Month: January 2013

I thought I’d do one more post before I go back to America for the weekend.  Yes, I’m going back to America.  For the weekend… I have an interview in Ohio for a job I REALLY REALLY REALLY want!  I would be working for Kappa Kappa Gamma!
Anyway, I thought I’d fill you all in with what we did today and then explain my nightly ritual here in Germany… LOL!

This afternoon, after lunch, our teacher that is from here asked us if we’d like to go on a walk in the town and go over a little bit of history and stuff.  Seeing as it was a lovely day outside, we all agreed!  The sky was VERY dark off in the distance, but that didn’t scare us!
We went on this walk and started at the city Schloss (castle, which I’m dumb and didn’t take pictures of.. but I’ll get one soon, I promise!).  It was very pretty, but is still used for Government business, so we couldn’t really do any touristy things except look at it.
We continued to walk through town as our professor pointed out specific historic buildings, signs, etc.  We saw some police officers and, just because our professor from Simpson, PC, told us NO POLIZEI while we were in Germany, I asked if we could take a picture with them, you know – to be sassy!  So we did. 🙂 Great fun!  They didn’t even think we were weird.  They even ended up talking to us for a few minutes after the photo-shoot.
We kept walking and then randomly stumbled upon the Stadtmuseum (city’s museum), which I had NO idea was there.  We ended up going inside and, although there is a fee, our teacher somehow got us all in for free.  Good thing too, because that museum was AWESOME! Seriously… Awesome.  There was SO much history about the city and artifacts and it was in an old building that’s been modernized in some parts.  There were, like, nooks and crannies you could go in and random staircases you could go up/down everywhere.  It was great!  We were probably there for over an hour, but there was so much to see, I’d like to go back! (and I’d even pay for it!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for another fun tid-bit of information: MY NIGHTLY RITUAL! (okay, it’s not, like, ritual ritual, but routine, I guess…)
Every night after I get ready for bed, I turn of my lights, but turn on my fireplace (yes, there’s a fireplace in my room!!) and sit at the end of my bed to get my little toezies warm while I write in my journal (thanks, Jared! – he got me moleskein journals for Christmas!). Once I’m done, I put some quiet, classical music on on my iPad and play solitaire on it until my eyes start to glaze over.  Then I know I’m ready for sleep, so I turn of the fireplace and crawl into bed and pass-out.  Exciting, right?  Okay, maybe not, but I figured some random information wouldn’t hurt anything.  Or perhaps I just like to brag about the fact that I have a fireplace in my bedroom.  😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welp, I should probably finish packing, since I have a big flight tomorrow!!  🙂
Until next time…

 

 

So clearly it’s been a while since I’ve posted on my blog – but that’s because on weekdays, I can’t think of much to talk about because Monday-Fridays, I’m in school from 9-4, and then I ride the bus home, do a little homework, play with Sophia, etc.  On Saturdays, however, the group makes trips to other parts of Germany.  For example, this weekend, we went to Rothenburg, a super-touristy city in Bayern.

Rothenburg was beautiful.  It was a German town exactly as you would picture it in, like, Epcot or something.  Stereotypical German village.  But I’m not complaining – it was a great opportunity to buy souvenirs, get a bunch of touristy photos, etc.  At the beginning of the trip, we ventured along the city wall, where we could enjoy the scenery of Rothenburg and surrounding areas.  After wandering for, oh maybe an hour, we decided to shop!!  We all founds some pretty great souvenirs.  And we all spent a little bit too much… Rothenburg was very different from Stuttgart and Ulm, because it clearly targets tourists.  They had signs in English, Japanese, and sometimes French, Spanish, Italian, etc.  Our professor said that it’s the number 1 tourist city in Germany.

After lunch, we went to a museum that had the history of crime and punishment.  It was SO COOL!!  There was even a REAL iron maiden in the museum!!  There was some pretty twisted stuff in that museum, but I kinda love seeing that stuff… haha!  I took a class on Crime and Punishment in England at Simpson my sophomore year, so it was fun to actually be able to see some of the things we talked about in that class.  I did a research project over shaming punishments, so seeing so many different versions of shaming masks was very cool.  It was a good Saturday.

