Wrapping Up

Hello everyone,

Tonight is sadly my last night in Germany, and I just wanted to have one final post here. I still have not covered the events of the past 2 weeks, but I believe I will make that my in-flight project. I won't go into a long summation post just yet, but if you've been reading my blog, please stick around for just a few more entries, which I should have finished by the end of this weekend at the latest. I look forward to seeing everyone back at home, it isn't too much longer! I can only hope for smooth travels and that all my baggage gets home with me.

See you soon!

Wir reisen nach München

Guten Tag! As promised, in this entry I will give the full report on our weekend trip to Munich, oder München auf Deutsch.

Instead of the usual four or five of us traveling, this weekend it was more- another group of three students from our class also were traveling to Munich, and they stayed at our same hostel. Joey and Giselle were staying in Mannheim Friday night, and would travel to Munich the next morning, so Friday afternoon Cait, Erica, and Ashely, Richie, and Sam were all at the Hauptbahnhof. We took a three hour Zug and arrived in Mannheim around 4:30. At the exit of the Bahnhof there was an advertisement sign pointing us in the direction of our hostel, the Meininger Hostel, which is a chain of hostels throughout Europe, so we were able to just walk there in about 10 minutes. Munich seemed like a very nice city, but it had a different feel to it than Berlin- less cold and stone, and more inviting and modern, and we were already spotting beer gardens and tons of little restaurants. We all checked into the hostel- Erica, Cait, and I had booked one of the large dorms, so we were a bit anxious to see how it would be. We went up to the room and entered with our key card, and there were two doors. To the left was a large room of about 10 beds, and a bathroom, bunk style, and most of them were already taken, and of course there were people smoking (in a strictly non-smoking hostel) on the balcony (which was for emergency purposes only). Fortunately to the right there was a smaller little room with only four beds and another bathroom, and only one bed was taken, so we swooped in and took those three. We had each been given a little card which fit in a plastic holder next to the bed, claiming it as ours, and the beds and bathroom were also clean and fresh, and we even had lockers in the room to store our stuff. A few minutes later we met the other group downstairs, and we headed off first to the Hauptbahnhof to purchase public transport passes for that day and Saturday (although in Germany it's more like the honor system and passes are hardly ever checked, the only country I've been in like that so far). We had to buy a more expensive pass for Saturday since our plans included going out to Dachau, which was in the outer portions of the Munich transport system. After that, we headed off to find some dinner.

Using information from both Cait's and my travel books, we located one of the most famous beer gardens in all of Munich: Augustiner-Keller, which has been around since the 1800's, and the beer since 1328. There were over 5000 seats, although we still had to look around to find some suitable ones. At first we sat at one of the round tables, but was soon told that it was a reserved Stammtisch- even the names of the regulars had been put around it at each place. But soon enough we found somewhere under the many trees, and we ordered. We all got similar things: Wurst and Kartoffelsalat, or Spätzle, which is a sort of curly egg noodle that is popular here. I also drank beer, which I figured I may as well do since I wouldn't be back in Munich of all places for quite a while- it's still the only time I've drank a full glass of beer in Germany, since it's not really high on my list of favorite tastes. But it was enjoyable enough, especially with our most delicious Wurst and the best Kartoffelsalat I've had in Deutschland. Unfortunately, almost as soon as we finished eating it started to rain, so we high-tailed it inside to finish our drinks. It was a different atmosphere inside: there were huge long wooden tables and benches, and we just sat down where it was empty. It was fun just being with the group, and a couple people ordered dessert as we just waited out the rain. After a while though, we were finished and left the garden. We decided just to do some city exploring, so we went to Marienplatz, one of the biggest public areas, where we saw the famous Glockenspiel (the bells in the church clock tower, where little characters pop out like in a cuckoo clock). We didn't have anything in particular to do, so we just wandered around getting a feel for the city, and then eventually decided to head back. We took an S-Bahn to our hostel, but it had decided to start raining again, so we were quite wet when we got back. We had a good night's sleep, which was valuable since we were getting up early the next day.

