Exploring Baden-Württemberg

So this past weekend was a lot of fun. On Wednesday night Annie's host family invited me over for dinner, which was so nice of them!!! I met their 3 out of 4 sons and we all hung out. Lucus ( the eldest) showed us his own little bar he has in the garden. It was so cool, he gave us free drinks and we met some of his friends. They are really nice and have a lovely house. We had a lovely time speaking German and eating all the delicious German food. Annie's host mom then drove us to Schwaebisch Gmuend and we met some of the others and we went bar hopping. I only had one coffee that night, at the last place.
We had a four-day weekend so it was a good opportunity to explore the state of Baden-Württemberg. Thursday I just stayed in and relaxed a bit-- and went to the movies with Kai, Natalie and some of Natalie's friends. We saw Robin Hood (auf Deutsch). We then hung out at Natalie's house.
Friday I spent the whole day in bed because I felt so ill-- I still have a cold and a cough.
Saturday I went to Ulm (close to Bavaria) on the train with one of the Professors from GVSU and 2 other American students- Cassie and Dana. We all had a lovely day and lady in charge of the international students at PHSG showed us around. We climbed the steps of the Muenster (one of the tallest cathedrals in the world!!) It was lovely and I climbed over 700 stairs that day!! Just Professor Smith and I made it to the top... the others are afraid of heights.
We then ate a restaurant in the old part of Ulm-- lovely food! We then did a bit of shopping-- I bought two tablemats for 50 cents!! They say "Guten Appetit" so I thought they would be really cute for my apartment! I have glasses to match them so that will be a nice little memoir of Germany!! :-D
Sunday-- Natalie, Kai and Tami (Natalie's friend) and I all went to Natalie's home town-- Sigmaringen. It took us about 2 hours to get there by car, but we all had fun riding in Tami's yellow mini! Natalie showed us around the castle where she works at during the holidays. It was soooo lovely and old--- Napolean even had something to do with it!! We also saw the biggest collection of weapons in Europe!! The coolest part was seeing the real armour the KNIGHTS wore!! :-D We then walked around the little town of Sigmaringen and then drove up the side of the Donau River and looked at the Felsen. We then drove to another castle-- not as pretty as the other one, but it had some gorgeous views!!
Then Monday was back to school--- and we went out of a drink after our classes... I had a Becks Lime-- quite tasty-- even though I am not big on beer-- it doesn't taste like beer at all!
Tuesday-- I booked a trip to England via BUS. This should be interesting!! I leave tomorrow!!
Bis bald!! (until soon!)

LONG overdue.....

I have just had a spare moment to think: how did I get here?? Everything has been happening so fast- this past semester seemed to fly by at times. It was one big blur and one big rush to get everything done! Some people understood my situation-others did not take into consideration that I had so much to get done.

Where do I even begin? Getting to Germany was an adventure on its own. One word: volcano. I had been checking the British Airways website constantly to see if my flight was cancelled. Of course, nothing was running smoothly because of the volcano in Iceland and my original flight was cancelled. First reaction: PANIC! How was I going to get to Germany? Would I ever get there? I was so disappointed because I had been planning to go back since I left last June. However, I was determined to find a way. I left GVSU on Tuesday morning and drove home. I don’t even remember the journey home… I was just so tired and exhausted. Right when I got home I got on the phone to British Airways and held for 45 minutes or so. I finally got through and demanded a flight as soon as possible. At first, the lady told me that the next flight I could get would be 10 days from then. I told her that I don’t care what airport I fly to in Germany--- I just need to get there. She offered me a flight with an 11 hour layover in Chicago with a flight leaving Detroit at 6:15 AM. I gladly accepted.

So with the 14 hours I had, I had to pack my suitcase. It was a nightmare-- but I made it!

11 hour layover in Chicago-- went on wireless... but then it got boring... so i walked around....

flew to London to find out my flight to Stuttgart was cancelled--- so I got another flight to Frankfurt and took the fast ICE train to Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof (main train station) and Steffi's aunt and uncle picked me up. They took me to see Steffi and we went to grocery shopping for me. They then took me out to dinner!! :-D I was soooo hungry I scarfed it down!!

This past week has gone by so fast. I haven’t really had a spare minute to myself where I could just do sit down and write I have done.