Yay it's my birthday! And as a present I got a pile of HOMEWORK! That's right...day 1, and I'm already spending hours doing homework. And the fun doesn't end there! I even get a QUIZ tomorrow! Anyways, lemme go over the past weekend before I get too ahead of myself.
Saturday I went for a bike ride, and I rode out to the airport and back which was about 10 kilometers, so something like 6 miles...not too bad! When I got back to the house I had some plum cake and then I needed a nap. I ate dinner with the family, and I met with a bunch of the PCIC kids in Neumarkt square so we could go to a club. The club ended up having a 9 Euro cover which is outrageous! Then 1 heineken cost me 4 euro! After a couple hours we decided it was too smokey in there (one tiny advantage the US has over Europe...no one really smokes anymore at home!) We ended up going to this pub that we had been to before called the Capitol in Zuplicherplatz. It's a really nice place with great prices and not alot of smoke so we decided that it would be our main hangout :-)
Sunday I kinda moped around all day and felt depressed that I'm 22 and not at home to celebrate with my friends and family and Bobby...But later 5 of us met again in Neumarkt to celebrate my birfday, so I felt a little better. We went to Rudolphplatz and had ice cream, then we went to a little pub down the road. It was an early night, since today was our first day of school!
When I woke up I was pretty excited to start class. I haven't worked at all in almost 2 weeks, and for me that's CRAZY. I got all dressed and ready and went up to have breakfast. My host mom is so sweet! She had a happy birthday placemat set up for me and a couple gifts! I got a bottle of Chardonnay, a scarf, some bodywash, and a Halloween candle! It was really nice.
When I got to school I was really excited...plus pretty much everyone wished me a happy birthday which was super nice. My first class ever I got TONS OF HOMEWORK. I have to do like 4 sections of stuff, plus I have to memorize 37 words. I'm not a happy camper, but what can I do? I've got the vocab on notecards and I'm working on my 2nd section...Plus I still have stuff for this class to do that's due Wednesday, AND I have to do stuff for the other class I had today. Over my head already...thank god I'm not working on top of this, I'd be hyperventilating!
After my first class 11 of us went out for my Birthday Doener, and it was SEHR LECKER! Then we went to class 2, and then home. I was brutally exhausted. I had some coffee with my host family, then I took a nap, and started my endless homework. Dinner was good, and my host mom made us chocolate cupcakes and I got a birthday candle! They sang happy birthday to me in English and it was really nice!
Anyways I gotta go back to the homework!
Jess
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Samstag
Okay! So it's Saturday, and I'm settled in with my host family! Everyone is really nice, I'm really excited. I have a nice big room with a tv in the basement and a bathroom close by, and a big yard. I live in a village not too far from the city, it's about 20 minutes on the U-bahn to downtown. I have 2 dogs and a cat! My host parents are Udo and Iris and I have 3 host siblings, Timo-25, Yvonne-20, and Stefano-15. Everyone is really nice and I'm excited and finally relaxing a little bit.
Yesterday all the kids in the program met at the school and we did paperwork to get our visas. Then we hiked to some store and got our pictures taken. We'll have our visas on Monday. It was a pretty short day, so we all went and grabbed a pizza after we were done. I came home and talked to my parents, then I took a nap, ate dinner, and some of us met up and went out in Zuplicherplatz. So basically it was a fun night. Tonight I guess we're all meeting with the activities coordinator and going to some club downtown, and tomorrow afternoon there is a streetfair. After the streetfair we're all meeting again in Neumarkt around 8 and we're gonna go somewhere for my birthday!
-Jess
Yesterday all the kids in the program met at the school and we did paperwork to get our visas. Then we hiked to some store and got our pictures taken. We'll have our visas on Monday. It was a pretty short day, so we all went and grabbed a pizza after we were done. I came home and talked to my parents, then I took a nap, ate dinner, and some of us met up and went out in Zuplicherplatz. So basically it was a fun night. Tonight I guess we're all meeting with the activities coordinator and going to some club downtown, and tomorrow afternoon there is a streetfair. After the streetfair we're all meeting again in Neumarkt around 8 and we're gonna go somewhere for my birthday!
-Jess
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Deutschland 8-27-09
Hallo!
I made it to Germany yesterday! The flight was good, everything was great. Then when I got to the hostel, I couldn't find any people that I recognized! I went to the front desk and the girl asked me if I was with the program...I said yeah. She said that I was the 4th girl who went to that hostel, I guess they had changed it last week, but I didn't get the e-mail. So anyways, I had to get another taxi to this hostel and finally I made it.
