40 day Recap

Wow, so I knew I hadn't posted in a while but I didn't realize it had been 40 something days. Needless to say it's been a pretty eventful 40 days and I've been pretty busy with a lot of things. Let me give you guys a recap of what's been going on.

Last I left off I think was my birthday, but apparently now everyday is my birthday. My roommates have made it an on going joke to sing happy birthday to me as much as possible especially in restaurants or other public places. It can be a little awkward at times but I've gotten a free cookie and a spanking at Steak 'n Shake out of it.

On Halloween weekend, I went on a retreat with CCF to Panama City Beach. It's a rough life, I know. The weather wasn't perfect but it was warm enough for us to get in the water and enjoy some waves for a while. Since it was halloween, we brought along costumes for fun. Here was mine:


You should have seen my dance routine in that thing.

The next weekend was one of my favorites. Every year Tech does a GT night at Six Flags where they open the park for 6 hours just for tech students. It was supposed to be earlier this year but due to flooding, they had to push it back which made even fewer people go. In years past, my friend, Adarsh, and I try to break our previous record for rides on a roller coaster. Our numbers for this year were: Georgia Scorcher 1, Goliath 2, Mine Train 10 (would have rode more but they closed it down), Batman 15, Mind Bender 25. Needless to say, our minds were thoroughly blended by the end of the night. And just as a tip: I don't recommend taking bbq sauce on a roller coaster. It has a tendency to escape the container on the first loop. French fries on the other hand are perfectly acceptable.

The following day we played a really close game against Wake Forest that went into overtime. It was a lot closer than it should have been but it was still fun to see Tech come out on top.

Jump ahead a week and a half later to CCF's Open Mic Night. I was a part of a dance team and here's what we did:


The following weekend, my roommate Alex had 2 tickets to see a band called Phish. I hadn't really listened to them a lot but it's hard to pass up a free concert. However, the concert was in Cincinnati, Ohio and so being the stupid college kids that we are, we drove to Ohio and back in less than 24 hours. Here's some footage:


That finally brings us to Thanksgiving. Most of the school work was done the week before so I was able to pretty much take the week off. Tuesday Night, a group of us went to Callaway Gardens to see the Fantasy in Lights show that they have. Mom wasn't too happy that I went without her. We even got a picture with Santa.

I went home on Wednesday and saw the parents before the headed off to Wisconsin. And that just left me and the dog which might seem really sad but it was actually pretty nice to have some quiet down time. I cooked a turkey and a couple of casseroles and had myself quite the thanksgiving feast.

I headed back to Atlanta on Friday and avoided shopping all together. Friday night, I went to a basketball game with an old friend from high school and then proceeded to sleep for the next 12 hours. After that, there was definitely not any football game worth mentioning whatsoever.

Today's Dad's birthday so we're getting together at DeAnna's to celebrate. Only 2 weeks left of school and it's really hard to believe. Christmas is in the air and I'm looking forward to it. Our house is planning on making a Christmas album but we haven't made much progress on that just yet.

Until Next time.

Birthday Weekend

Well I'm 22 now and to many of my friends, I'm old. But I feel pretty much the same
It was a pretty eventful weekend So here's what happened:

It had been an exhausting week of studying and test taking. It always amazes me how professors can get together and make sure they have their tests on the same week. At least it wasn't all in one day. So Thursday afternoon, I was finally free. I walked out of my last exam with smile and my face and a skip in my step as I felt the freedom of the weekend approaching. That night was the championship game for flag football and CCF was in it. So after our bible study we headed over to the field to cheer our team on. It was here that my birthday celebration got started a little early thanks to my roommate, Alex, who was doing everything in his power to make sure everyone knew it was my birthday tomorrow. He tried to get the birthday song going at least 4-5 times during the game. His efforts didn't really catch on until after the game when he picked me and started carrying me around the field while singing. At this point everyone joined in.

Afterward,our large group of us headed to the movies to catch the midnight showing of "Where the Wild Things Are". At the stroke of midnight before the movie had started, I was so lucky to have another friend start the birthday song once more and so I had a large amount of the theater singing to me. The movie was pretty good. We got back home around 3 a.m. and I did my best to get some sleep before my 8 a.m. class.

Most of my birthday was just hanging out through the day. I had to go the parking office to pay a parking ticket and asked if they gave birthday discounts. The lady just kinda stared at me without even a hint of a smirk.

