The Hike

Sunday afternoon, three of my friends and I hiked up a mountain to a monument called, Mariensaule. Okay, so in comparison to say, the Alps or the Rockies, it was merely a hill...but it was a pretty BIG hill. It took us about an hour to leisurely hike up the BIG HILL. But, it was well worth it once we saw the view.

We could see the entire city of Trier and even pick out such things as our dorm building, the Basilika (an old Protestant church, built during the Roman times), the Porta Nigra, and Roman Baths. It was as if a 3-D map of the city was rolled out before us. Just beautiful.

After our picnic, we headed back down. I couldn't help, but belt out lines from the 'Sound of Music' as we walked with our backpacks in tow down the incredibly green BIG HILL.

Later that evening, we went to a sidewalk cafe for dinner--I had 'Kaese Brot', which is an elegant form of a cheese sandwich, and a 'Cola Light'.

After dinner, we went and saw the film, "Wie im Himmmel" (Like in Heaven). I liked it a lot, but I also enjoyed noticing the little cultural differences at the theatre...
**They serve kettle corn, not butter corn.
**You can buy a beer to drink during the movie (those Germans and their beer!)
**EVERYONE waits until the credits are finished before leaving or even standing up.

Well, it was a full day and I slept really good that night!

This week, my classes have begun. I went to a lecture course in Media Studies (Media-Culture-Business) and also to a Intercultural Youth Literature class. I am still deciding what I am going to take...I have another lecture class in Media studies tomorrow about television. My "German as a foreign language" classes don't begin until next week.

Tonight, a film club on campus is showing the movie, Crash, in German. I think I am going to have to go and check it out.

Enjoy the pics!



The small monument on top of the BIG HILL is where we hiked to on Sunday...






This is me at the very top right in front of the monument. The city of Trier is just below. I guess my superman shirt was very suiting that day! :)





Here it is up close...this is where we had our picnic.

I love this picture. It was taken the first weekend I was here in the main market...

This poster was at a local casual resturant, "Astrarix". I guess you could say that most people here are not too fond of American politics...

During our last language class, we played Taboo and Cranium...my group won! The guy in this picture is from France and the girl is from Belgium.

My language class on Friday...the last day. It turned out to be a really great group of people and we grew pretty close because we were always doing stuff together...dinners, karoke, classes, etc.

This is me and Annika...she is from Estonia and this is during our last language class.

For the last day of our orientation/language class we all brought in something and had a 'typical' German breakfast...bread, cheese, fruit, coffee, tea, etc.

This is the "Hauptmarkt" or the main market in Trier. It is about as old as the city...but it is always busy on the weekends and filled with tourists. Cars are not allowed to drive here on the small streets and the area is filled with sidewalk cafes, bakeries, ice cream shops, and yes...even a McDonalds and Subway. But, it is always neat to see the little booths with fruit and fresh flowers. This was taken about a week or two ago when it was still raining all of the time.

Burg Cochem! We traveled here on Monday as a group...it was quite a hike, but well worth it.

The river below is the Moselle River, which flows into the Rhine river. I am standing on a balcony at Burg Cochem...a castle that was first built in the year 1000 and then fixed up in the 1800s. The town was about about a 2 hour drive by bus from Trier.

The infamous Porta Nigra, "black gate"...This at one point was the gateway into the city during Roman times and also a church during the middle ages. It astounds me every time I walk by or through it because it is hard to imagine just how old it is! I get on a bus right by it everyday to go to the university.

This was the first Friday night we were here in Trier and we decided to walk around the main city market (Hauptmarkt). These are some of my friends in front of the Dom...one of the earliest forms of Roman architecture in Germany...also one of the oldest Bishop seats. Supposedly the tunic worn by Jesus is kept in a vault here. (I will try and take another picture of it in the daytime so you can see it better.)

This is a group photo of international students from Trier on our excursion Monday to Cochem on the Moselle River. (We visited a castle--Burg Cochem-- and a vineyard.) This is not all of the international students, but a good portion...I am in the front row, far right.

I am standing with Juliane's parents at a huge memorial on top of a mountain. It is called "Herman's Denkmal" and was made in the 1800s to honor a famous battle there between the Romans and Germanic Tribes. We were able to go to the top of it and the views were amazing from up there! (Rolling hills and trees in all directions.)

