Month: March 2013

So, if you aren’t already aware: I have had a VERY exciting week and a half.  From getting engaged (eeek!!!!) to being in the hospital, it’s been a crazy time!  I’ll just start from the beginning: Ella and I arriving in our hotel room in Munich and thinking WHAT THE ____ (fill in with your favorite four-letter word here).  It was FILTHY!!!  Like, SICK!!  I felt like my cousin (shout-out to Danielle!) when I said I wanted a new room.  You guys, this room was nasty.  I don’t know WHAT was all over the walls; dirt, dust maybe.. but, in one corner, there were DRIED BOOGERS on our wall!!! EWWW!!  I don’t know how to explain how truly disgusting it was.  I was NOT a happy camper and am now probably a bigger germaphobe than I was before.  Great.

On our first day in Munich, we kind of explored a little and got to know the main city-center area we were staying at.  Then we also learned the S-Bahn (subway) system for the city.  I’m still loving the public transport here.  I think it’s just great and WISH we had something similar in Iowa… (I know that will never happen).

Anyway, I can’t remember anymore which days we did what until Joel got here, so I’m kinda just guessing on the days.

Friday we went to the Deutsches Museum.  It was pretty big and they had this huge, like, mine underground.  It was a fake mine that they built in so people could see the evolution of mining.  We were walking around down there for probably a good twenty minutes (maybe climbing on some of the equipment too – it didn’t say NOT to..) before we ventured out into the rest of the museum.  We saw some lightening be made as well in this lab area, so that was cool.  After the museum, we had free time for the day, so Ella, Zach, and I decided to just venture because it was a nice day.  We found the parliament building and it was BEAUTIFUL.  And there was also a rive that ran in front of it and people were just sitting out by the river and enjoying the nice weather, so we joined in.  It was so perfect; the sun beating down on us after lots of snow, hearing the water rush by, just hanging out.  It was lovely.  But we finally decided to go so we could shower and get ready to go out for the night.

That evening, Ella and I found a bar nearby on the internet.  We didn’t want to have to go to far since we didn’t know the city that well yet – but don’t worry: we didn’t go just the two of us.  Zach, our body guard for all intensive purposes, also went with us.  We weren’t planning on being out too late because we had to leave the hotel at 9 the next morning for the days events. Well… 1:30 rolled around and we finally realized it was actually late and we should probably go!  But here’s the thing: We weren’t just sitting, just the three of us talking about stupid stuff in English.  No – some regulars at the bar came and sat with us and we talked to them all for FIVE HOURS IN GERMAN!!  Only one of them knew any english.  Needless to say, we were all pretty impressed with ourselves to have been able to carry that conversation for that long!  It was definitely a breaking point for me – I didn’t realize that I could do that, so it was really really cool.  And we didn’t just talk about stupid things – we talked about culture, religions (they were all Islam, so there was a lot to talk about), music and so much more!  We actually had intellectual conversations and it was so great!  But we did end up finally leaving and getting back to our hotel pretty late (or should I say early).

On Saturday, I am so sorry, but I don’t remember what we did…. woops!!  Something cool, probably.  😉

Sunday morning (Joel’s coming Joel’s coming!) was the day that (Joel’s coming!!) I was really excited because (Joel’s coming!) Joel was coming that day!  He was supposed to get in at about 11, but his flights got WAY screwed up, so he wasn’t going to be able to get in until 4ish.  But that ended up being okay, because we saw my favorite thing in Munich that day; the Residenz Palace!  Oh. My. Lordy was this place huge. and. beautiful!!  I can’t even explain to you how beautiful it was!  Like, seriously, it was amazing.  And I can’t imagine having LIVED there!  This place was cool – if you’re ever in Munich, you MUST go!!  They even had three little harps. 😀

After the Residenz, we went out for coffee and cake, a great German thing that I love.  You just go sit and drink coffee and eat cake for, like, an hour.  Why not?  Of course, I can’t partake in the cake eating, but it’s okay.  I love the down time.  Then I left coffee and cake a little bit early toooooooooo GO PICK UP JOEL!!!  WOO!!  I was SO SO SO SO SO happy to see him!!  Like, SO happy!!  I’ve been doing really wel and haven’t actually gotten homesick here really, but it was definitely amazing to see him.  We took the S-Bahn for 45 minutes back to the hotel and then headed out to be with the group.  Everyone, however, was pretty much already back – there was a St. Patty’s festival that they went to, but came back relatively early to do other stuff as well.  So we hung out in one of the other rooms (one that WASN’T super-duper disgusting).  We were all getting ready to go out and Joel admitted that he was too tired, so we turned in for the night.  I understand – travelling can be exhausting!!  Especially from US to Europe.

