Bonn and IKEA (once again)

So it has been a few days since I posted last, and I promise the wait was worth it! 

So on Thursday, Hannah and I were invited by the DAAD to go to Bonn for two days. I had to miss one class and Hannah luckily didn't have to miss any. 

I woke up really early on Thursday at 4:30am so that I could quick get ready and finish up last minute packing. I met Hannah at the bank by her house and then we set off together at 5:30 to catch our 6:11 train to Bonn. We got to the station, found our train, and found our seats. We had to wait a while before the train set off, but soon we found ourselves going opposite the driving direction for our four hour train ride to Bonn. We soon fell asleep and continued to nod off for the next two hours. It was a little sickening for me to be riding backwards, but I guess we switched somehow while I was sleeping, because when I woke up I was facing the same direction that we were driving. We slept on and off the whole way there and would occasionally wake up and glance out the window to see the Rhein alongside the train's path. We had our tickets checked several times, and stopped through many beautiful cities. Before long, at 10:20 or so, we found ourselves at the Bonn Hauptbahnhof. We got off our train, and were then faced with the task of finding the building where the conference was being held, which was somewhere in the city. We exited the train station and immediately found the U-Bahn, so we headed underground. As we were walking to the U-Bahn station, we were yelled at by a homeless guy, so we walked a little faster. We had to buy tickets for the U-Bahn, so we found a machine (after avoiding the first two, because of some shady looking beggar dudes) and bought our one way ticket to the stop that the directions we had told us to get off at. As we were waiting for our train, I noticed two things that I needed to take a picture of.

1) I saw this and thought of Matt, because it's got some DBZ on it!

2) This man was making me really nervous, because he was just hanging over looking down over the tracks! Ahh! Careful!

Our train then came and we hopped on. The people and smells of Bonn were much to be desired. Our first impression of Bonn, was unfortunately, very smelly and creepy. When we sat down on the train, there was an old guy staring at us quite openly (we weren't speaking, so it couldn't have been for our English) and there was a guy standing next to where Hannah was sitting who was quite creepy. This guy standing next to Hannah was also staring at us, but he had his hand over his mouth, with his thumb up his nose, and he just kept on giggling. Somebody was a little high on life...or something else. Great first impressions of Bonn.

We very thankfully got off at our stop and headed off in one direction, before figuring out that the directions were very unclear and maybe meant the other direction. As we were walking back to go the other direction, we saw a girl with a backpack who looked like a student. We were introduced and found out that she was also heading for the DAAD building. We then found out that she was actually from Tuebingen as well and was on the same train as we were. Her name was Yanalte and we talked with her while we all looked for this building. We actually were able to find the building after that right away. We checked in with both the hotel and the DAAD to say that we were there. Hannah was assigned to room with Yanalte and I was assigned to room with the girl in front of me in line. We headed up to our rooms after checking in, unpacked, talked a while, and then went back downstairs. We then were able to talk with some of the people who had organized everything, and we also were reimbursed for our train tickets (good thing too, because 178 Euros is a little too much to be spending for just two days in a city which I first perceived as smelly). We were given passes for lunch and a drink so we set off from the lobby to eat lunch. The lunch looked very good, but it was chicken cordon bleu. I tried to eat it, but when I cut it, butter and cheese oozed out of every crease and did not feel that it was a good idea to digest so much dairy. After lunch we had a little down time before heading to our info session and our three hour workshop about Wahlues (I will explain later). The info session was just what you would expect it to be, informative. After that, we had a quick coffee break before heading to our workshop. This workshop was to be about values, but the instructor in the workshop was actually a Tuebingen University professor and he could not say the word values correctly, but instead just kept saying wahlues. It was kind of funny. The workshop was a little long, filled with prompts like:

What are the wahlues you have from being a US/Canadian citizen?

What are the wahlues you have from you parents?

What are the wahlues you have from your self?...etc

We had to answer these questions by writing them on a piece of paper. We then split into groups based on what we said we wahlued most. My wahlues were not named, so I ended up joining just some random group. We had to talk about this wahlue and then come up with a slogan and logo for it. It was a little tedious, and we ended up doing a bit of a cop-out in the end, because our topic was a little too similar to another groups'. After the group work, we were then prompted once again to write in our journals. At this point, I was just exhausted so I wrote answers that did not reflect my true potential, but rather entertained my humor in an effort to keep me awake.

For example:

Prompt- How will acting on my values in life affect me, I said:

Utilizing my values will make me a better person to the point of when I sing, little forest creatures will come and sing with me in unison.

Prompt- How do I show my values in life:

I show values through my actions and can help make the world a better place, like Captain Planet.

After the workshop was done, it was time for dinner. And after dinner, it was off to bed, as we had to be down to breakfast by 7:15 and checkout by 8:15. I woke up at 6:30, which is just a little too early, especially because it was a busy day the day before and I did not quite get enough sleep. After breakfast, we headed out to the Haus der Geschichte, which is a museum specializing in Germany's history after World War II and the Cold War. It was the most interesting museum I have ever been to, and I feel like I had learned so much about Germany's history, but beyond just statistics and facts. Our tour guide was so fascinating and very knowledgeable, which made the tour even better. He was a slightly older man, and was able to often give his own personal account on things as we were being given the tour, which I feel was very helpful as we were trying to understand Germany's history of struggle after the wars. He would also crack jokes about slightly inappropriate things or make comment to how he used to tell the ladies how beautiful the moon was when he was younger, or other things like that. Pretty funny, interesting, and productive day in general.

