Dresden Weihnachtsmarkt!

Yesterday we visited the Christmas market(s) in Dresden, and I had a pretty much amazing time! We left around 9 am from Magdeburg with Laura, Megan, and Yana (who forbade us from photographing her) as our guide. We arrived in Dresden around 1 pm and met with Yana's friend from Benin (next to Nigeria, apparently) who is studying in Dresden. First we visited some churches, then we hit up the markets! The story unfolds in the web album I have created:

Dresden Advent 2007!

So yeah, as you can see it was a pretty awesome time. We finally got back to Magdeburg a little after midnight and were all totally exhausted. I slept pretty well last night... :D

Why does the stuff in this building never work?

My electrical outlets don't work right now, but it seems like everyone else in the building has the variety that function. Hopefully it'll magically be fixed by morning... If not, then I guess I'll have to deal with the scary Hausmeister lady... Darn you electricity!!! And darn you East Germany...

Stupid building, but hey! At least nobody has flooded the second floor by playing with balls in the hallway... Well, that's actually probably because we don't have sprinklers, but we do have outside doors that open inwards! And since we're on the topic of fire hazards, somebody stole all the fire extinguishers in building. Surprisingly though, Studentwerk actually noticed this and in response, they sent us letters saying to put them back. They also said if we don't put them back, then our lives will be in danger. Well gee, like I didn't know that. Maybe they should get us new ones since it wasn't our fault that some people here suck. Also if I remember correctly, I think those extinguishers were expired anyway...

Oh, and we still have only one washer for the whole effing building. I still can't believe how there is one washer for the 300+ people that live in this building.

Well, since people will probably have to come fix my room tomorrow, I guess I should get around to cleaning it since it's terribly messy. But, it doesn't look too bad when it's clean! >Signing off. <

Weihnachtsmarkt

Today I got to visit Magdeburg's Weihnachtsmarkt, woo! Down at Alter Markt, it featured Christmas spirit good times... It had a lot of the typical German festival type stands, lots of candied nuts, alcohol, and of course, wurst! One place in particular featured a 1/2 meter of Bratwurst for 2,80 EUR. See that awesomeness!



Actually, I was surprised as to how it was actually pretty tasty! Next up we found many types of Glühwein (mulled wine) and also Eierpunsch (egg nog). Both were pretty tasty! The egg nog here, I'm pretty sure, had wine in it, which was kind of a weird taste. Between the four of us that went, we tried some Glühwein with apples, Glühwein with raspberries, and the egg nog. My favorite was the Glühwein with apples--reminded me a lot of cider. I could totally go for some cider right about now...



While we were drinking that stuff, we kept hearing this weird voice which we thought was a carnival game person that wouldn't stfu. Turns out it was a talking moose head affixed to the top of the place where we got our drinkage. It was kinda creepy... Also, since I'm on the topic of sounds, they played the most random X-mas music. It ranged anywhere from traditional German folk songs to terrible pop songs, but that just seems to be the theme of the music anywhere you go in Germany, haha.

So yeah, then after hitting up the foods, we went for the crafty stuff. Actually, there wasn't much their in terms of crafts, but there were a good amount of shops with cute Christmassy stuff in the area. The mall there was featuring a bunch of Christmas stuff as well.

So overall, I had a fun experience today! I very much enjoy Christmas, and this was a good way to get even more pumped for my return trip home! I can't wait!

Finally!

I have finally found a beer that I actually enjoy drinking. Thank you Paulaner Hefe-Weißbier!!! It's made in München, and quite tasty. One of the indications that tells me it's yummy, is that I don')t have to mix it with banana juice to enjoy... (Even though that just means it makes an even tastier Bananenhefe.) It's flavorful and refreshing, so probably why I enjoy it. It's also costs (gasp) a whole 0,66 EUR per bottle, (as apposed to 0,49 EUR, which is more standard I guess...) And yes, I think this beats Franzeskaner. Call me a n00b, but I can't help what I feel, haha.

Pair this with a tomato and mozzarella baguette and I'm good to go...

Srsly, Terre Haute...

Well I know this doesn't have anything to do with Germany, but I am going to write about it anyway, and thus marking my third (and probably last) post of the day!

