As you can probably guess from the name of this post, I'm writing this because we indeed did NOT confirm the street name. But first, let me start from the beginning.
The beginning starts in Munich. Well kind of, it starts right as we were leaving. We had looked up the train times and found a train departing around 6 for Hannover. As the train pulled up we noticed that it was quite full. We all lugged our luggage on board to find almost no seats. As we were pulling our stuff down the isles, we all discovered every seat on this train was reserved. Why hadn't the website told us this?! We found a place to drop most of the luggage and found a few seats spread out that nobody appeared to be sitting in. Rebecca and I found two seats across from each other, next to two guys who basically laughed and talked about us in Italian the entire time we were sitting there. We thought they were just laughing about the 7 Americans trying to find open seats on a train that was 95% reserved. We soon found out why the guys were actually laughing… apparently 98% of the train was reserved and the people who had the seats we were sitting in were just in the cafe eating. After a couple train stops, only a couple of us still had places to sit and the rest of us were left standing in a passage way between cars. At this point all we could really do was laugh at ourselves for not knowing to reserve seats. After a while of us sitting on the floor, and having to stand up every time a person walked by, this nice young man popped his head out of his reserved air-conditioned box on the train and told us the hall had fold out seats built into the wall that we could sit on. We laughed some more at ourselves as we folded down the seats and tried to enjoy our train ride, while people still had to constantly climb over us. About 15 mins later, we finally found out some of the seats in the boxes belonged to people who had already gotten off the train and we're not reserved anymore! Thank you Jesus, we now not only got real seats but also air-conditioning, score!
When we finally arrived in Hannover 4 and a 1/2 hours later after some train delays. We were all exhausted and dragged our luggage to the nearest ticket kiosk. Which, we could not figure out for the life of us. Half of us went to find food and the other half headed to the information desk. Apparently in Hannover, they don't sell tickets at the info desk. Oh, joy. We were however informed that our train wouldn't be until 12 am. Oh, joy, again. We decided to get a cab to the other train station where the hotel was going to send a shuttle to pick us up from. After trying and failing to find that address, we looked up the address of the hotel and saw it was only 9 mins away by cab. We decided it would just be easiest to take a cab straight there! After finally finding a taxi to hold all 7 of us and our baggage, we were finally off to our hotel. I had already been in contact with the hotel manager and he told me to call again when we arrived. We arrived at the hotel, in a dark and sketchy area, split the 10 euro taxi ride. and unloaded our stuff to find the hotel door locked and no one at the reception desk. I called the manager and he said he would come right down… after about 3 mins and still no manager we came to the realization we were probably at the wrong hotel. We called our other friends who were already checked into the same hotel we had reservations for and figured out we were definitely at the wrong hotel. They were by a McDonalds, and we were by nothing but a sketchy part of town. After spending at least 10 mins trying to find our reservation address and failing, finding a nice German girl who then went and woke up someone staying in the hotel that spoke english to help us, and many laugh attacks, we finally got sent the correct address. Who would have thought there were two Hotel Marjani's in Hannover? Not us, seeing as it was very small and more like a hostel.
We then tried to call a cab, again. After about 5 mins of trying to say the name of the street we were on correctly in German, and even spelling it all out, two cabs were sent our way. Thank the Lord, we were finally on our way to the correct hotel. As we drove, and drove, and drove, I watched the cost of our ride increase, and increase, and increase. We went all the way through the city and through some scary looking woods. I started to question if our cab driver knew where he was taking us, or if he was just taking us to these sketch woods to murder the 4 pretty girls in the cab. 70 euros worth of taxi time later, we finally arrived at the correct hotel. By this time it was one am. We practically all fell into bed that night and we all learned two important lessons:
Google sucks. Because when you search for this hotel in Hannover, only one address comes up
Always confirm the street name on the reservation before you jump in a cab
We all got there safe though, and we all got some good laughs at ourselves that day too!
