Day #289

The day of Tom and Tina's birthday party slash Martin's going away party! Exclamation point for the extreme happiness and sadness! 

To celebrate all of these things, a ton of people came out to the bank of the Neckar during the day. Throughout the last few days, I had been collecting signatures for Tom's birthday card, which was a fabulous compilation of weird pictures of him doing weird things or making weird faces. I put this card inside a mug that said "#1 Dad" in german, wrapped around a stick. Because, as you may have heard, good friends STICK together. 

Oh yes, Internet, that is the holiday card I gave out to my friends during my sophomore year of high school. World, meet 15 year old Kim and Tom. In perfect friend fashion, Tom kept it and showed me this picture before he came backpacking with me. In also perfect friend fashion (if I do say so myself), I replicated that card for his 21st birthday. 

On the sad side of things, my friends and I took a picture with Martin who deserted us early; this is still the background for the lock screen of my phone:

Sorry I ruined the picture with my lack of sunglasses, everyone.

We headed back to Mensa and our friend Alex played some sad songs to set the mood, ending with a classic rendition of Closing Time. As we've learned from that song, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Day #288

As was the norm for most Monday's, my morning was probably very slow. I may have done some laundry; I may have eaten at Mensa. I definitely went to my German class, and I remember it being very warm, and thus we were in the larger room. They may have been the time I successfully told my german professor, auf Deutsch, that my housemeister spelled my last name "Braun" (the german spelling) on my mailbox, so I didn't get my mail for about a week (which thankfully didn't really matter because I didn't get a whole lot of mail there anyway).

I definitely went to a cafe to do some homework, and I definitely freaked out a little about how much stuff I still had left to do before leaving. I know this because I have a picture. It is not a picture of me. Instead of saying hello to each other, my friends and I take pictures of the people in our group message and send those creepy pictures to said group message when we spot them from afar. Example A:

This is what I shall call an Inception Picture. I was spotted while I spotted my friend. Double picture. Though I will assure you, I posted mine to our group message first.

But what we knew definitely happened was celebrating my friend's second to last day AND we stayed up until midnight because the next day was Tom's birthday! 

Day #287

Ah, Sunday's- the days nothing is open, the trams don't run frequently, and my wifi was out. I walked to town to receive messages about getting lunch at my friend's house, then proceeded to head back in the direction of my own house (since that's the direction in which my friend lived). She made us delicious käse spatzle (a kind of german macaroni and cheese dish, but with heartier, denser noodles and real cheese), for which we were all eternally greatful. 

Later that night, since everything was closed, a few friends and I hung out on the balcony near Tom's apartment for a few hours since it was one of the only public-ish places open. We even took a fabulous selfie to commemorate it.

We're pretty darn cute.

Day #286

This day is a shoutout to my dear friend Sasha. We spent the entire day cafe-ing and talking and planning and laughing and covering everything from something to nothing plus some here and there in between. To commemorate our day together, we decided to get married. Here's the Instagram post about it so you know it's legit:

And the completely convincing caption:

Funnily enough, Sasha started getting follows and likes from engagement photographers. I guess that #engaged hashtag is more powerful than we could have ever imagined.

We spent the night watching America's National Treasure (which is, of course, the movie National Treasure) and marveling at Nick Cage's acting. Or something like that.

Day #285

One of my friends left about a month before everyone else, and his parting wish was for everyone to have a super duper fancy dinner picnic in the gardens of Heidelberg Castle. My friends and I readily obliged. 

Three of my friends and I got ready together, then took the bus to his apartment. On the bus ride there, we were being extremely funny (as we are wont to do), and noticed someone take out his earphones to listen to our jokes and smile or chuckle every once in a while. I don't mean to alarm anyone... But we are incredibly hilarious. Thank you, stranger, for letting us make your day.

After getting to our friend Martin's apartment, we and some more friends headed up to the castle, and saw this sight:

 It came as a surprise to literally no one that Good Guy Tom had been waiting for us up on the mountain for 45 minutes, unable to contact anyone because of lack of wifi, with a cake of Swedish pancakes he had spent a few hours making from scratch. Classic.

We had a delicious picnic and beautiful toast (that involved something touching about friendship that none of us could quote back to you, no matter how hard we try), then documented our dapper outfits with a few photos.

...and then a different location for more photos with the actual castle setting instead of just grass and a tree!

And, of course, Tom and I had to snap a quick mom & dad pic:

An interesting fact about the castle: apparently the inside is free after a certain time. And gosh darnit, we were after that certain time! We got to explore the courtyard and real balcony overlooking Heidelberg all to ourselves as the sun set over the mountains and the Neckar. We put our salsa moves to the test (remember that one salsa class we took at the rec center before classes even started?) 

Oh Heidelberg. What an incredibly magical place.

