Athens!!!

Kelly and I with our Mythos...the popular Greek beer
Acropolis at night
Fried eggplant and delicious Pitas!
One of my many Chicken Souvlaki meals!
Crowded street with all of the Greek Restaurants
First night in Athens!
There were really no rules on the road...weird. So packed all the time! I don't know how people drive here!
Sick huge steriod pidgeon courting another pidgeon! Gross!
Fish Market!
Kelly and I at the Square before going up to the Acropolis! (you can see the Acropolis in the background)

We had a week long break during the first week of June so my friends Kelly, Shane and I decided to go to Greece! It was the one trip I knew I had to do! I have been wanting to go to Greece for years after seeing the pictures of the different islands and of course I wanted to see the Parthenon in Athens. We set out on June 1st at about 7 pm to get to Stuttgart because our plane left from the Stuttgart Airport at like 6 am, so we would have to be traveling all night/day long, it was such a long trip to get to Athens, but we finally got there! We found our hostel once we got in and we all took a long nap. That night we asked the people at the hostel where would be a good place to eat some traditional Greek food? They told us to walk down to where the Acropolis is and there was a long street of all Greek Restaurants, but before we left for dinner we had to get our free
'welcome drink' that the hostel offered us, it was Ouzo, if you have ever had Ouzo, it is really strong and not too good, it tastes like black licorice; similar to Jaegermeister, ew! But we didn't care, we were on vacation in GREECE!
We finally made it to Athens! In the airport
On the plane going to Athens....we look pretty scrubby.

We finally got down to all of the restaurants, and it was hard to choose one because they all looked the same and all of the waiters were heckeling us to come to THEIR restaurant. We finally picked one and we all ordered Chicken Souvlaki, it was soo delicious, it was basically marinated chicken on a kebab with fresh pita bread, and for an appetizer we tried fried eggplant with tomatoes, it was my first time trying eggplant, I didn't like it that much, but you have to try everything once! After dinner we just walked around a little bit and took some pictures of the Parthenon at night, it was gorgeous. We then went back to our hostel and had a few beers and went to bed.

On Wednesday we woke up an hour late for the hostel free breakfast, because I forgot to switch my clock an hour ahead since we were in a different time zone! We all got ready and headed down to the Acropolis to climb it and see the Parthenon; just a side note, the weather was about 85-90 degrees and we had to climb this massive hill to get to the Parthenon, easy to say I was sweating my ass off. While we were walking up our mouths were hitting the floor the entire time, the view was amazing and we could hardly believe that we were in Greece!! We stopped and took a ton of pictures, by the end of the Athens trip I had a 2GB memory card full of pictures and videos...haha. I take so many pictures, I bet I probably have about 5,000 pictures from this year already. Ok back to Greece, we walked all the way up to the Parthenon and it was breathtaking, we also hadn't realized how HUGE Athens as a city was, it stretched farther than we could see. Also another side note, we asked a lot of Greeks what we should see in Athens and all of them said the only cool thing there was the Parthenon, and they were definitely right. Athens as a city was one of the dirtiest cities I had ever been to, and the people there were beyond creepy, the men would not stop whistling, winking, or yelling things at Kelly and I, it really got on our nerves, but the area by the Acropolis was amazing and very clean, probably because it is so touristy. Another really weird thing about Athens is the amount of stray cats and dogs that roam the streets, it was horrible, they were everywhere!! And there were also waaaay too many pidgeons for my liking, any of my friends that know me, know that I hate birds and especially pidgeons, I don't know how many times I have been pooped on by them.

The walk to the Acropolis was really strange, because it didn't make me feel like I was in Greece, there were so many homeless people, trash everywhere, various disgusting smells, and weird people, I thought Athens was definitely a place you only need to spend about 1-2 days exploring. One cool thing though besides the Parthenon were all of the Food Markets; we got a lot of fruit at one market, and we also stumbled across a fish market, I actually went into it while Kelly and Shane waited, there were sooo many fresh fish in there, including octopus, squid, shark, and lots of other weird things. Athens and Greece in general has a very nice seafood selection since they are right on the Aegean Sea.Kelly and I with a huge Gladiator shoe
Us at a cool theater, they still use it for concerts
Me on the steps up to the Parthenon!
The PARTHENON! we were going crazy at this point
me in front of the Parthenon
Kelly, Shane and I in front of the Parthenon
Of course this wouldn't be complete without a happy jumping picture!
Us and the view of Athens, you can also see a little bit of the Aegean Sea far in the distance
JUMP!