In the morning we got up early to get to the Hauptbahnhof by about 7. We ate breakfast there and then boarded a regional train to Dachau, for which we could use our Munich transport tickets. The journey out took about 30 minutes, and then we were in the little town of Dachau, but from there we still had to take a short bus to get to the former concentration camp. It was weird to think about Dachau being an actual town with such a place right inside it, although it's possible that the town has changed greatly in the past 60 years. I will just give a little information about Dachau: it was the first concentration camp opened in Germany, and it was used as a model for ones that followed. Over 200,000 prisoners were housed there and many died, but it was not one of the so-called "death camps." Most of the deaths were due to disease and malnutrition, including a typhus epidemic which we learned about during our visit. We arrived at the camp and we got audio tours which allowed to get detailed information as we went around. It was a very solemn visit, and the first thing that we saw as we walked down the gravel road were the former train tracks that ran by the camp, followed by the recognizable iron gate with the phrase, "ARBEIT MACHT FREI," meaning "Work sets one free." We walked through the gate and then we could see the lay of the land. On the right was the museum, and then on the left behind the large expanse of gravel where roll call had taken place, the camp continued far back. I must note that the original buildings and barracks had all been torn down. There had been two long rows of barracks, but now there are only the two in very front, which are reconstructions. That's where we started, and inside one of those buildings you could see how the quarters had progressed throughout the Holocaust- in the first room the bunks were only double, in the second there were more people squeezed into three levels, and in the third room there were no more individual bunks, but rather one large bunk in two levels. Our audio guides told us that more and more people were put into these rooms as the war went on- often a room designed for 50 would hold 200 people. In the colorless building we also saw the room which housed the toilets as well as one with washing stations. It was all very grim, and with our audio guides we were also able to listen to prisoner testimonies that had been written in the years following the war. After going through that building, we headed down the Camp Road, which was the wide gravel road going down the two rows of barracks toward the back of the camp. In the back several religious memorials had been erected: a Protestant church/memorial, a Catholic memorial, and the Jewish memorial. They had all been built in different ways, but they all symbolized the horror of what had happened, as well as the sentiment that something like that would never happen again. At the back of the camp, we turned left to head into another area. We saw the perimeter ditch and fence, where many had died trying to escape, and then there were two buildings, both of which were crematoriums. Originally there had just been one, but it bleakly had not been sufficient, so another one had to have been built. Inside there were ovens where the dead were cremated, and there was also a sign indicating that prisoners had also been hung from the rafters. We also went into the former gas chamber, which was just a concrete room with false shower-head-looking grates on the ceiling, and which also had grates on the side for inserting gas pellets, and also a way for guards to look inside, however, the chamber was never used at Dachau. Stepping outside there was a monument of "The Unknown Prisoner," as well as many other stones memorializing all who had died. Around a corner into the woods was the "grave of thousands unknown," which lay in front of a now grown-over cement wall which had been used to shoot prisoners against. The gravel path eventually led back around to the entrance of that part of the camp. At that point, we had seen nearly all of the physical parts of the camp, except for another memorial erected in 1997. It was a huge metal sculpture, very jagged and twisted, in which one could make it portions of bodies intertwined with a kind of abstract barbed wire. I believe the design had won in an international contest, and had then been erected. There was also a wall with the message "never again" written in various languages, and another Jewish wall memorial. We went then into the museum, where there was hours' worth of information. We meandered through the displays, reading about the history of the camp, what had happened there, and all sort of other information over the atrocity. We were only able to do half of the museum before a film was starting, so we went to that (it ended up not being much more informative). We went through the other half of the museum, and then it was time to go. The camp had a very different sort of experience: on one hand, it had been an informative look into history, but at the same time it was an emotional story of human atrocity and horror. We left the camp having learned a lot, and we took the same train back to the city center.