Friday night we took a big group to a place called Ru Sans that has really good sushi. I got what they call the "Gone with the wind" I guess because I'll never go hungry again. It was a pretty massive serving of crab, tuna, cream cheese, avocado, and something else I think, all wrapped in seaweed and then lightly fried. It was amazing. We headed back to our place where we made a fire and just chilled out the rest of the night.

Saturday, we lounged around until game time. It really wasn't the most exciting game until the end. But with our victory over the #4 Virginia Tech, we all rushed the field. It was cool just to be out there but nobody was really sure what to do, so we all started to disperse, at least until I noticed one my friends standing on the goal post. There had been security surrounding the goal post but it's kinda hard to hold off a few thousand students. Putting my small size to good use, I squeezed my way to the goal post. I was too short to jump up on it, but I was right there when it finally snapped. It was one of the most exciting and scary moments seeing it come crashing down. A few people definitely got hurt, several shoes and cell phones were lost, but I managed to come out of the mob untouched. Once the post got low enough, I jumped up and held on with everything I had as it was being carried out of the stadium. People were eventually climbing on me to get on the post but weren't having much luck. I noticed someone was trying to pull my hands off and I turned to see a cop looking at me who politely requested that I "Get off right now!". So I did and made my way to safety.

If you go here, at around 35 seconds you'll notice a girl sitting on the goal post and a guy with a blue sweatshirt and black lines under his eyes jumping on and then clinging for dear life. Yeah, that's me.



The goal post eventually made its way to the president's house where he gave a quick speech and the post was sawed into pieces by the students.

Sunday was definitely a day of rest, as we all slept til about noon and then got our house cleaned up a little bit. I'm really loving this cold weather and I'm looking forward to coming this weekend.

Until my next adventure.

There and back again

Well I thought I would be a little more regular with my posts but college life tends to keep things busy. A lot has happened in the past month. From football games to apple picking to roadtrips, it's been a pretty eventful year so far. Because there's so much going on I'll just have to tell you about the most recent trip since it'll be pretty long in itself.

So last weekend was our fall break and me and some guys wanted to do something really epic this year. What could be more epic than climbing a mountain...in Colorado. Obviously Colorado is pretty far away and normal people would probably buy a plane ticket. But we're not really normal people, we're college students. So we rented a 15 passenger van, added a small U-haul trailer, and loaded up 14 guys for our crazy adventure.

The summit we were preparing to climb was the Mount of the Holy Cross. I'll give you the trip in numbers and then add a little more story to it.

14,000 - feet to the top of the summit
10,000 - feet where our base camp was set up
6,500 - population of Metropolis, Illinois
3,059 - miles we drove total
180 - minutes I had to drive through clouds and crosswinds in Kansas at 2am
100 - mph of the wind that was trying to blow us off the mountain
83 - hours for the whole trip
34 - temperature on the mountain according to my thermometer
30 - minutes of sleep I got on the way back
29 - hours it took to drive back
27 - hours it took to drive there
14 - guys that went
14 - guys that got some form of altitude sickness
14 - guys that didn't take a shower for several days
10 - fingers that swelled up after climbing in the snow for a few hours
7 - States we drove through
6 - guys that made it to the top
5.5 - hours it took to get from base camp to the summit
5 - A.M. time we woke up to start our ascent
3 - actual experienced hikers
2 - A.M. time in the morning when we finally got back home
1 - great trip
0 - comfortable sleeping positions in a van with 13 other guys
-20 - temperature on the mountain according to my face

So we headed out friday afternoon and didn't get there until Saturday evening. We had about 2 hours of sunlight left in the day and we still had to hike 3 miles to set up base camp. I can't say that a lot of these guys were experienced hikers. Just looking around at the gear everyone had from sweat pants to a 12 pack of mountain dew, you knew this was going to be a long trek. So we start walking at fairly slow pace and it didn't take long before I got bored so i went ahead and got to see the sunset.

The temperature was definitely getting colder and colder and we weren't really sure how far we had to go. It didn't take long for the sun to disappear and soon we were hiking by headlamps. Our group was split up into different speeds, so me a 2 other guys were in the front and found our campsite by the river first. After 20-30 minutes the rest of the gang started showing up and we got our tents set up as best as we could with the limited space. We were all exhausted at this point and only a few of us took the time to cook some dinner.

