Paris-- the city that loves Love and loaths English

Our trip to Paris was my first adventure on an overnight train, and I think it's one of those adventures you only need to experience once. We got on the train around 10pm and were supposed to arrive in Mannheim, Germany at 4:45am and catch a train into Paris at 6:45am. I slept at most 2 hrs., and then woke everyone up at 4:25 so we could ready to get off. After 4:45 came and went and the train didn't stop, we asked two different train people (I can't think of the English title for them) where we were and when we would get to Mannheim. They were both super crabby and said they had no idea. We found a more helpful lady who told us that we were delayed 2 hrs. due to some electrical problem. We tried to go back to bed, but at this point, we only had an hour or so left until we were expected to arrive. Luckily we made our connecting train in Mannheim, and made it to Paris.

The people working in the ticket booths at one of the largest train stations in Paris were so unhelpful (and of course, could not speak German or English) that it took us a solid half an hour to figure out which ticket to buy for the metro. By the end of the whole transaction we were having a very hard time not bursting into laughter-- their uselessness (and arrogance) was just that hilarious! This trip was the first time I've ever been somewhere where I can't speak the language. It was quite frustrating, but definitely an experience everybody should have at some point in their life. It really gives you empathy for people who struggle with English in the States. It was kind of funny-- no matter how hard I tried to use the few French words I learned, German came out of my mouth whenever I tried to communicate what I wanted.

It's true-- the French love to demonstrate! This protest was one of the first things I saw in the city. I saw three protests/demonstrations in three days!

Parisians relaxing at a cafe overlooking beautiful gardens. I LOVE THIS CITY!! Life just seemed so beautiful here.

The Place de la Concorde, the center of the French Revolution. It was a bit surreal to be standing in such a historically signicant place.

The metro at night. We became pros at riding the super-crowded metro (and always spoke to each other in German while riding so that people wouldn't think we were ugly Americans).

Notre Dame at night.

Notre Dame and the Seine river during the day. I got to go to Saturday night mass here.

A cool-looking shop on the Champs Elysees, a super chic shopping street that leads directly to the Arc de Triomphe.

This is a mall!! I told you this city was beautiful! Amelia and I spent a bit of time wandering This was about the time when we lost Colin in this huge city.

We met up with Erik Davis and Kelly, another St. Olaf student who is studying in France and had a picnic dinner on the garden of the Louvre. We had fresh baguettes, chicken, brie cheese, strawberries, and French wine. mmmm! The Eiffel Tower was also in the background, you just can't see it in this picture.

The Louvre! Friday night from 6-10 was free for students, so we saved a lot of money.

I will spare you from having to look at the billions of pictures I took in the Louvre, but I like this one of the Sphinx...

...and this one of the crowd surrounding the Mona Lisa..

...and this one of me in Napolean's private apartments... (apparently he lived in one of the wings of the Louvre- he lived pretty well, huh!?)

Ever since I watched the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson movie Passport to Paris when I was 11, the Arc de Triomphe and the traffic circle surrounding it has symbolized Paris for me. I was so excited to actually be able to see it in real life! I took this picture from the middle of the street and almost got run over (Parisian drivers are insane!), but it was worth it. Don't worry, I only acted like a stupid tourist in Paris, not while I was traveling around Germany.

Ahhhh-- just looking at this picture again makes me so happy!! This is the Museum l'Orangerie, which is a small museum filled with impressionist paintings. My favorite part were the two circular rooms in which Monet's waterlilies paintings spanned the entire length of the wall. I just sat in the middle of the room and stared at them for a while.

Creme Brulee! It was soooo good! We unabashedly ate our way through Paris, including: crepes (desert and savory), chocolate macarons, chocolate eclairs, baguette sandwiches, baguettes with a hotdog in the middle, espresso, and french onion soup. France tastes SO much better than Germany!

And, of course we made it the Eiffel Tower. At the top of every hour at night they make it blink-- it was pretty dang cool!

We walked along the Seine from the Louvre to the Eiffel Tower one night, and I probably took 50 pictures of the tower-- it just kept looking better and better! I'm in this one (in the left corner).