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Migraines in Munich
We arrived in Munich late in the afternoon on Saturday. I had been feeling a headache come on for a while, and by the time we got to our hostel it had gotten pretty bad. It was more of a family hostel, and the children running around and screaming in the lobby did not help my pain level at all. I took a couple Advil and endured through our check in as best I could. We got to our room and I immediately changed out of my hot and sticky clothes and crawled in bed. Almost everybody was changing to already head back into Munich, but I knew I needed some rest or this was going to turn into a migraine. One other girl, Angelica, and I decided to stay and rest for a while. She woke me up about an hour later after she'd showered and was getting ready to go into town. My headache was much worse, but I got up and tried to hydrate with some more and take a shower. I was super dizzy, but tried to collect myself. After getting out of the shower I was pretty positive I was not going anywhere for the night. We had a slight problem though, Angelica was turning 21 at midnight and we had planned to take her out to dinner and out for drinks later. Everybody else was already at the City Center and I didn't want Angelica to have to go find them alone. As I slowly got dressed, I thought maybe I could just go with her and meet them for dinner then come home. I remembered the train stop was far from our hostel though, and that would mean me walking a long way home at night. I soon realized though, after I got so dizzy and sick I threw up, that there was no possible way I was making it into town for the night. Luckily, two of the girls came back to drop off the souvenirs they had bought and were able to take Angelica with them for her birthday night celebrations. I crawled back into my bed and tried to drink some more water. I could feel a full migraine about to come on and realized four reasons why this was about to suck really bad!
One: When you start to get a migraine, you want absolute darkness. Any light exposure makes you feel like you're going to die. My problem was that I was in a hostel, which did not exactly have very effective blinds. Another problem is that in Europe, the sun doesn't set until after 10 pm. I was looking at 3 more hours of light coming through the windows straight towards my headache.
Two: You want nothing but coldness. Cold rags to put on your head, cold water to drink, and cold air circulating around you. Most of Europe does not have air-conditioning or fans. They also aren't fans of ice. The only thing that cooled down the room in any way was opening the window. Which brought in more light and also led to my next problem…
Three: You want silence. Not only were we in a family hostel, with lots of kids running around and making noise right outside my window, what felt like a thousand ambulance or police horns went off while I was laying there. To help with this I made myself get up and close the window. Which in turn, made the room warmer again. There was basically no winning with that one haha.
Four: My forth problem was that I was on the top bunk. Everybody had already put their stuff on the other bunks so I was stuck with it too. Every time I had to get up to refill my water, close the window, or try and get cold water to wet a towel, I thought I was gonna fall down the ladder cause I was so dizzy. At one point I remember laying in bed wondering if the nausea was going to pass or if I needed to crawl down again to get to the bathroom if I was going to be sick again.
Luckily, laying there praying I would just fall asleep and that my splitting pain would go away was the last thing I remember before I woke up again at 1 am. Thankfully, my pain was drastically better!! It was dark by then and the noise had died down. I quickly fell back asleep and woke up again an hour later when everybody came back in from the birthday celebrations. I was so beyond thankful that it didn't get worse, even though at some points I definitely felt like I was going to die from pain! All is good now though and I'm trying to stay super hydrated so the migraines stay away! They don't have free water here though, what's up with that?!
One: When you start to get a migraine, you want absolute darkness. Any light exposure makes you feel like you're going to die. My problem was that I was in a hostel, which did not exactly have very effective blinds. Another problem is that in Europe, the sun doesn't set until after 10 pm. I was looking at 3 more hours of light coming through the windows straight towards my headache.
Two: You want nothing but coldness. Cold rags to put on your head, cold water to drink, and cold air circulating around you. Most of Europe does not have air-conditioning or fans. They also aren't fans of ice. The only thing that cooled down the room in any way was opening the window. Which brought in more light and also led to my next problem…
Three: You want silence. Not only were we in a family hostel, with lots of kids running around and making noise right outside my window, what felt like a thousand ambulance or police horns went off while I was laying there. To help with this I made myself get up and close the window. Which in turn, made the room warmer again. There was basically no winning with that one haha.
Four: My forth problem was that I was on the top bunk. Everybody had already put their stuff on the other bunks so I was stuck with it too. Every time I had to get up to refill my water, close the window, or try and get cold water to wet a towel, I thought I was gonna fall down the ladder cause I was so dizzy. At one point I remember laying in bed wondering if the nausea was going to pass or if I needed to crawl down again to get to the bathroom if I was going to be sick again.
