Getting home/the end of the trip

Well, it is the end of the trip and I am now home. I have been to Amsterdam for about 5 days before returning home. I didn't do any drugs or anything. I think have so much to say but it isn't coming out as fluid as it could. I met quite a few people on the entire trip. I really enjoyed the people that went on the trip from RWC though. There were nine other students that went along on the German trip and five of those eight went on the Amsterdam trip afterwards. It was great knowing them through these 28 days, from beginning to the end. I got to know the personalities of the eight people a little bit as we were on the trip and they got to know me. I had fun on the trip because of the things that we did, such as going on the excursions and the events, although the group didn't always get out there but they enjoyed themselves. There was so much that we did, but just saying German Sommerkurs, I don't know what to think. It seems at a briefs notice, that we didn't do that much. It seemed liked we did a lot at that time or had something that we had to do every day whether it was some kind of activity that we could do, or to go get food, or do blogs and talk to your family through the internet. There seemed to be a lot to do when we had to do it, but at times, I think that we could have done more, but then it would probably have been too chaotic and hectic. It was a very fun trip but I am excited to get home.

Eisenach and Wartburg

So I need to write a little bit more about Eisenach and Wartburg. I don´t have anything to say about Eisenach. But I think I can say more about WArtburg. Although I wasn´t extemely interested in was a very nice castle that sat high on top of a mountain that you could see a lot of the city which was nice. The castle was pretty big and awesome. We got to see a few rooms and get a guided tour which I didn´t understand much of. I was kind of zoned out most of the time. They had some pretty cool utensils with figurines sculpted on the ends. I kind of walked through the castle pretty quickly. But the interior of teh castle is beautiful. It has nice mosaic walls and ceilings in particular rooms. They reconstructed some parts of the castle and they did look a little bit newer.

Eisenach

We wen't to Eisenach and Wartberg today. we basically had two hours to tour Eisenach on our own. We didn't see to many sights but it was nice to walk around for that period of time. E then went to Wartberg which is where martin Luther his while he was excommunicated, and where he translated the bible into German. I don't really have to much to say about either place. I think that is all I have to say. Good bye. See you later.

Ilmenau

One thing that I should have known that of course I did not and would not have thought about it was to write about Ilmenau. Ilmenau is the city in which we are located at the Technische Universität. Ilmenau, I noticed is located in the German state of Thüringen, which I think is in central Germany. I think Ilmenau is awesome though. If you looked at the one or two pictures of the city that I took, almost all of the houses have red tiled roofs. that is kind of cool. A lot of the house are also plastered which is kind of awesome. The Technische Universität takes up a lot of room. It probably takes up probably about 1/2 to 3/4ths of the space that the University of Cincinnati takes if not more. Allthough this campus is spread out on a more hilly setting which is nice to go to class in the morning because it is about a fifteen minute walk down hill, but the walk back to the dorm is more fun because it is all up hill although we usually go directly to the Mensa which is the cafetaria and they have nice size portions this fill me up, then every once in a while, definately n the last week, I have been finshing up other peoples food- So I usually have a good size portion. There are also a lot of hills. I think I briefly taked about going up that mountain. I don´t remember how to spell it, or even say it but it starts with a K. It is about an 800 m mountain that has Goethes way. Goethes is a famous German poet which I don´t know too much about. On top of this mountain is a memorial tower I think. I don´t know if it is a memorial tower or if it is from this tower that he wrote one of his most famous poems. I think the tower is in the general spot that he wrote his poem. But we got to see his house on the way up to this tower. That is one of the longest walks that I have been on. The journey was approximately 8 hours long and we probably walked for about 5-6:30 hours of it, although that includes the walk down which was less than an hour. We also were told that how group got lost on the way to lunch- Debbie, Mark and I were the only 3 out of the 10 in our group that attempted the hike. It was a nice hike though. Debbie got some very nice pictures. Ilmenau also has a lot of green space which is nice. I also posted a couple pictures of a fish farm which has 3 different ponds. I posted those pictures on my first slide show. I have also noticed that a few of the restaurants are spread out. Our group has also noticed that people in Ilimenau drive crazy. It is kind of funny but scary at the same time. I think that is all I have to say right now. I will see you later.

Erfurt

Ok, so this is one of two post that I forgot or didn´t realize that I had to do. We took a train to Erfurt which is about half an hour to an hour away. I kind of forget what it was like but I will try to remember what it was like. The train station was kind of big and touristy but it was nice. There were a few parts near the train station that were under construction but you must build and reconstruct in order to improve. So, we did take a tour but I don´t remember much of it. Erfurt was a big city, a bigger city than I expected. There were a few words that I think I better understood during this tour, so that was awesome. I saw some SparKasse which is a savings bank. What else? Oh yeah. I think that Erfurt is the place that has this two large churches that rest right next to each other on the top of this hill with a whole lot of steps that go up to them. One of the churches was aesome. It was beautiful. I however, forgot my camera that day, so I got no pictures of the churches.

Winding down

So it is Tuesday, August the 19th and I will talk in the present tense because I think this is one of my more on time blogs that I have written so far. So it is Tuesday and it is kind of a busy and stressful week. I had a problem on Sunday which we are working out but I am not stressing out over it. It will all work out. We have a lot to do this week. I have to do my wash today, so that will be fun. I am going to use my room as my drying because they have 4 working washers and they did have one working dryer into last week. So they don't have any working dryers as far I know so we have to work around that. We are working on this thing that we have to present to the rest of the people in the Sommerkurs program on Friday. We talked about it in class today and I thought I knew what we were doing, but somebody told me something a slightly more different than what I knew, so I am kind of confused. I thought that we were going to do a skit where one of our group members was going to play his guitar everybody was going to talk about what they thought about Sommerkurs in their own language. But we are going to write down what we think about Sommerkurs and a person in our group, group numebr 3, is going to say what we think about Sommerkurs in our language, not their own. So, for example, I think that Sommerkurs was awesome and that I liked meeting all of the new people, a person from Russia in our group would say that for our skit on Friday. Okay, I think that is all I have to say right now. See you later.

Berlin

So I briefly told you taht I went to Berlin on Friday, August 15th and Saturday, August the 17th. We stayed at a youth hostile in Berlin on Friday night. That was fun. We had nice rooms but they were small. I was okay with that. It was funny though because the bathroom was pretty small, definately teh entrance. The bathroom sink is directly across from the bathroom door. If I assumed correctly when I was there brushing my teeth in the bathroom, if you try to bend ove rand spit into the sink with the door closed, your butt will be brushing your butt pretty firmly against the door. I roomed with a person who spoke no english so I had to speak to him in German and he spoke to me in German. It was kind of funny on Saturday morining when he woke me up and told me in German that the breakfast was downstairs and that it tasted good. I got a majority of my souevenairs from Berlin. That is all. See you later.