The next morning, we had to get going somewhat early again so we could get up to Neuschwanstein Castle – it was about a 2 hour trip with trains and buses.  But it was worth it (for a few reasons) 🙂 It is the castle that Cinderella’s Castle was designed after, and apparently something in Harry Potter too… not sure.  But it was breathtaking.  A beautiful place.  So, (digressing a little, but it’s important) Joel and I got an apartment in Ames for next year.  So when we were headed up to the castle, he was like, “We should try to get a good picture so we can make a Christmas card.” I thought that was a GREAT idea.  Send a Christmas card from our little apartment.  I was all for it!  And I kept saying, “Oooh this would be a good spot for a Christmas card picture.”  Like, several times… making a fool of myself because I didn’t know what was coming… So our tour was about to start in, like, 2 minutes, and Joel was like, let’s go up to the top and take our picture there!  And I thought sure, what the heck.  So the whole group came with us.  He gave Ella my camera to ‘take the Christmas card picture’ but everyone was taking the picture… I thought it was a little weird, but hey, whatever… He made us take our jackets off so we looked nice and not in puffy winter jackets (even though it was snowing…) So we got together to take the picture and, by golly, that boy was shaking like maraca in a mariachi band! I turned to him and was like, “Joel, are you cold?” and the next thing I know, he’s dropping down on one knee.  Box with a ring in it in hand.  I was floored!!  I had absolutely no idea that this would be happening right then!!!!  And then he asked me, in German, if I would be his wife.  What did I say, “Did you ask my dad?”  DID YOU ASK MY DAD!  Oh gosh – I just don’t do well with ‘on-the-spot-stuff’ ha! Finally I came around and said, “Yes, of course.” 🙂 So now I get to marry Joel!  Hopefully I’ll be getting the video soon – there’s a video!  He seriously did such a good job – this place was picture perfect.  Kinda like a fairy-tale 😉 The only problem was that there was NO free wifi in Munich and my phone wasn’t workingggg!!  So it was difficult to not be able to tell everyone personally, but it’s okay – you still get the idea. 🙂

After all the excitement, we went to the Hofbräuhaus – a Munich legend.  Of beer.  Joel had been before and loves the place and Zach really wanted to go too, so it worked well.  So Ella, Zach, Joel and I went for a bit and then met up with the group for a late dinner at a very good Italian place.

When we got back to Urbach, Tanja and Jürgen and Sophia were all very nice and welcoming to Joel.  Sophia even let Joel play tic-tac-toe with her!  We made pizza that night and Tanja had champaign and chocolate for Joel and I to congratulate us.  I am so lucky and seriously have the best host family in the world – they’re always so nice!  Joel did his own thing walking around in Schorndorf Wednesday morning and then he and I went to the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart in the afternoon when I got done with school.  It was a lot bigger than I thought.  Way more cars than I needed to see in one day.  😉 But it was cool – they showed a bunch of history of what was going on at the same time certain cars came out which I thought was pretty neat.  We also went in a race-car simulator which was fun.  On Thursday, Joel went back into Stuttgart on his own while I was in class and went to the history museum that I went to about a month ago.  On Friday, he went to Nürnberg by himself.  Which stressed me out beyond belief!!  It was pretty far away, so if he got lost, I couldn’t really help him, so I was panicked the whole day!  And he was coming back later because we had presentations that evening for school that he didn’t want to sit through, because they were all in German.  And Nürnberg is probably always going to be cooler than school presentations.  However, I ended up getting a really bad migraine and got taken to the hospital… ugh.  NOT fun…  I had to get a CT to make sure I didn’t have a stroke or anything crazy like that and then I was put on an IV drip for quite some time and some medicine too.  I was there for probably 4 hours.. maybe more.  I’m not really sure.  But it was not a fun night.  Luckily, Tanja was there with me – which I felt really bad about because she wasn’t feeling all that well either, so I felt bad that she had to wait with me.  And somebody brought Joel to the hospital when he got back into Schorndorf.  So that wasn’t very fun.  But my migraine’s almost all gone, 5 days later….

