Back to the Blog Business

Hello my adoring fans (or family and friends who feel obliged to read this blog), I am finally back to the writing grind after a one month blog hiatus! February 2020 was probably the busiest month I have had since moving to Germany and it was nothing short of excellent! I started the month off with the performances for my English speaking theater group, followed by my German choral debut at the concert hall in Bamberg, a visit from my Dad, Wendy, and Logan, and a week long ski trip with my host family and another host family who also has an American au pair.

The first week of February was wonderful. I spent a lot of time with the friends from my theater group as well as performed our “play”. If I remember correctly, I already wrote a little bit about this time in the previous blog, so I won’t go too much into detail. I was really thankful to have the chance to perform with a theater group as well as to meet so many new people (both German and international students). I also had my last week of classes in the first week of February which honestly made me pretty sad. I really enjoyed the language classes I took at the university and all the friends I made. Towards the end of January I started to ask new people out for coffee with me every Wednesday morning after class and I ended up meeting a lot of really nice girls who are also international students. It was a really cool way for me to get a taste of some new culture, but unfortunately, most of the international students are only living in Bamberg for a semester, so I just started meeting them at the end of their stay, but now I know for next semester to be friendly from the semester start! On the last day of my language class, my professor had private conversations with all of his students to give them personal progress and worth ethic evaluations as well as advice for the future. In my discussion, he really encouraged me to continue striving for German fluency and recommended some classes for me to take next semester. I am very lucky to have found a teacher in Germany who cares about his students very much and wants to see us succeed and I hope to have him as my German professor again next semester. Other than that, the first week of February was kind of boring. I had to do a bit of extra babysitting due to my host parents’ busy schedules, but I didn’t really mind. I mean, I do live in Germany for free after all. The least I could do is watch their kids.

The second week of February began with my German choral debut! We spent all weekend rehearsing and I felt so grown up singing in such a professional place (the Bamberg concert hall where our symphony plays) and accompanying people who sing and make music for a living. My host mom, Oma Inge, Opa Kalli, and Oma Edith all came to see my performance and afterwards I was able to talk to Oma Edith and Opa Kalli and they said they were really proud of me. Opa Kalli also said it was kind of boring and I said I agreed, but was still excited about our performance nonetheless. My choir performance was followed by three days of regularly scheduled babysitting and then Thursday morning I woke up at 5:30 AM to take the train to Munich to pick my dad, Wendy, and Logan up from the airport. When I finally saw them, I was so ecstatic! It always gives me a happy feeling when I get reminded of home while in Germany, but nothing compared to the happy feeling I got when my family was in Germany! The first day they were there we tried to do some exploring around Munich, but they were all so tired (overseas travel tends to do that to you) and I am not familiar with the city, so our level of exploration was fairly minimal, but we were still able to soak in some of the city’s beauty. The next day, we woke up and took the train to Nuremberg. We went to the Third Reich museum and it gave me some insight into Nuremberg’s history and connection to World War 2. Time flew by while we were at the museum because it seemed as if we had a lot of time when we arrived there, but halfway through the museum, I looked at the clock and it was suddenly as if we had no time at all! We left about halfway through the museum and took the streetcar back towards the old town and went to the “St. Lorenz Kirche” which is one of my favorite churches I’ve seen so far in Europe. It is very beautifully decorated and so detailed, so if you’re ever in Nuremberg, I recommend you visit. In the evening, my host parents cooked us a typical Frankish meal with bratwurst, potatoes, and sauerkraut. I really appreciated that my host parents went out of their way to make this meal for my family. The next morning, my host dad gave my dad, Wendy, and I a personal tour of Bamberg. We saw all of the major sights in Bamberg and my host dad also introduced us to a cafe with very delicious homemade cakes. Logan stayed at my house and played with my host kids all day and it was kind of cool that he was able to spend a day in my shoes. In the evening, Wendy cooked us all mac and cheese and I loved it!

