Home Sweet Home

It's a little late in coming, now that I've been home for over a week, but I thought that my blog is not quite complete. There is one story missing: my trip home.

It started by taking the bus down the mountain on Friday (21st). It was my first bus ride in Eichstätt. We had been given a coupon for a free bus ride, and I had purposely saved it the entire trip, just so I could use it on my way home. It was certainly an experience, and, as Kelton said, a fitting last bus ride. The driver seemed to have a bit of road rage, and we almost ran into a few vehicles, and the driver honked his horn a few times, yelling at the other people. So that was fun. Then came the 1:44 train out of Eichstätt Stadt. Both Casey and I took the same train. But she was headed out to Frankfurt (through Nuremberg) and I was headed to Munich, so after we reached the Eichstätt Bahnhof, we parted our ways. Kelton was an absolute sweetheart, and offered to take the train with me to Eichstätt and then help me carry my luggage down a flight of stairs, and then back up a flight of stairs to get where I needed to be for my train to Munich. That was probably the most difficult part of my trip on Friday. Made it on the train successfully. At the Munich train station, I had a bit of difficulty maneuvering my luggage down to the S-Bahn platform, almost had it smash into the person in front of me, but I managed. Got on the S-Bahn no problem. Rode the S-Bahn all the way to the airport. I had decided earlier that instead of getting off and having to get my luggage onto a bus, then back off again, and then walking a distance to a hotel I'd never been to before, that I would just spend the extra 6 Euro and get a shuttle ride from the airport to the hotel. So once at the airport, I went to the Information desk where they called the hotel for me. Got picked up, went back to the hotel, got checked in, and was shown my room. It was a very cute little room, and it had a TV. I felt a little too tired to do any exploring, so I pretty much locked myself in, and relaxed for the rest of the evening. It wasn't a very long evening - I had to wake up really early the next morning.

I didn't sleep very well, even after taking Tylenol PM, but then... who would? I was much too excited about going home. I ended up waking up early, and got ready. It was quite a feat getting all my luggage down the stairs. Of course there were no elevators. So I had to lug one piece of luggage down the stairs at a time. Then I got on the shuttle van, and off to the airport I went. And that is where the real story begins. Found the correct check out counter (as there was a special counter for flights to the US). As I was getting checked in, I found out there was a problem with my connecting flight from Chicago to Minneapolis. I was supposed to be on the 1.10 plane out of Chicago. But, as it turned out, there was no such flight out of Chicago to Minneapolis at 1.10. Problem! I was sent to another counter (the ticket counter) where they searched (and found) a different flight from Chicago to Minneapolis for me. But instead of flying United, I was to change airlines, and fly American Airlines. My flight also left at 2.40, not 1.10. I guess what happened was that my original 1.10 flight had been pushed up two hours earlier, which would have been impossible for me to make, considering I wasn't supposed to touch down in Chicago until 11.40. All in all, it wasn't that big of a set back, but it definitely something I didn't really want to deal with on my way home.

My flight out of Munich posed no problem, other than the fact it was nine hours long. How I managed to last, I'm not quite sure. Maybe because I had a good travel companion. An older lady from Germany, but living in the US. She was kind of like my grandma for the day. We talked a bit, and I helped her fill out her US Customs Declaration form. Going through US Immigration and Customs was a breeze. I didn't have any problems whatsoever. Got my luggage re-checked, and my ticket printed. Rode the train out to the American Airlines terminal. Ended up getting lucky, and was picked for a random search of my body and personal belongings. That was fun. Got to my gate way before I needed to be. The whole Customs and re-checking my baggage went so smoothly, that I would have easily made my original 1.10 flight. But I had an extra hour and a half to wait. Bought a pop at McDonald's in the airport with my debit card, because I didn't have any American money. Sat around for a while, not being able to do anything, because I was too excited to go home. The airline ended up switching my gate, so I had to get up and walk across the terminal to get to the new gate. My connecting flight was uneventful. I spent most of the hour or so just staring out the window, and watching the clouds and the ground. And then, before I knew it, I was landing in Minneapolis. Kyle, being his usual self, was late picking me up, so by the time he made it to the baggage claimed, I had already claimed mine. It was a little weird to see him again after four months, but it was good nonetheless. After leaving the airport, we had a little picnic, and just hung out a bit, before going back to my house. He made me orange muffins. =) Once home, everyone was glad to see me, except for Curly, who didn't even pay much attention to me. After seeing Kyle's dog, and having her being really excited to see me, we decided that Curly must have been mad at me for leaving, or that he just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to leave again. After a walk, a car ride, and lots of attention, he finally forgave me. All is well in the world again.

