More pics

This time we have such attractions as a sign of Germany, Einfahrt (for the parents), the Saarschleife, a beer street (Bierstrasse) and the famous Roman mosaic at Nennig. Beautiful, no?

As Per Request

Some pics from the last week or so. Me and Ren, me and Koto, our girl pile on Jan's couch, and me wearing Ash's Deutschland hat. That's right, read it! Go Deutschland!
It's cold here. Very cold and rainy and it hailed lots today. It's depressing.
Luckily I have good company. I'm bored out of my mind, however, b/c there are lots of tests right now and so many of my hours are gone. Sadness. I did two today, but all of my lessons yesterday got canceled. I actually want to work! We had last Thursday off, so it was a four day weekend. And next Monday we have off as well. I feel like we hardly work in this country. lol. Sometimes that is nice, though.

So Meegan, there are your pics and I'm about to put some more up if the program will let me. It gets fusy from time to time. And thanks for the postcard!

: )

Lazy Days

We decided not to go to Trier b/c we were all tired and lazy. lol. So who knows if I'll get there. I'm betting not. hee hee. We did, however, manage to see Mission Impossible 3, which we understood most of, except for some key parts that confused us royally. lol. Ahh, the joys of watching movies in another language.

There is a bit of sun peeking out of the cloudy sky today, the first real sun I've seen in what feels like a long time. Maybe I won't need my winter coat today? Hmmmm. So wrong.

Today I am having brunch with the gang, since it's Ashley and Kate's last weekend in K-Town. How traurig! Schnoeffle. Then Mark and I are going to base. Haven't been there in awhile. And I still have lessons to plan for the week. I'm quite excited about my 12th graders reading a real book and it's a lot of work but I know they can do it! Wow, I am almost like a real teacher! hee hee.

I hope everyone is doing well. Take care and I'll see you soon! : *)

Three Counties in One Day

Yesterday was amazing! Christoph took Ashley and me on a trip around Saarland, a state next to us. We were traveling from 9 am to 9 pm. We went up north and saw a pretty lake (Bostal Lake), saw the Saar River Curve (Saarschleife) which was sooooo way gorgeous!, a reconstructed Roman Villa (Villa Borg) with lots of artifacts, a very large and intact Roman mosiac in Nennig, saw Saarlouis and Saarbruecken (both lovely), and we drove across the border into Luxembourg and France!!!! We were in THREE countries in one day! It was great. Ashley and I were quite excited. Sadly, it rained the entire day. But overall it was a wonderful trip and we saw tons. Very impressive.

Oh, and it was very cold as well. I was cold with my winter coat on. The weather for the next week also looks rainy with one or two days of relative warmth. Sigh. lol.

I think we're going to Trier today. I'm exhausted! lol. But it's better than sitting around doing nothing, and Trier has Roman ruins and is a very old city, and is supposed to be worth visiting. I'm not sure about the 2-hour train ride there and the same back.

Ok, so yesterday was great, the weather sucks, but things are good. Only 5 1/2 weeks!!!!!!! JUHU!

Hope you all are doing fabulous.

: )

The Magic Wand Of Warmness

All right now, this is enough! I got up and it was just above freezing, my heat was back on, I could see my breath outside, and I was back to wearing my winter coat. Does anyone else see the problem with this?

School (aka work) has been going well. Yesterday I felt like a real teacher, not just the fun TA. I am reading a 235 page book with my 12th graders in five weeks, assigning 50 pages/week and a paper every week. It's a lot and they looked at me like I was crazy and they didn't to do it, but they will. And they bought the books! Yay! It was challenging trying to motivate them and get them excited about the book. I've also been giving lessons about the Midwest recently, trying to dispel notions of it being the "fly-over" area as one of my teachers so affectionately refers to is as. lol.

The social life as of recently has been packed. It's great! Don't get me wrong, I'm still planning lessons and looking for a job and such, but it's getting down to countdown time, and so my group of friends here is trying to get lots of time in before we leave to our respective corners of the earth.

We have a long weekend coming up, with Thursday and Friday off. Dang. I am doing laundry tomorrow. Yay! And I think Friday Christoph will take me, Rita and Ashley around Saarland. And maybe we'll hit Trier on Saturday. We'll see.

So despite the cold and rain, life in Germany right now is pretty wonderful.

: )

Brunettes Have More Fun

I know, I haven't updated in awhile, sorry! Thanks for encouraging me, my dear Meegan.

This weekend was good. Yesterday I met Koto in Mannheim and we walked around a bit and it rained. Nice city. No real Altstadt. I think perhaps it was destroyed in the war. But a very nice Wasserturm with surrounding gardens that were gorgeous. Lots of old churches intact. But the city center is all laid out grid-like with numbers instead of street names. Very odd. And practical. Those practical Germans!

Then we came back and went out to the Irish Pub way late with lots of people. Ren is back in town for a few days, which is great!

This morning Koto dyed my hair a darker brown and I'm crazy about it. Who says blondes have more fun? Pshaw! : P

Sadly I had to put Miss Koto back on a train and send her away. Perhaps I'll make it to Frankfurt in the next 7 weeks and see her again.

Mark and I are planning on hitting Tueb the first week of June. I'm so psyched!

I'm still getting over this darn stomach bug I've had for over a week now. Sheesh.

And the weather has gotten chilly again. Thank goodness I've not gotten rid of my coat. Ha! That was a joke! I found it hilarious. Like one would EVER get rid of a coat in Germany.

We did get a fabulous storm the other day with hail. Very rare here. I loved it.

