Portugal: A weekend in Carvoeiro

One of the last trips planned for the semester was to Portugal for a long weekend with some of the most awesome friends I've made here. The trip was really spontaneously planned during the coldest spring in Bonn in the last twenty years; we just wanted to see the sun and have it be warm so we planned to head to the coast at the end of June.
The trip started on Thursday night at midnight when I had to take a train with Tom and Mandy to Cologne where we were taking at 2:15 AM bus to Frankfurt Hahn Airport. The train was no problem but the hour between the train getting there and the bus leaving was killer because I was already dead tired. The first hour of the bus ride was also pretty peaceful and I was stretched out across the aisle sleeping comfortably (all things considered). Then the bus stopped to pick up some more people in Koblenz and a group of rowdy, drunk teenagers got on. They reeked of alcohol and decided to claim the seats directly behind me. I turned up my music, tried not to breathe through my nose, and tried to fall back asleep sitting up with my head bumping against the window. After about twenty minutes, the boy in the seat behind me starts breathing really heavily. I tried to shoot him some looks to keep quiet, I was in no mood to try and argue in German. He didn't stop. Instead, he started making dry heaving noises... so I got up and moved. Just in time. He started to throw up all over the floor. It was disgusting and his drunk friends were laughing and egging him on. I moved as far forward on the bus as I could and prayed I wouldn't get sick myself. What an awful bus ride. The driver must not have realized what was going on or couldn't stop because people needed to catch their flights, because he didn't do anything while we were on the bus.We arrived at Frankfurt Hahn at about 5 AM and our flight wasn't until 6:50... we had some time to kill. We got breakfast and met up with the others coming on the trip: Lee, Jeremy, and John. Mandy is the girl from Louisiana who lives in my building and she knows Lee from their home University of LSU. Jeremy and Tom met Lee here and John is a friend of Lee's from home who is visiting for an extended time (2 ish months I think).
We flew to Faro with no problems and found the driver of our hired van with minimal problems and drove an hour or so to Carvoeiro, a small resort town west on the coast of Faro. The skies were overcast at 10 AM when arrived and we had time to kill until 11:30 when we were to meet and get the key for the apartment we rented. We got some breakfast, wandered around the picturesque town and saw the beach for the first time. There was some confusion about the apartment and once we finally found it, we had to wait about an hour and a half until we got the key because the woman meeting us didn't realize she was meeting us at a certain time, we were apparently supposed to call when we got there. Good job, boys ha ha but we made it inside and I felt like I was on the Real World, exploring an awesome apartment and claiming a bed :) There were two bedrooms (one with a king bed, one with two twins), two bathrooms with showers, a living and dining room, a kitchen, and an awesome balcony where we spent most of our time when at the apartment. The view of the street was amazing. There were palm trees across from us, some orange trees, a hillside covered with spanish style architecture... and white walls with yellow trim. I loved it. Here's the view down the street:
The weather finally cleared up and became sunny after noon. We found a grocery store, got some num nums and then headed to the beach. It was beautiful!
There are lots of little beaches in coves of the rock faces so the beaches never get too crowded (because there's so many of them). The water was a blue I've never seen in water and so clear... the sand was so white and looked like little rocks up close. It was really soft (and super exfoliating ha ha) but started to hurt after a while because my feet weren't used to it.
We spent a while at the beach and then hung out at the apartment on the balcony. While at the beach, one of Lee and John's friends who was traveling in Europe alone made his way to Portugal to hang out with us. He was a pretty cool guy, Thomas Wren. Added an interesting dynamic to the group. We were pretty beat from being out in the sun all day and I headed to bed at a decent hour, all things considered.The next day, Saturday, I woke up to Tom cooking breakfast of eggs and bacon for everyone. It was fantastic :) so nice of him. I didn't know him too well before this trip but we had some chances to talk and get to know each other better and he's a genuinely great guy. His girlfriend is pretty lucky :) We all decided to wander a half hour away to a different beach near a resort instead of the small beach by us again. I didn't think it was possible but this beach was even more beautiful than the first.We stayed here for a while and headed home to shower before the USA soccer match against Ghana. We found an Irish pub where we were alone to watch the game and ordered some "Deep Fried Plate of Snacks" and other foods to munch on. Sadly, the US lost but we went out to celebrate Jeremy's 21st Birthday anyway. After the boys dominated some English men at Billiards at the first bar, we wandered to the second. At midnight, in transit, we stopped quickly for a birthday midnight shot :)

