Trips Galore!

Hey everyone!

It's been a really exciting (and busy) time in Germany this past month! I've been taking so many trips it is crazy!

In the past month, I've been to Luxembourg, Hamburg, Trier, London, and Poland! It has been really exhausting, but so worth it of course. Other than that, I only have about 2 months left in Germany! How crazy is that?! Of course, I am really going to miss Germany, but at the same time, I am getting ready to come home. I've already been here for 9 months! Being an exchange student is complicated.

Other than that, here are some photos from the adventures!

Europe Tour

Well then. This is embarrassing. It's been a while. Let's see, what is new.

Oh, yeah: EUROPATOUR.

Of course, there have been tons of other new things, but this is the biggest so I'll fill you in on this one and (hopefully) post again next week regarding the other things.

So, where to begin? The tour started on March 23rd in Wiesbaden, where we all met each other! I knew about half of the other exchange students because they were from my rotary district, but I got to meet everyone else, including the wonderful group of girls from the US who I ended up hanging out with for most of the time, but more on that later. :) We spent the night in Wiesbaden, and then started our journey with a trip to Trier the next morning.

Trier was really cute, but I didn't get to see much of the city because we were only there for a couple of hours. After looking around Trier, we got in the bus to go on to Luxembourg, but we couldn't leave yet because one of the guys had injured his foot! He was stuck in the hospital and we were stuck on the bus. We weren't able to go to Luxembourg, but luckily he was allowed to go on the rest of the trip. After he got a pair of crutches, we made our way to Brussels. Brussels was adorable. :) We bought an expensive, but tasty, Belgian Waffle with whipped cream, chocolate, and strawberries.

After Brussels we made our way along to Paris! This was my second time in Paris, but is was just as beautiful. And the Eiffel Tower was just as breathtaking. For some reason, I never expected it to be so big. Maybe I am crazy, but it is just a wee bit shocking. We also climbed the Eiffel tower, visited the Louvre, ate amazing crepes, and went to the Palace of Versailles.

After France was Monaco! A beautiful, but expensive city. We took a tour of Monaco and then continued on to Italy.

At the beginning of our time in Italy we took a stop at the leaning tower of Pizza! It was really amazing to see, but not at all how I expected it to be in person. I guess I have a problem with my expectations of monuments.... Anyhow, it was beautiful! And in a small town, surprisingly.

We made our way along to Rome, where we spent three days. We were in most of the cities for only one day, so this was a nice "lengthy" visit. We started out our time in Rome on Easter Sunday with a visit to the Pope! It was really a great experience, and pretty amazing to see. After that, we had free time and we checked out the colosseum. Another amazing sight, although we didn't realize it would be part of our tour the next day... whoops. During said tour, we saw TONS of things including the Trevi Fountain and the colosseum.

We also visited Venice, which was GORGEOUS.

After venice we went to Vienna. Finally a place where we could speak the language! We took a tour of Vienna and went to the Opera at night.

We traveled on further to Budapest, where we ate in a REALLY good market. Authentic food! Delish.

And our last destination--- Prague.

It was so hard to say goodbye to all of the exchange students. For those in the other district, it was probably that last time I will see them. (Except for the group of the american girls!):

But I will see those from my district again in June. That being said, that was our last trip together and we will all be going back home in three months or less! AH! I don't want to leave yet, that is for sure.

Beth

Catch Up!

Hey all!

I just want to fill you in on my year! It has been a while since I really updated.

Things are going well at school. I still have the same classes, but that isn't as boring as I thought it would be. :) Mostly because I am actually understanding most of what is going on. There are only a couple classes that I can't do well in: German (They are reading poems from the baroque period...) Info (computer programming) Catholic Religion (I am not catholic...) and History ( I am only there for one hour, because I have  a German course). Other than that I am doing pretty well. I mean, as well as I can without studying 10 hours a day. Doing homework takes a lot more time here, because I have to think a lot more about what I want to write due to it being in German.

The weather is finally getting warmer! Today the sun is shining and the snow is almost all melted! AH! Which means it is almost time for my Europe Tour! I am super excited for it. I hope that the other exchange students take all of the tours seriously on our trip. I am really excited for the museums and all the sights we are going to get to see. :) I leave on the 23rd of Marcha and get back on the 11th of April. It is going to be a REALLY long bus trip, but luckily I have a really nice friend that will spend the trip with me. And we will probably hate each other by the end, haha. :)

I am really getting to the point where I don't feel like a stranger, as well. It is beginning to be really normal for me here. That might sound weird, because I have already been here for so long and I thought I was doing really well here before, but it is just getting better and more natural to be here. I am going to be really sad when I go home and have to speak English all the time!!

In some ways, exchange is kind of like Stockholm Syndrome. You put a kid through enough stress and cut them off from their surroundings and they start to like the person who did it/the place where they are. :)

Other than that, there isn't too much new. Or, actually, there is too much to even know where to start!