Luckily, laying there praying I would just fall asleep and that my splitting pain would go away was the last thing I remember before I woke up again at 1 am. Thankfully, my pain was drastically better!! It was dark by then and the noise had died down. I quickly fell back asleep and woke up again an hour later when everybody came back in from the birthday celebrations. I was so beyond thankful that it didn't get worse, even though at some points I definitely felt like I was going to die from pain! All is good now though and I'm trying to stay super hydrated so the migraines stay away! They don't have free water here though, what's up with that?!
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Austrian Adventures
We arrived in Vienna before 9 am on Monday morning. With all of us running on around an hour of sleep, there were many hysterical laugh attacks on the plane and on the way to the hotel. When we'd left Bonn it had been chilly and rainy, and had been for most of the week, but when we walked out of the subway towards our hotel we were greeted with summer weather. By the time we'd gotten all our luggage to the hotel we were already sweating! We got a couple minutes to change and then we were off to the city center of Vienna. Luckily, we all got a chance to grab some coffee before our first tour. The first event of the day was a medical walk around Vienna. I did not know this before, but huge amounts of medical history took place in Vienna! We were able to walk around and see the buildings, and tour some, where many advancements in medicine happened. After lunch we got a short break to look at some shops before we were given a private tour of the catacombs at St. Micheal's Church. Not gonna lie, it was kinda creepy. Mummy's are a whole lot weirder in person when you're not seeing them behind some glass of some sort. The rest of the day we spent kind of working on our research projects and mostly catching up on sleep and laundry.
Tuesday started as an early morning as we all walked to the Josephinum Medical School. By far one of the coolest museums I've experienced! They have wax models of all the different internal structures. I was a little skeptical when hearing about it but these models had such amazing details, and the crazy thing is most of them are crazy old too! They had about 6-9 rooms all filled with different models and systems. They even have a crazy detailed obstetrics room showing all the growth stages babies go through and how they look inside the Mom. The coolest part was the detailed mannequin showing all our lymph nodes! After going through this museum we were released for the day to do what we wanted in Vienna, as long as we were back for the concert we were all going to later that night. One of the girls on the trip, Katherine, and I decided to go off on our own for the day. We got on the subway and decided to try out one of the local flea markets. We were hoping it'd have more shopping then food, but it was still so cool to see all the local produce! After that, and wandering around for a few hours, we went to the Lippizaner's training stadium. It was a really cool tour and we got to see the gorgeous horses and learn more about the history of them. That night we went to a string quartet concert. It was a really cool experience getting to see a show in Vienna since its such a famous music city!
Wednesday we had a guest lecture at the Vienna Medical School and learned about how medical education is taught in Europe. Including the fact that it's totally free! After that, and lunch, we went to another museum that's actually on the school campus as well. This museum has real and wax models, of about every sort of disease and defect a human body can ever get. It was something I'd describe as grossly cool!! Mid afternoon we got a break and I actually got to meet up with my cousins for the afternoon! That was really cool that we happened to be in the same city in Europe at the same time! The group met back up for a huge group dinner that night where I finally got to try Wienersniztel and Apffelstrudel!
Thursday we toured the Freud museum and had a lecture on his life and theories. While he was pretty out there and I don't agree with all this theories, I do agree that if it wasn't for him we probably wouldn't even be thinking about these theories. We were then free for our free weekend! A group of 7 of us set off for Salzburg on a train. Around 3 hours later, we arrived in one of the most beautiful cities I think I've ever seen. Not even kidding, Salzburg is straight up phenomenal. It took us a while to find our hostel and get checked in, then we went to the old town city center. Part of what makes Salzburg so gorgeous is that it's a quaint town set in between beautiful mountains. We just hung out for the night and decided to try and make it to bed for our big day Friday.
Friday we embarked on a combination tour of The Sound of Music and The Bavarian Salt Mines. The Sound of Music has always been a favorite of mine, but the tour made it even more of a favorite movie!! We got loaded up in a big tour bus and went around the city seeing where many scenes were filmed, while learning behind-the-scenes secrets. After we'd seen many famous sites, we headed higher into the mountains, doing sing-longs to the Sound of Music soundtrack on the way! We stopped for lunch at the church where they got married and got lunch there too. When we got back into Salzburg we got on another tour bus towards the Bavarian Salt Mines. I really had no idea what to expect and we had about a 40 min bus right there, where we all promptly fell asleep! Once we got there we were immediately given these adorable full body suits and got on a sketchy train car to be taken to the mines.
