Sorry for the Silence... Updates!

I may be the worst blogger in the entire world... in fact, I'm so old-fashioned that I've been keeping a HANDWRITTEN Journal of my experiences here, that I have forgotten about this little blog that I promised to keep updated. But never fear, I shall improve my blogging skills and create a long enough post that hopefully makes up from lost time.

Since we left off...
I took a tour of the main location of John-Michael's company, B.A.S.F. It is absolutely huge and has over 30,000 workers in this one location, Ludwigshafen. There was a comparison map of the factory's size to cities; BASF is roughly the size from Penn Station to the Museum of Natural History (almost 50 city blocks)! They also have their own fire station, hospital and theater. Here's me "Working in the Lab" just like JM...

I had the entire month of February off. It was really nice to take a break and settle in.  Unfortunately I was sick for most of February, but I still was able to travel a bit.  I visited a lot of old friends from when I was here in high school.  One friend lives in Göttingen, a very beautiful and typical German city not too far from Hannover. This is the Gänseliesel (Goose Girl) in Göttingen. When medical students graduate they celebrate by bringing her flowers, kissing Gänseliesel and drinking Champagne with family and friends in front of the statue.

The next trip that I took was to Münster in the northwest of Germany and then to the University city of Groningen, which is in Holland. The old city of Münster is one of the prettiest areas I have seen in my life; it reminds me a lot of Cambridge, Massachusetts with all of the brick. This is the main Cathedral in Münster.

 Next, I drove with my friend to Holland. I brought my passport with me just in case, since I am not an EU citizen, but there was no border control. Very strange! Groningen is in the far north of Holland, so it was mostly grey skies and drizzles all day, quite like St. Petersburg.  I was very excited to understand most of what people are saying since Dutch is very similar to German and English; however, sometimes it sounded so foreign. My favorite part about Holland was how cheap the groceries are compared to Germany. I stocked up on Peanut Butter and Coffee while there. I also bought sprinkles and chocolate shavings. In Holland, a typical breakfast is toast with Chocolate and Vanilla sprinkles and Chocolate shavings! It is quite delicious; I don't know how we didn't think of this in the US! That purple blob is me on the stairs of the main building of the University of Gronigen. This building was built specifically to be a part of a University, if only Fairfield's buildings were this pretty.

Now that it is March, I am in another German Review Course. Class in Heidelberg is a much more serious atmosphere than in Mannheim, yet I feel that I gained more in January.  On Mondays and Fridays, I am taking an optional Literature course, which has helped my German a lot. Every day we read a new excerpt from different foreigners who have learned German and their experience with the language. Last Friday we read Mark Twain, which made me giggle. He has the same frustrations as me with German grammar, so it comforted me to know that for years English speakers have had trouble with grasping German grammar, it's not just me!  Last weekend two of my friends from Fairfield came to visit from Paris. We had beautiful weather the whole time, so I finally got around to doing the touristy stuff as well, including climbing over 300 steep stairs to the top of the castle. Below are some highlights...

The tranquilty of the Neckar River... I see this every morning on my way to class

A view of the Castle from the Old Bridge

The view at Sunset from atop the Castle

View of the Castle at night from the Old Bridge

View of the Gates to the Old City at night

Liebe Grüße

Kristin

Settling in at Heidelberg

Well today marks the two week anniversary since I let the U.S. for my new adventure... Germany.  Sorry I didn't get a chance to post sooner, but the past two weeks have been very busy.  There is a lot of bureaucratic work that has to be done within your first few days of arriving.  Now I am starting to relax.

Currently I am in a Winter Academy at University of Mannheim brushing up on my German, especially the grammar. It is neat since there are people from all around the world of all different ages in this program.  So far I have gone with this program to Heidelberg's Castle, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Mannheim's Palace, and wine tasting.  Besides all the trips you can sign up for, there are free workshops and seminars after class so you can work more on your language skills in a certain area.  There is also a student government program, Visum, that works with integrating the international students. They do fun programs every week that are discounted like bowling and happy hour.  Tomorrow night there is a speed dating party run by Visum that I can't wait to go to! The only bad thing is that living in Heidelberg makes it difficult to get to Mannheim and home at night, because there are fewer trains.

Living in Heidelberg so far though has been amazing! It is so beautiful here. I live in an old U.S. military base that the University of Heidelberg converted into dorms. It is cool because there are still some American outlets spread throughout my apartment. I am not very close to the city center, but it is a nice quiet neighborhood.  I live with two German girls. We each have our own bedrooms and share the bathroom and kitchen.  My bedroom is a lot bigger than bedrooms in college dorms in America, but I have the smallest room here!  I am starting to decorate it, and make it feel like my home.  My roommates are very nice and have been inviting me out.  They only speak German with me, which has helped me a lot in the past two weeks to improve my speaking and thinking skills.  Hopefully by the time I come home I'll be able to speak as fast as them!

Well I leave you now with some pictures. This is the view of Heidelberg from the Castle.

I am standing on the roof of the tallest building in Frankfurt. You can see the entire city from this platform.

Lastly, a picture of me (with my future car) in Stuttgart at the Mercedes-Benz Museum.

Liebe Gruesse

Kristin