Braunschweig Weihnachtsmarkt

I can't believe how quickly Christmas is coming. My family comes out to visit for the holidays in only 3 more weeks, and the Braunschweig Christmas Market, or Weihnachtsmark, has already begun. Because Braunschweig is a relatively small city, I didn't expect too much when a handful of us check out the market on opening night. I figured that it couldn't compete with the markets put on by huge cities like Berlin and Munich. But, I was happily surprised. The Weihnachtsmarkt is like nothing I have ever seen before when it comes to celebrating Christmas. It is only what I can imagine like Time Square must look like during the peak of the holiday season. The market takes up the entire Burgplatz in Braunschweig, and reminds me of something like a carnival. The castle square is filled with Christmas lights, Christmas trees, ornaments and decorations, and 150 small shops or booths ranging from carnival games, to bakery and candy stands, to gift shops, to Bratwurst booths, to small bars and pubs. Everything looks amazing surrounding the old castles, and looks like something out of a movie. One of the biggest attractions, it seems, at the Weihnachtsmarkt, is the Gluwein stand. Gluwein is a specialty hot spiced wine, which is a bit different, but definately warms you up on a cold winter day at the market. After seeing this Christmas Market in Braunschweig, I'm really looking forward to checking out some of the others during the Christmas break.

I'm off to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in the early morning for the weekend. A bit of a train ride, but hopefully it will be fun!

Thanksgiving in Braunschweig

It wasn't quite the same as normal, without being with family for Thanksgiving, but it ended up being a lot of fun. Because there were so many of us, we split into a few different groups for Thanksgiving. About 15 of us got together after class for dinner. We all brought a few dishes, so it turned into a ton of food. Everything from the turkey, to mashed potatos, to cranberry sauce, to mushroom pizza and eggplant parmesian......all of the classics and more! We had a pretty international group again.....I think we had the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Germany, and India represented. It turned out great, and was an awesome way to start the weekend!

It was nice talking to you all back home on Thanksgiving as well.......hope you all had a great time!

This weekend has been pretty quiet, as we didn't have much time to plan with Thanksgiving on Thursday. However, we already have more planned coming up. This upcoming Friday is Volleyball Night.....we get to play volleyball in the gym from 8:00 pm until 8:00 am, so it should be a lot of fun. Then, on Saturday, we are trying to schedule a tour of the Beck's Brewery in Bremen. The following weekend is our trip to Dublin, follwed by a possible trip to Amsterdam a few days before our Christmas Break......yes, it's getting to be that time already!

Talk to everyone soon!

Hopefully you guys picked it up a notch for the last couple days of bow season!

International Soccer Tournament

I ended up staying in Braunschweig this weekend, after a long weekend of traveling last week. We were still able to keep busy though. Saturday night we formed a team for the International Soccer Tournament, which was an indoor tournament just for fun at TU Braunschweig. We needed two countries represented on our team, and were able to put together a US-Sweden team: Team Schmerika. As we expected, we lost every game. But, we didn't do quite as bad as we expected, losing only 1-0, 2-0, 1-0, and 1-0. It ended up being quite a lot of fun!

Sunday we went to another New Yorker Phantoms basketball game, and the Phantoms won again, to push their record to 11-6.....good enough to be in 4th place right now. About 10 of us or so also booked a trip to Dublin for the weekend of December 7. So, I'll be traveling again soon!

Another good night of sports, too. URI basketball is 5-0, the Pats still look ridiculous, and the Celtics even almost pulled off a win after being down 20.

Happy Birthday, Gramp! Hope the party was fun!

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Malta

The last week has been a lot of fun. Lucky enough, I was able to get my Visa last Wednesday, before leaving on our trip to Malta. Friday night we took a train from the Braunschweig train station (where it was snowing), that arrived in Bremen around 1:00 am Saturday morning. We took a taxi to the Bremen airport to relax and get ready for our 6:00 departure, but the airport was closed. We never would have guessed that it was so small! After freezing outside for 45 minutes, we finally found our way inside, and slept on airport benches for a couple of hours until the terminals opened up.

Anyways, the 2 and a half hour flight through Ryan Air went great, and we were in Malta by 9:00 Saturday morning. We took a cab to our hostel (it was scary driving on the left side of the road!), got unpacked, and went off exploring. We spent most of the day in Gzira, Sliema, and Valetta, the capital city, and saw all kinds of neat sights. We also crossed the island to view the Blue Grotto, which was beautiful. The best part, though, was that it was warm. Unfortunately, they were having a wind storm, so it was not quite warm enough to swim, but it was still in the low 70's.......much better than the snow back in Braunschweig. After a day out and about, we went to Paceville at night and hit up a couple of bars after dinner before heading to bed.