Pretty much everything was dark the entire tour but we got to slide down mine shafts and learn about the history of mining as well. After our adventurous day, we had to go home and work on our project some more…yuck. I guess that's what you get when you study abroad haha.
Saturday started with an early morning but I didn't mind much… because I was about to check another thing off my bucket list. We took a two hour train ride to Innsbruck… and we went PARAGLIDING!!! Seriously one of the most amazing experiences of my life!!
Flying high above the alps did not last long enough, that's for sure!!! My only advice is go paragliding! And go to Austria, mostly Salzburg. You won't regret it, I promise!!!
Tuesday started as an early morning as we all walked to the Josephinum Medical School. By far one of the coolest museums I've experienced! They have wax models of all the different internal structures. I was a little skeptical when hearing about it but these models had such amazing details, and the crazy thing is most of them are crazy old too! They had about 6-9 rooms all filled with different models and systems. They even have a crazy detailed obstetrics room showing all the growth stages babies go through and how they look inside the Mom. The coolest part was the detailed mannequin showing all our lymph nodes! After going through this museum we were released for the day to do what we wanted in Vienna, as long as we were back for the concert we were all going to later that night. One of the girls on the trip, Katherine, and I decided to go off on our own for the day. We got on the subway and decided to try out one of the local flea markets. We were hoping it'd have more shopping then food, but it was still so cool to see all the local produce! After that, and wandering around for a few hours, we went to the Lippizaner's training stadium. It was a really cool tour and we got to see the gorgeous horses and learn more about the history of them. That night we went to a string quartet concert. It was a really cool experience getting to see a show in Vienna since its such a famous music city!
Wednesday we had a guest lecture at the Vienna Medical School and learned about how medical education is taught in Europe. Including the fact that it's totally free! After that, and lunch, we went to another museum that's actually on the school campus as well. This museum has real and wax models, of about every sort of disease and defect a human body can ever get. It was something I'd describe as grossly cool!! Mid afternoon we got a break and I actually got to meet up with my cousins for the afternoon! That was really cool that we happened to be in the same city in Europe at the same time! The group met back up for a huge group dinner that night where I finally got to try Wienersniztel and Apffelstrudel!
Thursday we toured the Freud museum and had a lecture on his life and theories. While he was pretty out there and I don't agree with all this theories, I do agree that if it wasn't for him we probably wouldn't even be thinking about these theories. We were then free for our free weekend! A group of 7 of us set off for Salzburg on a train. Around 3 hours later, we arrived in one of the most beautiful cities I think I've ever seen. Not even kidding, Salzburg is straight up phenomenal. It took us a while to find our hostel and get checked in, then we went to the old town city center. Part of what makes Salzburg so gorgeous is that it's a quaint town set in between beautiful mountains. We just hung out for the night and decided to try and make it to bed for our big day Friday.
Friday we embarked on a combination tour of The Sound of Music and The Bavarian Salt Mines. The Sound of Music has always been a favorite of mine, but the tour made it even more of a favorite movie!! We got loaded up in a big tour bus and went around the city seeing where many scenes were filmed, while learning behind-the-scenes secrets. After we'd seen many famous sites, we headed higher into the mountains, doing sing-longs to the Sound of Music soundtrack on the way! We stopped for lunch at the church where they got married and got lunch there too. When we got back into Salzburg we got on another tour bus towards the Bavarian Salt Mines. I really had no idea what to expect and we had about a 40 min bus right there, where we all promptly fell asleep! Once we got there we were immediately given these adorable full body suits and got on a sketchy train car to be taken to the mines.
Saturday started with an early morning but I didn't mind much… because I was about to check another thing off my bucket list. We took a two hour train ride to Innsbruck… and we went PARAGLIDING!!! Seriously one of the most amazing experiences of my life!!
Flying high above the alps did not last long enough, that's for sure!!! My only advice is go paragliding! And go to Austria, mostly Salzburg. You won't regret it, I promise!!!