It took us 10 hours (and six trains) to get home from Paris. I spent the whole time staring out the window and listening to my mp3 player-- the ride was so gorgeous I literally had tears in my eyes at time. We drove through the French country side past little villages, through the German Black Forest, and around the sparkling Lake Constance with the Alps in the distance.

Eastern Germany-- Leipzig and Dresden

After leaving Berlin, we stopped in Leipzig for six hours or so on our way to Dresden. In case you are not a Germany geography wizard, these cities are both in Eastern Germany.


This is the Nikolaikirche, which is a church where some of the first successful resistance to the GDR (Eastern Germany regime) began. People used to meet here for 'prayer meetings' and would actually conspire against the government.



We also visited Thomaskirche, the church where Bach worked for 27 years. He is buried underneath the church.



These blue pipes are above-ground water pipes. I'm not sure if they are unique to Eastern Germany, but we'd never seen them before.

We also went to a Stasi (East German secret police) museum in Leipzig. It was really interesting to see the technology they used to monitor mail, phones and people's homes and learn about the techniques they used in questioning suspected dissidents.

We also went to the Leipzig Zoo, which is world-known for its research in ape communication. It was the prettiest zoo I've ever seen, and the animals are actually kept in something similar to their native environment. This ape decided to pose for me!

This picture was taken without zoom-- the monkey was literally right in front of my face because the Leipzig Zoo has some free-roaming monkeys who are not afraid of humans.

Notice the big, scary lion in the background and the very short fence. Okay, I realize that there is a bit of water between us and the lion, but it seemed a little dangerous to me. I don't think you'd ever find something like this in the US!



This is the Zwinger in Dresden, which my guide book says "used to be a party place for royals." Dresden must have been pretty wealthy place back in the day-- nobody even lived here, the multiple castles are elsewhere in the city. Now the buildings house museums, a few of which we visited.

This is part of Dresden's sky-line. Walking around this city I often felt overwhelmed by the beauty-- it was literally too much to take in! My guide book says that "there are few city silhouttes more striking than Dresden's" and that in the 18th century, Dresden was known as the "Florence of the north."

We had to wait in Dresden until 10pm to catch our overnight train to Paris, so when it got dark, we went to the Botanical Gardens. They had a tropical house, and I saw a banana tree!

The Big B--- Berlin!

Our train ride to Berlin was exciting because the train was so full we rode for an hour and a half without seats. Here is Colin guarding some of the luggage.


Amelia and me in front of the Brandenburg gate. Napoleon took the Quadriga from the top and dragged it over to Paris after he defeated the Prussians. Then, when the Prussians defeated Napolean, they carried the big thing all the way back to Berlin, where it sits again above the gate as a sign of German greatness :)

Me in front of the Reichstag (Parliament building). For a German and Political Science major, it doesn't get much better than this!


Amelia and I woke up at 7am to get in line early so we could climb up the dome in the Reichstag. This is what it looks like from inside--you can climb all the way up and look down and see the city.


This is a section of the Berlin wall called the East Side Gallery. In 1990 the government decided to preserve this section and allow Eastern artists to decorate it. Now much of the art is covered by graffitti, but some of it was still comprehensible.


Another part of the wall. It says: Viele kleine Leute, die in vielen kleinen Orten, viele kleine Dinge tun koenne das Gesicht der Welt veraendern. (Many little people, who do many little things in many little places can change the face of the world)

The famous East Germany Ampelmann. Eastern Germany created him as the 'walk' signal for their traffic lights because he is cartoonish and would attract kids' attention.

We saw the Berlin marathon. Actually, we were literally in it. We stood in the middle of the road to watch it, and then the runners decided to leave their designated path and run on both sides of the road, which meant we were stuck in the middle of thousands of sweaty, panting runners. Don't worry-- we got out safely.

This is a church near our hostel that the Germans chose not to restore after the war. It was moving to see the destruction that the city endured.

We saw lots of bullet holes and schrapnel damage around the city. Berlin has tried to reconstruct after the war, but the city is not very wealthy, and there was a lot of damage done.

