Bodensee

Bodensee, Lake Constance in English, is so beautiful. It is located in southern Germany and borders with Austria and Switzerland as well. Last weekend I had the chance to go check it out with my Rotaract friends, and the whole weekend was great. There is a relatively new club down in Friedrichshafen, a big town on the lake, and they had an official celebration of the establishment of the club over the weekend. It was a last minute trip for me, and i'm so glad that it all worked out.

I met my friends Friday at 7 in Ludwigsburg and we carpooled in two cars down there. The drive is about 2.5-3 hours, so we got there just in time to catch the last little bit of the welcome party that night. At about 3 we finally arrived at the turnhalle where we were sleeping. It was a big gymnasium with mats on the floor all over, so we just brough sleeping bags to sleep on the floor. The next day we got up for breakfast and a day filled with activities. My friends were doing sailing the whole day, but since i signed up late, i did some sailing in the morning and then went to an art foundation in the afternoon. The sailing was great. We were on the lake for 2 hours, and it was sooooo beautiful. It was way better than i was expecting. The water was so green/turqoise, and it's surrounded by beautiful mountains. There were tons of sail boats around, because it is used for drinking water, there are very strict regulations about who can go on the lake, so basicall no motor boats are allowed. This make for such a peaceful experience and it was lovely! I made friends with the four other people on the boat, and we had lunch afterwards before going to the art place. The art foundation was ok, but it was all modern art/structures, and we had 20 minutes to look around followed by a couple of hours of discussion and explanation with the director... that part wasn't so great for me because it was all in German, but i guess i got some of it. After a nap in the afternoon I was ready to go for the rest of the night.

Saturday night was the big dinner/ball, which was great. The invataion said 'black tie' and i was thinking ok something a little nicer, but didn't really take it literally. My logic was, well we are all 20-somethings, who really had a ball gown in their closet? But they do!!! I would say 3/4 of the girls were in what we would consider a prom dress! I was shocked, but luckily, the girls i was with, were under the same impression as myself, so we were all dressed the same... i guess that's why I fit in with these friends :-) Anyhow, the dinner was held in a local castle, renovated for events, right on the lake. It was beautiful and picturesque, in short amazing. There was a champagne reception before hand, and after each corse of the meal, there was a 6 guy accapella group that performed for us. The night was a great way to cap off the whole weekend. Sunday morning there was a tasty brunch before we left, and it all couldn't have been better.
So... the conversation was in German the whole weekend... I still am really not that great with it. One on one, i think i can do a lot better, but when it's all group conversation, it's a lot harder to follow. They were nice and talked in enlgish to me sometimes too... it all worked out, but it just made me realize that i can get by, but my personality doen't really come out as much in situations like that. I am pretty removed from things, and it just makes for a totally different experience. Oh well, it was still so fun!
picts at: http://ucdavis.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2145867&l=0b4ce&id=3206990

holidays...

I have been looking forward to spring since i got here, because there are a slew of holidays, which means travel! So last weekend commenced my 4 out of 5 weekends that i get to do something fun. Thursday was a holiday, so i had friday off too, and i headed up to the middle Rhine and Cologne. It was so beautiful and I am so glad that i went, my weekend went a little something like this:

Thursday - took the train to Mainz, had a couple of hours to walk around and have a look. A nice little over view of what the city has to offer. It's really pretty on the river and despite the gloomy weather, I enjoyed what I saw. Train to Bingen, the lower part of the 'middle Rhine' area. The Rhine is a really big river that flows north to the North Sea, and originates from Lake Constance, in southern Germnay. The lake boarders Switzerland and Austria as well. The middle area of the Rhine, is known for castles, small traditional German towns, and the wide river in a beautiful valley area. I had lunch in Bingen, and took one of the ferry boats up north to another town, where I took the train to Bacharach, where i was spending the night. In Bacharach, I had arranged to stay in the Youth Hostel that is the castle of the town. I'm thinking, wow, this is going to be great... a little history, cute, good experience. I, however, neglected to remember that castles are always up high, like on the tops of mountains! so after walking around ALL day, i had to embark up a steep mountain trek to get to the place I was staying. Of course, it was all worth it, and the views were beautiful, but man, i was so ready to be done after that.