So today I had a quick meeting with Dr. Jaubowski and Dr. Moore over some tasty cake and coffee. So yeah we talked about the exchange program and bla bla bla, alles egal. Oh, and the whole time they called me Christine, haha. But everyone makes that mistake so I didn't say anything. I think it's kinda funny how now I can automatically respond to that name. (Probably because half of the people at Goodyear also called me Christine...) But anyway, the one thing that I wish to recount is what I learned from Dr. J about Terre Haute. So apparently the Hautians didn't re-elect the mayor they had before because they thought he was spending too much money on unimportant things. One the unimportant things he was spending money on was the sewer system.

Most inhabitable cities have two sewer channels, one for rain drainage and one for all the poo. Turns out, Terre Haute just puts everything into one channel and sends it off to the sewage treatment place. It's not a problem though, unless it actually rains. When it rains, the sewage place can't handle the increased volume of crap, so where does it send all the overflow? Into the Wabash River, naturally. So the federal government mandated that Terre Haute had better effing fix this, cuz that's nasty and like kinda really bad for the environment. So the mayor they had before was like, yeah, ok, I guess we shouldn't be dumping a bunch of raw sewage into the river. We will fix that. However the people didn't think that was money well spent, and told him to go away.

Also, I learned a lot of the people that have a septic tank don't actually have a leech bed. They say, why need a leech bed if you've got the river for your disposal??? Gross.

So, C'MON TERRE HAUTE!!! Seriously, I mean I know I make fun of the Hautians all the time for being unintelligent, but this is the first time I think that I've come to know solid proof of it... Terre Haute, the land of Wal-Mart and

Fußball!

So then a couple weeks ago I ended getting to go to a soccer (Fußball) game! It was pretty cold that day, and when we got back, my everything was pretty numb. But yeah, so about the game.

The Europeans are known for being very devout to their favorite team, and this game was no exception. The teams were I.F.C. Magdeburg in blue and white and Union Berlin in red and yellow. Not very many Berliners were there, but the ones that were there crammed themselves together in a section and made sure everyone knew they were there. They had big, sparkly stars and instruments and sang a lot. We sat on the Magdeburg side, and the Magdeburgers had drums, but nothing quite as elaborate as the the Berliners. On the upside, there was a crap-ton more of us, but you can't see them in my picture. We ended up sitting by some really enthused people, and by really enthused, I means lots of angry German yelling, haha. But it was fine, at least we weren't by any scary Neo-Nazis or anything...

But yeah, so they tied. Magdeburg scored a goal kinda by accident in the first 10 minutes of the game. Then both teams kinda pansied around for about another 75 min, then Berlin finally got its goal in the last 5 minutes or so of the game. Yeah, so basically nobody was all that happy after the game, but I had a good time. ^_^

But the one thing that did irk me was that they ran out of the sausage I wanted. I mean, how did the Germans manage to run out of sausage??? It's almost as unimaginable as Americans running out of something we have too much of... like ignorant conservatives! But anyway, I got a hot dog instead, and it was kinda suck. I think they should just stick to making good sausage and forget the hot dogs... And next up is a cute picture of me and Emily! Yay!

First visit to Berlin

Nov. 2 marked my first visit to Berlin! (Yes, I realize that was a while ago...) Woohoo! (I don't have very many pictures because my camera died, and I haven't been able to procure more from the other people that went with me.) Overall, I think I like Berlin, but we were only there for 2 days, so I think I need to go back just to make sure, haha.



Let's see, so I guess I'll talk about what we did and saw. So we took the regional train (RE) to Berlin, which took about 2 hours. I almost missed the train because I am special like that. Luckily by chance, I got on the train the same time as the rest of my party did. (Thanks to the +1 Luck modifier I had picked up the week before, haha...) Oh, and the train smelled kind of bad... :( And I have also come to another realization, that like no high speed trains come through Magdeburg. (I wonder why that is? haha...) So yeah we got to Berlin and their station looks pretty cool as you can see there. Next stop, shopping!!!


Now Berlin is a big city, so naturally the shopping there is a good time. First stop was the KaDeWe, which is Karstadt's upscale department store. Holy crap! Everything was quite the expensive there, even the ugly, ghetto-looking stuff. There was about 8 floors? 9? 7? I forget, something around there, but it was massive. The picture I have didn't turn out that great since it was a night shot. But that's like the corner of the store, maybe that helps give a better picture as to the size of this place. Each floor was a different section of a normal department store, except this time they got a whole floor (or half) instead of a corner. Crazy capitalism!


