J'Adore Paris

For those of you who keep up with me on Facebook, you've probably already seen the pictures from my weekend trip to Paris. But I wanted to share a little bit more about our trip and what we did :)

This last weekend was a 3-day weekend so we bought a train ticket, booked a hostel and took off! Getting there was quite the experience. We had to figure out how to read the reader boards (mostly in German) and figure out which platform to get to and where to sit. Thankfully my wonderful cooperating teacher took us to the train station last week to buy our tickets and also walked us through the basic of how to do it. She is a LIFE SAVER!

We had to take one train about 15 minutes to a city called Manheim, this was one of the most difficult parts because the train made a stop every couple of minutes and we couldn't understand what the announcer was saying. Thank goodness for travel angels (a term we learned later on this trip) and the man sitting next to me helped me out!

Next, we had to hop on another train to Paris. We stood watch at the reader board for about 15 minutes and when the time that our train was supposed to leave and our train/destination was not posted we had a moment of panic. We went to the information desk and found out that there were technical difficulties with our train so we were going to have to take a DIFFERENT train and then make ANOTHER transfer. This was a bummer but we were just happy we would still make it!

We had some time to kill in between trains, and it was about 10:30 pm so nothing was left open except a convenience store, so, of course, me and Madelyne found ourselves a bottle of wine, best 3 euro we've ever spent! And here it's completely okay to bring your own wine on the train! :)

We met our second travel angel on the next train, whom we called "Waldo" (not to his face though of course :P). He told us the exact metro line we needed to take from the train station to our hostel AND the stop we had to get off on. Then, we met a THIRD travel angel on the metro. He overheard us talking about the street we needed to find, and I'm sure that if our suitcases on the crowded metro didn't give away that we weren't from the area that did the trick. He directed us when we got off and we were able to find our hostel in less than 10 minutes! Thank goodness for travel angels :)

We walked out of the metro station to find beautiful, freshly fallen (and still falling) snow! The man who gave us directions told us we were lucky to be there that weekend because they only get snow a few days a year. We were very excited to get to experience this! 

We stayed at a hostel called St. Christopher's. It was all 3 of our first time staying in a hostel and this company was recommended to us by a friend. The second we walked in we knew we were going to like it there. There were people our age EVERYWHERE. The hostel had a casual bar upstairs (that was also used as the area to get the free breakfast and as a hangout) and after 1am there was a dance club downstairs. It was almost 1am when we checked in and the staff was extremely friendly and helpful. We did a little bit of exploring the first night then crashed. 

We stayed in a 12 person mixed dorm. That was kind of interesting. When we arrived half the people were sleeping so we had to be quiet which was hard to do in the dark. We grabbed the first open beds we found and went to sleep. Right before I went to sleep a guy pulled open my curtain and looked confused, asking if this was my bed. In my head I was like "uh duh I'm in it." But the next day I found out that we had bed assignments...and I, of course, had been in the wrong bed. Woops! :P 

Day one, we went on a FREE walking tour of Paris. We started here, at St. Michael where we met up with a HUGE group of people and were split up into somewhat smaller groups.

This is our tour guide, Daniel, who is from Ireland, visited Paris for 2 weeks, fell in love with the city, and never left! This bridge was one of the first stops on the tour. The story he told us was that when this bridge was built, nobody walked over it. Also at the time wine was extremely expensive so the king threw a "party" and (basically) got every drunk and at the end of the party made them walk across the bridge. The faces sculpted on the sides are the faces of the people who were at the party. Our tour guide referred to this as the "original Facebook," a bunch of drunk faces on a wall :P

One of our next stops was the Louvre! We didn't go in this day but walked all over the grounds. It was so exciting to see such a famous museum! 

                            

This was one of my favorite stops on the tour. The lock bridge. Couples come to this bridge, put a lock on it and throw the key into the river as a symbol of their love. Maybe I'll be back here someday to put my own lock on it ;)

Did I mention how COLD it was???? And unfortunately, most of our boots were not completely water proof and our feet got DRENCHED walking around in the snow and slush. Thankfully, we all took an intermission at a Starbucks! And you know me, of course I had to take a picture :)

After we warmed up, we walked around and saw more of the sights. This was my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tour! I would be lying if I told you I didn't scream when I first saw it.... kind of embarrassing but oh well. Seeing the Eiffel Tour was one of the top things on my bucket list and I was seeing it for the first time! The sky was not very clear (as you can tell) so it was hard to see, but later we got a MUCH better view :)

We made LOTS of new friends on the tour. One from England, one from New Zealand, one from Georgia (who had been studying in France) and another from South Africa (who is Polish but now lives in Nevada). It was so much fun to meet these people, all traveling on their own! We spent most of the rest of our weekend doing things with them.

