Was ist blau in Blaubeuren?

Sunday, Sept. 11th

I woke up on Sunday and met Hannah and Rachel for breakfast before going back to my room so that I could pack for our five days at Blaubeuren. I managed to fit everything into my backpack, which I was really quite proud of! Hannah had to pick up her things from her room, then it was off to wait for the bus. We made it with plenty of time to spare, and the bus came shortly after we arrived. I sat by Rachel, Zach and Jake sat together, and Hannah sat with a girl from our course named Helena. The bus ride lasted about an hour and a half, and I fell asleep for a while. When I was not asleep, I spent my time trying to focus all my concentration on not being sick, as the ride was long, and the road weaved in and out of the hills. We arrived at Blaubeuren, got our keys, dropped off our bags, had some coffee and cake, and then we broke off into teams for a "Stadtspiel" (city game.. oddly translated).

Rachel and Hannah showing off their massive keys.

Pretty shady looking... (also the opening day for the Bears!)

We had to go into Blaubeuren  (as we were staying on a hill, somewhat separated from the town itself) and ask people on the street questions like: "What is blue in Blaubeuren"

"Who is the Schoene Lau"... etc..

We broke into groups of four. Our group consisted of Hannah, Rachel, Helina (different one from on the bus), and Me. We called ourselves "Team Frauschafft" (Mannschaft in German is the word for team, so we changed the Mann to Frau!)

We sett off for Blaubeuren to get our questions answered, because there were prizes for the teams that did well! As we were making our way down the hill, we saw an older man walking in the park, so we decided to ask him for help. Helina was the brave one and asked politely if he knew any of the answers to the questions for our "Stadtspiel" for our University. He was a very nice man and answered as many questions as he could. Unfortunately I couldn't really understand more than a few words of it, because he spoke with a Schwaebische accent. So naturally, I just smiled, nodded, and laughed at the appropriate times, trying to appear as if I knew what he was talking about. We thanked him, walked away, and luckily Hannah understood what he had said. We wrote our answers and then moved on. We walked past an older couple and asked if they could help us answer some questions. They didn't know the answers, so we moved on. It was pretty intimidating to just walk up to people on the street, so we did end up passing a lot of people. We walked past an ice cream shop filled with people, but asked a family sitting on a nearby door stoop instead. It was Rachel's turn to ask, and luckily they turned out to be really helpful. There was a man, a woman, and a girl in her teens or twenties. The man just ate his ice cream and pretty much ignored us, but the woman and the girl were very helpful. The woman answered most of our questions, explained them to the clueless foreigners, and even helped me spell words that I had no idea how to spell. When they didn't know an answer to a question, the girl looked it up for us on her iPhone! They told us where we could find the swearers to some of the other questions, we thanked them, and we made our way to Blautopf.

Blautopf

Blautopf

Die schoene Lau

Blautopf, as we soon found out, is this very deep, very small body of water that leads to under water caves. The water is super blue because the water comes from the mountains... that or there is some scientific explanation that got lost in translation. After we found our answers at Blautopf, we decided to buy some ice cream. Although most of the the stores were closed, as it was Sunday, there were some really creepy bears outside the gummy bear store in town.

Here are some pictures of the town and the monastery.

We then set off with our ice cream in search of just one more answer. We must have asked about twenty or so people before we got our last question answered. One of the people we asked thought that Rachel, who had asked the person that time, was a surveyor or taking polls or something... poor Rachel was a little discouraged after that. After visiting a very unhelpful information kiosk and after creeping on several people, we ended up outside a cemetery where a nice older man walked out of and asked us if we needed help. He answered our last question, we thanked him, and then gleefully made our way back up the hill to our building.

After dinner, we spent some time in our room watching a German soap opera about Julia who was going ot marry David, but she was sort of in love with Jamie. And David had an affair with a bartender who ended up becoming the singer at their wedding. All the while, Julia's dad was trying to make the perfect gin, but something was wrong so that he couldn't taste correctly (I don't know who writes this stuff). And as we flipping through the channels, there was a show that showed a full grown man smother a baby... I ask you, WHAT KIND OF SHOW IS THAT!?