The next morning we awoke at 5 am dark and early. We also awoke to the small surprise of snow outside our tents. It took a while before we were willing to get out of our warm sleeping bags but we all got there eventually. Since we had a base camp we were able to leave all our heavy stuff there as we made our way to the summit. It's a lot easier climbing big mountains when you don't have 30+ pounds strapped to your back.

We hiked for a couple of hours but several of our guys were having a hard time with the climb because the altitude and just not being used to the work involved I guess. By the end of the day, all of us had at least a massive headache if not worse. Only one guy threw up but a couple others wanted to. Several guys stopped once we got to the timberline and had nothing but rocks and snow ahead of us to the top. This was the most fun part for me. You could definitely feel the shortness of breath coming a lot sooner, so you just had to take it slow and not try to overwork yourself too much. There were parts on the mountain where we were basically just rock hopping because we couldn't trust the depth of the snow in some places. We had to do this for over 1000 ft. in elevation change and I think it was a little over 1.5 miles walking distance.

So as our members started to drop as the elevation increased. Me and Petey were leading the charge most of the way. It got to the point where there wasn't much of actual path that you could see so you just kinda made your own way.


We finally reached the top after about 5.5-6 hours of climbing. By this point, I was pretty tired and cold. I hadn't brought as much warm clothes as I should have and gloves are pretty useful thing to have. But I made it to the top and that's all that mattered.




We enjoyed the view for a pic and then headed back down to base camp to meet up with the rest of our group that had already turned around. The original plan was to stay another night then hike back out the next morning but we decided to go ahead and make our way to the van before dark. As we were packing, it started snowing again which just made us want to get there even sooner. We had thought about camping by the van but with the snowy/rainy weather, none of us seemed to mind the idea of heading home a little early.

Driving back, I got to experience my most terrifying driving experience ever. Kansas is an awful state to drive through, especially at 2 in the morning. It's even worse when you have to drive through solid clouds and 40+mph crosswinds for over an hour. Everybody was else decided it was too scary to watch so they all went to sleep and trusted that I would get us back safely. So sipping on my cappuccino and an energy drink and constantly praying I wouldn't get blown off the road, I drove about half way through Kansas.

The rest of the day was nothing but sitting in the van, attempting to find a position i could sleep in but to no avail. I gave up once the sun came up. We stopped in Missouri and had some really good pizza. At this point it was getting pretty late in the day so we thought we would just drive out the rest of the way, but driving through Illinois, we saw a sign for the largest Superman Statue in Metropolis, Illinois and we just had to stop for that.

We made one last stop for dinner at a gas station before we finished off our journey. It was 2:30 in the morning and I would have gone straight to bed but I desperately needed a shower.

And that was my fall break.

Boys will be boys...

I was contemplating whether I should post this here or not but considering the amount of people who have seen it already, I figured what the heck. For some background info, CCF has an occasional guys' and girls' night where the guys do manly stuff and the girls do whatever they do. This year, my roommates and I decided to crash girls' night. The following is what took place. I apologize for any of you that might be scarred after seeing this.

Still Going

So, I realize it's been over a month since my last post and for a while I wasn't entirely sure if I was going to continue my blogging or not. But I figured it's a good way to keep everyone updated especially the fam. So I'll keep writing.

A lot has happened since I got back from Germany. To summarize the final 2 weeks of my adventures abroad, it was a lot of goodbyes and soaking up the city of Tuebingen before leaving. You'll have to ask me more about it later.

School is definitely in full swing, but it's a whole different world this year. For those who haven't heard, I decided to change majors. That's right, I jumped aboard the M-train, Management. Spare me the the lectures about how I should tough it out and it's too easy blah blah blah. It was not an easy decision but I had my reasons and I made my choice and I plan to stick to it. That's all there is to it.

This year I'm also in a new living situation where I'm with 5 other guys living in a house together. It's already been pretty crazy and we're just getting started. I think we might even start a video blog to post random, funny videos. More on that later though.

This past weekend has been great. Saturday, Tech had it's opening game against Jacksonville St. which wasn't much of a game at all but it was fun to feel the football spirit again. After the game was over, we drove out to one of my friend's place to relax and enjoy the outdoors. We rode 4wheelers, shot guns, cooked over an open fire, and even chopped down a tree to make a raft (it didn't float). It was just a lot of fun hanging out.

Since today was labor day, I figured I should get a little bit of work in, so that's what I've been up to today.