I got all my stuff put away and once all the people were rounded up we went to the top of this building and saw all of the city which was pretty cool. Then we went and got a beer and walked around, cuz you can do that here haha. After that was dinner, most people took a nap, and then we went out for the night! Mostly we sat around on a sidewalk having a beer for a while, then some of the others woke up and we did a small pub hop around the old town. It was pretty sweet! I ended the night with a delicious Doener, and all was well. Now my battery is dying so I'm gonna go and charge my computer. I meet my host family later too by the way! And I got some pictures of Zuzka's house that I'll put on facebook :-) I'm excited for her to come visit next summer hopefully!
-Jess
I made it to Germany yesterday! The flight was good, everything was great. Then when I got to the hostel, I couldn't find any people that I recognized! I went to the front desk and the girl asked me if I was with the program...I said yeah. She said that I was the 4th girl who went to that hostel, I guess they had changed it last week, but I didn't get the e-mail. So anyways, I had to get another taxi to this hostel and finally I made it.
I got all my stuff put away and once all the people were rounded up we went to the top of this building and saw all of the city which was pretty cool. Then we went and got a beer and walked around, cuz you can do that here haha. After that was dinner, most people took a nap, and then we went out for the night! Mostly we sat around on a sidewalk having a beer for a while, then some of the others woke up and we did a small pub hop around the old town. It was pretty sweet! I ended the night with a delicious Doener, and all was well. Now my battery is dying so I'm gonna go and charge my computer. I meet my host family later too by the way! And I got some pictures of Zuzka's house that I'll put on facebook :-) I'm excited for her to come visit next summer hopefully!
-Jess
Monday, August 24, 2009
Prague 8-24-09
Today is Monday! 2 more days before I go to Germany! I'm getting really excited...a little nervous for a few reasons, but mostly excited. I'm finally a little nervous to speak German all the time, but that doesn't really bother me too much. I'm more nervous about how I'm gonna transport myself from the airport to the hostel with all of my bags...I guess I'll take a taxi but I'm worried it'll be really expensive.
Speaking of expensive, my camera broke so I had to go buy a new one. Cameras here are sooooo much money! But I really like my new one, it's a pink coolpix and it's pretty nice...it doesn't have all the stuff my old one had, but my old one broke after 3 years so I guess it wasn't worth it. Plus my old one was giant. This one is nice and small :-)
The weekend was fun. Saturday we went to a Car Cruise with a bunch of sweet cars. They had racing and drifting and a ton of food, so it was really nice. That night we wanted to go to a club, so we went to this club not too far away. When we got there, there was all kinds of techno blaring and neon lights, so I thought wow this is gonna be sweet! Then we went in, and I'm pretty sure the average age was about 45 years old. Oh, and there was a middle school aged boy sitting in this nightclub! A little different from home! We stayed in the club for about 30 seconds and decided somewhere else would be better. So we went to a club in Kladno that had similar music and lights, but it was much better and the people there were actually around our age. I'm pretty sure this place had cosmic bowling on the other side too, but I suck at bowling haha. We stayed there for the rest of the night, it was pretty fun! We just kinda hung out at the bar and listened to music, and I did a lot of people watching...people probably thought I was staring haha, and they were right. I love to people watch.
Sunday we had a lazy day, I finished my book and relaxed a little. I felt pretty homesick yesterday. In the afternoon we went out and did some shopping, then went and walked around Prague, which was really nice. Then we came home and I felt pretty sick. I feel better now though. Today we're gonna go to Prague again! I posted some pictures on my facebook, I'm not sure how to post them on here yet...but I'm gonna try and figure it out soon!
-Jess
Speaking of expensive, my camera broke so I had to go buy a new one. Cameras here are sooooo much money! But I really like my new one, it's a pink coolpix and it's pretty nice...it doesn't have all the stuff my old one had, but my old one broke after 3 years so I guess it wasn't worth it. Plus my old one was giant. This one is nice and small :-)
The weekend was fun. Saturday we went to a Car Cruise with a bunch of sweet cars. They had racing and drifting and a ton of food, so it was really nice. That night we wanted to go to a club, so we went to this club not too far away. When we got there, there was all kinds of techno blaring and neon lights, so I thought wow this is gonna be sweet! Then we went in, and I'm pretty sure the average age was about 45 years old. Oh, and there was a middle school aged boy sitting in this nightclub! A little different from home! We stayed in the club for about 30 seconds and decided somewhere else would be better. So we went to a club in Kladno that had similar music and lights, but it was much better and the people there were actually around our age. I'm pretty sure this place had cosmic bowling on the other side too, but I suck at bowling haha. We stayed there for the rest of the night, it was pretty fun! We just kinda hung out at the bar and listened to music, and I did a lot of people watching...people probably thought I was staring haha, and they were right. I love to people watch.
