Year in Germany

My last post

2009-11-11T00:46:00.001+01:00

I created this blog for my year in Germany. Since my year in Germany is over, I am now stopping with this blog. But don't get too scared, I made a new blog at http://chrisandheathersmith.blogspot.com/.

So replace this address with my other one. And I've already posted in my new one so check that out!

Bound for Home

2009-07-15T01:08:00.001+02:00

This is my last night in Germany. It's so hard to believe that I've been here for almost a whole year! Sorry that I haven't updated about the rest of my trips. That's going to have to wait until I get home. I leave Frankfurt airport at 10:35 and arrive at 12:50 in New York. Then I am on a plane to Arizona Thursday night and arrive around 23:00. So crazy!

The past two weeks I have been on vacation. During the middle of it, Valentina and I went to Italy for 5 days! She drove (only like 8 hours to Venice!). We went got in late to Venice Monday night and stayed near there and then saw Venice Tuesday. Then we went to Florence and stayed at this very cute, romantic place (think she planned it that way) in the winding hills of I believe the Tuscany region. It was so pretty. That next day we explored Florence. I got to see Michelangelo's David. That was pretty cool. Besides the woman that kept yelling no photo at everyone. There was so much to see in Florence, and we didn't get to see it all. At least she's been there before. Then we headed to Pisa to so none other but the Leaning Tower of Pisa. That was a pit stop. We stayed in a place near Cinque Terra. Getting to and from Cinque Terra was wild. It was so hilly and windy. But oh so worth it. We went there Thursday and explored those little towns. There are 5 that make up the national park, but we only made it to 3. That night we stayed in Milan. We were going to go explore Milan but the drivers there are psycho. They clearly have no traffic laws. So we left and headed back to Germany. On our way we made a pit stop in Switzerland as well as Liechtenstein. Yea, that's right, I've been to Liechtenstein. Now who can tell me where that one's located? It really was an amazing trip.

I will post pictures eventually. I still have to upload from Denmark/Sweden and anything after that. I am so behind. I just took over 1000 pictures from that week, so I've been putting it off. So many pictures to go through. I took more than 1000 pictures on our Italy trip as well.

Finally!

2009-06-13T15:12:00.002+02:00

I know, it's been a long time since I've last updated. Sorry. So my last two months have been crazy! The first weekend that all of my craziness happened, I went to Denmark and Sweden. And then I went directly to the island (see previous post) for the week and followed that up with a trip to Amsterdam that weekend. The following weekend (weekend 3 of being out of town), I went to Hamburg to the Hafenfest (bunch of ships, supposedly biggest Hafenfest in the world). Weekend 4 was spend at my aunts. Weekend 5 I went to Leipzig to visit Patricia and then we went to our final seminar in Berlin that whole next week. That didn't end until Saturday. Then the next weekend I went to Belgium, just because I hadn't been there yet. This weekend I was going to be at my aunt's, but last minute that changed. So here is my first weekend in a long time that I actually am in town. And it was a four day weekend for me!

I really liked Denmark and Sweden. The pastries in Sweden were amazing! And addicting! They were the best pastries I've had.

The Little Mermaid (Copenhagen) and then a random one in Sweden

The island was amazing. It was so pretty. We also went to a national park that had chalk cliffs. So beautiful. I want to take Chris there someday.

Pictures on the island (Isle of Vilm)

Pictures of Jasmund National Park (the chalk cliffs)

I went to Amsterdam to see the tulips, but Zach and I ended up at the beach. The lines for the big tulip garden were so long, and that was just to get there!

Windmills!!!

Me on the beach and some building in Amsterdam

That's all for now. I'll update again (hopefully soon) on the rest of my travels the past couple of months. And be expecting pictures on facebook in about a month or so.

Spring!

2009-03-31T18:55:00.001+02:00

I have had my internship for 2 months now at the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. I work with two departments: the ... and ... I love it so far. The people are so nice and I have my own office with a window!

I will be going to the island of Vilm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilm) the end of April for work. I am super excited. It's only for a week, but the weekend before I'll be going to Denmark and Sweden. The weekend after I'm planning on going to Holland to see the tulips! I can't believe that tomorrow is already April. It seems the time is going to go by even faster with all that I am doing. There are so many places I still want to see, even in Germany. And I still need to go to Austria!

The weather is becoming quite lovely. After work, it is too warm to wear my big winter jacket. The next two weeks are going to be crazy exercise wise. I am excited. Sunday was swimming. Monday was exercise class. Tonight is swimming. Wednesday is exercise class. Thursday is swimming. And Saturday I will probably go on a bike ride somewhere. The weather is supposed to be so nice for a week or so. I do miss the blue skies every day. And the warmth. I felt like I didn't have that much energy during the winter, like my body wanted to hibernate. And I've never been so excited for spring before. In Arizona, the "seasons" all just kind of run together. It really isn't so defined.

