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| Well, it all went down on the ferry from Calais, France to Dover, England. We had all of our bags and Kurt kept insisting I stay with the bags while he went to see if we could see the White Cliffs of Dover yet. Finally, after the 270000th time, he came back and said I HAD to come see the cliffs with him. I made some snide comment like, "Noooo, I need to stay with the bags!" but he inisisted and out we went. The first thing I noticed was this little old lady grinning at me like there is no tomorrow. When I look down, I see she is holding my camera. I'm really perplexed and Kurt is acting increasingly weird... We're leaning over the rail looking at the cliffs when he turns me around and asks me once, "Will you marry me?" Then says, "Oh yeah!" and gets down on one knee before asking again. I say yes, and we hug... And finally I whisper, "This is the point where you give me the ring..." And he tells me he didn't bring it because of customs, but I can have it the moment we got back to the states... TEN DAYS LATER! It was magical nonetheless.  | | |
| Hi everyone!
We made it into Prague
this afternoon and our hotel has a laptop rental, so I thought this
would be a great opportunity to fill everyone in on our trip so far.
Hope you enjoy!
Day One:
We arrived in the Berlin
cold on Thursday morning, extremely jetlagged and with not much more
than an address. We stepped up to an information desk where a grumpy
man pointed out our hotel on a map and handed us a bus ticket. When our
bus arrived at our stop Kurt and I stood up, grabbed our bags, walked
to the door, waited for it to open.... and then the bus was pulling
away with us still on it! We looked at each other completely
bewildered, but there was nothing to do but get off at the next stop
and start walking. And we walked, and walked, and walked... And there
was our hotel!
Once we checked in, and informed the housekeeper that we are NOT brother and sister, we were off. Our first stop: Checkpoint Charlie. For those of you unfamiliar, this is the
American checkpoint where East Berlin met West Berlin. The museum basically details the attempts of people to escape from East to West Berlin.
Several people told me to go here, but let me be the first to tell you:
Do not go here. It was dull, rediculously repetitive, and didn't really
have much to offer. I think the appeal is that it's very American, but
it's really not worth the time or Euros. I did, of course, buy my very
own piece of the Berlin Wall there.
After Checkpoint Charlie,
we could hardly keep our eyes open so we crashed at the hotel until our
friend Jeff Houser (from the States) came and met us. He took us to Brandenburg Gate and the Bundestag Building (but we didn't go in) and finally to Hauptbanhof (the HUGE train station in Berlin)
where we ate dinner. Then Jeff had to go meet with some other study
abroad people, and Kurt and I headed back to the hotel where we finally
slept after 15 hours of travel and 11 hours in Germany. (Oh, and Jeff
explained to us what we did wrong on the bus... there is a button you
have to press to open the doors!)
Day Two:
First,
we ate German breakfast. Now, most of you are probably thinking this
isn't noteworthy, but it is because I am a professed breakfast hater.
Biscuits, pancakes, cereal, muffins... Yuck. German breakfast, however,
is great. Tea, juice, bread, jam... We did make one boo-boo though. The
lady came out and asked if we wanted coffee or tea, and we asked for
juice. She looked at me like I had asked for the blood of a sacrificial
lamb and said, "JUST JUICE?!" So we asked for some tea and it was all
better.
Jeff met us in the lobby and we set out for the Pergamon
Museum. It was AMAZING. They have the entire altar from Pergamon, a
processional way from Babylon, artifacts from ancient Rome... I spent
four hours walking through everything and listening to the English
audioguide. If you ever go to Berlin,
make this your first stop, you won't be disappointed. The processional
way was at least four stories tall and quite long... They said that it
is actually the smaller of the two they own, but the other one is too
large to put in the museum. I can't express how amazing this museum
was, you all will just have to make the trip to Berlin and see it for
yourselves!
Jeff had to go say goodbye to his friends that were headed back to America, so Kurt and I set out for Potsdamer Platz
on our own. There was a Christmas market there we wanted to check out,
as well as just seeing the architecture. It was "no-man's-land" during
the Soviet era, so since the wall came down it has blossomed into some
of the most amazing modern architecture. We strolled through the
Christmas Market, got some Gluhwein (it's hot wine, a Christmas
tradition) and I got CARDED. Okay, the drinking age in Germany is 16. I
am 22. I was quite perturbed. We were not a fan of gluhwein, but Jeff
suggested we try it again at another place. Finally, we went to see The
Golden Compass
at the Sony Center. There were twenty minutes of commercials and then a
lady came into the theater and tried to sell some Ben & Jerry's. It
was quite bizarre. Then another ten minutes of previews. This added up
to our 8:30 movie starting at 9:05.