I have absolutely no idea how anyone can perfect the jumping pic because it was pretty much impossible for us. Luckily my fancy new camera has a setting where it takes about 7 pictures right after each other, so we got a few funny action shots. This park was just too pretty we couldn't pass up an opportunity for a picture like this!

Up close at the Eiffel Tour! I was sooo happy to get to see the whole thing up close and personal! It is extremely difficult to get the whole thing on a single shot, so this was about the best I could get. I also had a cool "snow" setting on my camera that gave the picture this blue-ish look. I thought it looked absolutely beautiful in the snow.

We of course had to represent our Cougs in Paris! What better way than to wave the flag in front of the biggest landmark in Paris?!?!?

Day 2, we met up with the girls we met the day before and went and visited some more of the sites. Our first stop was Notre Dame. I LOVE this picture because you can see the snow falling. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this or not, but despite the cold and wet, Paris is absolutely BEAUTIFUL in the snow.

This is one of the stained glass windows in the church. All of the windows were absolutely stunning. It's a shame that buildings nowadays do not get the same amount of effort put into as they used to.

                            

Since we visited on Sunday, we got to witness mass which was really amazing to see. We were surprised they still let visitors tour the church while mass was in session, but were thankful they did. The church was just so beautiful and it was such a cool experience to see part of mass.

We made our way back to the Louvre, (coffee in hand) and this time went in to look around. The museum is HUGE, it would take an entire day to see everything, so we picked out the things we wanted to see most and spent a few hours exploring.

The Code of Hammurabi 

Aphrodite (Venus)

Sphnix (I heard this was a gift from the Egyptians to the museum, so they shouldn't have to return it ever)

It had been a long day and we were in need of some goofing off, how could you NOT walk down a hall full of sculptures and not stop to take pictures mimicking them??? :P

Some of the sculptures were a little more strange than others.....

The Mona Lisa was what I was most excited to see. My senior year dance recital, our company did a "museum" piece where we were all different famous painting. Since it was my final recital I got a solo part and I was the Mona Lisa. Straight brown hair and all! :P It was great to see the piece in person.

Later that night, we made our way back to the Eiffel Tour to see the twinkling lights. While we waited, I had to get one last crepe. I had already tried 2 ham and cheese crepes and it was time for a nutella and banana one! It sure was tasty!

This was the moment I had been dying to see and was waiting for the entire weekend. No picture or postcard gives this any amount of justice, this site was just unbelievable. I think it is very safe that I am in love with Paris :)

Settling In

Today marks 1 week since I have arrived in Germany. I can hardly believe it has only been a week, it feels like I've been here forever (in a good way)!!!

We had a very eventful weekend, after exploring Heidelberg on Saturday, my cooperating teacher took me and my roommates (along with their cooperating teachers and a couple other teachers) to Schwetzingen, a city about 15 minutes away from Heidelberg for lunch!

The restaurant was very German, so naturally we had to get a beer! If I didn't know before, sharing a beer with my teacher made me even more certain that we would get along just fine!

I am determined to eat as much authentic German food while I'm here as possible, so I had goulash (not pictured) a Hefeweizen, brautwurst and sourkraut. :)

Right down the street from where we ate is a Summer Palace, it is GORGEOUS, and pink, so of course I loved it! We didn't go tour it this trip, but our teachers want to take us back in the spring to see it when the flowers have bloomed!

Here is Patrick Henry Elementary, where I will very likely be spending more of my time than anywhere else during the next 4 months. This is the main part of the building that was built in 1955 and since a lot has been added on. The school is huge and I still haven't seen the entire place!

All three of us love being here. Our teachers are wonderful and our students are great. My class had a sub for the second half of the day yesterday, but I was put "in charge" for the afternoon. Luckily There was only about an hour and a half of time I had them in the classroom (they had German class to go to) and my teacher left an easy lesson of having them go through different science stations, but it still felt great to start doing more! Tomorrow morning we will start working together to go over the morning work and I will slowly get more and more responsibility as time goes on. I am so excited and can already tell that these months are going to fly by way too fast!

A Day in Downtown Heidelberg

We have been cooped up in our apartment all week and have barely seen anything off of base other than the I.D. offices, but yesterday we were FINALLY able to make a trip downtown and do some exploring! We called a cab up and took it downtown right to the central area. There is about a mile strip of pedestrian only road filled with shops, restaurants, cafe's and bars. All close to some really cool historical landmarks as well. Here are a few pictures :)

This is where we are staying during our time in Heidelberg. The base is called Patrick Henry Village and it is unfortunately shutting down this summer. Because it is shutting down there are not as many people here anymore and nearly every day we see a moving van at one of the buildings. I can imagine that at one point this place was filled with families but now there are only a few families per building making it very quiet and honestly kind of sad.

