Germany Meara

Abort Mission

2008-12-16T10:27:00.000-08:00

As most probably know, I have decided to come home at the end of the semester, rather than stay the year, I'll spare you all the reasons and details, unless you are still interested when I get home. There will probably be at least two more posts, one after Christmas, and one after Berlin.

See you in January!
Liebe Grüß!

Ein Bisschen Mehr Weihnachten

2008-12-15T09:46:00.001-08:00

1. Leipzig Bahnhof (Train Station)
2. Leipzig Bahnhof (Inside decorations)
3. Huge Christmas Market in leipzig
4. Glühwein Seller (traditional Christmas drink, like hot apple cider, only wine)
5. Second Weihnachtsmarkt in another town
6. The church in the town
7. Looking down at Weihnachtsmarkt from the top of the church tower
8. Heike and I at the top
9. View from the top
10. Another view from the top

Winter Time

2008-12-15T09:33:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted anything in a while, simply because nothing interesting has happened. But now I have a few pictures of the largest amount of snow I have seen here, and has been here is a while. It is nothing compared to Maine, and Naturally it was gone by noon, but it was beautiful while it lasted.

Dresden

2008-11-06T02:25:00.001-08:00

Just some pictures from my school trip to Dresden.

Some Pictures from my Fisheye and 35 mm!

2008-10-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

1. Steffen and his girlfriend Anna dressed for Pullman City (taken in the RV we took there).

2. Heike and Peter while we were stacking wood.

3. Cigarette machine in heppenheim (even though they are everywhere).

4. Menu from Scotland Yard in Heppenheim.

5. Vince and I while bowling in Heppenheim.

6. Night shot while on kids toys in Heppenheim.

7. Vince and Patricia mini golfing while listening to the same ipod in Heppenheim.

8. My breakfast.

9. Food shelf in Scotland Yard.

10. Kathe, Patricia, Vince and Andrew at the bowling ally.

11. Patricia looking though the gate way of a model castle.

12. Kurt, Momoko, Miria, Vince, and Andrew in Darmstadt.

Ein Bisschen Mehr Deutschland

2008-10-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

1. Making soup (in this picture: my host dad and grandmother)

2. Learning to dance with Steffen.

3. Shot glasses accumulated from all over the table the night, with Anna (Steffen's girlfriend) holding the little hedgehog at the end.

4. My host mom and dad dancing.

5. Cat at the restaurant we had one of my host grandmother's 70th birthday party at.

6. A new place to bike I discovered.

7. Self explanatory.

8. Just a cool house near where I live.

9. One of the places I bike with some fall colors.

10. Ben. The toy frisbee we got him lasted about 5 minutes.

11. I went to visit Kathe in Magdeburg Friday-Saturday, and there was a carnival going on. We ended up going on the later side when most of the stuff was being shut down. Here is the ferris wheel.

12. A kids ride being closed up.

13. Kathe.

14. Bumper cars.

15. One of the prizes at a game.

The Past Few Days

2008-10-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

Not much has been going on, other than school. But yesterday I went to my first black and white party (a party where you have to wear black and white), which was a birthday party for one of Sarah's friends Sascha. It was a lot of fun, and I met a lot of really cool people, who I can't wait to get to know better. And today there was no school, so I spent part of the day with Sarah, then went to the Fitness Studio I'm a member of for a few hours, and had a nice evening with my host family. Tomorrow morning we are go to a place called Pullman city, that's about 2 hours away. Pullman city is a western (USA) replica town. We have to dress up in appropriate attire, and do other mid-western things. I'm interested to see what Germans think the old west was like. I'm sure there will be some interesting photos from that. But until then, here are a few photos:

1. The sky when I wake up in the morning. Sehr früh.

2. As the sun is rising.

3. A typical classroom in the school. They have really cool black boards.

4. There is always a sink in the classrooms, for the sponge they use to clean the black boards.

5. Part of my bike ride to and from school.

6. A little more...

7. And some more...

8. Making paste with Sarah at 1:00 am.

9. With Louisa.

A Few Random Bits Of Germany

2008-09-27T02:23:00.001-07:00

1. I dropped a tack from only 3 feet or so, and this happened and I took a picture which also looked pretty cool.

2. The kittens sleeping in their little house.

3. King Monk. He’s beautiful and quite large compared to the other cats.

4. Schnapps. They sell them on the shelf's with the candy by the cash register. And yes those are little sperm. It says ‘egg jump’ and ‘push me!’

5. And that’s the little diagram showing you how and where to push.

6. When I woke up this morning there was a massive blanket of fog over the houses.

Places I Go Biking

2008-09-27T02:06:00.000-07:00

1. I discovered this at the top of some suburban street when I was exploring by bike. The paved road ends abruptly and opens into a beautiful field.

