7-1-08
I woke up today at around 4:30. Got up, decided not to shower, since I showered last night. Matt and I both did this, plus we left all of our shampoo, etc, in Germany, because there was no point in bringing them back and adding extra weight to our luggage.
Laura and I ate breakfast, only a bowl of the infamous LIONS cereal that we have come to love from Deutschland. IT is chocolate and carmel thingys. like Coco puffs, but not found, they were flat and almost....half circle shaped. But they were so tasty, I will miss those!
After breakfast, we quickly packed watchever had not yet been packed and headed out for the trainstation with all of our luggage.
It was... a trek thats for sure, and we don't even live that far away from teh train station, but let me tell you, pulling luggage up hill on a steady incline on top of a cobbblestone pathway. It sucked, lets jsut put it that way. lol. I had so much. a purse, a backpack, a pillow, and two rollaway suit cases, one large and one small.
As we reached the Train station, Matthew and his Host mother pulled up in her car, she had kindly brought Matt and his stuff to the train station. We said goodbye to her, though I must admit, it was a teary goodbye. Matthew and I have really come to care for his family, they are incredibly sweet people, and have offered to put us up anytime the two of us are in Germany.
We said goodbye, and promised her that if we were to ever sing in Europe (me, hahaha, not likely) that we would tell her where and get her tickets, haha, she's so sweet.
Anyways, we got into the train station, and matthew did jsut fine getting up the stairs, though I must admit, I had quite a hard time, when I fianlly reached the top, I had a huge blister on my right hand! Lovely!
We waited for our train and reminisced about Mayen, the Mayen Ost Train station, etc. When our train arrived, we got on immediately. It was early, but I think we were all wide awake.
After the usual like 20 stops to Andernach, we finally arrived. We had to go down the stairs from platforms 2 and 3 to get over to platform 1 where our next train would be pulling in. My luggage fell on the way down and a nice young man helped me finish getting it to the bottom.
Then I had to rush over to the next staircase. A train was already arriving, though it was not ours, but we could take it and get to Koblenz earlier than expected. I was still at the bottom of the stairs and had to yell up to laura to come and help me get my stuff up the stairs so we could make the train.
We did make the train thank God!!!
After like two stops, we arrived in Koblenz and found our next train to Frankfurt. However, it was running 30 mins late. lol. We thought that this was unfortunate, but we knew that we still had time. Laura thought it was funny, so we took a picture of the sign saying that our train was 30 mins late. I kid you not, 30 seconds after that picture was taken, the sign changed and said that the train would be 60 mins late.
Well right there, we freaked out. Over the loud speakers, we heard that we could catch a regional train from Koblenz to Frankfurt, so we all moved down like 5 platforms. Of course we had to go down stairs and up stairs. Let's jsut say, I probably treated my luggage rougher here than the air plane people would.
My luggage again fell down the stairs. so I just let it go, it was faster that way. Then when we got to platform 1, where the regional train took off from, of course it was one of the only platforms to not have an escalator. So, guess what. Thats right~ I had to lug my luggage up yet another huge flight of stairs. A kind man again asked if he could help me and I said yes. (many kind people helped me on this trip I will add).
We made it onto the train, and were very thankful for it, apparently we were not the only ones held up by this lovely debocal. So everyone and their mother was rushing for this train.
The train set off and it was going alright in the beggining, however, after a while and we kept getting closer to our destination, our train started stopping for longer and longer at every stop. Which there were hundreds!!!!!
We were starting to freak out, Laura kept saying how she just wanted to go home, lol, poor Matt, he was the only one who wasn't freaking out. Finally after what felt like forever, we finally reached the Frankfurt Airport trainstation. Which is a trainstation for the airport right underneath the airport. How cool?
We had to get above ground and find a tram to our terminal. When we finally found Northwest, our plane was already boarding! For luggage, each is only supposed to weigh 23 kilograms. Mine weighed 26 kilos, but the lady let it slip, but Matthew, his was 31 kilos. So guess what, we had to pay 50 Euros for it. Thankfully I still had a 50 Euro left, it was all I had left, and I paid the lady on the spot. Laura had gone ahead, her bag weighed 26 kilos too, however, the lady she had made her pay 50 Euro for it, she was not happy.
So we had to go through passport control, then through security scanning,etc. Finally when we reached our gate, we were so stressed out we got ourselves checked in and got on the plane. Matthew and I were quite lucky in this, because we had a two seater. So Matthew sat by the window, and I sat by the aisle.
Everyone made it on the place, Laura, and Tyler as well. How we beat Tyler, I am unsure, but we did. haha. we were pretty far back in our section, right next to teh bathrooms, but I was thankful for this, because I knew it would be at my advantage to be closer than farther away.
So the flight started, they passed out drinks, and then dinner, I had the pasta and Matthew had the Chicken. Both were good! We also had merlot with our dinner, complimentary if you can believe it!
I watched four movies on the way home: Be Kind Rewind, Nim's Island, 21, and Run Fatboy Run!, I also started Drillbit Taylor, but I only 20 mins in before inflight systems were shut down for landing.
For "lunch" we had cheese and chicken sandwiches on the plane, and then more merlot, accompanied by Mountain Dew(Matt) and Tomato juice(Emily).
When we finally arrived the Detriot airport, we got off as soon as we could. First we had to go through pasport control, which sucked for me, everyone else gopt through yippy skippy. Me on the other hand, I ended up having to stand in liek 3-4 different lines, because as soon as I would get close to teh front, the person in front of me would have a problem and they would have to close my line!!! GAHHHH!
When I got through, I had to grab my luggage which toook forever to come, then we had to go through customs. That went quicker though even though there were only like 3 lines open for around 700 people, I might be exaggerating, but I can't be sure, tehre were a lot of people!
We got through customs, and put our luggage back through, hoping that it would make it onto our next flight. Then we walked from basically gate 12 to gate 38. The detriot airport is long, and their teminals have a lot of space in between. Let's just say it was quite a walk.
We got ot our gate and about 10-15 mins later, they started boarding. We were so close to home. Matthew got the window seat and I got the middle. The flight went by marginally quick, but I think it was made longer, because we were just so excited to get home!!!
We landed in Minneaoplis with no problems. When we got to our luggage pick-up, Matt's dad Mike and My mother Lathy were waiting for us. My mother had brought like 4th of July insipre Red, white, and blue flowers for me! yay. We chatted and waited for our luggage to come.
One of my bags had made it, however, the second bag, they had had to put on the next flight. After a while, I told Matthew and his dad to head for home, my luggage was coming, we just needed to wait a bit longer.
When my luggage finally came, we booked it out of there and spent a lovely day at home.
When we got home, we played with the boys a bit (my two dogs, shih tzu's, Oscar (13) and Bailey (2)). Then we went to the Eden Prarie Mall for Barnes and Nobles (yay more books!!!!!).
The evening was rounded out by panera, a nice walk around town, and a good nights rest.
So that is the end of our Germany excursion. I must admit that life has been ....pretty boring since coming home, lol, no not really, we've been busy for sure.
I will still post picutres, I am buying batteries today, so hopefully, picutres will be up by monday!
Thanks for staying tuned, and trust me, you want to see our pictures, because they are fantastic!!!
Biss Dann! ;)
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Leaving Berlin, Mayen, and Germany all together!
Hey everyone~
Sorry it has taken me so long to get everything back in order, which it still really isn't. However, I did promise that I would blog more, as well as do pictures. Pics will have to wait until tomorrow, becuase my batteries are dead, and I need batteries to upload my pics to the computer.
So lets see... Where did I leave off? Oh yes the Euro cup.
6-30/31-08
So after a very intense game between Spain and Germany, in which Spain had a completely intense defensive system. Poor Germans, they could not break through Spains defenses. Plus, Spain had Torres, and Torres is freakishly fast. Matthew noted that whenever Spain went in for a goal, it was always like a one man break away while the rest of the team stayed back and defended their goal; unlike Germany where bascially all of their defenses moved up when trying to take a goal.
Torres made the only goal that was made in this game, and it was so brilliant that I swear it was a complete and total accident.
So the game was won by Espania! We were sad to have lost, but in truth, Spain really did deserve the championship. They were just... better. No offense to Deutschland, but it's the truth.
Well after the game, we booked it downstairs in our Hostel to grab our luggage. We dragged it to the Friedrickstrasse S-Bahn station just down the road from our hostel.
We were lucky to get tehir early, so our s-bahn was relatively not full. However, 2 stops later when we reached the Berlin HautpBahnhof (Berlin Main Train Station), It was Chaos, complete and utter Chaos.
