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 :)
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