Not sure what will happen this week, but I'm hoping for the best. Sorry it's been so long since I've written, but now that I'm kinda getting into the swing of things, i can hopefully post stuff on a regular basis. Until next time.

-Jack be Nimble

Early(ish) Morning

2 weeks and counting

So exactly 2 weeks from today, I'll be coming home to America. I have to say it's a bittersweet feeling. I can't wait to be back among friends and family and have amazing things like air conditioning and being able to drive a car. But it also means I have to leave this beautiful country and get back to the real world. I'm ready but I'm not.

But enough about emotions and whatnot, I'll fill you in on the past couple of weeks.

The weekend before last, I made a trip out east to see the famous Neu Schwanstein Castle. For those who don't know it was Walt Disney's inspiration for his own castle. Some of my friends had gone to Munich for the weekend so I was just going to meet them there. So I got on a train, and then another, and another, and one more and about 5 hours later I was there. There are actually 2 castles there but Hohenschwangau is a little less known. Since I had some time to kill before Nate, Erin, and Steph arrived, I was able to see both castles. The castles actually aren't all that old but were really just built to look medieval. They're still really awesome though.




The ride back to Tuebingen was actually a lot longer because one of our trains was delayed for an unknown reason. So after another 4 or 5 trains and a taxi ride, we were back home.

One of our German friends had a birthday on Tuesday and his wife wanted to surprise him. So we went to their house at midnight, snuck into his bedroom (we didn't know he was going to be sleeping), and gave him a rude but happy awakening for his birthday. He might have said a few choice words amongst the confusion, but after we got the cake and wine out, everything was ok. He was very thankful for the surprise.

The Wednesday after there was an outdoor movie night in Tuebingen, and I was able to see Dirty Dancing for the first time...in German. It was interesting to say the least but Patrick Swayze just wasn't the same.

Friday, we introduced Germans to Brinner (Breakfast/Dinner) but not only was it a brinner but it was also a progressive brinner. So we had 3 floors in one of the student housing buildings. First we had cinnamon rolls and fruit as the appetizer on one floor. Then we moved to the next floor for the main course. We had eggs, hash browns, sausage. And then came dessert, where we made crepes. All of the food was amazing.

Last weekend was actually a Staatfest (City festival) and so on Saturday we decided to check it out. A couple of Steph's friends stopped by for a visit since they were doing their own short tour of Europe. There wasn't a whole lot to the fest, mainly a lot of beer stands, but it was still fun to walk through and hear people playing music and dancing. I forgot my camera or I would have taken pics.

Sunday was pretty relaxing for the most part. Mainly just slept in and enjoyed the day. We ended up going to a Salsa night at one of the pubs. Steph's friends had taken classes before so they helped us guys out. I won't say I did terrible but it definitely wasn't anywhere as good as what some of those people were doing.

We started our final week of school and I'm ready to be done. I don't know if I'll be able to go on any other grand adventures across Europe but I hope to make the most of my time here in Germany. One of our team members is leaving this Sunday so she can be back for a wedding. Not too much longer before I'm headed back that way too. Bis dann

Unabhängigkeitstag

So as I'm sure you were all aware that this past weekend was in fact:Independence Day or as the Germans call it, Unabhängigkeitstag. First I would just like to say sorry to my family since I couldn't be with ya'll this year. I'm sure you had fun even without the fireworks. We didn't have fireworks until a couple of days later but it wasn't exactly for the 4th of July. I'm not really sure what it was for.

So here's what's been going on the past couple of weeks.

Mainly, it's been a lot of school. We have class every day for 3.5 hours which is very tiring on the brain but I really enjoy the people and the teachers there so it's been a lot better than my first class I took when I got here.

Last week, we went out bowling with a group for a going away party, or at least we thought. Once we got to the bowling alley, we found out the girl had already left and that we were just hanging out. I bowled some of my worst games yet for some reason but it was still fun.

For Independence Day, we threw our biggest Chill 'n Grill yet. We put up flyers, made a Facebook event and did our best to get as many people there as we could. I'm not sure about how many showed but there were a lot of new faces which was awesome. So we did a lot of grilling and hanging out. Just making friendships and having a good time. We ended the night by watching the movie, Independence Day, in German, which wasn't as good as the original but it was still fun to watch.

Sorry I don't have any pictures for you this week. I'm sure you can head over to facebook and see all the ones from Independence Day.

