Tag: blogQ5

In this post, I will provide 3 pictures I took that I thought were interesting and why.

Ferrari LaFerrari: I saw a total of three of these cars throughout our time here and I never thought I would see one ever. They cost well over a million dollars. When I saw it though, I wasn’t all that surprised. There are so many expensive cars here and the majority of them are German cars (Mercedes, Porsche, BMW). It’s almost rare to see an American car. The cars are also in very good shape, much better than in America. I think this is due to stricter rules. I don’t remember seeing a rusty car. 

Heildelburg Castle: The pictures don’t do this one justice, it is huge! Considering it was built over 500 years ago it seems like it must have been built by aliens. Some parts of the castle have fallen after being attacked but a good portion still stands. In the basement there is a wine barrel that looks as if you could supply an entire city with it. We were able to walk on top of it. We also got a guided tour through the completed bits and it was fascinating. The money that it took to build is egregious. 

Cologne Cathedral: This place is beyond enormous. We got to climb to the top of it and it’s way too big to even fathom. You cannot comprehend how big it is. You are able to see the towers from all throughout the city. The bottom part was completed in the midlevel times but the towers were completed in the late 1800’s. When climbing the stairs to the top, there are stones every so often with the dates on them. As you climb up the stairs, the years progress. We got to experience mass in the Cathedral and while it was hard to follow as it was in German, it was definitely worth it. Seeing the organs playing and reverberating throughout the building filled me with awe. The detail on the walls inside and out really give you an idea of why it took so long to complete. I’m so glad that this was not destroyed in the war. 

 The first picture is of a cool beetle with a horn I found after coming back with Caleb A. from tracking my phone down. That morning I had left my phone on a bus, so the whole day I was taking it using Find my Iphone on my laptop and watching it go back and forth on the bus route. When we got back after class Caleb volunteered to help me track it down by hitting a bus stop as soon as we saw it coming closer to the Hostel. We got it back pretty easily from a nice bus driver and found the beetle afterwards.

The second picture is of Ludwig Castle in Heidelberg. We got a tour of it, and it was really cool seeing inside and hearing about all of the medieval history and wars surrounding it. Very Game of Thrones like. There’s also an enormous old barrel in the basement. 

The third picture is of the pork knuckle I got at one of the group dinners in Koln. It was very very delicious. So was the sauce, and the potatoes. And the Beer. All the food we had in Germany was pretty good, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that I didn’t like. I really like trying new foods, and I was very impressed.

This is what our typical bus ride looked like. We took these busses as well as subways to get to everywhere in Berlin. About half of the busses were double decker, like this one, where we are on the second level.

Here is a guys picture in front of the Köln cathedral. It’s so tall that it’s hard to capture it all in the frame!

This is a doner box, which was a common choice for dinner. It consists of pommes (fries), meat, and salad, as well as several sauces. This was one of my favorite foods.

Myself and others took a day trip down to Munich to watch the Supercup final between Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig. We had a lot of fun and the atmosphere was unlike anything we have in the States.

This is a photo in front of part of the Berlin Wall at the East Side Gallery! It was very interesting to see how artists have added to this important historical landmark in a way that admires the history of the place while adding in elements of art and color.

This is a 0.5 picture taken on the M19 bus, which is one of the buses that we took frequently. It was really fun to learn to use public transportation to get places in Berlin, and ended up being more simple than I though initially.

This picture was taken during our day trip to Lübeck. The Calvin students took another bus north so that we could swim in the Baltic Sea during a little bit of free time we had during the day. The water was very cold and salty but the trip was worth it!

Welcome to our typical Inter-City Express train ride! This was taken on August 11th, on our way back from Lübeck. Me and my four roommates (pictured at the far table) grabbed a group of 4 seats, and I ended up joining some of the Hope group across from them. We had a fun train ride laughing, talking, and getting to know each other better.

This photo was taken when nearly the entire Calvin group took a bus from Lübeck to the nearest beach on the Baltic Sea. It was a 45 minute train ride that ended with food from a little fair on the beach, then taking the cold plunge into the sea. All of this was accomplished in the three hours we had between arrival and our boat tour.

Remember the church we went to the first week? That’s the Berliner Dom, viewed from a rooftop terrace in the heart of Berlin. Our groups were on our last German class excursion, and this was a great way to end it!

Around St. Michaels Heim, there are a number trails around lakes and rivers within walking distance. This is from a walk I took with Judy and Elyse, where we saw a row of swans crossing the lake. We saw slugs and ducks on our walk as well, and we circled our way around the entire lake. We like taking walks as ways to de-stress and talk after long days.