January

2009-01-28T22:26:00.001+01:00

I guess a little bit has happened the last couple of weeks. Last week was my mid-year seminar for my program in Munich. I saw my first opera. It was pretty cool, though the ladies in front of me reeked and I could only see if I leaned in. It was nice to see people again. We also had a tour of the city. That would've been a lot better if it wasn't so cold and wet and if it wasn't so long. The picture below is the last place we went. It was actually really pretty. But look how cold it looks. We had a tour of the palace, too.

Fun stuff. The weekend before I took Valentina to my aunt's. We went to Heidelberg. It was so pretty. We both want to go back in the summer (when it's all green). It was still gorgeous with the snow.

Then Sunday was my birthday. We didn't do too much.

My most exciting news is that I have an internship. It's in Bonn with BFN (the government agency for environmental conservation). I have no idea what I'll be doing. Nor do I know my exact times. Or when I start. I'm supposed to be receiving something by post really soon. So I'll update on my internship at a later time when I know exactly what I'm going to be doing. I do know that I'll be splitting my time between the agriculture and forestry and GMO Regulation/Biosafety. Yay!

Winter Break

2009-01-11T15:18:00.001+01:00

I'm officially engaged. Chris asked when he came to visit me. We had such a great time while he was here. I really miss having him by my side.

Chris proposing

I love them!!!

Chris has done such an amazing job at picking out rings. I'm so proud.

I'm sick :( Here I thought I was doing a great job about not being sick for the winter. Right before my birthday, too (in a week).

My family (minus dad) and Tricia are going to a bridal show today. I'm so excited to hear all about it. Then, they're going to take Tricia to try on dresses. I really can't wait to see the pictures!

Hopefully I'll update a little sooner next time.

About time...

2008-11-16T21:11:00.001+01:00

I know I've been needing to update for awhile. The past two weekends I visited my aunt, who lives about 2 hours south by train. I hadn't seen her in years. It was really nice to spend those weekends with her. I stocked up a little bit on American food (tortillas, salsa, etc. well more like Mexican). Both times I brought back a whole suitcase worth of stuff. I think I brought more stuff from her place than I did on my way to Germany. She got me a down comforter, which is so amazing. Before, I just had this crappy, not-down one that didn't keep me very warm at night.

Last Tuesday (11/11) at 11:11 was the start of Karnival in Cologne. My friend and I bought a costume because we heard people dressed up. I'm glad we did. We received so many stares (from guys), so I guess we were looking pretty cute. It lasts until next spring; I'm not sure exactly when.

And now I'm to be planning a wedding while I'm here. It sure is going to be interesting. I'm so glad that my family is helping me out so much. I really don't know what I'd do without their support. When I get back to the states, I'm not really going to do too much. I'll probably do a bit of volunteering. Probably hanging out with my friends as much as I can before I leave them for Washington.

Tonight I used my raclette. It's this grill type thing in which you put whatever you want on this tray with cheese on top and stick it in, where it melts the cheese. It's so good. It's usually used for parties. I had a couple of friends over last week and we used it. I still had vegetables and cheese and potatoes leftover from it, and I didn't want them to go bad, so I just decided to use it tonight. I'm so stuffed. I plan on getting one when I get back to the states, it's just that amazing.

I'm not sure what I'm doing the next couple of weeks. I have some ideas. I've been looking at a few internships. Not sure exactly what I want to do, probably something dealing with finances. I'm just going to apply to many places and hope I get an interview with at least one.

Living in Bonn

2008-10-14T15:34:00.001+02:00

I'm so glad that the dorms here are just one person per room. I do share the kitchen and bathroom with 4 other people. In my hall, there are probably around 15 rooms. I went to Ikea yesterday morning with my friend to purchase things for my room. I bought some rugs, kitchenware, clothes drying rack (so German, I know), candles, and most importantly, trash cans! I'm still waiting for my lights to be replaced (which haven't worked since I arrived here). Though I do have 1 of the 3 that works. But it is located near the sink. Seeing as I have cabinets dividing my sink area between the rest of the room, I do not have much light that actually comes into my main area. This is a little problematic when the sun starts to go down, as I cannot do anything that requires light. But I did buy a desk lamp at Ikea, also, which is currently next to my bed.

My view is amazing!