Joel and I went back to Munich Saturday morning, because that’s where his plaine was leaving from.  We luckily had enough time to enjoy the palace (since he didn’t get to see it before), and another trip to the Hofbräuhaus.  We even ended up getting souveniers this time.  It was amazing having him here and I can’t wait to see him again – all of you really!  But at the same time, I can’t believe that I only have a month left here in Germany.  It has gone by SO quickly and there are still so many things I want to see!!  I guess I’ll just have to come back again.. 🙂

Until next time…

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday, my dear friend Ella and I ventured alone to Paris, France!  We figured we were doing well with the train systems in Germany so we could also handle them in Paris.  Well, my friends, read on to hear whether this was true or not…

After school, Ella and I left for Stuttgart to catch our train to Paris. This train trip was only 4 hours!  So cool.  I wish we could travel to other countries in only 4 hours in America too.  Before we left Schorndorf, we grabbed some food: I grabbed a salad to go from a place called Hoagie’s.  Once we were on the train, we were ready to go.  SO EXCITED!!  We kept saying to each other “We’re going to be in Paris in less than four hours!!”  I mean, come on, what’s not exciting about that?  Our plans were to get to Paris, and purchase some train tickets to Orleans (where my friend Emily lives) and then wander around Paris until it was time for our train.  Well, little did we know French is NOT the same language as German.  Hmm.  Also, the people in the train station spoke very little english, so it was difficult, but we managed. The latest train to Orleans left only about an hour later, so we didn’t have time to wander the train station, which was fine b/c we were panicked about making our train.  Also, when we were purchasing our tickets, the guy spoke barely any english, and what he spoke was difficult to understand.  But we did understand that it took 30 minutes to get to the train to Orleans!!  I think I can speak for both Ella and myself when I say what I though: “What?!?!?  We have to walk for thirty minutes??  Our train leaves in an hour!  And we’re probably going to get lost!”  So we strapped up our suitcases, purses and backpacks and were ready to venture out in the world of Paris, but then it dawned on us that it was probably a 30 min. train ride to the station we had to leave from.  Sure enough, it was.  (thank heavens!) So we made it to Gar d’lest, the train station and made our train to Orleans in time.  I cannot emphasize enough how big of a relief it was to see my friend Emily at the station.  Because I definitely did not know what I was doing in France!

That evening, we just hung out in Emily’s apartment with a bunch of her friends and enjoyed Racklet, a typical French dinner with LOTS OF CHEESE! (I love cheese) And we just talked, ate and drank wine until about 1am.  Time flew – I had no idea it was so late.

Saturday morning, we woke up pretty early so we could catch the train from Orleans to Paris (it’s about an hour train-ride).  Ella and I had a big list of things we wanted to see, but were completely unaware as to how big that city actually is.  Before we saw anything, we stopped for coffe and a little food.  Ella and I shared this cheese thing, which I can’t remember what it’s called, which was cheese, but yogurty… very French.  And very delicious!  Then we made our way to Notre Dame (can you believe I saw Notre Dame?!?!?)  It was beautiful, and this year was an anniversary of the building, so they had a huge viewing thing set up so more people can see it from higher up and such.  We did not go inside, because the line was so long and we wanted to see other things., but the outside was stunning – it is just amazing to me that ‘a bunch of guys with hand tools could build all this.’ (name that movie)  The stonework was just all so intricate!

After Notre Dame, we attempted to find a GF bakery I found online – no go.  We couldn’t find it.  HOWEVER, we did find a really beautiful area that Emily didn’t even know about before.  It was definitely off the beat-and-track, as it was quiet and there were not nearly as many people around – I’m definitely glad we found it.  We also found a Mexican restaurant: we ate there – it was yummy!

After that, we made our way to the one and only Eiffel Tower!  I still can’t believe I saw that either!!  It was a lot smaller than I thought, but it was still HUGE when you’re standing directly underneath.  We also didn’t go up there because we didn’t have enough time, but that’s okay by me – next time I go to Paris, I know Joel will probably make me go up with him 😉

We made our way back to Orleans that evening and went to the grocery store to get some food to make before we went out for the night.  First, we napped a little though, because we walked a LOT and were pretty pooped.  After napping, we made some dinner and enjoyed it all together.  Then we got ready to go out.  HOWEVER, it took a while for us to actually get out the door.  In fact, we didn’t leave Emily’s apartment until 1:00am because we were all too busy socializing!  First we went to a bar and met some more of Emily’s friends there and I was able to enjoy my first hard-apple cider in Europe (can’t seem to find them in Germany).  We hung out there for a while and then headed to a dance club.  I really wish I had taken pictures, because this club was underground in caverns!  Ancient caverns!  HOW COOL!!  We danced and danced and danced – I even “learned” to salsa dance (I wasn’t very good.)  We kept dancing, and all of a sudden, it was 5am – no joke!  We were just having so much fun, we didn’t even realize how late it had gotten.  Finally, we decided to go back to Emily’s apartment, because one of her roommates that was with us had to be at work only 3 hours later.  (still not sure how he made it!)

