My last day in Regensburg

(<-orientation, the group)
I cannot believe that today is my last day here in Regensburg. I feel like it was just yesterday that I had arrivd here and had no idea where anything was. Of course the city feels ten times smaller now that I do know where to buy my groceries or where the Post Office is or the Bank and of course the best places to eat food.

(culture class, Thurn und Taxis)

I am both sad and happy to be done since the school part is over and I can actually enjoy my summer...wait, I have summer right now, I had no idea since I have been working very hard in my literature class. But guess what! It has paid off since my professor just told me my grades and I got an A in the culture class and an A- in the literature class. I am so happy to have gotten the grades since I was so worried that I would get a B.

(<-some of the group at Walhalla)

It has been a great experience to be with this group despite the different interests that we all had. There were no major arguments amongst roommates, even when some people got locked out or had a rommate that snored nice and loud. But what can I say that came out from it all, an awesome learning expereince, great food and even better stories to bring back across the ocean.

Tonight we are having dinner as group to say thank you to the host families that housed two girls in the program and for us all to be together one last time. We are all axcited to go home but I believe half of us are staying somewhere in Germany for at least a week longer.

By the way, Deutschland is amazing in Fussball because even many of the locals said the they could not beat Portugal in the game. Oh we definitely showed them!

some different foods from Deutschland...

So here are some various foods I had throughout the weeks that I have been here, some are German dishes and others are just foods that I decided to try while I was here. There is a picture of how my night stand looked with all the food I bought so that I would not have to buy lunch everyday, since that got a little expensive to go out all the time:

Walhalla

So the pictures above are from our cultural excursion on Tuesday to Walhalla. There are so many facts that were told about this place that I don't think I can remember all the facts without getting them mixed up with things that we saw along the way. But what I can say is that this was not originally from here and that it was transported here in the 1800s or something like that. There are some amazing views from up here though. The picture in the bottem right shows the way to Regensburg though. As usual, there was construction on the stairs so I didn't take too many pictures of them.

Fussball Feber

Tonight is an important for the Deutschland soccer team, we need to beat Austria in order to continue on and everyone on the news is predicting a strong win. I hope this is true because last Thursdays loss was quite sad...the calls were not too fair in my opinion really...I am working on my homework just so that I can have a chance to watch the game...this time we are not going to a bar to watch even though we would have a bigger screen than the tiny 13'' tv in our room...but i can work on other things in between...

A bike trip around Regensburg

+ =

I decided to rent a bike for the day just go where ever I felt like...6 hours on a bike though makes you quite sore the next day...but the town is not that big and even if you think you are lost, all roads seem to end up in the Altstadt. If i really wanted to, I could have followed the Danua River north from here and ended up in the next town over. Along the way was a map to show where everything was if you were doing a bike tour in the area. I think that it is cool that you can do that. I mean we have had several bike groups stay at our hotel. Considering we have been at the hotel for four weeks now, we know when people are new at the hotel and how long they stay. This weekend was the first time we had another large group stay at our hotel. They seemed to have come for a conference because they all had the same shirts on.

I definitely covered all sides of the Altstadt. On the east side was where I followed the river; on the south side was where I went up on a hill to the see the church and have an overlook of Regensburg; on the north side i visited the Univeristy again; and then on the west side I went over to where we have classes at the Gymansium and had coffee and cake at a small cafe.

I took some amazing pictures along the way:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2325097&l=bdf81&id=10032228

Eagles Nest

So we took our last excursion on Friday to the Konigsee und Eagles Nest. Both were really pretty places to be at but too bad we were just so rushed all the time and the weather was very cloudy. It rained off and on throughout the day. We even had snow when we were up at Eagles Nest!!

Our first stop was the Konigsee which is located between two mountain terrains. The tree go all the way down to the water line and makes the water look really dark. In some places though the water is shallow enough that you can see the bottem. This was especially true by the barbor where we got onto the boat we took over to another location. Everyone was so hungary that all they could think of was food when we landed. I must admit, I was excited to finally try the German Potato Pancakes because that is one of my favorite meals at home. We had limited time for looking around and so I only was able to take a few pictures of the church that was built there. Some people in the group were enjoying the ducks:)

Our second stop was Hitler's Tea House which he had only officially visited 14 times in his life because he was scared of heights. What a birthday present this was for him when he hardly ever stayed there! The weather was nice since it cleared up enough for us to have an amazing view. I had been here 4 years ago but it had snowed. Not this time, or at least I first thought. After taking a few pictures the clouds began to move in and it began to rain. The rain eventually turned into snow and it got really cold. After a few more pictures I went in to enjoy the warmth inside. But it was worth going to see some parts of Austria from up there!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2325093&l=f854a&id=10032228

Bayern Essen

Here are the three main foods for Bayern, which is Southern Germany. The preztel, Bratwurst and Beer. But of course I have had to try all the good stuff while I am here...but those pictures will have to come later since I seem to have forgotten my flash drive in my room:(

The land where I could not speak the language

So over the weekend Ana and I went to Krakow, Poland. We decided that it would be better for us to take a tour of Aushwitz on Saturday and then tour the city with whatver time we had left. So above, we have part of the origianl gate from Krakow; the center picture is the center of the Old City of Krakow; the third picture shows the castle from the city which we were told by some other Americans that we should not miss visiting. We took an English tour of it but the inside is hardly original considering it was found in ruins. It went through two periods of renovation in the 1900s that the inside is just made up different periods of history of the city. I did not know half the people that were mentioned but the artwork and pieces were interesting to see.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2325091&l=c04c4&id=10032228

The bottem pictures are from Auschwitz I and Aushwitz- Birkenau concentration camps. I do not think any pictures that I took can completely explain what I saw at the camps. Auschwitz is so mcu smaller than the second camp and was all brick buildings. What people went through in the torture rooms is quite interesting. Or even when we walked through the gas chambers...to know that thousands of people belived what the Nazis were saying that they would be taking a shower...only they were walking into their death...the last picture shows Birkenau with all the barrakcs ruined in the back. Many of the barracks were set on fire just before the camp was invaded so that there would not be so much evidence left. This camp is huge! We went into the watch tower to see the overview of the camp and it is a little scary to see that camp with only the chimneys showing...definitely walked away in a somber mood from it...everyone was quiet in the bus after the tour was done and we had the hour drive back to to town.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2325089&l=b992a&id=10032228

who can guess what I did...

...so not everyone knows this but lets see who can tell what I did on Sunday...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2325088&l=973ea&id=10032228

Some pictures from last week...

#Saw the ballet Schwansee

#took some walks near the river

#did laundry in my room

#and enjoyed some time on the playground

Castles

Weisenkirche













Neuschwanstein









So as everyone can see these are the castles that we visited on 30 June as a group. Neuschwanstein is the castle that Cinderella´s castle is based off of in Disneyland. This castle has never been finished since Ludwig died so early on. It just looks so beautiful sitting on top of a little mountain. Now Lindenhof, the last castle we visited was the only castle he did complete and you can tell from the inside. I don´t have any pictures from the inside because you are not allowed to so that they can perserve the colors and noone can seel their pictures to the public. Weisenkirche was a stop we made between the two castles along the Romantische Strasse. It was raining so I did not get a good shot of the outside but the inside was absolutely beautiful.