The Hills are Alive

Hands down my favorite trip so far....hands down.  Today I just got back from a long weekend in Salzburg, Austria.  A town of only 105,000 but hosts hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.  We started out our trip with a very rainy morning and headed to the Cathedral for a reflective and gorgeous visit along with a side trip down into the crypt.  After the cathedral we wandered for a bit through the streets shopping a little and eventually finding Mozart's house.  We crossed the bridge of locks, where people have written their love's name and locked it to the bridge and thrown away the key.  We tried to wait out the rain before going up to the fortress and eventually when the after noon rolled around we thought we should just go anyways.  On our way there we found a Christmas shop that has thousands of hand painted eggs.  Needless to say we spent almost and hour and dropped a lot of dough at that shop but who could resist this.

We made a pit stop at the hostel to drop off our bounty then took the funicular up the hill to the Fortress.  Each Prince Bishop of Salzburg added onto this fortress and it is one of the most well preserved of its kind in the world.  The view was the best part for us.  We stood up their for a long time just taking in the view, the colors, and the mountains.



After the fortress we shopped around a little more now that the sun had come out and it was a gorgeous day.  That night our hostel played Sound of Music in the lobby.  We watched all three hours, especially since Allie had never seen it and we were going on the Sound of Music tour the next morning.







The Sound of Music tour was the beginning to our day the next and it was worth every single penny.  We had a gorgeous day, wonderful tour guide, beautiful sights, and of course a lot of singing.  We saw the backyard the used in the movie as well as the abbey, gazebo, and church they were married in.  The church was actually in a town called Mondsee and we had a gorgeous drive out to this beautiful city.

After the tour the girls did the Salt Mines and I went exploring.  I found a cemetery with pretty gardens as well as some katacombs.  I also found a Monastery that had a beautiful church.  I also did some more shopping and a whole lot of walking.  When my feet started to protest I found the Mirabell Gardens and sat staring at the gardens leading up to the fortress and also watched a bride and groom take pictures in the gardens.
When the girls came back we really explored the gardens and got some great pictures.  I showed Allie the Harry Potted like maze and she was so happy.  Her and Amanda pretended to be dueling in the garden, what silly girls, but I loved how much fun we had.  After the gardens we found a tiny little Italian café that had great food and we said our goodbyes to Salzburg.

 

This trip was the changing point in my study abroad.  Before the tears had been because of missing friends, missing home, too much planning, and just pure frustration.  On this trip I stood at the altar of the monastery and held back tears because I didn't want to leave.  I want to see friends and family and all that good stuff, but I did not want to leave Austria.  I don't want to leave my international friends or wake up and not see the hills in front of me.  I want to take the castles and the churches with me and I especially want all the people I so truly and deeply love to see everything little thing that has made me laugh, smile and cry while I have been here.  This trip gave me some peace that I had not had in awhile.  It was a different kind of pure joy that filled me.  Not the kind you get from the adrenaline rush of seeing every single thing in a city in a few hours, but the kind that warms you from your toes to you nose even though you have been sitting in the cold for hours.  It is a joy that does not have a good explanation.  But, even through the stressful times that have come before and the ones that will come in the future I can always remember the peace and the joy that Salzburg brought and that I know I will find in more little nooks and crannies of the world that are yet to come.



Auf Wiedersehen,
Chels

The Land of the Loo

A little side trip to London last weekend was the perfect mental break from trying to translate multiple different languages.  What I was not expecting was the major hurdle of trying to enter the UK that lay before Sarah, Allie, and myself.  After sleeping on a night train from Stuttgart to Paris, we awoke to find out that our train was going to be 2 hours late to Paris, thus making us miss our Chunnel train to London.  Once we got to London, we made our way to Paris Nord Station and the Eurostar desk, where we were promptly evacuated by armed soldiers with machine guns because of a suspicious package.  We were still doing ok spirit wise at this point.  Once we were allowed back in the kind ticket lady rebooked us for free and we ran to catch our train.  The real kicker comes when we got to UK border control and was denied access because we did not have a visa or an acceptance letter from Reutlingen University.  After 20 min of interrogations and calls to her supervisor we were eventually let in, but missed our next train.  We did have a guardian angel because another ticket person rebooked us again for free.  Eventually we made it to London and the first thing we did...........visited Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross.

 

We found our hostel which was pretty close to Hyde Park and did a quick turn around to for burgers and wine before Phantom of the Opera.  I had never seen it before.  Seeing it for the first time was absolutely spectacular.  The music and the flames and the singing and everything was amazing.  We saw it at Her Majesty's Theatre which is where is was first premiered and has been performed over 20,000 times. 