At the second bar, we got caught up in "the shot game" where you pay 7 euro ($10) for 12 shots of various assortments and spin a homemade spinner to see if you take a shot, take two, miss a turn, make someone else take one, etc. It was fun :) Some were tasty, some not so much... I didn't stay out too long (tired again from the sun all day, look how tan I am on only day two!) and got some sleep. Day three, the boys were pretty burned and sunned out so Mandy and I relaxed on the beach together (Jeremy did join us for a bit and tried to beat my tan... he's part mexican and it still didn't happen, I'm awesome :-p).
We took a break from the sun for the Germany v. England game which was SO amazing. This town is some sort of huge resort for British people so they were everywhere and it was awesome to have Germany beat them in their presence ha ha O:) We cheered fairly obnoxiously... it was amazing.
After dinner and showering, Mandy and I decided to walk up the cliffs (I had earlier with Jeremy and Tom but Mandy didn't) to see the end of the sunset.
It was really beautiful :) Then we walked around the beach after it got dark. It was really peaceful and a nice moment to share with Mandy. It's amazing how close we've become after only know each other for four months... I'm going to miss having her in the same building and calling her to chat about everything and nothing at the same time. It was a great memory to walk around the rocks in the low ride and compare our little foot prints ha ha :)
I was really sad to leave the next morning at 6 AM because I feel like this trip was the spring breaks I never had and I really took a step back, told myself to chill out, and I didn't freak out or get moody or testy or OCD about the apartment and I feel like I added to the group :) I had a great time for so many reasons... great people, scenic landscape, awesome adventures... definitely what the study abroad experience is all about. The only regret I have is that everyone else was too hung over after Jeremy's 21st bday to go on the boat tour of the caves, I guess I'll just have to come back later in life :)
That's all for now... I still owe you posts on Paris and Berlin...

Random Adventures: Drachenfels and Christopher Street Day

A couple weeks ago, since I don't have class on Fridays and the weather was beautiful, I decided to wander through Drachenfels with some awesome people. Drachenfels is a certain mountain in the Konigswinter area of outside of Bonn. It's across the Rhein and about a half hour on the U-Bahn south, not far at all, and is a really cute little town. Drachenfels is a really steep hill that you can spend an hour hiking up; on the way up there's a castle to tour inside of. The views from its terrace are awesome but the castle is underwhelming and looks a little hokey. This is probably because it's from the 18th Century and mainly aristocrats lived there. So it's not old or actually important but the people who lived there had too much money and wanted to show that off. It's still cool to see :) Pictures are on my fb page if you're curious. At the top of the mountain there are some castle ruins and some rocks that I remember from when I was a kid, so I took a picture with them :)
The view from the top was amazing and definitely worth the climb. Libby, Jon, Sam and I all hung out at the top for a bit and snacked on some stuff Jon had in his bag. We found a vending machine with ice cream for the trip down and continued the adventure on to the Birkenstock outlet :) I got a pair of sandals. I'm starting to come to terms with the disgusting extremities we call feet and have bought multiple pairs of sandals from H&M and some flats... I kinda like them.

Another adventure happened today and that was the Christopher Street Day in Cologne. Since it's the 4th of July, I couldn't miss out on a parade. This one didn't have children handing out candy though. Substitute some drunk, half naked, men... who were all celebrating gay pride :) It was still a parade though ha ha It was an interesting experience, there were SO many people. The floats were all a lot of fun and playing some awesome music ha ha so Sam and I had a dance party in the street. I'm not really pro-gay so much as pro-equality and it was really amazing to see so many people feeling liberated and able to be themselves in public and you could see the genuine happiness in every single person's face in that parade. It was incredible and I'm glad I got to see it.

I should get back to homework now... I come home in a month from tomorrow (what?! already?!), Mandy leaves in 20 days (NOOOOOOO!!!!) and I only have 19 days until the end of the semester and my college career... crazy. However, I need to finish my papers before then. Ew.