Sunday we had a lazy day, I finished my book and relaxed a little. I felt pretty homesick yesterday. In the afternoon we went out and did some shopping, then went and walked around Prague, which was really nice. Then we came home and I felt pretty sick. I feel better now though. Today we're gonna go to Prague again! I posted some pictures on my facebook, I'm not sure how to post them on here yet...but I'm gonna try and figure it out soon!
-Jess
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Jess in Praha 8-20-09
Okay! So today I landed in Prague. It's about 10:15 PM here and I'm waiting for Bobby to call me on Skype. Zuzka's on her computer looking at cameras, because I have to buy a new one! That's right...day 1 of my 4 month journey, and my camera is already broken. Oh well. It was old...but I still liked it a lot so I'm kinda bummed.
Anyways, my trip started yesterday. When I got to the airport, I wanted to be bumped up to the earlier flight because I didn't think I'd make my flight to Zurich if I didn't, since air traffic in Philly sucks so bad. The people at US Airways told me the flight was was open and I just had to go to the gate early....but when I went the flight was full so they put me on standby! I was freaking out a little bit, but I ended up getting a seat on the plane, so that was good. Then I had my 5 hour layover in philly, I basically just sat there and read the whole time. The flight from Philly to Zurich was long, it was delayed an hour, and we circled for a half hour before we landed. I slept pretty much the whole flight though so I was happy about that. When I got to Zurich I had to sprint to my next plane to Prague. Unfortunately I had to go through security again, and they kept taking stuff out of my bag and re-scanning it probably like 4 or 5 times. I was really frustrated and afraid I'd miss my flight. Luckily I JUST made it to the gate, I was literally one of the last people on the plane, and they only waited because I told them there may be more. That's just my luck with flying though. This stuff always seems to happen to me when I fly.
I finally got to Prague, and my luggage actually made it too! Much to my surprise lol. But anyways, I came and took a 3 hour nap, and then me and Zuzka went into Prague. We went to this sweet new mall in the city, and it was there that I realized that my camera was broken! Oh well. We decided to go eat at this really good Japanese restaurant, and I came home and skyped my dad and Bobby. Now I'm tired, and probably gonna go to sleep haha.
-Jess
Anyways, my trip started yesterday. When I got to the airport, I wanted to be bumped up to the earlier flight because I didn't think I'd make my flight to Zurich if I didn't, since air traffic in Philly sucks so bad. The people at US Airways told me the flight was was open and I just had to go to the gate early....but when I went the flight was full so they put me on standby! I was freaking out a little bit, but I ended up getting a seat on the plane, so that was good. Then I had my 5 hour layover in philly, I basically just sat there and read the whole time. The flight from Philly to Zurich was long, it was delayed an hour, and we circled for a half hour before we landed. I slept pretty much the whole flight though so I was happy about that. When I got to Zurich I had to sprint to my next plane to Prague. Unfortunately I had to go through security again, and they kept taking stuff out of my bag and re-scanning it probably like 4 or 5 times. I was really frustrated and afraid I'd miss my flight. Luckily I JUST made it to the gate, I was literally one of the last people on the plane, and they only waited because I told them there may be more. That's just my luck with flying though. This stuff always seems to happen to me when I fly.
I finally got to Prague, and my luggage actually made it too! Much to my surprise lol. But anyways, I came and took a 3 hour nap, and then me and Zuzka went into Prague. We went to this sweet new mall in the city, and it was there that I realized that my camera was broken! Oh well. We decided to go eat at this really good Japanese restaurant, and I came home and skyped my dad and Bobby. Now I'm tired, and probably gonna go to sleep haha.
-Jess
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Countdown - 4 days
Okay so it's Saturday and I'm leaving Wednesday. I finally started getting stuff done today, I got my room cleaned out and I'm working on about 5 loads of laundry right now. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get all this stuff done, especially since I'm still working a lot, but I really cranked out some cleaning today! I'm proud of myself :-) Now Tuesday I can just concentrate on packing the 5 loads of laundry into 1 suitcase and 1 carry on. I'm not sure how to pack for 4 months! I'm pretty much packing for 3 seasons! Should be interesting...