In Berlin there lives around 2.5 million people I believe. Well half a million was in that trainstation with us that night. It was intense~
Even though Germany had lost, everyone was still singing their german Soccor songs, and were blasting their horns, and making just a gerneral muck of things.
We got there about two hours before our train was supposed to arrive. However, when we got to our gate, our train was not listed. So we ended up going up and down escalators that had been shut down with our luggage. I had it the worst because I had a suit case, and matt only had a backpack, I am usure what Tyler had, but after a while, tyler kinda Chastised Matt in the fact that he wasn't helping me. Thanks Tyler.
lol. anyways. We went up and down, dragging my suitcase basically up... stair since the escalators were not operating. we finally made it to the Deutsche Bahn help desk, and I pretty much screamed at the lady in German ( I had to, it was so loud in there, but I was pissed off too). I asked her why our train wasn"t listed, and she said it was, only we needed to look at the big board of departures and not the tiny ones. So we ended up being on the same railway platform, only the train had switched tracks on us, so instead of coming in on track 13 it came in on track 14. Go figure, after all of that running around, up and down, so on and so forth.
I got so mad, I went to our platform by the easiest route, basically leaving matt and tyler in the dust and made it there before them. Matthew was not too pleased with this, but in the end everything was worked out.
I took several videos of the chaos to show to you all at home. I will post them hopefully tomorrow.
Anyways, so we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited for our train. Meanwhile our platform is getting kinda crowded, we thought that perhaps all of these people had a train that they were getting on before us.
Well when our train finally arrived, we basically realized that we were on the completely wrong end of our platform, and that basically the entire train was boarding in Berlin!
So we had to run to get to our wagon. When we finally got to our seats , we had to ask people to move, because we had reserved them and paid good money in which to do so. only like 4 Euro, but still.
They got up without a fuss and told us to enjoy our seats. lol. I am so glad we made reservations, otherwise, we would never have gotten a seat on that train. So after we all got setteled in, we started to realize how hot it really was on this train. Turns out, the AC was broken and there were hundreds of people on this train!
We fell into sweaty, miserable sleeps, until the train workers, knowing that we were all roasting like lobsters in a pot of boiling water, decided to give us a chance to catch a fresh breath of air ( the windows on the train do not open). So we made about a 10 mins stop in Wolfsburg to get off and get some loely fresh air. Let me tell you, the smokers on this trip certainly took advantage of this opportunity.
Saldy, our time was up, over the loud speakers a voice said "Meine Damen und Herren an Gleis eins, bitten Einsteigen" , baically meaning ladies and gentlemen on platform one, please board the train. Everyones heads swiveled down to see which platform we were on, and when we all realized it was us, there was a groan from the crowd and everyone, reluctantly got back on the sweltering train.
Again we fell into fitful, hot sleeps ( just go with it), and eventually there was a voice over the loud speaker of the train, it said, things in German first, like where our train was going, sorry for the inconvienience, etc. then in english it told us about 2 places where were were going when the man's phone rang. He paused for a moment, and then said goodbye, hurridley, and hung up the loud speaker. Everyone in our train wagon at least, laughed out loud, and thought it was a riot.
That phone call must have been someone telling them how to fix the AC, becuase finally after about 2 hours of misery, the AC started working.
Again we fell back to sleep and were awoken to see our tickets ina very loud fashion. By this time, like 3:40 am, everyone on the train was asleep. Usually the man checking the tickets would have done so at the beggining of our travel departure, however, do to all the AC hullabaloo, he was not able to. So instead he had to rouse people from their deep sleeps and ask for tickets. Matt and I woke up right away. Tyler did not, though he held his ticket securly in his hand.
our tickets were checked first, then tylers, the man shouted loudly "Mein Herr" Basically "Sir" a few times, and tyler woke up, clutching the ticket in hsi hand with a death grip and looked around like he had no clue where he was. IT was the most hilarious sight, poor Tyler. Everntually after I said, Tyler, the ticket, he looked at me for a while and eventually it dawned on him what he was supposed to do. hahaha.
However, that was nothing compared to the man across the aisle from us. It took the man about 15 mins, to come around out of sleep to even understand language again. He just kept saying um... until the ticket collectorwas blue in teh face from telling him that he needed to see his ticket.
After that excitement, we all fell back to sleep, but I must admit, not as comfortably so, because, I can sleep when I am warm, but whe I become chilled, nothing can get me to fall alseep. Well... For as warm as the train was it was that cold when the AC finally kicked in. It was so cold, I was freezing, though Tyler and Matt were perfectly comfortable, go figure.
We slept until 5:30 am when our train arrived in cologne. We got off and caught our train to Andernach. I don"t remeber anything especially from this ride, except the fact that it was long, we were tired, and they checked our tickets twice, once by the ticket collector, and a second time by a ticket control officer. (basically, if he comes around and you don't have a ticket, you have to pay 50 euro up front.)
We made it into Andernach, but wanted to catch an earlier train into Mayen, so we checked the board and it said there was one coming 20 mins earlier. So when the train came, we didn"T pay attention to the sign that said to Koblenz. Well... Guess where we ended up??? oh right... Koblenz. So after that fun time, we got off the train, found a new train back to Andernach, and caught it. By this time I had gone to teh bus depot to see when the buses for Hohr-grenzhausen left. I had basically given up the thought of going there for pottery that day.
When we got on the train back to Andernach, I basically made up my mind that it was better to sleep in Mayen then to go and buy more pottery.
When we got back to Andernach, we had missed the train we were originally going to take to Mayen, so we had to wait for an hour. Tyler and Matthew both had books with, I had finished mine Friday and given it back to Paula before she left for Turkey, so I was bookless for the first time on this trip!!!! What a nightmare!
We waited for what seemed like forever, and then, a funny thing happened. We hear a familiar voice, and there comes Felecia Lucht walking up our platform, also going back to Mayen for the day to retrieve things she too had left behind. She had spent her remaining days in Frankfurt and was too going to spend the night in Mayen and catch a plane in the morning.
We chatted with her for awhile (of course alles auf Deutsch (everything in German). Our train came, we boarded, and then took advantage of the premium countryside.
We reached Mayne Ost, tyler was getting off at Mayen west, going to his host house, sleeping, then getting back on a train the same day for Frankfurt and staying in a hotel there where he would set two alarms and have a wake up call from the front desk.
We got off at Mayen Ost, bid Tyler farwell, walke da bit with Frau Lucht until my house, and bid her a pleasant journey homeward. I arrived at my house and promptly fell asleep. Matthew went back into town, and bought some limoncello from a local aalcohol store in town. Then went home and slept.
I woke up around ... 3:40pm. Got up, decided I was definately not going to go buy pottery, talked with Laura, who had also come back to Mayen, and we would travel with her in the morning to the airport. I said bye and went to go to MAtthew's house. When I got there, Matt was still sleeping, so I decided to give him so more time and sat and chatted with his family, told them of our Berlin and train adventures. His family really is the sweetest. We had some apple juice, and some cake, it was lovely.
After about an hour or so, I decided it was time to wake Matthew up, he went and took as shower, while I went and chatted some more with his host family. After a while he got raedy and we went back into town for somemore things, while promising to be back by 7 in time for dinner. It was about 6 pm at the time we left. We went to Rewe, I bought lots of chocolate, when we checked out, they porbably thought I was mad buying 25 Euros worth of Milka, rittersport, and Bueno chocolate. lol.
After that, we walked home and had a lovely dinner of steaks, white sausage, salad, and potatoes squares for dinner.
It was nice to have a home cooked meal after the hustle and bustle of Berlin. Afterwards we had dessert of strawberryes and ice cream. It was nice, we enjoyed talking, an dthen they gave me a few parting gifts when it was time for me to go home and pack.
Got back home, saw Ecky, Marianna, and Tobi. Then went to try to call my mother. Never did get ahold of her, but left her several messages.
I went home, went upstairs and chatted for a time with Ecky and Marianna. Tobi left with his girlfriend for a week on holiday, to her house I supose.
I chatted with them for quite a long time, and then Marianna, sweetly kicked my out and told me to go pack, haha, she's so sweet, I miss her. Before I got downstairs, Ecky offered Laura and I breakfast for the morning and I took him up on it!
I got downstairs, laura had made soup for herself, having had no dinner. I had a bowl of the soup ( I was the one who bought it) and then started packing. After packing I tried desperately to go to lseep, it took awhile but, finally I did.
That all I can post for right now. My wrists are protesting from so much typing. I'll finish up the rest of the home journey tomorrow!
Biss Dann! ;)
Sorry it has taken me so long to get everything back in order, which it still really isn't. However, I did promise that I would blog more, as well as do pictures. Pics will have to wait until tomorrow, becuase my batteries are dead, and I need batteries to upload my pics to the computer.
