Winter Wonderland

I am back from my trip that took me from Rome, to Madrid to Barcelona.

I had a really good time in all of the cities and will post on them individually throughout the week hopefully.

We got back to Germany and were greeted by a lovely layer of snow. It has been magical. Today I went to the Christmas Market with Kayla and Mina. It was so cute, with so much food! It's going to be a good last 3-4 weeks.

I really love snow when its not black and mushy and gross, aka Chicago snow. I am excited to see if we get more. Snow is so refreshing. Love it. But we will see how long that love lasts. I think it will last for the rest of the semester, but you never know.

I will try to post about Rome tomorrow, but not sure how likely that is.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Mine was interesting, more to come.

Love

Cass

Pardon Me Prague

So its been almost 2 months, but I thought I should still post some pictures and share a little about Prague.

We came from Berlin on a train and checked into our hotel and had about 25 min to get food and meet for our walking tour of the city. I hate to admit this, but it was the only real option. We had McDonalds. I'm not proud, but we had no Czech money yet and so we had to get that. The exchange is really hard to figure out. The language is not easy. Basically we were all frazzled and McDonalds was there and cheap so we went with it. I have never been more discombobulated mentally than when we got to Prague. Didn't help that in our Prague packet they stressed the taxi cabs will rip you off. Then we got off the train and our leader told us Prague is best/worst for pickpocketing, depending how you look at it, and then as we were leaving our hotel she told us our passports may not be save if our rooms so if we wanted we could use the hotels safe. REALLY?!?! Welcome to Prague!

Now some of you might remember I went to Prague last year with my family and I wasn't that hot on the city. This time it made a better impression, but I don't think that was hard to do.

We met for our walking tour. The guide had a lot to say, a little too much. I know some people enjoyed the tour but I did not. I liked being about to walk around and get a feel but the information was too much.

Me by the Vltava River with the Castle in the background.

The National Museum

An upside down horse to show how upside down life was during communism.

That night Colleen, Kayla and I wandered around a lot trying to find a restaurant that was not expensive and had food we would eat. We ended up eating at a Czech restaurant that was in the touristy area. It was good. We were pretty tired so we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.

The next day we had a meeting with the Chief Editor of a economic daily in Prague. He discussed a lot about Czech public opinion on both their own government and the US. After that we had a meeting with two guys from the Institute of European Policy. They talked about the transition of the Czech Republic from communism to the EU.

Our meeting wasn't far from the castle so some of us walked up there and did a little tour. It is a beautiful castle up on the hill with beautiful views of the city.

A restaurant right below the castle. Haha

This "cross" was in St. George's Basilica which is pretty small and on the castle grounds.

St. Vitus Cathedral on the castle grounds as well

St. Vitus Cathedral

Me above Prague

We hung out in the "garden" for a while and ended back down to our hotel for an meeting.

That night Colleen and I went out with some people from the program to the Biggest Night Club in Central Europe. Check. That was on my list to dos. It 5 stories. Pretty interesting.

The next day we had the morning and some of the afternoon free before we left to take the night train back to Freiburg. Colleen and I went to Charles Bridge, and just walked around. We both ended up getting some sweet shoes. Funny thing is last summer I bought shoes in Prague too, tradition I guess.

Charles Bridge Tower

Prague Astronomical Clock.

All the people waiting for the clock performance on the hour.
Church of Our Lady Before Tyn.

It was a good trip, but I was ready to leave. Prague is nice, but just not for me I guess. Probably should give it another chance.

Train back was LONG. Slept in Harry Potter compartments. But oh we almost missed our train. And our tickets were messed up. Needless to say tempers were high when we all got on. Only way to end the time in Prague.

Random nerdy picture. Its an Infinity Mobius with tanks and construction vehicles on it.

PS don't miss the post below from my weekend with my family. I am on a blogging roll today!

Can I be a Princess?

Sorry Sorry Sorry.

After I posted about the wine tasting I have been go go go. I had a fabulous weekend with my family and then last week I had a lot of work due that took most of my time. So now that I can breathe a little I can catch up on my Fall break with my family.

They came in on Thursday. My Mom and Brent's luggage didn't make it so that was a good time. They ended up getting it the second night. I met them after class on Thursday and we went out to eat with my friend Kayla. I had them have Flammenkuchen. They approved.

Friday we ended to Fussen, actually we stayed in Hohenschwangau where the castles Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau are. Along the way we stopped in Schaffhausen, Switzerland where the International Watch Company factory and museum is. Brent really likes watches and this was the one place he wanted to go. It took a while to find but we made it. We also saw the Rhine Falls which are apparently the is the largest plain waterfall in Europe. It didn't seem that big...

Don't go chasing Waterfalls...

It was a lot of driving. We had a GPS who we named Greta. Now, Greta may seem to take you the long way, but you must always trust Greta. We had some doubters in our car, surprisingly I was not one of them. But we learned Autobahn, Autobahn, Autobahn. If you see a "short cut" instead of taking the Autobahn, don't do it.

We got to our hotel, cute cute cute. It was perfect. You could see the Hohenschwangau castle from our room. It is a little town that just comes to tourist life during the day.

Our view from our room. Beautiful.

This castle was the childhood home of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. He may or may have not been crazy... He did have some crazy eyes though.

This is the view from Neuschwanstein Castle. That is the town of Hohenschwangau and Alpsee Lake along with Hohenschwangau Castle.

Neuschwanstein was Ludwig's dream castle. He ended up only living it for 172 days before he died/was killed. The castle was not completely finished and was opened to the public for tours 6 weeks after his death by his family to pay for the debt Ludwig put them in. The castle is the inspiration for the castles at Disney World and Disney Land. Its beautiful.

Me and Neuschwanstein Castle from Mary's Bridge.

Me, Mom and Livi from a balcony in Neuschwanstein Castle.

After our time in Hohenschwangau we went to the Zugspitze which is the highest point in Germany, but we actually went up from the Austrian side. It is 2962 meters above sea level. It was a long way up. We went up in a cable car with tourist and skiers. Skiing way up there! Crazy!

From the Cable Car at the starting point. Up we go!

We saw some hikers on our way up. That was more crazy than the skiers. They were WAY up there.

One of the skier's boot. Notice the "Pimp." Word.

This was the ski hill and lift...you may not be able to tell that much.

The highest point! It was so beautiful up there. I took so many pictures of the mountains.

We then headed to Baden Baden where we did the Baths. It was really fantastic, to clarify we did the one with textiles. All the pools were warm and some had great bubbles and one was an actually whirlpool where it pushed you around and around. Like a lazy river without the tubes.

It was a great weekend. A lot of driving, but it was nice to see more of the country and spend sometime with my family.

This coming weekend Paige is coming to visit! I'm super excited for her to see where I am living after I saw her Swiss homeland.

Hope everything is good at home besides the fact that I am currently a fan of a losing team. But whatever I've had worst losing seasons, anyone remember TeamXpress with Arthur????

Alright, better go do some homework.

Love

Cass