But yeah it was sweet. Later on that night, the other monstrosity that we happened by was the Saturn, (=Best Buy). This place made me a happy Catherine... You can count from the picture as to how many floors of good times this place had. And to think, that this particular embodiment of capitalism did not accept credit cards... Crazy Germans...

After that we had some nice yum-yums at this Italian place, with this totally kick-ass pizza with fresh tomato and huge chunks of fresh mozzarella. And yeah, we saw a bunch of the monuments that were somewhat cool, but really boring to talk about. But oh! At the Brandenburg Gate, they had this Berlin Wall symbolizing thing of artwork on display. I thought it was pretty nifty-looking. So if you take a look at the my spiffy title-creation, then you see that in the background! Yay! Oh, and I also did find this awesomeness on the back of a random crosswalk light thing. And I leave you with that:

I miss Tampax

So I was doing OK with the lack of Tampax until just like, right now. As I opened up the new package of O.B. I just recently bought, a great feeling of emptiness came over me. There were no easy-open yellow wrappers, just plain, white paper wrappers. I was still hopeful though at this point, don't judge a book by its cover, right? Wrong! This does not apply to feminine hygiene! Inside, there was no absorbent braid to let you know what time it was, no easy grip applicator, and more boring white! Oh well, I should be glad these even came with applicators...

Today I also have become pro at using the post, go me!

*UPDATE!* It turns out that I'm not pro at using the post. I was a total n00b and forgot that things cost more to ship internationally. Sorry to the people who were supposed to get some 10th week love from me; what can I say, I'm good at doing stuff like that though...

And woo, last weekend I went to Berlin, but I think I'll write about it later since I only felt like complaining about (lack of) Tampax just now...

Praha!

So I finally made some friends and went with them to Prague for the weekend! We left Friday night at around 11 pm. We were supposed to leave a bit earlier (like at 10 pm) but they were late and stuff. It sucked since it was so cold outside but oh well. So the bus ride was about 7 hrs. since it made stops in Berlin and Dresden, and we arrived in Prague at about 5 in the morning.

The first day we spent mostly wandering around and seeing the sights, checking out museums and places and whatnots. And, that's also what we did the next day. On the first night we found a place to get Czech food (which is not surprisingly a lot like German food,) and on the second night we ended up eating Chinese. And a note, Chinese restaurants seem to be the same everywhere! Seriously...

As for the hostel, what an enormous step outside my comfort zone... so we booked a 6-bed room, since we had 6 people. Makes sense? Obviously not... So turns out it was a 6-bunkbed mixed room. So we had to share the room with 6 other guys and girls. Some notable members were two girls from UCLA and a Spanish guy with a really high pitched voice. Anyway, I was just glad that at least the showers were partitioned off.

We ended the trip by hanging out in the commons area of the hostel we stayed at until it was time to go to our bus (which was around 12 am.)

Ok, picture time! That's what you really want, isn't it? Here you go:

Weekend in Praha

And this concludes my thoughts on my Prague trip, or maybe I'll post more pictures as they become available to me, who knows...

My Last Days in Stuttgart

So right now I've been in Magdeburg for about two weeks, but now I'm going to talk about my last week at Stuttgart.

So for my last week in Stuttgart, I didn't really go to language class and took that opportunity to visit all my favorite spots on last time and to make some stops and the places I hadn't visited yet. I feel that my adventures will be best told through yet another photo album:

Last Days in Stuttgart

So yeah as you can see I started out with the art museums then worked my way around to the various places. Overall I feel I had a good last week.

die Friseurin

Today I finally got the nerve to go and seek a hair cut. All my life I had been going to the same stylist (who is very service-oriented and named "Mom"), but now that I'm out in the world on my own, I had to find someone else to do it. So I google.de-mapped some places and found one that I thought seemed decent. Well of course I ventured off to find it and couldn't, so I was a bit more than agitated. While finding my way back to the S-bahn, I passed a different hair place and thought it looked OK enough. So I went in and got my hair cut, well more like just trimmed, and it turned out pretty alright actually. Pic. -->

But anyway, there is a point to this story. I had never heard of this kind of place before. They wash and cut your hair, but you dry it yourself. If you have the hair person dry it, then it costs twice as much. To me, I don't think this would pass in the states, but maybe they exist? I have no idea really, but I think it's a good concept though. Instead of cutting time by making a sadder haircut, save time by just not drying it! There ya go, and besides I don't have a problem with it since I usually dry my hair anyway.