So lets see... Where did I leave off? Oh yes the Euro cup.
6-30/31-08
So after a very intense game between Spain and Germany, in which Spain had a completely intense defensive system. Poor Germans, they could not break through Spains defenses. Plus, Spain had Torres, and Torres is freakishly fast. Matthew noted that whenever Spain went in for a goal, it was always like a one man break away while the rest of the team stayed back and defended their goal; unlike Germany where bascially all of their defenses moved up when trying to take a goal.
Torres made the only goal that was made in this game, and it was so brilliant that I swear it was a complete and total accident.
So the game was won by Espania! We were sad to have lost, but in truth, Spain really did deserve the championship. They were just... better. No offense to Deutschland, but it's the truth.
Well after the game, we booked it downstairs in our Hostel to grab our luggage. We dragged it to the Friedrickstrasse S-Bahn station just down the road from our hostel.
We were lucky to get tehir early, so our s-bahn was relatively not full. However, 2 stops later when we reached the Berlin HautpBahnhof (Berlin Main Train Station), It was Chaos, complete and utter Chaos.
In Berlin there lives around 2.5 million people I believe. Well half a million was in that trainstation with us that night. It was intense~
Even though Germany had lost, everyone was still singing their german Soccor songs, and were blasting their horns, and making just a gerneral muck of things.
We got there about two hours before our train was supposed to arrive. However, when we got to our gate, our train was not listed. So we ended up going up and down escalators that had been shut down with our luggage. I had it the worst because I had a suit case, and matt only had a backpack, I am usure what Tyler had, but after a while, tyler kinda Chastised Matt in the fact that he wasn't helping me. Thanks Tyler.
lol. anyways. We went up and down, dragging my suitcase basically up... stair since the escalators were not operating. we finally made it to the Deutsche Bahn help desk, and I pretty much screamed at the lady in German ( I had to, it was so loud in there, but I was pissed off too). I asked her why our train wasn"t listed, and she said it was, only we needed to look at the big board of departures and not the tiny ones. So we ended up being on the same railway platform, only the train had switched tracks on us, so instead of coming in on track 13 it came in on track 14. Go figure, after all of that running around, up and down, so on and so forth.
I got so mad, I went to our platform by the easiest route, basically leaving matt and tyler in the dust and made it there before them. Matthew was not too pleased with this, but in the end everything was worked out.
I took several videos of the chaos to show to you all at home. I will post them hopefully tomorrow.
Anyways, so we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited for our train. Meanwhile our platform is getting kinda crowded, we thought that perhaps all of these people had a train that they were getting on before us.
Well when our train finally arrived, we basically realized that we were on the completely wrong end of our platform, and that basically the entire train was boarding in Berlin!
So we had to run to get to our wagon. When we finally got to our seats , we had to ask people to move, because we had reserved them and paid good money in which to do so. only like 4 Euro, but still.
They got up without a fuss and told us to enjoy our seats. lol. I am so glad we made reservations, otherwise, we would never have gotten a seat on that train. So after we all got setteled in, we started to realize how hot it really was on this train. Turns out, the AC was broken and there were hundreds of people on this train!
We fell into sweaty, miserable sleeps, until the train workers, knowing that we were all roasting like lobsters in a pot of boiling water, decided to give us a chance to catch a fresh breath of air ( the windows on the train do not open). So we made about a 10 mins stop in Wolfsburg to get off and get some loely fresh air. Let me tell you, the smokers on this trip certainly took advantage of this opportunity.
Saldy, our time was up, over the loud speakers a voice said "Meine Damen und Herren an Gleis eins, bitten Einsteigen" , baically meaning ladies and gentlemen on platform one, please board the train. Everyones heads swiveled down to see which platform we were on, and when we all realized it was us, there was a groan from the crowd and everyone, reluctantly got back on the sweltering train.
Again we fell into fitful, hot sleeps ( just go with it), and eventually there was a voice over the loud speaker of the train, it said, things in German first, like where our train was going, sorry for the inconvienience, etc. then in english it told us about 2 places where were were going when the man's phone rang. He paused for a moment, and then said goodbye, hurridley, and hung up the loud speaker. Everyone in our train wagon at least, laughed out loud, and thought it was a riot.
That phone call must have been someone telling them how to fix the AC, becuase finally after about 2 hours of misery, the AC started working.
Again we fell back to sleep and were awoken to see our tickets ina very loud fashion. By this time, like 3:40 am, everyone on the train was asleep. Usually the man checking the tickets would have done so at the beggining of our travel departure, however, do to all the AC hullabaloo, he was not able to. So instead he had to rouse people from their deep sleeps and ask for tickets. Matt and I woke up right away. Tyler did not, though he held his ticket securly in his hand.
our tickets were checked first, then tylers, the man shouted loudly "Mein Herr" Basically "Sir" a few times, and tyler woke up, clutching the ticket in hsi hand with a death grip and looked around like he had no clue where he was. IT was the most hilarious sight, poor Tyler. Everntually after I said, Tyler, the ticket, he looked at me for a while and eventually it dawned on him what he was supposed to do. hahaha.
However, that was nothing compared to the man across the aisle from us. It took the man about 15 mins, to come around out of sleep to even understand language again. He just kept saying um... until the ticket collectorwas blue in teh face from telling him that he needed to see his ticket.
After that excitement, we all fell back to sleep, but I must admit, not as comfortably so, because, I can sleep when I am warm, but whe I become chilled, nothing can get me to fall alseep. Well... For as warm as the train was it was that cold when the AC finally kicked in. It was so cold, I was freezing, though Tyler and Matt were perfectly comfortable, go figure.
We slept until 5:30 am when our train arrived in cologne. We got off and caught our train to Andernach. I don"t remeber anything especially from this ride, except the fact that it was long, we were tired, and they checked our tickets twice, once by the ticket collector, and a second time by a ticket control officer. (basically, if he comes around and you don't have a ticket, you have to pay 50 euro up front.)
We made it into Andernach, but wanted to catch an earlier train into Mayen, so we checked the board and it said there was one coming 20 mins earlier. So when the train came, we didn"T pay attention to the sign that said to Koblenz. Well... Guess where we ended up??? oh right... Koblenz. So after that fun time, we got off the train, found a new train back to Andernach, and caught it. By this time I had gone to teh bus depot to see when the buses for Hohr-grenzhausen left. I had basically given up the thought of going there for pottery that day.
When we got on the train back to Andernach, I basically made up my mind that it was better to sleep in Mayen then to go and buy more pottery.
When we got back to Andernach, we had missed the train we were originally going to take to Mayen, so we had to wait for an hour. Tyler and Matthew both had books with, I had finished mine Friday and given it back to Paula before she left for Turkey, so I was bookless for the first time on this trip!!!! What a nightmare!
We waited for what seemed like forever, and then, a funny thing happened. We hear a familiar voice, and there comes Felecia Lucht walking up our platform, also going back to Mayen for the day to retrieve things she too had left behind. She had spent her remaining days in Frankfurt and was too going to spend the night in Mayen and catch a plane in the morning.
We chatted with her for awhile (of course alles auf Deutsch (everything in German). Our train came, we boarded, and then took advantage of the premium countryside.
We reached Mayne Ost, tyler was getting off at Mayen west, going to his host house, sleeping, then getting back on a train the same day for Frankfurt and staying in a hotel there where he would set two alarms and have a wake up call from the front desk.
We got off at Mayen Ost, bid Tyler farwell, walke da bit with Frau Lucht until my house, and bid her a pleasant journey homeward. I arrived at my house and promptly fell asleep. Matthew went back into town, and bought some limoncello from a local aalcohol store in town. Then went home and slept.
I woke up around ... 3:40pm. Got up, decided I was definately not going to go buy pottery, talked with Laura, who had also come back to Mayen, and we would travel with her in the morning to the airport. I said bye and went to go to MAtthew's house. When I got there, Matt was still sleeping, so I decided to give him so more time and sat and chatted with his family, told them of our Berlin and train adventures. His family really is the sweetest. We had some apple juice, and some cake, it was lovely.
After about an hour or so, I decided it was time to wake Matthew up, he went and took as shower, while I went and chatted some more with his host family. After a while he got raedy and we went back into town for somemore things, while promising to be back by 7 in time for dinner. It was about 6 pm at the time we left. We went to Rewe, I bought lots of chocolate, when we checked out, they porbably thought I was mad buying 25 Euros worth of Milka, rittersport, and Bueno chocolate. lol.
After that, we walked home and had a lovely dinner of steaks, white sausage, salad, and potatoes squares for dinner.
