Internet down...

So the internet in our building is still down and we really have no idea when it will be back up again. The german libraries are also a bit difficult to use, so it may be a long time before my next actual post. I know, it's sad but you'll just have to wait and see what I've been up to later.

Rachel

Freiburg and more....

Alright, as some of you may or may not know, I have a friend, Janelle, who's in the same program as me, but studying in Freiburg. I left on Saturday morning for Freiburg, instead of taking the tour of Tuebingen with the intro course class. I'm told I didn't miss much. Anyway, I took the train to Freiburg, which by the way had 4 transfers and lasted 4 hours. All in all it wasn't too bad, as it did go through the black forest. The black forest seems like a rather silly concept for me. It's a bunch of really tall, skinny pine trees with underbrush. The underbrush is what makes it unique, as all other European forests are a little lacking in that department. The German country side is really interesting. Some parts look like Ohio or Eastern Washington, but with the occasional German village. Other parts are covered in green hills or thick forest. There are a few pictures I took on the way back:

As for Freiburg, after finally arriving and changing clothes, as Freiburg is a bit warmer than Tuebingen, we walked around a bit and headed to a beer garden by the river. Freiburg also has this really big park with a lake in the middle of it. We spent most of the weekend relaxing on the balcony and people watching. It was a bit too hot to do much else. We went up this cool hill and you could see all of Freiburg from it, so we took a bunch of pictures.

We also saw a nice little dog and played fetch with him.

Outside of that, we did a little sightseeing and a bit of shopping. We went to Ikea and I got a bunch of stuff for my room, which was a challenge to get back to Tuebingen on the train. Freiburg also has a really nice Church. Here is a picture of it. There are more posted on my photo bucket.

Anyway, that's about it for Freiburg. I had a lot of fun, but it's good to be back home. I got home around 6 on Tuesday night. Tuebingen is having a little street fair. I don't know how long it's going to last but it's exciting. Here's one of the pictures from it.




Anyway, that is it for now. Until the next time.

Rachel

Stuttgart

Today my friends and I went to Stuttgart. It's about an hour away by train and costs 10 Euro to go there and back. I really liked it. It's a bit larger than Tuebingen and has a lot more going on. I would post pictures here but I've decided to use photo bucket as it is a lot easier to use and I can add more photos. The link to my photo bucket is: http://s172.photobucket.com/albums/w30/schlech1/

Stuttgart has a lot of shopping and a large park/castle. I got a few things while we were there, but we mostly walked around. It was very pretty, as you will see when you look at the pictures.

In other happenings, I met my mentor Anke the other day. She seems really nice and I look forward to getting to know her better. She's lived around Tuebingen for her whole life, in a little village. We went an got a sort of chocolate coffee thing together. She also kept complimenting me on my German :-).

Let's see, Easter was on Sunday. We didn't really do much. Alison and I got up really early to go to church at 6:00. It was interesting but long and too early in the morning. I walked around, read, and sat in the park with Val and Ben. Towards days end, I got an ice cream and watched some cute little German kids play tag. It was very cute. I think it was two families but they must have been cousins or something. The smallest little boy was in his Easter best and the girl had a dress. It was really cute too see and brought a smile to my face.

As for now, I've got to get reading, because Val and I have decided to read 30 pages a day and get ice cream on the days that we finish books. It sounds like a good plan to me!

Rachel

Pictures!

Okay so here are a few pictures. The first one is the sink in my room and in the corner you can see my grocery store bag, which is indeed covered with pictures of meat, mainly pork. The second picture is the Neckar river which is in the middle of Tübingen. There is a park in the middle of it that they use to launch boats in the summer. It's also where all the pictures of the town seem to be taken from. The third picture is a place where Alison and I had lunch one day. Pizza in Germany is a little weird, I certainly won't be eating it very often. The fourth picture is in the city center right next to the court house, the coolest building in the whole town. I'm at the fountain, obviously. I'm not sure why it's there but it is. Well, that's all the pictures for now.

Rachel

The First Week

All right, it's about time I get around to updating this thing. I left Seattle Wednesday morning and made it to Frankfurt at around 8am. I then sat around for 5 hours waiting for my 30 minute flight. I'm still not sure why the travel agency did that. After arriving in Stuttgart, I met another exchange student, who knows relatively little german and is from Oregon. We got train tickets together and eventually ended up taking the bus to Tübingen and a taxi to where we are staying. I met up with Alison and we went to the store and got food. There was also a small party that night. The next day was a little more frustrating, but everything worked out alright. I eventually got my room keys and a blanket that is the right size for my bed, as the previous one had encountered one dryer too many. The pillows they have here a redicuiosly small, so I got a new one of those as well. My room is fairly large. Everything in it is from Ikea. The floor shares a kitchen so we buy alot of fresh food at the store. Nothing is really more than 2-3 Euro. I managed to find a Vodka named Boris Jelzin but have yet to try it.

Tübingen is pretty nice but rather small. There are lots of icecream stores, as Sunday is appearently go to Church and eat icecream day, because nothing else is open. The Necker is pretty and I look forward to the boats in the summer. There are a few parks that are really nice. I would post pictures but my computer has decided to put everything in german, making the task a bit harder than just figuring the technology out. All the buildings are really old and appearently Alzheimer use to live in mine. I think my room was him library, or at least the wall says may room was a library at some point. I guess that's all for now. I'll put up pictures whenever I figure it out.

rachel