THIS IS SPARTA!!! (reference to the movie 300...if you haven't seen it, then this picture is probably pretty dumb.)
ruins...
beautiful Parthenon
self timer
ME !
Us!
The view of the Acropolis from the huge rock we sat on
Kelly and I
Lunch on our last day in Athens

After we got done soaking up all of the history and the views on the Acropolis we went and climbed this huge rock overlooking Athens and the Acropolis, it was nice just to sit and relax and take it all in. I think that was one of my favorite moments from the trip, and I also LOVED all of the Greek food that I tried. The next day we didn't do a whole lot around Athens because we had to leave that night at 7 for Santorini, we took a ferry to get there. During the day we just shopped around for souvenirs and ate lunch, it was a nice relaxing day to end our Athens stay.

I hope you guys love all of the pictures and videos that I took. I made a conscious effort to take more videos because they are pretty fun to see, sometimes better than pictures. Anyway I love all of you and I will be home in about a month! How crazy is that to say?! I still can hardly believe I have been gone for a year! Right now we are about 3 weeks until the semester is over and I have so much to do before I'm done! Ugh it's extremely stressful, but I know it will all get done, it always does. I can't wait for the 4th of July next weekend, we are planning on having a cookout by the lake here, unfortunately I'm sure there won't be fireworks, but we will have fun! Hope you guys are doing great, miss you and love you ALL!

Tschuess!

21st Birthday and happenings during the month of MAY!

Hey so I definitely did not get to totally update my blog yet because I have been busy with presentations and writing a paper for my European Union class. I leave tomorrow for GREECE!!! I am sooo incredibly excited for it, it is the one trip that I HAD to do here, I have wanted to go to Greece for so long! My friends Kelly and Shane are going with me, we are going to Athens first for a couple days, and then taking a 5 hour ferry to Santorini. We will be gone until June 9th! I have that paper due June 9th, so that's why I have been busy writing that, ugh. It's really weird getting used to having school during the summer, definitely not something I want to do again! Anyway I thought I would at least delay the rest of my blogs to tell what has been going on during the month of May.
The month started out with my 21st Birthday cookout! Of course I had to dress up in my new dress from H&M, gosh I am going to miss that store when I get home...the closest one is in Chicago. My friends and I had a cookout by the lake/pond that is right behind my apartment, it was an awesome day too, well until it started raining right as we were packing everything up. Everyone my age usually goes all out for their 21st, but since I have been able to drink since I got to Germany, it really wasn't as big of a deal as it is for everyone else back in the states. We had a great time though. We cooked a ton of Kebabs and corn and had lots of yummy desserts! I was happy to have people come and help me celebrate since I didn't have my family there this year. Anyways here are some pictures from my 21st Birthday!















HAHA, lots of jumping pictures :) It was a really fun day!

The rest of May has kind of been a blur...I haven't done too much, just been hanging outside a lot since the weather has been in the 70s and 80s :) I have been pretty busy with school, presentations, and papers to write. I also have been anxiously waiting for this Greece trip the whole month! Laying on a beach and doing all kinds of fun summer stuff for a week, who wouldn't be excited for that!! I need my vitamin D :) It was way too long of a winter. Anyway I will definitely make sure I get this blog totally updated when I return from Greece, I know I will want all of these blogs for years to come! I hope everyone is doing great back at home...it is sooo crazy for me to think I only have 2 months left here from today! So surreal, it seems like yesterday that I hopped on that plane in Moline and jetted off to Germany! It has been the best experience of my life, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love you all so much and I hope you guys still read this blog and at least look at pics!!! Miss you guys a ton!

Auf Wiedersehen!

Adam's week in Germany

After we went to Interlaken we arrived back in Freiburg and that Monday March 16th, I took Adam and Ashley on a little tour of Freiburg, Eric was there too. We first made a big breakfast at my apartment, a nice German breakfast, so Adam and Ashley could experience that. It was of course a lot of bread, meat, jelly, and eggs, a great way to start out our day in Freiburg. After breakfast we went into town and did a little shopping at H&M, and got some postcards for them to take home. We were starting to get a little parched so I decided to take them up to the Schlossberg, which is an awesome lookout point for the city of Freiburg, and basically th most popular beer garden in Freiburg. So we hung out up there for a little bit and drank a beer and took pictures. Eric was getting cold up there since he didn't bring a sweatshit so we decided to walk back down and go look at the Cathedral. After that we decided to go back home and make some dinner, I made a chicken pot pie, it was so yummy!

Pictures from around Freiburg!











The next day, Tuesday, we decided to go to Strassbourg, France, which is only an hour away from me since I live in the bottom South West corner of Germany. It was the first time I had been to Strassbourg too so I was pretty excited about it. It is always so weird to me that if I just travel an hour away that they speak a totally different language, even though Strassbourg is right on the border, EVERYONE speaks French. It is kind of weird because my German feels useless there. The French are pretty particular about there language anyway and trying to preserve it as much as possible, that's why they get so angry when people come to their country and can't speak a word of their language, they hold there language very high with how they choose to identify themselves.


Pictures from Heidelberg! ((the pictures are kind of out of order...sorry!))