After a brief stop at the hostel, we had a quick lunch at a restaurant across the street before we were meeting Joey and Giselle at the Hauptbahnhof. They had also visited Dachau on their own in the morning, although we had not crossed paths there. After some discussion with the rest of the group, we all decided to go to the Deutsches Museum, which according to my travel book is one of the best things to do in Munich. In the vicinity of the museum was some live music and tons of people, for we were there doing the 850th anniversary of Munich festival, so it was cool being there with an event going on. We all entered the museum and wandered at will. The museum was possibly the most confusing museum I've ever been in. There all are sorts of twists, turns, corridors, and very little signage. Nevertheless, I made it a point to find a hall of musical instruments, which was very interesting- there were tons of old pianos and harpsichords, and other related instruments. Also there was the trautonium, an electric instrument used to create the sounds for Hitchcock's The Birds. I also saw a reconstruction of Galileo's workshop, and the famous Enigma machine, used in World War II for encoding messages. The musem was huge, with 6 floors, so there's no way I could possibly have seen everything, but I got a good overview. After the museum, the group split: I went with Richie, Giselle, and Ashley to the BMW Museum, and Erica and Cait tried to go to the Residenz, a palace, which ended up being closed. The BMW Museum had not been mentioned in my travel book, so I didn't know about it, but I'm glad that Richie knew about it, because it was great. We saw pretty much every model of BMW from the beginning of time, and everything was housed in a super sleek modern building. You could also listen to motors as they progressed through time, and there was one particularly interesting exhibit: the model letter/numbers that one sees on the back of cars had been taken off, and they were hanging in a huge sort of mobile. The higher to the ceiling they were (as shown by huge numbered years going down the wall), the newer the model. There were tons of little plaques hanging. We also saw a lot of motorcycles, including the BMW K1200R, which happens to be David's favorite bike of all time. Before we entered the museum there was also an interactive showroom- we could see the new cars, including a new hydrogen-powered one, we could see the pressure exerted on the brakes while driving in a sort of game-looking thing, we could see all the interior and exterior colors ever offered, and all sort of interesting facts. I also got to sit in a brand new convertible (I think it suits me). I really enjoyed the museum, and I'm happy that I was able to see it.

After the museum, we all met up again in the Olympiapark, site of the 1972 Summer Olympics. It was a very interesting park with interesting architure: the buildings are almost tent-looking, very glassy and wavy. There was a huge soccer stadium and lake, and we just hung out there for a while as we waited for the rest of group. Soon we were all reunited, and we were all hungry so we headed to find some dinner. We went to a recommended brewery, although our experience wasn't as good as the previous night's. We didn't get much attention, and we were all squeezed into a tiny table. I ordered a supposedly local fish dish, which didn't turn out anything like I expected, but it was still good, and it was served with an apple-horseradish which turned out to be excellent. One of our friends from the MEMS program, Kristin, had joined us at dinner, since she had just arrived alone in Munich from a trip somewhere else, and after dinner we checked her into her hostel. A small group of us decided to go out once more to check out the festivities going on with the festival, so we headed back out to where we were earlier in the day. There was some kind of a concert and dancing going on, not with a live band but with a DJ, and I must say there was an interesting selection of music. We heard everything from "Hit the Road, Jack," to "I'm Walking on Sunshine" to "We Will Rock You," and a few songs I'm sure could only be from Eurovision. And let me tell you, the Germans loved all these songs, and we were all wondering how they knew them. It was a little bit weird, but very fun. We made our way to the second row, as well, and the crowd was energetic and fun as everyone danced to the 10+ years old music. The DJ stopped playing at 1 am, and that's when we headed back to our hostel to get as much sleep as we could before getting up yet again very early.

