Week 4: Sickness, ER, and Garmisch

What a week!! This week has definitely been the most eventful. I hadn't been feeling well since Heidelberg, sore throat, runny nose, nasty cough. The weather has gotten colder here too, usually between 40 and 55 degrees F. It's been pretty rainy too. I wasn't feeling well at all Monday or Tuesday, and the rest of the week for that matter. But Tuesday at work there was an altercation between two boys. I went to one of them to make sure he was ok. He was in the middle of a dodge ball game. I put my hands on his shoulders so he knew I was coming up behind him. Then another kid had thrown a ball and he jumped up to get it. He jumped right into my chin, which made me clamp my teeth together really hard. I was in utter shock, immediately started crying, and couldn't move my jaw for about 20 minutes (the kid had a nice knot on his head, if that tells you how hard we hit). All of the kids were in the gym and saw me. They were asking me if I was OK, but I couldn't talk at all. Our project coordinator was there observing me, and her and the other workers decided I needed to go to the emergency room. I really didn't want to go. I was trying to move it to show them I didn't need to go either, but it just made it hurt worse. So, we spent 4 hours in the ER. They took an X-Ray, and thought it was fractured, so he took a CT scan to get a better look. Turns out it wasn't fractured, thank goodness. He gave me some meds and said it'll be sore for a few days. Well, 5 days later, it's feeling much much much better, but I still don't have full movement back in it. For a couple days it hurt to put my teeth together, and  I still can't open it very wide. But there is a lot more movement now then a couple days ago. Now if I could just get rid of this nasty cough...I've had it about a week, probably going to go to the doctor Monday or Tuesday.

What we were suppose to see. . .

. . . What we actually saw

So about our weekend trip! Because I wasn't feeling well, I didn't want to go somewhere all weekend, but didn't want to stay home and waste a weekend. One of my roommates hurt her finger pretty bad this week too from a kid, so we decided our injured selves would just go on a day trip. We settled on a day trip to Garmisch, about 4 hours south from us. We've heard it is absolutely gorgeous, and we wanted to go hiking, so we thought we'd check it out. Well we should have known from the beginning that it wasn't going to be a great day....haha! We called a cab to take us to the train station, and it took forever, so when we got there we were in a rush. We got our ticket and ran to the train. Well, somewhere along the way, I lost our train ticket. I went to go look for it, and the train started moving. So we had to buy another, more expensive one on the train. What a waste of money!! We got to Garmisch, and it was a little cloudy, but we wanted to go up to the AlpspiX viewing platform, which is 3,300 feet above ground. We planned on hiking, but then were told it would take 3 and a half hours just to go up. Maybe another day. . . . so we took the cable car. The Alpspitze peak stands at 2628 meters, or 8621 feet and the Zugspitze, the tallest point in Germany, the mountain right next to it, stands at 10,000 feet.

We got to the top, and stood in a cloud, literally. We paid 22 Euro to stand in a cloud.It wasn't even scary walking onto the AlpspiX because you couldn't see anything.This is the picture of the viewing platform. As you can tell, there is nothing to see. . . It was a big bummer to have this place hyped up so much and to see nothing, but you can't help the weather. It'll definitely be a place I'd want to come back to, maybe in the summer. Here is the website of the mountains, things to do, and pictures of what we were suppose to see: http://www.zugspitze.de/en/summer/index.htm

At the top looking down. That building to the left is a restaurant

On the ride down-picture of the town of Garmisch.

On the way home, the train was a bit slow, behind by 15 minutes. We missed our connection to Ansbach, so we had to go into Munich to catch a different train. There were hundreds of people there in their lederhosen outfits to celebrate the first day of Oktoberfest!!! There were also tons of cops there....haha! It was fun to see. We'll be traveling to Oktoberfest in the next week or two. Can't wait. Until then, I have to get over this cold!!

It's the real 'Berg baby!!

 I'm  little behind, so I'm going to catch up with 2 posts!
Weekend three was spent in Heidelberg, Germany! We left Saturday morning, stayed the night and came back Sunday afternoon. There aren't many hostels in Heidelberg, but we managed to get a room on the main drag of the town, the Hauptstrasse, which is full of shopping and bars. All the restaurants have their tables outside, which is good marketing to me! It is a pedestrian only shopping strip, and it was full of people.
Our hostel had it's own restaurant, and we met a nice guy from Texas there. He graduated with his PhD and backpacking through Europe was his present to himself. He was by himself, so we hung out with him for awhile. We had an amazing dinner at the hostel (and a discount because we were staying there)!! The bad thing about our hostel being so close to all the bars is that the noise didn't stop till 6am. Those Germans know how to party, let me tell you!

