Here is the link to my pictures from Berlin:
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j286/J10Brooks/Berlin/
Here is the link to my pictures from Hamburg:
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j286/J10Brooks/Hamburg/
Enjoy!
Monday, June 16, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
More Class?? :(
So, I had a great 8-9 days of vacation and I really am not looking forward to starting my last class tomorrow. Hamburg was amazing. It was a very beautiful town and catching up with Sven was a lot of fun also. I stayed at his family's house and his parents were extremely hospitable and accommodating the whole time. I spent Friday and Saturday doing a lot of sightseeing and then on Sunday we went and saw Germany's opening match of the European Championships (Europameisterschaft). It was incredible because we saw it at a giant public viewing with over 40,000 people. Germany won 2-0 so the crowd was going crazy the whole time. After the game there was almost rioting in the street. It seemed as though Germany had just won the World Series of the Super Bowl or something. The main party street in Hamburg called the Reeperbahn was full of people and in one spot there were probably 500 people together celebrating and blocking the whole road. Basically, traffic could not go down the street after the game.
After getting back from Hamburg on Monday afternoon, I had to get ready to take off the next morning to Berlin. Our bus left at 7am, so that didn't leave too much time for sleeping the night before because I had to do laundry and pack and everything. As soon as I got on the bus I just put in my Ipod and tried to fall asleep. I was successful for about the first hour or two and that was it. About 4 hours in the trip the bus broke down and we were stuck at a rest area for two hours until a repair guy came. It was unfortunate because it caused us to miss the first couple items on our agenda in Berlin and also made it nearly a 10 hour bus trip. But once we got to Berlin we really had a great time. It was nice having a vacation where the day was all planned out and we had a bus to take us from spot-to-spot. Mostly, I like being able to set my own schedule and kind of wander and see where I wind up when I travel but on occasion it is nice to just enjoy the ride. We saw a lot of very cool sites including parts of the old Berlin Wall, the German Parliament, the Holocaust Memorial, and more.
We also watched the next Germany game at a smaller public viewing there (maybe only 1200 people), but that game wasn't as fun considering Germany played horribly and lost 2-1. Here is a picture of the excellent outfit I had on for the game:
We got back on Friday night and I think I slept about 11-12 hours that night and then lounged around Saturday and slept probably another 12 hours last night. I should be nice and rested now for 9 hours of Accounting & Finance tomorrow :(
Anyways, it's almost Midnight here so I should probably get to bed since class starts at 9am. Take care and have a Happy Father's Day.
Viele Grüße aus Deutschland!
Josh
After getting back from Hamburg on Monday afternoon, I had to get ready to take off the next morning to Berlin. Our bus left at 7am, so that didn't leave too much time for sleeping the night before because I had to do laundry and pack and everything. As soon as I got on the bus I just put in my Ipod and tried to fall asleep. I was successful for about the first hour or two and that was it. About 4 hours in the trip the bus broke down and we were stuck at a rest area for two hours until a repair guy came. It was unfortunate because it caused us to miss the first couple items on our agenda in Berlin and also made it nearly a 10 hour bus trip. But once we got to Berlin we really had a great time. It was nice having a vacation where the day was all planned out and we had a bus to take us from spot-to-spot. Mostly, I like being able to set my own schedule and kind of wander and see where I wind up when I travel but on occasion it is nice to just enjoy the ride. We saw a lot of very cool sites including parts of the old Berlin Wall, the German Parliament, the Holocaust Memorial, and more.
We also watched the next Germany game at a smaller public viewing there (maybe only 1200 people), but that game wasn't as fun considering Germany played horribly and lost 2-1. Here is a picture of the excellent outfit I had on for the game:
We got back on Friday night and I think I slept about 11-12 hours that night and then lounged around Saturday and slept probably another 12 hours last night. I should be nice and rested now for 9 hours of Accounting & Finance tomorrow :(
Anyways, it's almost Midnight here so I should probably get to bed since class starts at 9am. Take care and have a Happy Father's Day.
Viele Grüße aus Deutschland!
Josh
Thursday, June 5, 2008
USA vs Spain
Hello Everyone,
So last night the USA soccer team had a friendly game against Spain that was played in Santander so needless to say...a little bit of a rivalry developed throughout the day between my Spanish roommate and I. Unfortunately, the game wasn't on German television but we were able to find a live feed online and watch the game through my computer. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately the USA lost 1-0. I'm looking forward to rooting against Spain (for fun) in the upcoming European Championship that starts in a couple days.
It's hard to imagine that I have only one month left here. We just finished our second-to-last course on Monday. Instead of having a test we had to write a 2500 word essay which I just finished a couple hours ago. The Germans have some weird standards for their papers but it wasn't too bad.
Anyways, I guess I should give you a recap of the last couple weeks. My trip to Cologne, or Köln as the Germans call it, was excellent. It started out quite difficultly though. I woke up at about 10am on the 22nd of May and got everything packed and got on the 11:30am train to Köln. I was only on the train for about two minutes when I realized that I had packed everything except for my train pass. I started freaking out because you can get a pretty big fine for riding a train without a ticket. At the first stop which is a small town about 4-5 Kilometers from my town I hopped off the train and started walking back home. It took me about an hour to make the walk since the roads are never straight but I got back and had to wait an hour til the next train left town at 1:30pm.