We all met downstairs in the hostel at 6:45, checked out, and headed to the Hauptbahnhof. We were able to leave the bulk of our belongings in a locker there, and then we got breakfast and got on a train. Destination: Füssen, about 2 hours away. I slept on the train and was well rested by the time we got there, around 9:30. What is so special about Füssen? It is the small town around Neuschwanstein Castle, otherwise known as the model for Disney's Cinderella Castle and entire Disney logo. From the Bahnhof we took a bus to the base of the mountain, where we collected our pre-reserved tickets for the guided tour of the castle, which is nestled on the side of a mountain. We had three options for going up: we could walk for free, pay for a bus, or pay for a horse-drawn carriage. We decided to walk. Now, supposedly you can get to the top in 40 minutes or 30 at a good pace. We got there in 20 minutes, so I just figure that we are expert walkers. It wasn't a bad walk, but of course it was just a fairly steep incline all the way up. We had an excellent view from the top, but we continued a bit past the castle to get to Mary's Bridge, which spans a waterfall and gives you an excellent view of the castle from behind, and also a great site for pictures. Just our luck that the back of castle was undergoing construction and covered with scaffolding, but we were able to frame our pictures in such a way that it was covered. But the castle and the scenery was just breathtaking, and definitely very Disney-esque. Our tour was scheduled for 11:45, so we headed back down to the castle to wait. The castle had been built over 15 years for a King Ludwig II, but we learned that he only lived there for 100 days before he died in mysterious circumstances. Our tour was very interesting, and the inside of the castle was very different- it was very colorful, and had been built as an homage to the composer Richard Wagner, so inside there were many references to his work. There were also many swans, which was the symbol of the king, and in fact the name Neuschwanstein really means "new swan stone." Interestingly, only certain parts of the castle were ever finished before Ludwig's death, so we skipped entire floors of the castle on the tour. Even the throne had never been installed. In the kings chamber, there were wood carvings that had taken 4 carpenters over a year to do, and there was even a secret door that led to a flushing toilet and running water, which was very rare for the time. Visting the castle was great, and I really learned a lot about it that I had never known. After the tour we hiked back down the mountain, had lunch, and then caught another 2-hour train back to Munich. We still had about an hour to kill before our reserved train back to Mannheim, so we just wandered around for a bit in nearby Marienplatz. We said goodbye to Kristin, who had to stay in Munich by herself for a few more hours, and then finally boarded our train back to Mannheim. In order to have fewer train changes we had booked an IC train, which was still fast but not quite as nice on the inside, but we still had a pleasant journey back home. We arrived back around 8:30, and then went to our dorms to recover from our incredibly busy weekend.

I hope you've enjoyed this book of an entry! I'm still behind, but I know that I will get caught up eventually. I expect in my next entry to cover the events of last week's school week, and then have another for the weekend we just had. I can't believe I'll be home in a few days, the time here has really flown by. I'll write again soon- tomorrow with any luck!

Ich denke, dass mein Deutsch viel besser ist, und ich habe viele neue Wörter gelernt. Ich finde, es ist jetzt für mich leichter, Deutsch zu sprechen und verstehen. Ich habe meine Reisen viel genossen, und ich hoffe, dass ihr mein Blog interessant gefunden habt!

Aufwiederschreiben!

The Previous School Week

Hallo! In this entry I will update you on everything that happened last school week, which as usual was plenty.

On Monday, we had class at 9 as usual, so there's not much to report. During the break between class and Interaktive Praxis, we went to the campus shop in the Schloss for some Uni Mannheim merchandise. They had plenty to choose from, and I bought a navy-blue university shirt. Almost everyone from my class will have one by the end of the trip, and since most of us will be in Advanced German next semester, I believe we're planning on all wearing them on one day in the fall.

During Interaktive Praxis, we did more preparation for the film party the next day, and Frau Hamann also returned our tests from Thursday. I got an A, but she said she was generous with her grading. I did well on all the grammar and reading comprehension, and even the listening comprehension. My weakest area was the written section, because even during the test I wasn't quite sure of what we were supposed to do. I did manage a 10/10 on the speaking part, which I was especially please with. Overall, I was content with my performance and I could be more certain of what to expect on the next test. After class my friends and I went out to Kaufland for groceries, including supplies for the party, which everyone had contributed a couple euros for. The hardest part was lugging everything back on the Strassenbahn, but we made it somehow.

For Tuesday's Interaktive Praxis, we had our much-anticipated (not) film party. No one not from our class whom we invited came besides Dr. Futterknecht, so it was kind of a lost cause. I did a brief film introduction- the film was supposedly a story made for Mannheim's 400th birthday, which was in 2007. Here was my introduction:

Meine Damen und Herren,
Wilkommen zu unserer Filmvorstellung! Es freut mich sehr, einen passenden Film vorzustellen. Der Film heißt Traumhafte Zeiten- Erzählung einer Stadt. Der Film feiert Mannheims 400. Geburtstag, der 2007 war. Traumhafte Zeiten ist von Michael Kötz, Direktor des Internationalen Filmfestivals Mannheim-Heidelberg und des Festival des deutschen Films. Nach dem Film können wir essen, trinken, und Pantomime spielen. Vielen dank, dass Sie heute gekommen sind, und genießen Sie den Film!