We headed down to a common room at about 9pm to go over the questions and to receive prizes. My team did pretty well, and we won Milka chocolate and notebooks from Tübingen University. After the prizes were all dealt out, we went off to bed, as we had to wake up early for breakfast before class the next morning.

Monday, Sept. 12th

We woke up early, had breakfast, went to class, had lunch, then went down to Blautopf for the remainder of our lunch break.

Afterwards we got some ice cream and headed back up to the building for our Tutorium.

((By the way, it is confirmed that the fashion for men here is socks with sandals, what what what!? Thank you Matt and Jenna!))

The Germans are bringing back Socks with Sandals!
There are also a lot of short shorts here... Some guys just need to buy some pants, especially when they're jogging or biking!

After Tutorium, we were split into groups to create a small play. I've been doing plays in German class since year one of my German education... so please, future teachers/professors: no more plays, I beg of you! After we got done writing our plays, we ate dinner, and then Rachel, Hannah, and I decided to call it an early night after some homework.

Hannah and Rachel being good students.

Me choosing my iPod over my homework... it was a long day!

Hannah chose poorly too!

Zach was pretty wiped!

Rachel, still working.

Zach feeling his butt for some reason.

I didn't want my picture to be taken.

Unfortunately, our neighbors beneath us did not feel so tired, because we could hear very loud shouts consisting of: "DRINK DRINK DRINK" and "SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT" being sung (not even in German might I add) from the floor beneath us. I put my iPod in and soon fell fast to sleep.

Tuesday, Sept.13th

I woke up this morning tired, but before long we all made it out the door and off to breakfast. We then had our Unterricht and set off for the monastery in Blaubeuren.

I wasn't too excited to start the day off.

Here are some more shots of Blaubeuren that I took on my way down to our tour:

Me and Rachel with her trendy New Yorker bag!

Jake and Rachel!

Jake and Zach.

Here is the monastery, and some tourists!

This shot is a little better!

And better yet.

Me by the monastery.

The hills surrounding Blaubeuren.

Jake decided to take a picture too!

This little train would take tourists very slowly around Blaubeuren. I thought it was just for kids, but there were mostly older people in there.

Here is the altar inside the monastery.

Blautopf again.

Super Vivid.

Me by Blautopf.

I was playing with my camera.

The monastery is now a school for students to learn music, language, etc... We were showed around in groups of 3-4 (Hannah, Rachel, Me) by actual students.

Inside the monastery.

And again..

It was very interesting to see their school. Before long we headed back up for lunch, had a very short break, and then had to meet up for our hiking trip up the Schwaebishces Alb to the ruins up on the mountain! We headed off into town, but before we went hiking, we got a tour of the monastery from someone from our German course. After the very information tour, we bought some ice cream and headed up to the ruins from Blautopf. I really wish that I had taken a picture of how steep the trail was! Also, the trail was very narrow, and next to the trail, the ground just dropped off into the forest way beneath. The steep hill and my asthma did not get along very well, and I had to take a couple puffs of my inhaler before long. Poor Hannah had her boot still, so climbing this steep trail was especially difficult for her, but she marched on! I managed to make it up the very steep trail (wheezing, very red, and very sweaty), only to reach a gradual incline of a very sunny, hot road. We walked on this road for a long while, taking pictures along the way. We made it finally to a trail, and actual, normal-sized, non-cliff trail, and made our way through the forest, stopping along the way again to take pictures.

The first stop was by a monument, where you could walk up to the cliff and see just how high up we were, because it looked over the entire town of Blaubeuren.

The next pit stop we made was at a giant boulder off the cliff, which we all climbed. It was super scary to be up so high up! Poor Zach was freaking a bit about people being close to the edge (and I don't blame him, it freaked me out too!),  but we managed to get some great photos!