On Sunday, I was a little bit tired, having gone 6 hours on a train on Saturday  along with venturing Rothenburg.  That being said, I knew if I napped I wouldn’t be able to sleep that night, so when Tanja offered to go for a walk, I was happy to go along!  She thought the walk would be 45 minutes to and hour, but we ended up taking a little over 2.5 hours!!  I’m not complaining though – it was lovely!!  We basically hiked up a nearby mountain which, at the top, we could look down upon all of Urbach and surrounding areas.  It was seriously SO PRETTY!!  It was a little chilly out, but not cold, so it was a great day to get some fresh air.  After our walk, we had a small lunch since it was already after 2 and Tanja’s and Jürgen’s parents were coming over for dinner.  Although I couldn’t understand most of what was said at the dinner table, it was still an enjoyable evening with very friendly and welcoming people.  Funny comment of the day: Later in the evening, I needed to do my homework, so I was working on it at the kitchen table for a little while and I wasn’t even paying attention that Tanja and Jürgen were putting all the chairs up so their iRobot (automatic vacuum) could clean and Jürgen said to me, “Bar’s closed, Keely.”  bahaha!  I thought it was pretty hysterical, personally…

Today the weather was LOVELY!  It was, like, one of the first days we’ve been here that it didn’t snow a little.  Most days, there is a little bit of flurry, but today there was none AND it was nice out.  In fact, after lunch, my friends Ella and Rachel and I played on the playground near our school.  Ella and I played for about 45 minutes, just because we were enjoying the fresh air and sunshine (most days are cloudy too).

Anyway, although you all didn’t hear (well, read…) much from me in this past week, it’s been a good week!

Till next time…

So, as you may have noticed, it’s been a few days since I last posted.  Well, that’s because I’ve been BUSY!!  Also, I’ve decided to try something new: Seeing as I’m a bit long-winded in my blog, I will bold everything that we did for those that want a short story, and for those that want more detail, you can read more.  You’re welcome. 🙂

Friday, there wasn’t much to report, other than WE GOT THE AFTERNOON OFF!!  We do not have our afternoon classes on Fridays, which is kiiiinda nice.  I feel like it was the first chance I had to actually explore Schorndorf.  We’ve been so busy, we haven’t had time to find anything new on our own, so it was nice to have a little free time.
The others and I were shown a bar called Gottslied (I think) and we hung out there for a while and just relaxed and enjoyed our afternoon.

Saturday, we took a day-trip to Ulm, a city that takes about an hour and a half to get to by train.  Ulm was very pretty, but was also VERY cold.
The first thing we did was go to Ulmer Münster, the church with the tallest spire in the world!  COOL!!  I’m pretty bummed because it was so dark, so most of my pictures did not turn out well.  However, I’ve included some pictures that did turn out alright.
After roughly and hour of exploring the large church, a few of us climbed the spire!  Although we could only climb half of it because the top half is closed in the winter, it was EXHAUSTING (my calves are still cramped from it).  It was our workout for the day though.  😉

We had lunch at the Pfannkuchenhaus (pancake house, or ihop – Germany edition).  The plates were beyond humongous, but we weren’t allowed to take pictures.  😦 I think they had to be at least 12″ though… yeah, big.

Then we went to a museum about he Donough River and learned about people that were in the area before and during WWII.

For the evening, my dear friend Ella and I parted ways from the group and went to Stuttgart again to hang out with Tanja’s sister, Sonja.  We had such a fun night!  Though, I must say – “going out” here is SO much different than in the US (well, Iowa anyway).  There were SO many people!!  You know how in movies, people can’t move – yeah, I didn’t think that was real until last night.  Holy moly, were there a lot of people.  It was a fun experience, but not one I think I’d be able to do very often.  Sonja and her friends, Julia and Collette were SO nice to us and so welcoming in their apartment.  We had so much fun comparing our cultures and little things that we say, such as Squirrel (or Eichhörnchen in German) or “nose goes,” a silly American thing.  Ella and I actually spoke quite a bit of German, so I’d say it was a successful night!  🙂  We finally went to bed at 4am.  Woah, right?  Long night!!