View of the bridge from the top of the castle.

We walked along the Old Bridge (apparently they don't think of creative names for these things...). <--This is the entrance to it. It's suppose to be pedestrian only, but you see the car coming through? Ridiculous people! Walking across the bridge gave you a pretty view of the Neckar Valley River. They had cruise tours, but we didn't take one.  Just walking along the bridge gave you a pretty view of the town.

On Sunday, we went to the Heidelberg Castle and student jail. The castle is in ruin and deteriorated, but it's apparently one of the finest Gothic-Renaissance castles in Germany (at least that's what Frommer's says). The palace of Friedrich the IV is here, he lived here from 1601-1607 I think. We payed a small fee to go into one of the areas, but there were more fees for going inside the palace and other things.There was also a wedding going on (we've seen so many wedding since being in Germany, it's ridiculous!), so we didn't go in.

This is the palace part I think of the castle. There were so many things going on, I don't know what half of them are. Just enjoy the pictures and the architecture :) It was absolutely breathtaking to see. I just wish I knew what every part of the castle was. Frommer's only tells me so much!

We also went to the Studentenkarzer, or otherwise known as the student jail. This is where the rowdies of the University went. You could be sent here for 2 to 4 weeks depending on the crime. Drunkenness, chasing pigs down the street, giving the prison guards a hard time, etc. The students often used charcoal and such from the fireplace to write on the walls. They drew silhouettes and school work on the walls. The last students imprisoned here were in 1914.

On the way home, we accidentally got on the wrong train. We got on the fast train, which our Bayern pass was not good for. A Bayern pass is for up to 5 people, it's a cheaper way to travel. You buy a pass for a region of Germany that you will be traveling in. You cannot use the Bayern pass for fast trains, so we got caught. We were let off easy however, and only had to pay for 1 fast train ticket, which is 26 Euro instead of for all four of us. Next time though, we're in trouble! Heidelberg is in a different region then Ansbach. Sometimes the train guys are nice and let you go if you're not going too far into the region. On one of our connection trains, we had a pass for the wrong region. This ticket guy was probably the most strict about the rules. He wrote up one of the girls. She had to sign a piece of paper saying she understood the rules and whatnot. If she gets caught again, she might not be able to ride on the train. We always have to travel in pairs, so maybe we'll just use another girls name. haha! Usually you can buy tickets on the train if need be, so that was our plan. However the regional train we were on apparently didn't allow for that, which was new to us. At least we know now!

Weekend 2: PRAGUE!!!!

It seems like I've been here forever, but it's only been a couple weeks. This will be our third weekend here, and we are going to Heidelberg. But last weekend was amazing, and we spent it in Prague. We had a three day weekend because of Labor Day, just like the US. I researched it, and the Germans do have a Labour day as they call it, but it is celebrated the First of May (apparently they have a Thanksgiving as well, but it's celebrated on October 3rd).

So, more about Prague!!! We left early early early Saturday morning and the train left at 7am. We got to Prague about 3pm. Long train ride with layovers, but it was all good. I've  found that I get train sick if I face the wrong direction. Never bothered me before. It doesn't bother my mind, but bothers my stomach. We spent about 24 hours in Prague, so a very quick trip. All another night would have done there is cost us more money. We got back really late Sunday night, and it was nice to have all day Monday to relax!

Prague is beautiful, if you have seen the pictures!! So many old buildings, the architecture is amazing. The streets were packed with people, heard many English speaking folks walking around! Such a huge tourist place. This picture is of the main square, and a view of what the buildings usually look like. People are everywhere, streets are not labeled well. You would often be walking in the middle of the street and not know it. The people who did have cars often seemed annoyed with all of us. Their streets are tiny too.

