Trip to Essen

   Hey, it’s good to be back with another weekend post! This past weekend (March 24-26) was pretty busy, but I had a ton of fun!

   Friday I got out of school super early, because a lot of my teachers were on the school ski trip. I wish I was skiing, but a bit less school is good too. After school I met my fellow exchange student and friend, Sean, in the city to hang out. We went to a cool store that had a bunch of Australian goods, and had a good chat with the Australian store owner. This made me really want to see Australia some day… Afterwards, we met our other exchange student friend, Marc, to get some food before we went to a basketball game all together. After a fierce battle between Pad Thai and burritos, we eventually decided to get some Bay-Area style burritos, and some frozen yogurt for dessert.

                  

   Afterwards we walked to the train station, and headed to the basketball arena. The game was between the Köln RheinStars and the Paderborn Baskets. While Sean considered it a bit underwhelming (to be fair, we’re used to NBA and NCAA), the game was a lot of fun to watch. And luckily Köln came out on top!

   I spent Friday night at Sean’s place, and the next day we went into the city for a while just to hang out a bit. We didn’t really do to much, but the weather was amazing so it was just nice to be outside. I also spent Saturday at Sean’s, because Sunday we were going to Essen to meet with our teacher from language camp.

   Sunday morning we woke up very early, and caught a train to the bus station, where we got on our bus to head to Essen. Essen isn’t very far at all from Köln, but it we decided to take bus because it was a lot cheaper. Plus we got some awesome seats at the very front of the second deck!

    Anyways, once we arrived we still had a bit of time till we met with our teacher, so we walked around the city for a bit, and then went to Museum Folkwang, an art museum famous for it’s collection of 19th and 20th Century art. Entree was free, and the museum was really big, making it a great visit. They had some really nice pieces on display, as well as some pointillism. I really like pointillism, so I think that was my favorite part. Here were some of my favorite pieces:

           



   
                                 

   After spending quite a while in the museum we finally got to see our teacher, who we hadn’t seen since language camp, seven months ago! Time has really flown by. First order of business was food, and then we walked to Essen’s big park, catching up with each other during the walk.. We didn’t actually have time to explore it, but it seemed really nice. Instead we headed to the Zeche Zollverein, an old coal plant turned museum. Essen is part of the Ruhrgebiet, an area in West Germany that supported a strong coal-mining industry. Today it’s not quite the industrial powerhouse it was previously, but the industrial culture remains. stronger than ever. We got some tickets for the observation deck, where we had a great view of the coal plant and all the surrounding area.

       

   From there we went to the University. Our teacher is currently studying there, so she gave us a bit of a tour, and told us about university life in Germany. The campus was pretty cool, and it’s probably a nice place to study. But before we knew it the day was coming to an end, so we said goodbye and got on our bus to go back to Cologne. We had a lot of fun though, and it was great to catch up a bit.

   And that’s about it for my weekend. But I just wanted to add here that it’s already been 7 months!!! It honestly feels as if we left language camp in Hedersleben just yesterday, but here we are just 3 months away from flying back. It’s a strange feeling, thinking about going back. In some ways, I can’t wait to see family and friends again, and to have a lot of fun with them this Summer. But I’m really going to miss Germany. It’s hard to make a life for yourself in another country and to have so many great experience and to meet so many great people, and then have to say goodbye. But I’ve still got three months, and I’m planning on using every second of them! See you in the next blog!