This morning, we woke up pretty early (considering we went to bed so late) and rode the train back to Schorndorf so Ella could get to church (because she’s such a god Catholic!).  We enjoyed some breakfast with Sonja and Julia before we left, but then had to hustle off for train rides, which proved difficult today because the roads had been covered in ice in our four hours of sleep.

Although very tired today, when Tanja asked if I wanted to go to the Fehrnsehturn today, I thought it would be fun, so she, Jürgen, Sophia and I went.  The Fehrnsehturn is the first television tower! And you can go up to the top! So we did.  And at the top there is a coffee shop, so we hung out there for a bit.  It was really cool to see all of Stuttgart from way up high! Then we went for a walk and found an ice skating rink and a climbing gym in the area. We watched climbers for a while (and warmed up inside) and I must say – I was very impressed!!  That’s hard work.  Cool though. Then we went to dinner and then came home and hung out for a while.

So, as you can see, I’ve been busy.  That’s a lot of stuff in two days!  But all is good!
Until next time…

With so many new, exciting and awesome things to experience here in Germany, I thought I would pick my top two new favorite things.

The first is mushrooms.  My whole life, I have been afraid of mushrooms.  NO LONGER!  The first night I was here, my host-mother made me a dinner that was, like, a mushroom stir-fry almost that had a very tasty sauce (I know… another tasty sauce!) I have had mushrooms a few other times in my meals, because they are in a lot of my foods here, and yesterday I INTENTIONALLY ordered mushrooms!  What is happening to me?!?!  I also ate cabbage today… and liked it!  But I must say, mushrooms are a new love for me.  Who cares that they’re fungi?  Not me.  Not anymore, anyway!  They are filling, and actually pretty good.  So yes, I am now a mushroom eater…

The second new love is public transportation.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  It’s the best thing since gluten-free sliced bread!  But really.  The convenience of the mass public transportation here is something I wish we had at home.  Of course, everything is way closer and there are way more people per area here, so it makes more sense, but it would definitely be a nice addition to America!  Trains in Iowa, anyone?  Think about it – you could go to downtown Des Moines (where the bars a little better than I-town’s) to go out with friends and not worry about paying for a cab or making one of you friends be the DD and have no problem getting home!  Why?  Because you can just hop on the bus and GET HOME SAFE!  Besides this convenience, I personally love it extra-well because I HATE DRIVING!!  Being able to sit on a bus or on the train and read to school is FAR better than getting in my car and having to pay attention to the road.  Boooorinnggg! I for realzies love it.  Also cool: the bus that I take to Schorndorf every day is a Mercedes bus – AWESOME!  That’s right – I’m the high-roller that can take the Mercedes bus to school!  (They’re all Mercedes, but no one has to know that…) 😉  The bus I have pictured is the size of TWO BUSES!  They’re connected with and accordian-style ‘thing’ in the middle (which, yes, there are some in America too..), but these HUGE buses can get around the tightest round-about (which there are MANY of here) and it blows my mind!  I always think we’re gonna take out some signs, or buildings, or people… but the bus drivers are good.

 

So these are the two latest discoveries I’ve made in my love-life.  Might sound lame, but hey!  They seem to be making my life better, so I’m happy.  🙂

Until next time…

Well, as you all might have seen on facebook today, I got lost.  