Unfortunately, no one could understand the film and it was not very exciting or well-made. The more enjoyable part of the afternoon was playing charades auf Deutsch. It was quite funny, and some of the words were pretty difficult to act out, for example, "Das Klima," which means climate. "Das Wetter! Die Temperatur! Die Sonne! Der Regen!" were all guesses before someone finally got it right.

On Wednesday was our final organized group trip to Strasbourg. It was originally supposed to be to Strasbourg and Colmar, but a girl from MEMS ended up collapsing in Strasbourg and had to go to the hospital, so Colmar was taken out of the agenda. We arrived in Strasbourg after about 2 hours on the bus, and it was a very beautiful city, I would like to go back! First we went with Dr. Futterknecht to the famous cathedral there, where there is also an astronomical clock. We happened to get there during the lunch hour when the inside was closed, so he allowed us to disperse, to meet back up in a couple hours. Our group decided to find somewhere to eat, and we found a cute crêperie nearby. We ate down in a cellar/basement type area, where curiously the music consisted solely of Barry White, to such a high volume that I had to request for the group that it be turned down. I ate a Galette Niçoise- a galette is similar to a crêpe, but it is thicker and with buckwheat. On the inside there was a kind of cheese, tomato, anchovies, and tuna. It was delicious, as anyone who likes anchovies would have agreed. After the restaurant we had to meet back up with the group, and we went inside the church. One of the interesting things was that all the signs inside were in English, French, and German. It had all the usual church stuff- stained glass, beautiful wood, high ceilings, but the most interesting part was the astronomical clock. It had many dials and decorations that indicated astronomical and calendrical functions, including what is thought to the be the first mechanization of the computation of Easter. Since we were no longer going to Colmar, we had a few hours to kill before we headed back. Our group, having bought pastries from a bakery, ended up just walking around the city and sitting comfortably by the river. We also went to a historic wine cellar in the basement of the Strasbourg hospital, which was quite cool, and the men working there helped us pick out an inexpensive white wine from the region. That was our last event of the day before heading back to the bus for our trip back to Mannheim. I really enjoyed it, and it seemed like a very genuinely French town, even more so than Paris. Paris was so international and touristy that we heard English all the time, but Strasbourg was much more homey. I would almost say that it's like a Mannheim of France, except for being more like Heidelberg in terms of beauty. That night in Mannheim the four of us drank the wine that we had bought, while watching the storm of the century happen outside our windows. It was the hardest rain we had ever seen in Mannheim, and our Studentenwohnheim is such that we hear extremely loud wind gusts and whistling. Our windows were literally opening themselves, and when we got up the next morning there were rain drops everywhere.

Thursday's Interaktive Praxis was held during our Mittagessen, at one of the oldest restaurants in Mannheim. I have unfortunately forgotten the name, but it was a good experience. We all got soup, salad, and fries with our meals- mine was an onion schnitzel dish, which I didn't finish, but was able to take home. Thursday night our group watched a movie online. For some reason we had been talking about The Others, the scary movie with Nicole Kidman, and so after our homework we sat down around the computer and watched. Otherwise, Thursday was not a very busy day, although we had to study for another test on Friday.

So, on Friday was a second chapter test. This one at least in my mind went smoother than the first. All the sections were relatively easy, and it was similar to before- there was listening comprehension, reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, and a speaking section. Cait and I are almost always partners, and we have been so ever since German I, so we have grown quite accustomed to speaking which each other, which is good. For the Zertifikat Deutsch it is possible also that we will get to choose our speaking partners, and if so we will also be able to be together, which will make that part a little less unpredictable. Otherwise, class that day was uneventful, and in the afternoon we headed off to Munich, but I will save that adventure for my next entry. However, there are a few more miscellaneous things I will mention:

1. Google Analytics- I have installed Google Analytics on my blog, which is a javascript program that allows me to see tons of stuff about who's visiting my blog. I can see how many hits I get on a certain day, how many unique visitors I've had, how long they stayed, where my visitors are from, down to the city (Canada! Sweden! Hong Kong!), and all kinds of interesting stats. My maximum views on a single day was 12, and I've had 135 visits from 26 different visitors, although I only have data from July 14th on. So, if you visit my blog, I'll know!