This is me last night at our international dinner. I made chocolate chip cookies and they were quite a hit! Thanks Nestle. (I also tried sushi for my first time.)

This is my dorm building...I live on the third floor. My kitchen window is just a little bit above the pretty tree.

More pictures!

The first weekend I explored the city on my own...here I am at Karl Marx's house, which has been turned into a museum. A nice tourist from Japan took my picture.

The other picture is one of my absolute favorites... the second sunday I was here, it was just beautiful out. I went to the Moselle River (there is a nice path right behind my dorm) and took a bunch of pictures. I was surprised that the swans were not scared of people.

Pictures!

I love the ice cream here! This is me, my friend David and Katie. We treated ourselves to ice cream after dinner a week ago walking back to our dorm. (P.S. My favorite flavor is butterkeks...and it is really cheap...only about .75 for a cone.)

Easter Weekend & Mosel Excursion

Friday morning, I left for Paderborn (a bit southwest from Hannover) to visit my good friend, Juliane. (She studied at my high school for a year back home in Nebraska.) She invited me to stay with her and her family during the Easter weekend.

The train ride was about 6 hours and I learned the hard way that the bus system does not run on Good Friday. Luckily, it was not raining as I walked from my dorm to the main train station. I found out how punctual and smooth traveling by train in Germany is...or at least I should say, my first real train trip went smoothly.

Paderborn is a bit smaller than Trier, but had some similarities...for example, the university there is about the same size as the Uni Trier and there is also a similar main market, except no roman ruins that far north. Her family, however, lives about 45 minutes from Paderborn in a small town, Lügde. It was a great experience staying with her family for a couple days to see what a 'typical' German family is like.

Some interesting things I noticed:
-there are doors to every room in the house and they are usually shut, but that does not mean that you are not welcome to come in (and the only way to lock the door is with the key)
-it is very expensive to build or buy your own home in Germany and that is why it is common for smaller families to live in apartments (Julianes family lived in a fairly new home, and it was their first home)
-Breakfasts (consisting of rolls/bread, a hard boiled egg, cheese, and coffee) are always eaten together as a family
-Lots more people have dogs there it seemed and they are always walking them or taking them places...I loved that!
-Kids rooms are the same size, if not bigger, than the parents room

I came to really enjoy her family...Holgar-the dad-, Mandi-the mom, and Ronald- her brother. Her dad was so excited to talk with me and had so many stories and things he wanted to tell me about that Juliane and Mandi had to keep telling him to not talk so much. (I enjoyed it though and I learned a lot from him.) He was quick to laugh and he wanted to practice his English, which for me, was harder to understand than his German, and Juliane and Mandi kept laughing and telling him to give me a break. But, they were all so nice and hospitable!

Saturday...they took me to a monument on top of a nearby mountain, called 'Hermans Denkmal'...it was made in the 1800s to honor a famous battle between the Romans and the Germanic tribe there long ago. I guess you could compare the size and appeal to that of our Mount Rushmore.

We also visited a museum in the hills where you can walk around actual farmhouses, schoolhouses, barns, etc. dating back to as early as the 1400s. It was incredible and I took a lot of pictures. (Which I HOPE to be posting sometime soon if I ever get the internet for the laptop.)

That evening, Juliane took me to her boyfriend's parent's home for a grill-out where two other couples who are her friends were also there. (I wish Ben could have been there with me:)...That was probably one of the more difficult times I have had trying to understand German. They had so many slang words in their vocabularly and talked so fast that it was a little hard to follow, but I guess I can say that I learned a lot and was exhausted by the end of the night. But, it was fun...ate, laughed, and even played a game, called, 'Wer bin ich' or 'Who am I'.

Sunday, we all ate together and visited. Julianes mom was so sweet that she even had an easter basket for me! But, I learned that they are not religious and that was a bit hard for me since after all, it was Easter. Sunday night, I left for Trier again and finally got back after 7 hours on the train at 1am.

MONDAY....was a blast! All of the international students and I took a bus to Cochem, a small town on the Moselle River. We visited the castle, 'Burg Cochem', which was originally built in 1000 and then rebuilt in the 1800s and used by the German Reich. It was incredible!

