Wednesdays at Moore Haus

I figured I could post some pics of our house! This is probably one of my favorite parts of the day is when I round the corner to see our home, Moore Haus! After the 20 minute walk up the hill, finally seeing home base is amazing...even though it takes about 100 more stairs from the street to reach the door! Wednesday is the day I get to relax up at the house all day because I only have German for an hour in the mornings. I usually hang out in the classrooms for another hour, and then I meet my roommates for lunch! We call it room 10 time, and it's just our time to talk and hang out without interruption (even though every interruption we get in our room is a good kind!). Then I head back up to the haus and either take a nap, read, or do homework (or blog hehe). The house is nearly empty for majority of the day which is so nice! Finally around 6 we make our way down into town to our 'special dinner'. Each wednesday night we are taken to a different restaurant. We've had Turkish food, Greek food, Asian food, and Italian before...tonight is Asian! Its always a welcomed/the best meal of our week! This explains why Wednesdays are so wonderful!

Now, for a quick run through of our house. The first floor consists of our 'Breakfast Room' which is where we eat breakfast/hang out. It has couches, our TV, and our little miniature kitchen. Through this room you open a door and theres a hall that comes to spiral stairs--this is called the Tower and about 7 of the boys live up there. The rest of the first floor has the offices and laundry room. Then you walk up 2 flights of stairs and you end up on the first floor. This has our Library, Reception room (where we have church), and the Faculty Apartment. Then you keep walking up MORE stairs and your on the girls floor! there are 7 rooms on this floor plus our bathroom. Through another door (which use to not be opened ever and was reffered to as the 'berlin wall' that seperated the boys from the girls...luckily we're past that age haha) you walk up moree stairs to the 4th floor that has 5 rooms for boys. This is our humble abode!

If your looking at the second picture, find the majorly white windows...and stay on that floor and move to your right. There are two little windows, and those are my room! We have a picnic table that sits right in front of them that we use as desks. I'm sitting here right now looking out! Well, thats all for today. Time to study for German. Joy. Tschuss!

tuesday as it was in Heidelberg...plus pictures!

I opened the door for the classic England picture..and the phone started ringing! I didn't quite know what to do with myself haha


The room in Christ Church where Harry Potter was filmed!

My roommates for next year in Dresden...I know its pathetic...but we couldn't help ourselves!

Well, I'm keeping my promise so far! Today was a good day...nothing spectacular...but then after I say that I realize how truely spectacular each day really is. Tuesdays drag themselves out with only 3 classes but all with about an hour in between...keeping me from returning back to the house until about 7:30 at night. We went on an excursion to Frankfurt today in my english class to the Goethe House. Johann Goethe was a famous German author from the romantic period, and so after reading his book 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' we got to go see where he grew up. Me and my class of 10 students rode on a mini-charter bus (new experience!) an hour there and back which we took advantage of as nap time before out humanities class. I had to give a presentation on Franz Schubert in Humanities today. All I was doing was reading a few pages off of wikipedia, but I still got nervous! Silly nerves, thanks for those mom.

After class me, Austin, Dex, and Royce snuck away from our usual dinner and went out to eat at Coyote Cafe, a cute little american-ish type place (that has guacamole!!!). It was fun to just hang out with a few other people which doesn't happen very often for meals. For some reason tonight my appetite was quadrupled. My meal consisted of: my chicken fingers and french fries, the boys guacamole and chips, 1/4 of austins sandwhich, and then popcorn back up at the house. My new motto--when in Europe...eat lots of food and not feel guilty. I think I've mastered this one. Once we made it allll the way back to the house (which did make me feel better walking uphill about eating so much) we had our Tuesday night worship time which then broke up into our girls group. We didn't have any homework for tomorrow, only studying for our German test on Thursday. So, seeing as we didn't actually have to learn anything tonight...some friends and I hung out while I tried to teach them the 27 EU states in German (yes all the names are spelled differently...lucky us).

Now, I'm about to go to bed. I think tomorrow we might go up to Philosophersweg just to do something fun (and to procrastinate our german studying)! Oh yeah, and I decided to go to Rome this weekend! yay! Well, goodnight!

My life abroad...semester zwei

Okay, so for all you anxious fans out there--here's the deal. I WILL be better at blogging these next few months don't you worry! They might be pointless and such, but I will try to make them entertaining.

Well, I've been back in Heidelberg for a little over 3 weeks. Coming back here was just like coming home. I got here about 5 days before I had to be back, and so I was at the house when everyone got back. Everyone arrived at different times...it was seriously the BEST feeling ever hearing the bell ring and then seeing who walks through the door. Being back with everyone has really reminded me how lucky I am to be so close with these crazy kids. As excited as were to see each other we all calmed down and fell back into our comfort zone immediatley, so much better than the first few akward weeks last semester! We do have about 9 new students who we are still getting to know, but they are all great!

School is a lot harder this semester. I have an 1.5 hour presentation on Kazhakstan (I'm pretty sure I just misspelled that) the day OF my midterm for my Modern History of the Middle East class. Enough said.

My first weekend of travel me and my 3 roommates for next year plus Kyle went to Dresden. It was bombed during the war by us, but luckily the altstadt (old town) wasn't touched. The first day we were there we managed to do nothing but make our way from restaurant to restaurant indulging in conversation. We spent at least 3 hours at lunch, went straight to dinner from 6-9:30 and then went and had dessert until about 11. Its funny how much now this semester we realize how its not just about seeing history...getting to know who your traveling with even better is vital! The next day we walked around the altstadt and loved it! It was so cute.

This past weekend I was lucky enough to go to Oxford to visit Casey and Jessalyn! It was so great to be with friends from home...definitely good timing! I got to see alot of friends from church...it felt just like being at home only in one of the most gorgeous cities in the world! Most of our weekend consisted of doing things only I would enjoy such as...picnicing in university park, eating at the same restaurant multiple times because it was just that good, putting 'walk around a bookstore' at the top of my list of things to do...and so on. Luckily my amazing friends and I think alike when it comes to these things. I traveled back to Heidelberg by myself for the first time Saturday night! It was a very long trip...basically a 3 hours bus ride...2 hours in an airport...plane ride...2 more hours in an airport...and finally bus to heidelberg. A VERY tiring adventure lasting allll night.

I've been freaking out lately about where else I'm going to travel this semester. Most everyone has things planned out, and its stressing me out. I'm fine not traveling everywhere in Europe, I just need to learn how to pick where I do want to go! I might be going to Rome this weekend, but a 15 hour train ride is not sounding so appealing. Next week we leave for Madrid for a week for our Educational Field Trip! I'm super excited...finally traveling without planning--SO nice!

Well thats all for now. Oh yeah, I just made cookies! It felt so good. We dont actually have an oven so I settled for the oh so famous Gram cookies consisting of peanut butter between Ritz crackers (one of the only american things we have here) dipped in melted chocolate and then cooled in the fridge...as my mom told me I now have LOTS of more friends! haha I even had people offer to pay for one! WOW! Maybe thats how I need to go about paying for all these trips!

I'm off to study for my german quiz tomorrow...and then for my german test on Thursday. Now I'll leave you with a final thought...Why can't we just have a semester of 'hanging out abroad' rather than adding that whole 'study' aspect in?

(i tried to add pictures, but it wont let me...i'll try later)