I will make sure to update after the Europe trip with all the photos and such! :D

Beth Macnab

Public Transportation

Last week, I had a perfect week. Like when a baseball player hits a homerun, I felt like a champion. I had a seat on the bus for 5 days in a row. The entire week. It was a miracle. Normally, I never get a seat. Now, our bus is not a big yellow school bus. That would be impossible to stand in; it is a regular public transportation bus. Usually we are the second to last ones to get on, and we never get a place to sit. Last week was a miracle. This week, I haven't been so lucky. But I will always remember the one week I didn't have to grip the dirty hand rails.

Beth

Update

Hey everyone!

Just trying to give an update here. Things are going really well for me here! I really like my new host family, the people at school are quite nice, my classes are all kind of relaxed since we are all done with the big "finals" (for now...), and, well, life is good! I am trying to pick up the pace with learning German. I am in that stage of the language learning (immersion) experience, where I have learned enough to get by, so I have stopped learning! This wasn't a conscious thing, it just happens. Therefore I have begun to do more learning activities. Other than that, I am stressing about college. I am already accepted to Drake University, and I am super excited to go there! Therefore I keep checking if there is anything more to do to get ready for next year. I have also been writing scholarship essay, which has been... a blast. :P. Oh! And I booked my flight home. I will be coming home on the 15th of July. As much as I want to stay here forever, I also can't wait to go home. It is a weird bittersweet feeling. My year is just about half over, and I wish it wasn't! But at the same time, I can't wait to see my family, friends, and Chipotle again. Haha. I know that the second half of the year is going to go very fast. I have lots of vacation time, Europatour, big tests for all of my classes, and then school is pretty much over! School goes really late here: July 5th. And they start up again around middle August! That is no break at all! Although I suppose they don't get out of the learning state of mind, which is good. Either way, I won't have much time to prepare for University and buy dorm stuff before I leave-- hence the stressing out. But it will work itself out. :)

Beth

Skiing/München/Skiing

No. You didn't read the title wrong. Skiing is there two times. The past month has been only vacation for me. :) From December 8th to the 15th, I was in Italy with the other exchange students for a Ski tour! It was amazing. We were in an area of Italy called Südtirol. It belongs to Italy, but everyone there speaks German. That area of Italy wants to belong to Austria. The history for the region is simply crazy, and you should look it up if you have the time. :) Anyhow, it was great. I learned a lot about skiing. The ski teacher was convinced that I had to learn so much. He even gave me 'homework'. Haha. Here are some photos:

After I got back, I went to school for two days, and then Christmas break started! We started it off with a trip to Munich! It was women of my host family, 10 of us in total. And it was so much fun! We spent the weekend just doing what we wanted: sightseeing, sleeping, eating, etc. :) 

After getting back from München, it was already Christmas eve! I went to a really nice church service, ate homemade pulled pork with barbecue sauce (best meal ever), and opened presents. I received wonderful presents from both my host family and my family in the US. I was surprisingly not too sad, mostly because it was a nice time here as well. 

After Christmas I went to Austria for ANOTHER ski vacation with my host family! :D It was fantastic! We skied for 3 days, went tobogganing one day, went swimming, and I went Paragliding! It was so much fun, and a great way to get to know my host family.

And now, it is back to school. Ahhh. Wonderful. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Beth

The Big Switch

Hey everybody! Sorry it took me so long to respond, it has been a busy couple of weeks! So, I changed host families on the Second of December, and it was a crazy weekend!

On Saturday, I went hunting. HUNTING. For those of you who don't know, I was a vegetarian for four years before I came to Germany. My parents hunt a lot, but I never went with because it wasn't really my thing. But, you can't say no to an experience like hunting in the forest in Germany for wild pigs! It was very interesting. We did a type of hunt where there were people who would "storm the forest", chasing all the boars out of the brush and such, and then there were the hunters who would shoot them as they ran by. It was one of the coolest things I have done here. The day started out freezing, but as we walked around the forest (yes. Around. We walked a VERY long way), I started to warm up. I saw 4 deer (which where very small compared to the deer in Minnesota) and countless wild pigs. By the end of the day, the hunters had shot 56 boar! They will sell the meat from the pigs, which is supposed to taste pretty good. My legs were all cut up from the thorns we had to walk through, but overall, it was worth it.

After the hunt, my parents picked me up. (The hunt lasted from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.!) and we went to the Weinachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) in a nearby city. It was really beautiful.

The next morning, I had to say goodbye to my host family. I was actually quite sad, but also excited to move to the next host family. I had to hurriedly pack my belongings, as I was procrastinating. :) It finally snowed on the day I had to move, so my host sister and I  went out and took some pictures in the snow:

Then I moved! It felt weird, having to change. I wasn't really ready for it. I keep thinking about things that I should have done while I was still there. Or things that I didn't learn there that I should have. C'est la vie, I suppose. 

Anyhow, new host family! It is really exciting to be here and I am really grateful that they are so wonderful! They are a lot like my family back home, a.k.a. BUSY. :) But I am definitely used to that, so it is no problem. Plus they also have a great sense of humor, which is awesome for me! It kept snowing through the week and we ended up having a snow day on Thursday! :D It was excellent. Here are some photos from that:

I am having a great time, and actually just got back from a ski trip in the Alps with Rotary. I am sick, unfortunately, and staying home from school today. I will make a different post about the Ski Tour!

Tschüss!
Beth