Thursday, July 17, 2014
The Breaking Point
We've all officially been abroad for two weeks now. I cannot remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure I've never been on a trip for more than two weeks before. The semester before my brother left for college my family went to California for two weeks. Besides that, I can't think of a time that I've been traveling for longer than that. Additionally, those were always with my family. Even trips to Colorado two years in a row were with my youth group, and I was friends with almost all of them. It's definitely been interesting learning how to travel with 14 people I didn't know existed a couple months ago. It challenges you in entirely new ways every single day. We all chose to go on this trip without knowing who else was signing up. Some people I was immediately drawn to, and some people I'm still learning to get along with. Regardless, we're all having to learn how best to deal with each other when we're with each other 24/7. In class, on trains, in hotels, in hostels, in subways, in museums, in churches, in restaurants, and everywhere else. We share food, share beds, share our future professions, share laughs, and share our frustrations, along with many other things. Maybe this sounds great, and it is, but sometimes it gets old too. I'm definitely a people person, but I need my space sometimes too. Especially when I'm tired and worn down.
I think all too often we take for granted silence. Silence is sometimes so refreshing and I only realized it when silence was barely ever around me. With a group of 14 students, 1 professor, and 1 program coordinator, silence is rare during the day. Since we share hotel/hostel rooms, silence is rare at night too. Even in the mornings, on the way to class, there is always subtle chaos going on in trains and buses. Even putting in headphones to escape the noise leaves me listening to just different kind of noise- music.
This leads me to my breaking point. When no one can decide on where to eat, I'm hungry and dehydrated, have a headache, everyone is talking, and I'm with people who have some very differing opinions from me, I want to snap. I want to tell people to shut up, to make a decision, or stop being pushy, to stop being annoying, to stop being loud, and stop getting on my nerves. That's when I have to remind myself that I'm an example. Being pushed to my breaking point is a good thing because it shows who I really am. Am I going to speak out in anger and annoyance? Or am I going to bite my tongue and try and realize that people are probably just as tired and stressed as I am?
Think about the people you admire the most. I bet at least once you've been impressed at how they keep their cool doing a stressful situation. That's the kind of person I want to be. Even if no one notices, it's the principal of it. But it's rough. It's really rough sometimes. Especially because today marks two weeks with three left to go. I'm going to be challenged even more mentally, physically, and emotionally. I'll probably be pushed to my breaking point at least once each day, but I guess that's why people say some things are a blessing in disguise.
I think all too often we take for granted silence. Silence is sometimes so refreshing and I only realized it when silence was barely ever around me. With a group of 14 students, 1 professor, and 1 program coordinator, silence is rare during the day. Since we share hotel/hostel rooms, silence is rare at night too. Even in the mornings, on the way to class, there is always subtle chaos going on in trains and buses. Even putting in headphones to escape the noise leaves me listening to just different kind of noise- music.
This leads me to my breaking point. When no one can decide on where to eat, I'm hungry and dehydrated, have a headache, everyone is talking, and I'm with people who have some very differing opinions from me, I want to snap. I want to tell people to shut up, to make a decision, or stop being pushy, to stop being annoying, to stop being loud, and stop getting on my nerves. That's when I have to remind myself that I'm an example. Being pushed to my breaking point is a good thing because it shows who I really am. Am I going to speak out in anger and annoyance? Or am I going to bite my tongue and try and realize that people are probably just as tired and stressed as I am?
Think about the people you admire the most. I bet at least once you've been impressed at how they keep their cool doing a stressful situation. That's the kind of person I want to be. Even if no one notices, it's the principal of it. But it's rough. It's really rough sometimes. Especially because today marks two weeks with three left to go. I'm going to be challenged even more mentally, physically, and emotionally. I'll probably be pushed to my breaking point at least once each day, but I guess that's why people say some things are a blessing in disguise.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Little Sleep and Sore Feet
Our first official week in Germany started as a long one! In order to see more of Paris, we decided to stay in the hostel again Sunday night and take an early early train back to Bonn Monday morning for classes. This turned into us waking up around 4:30 and having an incredibly long day. But of course, Paris is always worth it!!!
We arrived to class right as it started at 10:15. After a full day of History of Medicine and German classes, we got a tour of Bonn from the head of the AIB. Every little part of every little town here has so much history! I suppose some of our towns have more history then we assume too, but I guess European towns just seem so much cooler! We finally got to crash Monday night, but were up and at em' Tuesday morning in class by 8:45. After another day of classes, we were taken to the House of History Museum. I'm not a huge fan of museums, especially when everything is written in German. But our tour guide made this museum one of the best I've been to! Instead of having some student worker who has memorized the details, our tour guide actually lived through the rough times of German history. He remembers what it's like to go to bed hungry because your family has zero money for food, and he remembers the day the Berlin Wall came down. That made it one of the coolest experiences so far! Wednesday, we had another early day and then went to the Anesthesia museum in Bonn. I was a little skeptical as how a whole museum could be made about Anesthesia, but turns out we scored a private tour with one of the guys responsible for many advances in the world of Anesthesia. While he was a little hard to understand, he genuinely cared about what he was showing us and had years of knowledge working in the field of Anesthesia to back it up.