On Friday the girls went to the Harry Potter film set and I went to Westminster Abbey and stood in awe of all of the kings, queens, scientists, and famous people that are buried there.  I did some strolling around Westminster and saw Big Ben, the Parliament building, and Downing Street.  That morning I went to Cambridge and visited some family.  I went to the Eagle Pub for lunch which is were Crick and Shaw announced their discovery of DNA.  I also went into King's Cross Chapel, the largest collegiate chapel in the world as well as just strolled around Cambridge University which is the most beautiful campus I have ever seen.  That night I had a great home cooked meal and took a train back to London.

Saturday was our big tour day.  We had a vintage bus tour in the morning that also included a river cruise and the changing of the guard, ending at Harrods Department Store.  We were able to cover a large portion of the city in a short amount of time.  Buckingham Palace was probably my favorite site.

 

 

The afternoon was beyond belief.  We took a two hour drive out to see Stonehenge and we were blessed with a sight and weather beyond belief.  The sun was setting, the sky was blue, and everything had just perfect color.  It was the most calming site the entire trip and it was great to just relax and take it all in.  Of course we were hungry after this long day and what better than some authentic fish n chips with some cider.  We found a great place near Westminster and experienced the London Eye and Big Ben illuminated at night

Sunday was the day we left, and Allie did leave us in the morning, but Sarah and I packed a lot into the morning.  We went to the Tower of London and learned all about beheadings, the crown jewels and the life of a Beefeater.  He was even kind enough to be a real gentleman and take a picture with us.

 

We found the Crown Jewels and Sarah was in awe the entire time, "I just love sparklies!"  After the Tower we took in the Tower Bridge and walked down the Thames River until we got to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and took the Millennium Bridge back across the river.  That's the one in the Harry Potter film.  We casually made our way back to the train station passing the massive St. Paul's Cathedral on the way.  There was so much to see in London that we could have stayed there for 2 weeks and still not done it all, not to mention the area outside in the English countryside.

Auf Wiedersehen,
Chels

Hola Espana

After traveling to Berlin, our class had the rest of the week of to travel.  Sarah, Allie, Amanda, and I found cheap flight to Barcelona from Berlin and decided it was the perfect time to hit up Spain.  So in a whirlwind trip we flew to Barcelona, and stayed in a hostel right off the Center Ramblas.  The first afternoon we were there we wasted no time in trying some real Sangria and Spanish Paella.  Unfortunately we experienced our first real incident since studying abroad in which Amanda had her phone stolen from a lady who came up to us at our outside table.  Good thing Amanda had her wits about her and was able to snatch it back.  After that we were very careful about our belongings and our purses.  That experience made me uneasy the rest of the time we were in Barcelona, just because there is so much theft all around.  After some food we decided to just get lost and walk to take in everything Barcelona has to offer.  This was our first experience outside of Germany and the architecture and culture are just so different.  Where else do you get a view like this.

 

 



 When the sun started to set we found ourselves at an Australian Pub and tried Spanish bear and tapas which were out of this world.  We soon learned as well that the Spanish never really sleep.  We wanted to go out dancing and soon found out from our waitress that clubs don't even open until one or two.  After a quick siesta we headed out to some local bars and then a club where we met some Chileans students who were studying abroad and learned to dance a little from them. 




The next day we did a bike tour of Barcelona.  On our way to the meeting spot we found this fantastic market with fruits and colors and candy galore.

Our bike tour lasted about four hours, but boy did we cover a lot of ground.  We saw all the different boroughs of Barcelona and well as the famous Goudi architecture, especially the Sagrada Familia.





The best part about the tour was the beach though.  We were able to take a little break on the beach of the Mediterranean and enjoy a sangria halfway through our tour.  Who would not want to just live with this view.....

After experiencing the beach we went straight back there after our tour and dipped our feet in the Sea and sat on the beach until the sun went down and we had to make our way back to the train station to catch our night train to Granda.

Our night train to Granada was so much fun.  We had our own little sleeping compartment with four beds and it was really like one big sleepover.  The next morning in Granada we met the best hostel owner ever.  He could tell we where tired and needed to shower and he switched rooms so we could check in right away.  After a shower the Alhambra was waiting for us.  We bought passes for the hop on hop off bus and rode it up to the palace.  The Alhambra is the largest Muslim palace and holds some of the most exquisite decorations and gardens.  The day pass was sold out so we bought afternoon passes to the gardens and night palace tickets.  No wonder so many people flock from around the world to see this.

 

For lunch we found the quaintest café on the grounds and enjoyed the birds and some classical music before going back out into the sun.  The rest of the day entailed some shopping, where we made great friends with some local vendors, and dinner in the square behind the cathedral.  That night we went back to the palace which was lit up and beyond gorgeous.  Early the next  morning we took a straight train to Seville and checked into a super cool hostel.

We again dropped our stuff and went exploring.  We came across the mushroom, which gives you a birds eye view of the whole city.

