These past 6 weeks have been amazing. I was so excited going into this trip, although a little weary to start school 8 weeks early. But it was definitely worth it. It was so cool to live in another culture for so long, while not being a tourist, which was kind of a strange feeling. We lived in the outskirts of Berlin, only a 15 minute bus ride from the busyness of he city. Everyday we would wake up, eat breakfast, and then leave for school. At school, the Technical University of Berlin, we would have a 2-3 hour engineering class, and afterwards, a break for lunch. Following lunch, another 2 hour German class. When our classes were over, we would either go back to our youth hostile to complete the day’s homework, or find somewhere for dinner. The evening was the best part of the day because that was the time where we could go out on our own and explore the city. We had a city transportation pass that let us ride the bus, U-Bahn, and S-Bahn, so we could get wherever we wanted in the city in usually under an hour.
Even though the weekdays were mostly fun, we lived for the weekends. Whether that meant, traveling to different cities, chilling at the hostile, or even just doing laundry, it was always a blast. Most weekends we would take the train to one ore two cities, such as Köln, Heidelberg, Lubeck, Wittenberg, and some others. My favorite was Heidelberg simply because the view from the castle was amazing.
For the last week of the trip we were let loose to travel wherever we wanted in Europe. My family came up to visit for this portion of the trip. During this last week, we were able to visit Salzburg Austria, Somewhere-in-the-mountains Switzerland, and Amsterdam Netherlands. Switzerland was my favorite country because of the Alps. We took a cable car up a mountain, and then hiked a little bit more to an excellent viewing point. On one side there were towering mountains, and on the other there were rolling hills that looked like they were pulled directly from a storybook. And within each valley there were little towns with twisty little roads up the hills. It was such an amazing view of God’s wonderful creation.
This trip was an amazing experience for me, and I recommend taking a trip like this to anyone who gets the chance. I met so many interesting people, saw new places, made great new friends, and even learned a little Engineering along the way.
I am so glad I want on this trip.