Once I finally got to Köln I was really impressed with how beautiful the town was. I dropped my stuff off at my hostel and started walking up and down the Rhine river. It was absolutely beautiful, you have to check out the pictures on photobucket since I'm too lazy to put them up on here. The Kölner Dom, or Cologne Cathedral, is amazing. It is absolutely huge. I walked all the way up to the top of it and had an absolutely breathtaking view of the city. Ok I'm not doing this town justice without pictures in here so I changed my mind and I will add a few:
So I got back from Köln Friday night and met up with some of the Germans in town and had a real fun night. On that Saturday I made a return trip to Stuttgart and saw the Mercedes-Benz Museum that the rest of my class had seen much earlier in the trip the weekend I went to Prague. It was an amazing museum. It has about 8 floors I think and each floor represents a different era in Mercedes and world history. It was very well done.
Since then I really haven't done a lot. It was ridiculously hot all week here. It was between 30-34 degrees celsius (86-93 F) and extremely humid. The germans were saying it was really uncharacteristic for it to be that hot. The classrooms don't have air conditioning and neither does my apartment so the only place that provided relief from the heat was the grocery store. Needless to say, I did a lot of grocery shopping last week.
This weekend was really nice because the weather changed from 90 degree heat to thunder and lightning storms. It was beautiful to watch and it made it a little easier to do research for my paper since the weather wasn't too appealing.
Now I'm just relaxing for the afternoon. I'm going to get some cleaning and laundry done and then take off for the weekend. On that note, here is a small breakdown of my remaining schedule:
- Tomorrow (June 6th), I leave for Hamburg to visit my friend Sven who was a foreign exchange student in Philomath during High School. Should be lots of fun, haven't seen him for a while and I hear Hamburg is beautiful. Also, on Sunday Germany plays their first game in the European Championships against Poland and we are going to go to a big public viewing of the game in downtown Hamburg. I'm really looking forward to the weekend. I will come back on Monday for a short break until...
- Tuesday early morning (June 10th) our whole class is making a 4 day trip by bus to Berlin. The school is planning the whole trip including museums, lodging, and everything. Should be lots of fun. The school is covering a lot of the cost so it will only cost us 50 euros each for the whole thing. We have to purchase our own Lunches and Dinners though. We get to watch another public viewing of Germany's second game of the tournament against Croatia. (Yes, if you are counting that is consecutive public viewings of German soccer games in Hamburg and then Berlin). We get back Friday evening from that trip I'm sure I'll be spending much of the weekend sleeping and relaxing until our final class starts on Monday the 16th.
- The final two weeks of class are going to be very boring since the class is International Accounting & Finance but hopefully I will learn something interesting.
- Then classes end on June 27th and my Dad gets here on the 30th and we will travel down through Germany, Austria, and Italy and then return to Frankfurt and leave for home on the 10th of July.
Well that's all for now.
Viele Grüße aus Deutschland!
So last night the USA soccer team had a friendly game against Spain that was played in Santander so needless to say...a little bit of a rivalry developed throughout the day between my Spanish roommate and I. Unfortunately, the game wasn't on German television but we were able to find a live feed online and watch the game through my computer. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately the USA lost 1-0. I'm looking forward to rooting against Spain (for fun) in the upcoming European Championship that starts in a couple days.
It's hard to imagine that I have only one month left here. We just finished our second-to-last course on Monday. Instead of having a test we had to write a 2500 word essay which I just finished a couple hours ago. The Germans have some weird standards for their papers but it wasn't too bad.
Anyways, I guess I should give you a recap of the last couple weeks. My trip to Cologne, or Köln as the Germans call it, was excellent. It started out quite difficultly though. I woke up at about 10am on the 22nd of May and got everything packed and got on the 11:30am train to Köln. I was only on the train for about two minutes when I realized that I had packed everything except for my train pass. I started freaking out because you can get a pretty big fine for riding a train without a ticket. At the first stop which is a small town about 4-5 Kilometers from my town I hopped off the train and started walking back home. It took me about an hour to make the walk since the roads are never straight but I got back and had to wait an hour til the next train left town at 1:30pm.
Once I finally got to Köln I was really impressed with how beautiful the town was. I dropped my stuff off at my hostel and started walking up and down the Rhine river. It was absolutely beautiful, you have to check out the pictures on photobucket since I'm too lazy to put them up on here. The Kölner Dom, or Cologne Cathedral, is amazing. It is absolutely huge. I walked all the way up to the top of it and had an absolutely breathtaking view of the city. Ok I'm not doing this town justice without pictures in here so I changed my mind and I will add a few:
So I got back from Köln Friday night and met up with some of the Germans in town and had a real fun night. On that Saturday I made a return trip to Stuttgart and saw the Mercedes-Benz Museum that the rest of my class had seen much earlier in the trip the weekend I went to Prague. It was an amazing museum. It has about 8 floors I think and each floor represents a different era in Mercedes and world history. It was very well done.
Since then I really haven't done a lot. It was ridiculously hot all week here. It was between 30-34 degrees celsius (86-93 F) and extremely humid. The germans were saying it was really uncharacteristic for it to be that hot. The classrooms don't have air conditioning and neither does my apartment so the only place that provided relief from the heat was the grocery store. Needless to say, I did a lot of grocery shopping last week.
This weekend was really nice because the weather changed from 90 degree heat to thunder and lightning storms. It was beautiful to watch and it made it a little easier to do research for my paper since the weather wasn't too appealing.
