Saying I didn't have time to blog would be a lie, but I have been quite busy for the last two months. Looking back, I can see that I last blogged on September 12th and so I made a map of all the places I have been since then. Map of my travels
Point A is where I live (Bremerhaven) and the rest are in order of where I was. So follow along with the map and see what I have been up to!
A Bremerhaven. This is where I live, so think school and chocolate. I think those are some of the most important things that happen here.
B Worpswede. September 13-14
I spent the weekend with my host-mom at a charming Bed & Breakfast run out of an old farm house by a little old lady. Worpswede is a small little German village that was first established as an artists colony. It had a neat little museum and a very picturesque setting. The weekend was nice and relaxing, with lots of time spent riding our bikes. More time than we meant really, because my host-mom and I are both quite directionally challenged.
C München. September 26-29
I went to Oktoberfest! I was there with two other exchange students, Lea and Gino from Argentina, and the first host family of Lea, the Bayers. The city of München was very cool with plenty of old architecture and some very pretty parks. Oktoberfest itself was extremely crowded and it was hilarious to see thousands of people dressed in Lederhosen and Dirndls in the tents. We had traditional Bayerisch foods (the rest of Germany would like me to remind you that pretzels, beer, and Lederhosen are Bayerisch stereotypes, not German.) I will also add in that Bayern is the state that München is located in and is the butt of many a German joke. Sorta like Texas is to America. Unfortunately for the rest of Germany though, the Bayerisch are too funny to not represent Germany to the rest of the world. Sorry guys. Anyways, München was a lot of fun and I owe a big thank you to Kiki Bayer for inviting me and her brother Tim and family for hosting all of us!
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| From left to right Kiki Bayer, Niklas Bayer, Gino, Lea Steiner, Micaela Steiner, Philip Bayer, Me, Tim, Florian (Michi not pictures) |
Next stop was the island of Föhr with my friend Elizabeth from Canada and her host-parents, Heiner and Maria. It is a very pretty little island that involved a lot of bike riding. I saw some neat traditional dancing, lots of sheep, and one of the most gorgeous sun sets to date. Danke schön Familie Neunstein!
Here is where my 6 day rotary sponsored Germany tour began! I will be writing more on this, hopefully because those 6 days were all insanely busy and I ended up with over 1,000 pictures. Erfurt is where our first hostel was and there were some really cool churches there (including one that has the claim of "The Birthplace of Lutheranism") though we mostly just slept there and then took the bus to other places during the day
F Buchenwald Concentration Camp. October 6th
This was a very sombering experience as you might expect but one I am glad I had.
G Weimar. October 7th
A picturesque central German city where we stopped for a few hours.
H Berlin October -10
The highlight of our Germany tour, our three days in Berlin were filled with tours, museums, shopping, partying, and just havingg a teriffic exchange student time. After the Germany tour ended, I realized that they could probably drop us all off in the desert for a week and as long as there was plenty of food, we would all be completely happy just to be together all the time. The fact that the trip also took us to some really cool places was just a bonus to being able to spend all that time with the exchangers.
I Wolfsburg. October 10
Also called the Auto city of Germany, this is a sort of manufactured city/museum/store for Volkswagon. I found it to be much more interesting than I had expected, but it still wasn't really my sort of place. I think it also didn't help that we all had had an extreme lack of sleep at this point and so were in slight zombie states. A little irony is that I wore my Detroit Tigers shirt that day, showing some pride for the USAs Motor City.
J Hamburg. October
I made it back to Hamburg twice now since my first time. Since that first time, I saw a tunnel that runs below the river, fed the swans, finally found my first satisfactory Thai food here in Germany, and walked the infamous Reeperbahn. I think the very best part was stumbling upon the little asian imbiss and finding a red curry coconut stir fry just like my favorite one back in the states.
K Oldenburg. October
I made a few stops by Oldenburg in the last couple months as well. There are a lot of exchangers who live there and it is a very pretty city about the size of Bremerhaven and a 1 1/2 hour train ride away. Thanks to the magnificent Jugendfreizeit Ticket (youth free time ticket. It's a nice example of how Germans just mush words together to make super duper compound words) that I buy every month for 17.50€. I can travel on all buses and trains in about a 1 hour radius from Bremen every week day after 2pm and at all times on weekends. It is one of the best things to happen to my exchange I think seeing as travelling from Bremerhaven to Oldenburg just once round trip would cost me about 50€. If you ever find yourself in Germany, look for these awesome deals for the under 21 crowd.
L Bremen.
Bremen has become my adoptive sister city (Thank you jugendfreizeit again!). I realized I make it there close to once a week it seems whether thats to do some extra shopping or just to meet up with exchangers. I love Bremen and can proudly say I have ridden the entire length of 2 of the Straßenbahn lines (I still have another 8 to explore) and can make my way around all the major tourist attractions and some of the less well known places as well.
Liebe Grüße von Mary
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