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.

Days #232-244

So, it's been quite the few weeks. Here are a few updates:

Monday May 11-Tuesday May 19 I have been varying degrees of sick, starting with a fever, then progressing to a sinus infection and then to tonsillitis. I am still a little bit congested but I am done with my antibiotics and (hopefully) in the clear!

Tuesday, May 12 I was printing in the university library for a presentation later that day, and my phone was stolen while I was retrieving the copies. My presentation was cancelled later that day.

I spent Wednesday, May 13 - Sunday May 17 in solitary confinement trying to get better, with the exception of leaving to go to the doctor.

I was supposed to go to Zurich, Switzerland on the weekend of May 15-17, but because of my illness I wasn't able to go.

I spent most of Monday-Wednesday the 18-20 doing homework and catching up on what I missed while I was sick. My main assignment was a presentation with a partner that ended up taking much longer than we thought. When I arrived at my 9am class after a 25 minute tram ride, I found out that class was cancelled and our presentations would take place the next week.

I was supposed to leave for Athens, Greece on Thursday, May 21 to meet one of my best friends for her 21st birthday. My flight left from Stuttgart at 8:25am. The day before I left (Wednesday), I left my language class at 6pm when I heard that there was a German Bahn (transportation) strike. I went straight to the central rail station to check on my train to the airport the next morning, and they told me that there were no transportation options to get me to the airport on time. I went straight home to find alternate options, but because I didn't cancel my flight more than 24 hours in advance I couldn't get a refund, and without a refund I couldn't afford to buy replacement tickets. Long story short: no Greece.

Yesterday my friends and I tried to plan a trip to Salzburg, Austria to see the hills alive with the sound of music, but, alas, that didn't end up panning out either. 

It's been quite the few weeks.

On the up side, my fabulous mother helped a LOT and picked up and shipped me a new phone in time for me to go to Greece, so I do in fact now have a phone again. 

And these few weeks can go nowhere but up from here!

Have a picture of Nolan imitation a statue, aka:

OH AND I now officially have a flight home! August 4, see ya, America! 

Days #217-231

So I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd updated my blog until three of my family members all contacted me on the same day to ask if I was ever going to update it again. I suppose that's when you know.

Since it's been roughly two weeks (EEK, SORRY), I'm going to give you a play-by-play, real quick rundown of a few highlights because it's been JAM-PACKED, NON-STOP FUN, YEAH!

Friday, April 24:
This was a momentous occasion indeed. The Heidelberg ESN (Erasmus Students Network) arranged an international dinner where everyone brings food from his or her own country, and you vote on the best food. Fittingly, Tom and I made Swedish meatballs to represent our Swedish heritage. You know, since we're cousins. AND WHO WOULDA THUNK- WE WON THE PRIZE FOR BEST SAVORY DISH! Granted, we did alter the original recipe a little bit by adding some taco seasoning... but it all worked out in the end.

Saturday, April 25 - Sunday, April 26
SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT, WOO HOO!!!!! My friend Heidi (who is from California and part of my program here in Heidelberg) and I accompanied the Heidelberg softball team to an overnight tournament about an hour away where we played 7 games, camped outside in tents on the grass, and pet at least 6 dogs. 

I got to play left field, second base, and catcher, and here's the thing about German softball slash German sports in general: No. One. Cheers. At all. Everyone is silent. So of course, Heidi and I were the loudest ones on the team (she played softball in high school as well). 

We played against lots of american teams that were mostly comprised of people who were stationed in Heidelberg and decided to stay in the surrounding areas. But these teams were... well.... very American. I'm talking pink and american flag camo, culturally insensitive team names, talking about how America is the best country in the world, didn't-ever-bother-to-learn-any-German Americans. No wonder we get a bad reputation abroad.

BUT despite all this, we had a fabulous time- our coach brought his guitar and we sang along before going to bed Saturday night. Even though we left Heidelberg at 6am Saturday morning, slept on the ground, and played 7 games before getting home at 6pm Sunday night, I was extremely happy (and exhausted) when I got back.

Monday, April 27 - Wednesday, April 29
Classes.
Also, I realized on Wednesday that I had a presentation due Thursday LOL but it was on a play that I had already read, and it was a super interesting topic, so I didn't mind staying up all night to work on it!

Thursday, April 30
My presentation went off without a hitch! I even included a Harry Potter slide, which made everyone laugh and now maybe the Germans in my class will accept me and think I am funny, which would be totally brill (an abbreviation for "brilliant" that my adorable British friend uses). There was also some kind of festival up on a mountain, but as it was raining and kinda cold and I hadn't slept the night before I decided to forgo that idea and, instead, sleep forever.

Friday, May 1
Yay for no classes on Friday! Two of my friends and I did a day trip to Stuttgart, which is a little over an hour southeast of Heidelberg by train. We got to explore Stuttgart's Fruhlingsfest, and it was actually very lucky that it was raining because a) since we spent most of our time inside it didn't affect us anyway and b) because the inside parts were MUCH less crowded, and therefore we could breathe and see and not get run over! We explored the city a bit, and even got a rose from a man dressed in lederhosen, which apparently is a big deal. Other exciting things: we saw roughly a billion bachelorette parties, and Stuttgart had a Dunkin Donuts in their train station.

Saturday, May 2
HOLI! Holi is an Indian festival, which is the celebration of color. A group of friends and I went to Mannheim, the next town over from Heidelberg, so attend the celebration where basically you throw color at each other and dance and are happy all day long. We took some pretty awesome before and after photos. And during photos. And just awesome photos in general.

We're a 90's hip hop band called "Those Kids Your Parents Warned You About"

We found some flowers

This is how the color happened

And this is what we looked like after aka when we were all smurfs.

Sunday, May 3 - Friday, May 8

Homework. And classes. May 4th was obviously a great day because it was STAR WARS DAY! (Get it? May the 4th be with you?). And, of course, the next day is Revenge of the 5th. We got to sit out on the banks of the Neckar and we're almost attacked by geese, so that was also a very interesting experience. Yesterday (Friday) my friend and I planned a (hopefully!) trip to Poland, and this morning I got to skype with Kayla where we planned a (hopefully!) trip to Brussels and Düsseldorf. It's been an action-packed few weeks, my avid readers, and don't forget that tomorrow is Mother's Day! 

Happy now, Uncle Mark? :)