculous for me to waste any time of this exchange, and especially now that I'm completely into everything... well, yeah. I'm also considering my life after I graduate high school -- college. If things work out, I really hope to return to Germany to study. Of course it will take a lot of planning out, but I love it so much here, and university here is quite good... we'll see :) If not university, I want to return next year for Karneval, at the very least. There's no way this exchange will be a come-and-leave ordeal, I WILL be back.

I love you guys. I want to thank everyone for making this possible... it has been the best experience of my life, and I'm sure it will keep getting better.

Liebe Grüße,

Signe

Karneval: Part Two

This will follow the same format as the last one, going day-to-day. Karneval is now over, and I'm sad :( It was some of the best fun I've had in my entire life. Anyway, I suppose I'll start with Sunday.

Sunday: I went to Hannah's house in a nearby village to Cologne. We left the house and headed to a club place in downtown Cologne. We didn't stay there long... the DJ wasn't all that wonderful, and the atmosphere wasn't either. So we got pizza from Pizza Hut, and drank some coffee downtown for a few hours. Then we went back to Hannah's house and chilled awhile, watched Blades of Glory and part of The Hangover. It was fun, we always have fun together :).

Monday: Oh man. Rosenmontagszug. Or... a gigantic parade. Too many people. Cold. But still awesome. I took a few pictures, you can see them here. Cool, no? And that was only a tiny piece of the parade. TINY. We didn't stay the whole time because it was cold, and I personally was getting freaked out by all the people. It was INSANE. Then, we went back to Hannah's house and ate some soup and watched some more of the parade on TV. We then went into the sauna because, well, as I mentioned before, it was cold. However, the sauna was in between 80° and 85° ... Celsius. Hot. So then we ran outside a couple times in the snow. It was relaxing, the sauna, but still... hot. I then went home to get ready for a party that was happening in my city that night. That was definitely a lot of fun. Most of my friends were there, and it wasn't as insanely stifling as Heimersheim was. We danced the whole night, and then I ended up crashing at Veda's house again. This means that I didn't spend one night of Karneval at my house, ever. :D

And today. I came home, uploaded pictures to Facebook, and am now writing my blog. It was a GREAT last few days. Maybe I can swing it to come back next year!! I wish...

Liebe Grüße

Signe

Karneval: Four Days In

Hello everyone. Sorry for not writing lately -- I really have no excuse. To try and catch up with the last months would be absolutely insane, so let's just give you all what's been happening in the past couple days. Rest assure I'm still alive and still enjoying my exchange year in Germany.

I live around thirty miles south of Cologne (more commonly known as Köln in Germany). Cologne is famous for one thing that comes in February: Karneval. I'm sure you've all heard of Carnival in Brazil -- and it's basically the same thing with more clothing, as it's freezing in Germany in February. From Thursday on was Straßenkarneval, or street Karneval. I guess I'll do a day-to-day explanation, as that's the only way I can think of to properly explain.

Thursday: This was the major party day in my school. Every class had to come up with some sort of dance performance, which I of course did with my class. And then, Erandy (Mexico), Vedashree (India) and I (you'd better know where I come from) decided to do a little "Tricultural Dance", which can hopefully be seen by you lovely readers here. (Sorry if it doesn't work, one of the other Americans posted it and it doesn't work in Germany. Should work in the US, though). The three of us wore cultural outfits, too (as Karneval is a time for costumes). So I wore a cowgirl dress, Erandy wore traditional Mexican garb, and Veda wore what I think is a sari. It was something Indian, at the very least. Oh, and if you're friends with me on Facebook, you can also see it there. Anyway, we all had our little pieces of cultural dance. I, being American, of course chose Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Vedashree chose Jai Ho (from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, listen to it!) and Erandy did the Macarena. We were the last to perform -- and apparently they all LOVED it! We were even called back to do it again. It was amazing performing in front of so many people, and the atmosphere was wild. But does this mean I'll be doing more of the like in the U.S.? Probably not :P. But anyway, that was basically Thursday.

Friday: Not much goes on during the day in Karneval -- only parades and suchlike. I didn't go to a parade on Friday. Instead, I headed to David's house (David is the other American exchange student, if you don't already know) and we watched an episode of Mythbusters before being picked up by Kevin. We headed to McDonald's and waited for Kevin to return with some other people so we could go to Steffis, the only disco in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. Vedashree also came with a couple other Germans. We finally got to the door, but... the door guard wouldn't let us in, even though we had legitimate ID's with our birthdays on them. Why? We didn't have a German Personalausweis (a German's main ID card). I guess he didn't believe that we were exchange students, or just really hated foreigners. Anyway, we tried getting in twice, but it didn't work. So we just went and sat in a restaurant/bar for awhile until we got bored and went home. I slept at another exchange student's house, because where I live is the furthest away from Bad Neuenahr. So not extremely exciting, but it was still fun enough.