After the tour, Hannah and I left the DAAD party and had a little time to kill before our train left to go back to Tuebingen. We headed down the main shopping street, and found that they had a lot of interesting and familiar shops. I got excited when I saw a TJ Maxx, but then noticed that it was a TK Maxx instead. It is probably just that way because the way the Germans say J is way more inconvenient than saying K.

There was also a very magical Apotheke (pharmacy). Why was it so magical, you may ask. It was a unicorn Apotheke.

You now all know the German word for unicorn!

We caught our train back to Tuebingen, and after angrily having to stand while people passed us in the little aisles as we were trying to get to our seats, we sat down and started once again our four hour journey, a little more awake this time around. I fell asleep for a little bit, and Hannah, who was on the same side as the river, took lots of pictures for me on my camera, as hers was dead.

She didn't mean to get this picture, but the train was moving kind of fast!

You can really start to tell it's fall here! So pretty!

We passed by so many little towns along the Rhein! I even saw a person kayaking, and had a little twinge of homesickness as my kayak is at home, in my garage.

There were a lot of really old castles up above the small villages along the river, as I suspect it was a prime place to live when the river was a main source of transportation for people and goods.

It was a beautiful day!

We got back to Tuebingen, caught a bus back to the Altstadt, and made our way back to my place for the night, as we were exhausted. 

That is really all I have to write about Bonn, but do not be sad, because today was quite an adventure on its own!

Hannah and I decided that we wanted to go to IKEA today, as we wanted a few things for our rooms. I had looked up the train schedules and how to get there the night before, so we met up at 10:30am, did a little browsing in the shops around here, and then headed to the train station to catch our train at 12:17. We got on the train, made our way to Herrenberg, and then got off to transfer to the S-Bahn to take us to Boeblingen, near where the IKEA is. The only problem was we  had to buy tickets for the S-Bahn, so our five minute in-between time while changing trains, ended up being more like twenty minutes as we did not get on the first one and had to catch another one. We apparently were not the only ones riding the train that day, as the train quickly filled up with people sporting Stuttgart colors for the soccer match in Stuttgart that day. The train was so full that people were crammed up next to each other. When our stop finally came, we had to push our way off a bit, through quite a few smelly people, and a few good lookin' ones too. We went off in search of the bus that the Naldo bus website had told us to take. We found that because we missed our second train and had to wait for a little while, we missed our bus by just a few minutes and had to wait twenty or so minutes for the next one to come. When it finally did come, we got on, waited for our stop, got off, and found ourselves no where near the IKEA. Actually, the website had told us to go in the complete wrong direction! We then had to backtrack all the way back to the main bus station! It was a good thing it was such a nice day today!

We got back to the station a little pissed at the world and the Naldo website for giving us such terrible directions. Not only did they not get us to the IKEA, but it got us no where close, and even in the complete wrong direction! We checked all of the schedules again to look for a map!

Here is my rant, which written text just could not express my true feelings of the maps:

Again, Youtube... you suck at picking attractive looking snapshots from my videos.

So, after being even more angry at Boeblingen, their inability to have buses that run frequently, their inability to post accurate and useful maps, and of course at the Naldo website which had given us TERRIBLE directions (it was a completely different town, that's how bad the directions were), we decided to walk toward the direction of the IKEA from what we remembered from last time. As we were walking, we found a shopping center with a map on it! 

We found the street that we needed to go to, and some of the streets in the area, and then made our way back to the bus station to find a bus to take us there. I found a bus that would take us to the next town's bus station, which was right by the IKEA, so worst case: we would just have to walk a little bit and backtrack to the IKEA. As we were riding the bus, a couple came on to the bus with an IKEA cart, so we knew then that we had for sure hit the jackpot and had gotten on the right bus! Go Emily, for picking a good bus in the right direction this time!

We made it to IKEA, finally, and began our shopping. I bought a lamp, a 5 Euro table, and some kitchen ware, along with an actually supportive pillow and a cover for it. It was a very successful trip to IKEA, now it was just a matter of bring all of our stuff back!

Here was all of our stuff. The green thing is my table. The bag on the left was all my stuff, complete with a relatively heavy lamp. The two bags on the right were Hannah's and also filled with some stuff for Rachel who had asked us to pick up some things for her!

We got on the right bus, and then made our way back to a train to Herrenberg. At Herrenberg, we found the right train, which took another thirty minutes after us climbing on for it to leave the station and make it's way to Tuebingen. The day took a total of something like six hours, as we got back at about 6:00 at night. It was quite an adventure. After we got back, we just wanted to relax after such a stressful day. We bought some food, made it at my place, built my furniture, and watched a show on my laptop. We were later joined by Rachel, Jake, Jake's friend from home, and Adam. After a while, we decided on a late night run to REWE for some groceries, as a lot of shops were still open late tonight for some reason. After coming back from REWE, everyone went to go watch a movie at Rachel's, except me and Hannah that is. Hannah went back to go to bed, and I stayed back to relax, blog, and now go to bed! Tomorrow I will just be doing homework, and then later maybe a Leverage party at Rachel's! 

 LOVE LEVERAGE!!!

Monday I have one class, then I think it will be some shopping in the day, and then at night we are having a Halloween party here at Froschgasse! I will keep my costume a surprise until then!

So after a super crazy past couple of days, I will say goodnight, and talk to you later!

Schlechter Kindern Vorbild Sein

So in the wake of classes, and nothing of any true consequence to blog about, I thought I would take a moment to talk about how well behaved and how misbehaved children in Germany can be.

