Ramstein Air Base

This weekend Nasha and I went to the American Base in Ramstein!  Its one of the biggest in the world!  A friend of her’s cousin is in the military and he picked us up and drove us there!  Its about 2 hours from where we live, and when we got there we realized we couldn’t get on base without our passports!  We tried to use our driver’s license, but they wouldn’t let us on.  This guy was soooo nice that he drove us back to our house to get our passports and then drove us back to the base!  However, on our way back, the GPS took us to the other side of the river!  We had to take a ferry to get across! 

Anyway, once we finally got on the base, we checked into the hotel and then headed to Chili’s for dinner!  I was so excited that they had a Chili’s on the base!  Its only like my favorite restaurant! Then after dinner we freshened up in the hotel room and then we headed off base to check out a bar.  As we were leaving the base, I was like don’t we need our passports to get back on?  (When we left the hotel, I didn’t realize we were going somewhere off base).  Our friend was like oh crap yes, but it was too late we had already gone through the gate.  After the bar, we got back to base and I tried to get on with my driver’s license and the guy at the visitor’s center was the same one that signed us in earlier, so he was going to let me…however, Nasha had forgotten her driver’s license in the hotel too!  So we had to sit there in the visitor’s center while our friend went to the hotel, got our passports, and then came back to the gate!  Finally we got back to the hotel and went to sleep for the night.

The next morning we went to check out of the hotel and then we checked out the PX!  It was awesome!  It was like a mini-America!  They had everything!  Bath and Body, Vitoria’s Secret, Under Armor, pretty much everything you would find in Walmart!  I wanted to buy so many things…but I didn’t.  Then we went to the food court for lunch.  I finally got my Taco Bell that I had been craving!!! It was sooo delicious!  After lunch, we went to the movie theater and saw 21 Jump Street!  It was great, extremely hilarious!  It was so nice watching a movie in English!  But being there started to make me really homesick!  By the time the movie was over, I was ready to leave!  I didn’t even want to go back to the PX to buy stuff!  I was like I have lived without it for this long and I just want to go.  I was crying on the way home, but I don’t think Nasha or our friend noticed though because I had my sunglasses on.

All in all it was a great weekend!  And this guy was so nice!  He paid for a lot of stuff for us!  He was so sweet!  So a special thanks to him for giving us a little taste of home for the weekend.  And also to Nasha’s friend for introducing us to his cousin!

P.S.:  Everything was in US Dollars on the base! =) 

Praha...aka Prague!

Three days in one of the most beautiful cities ever!  We woke up Friday morning as our train was arriving in Praha…aka Prague!  First we had to find our way to our hostel.  We left our stuff there, got a map, talked to the receptionist, made a plan, and then hit the city!  We explored a little on our own.  We went to the bagel place for lunch and then explored old town.  We took a free tour at 2pm.  We walked all the way up to the castle and saw so many cool things along the way!  We saw the Charles Bridge across the river, locks on the other bridge, the creativity wall in protest for the music of John Lennon, the statue of 2 men peeing symbolizing how hitler “peed” on the Czech republic, the symbols above the doors that allowed children who couldn’t read to know who lived there, and eventually the Prague Castle with the Cathedral.  We also learned the meaning of the cities name, “Praha.”  Unfortunately, Stephanie nor I can really remember the story!  lol  It has something to do with a girl that saw the city and wanted to name it after the threshold she crossed to symbolize the lasting love and in Czech, Prague means like the doorstep or threshold. 

After the tour, we went and checked into our hostel and then decided to head to the National theater!  We heard that we could get tickets 30 minutes before the performance with our student cards for half price!  We ended up getting into the Ballet for like 2 Euro!  And the show was amazing!!!  Our first Ballet and we loved it!  At that price, I would go every night! lol Then we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep since we didn’t get much on the uncomfortable train the night before! 

The next morning we got up and had a little breakfast at the hostel before heading out on the town!  We explored the city a little more and grabbed some street food for lunch.  Our tour guide had given us some ideas of good local Czech food to try.  We got Langose…which was amazing!  Its like a fried bread with a garlic paste smothered on it and then topped with ketchup and shredded cheese!  Oh how I loved that thing!  Then for dessert we tried the Trdelnik…which is a warm pastry covered in sugar!  This was seriously one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted!  I absolutely loved this food and just talking about it is making me crave it!  After lunch we headed up to the castle so that we could see the changing of the guards; our tour guide had told us that at noon they have a big show with music and stuff!  It was hard to see because there were so many people but it was cool.  Then we checked out the cathedral and then walked to Charles Bridge!  The bridge was so crowded with different vendor booths.  There were people selling things and people drawing caricatures and people playing music!  It was so cool.  We touched the shiny statue for good luck and made our wish!  Then we went for some ice cream! 

