Konstanz

The day I landed in Switzerland with these lovely ladies... 

 We took a train into Konstanz, Germany and was found by the lovely lady we were staying with. We looked like Bode students cause we had more items of luggage than people. 

One view out of the train. There were lots of vineyards. 

As I stated before, this family was awesome!! She was a student and he worked in the kitchen. They now have a lovely little family and take students into their home before school. 

She helped us order ice cream(and now I know to order "eins kugel schokolade" for a scoop of chocolate). Her husband took us around Konstanz and taught us a little about different buildings. 

The rabbits of the Bodensee. 

Basically town hall. 

Inside the Munster church. 

The old part of Konstanz. 

My left foot is in Germany and my right is in Switzerland. Ahhhhhh!!! 

The group that spent the night before school just before boarding the ferry. 

I can't believe I left for school a week ago today. Ah. 

Genau

Genau means, "yeah, exactly" in German. We've been told to say that to any German we don't understand. :P

I'm writing this post as a quick update for you all. School has only been "in session" for 4 days, but it feels like 3 weeks have passed. There are 106 of us here. 106!!! It's not uncommon to have a conversation with someone and then have to ask for their name for the 10th time. :P

On Saturday, they allowed students to sleep in till 9:30 if they needed and breakfast was served between 8:30 and 9:30. The rest of the day was totally free. To help us get over our jetlag and prevent us from napping, the school organized a bike trip, a walk to go shopping/get money, a bus trip into town, etc to keep us moving.

Sunday morning we had an English church service and people from the area were in attendance. There are several German students here and German was used throughout the service if an obscure English word was spoken. This also happens during the lectures. I don't usually dress up super nice for church. Here, we are required to wear dress clothes for morning service and the lunch right after. The evening session must be attended in nicer clothes... basically no jeans and a nicer t-shirt. I like it.

Monday and Tuesday has been filled with paperwork and orientation and a few lectures as well.

The dorm building is directly attached to the main building, so really, life is all in one building even though it's technically two. The only two places in the building to connect to the internet is in the email room or the bookshop directly above the email room. While difficult to adjust to not having internet instantly at my fingertips, I am enjoying it. I no longer go straight to my phone when I wake up to check my Facebook or look at my phone when I'm bored. It's been easier to connect with fellow students when that immediate distraction is unavailable.

Here are photos of my dorm!

The desk I share with one of my roomies!

My bed is the top one. 

From the entrance.

Our bedroom sink

The inside of my closet. Yes, it is actually organized now. 

We each get a shelf, light, and outlet by our bed.

Speaking of students, I love my roommates. Really enjoy them. We get along well and are having fun learning about each other's lives pre-bodenseehof. I'll be sad when next semester starts and we have to switch rooms. I am the only New-Englander here at school!!! One of my roommates is from Northern California, one from Saskatchewan, Canada and the other is German but lived most of her life in Egypt.

Here at the Bode, part of the discipleship program is actually doing chores. Each morning, those who have chores complete them just after breakfast. I and my roommate clean the showers on our floor!! Yeah, showers!

All of the staff members are awesome. Sweet and fun and just awesome.

Sunday, it rained but I did end up going to Meersburg, home of the oldest castle in Germany. I didn't go inside, but got pictures!

Also, there are random Zeppelins floating in the sky. If you have 500 Euros, you too could buy the privilege of Zeppelining over the Bodensee for an hour.

Hopefully some of the above made sense!! I'll be posting again sometime. We have three assignments due on Thursday by 10:30pm. Our testimony, our purpose for being here, and our answers to 8 questions they gave us called the spiritual life survey. These are not graded, but required. 

Anyways, signing off for now. I'll try to post about my day in Konstanz soon. 

Ich bin im Deutschland!

After 9 hours of flying, 6 time zone crossings, 3 airports, 2 planes, and 1 train ride, I and my three travel mates are safely in Germany!!!! We spent the night of the 18th with a family connected to the school. Right now it's 9 in the morning of the 19th and I'm the only one awake. :P Everyone is so tired and jet lagged. I picked up a cold just before I left(yay me), it worsened because of traveling, and the congestion woke me up a few times last night. (Sorry, gross). Prayers that God would heal me quickly would be marvelous! 

Let's see... Oh, pizza. Once we triumphantly wrangled all of our luggage into this family's flat, none of us wanted to leave and get supper. We ordered out pizza instead. :D It was delicious. It was also the first meal any of us had eaten in 15 hours. I would have eaten anything at that point, but fortunately the pizza was really good. I was able to skype my family around 2 their time, so 8pm my time. Dad wasn't there, but it was great seeing everyone else's faces!! Modern technology is superb. 

The rest of our evening was spent in an attempt to keep ourselves awake till a decent hour for sleeping. Our hosts were amazing and were telling us stories of the school and cool things to do in Germany. 

Once everyone else wakes up and we eat breakfast, the school is a short train, ferry, and bus ride away! We'll drop our luggage off, maybe get our room assignments, see the school, then explore Friedrichshafen with other students before being back by 6pm. 

It's still a bit surreal. I'm in Europe. I'm on a completely different continent on the other side of the northern Atlantic in a totally different country than I was in just over 24 hours ago. 

Thanks for reading. Here are some pictures. Tchuss! 

Of baking and packing

Four more days. It felt like forever getting to this point in time, but now that Wednesday is almost here, time seems to be flying. 

My last Saturday in the USofA was spent baking three different types of cheesecake with my sister, watching "North and South", gathering all of my stuff, and fitting it into two suitcases. 

Why so many cheesecakes? (Hey I love this dessert. But no, it's not for me.) My parents spent the better part of the afternoon preparing the fixings for chicken stir fry while my brother made dinner. Yes, ladies. My handsome brother is not only smart, but cooks too! ;) We are bringing a meal to church tomorrow in celebration of me leaving. Uh, of me going on an adventure. 

Anyway, during this process I realized that 1. I love trying new things in the kitchen 2. My cat doesn't want me to leave 3. I have way too much stuff! 

Originally, I was going to pack in one large suitcase and a backpack. Now, I have one large suitcase, a small suitcase, and a backpack. But the backpack won't be as jam packed as originally planned. 

The internet is a fabulous place to discover a plethora of ideas for packing suitcases! Rolling clothes, lining the bottom of ones suitcase with shoes... And packing lists for study abroaders. 

Enjoy the pictures and have a good night! 

Caramel apple cheesecake! New to us. 

And the caramel and chocolate for the caramel chocolate cheesecake. 

The Countdown

Hey All!

Well, this here is my blog. It's more like my online space to upload photos and spout thoughts as I go off adventuring.

I cannot believe it! My flight leaves in 12 days. 12 DAYS. My suitcase is half packed... Some days I feel like there's so much to do, but don't quite know what it is that needs doing. The result is I look and feel like a chicken with its head cut off. ;)

For those of you who've not heard about where or how I'm spending the next 6 months of my life, I'm leaving in 12 DAYS for Friedrichshafen, Germany. (Did I mention that it's only 12 days away??)
This city of ~58,000 people is located on the shores of Lake Constance, or the Bodensee. There's a Bible school there, named Bodenseehof, and I am one of ~100 students attending this fall. (Yes, I'm trying to learn German. Yes, it's good that the school is in English. :P) Watch this video to find out more! 

If you're interested in seeing pictures and reading the thoughts I have over the next 6 months, you're in the right place. :)

Tschuss!