Before we made it even a block into the downtown area, we found a Starbucks! And I, of course, had to stop for a photo op AND get myself a caramel machiatto. (BTW, they use the same words for ordering drinks here that they do in America!)

This a general view of what the downtown area looks like. LOTS of shops, both German and some that we have in America such as H&M, Claire's, and Build-a-Bear.

This is the entrance to the Old Bridge. We didn't make it all the way over because we were not sure how much there was to do on that side, but we will probably save that for a later trip!

Me and the two beautiful ladies from WSU that I am living with! :)

We had a surprise guest who decided to join in on one of our photos! We actually saw him and his group of friends a few times around the area and this was not the first picture one of us took that he decided to jump in!

We saw other tourists taking a picture with this brass monkey this same way, so we assumed it must be some sort of good luck charm and had to do the same (even though I know I look QUITE ridiculous!).

However, shortly after, we met a local who told us the "true story" and from what I got out of it, was this was put here during the time that Germany was only protestant and so when people who were Catholic traveled in by boat, they would have no choice but to see the monkey's butt. Which we thought made this even more hilarious! I'm not so sure how true this story is because I haven't been able to find any other related stories online about it, but what I have found on several sights is that you touch the mirror for wealth, the mouse for many children, and the hand to return to Heidelberg again. At least I know I touched the mirror! :)

These pictures are from inside of the old student prison. Students who got in trouble (for things such as drunkenness) would be sent to these prison cells. They would be here for up to a month at a time. They would still be required to go to lecture but then come directly back here. The artwork on the walls is the work of these students during their time.

We ran into this incredible church downtown. We were never able to figure out the name of it but it sure was GORGEOUS.

First glimpse of the castle! :)

We had to walk up an extremely steep hill to get to the top, so we stopped a few times on the way for some photo ops! (Thank goodness for friendly American tourists who offered to take a photo of all three of us!) We were amazed by this view, but little did we know that the view was about to get even better....

Unfortunately, photos never do any justice to just how amazing these historical landmarks are. But the view from the courtyard was just outstanding. Especially with the little bit of snowfall we had gotten that morning :)

This castle really was beautiful, hopefully you can tell how excited I was from this picture :P

After a long day of walking and sight seeing, we made our way to the infamous Dubliner where we had dinner and our first German beers! This bar was very "American friendly." We met a group of Americans who are in the military and talked to them for a good amount of time. What they say is true, Germans do have a way with beer ;)

And of course, our first beers had to be documented by camera ;)

Preparing to See the World

So now that we have finally gotten settled in, we have started to plan some trips! Here is what we have so far:

This weekend, we are going to explore Heidelberg. Go to the Heidelberg castle and see downtown. On Sunday, we are all going out to lunch with our cooperating teachers in a city nearby. We are excited to finally get to see more of Heidelberg than just the base (which is not the prettiest place in the world).

NEXT weekend, we are planning to visit Paris! We have booked our train ticket (and got an awesome deal) but are currently searching for good deals on hostels and in good areas. We plan to book that tonight though!

The trip I am MOST excited for right now is spring break....in Athens, Greece!!! We found a KILLER deal on 8 nights for flight and hotel included. Now to just bust out the TPA before then so we can thoroughly enjoy our trip!

It feels so good to have things falling into place! I cannot wait for what's coming ahead :)

We have arrived!

We have finally arrived! After a 9 hour flight to London, 2 hour flight to Frankfurt, and 1 hour drive to Heidelberg, we have made it! We got in last night (or what would be yesterday morning for everyone back home ;) ) And pretty much just unpacked and tried to get settled in. We met the girls who live across the hall from us who are also student teachers from Michigan. They have been here a few days longer than us so they have given us some good advice on how to set things up. I think they will definitely be travel buddies for us in the near future! :)

This morning we all went into the school to meet the principal and our cooperating teachers. We then ran around and got ID cards made so we can get on and off base. Tomorrow we will do more paper work and get more ID cards. After that, we went back and got to spend the rest of the afternoon in our classrooms.

I am already in LOVE with my teacher and class. She seems like she really knows what she's doing. I can tell that she is a great teacher and I really look forward to looking with her. My students are also wonderful. They are all so sweet and helpful to each other. I can already tell it is going to be an amazing four months!

We haven't made too many plans for travel yet, but our first stop is going to be downtown Heidelberg this weekend and to visit the Heidelberg castle! I am so excited to finally be here!