The third week of February began with a train ride from Bamberg to Zürich, Switzerland. In my 6 months of living in Germany I have had nothing but excellent experiences on the trains, but the one time I rode with my family, we had not one, but two trains break down! After our second break down, we ended up getting put on a train that was over crowded with people and we couldn’t find seats. It was quite a long and exhausting journey, but once we arrived in Zürich, I was relaxed and overcome with joy. We ate Italian for dinner and it was really expensive because that’s how it goes in Zürich. We stayed in a clean and beautiful Air BNB that was in good proximity to the city center. On our full day in Zürich, we explored the city center and went on a gorgeous and scenic “lake cruise” that took us on a boat ride that lasted about an hour and a half. We had beautiful views of the alps and also drank hot chocolate. For the rest of the day we just kind of dinked around and enjoyed Zürich. One of the best places we discovered was the Lindt chocolate store which had delicious chocolate and AMAZING macaroons. It was like I died and went to sugar heaven. The evening was rainy, so we weren’t so motivated to do much other than chill at our Air BNB, watch a movie, and eat some spaghetti. The next day, we woke up and went back to the Lindt chocolate store for breakfast (they had regular breakfast items in addition to the chocolate and macaroons). Then we explored all the shops underneath the Zürich train station while we waited for our train. We killed about an hour of time and it was really fun to explore the area. Thankfully our train from Zürich to Paris was direct and we had no breakdowns! It was an easy four hour ride, with wifi, and comfortable seats. When we arrived in Paris, the weather was beautiful so we did a little bit of exploration before taking a one hour subway ride to our next Air BNB which was located kind of on the outskirts of Paris. The next day was magical because we went to one of the most magical places on Earth: DISNEYLAND! Disneyland was so beautiful and so much fun. The lines for the rides weren’t too long, the people were all friendly, and it was my first time at Disney ever, so it was even more magical. It was a really great day, I don’t think I could say that enough! The next day we did the typical Paris tourist activities like the Eiffel Tower and seeing the outside of Notre Dame (which is still in recovery from the fire damage). This day went by super quickly and it was my last full day in Paris, so I was pretty sad when it came to a close. The next day, we had some extra time to explore before my train so we went to a hipper part of Paris and did some shopping and dinking around. We also went to one of the train stations and did some shopping around there. Then when it was time for me to go home, I was sad, but knew the day eventually had to come.

7 hours after I got home from my trip with my dad, I repacked myself up to travel to Austria for a ski trip with my host family. I thought I would be exhausted and cranky during the car ride, but I was honestly pretty excited and optimistic about the week ahead. We spent the night at my host mom’s sister’s house to break up some of the drive so that helped ease the inconveniences of traveling with young kids. The sister lives in the south of Germany in a house surrounded by gorgeous mountains; not such a shabby spot to make a pit stop. After breakfast the next day, we continued the journey to the south of Austria. When we arrived at the house, I was immediately excited by how big and beautiful our rental house was. It was basically a big house with three separate apartments stacked one on top of the other. One apartment for the other family who we were vacationing with, the second for my host family, and the third for the au pairs. “The au pairs are upstairs” is the rhyme I made. I had to wait a few hours for the other host family (and their au pair/my friend Jolene) to arrive, but when they finally did, I was so excited! I hadn’t seen Jolene in a few weeks so we had a lot to catch up on. On Monday, Jolene and I babysat our host babies while our host parents and the older kids went skiing. We took our babies to a really close playground and she cooked lunch for them. In the evening we all went sledding and it was so much fun! We have really wooden “sleigh-type” sleds, so it wasn’t the plastic glory I’m used to, but it was still a blast. After sledding, Jolene and I stayed and ate at a restaurant in the hotel next to the sled hill. The waiter was so nice to us and so we had a really nice, relaxed, kid-free dinner. The week for me consisted of basically the exact same schedule, babysit the baby in the morning and then free time in the evening. On Wednesday, we also watched a ski show that the instructors from the ski school put on and it ended with fireworks. I really enjoyed that. This week I did lots of sledding, a little bit of hiking, and a ton of just relaxing in the alps. I was so thankful and grateful to go on such a fun trip with my host family and that they brought me with them.

Today I paid $30 to go to Starbucks to write this blog. I am not ashamed.