We saw:
-a secret door, yes...a secret door! It was used in case of a emergency exit down to the basement
-an actual armor used in the 1700s
-a wild boars head that was hunted down a couple hundred years ago
-the actual well used that was nearly 200 feet deep

Then, we went to a wine vineyard, which had been in the family for over 400 years! (Vineyards line the hills all around this region.)

The drive back was beautiful because the big bus somehow made its way through the small streets of nearby towns also along the Moselle River...the rain put me to sleep though since I was pretty exhausted after a full weekend.

Today, we watched the film, 'Die Letzen Tage' or 'The Last Days' for my orientation class...it was about the White Rose, a group in 1943 that wrote a flyer voicing their negative opinions on the Nazis and then put them all around their university. They were sentenced to death because of it.

Well....after my NOVEL, I should probably leave the University for the day and go grocery shopping. (Everything here literally shut down from Friday until today.)

Tonight, we are all going as a group to a local restaurant. Should be fun and of course, I always enjoy tasting the different kinds of food! (Okay, so I have still not tried the meat here, but who knows...maybe before I leave in August...hmmm)

Hope everyone had a lovely Easter!

Weekend Experiences

I headed to Bonn on Saturday for a day trip with the other international students. It was only about 2 hours with the bus. Haus der Geschichte, a large history museum (primarily post WWII) was our first stop and we spent several hours there, but we easily could have spent more. It was interesting; they had....

*a WWII US soldiers guidebook on Germany and how to act in Germany
*JFKs actual notes to himself on how to say, 'Ich bin ein Berliner' (I am a Berlin citizen) during his Berlin visit. (The Germans still laugh about that because by including the word, ein, he actually said that he was a jelly doughnut.)
*Actual uniform of a concentration camp prisoner
*Many official documents with Heuss and Adenauers signatures (and other important politicians)
ETC

Then, some of my friends and I figured out the subway to go further into the city to the main market, where the famous University Bonn and Rathaus is.

I was craving mexican and we actually found a really good mexican restaurant called 'tacos'...surprising I know. And just down the street was Beethovens house. We went there and we were amazed to walk through his former living quarters. (He was born in a room in that house.) They also had most of his instruments including his famous piano. What was really creepy was...a sculpted mask of his face (called a 'totenmask', dead mask) of his face only 12 hours after he died.

Sunday...went to church, did laundry, yoga, student restaurant called Astarix (good!) and saw Brokeback Mountain in German.

This week...more language courses and orientation stuff!

Adjusting to a new Culture

Once again, this is long overdue. It has been a bit of a hassle not having internet access in my dorm...as soon as I get it, I will post more frequently and also put up pictures so you can see what it is like here!

Well, I am truly adjusting to this new way of life and finding that I really like it. It is beautiful here...Trier is surrounded by green hills and the Mosel River is very pretty as well, especially at night. The city is fairly simple (but not completely) to navigate through. I live in a dorm right by the Mosel and the university is further west. To get there, I have to walk for about 10 minutes to the Porta Nigra (an enormous Roman gate that is the center of the city---it simply amazes everytime I walk by it), and then take a bus for about 15 minutes to the University.

On Monday, our intensive language class began and today we got out a bit early. I have eaten in the Mensa (cafeteria) everyday for lunch...but, the cafeteria workers are on strike and so we have only had one choice for lunch and the line has been very long. I have never been directly affected by a strike before, but I am learning that they do not make life any easier.

It has been fun meeting other international students and visiting with them about the differences in our cultures. For example, last night we went to a German restaurant and I sat with mostly Italians. They said that they really do say, 'Momma Mia' in Italy and that it annoys them with tourists drink cappucinos after dinner because to them, they are meant to only be had in the morning. Then, they asked me many questions about America...Why are we all overweight and why did we vote for President Bush a second time. I learned that not only are these questions difficult to explain in English, but also in a language that is foreign to both the speaker and listener.

Germans here also fit the stereotype of being very orderly and punctual...For example, on the bus yesterday, someone must have pushed the button by their seat meaning that they intended to get off at the next stop. Well, no one got off and that made the bus driver very angry...she scolded us for someone having done that because she stopped for no reason.

I am happy because the sun is finally shining after a week of rain. I think I will probably explore the city a bit more today. Like I wrote earlier, I hope to post some pics and more entries soon.

Take care...Tschus!