And that completes my Germany trip blog. It certainly was an experience, but it's good to be back home. <3

I'm coming home!

In about four hours, I will board the train that will take me to Munich. From there, I will stay over night in a hotel. My flight out of Munich leaves at 9 in the morning, and I'm set to arrive in Chicago at 11:40 am (local time). My connecting flight leaves Chicago at 1:10 (provided I make it there) and arrives in Minneapolis at 2:34 pm.

Needless to say, I can't wait to be back home again. =D

Vier Tage Noch!

Four days left!

Only FOUR days! With that in mind, I've just been picking up my grades (straight Bs on the European system, but once the grades transfer back home, they'll go up a little), getting packed, cleaning my apartment, saying good bye to everyone, and figuring out my travel plans to Munich.

Mostly though, I've just been lying around my room, reading the book I was supposed to save for the plane ride home (I bought a new booktoday for that purpose), trying to stay as cool as possible in the heat, and hoping that everything goes smoothly on my long trip home. I'm not so worried about getting to my hotel in Munich, nor about getting to the airport, that's the easy part. It's the only having an hour and a half to go through customs and security, and get to my connecting flight that worries me. But being that I have been gone from home for almost four months already, I can guarantee that I will be more than willing to push through lines, or use any excuse I can think of, in order to get to where I need to be when I need to be there. And, of course, I'll have my running shoes on.

But regardless of what happens, I'll still make it home, and that's the most important thing.

Meine Prüfungen sind vorbei!

My tests are over with!

And now I am finally free! Well, sort of. I still have one of each class before I leave, in order to pick up my grades. And I have to figure out what needs to be done before I move out of my apartment. And there is a problem with getting all my grades to the person (here in Germany) who is putting together the transcript that will be sent home before I leave. There's always something going on. Gotta have some problem to solve, or else life gets boring, right?

But the hard stuff is over. This weekend is supposed to be unbelievably hot (88 degrees, after the cold 60 degree weather we've been having), so you can bet that I'll be spending time relaxing at the public swimming pool.

Only ten more days, and I'll be back home again! =)

Praha

Prague (in the Czech language)

Even though I didn't leave for Prague until the early morning of Friday, my story really starts on Thursday. Both Casey and I have Thursdays completely free, so we decided to use this past Thursday to climb up to the castle in Eichstätt, and visit the Jura Museum there. Apparently, there have been a lot of fossils found here, so we got to see all those. It wasn't all that interesting to me, but at least I can say I saw it. We also got to climb up in one of the castle towers – all the way to the top and outside. The view was pretty much amazing. After our adventure in the castle, Casey and I went to McDonald's to eat. Mostly because that had been one of my goals to accomplish while living in Germany – try the McDonald's. When I took a cultural anthropology class last fall, I learned that McDonald's caters their menu to the tastes of the people of whatever country they're in. So, of course, I wanted to see if there was really a difference. The first thing you notice right away is that the burgers are smaller. I personally like this, because I usually can't finish an entire burger on my own. To be honest, I didn't notice too much of a difference, but did find that the food here is better. Probably because everything here in Germany is fresh. So that was my German McDonald's experience. Not too exciting. Anyway, later that day, I decided that I was going to need to withdraw more money out of the ATM, because I was getting low on cash. I went to the ATM that I always use... and it wouldn't let me withdraw money. Went back up the mountain, mostly to see how much money I really did have left, and then went back down the mountain again to try and withdraw a smaller amount. By this point, it's getting late in the afternoon, and I feel like I'm competing against time, because most of the banks close pretty early. I am in small town Germany, after all. I get to the ATM. Try 250 Euro. Nothing. 200. Nothing. 150. Nothing. 100. Nothing. 50. Nothing again. At this point, I'm getting worried that there is something wrong with my account, and that I'm going to be stuck in Germany without being able to access my checking account. So first I stopped by the computer lab to check my account online – nothing was out of the ordinary. I booked it back up the mountain in order to call the bank. I call the bank. I get, “Well, Ms. Shofner, there is nothing wrong with your account. Everything is in order.” Next idea. Booked it back down the mountain, this time to a different bank, to hopefully withdraw money. Get to the bank. It's closed. Yay. You technically are able to get to the ATMs, even when the bank is not open, but you need a card... a card which you only have if you're a member of the bank. Something which I didn't have. Luckily, there were people inside, so I just walked in when one of them walked out. Withdrew my money. With absolutely no problem. None at all. Sometimes I think life likes to make things difficult for me. I''m probably supposed to be learning something important like, “always think on your feet” or “always be on guard, because you never know what life is going to throw at you next.” Or probably something really simple, like problem solving. I would just like life to know that yes, I am already pretty darn good at problem solving, thank you, and should I have to have more practice, I would politely ask that the problems be slightly easier and less stressful to deal with if it would be at all possible. I would greatly appreciate it.