Today was the first day that I took the bus home from school.  The bus stop for the trip home is different than the bus stop for the ride in the morning – this I knew.  Also, my host-mother has showed me two times where the bus stop is and where I should go.  Note to everyone in the world: Curving to the left is different than TURNING left.  I walked down so many WRONG streets and it was freakin scary.  People were sitting outside (which is crazy cuz it’s cold) or were working construction and saw me walking back and forth and probably lost I was CRAZY!  Or perhaps they just knew I was a dumb American… L O L. 
Anyway, I walked past this bakery, like, 6 times and started to think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go in to ask a worker if they knew where my street was.  Since it was starting to get dark, I finally did.  Oh boy!  Not helpful.  In German, I asked the lady if she knew where Hauserbronnerstraße was and she replied that she isn’t from Urbach, so she doesn’t know.  Super… She told me to go to a bar across the street to ask them, but I was already getting choked up in there, so I didn’t want to go ask another person.  Once I got outside, I broke into tears.  How embarrassing.  I don’t do well with not knowing where I am.  And I don’t do well with directions (thanks for that hereditary flaw, ma!) 

When I regained composure, I called my host-mom, which I felt SO BAD for because I knew she was at work today and I felt bad for bothering her.  She stayed on the phone with me as I walked to my house, which was soooo nice of her!  She asked me if I saw certain things, all of which I did and had seen a few times already walking back and forth.  My problem was that I was TURNING left down other streets instead of just following the road that CURVES left.  AH!!  If I had walked, like 500 feet further than I already had a couple times, I would have seen our house.  Oh golly, that’s good.

Thinking back, I think that the funniest part is that I was ON Hauserbronnerstraße the WHOLE TIME!!  My German must be pretty bad, or the lady at the bakery must not know where she works… (I’m guessing it’s that my German is bad.  Oh, and I was half crying which makes my German that much harder to understand).

Although this was super crazy stressful, I’m back and I’m OKAY!  And I now know how to get home from school.  I’m a big kid now.

Until next time…

ps I PROMISE I’ll add pictures to this blog sooooon.  🙂  LOVE YOU ALL!

Jan 12

We went to Stuttgart yesterday, the biggest city near us for “touristy stuff” and shopping. The architecture there was all incredible, although everything in the city was built AFTER 1945… Weird, eh? They built a castle after the war in old style, but it’s not old! I found this very interesting. It was also cool because there were some super-modern buildings and then the old style buildings all mixed together.
We were going to go into the castle, but it was super cold (and snowing!) and the line was very long, so our professor decided not to do it yesterday. So we went shopping!
Dogs were allowed in all of the shops! So cool!
We took the train back to Schorndorf and one of our classmate’s trains wasn’t going to come for 40 minutes, so a few of us went to a bar in our village to hang out for a little while. And, guess what? THERE WAS A DOG IN THE BAR! And not even on a leash. Just wondering on it’s own. I LOVED it!! That is the picture attached. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 13
This morning my host father, Jürgen, went on a run with me and took me on a 5 or 6 kilometer loop. It was beautiful because it went through a forest. It was also difficult, because the whole first half was uphill (which I’d prefer over the second half!).

Something cultural I noticed today was hand-shaking.  I knew before I came that Germans always shake hands with one another when they come and leave.  However, I guess I didn’t realize how truly often this is expressed.  This afternoon, we went to a birthday party for Tanja’s friend and each time someone came or left, they shook hands with everyone else.  I did not find this surprising.  However, this evening, Tanja’s family (sister, brother and parents) came for dinner and when they got here AND when they left, they shook hands with one another.  I guess I didn’t realize that this was common practice even within families.  Interesting fact of the day!

Until next time…

Just wanted to say hi and let you know how my semester abroad is going so far. I wrote something on my iPad while on the plane, so I’m pasting that here and then I will write a little about once I arrived. Read as much or as little as you please (I know it’s long!) 🙂

DAY ONE
Currently on the plane sitting next to my dear friend Ella, I am experiencing many feelings, such as excitement, nerves, and headache. The headache comes from the fact that I am in an awful predicament with my seat. The only time I like the word coach is when it’s referring to my hand-bags. When I typically fly, I am able to sleep like a baby as I sit in United Airline Business Class (aka first class). However, flying with Delta is way different without all my dad’s rewards points moving me up to first. Coach is squishy and unsleepable. Ella and I have strived for comfort (even allowing each other to attempt comfort by laying on the other’s lap!), but seem to be failing. Oh well?