It was nice to have a home cooked meal after the hustle and bustle of Berlin. Afterwards we had dessert of strawberryes and ice cream. It was nice, we enjoyed talking, an dthen they gave me a few parting gifts when it was time for me to go home and pack.
Got back home, saw Ecky, Marianna, and Tobi. Then went to try to call my mother. Never did get ahold of her, but left her several messages.
I went home, went upstairs and chatted for a time with Ecky and Marianna. Tobi left with his girlfriend for a week on holiday, to her house I supose.
I chatted with them for quite a long time, and then Marianna, sweetly kicked my out and told me to go pack, haha, she's so sweet, I miss her. Before I got downstairs, Ecky offered Laura and I breakfast for the morning and I took him up on it!
I got downstairs, laura had made soup for herself, having had no dinner. I had a bowl of the soup ( I was the one who bought it) and then started packing. After packing I tried desperately to go to lseep, it took awhile but, finally I did.
That all I can post for right now. My wrists are protesting from so much typing. I'll finish up the rest of the home journey tomorrow!
Biss Dann! ;)
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Last day in Berlin!!!
Hello children of America!!!
Well, today is our last day in Berlin, and it was a blast, for the most part. 6-29-08 Matt, Tyler, and I slept in till around 10am again this morning. We all got up, showered, checked out, and headed out to the zoo. We got to our train stop at around 11 am. We stopped at an imbiss and had 1? curry wurst, I had 1.15? currywurst and brötchen. It is was tasty. Matthew and I went back to return his shirt, and realized that it is a sunday, and no stores are open on Sunday. Boo. We were not amused!
After that fiasco, we headed on to the zoo. It was 9? for students, so we went in and basically spent the entire day till 6:00 or so at the zoo. It was wonderful. It was a days worth of entertainment, and the Berliner Zoo is definately a must see when you are in Berlin. We saw Knut the Berlin zoo adopted polar bear. My mother and I saw him last summer when he was still a baby, well I can say he is bigeer now. Not huge, he's only about a year older, but he is no baby any more. We saw bears, (brown, black, polar, sun, etc), White Wolfs, Elephants, Giraffs, fish, all types of antelope, horses, camels, leopards, lions, pumas, a tiger, hundreds of birds, alpachas, llamas, huge guinea pig type thing (that the german translation for is like giant fur pig. lol, except it isn't a pig), bats, kangaroos, wallabies, a sloth, a huge orangutan, chimpanzees, baboons, a panda, etc. I think you get the idea that there is a lot to see.
Since we didn't eat anything there, except for me, I was so hungry I broke down and had a 2.30? ice cream thingy, we got outta there, went to a local grocery store that was open, basically all day, bought some beer, chips, pudding, water, and... for like 4?. Then we went and bought a huge thing of noodles for 3.50?. The food we bought at the store is for the train and then lunch tomorrow. The noodles lasted us for lunch and will for sure last for dinner as well. We went to the tier garten, had 2 beers and ate some food, while I told my really awful jokes that basically have no punch line. lol, like Randy the rooster, and all of" A Belgian in Heaven" jokes. My mother will appreciate that. lol. They thought the jokes were dumb, and they were, lol, but we laughed at them anyway.
Afterwards, our bladders were bursting and we needed to get seats for the game tonight! The European Meister Fußball Tournament (Master Soccer Tournament) with Germany vs. Spain for the Euro cup!!!! We are so excited. The game hasn't started yet, it is supposed to start at 8:45, it is currently almost 8pm. After the game, we are getting our luggage and catching our train to cologne, then to Andernach.
Matt and I will probably go straight from Andernach to Höhr-grenzhausen to buy pottery for my mommy. Afterwards we will come home to Mayen, talk with our families, and re-pack for our flight on tuesday. It is so close we can almost taste it! We are so excited to see everyone when we get home. I will try to blog tomorrow, but if I don't I am sure you will understand why.
I plan to still post pictures of our later travels once I get back into the states, so even after tuesday, keep checking the blog, because we will be pasting picture pages from Jena, Dresden, and Berlin!!! We love and miss you all and look forward to seeing you soon!!!! Biss Dann! ;) Emily
Well, today is our last day in Berlin, and it was a blast, for the most part. 6-29-08 Matt, Tyler, and I slept in till around 10am again this morning. We all got up, showered, checked out, and headed out to the zoo. We got to our train stop at around 11 am. We stopped at an imbiss and had 1? curry wurst, I had 1.15? currywurst and brötchen. It is was tasty. Matthew and I went back to return his shirt, and realized that it is a sunday, and no stores are open on Sunday. Boo. We were not amused!
After that fiasco, we headed on to the zoo. It was 9? for students, so we went in and basically spent the entire day till 6:00 or so at the zoo. It was wonderful. It was a days worth of entertainment, and the Berliner Zoo is definately a must see when you are in Berlin. We saw Knut the Berlin zoo adopted polar bear. My mother and I saw him last summer when he was still a baby, well I can say he is bigeer now. Not huge, he's only about a year older, but he is no baby any more. We saw bears, (brown, black, polar, sun, etc), White Wolfs, Elephants, Giraffs, fish, all types of antelope, horses, camels, leopards, lions, pumas, a tiger, hundreds of birds, alpachas, llamas, huge guinea pig type thing (that the german translation for is like giant fur pig. lol, except it isn't a pig), bats, kangaroos, wallabies, a sloth, a huge orangutan, chimpanzees, baboons, a panda, etc. I think you get the idea that there is a lot to see.
Since we didn't eat anything there, except for me, I was so hungry I broke down and had a 2.30? ice cream thingy, we got outta there, went to a local grocery store that was open, basically all day, bought some beer, chips, pudding, water, and... for like 4?. Then we went and bought a huge thing of noodles for 3.50?. The food we bought at the store is for the train and then lunch tomorrow. The noodles lasted us for lunch and will for sure last for dinner as well. We went to the tier garten, had 2 beers and ate some food, while I told my really awful jokes that basically have no punch line. lol, like Randy the rooster, and all of" A Belgian in Heaven" jokes. My mother will appreciate that. lol. They thought the jokes were dumb, and they were, lol, but we laughed at them anyway.
Afterwards, our bladders were bursting and we needed to get seats for the game tonight! The European Meister Fußball Tournament (Master Soccer Tournament) with Germany vs. Spain for the Euro cup!!!! We are so excited. The game hasn't started yet, it is supposed to start at 8:45, it is currently almost 8pm. After the game, we are getting our luggage and catching our train to cologne, then to Andernach.
Matt and I will probably go straight from Andernach to Höhr-grenzhausen to buy pottery for my mommy. Afterwards we will come home to Mayen, talk with our families, and re-pack for our flight on tuesday. It is so close we can almost taste it! We are so excited to see everyone when we get home. I will try to blog tomorrow, but if I don't I am sure you will understand why.
I plan to still post pictures of our later travels once I get back into the states, so even after tuesday, keep checking the blog, because we will be pasting picture pages from Jena, Dresden, and Berlin!!! We love and miss you all and look forward to seeing you soon!!!! Biss Dann! ;) Emily
La boheme
La Boheme
(6-28-08)
OH MY GOD!!!
What can I say about this Opera? What can I say about the Berlin Opera Company? Fantastic, Phenmoenal, Amazing, Stupendous, breath-taking, Wonderful! I am so completely impressed by the Berliner Opera. I cannot even really express in words how wonderful it is. Tonight, the Opera was at 7:30pm. Although we tried to plan ahead, the u-bahn (underground) took forever to get to the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
We got there 5 mins to show time. We raced up to the second balcony, and took our seat in the eighth row, which is the second row from the top. A woman came on stage, and informed us, that the actor who played the main male lead, Rodolfo, was feeling very sick and would only do the acting on stage, but that they had called all over Europe basically, and finally a man in Rome had agreed to fly out today, from Rome to sing the part. His name is Allessandro Liberatore! He was amazing. He stood off to the side of the stage in a tuxedo, with a spot light on him and sang all of the parts, he was even emoting while doing it, while the man who normally sings the role acted out the part on stage.
The cast was absolutely phenomenal. I cannot say this enough. I was so blown away by the professionalism and everthing having to do with this cast.
The Opera: La Boheme this will be a quick run down for those of you who have no clue what La Boheme is.
Act I: The show opens with basically 4 men on Christmas eve? or day? unsure... Among these men is an artist and a writer (I believe them to be the two male leads, even though Rodolfo (the writer) is pretty much aknowledged as the main male lead). The 4 are a merry troup with one another and they make light of one another with relative comfortablitly. 3 of the men go out on the town and Rodolfo stays in the Apartment to write.