Now I'm just relaxing for the afternoon. I'm going to get some cleaning and laundry done and then take off for the weekend. On that note, here is a small breakdown of my remaining schedule:
- Tomorrow (June 6th), I leave for Hamburg to visit my friend Sven who was a foreign exchange student in Philomath during High School. Should be lots of fun, haven't seen him for a while and I hear Hamburg is beautiful. Also, on Sunday Germany plays their first game in the European Championships against Poland and we are going to go to a big public viewing of the game in downtown Hamburg. I'm really looking forward to the weekend. I will come back on Monday for a short break until...
- Tuesday early morning (June 10th) our whole class is making a 4 day trip by bus to Berlin. The school is planning the whole trip including museums, lodging, and everything. Should be lots of fun. The school is covering a lot of the cost so it will only cost us 50 euros each for the whole thing. We have to purchase our own Lunches and Dinners though. We get to watch another public viewing of Germany's second game of the tournament against Croatia. (Yes, if you are counting that is consecutive public viewings of German soccer games in Hamburg and then Berlin). We get back Friday evening from that trip I'm sure I'll be spending much of the weekend sleeping and relaxing until our final class starts on Monday the 16th.
- The final two weeks of class are going to be very boring since the class is International Accounting & Finance but hopefully I will learn something interesting.
- Then classes end on June 27th and my Dad gets here on the 30th and we will travel down through Germany, Austria, and Italy and then return to Frankfurt and leave for home on the 10th of July.
Well that's all for now.
Viele Grüße aus Deutschland!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
It's been a while...
So, I guess it has been more than a month since I have written a blog. Mainly, I've been really busy and then when I have had free time I haven't felt like writing. But I have the whole afternoon free today so I thought a quick update was in order.
Since my last blog about Munich I have done a lot. The next weekend I went to Prague and had an excellent time. That is still the most beautiful city I have seen so far. It was unfortunate that it was raining the whole time that we were there, but we still made the most of it and had an excellent time. The next weekend after Prague I went to small town between here and Stuttgart and hung out with a couple of the German students that went home for the weekend. It was really nice because I had some homemade German food for dinner and breakfast. The town itself that I went to wasn't anything special but it was still fun.
The weekend after that (The first weekend in May), I went to this incredible Wine Festival in a town about an hour away from Bad Mergentheim, where I am staying. The area was the home town of one of the German students here so he invited me and my roommate from Spain and another German student to come visit the area and to join him at the Wine Festival. I had so much fun. It is the most famous Wine region in Germany and it was by far the best Wine that I have ever tasted.
The next weekend I finally just took it easy and rested and just hung out with some of the German students in town. I've found that I enjoy hanging out with the Germans much more than the other International students. It's weird because the other American's don't hang out with the Germans all that much so when I go places it is usually about 10 Germans and myself. They all speak English so well that it is hard for me to learn German because I am not forced to communicate in German. I still have been picking up a lot of German though. When I hear them talk I can usually pick up the subject matter that they are talking about but I usually am not able to pick up all the details. I'm sad though because with the way the structure and schedule works at this school, all of the German students, except for the ones in my class, end their term this week and start working again for three months. I've made a lot of good friends so it will be weird to have to go through the process of meeting a bunch of new German students next week. It should be fun though.
This last weekend I finally got to do something that I have been wanting to do ever since I got here. I went to a German soccer game! Four of us hopped on the train at 10:30am and rode down to Stuttgart to watch VFB Stuttgart play Arminia Bielefeld. I found us an incredible deal online for the tickets so it was only €21 each and we were sitting in the third row in the corner behind the goal. The atmosphere was really awesome because the visiting fans were all only two sections away from us and there was literally a 10 foot high fence all around their section to prevent fights between the fans. It ended up being a really good game, Stuttgart was down 1-0 and then got a penalty kick in the 75th minute or so and tied it. Then the scored in the 85th minute to go ahead 2-1 and while everybody was still celebrating and going crazy, Bielefeld scored in the 87th minute to tie it back up and it ended in a 2-2 tie.
On Sunday I hopped on the train in the morning and headed towards Brussels. I had a couple days free and figured I would check out the area. The other internationals were either too tired or didn't want to go so I ended up just going by myself. It was a lot of fun because when I got there I was able to just walk around and go where I wanted and not worry about coordinating a plan or anything. Overall, Brussels isn't my favorite town I've been to but it was still quite enjoyable and since it didn't cost much it was definitely worth going to.
Now I'm just in the computer lab trying to figure out my plans for this weekend. It looks like I will be heading to Cologne tomorrow and staying a night there and then coming back on Friday to say bye to all the German students who will be leaving. On Saturday I think I will make a day trip down to Stuttgart and check out a little more of the town; all I saw was the football stadium pretty much last weekend. Should be quite a fun weekend.
Since I'm typing this at the school's computer lab it is too much work to try and put pictures in here. But I have put a lot of pictures up on photobucket. There are a bunch of pictures from my weekend in Prague and a couple other small towns. When I get internet back at my house (hopefully today or tomorrow, we haven't had internet for about 10 days now!) I will upload a lot more pictures and put some on here and a bunch on photobucket.
Here's the link to the prague album: http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j286/J10Brooks/Prague/
Take care everyone.