So yeah go me for speaking German to hair people and being successful (more or less) with getting what I wanted.

Oh and on a side note, I passed a Middle-Eastern store on the way back, and Turkish delight is very yummy! :)

Thoughts on German food

This week I haven't really done anything exciting, but I did consume a good amount of food, bringing me to todays topic: snacking.

When I think about the snacks here, one name comes to mind: HARIBO!!! Not only do they make the tastiest gummy bears I can think of, they also make a wide assortment of other gummy wonderfulness. Their black licorice wheels are another favorite of mine. While they do sell Haribo brand gummies in the states, don't be fooled into thinking they are the same. The ones in the states are way squishier and for that reason just don't taste as good. This can partially be remedied by sticking those things in a fridge or freezer for a bit, but it's just not the same.

The next obvious thing to talk about would be wurst, but considering how I haven't consumed a single sausage since I've been here, I can't really talk about them.

The bakery. So yeah there are lots of those here. To get an idea as to how many, I'll use an analogy. The bakery density here rivals, if not surpasses, the Starbucks density in Manhattan, so there you go. I don't think you can go down any block really without running into some kind of bakery, which is fine though, since baked things are yummy. I have really come to love this one whole grain bread that's covered in like pumpkin seeds or some other puffy seed that looks like a pumpkin seed but maybe isn't. But I can't think of what else they could be anyway, so bread + pumpkin seeds = a good thing. Also good from the bakeries are their hot fresh Brezels and pastries.

Another thing that they have a lot of here is cheese. And luckily, I also love cheese. Most of my experiences with cheese here have been in the form of mystery on my sandwich. They're good, but then I never know what to go to the store and buy for home consumption. :( I guess this means that I have to improve my German some more so that when I ask the bakery people what kind of cheese is on the sandwich, their response will sound intelligible.

And now we come to my most favorite thing: chocolate! I don't think this really needs much explanation, but Lebkuchen (gingerbread--the soft kind, not the hard cookie kind) covered in dark chocolate reminds me of Christmas and is sooo good. And then there's also how when you go to the grocery store there is almost always a chocolate aisle separate from the candy aisle, 'nuff said.

All this talk about food has made me hungry, so I'm going to go make some spaghetti since that's still the only thing I can actually "cook" right now.

Meersburg & Bodensee

Yesterday we took an excursion to Meersburg, Lake Constance, and the Zeppelin Museum courtesy of the IZ. It was very scenic and pretty. The bus ride was about two hours to get there and three hours to get back. I really like Meersburg; it was a cool old German town. They took a lot of effort to keep the town the way it is with many building restrictions and the like, but I'm glad since it was all cute and pretty. I would rather have stayed there longer and skipped the Zeppelin museum, maybe hang out down by the water some, but I didn't want to pay for my way back, so I stuck with the group. Anyway so I made an album of the trip, so follow the link below!

Meersburg & Bodensee

Things I have noted during the trip:

1. Drinking a half liter of beer really isn't all that bad.
2. Vanilla ice cream (gelato is what they serve in Germany) with strawberry sauce and white chocolate sprinkles is really tasty.
3. old people : tour buses :: flying insects : bright lights
4. Dark chocolate with the chili mixed into its dark chocolate cream filling = very very very happy Catherine.
5. Germans are tall, and I am not.

So that was that. Today was boring since all I did was go to class and then later try to cook dinner. It didn't turn out very well...

Braueriefest

So today I actually left my room and ventured some more into Stuttgart. It was me, Massey, Mike, and Constance (not a Rose nerd.) So we started off with the flea market, which was pretty cool. They had a lot of neat stuff, but considering how I am moving in like two weeks, buying crap I don't really need probably not the best idea. Next we moved on to thrift shops. Most of them were closed since it was Saturday, but the ones that were open seemed to be mostly junk. After that we wandered around for a bit and then happened upon an Asian market somewhere down by Schwabstrasse. I was so excited because they had Indonesian food! So this means now that I'm going to attempt in the next couple of days to cook real food. The things I will try to cook will be nasi goreng (fried rice, and not too difficult I'm hoping) and opor ayam (this involves cooking poultry, so this is potentially scary for me.) So we'll see how that goes, more updates on that later...