See you all soon :)
x

Expanding my comfort zone

While I'm in Bonn, I've been pushing myself to do things alone and to do things I may not do at home. A few of these experiences turned out to be a waste of time but most of them have been well worthwhile. Two of these in particular were really great: I attended a Sunday Concert alone and went to volunteer at the Bonn Triathlon.
Chronologically, the Bonn Triathlon was first. After coming back from Berlin, I had an email asking for volunteers but I had missed the deadline. I figured they couldn't use me anymore but I emailed back anyway. They said to show up on Sunday at 9 AM in the Rheinau park, about a half hour from me across the river. I showed up and was handed loads of stuff! I got a bright orange shirt that says "helfer" (helper, aka volunteer) on it, a navy blue baseball cap since I was in the sun all day, another grocery tote bag (awesome!) which was filled with an apple, some crackers, a liter of water, beef jerky, and some sweet thing also. It was fantastic. I headed with the group to the first station where we were to help the swimmers out of the water and up a ramp where they would continue with the cycling portion. The water was FREEZING but thankfully I didn't have to stand in it since I wasn't informed to bring extra clothes. It was amazing to see the swimmers appear though, it was like a flock of ducks swimming toward us. All of a sudden there were just hundreds of people emerging from the water and it lasted over an hour. After this was finished, I received a free lunch of chili con carne with a roll and since I had planned to spend all day there, not just two hours, I asked if I could help somewhere else. I was told to walk to the end of the 5 km loop where they were running and help guide the runners in the right path. This was boring. I almost fell asleep standing up... I think the runners got annoyed that I kept yawning ha ha but I was in the sun and it was so rhythmic hearing their feet... couldn't help it. I decided after the 1st loop that they knew the way and was told to relieve another girl who had to leave. I was then standing at the split of a footpath where bikers and pedestrians kept trying to walk in the same path where 1500 people were running... you'd think the herds of people with numbers on their chests and who look nearly dead from exhaustion would give it away that you 'can't go through this way' but it didn't. I was absolutely necessary. And let me tell you, it is a great test of one's language skills to scream commands loudly at bikers. It's hard to express "stop you can't go through there, this way is closed" quickly and in German. Though I have to admit German is a great language for disciplining... I believe that's why their dogs are all so well behaved but that's another story. After the first half hour of this, two girls my age approached on bikes and as I started to ask them to stop, they started laughing. Then I realized it was Sanja and one of her friends, they were cheering on her friend's dad (I believe) who was participating. So they helped me yell at bikers for a while ha ha. Good times... After a couple hours of this, I believe around 4 PM, I headed home. I did enjoy cheering on the last few runners though :) They were all amazing. Makes me hope I have the courage to attempt something like a triathlon someday.

A couple Sundays ago I also signed up to go to another concert at the Beethoven Halle, this one was a Charlie Chaplin silent film where the music was played live. It was amazing :) I went by myself and a few other study abroad students were seated in my row but I don't know them so no conversation ensued. The hall slowly went dark and the film started to roll, it was called "The Gold Rush" and was about Charlie as he headed west to strike gold and how he fared in the town. There's a love story, a bad guy, and lots of laughing. Some guy behind me was REALLY cracking up, I got a kick out of it and it made me get more into it :) All the things that seem cliche to me and would be in films now were so creative then and I can see how he captivated a generation of movie goers. I really enjoyed the experience and the hour and a half film passed quickly. The quality was also a lot better than I was expecting. It's definitely the way I think the film was meant to be enjoyed: with live music and in a crowd of people enjoying themselves as much as you are. It's definitely something I would do again in a heart beat.

Weltmeisterschaft 2010!

Wow... what an incredible time to be in Germany. I'm not sure if I can explain how intense the World Cup is here, but I'm going to try.
So the group stage is now over, after each country has played 3 games and tried its best to advance to the knock out stage and continue its hopes of World Cup Domination. Germany has made it through to the next round, thanks for a win tonight against Ghana (who the US now has to play on Saturday) and the celebration in the city is, literally, insane. In the best possible way.
The game ended in the open air plaza where I was watching with hundreds of other people, most of whom were dressed with German flags wrapped around themselves and with German flags painted on their faces.