Day #280-284

I was inspired to try to finish this blog by seeing my Grammy, Uncle, and my uncle's now fiancée (YAY CONGRATS TO YOU TWO GAH) who all mentioned my blog to me. Also I need to delete the blogger app on my phone to make space for other things, and I can't delete it until I'm done. It's about time. *takes deep breath and prepares to finish this darned thing*

The days after Copenhagen were filled with lots of studying. You know, the kind that wasn't done in Copenhagen. My friends and I hung around Mensa a lot, as  it had free wifi, food, good company, and caffeine. We played a game with the rules "everyone in the game is named Sasha" and "no pointing", which resulted in very confusing conversation consisting of such phrases as, "Could the Sasha in the red shirt please pass the butter." 

By this time, I'd also been the sole source of my 16 year old cousin's Harry Potter knowledge. Not having read the books himself, he would watch the movies and message me with questions about all the things the writers and directors left out. Spoiler alert: there was a lot. For example:

...and so on. 

Day #279

Monday, June 22

Unfortunately, this was the day we left Copenhagen. We brought our bags with us and ventured to (wait for it....) THE POST AND TELEGRAPH MUSEUM! That's right people, Copenhagen has a museum entirely for mail and phones. It had sheep made of telephones. Weird, but cool? I guess?

Also there was a boat?

On our way out of the museum, some lady asked us to watch her baby. I guess the Danes think that only responsible people visit the Post and Telegraph Museum on a Monday before noon? 

We headed to the airport and, thankfully, had an uneventful flight and bus ride back to Heidelberg. Peace for now, Copenhagen. 

Day #278

Sunday, June 21

So there's this giant tower in Copenhagen at the Church of Our Savior and we climbed all the way to the top of that thing to take some pretty panoramic pictures of the surrounding area. LOOK HOW TALL!!

We also explored this place called Christianshaven which is basically the part of Copenhagen where people aren't allowed to take pictures because that's where all the drug deals go down. We did not know this when we went there. It was a little bit scary because people wore things over their heads (so they couldn't be recognized for illegally selling drugs) and people seemed like extreme hippies, but in a slightly more alienated way. Not a place that I want to revisit. But a cultural experience? I guess? Maybe? 

To recover from the sketchiness, we got some delicious (and inexpensive!) sandwiches, sat by the canal, and watched tour boats go by. We counted the amount of tourists who took our picture thinking we were locals and posed for them. Joke's on you, tourists, it's only our sandwiches that were authentic- authentically DELICIOUS! *drops microphone and retires from career as a comedian*

We jumped on a few more sidewalk trampolines and walked around the town center and a giant park (since it was Sunday and, as we know in Europe, almost everything is closed on Sunday's). We found an open grocery store and bought rations for dinner, making a delicious stir fry and watching the sun set from the balcony of our Airbnb as we ate dinner. Not too shabby, to be sure.

Day #277

Saturday, June 20

So I'm going to brag about my engineering skills a little bit, since they're hidden very, very deep inside my talented being and usually don't crop up very often; this was a rare case of technical ingenuity. Even Matthew, the mechanical engineering student brother, complimented my work. Here's how it all went down:

In the bathroom of our Airbnb, the shower appliance was attached to the faucet in such a way that you have to turn on the faucet and pull a lever in order for the water to come out the shower head. Unfortunately, the lever must stay pulled out for the water to continue running through the shower, and the lever did not want to stay pulled out on its own. Kimberly puts on her thinking cap, and voila:

I attached two hair bands together so that one was around a hook above the sink, and one was tied around the lever, effectively keeping the lever until the contraption was unhooked from the hook, and the lever went back in and the water flowed back out the faucet. All this from a student of words and books and people!

BUT THAT WASN'T EVEN THE BEST PART OF THE DAY, FOLKS! Oh yes, Copenhagen had many a surprise in store for us on this day.

First of all, may I just say... Sidewalk trampolines. Yes, you read correctly. Trampolines that are built into the sidewalk. Need to relieve some stress? Sidewalk trampolines. Need some extra exercise on your morning jog? Sidewalk trampolines. Want world peace? Sidewalk trampolines, I'm convinced, would be the answer.

As for the rest of the day, we took a boat tour of the canals (during which we saw some ESPN-type of competition for diving, which took place off the roof of an enormous building build on the water), were hailed on for roughly 10 minutes and hid in a public bathroom before it became a beautiful day, and saw the quintessential town center of Copenhagen. 

We visited the statue for Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid", some windmills, and finally Hans Christian Anderson's grave (a tad creepy, but cool) before heading home for the day.

Day #276

Friday, June 19

Copenhagen, yeah! My two friends and I took a train to the Frankfurt airport around 9am, then (after figuring out those darn electronic ticket things and having our gate changed one we finally got close to the depths of the airport) boarded our plane at noon! I pretty much just read Harry Potter the entire ride, as per usual. And snapped this classic plane picture.