Friday - got up relatively early and walked around Bacharach, since I hadn't seen it the day before. Sooo cute! Took the boat to St. Goarhausen, another small town, most known for the Loreley. A rock, that legends has it, a girl with blond hair sat at the top of and would lour sailors into running their ships into the rocks... wait, doesn't that sound familiar? I took the bus to the top, to look at the views, and then walked down back to the town, and crossed with the other ferry to St. Goar. This town, was a little bigger, and a little more touristy, but it had a great castle, a little destroyed, but so cool to walk around. It's crazy to think about people building these massive buildings way back then, and how life in the castles must have been so different. After that, I took the train to Boppard, for my second night. I went to the youth hostel so I could check in and drop my bag off. I had made my reservation about a month ago over the phone and the conversation was pretty amusing. The woman didn't speak english, and I struggled to get the point across, but I succeeded... or so I thought. When I arrived at the hostel, no one answered the door, and finally a little old woman, walked up like she was going into the builing and asked what i wanted, our conversation (in German) was pretty amusing as well.The highlights included her telling me the office was only open on Tuesdays (it was Friday), was i traveling with a boy who arrived that morning, my struggle to explain that i had a reservation, and i needed to stay there.... in the end it all worked out. apparently she worked there, and gave me the keys to my very OWN room for the night! all for 16 euros!! here I thought I would spend the night in a dorm room, with tons of other people and i had a 4-bed room with two sinks all to myself! Amazing... so that night i made dinner at the hostel, and went to the main square, where they were having live music, and beer and wine to drink, and after the sun went down, they showed a movie outside. So fun, and so cute!

Saturday - went to a cafe for breakfast, then headed to the chairlift, that goes up the mountain. It was a little foggy in the morning, but the views were so beatiful, and at the top, it was just a short hike to the view point called Vierseenblick. It is a spot where the river winds around a lot, and is hidden by mountains, so it looks like it is 4 separate lakes. Took the train from Boppard, to Koblenz.Walked around the town. The old town was really great, and the area along the river was really nice as well. The weather here had really warmed up, and it was finally sunny. Koblenz is where the Rhine and the Moselle rivers meet, and the corner there, is nice as well. I was going to see another castle from there, but I was really all walked out, and just wanted to get to my next hostel in Cologne... see this is the great part about traveling alone- no obligations, just what i want to do :-) I took the train to Cologne, and checked into the hostel to rest a bit before checking out the pedestrian zone and doing a little shopping. That night I met up with a friend, who was also visiting friends there. We were going to a club thing featuring a German dj duo called the Disco Boys... mind you this is not disco music, more like house/trans/techno (i'm not so up with the differences) This normally isn't my type of club, but i figured why not?So we walked and walked and walked, trying to find this palace... it's really sort of ouy of the way, along the river, but it was well worth it. It was really fun, and we had a great time dancing and hanging out. The conversation was amusing as well, as i pieced together my german and they all graciously did the same with their english.

Sunday - Forced myself to get up at 10:30 after about 5.5 hrs of sleep, so i could really go check out the city. I went to the Museum Ludwig, which is a great modern art museum, and I lucked out because yesterday was 'Museum day' in Germany, so i got in for free! Walked around the old town, and took the tram to a more student area of the city. There weren't a lot of people around, but it was still nice. The city itself, isn't anything all that great, actually. There's not a whole lot of great archetecture or things along those lines. The Cathedral is about the biggest thing, so I finally made my way to see that in the afternoon. It's HUGE. The Dom in Cologne is the biggest in Germany, and it's quite a sight. Again, just walking through and thinking about all the effort put into constructing that is phenomenal. After that i took the train home, and was happy to be back.

It was a beatiful weekend, filled with a little bit of everything. I would highly recommend it - esp the Rhine Valley part. As usual I have a link to photos, so hope you can get a sense of what it was like, though of course, they never really do nature justice :-)

http://ucdavis.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2143816&l=f5102&id=3206990
http://ucdavis.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2143826&l=fd765&id=3206990

things i will never take for granted again:

- my car

- having a clothes dryer

- nature nearby, and the beach

- not waking up to the singing/yelling of a
4 and 6 year old

- the ability to buy my own food, and eat meals when i want to

- basically, living on my own!!!!!!!!!!!! well not being an au pair, when this is all done

(though I have to admit I'm pretty excited about moving back in with mom and dad :-) is that weird?)