Along comes Mimi (The main female lead), she has lost her key and her candle has gone out looking for it. She asks him to light it for her, and when she leaves, she realizes what she was looking for and her candle goes about again, then his candle goes out and the two are in the "dark" apartment alone together. they search for the key, because I think they are trying to hide their feelings from one another, and then the two basically fall in love. Just like that, not very practical or believeable, but none-the-less, it happens.
Act II: Mimi and Rodolfo go to join his friends in town. (This set and the ensemble simply blew my mind, they had acrobats, fire eaters and players, etc. It was amazing. A troup of about 20 children, and a chorus of about 60-80. The sets changed every act, and each one was... WOW!) The join his friends and along comes Mussetta, who is Marcelo's (one of the 4) "girlfriend", however, she is kind of a lose cannon, she likes to have expensive things, so she dates men who have the money to fulfill her desires. She is quite...self-indulgent. She basically tortures this poor rich man for half of the act and in the end, she and Marcelo are back in each others arms.
Act III: Mimi comes to where Marcelo lives to tell him how Rodolfo has broken things off with her. Marcelo is a bit shocked by this, and eventually Rodolfo shows up to tell Marcelo its off with Mimi, and he says thigsn about how its over, Marcelo prys a bit and evenutally Rodolfo confesses how much he loves Mimi (mimi is in the background listening to all of this, and basically realizes that she is slowly dying from Consumption (Tuberculosis). The two decided to stay together until the first blooms of spring and then they will end it. And marcelo and Mussetta have a roll and the two spilt.
Act IV: Marcelo and Rodolfo are trying desperately to work (Artist and Writer) however all they can think about are the women they love. They can only see their faces when they try to work. The two other men come in declare new positions,etc. A play fight ensues and they are all merry, until Mussetta comes in telling everyone that she found Mimi on the stairs and she can go no further, she is dying. Mimi comes in and says how she will go if Rodolfo does not want her there, but the truth is that the two are madly in love with one another. Mimi becomes colder and colder and her last wish is to have a hand muff to warm her hands in.
Marcelo and Mussetta run off to buy her a muff and to get her a doctor. While they are gone the otehr two leave and they are left alone. The confess how much they love one another, etc. Mussetta and Marcelo come back, Mussetta gives the muff to Mimi and shortly there after, she passes away. No one realizes it at first, because they all have hope with a doctor on the way, but when they finally realize she is gone, the curtain closes. It is a very emotional show, you go from laughter, to emense an emense high, to sadness, to extremely sad. I basically bawled. It was so wonderful. I cried through the third and fourth acts and I will say how wonderful these players did. This Opera has one of my favorite tenor arias. The Rodolfo Aria in Act I. Opera singers, I am sure you know which one I am referring to.
After the show, the curtain call went on forever and rightly so. I felt as though I was clapping for christmas at luther. I felt like they were really milking it. The came out in pairs, then all, then one by one, then all again, then pairs again, etc. It was a riot. We took the subway home, by this time it was raining again. We only had to walk a small chunk in the rain from Friedrickstrasse to our hostel. This opera performance was worth every penny we paid for it. It is tragic, but it is wonderful. I might even say that it is my favorite. Even though I do dearly love Il Barberie di Sivigla ( I think that is how it is spelled, correct me if I am wrong). Tonight was wonderful, in full!
After we got back, Matthew and I finished off our last pudding cup, ate some chips and peanut flips, had some apfelschorel, and went downstairs to have a beer with our friend Tyler, who did not come to the Opera with us. Wonderful, I am still reeling from it. I wish you all a very pleasant night, and I will write again tomorrow with our news.
We plan to spend the day at the zoo, but that could all change depending on the weather! Biss Dann
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Berlin Chill
Foreword:
Greetings again to you and yours from rainy ole Berlin City, Germany!!! Matthew and I have been having quite an interesting time here in lovely Berlin. Tons and tons of walking. I swear, if weight is not lost on this trip, I will cry. lol. No, this trip has been so much fun. Matthew and I fly back to the states on Tuesday July 1st.
We have enjoyed our time here so much, but we miss our families, home cooking, and just the normalty of American life.
Some things Matthew will miss: Laugen Bretzel (Pretzels), everything being really old and historical, Schnitzel, and good dark beer.
Some things Emily will miss: Brötchen (hard rolls), Milka Chocolate, (no not käse spatzel, I think I have finally worn myself out of that phase, bascially, eat eat until you can't eat it anymore, lol), using and improving my German skills, German ice cream, and the Deutsche Bahn railway system.
Some things Matthew will not miss: not having ice, not having free water, not having refills, not being able to have as much ketchup as he wants for free, having free choices for drinks instead of having to have beer with every meal because it is the cheapest option, plain sparkling water.
Some things Emily will not miss: not having ice, not having free water, not having refills, not being able to have as much ketchup as he wants for free, having free choices for drinks instead of having to have beer with every meal because it is the cheapest option, plain sparkling water.(lol, look at how American we are). lol. While some of these things may sound silly, they are the truth. You have to pay for condiments, of which you only get one small package. There are no free refills. You have to pay for water, and most water is carbonated. We are quite homesick at the moment and really longing for home and the ones we love. It has been tons of fun, but it is time to head on home!!!!
06-28-08 Chill Day
Well, today was a very chill day. I had tried to plan a bunch of things that we could do, but guess what? It rained basically all day, lovely isn't it. We decided to sleep in today, since all of our days have been early and fairly packed full of things to do. We slept in till about 10 am, and then we decided to get ready and check out since check out is at 11am. Matt, Tyler, and I had planned to go to the Berliner Dom and Charlottenburg. Well, neither of those two things happened. After check out, we were pretty hungry, so we decided to grab some cheap food from an imbiss. We all had curry wurst and Matthew and I each had a small pommes (french fries) with it. The food was alright and there was enough to constitiute 3.50? for lunch.
We were on our way to Charlottenburg, when I decided that we should go to the zoo tomorrow and with our Berlin cards, we get 25% off the entrance fee. I wanted to check out how much it would cost and how much we would get off, to even see if it was worth it. Well it is about 12? for an adult, 9? for a student, and we would get 25% of a normal adult ticket. I think it acutally works out cheaper to do the student ticket, so I believe we will do that instead and spend the whole day at the Berlin zoo. After the price check, we had seen a flee market on our way to the zoo, so we decided to hitch back a stop on the subway to check out this awesome flee market.
While we were waiting for the s-bahn (subway), there was a man in liek a white body suit, with sprayed pink hair with white closepins in his hair, and then one half of his body covered with pink closepins and the other with blue close pins. The front of the suit was open to expose this man's chest. It was awkward, but funny as hell. We couldn't stop laughing silently to ourselves and we took a picture of him. This man had to be in his late 40's early 50's. I still don't know what to think of it, and to top it all off, he was wearing a pair of bright pink loafers. Finally after many trains had come gone and had problems, we finally found one that would take us to the place where we wanted to go. When I talk about this flee market, you just have to imagine like a side street completely filled with personal verndors. We spent at least a good hour and a half there. I spent 20? I bought a pair of old Opera glasses for the Opera tonight and a gift... (oooo... who's it for????)
Anyways, the flee market was huge, there were probably around 100 some vendors. It was bascially an antiques market and I swear, had it been in the states and I would have been able to transport stuff home safely, I would have bough thalf of it up! At the Flee market, there was a crepe stand and I had to give way into having a Nutella crepe. It was so tasty and worth every penny of the 2?'s I paid for it!!! YUM!!! After the flee market,Berlin was just soaked, it had been raining hard core the whole time. We considered still going to the Charlottenburg palace, but none of us really felt we could afford the entrance fee, so then we thought we might do the grounds, but after all that rain, the grounds would have been complete mud. It would have been miserable to say the least.
We thought still about going to the Dom, but I mentioned that there was also an entrance fee for that, and so we all decided that some things needed to be saved for the next Berlin trip, so we went back to the zoologischer garten stop and foudn a grocery store by complete chance. Let me preface this by saying that Berlin is extremely expensive. I had forgotten how much so. This grocery store was like such a wonderful relief.
We all decided to buy dinenr there. Matt and I both got a 1.5 liter of apfelschorel (basically, carbonated appel juice), a thing of 4 puddings, and a bag of peanut flips or in Matt's case a bag of paprika chips, all for 2.38?. That is the cheapest meal we have had here so far!!!! We are so going there tomorrow. Usually on sundays in Germany, everything is closed including grocery stores, however, this grocery store is open tomorrow, so when we go to the zoo, before hand we are goign to the grocery store, stocking up for food on the day, and bringing it into the zoo with us. We are quite pleased with ourselves and our stroke of genius that we will now be getting a ton of food, for very little cash! BOOYAH! We decided to eat our lunch\dinner outside of the Lipstick, powder, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedenknis kirche. We found one bench that was not completely soaked, ate some food, went into the Kaiser building again and went into the powder church again.
