Onward to Rome!

This week has flown by way to quickly, on one hand it feels like I have become established quite well in Germany, but on the other hand it feels like I literally just got here! I am loving every single moment of my travels, every pastry I have consumed, every city I have visited, and every new person I have met! This week we got to meet the Mayor or Bonn and go to a little reception at his mini palace in the center of the city! (see picture) He is a very nice man and is very excited for our new President! Today was also quite exciting, being the bargain shopper that I am I managed to find an awesome pair of boots for only 5 euro! This week we also visited a modern art museum in Wuppertal and spent quite a bit of time lounging in the cafes.

Tomorrow I will be visiting the headquarters of Bayer, a company I will be working with for the next few months. I have to pitch a new idea to the company that will further strengthen their international relations and increase profits. I will be meeting with a big time executive of the company to be interviewed and receive s

ome guidance for the proposal. 

After the meeting I am off to Rome! Woohooo! 

I Survived Amsterdam!

This weekend was exciting, fun, spontaneous, and not very well planned! haha We decided literally at the last minute to take a bus to Amsterdam and see if the city is really as crazy as we have heard it to be. I am now fully convinced that there is no city crazier than Amsterdam! Our bus dropped us off right in the notorious red light district at only 1 in the afternoon. Who would have thought that the streets would have been completely filled with prostitutes at such an early hour!? There were women of ever age and ethnicity dancing in their red lit boxes (more like cages), which I was not quite well prepared for. We had not planned to get a hostel because our bus left somewhat early the next day and we figured the city would be filled crazy things to occupy us for an all nighter. However, after getting our first glimpse of the city, finding a hostel suddenly became our first objective. We luckily found a nice one for super cheap that slept all 15 of us very comfortably. Afterward, most everyone wanted to go to a cafe to smoke, but I found a few people willing to go venture the city to find the Anne Frank's house with me! We walked across the canals and through the historic parts of the city, and got to her house just in time! I found her house to be fascinating, yet really eerie and depressing to walk through at the same time. They most depressing thing to see was a real taping of her father discussing the holocaust and the effect her diary had him and the rest of the world.
Amsterdam is even crazier at night....the streets were literally packed and there were bars, clubs, and "coffee shops" on every block. I got really excited when I saw so many places titles "Coffee Shop", however when I walked in I realized right away that you don't go to those places to get coffee. haha Most of the coffee shops don't even sell any coffee, just joints and every think you can think of to make weed with. The students traveling with me were not slow to realize how naive and I am.
We decided not to stay out real late and go to any clubs since we were all so sketched out by the people and places. Instead we got into our bunk beds (all 15 of us in one huge room lol) at around 1am and woke up early for a nice breakfast and left some time for sightseeing and shopping!
Overall, Amsterdam was fun and unique, but just a littIle too crazy and expensive for my liking.
Tomorrow we have lunch with the Mayor of Bonn! I will fill you in!

A Day in Cologne

Yesterday we went to the beautiful city of Cologne, which is luckily only a 20 minute train ride from my school. The Cathedral is the highlight of the city as it is rated as one of the most exquisite in the entire world! It is one of the few landmarks that survived the second world war, and has some of the most intense architectural features I have ever seen! My first reaction when seeing this work of art was priceless.... I swear my jaw dropped to an abnormal length! There were statues of saints and prophets and gargoyles, and glowing windows with scenes from both the new and old testament. Our professor hooked us up with a sweet tour that allowed us to go on the side railings near the top of the Cathedral (as seen in the video) and then we also got to up an extra few hundred stairs to the very top of the Dome where you can see the entire city! This tour also let us go into the workshops where we learned how these structures were created. We were very lucky, because most tourists cannot see such things, however, my professor knew somebody that worked at the Cathedral so we got lucky!
Today we had class and watched President Obama's Inauguration with some students from the University of Bonn. It was very interesting discussing politics with German people, they seem to be fascinated by the American Ways, and are more enthusiastic about Obama then a great deal of people in our own country!


Tomorrow we will be going to an art museum and getting everything all sorted out for our weekend trip to Amsterdam! Woohoo!!!



p.s. That pic is really a pic I took.... the lighting was perfect that day!!!!!

