Hey Hey! Sorry about the complete lack of updates over the past month. I will try to rectify the situation somewhat by writing something right now.
So since my last update, I finished up visiting Prague: saw the Castle, walked over the bridge, ate delicious Pragueian food (Goulaschsuppe), and bought a beautiful garnet ring for my 21st birthday present. Then 2 days after I returned from Prague my parents came to visit for Christmas holiday time in Germany. YAY! I also made Christmas cookies as usual (scary thing is I still have some left, haha). We hung around Göttingen doing Christmas shopping and such while I finished up classes before Christmas. Then Melanie was supposed to arrive on Friday, but unfortunately a humungous blizzard rolled through Denver just before her flight so instead of getting here the 21st, she came on the 26th (that's pretty close, right?) Anyways, to fill up the time until Mel cam e we went to Nürnberg and saw the Courthouse where they held the Nuremberg Trials after the war. That was really neat to sit there and think about what was going on some 60 years ago. Crazy! We also saw the Nürnberg Weihnachtsmarkt because you can't go there without seeing it; it's so huge! (Kinda cool, I was there on the first day of the Nürnberg Weihnachtsmarkt and the last)
Anyways we also did various other things: visited the nearby village of Duderstadt for the best afternoon cake and hot drinks ever!, went to the Göttingen Weihnachtsmarkt, I made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning brunch, Christmas Eve church service (with really cute little play), and christmassy stuff like that. Then we picked Mel up from the airport day after Christmas and let the real holiday hang out time begin. We had "Christmas Morning" on the 27th. Best Christmas present this year?--Probably the huge fireworks set that Dad got from the Streiffs. That was fun! After that we headed down to the Rhine/Rhein area and stayed in a 13th century (?) castle converted into a hotel, man the good times we had there, great pictures and stories, but too hard to explain now, but just to give you something to think about: Monty Python's Holy Grail (specifically the scene where John Cleese mocks King Arthur and his friends--in a ridiculous French accent) and Young Frankenstein.
We drove along the Rhine where there is pretty much a castle on every corner, so neat, and the river is cool too. Anyways we kind of just relaxed and enjoyed the awesome views and scenery. We also saw the Loreley cliffs, famous in German volk literature and stuff. Um, what else. Well, after Kaub (where our castle was) we headed over to Aachen for New Year's (the only city where we could find and open hotel.) Aachen was really neat, we got to see the Cathedral where Charlemagne is buried (has a really cool octagonal main room), we also saw some really interesting religious relics in the Domschatzkammer (Cathedral Treasury).
New Year's in Aachen was insane. We had all our fireworks with us and decided that New Year's Eve is really the time to set them off because that is when everyone does it. We were a little nervous at first about where to do it, so we followed some other people holding fireworks to a square area. Turns out we ended up in one of the most exciting areas in the city for New Year's. Not only were there tons of people just setting off the personal fireworks in everywhich direction all around you, but there was also an organized show just next to us. I pretty much felt like I was in Baghdad or some war zone, but instead of bombs it was fireworks going off everywhere. Basically the best New Year's ever.
After Aachen we went to Köln (Cologne) and saw the Cathedral. It is huge! And by huge I mean humungously huge. It is definitely worth a visit, and we went on a little tour of it so that we would understand the significance of its structure and stained glass windows and such. Also definitely worth doing. From Köln we drove over to Düsseldorf and saw the Neandertal Museum. It was a neat museum and the audioguide was very thorough, mine was in German though, so I may have missed things here and there :-) Anyways we also saw Bonn for a bit and went to the Haus der Geschichte Museum, it was a museum of Germany after WW2 with special emphasis on the differences between East and West Germany. It was a really neat exhibition and extremely people friendly and interesting. They had it set up as if you were really in that time period and experiencing the things that went on then. I would highly recommend it, the only thing is that is seems obviously targeted towards Germans because all the explanations and stuff are in German. However, still worth a visit and it's free!
All in all the Christmas/New Year's vacation time with the family was amazing and I am really glad we got to spend Christmas together in Germany (despite the many many days when no shops, grocery stores or restaurants were open because of the various holidays--Christmas Eve, 1st Christmas Day, 2nd Christmas Day, New Year's Eve/Silvester, New Year's Day and so on.) We always managed to find some food some how, even if it was snacks from a gas station :-)
After the family left, I celebrated my birthday by going out to Indian food with some friends, eating cake, and setting off the left over fireworks from New Year's. All in all a wonderful 21st birthday celebration. Since then I have just been going to classes, doing reading and homework, and working on a scholarship application.
I have one more week of classes left, one more test and one paper to write (that is due in the beginning of April), beyond that I have some ridiculous amount of time, like 10 weeks off, until next semester. I start again on April 16th, which really means like April 23rd since most classes seem to start the second week for whatever reason. So in my summer vacation amount of time, I am planning on going back to Köln for Karneval, skiing in the Swiss Alps, Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and maybe other places), Morocco, and maybe even Egypt or Poland. I am so excited for all that traveling. It should be amazing!
Ok, well that is all for now, sorry that I always seem to wait so long and then drop off a huge long update all at once. I will try and improve, but chances are it'll stay the same. Oh well at least you still get some updates :-)
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