Smart driving

Reimund, the dad of the family works for Smart... yes, those cute little two door cars that have been in Europe for while, but that have yet to make an appearance in the US (don't worry, the US launch is sometime early 2008, so soon enough, you too can have a Smart Car) ok step aside from the sales pitch, beacuse the exciting news is that i got to drive one!!! Yesterday he had to go to another city for work, so he took a company car, and had it for the night so i got to drive it. Very cool. It's super small on the outside, yet very spacious on the inside, it's like driving half a car though. You wouldn't know it was any different unless you turned around and saw the back wasn't there :-) One of the special things about it is that is is an automatic, but you can also drive it as a manual, except there is no clutch. On this particular model too, there were paddles to change gears on the steering wheel, so you really didn't have to move a whole lot or anything to change gears. It's also a little futuristic looking on the inside, with some random little features. Example: if you have a can of soda and want to cool it down you can pop one of the AC vents ofhte dashboard and set your can in there to cool it down, haha. Well, that's pretty much it. I probably only drove for about 15-20 min, but when else would i have a chance to do it? Of course there was a little photoshoot as I was about to drive...

Barcelona

The weekend finally came... the Hen Weekend in Barcelona, Spain. (a hen night is a bacelorette party night in England, seeing as that my party was British that's what you get from me too). We booked the flights in December before Christmas, so this has been a long time coming and it was great. There were six of us who went and we all took the same flight on Saturday morning together. We flew Lufthansa, and two of the women we went with are flight attendants, so one of them buttered up the pilots and I got to sit in the cockpit for take off!!!! Pretty cool way to start my trip! After we landed we found out hostel in the city, and set off to have some coffee before we could check in. I was responsible for finding accomidation and it all worked out well. I found us a hostel in a great part of town, where all six of us were in the same dorm room. It was great for all of us to be together, and get ready together, a great way to go... Anyhow, we headed off for some lunch and shopping around after that. Got to see some of the city, and did a super touristy thing by going to the Hard Rock Cafe in the afternoon for a drink (though I did end up with a free shot glass on it with the location, hehe... i did check with the bartender before i took it) Off for a nap after that, really, i took one every day, it was amazing. That night was the main 'party night' our theme was to have Claire the bride-to-be dressed in white with angel wings and a halo, and the rest of us were in black with devil horns. We did look cute if i do say so myself. We went out for dinner and drinks, and while at dinner the owner of the place brought up two bottles of champagne.

Sunday, Eleanor and I got up early and went to the Picasso Museum. We waited in line for an 1.25 hrs, and at the end there it was truely pandamoneum (which occured at a couple other pointed throughout the trip) We did, however, make it in, and it was really good. I didn't realize that he was actually trained as a fine artist. Seeing some of his earlier work, it's hard to believe that it's the same guy. We then went to the Miro museum, but the line was so long we were going to hope on the tour bus and meet our friends at the harbor... but ends up that they were on the exact same bus we were getting on!!! It's such a small world, and we really couldn't have planned it better. Down at the harbor we walked around a bit, and had some lunch, followed by a nap before another night out. That second night, we did basically the same thing, minus the color coordination, but it was just as fun.

Monday, was absolutely gorgeous. I was expecting rain ALL weekend, so to have more than one day with out it, and a day like Monday, i was one happy girl! Sowe went and saw all the Gaudi stuff from the outside. We took our tour bus part of the way and did a little walking tour part of the way. It was just so nice. So as far as the Gaudi stuff is concerned... I had seen some pictures before, and I must say that i wasn't all that impressed. But to see it upclose and personal is totally different. Also, after I learned when he did all this I became that much more impressed. Most of his works are from the late 1800's early 1900's and considering what other designs were being done then, he was WAY ahead of his time... and still kind of is. So we ended up in Park Guell, hoping for a lie down on some grass, and just relaxing, but there is no grass! We did do a bit of sitting, but caught our bus back so 4 of the girls could check out of the hostel and fly home. Eleanor and I were on our own that night, and opted for a really night (treat myself right for one night) dinner down by the water. We wanted some good fish and got exactly that.

Tuesday morning, we got up early and were the first in line for the Joan Miro Museum an hour before they opened (we brought books). Good thing we had that planned, because the rain finally came and came and came... i was basically wet all day. After that we went our separate ways, and I went inside Gaudi's Casa Batllo... really really great, much better described with the photos linked at the bottom. I basically spent the rest of the day walking around and just looking at stuff. I went to some neighborhoods I hadn't been to yet, and went to a park, and really just enjoyed reading and not doing a whole lot. It was a vacation, and that requires a little bit of vacation time too... Early night to bed that night because I came back pretty early on Wednesday so I could pick the kids up from kindy.

Again, another great vacation, so happy that it all worked out, we had fun, and that we are all still friends. The picts will be just as good as these words so have a look at:

http://ucdavis.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2137683&l=0f260&id=3206990

http://ucdavis.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2137698&l=29aa3&id=3206990