Hallo Menschen,

Well while I'm in the mood and have a spare 20mins and have just put on some Brooke Fraser, I think I'll write a blog entry.  On the note of NZ music, well there are certain things I oddly miss about that place...one recent example is NZ hiphop. Yep that’s right, my friend Gina and I have been pumping the Dei Hamo, Deceptikonz, Mareko, Scribe and Savage non-stop.  Something I never thought I'd appreciate but the other day I caught myself singing 'Early in the morning, its all good to eat sausage rolls' without even realising.  Anyways...

At the moment I am very very busy. Uni has flung a series of assignments and presentations at me, all at the same time as I am trying to organise my Portugal plans (GOING IN ONE WEEK EEEE!) and Munich/Barcelona.  But alllllll gooooddd because Konstanz is brilliant and to be honest, these courses are really amping up my general knowledge (which compared to these worldly Europeans is not so flash).  It's a trade-off between wanting to learn and get reasonable marks or to travel and party. I'm trying to get the balance right but seriously where is the time going???????

Apparently it snowed today but I missed it cos I was in class, but it's not even December yet so I guess if it's snowing now, there will be a fair bit to come!  I'm still not feeling the cold that badly at all. I actually think that the winter I just had in Georgey may have fully prepared me for the worst..but best not to speak too soon I guess.

Ok well on to what I've been doing! I'll just talk about a few of the highlights:

I guess the most exciting thing I've done lately was our trip to Heidelberg. Man oh man I love it there. Heidelberg is about 4 hours from Konstanz by train so we (Vanessa, Qin, Thorin and I) got up super early and caught a ridiculous-in-the-morning-o'clock train. The train journey was actually brilliant because I got to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a while, the Mp3 Nicky gave me before I left came out and IT WAS ACTUALLY AMAZING (I don't know if you got Margsys help or by some fluke the perfect combination of music played but it set the best tone for the journey) and also, the scenerey of the famous black forest all the way was so cool.  I'm defintely not as 'squealy with excitement' as I used to be when we pass castles and fortresses ever 15mins, but I'm still the most squealy haha.  So we arrived in Heidelberg and uh we realised we had no idea where we were and how to get to the centre of town. I really like this feeling of just being so lost, especially so far from 'home'(Konstanz in this sense).  So we followed gut instinct which lead us in the right direction (...after gut instinct asked a few locals for help).  Eventually we made it to a big-ass hill where the massive Heidelberg castle ruins are! I realised Id only reaallly been to palaces before this and this would be my first proper castle ruins! Walked...or should I say 'crawled' up the hill to get to the castle for the most brilliant views over the city and to check out a few things inside like a massive pharamacy museum which sounds weird but was really cool, the old wine cellar/producing place (I know the word in german ok!) and souvenier shops.

Then we went down to the old part of town and the bridges across the Rhein river. Heidelberg, as beautiful as it is, is tourist central. I heard more amercians than germans and souvineirs were everywhere. I of course demanded we went in the churches. Went to one of their gigantic christmas stores, a bit like Kirkaldies in Wellington but even bigger and just enjoyed the atmosphere. We wandered, went to starbucks and then did a bit of winter shopping. I got a hilarious hat that all the people here wear and that I havn't quite brought myself to wear in public yet but the time will come when I wear it every day, I know it.  Caught a few trains home and spent a while at a few train book stores and McDonalds. Lucky the trainstations here are practcially malls in themselves. Got home very tired, had an amazing day but happy to be back home in our little slice of paradise.

Right so then on Sunday it was BEUATIFULLY SUNNY. So strange that in Mid-november it felt like a warm spring day.  I went on a little walk up a hill to a tower called 'Bismark Turm' for a stunning view of Konstanz.  It looked out over some sort of orchards or fruit-growing trees, the cemetry and the lake.  I sat there and wrote postcards which I want to send but have somehow misplaced..I'll find them.  Anyway, I then saw a squirell and got WAAAYYYY to excited about it and just followed and followed until I was somehow in the cemetry. This was one of my fave discoveries, it sounds silly but I was just so at peace ther. They really look after their gravestones (which are stunning) and flowers and trees and cute old people (Erin, you'd love it). Oh and heaps of squirells! I kept wandering and finding new things I never knew existed :)

Ok so another highlight was another dinner party with my wonderful french friend Natacha and her boyfriend who had come from Paris for the weekend. He's a film-maker and I got a sneak preview of soem of his work and WOW, incredible stuff. I'll be sure to look out for him in french-cinema film credits in a few years. Good night all round, yummy yummy food and french cheese.