But next. Prague. The trip to Prague began at four in the morning on Friday. At four in the morning Germany time, it is actually about nine at night at home. So when all of you were thinking about getting ready for bed, I was dragging myself out of bed for one last big adventure in Europe before I leave. Did I mention I didn't sleep much the night before? Needless to say, I was tired, and not really looking forward to having to be on a train for a total of about eight hours. Casey and I made the 5:01 train out of Eichstätt, no problem. Bought our ticket to the Munich train station as well as a ticket for our trip back to Eichstätt on Sunday. Keep that last part in mind. It was my idea to buy the ticket, and it comes into play later in this sordid visiting-an-Eastern-European-country tale.

Met up with our travel buddy, Sara, when the train to Munich stopped in Ingolstadt, where she had been staying for the last month, with the other St. Cloud State students. Made our way to Munich. No problem. But then, it's a very easy thing to do. Got on the train to Prague. Or, at least on the part of the train we thought was going to Prague. But no. It wasn't. Unknown to us, the train was to be split at one of the stops. I forget which. I guess it's not really that important. So the guy that checked out tickets said that the first three cars of the train were the ones going to Prague. Easy enough, right? Wrong. We got up. Walked through a lot of cars towards the front of the train. Sat down. After some minutes, realized that, hey... there were still a lot more cars ahead of us and we were still not on the right part of the train. So we walked all the way to the front of the train, until we could not go any farther, and then found a seat and settled in. After that it was just a waiting game – were we there yet?

At the Czech Republic – German border, we had to give up our passports. Because I haven't traveled outside the country since I've been here (ok, so I went to Salzburg and that is in Austria, but it doesn't count), I was excited to finally get a stamp in my passport! Hoo-rah, right? Wrong again! The border patrol man took my passport, flipped through it a bit, looked at my student visa, and then gave me my passport back, without giving me a stamp. I was, needless to say, extremely disappointed. As far as I can figure out, the student visa makes me sort of like a citizen of the European Union, and because the Czech Republic is also part of the European Union, they don't give out stamps on passports – which is also why no one checked passports going into Austria. Anyway. There is a noticeable difference between Germany and the Czech Republic. Casey said that it was more “crappy” than Germany. I'm a bit more diplomatic, and so I called it “run down.” The train tracks are not in as good a condition, and so we traveled slower. The houses did look a bit worse for wear. The bridges made me nervous every time we had to cross them. They made this noise that made me not trust them. And they looked very rusty. But we made it to Prague then, without incident.

One thing that I realized when I first came to Germany was that when I was back home again, communicating would become so much easier for me. Mostly because once you have to communicate in a foreign language, you realize how truly easy it is to communicate in your native language. Well. Once in Prague, it fast became apparent to me how good I have it in Germany, because even though I may not be fluent, or not be able to understand everything, I still understand more than enough to get by. Not so in Prague. So that was also an interesting little realization. Oh the things we learn when we travel to new places.

