Köln Halbjahr Seminar

So I've finally passed the half-way point, and with it came a seminar with the 50 other Americans in my group from CBYX in Köln (Cologne). It was so great to see the friends I made in Hedersleben again; all 50 of us are fairly close and as we all started arriving it was a chaos of hugs and smiling (so much that my cheeks hurt). We stayed in a Jugendherberge (youth hostel) that was a couple U-Bahn (subway) stations away from the Innenstadt (city center). We had some time to catch up with each other, and then ate dinner and started with all the seminars. Honestly, the seminars weren't too terribly interesting or informative. The best thing we did was share funny stories and misunderstandings. When we didn't have seminars, we were usually doing something in the Köln area. On Friday we had a day trip to Bonn, where we saw the Rathaus (city hall) and could go off in groups. My group went to the Beethoven museum, because he was born in Bonn. It was quite cool, though I got the impression from all of his portraits that he wasn't very happy. Always. Frowning. Afterwards, we ate Currywurst (pretty much Germany's equivalent of hot dogs... but not really) at a street stand, and then went into a Café/Konditorei for caaaaaake. These shops are so sweet; they are usually kind of small, with a few food items, but mostly drinks and cake. Just really homey and adorable. Süß. We met up as a group again to go to Das Haus der Geschichte, which is a big musuem. It was fairly interesting, but our tour was about 2 hours long. Other than its size, it wasn't very different from other museums I've been to.
On Saturday we had some time to wander around Köln. People here are kind of crazy about going on walks (at least in comparison to Americans), because it doesn't matter that it's 20 degrees Fahrenheit, snowing, raining, windy, or whatever. Some people go walking EVERY DAY. I understand that's good for your health and whatever, but sometimes it's COLD! What prompted this rant is that one of our teachers is one of those old German guys who love the outdoors and opens the door wide open on freezing days and just stands there and smiles while everyone else (American exchange students, for instance) freeze. He decided that we should walk into Köln along the Rhein. That would have been nice in the SUMMER, or any other wamer season, but as it was, we were all VERY cold after about an hour. The wind was brutal. Anyways, we arrived at the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral), which was very impressive. After seeing so many old and historic buildings, it was getting kind of old (ha ha), but this one still blew my mind. It was huge and just beautiful. If anyone has the opportunity to go see it, DO IT. Afterwards, we broke into groups again and my group went to the Schokolade Museum!! (YES, chocolate!) It was lovely. We got there just before it opened, so there was a group of kids waiting outside, and I thought I lost my mind when I heard all these 8 year olds speaking in English. It was really confusing, but we figured they were kids at an international school. So anyways, we got in there very fast, and using advice from someone who had already been there, we walked directly through most of the museum to the point where you can order your own chocolate bar! You can choose as many toppings as you want, dried fruits, nuts, etc.; it takes 30 minutes, so we ordered them, and then went to look at the displays. It was actually really interesting to learn all about the production of chocolate, starting from the cocoa bean. I had no idea that the beans are actually so large! I thought the Willy Wanka movie was just lying to me. Around the area with the machines (which were fun to watch) was a chocolate fountain of yumminess. A worker there handed out wafers coverd in chocolate. :) When we were done with the museum, it was almost lunchtime, so we had to head back to the Jugendherberge. I was disappointed about that, because I really wanted to see more in Köln, but all the other times we were let into the city, everything was closed (Sunday or evenings). Schade. But we had a lot of fun throughout those few days, and even a video was made! Someone went around asking everyone in the group to say "Ich habe keinen amerikanischen Akzent" (I don't have an American accent), and the results were highly amusing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svGvek3oAPU  Watch it. You'll laugh. And I'm in it.
Overall, being in Köln with all the others was really good for me. It made me realize that I'm not alone, that the others are experiencing the same things I am, and there are others having the same problems I am having too. It was a comfort to know that I'm not alone and am doing things okay, and also a motivation to make the last 5 months count. So much has already happened and changed, but I'm only half-way. There's still so much more I can do and learn, and after the seminar I'm feeling pumped and hoping that I can have even more awesome experiences.