Ok so then the next big night was the weekend just been. I met with my friend Gina on Friday afternoon and we had a bit of a sneaky 2pm wine while we got ready for our big nerd-fest a.k.a. HARRY POTTER! A group of us dressed up as characters from the movie (yeah yeah we know we're a tad lame) and then caught the train to the nearest english-showing cinema about 25mins away. But first Gina and I picked up her crazy friends in Konstanz train station who came from Freiburg (these would be the people I stayed with when I went to Europapark). We knew right from then that the weekend wasn't gonna be ordinary.  So we all met at one of the student apartments for some genuine butterbeer...and just standard beer too ;)
The train ride was hilarious.  Think about how many looks and comments a group of HP-freaks woul get in NZ and then times that amount of disgust by a million! The germans would never do this. Ever. We loved it and the comments and stories are priceless. LOVVVEEEDD the movie, even though the germans play like half an hour of credits beforehand.  Then Gina, the Freiburg crowd and I decided to go out..where excatly we went and what we did only the photos give real evidence of. But the bottomline is I was really really careless and stupid and deserve to be put in the naughty corner but I lost my credit card, efpos card and bus ticket. Thsi made for a stressful morning (long story but kinda funny) and I owe Andra, Alex D, Steffi and Gina sooooooo much for helping me!

Alright then the rest of this weekend has been devoted to writing an essay. This paper pretty much trys to get us to solve world poverty through politics and economics. Considering the best minds in the world have been trying to do this for decades, it's a pretty hard task to ask of us students, but worthwhile none the less.

But on Sunday I had my first ever thanksgiving! Yeah kinda strange it was in Deutschland but I liked it anyway. The North Americans did a superb job in organising a big pot-luck feast (they provided some amazing Turkey and mashed potatoes) for 30-40people.  Got to have some good chats and good food. The north americans looked so content and happy =)

I really think that's about it for a bit. Oh but as an aside - Yeeeaahhh we won the Rugby.  Not ususally too concerned about such things but when you have the Irish and Aussies making taunts, it's good to win.  Also, hasn't the world news just been horrible this week. The miners, bombings between the parts of Korea, the Cambodia disaster.  I feel like its been terrible news after more terrible news. I guess at least the Price is engaged. I think all of our thoughts go out to the miners on the West Coast. Bye for now xx

Oh the joys of jumping borders on a whim :)

Hi guys, yay I may just update this blog a bit more frequently after all (I know you didn't believe me!).  This week has felt so long but finally it is the weekend and I can quench my travel thirst a bit more.  On Saturday a few friends and I are visiting the german town Heidelberg which I've been wanting to visit ever since I started learning german so very excited! Ok well, I should finish talking about the last few weeks..