We landed a little after 1, and got to our Airbnb around 3, leaving plenty of time for exploring the rest of the day! Our Airbnb was a super adorable studio apartment with a balcony that overlooked the sunsets at night. Speaking of sunsets, we were in Copenhagen during the longest day of the year- over 17 and a half hours of daylight! Funnily enough, I was pretty far north for the winter solstice as well, and enjoyed 6 splendid hours of sunlight while traversing the Scottish highlands. 

We explored Trivoli Park, which is kind of like Epcot in Disney Land (World? I mean the one in Florida) with rides and food from different countries and, most importantly, AN EPIC PLAYGROUND. 

The coolest part? On Friday nights in the summer, Trivoli Park puts on concerts free with the entrance fee to the park. So, for roughly $15, we got hours of culture, food, rides, playgrounds, and JESSIS J LIVE IN CONCERT. If you don't know who Jessie J is, go look up her acoustic cover of "Bang Bang" on YouTube. Even if you don't like the song, you gotta admit she is extremely talented and has such a versatile voice. Who would have thought we'd see her live in concert in Copenhagen? What??Like how does this even happen???

Very tired but extremely happy, we headed back to our Airbnb and slept for days. 

That's a joke, I promise we didn't waste all of our time in Copenhagen sleeping.

Day #275

Thursday, June 18

Literally this day was nothing more than packing for Copenhagen and finishing a paper, no wonder I didn't post about this. Here's a door from our English department: 

They're really passionate about learning.

Day #274

Wednesday June 17 

So you know how I love saving money? If not, go back and read about how, for the first 5 months of this blog (when I was actually good at updating), the two themes were basically "free" and "food", preferably together. So that saving money thing. I waited it out- a skirt that cost €30 when I first got to Heidelberg WENT ON SALE FOR €7. Patience is a great thing, friends. I took a pic to commemorate the day in my new skirt. 

Also I made some friends with two lovely cows. And became a cow myself.

As for the rest of the day, I went to class and Mensa and studied with my friends and all things good.

Days #270-273

There were a few relatively uninteresting days, during which I took two german tests, studied a lot as a consequence (though in the opposite order of how I just listed those two activities), had some gr9 (better than gr8, better known as "great") talks with my lovely British friend Sasha, and stayed late at Mensa playing card games with the fam. 

In other news, Tom decided to set me a new background for my phone:

"Hey. Hey everyone. Hey where are you all going? Can I come with you? Hey? Guys?"

Day #269

Sunday, June 14. CLOSER!

Wow I studied a LOT of german on this day in the history of Kimberley's life. We're talking massive amounts. I also booked the Airbnb for my family's stay here (YAY) for during our time in Konstanz. My friends persuaded me to take a break from studying to explore the playground on the banks of the Neckar river. It was certainly a sight to behold. There was a thing that spins like a top where you RUN REALLY FAST HOLDING THE THING AROUND THE EDGE then you REALLY QUICKLY JUMP ON IT AND SPIN!

There was another cool pink car that rocked back and forth and allowed us to take an impressive selfie.

Don't worry, we waited it out so we got to go on the cool rides. But it did take a while- apparently those kids get to stay out really late on Sunday's! There were a lot of interesting people there, including one guy with long hair who kept challenging everyone to ping pong tournaments and kids that were hogging the fun rides. In other news, Heidelberg was beautiful. But what else is new?

Three photos to make up for my lack of photos in the last post. Okay?

Day #268

Saturday, June 13, 2015. Getting there. Poco a poco. Or should I stick with the German and say Stück für Stück? Yeah no that's pretty ugly. I'll stick to Spanish for this one. This one's short anyway.

A late start to the day. One of the local food eatery and bars, The Brass Monkey, closed on this day, so we got drinks and celebrated our first (and unfortunately last) trip to the fine establishment. We decided against going out, and instead ate gelato along hauptstraße to end our evening which, in all fairness, is arguably how all evenings should end.

Day #267

Friday, June 12, 2015. Yes, a very long time ago. I know I know I know it's been almost a month (that's TERRIFYING, by the way), but at least I'm doing it, right???

After a rather uneventful course of morning events, my friend and I traveled to a new location: a lake! Who knew there was a lake near Heidelberg? Apparently my friend, that's who. 

It's in a place called Weinheim (pronounced Vine-Hime), and is actually more of a pond than a lake. One of my friends there is from Scotland, and she was excited because she had never seen a lake before! 

Although we didn't swim in the lake, we read Harry Potter (at least the 2/4 of us who had the various books downloaded on our respective devices) and took the very long way back. However, the way back resulted in a super cool tram stop, so I wasn't complaining. 

