I got back from an amazing trip to Deutschland (aka Germany) to visit two friends. I had an amazing time and I really felt like I was on vacation, and those of you who know me know that doesn't happen very often. First, I visited Paris for a day and had a nice little lunch with people from the Franco-American/Fulbright Commission and stayed with Chris that night. The next morning, I flew out to Munich and had a really fun time walking around aimlessly and viewing all of the sites. It was weird being in a country where I didn't speak the language at all (like nothing except for "thank you') but I ended up being helped my some really cool people and I found this really cool biergarten (yes a beer-garden) in this beautiful park in English gardens. And as an extra bonus, they were having a special musical performance that day and I met this Swiss women who lived in Minas Gerais, Brazil (the place where Lindsey is studying) for 18 years. It was really fun. That evening, I took the train to Rosenheim, this German city at the base of the Austrian Alps to stay with my friend Connie. Rosenheim is very Bavarian and she took me to a small village for the evening that was straight out fo the sound of music. It was beautiful.
The next day, we went to Munich again with Connie's friend Roxy and spent the day wandering around and visiting the Olympic Village there. It was really fun and nice to see. We saw this really cool standing wave that is a part of the river in the park where there are these crazy surfers and tons of spectators. We ate really great food, I almost had a Burrito!! And had a great day. On Sunday, I left Rosenheim for Mainz. But first, Connie and I did a tour of Rosenheim and saw all of the preparations for the Germany vs. Spain European World Cup Finals. In Mainz, I had a little tour of the city from Bettina and then went to straight to watch the Soccer game. Unfortunately, Germany lost but the Germans had plenty of spirit and w
ere yelling (according to Bettina) things like "it's ok, we played well" in the streets after the game ended.On Monday, Bettina went to school and I went running and exploring. For the afternoon, we went biking along the Rhine into wine country. ( I was forced to rent since I was to
o short for her mom's bike). We went swimming in the Rhine on the way back, which was first for both Bettina and I!! It was so fun. That evening, I saw the Sex and the City movie in German which was quite funny and wierd. And on Tuesday, we spent the day in Heidelberg. It has this beautiful old castle that is half in ruins and half still in tact. It is also the site of "The Philosophers' Path" because it is this huge and famous University town that has been made famous by many German academics, especially philosophers. Heidelberg is also located next to some pretty big American military bases and the American presence there was really palpable, which was kind of nice. We spent the whole day wandering around, hiking the philosophers path and then we went paddling on the Neckar which is a tributary of the Rhine. It was an awesome day!!!The next day, I headed back to Dijon on a quite long and circuitous route due to train problems. I spent more than 13 hours on a trains and was on a total of 7 trains but thanks to a very kind and interesting train companion (who spoke fluent French and German) I made it back to Dijon the same night. I'll try to post more (and include photos) of the rest of my week including the 4th of July celebration.
I hope everyone is doing well and Happy 4th!!!!!
Ciao,
Sarah