2. The heat. It has been deathly hot here! It can get quite disgusting, and there is no air conditioning anywhere, including our dorms and classroom, which of course makes it hard to concentrate. Fortunately Cait's and my room was blessed with a fan from the getgo, so we've been using that to the greatest extent possible.

3. My knee- sometime in Paris, I think, I twisted it or something, because once I hit Versailles I had some sharp pains going down stairs- it's in my right leg, sort of the right of my knee and behind. Sometimes it gets stiff and hurts to walk for a few minutes, but I have noticed it especially going down large numbers of stairs. I'm hoping that it will just get better with time, and I already think it's improved since Paris.

4. A victorious Deutsch moment- we were at the Hauptbahnhof, standing by the map of Mannheim, and a couple Germans came by who had just gotten into town, and asked where to find the Jugendherberge. Unfortunately I didn't know, but we were able to carry on a quick conversation about it. They went of the ReiseZentrum to get some information, but meanwhile I found it on the map. They came back, and this time we were able to direct them, even giving them all the Strassenbahn information auf Deutsch. We were quite proud not only to be able to navigate the conversation, but also to give them information about the city we've lived in for this month.

5. The bear- sometime last week a mysterious small yellow-brown stuffed bear appeared on our bathroom shelf. It was quite the source of wonder- whose bear was it? Why was it creepily perched in the bathroom? Had some stranger lost it there? Mel and Yen? No one knew. The eventual conclusion was that the maid had left it in there as some sort of gift, because some MEMS kids had gotten one as well. Still, the bear continues to be a source of horror and humour, as people put it in unexpected places- notably when the boys left it in our bathroom with a huge knife in its hands. It also seems to change location on its own. It is as of now unnamed.

6. The buses. The bus system here has been very nice and predictable, except for only a couple instances of the bus coming early or late. There are various buses that come on our route on a regular basis. Each bus has a particular character and voice giving the stops, and we have given them their proper names:

Little and Big IKEA- These are the yellow and blue buses. They are the newest of all, with nice air conditioning and TV screens illuminating the next few stops (and interestingly, we have learned that Teufelsbrücke, the stop before ours, means of course, Devil's Bridge). Little IKEA is the bus with only one section, and Big IKEA has another half that is attached with an accordion-like bridge.

Red Danger- this bus is one of the oldest and grossest ones, with dark red seats. They're also known to go around the corners most violently, and it's extremely hot and stuffy on the inside. The display indicating the stops is almost always out of order.

Wonder Years- this is also an old bus, but the seats are a golden brown plaid pattern, reminiscent of the 70's. We've gotten this bus many times, especially in the morning on the way to school. No air conditioning, but not as hot as Red Danger.

The Rainbow Connection- we haven't seen this bus in a while, but we're sure it still exists. A middle-aged bus, this one has charter-bus-like seats, which are grey with a sort of rainbow pattern. We generally don't mind riding this bus.

That's about all I can report on for now- look forward to my next entry, in which I will detail our trip to Munich. Tschüss!

Le reste de Paris!

I just got back from an exciting weekend in Munich, and I know I have fallen far behind on my blog. In this entry, I will finish up the story of last weekend, our trip to Paris.

We woke up early Saturday morning to go to the Louvre. After some confusion over the breakfast in the hostel (Cait went down to check it out, but no one understood that she just wanted to look and not eat), we decided to just head out and get breakfast on the way. We got some croissants at one of the metro stops, and then we were at the museum. In the big lobby we saw the point where the two pyramids (one inverted) come together at a point (if you've seen the Da Vinci Code you know what I mean), along with many many tourists. Fortunately with our Museum Pass we got inside quickly.

We spent about an hour and half looking at the collections, seeing Italian and French paintings, notably "Liberty Leading the People" and of course the Mona Lisa (although with the swarms of people around I couldn't get a great look); Roman and Greek sculptures, including the Venus de Milo, and many other pieces, many of which were familiar. The museum itself was also beautiful, and there were so many items inside, it would take a month to see everything. It wasn't like most art museums, where the art is spaced out leisurely- here there was so much stuff, everything was very close together. I really enjoyed it, especially seeing all the art I had previously seen only in replication.

