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…
keelygoshia 