Viele Grüße,
Josh
Since my last blog about Munich I have done a lot. The next weekend I went to Prague and had an excellent time. That is still the most beautiful city I have seen so far. It was unfortunate that it was raining the whole time that we were there, but we still made the most of it and had an excellent time. The next weekend after Prague I went to small town between here and Stuttgart and hung out with a couple of the German students that went home for the weekend. It was really nice because I had some homemade German food for dinner and breakfast. The town itself that I went to wasn't anything special but it was still fun.
The weekend after that (The first weekend in May), I went to this incredible Wine Festival in a town about an hour away from Bad Mergentheim, where I am staying. The area was the home town of one of the German students here so he invited me and my roommate from Spain and another German student to come visit the area and to join him at the Wine Festival. I had so much fun. It is the most famous Wine region in Germany and it was by far the best Wine that I have ever tasted.
The next weekend I finally just took it easy and rested and just hung out with some of the German students in town. I've found that I enjoy hanging out with the Germans much more than the other International students. It's weird because the other American's don't hang out with the Germans all that much so when I go places it is usually about 10 Germans and myself. They all speak English so well that it is hard for me to learn German because I am not forced to communicate in German. I still have been picking up a lot of German though. When I hear them talk I can usually pick up the subject matter that they are talking about but I usually am not able to pick up all the details. I'm sad though because with the way the structure and schedule works at this school, all of the German students, except for the ones in my class, end their term this week and start working again for three months. I've made a lot of good friends so it will be weird to have to go through the process of meeting a bunch of new German students next week. It should be fun though.
This last weekend I finally got to do something that I have been wanting to do ever since I got here. I went to a German soccer game! Four of us hopped on the train at 10:30am and rode down to Stuttgart to watch VFB Stuttgart play Arminia Bielefeld. I found us an incredible deal online for the tickets so it was only €21 each and we were sitting in the third row in the corner behind the goal. The atmosphere was really awesome because the visiting fans were all only two sections away from us and there was literally a 10 foot high fence all around their section to prevent fights between the fans. It ended up being a really good game, Stuttgart was down 1-0 and then got a penalty kick in the 75th minute or so and tied it. Then the scored in the 85th minute to go ahead 2-1 and while everybody was still celebrating and going crazy, Bielefeld scored in the 87th minute to tie it back up and it ended in a 2-2 tie.
On Sunday I hopped on the train in the morning and headed towards Brussels. I had a couple days free and figured I would check out the area. The other internationals were either too tired or didn't want to go so I ended up just going by myself. It was a lot of fun because when I got there I was able to just walk around and go where I wanted and not worry about coordinating a plan or anything. Overall, Brussels isn't my favorite town I've been to but it was still quite enjoyable and since it didn't cost much it was definitely worth going to.
Now I'm just in the computer lab trying to figure out my plans for this weekend. It looks like I will be heading to Cologne tomorrow and staying a night there and then coming back on Friday to say bye to all the German students who will be leaving. On Saturday I think I will make a day trip down to Stuttgart and check out a little more of the town; all I saw was the football stadium pretty much last weekend. Should be quite a fun weekend.
Since I'm typing this at the school's computer lab it is too much work to try and put pictures in here. But I have put a lot of pictures up on photobucket. There are a bunch of pictures from my weekend in Prague and a couple other small towns. When I get internet back at my house (hopefully today or tomorrow, we haven't had internet for about 10 days now!) I will upload a lot more pictures and put some on here and a bunch on photobucket.
Here's the link to the prague album: http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j286/J10Brooks/Prague/
Take care everyone.
Viele Grüße,
Josh
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Gotta love Bavaria!
Munich was wonderful! Six of us International students went together; 5 from the US and the 1 girl from Slovakia. We got there in the middle of the afternoon on Friday and left in the middle of the afternoon on Sunday. We had somewhat of an idea of places we wanted to see but mostly we were planning on shooting from the hip once we got there.
The first place we went was the legendary Hofbrauhaus Brewery. It's a pretty touristy place but it also has a lot of Germans in the traditional Lederhosen outfits. We had to get the ultimate experience so we each got a beer and sausage which were both great. After that we just walked around the downtown looking at various sites. We went inside this beautiful church called the Frauenkirche. (kirche=church). The church supposedly has an excellent view of the Alps since its two towers are the highest point in Munich and there is a law preventing anyone from building anything taller. We wanted to go up but it was really cloudy so we kept walking. We spent the next 4-5 hours just wandering by buildings and taking lots of pictures. The town is really beautiful.
The next day we started out by going to the Olympic Park that was built for the '72 Olympics. It was a really cool area and a lot bigger than I was expecting. The stadium was really cool looking and since we went in the morning it wasn't too crowded. After that we went back to downtown to watch one of the most overrated attractions in Munich. It is the little glockenspiel show in the Marienplatz (the main square in downtown) at the city hall building. The building has a really cool Gothic design and everyone crowds around three times a day to watch these figurines move around to glockenspiel music. It is cool for about 4 seconds and then it gets lame.
After that we went on this free bike tour. It involved riding through the English Garden and by many other cool buildings and such. It was an excellent deal because the tour guides were both American students studying history in Munich at a University there. They had both been in town about a year so they knew what we wanted to see as tourists and as Americans.
On Sunday we split up and a few of us went around town to spots we still wanted to see and then the other three went to Dachau. I decided not to go to Dachau because there were some things I still wanted to see in Munich. We went to the giant area where they hold Oktoberfest each year. It was pretty empty but it was absolutely huge. There was this small fair that looked oddly similar to the Benton County Fair and then this antique car show behind the fair.