This is the famous astronomical clock built in 1410. Hundreds of people gathered around it on the hour to hear the trumpet people. (They are at the top of the tower, play on one side and then go to the other). If you want to know more about the clock, here is a link: http://utf.mff.cuni.cz/Relativity/orloj.htm

On Sunday we walked to the famous St. Vitus Cathedral. You can see it from almost anywhere in Prague. It was built over 600 years ago. This picture is over the bridge we walked on, and the big cathedral looking thing is where we walked too. There are some close ups of the architecture below.

This is the city of Prague from the top of the city! It was amazing!! Well worth the walk up. There were so many tours and whatnot that I would have loved to do if we had time, but it was hard with so many people. Definitely would be a place I'd like to return to and spend more time at.

Work is going well. Working part days at the child development center and after school program. Loving it all!

Gotta get ready for Heidelberg and do some things before bed! Good night all!!!

Ansbach and Wurzburg!

Well over a week has gone by since the last post. Things have been rather busy, so sorry it's taken longer to post. I know I told a few that I would do it a few days ago!

Last weekend after work, the Katterbach girls went to Ansbach to explore the city. It's pretty small, and we feel we saw most of it withing the 5 hours of walking around. There are a lot of really odd statues that I have no clue what the meaning is. One that I did take a picture with (a smaller weeping statue), is called Kasper Hauser. I just googled it....apparently it was a young child who was raised in a dungeon in Nuremburg. The article was long, but basically he was led to Ansbach and killed himself at age 22(ish). He was a man full of lies, and at first declared that somebody else led him to the gardens and stabbed himself. How depressing to have statues like this in your town?? Here is the link to the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspar_Hauser

There was also a beautiful garden place, with a building that reminded me of a country club. Apparently, however, it's a place where they have a Rococo festival and dress up in old costumes. I think of it like the Renaissance Fair in KC. This wasn't going on while we were there, but that is where it happens at.

 

We went to an Irish Pub that night when we met up with the other half of the girls by accident. They had amazing shots that looked that the German flag.

It was a small place, but very sociable and pretty fun.
On Sunday, we all went to Wurzburg, which was pretty neat, had awesome historical buildings and statues. We took a train ride that was a little over an hour. We don't really have plans when we get there, we just walk around and figure it out once we see it. The reasoning for going to Wurzburg in the beginning was the winefest. I didn't have any (really expensive, and I'm not that much of a wine drinker anyway), but the crepes were good (filled with Nutella and banana)!!


We walked around downtown Wurzburg, saw some amazing Catholic churches, including the Eleventh Century Romanesque Basilica- Wurzburg Neumunster.

It was built over the Stone Coffin Of St Kilian, The Irish Missionary murdered there in the year 689. We walked over the Alte Mainbrücke, which is an old bridge over the main river. It was built between 1473-1543. There were many figures on the foundation of an older, eighth century Romanesque Bridge that were added in 1730. The link is to some of these sites is:
http://www.romanticroad.com/wuerzburg/sights.htm











From this bridge, we saw a beautiful castle. We had no clue what it was, but started walking that direction. We decided to go up the huge mountain/hill to get to it.

Took over an hour (probably wouldn't have taken so long if we didn't stop for pictures so much). They grow grapes (this is where most of the wine is produced here in Germany), all over the place. You walk through it on your way up to the castle. I found out this castle is called the Festung Marienberg, or the Marienberg Fortress. It was the residence of local prince-bishops from the years 1253 to 1720. After taking so long to walk up, we were all pretty exhausted. We didn't walk around the huge fortress for too long, other than to see the view.

Apparently it has some of the rooms the bishops lived in and such. It also has many of their tombs (which I did see). They also had a museum to go through, but it cost $$ and we were cheap. You really don't get how huge this place is, otherwise we might have taken some time to look around. It was getting later by this point and we needed to head back to the train station anyways since we managed to get a few miles away.

My work week: I have been working with Kindergartners this week since they don't start school until a week after all the other students. I have been working in an after school program, called SAS. I have my own "family group, " full of first and second graders. I plan activities/short lessons for them. I am also the homework teacher. When they have homework to be done, they come to me! There are 3 sessions, 1st is homework, 2nd is a lesson/activity I choose, and 3rd is more free choice. Next week I start doing part days at the CDC and part days at SAS. I'm excited to see what it will bring!
We leave for Prague for our 3 day weekend trip in 6 hours, so I should get some sleep!! I'll post again when we return!