I'll be home in 4 weeks. Hard to believe it's almost over. I really miss everyone back home but I still don't think I'm ready to go back. There's still some more adventures to be had, so this weekend I'm going to Neu Schwanstein (the big castle that Walt Disney used as his inspiration). Should be pretty awesome. Bis Bald

Buda - Wait for it - Pest!

I know what you're thinking: You're going to Budapest? Who goes to Budapest? What's even in Budapest?

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have those same thoughts at first, but as it turns out, Budapest is a pretty awesome city. You're also probably wondering how we even decided on Budapest. Allow me to explain.

So here in Germany they have this awesome deal with Germanwings where you can pay 40 euros or so for a blindbooking fee. They give you a list of possible countries but you have no idea where you're going until it's paid for. We had talked about going to Ireland and Greece, you know really beautiful places but they were a little on the expensive side. So being the frugal college students that we are, we went with cheap mystery trip and ended up with Budapest. We had only known maybe 2 other people that had been there but they had good things to say about it. And, just as luck would have it, Nate happened to have a friend studying abroad there as well. So what all did we do? I'll recap

Sunday:
Just a bunch of bus, train and plane rides before finally arriving at our hostel in downtown. At 10 p.m. it looked a little sketch but once we were inside, it looked like a page torn out of Ikea.

Monday:
We had an early start, or at least I did. I think I woke up around 6:30 or 7 due to the sun blaring through the window while everyone else slept till about 9. So once everyone was up and ready, we met Nate's friend, Michael, who was to be our tour guide for the next couple of days. Here's what we saw:
-Parliament
-The Chain Bridge
-Buda Castle
-Matthias Church
-Fisherman's Bastion
-The Labyrinth
-St. Stephen's Basilica
-Heroes Square
-Vejdahunyad Castle
-A park

I'm trying to keep this as short as I can but there was a lot that happened. The labyrinth was probably my favorite part of the day, but it went underground beneath Buda Castle and took you through a series of poorly lit, winding passages. I had a lot of fun scaring the girls. There was also a Hall of Courage which was pitch black. It was awesome. Going to all these places required a lot of walking, so by the end of the day we had worked up quite an appetite. We found a Mexican restaurant which had probably the greatest gift of all, free refills! Oh, how glorious it was.
We got back to the hostel after getting some groceries and hung out with a girl from Canada who was doing her tour of Europe for a few months.

Tuesday:
We were pretty tired out from yesterday so we decided to sleep in. I made it to 8 a.m. We hung around the hostel for a bit before heading to Margaret Island, which is on the Danube river between Buda and Pest (yeah they're 2 different cities in case you didn't know). So we walked around a bit and laid by the musical fountain before seeing these 4-5 person bikes. I say bikes but it was more of a car that you had to pedal. But we rented one of those and cruised the island for an hour or so. We saw all kinds of things like animals, kids climbing trees, 80 year old women wearing thongs, 60 year old men exercising in speedos. It was great. We met up with Michael again and he took us to the Citadel where we had an amazing view of the city.
Wednesday:
This was my favorite day of the whole trip. Before leaving, we were all researching stuff to in Budapest and I stumbled upon Caving. Apparently, Budapest has a lot of caves. But we didn't want to just walk around a bunch of rocks, we wanted adventure (or at least I did). So I found a caving adventure tour. So we show up at the cave and tell the guy, we want the Adventure tour. So he asks if we've made a reservation. I tell him, no, the website said we didn't have to. Well, it turns out you kinda do, but God was on our side. So I found one of the guides and he talked to his boss and long story short, we suited up for our adventure. There was a lot of crawling, squeezing, and sliding for a couple of hours and it was great. The guide even gave us chocolate. There was one place called the Winnie the Pooh hole, which was just a small hole usually meant for kids. But since we were making such good time, the guide told us we could try it out. I have to say it was a tight fight even for me. After leaving the caves, we wanted to relax and so we headed to one Budapest's finest thermal baths. We went back to the hostel and watched a movie after eating at the mexican restaurant once more.


Thursday:
Thursday was our day of rest. We didn't really do anything until after lunch. We then headed to the Children's Railway which is a train run completely by kids (everything except the conductor). So we cruised around the Buda Hills and then took a chairlift back down to the main city. We decided to find some Hungarian cuisine for dinner, but the closest thing I got to Hungary Food was some Hungarian smoked cheese which was on my burger. It was delicious though. For dessert we had waffles.