This <--- is what the plaza looked like after Germany scored its goal. The arm in the picture is a man in a German flag waving a 2nd german flag and started some chants :) Fantastic. Everyone jumped up and was cheering like crazy, blowing their noise makers, high fiving, and screaming at the top of their lungs. Good things goals don't happen too often ha ha On my way to the Bus station to catch the bus back to my dorm, I cross a road the runs right along the area where the buses pick up and runs through the center of the city. This road was backed up beyond belief and police were standing everywhere, ready to break apart a riot or something. There were people all over in the roads, probably drunk, celebrating that Germany has won and moved on. These boys were making a canopy of German flag that cars had to drive under/through, it was hilarious. Most cars were pretty cool about it too, and the police officer who was standing about ten feet away.

As I was standing at the bus station, I had about ten to fifteen minutes to wait for the next bus, I was watching all the literally hundreds of people walking by to their trains or buses or next bar and not a single one wasn't wearing either black, red, gold, a german flag, a german colors flower necklace, or had a german flag painted on their faces (or other body parts). It's incredible how patriotic the Germans are when they're allowed to be. The World Cup gives them the chance to be proud of their country and to showcase that pride. Back to the bus station though: this road that runs right by the station was FULL of people, not kidding at all the street was literally almost invisible and the cars looked out of place. The people were standing and cheering as the cars drove by, innocently enough. When a car happened to be enthused though, the crowd became ridiculous. They would shake the car, cheer even louder, chant German soccer songs in the street, the car would honk its horn, people would be hanging out of the windows or sun roofs and screaming. Insane.



This is the amount of people lining the street. You can sort of see them shaking a car behind the bench also. Poor people in the car ha ha













This is all the people lining the street. Incredible...









The bus finally arrived and I got on. About 3 stops later, the bus was stuck at a stand still in traffic because of all the celebrating, so I got out and walked home the rest of the 20 minutes from there. As I walked down Bertha-von-Suttner Platz, a busy area where the street cars and buses have multiple stops outside the Beethoven house, the atmosphere was incredibly infectious. I found myself smiling non-stop and cheering along with the crowds. As I got to the end of the road, I noticed people were all looking behind me at something so I turned around. There was a man climbing on top of a bus stop shell to jump on the top of the halted bus, to start shaking it... all while cheering madly and being egged on by thousands of people around him in the street. The people inside the bus looked terrified but it was amazing to see. I kept walking and was honked at by many many cars and started cheering each time. (to the right is a pretty awful picture... thanks night time... of the incredibly crowded road on the way back, the street where the man was on the bus) On the way back, I encountered two German boys and I asked them if they had been here in 2006 (when Germany hosted the cup and took 3rd) and if it was always like this. They said it's always like this when Germany wins... so I can't wait for more wins and celebrations :)
It's now shortly after midnight and the game ended about two hours ago. I still here the sound of car horns and cheering out the window, less with each passing minute but they're still there.
I find it incredible the way the Germans channel their patriotism into the outlet of football and how deep their passion for their country runs. When it surfaces, it's phenomenal to witness. I doubt I'll ever see a frenzy like this in America, even Badger game days don't compare. There's something special about the world cup.
I hope I get a chance to see a game in Cologne and witness the insanity in an even bigger city.
Let's go, Deutschland! '54, '74, '90, 2010!!!!!

bee tee dubbs

Classes are going well, halfway through and I need to start thinking about the papers I'm going to be writing... ew. What's homework again? ha ha the course load is ridiculously simple compared to Madison. Great semester to have senioritis! ha ha
I won't be traveling for two weeks or so until June 25th when I'm headed to Portugal (Faro) for a long weekend with friends, should be amazing. I'm nervous because it'll be my first trip to a country where I can't speak the language... yea...
Then I need to decide where I want to travel the last week of July/first week of August while Lissi is on vacation and before I leave for the states again... God, less than two months... :( Don't want to think about that.

After being gone for two weeks, the kids were really excited to have me back on Tuesday. Some were being really naughty but others bombarded me with little hugs :) Made me feel really great that they missed me. I taught them Kickball yesterday which was so fun but hard because they don't understand baseball so I had nothing to base it off of. At first they didn't understand the idea of staying in the baseline, of having to touch each base and not just run a giant circle, of having to tag someone out and not throw the ball at the runner, of not skipping over a runner ahead of you because they're going too slowly ha ha It was great :) They thought it was complicated but they did a good job. Frau Schumacher also thought it was good practice for both me and the kids to give and understand instructions in a foreign language/by a non-native (ish) speaker... It's awkward saying things like "if you catch the ball in the air, the kicker is out"... Who has a vocabulary made for that? ha ha. Answer: not really me. I managed though :) I'm definitely getting attached to the kids and developing individual connections with many of them. I'm going to miss them... They're so incredible. About ten of them are from another country or have parents who are and are learning a 3rd language (beside German and English in school) already. It's amazing. I like having discussions with them about what America is like and how it's different and just spending time with them during the work times. They invited me on their field trip in July too so that will be fun.