We arrived in Prague around one in the afternoon on Friday. With a handy dandy map in hand, which wasn't always so handy, we made our way to our hostel. The hostel was right across the street from a police station, so we figured we'd be safe enough. I'm not even sure how to describe what the hostel was like. It basically just took up some “apartments” on different floors of this old building. It had a wicked cool elevator that had no real elevator shaft, just a cage around the area that the elevator used. Kind of scary, but I eventually took it while we were there, just to say I did. It was an experience. Though I actually think the elevators at St. Cloud are scarier, because of the way that the doors shut. The elevators at St. Cloud practically slam shut on you. This elevator you just had to close the door. Easy. Because we arrived at the hostel before it was our check in time, Sara and Casey dropped off their stuff, and we went on our way. Sara had everything she needed for two weeks, because after Prague she went to Barcelona, and then she is off to Italy, so obviously she didn't want to carry that around. Casey had more stuff than she wanted to carry, and... I didn't want to leave my stuff anywhere. I also managed to pack light.

So out we went into the streets of Prague. First we exchanged our money. Even though the Czech Republic is a member of the European Union, they haven't yet made the transition into using the Euro. So we got a bunch of Czech crowns. The exchange rate is something else. 30 crown to a Euro. This enabled me to spend a lot more money over the course of the weekend than I normally would have, but that's ok, and life goes on. Then we decided to get something to eat. I tried the goulash, thinking it would be similar to what we think of, when we think of goulash. But no! It's actually just little pieces of meat with some kind of sauce. Not to bad, actually, but I don't think that it will ever be a favorite of mine. Fanta will be though. I always have had a fondness for orange pop. After eating, we walked around a ton. We got to see some military men doing a show – they were marching around and throwing their guns around, and it was pretty darn awesome. Definitely wouldn't see anything like that in the US. After a while, we decided to walk back to our hostel, so that we could actually check in, and get our stuff into our room. So back to the hostel we went. Got our stuff, climbed up lots of stairs to our room, and picked out the free beds. Thus began our experience in the hostel. In walks a guy wearing nothing but a towel. As we're talking about where we're from and such, he proceeds to pull on his underwear, and get dressed in front of Sara and I (Casey had left the room). A bit out of both Sara and I's comfort level. But whatever. It's a hostel. How much worse could it get?

After putting our “important” stuff in our locker, we decided to head out again, and walk around some more. Somewhere along the line I picked up a scarf, a pin for my mom, post cards, and something for Kyle. Then Sara and I thought it would be fun to try Absinth later that night, so... we bought a tiny bottle of that, and then also shot glasses to drink it out of. Wandered across the Charles Bridge, and then up a lot of stairs to the castle, which at the time, we didn't know it was the castle. Saw some of the guards. The ones who don't react or move or anything. Well, their eyes moved. But you could walk right up to them, and they wouldn't move. So we took some pictures with one of them. Walked back down the stairs, back across the bridge, decided we needed to find where the astrological clock was, because we hadn't seen it yet, found it, saw it, then decided to eat something. After that I think we walked back to the hostel to try out our Absinth (there was to be a big production about it, with pictures and Mooey). That was a lot of fun, and I think the pictures speak for themselves (link to follow later).

Because the three of us had all been up extremely early, we decided to turn in early. Sometime later, some drunk Swedish guys were making a lot of noise. By this time, I had already donned my headphones, and cranked my mp3 player, so it didn't bother me much. But I know that Sara had to go out and tell them to shut up. I don't think it worked. Other fun stuff during the night: someone was snoring incredibly loud in our room, one guy came back and stripped down (I had the unfortunate luck of opening my eyes, which I quickly closed again), and something we didn't find out until the next morning... one of the guys was sleeping naked. Not really that big of a deal, had he been sleeping fully under the blanket. But no, his butt was hanging out. Casey and I decided that this was the hairiest ass we had ever seen. But when you add all these things up it equals a bad hostel experience. At least the first night. We had to switch rooms for the second night. And as we headed out into the city for the day, we had no idea what to expect for the second night.

Started off our day by going up in the tower on the Charles Bridge. Amazing view of the city. Came back down, and then took a boat tour. That was a lot of fun. The tour was in English, but Casey, Sara and I were the only native English speakers on the tour. Got a lot of good pictures of the bridge, and got a little history on Prague itself. Walked around some more, and found some place to eat. I ordered a strawberry margarita and potato soup. I've noticed that I tend to order what I like without giving much thought to whether they really go together or not. Potato soup and a strawberry margarita? It seemed a little odd, even to me. Especially since we were still a few minutes shy of noon. haha.