On Thursday we embarked on an all day trip to Köln, not Cologne like American's usually pronounce it. Köln is about a 30 minute train ride from the Bonn central station, so it was nice to go somewhere that was easy to get to. Upon arriving and walking out of the train station, you immediately see the Köln Dom, or Cathedral. This cathedral is beautiful beyond all belief and so huge you couldn't miss it if you tried. Later we got a private tour of it and were taken all the way to the top, but first we had a tour of the city. Köln is an old city, like most in Europe, and all the buildings are so cute and adorable! Most of them are built taller then they are wide and it makes them so charming looking.
Friday was a full day of German class, and then we all went out and ordered our meal in German. It's crazy after just one week of living in the culture how fast you can already pick up so many words and meanings of things. When I first got here, every sign and menu was nothing but foreign words. Now I can not only pronouce most of the words correctly, I can understand what most of the menu is saying or what a sign is indicating.
Saturday we slept in, which was very much needed!! Then we went to a welcome party thrown by the AIB for all the students and host families. Each group had to introduce themselves and we chose a line dance. It was kind of embarrassing at first, but we just embraced it after a couple minutes and had everybody clapping at the end!
Sunday involved packing and the World Cup Final. Being in Germany during the Final deserves a whole post of it's own- coming soon! And with only an hour of sleep between us getting home from the soccer match and us leaving for Vienna, the start of our second week abroad started just as crazy as the first one!
We arrived to class right as it started at 10:15. After a full day of History of Medicine and German classes, we got a tour of Bonn from the head of the AIB. Every little part of every little town here has so much history! I suppose some of our towns have more history then we assume too, but I guess European towns just seem so much cooler! We finally got to crash Monday night, but were up and at em' Tuesday morning in class by 8:45. After another day of classes, we were taken to the House of History Museum. I'm not a huge fan of museums, especially when everything is written in German. But our tour guide made this museum one of the best I've been to! Instead of having some student worker who has memorized the details, our tour guide actually lived through the rough times of German history. He remembers what it's like to go to bed hungry because your family has zero money for food, and he remembers the day the Berlin Wall came down. That made it one of the coolest experiences so far! Wednesday, we had another early day and then went to the Anesthesia museum in Bonn. I was a little skeptical as how a whole museum could be made about Anesthesia, but turns out we scored a private tour with one of the guys responsible for many advances in the world of Anesthesia. While he was a little hard to understand, he genuinely cared about what he was showing us and had years of knowledge working in the field of Anesthesia to back it up.
On Thursday we embarked on an all day trip to Köln, not Cologne like American's usually pronounce it. Köln is about a 30 minute train ride from the Bonn central station, so it was nice to go somewhere that was easy to get to. Upon arriving and walking out of the train station, you immediately see the Köln Dom, or Cathedral. This cathedral is beautiful beyond all belief and so huge you couldn't miss it if you tried. Later we got a private tour of it and were taken all the way to the top, but first we had a tour of the city. Köln is an old city, like most in Europe, and all the buildings are so cute and adorable! Most of them are built taller then they are wide and it makes them so charming looking.
Saturday we slept in, which was very much needed!! Then we went to a welcome party thrown by the AIB for all the students and host families. Each group had to introduce themselves and we chose a line dance. It was kind of embarrassing at first, but we just embraced it after a couple minutes and had everybody clapping at the end!
Sunday involved packing and the World Cup Final. Being in Germany during the Final deserves a whole post of it's own- coming soon! And with only an hour of sleep between us getting home from the soccer match and us leaving for Vienna, the start of our second week abroad started just as crazy as the first one!