 

 



Other fantastic places we happened across was the Seville Cathedral which low behold the one and only Christopher Columbus is buried there......

We also saw the bull fighting arena.  They were preparing for a fight so we were right in the midst of all the commotion.  We decided to relax a little and took a boat tour down the river and saw some sights along the way and headed over to the naval tower once were down with that.  The last little magical piece of our Seville trip was at the end of our day.  We couldn't believe our luck when we found out that is was National Tourism Day and the major sights were free.  We ended our day at Alcazar Palace which none of us knew anything about.  It turned out to be like a Disney creation with out of this world gardens and architecture.

 



That night our hostel had free Sangria hour as well as homemade Paellas, which we had been waiting all day for, and boy was it worth the wait.  The next morning I headed out for a little journey by myself and went to the Plaza de Espana, which was massive and bursting with color.  I also went to the botanical gardens, hoping I would get a pretty view.  What I found was this......

 

 

 

The parked was nicknamed Los Parados and I could tell why.  It really was my own little piece of paradise and the best way to end our trip to Spain.

 

 

Auf Wiedersehen,

Chels



A Divided City

Our second and last class trip was to Berlin, the capital of Germany, was cold and dreary but that did not stop us from taking it all in.  We really saw and experienced almost everything that Berlin could offer.  The first day was quite a long train ride and we had some pasta when we arrived at out hostel and called in an early night.  The entire next day was spent at Sachsenhausen a Nazi concentration camp that was converted to a Russian prison camp after the war.  Saschsenhausen was expansive and there was so much to see and explore that it took hours to get through it all and even then I had to hurry through some of the exhibits.  This camp was a work and political opponent camp so it was unlike Auschwitz which was an extermination camp.  This camp held a lot of political opponents and then Jews, especially Jews that were very talented in craftsman work and could make intricate details on goods that the Nazis were producing.  After the war and the shut down of all concentration camps the USSR took over the camp and expanded it.  They held anti-communist supporters as well as former Nazis and pretty much anyone who showed any sort of resistance to the government.  The camp was definitely a super happy experience, but it was interesting to compare it to my Dachau experience as well as things that all of us have read in books and heard from survivors.

The next day we had an open top bus tour of Berlin with a river cruise.  We had the opportunity to see so much of Berlin and really get a lay of the land.  Elections were happening that day, which was also neat to see all of the press a the capital buildings.  The river cruise let us get an even closer look at some of the buildings and the neat restaurants and bars along the river.  We had a group lunch at an amazinglingly good German place, which was next to a cinema that was having a movie premiere going on.  The restaurant had so many different types of like mango, cherry, and passionfruit.  I had schnitzel of course because when the program pays for food its the only time I can afford it.  We had such a blast eating and we were laughing so hard we were crying.  After a late lunch 5 of us went to the Anne Frank Center to see her diary and learn about her life and what was going on in Germany and the Netherlands during the time she was in hiding.  What a strong girl to have gone through what she did.  I do not think that she would have ever believe that she would become an international figure for hope and perseverance.  Just me chillin on the boat with the Berlin Dom...

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Monday was Museum Day and boy did Sarah and I cover major attractions and ground in Berlin.  We all started out a Checkpoint Charlie, a museum about the Berlin Wall and the occupation of East Germany.

After splitting off Sarah and I hit up the Neus Museum which had a huge collection of Egyptian and Roman artifacts which included the most well preserved bust of Nephratitit, quite possibly the most gorgeous woman ever.  After a quick stop to see the outside of the Berlin Dom Sarah convinced me to go see the DDR Museum and good thing she did, it was so much fun.  We put on clothes made in East Germany and I even put on an East German military helmet which was so heavy.....

We learned what it was really like to live in Communist East Germany and what people had to go through on a daily basis.  After learning anything and everything about the DDR we made our way to the Bradendurg Gate for some pics next to the US Embassy and a visit to the Holocaust Memorial.  The memorial is made up of all kinds of different height blocks and makes for an awesome photo shoot.  Sarah captured this great moment...

 

Slowly we made our way back to our hostel and stopped at a bombed out church on the.  The church was never fully replaced to stand as a memorial, but when we stopped by we actually found a service going on so we stayed for a bit.  Once we got back to the hostel we did a quick change and headed out to a casual concert put on by the Berlin Symphonie at the Berlin Philharmonie Hall, which has some of the best acoustics in Europe.  They played Brahms No 2 and had an after party afterwards in the lobby.  Sarah and I enjoyed a glass while listening to a super chill alternative singer.  It was the perfect way to end our Berlin trip.

 

While Berlin might have been cold and overcast there was no doubt that the city just pulses with activity and spills over with history and culture.  It was interesting to imagine what this divided city must have felt like and looked like while the wall was still in place.

 

Auf Wiedersehen,

Chels