Walked around more. Somewhere along the line, I took out more money, and then realized that I wouldn't want to take any of it back with me, and so I would have to spend it. Tough task. Bought a shirt. And then later bought a really pretty necklace. Went out to eat again. Then, deciding we weren't quite ready to go back to the hostel yet, we found a bar, and hung out and had a couple of drinks and just had some quality girl-talk. Finally made it back to the hostel. Walked into the complete opposite experience of what we had gone through the night before. A quiet guy from Hong Kong, and an older lady who was traveling while she was in Europe for business. Nice people. We breathed a collective sigh of relief, I'm sure. But we weren't quite ready to hang around the hostel, so we hit the streets to see what Prague was like by night. We weren't disappointed. It was quite amazing. So we walked around some more, and then finally went back to the hostel and went to sleep.

The next morning Casey and I were to head back to Germany, and Sara would stay in Prague one more day before heading out on her way. Made it to the train station with little hindrance. Bought some food. I found Mountain Dew! So I bought some of that. Went to the platform. Got on the train. That was the easy part. Five minutes before the train was supposed to leave, Casey realizes that she threw away her train ticket earlier that morning because she thought that she didn't need it anymore. We had no time to figure out to buy a new one or anything. And so when the train rolled out of the train station, we weren't sure where we were going to end up. They don't take kindly to people riding without tickets. I had my ticket, of course, but I couldn't very well leave Casey alone. So when the lady that checked the tickets finally came around, Casey gave her our little insurance ticket thing, that came along with our train ticket, and luckily, that seemed to work. Which is good. I wasn't looking forward to being stuck in the Czech Republic. I guess that I wasn't too worried, because even if we would have been kicked off the train, we would have just had Casey buy a new ticket, and then continue on our way once the next train came around – it would have just screwed up our arrival time, so we would have to stay over in Munich for a night. It would have been unfortunate, but certainly survivable.

But that was just through the Czech Republic. Once we hit Germany, Casey would need a valid ticket. As luck would have it, if you remember from earlier, I had the ticket that we were going to use on our way back to Eichstätt. It was one of the tickets that you can use to travel anywhere in Bavaria, so we were able to use it not just for our trip from Munich to Eichstätt, but also our trip from the German border to Munich. So basically all this planning ahead that I always do, and often get crap for, finally paid off. We arrived safely back in Eichstätt.

And that is where the Prague story ends. I do, however, have yet another story to share.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that a couple weeks ago, I noticed that I had had a charge to my account that I was unsure about. After calling the credit card company, I was able to figure out that it was just my parking permit charge that I forgot about. Well, this week, I discovered that my balance was yet again lower than what it should have been. This time it was only nine dollars, but that is still nine dollars that I am responsible for paying. So I got to call the credit card company again, and ask what the nine dollar charge was, as it hadn't actually posted to my account yet. “It's for Entertainment Rewards,” the lady says. Well, I didn't authorize that one. So I get to call back on Thursday, when the charge is actually posted to my account. I do know what happened, though. About a month ago, I bought concert tickets through Ticketmaster.com and they had this stupid Entertainment Rewards promotion or something or other. I've very careful about not signing up for anything like that, and I know with 100% certainty that I didn't give my credit card number to Entertainment Rewards, nor did I authorize them to charge me $9 for whatever their services are. So after calling the credit card company, I went back down the mountain, with every intention of writing Entertainment Rewards an emailing demanding that the charge be taken off my credit card. But all I came up with was a lot of articles over a scam (yes, I'm a victim of a scam!) involving Entertainment Rewards charging people for services they never agreed to, and an 866 number. Well, I can't call 866 numbers from Germany. So I'm hoping that I can get everything resolved through Wells Fargo by simply disputing the charge, or else I'll just wait until I get back home, and then call Entertainment Rewards and give them a piece of my mind. All in all, though, I'm actually not too concerned about it. I'm sure that it will all work out in the end. The Scam

I have other things to worry about, like three finals next week, so I'm choosing to focus my stress in other places. But really, I only have 17 more days here, which is not that much at all, and so I'm not going to worry about this. I'm just going to enjoy the rest of my time here.