We were going to go back to Ka De We, but Matthew and I were draining and so Tyler went by himself while Matthew and I went back to teh Hostel to check in, shower, and get ready for the opera. We got ready fairly quickly and decided that since we were ready with over and hour and a half before show time, that we should spend some time on the internet, so thats what we are doing. It is pre-opera time right now, we are both in black. I am waring a black dress with a black over lay and the 3? shoes that I bought in Köln (Cologne). Matthew is wearing a Short sleeve, black button up shirt that we bought him the other day at H & M for this Opera, since there is a dress code. (We might return it after we are done, we'll see, we were just desperate for him to have something to wear).
Now it is time for us to leave, but not to worry, I will update the rest of the night once we get back!!! Lots of Love, Biss Dann!
Greetings again to you and yours from rainy ole Berlin City, Germany!!! Matthew and I have been having quite an interesting time here in lovely Berlin. Tons and tons of walking. I swear, if weight is not lost on this trip, I will cry. lol. No, this trip has been so much fun. Matthew and I fly back to the states on Tuesday July 1st.
We have enjoyed our time here so much, but we miss our families, home cooking, and just the normalty of American life.
Some things Matthew will miss: Laugen Bretzel (Pretzels), everything being really old and historical, Schnitzel, and good dark beer.
Some things Emily will miss: Brötchen (hard rolls), Milka Chocolate, (no not käse spatzel, I think I have finally worn myself out of that phase, bascially, eat eat until you can't eat it anymore, lol), using and improving my German skills, German ice cream, and the Deutsche Bahn railway system.
Some things Matthew will not miss: not having ice, not having free water, not having refills, not being able to have as much ketchup as he wants for free, having free choices for drinks instead of having to have beer with every meal because it is the cheapest option, plain sparkling water.
Some things Emily will not miss: not having ice, not having free water, not having refills, not being able to have as much ketchup as he wants for free, having free choices for drinks instead of having to have beer with every meal because it is the cheapest option, plain sparkling water.(lol, look at how American we are). lol. While some of these things may sound silly, they are the truth. You have to pay for condiments, of which you only get one small package. There are no free refills. You have to pay for water, and most water is carbonated. We are quite homesick at the moment and really longing for home and the ones we love. It has been tons of fun, but it is time to head on home!!!!
06-28-08 Chill Day
Well, today was a very chill day. I had tried to plan a bunch of things that we could do, but guess what? It rained basically all day, lovely isn't it. We decided to sleep in today, since all of our days have been early and fairly packed full of things to do. We slept in till about 10 am, and then we decided to get ready and check out since check out is at 11am. Matt, Tyler, and I had planned to go to the Berliner Dom and Charlottenburg. Well, neither of those two things happened. After check out, we were pretty hungry, so we decided to grab some cheap food from an imbiss. We all had curry wurst and Matthew and I each had a small pommes (french fries) with it. The food was alright and there was enough to constitiute 3.50? for lunch.
We were on our way to Charlottenburg, when I decided that we should go to the zoo tomorrow and with our Berlin cards, we get 25% off the entrance fee. I wanted to check out how much it would cost and how much we would get off, to even see if it was worth it. Well it is about 12? for an adult, 9? for a student, and we would get 25% of a normal adult ticket. I think it acutally works out cheaper to do the student ticket, so I believe we will do that instead and spend the whole day at the Berlin zoo. After the price check, we had seen a flee market on our way to the zoo, so we decided to hitch back a stop on the subway to check out this awesome flee market.
While we were waiting for the s-bahn (subway), there was a man in liek a white body suit, with sprayed pink hair with white closepins in his hair, and then one half of his body covered with pink closepins and the other with blue close pins. The front of the suit was open to expose this man's chest. It was awkward, but funny as hell. We couldn't stop laughing silently to ourselves and we took a picture of him. This man had to be in his late 40's early 50's. I still don't know what to think of it, and to top it all off, he was wearing a pair of bright pink loafers. Finally after many trains had come gone and had problems, we finally found one that would take us to the place where we wanted to go. When I talk about this flee market, you just have to imagine like a side street completely filled with personal verndors. We spent at least a good hour and a half there. I spent 20? I bought a pair of old Opera glasses for the Opera tonight and a gift... (oooo... who's it for????)
Anyways, the flee market was huge, there were probably around 100 some vendors. It was bascially an antiques market and I swear, had it been in the states and I would have been able to transport stuff home safely, I would have bough thalf of it up! At the Flee market, there was a crepe stand and I had to give way into having a Nutella crepe. It was so tasty and worth every penny of the 2?'s I paid for it!!! YUM!!! After the flee market,Berlin was just soaked, it had been raining hard core the whole time. We considered still going to the Charlottenburg palace, but none of us really felt we could afford the entrance fee, so then we thought we might do the grounds, but after all that rain, the grounds would have been complete mud. It would have been miserable to say the least.
We thought still about going to the Dom, but I mentioned that there was also an entrance fee for that, and so we all decided that some things needed to be saved for the next Berlin trip, so we went back to the zoologischer garten stop and foudn a grocery store by complete chance. Let me preface this by saying that Berlin is extremely expensive. I had forgotten how much so. This grocery store was like such a wonderful relief.
We all decided to buy dinenr there. Matt and I both got a 1.5 liter of apfelschorel (basically, carbonated appel juice), a thing of 4 puddings, and a bag of peanut flips or in Matt's case a bag of paprika chips, all for 2.38?. That is the cheapest meal we have had here so far!!!! We are so going there tomorrow. Usually on sundays in Germany, everything is closed including grocery stores, however, this grocery store is open tomorrow, so when we go to the zoo, before hand we are goign to the grocery store, stocking up for food on the day, and bringing it into the zoo with us. We are quite pleased with ourselves and our stroke of genius that we will now be getting a ton of food, for very little cash! BOOYAH! We decided to eat our lunch\dinner outside of the Lipstick, powder, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedenknis kirche. We found one bench that was not completely soaked, ate some food, went into the Kaiser building again and went into the powder church again.
We were going to go back to Ka De We, but Matthew and I were draining and so Tyler went by himself while Matthew and I went back to teh Hostel to check in, shower, and get ready for the opera. We got ready fairly quickly and decided that since we were ready with over and hour and a half before show time, that we should spend some time on the internet, so thats what we are doing. It is pre-opera time right now, we are both in black. I am waring a black dress with a black over lay and the 3? shoes that I bought in Köln (Cologne). Matthew is wearing a Short sleeve, black button up shirt that we bought him the other day at H & M for this Opera, since there is a dress code. (We might return it after we are done, we'll see, we were just desperate for him to have something to wear).
Now it is time for us to leave, but not to worry, I will update the rest of the night once we get back!!! Lots of Love, Biss Dann!
Friday, June 27, 2008
End of Program and Potsdam....!!!
6-27-08
Hello loved ones and friends once again. I am pretty proud of myself, minus pictures, I have been keeping you all pretty well informed. I hope you are all enjoying the blogs and not finding them boring.
So today was the end of our program, we all basically set our alarm clocks for around 6:47 this morning, but we slept in till 7:30. hahaha. In our hostel, BBC (The Brits) is filming something. The have basically been filming here since we got here and I believe today was their last day of filming. This was the day in which we had to take breakfast in the basement which is usually used of raving and night clubbing, because they were filming in the nude. Lol. There were posters up saying that only 30 selected people could participate. The two main guys were talking to a few of our girls yesterday and asked them if they wanted to be in their BBC thing, and the girls were up for it, until the guys said " Oh, and by the way, you would have to be naked....." hahaha, yea right! No way man!
So they were filming the nudy scene in the breakfast bar room and we took breakfast in the basement. lol. Breakfast was surprisingly fine. There was no crying, I wished people well and I hope that everything goes well for them. After our breakfast and goodbyes, Matthew and I went to our rooms, showered, and packed. At about 9:10, we went downstairs got a locker for our luggage and headed out to Potsdam.
We were able to take a regional train all the way from the trainstaion closest to us to the Sansoucci park. The ride was around half and hour and we were able to get there just fine. When we arrived in Potsdam, we came to a path and we basically took it and came right upon the Neues Palas. This is a huge Palace built by one of the Friedrick Willhelm's of Prussia (there were 3, I think) I believe it was built by the first.
