Family, my Boyfriend and Back to Concordia

I really need to get better at this blogging stuff and write more regularly, especially as I have been busy since I wrote last month!!

After I got to see an entire side of my family at my house I spent a bit more time at home before shooting off to Nebraska to visit my cousin Rachel for some much needed cousin time. We got to spend several days together, talk a lot and do a bunch of things. Conversations went from how to do hair and make up to relationship to adapting to living with someone in an apartment, to our family and to recipes and cooking. We went to the Old market in town, yoga, took a walk, saw where she works, made Grandma dinner, attended a city league baseball game, and knitted together. I wonder how her scarf is doing anyways...

To sum up our time together, it was amazing and entirely too short. It was broken up a day early because she had to go to Colorado for a wedding that her boyfriend was in. So off I went to my Grandma's, who lives in the same town. That was good because I hadn't spent a lot of time with my Grandma (Dad's side) in the last years and so I was looking forward to spending time with her.

At her place we looked at a lot of family history information. It was neat to learn more about where my family came from and how they arrived in the USA. My Grandma had an old engagement ring from one of our ancestors which was really neat. There was an obituary in the pile of information that was about a page long fulll of positive things about this ancestor of mine. It is great to know that there have been people who have positively impacted others. Also just to think about how little information there is on some relatives leaves you wondering what their lives were like and how they lived. It was really neat to see that faith seemed to be a very important part of my ancestors lives.

Then came the day where I finally got to see Ben. I haven't mentioned him in this blog before, because I didn't really know what to say I guess. Many people already know that Ben is my boyfriend and we've been together for a little more than 6.5 months now, almost all of it with an ocean between us until we finally saw each other in Nebraska.

Which brought us on a crazy cool tour of going to a wedding and meeting lots of family and friends of his. I actually knew the bride and groom at the wedding and then also a 2nd cousin of the groom, which meant I knew a total of 4 people there before going, but it was still fun. Some of the highlights of our trip together weree flying in an experimental plane his uncle built, meeting his Mom and a set of Grandparents, learning how to play cribbage, seeing my other Grandma (Mom's side) and seeing my cousin Sarah, whom I hadn't seen in about 8 years.


In the experimental plane before take off.

The bottom line is, it was a very enjoyable time together and I am thankful for it. We actually even saw each other in time to see each other on our 6th month anniversary. We ended our time together at my parents house, he left the day after arriving there and I left my parents house a day after that.

He went to where he would be installed as a DCE one week later and I went to where I would be starting classes a week later. Those places are only 4 hours apart, which is just fine with me, because it is a lot less than having an ocean between us!

I spent the next week applying for jobs, getting things in order at school, organizing my apartment some and actually seeing some friends that I hadn't seen in over a year. The week went by quicker than I had imagined. Band start during that week, so it was fun to help the freshman get a bit oriented and to see old band friends. Being in choir I was able to sing in the opening service on the Saturday a week after arriving, which I left after and drove 4 hours so I could be at Ben's installation service that Sunday.

That was a great opportunity to visit with his Mom some more (who also drove out for the service), get to know one of his friends better and spend some time with him. His Aunt and Uncle we had visited right after the wedding actually came out to surprise him, which was great.

I got to get to know a few people from the congregation a bit and just get to know the city a little where Ben now lives. I was very happy for the opportunity.

After the weekend I made it back just in time for choir practice Monday evening and thus classes started. I am one of those seniors that has little left to finish in order to graduate. So I am sitting at 13 credits and lots of free time (night classes are great). Kate had arrived just before I went to the opening service, so by the time I returned home she had the furniture organized very nicely. The apartment really feels like home now.

Last week was filled with starting classes, finding books for classes and seeing people. I convinced my older brother Daniel to drive out for Labor Day weekend, which he left his place at 4am because he couldn't sleep any longer at 1am, silly boy! The night before he came I was able to catch up with my good friends Matt and Dan.

With Daniel we went to an art museum and learned a new game called Puerto Rico. It takes a long time to explain the rules, but I think I can now say it was worth it. We all attended my Aunt and Uncle's Church and they seemed happy to have the company.