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Dreaming of Paris
First of all, let me just tell you: No movie does Paris justice! They just don't! Paris is one of those indescribable cities. Especially the Eiffel tower! I grew up always wanting to see the Eiffel Tower in real life. Call me cliche, but it's on my bucket list and everything. Well, was, it is now crossed off!!! :) But it truly was amazing to see in person. I hope everybody at some point gets to go to Paris!
We left for Paris early Saturday morning, July 5th. And by early, I mean early. Morgan and I left our house at 5 in order to get a bus to take us into the city center of Bad Godesburg where we walked to the train station and waited for a train to take us into Bonn. There we met up with the two boys and got on a 30 minute train ride to Cologne. Which is called Koln here. Then from Cologne, we took a 3 hour train ride to Paris. It took some dedication to get to Paris, but it was 100% worth it! After getting into Paris we decided to tackle Notre Dame first. Figuring out the train system took a little while but after not too long, we were all pros! Another tourist told us that as soon as we got off the train we should see Notre Dame in front of us. Well as soon as we got off we immediately saw this gorgeous building! We all started taking pictures in front of it, as were many other people. In the back of my mind I wondered if this was actually Notre Dame, seeing as I thought it was going to be bigger. After a couple minutes, and much to our embarrassment... we figured out it was not Notre Dame. Oops. Awkward. We got out our map and actually found out Notre Dame was a couple streets over. On the walk over, we found this fountain I thought looked quite famous, later found out it was Fountaine Saint-Michel. Once we finally found Notre Dame I definitely recognized it as MUCH bigger but at least we all got a good laugh at ourselves!
We accomplished seeing many places on our two days in Paris. After Notre Dame we headed to Montmarte, saw inside Sacre-Coeur, wandered around the shops surrounding it, went to the Arc de Triomphe, walked down Champs-Elysees, stayed in a hostel for the first time, stood in awe at the Eiffel tower, got crepes, went to the Louvre and Tuileries gardens, got gelato in the shape of a flower, went to the Luxembourg Palace and Gardens, splurged on lunch at a French cafe, had a picnic and saw the Eiffel tower lit up at night, got lost many many times, and found beauty everywhere we went.
Paris is magical. There truly is beauty everywhere you look. I hope everybody has the chance to go one day <3
We left for Paris early Saturday morning, July 5th. And by early, I mean early. Morgan and I left our house at 5 in order to get a bus to take us into the city center of Bad Godesburg where we walked to the train station and waited for a train to take us into Bonn. There we met up with the two boys and got on a 30 minute train ride to Cologne. Which is called Koln here. Then from Cologne, we took a 3 hour train ride to Paris. It took some dedication to get to Paris, but it was 100% worth it! After getting into Paris we decided to tackle Notre Dame first. Figuring out the train system took a little while but after not too long, we were all pros! Another tourist told us that as soon as we got off the train we should see Notre Dame in front of us. Well as soon as we got off we immediately saw this gorgeous building! We all started taking pictures in front of it, as were many other people. In the back of my mind I wondered if this was actually Notre Dame, seeing as I thought it was going to be bigger. After a couple minutes, and much to our embarrassment... we figured out it was not Notre Dame. Oops. Awkward. We got out our map and actually found out Notre Dame was a couple streets over. On the walk over, we found this fountain I thought looked quite famous, later found out it was Fountaine Saint-Michel. Once we finally found Notre Dame I definitely recognized it as MUCH bigger but at least we all got a good laugh at ourselves!
We accomplished seeing many places on our two days in Paris. After Notre Dame we headed to Montmarte, saw inside Sacre-Coeur, wandered around the shops surrounding it, went to the Arc de Triomphe, walked down Champs-Elysees, stayed in a hostel for the first time, stood in awe at the Eiffel tower, got crepes, went to the Louvre and Tuileries gardens, got gelato in the shape of a flower, went to the Luxembourg Palace and Gardens, splurged on lunch at a French cafe, had a picnic and saw the Eiffel tower lit up at night, got lost many many times, and found beauty everywhere we went.
Paris is magical. There truly is beauty everywhere you look. I hope everybody has the chance to go one day <3
*Culture Shock*
Before leaving the US, I heard from many people that almost all German's speak enough English to make communication possible. What nobody told me though is that while they may speak English, you could still have no idea what they are saying!!