The first day of classes were yesterday. I'm in the first semester program for agriculture. The program consists of the following classes: biology of plants and animals, ecology, information class about don't really know what yet, anatomy and physiology of animals, nutrition, math and statistics, and a various topics about agriculture class. I'm very excited, especially about the anatomy class, since I've never taken it. I probably won't go to math and statistics, seeing as I really only need 3 classes...

I don't have a student pass yet, so I've had to walk everywhere. The student pass consists of free transportation. Most of my classes are in this building that takes almost an hour to walk there. It's good exercise and all, but I just don't feel like it when I have to leave by 7 to get to my first class. I'm going to look into buying a bike. I believe there's a bike market going on this weekend, but I don't have enough money to buy one yet.

Less than a week

2008-09-28T22:00:00.001+02:00

I can't believe I'm going to be leaving already this Wednesday. Last night (2 a.m.) a couple of my friends came over to watch the Alabama vs. Georgia game. The SEC is totally overrated. But anyways. Pac-10 is still the best, although we are a little weak this year. All the upsets this weekend really excited me. I love upsets, except when it's bad for ASU.

Tonight I made tacos for my host family. I had not-as-spicy taco mix and salsa. I figured the Germans couldn't handle my spicy - figured I should tone it down. And I found tortilla chips! The kids really liked those.

Tomorrow we have presentations. Blah! I'm not looking forward to it at all. My group is doing it on parks. No idea what we're really going to be talking about. Obviously parks! But still!

Most everyone will be leaving Tuesday. I can't check in the dorms until Wednesday, so there is obviously not point in me going down there a day early. Except I'm leaving early Wednesday morning. That gives me Tuesday to pack and make sure I have everything. I'm glad that I'm going to be so close to Cologne. And I have free travel from Bonn to Cologne! It's the university transportation. To expand our horizons. I am really lucky with that. And it's only a half hour away! And I'm finally in the process of putting up pictures! It's been over a month...

My Trips!

2008-09-18T21:37:00.001+02:00

This past weekend I visited the Brittany Arnold. It was so much fun. It was so amazing getting to see her again, as well as seeing her baby (Katelynn) for the first time! It rained all day Saturday, but that didn't keep us from walking around the town. I finally bought an umbrella, since it will supposedly be a cold, wet winter. The picture is of Katelynn making her crazy face

The weekend before that, I went to Paris with a few of my friends. That was also a blast. We saw the Chateau de Versailles, the Louvre (which is free the first Sunday of the month!), and the Eiffel Tower. I'm bound to go back, especially since Chris wants to go. This picture is of the gardens of the Chateau

I found out I'll be living in the dorms. I'm excited! I move in on October 1st. The weather here has been so cold lately. Right now it's about 15 degrees Celsius (and that's a tad warmer than it has been). I know, don't be too jealous. And then at night it gets into the single digits. It's like it's winter in Arizona, but it's only September!

This weekend I'm not going anywhere special. I'm hoping to watch the ASU vs. Georgia game. We'll see what happens. And hopefully I'll update sooner next time. Tschüss!

Past couple weeks

2008-08-26T19:27:00.002+02:00

I love bread. It's a good thing I do because it seems that's all I eat. I think I'm losing weight because of that and because I walk around a bit. And the fact that I really only eat breakfast and lunch. Here they usually have a large breakfast and lunch and only a small dinner. I actually like it better that way. For breakfast I usually have bread with Quark and marmalade on top of that. Quark is kind of like cream cheese but lighter, but it is more in the texture of sour cream. Then for lunch I have a sandwich and a banana and an apple. I absolutely love the rolls here. They are a little crisper on the outside. I've been craving them the past week, so I finally bought some from the bakery. It's only a Euro for 5. I'm not sure what kind of lunch meat I have, but it's probably ham. I usually go off of looks, not what it says. And last time I was cheese shopping, I found Mexican Havarti cheese! I was so excited. It's actually not too expensive. It's kind of like pepper jack. I had it back in the States.

Yesterday I finally washed my clothes! I had only run out of socks only a couple days prior, but I was about to run out of other things. I had to wash them at the laundromat. I left my clothes at home because I first needed to find the place. My host mom said it was nearby on the main street. So I took off and managed to find it and went to the store to buy detergent. I put my clothes in my bag and set off for the laundromat. I must've looked confused in there because a girl came over and asked if I needed help. She showed me, which was great. I brought my German-English book just in case. When I was folding my clothes (which they only were in the dryer for 15 minutes or so, which caused some of the things to still be a little damp), a lady came over and asked if I could help her. It was me mostly pointing and nodding. I came back and had to finish drying some of my things. When I cam back, Blue Crush was on (dubbed in German). So I watched that while I was stretching.