Day Three:
Our jetlag
caught up with us, so we slept in a bit, watched some German TV, and
then set out to find a vegan restaurant I had read about. It took
FOREVER for us to figure it out, but boy was it worth it. The place is
called Hans Wurst, and they have about three dishes on the menu each
day. The food was GREAT. Very worth seeking out if you are interested.
After Hans Wurst, we swung by Jeff's stop and the three of us went
barhopping in East Berlin. I LOVE EAST BERLIN.
I don't know how to descibe it. There were walls everywhere and tons of
ethnic places and it was just amazing. I could just feel history there.
It was one of my favorite stops.
First we popped into a lounge
to chat and grab some drinks, then a bar to watch soccer and play
billiards, then to an Indian restaurant, and finally to a Russian
kareoke bar (which was crazy!). All of this on the same street. I loved
it.
Day Four:
Our final day of sightseeing in Berlin. First, we went to the Jewish museum where we spent almost another four hours going through the history of Jews in Germany
since the Middle Ages. A lot of it was stuff we learned in our
Holocaust Studies class this semester, but it was still very
interesting. The most powerful part is something called the "Memory
Void" where there are all these faces made of metal on the floor and
you walk on them. It's another one of those things that is difficult to
describe, but walking on those faces with the clanging and darkness is
something I will never forget.
Our last stop was to the
Bundestag building again, but we went inside this time. We climbed all
the way to the top and looked out over the lights of Berlin.
It was beautiful albeit very, very cold. The history of the dome is the
best part. It was burned down when Hitler first rose to power and was
rebuilt in the '90s. Seeing the pictures of all the events that had
happened there over the past few decades was really neat. Protests of
the wall, art shows (including one that wrapped the entire building in
tarps), concerts... It's a really neat place and the perfect end to our
lovely trip to Berlin. | | |
| Here you go. An actual post! Whoooooaaaaa.  Let's start with camp. Like I said, it was the most amazing summer ever. I absolutely loved it. For the first three weeks afterwards, I couldn't talk about it without crying because I miss it so much. I highly recommend working at a summer camp if you ever have the opportunity. We were there for 7 weeks, although I volunteered to take one of those weeks off because the numbers were really low that week (and it was Kurt's 21st birthday). So, the first week was all orientation, and getting to know the other staff. Then came campers. It's a girlscout camp so we have Brownies (6-8 years old), Juniors (9-11ish), and then cadets (12+). I worked with the brownies weeks 1, 3, & 4. And I had Juniors weeks 2 & 6. (Week 5 was the week I took off.) I absolutely adore working with Brownies. I love little kids so much. I can't wait to be a teacher! My brownies were all awesome and loved to learn about nature and do all the fun outdoors stuff. One week of Juniors I had was the horse group, which is my forte. I love horses (hence my camp name: Pony). It was really great although it was a big group so I had to make schedules for 17 girls. (split into two groups. YIKES!) Then the last week, I only had 4 Juniors for a Music, Art, and Drama week. They were really sweet and two of them write me pretty often, so that's cool. School has started back, and I'm taking really fun classes. I'm taking French 1, Holocaust Studies, Continental European Lit, Major American Authors, and Intro to Film Study. I love all of my classes, but boy is there a lot of reading. I don't do my homework until the last minute, so I'm pretty sleep deprived during the week. Plus, I'm working my day job plus tutoring in the evenings so my days are jam-packed. I go to class, get out and go STRAIGHT to work, then STRAIGHT to tutoring, finish up about 9ish, cook dinner, eat, study, sleep. Zero free time for plays or anything. But, it's alright, I'm saving up money for our trip to Europe.... What trip to Europe? Well, exams end on Dec. 11 and on Dec. 12 we are boarding a plane to Berlin. There we will meet up with our friend Jeff. Then on to Mainz to visit our friend Bernd, Bamburg to visit our friend Stefan, somewhere (I think he's near Leipzig) to visit our friend Robbie, then Christmas in Regensburg (BAVARIA!!!!) with my dear friend Eva, and she is taking us to Austria and Munich. Then, a couple days in Paris (maybe a trip over to Normandy), hopping on the Eurostar and spending a WEEK in London! We're going to an Arsenal game (it's the soccer team we pull for), then Kurt is touring some Physio schools (it's the British version of PT) and I'm doing some stuff to become a qualified teacher in England (we're planning on moving there in 2009). All very exciting! I really can't wait. Okay, so now you have a novel to read about my life. (Hope you are happy Jeff!) Ciao darlings! | | |
| But not ready to talk about it yet. It's been the best summer of my life...
I was raised at Golden Valley,
Singing songs with all my friends,
When I came home, I remembered,
That the good times never end... | | |
| Well, I'm off for my summer of silly songs, campfires, horses, creekstomping, and all sorts of fun!!!!! I'm sure I'll have plenty to write about when I return in August! | | |
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