The day after Thorin and I had our FOTC night, I got up bright and early for a hike up the Austrian alps (pics above)!  Yeah, typical Jessie kinda maybe sorta forgot it was daylight savings and got to the train station a whole hour earlier than I needed to! I can imagine no one is surprised I did such a thing. Anyway, that was all good because I got some croissants from the bakery and chatted away with some people who were there early too (only, they were early on purpose haha).  So it was organised by the people who organise excursions for exchange students and they were such sweethearts stuffing us with bretzels and apple juice.  A big group of us took a train ride (well actually, 3 changes) for a few hours to the Austrian town on Lake Konstanz called 'Bregenz'.  We then started our hike up to the 'Pfaender' which is one of the best lookouts over the Switzerland, Germany and Austria and of course, lake constance and the alps in between! So they advertised this trip as 'gemuetlich' which pretty much translates to 'comfortable/leisurely'. Haha well they lied just a little bit. I think it took most people between 2 and 3 hours to get to the top but we were all fine and the scenery was totally worth any sore muscles the next day. This place has the most amazing autumn ever (much like Christchurch but more trees/leaves falling from trees on hills as well).  A really stunningly beautiful place! We got to the top and awwwwww the view of the snowy alps was so pretty. We stayed up the top there for a long time just taking in the scenery. Luckily it was a pretty nice day too.  Then we went to have a look at the 'wildlife park' which was pretty much a bunch of mountain goats, hogs and sheep but there were some fairly entertaining moments none the less.  Then took a very big gondola back down, getting some pretty autumn views and spent the rest of teh day/evening exploring the town of Bregenz. My friend Chandni and I went off on our own and found a lovely church where we were so in luck as a really fantastic choir/orchestra were practicing for some sort of performance and so we just sat and enjoyed the beautiful music (somehow it made me ever so slightly miss Carol Service at school....NAHHH). We then went to check out the Austrian side of the lake and came across a uni-cycling, fire-juggling busker who was mostly entertaining for his use of the very common language here - 'ginglish'(german-english) or 'dinglish'(deutsch-english).  Stayed and watched him for a bit and then went to a really cute bar/cafe in town where we had a hot choc and some lovely conversation (thanks Chandni!).  Train back was sooo tiring but hey, Monday was a public holiday!! Can't remember what I did but it involved homework and maybe met up with some people.  Uh oh, my days have run into each other now..I hope I havn't mentioned this already but later that week I...WENT FOR A RUN, haha, yeah shocking, I know. But it was actually so enjoyable as when you run around teh pretty lake, it really all just looks so nice you forget your running anyway.  Might do that again, probs in a month ;)

Anyway so at some point that week (or the week before), I went to dinner with the aussie/nz/american people at this pancake restaurant. WOW, they were huge, more like big crepes. I actually got a dessert one with a bunch of banana, syrup, icing sugar etc. Then we went to a Gluehwein (typical german xmas muleld wine) party at Europahaus (one of the halls of residence here which ashamedly was my first time going there!) where some people had bought like 40L of gluehwein. Thought it was gonna be crappy budget stuff but NOPE, it was goooooood! (Don't worry Ryan, ours was so better!). Anyway that was fun! Then...Ive stuffed up my days but let's pretend that.....on Thursday us kiwis and NZer's met up and cooked typical NZ/Aussie food for honestly hours for the International dinner that night. Matt did some mini pavalovas, we had afghans which Rebecca stuffed up the first round and so we put it in the cheery ripe, there was an impressive meat pie, hokey pokey and honey comb and aha my lolly cake completely failed and looked like a lovely log of vomit but I'm gonna blame it on lack of real malt biscuits and fruit puffs (we didn't exactly take this to the dinner). The dinner was entertaining but sadly a bit of a weak turnout.  Us kiwi/aussies were as always nice and loud and potentially scared the europeans but hey, that's what we do best. There was however, italian, finnish, romanian, german, american food etc which was delicious! We spent most of that night planning our big harry potter extravaganza for next weekend.  I did also get confronted by an angry german when I attempted to sneakily take a beer for the road..no such luck :( But, good night all round!!

Ok so then on Friday I started my first 'tandem learning' lesson with my Polish friend Diana. Tandem pretty much means that (because her german is waaaayyy better than mine), she teaches/helps me improve my german and I teach her english.  No idea how to teach english but she asked if I'd be interested and I didn't see why not. First tandem-successful and fun! I met up with my nz friend Gina at night for some wine and a general yarn which was great fun! I did something saturday....can't remember what...oh yeah! Thorin and I went into town for a wander and got ice cream. My mission of trying every ice cream flavour at german ice cream cafes is slowly getting accomplished. I personally love 'snickers' and 'tirimasu'.  Ok then I went to my french friend Natacha's appartment for a really really sweet french dinner/wine/cheese party as her sister and boyfriend were vsiting for the weekend. A great mix of cultures and languages always makes for an excellent night! As does french cooking and of course, Drews brownies :)

