Irish Thanksgiving

Ireland has been my favorite trip! I absolutely loved it! I am so glad we waited until towards the end of our time here and that everyone went. It was so nice to be together when we were all missing our families on Thanksgiving. When we got to the airport we were not even sure if we were going to be able to go :( It was so cloudy in Frankfurt and all of the flights were getting canceled and delayed. We had to take a shuttle there, so we were at the airport for about 3 hours before our flight left. We had looked up other flights in case ours was going out and it was not looking good. We were so lucky! The only flight that ended up leaving that night was our flight.

We spent our first two nights in a bed and breakfast; totally worth it!! It was so nice and the owners were so friendly. I loved having a comfy bed to sleep in and a full Irish breakfast in the morning. Our first night in Dublin we went to Temple Bar. It isn't just one bar, its a whole area full of bars and shops. Our cab driver told us to check out Oliver St. John Gogarty's bar. Well, glad he did because it became our second home while in Dublin. There was a live Irish band; it was so fun! Had some beers, tried to jig, and met lots of people. We wandered to another bar too and were pretty much the only people in there. It was a really fun night with the girls.

Our Bed and Breakfast:
The Griffith House

Oliver St. John Gogarty's

The Irish Band

Celebrating our first night in Dublin
at Oliver St. John Gogarty's

It was so great to wake up to a big Thanksgiving breakfast. We went back up to bed afterwords and slept some more and laid in bed watching English TV! I can't believe I had gone almost 4 months with no TV. So we took advantage of that and our comfy beds and hung out in bed for Thanksgiving. We finally wandered out into the city around 3:30 and did some shopping and got some food....at Gogarty's :) They had amazing fish and chips! We found an internet cafe to Skype home and talk to all our families for Thanksgiving. It was so weird not being home with everyone. I was really glad that the cafe had the cameras and Skype hooked up though, it was so nice to see everyone! We were all a little sad leaving after calling home, so we just went back home and hung out at the bed and breakfast for our last night there.
We left right after breakfast Friday morning and took a train to Cork. We got there around 11 and checked into our hostel to drop off our bags. We then caught a bus us to Blarney. Crazy story-- On the bus ride to Blarney, there were a lot of people our age sitting in the back of the bus with us. We were eating our lunch, but start hearing them talk about the Tigers and Red Wings, and were kind of just listening in. One guy starts talking about his buddy from Grand Rapids, when another says something about Western, we all imediately turn our heads around and asked where they were from. One was from Western, another from Albion I think, but all were from around Michigan; it was so weird! The girl across from me leans over and looks at me and asks 'do yo know Megan Sweany?' HA! It was so weird! She played travel softball with her and she had said my dad was her coach. She said when she saw me she thought it was Moe. What a small world, couldn't tell you how many times things like that have happened-this was definiately the weirdest though.

Anyways, we headed to the Blarney Castle. It was really pretty. We walked through the castle up to the Blarney Stone. The stairways and hallways were SO small! There were times I thought I was going to have to turn sideways to get my shoulders through! I made it all the way up and KISSED THE BLARNEY STONE :) It was nothing like I was expecting. You had to lay down and bend backwards with your head hanging down in front of a wall and you just kissed the bottom part of this wall. We walked the grounds of the castle for awhile and then caught a bus back to Cork.

In front of the Blarney Castle

Walking up to kiss the Blarney Stone

We were back in time for dinner and found another fish and chips place. It wasn't as good as Gogarty's though. After dinner we walked all through the city. There was lots of shopping strips. It was so pretty at night with everything lit up and some stores even had Christmas music playing outside of their stores. We ended up going up to bed after shopping. We were getting up early to go to Kinsale, Ireland. We wanted to go and see the coast and one of the girls' dad and brother had been to Kinsale for golfing and really liked it, so we headed that way. We got there really early and there wasn't much open yet, so we just walked along the coast and played by the water for a while. Once stores started to open, we headed back towards town and went through some little shops. We didn't stay in Kinsale for very long. We got there about 10am and caught the 12:15 bus back. There wasn't a whole lot to do there though, so I was glad to get back to the bus.

Kinsale, Ireland

We hadn't made arrangements ahead of time for Saturday night, because we didn't know where we would be at, so Friday we all decided we wanted to go back to Dublin. We got online at the hostel to find a place to stay and we had such a hard time finding anything! We all had to split up and basically take whatever there was. Carolyn, Courtney, and I ended up staying at the Shining Hostel. The name kind of creeped me out at first. So, we get back into Dublin and split up to find our hostels. Ours was nice and close to the city center. But, this place was quite and experience in itself! Y0u had to go outside to get up to your room, then we walk into the room, and it was unbelievable how many bunk beds fit in that room!! I think I counted 20 beds, oh, and ONE bathroom for everyone, which had one toilet, one sink, and two showers with glass doors. It was so weird! Of course, I was the lucky one with the bed right next to the bathroom door too, so I heard that door opening all night/morning.

