This isn't an easy post to write. First off because it was a three week long adventure which is a lot to cover and second because since it only ended two days ago, it hurts to remember it's over.

This was my second and last tour on exchange. My first was in October. Two weeks traveling by bus around Germany with my oldies. My second was three weeks on a bus with my newbies. And now, no more. I still have one more weekend to see everyone all together but then us oldies go home. 80 days people, 80 days and I'll be flying home.

Now onto that tour, it started in Duisburg at 11pm. I pulled up with my suitcase which I promptly dropped unceremoniously on the ground and started showering everyone who was already there with hugs of excitement.  I've always had this sort of happy energy that I get randomly when I'm in a good mood but on tour this energy went on basically the whole time probably making everyone think I'm psychotic in real life (I am).

Anyways, people kept showing up and I kept making a show of being really excited to see them. The bus finally showed up, late I might add which would continue to be a trend throughout the entire tour. Everyone got on as quick as possible, me in my excitement totally forgetting to tell my drivers goodbye...oops and we were on our way.

Prague

Fact: Prague is the capitol of the Czech Republic and home to approximately 1.2 million people.

Opinion: I found the architecture to be somewhat similar to Bruges which was a city I visited in Belgium and really loved.

Historical landmarks: Prague Castle, astronomical clock, Jewish Quarter, Old Town Square - all of which I visited in my two days there.

Short History Lesson: the Prague astronomical clock was first installed in 1410. It is the third oldest in the world but the oldest still in use. It has three components; the astronomical dial, "The Walk of the Apostles," and a calendar dial. The astronomical dial represents the position of the sun and moon. "The Walk of the Apostles" is an hourly clock which shows the Apostles and other moving sculptures striking the time every hour. The calendar dial represents the months passing.

Pictures:

Budapest

Fact: Budapest is among the top 100 GDP performing cities in the world and attracts 4.4 million international tourists per year making it the 25th most popular city in the world and 6th in Europe.

Opinion: it was so much bigger than I anticipated. In most cities we leave the hostel and walk around the city doing our tours and occasionally using public transport. In Budapest we spent a long time on the bus just trying to get to the place to start our tour. I think we crossed over about 6 different bridges each at least two times in the span of three days. Part of this could have been the bus driver being lost, it's kind of hard to tell from the back row.

Historical landmarks: St. Stephen's Basilica, Chain Bridge, Parliament, Fisherman's Bastion, and the Szechenyi Medicinal Bath

Short History Lesson: the Szechenyi Medicinal Bath is the largest of its kind in Europe. Its water comes from two thermal springs of 74C (165F). The water contains sulphate, calcium, magnesium, biocarbonate, and fluoride/metaboric acid. The baths are thought to help degenerative joint illnesses, chronic and sub-acute joint inflammations, and orthopaedic and traumatological post-treatments.

Pictures:

Vienna

Fact: Vienna is the capitol of Austria and has a population of about 1.8 million. It also has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin.

Opinion: I found Vienna to be a very beautiful city and not all that similar to Germany. I for some reason had the impression that because the two countries share a language they'd be similar but listening to the difference between Austrian German and German German should be enough to tell you they're not very similar at all.

Historical landmarks: Hotel Sacher, Pestsäule, Schönbrunn Palace, Hofburg, St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna State Opera House, Austrian Parliament Building, Karlskirche, and the Hundertwasserhaus

Short History Lesson: Vienna was greatly impaired by the Great Plague of Vienna in 1679 with a loss of 76,000 people. It was a major trading city because of its location on the Danube River so Vienna frequently suffered outbreaks of the plague. The Pestsäule is a Holy Trinity column (sometimes also referred to as a mercy column) that was put in place after the plague to celebrate the end of the plague and commemorate the lives lost. The column was put in place in 1693 and depicts the triumph of faith over disease.

Pictures:

This here concludes week one of my tour through Europe. Look for week two soon...

-kaeleighisoutofthehousefornowtalksoon

Okay I admit that title is a total lie but I had to get you to start reading. What really happened was I went skiing in a place where James Bond, Spectre was filmed. Almost the same thing right?

I got to Frankfurt hbf Friday night. I saw Lena waiting for me through the train window, jumped down the steps and hugged her for a solid five minutes almost in tears. Here would begin one of the best weeks ever.

Little back story...who is Lena? Well depending on your connection to me as a human being you may already know. But if not then you should know she is a 16 year old girl from Frankfurt who lived in Portland last year. My family and I hosted her in our house for three months so we're really close. You could even say we're sisters.