Friday:
Once again, I was up bright and early so I went for a final walk by the river and saw a little bit more of Budapest before heading back to see if everyone else was awake. We packed our things but our flight wasn't until 9:45 that night, so we left what we could at the hostel and headed to the mall. We were able to catch a couple of flicks in English which was a nice change. Afterward, we went to TGIFridays and I had fried mac and cheese. Kind of expensive but totally worth it. We headed to the airport and returned home to Germany.

You don't realize how much you love a language that you only know a little of until you go some place that you have no idea of anything that is being said. I'll miss the food in Hungary but it was good to be back in Germany.

And that was Budapest. This past week we were back in class and getting back to our regular routine. For those anxiously awaiting our return: only about 6 more weeks here. Hard to believe I know, but I hope to make the most of them. Bis bald.

P.S.

Catching up

So I'm sure you've all been anxiously awaiting some updates about my life. Sorry I've been procrastinating so much lately. For a week or so, there really wasn't all that much to tell. When we last left off, I had just returned from my adventures in Scotland which was pretty amazing. The following week was mainly spent just hanging out with Germans.

There was one day where Chandler and I decided to go for a run. Normally, we just go for a quick run through the woods. This time we ended up running for over 2 hours. It's pretty amazing what two guys can do while trying to one up the other. Whenever the other one asks how you're doing, you simply smile and say "I'm good." while ignoring that fact that you've pretty much lost all feeling in your feet. Regardless of what our motivation was to keep running, I think we covered somewhere between 10-13 miles. We also got to J-walk the autobahn.

One of the big events that happened that week was the arrival of my parents. They had flown into Stuttgart that morning and drove down to Tubingen for the day. I was able to give them a short tour of the city and got them some German beer and doeners. The rain kinda cut the tour short and they were pretty tired from the flight so they headed back to their hotel.

The next morning I met up with them in Stuttgart, where we saw a football(soccer) game. I knew we had pretty good tickets but I didn't realize that we were going to be on the second row. Not a bad view huh? Stuttgart came out on top and ended up finishing 3rd in the season. My parents did their own tour of Germany for the next few days but stopped by once more the following Thursday.
That day was apparently another German holiday, though I'm not exactly sure what for. Nevertheless, it was a holiday and so to celebrate, Unterwegs hosted its 2nd Chill 'n Grill (which involves exactly what the name says).

Fast forward a little bit to last weekend.

Last Saturday, we went to the Stuttgart Zoo with one of our German friends, Danuta. It had been a long time since I had been to a zoo but looking back, I can't remember a zoo with so many animals. It was really awesome. It took us about 7 hours to go through the whole thing. And to make it even better, I touched a penguin. Awesome. We were pretty tired by the end of the day but that didn't stop us guys from playing on a playground with a massive climbing thing (we're talking like 25ft high). If this thing were built in the US, it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen.

As if the zoo weren't enough for the weekend, the next day we went to an amusement park called Tripsdrill. Now, we didn't realize this at the time but apparently, this place was a little more geared towards kids but that didn't stop 5 21+ year olds from having fun. It also didn't stop the Germans from putting naked women mannequins on one of the rides either. It had something to do with them discovering the fountain of youth. I'm not really sure.

The day after that, we had yet another German holiday. I seriously don't know how they just keep popping up. So we had yet another Chill 'n Grill with even more people. I should also mention that we have introduced the Germans to the wonderful game of 4-square. They really like it.

Yesterday, Unterwegs hosted a Birthday/Dance party which was a lot of fun. In an effort to continue my adventures in baking in a foreign country, I made a cheesecake which turned out really well. Much better than what the Germans call cheesecake at least.

And so I think that about covers it. Again, sorry for the delay but don't worry, there's still more to come.

Upcoming: Tomorrow we're leaving for Budapest, yes Budapest, Hungary. Random I know but an adventure no less. We'll be there until friday.

Lederhosen thrown in with some gray suits and kilts

"Das ist nicht hier."
"Was?!"
"Das ist nicht hier."
"Wo ist das?"
"120 km da.(pointing west). Es gibt ein Bus in 5 minuten. Verstehst du?"
"Ja. Ich denke."
"There's a bus leaving in 5 minutes at bus stop 22. You might want to run."

So that was the conversation I had with a guy at the information desk. It was here that I realized how I had stupidly skimmed over the little parenthesis next to the name of my airport. Apparently there's a big difference between Frankfurt airport and Frankfurt(Hahn) airport. An hour and a half difference to be exact. But by the grace of God, I was able to make it to bus and had no trouble making my flight to Scotland. No need to panic Mom.

