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
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