On Sunday Ben arrived in the evening. I have been very spoiled to be able to see him so much after not ever being able to see him before. He got to meet a number of my friends, I should test him on names... :-) and we checked out the new beach Concordia has, which is pretty great. All in all it was a full weekend hanging out with friends and seeing family. Then the second week of classes start last Tuesday as we had Monday off for Labor Day.

Things have been going great and I continue to hang out with friends I have missed. It has been good starting up some new activities and getting into some old ones. I am excited to see what this semester has to offer in so many different ways.


Ben and myself

Farewell my dearest Deutschland!

On July 23rd I left Germany to return to the USA. My last bit of time in Germany was very stressful, but good.

I went on one more trip before the stress really started though. My last trip during my time in Germany was to Freiburg and Strasbourg. In Freiburg I met up with a friend I met in Tübingen because he was visiting a friend of mine there for her birthday. I also visitied a friend I met in Spain, he's from Freiburg, so it was neat to visit him at his home. Freiburg is not very large, but has some neat things there to see, like the cathedral and the castle mountain where you can get a very nice view of the city.

From Freiburg I headed over the Strasbourg for a day and saw a friend from my university. Strasbourg, unlike how the name sounds, is a French city and where the European Union has its headquarters. Strasbourg is full of things to see and is very beautiful. My friend I saw was in the middle of a two week course in apologetics. It was just really good to catch up with a friend from home.

When I returned to Tübingen the stress started. I had to finish a paper and take two exams and I left myself too little time to study and write the paper. It was ok though because I managed to finish the paper and I know I did fine on one exam. The other exam I haven't heard the results yet and on the paper I don't know yet either.

When that was all finished I had choir concerts and packing to do with a small going away party squeezed in. It was really neat that Mirja, an exchange of mine from Germany came over for my going away party. It was good to see her and catch up with her. Several friends I had made during my time in Tübingen came out for it and a few couldn't make it unfortunately.

Then I had two choir concerts, one was in Stuttgart and the other in Tübingen. They both went really well and so I was pleased to have a nice finish to my time in Germany with those concerts. It was good to see the choir people once more before leaving.

On the 23rd I got to wake up early and head to the train station. That was a funny trip because another person from the US on his way home was on the same bus to the train station as me, then in the train to Stuttgart I saw my choir director. Basically the entire semester I had not met up with the one in the bus before and on our last day we do, I had also never seen my choir director in the train before, so that was really neat.

I am already looking forward to the next opportunity to see friends in Germany again.

Below is a photo of my bike that I had to leave behind in Germany, oh how I shall miss that bike. It's old and looks basically worthless, but it works well!



Now I have been home about a week and a half and I have been enjoying time with family. It was very good to see some cousins and my aunt and uncle last weekend. My Grandma was there too, so it was one entire side of my family in one place for less than 24 hours, we have to take our family reunions as we can get them, no matter how fast the time goes by!

A few trips and soon finals

I am really happy right now that I am going to be spending some more time in Tübingen and not be traveling across the countryside all the time! This semester I have been fortunate to travel so much, but a bit of a rest from that is welcome.

After I posted last I spent 5 days with Lisa and her family in Kiel again. It was Kieler Woche (the sailboating week in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea). I wasn't there for all of it like last year. This year I also was familiar with many of Lisa's friends from the start, so it was neat to see them again and to find out what they have been doing since they graduated. Another plus this year was that I have a few friends from my exchange year that are studying in Kiel now, so I was able to see them!

I arrived on a Wednesday and Lisa and I took it easy that day. On Thursday we went to a nearby town so Lisa could drop off her art portfolio as part of an application to a university, I was also able to buy some movies, one of which is called "Das Leben der Anderen" or "The Lives of Others" in English. It won an Oscar for the best foreign language film. It is about Eastern Germany's secret police trying to find out everyone's secrets and more specifically about a playwrite's secrets. Lisa and I watched it that afternoon after returning, a very good movie! Thursday we slept in and then went to the Kieler Woche Party that evening. The good thing about this year is that Lisa didn't graduate and so she had more time to sleep!

On Friday a friend of hers that she met in Spain came over and we got all dressed up and went to Kieler Woche in our dresses then to Abiball from Lisa's school. She didn't know a lot of people there, but we had fun together! On Saturday we got to scrub a pool. Lisa's Grandma keeps fish in a pool and we were priviledged to scrub it. It was good upper body workout and the following day we were both sore! Then we also grilled afterwards, we had soo much food and it was all very delicious!