Now I love children, anyone who knows me can vouch for me that I am a very patient person when it comes to kids, but the children here in Germany seem to try my patience more than ever. 

I often wake up to children screaming outside my window and it is super annoying. I believe I already posted once about the kid outside my window for about an hour saying the same phrase over and over again.

(Ew, not an attractive face, thank you Youtube for picking such an awful frame as the still for this video!)

I have also often witnessed children just screaming in cafes or stores just because they did not get what they want, and I know that all children do this, it is just something I have seen a lot more here versus at home. I often said to the others in our Valpo group upon witnessing such children, how Matt and Jenna wouldn't do that, so don't make me a liar guys!

Now I come to the part where not all children are bad, in fact the parents are the ones to blame in these two examples.

Tuebingen, as well as many other cities in Germany, has signs up everywhere that say:

 
 Translation: Stand by red to be a good example for children.
It is very uncommon to walk on red, and often even frowned upon by fellow citizens. This was especially difficult for us to get used to at first, because whenever I visited Chicago, these signs really mean nothing, it is basically every man for himself when walking or driving in Chicago.
So one day Rachel, Hannah, and I were walking back from our German course, and as we were waiting at the red, an older woman crossed the crosswalk on red with her grandchild. Well, the child did not like that at all. The child then proceeded to tell the grandmother that it was red and that they shouldn't have walked. So much for "Kindern Vorbild sein". It is now a joke among us that when you walk on red you are a "Schlechter Kindern Vorbild" (Bad example for children).
Another occurrence of well behaved, well maybe not so well behaved, maybe more adorableness I witnessed today while walking to the Nonnenmarkt to meet up with Rachel and Hannah. As I was walking I saw a dad with a balloon walking fast, a mom with a stroller behind him, and a child staggered in the back. The little boy was walking kind of slow, but hey, it's hard to walk here with all those stones everywhere! The boy obviously got frustrated and said in his cute little German child voice:
"Mama! Du kannst nicht einfach so gehen!" With lots of attitude.
This translates into something along the lines of:
"Mom! You can't just go and leave me behind!"


It was precious. I was like, "Yeah! You tell 'em little German child!"


So anyway, that is just a little bit on children in Germany.


Thursday I head to Bonn with Hannah! Then next week Tuesday is All Saints Day and we have no classes, so what are we doing?...We're having a party to celebrate Halloween! Heck Yes! Gotta make my costume!

Week Catch Up

After a crazy fun-filled post about last week, and then my downer post about how bad my week started, I thought I would post now in a more neutral mood.

The rest of my week went by alright. Wednesday we were asked to skip class to go to Reutlingen on behalf of Valpo and their relationship with Reutlingen. It was rainy, and kind of a miserable day. After the "ceremony", which was a bunch of speeches just going around the room one by one, we were handed goody bags and then went to wander a bit through Reutlingen. We didn't stay long however, because the weather was so bad, and I did have class later in the evening with Hannah, who, along with Zach, did not go to Reutlingen, because they had class. My class Wednesday night was a "Vorlesung"/lecture about 17th Century Literature. The professor was easy enough to follow (as it is in English!!) and he was very welcoming to us foreign students

I spent Thursday primarily in my room relaxing, and being miserable due to the combination of my cold, and being out in the rain all day. I had an English poetry class later that night. When I went to class, I found that I was the only exchange student in it, and was very embarrassed to speak in class, because you could immediately tell that I was not a German. The professor was very nice and let me know that to earn a grade to take home to Valpo, I could:

1) Take the 20 minute speaking test at the end of the semester

2) Write the 15-20 page paper

3) Take a smaller test and write the paper

4) Write a smaller test and write the paper

5) Write part of the paper and take part of the test....

She was really nice and very accommodating to what my University might need. I don't anticipate too many problems from that class, which is a relief.

After class, I went back to my room to Skype, and everyone else came to my room too, because they were supposed to go out that night, but decided against it.

As I was skyping, Hannah and Rachel fell asleep. Jenna yelled at them to wake up, and Hannah left. Rachel, stayed however. She was convinced, and tried to convince me that she was awake. I told her that she could stay in my room while I went to shower, but she shouldn't fall asleep again. She told me she would be gone by the time I got back. I took a pretty good length shower, and when I came back, Rachel was still asleep on my bed. I told her that she should probably wake up now, and she looked up at me and said "Your sleeves match". I told her that she wasn't making sense and started to laugh a little. She got a little angry and then said again a little more assertively something about my sleeves matching and my sheets. Again, I just laughed and told her that she wasn't making sense. She then got really angry, looked like she wanted to hurt me, and pointed to my sheets so sure that she was making sense and tried to explain again. I just laughed and then she got up, got her coat and scarf on, said something that did not make sense again, and then said goodnight as she slipped out the door.

Friday was a class-free day for me. We decided to shop a little and then we were going to have a movie night. We went and bought some food and ended up making DINO CHICKEN NUGGETS for dinner, and they were delicious!

They were pretty impressive in size as well as taste!

We ate dinner, with the Germans looking at us in wonder, as we ate our Dino Chicken Nuggets. I also told Rachel about how she looked like she wanted to hurt me the night before, because I wasn't understanding her nonsensical explanation of my sheets and my sleeves. She said that she did not remember any of it, or even walking home, but she remembers me saying, "Rachel you should probably go now" and then she got up and left. That is all. From now on, Rachel is getting walked home, even though she'll deny any help and just argue that she's fine even when she's not.

After dinner, we put in our movie of choice: "Pride and Prejudice"!

