~~*Realizing It*~~

Ok Ok, BLOG ENTRY WOOOO!!

Has it really been that long!? I must be busy! Actually yes…. After doing my Eurotrip to Berlin (Germany), Prague (Czech Republic), Vienna (Austria) and Bratislava (Slovakia) I came home for about 1.5 days and then headed off to celebrate SILVERSTER IN DEUTSCHLAND! Aka new years in Germany :p More on that later. But a bit about Vienna and Bratislava. Vienna was very gorgeous. Most of the old city got bombed from what I saw. Unfortunately our favorite tour company Sandemans doesn’t do tours in the city. So with our handy-dandy ‘euro-travel’ books we made ourselves our own self-guided tour of the city. We saw the palace which was HUGE, and some old churches; and ate some delicious Schnitzel and sachertorte. YUM YUM! I drank some Austrian beer and got a feeling for Gov. Schwarzenegger’s home country! Hehe

Bratislava was interesting.. a bit smaller of a town, and on the outskirts not lookin to pretty. It’s not as big of a tourist destination, but our flight home was out of that city. So we decided to spend a few hours there. So I had a Slovakian beer and tasted some of the local dishes. YUMMM. We saw another castle there.. and walked around the city. We met some locals who could also speak German and had QUITE A SIMPLE and unfortunately SAD conversation.. hehe.. sad because it was difficult to communicate due to our extremely limited German vocabulary. BUT it was still fun to attempt to speak with someone who also only knew a bit of German. We TRIED to sleep in the airport to save money (uuggghh) .. it sucked! By the time I got home I was really low on sleep!

Ok so about my trip to Southern Germany- wait just so you know.. the reason I haven’t posted is b/c I had a really busy schedule and not much free time to write in my blog. I got back last night and needed some readjustment time :p

Ok so-
I went with D and had a really great time! I saw the REAL Germany- I stayed in a small German town, and experienced real German life! I ate delicious home cooked food and saw the castle in Heidelberg! I went to a couple crazy German clubs and met some awesome local students!! It was great and I had a wonderful time! I met his parents again, they are very sweet people. His mother was so sweet and really tried to make me feel at home. Even though they don’t speak English that well, they still tried to make conversation and his mother kept her German to English dictionary by her side.

Although there were plenty of times when I didn’t understand conversation, it was still very enjoyable. New Years Eve was really fun. We were in a town in Southern Germany near Mannheim. It was me, Matthias, and about 8 or so of his closest high school buddies. We had dinner together first and did some pre-gaming. Then we went to a big club where everyone had their fair share of drinks :p We danced and talked and by the end of the night I realized that at one point, I didn’t even notice that I was the only one who couldn’t understand German.. I mean.. everyone was speaking to me in English, even when we were in groups, they spoke English if I was present.

After that night we relaxed at Matthias’ house and he took very good care of me. Ensuring that at all times I was comfortable and had everything I desired. His parents took us to the Heidelberg castle and we all did the ENGLISH TOUR. His poor dad didn’t understand very much. But I appreciate the fact they did it just for me! I learned some amazing history (like all of the other city and castle tours I’ve done).. but actually it makes me realize how little I know about European or even world history. Us poor Americans, our education system is deplorable!
So now I’m home again.. doing some work on my case study which is due in a few days. After that I have a break and will be making a trip to Stockholm. I also have a final exam due and have to register for classes. So as always I’m pretty busy : ) Working hard but OF COURSE playing harder.

I miss my family, especially my nephews as I can see how quickly they’re growing, and sadly I’m so far away and can’t be there to watch them grow up : ( I’m still considering an internship here and will be doing some research to make a decision by this month.

I plan to post some pictures of my trip within the next couple of days! I will upload them to a site which has pretty good quality.. it takes a bit longer but is
very worth it.

Guten Abend,


Jen