So I'm having some issues with canceled return flights and student loan crap, but hopefully I'll get all that figured out on Tuesday. I have to run down to W&J and talk to the business office about it. I was really upset about it all yesterday, but at this point there's nothing to do but get it taken care of. And explain it to my dad in detail, cuz he's probably gonna have to do the paperwork and stuff while I'm overseas to get it all fixed up. I hate mix ups...especially when I don't find out about them until 5 days before I leave! Oh well, what can I do?
So tonight I'm gonna go out to South Side for the last time until December! Very sad! I'm gonna miss everyone terribly...I've never been away from my parents for more than 2 weeks...and I'm gonna miss Bobby and my friends so much. 4 months is looking like a lifetime, but I'm sure it'll fly by. It's no secret that I love Europe and traveling...I'm sure I'll find ways to keep myself occupied haha. I've got big plans to see Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels...maybe London if I have some extra money. And I'm gonna go to Oktoberfest! I mean how COOL is that? This is gonna be the best trip I probably ever take! And jeezoman...I'll probably be speaking Deutsch like a pro when all is said and done...that's the most important thing!
So I guess I'm gonna go and conquer my upstairs closet while I wait for my laundry to dry...next time I blog I will probably be in Prague!
-Jess
So I'm having some issues with canceled return flights and student loan crap, but hopefully I'll get all that figured out on Tuesday. I have to run down to W&J and talk to the business office about it. I was really upset about it all yesterday, but at this point there's nothing to do but get it taken care of. And explain it to my dad in detail, cuz he's probably gonna have to do the paperwork and stuff while I'm overseas to get it all fixed up. I hate mix ups...especially when I don't find out about them until 5 days before I leave! Oh well, what can I do?
So tonight I'm gonna go out to South Side for the last time until December! Very sad! I'm gonna miss everyone terribly...I've never been away from my parents for more than 2 weeks...and I'm gonna miss Bobby and my friends so much. 4 months is looking like a lifetime, but I'm sure it'll fly by. It's no secret that I love Europe and traveling...I'm sure I'll find ways to keep myself occupied haha. I've got big plans to see Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels...maybe London if I have some extra money. And I'm gonna go to Oktoberfest! I mean how COOL is that? This is gonna be the best trip I probably ever take! And jeezoman...I'll probably be speaking Deutsch like a pro when all is said and done...that's the most important thing!
So I guess I'm gonna go and conquer my upstairs closet while I wait for my laundry to dry...next time I blog I will probably be in Prague!
-Jess
Friday, August 7, 2009
The Countdown - 12 Days
Okay, so I decided to start a blog for my semester abroad in Germany. Most people in my family asked me for e-mail updates, and I figured this would be the easiest way to keep everyone up to speed on what I'm doing. I'm leaving August 19th, in 12 days, and I'll come home December 15th. So far I have nothing packed and my room is still a mess, but I'm hoping that I can get a couple days off before my trip to get everything together.
I'm starting my little journey in Prague. I'll fly in and out of Prague so I can visit my family in Czech Republic. I have 5 days before I'm due in Cologne, which is August 26th. I'll probably leave Prague on the 25th and take the night train to Cologne, but I don't have all the details worked out yet. When I come home I'll just have maybe 1 or 2 nights in Prague.
I have my train pass and international student card, an insurance card and my passport, obviously. I still haven't heard from my host family, and I'm not sure where I'll be living, but I'm sure I'll hear soon enough. I'm getting a little nervous because I've never been away from home for more than 2 weeks, but I'm more excited than anything! Okay that's all for now I guess!
-Jess
I'm starting my little journey in Prague. I'll fly in and out of Prague so I can visit my family in Czech Republic. I have 5 days before I'm due in Cologne, which is August 26th. I'll probably leave Prague on the 25th and take the night train to Cologne, but I don't have all the details worked out yet. When I come home I'll just have maybe 1 or 2 nights in Prague.
I have my train pass and international student card, an insurance card and my passport, obviously. I still haven't heard from my host family, and I'm not sure where I'll be living, but I'm sure I'll hear soon enough. I'm getting a little nervous because I've never been away from home for more than 2 weeks, but I'm more excited than anything! Okay that's all for now I guess!
-Jess
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