After that we went to the Allianz Arena. It is the soccer stadium where they had the 2006 World Cup Final and where Bayern Munich plays. I wanted to go on a tour through the stadium but since Bayern Munich had a game later that night they had no tours. Also, since the game didn't start until about 30 minutes before the last train out of town there was no way of me scalping some tickets.
The last thing we did was go back to Olympic Park and walk up the hill and get a few of the whole park and all of Munich. I wanted to go to the Frauenkirchen towers like I mentioned before to get the good view but like 95% of Germany, it was closed on Sundays. Either way the view at Olympic Park was incredible and it was an excellent finish to the trip.
Now for my only complaint about the whole trip: We decided to get the whole experience and stay in a hostel that had 40 beds in the room. It was extremely cheap...only 13euros a night per person. When we got there on Friday it was real nice looking because they had obviously just cleaned it; but by Sunday morning it had the most disgusting scent to the room that I had ever smelled. I slept about four hours the first night and three the second. I would have gladly paid another 20-30euros each night for those extra few hours of sleep.
All-in-all though, it was an excellent trip and there's a good chance we may head back down there again in June because there is still some stuff to be seen.
This week my Macroeconomics class started. There aren't too many things more difficult than staying awake for 7 hours worth of economics lectures. At least the three days of classes are over for this week and now the five day weekend starts. We are headed to the Audi factory tomorrow morning and then to this Medieval town in the afternoon. Our whole class is going so it should be tons of fun. On Friday I'll be heading to Prague for the weekend. Three of us are going and it should be tons of fun.
I made a photobucket page the other day and I uploaded a lot of pictures to it. The first link is to pictures around Bad Mergentheim and then the second one is to pictures of Munich. If the links don't work then just go to photobucket.com and search for J10Brooks.
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j286/J10Brooks/Bad%20Mergentheim/
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j286/J10Brooks/Munich/
The first place we went was the legendary Hofbrauhaus Brewery. It's a pretty touristy place but it also has a lot of Germans in the traditional Lederhosen outfits. We had to get the ultimate experience so we each got a beer and sausage which were both great. After that we just walked around the downtown looking at various sites. We went inside this beautiful church called the Frauenkirche. (kirche=church). The church supposedly has an excellent view of the Alps since its two towers are the highest point in Munich and there is a law preventing anyone from building anything taller. We wanted to go up but it was really cloudy so we kept walking. We spent the next 4-5 hours just wandering by buildings and taking lots of pictures. The town is really beautiful.
The next day we started out by going to the Olympic Park that was built for the '72 Olympics. It was a really cool area and a lot bigger than I was expecting. The stadium was really cool looking and since we went in the morning it wasn't too crowded. After that we went back to downtown to watch one of the most overrated attractions in Munich. It is the little glockenspiel show in the Marienplatz (the main square in downtown) at the city hall building. The building has a really cool Gothic design and everyone crowds around three times a day to watch these figurines move around to glockenspiel music. It is cool for about 4 seconds and then it gets lame.
After that we went on this free bike tour. It involved riding through the English Garden and by many other cool buildings and such. It was an excellent deal because the tour guides were both American students studying history in Munich at a University there. They had both been in town about a year so they knew what we wanted to see as tourists and as Americans.
On Sunday we split up and a few of us went around town to spots we still wanted to see and then the other three went to Dachau. I decided not to go to Dachau because there were some things I still wanted to see in Munich. We went to the giant area where they hold Oktoberfest each year. It was pretty empty but it was absolutely huge. There was this small fair that looked oddly similar to the Benton County Fair and then this antique car show behind the fair.
After that we went to the Allianz Arena. It is the soccer stadium where they had the 2006 World Cup Final and where Bayern Munich plays. I wanted to go on a tour through the stadium but since Bayern Munich had a game later that night they had no tours. Also, since the game didn't start until about 30 minutes before the last train out of town there was no way of me scalping some tickets.
The last thing we did was go back to Olympic Park and walk up the hill and get a few of the whole park and all of Munich. I wanted to go to the Frauenkirchen towers like I mentioned before to get the good view but like 95% of Germany, it was closed on Sundays. Either way the view at Olympic Park was incredible and it was an excellent finish to the trip.
Now for my only complaint about the whole trip: We decided to get the whole experience and stay in a hostel that had 40 beds in the room. It was extremely cheap...only 13euros a night per person. When we got there on Friday it was real nice looking because they had obviously just cleaned it; but by Sunday morning it had the most disgusting scent to the room that I had ever smelled. I slept about four hours the first night and three the second. I would have gladly paid another 20-30euros each night for those extra few hours of sleep.
All-in-all though, it was an excellent trip and there's a good chance we may head back down there again in June because there is still some stuff to be seen.
This week my Macroeconomics class started. There aren't too many things more difficult than staying awake for 7 hours worth of economics lectures. At least the three days of classes are over for this week and now the five day weekend starts. We are headed to the Audi factory tomorrow morning and then to this Medieval town in the afternoon. Our whole class is going so it should be tons of fun. On Friday I'll be heading to Prague for the weekend. Three of us are going and it should be tons of fun.
I made a photobucket page the other day and I uploaded a lot of pictures to it. The first link is to pictures around Bad Mergentheim and then the second one is to pictures of Munich. If the links don't work then just go to photobucket.com and search for J10Brooks.
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j286/J10Brooks/Bad%20Mergentheim/
http://s83.photobucket.com/albums/j286/J10Brooks/Munich/
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Munich tomorrow...
