Week #5 in Marburg + Berlin weekend

Week #5 in Marburg

#student life! 

That moment when your celery goes slimy in the fridge, when you honestly can't tell if your milk is off or not and you have to sniff it really closely, when you curse because you put in a 2 euro coin for the 1.70 euro dorm washing machine that does not give change! I bet whoever gets the money from that washing machine makes a fortune from all the extra 30c they get!

My big weakness here is cheese rolls. Yes, cheese rolls. I was a sucker for them back in Oz - mmmm the soft ones from Coles (no bacon please) are soo good. Here in Deutschland they have them fresh at all the bakeries - usually from 40 - 70c each. They are just sooo good and I can't stop eating them! 

Speaking of food (as I love to do) I've found again that German food is so heavy! I came here once before to do a 6 week school exchange back in grade 11 (like 5 years ago.. ahh so old) and I noticed it then too. Do not mess with Germans and their meat, bread or cheese. Or beer.

This week has been pretty routine - going to German class in the mornings, the cafeteria ("Mensa") for lunch (yes Mum I'm eating healthy don't worry! Pretzel sandwiches are healthy, right? Like they have a bread pretzel for the bun of this delicious salad sandwich... soo glorious). After lunch it's culture class (yawn) and then usually I go food shopping or straight home - where a couple of my friends and I cook dinner together. It's so annoying - the kitchen on my level has practically NO utentils - there is ONE plate and ONE mug and ONE butter knife and ONE frying pan but no forks, spoons, spatulas, strainers or saucepans! I am being a cheap bum and refusing to buy the whole kitchen stuff, and turns out we all cook on Courtney's level anyway so I hardly need to use my own kitchen. 

Berlin

This weekend was the cultural excursion to Berlin! Everyone in IUSP (that's my exchange program) went and it was heaps of fun :)

Courtney (and Craig) and I excited for the trip!! 

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Me, Brooks and Sarah :)

What else is there to do on a 6 hour bus trip apart from taking selfies? ;)

We arrived on Friday afternoon (we had the whole day off from classes yaaaay). 

This is most of our group - chilling at the hostel

The hostel was really good - the beds were amazingly comfortable!! I was in a room with my other American friends - it was good to have some girl time :)

On Saturday our class went to the Reichtstag building - which is the government building in Berlin. 

We had to wait quite a long time to get in - so we took some typical tourist-y photos while we were waiting haha.

There was alot of security checks - you had to have your passport, put your bags through a scanner and walk through a metal detector! Inside, it was totally different to what I imagined. The outside looks quite old-fashioned, but inside it is all clear glass walls and modern design.

Here is where parliament can meet, all the seats are in sections according to the political party.

The graffiti of Soviet soldiers is preserved on some walls for history's sake

Within the Reichtstag is a giant glass dome which you can walk to the top
(those horizontal stripes are the ramp)

The view is amazing...

After the history lesson at the Reichtstag, we had free time - so I walked around Berlin a little bit.

This used to be the main train station entrance - now it is a carpark.

It was blown up, but they have kept the pieces standing.

The famous Brandenburg Tor (Gate)
(thousands of people gathered here to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall)

Remnants of the Berlin Wall

Jewish Holocast Memorial... cement blocks of all different sizes
(doesn't look like it from this angle but some of those blocks in the middle are meters tall)

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It's design is meant for you to feel like the walls are closing in on you...

City of Berlin

On Sunday we took a bus to Potsdam where we visited Sanssouci Park (built by Fredrick the Great) which was basically a massive garden with vineyards, little lakes, a giant place - just the usual ;)

Naturally this wonder garden-world must include a golden gazebo.

We also visited Cecilienhof - a building which was used as a conference room where some very important decisions were made (such as the orders to atomic bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

There was alot more that I wanted to see - I feel like I didn't even scratch the surface of what Berlin has to offer! Hopefully I'll be back soon :-)

Week #4 in Marburg + Amsterdam weekend

Week #4 in Marburg

So things are really great - my German course is easy but I've found that going over the picky little grammar things is making me alot more confident in speaking it. Living in a student dorm is pretty much what I thought it would be, and I'm really liking all the independence of studying abroad.

I am still getting the top mark in my class - although sometimes I feel a bit like Hermoine (like in Harry Potter) because I'm always putting my hand up and answering questions when no one else does. Haha oh well! I also have culture class in the afternoons - the aim is to sum up 1000 years of German history in a couple of weeks - but the problem is I keep wanting to fall asleep!

My hand is still bruised, but I'm thinking it should be okay in a few days or so. Thank goodness because I'm sick of writing with my left hand in class!

Amsterdam

So this weekend, a group of us decided to head off to Amsterdam. I love the centrality of being in Europe - there are soo many countries that are so close! We ended up renting 2 cars (5 people in each car) and drove there. I wanted be a driver but there was no way I was driving on the wrong side of the road (which is, of course, the right side ;)) 

Courtney & I - Woot, road trip!!

200kmph on the Autobahn!

Josh and I - are we there yet??

Turns out our hostel was right in the middle of the famous red-light district! Awkwaard (again - I stayed in the red-light district at Frankfurt too, accidentally!)