A couple little facts about Strassbourg. Strassbourg is the center for the Parlament in the European Union, our President, Barack Obama was even there a few weeks ago and they weren't letting anyone travel by train into Strassbourg that day. Strassbourg's Cathedral was the tallest structure in the world in 1439, surpassing the Pyramid of Giza; their Cathedral is really pretty and of course gothic architecture. It was even in Strassbourg that Johannes Gutenberg developed the first European moveable type printing press. Another really weird fact is that in July 1518, an incident known as the Dancing Plague of 1518 struck residents of Strasbourg. Around 400 people were afflicted with dancing mania and danced constantly for weeks, most of them eventually dying from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion. (weird) Strassbourg also has the largest University in France.

Pictures from Strassbourg














Strassbourg overall was one of my favorite cities that I have been to in France, it was very quaint and the buildings were typical old French style. It also sits along the Rhine river, so walking along the river was really pretty. While walking through Strassbourg I was trying to think of a very typical French food that we could eat while we were there, and we saw a Crepe stand, and I thought that is TOTALLY french. When we got our Crepes, I had no idea what language to order in, so I tried to order in French; my simple knowledge of 1, 2, 3...thank you... hello...my name is...most of that didn't help me in ordering food though, I probably looked like an idiot. Thankfully the vendor spoke English and taught me how to say what I wanted in French, it was really fun, not that I could ever remember what he taught me, but it was cool in the moment. I got a Crepe with Nutella on it (chocolate spread) and powdered sugar on top, it was really good. After our Crepes we went for a little scenic walk along the river and took a lot of pictures. We soon decided it was getting a little late and decided to head back to the train station and go home. We got back to Freiburg and got some dinner at a little Italian place then headed out to O'Kelly's since it was St. Patricks day, the place was absolutely packed full and there was even an Irish folk band playing, it was really fun seeing everyone decked out in green and drinking their Guinness.

The next day we had planned to go to Konstanz which is like 3 hours away on a huge lake, but we decided not to because we were all kind of tired of traveling, so we just stayed in Freiburg and hung out again. It was really fun. We took more pictures around town and everything too, since god knows Eric and Adam weren't taking any pictures, the sister has to make sure it gets done. the next day were heading to the part of Germany where Eric lives, we went to Mannheim and Heidelberg. We got into Mannheim a little late because we had to pack everything for Ashley and Adam to leave because Adam was leaving in a day and Ashley and I were heading off to Paris. We had a huge scare while trying to get to Mannheim. We had to take three trains to get there and from our train from Offenberg to Karlsruhe Adam had another EXTREMELY lucky incident. We arrived in Karlsruhe and were going to make our connection to go to Mannheim, on the way to the next track we grabbed a Doener to eat and then suddenly Adam realized he forgot his backpack on the train we just got off of, and side note...Adam had my mom's computer, his passport and some souveniers in there!!! We were freaking out, and I told Adam to run to track 9 to see if the train was still there. Ashley and I waited for like 5 minutes and then we see Adam strolling back to where we were out of breath...with his backpack!!! I could not believe that he had it. He told us that the train was still there and it was just leaving when he ran there, he was pounding on the door and they actually stopped for him and he told them he had to find his backpack, and it was still just sitting there. Thank GOD he found it because that train was heading for Konstanz, which was about 5 hours from where we were. Even with me living in Germany, I would have had no idea how to get that backpack back! We were so lucky. And he even found it in enough time for us to catch our train to Mannheim.

We finally reached Mannheim and we all headed out to Heidelberg. Once we got to Heidelberg we had to walk a little bit to get to the Castle and it was dusk already, but the view was awesome and the sunset was so pretty. I had already been to Heidelberg before so nothing was new to me. It was fun to have Ashley and Adam there and to actually see a real castle. We also pulled the prank on Adam that Eric pulled on my mom when she came to visit in December. Adam pulled this string that was attached to a box and Eric said it was for good luck, when Adam pulled it, a raccoon tail flew out and he screamed...hahaha. This was in the huge wine cellar in the Castle. After seeing the castle we all went out to dinner at a cute German restaurant and then headed back to Mannheim and fell alseep.

We didn't get much sleep that night because the next day we had to wake up at 6 am to leave for the Frankfurt Airport because Adam was flying back home and Ashley and I were flying to Paris. It was weird to say goodbye again to Adam, but I knew we would see each other soon again, and I was really happy he had a good time in Europe, I am so glad he got the chance to visit!

Next part of my 2 month break was my 2nd trip to Paris...we stayed there for 5 days...oh what an adventure it was.

Auf Wiedersehen

I know these blogs are pretty late, I have just been really lazy, and this weather here is so nice!!! There is so much I have to write about still. My trips to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Munich, and my 21st Birthday. I miss you all! Can't wait to see everyone in August!! Love you all!