Blogs from Schwäbisch Hall, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Europe

No need to bore you with the details of another massive buffet breakfast. As you have probably surmised by now, I experience the culture of a land by what I can toss into my belly. And I certainly appreciate the German culture. Checking out of the hotel I was more than a little bummed to realize that we were entering the final phase of this European Delivery operation. Henceforth the rest of the mission would involve one night stands as we made our way down country to our extraction point at Munich Johan Strauss Airport. Upon punching in the address of the next hotel into the GPS I began to question my own wisdom in planning the next leg of our sojourn. Like my bounteous breakfast this morning I fear I bit off more than I ... read more

Where to begin...It's crazy to think about the fact that I have been in Europe for almost a month. It's INSANE! I feel like I haven't done nearly enough. Classes have been very useful. I feel my foundation of German growing. I wish I could understand people better. Sometimes the southern dialect is a bit difficult to understand. One of the most frustrating parts of learning German is vocabulary. Oh how I wish I had a larger german vocabulary. I've been speaking a lot of Denglish (Deutsch and English). Recently, the Goethe Institut had a movie night. The movie is called, "Das Leben des Brian" (The Life of Brian). If the english name sounds famliar to you it is because it is a Monty Python movie. It was originally made in English and was horribly dubbed ... read more

The first day of class was somewhat scary. We were sorted into classes (kinda like Harry Potter). Jochen Gaile, my teacher, is amazing! I think he's a cartoonist (or at least he should be). At the first break of the day I have created a routine of going to the bakery. YUM! Classes seem to pass fairly quickly. There is homework every night but nothing unmanageable. The first student Laura and I ran into happened to be an Australian. It is still summer break for the australians so there are 6 or 7 here. It's been amazing meeting people from everywhere (Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Poland, Thailand, Japan, Iceland, and even the US). There are so many languages being spoken although at times it is hard not to speak English because pretty much ... read more

The train transitions to Germany were a lot less painful than our trip to France. It took about 5 hours to get from Paris to Schwaebisch Hall but it wasn't too bad. Also, the sun was shining all the way to Germany!!! Once we got to the last train station it was time to find the hotel. We took a taxi. It was probably one of the best decisions I've made in my life. The taxi driver loaded our luggage into his cab for us and took us to the hotel and then took our luggage in. It was the best 10 Euros ever spent. The Hotel Sonneck is a quaint little place with a restaurant on the main floor. The beds were nice and comfortable, we had our own bathroom and it even had a ... read more

This week I have not traveled to any exotic locations. I did do a lot of bike riding around Schwabisch Hall. My teacher, Hakan, he likes to bike a lot and always asks the class if anyone was interested in going on a ride with him. The first time he offered, I was the only one that showed up. We went on a 30 kilameter bike ride outside of Schwabisch Hall. We stopped at a village for some cake and drinks. There we had some interesting conversations and tt was nice to get to know Hakan on a personal level. After we had our break we went back to Schwabisch Hall to call it a day. Well, after I got back and put my bike away my butt hurt so bad. I felt sore the next ... read more