Our 20 bed hostel room
The picture does not do justice, you can only see like 6 beds here

We all had to spend our last night in Ireland at Gogarty's again! This time we sat nice and close to the band. It was another wonderful night! We had developed a reputation by this time, and the band would call out to us 'Michigan Girls' throughout the night.

Last night at Gogary's

Trinity College

Sunday our flight didn't leave until 6:30pm, so during the day we got some lunch, visited Trinity College, and did some more shopping. The trip home was what we were all dreading. We arrived at Frankfurt at 10:30pm, but there wasn't a shuttle to Heidelberg until 12:50am. We had to spend forever at the airport waiting for the 2 hour shuttle ride home. We didn't get back to the apartment until 3:30am. I was so happy I had taken the day off on Monday. We are allowed to miss 3 days, and I had only missed 2, so I stayed home and caught up on some sleep and some school work. I did miss my last faculty meeting though, and they had called all of the student teachers up and Janice (my mentor) had huge bouquets for me and Megan. They were so beautiful.
This week got pretty crazy trying to finish up stuff for WMU and finishing up some lessons, but I made it. Friday we went down the road for the tree lighting ceremony. At 5pm they lit all of the lights along the roads and on the tree and such. There was a stage where school kids and some other performers sang Christmas music. There were also lots of tents selling things. It was a pretty big event for everyone. When I got home I started packing up some things.
It is so weird that I will be home in 8 days! This last week is going to fly by! I already have so many things planned to do and things I need to get done. Today I am heading downtown to the Christmas markets. I haven't been yet, so I'm not sure what to expect. I know there are going to be lots of booths set up with different foods and gluvine (a hot wine) and I think there are little shops too selling things. I will have to let you know what it is all about.

Can't wait to see you all so soon!!
Love, Amy

Less than a month :)

Italy November 7- 12

There was no school on Tuesday the 11th, so Megan, Carolyn, and I decided to use one of our 'sick' days Monday and spend an extra 2 days in Italy. We flew into Rome late Friday and searched for our hostel. This hostel was quite an experience. It only cost 8 Euro a night and we were on the 8th floor of this apartment-like building. We had to share one large room with 7 other people; it was pretty interesting. The hot water heater made the loudest noise! I was so glad I had brought my iPod to fall asleep with. There were bunk beds lined up all along the room, so Megan and I shared one. When the time came to climb up on top, the bunks were so old and shaking so bad I thought I was going to collapse the thing. I finally made it up there safely and Megan got nervous I was going to be sleeping on her, my mattress sunk down so far! Then 2 guys in the bunk next to ours stumbled in pretty late, we were all sleeping, and they had definitely been out drinking. Not only were they very loud to come in, but snored so loud all night long! It definitely woke me up many times throughout the night. In the morning, we learned that they were in the Air Force and originally from Chicago and Georgia.
We got up pretty early and headed for the Pantheon, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and the Trevi Fountain. There is so much history there; it was remarkable. We had a minor rain delay as we were heading to the Colosseum, but it didn't slow us down too much. It was so easy to get around the city, and everything was pretty close to each other, which was nice. The gelato (ice cream) was amazing! We had plenty (probably too much) during our two days in Rome. We found one place that had 150 flavors :) After all the sightseeing, we did lots of shopping!! Then finally made it back to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner. We found a great restaurant and had some pizza and wine for dinner. We were exhausted and headed to bed early because we had to catch the 6:45am train Sunday morning to make our way to Amalfi Coast.

Inside the Colosseum

Trevi Fountain

The train didn't go all the way to Amalfi, so we had to get off at Salerno and take a bus to Amalfi. Once in Amalfi we then had to wait for another bus that took us all the way to our bed and breakfast. It was 2 hour wait until the bus left, so we changed into our suits and laid out on the beach for a while before jumping onto our final bus. We are so glad we took the early train, because the traveling ended up taking all day! We didn't actually get to our B&B until 3:00. The bus ride was so gorgeous!! It drove right along the cliff on the Mediterranean Sea. Our B&B was built into the cliff and was so nice! The view from the room was beautiful! We were the only people staying there, so the owners took extra good care of us! He drove us around in his car to take us anywhere we needed, because there was nothing near the B&B. It was such a nice, relaxing trip. I absolutely loved being along the water. We did a lot of laying around and reading. It was nice and quiet :) Monday we spent all afternoon laying out on the beach. It was so nice out!! I was finally able to get a little color back :) I did not want to leave!