Saturday: This was probably the best day I've had so far during Karneval (but don't hold your breath, as there are still two and a half days left!). My host family and I went to Holzweiler (local village) for a parade. The amount of food and stuff thrown to the crowds is INSANE; my host family alone collected something like three bags full of stuff. I even got a slice of pizza and a lighter. Yeah. Cool, no? Anyway, it was freezing cold and I was kinda glad to get back inside. Then, a couple hours later, I headed over to my old host family's house, where Vedashree now lives. After awhile, we got ready to go to the party in Heimersheim (another local village), which was apparently the hot spot for that night. Veda got her hands on a German dirndl (dress thingy) for 1 €, so she of course wore that. She also braided her hair and with her sparkly makeup looked absolutely adorable. I took a completely different route, choosing a Barbie theme as my costume. Oh, by the way, I'm also strawberry blonde now. It was fun, though, because as you all know, Barbie is definitely not my style. I wore entirely too much makeup, and had ridiculously high heels that I knew I would regret wearing later. I'm pretty sure the heel was between 4 and 6 inches, but hey, they looked awesome. We got to the party (which was surprisingly free), and immediately realized that it was PACKED. I'm talking, you can hardly move two inches without hitting someone. Anyway, we found friends fairly quickly, despite so many people being there. It was fun -- the music was so loud that one couldn't speak and be heard, so all there was to do was dance. Easy enough, right? Well, I did regret wearing those heels (my feet still hurt today, twelve hours later). I was extremely lucky that Vedashree is a complete angel and let me switch shoes with her every once in awhile. Anyway, we stayed fairly late, and finally went back to Veda's house with a taxi. And then crashed. Around six hours at such a party is pretty much exhausting.

So, then, that's a recap of my last few days. Today, I'm heading up to Cologne, Karneval central, to see one of my friends who's also an exchange student. I'm pretty excited, although slightly sad I'll miss the parties here in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler with my friends. Oh well, I'm sure I'll have fun anyway.

Hope you guys aren't too sick of the snow there. Love and miss you all.

Liebe Grüße

Signe

Merrye Olde England

So I write this to you all gazing out of the window looking at the lovely English weather... a.k.a. rain, wind, and pretty much no sun.

Fun, no?

Despite the faulty weather conditions, this week has been amazing. Ok, so I've only been here for three full days, but still... I suppose I'll do a bullet style day-by-day format, as that seems to be the quickest and most efficient way of informing you all what I have been up to. Oh, I'm staying with Bret, Sharon, and their kids... by the way :)

Sunday
We made our merry way to Liverpool, which is about an hour and a half away from Lancaster, where I am currently staying. This, as I hope most of you know, is the "birthplace" of The Beatles, so naturally we went to the only permanent Beatles museum in the world. I found that was completely amazing, and of course, I had to buy a t-shirt and some patches for my Rotary blazer... along with some other things, of course. Also in Liverpool was a Ferris wheel, which was pretty fun, and the Albert Docks, which held many interesting stores, museums, and other sights. We were in Liverpool from lunchtime to about 3.30 pm, as that is when all starts to get dark here in England. All in all, a lovely day.

Monday
This day was a bit more laid-back than Sunday. Bret had to teach, so Sharon and I went into town and went grocery shopping. English grocery stores are so different from German ones -- a bit more warm and friendly. I suppose that's just the difference in the people... not saying that Germans aren't nice, of course, but they're just a bit more reserved. Then Sharon and I went to see New Moon, the latest film release from the Twilight saga. I suppose I should explain my love/hate relationship with Twilight: I think the books are decent, honestly, for teenage girls. They're not great works of art, like Lord of the Rings, or books by Jane Austen. But they are truly entertaining. So we went to see the movie, which I enjoyed simply because it was two hours in which I didn't have to particularly concentrate on much.

Tuesday
Oh man... well, Bret and Sharon and I went to the oldest pub in Lancaster (called The Three Mariners), and had a lovely lunch. I had the BEST double cheeseburger of my LIFE, and the barkeeper was actually rather adorable. I suppose this is definitely helped by the fact that he had a lovely accent. Then, Bret split to go buy coffee and get the kids, and Sharon and I went shopping!! This was especially good because I have been losing weight, and the vast majority of clothes I brought to Germany are getting loose. So, yeah, we shopped. It seems that things are cheaper here in England, which is very good, considering I purchased the following: two pairs of jeans, a pair of (PURPLE) boots, three scarves (VERY popular in Germany), and a leather jacket (also very popular). Overall, a lovely time.

And today is Wednesday... so...
Well, we're prepping for Thanksgiving. Which reminds me, I should go and help! So until the next...

LG
Signe