That being said, I anxiously await our arrival in Stuttgart, Germany, and then further, the meeting of my host family. As we venture over the wide Atlantic Ocean, these feelings of excitement and nervousness grow stronger. I’m excited about so many things, but am also oh-so-scared to have to start speaking German 24-7. What if I can’t think of the necessary words? I can only hope my host family will be patient with me.

A really cool feature of traveling over an ocean is the lack of lights – one word to describe the view: stunning. Even growing up in a small town with very few city lights, I have never seen so many stars. They just pepper the sky and are all that I can see. That’s pretty amazing! I even saw one falling star, believe it or not! It kind of gave me a heart attack a because, even though I know that star and I are in different atmospheres (or something…), I thought it was gonna git me. But no worries. It fell and disappeared like any falling star. Oh! I made a wish on it too. Maybe it’s even better luck since I’m 1200 feet closer to it. Eh?

With approximately 3.5 more hours of flight until we get to Amsterdam, I am trying to be patient. If you know me, you know i suck at that. We shall then proceed to GERMANY! From there we will venture to a banquet at which we shall all be united with our host families. I hope my two-year-old host sister enjoys my company as much as I once enjoyed an exchange student’s company. (Shout out to Rebecca, who I’ll hopefully be in contact with shortly!)
I know everything will be a-okay, so I’m not freaking as much as I can which is, well, I can get pretty freakin’ stressed. Go me for keepin’ my cool.
See you soon, Germany. Be ready for a good time!
Note: Delta’s gluten-free meal (pictured) was actually quite tasty! Who’da thought?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOW FOR THE NEW STUFF!
Today was my first day of school! It was pretty good. We mostly discussed how our first evenings with our host families went and then we explored the town, Schorndorf, where our school is. We had a very delicious lunch at a little restaurant called “deutschehaus” (German House). They have two specials per day, and that is all you can choose from. Today the options were salmon and schnitzel! (pork). Seeing as I’m not a fish person, I order the schnitzel. This was a three course meal, however, so first we had watercrest salad and boy, was that good?! Then we had salads with a homemade dressing that was also super good. And finally we had our meals. The schnitzel came with noodles, and they actually had gluten free noodles! I was a happy camper. The sauce on the schnitzel was TO DIE FOR! Anyway, enough about food, yeah?
After school, my host-mother picked me up to go grocery shopping. I am living with probably the healthiest family in Germany. No joke, they eat the healthiest foods! So we went to a store that reminded me of a very little Whole Foods. Tanja, my host mother, let me pick out some food to have at the house, which was very nice and they had a lot of gluten-free foods.
After the grocery store, we went to a farm. Yes, a farm! Here we got fresh vegetables and juice. Then Tanja, Sophia (my 2-yr-old host sister) and I walked around to look at the animals. This was in a little town called Schornbach, which is easy for me to remember because the town I’m living in is called UrBACH and the town my school is in is called SCHORNdorf, so I can just combine the two! I attached a photo of the farm. It was interesting because I noticed that there were only women there. I did not see one man. I might ask questions about that in my culture class next week. The farm was very adorable, and they had a tidy little shop (not in the picture) where people go to buy fresh produce, eggs, juice, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This evening I finally got to meet my host father, Jürgen. He is very nice and has been doing research on Iowa since I gave him an Iowa history photo-book! (In fact, he just started playing music live from an Iowa radio station) Too funny. We looked on google-earth together and I showed him where everybody lives, where I interned last semester, etc.
So this has been my trip so far. Tomorrow we are going to the nearest big city, Stuttgart. I think we are going to do touristy things and shop! I will attempt to keep you all updated as often as possible. I miss you all SO MUCH and hope all is well “nach Amerika” (in America).
ps – the other picture attached is of my host-sister and I. I gave my host-mother a lululemon headband and Sophia was wearing it around.