Ok so then Sunday (almost near the end guys, promise!). So Diana's boyfriend is here for the week and quite convieniently has a car! So on Sunday, Diana, Karin, Iida, Diana's bf and I went on a trip to the Swiss alps at a place called Saentis.  Journey through the Swiss countryside was absolutely gorgeous! But I am still insistant that the bottom of germany has hands down, the best scenery ever. Saw a few lovely swiss towns here and there which were WONDERFUL (but again, Germany is better!).  Ok so copied from wikipedia: "
Säntis (2,502 m) is a mountain in the Alpstein sub-range of the Appenzell Alps in Switzerland. It can be reached by aerial tramway from Schwägalp".  We went up by this gondola thing and wow, it sure felt HIGH! Sadly the day was a bit foggy so most of our exploring of the Saentis involved getting lost in the fog but EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE SNOW!!!!! First time I have seen snow in a really long time and it eventually cleared up a bit for some views of snow covered mountains.

Well we had the rest of the day ahead of us and a car, so what better place to go than Liechtenstein! Yeah, thats right, that tiny country that is barely a country it's so tiny! Well we went to the capital city Vaduz and had an absolutely hilarious time pretty much just laughing that we were in Liechtenstein. Well, as none of us knew anything about th place, we went to tourist info and learned about their prince and saw his castle on the hill, we found out they really like their postage stamps and really strange street sculptures and that they are just as expensive as Switzerland.  A really great day thanks Diana and bf! Slept all the way home :)

So then, I guess this week...oh yeah on Tuesday night Diana, her bf, Thorin and I had some Polish vodka drinks and some brilliant yet intense economic/political discussions haha (amazed that this happened without the presence of a german!).  And we shall 'make a party' (as the germans say it) tonight again with quite a few more people, should be great! Havn't done much else, just a shocking presentation (*erases from memory*) and got my first essay result back, not too bad at all considering how crap the lecturer said the class did (yeah, she's a lovely sort, that one).  But last night my Yael, Thorin and I went a very Wellington-esque bar in town and I tried something I really don't know what it was but it was good! Well, that's definately enough for now. But I really truly hope exams went ok/well/amazing for you all and that your summer job issues have been sorted and that guy fawkes was a blast (haha, oh so funny am I)...though stories tell me it was as mental as always.  Party hard, especially you mum and dad ;)
Ok, love to you all xoxo
"

Quick Hello!

Hello everyone, this will be really short because I am going out in 10mins but I felt really guilty that I havn't written in this like I said I would So for peace of mind I'll write a little bit about last week quickly.  SOrry, that means there are going to more typos than usual (if possible).  Anyhoooowww, so last week was actually quite stressful. Got given a tonne of homework and my first political economy essay which to say the least was exteremly difficult for me. Results on Tues - fingers crossed for a pass. Anyway, on Wednesday I went to Meersburg again because the weather was just far too beautiful to pass up.  So I took teh ferry over and just wandered around all the places that I hadnt explored yet. Oh the vineyards are so gorgeous and then I got a fairly large chocolate sundae at a cafe looking out over the lake to celebrate my being in Germany for a month only a few days before.  So that was a lovely day! The autumn colours are stunning here but with each day, more and more leaves are going and even though I'm finding it pretty warm, winter is definately coming, as seen by the christmas decorations already appearing. So yeah, spent the next part of the week frantically writing these essays and then gave myself a nice relaxing weekend. It was made even more relaxing because Monday was 'all saints day' - public holiday. So on Saturday I met Cristina from Romania and Chandni from England and we went on a lovely walk to Kreuzlingen (which I've mentioned before, teh neighbouring swiss town).  The weather was again nice so we sat outside and ate these gigantic swiss sausages and they used some coupons to get some drinks.  That night, Thorin came over and we celebrated his birthday with too much cake and vodka..and maybe some wine too.  I accidentally first mixed our drinks with vodka and water instead of limonade though which wasnt so delightful. Then we watched flight of the conchords :)

Ok I am off to a dinner party with some girls from Paris tonight and then maaayyybbeee some towning.  So I will continue this tomorrow or Monday. Hope Guy Fawkes was brilliant! Gutted I missed it. Also, I really hope all your exams are going well and the start of summer is bloody awesome! Till later, xox