http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Matt-in-Deutschland/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Matt in Deutschland en-us Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:27:44 +0000 Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:27:44 +0000 The first day at sea involved sleeping in something we hadnrsquot done since starting our travels. My friend Rachel and I decided to go off and do our own thing in the morning. My decision was to eat a great breakfast at the buffet and then to grab my book and lay by the pool. I found a great lounge chair and just got to enjoy the sun and relax. After lunch I met up with Rachel we hung out http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/South-Aegean/Santorini/blog-444816.html We arrived in Venice at around noon the next day. Pulling into the city of Venice by train is pretty cool. You cross a bridge for like 20 minutes that is surrounded by water. We got out of the train station and you walk right out to a main canal and tons beautiful buildings. We headed to the cruise shuttle since we were spending a couple of days in Venice after the cruise. The bus took us to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Dalmatia/Dubrovnik/blog-436337.html Meeting all the participants in Berlin I was able to hear what everyonersquos travel plans for our 2 weeks in July. Another of my good friends was planning to be in Italy during the same time and so we decided to meet up in Amalfi. Rachel and I took the water bus to Amalfi the next morning. The boat made a stop in a town called Positano before arriving in Amalfi. Positano was amazing we wer http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Tuscany/Florence/blog-435044.html My flight was early on a Monday morning from CologneBonn airport to Naples Italy. The flight actually got us in at around 10am in the morning so we had most of the day to explore the city of Naples. I was traveling the 2 weeks with a good friend named Rachel who lived in Cologne and Bonn during the year we lived in Germany. The 2 of us had done little prior planning on what to see in the citi http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Campania/Naples/blog-432545.html My last few weeks in Germany I made it a point to sort of say goodbye to my favorite cities. I couldnrsquot have been prouder to live in the state of Nord Rheine Westfallen. The state was filled with amazing cities and mind blowing sites. Even though Remscheid was not a glamorous city it still became my home and a town I miss. KlnThe city of Cologne over the year was always the place to go http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/blog-432534.html With the last few weeks winding down I decided to stay around my home state in Germany and not leave the country until my last 2 week vacation. Even though I was staying around the state of North Rheine Westphalia didnrsquot mean I wasnrsquot going to explore new thing. My host family told me they wanted to plan a goodbye dinner with some of my friends. So one night in early June we had a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Rhineland-Palatinate/blog-432530.html So after spending one night at home after Rome I had to get up early the next morning for our train to Berlin. The trip to Berlin was paid for by our program because it was a final seminar for all 75 participants. The week was basically to visit the capital and be involved in different publicity events to support the exchange program. It was also a nice way to all meet up and find out how every http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/District-of-Berlin/Berlin/blog-431228.html Seeing the eternal city of Rome has always been a dream of mine to see and I had hoped this year I would be able to go. The weekend before our final seminar in Berlin was a long so we decided to plan another blind booking. The theme we choose was culture with cities like Athens Barcelona Prague and Rome. As soon as you book the flight you find out which city you fly to and it happened to be http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Rome/blog-408114.html With the weather getting nicer and my time getting shorter I have been trying to take advantage of every weekend and every event. During one of the nicer weekends in early May I made a plan with a friend in Bonn to go hiking. We took a train along the Rheine to a town called Knigswinter where there is a beautiful castle and gorgeous hiking paths. The town is right along the river and a castle http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/Bonn/blog-406578.html With my time going so fast I thought it would be a good idea to do some final travelling before I left. German Wings is a German airline that has an offer called blind booking. What you do is pick a city theme ex East Europe Party Europe or Culture. You pay only 40 euro and the website randomly chooses a roundtrip ticket to one of the 10 different cities in the theme you choose. I had bee http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/Lesser-Poland/Krakow/blog-405859.html So the weather has finally started getting nice again in Germany. The trees are becoming green and the flowers are starting to bloom. This change of weather reminds me of how beautiful Germany is and how lucky I am to be living here. Even the malls in Remscheid decorate for the spring and upcoming Easter holiday. It has been a nice change to sit outside during my lunch break and then after wo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/Remscheid/blog-396248.html My parents had planned on coming to Germany to visit in March during my sisterrsquos spring break since I left the US and the week finally came. My parents came in on a Friday morning and I had made plans on what we would be doing during the nine days they would be in Germany. My boss at my internship was nice and gave me the week with my parents off from work. As soon as my parents got into http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/Cologne/blog-392474.html It had been a while since I had seen a new town. Since lots of my friends have moved to a new town for internship I thought I would start my visiting. A good friend named Lori moved to a town called Rttingen. It is a tiny town in northern Bavaria near the Romantic Street. It is about a 4hour train ride to her town but I always enjoy a nice train ride through Germany. I left on Friday and Lo http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber/blog-391264.html So if you have been reading my blog for a while you might remember one about a big festival in Cologne on November 11th. This blog is about the actual celebration of Karneval in Germany. So every year in the end of February Karneval is celebrated. It is the time before Ash Wednesday when people go crazy before they are supposed to fast. It starts on a Thursday they call Altweiber or Old La http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/Cologne/blog-388759.html So the school phase has finally ended and I have started an internship in Remscheid Germany. Finding an internship even unpaid was no easy task and I did not find it until the end of January and we had to start beginning of February. My job is working for city marketing for the city of Remscheid where I have lived for the last 4 months. City marketing is basically event planning for the city. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/Remscheid/blog-385028.html A strange place to celebrate a 21st since nothing is illegalSo after travelling for almost 2 weeks straight you would think I would need a break but the weekend after Dresden and Berlin was a good friendrsquos birthday. She was turning 21 and what better place for that than Amsterdam. Before heading to Amsterdam during the week we met up with another group having their midyear seminar in Bonn. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/North-Holland/Amsterdam/blog-382603.html It officially is 2009 and to kick off the New Year our program has us go to a different city with 25 other participants from my program and have a midyear seminar. The seminar that I was attending was in Dresden Germany around the first full week of January. The seminar was mostly to talk about how the program has gone so far and give constructive feedback. Also you had to work with a group an http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Saxony/Dresden/blog-382590.html I would like to start off hoping that everyone had a great Holiday season. My program asks that we do not go home for the holidays but instead stay with our host families. So this Christmas I got to experience a real German Christmas with my family and their 4 kids. It started on the 24th with going to church at around 4pm. They had a very nice Christmas Eve service with great Christmas music. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/blog-358336.html So I have mentioned the Christmas markets some in other blogs but I thought they deserved their own blog entry since I spent a lot of time at them this Christmas season. They started towards the end of November and went until around Christmas Eve. Almost every town has its own Christmas Market and each one always seems to claim it has the best of something. My first Weihnachtsmarkt Christmas M http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/North-Rhine-Westphalia/blog-358331.html So I went to school the 2 days while Steve and Julie where in Paris and got some stuff finished up before heading off to London. My flight going to London had a layover in Paris but only for like 2 hours. I got to the airport a little more than 2 hours early which was really lucky since I got to the counter and the woman said my flight was cancelled. She then told me that I was in luck and anot http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-358323.html