The remote did not work so we started watching it in German, but when it was difficult to hear the German dubbing and the subtitles did not show up, Jake got into Jake's "Challenge-me-not-to-do-it-and-I'll-prove-you-wrong-by-doing-it" mode. It took a little while, but he fixed the remote so that we could only move the arrows up and down, which is all that we needed to change the language. So we then continued to watch the movie in English. It was a glorious two hours of Darcy-wonderfulness! Afterwards, I went home content after watching such a great movie, and went to bed.

Today I woke up and met Hannah to shop for some groceries for tomorrow, as everything closes on Sunday. We shopped, and then I relaxed in my room a while, before meeting Hannah again at the train station to buy our tickets for Bonn next weekend. We will be going to Bonn for a conference of sorts for the DAAD next Thursday and Friday. We walked to the train station together actually, because we met one another at the bank by Hannah's house on our way to the station. We were carrying our big bags filled with the linens that Dr. Malchow had lent us for the first few days here in Tuebingen. Our plans for the day were to go to Reutlingen to bring back the linens that we borrowed for the first night or two. We met up with Zach, Rachel, and Helina and caught a train to Reutlingen. We followed Malchow's instructions to the apartment to drop them off, and then followed seven year old Hannah's mind back into town from the apartment. Hannah's dad use to be the director at Reutlingen for Valpo, so when she was little, she lived in Reutlingen, in the apartment that Valpo rents out. When we got back to the main part of the city, we shopped around for a little bit, but before long I was ready to go back. Fall is here. It is cold, and the leaves are falling. Today's weather was freezing, more like winter weather, so it was a little too cold to be outside for me. I caught a train back early in the evening and have been in my room since. Tomorrow I plan on doing laundry and homework. Exciting I know.

So I will post again when I have something of interest to post. Hopefully no more falling.

Until next time.

It's as if Life Said, "Let's Kick Her While She's Down"

So I had a long post yesterday, but feel the need to post again today.

Today I had two classes. The first was theology again, and the second was Comparative Politics in Developing Countries. I have only fifteen minutes in between the two classes, so I have to book it right when theology gets out. The only problem was I had no idea how to get there. I woke up this morning after a night of no sleep, because I am sick, and set out early to try and find my building from my theology building. First of all, the streets here are only marked like once down the whole street, so unless you happen to be crossing that one street sign on that one corner, you're pretty much screwed. So I set out in search of the building following the instructions that Mapquest gave me. I got a little lost, and had to turn around. I did manage to find another Hidden Kirby though:

This Kirby is the foreshadowing of the rest of my day.

After I turned around, I eventually found where Mapquest told me to go. It was, of course up a hill. The directions told me to go up a hill, turn right, turn right again, so that I was just on the other side of the building that I had started from (my theology building). From there I was supposed to walk down this long street. But before I figured out that Mapquest was stupid and gave me the most idiotic directions ever, I climbed a freaking hill and ended up at the clinics in Tuebingen, which are practically in the middle of no where. I found the street that would take me to my building later in the day, and from there (all warm and sweaty already) I headed to my theology class, prepared not to understand any of it. I sat way up in front today, and recorded it on my iPod, and I understood maybe a little more, but still was totally lost! Yesterday, after my theology class, I was determined to work hard and be prepared so I ordered the books that I needed to have... OR I should say, the books I thought I needed. I found out that I ordered two of the wrong books, and instead of having to order the two, I just needed to order one book that costs about one-third of what these two cost me. GRR! So, after sending emails to the sellers during my break, I sat through another hour of theology only understanding words and phrases, and looking to Zach's notes while he looked at mine. 12:00 rolled around, and I had to run to my politics class. I made it there alright, with time to spare, so stupid me thought that I was in the clear. I did not realize, though, that I had no idea where the classroom was. Once in the building, I started walking up some stairs, but then realized that I was going the wrong way, so I quickly turned around. Well, I turned around too quickly, landed on the side of my foot, fell down the stairs, hit the door and hit the ground. As if this wasn't bad enough, some girl was trying to open the door when I fell, so after I fell (said a bad word or two), she looked surprised, opened the door more, and saw me on the ground. She thought she had knocked me over!!!! Oh god. It was bad. I then stood up, realized that my ankle was killing me and that I couldn't stand on it without pain surging through my foot, and assured her that I was alright while I limped off in the other direction. Now there is some German girl out there who thinks that she just knocks down stupid Americans. Oh god, oh god. I found my way to my class, regaled my stories of idiocy to Helina, who is in the same class, and sat through two hours of politics with a swollen ankle and about to cry from the pain. After class, I limped home quite pathetically, and have been keeping my foot up while I have been sitting at my desk. Tomorrow I have to go to Reutlingen in the morning, and then I have an English class at night. The only way that tomorrow could get any worse would be for me to get hit by a bus. I am already sick and am now injured, so I just can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. Maybe the Germans will kick me out of their country...

Trip to Vienna

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Wednesday

I woke up a little later than I had planned. I threw some wet clothes from washing them the night before into the dryer before heading to Edeka for breakfast. After I bought food, I went upstairs to DM to get some mini-things for our trip later in the day:

Mini...

Toothpaste, shampoo, lotion, etc.

