T-minus ten days until departure

The last few weeks have been so hectic, but so much fun!

On the 22nd of Jan it was my 18th birthday! I celebrated it German-style (only slightly different to NZ) with my host-family which was really nice! We did cake and presents in the morning and at school some of my friends gave me gifts and one made a huge cake! Then after school I went to lunch with some Chilean exchange students which was really nice. Then I went to dinner with Carolina, Marie, Anna, and a girl called Nicole from my class :) After that I met up with the Chileans again and we had some cocktails at a bar :)

The very next day (the Friday) I hopped on a train to see Chiara on Koblenz, the girl who did work and travel in New Zealand and lived with us for a bit. It was sooo amazing to see her again and I miss her already! I stayed at her flat with her and it was so much fun! I also got the chance to see Fe (another exchange student who came to New Zealand) while I was there which was really nice!

German corner in Koblenz where two big rivers meet

Reunited!

Chiara's party trick

Fe!

Then on the Monday I hopped on a train to Trier, an old Roman city in Germany to see Helen, who was an exchange student I went to school with in New Zealand. It was so good to see her again and we get along so well! While I was there we explored Trier and went to a Roman museum, and some Roman baths. We were also able to go to Luxembourg for the day on the Wednesday! It was so lovely seeing her again and meeting her friends! We have planned to do a trip together soon (hopefully), which will be great!

Helen and I!

Nice church in Trier

In the Roman Baths

Nice church in Luxembourg!

On the way home from Trier, I stopped in Cologne for a couple of hours! I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find the Cathedral in that time but as soon as I walked out of the station it was the only thing I could see and it was soooo beautiful! It is probably the most overwhelming and breathtaking thing I have ever seen. I spent some time walking around the inside and admiring how amazing it was. Then I decided that it's not every day I'm at the Cologne Dome so why not walk up to the top. It was so bloody tiring and a little bit scary walking up this small circular staircase all the way up to the top (a few high-fives were shared when a few of us reached the top) but the view was definitely worth it! I could see the Rhine and look right over Cologne!

The cathedral!

Inside the Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral!

Cool mosaic floors in the Cathedral!

The bells were massive!

View from the top!

I arrived back in Hannover on the Thursday and then on Friday I went to Bremen with Carolina for her mother's birthday, but we were also able to have a look around which was nice! It's such a pretty town and her mum had such a big garden that was covered in pretty white snow! There was a part of Bremen called Schnoor which is from the middle-ages and it is all narrow streets with little crafty shops which was really cool!

Schnoor!

Then on Saturday morning Marie, Carolina, Anna, and I packed our bags and headed to PARIS! After eight hours of travelling, we finally got there! It was such an amazing trip and we saw so many things! We were living in a flat in Montmartre which used to be the artist's quarter of Paris where people like Picasso lived. In the two days we had to explore we were able to see the Eiffel Tower (of course), Notre-Dame, Sacre Coeur, an art museum with Monet's Waterlilies, some Picasso's and other paintings of the sort, Le Champs Elysée, Arc de Triumph and other little things! All in all it was such a great holiday and I feel so lucky to have been able to go!

Eiffel Tower!

Notre-Dame

Arc de Triumph

Scare Coeur

Today after-school I met up with one of my friends from New Zealand who lives in Foxton who has been travelling around Europe for the past two months and it was so great to see him! It was really good to talk to him cos he is in a similar situation to me so it was good cos he understood everything I was feeling about the trip and travel etc. It was also so nice to hear a New Zealand accent again!!

It's a really bittersweet feeling to know I'm going home in a week and a half because I love it here so much and have met so many people and I just don't want to stop travelling. I've also gotten so close to my host-family and love staying with them so much! But on the other hand I can't wait to see all of my family and friends again and be in the sun. I'm not looking forward to the stress of organising everything when I get home though!

Six towns in one week!

It has been almost non-stop travelling for me since Christmas and I feel so lucky to have seen all of the amazing places I've visited!