The view from our room

Me, Megan, and Carolyn

A view from the beach

The Mediterranean Sea

Monday, late afternoon, we had to start heading back to Rome because our flight was leaving from there Tuesday morning. When we landed in Rome, we found out the public transportation was on strike. We got a taxi to our hotel and looked up flight information for the next morning. We learned that Ryan Air had canceled all flights from Rome on Monday, but it said that they were all scheduled to be on time still for Tuesday. Check again in the morning, still saying the same thing, so we made our way to the airport. NOT GOOD!! Lots of people standing outside, and complete chaos inside! People everywhere, lines all over. We split and started standing in all sorts of lines trying to figure out where we needed to be. There were no people working behind counters to check people in, nothing on the signs with departing and arriving flight information, and finally someone in line in front of me translated that all flights to and from Rome were also canceled for Tuesday; it was not looking good! Megan finally reached one information counter to learn that not only were all flights canceled, but at the time, Wednesday was also fully re-booked already. We had no idea when we could have possibly left Rome. Luckily Carolyn is a very friendly person and had been chatting with a family in front of her that were from Weisbaden, Germany and were military. We like to say that we hitchhiked across Italy :) We hitched a ride with the family from Weisbaden and split the cost of renting a minivan and driving up to Milan. We were able to rebook our tickets for free, and get a flight to Dusseldorf, Germany at 1:30 Wednesday. If we wanted to wait for a flight to Frankfurt, we would have had to wait until 8:30pm. So we took the Dusseldorf flight and found a hotel for the night (we had to stay with the family with the car, so lets say we stayed in the nicest hotel we have stayed in so far; they didn't want to sleep in a 8 Euro hostel, haha). The rental car had to be turned in by 9am, so we had to spend the morning/afternoon waiting for our flight. Finally got to Dusseldorf, had to wait for a bus to take us to the train station, then had to get a train ticket to Heidelberg......lets just say we didn't get home until 9pm Wednesday!!! It was such a crazy experience!

I can't forget the best part of the craziness!! I found out I was now 'Aunt Amy' when I got home :) Congrats to Lindsey and baby Evan James!!! Love you so much Linds!

Evan James

It was a nice short week at school and nice to finally stick around Heidelberg for the weekend. We found a Christmas tree and have that all up and decorated now. Sunday we had our Thanksgiving dinner :) We will all be in Dublin for Thanksgiving, so we needed to have it early so we could eat all our leftovers. We were each in charge of a dish. The kitchen was extra crowded and we even had to borrow the oven upstairs. There was so much food! We even watched our first Christmas movie after dinner :) The Polar Express! I know it's really early, but we are all getting so anxious to get home and thought we needed to get an early start.

I am really enjoying it over here, but I am ready to get back and see everyone!! I can't believe how fast time has gone! Only 25 more days :)

Halloween German Style

Halloween is just starting to become popular in Germany, so for the first year, I didn't have to wear a costume! Two other girls and I went to Darmstadt, which is only about 30 min away by train. Megan has a friend who lives there who she had met while he was studying abroad in the US. We had planned on going to the Frankenstein Castle. It is the castle the book was based on and we heard it was awesome. Since it was Halloween night, it was so packed tickets were sold out. We ended up going back to his place and Thomas and his twin brother took us out for the night. It was nice to have a free place to stay for once. The next day we did some shopping around town and headed back early for Tara's birthday.
Tara's dad came to visit the day of her birthday and they went on a small trip. When we were all back in Heidelberg he took 4 of us out for dinner. It was nice that she was able to spend her birthday with her dad. He acted like he was all of our dads for the night. After dinner we went to our favorite bar downtown, The Dubliner. We gave Tara the famous fire shot for her birthday and she took it like a champ. It was a very fun night with Theo and the girls!

Dinner with Tara's Dad

Birthday Shot


The BEST Middle School Teachers :)

Happy Halloween

We experienced our first overnight train last weekend (Oct. 17-19) on our way to Prague, Czech Republic. Don't plan on doing that again! There are separate little rooms with 6 seats in each, so luckily there were only 6 that went. On our way there our seats didn't even have headrests and they were so uncomfortable. Two of the girls ended up squishing together on a blanket on the floor, so the rest of us were able to spread out a little. Didn't get much sleep at all! We got to the hostel and were not able to check in yet, but they let us keep our bags in a storage room and we were able to change, freshen up, and get some breakfast. We did a tour of the city, which picked us up right at the hostel. It was nice to get a feel of the town and see where everything was. We got to see the Prague castle and St. Vitus cathedral, where we were able to see the changing of the guards, which was cool. The guards can't move, so we all had to take a pic with them. After the tour, we were dropped off in the middle of town and we did some shopping and grabbed lunch. We were all so tired from the horrible train ride and went back to the hostel and napped after lunch.


