Heidelberg

Weird metal horse-thingy in Heidelberg

So one of the girls in my program has been to Germany before. It turns out that she studied abroad in Heidelberg. She decided to take us there on Saturday the 27th of August. It took about 5 or so hours by train to get there from Radolfzell. So we spent 10 hours on a train (roundtrip) to walk around the city of Heidelberg for 6 hours...totally worth it! The city's really beautiful and has a castle at the top of one of its hills that you can walk through. One of the main streets in the city is really touristy. We ran into a bunch of english speaking people and there are two Starbucks on this one street! They had a lot of cool little shops with candy, clothes, steins, and the like. So before we went to the castle, we treated ourselves to a little picnic. We all bought food at the local Aldi (yes Aldi originated in Germany) and sat in the town square and ate before we trotted up the hill to the castle.

Me after a picnic in the square in Heidelberg

The incline of the hill to the castle had to be something like 47 degrees. It was so steep!

A very steep hill to the castle

The castle grounds are pretty big. There is this really nice park situated at the top of the hill where you can just sit in the shade of all the trees and relax. It was pretty awesome.

View of the castle from the foot of the hill

View out of one of the castle's windows

Just beautiful

Me in front of the entire city 

Mote-like park area surrounding the castle

View of all of Heidelberg

Best fountain ever

Heidelberg

So once we were done running around the top of the world, we ventured back down into the city found something to eat and, most of us, went back home on the train. But before we left we saw this awesome baboon-monkey looking statue that you could put your head into and be a part of it.

Me as a monkey 

This is what it looked like from the side

So that was my trip to Heidelberg. I hope I get to go back again because 6 hours did not do it justice. I can't believe how much stuff I have gotten to do so far and today (August 31st) is the one month mark for my arrival in Germany. I have been so blessed with so many unforgettable experiences so far and I can't believe I get to have 11 more months of this!

Sparkassenakademie

View from our plane at about 7am Germany time

I know that because of my procrastination, my blog is not exactly chronologically ordered right now but I promise to become better at putting up the posts as they happen so as not to confuse you all. I wanted to post about where me and the other CBYXers stayed for our first night in Germany. We all flew into Frankfurt via Lufthansa. I was pretty impressed with Lufthansa. I had been told that they were known for losing people's luggage but I and other CBYXers had no problem with our luggage (although one participant had a big wet spot on his duffel bag when it was returned which we can only hope was water). The food was good (for an airplane) and the cabin was clean. The program knew that after a 7 hour flight, the participants were in no shape to take a bus to their host family and mingle with their hosts. Because of this, when we landed in Frankfurt, we all got on buses and went to the same location. We went to Eppstein and stayed at this place called the Sparkassenakademie. It was basically a seminar site that companies could use for training and what not. The place was complete with dorms. really nice dorms! So, we fly into Frankfurt around 8 in the morning on Monday Germany time (2am D.C. time which was what we were all used to after the D.C. orientation). We were asked to resist the urge to fall asleep so that we could sleep soundly that Monday night and wake up on Germany time Tuesday morning. It was not an easy task. Our first day in Germany consisted of checking in to our beautiful rooms and then doing any number of activities that GIZ had planned to keep us awake. All 75 participants had their own rooms complete with their own bathrooms with showers. What a nice welcome to Germany. This was only for one night however. It was our first day of German food, German people, and German buildings. It still didn't feel like we were in Germany yet, at this point. We were safe in the confines of those walls...we all still had each other and were among many Germans that could speak English. Although we had landed, we had not yet arrived in Germany. Our first night in Germany I went to bed at 8:45pm and woke up the next day at 9am. I would have overslept breakfast were it not for one of my hall mates slamming their door. Thank you whoever that was. I would have been MIA had you not done that.

The red dot is Eppstein

The outside of the Sparkassenakademie in Eppstein. You might notice that the blinds of the windows are on the OUTSIDE of the building. This is what I have noticed about all the houses I have seen in Germany so far. It makes sense. At certain times, the blinds could even act as protection for the windows.

So I woke up on Tuesday August 2nd after 12 wonderful hours of sleep had breakfast and sat through one more presentation about what to expect and then the afternoon came. The group of 75 was split into 4 groups of about 20 people and we all boarded our respective buses and headed off to our language schools. For me that was the Carl Duisberg Centren in Radolfzell...the language school that became coveted by all the other CBYX participants. It is a small town setting situated right on the Bodensee. It offers the perfect setting to ease into the German culture and is a great venue to practice German language.

One of the activities that GIZ had to help us stay awake was an outing to a Burg (castle fortress) not to be confused with Berg (mountains). the walk through the city was short but the city is very idyllic and the castle was really neat. The castle was situated on a hill and even had sheep grazing on the hill! How awesome is that?

Can you imagine seeing this outside your window every day?

Schafe! (Sheep)