Back in Trier

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Morning everyone,
I've been meaning to write again, but somehow the time just keeps disappearing. So, I'm writing before class 'cause I know once I start working on things I'll run out of time again. The rest of my Christmas break was really nice. Mama and Papa came back from Spain in the evening of the 1st. They both had the day off on the 2nd, so we went to Essen in the afternoon. They had to exchange a jacket and I just went along for the ride. =) As we were leaving, we saw the movie theater and decided we'd see if anything good was playing. There was, but we had time for dinner first so we ate at New Orleans. hehe.. I had a Chicken Ceasar Salad... hadn't realized how much I had missed that salad... it was delicious. =) Dinner was quite nice. After that we walked back to the theaters and watched "Merry Christmas". It's a German movie about last last Christmas of the 1st world war when the Irish, Germans, and French ended up calling a temporary cease fire in the trenches and celebrated together. It was a really good film.

On the 3rd, I caught a train down to Hanau, near Frankfurt, to visit Andrea. She was visiting a friend stationed there. That was tons of fun. I got there in the evening on the 3rd, so we didn't do a whole lot, just chilled. Wed. afternoon we caught a train to Frankfurt and walked around the city. Oh, just a side note... exchanging traveler's checks is a pain in the butt. Andrea had some she wanted to exchange, so we just walked around until we found a bank... and being Frankfurt is the financial center of Germany it wasn't really hard. So we went to the first bank and I explained to the teller that Andrea wanted to exchange her traveler's checks. Nope, they no longer do that there. So, we walked on and found an "International" bank... they should exchange those, right? Wrong... but the guy gave me directions to a place we could go to. It was an American Express place, just for traveler's checks. How inconvienient cause there can't be very many of em. In fact it's the only one I've ever seen. So, if you're thinking of bringing traveler's checks to Germany I wouldn't recommend it.

On that side note... We didn't really do much except walk around Frankfurt. I had bought a little book for a self guided tour, but we couldn't find any of the places we were looking for. The map in the book really wasn't that great. Oh well, it was still fun to just walk around and look. For lunch we looked long and hard for a place to get "German" food. It's really easy to find Italian, Turkish, Greek and in Frankfurt even Indian food, but to find German food... good luck. We eventually found a place though. (Andrea really wanted to have traditional German food). We also went into a Cathedral. I love cathedrals in Europe. They're so old and so ornate. After that we took the train back to Hanau. That night we went bowling on one of the bases. (It's so weird being on a military base. It's the US in Germany... such a weird feeling).

Unfortunately Thur. came way too quickly. My vacation came to a close. I caught a train from Hanau and came back to Trier. I really really did not want to be back here. It was kinda depressing walking back into my apartment because I had this heavy weight of everything I have to get done in these next three weeks. The first and most oppressive task was the presentation I gave on Mon. I had no idea what I was doing or how I was even going to begin and I only had a day to figure it out before meeting with my group. My groups topic for the presention was "What is Europeanization?". There were 4 of us in my group and we had to present two different definitions of Europeanization and then give examples. We also had to explain how the term is different that "European Integration". My partner and I had to use the definition from Robert Ladrech, and American political scientist that's now teaching in England. Fri. Sabine, my partner, and I chatted online and picked apart Ladrech's two articles 'cause neither of us understood what he was saying. That helped immensly. I finally felt like I knew what I was doing. Sat. and Sun. I met with the whole group and we went over all the little things. I also put together the power point presentation. That took a lot of work, but it felt good to be able to be an active participant instead of being dragged along. Mon. I was really nervous, but was really glad when the presentation was over. It went well. =)

I allowed that to sink in a little and enjoy a very brief break. But now it's time to prepare for the next presentation that I'm giving on Mon. This one is a group presentation too. Our topic is the economic organization of the German political system. My part of the presentation is to talk about the economic requirements for globalization. =) Right up my ally and my group didn't even know that I was a global studies major. But I still have lots of reading and research to do before then and I pretty much have to have it all done by tomorrow morning, as I'm meeting my group tomorrow to put together the handout for the class, which has our outline on it. And the sad thing about this one... most of my material is in German so it makes it a little more difficult to work with. It's one thing to have to read something and get something out of it than to have to read it and be able to present the material to others. Oh well... it will work... I have a little more confidence now that the first one went well. I have to get ready for class now. I hope you all have a good day. Ciao!

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Photos

Hotel Frankfurter Hof
I just liked how it looked

The three of us in front of a restaurant in Frankfurt