Right after our flight landed in Germany, we went through customs before we could get our luggage from the plane. While I was standing in line it finally hit me that I was in another country and every one around me were speaking a language I could not understand. I was a little nervous when it came my time to go to the customs counter, but luckily after I handed the guy my passport he said "Hello!" in English. English with a heavy heavy German accent, but at least it was English! He asked me how I was doing and I said I was good and asked him how he was doing. What came out of his mouth next did not register as English to me! The best I could make out was "Buff Aldridge!" As I gave this guy a completely blank stare, I madly tried to figure out in my mind what he could possibly be trying to say! Does he think I can speak German too? Is he trying to say he's buff so he's good? Is he confused on the nationally of some guy named Buff Aldridge that I should apparently know of? After what seemed like 30 seconds of me blankly staring at this guy he goes, "You know average? Above average!" I felt like an idiot as I realized he was speaking English, I just clearly did not hear him right! Not even 10 minutes in Germany and I'd completely embarrassed myself! Additionally, I realized that not only had I come to a country where I couldn't speak their language but I couldn't even understand them when they were nice enough to speak in their second language to me!
While still feeling like a stupid American, our next mission was to find the bathrooms. After squeezing into a stall with my huge backpack, purse, and pillow, I turned around to find the weirdest looking toilet. I questioned for a second if it was broken because it had so little water in it. It was also completely attached to the wall, and not to the floor at all. Then, flushing it was super strange too. They don't have automatic sensors or handles, just buttons on the wall you push! It really is one of those things you have to experience for yourself. After getting all my stuff out of the stall again, I go to wash my hands and can't work the soap dispenser. In Germany you pull on the part we push on in America. Things were just not working out so great for me! I wanted to get out of that bathroom as quickly as possible and went to grab some paper towels from the dispenser. I waved my hands in front of it a couple times, then tried to hand crank it a couple times, and the paper just stayed the same length with some coming out of the holder and then back in appearing as though it was stuck. I went to pull down on the paper towels to see if that fixed it and it almost felt like a towel it was so thick! Apparently, that's normal here! Its just some towel that stays there and different people use to dry their hands without pulling it out and throwing it away like we do! Leaving that bathroom I was pretty convinced I was never going to get things right in Germany!
Right after our flight landed in Germany, we went through customs before we could get our luggage from the plane. While I was standing in line it finally hit me that I was in another country and every one around me were speaking a language I could not understand. I was a little nervous when it came my time to go to the customs counter, but luckily after I handed the guy my passport he said "Hello!" in English. English with a heavy heavy German accent, but at least it was English! He asked me how I was doing and I said I was good and asked him how he was doing. What came out of his mouth next did not register as English to me! The best I could make out was "Buff Aldridge!" As I gave this guy a completely blank stare, I madly tried to figure out in my mind what he could possibly be trying to say! Does he think I can speak German too? Is he trying to say he's buff so he's good? Is he confused on the nationally of some guy named Buff Aldridge that I should apparently know of? After what seemed like 30 seconds of me blankly staring at this guy he goes, "You know average? Above average!" I felt like an idiot as I realized he was speaking English, I just clearly did not hear him right! Not even 10 minutes in Germany and I'd completely embarrassed myself! Additionally, I realized that not only had I come to a country where I couldn't speak their language but I couldn't even understand them when they were nice enough to speak in their second language to me!
While still feeling like a stupid American, our next mission was to find the bathrooms. After squeezing into a stall with my huge backpack, purse, and pillow, I turned around to find the weirdest looking toilet. I questioned for a second if it was broken because it had so little water in it. It was also completely attached to the wall, and not to the floor at all. Then, flushing it was super strange too. They don't have automatic sensors or handles, just buttons on the wall you push! It really is one of those things you have to experience for yourself. After getting all my stuff out of the stall again, I go to wash my hands and can't work the soap dispenser. In Germany you pull on the part we push on in America. Things were just not working out so great for me! I wanted to get out of that bathroom as quickly as possible and went to grab some paper towels from the dispenser. I waved my hands in front of it a couple times, then tried to hand crank it a couple times, and the paper just stayed the same length with some coming out of the holder and then back in appearing as though it was stuck. I went to pull down on the paper towels to see if that fixed it and it almost felt like a towel it was so thick! Apparently, that's normal here! Its just some towel that stays there and different people use to dry their hands without pulling it out and throwing it away like we do! Leaving that bathroom I was pretty convinced I was never going to get things right in Germany!
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