Microwave update: it still sparks sometimes when it heats things up. I find this very dangerous, everyone else finds it normal and doesn't care enough to replace it. Fantastic: I may die in a mircowave fire.

Otherwise, life is good. The weather is starting to get nicer and I spent today wandering in the Drachenfels hills in Konigswinter to see a castle and some ruins.. then headed to the Birkenstock outlet for some 50% off sandals (yep, suck it :-p). First pair of legit sandals... we'll see how I like them.

Now it's time to catch up on sleep again.
miss and love you all
d

Hamburg: long overdue

I've been gone for the last nearly 3 weeks traveling and didn't have time to update the blog at all, sorry! This post is about the long weekend in Hamburg at the beginning of May and in the next few days I hope to write about the week in Paris and week in Berlin. Here goes: :)
I decided on Monday around 8:00 PM with Alyssa, while we were waiting for Aerobic Bodywork to start, that since we had Thursday off class and we have no class on Fridays that we should go to Hamburg for the long weekend. Why not? Couldn't think of a good reason since getting there cost less than 50 Euro ($70)... it did involve 5 different trains though ha ha
We traveled with Ben, a guy I know from Madison, and met up with Ben's cousin in Hamburg because he recently moved there. Ben's cousin met us at the train station, helped us buy our local train ticket pass for the next few days, took us on a short walk around a cute lake in Hamburg. Not much was open due to the holiday and it was "Father's Day" which in Germany means men get together and drink... without their families? A bit backwards ha ha. We headed to our first hostel shortly thereafter. Since we got our train tickets on Tuesday, we had to book a hostel on Wednesday for the following day. I didn't think this would be a problem considering it's Hamburg and not, say, Paris... false. There was something going on in Hamburg that weekend so I had to make about 20 calls to different hostels and finally found some decently priced ones. The first was a sort of hotel and was really nice. The second ended up being an international youth hostel association member so it was REALLY nice with a great breakfast spread ha ha. They were both located a short ways from the city center so lots of trains happened but it wasn't bad at all. I would definitely recommend both places without hesitation. That's a picture of the City Hall in Hamburg which is huge! It's important because it's the city-state's capitol and therefore city-state city hall also.
After settling into the hostel we decided to go wandering. We found some interesting places and then out of no where a red line... it looked promising. We decided to follow it and were led through a cute quarter of the city.
We found some interesting things like an Otto Von Bismarck monument, the Reeperbahn aka red light district of Hamburg and the best area to go out at night, an interesting restaurant for dinner where I had an awful Hamburger... sad face, but Ben had a great "lady steak" ha ha that's what they called the smaller steak. We were pretty beat from traveling and had a big day ahead of us so we didn't go out, just got some much needed sleep since the journey begin around 5 AM that day.
The next morning started early since we had to move our things from the first hostel to the second, on the opposite end of the city, before we had a walking tour at 11 AM. Our tour was extremely informative and made me realize a lot about Hamburg. I didn't realize the city had such a history and culture to it... I hadn't traveled much around Germany before this semester so I didn't know what to expect. It's a big city with a lot of history from WWII because it was bombed heavily and experienced a Great Fire in 1842 which allowed the city to rebuild itself in a way most European cities don't have the opportunity to. They have a lot of memorials for the war too, which is something I like about Germany.
An interesting part of the tour was seeing the opera house that's being built on the harbor, it's supposed to be as iconic as the Sydney opera house when it's finished. It looks like an iceberg in a way. It's supposed to be a wave on top of a warehouse building (there's a large warehouse district where the opera house is being built)... google a picture, it looks incredible.After the tour we went back to a memorial at the St Nikolai Church for WWII. The church was bombed to piece but the tower was reconstructed and memorials constructed where the church stood. It was bombed during the biggest air raid of WWII which destroyed a large portion of the city and left thousands of people homeless.
This is where the church's frame stood. There are memorials to victims of concentration camps, the entrance for the church archive through the mini pyramid, and other statues.
There was also a peaceful and asian inspired garden next to the tower... I liked it a lot.