When I got back from Denmark, I had one day to rest up and then I was off Groß-Bieberau (town one) to visit Julia, an exchange student I was friends with in New Zealand. She lives in a tiny town not too far from Frankfurt with only 4,000 people. I really really enjoyed my stay with her, and her family was so nice and funny! On the afternoon I arrived, we went to Darmstadt (town two) which was about 40 minutes away. It was really nice with a small castle in the middle. We played laser-tag with her boyfriend and brother which was loads of fun, and I tried my first Doner! This has got to be one of the yummiest, messiest foods you'll ever try! It's similar to a kebab, but it looks more like an open pita bread stuffed with filling! and it was sooo tasty! After that we went to the Hotzenplotz which is a pub in Darmstadt and had some apple wine (a speciality in the region) and it was so good! I'm extremely proud to say that as a seventeen year-old I was able to legally buy this by myself :)
The next day Julia and I went to Frankfurt (town three)! It took approximately 2 hours to get there via public transport. When we were there we had a wander around the main street and then went up a big skyscraper with a viewing platform that allowed us to see the whole city! When we got home her parents had prepared a typical German dinner that was super tasty!
On my last full day with Julia, we drove to Heidelberg (town four)! It was soooo beautiful and it was full of so many old buildings and cobbled streets. It's exactly what you'd imagine an old German city to look like! It also had a huuuuge castle that we walked up to and walked around! It was such an amazing town! :)
On the fourth day I went back to Hannover (town five) for the night, ready for the next adventure to start in the morning!

Here's some photos from the trip:

Planes fly over Groß-Bieberau to the airport, so they sky looked so pretty!

Frankfurt!

Trying to take a picture whilst being attacked by the wind!

This was the skyscraper we went up!

Frankfurt!

Courtyard in Heidelberg Castle

Heidelberg!

Heidelberg!

So after a night's rest in Hannover, my host-family and I were off to Berlin (town six)!!! This has been my favourite city yet! There was so much history and I loved every minute of it! On the first day we went on a walk past a bunch of famous places there which was really cool! We passed a memorial for the Jews that have been killed over the decades and it was unlike anything I've seen before, it was so moving and really made you stop and think about what had happened. The we got to the Brandenburg Gate which was so cool!! It was so massive and it was surrounded by all of the embassies. Opposite the gate was also the hotel that Michael Jackson dangled his son out of :p Then we went and had a look at the Reichstag building which was sooo cool!! We then went to the Berlin Dome, which was a really big cathedral that looked bloody impressive on the outside, but the inside was absolutely breathtaking, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was!! Then after dinner we went to a musical about the Berlin wall. It was so so interesting and was based on a true story about Udo Lindenburg, the German equivalent to the Rolling Stones. The musical was full of his music and English translations of what was being said were on a big screen. It was so so cool!

In the morning we went to Checkpoint Charlie and had a walk around the museum there which was so interesting but also really sad. After that we hopped on a bus that did a loop around most of Berlin and made our own little sightseeing tour :) While we were on the bus we saw a massive amount of people at the Brandenburg Gate demonstrating for the attack in France, Angela Merkel was even there! It was packed, so it's lucky we went the day before! After that we had a little wander around a different part of the city and then headed home.

It was such an amazing trip and I loved it so much! I found it so interesting learning about the Berlin Wall because we didn't look it very much at all at school so it was incredible to hear all about it and how different people coped with it. Ahh I just can't believe how interesting and beautiful it all was!

I'm back at school now and there is a new girl from Chile in my class who is really nice! I really love my classmates because they're all so friendly and nice :) 

I've also been trying to talk German more at home which is soo frustrating and hard! Practise makes perfect though, so I've gotta keep at it.

I got accepted into the University of Auckland a couple of days ago (woohoo!!) so it's been veeery stressful trying to sort it all out from the other side of the world.