We decided to do an English audio guided tour and because we had the Berlin card, we were able to get in for 3€ per person! It rocked. It was two huge levels of Awesomeness!!!! The palace is basically almost completely rococo in style. Very lovely. My favorite room in this palace in the Grotto room, this is a huge room on the entry level, it is made to look like an undersea grotto with sea monsters on the walls made out of shells, huge like underwater things (Rocks, minerals, shells, attached to every surface, etc). It is a truly impressive room.
After the Neues Palas, we walked the half an hour walk down to the Sansoucci Palas. There are no reduced rates here besides student rates. The normal rate is 10€ for adults, 8€ for students. After the gigantic Neues Palas for 3€, we were feeling kinda jipped, because the Sansoucci palas is beautiful , however, the tour is like 15-20 mins by audio guide, and I personally like the Neues Palas better.
We were a little placated in the fact that with our fee, we were also able to see the Bildgaleri. This is the first Gallery of its kind for art work. It is a huge rococo building on the Sansoucci plot and it is filled with something around 134 pictures, including 2 Rembrants. The buidling was extremely rococo inside, and out of the three times I have been here this is the first time I have seen this part.
Mom, we did not get to see the kitchens, they are not free this year, nor were they included with our ticket price! As I said, Jipped!
After seeing all the wonderful pieces that Sansoucci had to offer, we walked over to the Chinese house and looked at it from the outside. Matthew and I were going to try to find the house where the Potsdam agreement was signed. I was there with a tour group when I was 16, but we were so incredibly pooped, not to mention we spent 11€ on entrance fees today, that we just decided to go home and stick it out till dinner.
We were able to catch the train right away pretty much, and basically slept on the way back into Berlin. After getting back, we checked into our new room for tonight in our hostel, then we went up and talked with Tyler, a guy from our group who we made our reservations with and is staying with us and heading back to mayen with us on sunday.
We talked and napped a little bit, and then we met up with a friend and went to a Shisha bar. We sat and talked and had a good time, and Cher had to go to the Becks Concert, so after she left, we went to the same restaurant that we ate at for dinner last night, matt and I both had cheap, but delicious Spaghetti Bolognese and a beer.
Dinner was good and soon there after around 8, we decided to head for the Reichstag again!!!
Tonight we got in. We waited in line to get in for about 1 hour, however, this is like the only free thing to do in Berlin, so we didn't complain.
When we got in, we were all pissed that we had forgot our cameras, It was beautiful and clear out, where as the entire day in had been very cloudy and sprinkled and rained a little bit for a while. Matty really enjoyed it, especially since it was free. The glass Dom on top of the Reichstag is so cool, because it just gives you the best view of Berlin!
On our way back from the Reichstag we met a few people from Minnesota and some from Michigan. It was a combining of the two worlds. We chatted with these people for a bit, it was nice to speak some English for a while.
When we arrived back at our rooms, tonight we are in a 5 person mixed. So, it is Matt, Tyer, myself, and an older Japanese couple. bwahahahaha! lol. It is so funny, thank god it is only for one night. I am unsure what precautions to take with old people from Japan, since like Custom is everything to them. haha. We'll have to see how it goes.
Well....it is late here now, and I am quite exhausted. I will update again tomorrow with our goings on, depending on the weather, we are planning to go to the Berliner Dom and Charlottenburg. Lets hope for good weather. La Boheme is tomorrow night, Matt and I are very excited to see it!
Hope you are all doing well. Somebody comment to let me know that you are still faithful to the blog, lol!
Love to you all! Biss Dann
Hello loved ones and friends once again. I am pretty proud of myself, minus pictures, I have been keeping you all pretty well informed. I hope you are all enjoying the blogs and not finding them boring.
So today was the end of our program, we all basically set our alarm clocks for around 6:47 this morning, but we slept in till 7:30. hahaha. In our hostel, BBC (The Brits) is filming something. The have basically been filming here since we got here and I believe today was their last day of filming. This was the day in which we had to take breakfast in the basement which is usually used of raving and night clubbing, because they were filming in the nude. Lol. There were posters up saying that only 30 selected people could participate. The two main guys were talking to a few of our girls yesterday and asked them if they wanted to be in their BBC thing, and the girls were up for it, until the guys said " Oh, and by the way, you would have to be naked....." hahaha, yea right! No way man!
So they were filming the nudy scene in the breakfast bar room and we took breakfast in the basement. lol. Breakfast was surprisingly fine. There was no crying, I wished people well and I hope that everything goes well for them. After our breakfast and goodbyes, Matthew and I went to our rooms, showered, and packed. At about 9:10, we went downstairs got a locker for our luggage and headed out to Potsdam.
We were able to take a regional train all the way from the trainstaion closest to us to the Sansoucci park. The ride was around half and hour and we were able to get there just fine. When we arrived in Potsdam, we came to a path and we basically took it and came right upon the Neues Palas. This is a huge Palace built by one of the Friedrick Willhelm's of Prussia (there were 3, I think) I believe it was built by the first.
We decided to do an English audio guided tour and because we had the Berlin card, we were able to get in for 3€ per person! It rocked. It was two huge levels of Awesomeness!!!! The palace is basically almost completely rococo in style. Very lovely. My favorite room in this palace in the Grotto room, this is a huge room on the entry level, it is made to look like an undersea grotto with sea monsters on the walls made out of shells, huge like underwater things (Rocks, minerals, shells, attached to every surface, etc). It is a truly impressive room.
After the Neues Palas, we walked the half an hour walk down to the Sansoucci Palas. There are no reduced rates here besides student rates. The normal rate is 10€ for adults, 8€ for students. After the gigantic Neues Palas for 3€, we were feeling kinda jipped, because the Sansoucci palas is beautiful , however, the tour is like 15-20 mins by audio guide, and I personally like the Neues Palas better.
We were a little placated in the fact that with our fee, we were also able to see the Bildgaleri. This is the first Gallery of its kind for art work. It is a huge rococo building on the Sansoucci plot and it is filled with something around 134 pictures, including 2 Rembrants. The buidling was extremely rococo inside, and out of the three times I have been here this is the first time I have seen this part.
Mom, we did not get to see the kitchens, they are not free this year, nor were they included with our ticket price! As I said, Jipped!
After seeing all the wonderful pieces that Sansoucci had to offer, we walked over to the Chinese house and looked at it from the outside. Matthew and I were going to try to find the house where the Potsdam agreement was signed. I was there with a tour group when I was 16, but we were so incredibly pooped, not to mention we spent 11€ on entrance fees today, that we just decided to go home and stick it out till dinner.
We were able to catch the train right away pretty much, and basically slept on the way back into Berlin. After getting back, we checked into our new room for tonight in our hostel, then we went up and talked with Tyler, a guy from our group who we made our reservations with and is staying with us and heading back to mayen with us on sunday.
We talked and napped a little bit, and then we met up with a friend and went to a Shisha bar. We sat and talked and had a good time, and Cher had to go to the Becks Concert, so after she left, we went to the same restaurant that we ate at for dinner last night, matt and I both had cheap, but delicious Spaghetti Bolognese and a beer.
Dinner was good and soon there after around 8, we decided to head for the Reichstag again!!!
Tonight we got in. We waited in line to get in for about 1 hour, however, this is like the only free thing to do in Berlin, so we didn't complain.
When we got in, we were all pissed that we had forgot our cameras, It was beautiful and clear out, where as the entire day in had been very cloudy and sprinkled and rained a little bit for a while. Matty really enjoyed it, especially since it was free. The glass Dom on top of the Reichstag is so cool, because it just gives you the best view of Berlin!
On our way back from the Reichstag we met a few people from Minnesota and some from Michigan. It was a combining of the two worlds. We chatted with these people for a bit, it was nice to speak some English for a while.
When we arrived back at our rooms, tonight we are in a 5 person mixed. So, it is Matt, Tyer, myself, and an older Japanese couple. bwahahahaha! lol. It is so funny, thank god it is only for one night. I am unsure what precautions to take with old people from Japan, since like Custom is everything to them. haha. We'll have to see how it goes.
Well....it is late here now, and I am quite exhausted. I will update again tomorrow with our goings on, depending on the weather, we are planning to go to the Berliner Dom and Charlottenburg. Lets hope for good weather. La Boheme is tomorrow night, Matt and I are very excited to see it!
Hope you are all doing well. Somebody comment to let me know that you are still faithful to the blog, lol!
Love to you all! Biss Dann
Thursday, June 26, 2008
More Berlin...
6-26-08
Hello loved ones big and small, one and all!
We have spent yet another day in Berlin. Today we woke up a bit later and got going pretty quickly after breakfast.