Praha Pictures
The Mooey Album

Personal Hygiene

Is a phrase that probably has no German translation, as it is a concept that too many Germans have failed to grasp. I honestly can't tell you how much I look forward to going home, and being surrounded by good smelling people again.

The end.

The Good, the Bad, and the Almost Ugly

The Good:

Last Thursday, Casey and I rented a couple of bikes, and made our way to the Roman ruins. The majority of German bikes are different from those in America – less like a mountain bike, and more old fashioned style. They were a little hard to get used to at first. And since we had to go through the city first to get to the path to take us to the Roman ruins, I'm pretty sure that everyone who saw us along the way were laughing at us, knowing that we weren't Germans. We probably looked pretty funny. But the bike ride was really nice. The path, for the most part, followed the river, and it was a nice peaceful seven kilometer bike ride. It was also good to travel somewhere by something other than our own feet. So we get to the Roman ruins, only to first have to climb up another huge hill (they seem to be the bane of my existence here) with our bikes. To put it simply: the ruins were not that spectacular. The most interesting part of the “ruins” were actually reconstructed replications of what the buildings/fort would have looked like. We didn't spend very long at the ruins before heading back down the hill. And that was an experience, indeed! A lot like going down on a roller coaster... and for those that know me, know that I don't like roller coasters. But I made it down safely. And that was actually a lot of fun. So even though the ruins were kind of anti-climatic, the bike ride there was well worth the trip.

Friday Casey and I went to Ingolstadt to visit our professor, and the other St. Cloud State students. By the time we left for the train station, it was thundering, so we started off our adventure by running down the mountain to try and avoid the rain. As we would later find out, rain is pretty much unavoidable. Made it to the train station no problem, get on the train, go to Ingolstadt. Our professor and a couple students meet us there. It's raining pretty hard by then, so we take the bus to the Villa (the same place that I stayed for the first two days that I was in Germany), drop off our stuff (we were staying the night), and start heading off to meet the other students. By this time, it was dark, rainy and windy. After meeting up with the other girls, we pretty much found the closest restaurant, and ate there. It was good catching up with the girls that I haven't seen for a while. Made plans for traveling to Prague. And also for a trip back to Ingolstadt to visit everyone one last time before they leave at the end of this month. Saturday Casey, our professor Isolde, and I were all invited to one of the student's host family's house for breakfast. And so there I got to experience a real white sausage breakfast. It was really neat to experience some real German culture, because it's something that I miss by living on my own in an apartment.

Sunday there was a flea market here, so a group of us went. That was really cool. I found (and bought) some old German money, including a few coins from the World War 2 period, which even have the Nazi symbol on them, and everything. After the flea market, we grabbed something to eat, and then headed over to the other market that was going on. It was some kind of pottery/hand work market. I bought some earrings. There was lots of other really neat things there, and I was kind of disappointed that I couldn't buy anything, because of the difficultly of transporting it back home. But for a Sunday, which are usually extremely boring, it was a good day.

The Bad:

Did some of the math with my credits on Saturday, and realized that I'm one class short for my German major. This means that instead of having to pay for two classes on my own, I'll now have to pay for three. And I also have other money issues to worry about, such as buying a car, wondering about the security of my job back home, and having to find a real job once I graduate. I'm going to talk to my professor the next time I see her, to discuss what I can do about this, but it's still not something I want to deal with right now, or so close to graduation. And I wanted to use all that extra money to buy books in German so I could try and stay fluent/get better! =(

I bought a lot of chocolate (which I have been doing a good job of cutting down on recently!) due to the Almost Ugly.

The Almost Ugly:

Went online this morning, to find that my credit line was about $150 less than what I expected it to be. Since I've been the victim of fraud before, and my mother just had some issues with her credit card right after she came back from Germany, I was worried that someone was making unauthorized purchases on my account, so I bought an extra phone card, in case I would have to be stuck on hold all day, dug up the international number, and called Wells Fargo. Luckily, as it turns out, the $150 was only my parking permit for next semester that was charged to my account, and nothing more. I had sent off my parking permit application last week Monday, and with all the other activity going on last week, I had forgotten all about it. But now I know. And am extremely relieved.