So, when I got out of the shower today I was walking back to my room and I looked at the modem and saw there was an extra light on and I quickly realized that it was the light for DSL. That means the Internet came back on 5 days early! So, I thought I would put a couple pictures up here of the town that I took the other day.
Tonight some of the German students are going to take us to a bowling alley outside of town and then we are going to meet up at a local diner in town that is very similar to a Retro 50's diner back in the US. It should be a lot of fun...but I'm looking forward to heading to Munich tomorrow morning a lot more.
I just finished my first class yesterday. It was a project management class that was really similar to a class I had taken at OSU a couple terms ago. Our final project was a 10-15 minute presentation and it was the sole basis for our grading. Anyways, I think my presentation went well but we don't get grades for a week or two so I guess I won't know until then.
I'll post some more after my trip to Munich.
Tonight some of the German students are going to take us to a bowling alley outside of town and then we are going to meet up at a local diner in town that is very similar to a Retro 50's diner back in the US. It should be a lot of fun...but I'm looking forward to heading to Munich tomorrow morning a lot more.
I just finished my first class yesterday. It was a project management class that was really similar to a class I had taken at OSU a couple terms ago. Our final project was a 10-15 minute presentation and it was the sole basis for our grading. Anyways, I think my presentation went well but we don't get grades for a week or two so I guess I won't know until then.
I'll post some more after my trip to Munich.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Lost the Internet temporarily
So, a lot has been going on the last week. I met all of the other exchange students that I will be taking classes with for the whole term and we took a one week crash course in German. Mostly it was just refreshing in my mind what I had learned long ago but I learned some new stuff and I feel a little better about my German at this point. The other students in my classes are really cool though. There are six from Singapore, two from France, one from Slovakia, one from Spain, and six of us from OSU. I wasn´t sure how it would go getting along with everyone, but I can already tell it is going to go great. I had a chance basically to interact with every person individually and I truly enjoy hanging out with all of them.
There are also a few really nice German students who have been excellent at showing us around the town and the good spots to eat and everything. On Monday, a few of the German guys showed us the best restaurant to go to on the school meal plan (2.50euro for appetizer, main course, and dessert at three restaurants around town) and helped us learn how to order and everything. Later they took us to a gym and we played some small sided soccer on a gym floor with small goals that was a lot of fun. I showed the Germans that some Americans can play football also :)
I get internet back at my apartment on the 15th of April so I will be able to upload more pictures then. I have to use the computers in the lab at the school and it is a real pain to upload pictures on them (especially since everything is in German, and the German keyboard is different than the US keyboard).
I have some great pictures from the top of a hill that is about a 15 minute walk from my place and you can see the whole town and some other surrounding towns.
It also looks like I will have a couple busy weeks of traveling ahead of me also. A bunch of us are planning on going to Munich this weekend and possibly make a trip to the Neuschwanstein castle and then next weekend we are going to the Audi Museum as a class and then the next day a couple of us are going to go to Prague for the weekend.
Anyways, after the 15th I'll have a ton of pictures to put up and some excellent stories to tell I'm sure.
Josh
There are also a few really nice German students who have been excellent at showing us around the town and the good spots to eat and everything. On Monday, a few of the German guys showed us the best restaurant to go to on the school meal plan (2.50euro for appetizer, main course, and dessert at three restaurants around town) and helped us learn how to order and everything. Later they took us to a gym and we played some small sided soccer on a gym floor with small goals that was a lot of fun. I showed the Germans that some Americans can play football also :)
I get internet back at my apartment on the 15th of April so I will be able to upload more pictures then. I have to use the computers in the lab at the school and it is a real pain to upload pictures on them (especially since everything is in German, and the German keyboard is different than the US keyboard).
I have some great pictures from the top of a hill that is about a 15 minute walk from my place and you can see the whole town and some other surrounding towns.
It also looks like I will have a couple busy weeks of traveling ahead of me also. A bunch of us are planning on going to Munich this weekend and possibly make a trip to the Neuschwanstein castle and then next weekend we are going to the Audi Museum as a class and then the next day a couple of us are going to go to Prague for the weekend.
Anyways, after the 15th I'll have a ton of pictures to put up and some excellent stories to tell I'm sure.
Josh
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Family Guy in German just isn't the same...
The last few days have been very relaxing. I slept about 12 hours a night that last couple nights to make up for the three all-nighters last week. My room mate from OSU, Chris, showed up yesterday in the afternoon and we went and visited the downtown area a little more. He's a real cool guy and I can tell that three months as room mates will be a good time. We are currently waiting for our third room mate from Spain to show up at some point today.
Since I slept so much the last couple days, last night my body only let me sleep from 10pm until 2am and then I was wide awake. I watched some German television and got hooked. There was a game show on where this girl was taking calls from people and they were trying to guess Automobile manufacturer's that had the letter "A" in them. I watched it for about 2 hours and the prize escalated from 1,000euros all the way to 11,000euros. Nobody guessed them and eventually the show ended and she revealed the answers and all of them were companies both my room mate and I had never heard of. I watched some other random movies that were awesomely bad and then some American shows in German; like Scrubs, Two and a Half Men, and Family Guy.
