Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

   Hey everyone! So I've been absent for awhile but for good reason: I've been traveling in Switzerland and Germany with my housemate Sandra. The below photos are of Geneva, Switz (those are the photos until the green light) and Berlin, Warberg, and Braunschweig, Germany (these are the rest of the photos). Alright, you guys ready? Warning: this will be a long blog post--don't feel compelled to read it all. Let's get started!

     Day One: Took a train to Geneva in the morning and on the train Sandra and I met up (completely randomly) with Matt and Alex (both Americans who come from Sandra's and my university). So the four of us hung out for the day visiting Geneva and having fun. The right top photo is a famous fountain  in lake Geneva and the top left photo is me just chilling at Lake Geneva. Haha!! How cool is that? The white building is an ancient church in Geneva--to give you an idea of how old Geneva is, the town was founded around this church in 400 B.C.(whhhaaaaa???--crazy old). This church was destroyed and re-built every single time and each time they added new things while keeping as much as the old as possible. So that tour of the old city took quite a few hours and afterwards we toured a bit more but decided to rent a paddle boat and go out on Lake Geneva! The picture of the rainbow and the other one of Sandra and I are when we were out on the paddle boat on Lake Geneva. That's still so funny to me when I type the word 'Geneva'. I mean, how insane is it that I get to visit these amazing places? Pretty great. The weather was gorgeous during my vacation. Alright, so of course, since I was in Switzerland, I tried some Swiss chocolate. I visited a tiny little Chocolatier tucked  away by the lake and bought some sinfully delicious chocolate.
                                                                                         
     Pictures of Lake Geneva

      I'm going to be honest with you, dear Internet, the picture on the left of the awesome looking statue-ish/thing? I know it's suppose to be a memory to some war person but that's it. I just really liked the style. But that's just it. The fact that I can walk around the city and stumble across stunning monuments like this? Awesome. Alright, so my day is quickly (too quickly) passing and the four of us--if you remember it's Sandra, Alex, Matt, and I in Geneva--decided to go to a stupid expense restaurant and order something. Well, we did just that. We went to a restaurant on the lake and can you guess what the cost of a bottle of wine was? 1,500 chf. Whattt??? So,

 naturally, at this expensive restaurant I ordered a chocolate milkshake which cost 9chf. However, it was a wickedly yummy milkshake. The picture of me on the right with wine was at dinner. Because there were four of us (two girls and two guys) everyone kept thinking we were on a double date. Several people thought that so they kept offering us roses to buy. The photo below (the one of the mirror and post-it notes) was actually taken in a bathroom. It was an awesome bathroom

because everywhere people posted post-it notes and also there was a foosball table!! All of this IN A BATHROOM. Cool. The below photos (the one of the green light and of me with an apple) are super simple to explain. The green light was at a lighthouse in Geneva and the green light blinked out over Lake Geneva which reminded me of the Great Gatsby (any fans out there??). The photo of me with an apple was taken because it is at 4am. We had to wake up super early to take a train to catch a flight to Berlin.

      Day Two: Thus begins day two of the trip! Since Sandra and I had to wake up at 4am, we tried to get some sleep the night before but to no avail. Thus, our day in Berlin was fueled by coffee. Let me just say, I had no clue how big Berlin is! I though that we would be able to walk around it. That fantasy was quickly popped. Due to the fact that Berlin is so big, we took the metro system. Because of the metro system, we got very lost for several hours. Haha, it didn't help that I don't speak or understand German! However, we managed to have a fabulous second day of vacation in Berlin. We visited the East Side Gallery (the Berlin Wall) and the picture of me to the right is of me at the Wall! The photo of me sitting at the river is also in Berlin. The East Side Gallery was simply stunning to visit. One of the coolest things (besides all the graffiti and the symbolism of the Wall itself) was that on the back side there was an exposition of all the walls that still exist today in the world which separate people solely for political reasons. Also, another really awesome thing that Berlin (and Germany
in general does) is that they have little bronze plates in the ground which represent the place where people (a lot of Jews) lived and were killed during WWII. I was extremely impressed how Germany really does embrace their history, in regards to WWII. So many nation ignore what happened yet Germany--while not overly dwelling on the horror--acknowledges and honors the memory of the victims. Alright, enough serious talk! While walking, we grew a bit tired as the coffee began to fade away so we took a break by a park beside the Berlin Wall. It seemed like a harmless idea but oh how wrong
I was. Why you ask? Let me explain. We sat down and a few minutes later a man sat 
down beside us (seemingly harmless enough). A few minutes later, he kicks aside some leave and pulls out a bag a weed. Not a minute later he starts dealing weed with us sitting (I am not exaggerating) directly beside him. When he wasn't dealing weed, we actually struck up a conversation with him. I learned about his life (he was adopted by Canadian missionaries as a young child from Africa but eventually left and now has several ideas about religion in general). The funniest part was that when someone came up and bought pot from him, since we were talking to him, the drug-seekers actually came and shook our hand while purchasing their drugs. No one can say life doesn't have a sense of humor!  I talked to this man for about 30 minutes about his life and religion and then Sandra and I left to finish exploring Berlin. Alright, the above photo of me pointing to the ground (I'm wearing my glasses) is a photo of me standing on the approximate place of TN! After Berlin, Sandra and I traveled to Warburg and a neighboring village had this map so obviously I had to stand on it and represent Tennessee! The above photo on the right (the one of the bottle with animals in it) is a funny story. So, after being awake for almost 24+ hours, we arrive in Warburg--which was our home-base while traveling in Germany. We stayed with a family in which Sandra knew one of the sons. Anywise, back to the story! We arrive at the host family's house (who live on the grounds of a castle!) and the dad insists on having us try a display of beer, sausages, bread, etc. ( the photo of the beer below are the ones we tried that night--so so so good! I learned a bit about the differences, the quality standard that exists in Germany, etc.). But then he shows us a bottle of alcohol from China that has a
dead snake, scorpion, and other assorted dead animals. Ewwwww. But cool. Well, eventually I get to sleep and shower.