That Sunday we wanted to go to the beach, but the weather didn't cooporate. So we had coffee with friends at Lisa's house instead. That evening we went to the Kieler Woche again and there were fireworks. My fireworks for the summer as I was here for 4th of July!

Then I was home for a few days before leaving again for northern Germany, this time to visit friends from my exchange year from my school. I left on a Thursday with the train and met up with Sandra in Vechta first. Vechta is the university I was supposed to go to for the semester, but I liked Tübingen more. It was neat to see Sandra again, she had visited my university for several weeks, and so it was neat to meet up with her in Germany.


Sandra and myself

On that Friday I went to where I went to school at. I stayed at Wiebke's house and so it was neat to catch up with her. During my time there we didn't do a lot together but we are slowing doing more and more, so that is neat to see how that has developed! On Saturday we didn't do much during the day but that evening we went to Abiball from the gymnasium we both attended. We both knew quite a number of the graduates because they were in the 10th grade with us, but had gone abroad for a year or had to repeat a class.


Wiebke and myself at Abiball

One surprise at Abiball was Alex. He was an exchange student at the same school as me during the same year as me and neither of us expected to see another one of us exchange students at the Abiball. So it was really neat to see him! He had promised his host sister (who spent a year at his house in Guatamala and went to his graduation) that he would come to her graduation. What a surprise!


Gymnasium BRV Exchange Students 2002-2003

On Sunday I ate lunch with my host sister Henrike, the rest of her family was unfortunately out of town though. That evening I went to choir with the Tarmstedt Youth Choir, it was neat to see Wolf, the director, and the others from choir again! Everytime I know more people, it is really neat!


Wolf

I stayed at a choir member's house that night, her name is Birgit. She is really nice and told me some things about Chile, as she had spent a year there. Her Mom is also very sweet and speaks wonderful English!

Now I am back in Tübingen and I have to do a report and I have two oral exams coming up, so that should be interesting. Now it is study time. Choir concerts are coming up too and then I go home! The time has really flown!

This weekend we have a lot of choir practices here in town, then the next two weekends I get to sing with the choir, so it should be good! I am excited to see how the semester ends. I am counting down the days until I am home, yet I am going to be sad to leave Germany, again. :-)

My absence from blogger answered with a post!

Well, I have been off of here for a while. I have been busy doing things though. In April I continued to go to my classes (and I continue to go now as well) and got used to my differenct classes. I am taking two typed of classes. Luther's Ethic and Christianity and Islam are seminars. Basically that means there is more professor/student interaction, discussion and homework. Then Exile Literature and Genesis are two lecture classes, so the professor stands up front and basically presents his thesis. I am enjoying all of my classes and I am learning alot in all of them. I get to start writing a 15 page paper for my Christianity and Islam class soon, so that should be interesting!

At the end of April/beginning of May Carrie came to visit me. That was a nice visit, we went hiking to Bebenhausen (1.5 hours walk, not a real hike). The trail was pretty and we got to see a modern (as in beginning of the 20th century castle) with the most antlers I have ever seen! The King was a avid hunter. It was interesting to see the mix of old and new in the castle. There was also a monestery which was neat to see.

In May I returned to Sevilla to visit some of the friends I made last semester. I got to stay at the residencia that I was in last semester, which was great to see those that still live there. It was also really neat to actually see Sevilla! When I was there the whole city was under construction to make a metro (tram). They had to have that all cleared away by Semana Santa (Holy Week, they have a huge celebration in Sevilla) so they could have all the parades and processionals. The metro, however, still doesn't run, or at least it didn't a month ago when I was there!


Carmen and myself, she's a choir friend.

Also while I was in Spain I went to choir practice to see choir friends. When I was at practice, the choir director was looking for people to sing the next day. Apparently someone with a scholarship wasn't going to be coming, so he wanted to use the money somehow and offered us 30 euros to sing. So I went! It was fun to see choir people and then eat lunch with them all afterwards.


Sevilla, when you actually get to see the city!