Phenomenal, Astounding, Shocking.... There Really is no Perfect word to Describe Last Night

It is 10 in the morning and I just walked in the door from one of the most amazing/indescribable nights of my entire life. Tonight 4 of my friends and I joined a crowd of 30,000 to see DJ Tiesto and about 6 other DJ's. I am still in reverence over Tiesto's performance, his talent is truly a music phenomenon which leaves you in nothing less than a complete euphoric state. If you have not yet seen him, YOU MUST! Another big surprise tonight was Tommy Lee and DJ Aero, they came on stage right after Tiesto and had the crowds going crazy with their incredible sounding remixes! DJ Armand and Felix the Housecat were also some big names that came on stage and were also very good. The only group I would probably never want to see on stage again was G-unit... horrible performance!
Tonight was far from what we had all expected in many aspects. We were all a little nervous that we were going to be stepping into a bad rave scene, however, this was far from anything like a typical techno/ dance trance concert that would take place in the US. Most Germans have a great deal of respect for techno and it is actually a big part of their culture. We were surprised to see people of all ages there, from 18 all the way to 50! There were absolutely no people giving "light shows", no girls dressed in next to nothing, and more importantly, no major drug usage to speak of! It was so exciting, yet refreshing to see a sober crowd go absolutely haywire for 9 hours straight! We were also very entertained by the crazy circusy people that danced on stage, the overload of pyro-technics, and intense usage of every type of light imaginable!
The bottom line is Tiesto is nothing less than extraordinary, and don't miss him on his world tour! Promise me!

Hiking and Dancing Make up for my Indulgence in German Pastries!

Yesterday I got more exercise then I have had in a very long time! After class, we decided to conquer the hike to the Dragonfelz castle followed by a long night of dancing at Bonn's most famous night club which went until 5am! We were very excited for the castle, because it was an old medieval landmark where many mythologies of Dragons and Wizards came from. We hiked up the steepest hill of my entire life, only to discover that entrance to the castle does not start up again until September. Booo! We still got to get a nice glimpse of the outside however, and the hike was very scenic. Beautiful mountains cascaded over the Rhine River, and little Swedish style shops and cafes filled the streets of the city portion.
The club we went to called Tiefenrausch was pretty sweet! It was two stories with hip-hop on the top and Techno/Trance on the bottom. Nearly all of us LMU students came and mingled with some Germans, who were in complete shock to see people all the way from California! haha
Tonight we are going to see DJ Tiesto, Tommy Lee, and Felix the Housecat in the city of Essen (about an hour north of here)! I am looking super forward to it!

I'll fill you in tomorrow! : )

Prizes, Iceskating, and Penguins?

Hallo! Guten tag!

These past few days have been very eventful! I got to take my first few German classes, and lets just say I am a complete amateur! I will be stoked if I can manage to speak one sentence in German clearly before I make it back to the U.S.

So far, my days have typically started off with an early morning bus ride to the school, one morning class, a slightly unnecessary but delightful bakery/coffee stop and then off to whatever afternoon excursion we have planned. Yesterday we had a scavenger hunt, where we had to go up to random Germans and ask them what certain phrases meant and get directions to different parts of town. We had to break in to teams of two for our scavenge across the city, and my partner and I just so happened to come in first place! Our prize was an awesome beer glass from the local pub Bonnsch, which produces beer that you can't buy anywhere else! I celebrated by going this place called the Einstein Cafe, which has the most incredible mochas in the entire universe! After our scavenger hunt we went ice skating, which was fun and entertaining to say the least. I spent the entire night plotting how I was going to steal these little penguins they give the toddlers to help them balance on the ice. After many failed attempts I asked a guy at the front counter, who had the nerve to tell me I am too old and too big! psh!

Tonight we are off to shop and explore happy hour drinks in the city of Cologne!

<3

Castles in Eifel

Sunday was an amazing day! We traveled to the region of Eifel and saw two castles! One castle was a medieval one from 1093 B.C. that took over 500 years to build! The other castle we had to take a long hike uphill in the snow. It was surrounded by the beautiful scenery of the Germanic mountain tops and valleys. We only saw remains of the second castle as most of it had been ransacked and destroyed during a war 400 years ago. It's dinner time so I have to run, but I will fill you all in later!