On Sunday, we woke up a little later and wandered around Orleans.  I’m gonna be honest: I thought Orleans was way prettier and cooler than Paris.  Don’t get me wrong, Paris was amazing, but Orleans was more me.  It was seriously a stunning city.  And it was a little bit quieter and there were less tourists.  Orleans’s clame to fame is that Joan of Arc was in their city.  For 3 days… ha!  They have a huge statue to her and in the church, the biggest painting was of her – not Jesus or Mary, which was funny.  The house that she stayed in those three nights also still stands, so it’s a tribute to her and was pretty cool.  The church in Orleans was  a beautiful gothic-style church and, quite honestly, is the prettiest church I’ve seen thus far.  After going wandering the city some, we enjoyed some coffee before we headed back to Emily’s apartment to pack our stuff and go.

Now for the ‘funny’ part of the story (it might be funny to me in a few years). Ella and I were both a little bit nervous about getting from the first station the train from Orleans took us to the station we needed to leave to Germany from.  When we got to the station in Orleans, the train we needed to take was cancelled!!  The train-workers are always striking in France, so apparently this is a common happening.  And also something that stressed the heck out of me!!  We were really nervous about making the train that we paid 130 Euros for, but Emily assured us it would be okay.  SO, we got to the next station w/o issue and then had to find the metro to ride to the main station, Gar d’Lyon.  Or so we though…. funny thing is is that French sounds all the same to Ella and I, so when we heard Gar d’Lyon, we thought we were golden.  However, we needed the state Gar d’Lest!  AHHH!!!  So we ended up being 30 minutes away from the correct station and had about 30 minutes until our train.  When we finally arrived to Gar d’Lest, our train had left 3 minutes prior.  CRAP!  I definitely began to cry, because if the first train from Orleans hadn’t been cancelled, we would have been fine!  We calmed down a bit and then went to the ticket counter to exchange our tickets, because they do that here.  Welp, not that day apparently.  The lady working said we would have to pay for a new, full-price ticket.  Super thing abou that was that both Ella’s and my cards were not letting us withdraw money!!  AND our phones were drained because we were roaming in France, so we had no money, no tickets, and no means of communication.  And God forbid the people in the ticket office let you use their phones… ugh.  All that being said, we had to take the next next train, which was an 8 hour train instead of a 4 hour one because it was cheaper and we only had so much money.  We got our tickets and then attempted to use the pay-phones, but, knowing no French, we couldn’t understand them – they were fancy ones.  So we asked for help at the information place and one of the guys was actually nice enough to come with us and help.  I was FINALLY able to get ahold of Tanja and explain to her what had happened.  Then Ella and I went to a cafe in the train station to hang out until our train left.  Once it was time to go, we walked to our platform and were SO relieved to see a German train, because we knew we were finally going to be able to understand people!!

When the first announcement came on on the train, Ella and I both broke into tears!  We had definitely ‘lost our marbles’ at that point.  We were literally crying.  And then we started laughing and crying at the same time because we were laughing at the fact that we were crying over hearing German.  (tears of happiness, of course!)  The weekend filled with a foreign language that we literally understood NONE of was more overwhelming than I had imagined it would be.  It was pretty comical.  And I’m pretty sure the other guy in our car didn’t think so… 😉

At about 4:30am, we finally rolled into the Stuttgart main train station.  OMG was I relieved.  I can’t explain how good it felt to be somewhere familiar.  the jot I felt when we got their also made me realize just how much I’m going to miss this place when I’m gone.

Well, friends, tomorrow we leave for Munich.  And my Joel come on Sunday!!  Couldn’t be happier. 😀
Until next time…