After the ice cream, we explored the market!  I could have stayed there all day and spent so much money!  There were so many cool souvenirs and things to look at and buy!  It was awesome!  Then we explored Wenceslas Square before heading to dinner.  For dinner we tried a little restaurant that the receptionist had recommended to us called Lokal.  We wanted to try some more local food…especially the fried cheese and roasted pork knuckle!  The food was delicious!  And fried cheese…if you are thinking like mozzarella sticks, think again.  This is like a huge slice/chunk of cheese that is then battered and deep fried!  There was soooo much cheese!  While I was eating it, I was thinking this is the perfect food for my little brother Matt!  The pork knuckle had a lot of fat and it just melted in your mouth…it was delicious!  Stephanie and I were sharing everything and we were still a little hungry so we decided to also try the goulash and dumplings.  The waiter let us get half potato and half bread dumplings.  And oh my were they good.  The meat again just melted in your mouth and the dumplings were scrumptious as well!  And we got all this food for like…I don’t remember…but like 15 or 20 Euro I think and both of us were stuffed!    

After dinner, we went back to the hotel to freshen up before the Clock Tower Pub Crawl.  We met at the clock tower and then went to this bar that was in the basement of an old cathedral building!  There I got my T-Shirt and we had 2 and half hours of open bar.  We tried our first shot of Absinth!  And we also tried hot wine, something that Czech is known for.  And we met some really cool people and did some dancing.  Then they led us to a club where we got a free welcome drink and did some more dancing.  We stopped at one other club and it was so cool because we were like VIP and got in free and didn’t have to wait in lines!  We did some more dancing and then ended up the night in one Europe’s largest clubs!  The music was great and we danced the night away with our new friends!  We met this group of people that were actually staying at the same hostel as us!  When we left the club, Sharna (a new friend) and I split a giant brat!  It was so delicious especially at like 3:30 am!  Then we walked back to the hostel to get some sleep!  We wanted to get up early to explore some more before our bus left at 2:38!

The next morning we woke up a little later than planned, but we grabbed some breakfast and then hopped on the metro!  While at the hostel, we saw our friends in the hall and one of them was like MISSOURI…that’s what he was calling me all the night!  It was so funny…they were like you are crazy!  So then we wanted to explore Prague’s second Castle.  Its not very popular among tourists so it was so peaceful up there and we had a great view of the city!  We saw a gorgeous basilica and also the most beautiful cemetery you could ever imagine!  I am so glad we had time to go up there!  It was amazing!  Then we grabbed some stuff from the supermarket for the train ride home and I grabbed a Langose for lunch and some Trdelniks to bring back with me!  We grabbed some bagels as well and then headed to the train station.  All in all it was an amazing weekend we had so much fun!!!   I trip I will never forget!!! 

Cleansing Diet

So my friend Nasha decided she wanted to go on a cleansing diet and she wanted me to be her accountability partner…so I agreed.  We were going to do 10 days with no carbs, meat, or sweets!  Since we have been in Germany, we were eating too much junk all the time!  We were going to start on Sunday…the day after Norman’s bday party!  We started out strong!  Eating mostly fresh fruits and veggies!  We ate nuts for snacks and drank a lot of water!  We went shopping together one day and bought so much stuff and lost track of time that I was going to be late to class if we waited for the bus and probably pass out if I had to walk home with all that stuff!  So I text my wonderful friend Christian and he drove us and our groceries home…laughing at us all the way!  And then he dropped me off at school so I wouldn’t be late for class!  What a sweetie!  Anyway…after 3 days of this…I was in class and talking to Stephanie and we decided we were going to go to Prague for the weekend!  Then at the bus stop Karly pointed out the fact that I was on this diet until Tuesday!  I was like no!  I am not going to another country and not trying the local food!  So we decided to shorten our diet to 5 days.  Then it would end Thursday night and I would be able to eat whatever I wanted when I arrived in Prague Friday morning!  Then while I was on the train to Prague…still eating my fruit and nuts…we saw a facebook post that Nasha ate a bowl of Chocolate Ice Cream!  She only had like 3 hours left!  She didn’t even make it 5 days!  I was so mad…but I was a good girl and waited until midnight before I had a small chunk of chocolate and a pretzel before curling up for bed!  I don’t think we will be trying that again! lol 