View from the Ruins.

Candid photo of Jake.

Jake and Rachel on the boulder.

Me with my muscle arm, as I made it up there!

Look how high we were!

I was terrified to be up so high, but I think I masked it well!

Then it was off to the ruins at last. We had to go down some steep hills, up some little (as in made for small feet little) stairs, but we finally made it. It was quite a picturesque spot! Unfortunately, my camera died up there, so I am going to have to steal pictures from everyone else!

Here are the little steps leading up to the ruins.

Here I am all gross and sweaty with Rachel. We were just happy to have made it up!

A little too sunny for me!

Here is the view from the ruins.

The Tübingener Fünf!

Not quite sure...

Again, it was really sunny!

The sun shines down on Blaubeuren!

We stayed up at the ruins for a little while before heading back down. on the way down, we went a different way, which was really steep too, and we got a little lost on the way down. Eventually we found our way and made our way slowly back to our building. We stopped at the big cross on the hill behind our building on our way back as well.

((By the way, a big shout out to my Momma for buying me my shoes that I was wearing on this day! I can't even imagine trying to do what I did in uncomfortable and unstable shoes! Thanks Mommy!))

We got back to our building, aching and tired. We all lay down for a while before dinner. I did not really eat anything for dinner, as I didn't feel so well. After dinner, we broke off into our play groups again to practice. Once we were done practicing, I went right to the shower, and started to write all this down so that I could post it here on the internet! Hannah said that our hands will hurt as much as our legs, as we both spent the night writing our journals/blog entries.

Wednesday, Sept. 14th

Wednesday started out like any other day in Blaubeuren. We woke up, got breakfast, had class, and then had lunch. After lunch, however, we set off with the rest of our course to go to the train station to catch a train to Ulm for the day. We had to hike a couple of minutes, but we made it to the station in time to break off into groups of five and get on the train. The train ride was short, only about ten or so minutes, and then we met up in front of the church for a tour through the city. I don't want to be rude saying this, but I just wish that our tour guide had been a little more knowledgeable of the city in terms of directions, as she kept getting lost and we had to back track several times. It was also very annoying, because the people in our group were being very disrespectful and kept talking during the tour.

After the tour, we walked through the church, and then everyone went up in the church. The church in Ulm has the highest steeple in the world, some768 steps, which circle in a spiral staircase all the way up.

http://www.ulmer-muenster.de/

Hannah and I did not go up, as her boot and 768 steps did not seem to go together, and my knees were killing me from my hike the previous day!

The theme for this trip is definitely:

While Zach, Jake, and Rachel climbed this mountain (metaphorically), Hannah and I went to a smoothie cafe with two of the Tutors, Susanne and Julia. We talked about our schools, majors, buying books for school, and frats and sororities. It was a great test for our German, while I think they were too nice to say we were bad at German, and they corrected us when we said something wrong. We met back up with the church goers, and then ate at a Bier Garten in Neu Ulm (which is very different from Ulm, and is actually in Bavaria). I got a Haenchenbrust mit Pommes (Chicken breast with fries), and it looked absolutely delicious, until I took a bite and realized that it had garlic on it. I asked the waitress to double check if there was garlic on it, told her I couldn't eat the garlic, and she said sorry and walked away. Luckily Jake was nice and switched food with me! I still feel bad that he did that! After the Bier Garten, we went and bought some ice cream before heading to the train station to catch a train back to Blaubeuren. We went off to our rooms, as we were all so tired, and I fell right asleep!

Hannah creeped on me while I was falling asleep!

That bed was really comfy!

Thursday, Sept. 15th

Oh man! After climbing a mountain how could my week get any better...?

Our day was super normal, until our plays, which all turned out to be pretty funny. We preformed our plays, and then went to dinner. After dinner, we met up with the rest of the course as we were going down to the monastery to their bar there. Yes, a bar... in a monastery. Although, to be fair, it is now a school for high schoolers... Oh wait... Hmm....

