Endlich, Ferien!

Willkommen zurück! I hope you haven’t gotten sick of my blogs yet, because I’ve got a few more coming this week. I’m getting closer to being caught up every day, so I’ve just got to make it a few more days. As you might be able to tell from the title (which translates to “Finally, Vacation!”), today’s blog is over the beginning of my fall break. However before I had the break, I still had 4 more days of school to get through. It starts on Tuesday the 4th, after my fun 3-day weekend in Bielefeld.

   After the fun weekend, I was back in school for another 4 days before we finally reached vacation. It was a very hectic week, due to so many teachers having their Klausurs and many others having to help with the Klausurs. On Tuesday I had a mostly normal day, except for my Spanish teacher not being there. And because German schools don’t hire substitutes, we had those two Stunden (Stunden means hour but here actually means 45 minutes) free. I went to a nearby market in Nippes, which I had heard about but never seen. It was really cool, with people selling everything from old records to clothes to meats.

        

   The next day, Wednesday, was even stranger. I normally have a fairly long day, getting out at around 3:00, but due to almost all my teachers being out, I had hardly anything. I showed up to school at the normal time, only to soon figure out that my first four classes were cancelled. I came back at around 11:00, had 45 minutes of art class, and then discovered all my other classes were cancelled as well! So I really only had 45 minutes of school that day! Thursday was also really short, only 3 hours in school. After school we had dinner at a restaurant, with some family friends. It’s a tradition in my host family, to celebrate the beginning of fall break. On Friday I had my Deutsch Klausur, which I was not ready for. Of course, because German is the native language here, this is a first language class, like English class in the US. Because of this, the test required analysing a poem and writing an essay over it. This is difficult enough in my native tongue, let alone a language I had only been speaking for a month! Luckily, my teacher reassured me that my score didn’t really matter, and that I just have to put in some effort. That was a huge relief, but I still tried my hardest on the test, with decent results. The rest of the day was fairly normal, and I didn’t have any cancelled classes. But by the end of the day, I had made it to Herbstferien, or fall break! It was finally here, two whole weeks of no school to travel and have fun!

   While it may have only been October, it was already getting pretty chilly around Köln, so I took some time on Saturday to go to a second-hand clothing store to prepare myself for the German winter. This may sound a bit dramatic, but the worst winter I’ve ever experienced was a respectively warm and sunny Texas winter, so I wasn’t taking any chances. My plan was to look in the second-hand store first, and then a more expensive department store if I couldn’t find anything. Luckily they had two jackets that were just about perfect, one to wear underneath and a nice and thick, waterproof winter jacket. They were both fairly new and in good shape (and inexpensive!).

   I didn’t do much else on Saturday, but on Sunday I went to meet up with Marc again. This time we left the Innenstadt to visit the Köln Zoo, which has gondolas that travel over the Rhine and into the beautiful Rhine-park. Tickets were cheap, and the view from the cable-car was great. Once on the other side, we explored the Rhine-park a bit, which is a fantastic, huge, public park on the other side of the Rhine. It was a really nice day to visit, and we had a lot of fun. After a while, we headed back to the gondola to go across. Unfortunately I lost my ticket, and had to run across the bridge. It was fine though, and didn’t take very long.

            

     After this fun afternoon, I headed back home, because we were having a barbeque with some family friends. Once again, the barbecue was delicious, and it was a lot of fun. Also, my host-mom had brought my host-cousin back from Bielefeld, so he could stay at our house for the next few days.

   On Monday I had another adventure with my host-family, to Königswinter, about an hour south of Köln. More specifically, we were visiting Drachenfels, famous for it’s castle ruins atop a steep hill. The name “Drachenfels” actually comes from a legend around this area, telling of a powerful dragon living in the hill, Fafnir, slain by a citizen of the town, Siegfried. According to the legend, he then bathed in it’s blood to become invulnerable, hence giving the town it’s name, “Dragon-stone”. It was about an hour hike up, but at the top we were greeting by spectacular views and the strangely beautiful crumbling remains of a once strong castle. The castle is extremely old, having been built in the year 1167. It has long since fallen out of usefulness and fallen into ruin, but a small part still remains. After seeing the beautiful castle and taking in the views, we took the historical mountain-train down to the palace. The palace wasn’t nearly as historical, but was much more intact. It is now a museum, preserved in the layout the original owner had it in. Over the years, it has served many purposes, from the house of a rich Duke to a Hitler’s youth school in the second World War. After exploring the beautiful palace, we took the train farther back down, to our starting place.

      We were going to leave then, but our car decided otherwise. The battery was dead and we didn’t have any jumper-cables, so we waited for an hour for the ADAC car to come and rescue us. Finally it arrived, and we were on our way back to Köln. We were all starving once we got back, so we went out to eat at a vegan Asian restaurant, which my host family loves. I ordered pad-Thai, which was delicious. However, I made the mistake of putting some chili-sauce labelled “Caution, Sehr Scharf” (“Caution, very spicy”) in my dish early on, which I suffered from for the next 20 minutes. I had thought the label was only there because Germans are typically more sensitive to spice, but they weren’t kidding. Afterwards, we went to get some ice-cream. My host-sister and host-cousin insisted on getting Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough, which they rather humorously pronounced “cookie doth.” Finally, after the long and busy day, we went to bed.

   On Tuesday my host-mom, host-sister, and host-cousin were going scuba diving (they all have scuba certification, except me), so I didn’t have much to do. Fortunately my friend Liz was spending the day in town, so we planned to meet up, along with a friend of hers and Emma, who is also in Köln. However, the first thing I had to do was get a haircut, because I hadn’t had one since July in the US. It was a bit scary, because I can’t explain how I want my hair cut in English, let alone German. Luckily, I ended up with almost exactly what I wanted, thanks to a very helpful hairdresser.

   Immediately afterwards I headed towards the Innenstadt and met up with Liz, Emma, and Celina. First we did the Kölner Climb, but this time we found something special at the top. The two previous CBYX groups had written at the top of the tower, along with the thousand other names and symbols.

   After making the trip back down, we walked around the inside of the cathedral, and then stopped by a cafe. Once we were done with our food, we hopped on the tram and took a bit of a tour of the city. Our first stop was a small store that sold Mexican and South American foods, so we stopped there to get some things. Afterwards we headed to my neck of the woods, Nippes, to do a bit of shopping. Then we made our last trip, back to somewhere near the Innenstadt. While walking back to the Dom, we stopped by an Asian-cuisine supermarket. We were here because both Celina and I find Korean culture really interesting, and we wanted to stock up on some of the most famous Korean snacks and treats. Luckily the supermarket delivered, and we found tons of foods we had heard of. I ended up with milk soda, samyang ramen (also called fire noodles, supposedly the spiciest ramen in the world), shrimp flavored chips, and a few more things.

    

  After this quick stop, we headed back to the Innenstadt, to end our day on the Hohenzollern bridge. Unfortunately, after this Liz and Celina had to catch a train back home, so we said goodbye and I headed back home. At home we watched the movie “Rock-and-Roll High School,” a movie from the 60s all about how the Ramones drive a high school principal crazy. My host-mom loves the Ramones, so this was the perfect movie. After the movie, we headed to bed after the long but really fun day.

   I’ll end the post there, just before we leave for our trip on Wednesday, October 12th. My next post will cover part of my trip, which will be split up into multiple posts because so much happened. I might not post tomorrow, because I’m pretty busy, but I’ll try to. Thanks for stopping by and reading this blog, and if you liked it make sure to subscribe by email, using the widget to the right.

Bis Nächste Mal!