Anyway, until next time! I hope you are all well and good :)

Berlin trip:

Memorial for the Jews - you walked through it and got deeper and deeper until you were surrounded by all of these big concrete blocks and it gave you such a weird feeling of isolation but it also made you think so much about what happened.

Brandenburg Gate!

Carolina, Johannes, Marie, and I :)

My amazing host-family :)

Johannes, trying to get the best angle when taking photos of tourists :p

The hotel that MJ dangled Blanket out of

Johannes leading the way

Reichstag Building

Berlin Dome

Berlin Dome

Flowers outside the French Embassy for those killed in the attack.

Checkpoint Charlie

A church that was destroyed in the war - it wasn't restored because they wanted it to be a reminder of what war can do.

Ad for a Maori exhibition at the Berlin Art gallery that we saw while waiting for the tram :)

Denmark!

This will probably be another long post because a lot has happened lately, so get comfy!

On boxing day (26/12/14) I went on a journey that after two trains, one massive ferry, and six hours would eventually take me to Copenhagen, Denmark!

I was lucky enough to only have to change trains once at Hamburg which was nice and easy! To cross the border the whole train drove onto a ferry (I was slightly nervous about the weight of a train on a boat). I was expecting the ferry to be like the standard ones we have in Auckland that have lots of seats and maybe a food stall if you're lucky - but I honestly couldn't have been more wrong! This ferry was HUGE, it had a big duty free shop with cosmetics, food, toys and drinks, along with this there was two cafeterias and a coffee shop. It was massive and unlike any ferry I've seen before! Then when I hopped of the train at Copenhagen Central Station at 8pm I was greeted by Caroline (an exchange student who stayed with us for 8 months), her dad, Rene, and her sister, Josephine!

Day One:

In the morning we went for a walk on the golf course which was a 5 minute walk away and covered in snow! Victor (Caroline's younger brother) brought his toboggan with him so we had some fun riding down the hills on that! While we were there, I was so amazed by the snow at my feet that I managed to miss the fact that there was a tree in front of me. Let's just say I came out of the collision looking worse than the tree did and was stuck with a cut under my eye for the next 5 days. I didn't mind the cut though, I was mostly frustrated with how I did it, I wish it was something a bit cooler like getting in a fight with a bear or something, but what can you do?

After the walk we went to Rene's mother's house for lunch with his brother. They were all really lovely and we ate some yummy Danish food! I thought it was really interesting because they played exactly the same Secret Santa game with their family that we do with mum's family!

Josephine and Caroline then took me to a modern art gallery not too far from where they live which was cool to look around (I even saw my first Picasso painting!).

Caroline, Victor, and I at the golf course :)

Caroline getting pulled along by Victor

The roles have switched

Josephine and I at the art gallery :)

Caroline and I :)

Day 2:

This was a very busy day! In the morning we went to see Caroline's school and we also visited Carl and Ingrid's (my aunt and uncle) old house! It was so strange to see it in real life after hearing about it for so many years! We then went to Caroline's work in a housey shop and it's safe to say, Scandinavian homewares and design are amazing!!

Then we went to the waterfront to see the Little Mermaid statue! It was really funny seeing all of theses tourists leaning in to take a picture of this one statue that has nothing but water around it (not too much judgement though because I became one of those strange tourists).

After that we went for a walk around the Queen's palace in the city which was massive! We also had a quick look at the Marble church which was so beautiful! We then wandered over to Christiania which is a little town inside Copenhagen that pretty much has no rules. Lots of artists and hippies live there and it's basically legal to sell drugs there because the police aren't too worried about them. They also don't pay the same high taxes like the other Danes do. I think it's amazing because in a place where there's very little rules there is almost zero crime and everyone treats everyone equally and with respect. I was so shocked though because in the 'Green Light District" there were big queues of people lining up to these little stalls that were completely covered up. Rene then told me that all of those stalls were selling weed - it was such a strange thing to see, I wasn't expecting it at all! 