Once we were showered and rested, we headed downtown. We first went to The Charles Bridge. It is beautiful at night! Cars are not allowed to drive on the bridge; it is only used for walkers. There are statues all along both sides and there were lots of people performing. We happened to find a 5 story club that we had to check out. Had a good time, of course. Each level had its own type of music and different set ups. Sunday we spent most of the day shopping and walking the town. There were a lot of great stores there and I took advantage of that :) I was quite proud of how well we got around Prague.


Unfortunately, I would have to say our overnight train home was even worse than our ride there :( We had an obnoxious group of boys in the little room next to ours. They kept wrestling and slamming into the wall. I could literally feel the wall moving against my back. They were very loud and continued to be through the whole ride, maybe had the last hour silent. Again, didn't get much sleep, and to make it worse, we didn't get back to Heidelberg until 4:45am!! I had to be up for school at 6:30! Lets just say it was a very long day for Ms. Sweany!


This past weekend we spent in Salzburg, Austria! BEAUTIFUL! We lucked out again and had an great hostel. We went on The Sound of Music Tour on Saturday. This is what most people come to Salzburg for, so we had to do it. I thought it would be kind of cheesy, but I loved it! The bus picked us up from our hostel and took us to all the spots where the movie was filmed. At each location, he would tell us what part of the movie was filmed there. He would also give background of the family and the town. The best part of the tour was singing along with the whole bus throughout the tour :) We all had a blast!


After the tour we checked out some more sights in Salzburg and then took a quick nap before dinner. Carolyn, one of the girls from Miami of Ohio, had been to Salzburg with her family over the summer and wanted to take us to this Italian restaurant. It was delicious and the owner was awesome! He was our waiter and was so funny. We found an Irish pub for a few drinks before crashing for the night.
Sunday we did the Salt Mine Tour. I wasn't so sure about this one either, but again, I loved it!! It was by far one of my favorite tours I have done. It took us up through a lot of mountains and dropped us off at the mine. We all had to wear these miner jumpsuits, which was kinda cool. Then we sat on this little train and drove deep into the mountain. There were different spots where we would stop and get off the train and walk through the mine and there were a lot of cool display about the whole mining process. It was very up to date with technology and the displays were really fun. There were also two parts in the mine where we slid down these huge slides :) SO fun!! There was also the water that we went across in a boat and had the low ceilings with the salt crystals you could see. It was awesome! We ended up catching a earlier train ride home so we didn't have another late night getting in, which was very nice.


We had our time change this weekend, so now there is only a 5 hour difference from back home. I am not used to it yet, and not liking it at all! It is already starting to get dark when I'm walking home from school :( Our teachers warned us about it getting dark by 4:30, but I was just not expecting it to throw me off so much. It always feels a lot later than it is and it makes me sleepy.

I am finally having a free weekend this weekend! It gets exhausting traveling every weekend and spending all your free time on a train. There is no school Friday! Thursday my teacher is taking me and her other intern, Megan, to get massages and then out to dinner!! She spoils us :) Friday Megan, Carolyn, and I are going to Darmstat for the night. Megan has a friend that lives there and we want to check out Frankenstein's Castle. Supposably it is pretty scary. People can come out and touch you and I heard their costumes are unreal. Along the back of the castle there are different shows you can stop and watch, and you can also go inside the castle for food and drinks. Saturday when we get back we are going to dinner with one of the girls, Tara, and her dad and then Sunday we are having a little birthday party for her. I guess my weekend will still be pretty busy, but I am looking forward to sticking around Heidelberg!

I am missing everyone back home and hope you are all doing well!! I can't believe how fast my time here is going; I only have like 45 days left!

Hope you all have a Happy Halloween!!

Love,
Amy

It's been awhile...

It has been awhile since I posted last, but I have been busy, busy! I guess I'll start where I left off...

September 26-28 Amsterdam!
It has been my favorite trip so far. The city was all water; there were canals everywhere. Our hostel was in a great location, which made it so much easier to make our way through the city. Our first day there we visited the Anne Frank House. It was an awesome experience! We weren't allowed to take any pictures, but it was so amazing to be walking through where she actually hid out during World War II when Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands. After that we took a boat tour throughout the city, which was nice. So many people get around the town by boat and there were also a lot of house boats parked along the river.
We had to make our way to the Red Light District after the boat tour. Crazy! That's all I'm going to say... We mostly did a lot of walking around while we were here. It was a beautiful town with lots of culture. Sunday, some of the girls walked through the Van Gogh museum. The rest of us went through a huge shopping district. Lots of big designer names. While waiting for them we just hung out a a park nearby. It was very relaxing and nice to just sit still for awhile. Then we met up by the IAmsterdam letters, which might sound silly, but was lots of fun. Took lots of pictures there and headed for the train.