Headin' North

After Christmas, as I said in the post before, we headed up to the Osnabrück area to visit my host mom’s family. The trip itself was interesting because I was able to see the changes in architecture and countryside. There are more flat areas in northern Germany, so there’s typically more farm land and the land plots for houses are larger. Houses here are often made from brick, so it kind of reminded me of Pennsylvania. Anyways, we got to Bad Iburg, which was a very pretty, small town, though it has a castle that is about as old as the Dom in Speyer (1000, give or take a few hundred years). We had some fun wandering around it, sehr schön. We also went on a hike in the forest/mountains; at the top was an observation tower, so I could see the landscape all around. It was gorgeous, but VERY windy and VERY cold. It was fun meeting the family; they were all very nice, and one of my host mom’s siblings married an American, so it was fun to talk a bit about America.

When I heard I was going to the Osnabrück area, I contacted an American friend (also here on the CBYX program) there so that we could meet up. Our plans grew into quite an adventure. Firstly, we went into Osnabrück together and wandered around the Fußgängerzone and the Altstadt (old city). The Altstadt was really nice, but the newer areas weren’t so spectacular, just fairly normal. The next day we made a day trip to Bremen (about an hour away with a train). Bremen was AMAZING. Probably one of the best cities I’ve seen thus far, if not the best. The Fußgängerzone was really cool, and the Altstadt was just absolutely and completely and totally gorgeous! We wandered in and around the buildings for awhile (which were also amazing), and then headed through the Böttcherstraße, which is a touristy spot. I’m honestly not sure why, I didn’t really look into it. But it was a cool street with brick buildings, and at one point there were some bells that played a melody. Then we wandered through Schnoor, which is an area of small streets and very interesting shops. I’m surprised we didn’t get lost in there. We then went to the Bremen Kunsthalle (art museum) which was really cool. They had a large Hundertwasser exhibit, an eccentric painter and architect. We looked at the permanent works first, some of which were really impressive. The Hundertwasser exhibit was… interesting, to say the least. “Cow’s Green Digestion of Gold” was the title of one of the paintings there. I’m not a huge fan of his style, but it was cool to see.

I spent New Years with my American friend and her host family. We ate Raclette for dinner, which is really popular here. Each person has a paddle thing that you fill with various foods that you want (vegetables, meat) and cover with cheese, and then set it into this skillet/oven thing until the cheese melts. Yum! We watched “Dinner for One”, which is a really old British short show that somehow became a tradition here, and had the TV on later to know what time it was and when we could celebrate. There was a countdown, but people don’t freak out and scream like we do in America. It was almost weird to quite tamely toast each other with our drinking glasses (I enjoyed me some orange juice :D ) and give hugs. I suppose others don’t celebrate it so tamely… But whatever. So after that, we went outside and set off a lot of fireworks! It’s only legal to buy fireworks a few days before New Years, and set them off on New Years, so a lot of people participate. The atmosphere was rather amazing, the sky was full of fireworks (and I was in an extremely small town!). Lots of fun was to be had, and I even convinced my American friend and her host sister to scream with me because I felt like that was necessary. Happy New Year!

A few days later we went to Hamburg and met up with other CBYX students, and had a great time wandering around the city. Because you have to wander. Hamburg is a big city, and all the seeing-worthy things are rather spread out. So we met at the Hauptbahnhof (which was in and of itself big, impressive, and spread out; we got lost inside it several times) and made a game plan of where we wanted to go. The Rathaus was very impressive and big. There were so many churches that we just walked by them, rather than going in each one. Though, we did find one that was really quite moving. It’s called the St. Nikolaikirche, and only the spire and part of the back wall are still standing after it collapsed from the bombing of Hamburg in World War II. It wasn’t repaired, and is now a memorial to the people who died and suffered in that war. Really, really quite touching. It carried a message that museums just aren’t capable of. Anyways, we then went to the port (because Hamburg is a huge port city, despite it being inland; the Elbe River makes that possible) and looked around some. There honestly wasn’t too much to see (I think), but it was cool nonetheless. The only other interesting thing we did was go to the Mini Wunderland museum thingy. We had heard that it was cool, and figured it was worth looking into. You can “see the world” (or whatever) through these really detailed, tiny models of people, buildings, cars, trains, planes, landscapes, etc. of real places that move and light up and such. It was pretty cool, and fun to look at. Hamburg was a nice city, but I liked Bremen better.

So I’m glad I was able to travel a bit and see some of Northern Germany!