2. The field.

3. More of the field.

4. And a little bit more.

5. The view of the lake at the end of the road.

6. To the right there is this little walk and bike path.

7. More bike path.

8. Now, this is back down the road and across the street, by the huge lake.

9. One of the sandy beach sections.

10. A view of the other side of the lake and a rainbow from on of the paved biking/walking roads by the big lake.

My House/ Room (Haus/Zimmer)

2008-09-16T07:20:00.001-07:00

1. My house!
2. The side deck
3. Outside side eating area (Where my birthday party was held)
4. Giant fire place
5. Kitchen, with my host mother cooking
6. Living room with Paula (orange) and Maggie (Brown fuzz) Does cat damage on the couch look familiar?
7. Playing Wii with Steffen
8. MY bathroom. Yes MINE.
9. First part of bed room, mirror, jackets, parrot, etc.
10. Shoes and dresser and parrot again (My shoe collection has expanded considerably since mom send the rest or my shoes and I went shopping ^^)
11. Couches, table, and drawer storage thingy
12. Windows
13. Bed
14. Kinder eggs toy collection (which has also grown)
15. Desk, TV, Stereo

The Pets! (well, some of them)

2008-09-16T07:13:00.001-07:00

1. The kittens sleeping.
2. Playing with Cody ^^
3. Old old Bobby
4. And Ben
(Not pictured: One more cat named Monk and some Guinea pigs and Rabbits)

Host Family

2008-09-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

So far so good! I love my host family, they are all great.
I'm living with my host mother, Heike, My host father, peter, and older brother, Steffen. All are very nice and funny, especially Steffen. he's 'a clown' as Peter says. School is not much fun, but when is it? I have pretty much all Private German Lessons, and then I have English and Deutsch with a 10th grade class. Hopefully in October I will be able to move up to 11th grade, I now have a friend in 11th, so I'm going to try to go into her class. The first to weeks of school were rocky, but this week is better already. I'd like to denounce the myth that German food is bad. I love it, although bread and cheese was already my favorite snack ^^ (Even though I miss Appleton Creamery goat cheese SO much! It's going to be the first thing I eat when I get back). A lot of the cheese here is processed and packaged, but still good, and the bread at the stores is always fresh, warm and delicious! I'll post some pictures of room and house.

People from First 2 Weeks!

2008-09-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

1. Me, Patricia, and Kate

2. Me with Miriam, one of the two women who were in charge of our group.

3. Vince

4. Patricia and I

5. Patricia and Kurt

6. Kurt, Kailey and Patricia in class

7. Patricia and I with Miriam and Lena, the other leader of our group

8. Vince and Kailey

9. Liam (Australia friend) and I

10. Fernando (Ecuadorian friend) and I

11. With John Victor (A Brazilian)

12. Momoko and Miria (both Japanese) with Liam

13. Liam at the Heppenheim Castle

14. Frank (on my German book) before...

15. and after...

Heidelberg!

2008-09-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

1. Angel statue with The Heidelberg castle in the background

2. Once up in the castle

3. The court yard

4. Giant wine barrel inside Heidelberg castle. It had a pipe leading into the kings chambers so all he had to do was pull a tap and get wine.

Heppenheim!

2008-09-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

1. Is a photo from the hike up the mountain in Heppenheim. Gives you an idea of what Heppenheim was like!

2. Is the castle in Heppenheim!

3. A view of the town at sun set from a bed room window.

4. A classic German building in the town. May like this is different colors.

5. The one on the right is no miniature! The one on the right is the normal size you can buy in the States.

Arrival

2008-09-01T04:55:00.000-07:00

After a 4 hour train ride I ended up in Leipzig, and from there my host family picked me up and drove me to our house in Friedersdorf. After having dinner with some family friends I went up and unpacked all my stuff, and went to bed. Today was my first day in the German Gymnasium. Super stressful, and there was so much German I didn't understand anything really. I'm still working on figuring out what classes I will be taking, we are trying to fit in as many art classes as possible. I'll begin up loading some pictures asap.

Heidelberg

2008-08-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

We visted Heidelberg on Saturday and Sunday, and both days were great. We got to explore 3 different castles and see lots of beautiful churchs. In a few days I will hopefully be able to put up some pictures. Tomorrow we are going to Frankfurt, and in 5 days we leave for our host families. My trip will be about 5 hours on a high speed train to Leipzig where my family will meet me and take me to my new house. Very exciting.

Please note...

2008-08-18T13:22:00.001-07:00

I would also like to note how difficult it is to type on these new German keyboards.

Day 2

2008-08-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Today we woke up for breakfast at 8:30 and after having German class from 9 to 3 we had free time. In this free time after dinner we hiked up to the top of the mountain in the town to the castle at the top (which you will see pictures of hopefully soon!). It was beautiful. I plan to go back soon and sketch it. On the way up I tried to take a picture of a goat, and ended up walking through this evil plant that 'bit' my legs, leaving white bumps that burned and then faded within half an hour (there are also pictures of that to come). I will try tomorrow to get some pictures up at the internet Cafe!

Day 1

2008-08-18T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here is an entry I wrote yesterday:

After a tendious and un eventful flight we landed in Frankfurt, Germanz at about 5am German time (11 pm states time). After getting though costoms (which is always an ordeal), and collecting our luggage we ended up hanging around the airport for another few hours waiting for the last students to arrive. We then had an hour long car ride to get to the language university in Heppenheim where we are going to be studying German for the next 10 days. After we arrived we were served a typical German breakfast, consisting of bread, jam, butter, nutella (naturally), sliced meat and cheese, some fruit, and yougurt(very yummy and the texture of chocolate mousse!). Then we had free time in which I wandered around the traditional German town taking pictures with my digital camera and my new fisheye camer! Then we had lunch and I went to sleep. We had been awake for a long time after all.

I will pe posting pictures asap! I pinkey promise!

My Photo Site

2008-08-12T10:11:00.001-07:00

Here is the address to my web site I will be using to post lots of pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mearasgermanypictures/

Departure Count Down...

2008-08-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

I officially leave the states in 4 days. Vier Tag.

I will do my best to be diligent in up dating this 'blog', but I make no promises.