This is the tower that still stands, we went up it and looked at all the pictures of what the city looked like after the bombings and how badly the church was burned down. It was incredible... it never ceases to amaze me how awful people can be and the kinds of things we do it war.

After the memorial, we headed to the hostel to check in and set up our rooms, took a short nap because we were exhausted, had some dinner and headed to a wax museum called the Panoptikum on the Reeperbahn before we went out. The Panoptikum is no Madame Tussau's but they definitely had some interesting figures. We got yelled at for sitting on a stone wall that was apparently also made out of wax ha ha but we got some interesting pictures with some 'famous people'. I have them all detailed in the Facebook album but here are some favorites:

The two Benedicts ha ha



The creepy Hilter wax figure that was made in like 1941... yea...


Apparently Harry Potter is famous enough to be a wax figure? ha ha

This is us being Beatles Groupies :)
After the museum we headed out on a Pub Crawl, where you pay 10 euro or so and get to be taken to 5 different bars and clubs and given drinks/drink specials, it's a good deal usually. We had a lot of fun, met some interesting people from England (a whole bachelor party) and some from places like New Zealand, Australian, North Dakota ha ha

The following day was spent at an interesting art exhibit (let's just say it was more sexually charged than we expected... because we apparently walked into the wrong art building and weren't at the photography exhibit like we thought). We also walked around HafenCity, the warehouse area, with Ben's cousin. We later in the evening went to Miniatur Wonderland, lots of models of things built in an intricate and amazing way (for pictures see the facebook album). We ended the night with dinner at 11 PM at an "american restaurant" and out at a disco with some of the guys from the night before.

Unfortunately we didn't have nice weather until the last day when we had only a few hours to enjoy it before taking the train back to Bonn. I really enjoyed Hamburg and had a rough week following it because we pulled two all-nighters and got little to no sleep for three days. There was so much to do and we were having such a great time that sleep just didn't matter. I'm really glad I went... before going, it didn't sound as exotic as some other places people were headed to for the long weekend but I had an amazing time with Alyssa and Ben, really enjoyed the city itself, and felt like I learned a lot about a city that plays an important role in Germany's history. I would recommend traveling there to anyone :) So many things to see and do for all types of travelers.

Alright: Paris and Berlin updates coming soon! Promise!

Post Modern Colonialization

Volunteering at the Elementary School has easily become one of my favorite, though most tiring, parts of the week and this week was especially fun because I was able to bring in some American candy for the kids to try.

They tried smarties which they thought were good but sour, tootsie rolls which they thought tasted like caramel more than chocolate ha ha, candy buttons which they loved but kept trying to get every bit of paper off the back of it, and some old time wafer things that one girl claimed smelled like smoke after you licked it ha ha









Frau Schumacher played a game with them after we handed out the candy and the winner got extra pieces so they liked that. This was called Jaeger/Hase or Hunter/Rabbit. When she said Rabbit, they ducked and Hunter, they jumped up. She would try to confuse them and any movement if you were supposed to stay down, like for more than one Rabbit in a row, resulted in disqualification! Intense...








They are cute little monsters though... :)

Lucas was a mess that day, he had chocolate on his face and ink on his nose ha ha :) But they had a math test that morning and I sat next to him to keep him focused, didn't tell him the answers though, and he did really well. He's smart, he just needs to focus... He apparently asks Frau Schumacher everyday now "Kommt die Debby heute?" "Is Debby coming today?" :) That made my day when she told me.



This is a group of children hyped up on foreign candy... good thing they had recess next ha ha :)




Felix was telling me how he knows the word for Frieden, Peace, in English and was giving the peace sign :) I couldn't help but laugh.

I know Frau Schumacher enjoys having the help and it has really become the most rewarding part of my experience here... it's definitely making me realize I would miss teaching and the classroom setting in my life, I want to pursue it back in Milwaukee.




Well that's all for now, I'm headed to Hamburg eeeeearly tomorrow morning for the long weekend with Alyssa, Ben, Kent, and Cassandra. Should be exciting, I've never been to Northern Germany :) I'll post on Monday for sure.
miss and love
d