The first thing we did today was we walked from our Hostel to Checkpoint Charlie. We did a tour at the Check point Charlie Museum. the man who did our tour was a bit crabby, and I did not really care for him. He kept trying to rush us, We basically saw like 5 things in the entire museum, which is saying something, because the last time I was there I am sure I spent at least an hour and a half if not more. We saw like nothing of the Museum and I really thought it was a shame.
After the tour, we decided to try to barter with stands people for stuff from the USSR and the GDR. Neither Matthew or I bought anything, but a lot of our friends bought the Russian fur hats with the flaps that tie up that you can untie and put around your ears when it is really cold out. Most of the hats are made from real fur, I was tempted, but didn't.
After some bartering, we decided to head over to the Berlin Hbf to make our seat reservations for our overnight train from Berlin to Mayen Ost Sunday night. We got a train going out at 12:30 am. So basically we will just have to try to sleep on the train. At least this way, we will get to see the Euro Cup final. Tonight Russia played against Spain and Spain won. So it will be Spain against Germany for the Euro Cup on Sunday!!!!! YAY!!!!
While there, we also waited with John to pick up his girlfriend. She had flew in, and had taken the train from like Stuttgart to Berlin. When he saw her, he threw down his things and ran to her. I must admit, I did get misty, it was such a sweet reunion for them after having been apart since May 15th.
So after the reunion, Matt, Tyler, and I grabbed a quick thing to eat at Ditsch, and then we were off for Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Center. At the Sony Center there is a History Museum of German Film and T.V. It was very interesting. We also got a guided tour through this one, and our tour guide was 15 mins, late, but in his defense his other group had showed up late and so he had just finished a tour and ran to meet up with us.
We only did the Film part of the Museum with our tour guide. We could have done the T.V. part on our own after the tour if we wanted, but we still had other things to do. The tour was very good, it detailed black and white silent, black and white, and color movies. There were 3 rooms dedicated to Marlene Dietrich alone.
This place was really cool because it really spent a lot of time on old films, and only at the end did it get into modern day films. After the tour, he told us that we could go through the special effects part of the museum. Matthew and I did that with a few others and Matthew enjoyed that part the most. They had a costume from Alien (one of the Aliens), the Darth Vader Suit from Empire Strikes back, and the body suit from Robo Cop.
Matthew has been preaching this whole trip about how he will not leave Germany without seeing an opera. Well, it just so happens that La Boheme is playing at the Deutsche Oper on Saturday night, and we were able to get reduced tickets for around something like 17-18€ per person. We are both really looking forward to it.
After getting tickets, we decided to go to Ka De We, which I basically dragged Matthew to, we went to the 6th floor of 7, this is the food level. Matthew and I basically bolted through it, and Matthew kinda complained that this wasn't really his thing, so after that we left.
Maybe we will go back sometime when we have more time, he was just feeling too pressed for time to stay and look at the levels. So we got on the subway,came back to the hostel, and got ready for our farewell dinner tonight. We all went to the Cafe Orange on Oronionburger strasse. Felecia paid for all the food, which included dessert, the only thing we had to pay for were drinks.
For dinner, I had veal cutlets in a mushroom sauce, with vegetable rice and a side salad. Matthew had a rump roast steak with scalloped potatoes and a side salad. For dessert I had a fruit ice cream bowl and Matthew had Chocolate Mousse.
We really wanted to go to the Reichstag tonight with our friends so we busted our butts to get there in time. We got there at 5 to 10 and there was still a line out side, but there was a man standing there and he had roped the remaining people off and would not let us in, even though it was 5 to 10pm and they stop letting people in at 10 sharp. JERK!!!!! I was so pissed. We were all upset.
We took some pictures of the Reichstag, went to the Brandenbuger Tor, took pictures there, went to the Jewish memorial, and then we spent time walking through that. Overall, the night wasn't Completely ruined, though Matthew and I both had stomach aches from walking so fast just after eating and we both have numerous blisters on either feet now.
The day was pretty ok overall, we got a lot accomplished. Tomorrow, our program ends at 7:30 am after we have breakfast. We are relieved but saddened at the same time.
Tomorrow we plan to take the train out to Potsdam to see the Sansoucci palas, the Neues Palas, and the house where the Potsdam agreement was signed. Hopefully we can squeeze it all in.
Hope you are all doing well, I will update later tomorrow!
Biss Dann ;)
Hello loved ones big and small, one and all!
We have spent yet another day in Berlin. Today we woke up a bit later and got going pretty quickly after breakfast.
The first thing we did today was we walked from our Hostel to Checkpoint Charlie. We did a tour at the Check point Charlie Museum. the man who did our tour was a bit crabby, and I did not really care for him. He kept trying to rush us, We basically saw like 5 things in the entire museum, which is saying something, because the last time I was there I am sure I spent at least an hour and a half if not more. We saw like nothing of the Museum and I really thought it was a shame.
After the tour, we decided to try to barter with stands people for stuff from the USSR and the GDR. Neither Matthew or I bought anything, but a lot of our friends bought the Russian fur hats with the flaps that tie up that you can untie and put around your ears when it is really cold out. Most of the hats are made from real fur, I was tempted, but didn't.
After some bartering, we decided to head over to the Berlin Hbf to make our seat reservations for our overnight train from Berlin to Mayen Ost Sunday night. We got a train going out at 12:30 am. So basically we will just have to try to sleep on the train. At least this way, we will get to see the Euro Cup final. Tonight Russia played against Spain and Spain won. So it will be Spain against Germany for the Euro Cup on Sunday!!!!! YAY!!!!
While there, we also waited with John to pick up his girlfriend. She had flew in, and had taken the train from like Stuttgart to Berlin. When he saw her, he threw down his things and ran to her. I must admit, I did get misty, it was such a sweet reunion for them after having been apart since May 15th.
So after the reunion, Matt, Tyler, and I grabbed a quick thing to eat at Ditsch, and then we were off for Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Center. At the Sony Center there is a History Museum of German Film and T.V. It was very interesting. We also got a guided tour through this one, and our tour guide was 15 mins, late, but in his defense his other group had showed up late and so he had just finished a tour and ran to meet up with us.
We only did the Film part of the Museum with our tour guide. We could have done the T.V. part on our own after the tour if we wanted, but we still had other things to do. The tour was very good, it detailed black and white silent, black and white, and color movies. There were 3 rooms dedicated to Marlene Dietrich alone.
This place was really cool because it really spent a lot of time on old films, and only at the end did it get into modern day films. After the tour, he told us that we could go through the special effects part of the museum. Matthew and I did that with a few others and Matthew enjoyed that part the most. They had a costume from Alien (one of the Aliens), the Darth Vader Suit from Empire Strikes back, and the body suit from Robo Cop.
Matthew has been preaching this whole trip about how he will not leave Germany without seeing an opera. Well, it just so happens that La Boheme is playing at the Deutsche Oper on Saturday night, and we were able to get reduced tickets for around something like 17-18€ per person. We are both really looking forward to it.
After getting tickets, we decided to go to Ka De We, which I basically dragged Matthew to, we went to the 6th floor of 7, this is the food level. Matthew and I basically bolted through it, and Matthew kinda complained that this wasn't really his thing, so after that we left.
Maybe we will go back sometime when we have more time, he was just feeling too pressed for time to stay and look at the levels. So we got on the subway,came back to the hostel, and got ready for our farewell dinner tonight. We all went to the Cafe Orange on Oronionburger strasse. Felecia paid for all the food, which included dessert, the only thing we had to pay for were drinks.
For dinner, I had veal cutlets in a mushroom sauce, with vegetable rice and a side salad. Matthew had a rump roast steak with scalloped potatoes and a side salad. For dessert I had a fruit ice cream bowl and Matthew had Chocolate Mousse.
We really wanted to go to the Reichstag tonight with our friends so we busted our butts to get there in time. We got there at 5 to 10 and there was still a line out side, but there was a man standing there and he had roped the remaining people off and would not let us in, even though it was 5 to 10pm and they stop letting people in at 10 sharp. JERK!!!!! I was so pissed. We were all upset.
We took some pictures of the Reichstag, went to the Brandenbuger Tor, took pictures there, went to the Jewish memorial, and then we spent time walking through that. Overall, the night wasn't Completely ruined, though Matthew and I both had stomach aches from walking so fast just after eating and we both have numerous blisters on either feet now.
The day was pretty ok overall, we got a lot accomplished. Tomorrow, our program ends at 7:30 am after we have breakfast. We are relieved but saddened at the same time.
Tomorrow we plan to take the train out to Potsdam to see the Sansoucci palas, the Neues Palas, and the house where the Potsdam agreement was signed. Hopefully we can squeeze it all in.
Hope you are all doing well, I will update later tomorrow!
Biss Dann ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