My New Home

Today is my third day in Germany and first day I have had a moment of rest to finally sit down and write a blog. I absolutely love my new family, they are very sweet and are wonderful cooks, with the cutest dog in the whole world! Every morning they have a truck deliver fresh home made bread to their door for breakfast, and we eat it with butter, jam, and sometimes nutella. They also order coffee beans from Italy and use a French Press to make it! The daughter Hanna is 24 and is training to become a dental assistant. She took me around town yesterday and we had some amazing lattes at a cute little cafe. The city of Bonn is very quaint and relatively small. It is centered entirely around the University, so there are mostly young people in the city which has made it very fun. There are countless bakeries and coffee houses, so the aroma of the city is electrifying, Friday night I spent out in the city at some of the local pubs with my new classmates. We tried some homemade German beer and some fruity cocktails haha. Everyone seems really chill, so I look forward to a full semester of exciting adventures with them! We have a jam packed schedule this week and tomorrow is our first day of school, so I will be back tomorrow with more exciting news! I miss everybody SO much!!

Disneyland in Paris

These past two days we spent at the Disneyland theme park in Paris, as well as the smaller theme park Disney studios. Both parks were a blast, but definitely do not compare to our Disney in California. The main park had some cool perks like being able to walk up to the top of the castle, and a much more vamped up Space Mountain ride with loops, twists, and technicolor planets that glowed to the tune of some raging music! The downside was that there were almost no characters incorporated on any of the rides! There was no Jack Sparrow on pirats, no Jack skelleton on the Haunted Mansion, and not even Indiana Jones on his ride. Indiana Jones was actually an outside roller coaster with a completely unexpected loop! This park was also missing some major rides like Matterhorn and Splash Mountain, however, Disney Studios had an awesome new Ride called Crush's Coaster. This was probably my favorite; you ride on a turtle shell and go on this inside roller coaster that immitates the East Atlantic Current from Finding Nemo. There are scenes from the movie, giant jelly fish, and dips that take place in the dark with ocean bubbles everywhere! Take a look at the video and the new slide show I posted at the top!

Full Day in the City of Love

Yesterday was a very intense day, we did everything from climbing the eiffel tower to spending a few hours at the Louvre to visiting Notre Dame. All of which were simply amazing! The Louvre diplays the famous Mona Lisa, and the Venus De Milo as well as thousands of other pieces of artwork. It is the largest museum in the world and takes a number of days to really get a full glimpse of everything. I never thought I would get a chance to walk the grounds of the Notre Dame, which has been standing since the 1100's! Today we are going to be spending a full day in Euro Disney, so I will be back with lots of pictures and videos! Au Revoir!

Off to Belgium for a day

Thursday was a day of fun-filled surprises. Rather than spending another day in Paris, we decided take a tour to Belgium and indulge in their amazing chocolates and savior some new scenery. There is nothing quite like Belgium, the entire city that we were in was paved in coble stone and had horse drawn carriages taking people everywhere. The houses were cute and modest with doors made for dwarf size people. Outside of their chocolate, Belgium is also know for their french fries, which I must say are quite good! We got a chance to step into a major cathedral in Bruges which displayed the Madonna and some other spectacular monuments. Bruges, Belgium is a fantasy like place and only a few hours outside of Paris, so if you are ever in France for an extended period of time, definitely check out Belgium!

2009!

Here is a video my friend Monica took from the New Year's we spent together in Paris! Take a look, and don't forget to check out the blog I posted right below!

Happy New Year's from Paris!

So far, Paris has been absolutely amazing, our days have been jam packed with exciting events, museums, shows, and adventuring. I have never felt so tired before, as our days typically start at 8am and go until 1-2am. My favorite thing we have done so far was visiting the Palace of Versailles. Never in my life have I seen so much gold and royal artwork! We also went to a cabaret show called Lido, walked/shopped on the Champ-Elysees, cruised on the Seine River, went to a Picasso/Monet exhibit, and indulged in France's finest food! New Years was spectacular, crazy, and outright insane. Hundreds of thousands of people come roam the streets of the Champ-Elysees (the main drag) and then stroll on over to the Eiffel tower to see the light show at midnight. Although it was a blast, it was also slightly uncomfortable as we were confronted by tons of people asking for a New Years kiss and a picture with us. We just walked away haha. We are now off to another district of Paris to go explore, and then Friday we are off to Belgium for the day! I can't wait to share more excitement! I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe New Year's!
<3 Britt