Now anyways, I went home with Lena and we stayed up really late talking and packing for skiing the next day. If you have to get up at 3:30 in the morning to drive to Austria why not stay up until 1!? The nonexistent sleep was no problem because we slept the six hours to Sölden. Oh and it was New Years! We rented our skis and got our passes for the next day and then rested for the long night ahead. Lena and I were going clubbinggg. Which is legal in Europe by the way. We watched fireworks in the streets and had an all together fun night in our little snow town.

The next morning we slept in and got onto the slopes around noon. We had no new snow so I discovered how not fun skiing on ice is. We got new snow on the third ski day and after that all was good. After six days of skiing I can say I improved a ton. I had a lot of fun skiing. We were always doing different runs so everything was always new.

We ate lunch every day in a new hut we found on the many slopes. I tried so much typical German/Austrian food! For example leberknödelsuppe, apfelstrudel, wiener schnitzel, kaiserschmarrn, and zwetschgenknödel. The first one literally translates to"liver dumpling soup." Sounds really delicious right? Haha okay maybe not but it really did taste good. To really explain what it was like it was a large meatball in a chicken broth with parsley on top. You break the meatball apart and eat it with the broth. It's good I promise.

The next one is more of a dessert but when you're skiing normal health rules do not apply. If you want to eat an apple pastry for lunch then do it. The apple strudel was very similar to an apple pie but it's served with a hot vanilla sauce over it. I found the sauce a little weird but the pastry itself was good.

Wiener Schnitzel is breaded veal (fried) served with lemon juice on top and usually accompanied by potatoes in some form. For me that form was fries. Like I said skiing food is healthy.

Kaiserschmarrn is a shredded pancake that you eat with apple sauce or a fruit compote like plum or lingonberry. German pancakes are the thickness between a crepe and an American pancake but these were like American pancakes, thick and fluffy and sooooo incredible. I didn't have my maple syrup but apple sauce and powdered sugar were almost as good.

I was not a big fan of zwetschgenknödel. It's another dessert that consists of a potato dumpling (knödel) with a plum filling served with hot vanilla sauce over. The dumpling itself was okay but I didn't like the plum filling. When I first saw it I thought it was a chocolate filling so I got really excited and ended up being unpleasantly surprised.

I hope you're hungry now. Head on over to Sölden, Austria and experience some killer skiing, meet James Bond, and eat some awesome food. Below I included a map of the many trails plus the awesome pictures I took throughout the week. I couldn't have asked for a better trip with my best friend/sister and I can't wait to spend more time with her.

 

p.s. Europeans who read this if I got any of the food names wrong don't judge me, thanks

p.s.s. before taking the train home I went to the one Chipotle in all of Germany and died of happiness, it was worth any amount of money

much love, kale salad

The thing that you can't help but love and admire about Europe is how close everything is. In the US I would never be able to say I was in four different countries in three days but here in Europe I just did it.

I started off in Germany (obviously) and drove three hours to Nieuwvelt in the Netherlands. To get there we drove through Belgium but I'm not counting that since we didn't stop. My host family and I and our family friends were renting a beach house on the coast for four days. I took about 100 beach pictures so prepare yourself for those. I loved the beach because it reminded me of the Oregon coast. We were supposed to have sun but ended up having fog every day (sound familiar?). We took walks on the beach bundled up in scarves and coats even though it was almost below freezing. I loved every minute of it. Okay maybe not every minute because I lost feeling in my fingers a few times.

Daily icy beach walks weren't the only thing we did in these four days. We also took a day trip to Brugge, Belgium. QUESTION TIME: Why can't names of places be the same in all languages? It would make life so much simpler. Brugge is called Bruges in English so now you American folk can understand because obviously your mouths are unable to say Brugge... Alright now back on track, Brugge was incredible. I've visited a lot of cities in the four months I've been in Europe and this is absolutely in the top three. It was so beautiful especially decorated for Christmas. Now for another stream of photos.

Belgium is a really interesting place because about half of the country speaks Dutch and the other half French. How that border was distinguished and how well it works I could not tell you. It's not like French and Dutch are very similar languages. I heard Dutch for the first time on this trip and man is that a weird sounding language. Another "first" of this trip was discovering the authentic magic of Belgian waffles. I didn't know you could die and be reborn again after a single bite of something but you can. Needless to say it was mindbogglingly (<-- that word looks really weird right? Is it real or did I make it up?) delicious and I will be going back for more.

The next day we took one more trip to the beach hoping for sun and got lucky. For 5 minutes. After successfully collecting some shells and getting water in my shoe it was time to head home. I was back home for a whole two hours before hopping back into the car with a new suitcase off to Düsseldorf hbf to catch a train to my bestest friend and sister, Lena. Which leads to my next adventure (which will be blogged about soon) and next country. Austria! A week of skiing in a place that has weird sounding German and lots of mountains.

To be continued...