Today Tanja and Jürgen took Sophia, Tanja’s sister Sonja and myself to a place called “Badewelt Sinsheim” or swimming pool world in the city of Sinsheim.  It was about an hour and a half drive from Urbach.
You all have GOT to check out their website ( http://www.badewelt-sinsheim.de/ ) to see how pretty it was! It was an indoor paradise. They imported LIVE palm trees that are all around the pool.
In the pool has a bar that you can swim up to and sit at and the seats are even under water too! When you first arrive, they give you these wrist-bands that have sensors in them that they can scan at the bar to ‘add to you tab’ that you pay at the end of the day.
There was also a way to get outside from in the pool.  Outside was another pretty big pool area that had a lazy river in one part and these awesome things that shoot water with a TON of pressure – it was like a neck massage (aka HEAVEN!)
From the main, big pool, there was also an entryway that lead to the kiddy pool and also to the pool-pool.  (I swam laps for the first time in two years!)
There are also 3 other pools: one that is Dead Sea salt water, another is Magnesium water and the other is Calcium water.  Let me tell you – my skin is glowing right now (in a good way).  It feels so sofffft.  The only part that sucked was the cut on my finger in the salt pool. LOL!  But these ‘health pools’ were pretty dang cool, if you ask me!
Through ANOTHER entryway, you could get to the spa area which is ‘off-limits’ to children, so Sonja and I went so we could get to the saunas. You had to scan your wrist-band to get into this area and go through a revolving door thing.  We walked through the door and then… right there in front of me… OLD MAN’S NAKED BUTT!!!  Apparently we were in the ‘nude’ area.  I thought I can handle this.  It’s Germany.  This is normal here.  However, then I learned that bathing suits ARE NOT PERMITTED in the saunas!!!!  EEEEEK!!!  So, everyone, what did Keely do?  Guesses?? Guesses!?!?  That’s right – I hugged my towel and never let go! Towels were allowed (thank goodness)!! I had that towel clinging to me like a vacuum sealed bag around a steak!  I was totally cool with other people being nude (okay, not totally cool, but I kept my cool) but this girl was NOT going nude today.  Sorry.  I know that I was the weird one in the saunas for having my towel, but I did not care – it was not leaving my skin!  Talk about a security blanket, jeepers!
Anyway, the saunas were lovely – they were all SO paradise-y.  One had a theater in it with nature videos, another was deserty with a cow-skull and everything (but dark, not bright), another was the “coffee sauna” (yes, coffee.  Every now and then they come in and make coffee and serve it to patrons, however there were WAY too many naked bodies stuffed in that room come coffee time, so I skipped the free coffee today).
There was also a really nice restaurant in this spa area – they had fresh salads and mine was very delicious.  It was nice, but a little strange every time a buck-naked human being walked by… with everything hanging out.
In the end, it was a very lovely day.  The paradise of it all was very nice.  It was like Germany’s own Hawaii.  😉

Until next time…

Hello friends!
So, clearly I decided to take most of the month of February off.  (or Ich bin faul – ‘I am lazy’ in German) 😀  You can all thank my beloved Joel for telling me to stop slacking.  But I’m going to write quick, because I’m kind of tired and want to go to bed.  🙂 🙂 You all understand, I know!

That being said, I thought I’d fill you in with what we did today.  Today we went to a city called Tübingen.  This city has the oldest University in Germany, which was founded by “King” Lichtenstein (King is in quotes, because I’m not sure if that’s actually right… oops.)  Anyway, the University was found in the late 15th century (aka 14something) It was actually a REALLY pretty city.  There is a river that people row-boat on in the spring and summer, which I think is pretty cool.  It was definitely a college town, but IN GERMANY, so naturally, we all thought it was pretty fun.

We also got to go around the castle area which was BEAUTIFUL.  After a little bit of venturing in the castle, we found a grassy area where people were training with bows and arrows!  There was also a guy that charged 2euros for people to shoot 5 arrows.  I woosed out and did not, but 3 people from our group did, so it was funny.   Very interesting too, because a few were wearing, like, Lord of the Rings capes…?  But it was so medieval because we were IN a castle and watching people shoot bows and arrows!

We pretty much just walked around the town and saw a bunch of pretty buildings.  Also, one of the host-mom’s of the group went to school here, so she came with today to show us around, which was really nice because she knew a lot.

Of course we also shopped a little…. When do I not shop??  BUT I only bought food – there was a farmers market in the town that day, so I got some delicious fresh fruit.  And I also found a very nice, big natural grocer, so  I got some chocolate covered rice cakes for snacks for the day. 🙂 OH!!  I lied – I didn’t just buy food: I also purchased some new yarn and knitting needles because my friend Rachel’s host-mom taught us to knit the other day!  WOOHOO!!

Anyway, that was my day in Tübingen, but now I’m really going to go to bed, because I’m tired and my clothes smell like cigarettes from the college town.
GOOD NIGHT!!  🙂

Until next time… (which will hopefully be sooner, maybe next Sunday, because I’M GOING TO PARIS NEXT WEEKEND!!!!)