I then ran back to my room, picked up my things from the dryer, and packed for our four days in Vienna! Impressively, I fit all my things into my backpack with some room to spare! I procrastinated for a while longer on my computer before getting a call from Hannah to meet her at the bank. I met her outside her building, went with her to the bank, and then ran back to DM so that Hannah could stock up on her mini-supplies as well! We spent some time in Hannah's room with Rachel before heading down to the bank once more. This time, though, we met with everyone to pay Zach for the hostel, as he was going to pay for it. We then boarded our bus and our journey began! The trip on the bus seemed to take forever, and it winded back and forth...stop and go.. the whole time! I really thought I was going to be sick, but as a plus, our bus driver's hair was crazy Mozart hair! The bus ride ended eventually, and I gratefully walked on solid ground once more. We found our check in, got our boarding passes, picked our seats, and went through security (which was the easiest security I have ever been through!). We then found our gate and sat and waited. We didn't wait long at our gate, got called to board, and then were told to wait five to ten minutes to board, because there was something up with the plane that they were checking. That's promising, right? And then Rachel started talking about how some airports actually repair their planes with duct tape! AHHHH! 

Hannah and Rachel waiting!

So, after they taped up the plane, we were able to board the shuttle bus to the plane. We then boarded, and took off in a short time. All of the announcements were first made in German, but then they made them again in English. The German announcements were easier to understand, because the English was a little muffled, but it was adorable. Kind of like this video that Hannah showed me:

The English interpretation was a little like this, because the sentence structure often times gets mixed up when translating from German to English.

Rachel through the seats!

Jake was super excited! Hannah a little less than.

Helina got to sit by me!

The flight was super scary, because it was cloudy and raining in Vienna. I was freaking out. The flight itself was short, and before long we found ourselves in Vienna! We found the train station and bought tickets (the machine actually ate Zach's money and he ended up paying ten Euros for one ticket). Also, the translation from German to English on the machine to buy a ticket, was hilarious.

In German it says, "Ok jetzt bezahlen".

So naturally, in English it translated to "Ok, I buy the ticket".

We found our train waiting for us at the platform when we went down the stairs leading to the station. We got on the train, and two girls started to sing. At first we thought that it was a joke, but when they finished singing, they walked up and down the train asking for money. And so began the begging in Vienna.

Our stop came, we got off, walked a little bit in the beautiful Vienna rain (I'm the only one who brought an umbrella), and found the restaurant we were looking for. We sat down and then the waiter came up and asked us if we wanted English or German menus. We said that we wanted German menus, and he went to go get them, as he had only brought English ones with him to our table. If failures bring about a giant DeMaris in the sky with a buzzer, I feel like on occassions such as this, we deserve a Fonzie in the sky giving us a big thumbs-up and a "Heyyyy".

Go us!

Jake, Helina, Hannah, and I ordered the wiener schnitzel, as we were in Wien (German's way of spelling Vienna). I have to say that it was the BEST wiener schnitzel I have ever had! 

Hannah with her menu and headpiece lamp!

Everyone with their wiener schnitzel, minus Zach and Rachel!

We ate, and then ordered some desert. Zach even found a gluten-free cake! 

Hannah showing off her Sissi cake!

She didn't realize she was in the picture the first time!

Zach's proof that there is a gluten free cake in Austria!

After dinner, we set out for the train again to find our hostel. We found it, quite luckily, without incident, and checked in before heading up to our room. We thought we were going to have to share a room with about twenty people, but when we got to our room, we were surprised to find a small, nice, clean, six-bed room with bunk-beds! Hannah, Rachel, and Helina got the top bunks; and Jake, Zach, and I took the bottom bunks. 

Zach unpacking, and the back of Helina's head.

Hannah excited about her bunk.

Oh these two..

There's my bunk!

Here is our hostel. On top of a big hill, might I add.

We dropped off our stuff, set out once more in search, this time, of face wash for Jake, but shortly found that everything was closed, so we headed back to the hostel. We then made plans for the next day, including breakfast at eight am. I took a shower, which was shortened due to the cold water, and went to bed after talking in bed with everyone for quite some time.

The DeMaris Checklist

Thursday

We woke up on Thursday to a bit of a sleepy start, but before long we were dressed and down at breakfast. Breakfast lasted about an hour, and we bought three day tickets at the main desk afterwards that could be used on any form of public transportation. After quick checking my emails, I got anxious to start the day and waited outside with Zach for the others to finish too. We then all set off for the U-Bahn and got off at Karlsplatz. 

Right near our hostel, at the bottom of the hill. We had to take a bridge over this and the highways to get to the U-Bahn.

The church in the distance.

Well hello there.

Here is the Karlsplatz.

Proof that I was in Austria.

Rachel was not so schnappy of a badger.

Austria, unlike Germany, wants to hydrate its inhabitants, and therefore offered free water. Somewhere the Germans are going, "Free?! NEIN!"

We walked around and just took pictures for a long time. The others wanted to to into the church, but decided not to when they saw that it was six Euros to get in. I was somewhat grateful, because anytime we go into a church, I am the first one out and end up waiting at least fifteen to twenty minutes outside while the others are still inside looking at God knows what. (Get it!?). Sorry.

We then walked towards the opera house, because when Professor DeMaris found out we were going to Vienna, she checked and found out what operas were playing. We walked up to the opera house, and found that there were people dressed up like Mozart, or just in old fashioned clothing, promoting/pushing the specific operas and plays to/on people. 

The opera house with a tram in front.

There was someone important in this car, because there was a whole procession escorted by police.

We found the box office, and asked about the opera. Mozart's Die Zauberfloete was playing on Friday, and we wanted to get tickets. The guy told us that there were only ten left, and that we would have to come Friday night about ten to twenty minutes  before the opera to get them...possibly. The others were a little worried about not being able to get them, so talked about going to see a musical later that night titled "Ich war noch niemals in New York". We ultimately could not make any decision, except that they wanted Starbucks, so we went to the Starbucks on the corner near the opera house. 