On Saturday I went to Aachen with 2 friends. I was wearing shorts and sandals because I needed to do laundry. Well, when we got there, it was pouring! We went to the Dom (cathedral in German), where Charlemagne was pretty important. They had a treasury and relic museum around the corner, so we ended up going to that. When we came out, the sun was shining, so we found a place to eat and walked around for a couple hours. On our way back to the Hauptbahnhof (train station), it started sprinkling again and when we were inside, it started pouring.

The Dom is smaller than the one in Cologne, but inside was magnificent. Even better than the one here.

Sometime last week I went with 3 other friends to the cable car that goes over the Rhein and then to the Rhein park. It was a lot of fun. We passed over this spa place, which had many different pools that I want to check out sometime. It's a little expensive, but I'd like to do it once. They had this smaller circular pool that spun around in circles.

The cable car thing

The Rhein Park. Hard to see but there's a playground there that we played on. Sehr toll!

Adventures...

2008-08-13T12:40:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, I went on a little adventure. I needed to go on a walk to think over things. I wanted to find the horse track. I got out my map, but the map I had stopped halfway at the racetrack.

The bottom circle is where I live and the circle above that is just the U-Bahn entrance that's closest to me. The green space above that is apparently a park and then above that is the horse track. So I followed the street that put me to the right of the racetrack. All I saw was a fence with many trees inside. In the distance I thought I could see some sort of track. I went all along it on that side, but I could not find any information. I just saw horse posters.

By now I was off my map, but I didn't want to head back yet. I found this random path that I decided to take.

It was very peaceful, very nice. I followed that for a while when I came upon a fork in the rode. The same path continued straight, but, to the left of me, I saw this:

There were cars randomly parked out here! I figured some sort of civilization was around. I went that way and I found tennis courts and a track!

But I think you have to be part of the club to play on the courts. I continued a little further where I found this odd building:

I continued to walk and went down an actual rode and ended up seeing these as well as what looked like an entrance into the horse track:

I then left that place in search of the train stop just after mine, which I ended up finding very quickly. I took that to mine, which I hopped on the 13 (it was above ground) just to ride it and see different things. I rode that to the very end, where everyone got off but me...

And here's the map of the rail services in Cologne:

And lastly, where I live compared to where the school is. It's about 2 miles away. You can also compare it with above in comparison with the whole city.

I just need to take one train, and it drops me off at the bottom left circle. From there, it is just a short walk away. For the past several months, there has been construction on the railways, so until this week, I had to get off at the bottom right circle and walk 10 minutes (a little past the other circle). Now that construction is all done, it is faster for me to get to school in the mornings! It definitely helps that I can take either the 12 or 15, and they basically come every 3 minutes.

First days in Germany!

2008-08-08T07:49:00.000+02:00

Germany has been a blast so far. Yesterday was probably the first time I didn’t do anything after school. I had to take a nap (was so exhausted). The day before the weather was so warm, so we went swimming in the lake after language school. There were so many people! I also had my first Kölsch a couple of days ago. It was not bad. I cannot stand even taking a sip of beer in the states (don’t even like to smell it). But I can actually stand beer here, at least so far. I just wanted to have one beer while I was in Germany.

So back to the very beginning. Lufthansa went on strike, so our flight was canceled. Most of us were put on a flight that night, which was first to London. Then, my flight was directly to Köln (Cologne). Before, it was a direct flight to Frankfurt, then we would take a bus to Köln. The next group didn’t actually leave D.C. until Sunday. At first I didn’t care which group I was in, but now, I’m glad I went to Köln early. I’ve just been exploring with friends every day (except today). It was my friend’s birthday and I was going to go out with them to dinner, but I woke up too late from my nap. We’re going out to a club or something tomorrow night to celebrate all the August birthdays. I’ll post pictures on Facebook soon when I fill up a whole album. I’ve already put up one album.

My host family lives 3 train stops away from the school. I take the U-Bahn, which is the underground one. There is also the S-Bahn, which is the one that is above ground. My host parents have 3 boys (6, 3, and 9 months). They are very energetic. Almost every morning I eat breakfast with them, which consists of bread and my choice of topping (cheese, meat, jam, quark…). It seems all I eat is bread. I actually don’t mind it. I bought packages of rolls here for my dinners, and they are really good. I still need to get a Dönner here, which is like a Euro (Turkish). And I need to go grocery shopping again. I always seem to pick up some kind of candy. The gummy candies here are so amazing!

For Angela

2008-07-21T06:35:00.000+02:00

Well, the whole reason I got this was for my sister, Angela. She wanted me to have something to write about my adventures while I'm in Germany for the year. I don't actually arrive until August 1st.