So anyway later we needed lunch. So we found the Braueriefest, and we got free beer. Maybe because it was free it tasted pretty OK to me, but I drank all of mine and didn't have the urge to empty my stomach into the nearest waste receptacle. Go me! But yea we got three different beers, one was a pilsner, one was some sort of other beer that was like different and stuff (yup I know absolutely nothing about beer), and the last one was alcohol free. The alcohol free one was all sorts of nasty... So yea there was a terrible band called "Pink Plane Party," and they played a lot of 70's and 80's sadness. But the crepes I had for lunch were pretty tasty. OK pictures. That there to the right is the wall of empty beer bottles that I'm assuming they had gone through during the free beer sessions. And next up we have a picture of happy college students experiencing beer in Germany.

...And that's all I have to say about that for now...

Mos Eisley!

.

So today I found the Mos Eisley Cantina of Stuttgart. How friggin' sweet is that??? I didn't get to eat there since they were closed at the time, but I'm going to go back there. And when I go back, they better have some blue milk, or somebody is going to have their ass handed to them. So yea, that was pretty awesome.

Oh! And today I got "controlled" for the first time. Too bad though the Chinese people sitting across from us "forgot" their tickets and had to pay a 20€ fine each, which is lucky for them. The Kontrolleur was nice to them since it's normally 40€ per person if you're caught on the train without a ticket.

And on a finishing rant note, finding jeans here that fit nicely is just as impossible or more impossible than in the states.

Erdnussbutter

All I have to say is WTF. So apparently the Germans don't seem to understand the concept of peanut butter very well. Of all the fattening food that they eat, you think they would have discovered the joy that is peanut butter. Most grocery stores don't carry it, and if they do, it's most likely in the organic section for whatever reason. Maybe they think that only crazy hippies would be interested in consuming a product that has taken an already tasty roasted peanut mashed it into glorious splendor.

Anyway, I only bothered to write about this since I got a really bad craving for PB&J last Thursday that couldn't be satiated. Nevertheless, I finally found some PB by accident (next to the Almond Butter, eww) in the BioMarkt in der Hauptbahnhof on Saturday night. I also found some 70% dark chocolate complete with chili pepper infusion, which has become one of my new loves. So when I got back to the apartment I was really excited for my PB&J + chocolate find. However to my dismay, this peanut butter was blech. I mean it was still peanuty and decent enough when combined with the jelly, but on its own, it was not at all the amazing I had hoped for. Granted, it probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was natural organic peanut butter, but still very sad. I guess I will just have to ask my mom to send me monthly shipments, alternating between Regular Jif Creamy and Regular Jif Extra Crunchy. Or if you love me, you will send me some PB. I am feeling the desperation already, so I would settle for Peter Pan, Skippy, or even Goobers at this point.

Fun with Hostels

So this is the part where I rant about how we stayed in three different rooms before we were allowed to move into our apartments.

Room Eins

So the first hostel we stayed in was called Alex30 on Alexander Str. and conveniently the owner was also named Alex. Anyway, so when I had booked the reservation I told the guy that I wasn't sure how long I would need the room, and he told me to book a shorter reservation then try to extend it because if I had to shorten a longer one, then I have to pay like fees and stuff. So I was like, OK.

We got there Thursday afternoon stayed there the first night, (and here is the view from our room there, yea that's a pretty hot tram stop, isn't it?) But anyway, so it was a nice place, everything was clean and it didn't seem like crazy people were around and it was about 27€ a night. Friday morning I go to see the Hausmeister if I can move into my apartment, and of course I can't. Oh, and this is also when I discover there is a limit as to how much you can withdraw from an ATM at one time. My limit is 250€ /day. So me and Kelley had to pool our money to be able to have enough to pay for one of our room deposits. But anyway, so when we got to the Hausmeister's office, he pretty much stared at me a bunch then finally said, "Nein. Das Zimmer ist nicht frei. Montag." Well OK, fine I'll just stay in the hostel until then I think to myself.

So we took the tram back to Olgaeck with the hopes of extending our reservation until Monday, and this time we actually paid for it. When we took the tram to the Hauptbahnhof the first time we thought you paid on the tram. Turns out you have to buy your tickets ahead of time at the machine thing that they put at pretty much every stop except for, naturally, the tram stop at Olgaeck. Turns out they are doing away with the 15 tram and converting it to a U-Bahn. Whatever, anyway. So luckily we didn't get caught riding the tram for free that one time, because freeloading on the train system in Germany is, I guess, like a really big deal. Not only do you have to pay like a 40€ fee, but supposedly you get publicly humiliated.