Busy street full of shoppers.

Main shopping street.

Helina and Hannah got something to drink, and we sat and made plans. Helina was going to visit a family friend in the evening, while Zach, Hannah, Jake and Rachel went to the musical. I had no desire to see this musical, and was not going to pay ten Euros to see a bunch of guys dancing, singing, and wearing more make up then I even own. I'm a little turned off from musicals, unless I know what it is, and know what to expect. Helina invited me to go with her and get a tour of the city from her friend, so I agreed. Everyone then wanted to use the bathroom quickly before leaving again, but found that you needed a receipt to use the bathroom, and both Hannah and Helina did not have theirs anymore. We left and walked down the main shopping street towards the church. We saw three H&M's and a glorious three story Forever 21. 

Unfortunately, we did not go in any of them... then. 

We made it to the church, 

and when we stopped to take pictures another opera promoter came up to me and asked if I wanted to listen to some Mozart tonight. I said no. He asked, "Don't you like music?". I said no and walked away. Maybe I have become "Kleine Schwester sagt 'nein'", but I was so sick of being harassed by people on the street.

This one's for you Papa!

If I wanted to go to the opera, I would seek it out and buy tickets! Anyway, we then set off in search of food, and after looking at several expensive restaurants, decided on just an Imbiss stand. Not all of us got food. I was just thirsty in search of cheap beverages... ha!

Pretty streets through the city!

We were walking further, as our next stop was going to be the Belvedere, when we saw a sign outside a music store that said they sold Zauberfloete tickets. 

Here we are after buying our tickets!

They had a mirror ceiling as well as a wall!

We decided to buy them for Friday night, and as I was looking at the different schedules of shows, I saw that all last week, this weekend, and next week there was Singin' in the Rain the MUSICAL! I got so excited, because that is my all time favorite! 

LOVE IT!!!!

But when I asked about the tickets, the guy told me that they were all sold out. I was so sad and disappointed! There is no musical I would rather see =[ !!

Then, we set off for the Belvedere, which is a palace converted into an art museum containing works of art from:

• Monet

• Max Klinger
• Caspar David Friedrich
• Gustav Klimt

This is The Kiss, by Gustav Klimt

and others...

We, however, got a little lost, ended up walking up to what we thought was the Belvedere, but what really turned out to be a hotel. 

The hotel we thought was the Belvedere... EHH! Buzzer on that one.

We found our way eventually, and walked up this long, inclining street lined with embassies.

French Embassy.

Some statue in the park across the street.

I told Hannah that she should live in that building and read books all day!

I photo-bombed Hannah's picture!

We were pretending to be the statues behind us. I think we did a pretty good job!

We found the Belvedere at last, bought our tickets, and walked to the end of the grounds to take some pictures. "Some" being a relative term. We ended up having our own little tourist photo-shoot! It was s o much fun! Eventually, and after some aching ankles (from the jumping shots) we went into the museum. 

Belvedere.

Full shot of it!

Hannah caught me!

Me in front of the Belvedere, freezing my butt off!

Helina and Jake.

Jake wanted to take pictures with everyone!

Crazy shot!

VALPO!

Hannah and Jake, hugging it out as always.

Around the other side of Belvedere.

They had their hands like that for some reason...

Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed, but take my word for it,  it was a very nice museum. I feel very "cultured" after going to it.. Klimt's "The Kiss" itself was amazing. I had no idea it was so big. Anytime I have seen a reprint or poster of it, it was always a low, rectangular shape, but in reality it is a large square. The picture itself is probably as tall as, or even taller than, me.

After the high culture art, the others walked through the modern art section at the base of the grounds. I waited outside with the bags, and everyone said that they were jealous that I did. Hannah explained the art to me: One of the pieces was a clock that goes on a wall just placed inside a box. That's it. It's art...

I'm sorry, but if my two-year old cousin can make it, there is no way that they can claim that as being art (not to say that my cousin could not be an artist, I am sure he could do it)!

Shortly after that, we left the Belvedere and stopped in a grocery store, where I found Milka bars with Oreos in them. Yum! After the store, we walked for a while back towards the main shopping street in search of dinner, when I encountered once more one of my newest-found pet peeves: Sauntering!!! When I walk, I walk with purpose. I don't like slow walkers in front of me blocking the way so I can't get by! It drives me CRAZY!

We debated going to McDonalds, but decided against it. Someone then suggested that we go to TGI Fridays. I quickly, and in less than ten words, ended any hope of eating there. We walked on, and found an Irish pub called Flanagan's that we decided to eat at. Me and Hannah both proudly ordered chicken fingers! It was delicious! During dinner, plans changed a little bit. Helina was invited to stay the night by her family friends', so I decided after dinner that I would just head back to the youth hostel. I said goodbye to the group after heading with them back towards the opera house, found the right train, and made it back to the youth hostel. I used the internet downstairs on my iPod in the lounge for a while, but then decided to go back up tot he room to write about my day. A big group of girls in high school moved in above me as I was walking back up, and found it impossible to write, as they were so loud. Our neighbors were also a bunch of high school boys, and every time one or two of them left the room they screamed, stomped, and banged obnoxiously on their door to be let back in. I put my iPod in, and fell asleep to my music.