February 26: KOLN

Jill, Gerry, Nasha, and I got up early and headed to KOLN!  We explored the city and had so much fun!  We walked up the 533 stairs at the Cathedral and took pictures from the very top!  It was so tiring…and was very dizzy coming back down.  We went and bought some souvenirs and checked out the original cologne that the city is named after or maybe it’s the other way around…we don’t know which came first!  We went to the brewery for lunch.  The food was great, but the service was terrible.  We tried the beer that KOLN was known for…but I didn’t like it and couldn’t even finish my tiny glass!  I got an iced tea instead!  After, we walked through the old prison and saw where a lot of people were held prisoners during the time of Hitler.  Unfortunately all the descriptions were in German, but we did find a few stories of people that were in English as well.  It was so sad reading them.  We got the most delicious gelato at a little shop and it was only 1 Euro per scoop!  We took pictures throughout the area, including the bridge with the locks.  People would lock their love on the bridge on then throw the key into the river!  It was crazy seeing all those locks and all that love!  There was a guy on the bridge that handed each of us roses and I thought it was so sweet and then he wanted 2 Euro each from us.  I only had 1 Euro and a few cents in my pocket so I tried to give him the rose back, but he wouldn’t take it.  I felt bad…but he took the 1 Euro and left me with the rose.  Oh well.  Then we went to the Panorama and rode the lift to the top of the tower!  We could see the whole city from up there!  It was beautiful.  When we were leaving the tower to head back to the train station home, we saw a guy leading a girl to the bridge with a blindfold on…we thought for sure he was going to propose!  We were so excited that Nasha and I stood there to watch while the others went to grab a pretzel for the ride home.  We watched forever and finally he took the blindfold off….and then they kissed!  But we never saw a ring!  We were very disappointed!  How cool would it have been to see someone get proposed to on that beautiful bridge?!  Oh well…we are hoping maybe we will witness a proposal in Paris!     

February 25: American College Party

EBS decided to try to throw an “American College Party.”  So of course us Americans had to go check it out and make sure they were doing it right.  To our disappointment, it wasn’t all that great.  When we first got there, they were playing some crazy boring music that no one listens to at American college parties, I can guarantee.  I asked my friend that is in the resort that planned the event and was like what is up with this music, we don’t’ listen to this.  And we was like take it up with the DJ …lol.  Also, they were playing beer pong. But…they had one big problem!  NO RED SOLO CUPS!  They had those little clear ones!  Ahhh!  It was all wrong.  And my friend told me that they tried to get jello shots, but it didn’t work out!  They didn’t have a keg or anything either.  It was pretty much just like the other EBS parties…except for the lame version of beer pong!  lol  As the night went on, the music got better and we ended up having a lot of fun.  So much fun that we missed the last bus home, which wasn’t very good since we had to get up early the next morning.  But since we missed the bus, we decided to go ahead and stay until the end.  Then we took a taxi because we found out it was a flat 15 Euro for 6 people and so split up it was like nothing…better than walking the 40 minutes at 3am to our house!  We ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep before having to get up early for our trip to KOLN! 

February 17-20: Karneval

Karneval is one of the most exciting times here in Germany!  Its like their biggest holiday!  You get to dress up and its like one big party…all weekend long!  There are parades and festivals and parties like crazy!  We saw people dressed up as early as Wednesday I think!  We saw this old drunk guy on the train that had those giant sunglasses, you know, and a captain sparrow hat!  He was yelling things in German and everyone was laughing!  Even us…although it would have been funnier if we could have actually understood what he was saying.  Mayela thought about asking him, “Bist du getrunken?” lol It was great!

Unfortunately, our crazy school decided to schedule classes all weekend!  All the other schools in Germany were on holiday and we had classes Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Mon!  Luckily we found a way to work around them!  On Saturday we had planned to go to a parade after class…however we decided since some people didn’t have costumes yet, we would go shopping and then hit up the other, larger parades on Sunday and Monday!  We went to a costume shop in Wiesbaden and it was huge!  There were so many different things to choose from.  Unfortunately, they were way over priced of course.  I already had a mask, so I just bought some glitter spray for my hair and decided I would wear a dress that I already had that was the same colors as my mask.  The other girls got masks and wigs.  Then we went home to get ready and hit up a local party.  I went to a Turkish restaurant in Wiesbaden with some friends…Diana and I wore our masks!  We were the only ones in the restaurant dressed up!  There were several kids that were very excited to see us though.  When we got back to Oestrich-Winkel we decided to go to Keller because no one was having a good party, but it is always a good time at Keller!

Then on Sunday we went to the parade in Wiesbaden.  This was an interesting day.  We got there around 11 to realize the parade didn’t start until 1:11… and when we decided to leave around 3, the parade was still going on!  The weather that day was so weird.  When we realized we had time before the parade would start, we headed back to the main train station to grab something to drink.  On our way walking there, the weather went from being Sunny…to starting to Hail!!!  It was so crazy!  Then when we got back to the parade area, it was starting to get sunny again, but it was somewhat cloudy.  Then during the parade it was pretty nice, until about 3 when it started raining!  That is why we decided to leave; we were tired and we were getting wet! 