After the Louvre, we walked back over to Notre Dame, and this time we were able to go inside. It was really beautiful, although I must say with all the churches I have seen on this trip, they are getting harder and harder to distinguish, especially on the inside. They all have incredible stained glass, wooden ornaments, and similar architecture, but I suppose that is to be expected when so many were erected in the Gothic style. In any case, it was worth a visit, although unfortunately I didn't run into Quasimodo.

From there, we meandered down toward the Champs-Elysées. One of the girls in our program had bought a bag in Paris a couple weekends before, but apparently they had given her the wrong one, so she asked us to exchange it if we could. We went into the store, which was on a road not far from there, and I was able to navigate the exchange without too much difficulty. It was a designer store (Longchamp, which I had never heard of before the trip, but apparently it's the thing nowadays), and of course I fell in love with one of the bags, which was a different style than the one everyone is (apparently) carrying, but sadly it was 180 Euros, so I had to say goodbye. But of course, now I see Longchamp bags everywhere, but except for the one I really liked (purple!) I don't really see them as that interesting. From there we got some lunch at a stand on the Champs-Elysées and headed to the Arc de Triomphe, which lies at the end, in the middle of a huge roundabout. We actually took the metro since it was quite a distance away, and then we had to walk underground to reach the middle of the circle. Our Museum Pass covered a trip up the 200-some stairs to the top, so I convinced Cait to go along with me, and we got a great view of the whole city. It ended up being my only trip to the top of something in Paris, so it was definitely worth it. We made our way back down, and from there the group went to our next stop: the Musée d'Orsay.

The Musée d'Orsay ended up being my favorite museum in Paris. It mostly contains impressionist works, so we saw tons of Monet, Degas, Renoir, Van Gogh, and Cézanne. I really loved it, and I especially liked looking at the paintings up close, and then moving farther backward to see the subject emerge. A couple of the notable paintings were Whistler's Mother and "Jeunes filles au piano," a painting by Renoir. You might not have seen it, but interestingly, for a French grammar assignment two semesters ago, I had to pick a painting and describe it- and I picked that one after finding it online. Imagine my surprise to suddenly happen upon it at the museum! That was really something, and I must say that I can still stand by my description. I enjoyed this museum much more than the Louvre- I think overall the paintings were just more relevant. Instead of seeing two Roman men in battle, I could see a French woman dressed for the opera.

After that museum, we headed to another- the Rodin Museum. That was also very interesting. We could see many of Rodin's sculptures, which for the most part were humans in varying emotions and positions. Of course we saw "Le Penseur," the incredibly famous statue of a sitting man, resting his head on his hand, simply thinking. The museum was inside and out, at a former hotel that was also Rodin's residence, and there were also quite a bit of gardens to see. The museum was lovely, but we didn't spend too much time there. Next, we took a quick stop at the grand Hôtel des Invalides, which was right next door. We didn't go inside, where notably Napoleon's tomb is, but we took pictures from the front.

After that, we were all tired and hungry, so we decided a stop for dinner was for the best. We had traveled close to the Eiffel Tower, so we were in an expensive area, but even so we found a little restaurant with a special. To this day I still say the menu was confusing. The menu read, on one line, "Lasagne salade verte," which means "lasagne green salad." We all wondered, what is that? Some kind of weird lasagne salad? No one knew. We all felt foolish when I asked what it was and our waiter started describing a normal lasagne, with a salad on the side. We all ended up getting it, since it was the least expensive item, along with a carafe d'eau, and so now I can say that of the 3 dinners I've ever eaten in Paris, they all happened to be lasagne.

