Thursday the 8th

Hello all,

I just got done with classes and midterms today! Woo hoo! Now I'm getting ready to embark on a 2 and a half week break!! Sooooo excited. Anyways, this week basically consisted of a whole lot of studying for finals. Monday I was completely exhausted from the weekend, and I basically was like a zombie all through class. After class I ran home and got a 1 hour nap. After that we had a dinner for the host families, but my family wasn't able to make it, that was ok thought because a few others couldn't make it either. It was still fun though, I had a beer and some cake and it was deeeelicious!

I got to sleep in on Tuesday which was greatly needed, and we went and visited the Cologne city museum, so I didn't have any real class on Tuesday which was cool! We also went and visited a pretty church, I can't remember what it was called but the inside looked like a Candy Cane and I liked that. After that we went to Kim Phuc (I laugh at the name everyday), and we had delicious fried rice. Then I went home and took a nap and proceeded to study the rest of the night.

Wednesday I had 2 finals, both of which were really tough and hurt my brain. After my second final I really needed to calm down so we went to the grocery store and got 35 cent beer and drank that. It was delicious and necessary. I came home after that, napped, and studied yet again.

Today was the last final, and it wasn't nearly as painful as the other two. After the final we went to the little cafe by the school and I had a coffee, a hot chocolate, and some french fries. And I was completely wound up haha. After the cafe we went to Art History, which is a pretty fun class, and I was excited because we got to talk about the Duomo in Florence, which I've been to. I was very excited about this, so I announced it proudly to the class. Turns out lots of Americans have been there. Oh well, it was exciting nonetheless.

After class I had to go look at a church in Appelhofplatz for my Art History project. Of course I pick the church that's completely under construction and hidden by scaffolding. Oh well. I picked up line 3 in Appelhofplatz and took it over to Deutz, since it's on the way to my house (I'm on line 9 which goes right through Deutz). I went there because that's where their hockey arena is, Lanxess Arena. I got some pictures of that, and walked around for a good 20 minutes until I finally found the fanshop. There I got a present for Bobby which hopefully he'll like. I jumped back on the Bahn and here I am! I'm gonna take it easy for a while, and hopefully go out the next few nights before Berlin.

So Sunday morning we're headed off to Berlin! We're staying at the Helter Skelter hostel, which I find ironic, because we were just talking about the Manson murders the other day. The hostel is right smack in the middle of Berlin, which I think is really cool. All the girls are staying in the big apartment and the boys in a smaller apartment. Here's the link to the hostel:
http://www.helterskelterhostel.de

The week should be a lot of fun, there's stuff planned everyday like a visit to the Reichstag, and a day trip to Potsdam. I'm so excited! I love when we're all on excursions together cuz we're such a fun group, and now we all get to be together for a week! I think we're gonna cool one night too because there's a kitchen in our apartment.

After Berlin I come back to Cologne to pack for Greece! I'm gonna attempt to conquer the famous German Laundromat at some point so that I have clean clothes for when I get there haha. I leave for Greece a week from Sunday, flying into Mykonos early in the morning. We'll be in Mykono's until Tuesday, then we head to Athens. After Athens I'm flying to London to meet Uncle David for the Bucs game on Sunday. I'm ditching school on Monday (shh!) and flying back home!

So that's basically how the next couple weeks are going to unfold! I'm bringing my laptop to Berlin and Greece, so I'm sure I'll be blogging a lot!

Jess