Munich

This last weekend we made a visit to the city of Munich, a trip I have been excited for since we arrived! Everyone (Keith especially) had been telling me that I HAD to go to the Haufbrauhaus in Munich, so I made sure that we planned a trip there! Originally, all I had planned on doing was going to the Haufbrauhaus, but then I decided I'd better research some other places and things to do while I was there ;)

Day 1: Off to explore Marienpltaz (roughly translates to Mary's Place) where all of the main shopping, restaurants, and sites are. We went to meet up with a free walking tour group, but ended up leaving about half way through the tour. There was not enough walking and too much standing in one place, and it was WAY too cold for that. Decided to take the town on our own after a nice LONG coffee break :)

Found a funny fountain...not quite sure the significance of it, but we could not resist the photo op :)

(PS, notice our WSU color coordination ;) )

Although the skies were shining blue and the sun was out, don't let it fool you! We were frozen to the bone! Thank goodness for lots of good shopping and indoor activities in Munich!

We visited the English Gardens, which is comparable to Central Park and Hyde Park. We only saw a fraction of it but the park was beautiful. I can only imagine what it would look like in the summer!

One of the places I had also looked forward to seeing, other than the Haufbrauhaus, was the BMW museum. I'm not a big car person, but I do like BMW's. Now, I couldn't tell you hardly anything about the cars, but I do know that they are nice cars and nice to look at :) I definitely would not mind driving one of my own someday!

This one was my favorite, if anyone wants to buy me one I would definitely not complain ;)

Or this one... I look good in it right?? :P

I've still never rode on a motorcycle before, it scares me a bit, but after sitting on this one I feel like I could probably handle it!

We also visited the Olympic Park! This building is where swimming took place. All of the buildings where the different events were are all very close to each other. It was cool to walk around and see where everything was held.

Finally made it to the Haufbrauhaus! This picture was actually taken from our SECOND visit. We made our fist visit Saturday night, and then decided to go back for lunch the next day. 

Our first visit I had a GIANT liter of beer, so the second time I opted for a "small" half liter...the beer in Germany sure is good! Not sure if I'll be able to drink beer when I get back to the states, nothing is going to compare!

Besides beer, I have really grown to love the pretzels in Germany. There's just something about the way they make them here that makes them extra delicious! Every Friday, a group of the teachers meet for what we call "pretzel Friday." We have pretzels and orange juice before school and it's just a nice treat to look forward to each week! The Haufbrauhaus happened to have these HUGE pretzels. Let me tell you, beer and pretzels just won't be the same when I go back home!

One of my favorite parts of traveling is getting to meet new people! We have met people from all over the world: New Zealand, Sweden, Holland, Australia, England, Croatia, Dubai, France, Italy, and more! I have learned so much about different parts of the world and what a privilege it has been for me to be here experiencing all of this culture. I have learned more from meeting people than I think I would ever learn by just doing the typical touristy things and going to tons of museums and tons of tours. Those things are all great to do too, but it's my favorite part to meet people from the area and to meet others traveling like us.

Edinburgh

Ok, so I have FINALLY submitted my TPA and have my life back again! Now it is time to get caught up on my blog posts! A lot has happened in the past few weeks, both in my travels and in school. I'm doing almost all of the teaching and planning now, it is a LOT of work but I am loving it! And I can't believe I am down to my final month, time has flown by so fast.

We went to Edinburgh, Scotland for St. Patty's weekend. We originally wanted to go to Dublin, but with it being Ireland and St. Patty's day such a big deal there, absolutely no hostels were available and the few that were had ridiculous prices for very low ratings. Not worth it. Luckily, Madelyne has some friends studying in Edinburgh that offered a free place to stay! It was a perfect deal!

Unfortunately, I was blonde and forgot to bring my camera :( Luckily though for smart phones I have a few pictures, plus some that I stole from the others.

If you did not know, J.K. Rowling is from Edinburgh. This is the exact cafe that she wrote Harry Potter on napkins! And don't worry, I was sure to take a napkin as a souvenir :)

This is the University of Edinburgh. The people that we stayed with go to this University. We got a mini-tour of the campus and got to see some of the inside. It was amazing, it almost felt like we were at Hogwarts :)

Unfortunately we did not have much luck with the weather, and it rained the entire time we were there. When I say the entire time we were there I mean 1 day because by the time we got there Friday night it was 11pm, and then we left at 9am on Sunday, so we really only had one day. And of COURSE it rained that entire time. But we still made the best of it! I fell in love with this city despite the rain. Definitely one that I will add to my list of places to visit again :)

I absolutely LOVE castles, and this castle did not disappoint. We did not tour inside of it because there were too many people and it was too expensive, but just from the outside it was so gorgeous. 

Kryssa did not make it on this trip with us (she went and visited another German town, Rothenburg, this weekend) but our neighbor across the hall from Michigan Shannon joined us!

Luckily, there was a HUGE rugby tournament and so we found shelter form the rain in a pub! I've never experienced sports fans like this! WSU football games have got NOTHING on European rugby games! I even tried my first Guinness (it was St. Patty's day after all) and I did not mind it! Would probably order it again...next St. Patty's day :)

Koln (Cologne)

We had 2 free weekends in a row, which was unacceptable, so we planned a quick last minute trip to a town called Koln (or, as English speakers say/write it Cologne). I didn't know much about this town other than they had really good beer and a chocolate museum, and honestly thought it was a small town. Little did I know it is one of the biggest cities in Germany! Madelyne was on a ski trip with her teacher and the Heidelberg ski club so it was just Kryssa and me on this trip. We went for one night so we could still have time to be "productive" on Sunday :)

The cathedral is GORGEOUS. Probably one of the most beautiful I have seen in Europe. It is huge too, there was no angle I was able to stand at to get a picture of the entire thing.