So I made my way to Scotland to see some old friends. I met Aaron at the airport and we headed back to Paisley where he and Matt had been doing a study abroad for the past 4 months.
Wednesday, we headed up to Glasgow which is a great place for shopping. So as 3 handsome young men in a city full of stores galore, we did what any guy would do and saw a movie. It had been raining most of the day so it was a good choice. We got back to Paisley and Matt made us some chicken casserole. It was pretty much amazing. Afterwards we headed to the student center and watched the Chelsea vs. Barcelona football(soccer) game.
Thursday, we took a train out to Stirling and saw a castle and other cool things. What we were really interested in was seeing the William Wallace memorial. We had to wait for a bus to take us there and by the time we arrived, it was technically closed.

But there was a nice old man at the counter and I asked if there was any way we could go up into the memorial. He gave us 20 min and that was all we needed. We got back and stopped for some dinner where I had my first taste of fried haggis which was really good.

Friday, we made our way to Edinburgh. Saw the castle and got some souvenirs which of course included kilts. Then we climbed Arthur's seat which gave us an amazing view of the city. The weather had been really beautiful all day but just as we reached the top, we were greeted with a sudden downpour and really intense winds. It was actually pretty cool.

Saturday, we went to a local pub to watch the Rangers vs. the Celtics (Scottish soccer teams) and then went to a live local soccer game. Our team didn't win but it was still a lot of fun. We got back to their flat and had a quick bite to eat before I had to leave to catch my plane back to Germany.

So imagine a ridiculously beautiful day. Perfect temperature, few clouds in the sky. Just Beautiful. Got it? K, now imagine that you were invited by a few Germans to go a bike ride through the forest on this beautiful day. Sounds pretty good right? Ok, now imagine you’re riding along in the middle of woods, haven’t seen a town for miles (or kilometers since we’re in Europe) and you suddenly come upon a huge festival with several hundred people, possibly thousands, all grilling, dancing, and celebrating. That, my friend, is what Germany is all about.

So Friday was the 1st of May and here in Germany, they call it the Erste der Mai which is a holiday something like our Labor Day. I’m not exactly sure of the history behind it but neither did many of the Germans we asked so it’s ok. Apparently, the common theme is for people to take a day off, go out in the woods, and eat and drink and be merry. And that we did.

Chandler and I were invited by some Germans to go on this bike adventure. We weren’t sure how long we’d be gone or where we were going but they promised it would be fun. And that it was. We left around 11 in the morning and made our way first to a town called Babenhausen, which has a really beautiful old church. From there, we continued into the wilderness on a bike trail leading to a city called Herrenberg. I must note that this city was about 20 Km(12.5 miles) away. It was somewhere in this 20Km that we stumbled upon the fest. It had a name but I can’t remember what it was. I bet you think this is where we stopped for the rest of the day but no. As much as I would have liked to stayed, we were only there long enough to enjoy a juicy steak sandwich and rest our legs before continuing our journey. We made our way to Herrenberg but to get there we came down a huge hill. Coming down was a lot of fun but none of us had much interest in trying to go back up it, so we had to consult the map for a bit and found a different trail that would bring us back to Tubingen. The new trail stayed more along the roads but it gave spectacular views of valleys and fields filled with flowers.

We eventually decided to stop for dinner and found a nice field with some trees for shade. One of the Germans pulled out a small Picnic grill which was basically a tin foil box filled with coals. So we had our small grill and it’s a good thing they brought the Americans along because they weren’t having the best luck getting the coals to stay lit. Chandler was able to get it going and somehow I ended up nominated as the grill master for the evening. We had weisswurst and potatoes, pretzels and some little breaded cheese things, a big loaf of bread and even potato salad. We actually brought more food than we could finish off. It was quite the feast.

With our stomachs filled, we mounted our bikes once more and continued our ride. We made our way back to Tubingen with the sun setting behind us. Chandler and I parted ways with the Germans and made it back to our rooms completely exhausted by around 10 or so. I think the total length of the trip was somewhere between 40-45Km (25-28miles).

Short video later but for now some pics here(the last 7 are from the ride):
http://picasaweb.google.com/theinvisible77/Germany03#

And on another note, I'm going to Scotland today. Awesome.