It was an evening filled with watching videos of Manny Ramirez's best bloopers, Mensa food, and the Alte Brüke. 

Days #259-266

Am I counting these days correctly? Questionable... But we'll pretend they're right. In any case, it's somewhere around day 266 or so.

KAYLA!

For those of you who don't know, Kayla was my roommate last year at Umass and has been studying abroad in Japan for the past academic year. On her way back to the states, she stopped to visit me in Germany!!

The first day she got here, we explored downtown Heidelberg and had döner and gelato, obviously. Because that's what you have to do.

The next day we headed to Brussels with a bus layover in Köln (better known to English-speakers as Cologne) where there happened to be a Star Wars convention/exhibition/something going on, which was obviously not a coincidence.

In other news, we survived our 8 hour bus ride!

The next day we day-tripped to Bruges, which is gorgeous and old and has a river and the Blood of Christ and delicious Belgian waffles and chocolate. 

Nope, that's not a postcard. (But if you know anyone who would want to buy it off me to make it into a postcard, I wouldn't say no....)

We got back to Brussels around 6pm and since it doesn't get dark here until roughly 10pm, we explored for a while, including the royal palace and some gardens.

And may or may not have had another Belgian waffle.

Our last day in Brussels we went to the cathedral, downtown market area, saw some famous statues, and were asked to participate in filming a commercial for backpacking since we were carrying our backpacks.... Just a normal day in the life.

We bus'd to Düsseldorf, where we met out couchsurfing host and I headed the Baguette Brogade, warranting me a giant stink eye from watching children.

The next day in Düsseldorf we explored the Altstadt, did some cartwheels (because apparently that's how they celebrate things there), drank delicious hot chocolate, and saw a statue that definitely depicts the Ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings- just a casual day of exploring.

And then we headed back to Heidelberg!

I had classes Wednesday, so Kayla day tripped to Schwetsingen while I studied. We got pasta for dinner and she met some of my friends to prove that she's real. Unfortunately she left yesterday, but not before she, Tom, and I hiked Philosophersweg and got one last Döner Box together.

Days #248-258

Hooooooo-kay so I'm gonna break this baby up into comprehensive pieces so that you as well as I can understand this long stretch of time during which I have neglected to update this blog. These two sections are going to be "Pre-Kayla" and "Kayla".

Pre-Kayla:

Exciting news! I have booked my transportation and accommodations for both Copenhagen and Berlin! Long bus rides and student-prices flights, here I come! 

In other news, my friends know me very well:

I also explored Bergfriedhof, the mountain graveyard for which my tram stop is named. It's actually very beautiful, and a nice hike when you don't think about the dead bodies slowly decaying below you. Or maybe you think that sort of thing is kind of symbiotic and beautifully poetic in a starving artist kind of way. 

My brothers loved me, as per usual:

I went to a few coffee shops with beautiful coffee art to do homework and found a cool yellow house, both of which I promptly instagrammed:

My friend Heidi and I explored the Heidelberg castle and climbed a billion stone steps to get to the top of the mountain behind the castle and see all of Heidelberg from above, but more importantly, we successfully used the self-timer on my phone to capture our High School Musical jump:

Later that day, Tom and I used the paella recipe we got while in Barcelona to make 4 heaping frying pans of paella for our friends. It was rather challenging, as the recipe had no measurements, exact times, proportions, or numbers of any kind. That being said, it tasted delicious and we actually managed to eat all of it!

 

And that's what you missed on last week's episode of Where in the World is Kim Brown, tune in for the next update soon! 

(No, really)

(It'll actually be soon this time)

(I promise)

Days #245-247

The last few days have been looking up! On Saturday a few friends and I took a trip to the Schwetzingen Palace, which happens to be only about 5 miles away and on my semester ticket, which means that transportation was free! The Schwetzingen Palace is like a very small version of Versailles, with extremely large and expansive gardens, a mosque, lakes, fountains, birds, the whole shebang. 

The front of the palace

The pink mosque 

A ceiling in the mosque 

Some gardens with some A+ trees and flowers

We also saw about ten million wedding photo shoots (by which I mean about 5). 

After our day out, we spent the night watching this god-awful tv show called Eurovision, which is a singing competition between European countries. Each of them enters a song that ends up being very bad, and the least bad song wins the competition! It was highly entertaining. Spoiler alert: Sweden won! Congrats on entering the least bad song, Sweden! 

Sunday and Monday have been spent doing homework, laundry, cleaning, organizing, and other various household activities. Last night I went to see a play called "God Sees Dog", which is supposed to be about the Peanuts all grown up and in high school. It pretty much ruined my childhood, and I'm still deciding whether or not it was worth seeing. But all of the actors did a good job and it was a well produced play! And in English!

My family decided to go to my Papa's house without me, but it resulted in this snap chat of my dog, which is pretty darn adorable.