Today we walked all around the park near our campus which is really beautiful. I didn't take many pictures today but I'm sure I will take some and some point. At about 14:00 (2pm) we wanted to have some lunch but after having about three places tell us they weren't serving food, we realized that places only serve pastries and pies from 2pm - 5pm and they don't serve food. It was really weird. So we just had a beer and came home. Now we are waiting around for the guy from Spain to hurry up and get here so we can all go out to eat right at 5pm.
Well I'm gonna go see if there are any football games on tv because there are tons of games on today in Germany and in England.
Again, more photo's are at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119291&l=bf40a&id=19704976
and
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119274&l=d3758&id=19704976
Seacrest Out!
Since I slept so much the last couple days, last night my body only let me sleep from 10pm until 2am and then I was wide awake. I watched some German television and got hooked. There was a game show on where this girl was taking calls from people and they were trying to guess Automobile manufacturer's that had the letter "A" in them. I watched it for about 2 hours and the prize escalated from 1,000euros all the way to 11,000euros. Nobody guessed them and eventually the show ended and she revealed the answers and all of them were companies both my room mate and I had never heard of. I watched some other random movies that were awesomely bad and then some American shows in German; like Scrubs, Two and a Half Men, and Family Guy.
Today we walked all around the park near our campus which is really beautiful. I didn't take many pictures today but I'm sure I will take some and some point. At about 14:00 (2pm) we wanted to have some lunch but after having about three places tell us they weren't serving food, we realized that places only serve pastries and pies from 2pm - 5pm and they don't serve food. It was really weird. So we just had a beer and came home. Now we are waiting around for the guy from Spain to hurry up and get here so we can all go out to eat right at 5pm.
Well I'm gonna go see if there are any football games on tv because there are tons of games on today in Germany and in England.
Again, more photo's are at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119291&l=bf40a&id=19704976
and
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119274&l=d3758&id=19704976
Seacrest Out!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Europe
I got in Germany on the 21st and caught a train to my place in Bad Mergentheim. It was super cold in Germany. About 1 degree Celsius and snowing. When I got to my place I was surprised to find that my flat is actually pretty nice. It is fully furnished, which I knew, and it has nice wood floors and a deck with a bench and table. It is very roomy also which is nice.
One interesting thing is that there are only two bedrooms instead of three so we'll see how we work that out when my two room mates show up. There are about 3 mattresses in each room so there isn't a shortage of places to sleep. Anyways, I tried to stay awake as long as I could to acclimate to the time difference but I was unsuccessful. I fell asleep shortly after 6pm and woke up wide awake at about 6am on the 22nd.
It was a long journey the next day to get to London to meet Danny. I got to Hahn about 4 hours before my flight. It is a real small airport about an hours bus ride from the Frankfurt airport. It is where Ryan Air flies from and they are Europe's version of southwest except worse. I wondered around for about 10 minutes and realized that I'd seen the whole thing. The flight to London was only a little over an hour long. I spent about an hour looking around the airport for Danny since I was supposed to meet him there. I couldn't find him so I assumed he had already taken the bus into downtown because he had mentioned we had to check in at our hotel at a certain time. I figured he had gone to do that and then would meet me where the bus stop was (fuzzy math on my part). He wasn't there and I wondered around for a couple more hours trying to call him some more from pay phones and it wouldn't work. I tried about 12 different phones and then I finally found a train station that had wireless internet. I realized Danny had sent me an email saying that he had passport issues in Dublin and they wouldn't let him fly to London. So I was by myself.
I decided to make the most of it and see what I could at 11:30pm in London since the next bus to the airport wasn't until 2:40am. I started by walking to Buckingham Palace which was only a few blocks away and then walked by St. James Park, Westminster Abby, Big Ben, and then across the river to the eye of London. It was about a two hour long walk or so and it was a lot of fun. It wasn't quite how I imagined I would be spending my birthday but it was still a good experience.
I got back to the London Airport at about 4am and my flight wasn't until 11:05am. I tried to move up to the 7am flight but it was going to be 180pounds (about $370). So I pulled my second allnighter of the trip. When I got to Dublin, Danny was actually there this time. We spent that afternoon basically walking around all of downtown Dublin. I saw where he goes to school and a ton of other stuff. It was Easter Sunday though so a lot of the shops were closed and even though it seemed like a lot of people to me, Danny said it was nothing. We went to a cool Cathedral for a 30 minute mass that night. The Cathedral we went to was really nice and it was the one that St. Valentine (Valentine's Day) went to.
We went to a local pub and had a bowl of Guinness stew and watched the end of the Manchester United vs Liverpool game. The pub was packed full of people watching the game so it was real hard to find a seat. Later that night we went to another pub and I had a pint of Guinness. The Pub's are really cool there. Pretty crowded but a real laid back environment. The second one we went to had a guy playing acoustic guitar and he was just doing covers of 90's songs pretty much. We met up with some of Danny's friends later at this sushi place and then went to have some Gelato. Later, we went to a pool hall and played for a while.
The next day Danny had some school work to do during the day so he sent me on a day tour of the Ireland country side. It was really beautiful and very interesting. The tour stopped at a few glacial lakes and talked about a lot of the history of Ireland that I wasn't very familiar with.
I saw Guinness Lake where the guy who owns Guinness lives at in a huge mansion. In the afternoon we went to Glendalough and saw a the Cathedral there. They talked a lot about the history of the monastery there. I took a 15 minute walk and saw both of the lakes there also which were really cool.