When it got dark we went to Tivoli, which is the second oldest amusement park in the world! It was really pretty because there were fairy lights everywhere and all of the rides were lit up. I went on a few rides with Victor and Josephine which were very fun and very scary! I had a really good time there! That night it started snowing and it was such a peaceful and beautiful thing to see :)

Carl and Ingrid's old house!

Tourists looking funny taking pictures

Me being one of those tourists

The Queen's palace

The Marble Church

Christiania

Tivoli!

Day 3:

It was -10 degrees Celsius!! In the morning I went to the dentist with Caroline so I got to see a bit more of the area they lived in. Then we went to lunch at Royal Copenhagen which was a cute and quirky restaurant in the city.We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping in the city. Everything in Denmark (food, clothes, etc.) is really expensive! I was blown away by the prices.

Day 4:

I went out with Caroline in the morning to help her find a dress for New Years Eve, and again everything was super expensive! We had a lazy day for the rest of the day and then bought fireworks in the evening with Rene. There was such a massive selection and people spent insane amounts of money on them! We then came home and had some Ben & Jerry's ice cream and it was soooo yummy!

Day 5:

New Years Eve!! We had a relaxed day spent mostly at home which was quite nice. In the evening Caroline and I got ready and went to her friend's house where we were meeting 20 of her friends from school for dinner and some drinks. For the first three hours I was soooo bored because no one was talking to me, but as the night went on people started speaking to me in English which was good :) At midnight we all jumped off the furniture into the New Year (Danish tradition). I was really really nervous because they were all moving on to another party that was meant to start at like 1am (way past my bedtime haha) ad when I got there some of the guys were talking about doing drugs and it looked like it was going to be a very wild night, so I was so grateful that Rene and Marianne picked me up in the taxi on the way home from their friends' house half an hour after I arrived :D 

This was at the dinner we went to

Day 6:

It's fair to say that this day was a bit off a write-off with everyone very tired from their late nights out. Caroline ended up coming home from the party at 7am which is CRAZY!! She was extremely hungover so just stayed in bed for most of the day. 

Day 7:

We went to Kronborg which was the castle that Hamlet was set in. It was really cool because it was set up like a museum so the public was free to wander around the inside of a big chunk of the castle. We also went for a tour underneath the castle in these dark and dingey rooms where the soldiers was kept. It was s interesting and I'm really glad we went! The castle was in Helsingør which is very close to the Swedish border so we could just look across the water and see the buildings of a completely different country! Then we went for a walk around the Queen's 'summer house' which was another big palace! The gardens there were so well-kept and beautiful! We also went for a walk around the Round Tower, which is as the name suggests, a round tower in the city. What was cool about it is that you went up what seemed like a never-ending ramp to get to the top which was a really really cool. Once we were at the top we got a 360 degree view of Copenhagen which was so beautiful with all the lights etc.

Kronborg

A statue of Neptune outside Kronborg

Inside the castle

Looking over at Sweden 

Me being attacked by the wind outside Kronborg

The Queen's 'summer house'.

Day 8:

In the morning the whole family went for a walk around their local church which was really nice cos there was lots of trees and ponds to look at :) In the afternoon we made pancakes and went food shopping. Marianne (Caroline's mum) made us a very yummy Danish dinner with fish that Caroline and i had bought from the harbour. It was my last night there so it was a nice send off!

Day 9:

Home time! In the morning, Caroline, Josephine, and Rene took me to the train station so I could head back to Germany. The trip back wasn't to bad and it was nice because it was daylight on the ferry so I was able to sit outside for a bit. It was so choppy though and people inside were stumbling around because of it! As the train pulled in to Hannover, Marie and Johannes were tapping on my window with big smiles on their faces and it was such a nice welcome home! As much as I enjoyed my trip to Denmark, I'm still really glad to be back :)

Duty-free shop on the ferry

View from the outside of the ferry on the way back

Sunset on the train ride home

P.s. Congratulations if you managed to last until the end of that post, it's seems like it goes on for ever and ever (sorry about that) haha