I can only begin to describe how amazing the parade was!  It was nothing compared to the parades in America!  Germany takes this stuff seriously!  In America, you know they occasionally throw out a little bit of candy, but that’s about it.  Not in Germany!!!  You better watch out or you could get hit with a book!    We caught not only candy, but books, spatulas, tissues, popcorn, bread, toys, keychains, and more!  It was Awesome!  One of the girls we were with, she is so cute!  She was catching stuff and opening it and then sharing with everyone!  She was like shoving popcorn and candy and stuff in our mouths while we were trying to catch more stuff!  It was so much fun!!! And this was the smaller parade…we didn’t even know what to expect in Mainz the next day!

Monday, we went to the big Parade in Mainz!  It was insane as well!  There were so many people it was crazy!  And the roads were so full of confetti and trash and everything that you couldn’t even see them!  we caught a ton of stuff again!  And we took pictures with random crazy people in cool costumes!  And it was so weird seeing everyone just drinking in the streets!  No open container laws here!  After the parade we went home and a couple of us stopped in Wiesbaden for some Chinese food.  Then when I was getting off the train in Oestrich-Winkel, I ran into my buddy (German student that is like a go to person for any questions I may have).  He was asking where I was going and I said we wanted to find a party and he was like the party is in Mainz, come with us.  But Nasha wasn’t with me so I called her and we were gonna take the next train and meet them in Mainz.  We headed back to Mainz and were amazed at what it looked like at night.  It was like an actual Carnival like you would go to in America, but better!  Some of the streets were closed off.  There were vendor booths everywhere selling alcohol and food.  There was some kind of ride lit up in the background and there was loud music playing from every which direction.  Eventually we found my buddy and he took us to this club.  It had 2 floors with 2 DJs and it was so much fun!  We spent hours dancing and we even got free beers from my buddy!  We took the last train back to Wiesbaden, but it was late so we missed our connection to home.  We ended up taking a cab, and my buddy was so sweet he paid it for us! 

All in all it was a crazy fun weekend!  I have never experienced anything like it!  The girls and I were talking about making it a reunion to come back here just for Karneval!   

February 11: Turkish Meal

Saturday night we went to Norman’s house for dinner.  Asli and he prepared a traditional Turkish meal for us!  It was sooo good!  We started off with a simple salad with olive oil.  Then we had pasta with yogurt and meat with like garlic and some other spices or something.  I need to ask Asli what all was in it because it was amazing!  Then we had some beans and also some like boiled veggies like eggplant with some other meat I think it was Chicken.  Anyway it was delicious!  Also Norman had this white wine that was amazing!  He said its only like 7 Euro a bottle and that he got it from this restaurant that he was planning to take us to next week, so we can get some!  I think its my favorite so far!  I loved the one from the Schnitzel place and was planning to bring a bottle of it back to the US, however now I think I might bring this one instead!  We also had some pink champagne, but I didn’t really like it.  I’m not much of a champagne person.  After cleaning up, we headed over to Keller to see our buddy Toni and meet up with some other friends!  There was this guy there that sang “Du Hast” twice…it was kinda funny!  Especially when this little guy (I think he was French or something) started dancing to it!  Then Christian was saying something about Whitney Houston and I was all yeah of course I know who that is, but I didn’t know why they were talking about her all of a sudden.  Then like 20 minutes later I realized they were talking about that she had died.  Then he started trying to sing… “And I will always love you…” and I was all no no stop stop…let her sing it!  It was pretty funny, but then again it was sad to hear about Whitney’s death. 

PS:  Not sure if I was finished writing this post...since it never got posted...but here it is! lol  

I Have Some Catching Up to Do……

So its been over a month since I have written on here!  Ahh!  I am so behind!  I have been so busy with school recently, I haven’t had time!  Since my last post, I have taken 2 exams and written an 8 page marketing paper!  Now I have 2 weeks to prepare 2 presentations and then the week after I have another exam!  March is my busiest month for classes…and I am starting a new class tomorrow!  In the following posts, I am going to try to catch you up on what you missed while I was busy studying!  Not only for you, but so that I have it for my records as well.  Lets see how good my memory is!  There was a lot  going on on top of school as well!  February 17-20 was Karneval here in Germany!  You could compare it to Halloween in America…except 20 times better!  Not only do the kids dress up, but the parents and adults dress up even more often than the kids!!!  On February 18^th we had a Turkish Dinner in Wiesbaden.  On February 25^th, my school had an “American College Party.”  That was interesting!  Then on Sunday the 26^th, me and 3 friends got up super early to go to Koln for the day!  That was so much fun! Then on March 6^th during my Public Finance class, Stephanie mentioned she was going to Prague that weekend!  I had planned to go to Prague but didn’t have anyone to go with me.  So I made the last minute decision to jump on the train with her!  And boy am I glad I did!  We had an amazing weekend!  Now its back to studying for a few weeks until Paris!!! =)     

PS:  While I was posting this...I found an old post that never got posted...I will post it after this one...and then start on my detailed descriptions of the things you missed!  =)