Lessons Learned at the Opera

Friday

It took us a little longer to get ready in the morning on Friday. I got a little agitated, and headed down to breakfast before everyone else. We ate quickly, as we didn't have much time, and they had already stopped putting new food out. I checked my emails, and then it was off to the city by means of the U-Bahn. We went shopping for a little while on the main strip. We went to H&M, Forever 21 (where I got a necklace and some headbands), and to some bookstores to indulge Hannah's English major fancies. We then went into the church, quite happily, as it was freezing! It wasn't long after leaving the church, that we had to seek out a cafe to sit at for lunch, because it was so cold. After lunch, it was off to the Mozart house. We found it, as it was right behind the church, but did not go inside because it would have cost us money, and we were starting to feel broke. We went to the DM, where I got a pretzel for lunch/snack and then we waited outside the opera house for Helina, who had stayed the night at her friend's house. She had been with her friend all day, and we had to meet up eventually. We waited for a while, and I think by this part of the trip, everyone was starting to get annoyed with everyone else. We found Helina after a while, and then took the tram to Parliament. 

Parliament!

What a powerful pose!

Once inside, Hannah saw a pamphlet that said that the building was open to the public, so it was thought that we could just walk through certain rooms. We tried, but were stopped by security guys, and we found out that we needed a tour guide and had to pay for a tour. 

Rachel, Helina, and Jake with their headphones on.

This was the oldest assembly room. Most of the other rooms were destroyed in WWII, but this one remained intact.

This room is only used on special occasions, but was really cool to see!

Smaller room, and they were setting up for something the next day.

Final room, which had fake marble walls, which they were very keen on sharing.

The tour wasn't too expensive, and the tour guide spoke both German and English. She would first say everything in German, which I would listen to,  and then she would translate everything to English, which I would try to drone out. The best translation of the day was,

German: "Bitte kommen sie hinein."

English: "Just, come in."

The English translation sounded more aggressive, but she was really nice, so it just sounded funny.

After our tour ended, we split up. Helina, Rachel, and Zach wanted to go to the Esperanto museum, which is the museum about the language which was created in the hopes of making a new world wide Latin of sorts.

Jake wanted to nap; Hannah wanted to read; and I didn't want to go to the Esperanto museum, so we all went back to the room. We all made plans to meet up at the opera that night, and we passed out the tickets. We left a little later than we had hoped from our room to get to the opera. On the train, there was a guy that was sobbing and begging for money. It was really uncomfortable. We arrived just at seven, which is when the opera was supposed to start. We ran up, had our tickets checked, were told to check our coats, found our seats, and found that we only missed the beginning part of the opera where they play the music. 

Chandelier at the opera.

The curtain was rising for people to get back to their seats.

The very artistic backdrop/curtain.

Hannah read her book during the intermission.

Everyone at the opera, minus me and Hannah!

The cult people and the animals.

The opera was really good, but had some very strange points and ideas behind it.

Here is what we learned at the opera (please don't take these seriously):

• Mozart may have been a racist, as was stated by his lyrics of "White is beautiful" and that all of the bad people were black and the good people were white.
• Mozart was definitely a sexist:
• Women should not leave their social circle, otherwise bad things could happen.
• Women first need permission in order to talk.
• If the man you love doesn't talk to you, it is a justifiable option to kill yourself... just hope that you have a little chorus of boys dressed as Mozart will be handy to talk/sing you out of suicide.
• If you find out a man is in love with you, you should automatically love him back, because you really, at that point, have no other choice, and your opinions and feelings don't matter.
• You must find someone with a similar name as you in order to love/marry them.. it doesn't really matter if you've met one another before, as long as your names are similar.
• Never lie and say that you slayed a dragon when you didn't.
• It is perfectly normal to dance with hippos, giraffes, cows with abnormally high utters, and other animals.
• Airbenders, Waterbenders, Firebenders, and Earthbenders are always useful!

Airbending slice! (This one's for you Matty!)

I really did like the opera though, and the woman who played the Queen of the Night had an AMAZING voice! Here's the one song that was so good, if you go to 2:45, you'll know the song right away.

After the opera, which I really did like (despite these somewhat funny lessons that we learned from it!), we all crammed into a train and stopped to get Helina dinner at an Imbiss before heading back to our hostel. When we were back, I enjoyed the benefits of the fifth floor showers, even though we were on the fourth floor. The water was hot, and it was wonderful! After my shower, I wrote until going to bed.

What Didn't We See?

Saturday

We woke up late once again, and went down to breakfast. After eating and checking our email, we set off for the U-Bahn once again. Today our first stop was, Schoennbrunn garden and palace. This was one of the palaces of the Habsburgers. We walked through the beautiful gardens, and took lots of pictures of the palace.

The gardens at Schoenbrunn!

Path we walked on!

The palace!

They started building the palace up on the hill, but then realized it would be too much work to carry things up the hill all the time, so they restarted at the bottom!

From left: Helina, Me, Zach, Rachel, Jake

Me and the gnome made it so far together!

I caught a bird in motion. Watch out, it's coming for you!

Pan's Labyrinth?

 I will always think of this dude when I hear that word... I'm scarred for life.

The palace.

Zach posing next to the lamp.

Some lady kept taking pictures while we were, so her shadow is not a part of my memory.

We did lots of posing.

After taking pictures, and stopping in the gift shop so that Hannah could buy some Sissi bling for her phone, we headed to the train again for the market right near the Secession. 

This statue was right outside the Secession, and right when we came up from the tunnel, we saw it.

The Secession.

Outside the Secession.

The Secession.

Rachel and Zach always talk about how wonderful Wisconsin is, that I had to take a picture of this. Look, the heavens are even smiling down on cheese land...

Rachel and her Schoko Muffin, which was wrapped like a flower.