Day Three: The next morning we're off--but not before a delicious breakfast which is depicted in the below photo! The family really treated us splendidly, if you don't believe me just ask yourself who else gets a beer tasting and a breakfast like this?? Georg (Sandra's German friend) showed us around that day. The coolest thing (hands down) from that day is getting to see the Iron Curtain.
 I've posted a picture of the Iron Curtain below (it's the  one with the white wall). Fun fact: did you know that the Iron wall had 60,000 land mines, 6,000 guard dogs, car barricades, several fences--not just this one--, a clean dirt path so that the soldiers could see any footprints, and so much more just to keep East and West Germany apart? It's scary how efficient people can be sometimes. The rest of the day we explored Braunschweig--which are what the photos below are of.

     As you can see from these photos, Braunschweig is an absolutely beautiful town. The town itself is over 1,000+ years old. The streets were mainly cobble stones (of course the main streets were paved but that is it). One of the funniest things (and maybe this is a bit sadistic) but watching women walking on the cobble stone roads in high heels? Priceless. Also, something which I enjoyed was the different style of architecture. I had always heard that Germany was famous
 
for their houses and buildings that had wood built into the outside but hearing about it and seeing it are two very different things. Also, knowing that some of these building have been here for hundreds upon hundreds of years? It's breathtaking. The photo of the candles in the church is here because the walls and the ceiling of this church were painted in the ancient days. Talk about stunning. This church was one of the prettiest (I really shouldn't use the word pretty but I am at a loss of how to accurately describe this building) things I've seen. So, we're on the third day of vacation and I've already seen so much. But the adventuring continues and I keep seeing buildings that blow my mind. The picture of the locks was
something that I saw a lot in Germany. I have no clue what it represents (if it does symbolize anything even) but I kept seeing it so I figured that I should take a photo. So I get back to the family I'm staying with on this vacation (shout out to the Link family for letting me stay with them!--you all are amazingly generous!) and, after a delicious home cooked Germany dinner, the dad asks me what I want to drink tonight. Thinking that he was kidding, I laughed but no. He shortly brought out some wine and oh my gosh, let me tell you how good that white wine was. I am studying in France and I've visited Bordeaux (the nation and city of wine for crying out loud!) but that German wine was the best I have ever tasted. The dad offered me a bottle of it but I had to decline because I didn't have a checked bag to pack it in for the return flight. Let me tell you though, I was extremely

tempted to somehow buy a new suitcase just so I could take this wine back with me. 
     Day Four: I woke up a bit early and took a walk in Warburg. This area of Germany is big on harvesting sugar beets. So, the photo on the right of what looks like a mound of dirt is actually a heap of sugar beets waiting to be processed by a local factory. It's not really anything super fascinating but it's just interesting because it's a part of the German culture in Warburg and it's cool to see how proud they are of it. Well, day four was mostly exploring so I saw a lot of cool things but I won't bore you with explanations. 
     



     Day Five: Time to go back to Berlin! Sandra and I had decided to go back early to Berlin because there was so much we didn't get to see. Therefore, in order to maximize our time, we hopped on a bus tour and saw some wicked sites. Just to name a few: Checkpoint Charley, the Holocaust Memorial, and Victory Tower. Well, after the bus tour we had to attempt to navigate the terrifying monster also known as the Berlin metro system. We got on the metro and handled it pretty well if I do say so myself! We got to the Berlin airport and caught our 9 pm flight back to Geneva. Side note: the picture of me with the beer was at a cute local bar in  Braunschweig on Halloween night. Alright! Time to move onto day six of the adventures!

 

Day Six: We arrive in Geneva safe and sound only to discover that the French trains were on strike on the weekend so we couldn't catch a train back to Chambery! We ended up sleeping in the Geneva airport and caught a ride out of the airport thanks to Blabla Car (which is basically an online site where you can organize hitching rides with random people and pay them a bit of money in return) the next day. Well folks, that was my vacation! So much happened that I don't think it's possible to explain it all in this blog post. Oh, real quick, let me explain the above right photo of the weird looking line: it's the degree and angle from Berlin to Paris and was given to Germany by the French government.
     Well, I hope that this blog post (albeit long) wasn't mind numbingly dull. If so, it's not like I was forcing you to read it so why did you? But good job in finishing it and reward yourself with some chocolate! Okay, I have to go to school tomorrow so I need to be getting to bed! Good night world:)