Our final attraction of the day was at the Eiffel Tower. We metroed over to the Champ de Mars, the expansive green space behind the tower, where there were many people just hanging out and taking pictures. We did also, and although the sun was in an awkward place, by using beach mode with flash on my camera our pictures weren't too dark or too bright. And the tower itself was really a sight- it was my first up close look at it. I didn't really realize the size of it until I was standing right there, and I could watch the elevators going up the legs, and then up the middle to the top. We decided not to go up, for the line would be close to 2 hours long, and it's pretty pricey- and it's even more money the higher up you go. We had a good time just hanging out on the grass for a while. Suddenly, Giselle had an idea. We had been scoping out other people also sitting around, and someone had pointed out a cute guy sitting alone, with no one in his vicinity. "Cait," she said, "I will give you 5 Euros to go sit within a foot of that guy for 5 minutes." Unexpectedly, Cait just replied, "Sure," and starting walking over, much to our amusement. She plopped right down, and began a conversation. We of course were already dying laughing, especially when we saw her point over to us to have him look. We couldn't hear them, but they seemed to be carrying on a conversation. I wondered aloud whether we should wave Cait over when the 5 minutes were up, but the immediate consensus was no, she can figure it out. As a result, the conversation went on for a full 12 minutes before we saw Cait get up and head back over. Apparently they had carried on a nice conversation, although she never found out his name. That was certainly a funny highlight of the trip.

At that point, we were all tired, so we decided to call it a day and head back to the hostel, where we went to sleep pretty much immediately. We woke up early the next morning, and this time ate breakfast in the hostel- we had hot chocolate and orange juice, some bread, and a croissant. The paying for the breakfast was a little confusing- the previous night I had inquired to its cost, and only after asking me which room I was in and how much we had paid for it did the man behind the desk tell me that it was 2 Euros. The previous morning the nice hotel owner had seemed surprised that we hadn't ate there, saying that it was up to us, but he just wanted to invite us to have breakfast at the hostel. In the end, we checked out of the room, and to a 3rd person I mentioned that we had eaten breakfast- he simply replied "c'est bon" and let us go. I'm not quite sure what the real deal was, but in any case we got a nice free breakfast Sunday morning.

The previous day we had purchased an extension to our metro pass to be able to take the Regional Express train, not covered by the Eurail. After some trouble with our needed metro line being down, we finally made it to the RER station and took a half-hour train out to Versailles. We walked a short way from the train station, and there was the palace, and it was quite the sight. It was of course enormous, and incredibly ornate. After waiting in line to get inside, we bought an audio tour and started along the path. The theme to every surface seemed to be an attempt to cram in as much ornament and intricate pomp as possible. It was visually stunning, with much gold and marble, and little details in every corner. The audio tour gave a lot of information about the history of the rooms and what they were used for- I got it en français, and I learned a lot about the décor and the paintings in each room. We saw a lot of notable rooms, including the king and queen's chambers, the famous Hall of Mirrors, and a hall full of busts and sculptures of famous French authors, kings, and other important people, including Descartes.

After walking through the castle, we went out back to the gardens, which were simply amazing. You looked out over huge fountains, tons of flowers, and further back there was a huge green rectangle lawn, and behind that a similarly shaped reflection pool. To either side there were very tall hedges in a kind of maze, and within those there were occasionally sculptures and other things to see. All the time there was classical music playing, as there was some kind of "Music from the Fountains" event going on, so it just added to the royal ambiance. We strolled along the gardens for quite a while until eventually deciding to head back. We got some lunch and headed back to the train, and made it back to Paris. We had still a couple hours before our train home, so we went to the Sacré-Coeur, one of the most famous churches in Paris. It sits at the top of Montmartre, the highest hill in the city, so you can really see out everywhere. We took many stairs to the top of the hill and went inside the church, which of course was beautiful. Cait and Erica also went to the top of the dome of the church (for a fee), but Joey, Giselle, and I stayed behind by the church. It was a good culminating event, since we could see so much and really remember all that we had done. But sadly, soon it was time to go, and we took a final metro back to the main train station, and had an easy and uneventful ride back to Mannheim.

I had such a good time in Paris, and we accomplished so much, but there's still so much more that we didn't get to do. I know that I'll return in the future, hopefully for a longer period of time, and I'll really get to use my French and see more of the city. I must say my friends were glad to have me along to translate, and I was glad to practice- I do know more words than I thought I did, and I could understand whatever people said to me. If only that were the case in German! But already I know I'm so much better than when I began.

I still have much catch-up blogging to do! I plan on doing another entry for last schoolweek, followed by an epic Munich post for our visit last weekend. I'll write it as soon as I can, and I really appreciate everyone who's been reading.

Herzliche Grüße!
Bisous!