Days 5-11

Wow. What an adventure the last 6 days have been.

Let me recap for you this week:

Monday: We went to school and took our placement exams. I was placed in beginner two with 5 others from Wartburg. Next, we took a tour of the school, saw the chapel and the computer lab (which has become my friend), and headed our seperate ways. My group headed towards BHV and Hotel De Ville to buy Sophie a new camera. After wards, we were in search of food on our way to the Holocaust Museum. We were walking to lunch when I French guy got in my face and started yelling at me, in French. I stopped and had a deer in the headlights look. Apparently, he wanted to scare me. It worked. We headed to lunch and then met up with the group at the Cluny Museum (after a call from D. Hagan, we changed plans.) I don't know how to describe this museum, except by saying it had a little of everything. We had a tour guide and it was about 2.5 hours of tour and I took about 250 pictures.. (about 200 too many maybe..) On the way to the museum, we were WAAAAAAY cold, so we did want any sensible American would do. We stopped at Starbucks. It made us nice and warm and we felt at home. :)

Tuesday: First day of classes. And its a long day. We start at 9 am. On the fourth (well really the fifth) floor of this building. (Building C).. So we climb the stairs (I officially hate stairs.), and sit for three hours. We grab a quick lunch and head to the computer lab. We climb back up the stairs and sit for another three hours. The whole class is in French and we rarely understand what she is saying, but we can get the general gist of things. The afternoon session goes much better than the morning session. After class, we get the schedule of museum visits and head out to a creperie with Dr. Hagan and get some crepes. You can never have too many Crepes as we've found out. We headed home for a chicken dinner and then rested up.

Wednesday: Class. Again. in the same 4th story room. For another 3 hours. After class, Jessie, Chanie, Eboni and I headed out for lunch. We lost Chanie in a phone store on the way, and stopped in restaurant row by St. Michel and found some crepes. (I told you we liked crepes.) I had a ham, egg and cheese one and then on the way out we grabbed dessert crepes and i got one with nutella and whipped cream. I might get another one just for a picture of me eating it :) After that, we headed to meet up with the group at the Carnavilet Museum. This was a history museum with tons of pictures and stuff from Old Paris. I have many pictures from here as well. After the Museum, Jessie and I went back to St. Michel to buy our school books and headed for BHV to buy HER a camera (I don't know what it is with peoples cameras dying..), we couldn't use her card there though, so we went our separate ways after making plans for later. Our host wasn't going to be home for dinner, so I headed out to the Grand Arc again to take pictures since my camera had batteries. I walked the Sarah Palin Bridge to Nowhere (long story..).. I walked around the promenade there and then hit the metro for the Eiffle Tower. Seeing the Eiffle Tower at night is one of the most incredible things I think I have ever seen. Jessie and I hung out there for quite a while, but it was VERY cold and windy or else we would have stayed longer. Chanie met us just in time to see the Eiffle Tower twinkle. It lights up at night and then twinkles every hour on the hour for 5 minutes.

Thursday: Crap. Another long day at school. We grabbed some French Pizza at a cafe near the school. It is owned by a guy from New York, so it was pretty decent and fairly inexpensive. Afternoon class was spent at the nearby Luxembourg Gardens looking around and looking at the photo exhibit of the Nomads. After class, we hit up the Holocaust Museum. Okay, we knew it would be "cool" but, I don't think any of us realized how powerful it would be. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum, but we spent an hour and a half wondering this 1 story museum, and looking at pictures, reading captions, anything we could do to take in the information. It was WAAAY powerful. After wards, I met up with D. Hagan to go get my train tickets for Germany for the weekend. Lucky I took him because the ticket machine wouldn't read my VISA card since it wasn't a European Card.. yeah i was confused as well. But he helped me get my tickets and then we parted ways, after meeting a nice Scottish guy.

Friday: Class. Again. Then I headed to the Metro and to the train station for Mannhiem. Upon arriving, I found Vanessa and the first thing she said was, "Hi! Its good to see you! I thought i was going to be late because they found 3 old bombs by the river." What a nice greeting. Turns out the bombs were from WWII. We bought some groceries and headed to her apartment. We cooked Fricadela (spelling?) which is basically German meatballs, carrot salad, potatoes, and i think thats all. We had her boyfriend Arno over and one of her roommates was home. After dinner and a quick hi on skype with Dad, we played Phase 10 for a few hours and then watched Euro Trip.

Saturday: We started the morning at Arno's soccer tournament to watch a few games. To get there, we rode bikes. I got my butt kicked. there were no gears on the bike, so it was a hull getting around on it, but quicker than walking. Then we rode to the train station and got on the train towards Heidlberg. It was about a 22 minute train ride in which Vanessa informed me we would be doing lots of walking. I said that was fine, not knowing what I was agreeing too. Heildberg reminded me a lot of Galena. Very pretty and hilly. We hiked up to the castle and walked around a lot up there and had our lunch of leftovers from Friday. We hiked down and then across the bridge and up the hill on the other side. This doesn't sound bad, but ill make sure to post pictures of it. It was rough. I had to stop on the way up the second side to rest. The path up is called "Snake Path" (well its in German..) because it winds all over the place and is long like a snake. After hanging out up there and taking "Senior Pictures" we headed down past all the rich people houses and did some shopping. I bought a nice warm sweatshirt since it is so cold here. We got some Gelato and headed for the train station home around 5:45. When we got back, we went to Vanessas place and had eggs for dinner and some bread. We met up with Arno later to celebrate his winning the soccer tournament. In Mannheim this week is the World Championship Ice Hockey tournament so we listened to some music and ate some food.

Sunday (thats today!): Slept in until 10:15, and then headed to Arno's for lunch. We made noodles with tuna, onions, mushrooms, and spicy sauce; salad, and bread. It was tasty. Mom and Dad, you'd be so proud of all the food I've eaten! Everything listed directly above, and a Gyro, egg plant, zucchini, pesto, pate, and much more! Today is a very lazy day for me. And i am enjoying it. And family, I love you! Happy Mothers Day mom and it was nice to see you!

This week we have class still, except not on Thursday because it is Ascention Day. Our museum visits this week include: St. Chapelle on Monday, Museum de L'Armee on Wednesday, and the Louvre on Friday. Saturday is D'Orsay Museum and Sunday is off.

I will try to put pictures online tonight. Maybe on Photobucket, but I will post that address here when I get to it!