Then I layed low a bit after Spain! I went to classes (I plan my trips around my class schedule) and did some homework, and just took it easy. The only thing I did was a day trip to München to visit my friend Isabel and pick up some of my stuff that I had mailed to her. We were able to spend a very good day together and just catch up on life. I hadn't seen her since I had visited her up north in March. I always love seeing her!


Isabel and myself in the English Gardens in Munich

I went to Düsseldorf to visit friends before my Italy trip. It was neat to see how much the twins have grown! My coordinator, Sylvia, from my exchange year is married and has twins she is rasing bilingual. They are really cute, only 2 years old! I also got to see my good friend Iris. Everytime I get to see my Düsseldorf friends it makes me very happy. They are becoming like a family to me.

Over our Pentecost break Carrie and I went to Italy. Which was pretty much amazing! We were in Rome for three days, then we stopped by Pompeii for a day and onto to Reggio di Calabria for the rest of the time. Although 3 days isn't nearly enough to enjoy everything Rome has to offer, Carrie and I left satisfied with what we saw. We saw the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Pantheon, Foro Romano, Fontana di Trevi and much much more. It even rained on us, but we didn't care!


Carrie and I in front of Fontana di Trevi

Pompeii was also really interesting to see, because it seems like a preserved ghost town. It is incredible and sad to think this city was wiped out so quickly. We ate in the modern day Pompeii and the waiters were big teases. It was funny though because we decided that the tourists must always go to Pompeii and then return to Naples for dinner, because it seemed as if us being there as foreigners was unusual in that resturaunt, that wasn't far from the train station!

Reggio Calabria was my absolute favorite. We visited my friend Francesco e Teresa that I met on my trip to Italy last semester. We also met their families! I love Italians, they were soo hospitable and were just as nice as I thought they would be. Francesco e Teresa are also simply wonderful to take us in and show us around like that. We went all over Reggio and got to see the old Greek metal statues that were pulled from underwater. Info on the statues: We also went to a birthday party in Sicily with way more food than we could eat. It all tasted great though! We also ate homecooked Italian food with Teresa's parents. On our last night we met some of the english teachers at the school Teresa takes English at. We were there over Trinity Sunday and so we went to catholic mass with them. It was all wonderful, there are no words to express how good of a time it was.


Francesco e Teresa and I in Scila


A sunset in Reggio di Calabria

After I returned from Italy I hung around Tübingen for a while again. There was a Stocherkahn race on the Neckar in Tübingen, and it is really funny. The Stocherkahn that comes in last had to drink a half liter of cod liver acid per person (ewww...). It takes place every year. English info:


A photo I took at the races, those boats are called "Stocherkahns"


Some Stocherkahns on the river side.

Last Wednesday I hiked to Wurmlinger Kapelle alone. I had a book to read to start working on my paper for Christianity and Islam and so I hike to the chapel thinking it would be quiet there and I would be able to get a lot read. I was right! It was also a wonderful hour and a half out there! I am really happy I went and got to enjoy all those wonderful things God has created here!

Choir has also been going well. It is a shame for the Church choir, because I am often gone on weekends, but hopefully I can still sing with them we we sing in Church! The catholic choir I am part of is also going well. We just had choir camp. It was Friday evening through this afternoon. We practised a lot of our music and I think we got a lot of good work in on it. Very helpful! Also it was a good chance to meet some of the other chories.

This semester has been really good so far and I am excited to discover the rest of the treasures it will give me before I go home. Treasures like spending time with old friends and making new friends, being able to take hikes and enjoy the food. All of these blessings from God.

Classes Started

Now that April is more than half over classes started for me. Which is great because now I can actually have something to do. The last two months in Germany I had spent in German classes, but those classes were not very time demanding. I spent a lot of time just sitting around doing little here, but now I have a few things on my plate.

I'm taking four classes here, three of which started last week. They are Luther's Ethic, Christianity and Islam, Genesis and Exile Literature (Exiles from Germany from 1936-1945). All but the last one started already. My Genesis class meets 4 hours a week where as the others meet only 2 hours a week. After first impressions I would say I am most excited about Genesis because the professor is very good. I will learn a bit about Hebrew in the class too, and since I am actually a language major, that is really exciting to me. They will end towards the end of July.