Anyway, so we get back to the hostel and they tell us we can only stay one more night since they are all booked that weekend. Great. But it was all good, as we had found another youth hostel that wasn't too far away, and it was cheaper (21€). Our adventure there makes for another great/sad/pathetic story.

Travel to Room Zwei

So we decided to save money and walk there. According to Google Maps, it wasn't all that far away and the roads seem clear enough. Turns out that the route we picked involved about of quarter mile of stairs (the hypotenuse distance I guess is what I mean). Now this isn't too bad when you've got just yourself, but add our probably 250+ pounds of luggage, and the stairs become a nuisance. See to the right, how they're labeled there. Yea, Staffel = stairs, and it was too bad we didn't make that connection before we set out on our adventure. Yea the tram takes like 5ish minutes to get around that area. We took 2.5 hrs to get all our shit up those two sets of stairs. Pictures and possibly even video will come later if I ever get them. So yea, it was a fun adventure, and I was sore for like three days after that. Anyway, the new room wasn't too bad and things seemed like they would be working out. And next comes the "but;" there was a mistake in our reservation so we only have the room for one night instead of two. Oh joyness. We decided to wait until the next morning to see if they had any cancellations, and I didn't really care at the moment since all I wanted to do was sleep.

Room Drei

So they did end up finding a room for us, so that was good, except the lock kinda didn't work so well. But oh well, right? It was a plus that we finally got a chance to explore the area called Bubenbad; it was quite scenic.

Proof:
So yea, that kinda made it worth it and stuff. So that marked the end of our adventures with the hostels in Stuttgart I guess. Now I'm all moved in and things aren't so bad. Class is boring, but when is it not, like seriously.

The journey begins.

If I remember correctly, the journey from the states to here was long and drawn out. But it didn't kill me, so I guess that's good. Basically this is how it transpired: Columbus, Chicago, Dublin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart. Everything was on time, so that was nice. The only things I have comments about really is that O'Hare is a sucky airport, and so is Dublin. O'Hare's international terminal basically lacked in terms of everything, especially food. Dublin was just confusing as hell. However, the Aer Lingus check-in counter thing was cool because it was all green and sparkly!

It was in the Dublin airport that I got to use the Euro for the first time! I bought a smoothie, how exciting. And there were a lot of Irish people in the airport, it was really too bad we couldn't have hung out in Ireland for a couple days. Oh well, right?

Everything until after we got to Frankfurt was pretty boring I guess, but after we got our bags I guess is when the fun began. Let's see, so I had with me: a large suitcase, a large duffel bag, my Rose backpack, and my purse; all of course jam packed with as much shit as possible. Kelley also had a crap ton of stuff with her as well, so we got lots of stares while wheeling our stuff around Frankfurt airport. And that wasn't even so terrible, but things got more fun with the train ride.

So the train comes, and we're all like, "Woo!" Oh, but first I even remembered to take a picture of the terminal. So here it is. Yup there are like all the German people and stuff. Yea that wasn't our train, but ours looked just like it. But anyway, so we were all excited for the train until we realized we had to get all our stuff up the stairs and then put it somewhere once we were on the train. The train ride was about an hour or so, and I think we spent about 15 minutes actually sitting down and about 45 minutes moving our stuff around so that it wouldn't piss off other passengers. But yea, so apparently the train people don't like it when you have two tickets but you use four other seats to put your stuff in, haha. Nevertheless, we made it to Stuttgart. The taxi drivers weren't too happy to see all of our luggage either, but we found a guy with a nice station wagon (and yes, it was a Mercedes) to take us to our hostel. The taxi drivers spoke a little bit of English, but we knew enough to be like, "Take us here," and "Thanks. Here is your money." But anyway, so he dropped us off in from of our hostel, and so begins the next chapter: "Fun with Hostels."

So today I start my blog.

I decided today that it would be good for me to document my experiences in Germany. Hopefully, I will actually keep up with this blog because in a long time it would probably be nice to go back and look at this and be like, "Oh, wow, that was neat." I have been here for a little more than a week and already a metric crap ton has happened, so it will be fun to try and recount all that's happened since then.