Sunday, we decided to take a bus to the far end of the island of Malta, and visit the smaller island of Gozo for the day. We crossed the channel on a ferry, which brought us by Comino and the Blue Lagoon, which had the bluest water you could ever possibly imagine. Once on Gozo we stopped at Ramla Bay for a few hours, which was a beautiful, sandy beach. From there, we could see Calypso's Cave, then crossed the island to the Ggantija Temples, the Inland Sea, and the Azure Window. The Azure Window was absolutely amazing! After a long day, we took the ferry back to Malta and went to bed.

Monday morning, we were suppossed to go on an all day cruise to Camino and the Blue Lagoon. However, due to the wind storm, the sea was too rough, and the cruise was cancelled. Instead, we took a bus to Golden Bay.....another great beach, and spent some time there. When we got back, we spent the last night in Malta back in Paceville and at the Hard Rock Cafe Malta.
The return flight went fine as well, but we were greeted by more snow in Braunschweig the next day. Oh, well......at least we were warm for a while!

All in all, it was a great trip.....we all had a lot of fun!

German Paperwork

Trying to get all of this paperwork done in Germany has been ridiculous. We met with some people to register for Visas last month, but the whole thing was set up terribly. There were about 50 students sitting is a hall, and each student went in and talked to the people individually. They took about 20 minutes each. Anyways, we waited at least a couple of hours just to get in, then they told us we must meet again on November 5 to finish things up. So, no class today, but I had to get up at 7:00 to get to the international office, which takes about an hour. We get there, and again there are about 50 students sitting in a hall waiting. After waiting about an hour, they finally call all of us from RI in at once, only to tell us that we cannot get anything done today. We need to prove that we have 600 euros per month to live on for the length of our stay in order to proceed. Usually the school writes a letter to clarify this, but they didn't this year. So, we all were told to get proof in the form of scholarship paperwork or bank statements, and that we would have to meet once again next Tuesday morning for the same thing. I won't be back from Malta then, and I also had all of my paperwork on me because of DAAD, which they said would be fine to use as proof, yet they wouldn't let me do my paperwork today because they "didn't have time." So, I have an appointment to wake up early again tomorrow to probably sit in a hall for a couple of hours again.

At least the late night last night was worth it! Awesome wins by the Celtics and Patriots!

First 6 Weeks in Germany

Well, time sure is flying by! I am already beginning week 7 here in Germany, and everything is going pretty good. I even finally got internet in my room!

The flights from Boston to Munich, and Munich to Hannover, went very well, and I ended up catching up on sleep upon arriving at my residence hall, Weststadt. Weststadt is a 25 minute train ride from TU Braunschweig, but overall it has been pretty decent. I have a good size room, and my suitemates (we share a kitchen, bathroom, and water closet) are all really nice. Ivan and Noemi are from the Canary Islands and speak Spanish, and Frieda is from Berlin and speaks German. So, we have a pretty international suite. So far, things have gone well.

I have had quite a bit of free time since arriving, and have taken lots of time to familiarize myself with Braunschweig. I made sure to remember the Bahn routes right away, and we even went on a walking guided tour of the old city, which is really nice. Braunschweig is pretty small, but still a lot bigger than Clinton. There's still been plenty to do to keep busy. We've gone to quite a few parties put on through the school, visited a few of the local bars, and also gone to a couple night clubs.....the Jolly Joker and Dax. Every now and then we have to grab a Döner at Döner King as well. I have also been going to a few professional basketball games, to watch the Braunschweig New Yorker Phantoms, and playing volleyball a couple of times a week at the school as well. One night we even went to the Battle of the Year: the world championships of break dancing. It was actually pretty awesome. To try to help getting around the city easier, I ended up buying a cheap bike from the police auction.....hopefully that will start to come in handy soon!

So far, the hardest part has been keeping up with all of the cooking, cleaning, and shopping while trying to fit everything in. As much as I love shopping (Hahaha), I'm sure not going to miss the weekly trips to Lidle and XtraMart.

We finished up with our summer immersion program 2 weeks ago, and started the Winter semester a few days after. As of now, I am taking 3 German classes, a Hydromechanics class, and a communications class, all taught in German. It should definately be an interesting experience.....especially the Hydromechanics one, as it is part of a Master's program. In addition, I meet with a professor at the Wasserbau Institute tomorrow, to discuss part time research during the semester. The best part is that I don't have class on Friday or Monday, so I should have time to get a lot of travelling in on weekends.

We have already travelled to a few places, though not outside of Germany yet. We went to Hamburg and Berlin with the immersion program, and they were both awesome. Hamburg is the largest port city in Germany, so was obviously an interest to me. And, Berlin was unbelievably huge and just loaded with history of all kinds. We also went to the next town over to tour the Jägermeister plant, and to Wolfsburg to tour VW. Plus, I took a train to Bonn for a DAAD seminar, and took a quick stop in Köln on the way home, which was interesting with the train strikes going on.

Everything is still going well, and classes have really started now, so hopefully I can keep up with them. We just booked a trip to Malta tonight, for November 10-13. So, we will be spending next weekend in the warm Mediterranean Islands! I won't be jealous of the weather back home then!

I hope all is going well for everybody back in the US!

It's always good to hear from you!