The market was really crowded and full of saunterers, so I was quickly put in a bad mood. After walking the market and getting something to eat, we headed for the Secession, which we had learned a lot about in our German class with DeMaris. On our final for that class, we had to draw out the Beethovenfries, which is the Secession's main exhibit. The Beethovenfries was created by Gustav Klimt, and depicts man's journey to happiness. The artwork itself, is supposed to go along with the Ode to Joy and Beethoven's 9th symphony.

Here's Rachel, pretending to be a piece of the museum.

Little turtles had their work cut out for them.

Here is the final piece of the frieze.

We paid our admission, went down to the basement where the frieze was kept, and admired it for a while. I walked around the exhibit, and then waited outside with Hannah and Helina while we waited for the others. Rachel, Zach, and Jake all walked into this other room, that I did not realize was open to us, and explained the "modern art" that was in the room. There was a flattened toothpaste box, and that was art; an air conditioner turned too high, and that was art; and other ridiculous things, that claimed to be art. Now, I had a real problem with this. The Secession is supposed to hold great art, such as Klimt, but now it just holds boxes of toothpaste and other crap. I'm sorry, but that was a bit of a disappointment.

After the Secession, everyone wanted to go tour the UN building, so we set off on the train once more. 

Here is one of the long escalators that we had to take to get up and down to the trains!

 Hannah explains the different agencies for us all!

When we got there, we found that the building was closed, and that it was only open during weekdays. Fail.

From there we went to the Hofburg palace, which was home to Sissi, the most beautiful woman of her time. She was empress of Austria, and lived a very tragic life. Everyone learned this through their tour of the apartments, but I learned this by saving my ten Euro and reading it in a book in the gift shop. While everyone else was on their hour long tour, I walked around for a while. 

The Hofburg Palace!

There were a lot of protests going on wherever we went.

Pretty horses.

Carriages all lined up to drive the tourists around for obscene amounts of money.

Church in the distance. Got another bird in this shot too!

The inside courtyard.

Carriage going through the pretty gate!

More Photo Bombing!

And Again!

Please, be nice to Fluffy!

 Yes, Fluffy. Wonderful.

Back side of the palace.

The back side of the Hofburg castle.

Emily's wanderings.

During my walk, I turned down this street!

Some statue..

I ended up sitting on a bench falling asleep for a little bit. When I woke up, the people dressed as Mozart were laughing and making fun of me for sleeping... how can they laugh at me though, they're dressed like Mozart...

I met back up with everyone, only for our group to split up once again. Rachel, Zach, and Helina wanted to go to the Esperanto museum, as they did not get to go the other day. So Jake, Hannah, and I went back to the hostel again. We met back up later at Schoenbrunn station. Each group was at a different end of the station, and we each thought that the other was late. It was pretty embarrassing. We then went to the same restaurant that we went the first night to have once more some delicious wiener schnitzel! After dinner, we headed back to the hostel to get to bed early, as we had to check out in the morning.

Back to Tuebingen

Sunday

We woke up Sunday on time. We packed up our things, headed down to breakfast, and then checked out. We checked our emails one last time in Austria. We then set out with all our things to the U-Bahn again to head to the city. Once there, we found ourselves freezing again, and Jake just wanted to go to Starbucks and read (as did Hannah, because she needed to read over a thousand pages in less than two weeks before Monday). We went to Starbucks, where I took a nap, before leaving everyone to go walk around one last time. I walked down to the church again, and then stopped at a bakery for lunch. I met everyone back at Starbucks at 1:00, and then, after Hannah, Rachel, and Jake went to get Burger King, we left for the train that would take us to the airport. The only things we did not get to see in Vienna, were the Ferris Wheel and the graveyard with all the famous dead people in it, but I'm am not sorry to have missed that one... dead people are normally on my list of things to see when visiting foreign countries.

Here is the train that Rachel wanted to take:

The weasel!

We took the train to the airport, found our check-in, found our gate, and waited. In the bathroom at the airport, they had those awesome hand dryers like they have in Costco. Just thought I had to mention that.

We got on our plane and before long, found ourselves in Stuttgart. We were also surprised to meet someone else from our German course that was on the plane, and she told us about a bus that would take us back sooner than the one that we were going to take. We all waited for the bus, and after having difficulty with the bus driver, paid and got on the bus. The whole way back, we talked about how customer service is different in Germany. I do not know how many times I have gotten a "Sorry, too bad, just live with it here", where at home I would have gotten a "Oh, let me take care of that for you" or "Sorry, did I mess up, let me give you a coupon"! After feeling very sick from the bus ride, we all went back to my place and got food before splitting up for the night. 

This is what I came home to:

I need to get a "Keine Werbung" sign for my mailbox!

I had classes today, Monday, for the first time. My first class was a theology class, and I understood maybe about 2% of what the professor said... God help me... I have this class four hours a week. That's four hours of being totally confused and wanting to cry my eyes out. Ugh! I cannot wait for my English classes, and even my German class, because at least they will be at my level. It is just frustrating, because this class is meant for native speakers, and basically the professor talks for two hours, while the students take notes. I do not understand more than half of what he says, so I just sit there trying first to understand, and second to write down what he says, but by the time I figure something out, I can't remember to write it, because he's moved on to the next thing! AH!

I am also getting sick now. I went out to Edeka after my class, and bought some OJ, because my throat and head are killing me, and my nose is stuffy. I have now spent about two hours typing this all up, and need to take a nap. I am exhausted from this past week, and the two hours this morning of utter confusion and frustration.