To go with all that, I am also in two choirs, one from my Church (a SELK congregation) and a catholic choir. They both seem good and I think they will be a lot of fun. It's so wonderful to be active again! I have also started to actually work out regularly, which is great. I have been meaning to make working out a habit and maybe, just maybe, I will make it a habit this semester. I guess time will tell.

A week ago I bought a bike. Living in this town, one needs a bike, it is a lot easier than waiting on busses, that are often not on time (which goes against the punctual Germans as a stereotype). It's been really great to have a bike... but I think I broke it somehow! Oops!! Today or tomorrow I hope to look at it and figure out what are the problems, what I can fix and what needs to be brought back to the shop to be fixed. So now I am out of a bike...

Eating Souls and the Long Night of Museums.

Yes, that is right, eating souls. Here there is something called schwäbische Seele, it's a baked good. Basically a type of bread with a special dough and such. Yummy! I could eat more souls! That's all I really have to mention on that, I just think it's funny!

On the topic of food, I also learned out to make Spätzle, it's also a typical food here in the south. It has very few ingredients, flour, eggs, water and a bit of salt. But a special apparat to make the Spätzle form. I am going to buy one before I leave and experiment with making it myself at home! I love Spätzle, but I have never had good Spätzle in the US, so now I just need to learn to make it well.

Then a few weeks ago I went to something called "The Long Night of Museums" in Stuttgart. Basically we paid 14 euros each to get in lots of museums all over Stuttgart from 7pm till 2am. The thing is that not only are the museum exhibits open, but also there is often live music in the museums and you can buy drinks and food as well. It's all about the atmosphere I think and a good chance to get an idea as to what museum should be visited in more length at another time. Kimberly and I left early though because we had been busy all day and we wanted to get a train that would bring us home without having to wait 4 hours.

A quick snapshot at what has been going on the last two months

Too many things have happened in the last two months. I think if I would try to write it all down here now, my head would would explode! So I will write the highlights and if you have any questions, please email me!

The last post about my doings I mentioned I was going to see the wind ensemble perform that I normally play it. I did get to and it was really good to see band people again. I miss being in a band, and I don't know if it will happen this semester.

Then I went to Taiwan for two weeks! That was a really great trip. I was priviledged to see my cousin, Anna, who's blog you find on my links. She teaches English there as a missionary and it was really neat to see what she does. I was really happy to get to see her again, especially since her being half the world away and me being busy at home anyways, we don't get to see each other very often anymore. She teaches three kindergarten classes and then a fourth grade class. Her students are all soo cute! We also went everywhere on the moped, that was fun. I also was priviledged to see someone name Yule, whom I had seen in Wisconsin when I visited friends. That was neat!

That was one week, during the second week I visited students who participated in graduate programs at my school. It was really neat to see what their lives at home are like and not just know them as they were abroad. They showed me around Taipei and area. That was really neat, I got to hike in some mountains, see pottery and meet their families. Those two weeks were really good because I learned a lot about their culture and how important it is that missionaries, like my cousin, are there. People, everywhere in the world, are in need of the message of Christ.

After Taiwan I flew to Germany. First I went to Bonn and spent 4 weeks at the Goethe Institute there. The class was really good and I learned in it. My classmates were also neat. There were two Tanjas from the Ukraine that both teach German for a living, yet they didn't know each other! Also while in Bonn I was able to see a friend, Carrie. We had both been exchange students in Germany in the same program several years ago. It was really neat to see each other again in the country that gave us the opportunity to meet each other.

Together Carrie and I went to Amsterdam, where we forgot to bring our hotel information with us, made for an interesting first night of trying to find it and not finding it until after midnight, and we went to Karneval in Cologne. I will be putting photos up of that in facebook shortly. Right now I am almost finished with my photos from Taiwan. Soon Amsterdam should get up there and no, no redlight district and such for us.

Now I am in the south, where I am studying for a semester. I need to search for classes and pray the classes I want are not full yet. It will be interesting to see what I end up taking. On Saturday I am going to attend the Long NIght of Museums, that should be interesting. Tonight we talked a little bit about busses and trains and trying to get back to where we live.

Ok, that is the major brief run down of what has been going on. There are many stories and many things to share, way to many to type here right at this moment. Hopefully I will post more frequently now.