Week of Experimentation

So it’s a rainy day here in the land of Germany. Things have been picking up with the start of classes and all. We’ve been meeting and hanging out with lots of students. I’ve met some people from Russia and the Ukraine on my floor but I don’t see them very often.

It was a week of experiments for me. One thing that’s pretty disappointing about Germany is the lack of biscuits here. So I decided that I would make my own. The interesting part is trying to find the right ingredients at the grocery store and then trying to convert english units to metric. The biscuits turned out pretty good and with some cheese and salami, they were amazing. I also made French toast for the first time which turned out pretty well. The syrup here is a little different unless you want to pay 6 euros for the Canadian Maple syrup.

I also decided that I was due for a haircut, and in an effort to try something new and save money, I just decided to do it myself. I borrowed some hair cutting scissors from a friend and with a couple of mirrors and some newspapers, I hacked away. I think it looks pretty good. Sorry I don’t have pictures just yet.
Wednesday we went to a Uni-film showing where they play movies for students for only like 2 euros. So we got to see Wall-E in German which was pretty cool.
Last Friday, we had our first official event at Unterwegs where we hosted a game night. We only had 4 students show up but we had a lot of fun playing card games and eating tons of cookies and gummy bears.

Last night I was really enjoying my sleep until about 2 a.m. when the fire alarm went off. I was really hoping it would only last about 5 min. or so, but not this time. After about 15 min. I decided I should leave the building since the alarm wasn’t going to let me sleep any time soon. So I joined everyone outside in time to see the fire trucks show up but I never saw any signs of an actual fire. The firemen went in and in about 5 min the alarm was turned off and we were allowed back in.

Tomorrow I think we’re having a calzone night then going to a dance club which should be interesting. We’ll see how that turns out.

Georgia Winter

So this is a pic I took today. As you can see, spring has arrived and it's amazing the difference a lot of green can make. Germany seems like a completely different country than what it did in the winter. People shed their many layers and get out an enjoy the sun, so, naturally, I followed suit and put my shorts on an went for a ride on Peggy (my bike).

I can't say that winter has completely gone away though. Before today, we had a few days of rain and near freezing temperatures. To be honest, I really enjoyed the cold but that's because I'm not right in the head according to some of my friends. I think it just reminded me of the cold, rainy winters back home. Oh well, moving on.

So I'm sure you're all wondering what Ol' Peggy looks like.
I can't say she's the prettiest thing but she does her job well. I've actually started a small collection of bikes that I've found on the side of the road and I've pretty much turned my room into a workshop. I'm up to 3 so far. I'm hoping to repair them but that kind of depends on the cost. They aren't in bad shape but they don't exactly have wheels. I plan on using these as my therapy to have something to work on. Maybe by the end of the semester I can sell them and make a small profit.

We've been having a lot of fun this past week. Friday was the first official use of Unterwegs for an event. We had a guy's night of poker with about 10 people total. I did a pretty good job of losing, but it wasn't for money so it's ok. Afterwards, some of our German friends invited us to Tacky Party but by the time we got there, the police had shown up and closed it down because it was too loud. We ended up just hanging out at the student pub near the dorms. Saturday was a dreary day but ended well. We had made friends with this girl who was having a birthday party, so we went to that and were able to meet a bunch of other students. We even ran into some students from Mexico who had been to the Globalscope there. Crazy how small the world is sometimes.

Not exactly sure what the week has in store but I'm sure it'll be interesting. I'm doing my best to not be bored while I'm here which really isn't all that hard. Classes start next week and we'll be having a lot more events with Unterwegs in the coming weeks.

That's all for now.

Up and running (it's about time, I know)

Ok so there's been a lot of talk about me doing a blog about my adventures in Germany and what do you know? There actually is one. Yes, I realize I've been here for 7 weeks already and am just now starting but hey, it's better late than never right? Thought so.

Anyway, a lot has happened in the past 7 weeks and there's no way I'm going to go into great detail about it all, so you'll just have to ask me about it when I get back.

For those of you who don't know, I'm here with a group called Globalscope and we're starting a campus ministry here at the University of Tuebingen. Tuebingen is an awesome college town and is insanely beautiful. You should be jealous.



The past 7 weeks, me and a group of 7 others have been taking language classes and exploring the sights of Germany while meeting some pretty cool people along the way.

We've seen castles and mountains, eaten doeners and weisswurst, ridden in planes, trains and automobiles,and had a couple of beers along the way. It's been an adventure so far and it looks like things can only get better.