Friday I went on a walking tour with Frau Jensen, of whom I've uploaded a pic and other pictures from that tour. Saturday a group of Goethe Insitut-eners traveled up to Lübeck. It is an old, smaller city farther north. It is most famous for Marzipan; an almond paste candy. My camera died at the beginning of the trip so I don't have many pictures, but Elizabeth took pictures for me that I can get from her later. We took a two level train from Hamburg to Lübeck and it took about 50 minutes. The day ended up being sunny but [View Full Entry]

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I've been putting off blogging because I feel like I need all this time to be descriptive about every detail and now have instead said nothing. Because that just won't fly... blog-on! Short version. Monday - Spent the day biking and meandering. In the evening I went with Maxi and Adrian to dinner in Hafen City and then onto the "Feuerschiff" supposedly to hear jazz. It was packed so we sat outside for about 20 minutes and left. It was supposed to be a "group culture experience" but it ended up three 20 year olds at a pizza place for two [View Full Entry]

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Saturday morning I got up and met Jogi, Hildegard's son, at a flea market where he helped me haggle for a bike. I am now the proud owner of a cute like 3 speed bike with one hand brake that you generally don't use. Instead its like with kid bike's, you pedal backward and those are your brakes. I rode around the city with Jogi for a while before he headed off to work. He is a bike taxi driver. He takes tourists around the city in little bike drawn carriages. He says it makes him some pretty big bucks. After [View Full Entry]

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~The evening of my birthday~ The institute has a variety of levels, A1, A2, B1, B2 etc... and after our separate courses each day, we almost always have at least some option for a 'culture' experience. Once we went to a pub which is where I talked to Max and Matthew (previous post). We went on a city tour... things like that. Friday a group of about 10 of us signed up to go on a tour of the harbor and I've uploaded a few pictures over it. While on the tour, most of those present decided we should all go [View Full Entry]

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Being away on my birthday isn't really a big deal to me at all. I haven't had a big fussy birthday since grade school and being in EUROPE is a sufficient celebration and everything on top of that... just icing on the cake! My day started off beautifully. My house mother Hildegard shows up at my door with a tray holding a giant vase of fresh flowers, a gift book over Hamburg and a kleinen Kuchen (little cake). Super! As if that's not enough, I went to class and Gladys (refer to other posts and pictures) brought me a huge bar [View Full Entry]

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I am in Deutschland strictly to study German. I am not studying any other subjects. The government run language program "Goethe Institut" is in many cities throughout both Germany and the world. Why Hamburg? I get that question a lot and don't have all that great of an answer. When I was fifteen I spent four days in Munich. Not long, but long enough to say I've at least been there to see it. So if not Munich... Berlin wasn't an option for my availability in the summer so then eventually my gut said Hamburg and I listened. I study 5 [View Full Entry]

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I live with Hildegard Winter-Otte. She is a middle aged woman with a lot of pep and two kids: a girl, 27 years old, and a boy, 23. I haven't met either yet, but she thinks I might meet her son tomorrow. Hildegard, as I call her, is a teacher of painting and... something else that I can't remember. A tom-cat lives here as well. His name is Juicy! Ein sehr netter Kater. (a great cat!) Hildegard speaks only German, which is actually a bit unusual. It seems like nearly everyone here can speak at least some English, if not fluently. [View Full Entry]

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I flew out of KCI @ 10:34 am and reached Newark @ 2:29. You can call me dim, but YES I knew Newark was close to NYC, but I didn't realize HOW close. As we lowered, I thought "Hmm, what a bunch of large buildings and sky scrapers, I wonder what city that is. Hmm, it's nearly an island amidst all that water. Hmm, that could almost be the Empire State Building! There's no way! Then where is the Statue of Liberty? Wait, actually... that other little island has a big green thing on it." (Be fair, we were still rather [View Full Entry]

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