Alemania!!

Hello Everyone!
First of all hope you all had a Happy Easter. It feels like such a long time since I wrote this but hopefully I´ll get back in the groove quickly. Two weeks ago we had our first nine day break. This one was for Semana Santa (holy week) which is a huge deal in Sevilla. There are people from all over that flock to the city. And as I had no intention of fighting crowds and paying high prices for things for nine days I took a wonderful trip to visit a friend of mine in Germany.
I left early Friday morning and I mean early. I woke up at 5 am to walk to the bus stop on time. However, there were rumors at school there was a strike for the buses and so this left me a little nervous. Luckily I met two really cool girls at the bus stop who were traveling to Italy (origionally from Texas) and we shared a cab. I later learned that these girls had gone on a trip through a local travel agency with two friends of mine. What are the odds. I flew out of Sevilla a couple hours late due to large amounts of fog in Barcelona (my connection airport) and so was a big nervous about making my flight to Germany. However everything went fine. My flight to Germany was delayed as well and met so many people in the airports it was kind of cool. One of the airline stewardesses even let me use her cell phone to call my friend because I couldn´t get the payphones to work. How nice is that! Anyway I landed fine in Germany, took the fast train to my friend Susanne´s university town and was met with a huge hug!!! It was a happy reunion let me tell you. And things even worked out for the best because had I arrived earlier her boyfriend would have had to get me (who is very nice by the way) But this way she was able to meet me there and we had delicious pizza and talked the rest of the night in her very nice apartment/university housing. I was jealous of the space let me tell you.
The next day we took the train to her family´s home in Neustadt. There I was able to meet her parents and brother who were all amazingly welcoming. Susanne showed me her home town, whose symbol is the goat because during the middle ages when the city was about to be captured a man killed the last goat, wore his hide, and ran around the city walls. The intruders figured it would take too long to capture if they still had food running around like this and left the city alone. I thought it was a really cute story. Anyway we had endless amounts of wonderful traditional food. Lots of sausage and hearty bread and things. So good!! That night we played a card game called Mau Mau with her mother. The game itself was really fun and the wine only made it even better :) We were all a little goofy at the end. I sadly didn´t win, Susanne beat us all but really enjoyed the game and learned some German words in the process.
The next day we headed back to Wurzberg where Susanne studies and got a tour of the town. Her boyfriend Matthias joined us for a tour of the city and took me to the Residenz (Palace) when Susanne had choir practice. That night we all went to her concert. It was in memorial of the bombing and burning of practically the whole city of Wurzberg during the second world war. The concert was really moving and afterwards the streets were filled as we all listened to the sounds of the church bells which ran for the duration of time that the city was bombed. Twenty minutes in all. Afterwards we drove back to Neustadt for a good nights sleep.
The next day we headed to Nurnberg a slightly larger city close by. There we went to the soccer stadium that Susanne worked at during the world cup (Germany was the last country to host two years ago). We also saw the grounds on which Hitler gave many of his important speeches. It was eery how large the space was and to think what happened on those grounds. There were many other great things that we saw there as well in the city center but I think I should start cutting this down lol. That night we went to a bar back in Neustadt to meet Susanne´s sister who was just as nice as the rest of the family.
Tuesday we went to Munich. The train lasted about three hours and we were able to sleep in which was nice. We saw so much throughout the city center it was unbelievable. My favorite part however was seeing the Alps! I guess I was rediculously lucky as we were able to see them from a church tower. It was the first time Susanne had seen them from it and we tried to get pictures though none really captured well what we saw. That afternoon we took the train back and had one last night of good sleep in Germany.
The next day we went to Rottenburg. This is a huge touristy city and I can see why. It was really cute with lots of different shops to see (Including a Christmas shop which I loved. We weren´t allowed to take pictures so we snuck a couple in at the beginning.) They also had a really interesting museum that we went to about punishments during the Medival Times. They really had some cruel ideas back then but most were really interesting. Finally we walked around the city wall, which is one of the few walls still intact today, before it started storming and was our cuew to head home. That night we had a large dinner and afterwards Susanne and I drove to Wurzberg where I caught the train to the airport. We said our sad goodbyes and I was off.
I spent a lot of time in the airports that day as I waited for 8 hours in frankfurt and 8 in Barcelona. To be honest though it went really fast. I had a huge amount of food to keep me full from Susanne´s family and a book to distract me from the large amount of studying that I should have been doing.
When I arrived in Sevilla I came home to the large mobs of Semana Santa. There were people everywhere waiting for the processions. I was more concerned about getting home and sleeping. It was really nice though because my Señora had had her family over for their holiday meal and I got the leftovers! So good.
The next day I went with my Señora to the processions practically right outside our house. It was incredible. The rest of the weekend I spent with friends just walking around the city and doing some studying since I had two exams on Monday!! Horrible I know. But I got through and now I am heading to Madrid tomorrow and will be in Toledo for the rest of the weekend :)
Hope you all have an amazing weekend!
Lizzylu

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