This is East Berlin. The difference in East and West Berlin was so noticable! Not only were the buildings in the East much uglier (mainly concrete) and much more dilapidated, but there was more graffiti and food prices were cheaper. Berlin in general is not a very nice city-- it has 20% unemployment and is only 2/3 populated. It is a great city to visit because its history is so rich, but it is not a good example of typical German cities.

This is us with a girl from Australia we met in our hostel and Nick and Gabe, two other students from St. Olaf who are studying in Berlin. We went to a cool wine bar where you pay 2 Euro for a glass and then try all the wine you want and pay whatever you think it was worth at the end. The wine wasn't amazing, but we had fun.

This is the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. It is simply rows of different sized cement rectangles, and the observers are supposed to decide what it means to them. The memorial was strategically placed in this spot in a high-traffic spot in the city so that nobody could ignore it. Underneath of the memorial is a powerful museum displaying stories and letters of families who were affected by the holocaust.

Ole reunion! In Berlin we met up with 6 other St. Olaf students/grads. One of them, Katie, was a tour guide in Berlin last summer and gave us a hilarious and extremely informative 3 hour walking tour of the city.

This was the view from our hostel-- it wasn't the best place in the world. But, it was our only bad hostel, so we were pretty lucky!

Adventures in the North-- Hamburg and Kiel

After Bacharach, we took a long train ride to Hamburg, one of the largest cities in Germany, and the largest port in the country. It is also known for its cleanliness and safety. We stayed for two nights with my friend Lennart (who was an international student at St. Olaf for 2 and a half years) and his parents. He and his parents were so welcoming! Lennart showed us around Hamburg and drove us up to another city, Kiel, on the Baltic Sea. His parents just genuinely love people, and we stayed up late both nights chatting with them. They also took us to a quintessential German restaurant where we had----- just guess------ Wiener Schnitzel and potatoes! It was, however, much better than the Schnitzel they serve at least twice a week in the cafteria here at school.

In Hamburg we also saw a huge U-boat (submarine) factory, which makes such great products that the United States wanted to buy it a few years back. The Germans, however, were not about to give their pride and glory to the Americans and the governement forbid the selling of the company. Pretty interesting!


Lennart's house. He lives in a little village outside of Hamburg called Bad Bremstedt. Apparently Karl Lagerfeld also grew up there and went to Lennart's elementary school. This housing style is typical in Northern Germany, while white houses with red roofs are typical in Southern Germany.


Hamburg. It was a little rainy and gray, but so beautiful! It kind of reminded me of a bigger version of St. Paul. As with virtually all German cities, Hamburg is thriving with life and has a city center that is closed off to cars and is always full of people shopping, having coffee, wandering around, and traveling across the city by foot.


In Hamburg they take their pedestrian crossing lights very seriously; the lights display TWO red men for do not walk because apparently two red lights get people's attention more than just one red light.


This is the beach on the Baltic Sea in Kiel. So gorgeous!


Margit and I took a little rest in one of the beach chairs that are all over the place.

It was hard to capture the excitement and beauty of Hamburg in pictures (especially because of the dingy weather), but if I had to live anywhere in Germany, I think I would live in either Konstanz or Hamburg.

Bacharach-- living in a castle!!

Next stop- Bacharach on the Rhein (Rhine) River. When I came to Germany in high school we stayed in a castle converted into a youth hostel and I loved it so much that I talked the others into including it on our trip this time around. It took us 15 minutes to schlep our luggage up super steep, muddy steps carved into the side of a hill, but it was definitely worth it!!

Our castle!

The view from the castle. The hills are covered in vineyards and the whole area is filled with small medieval-looking villages. We did a wine tasting in town and decided we really like the wine from this region!

More beauty. That's our castle way up on the hill. We spent our days here wandering around the town, lounging in the sun by the river, and playing cards with some other students in our hostel. It was a much needed relaxation after the craziness of finishing up our language course, packing, planning our trip, registering for classes at home, choosing classes to take at the University here and finishing up the last of our beaucratic tasks before heading out of town.

Just a cool sign I saw. It means: stairs ahead. The Germans really like to make signs for everything so that everything is very orderly and nobody is taken by surprise when they find a staircase in front of them.