Our definitely-not-seedy-looking hostel! (At least it was next to a nice canal)

We skipped culture class that afternoon and arrived late Friday night.

 

Bright and early Saturday we went walking around Amsterdam. The canals are so beautiful and I love the architecture of the Dutch buildings!

See the wonky angle of the buildings in the pic to the right! Crazy!

We also walked to the Royal Place - it was pretty busy. One bad thing about the trip was that there was alot of people in our group. 10 people walking around together is a big number and can get annoying if we want to get food at a small restaurant or something. Also, it takes ages to get anywhere and no one is decisive! It was good though because there was a real sense of friendship. One thing I've found on my travels so far is that the only person that you can depend to look after you is yourself. I felt like on this trip everyone was looking out for each other, we would all wait for each other and make sure everyone was included in the group. So that part was really really nice :-)

Courtney, me, Daniel, Rolando, Matthew and Tami!

A thing I forgot to mention - it was bloody cold!! Minus temperatures with a freezing wind - it sucked! Should have bought thermals :P

A few of us went to the Amsterdam museum, it was okay - not the best museum I've been to but it had some interesting stuff on Dutch history and stories about Amsterdam, like this room full of treasure chests!

Amsterdam's tourist slogan is "I amsterdam" - which we found outside the museum in giant letters. There is also huge one near the Anne Frank museum (which I didn't get a chance to go to because the lines were too long :()

Sunday was pretty much the same - we walked around the city in the freezing cold haha. Seriously, if your hands were exposed to the wind (thank goodness for pockets) they would start to hurt and burn from the cold!

Anyway, whinging about the weather aside (at least it was kind of sunny-ish) Callum, Josh and I went on a walking tour which was pretty cool - it was all about the Dutch settlement, the canals, buildings etc. 

Then our whole group went on a river cruise down the canals,
the scenery was beautiful :)

On the way back to Marburg, we wanted to go find the Postcard district (with the windmills and stuff) but we got so lost - should have hired the GPS with the car! After driving around aimlessly for a while (stopped to ask a random for directions - turns out she only spoke Spanish - lucky Rolando can too!) we still didn't find it so we just headed home. The hire car only cost us 40 euro each for everything - to the Netherlands and back to Marburg in the middle of Germany, petrol, and the extra few kilometers we did over our 750km limit. All in all, it was a great trip with some great people! :-)

Week #3 Marburg

Week #3 Marburg

I'm really loving it here! Study is so fantastic, and I've met some great people.
It was a snowing week this week, I loved it so much!

Thanks Callum...

We ended up having an epic snowball fight at uni! Callum also bought a random pineapple which we buried in the snow for a while..

Yes, I know I'm really lame but I also wanted to catch some snow, so I put these outside my window :)

Before...

In the morning!

So cool haha. Everybody here (mostly Americans) hate the snow but because we don't have it back home I get so excited!

Me chilling at the bus stop (literally)

Classes are going really well, I love that I hear and have to study so much German everyday. We have to do exams every Friday, and I'm top of my class :)

Every night my group of friends and I cook a big meal in one of the kitchens, and we each bring something to share. It's now worked out really well, each night we take it in turns to bring a 'main' like meat or something and the rest of us bring drinks or bread or salad etc. It's pretty fun, and means that I am actually eating decent food instead of frozen pizza every night!

The other night, one of the Kiwi guys bought bread...in a can. Yes, the bread was actually in a can!! We thought it was so hilarious but the Americans were like, "That's so normal, haven't you ever had bread in a can before?" The thing is, isn't being in a can supposed to be convenient? You still have to cook the bread anyway! Whats the point of that? Hahahaha

Sooo many preservatives...

Step 2...Cook the bread in the oven for a few minutes

So anyway, the other day my friend Courtney and I went to a shoe repair shop to get her boot repaired. No one at the store could speak any English so I had a go at German and actually went really well! Turns out she had to leave her shoe there and pick it up a few days later when it had been glued. She didn't have any other shows to wear back home so they were like 'no problem' and got out these manky feral sneakers and gave them to her! It was so, so funny - she accepted them and put them on (they were a few sizes too big).

On Wednesday, a few of us went for a walk up to the castle in our lunch break. It was such a beautiful day - was clear but had just finished snowing! 

First snow angel of the trip!

View from the castle...with the snowman I made :)

The weekend was pretty fun, hung out with friends on Friday and had a great time! On Saturday Kai, Josh and I went to the Maths Museum in Gießen which was actually pretty cool because there were lots of fun logic puzzles to do. On Sunday, a heap of us caught the bus into Frankfurt and celebrated St Patrick's Day at one of the Irish pubs!

Elizabeth and I going green...

It was so funny, on my way to the bus stop I saw that someone is being either really lazy or really economical - using the cold outside their window as a fridge!!

I had an accident this weekend though - I slammed my hand in a door on Friday night and had to go to the hospital yesterday because I thought it might have been broken! No worries, just severe internal bruising :) The doctors said that it will take a few weeks to heal and I can take painkillers 3 times a day if I need to. It has been hurting heaps and I can't write with my left hand which is a bummer in class, but hopefully it gets better soon!

Everyone also now knows how clumsy I am! Also, somehow I managed to break a Euro note.. Sigh..

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