It is staying light til 10 now. I love how long the days get here! One night I'm going to go to bed really way early so I can get up at 5 and see the sun rise. Or at least I keep telling myself that. We'll see if I really do it.

And finally no, I have not put the lovely and beautiful Bingen pics up yet. Yes, I am a lazy bum. But I will do it sometime.

I should be off to bed fairly soon. Am stehen auf ein bisschen frueh morgen. lol. I love butchering Deutsch. Sehr schoen. Freut mich.

Gute Nacht und macht gut, alle. : )

Bingen was amazing. So gorgeous. I will put a whole bunch of pics up online soon. : D

Bingen

This weekend was wonderful!!! Me, Kate, Ashley and E met Jan in Bingen. We toured the lovely city, then took a boat ride on the Rhine River. WOW. Breath-taking, amazing, beautiful! There were castles and ruins galore. I couldn't believe it. Then we got off at Assmannshausen (lol) and took a chair lift up the hill to walk half an hour through the woods. There were inch worms hanging from trees and falling all over us, in our hair, on our clothes, I was thoroughly disgusted. Yikes. But then we made it to the Niederwalddenkmal (Germania), a statue from 1877 which celebrated Germany getting land back from France. Then we took another chair lift down the other side of the mountain over vineyards. We walked through Ruedesheim and did some touristy souvenir shopping, then caught a ferry back to Bingen. We kept getting stuck at railroad crossings.

After that we hit Bacharach, an old German town with typical Fachwerkhaeuser (half-timbered houses) from the 1300s and 1500s. It was so cool. Also, we had a coffee at a restaurant where the Knights of Templar (anyone read The Da Vinci Code?) used to meet. Then we went back to Jan's, where his mother had made us homemade pizzas. Yummm! Next we hit a very small and local wine festival and carnival. We shot at things and the boys won us roses and I won Ashley a butterfly. Jan bought us girls tickets to ride the flying cars and we laughed our heads off. Then we tasted some of the wine.

The next morning we slept in, had a lovely breakfast outside in the sun, and walked about five minutes to get to more vineyards. I couldn't believe all the vineyards I saw and got to walk through.

We didn't get the bus we wanted on the way back b/c it was Sunday and instead of coming every hour, it only came ever two hours, so we had to get a taxi for the five of us, and the train was coming so soon that the boys ran to the platform and stood in the doors of the train so it couldn't leave without us! LOL. That was pretty entertaining. We were also quite the multicultural group, with me, Kate from England, Ash from Canada, Jan from Germany and E from the Netherlands. Someone stopped us to ask where we were all from. hee hee.

After we got back, we settled in, then E, Ash and I went to the park to read and ordered pizza! I was hilarious, b/c E had to meet the guy at the edge of the park. I'd never ordered pizza to the park before. Great fun.

We all are eating dinner together tonight, and then Rita's sister heads back to Portugal.

I will upload my pics from the weekend online soon. It was so great!

I love how excited the Germans get about the World Championships! Hee hee.

Distractions R Us

Hey there. So eating and sleeping are coming, slowly. I still feel quite heart broken. How sad is that? lol. Chuck went to Tuebingen this weekend, and I had really, really wanted to go with him, so I must admit that isn't helping. But my girlfriends and I had a girls' night last night with Gilmore, chocolate, nail polish, etc. It was great. I think that and the two glasses of wine I had helped me sleep a bit more. I still feel quite zombie-like, however.

But tomorrow morning early, me, Kate, Ashley and E are catching a train to the beautiful city of Bingen, where we will meet up with Jan and get to tour his lovely city and maybe go for a short ride on the Rhine. It is amazingly beautiful there. We'll go to a wine festival as well, b/c from now til September it's wine time, and we'll stay the night at his parents place before coming home on Sunday. I think next Friday we might take the day to go to Trier. It has Roman ruins and is supposed to be impressive as well, and is in my region. I am still trying to find someone to go to Tuebingen with me, b/c I would love to get down there.

Yesterday I saw some funny men dressed up as soccer balls (oh dear, I just wrote footballs and had to erase it, I have been here too long! lol.) for the Deutsche Telecom and I had to take a pic and will put it online. It's amazing how crazy about soccer the Germans are, especially having the World Cup in our town. It's madness.

The weather is fair. Just about 8 weeks til I come home. I already hear the pool calling to me. Kate, come get brown, you're too white b/c you've been in northern Europe for so long.......

Hope you all are well! : )

Harder Than I Thought

I was thinking of just not updating about how I'm doing, but I think I will anyway. I would like to say I'm doing well and happy that we made the right choice, but the truth is I'm miserable. I haven't slept in several nights and it's hard to get food down. Now don't worry, I am still eating and trying to sleep. But it is really hard for me. I had no idea I would be this sad or heart broken. I only wish I could be this way at home instead of so very far away!

The upside is, I hear this doesn't last forever and that in awhile I should be my sunny self again. I just want that to be now!!!

I hope everyone else is doing well. Keep me updated.

Single

Chuck and I have decided to call it quits. It was just right. I admit I'm quite sad now, but I suppose that has to be sometimes.

Hope you all are well.

Happy Birthday Rita!

It's Rita's 25th birthday today! Yay! We are going to celebrate and have some surprises for her. Her sister is also coming to Germany today. That will be great for her.

I finally turned in everything for my class back home, so all my Uni concerns for the semester are done with. All right! Things will slow down now.

My girls are leaving at the end of May/beginning of June, which I find quite sad.

I don't think there is really any news from my end. It has been warmer here with actual SUN, but that is not supposed to last. lol. I love Germany.