Weimar, just an hour by train from Leipzig, is a wonderful historical little town. It seems like every famous German person in the history of Germany has lived in Weimar. Okay, so maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but Schiller, Goethe, Bach, Strauss, Nietzsche, Martin Luther, Wagner, and Marlene Dietrich all lived here at some point. I was spending the night with Kathrin and Hendrik, who are Servas members (Servas is an organization dedicated to promoting peace and intercultural understanding). Kathrin's dad picked me up at the train station, I had tea with Kathrin, and then I hit the town. I later spent the evening with Kathrin and her daughter, Amira. We ate a typical German dinner and then Amira and I learned colors and animals in German together while we played with her toys. ... read more

Ellie and I planned a weekend trip to Strasbourg ages ago, but it somehow managed to creep up on it. Time is passing more quickly here in Douai, thankfully, and I ended up throwing things in my bag in the twenty minute window between my bus home from school and our train to Paris. Fortunately I've had a lot of practice with packing these last six months. Strasbourg is located right on the border with Germany, and it's been passed past back and forth between France and Germany several times. It's been part of France since WWII, but the German influence is everywhere. The streets are all named twice: once in French and once in German. The food is different from the typical French cuisine, and the architecture is much different. It was a nice change ... read more

So, I'm going to try something new and relinquish control of my blog. I have recently found a new travel partner (some might call him my boyfriend, but why argue over semantics), we'll call him Chris (remember him from the trip to Japan?). Since he so graciously let me drag him through the UK, I figure I should let him voice his opinion on the trip. Have no fear - I will be editing and adding comments as necessary. :) Hello, faithful Kate in Africa readers. I sincerely hope none of you will take issue with the fact that this entry is neither written by Kate nor about Africa. But she's taken a very literal approach to our holidays - that is, by making me write her entries while she's lounging around and reading the latest ... read more

(There are two blogs I've been meaning to write (one about my birthday trip to Dunkerque and the other about my weekend spent visiting châteaux in the Loire Valley), but I doubt I'll get around to them. Sorry. Instead, I'm skipping right to Christmas in Rome.) After six weeks of working hard, shaping the young minds of rural, northern France, it was time for me to have another two week break. I know, life's rough. I booked train tickets for me and Peter to head down to Roma ages ago. They were really cheap, and taking an overnight train seemed like a fun adventure. So, I packed up my suitcase and headed in to Paris a couple days before our train was set to leave. We ran around the city, buying various food items for our ... read more

This week was a very demanding week, workwise...I worked a day and a half! We had Armistice Day (Veterans' Day for you Americans) off on Wednesday, but I normally have Wednesdays off, so that was a bit of a letdown. I stayed home Thursday due to a nasty stomach bug that I can only assume came from my students and their grubby little hands. I had previously arranged to have Friday off (I was able to make up the hours a few weeks ago) so that I could catch an early train to Grenoble. Elizabeth, a friend I've known since first grade, is studying in Bologna, Italy this semester, and Grenoble seemed like a good halfway point to meet up. Italy apparently doesn't have too many high speed trains, though, so she had a really long ... read more