From a distance, this bridge didn't look like anything special, other than there were a lot of people walking across it. I figured it was a popular walking bridge.

When we got up to the bridge, we realized it was a love lock bridge. I saw one in Paris as well. Couples come to the bridge to add their locks and throw the key into the water.

I must say, this bridge was even more impressive than the one I saw in Paris. Don't even know if there would be room to add any more locks! 

Even though Cologne was bigger than I thought, there was still a lot of adorable German-style buildings that I loved to look at.

Probably my favorite part of this trip was the chocolate museum! This was the main reason I wanted to visit, and let me tell you, I was NOT disappointed!

Yes, this is a chocolate fountain. And yes, we got to try it. I am forever ruined by German chocolate, I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to plain old Hersheys!

Something else the city is known for is their shopping! The Schildergasse is a HUGE shopping street with just about every story imaginable on it 2-3 times! So of course, we had to take advantage and get some shopping in! 

(PS, I forgot to get a picture but the Starbucks is just around the corner. Don't worry, I got my coffee!)

So much to do, so little time

So, believe it or not, I have been student teaching while I've been here. Even though the majority of my blog is filled with pictures of my travels, more of my time spent here has been in the classroom. Along with this comes a LOT of work. We stay until about 5 every day to plan out our lessons and what we are going to do with the kids. A lot of nights I even take some work home to finish AFTER 5. On top of this, I have been working on completing my edTPA. This is the "teacher performance assessment." Basically, this is a 3-part assessment that I have to complete during my time here, and it is actually due at the end of the month!

Here is a quick outline of what this includes:

Task 1: Background information of my school/students, 4 lesson plans, 10 page commentary on what I will be doing in these lesson plans, copies of the materials I will use, and the assessments I will have the students complete.

Task 2: 15 minute video of me teaching, 7 page commentary of what I did while I was teaching

Task 3: Examples of student work, feedback on student work, student reflections, 10 page commentary on why I chose the assessments

So, as you can see, there is a LOT to the TPA, and it's not something that I can just do the night before it's due :) Which is why I have been slacking on my blog posts. I'm taking a "quick" break to share some pictures from my trip to Berlin (2 weeks ago haha)

We stayed at our usual hostel, St. Christopher. We've been lucky that this hostel has been in all of the places we have stayed so far, we have had a lot of luck and enjoyed staying there. One of their perks is a free walking tour, which we took full advantage of once again! The tour started off at the Bradenburg Gate. We thought this would be an appropriate place to wave the Cougar flag :)

The tour continued on to the Holocaust Memorial. This was such an amazing site. And what is so interesting about it is that nobody knows the meaning behind it. The man who created this left only a small plaque labeling the name of the memorial, but even that is difficult to see because it is hidden behind some bushes. Even in interviews he reveals very little information about what the symbolism behind this memorial is... 

Walking through the memorial was very cool. At the outside it starts off low, then the memorial begins to swallow you, then it's height decreases again. From some points it seems symmetrical, at others you can tell that it is in fact not.

Another place we visited (not pictured) was in the middle of an apartment complex parking lot. There was no sign or indicator of what had happened in this area, but our tour guide told us that we were standing in the exact spot that Adolf Hitler had committed suicide. This was so powerful because it is something that is not publicly recognized, however, lo and behold we were standing right on history itself. 

Another spot we went to was Check Point Charlie. Simply just a spot where Berlin was separated between the Germans and Americans. There was a funny reenactment of what it might have been like if someone tried to illegally cross the border.

One side has an American Soldier, the other side has a German Soldier.

The joke was that this was the "Berlin Space Needle." I can't quite remember what the actual name for it was but it definitely was not that! We asked our tour guide about this and he said that really all it was is a radio tour. Looks cooler than it's purpose I guess :P

Berlin has some beautiful architecture, and because of how beautiful it was, especially in this square, we were amazed that our walking tour group seemed to be the only people around. Apparently Berlin has 200,000 open apartments, for why we are not sure. But if anyone is interested in moving to Berlin, seems like there is plenty of space for you!

This was probably my favorite site in Berlin, the Berlin Dom. It was just GORGEOUS both on the outside and inside. I think the snow gave it a nice extra touch as well :)

We have seen many churches now, but they all seem to be so different and have their own unique style. We were able to climb up into the Dome at the top and look out at the city. Unfortunately due to the weather we could not walk around on the outside part, so I didn't get any good pictures of the view :(

No trip is complete without a picture of our yummy drinks, right? 3 out of the 4 of us decided to trade the beers in for a fruity drink this time, just for a change :)

We only had 1 full day in Berlin, and then part of the second day to see the town. The second day we spent almost the entire time searching for the Berlin Wall. We finally found it! There was TONS of artwork all over the wall. 

The day before, on the walking tour, we had walked by part of the wall but did not get a chance to get very good pictures of it :( This part was not painted. I am not sure why some parts are and some parts aren't.

Since the Berlin wall had been "knocked down" I felt it appropriate to take a picture doing just that..of course it was convenient to have a spot to place my foot!

Something that I really liked that the tour guide left us with was a quote he had read in a book. "Paris will always be Paris, but Berlin is always becoming Berlin." This was so powerful to me because whenever I think about history, I think about the events that happened many many years ago. The events in Berlin just happened in the past 100 years and Berlin is still up and coming. It was incredible to get to see a city that has so much fresh and new history all around!