Everyone bought their drinks, and we sat outside under the stars, talking with people as they came and sat by us. After a while we got pretty cold, so Rachel, Hannah, and I went inside the main hall to warm up. There we found some of the other Americans from our group playing Fussball. So we joined them! I was on Rachel's team, and Hannah played with a guy named Adam. The game got pretty intense, and then at one point in the game, I let the ball go right into the goal. Rachel looked at me and asked what happened. I responded by saying, "I just realized that we're playing Fussball in a monastery". Yes, my life is complete. If my life wasn't good enough before, it is now. We ended up winning, and had some pretty embarrassing high five failures before heading back up to our room for the night. Jake and Zach came up to our room later, but unfortunately I fell asleep and missed most of the conversation. I was only awake enough to hear about people from our course and their drunken failures trying to climb stairs. All in all, a good day!

Friday, Sept. 16th

We woke up this morning and had to pack after getting ready, as our bags had to be ready to go before class. We packed up, went to breakfast, and had class. One of the kids in our class did not show up on time, and someone had to go and get him. I am guessing that he had just a little too much to drink at the monastery, as he was pretty hung over, made some very disgusting noises, and had to leave the room because he felt sick. Today in class, we had to write about our favorite book, to practice our writing skills and our grammar. The same kid asked us something like three times what we were doing today... I'm guessing, again just a guess, but I'm guessing that he had too much to drink the night before.

After our Textarbeit (writing exercise), we had lunch before getting on the bus to go back to Tübingen. I'm sorry to say, but I was so glad to be going back to Tübingen where I have more time, and less strenuous activities. I sat with Zach on the ride back, Hannah with Jake behind us, and Rachel sat alone =[ across from us. The ENTIRE, not even exaggerating here (maybe a little), but the ENTIRE ride back, I got to listen to Jake and Hannah play Tiny Wings on Jake's iPad (as they became addicted to it from playing it on my iPod). They also discussed Tiny Wings, debating the reasons why a bird needs coins and sunlight, and also conversing the methods to gain a level up to get a new nest. And this was my ride back to Tübingen.

When we got back to Tübingen, we all split up to drop our things off. When I got back to my room, I checked my mail and found that I am now a student with legitimate internet! Yay! No more stealing internet from my very kind German neighbor! So I dropped off my stuff quickly, before meeting Hannah, Rachel, and Helina by the Rathaus, because we were going to show Helina where the Saturn was so that she could buy a phone. The streets of Tübingen were filled with people, so it was a bit difficult to find everyone and to get around, because this weekend Tübingen has a French and Italian market. The market is filled with food, flowers, and novelties from France and Italy. Also, as a bonus, most of the stores here in Tübingen are having sales this weekend because of the fest!

But anyway, we headed off to Saturn, which also has a REWE next door, so I bought some groceries while Helina bought a phone. We headed back to the Alt-Stadt where we all live, and I dropped off my groceries, checked my e-mail, and sat for just a little bit before I got a call to go and meet Zach, Jake, Olav, Helena, Neils, Hannah, and Rachel for the evening. We met up, walked through the market a bit, and then sat down to eat. Hannah and I split a dish which consisted of chicken wrapped in bacon with noodles under it. (I did not eat the bacon, just the chicken inside it)...

The market, and some scary lady who loves Tübingen.

It was super busy at the market place!

Pretty flowers on display!

We ate while listening to an accordion playing, and then we all headed off to go buy some chocolate and wine (nice combo!)... We then sat on Hannah's porch for the rest of the evening, talking with her German neighbors, eating our chocolate, and everyone else drinking their wine. Hannah was nice enough to let us use her internet while we were there, so of course we had to do something nice for her:

Jake's thing is that he likes to arrange Hannah's change in specific patterns. It's only a little OCD.

Everything flipped upside down.

Caught in the act.

"Look at what I did!"

Rachel and Jake!

I headed back to my room not long after that, and am now sitting in my room blogging after a very long, very exhausting week of German grammar and constant activity.