That night we met up with his friends and played some poker. I taught them a thing or two. Between games we walked over to this Fish and Chips place called Burdock's. It is supposed to be the best place to get Fish and Chips in Dublin cuz all the stars go there when they visit. It was a lot of food but I didn't really think it was anything special. I only made it through about half of it though cuz there was so much.
At about 3am that night I had to catch a bus back to the airport because I had a 6am flight (allnighter number three if you're keeping track.) I got into Bad Mergentheim at around 3pm and found a grocery store a block from my flat and bought some dinner. I ate and watched some TV and then all of a sudden I woke up on the couch at it was 3am. I went to bed and slept more until almost noon and then my goal for today was to figure out how to use my washer machine and find some internet. I accomplished both. After eating lunch I decided to wonder around every inch of my apartment and see if there was another router I could pick up that didn't require a password. Luckily, I found one by the window in one of the bedrooms. I think the people who lived here last used the same spot because there is a real fancy window seal that works well as a desktop haha.
Well I think I've rambled enough. I'll post more later.
Here are the links to more of my pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119291&l=bf40a&id=19704976
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119274&l=d3758&id=19704976
One interesting thing is that there are only two bedrooms instead of three so we'll see how we work that out when my two room mates show up. There are about 3 mattresses in each room so there isn't a shortage of places to sleep. Anyways, I tried to stay awake as long as I could to acclimate to the time difference but I was unsuccessful. I fell asleep shortly after 6pm and woke up wide awake at about 6am on the 22nd.
It was a long journey the next day to get to London to meet Danny. I got to Hahn about 4 hours before my flight. It is a real small airport about an hours bus ride from the Frankfurt airport. It is where Ryan Air flies from and they are Europe's version of southwest except worse. I wondered around for about 10 minutes and realized that I'd seen the whole thing. The flight to London was only a little over an hour long. I spent about an hour looking around the airport for Danny since I was supposed to meet him there. I couldn't find him so I assumed he had already taken the bus into downtown because he had mentioned we had to check in at our hotel at a certain time. I figured he had gone to do that and then would meet me where the bus stop was (fuzzy math on my part). He wasn't there and I wondered around for a couple more hours trying to call him some more from pay phones and it wouldn't work. I tried about 12 different phones and then I finally found a train station that had wireless internet. I realized Danny had sent me an email saying that he had passport issues in Dublin and they wouldn't let him fly to London. So I was by myself.
I decided to make the most of it and see what I could at 11:30pm in London since the next bus to the airport wasn't until 2:40am. I started by walking to Buckingham Palace which was only a few blocks away and then walked by St. James Park, Westminster Abby, Big Ben, and then across the river to the eye of London. It was about a two hour long walk or so and it was a lot of fun. It wasn't quite how I imagined I would be spending my birthday but it was still a good experience.
I got back to the London Airport at about 4am and my flight wasn't until 11:05am. I tried to move up to the 7am flight but it was going to be 180pounds (about $370). So I pulled my second allnighter of the trip. When I got to Dublin, Danny was actually there this time. We spent that afternoon basically walking around all of downtown Dublin. I saw where he goes to school and a ton of other stuff. It was Easter Sunday though so a lot of the shops were closed and even though it seemed like a lot of people to me, Danny said it was nothing. We went to a cool Cathedral for a 30 minute mass that night. The Cathedral we went to was really nice and it was the one that St. Valentine (Valentine's Day) went to.
We went to a local pub and had a bowl of Guinness stew and watched the end of the Manchester United vs Liverpool game. The pub was packed full of people watching the game so it was real hard to find a seat. Later that night we went to another pub and I had a pint of Guinness. The Pub's are really cool there. Pretty crowded but a real laid back environment. The second one we went to had a guy playing acoustic guitar and he was just doing covers of 90's songs pretty much. We met up with some of Danny's friends later at this sushi place and then went to have some Gelato. Later, we went to a pool hall and played for a while.
The next day Danny had some school work to do during the day so he sent me on a day tour of the Ireland country side. It was really beautiful and very interesting. The tour stopped at a few glacial lakes and talked about a lot of the history of Ireland that I wasn't very familiar with.
I saw Guinness Lake where the guy who owns Guinness lives at in a huge mansion. In the afternoon we went to Glendalough and saw a the Cathedral there. They talked a lot about the history of the monastery there. I took a 15 minute walk and saw both of the lakes there also which were really cool.
That night we met up with his friends and played some poker. I taught them a thing or two. Between games we walked over to this Fish and Chips place called Burdock's. It is supposed to be the best place to get Fish and Chips in Dublin cuz all the stars go there when they visit. It was a lot of food but I didn't really think it was anything special. I only made it through about half of it though cuz there was so much.
At about 3am that night I had to catch a bus back to the airport because I had a 6am flight (allnighter number three if you're keeping track.) I got into Bad Mergentheim at around 3pm and found a grocery store a block from my flat and bought some dinner. I ate and watched some TV and then all of a sudden I woke up on the couch at it was 3am. I went to bed and slept more until almost noon and then my goal for today was to figure out how to use my washer machine and find some internet. I accomplished both. After eating lunch I decided to wonder around every inch of my apartment and see if there was another router I could pick up that didn't require a password. Luckily, I found one by the window in one of the bedrooms. I think the people who lived here last used the same spot because there is a real fancy window seal that works well as a desktop haha.
Well I think I've rambled enough. I'll post more later.
Here are the links to more of my pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119291&l=bf40a&id=19704976
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119274&l=d3758&id=19704976
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