In front of the Anne Frank House

Iamsterdam Famlily Pic

The next two weeks were spent doing schoolwork! "This whole school thing is starting to get in the way of my traveling", haha. This was a quote that came out of many of our mouths over the last two weeks. Our professor was here October 6-10th, so we had a lot to prepare for. We had to have a video reflection done on ourselves and peer reviewed by another intern and our mentor teacher, as well as a reflection of how I thought it went. I also had to be observed teaching two lessons. I had to have a full lesson plan for each of those days, which we usually aren't doing. It didn't help that it was a crazy week of school while she was here and our schedules were all off whack. Tuesday was the school track meet, Thursday we had a fire drill in the morning and a staff vs. student football game in the afternoon, and no school Friday. My lessons went very well though and I was given a lot of positive feedback which was awesome :) Friday I also experienced my first inservice. My professor and the 6 of us student teachers gave an inservice about co-teaching. Many teachers do not know what it is and how to use it in the classroom and it is very beneficial. It was a little weird teaching the teachers, but it went really well. The teachers were impressed and it will be interesting to see how many of them change their ways and try to use the co-teaching models. After our inservice we took a little nap and packed up for Paris before heading downtown with our professor and many of the other teachers at all of the schools. It was POETS night! (Piss On Education Tomorrows Saturday) I think it is hilarious! They all go out every Friday after school. After you have been to 3 POETS nights, you get your own card made, were aiming to get one in the future. Last week, when they showed their card they got beer coozies that had the acronym on it that someone made up for them.

Some of us with Dr. Whitten

Needless to say, we were feeling great by the time we jumped on our tour bus for Paris Friday night at 11 :) I just remember waking up in Paris for breakfast at 7am, so it wasn't so bad getting there. I am very glad we did a bus tour for Paris though, because the place is crazy busy and I don't think we could have navigated the town by ourselves. We were also able to get to see a LOT of things we probably wouldn't have got to if we had done it by ourselves. The only downfall of the bus though, was spending most of the time inside the bus; not too cozy. We went to the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre Museum, a boat tour, city touring on the bus, and dinner before getting to our hotel (yes, hotel finally, not a hostel!!) at 9pm. It was a long day! Our plans to go out for the night in Paris had changed to being in bed by 9:15! We had to be up by six, breakfast at 7, and on the bus by 8 to head to the Eiffel Tower. We had some unexpected traffic delays, as there was a marathon that was starting right from the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, so they had a lot of roads closed off. After walking a few blocks to maneuver around the marathon, we made it to the Eiffel Tower. We got there before it even open and had to stand in a huge line to get tickets. We all went all the way up to the top of the Eiffel Tower!! It was so awesome! From there we made our way to the Notre Dame Cathedral, and then back on the bus for our 8 hour trip back to Germany.


It has been a crazy couple weeks, but things look like they should be pretty good from here on out. I'm mostly done with the planning and paper work for teaching, and we now have the rest of our trips booked. I'm loving the fall weather! It has been so beautiful and not too cold. This coming weekend we are headed to Prague! Should be another great weekend! Can't wait :)

Festing

For the past 2 weeks we have been enjoying the German life of fall festing! Our first trip was to Bad Durkheim on Saturday the 13th. We started this trip off the same as we have lately...train difficulties, of course! Not too bad this time, we just missed our stop and realized it a half hour later. This time we are quite happy we did however because we met 3 other DoDDS teachers who we ended up staying with for the night. They showed us the way there and helped us make our way around the fest. The Wurstmarkt (Wine Fest) is the biggest wine festival in Germany. I have never experienced anything close to this! The fest is a big fair with lots of rides, all kinds of regional food specialties, along with traditional fest foods, and plenty to drink. Two large tents serve only wine (in 500 liter glasses) and another large tent serves both wine and beer. Traditional German music is played by bands in all of the tents, along with a few "American" songs here and there. The tents are lined with tables and benches full of people, which are most often being stood on. We met lots of other teachers there and had so much fun!!


This past weekend, Saturday the 20th, we made our way to Munich for Oktoberfest. Again, another amazing experience! We made it there with no train problems finally :) After getting off the train, we followed the flow of traffic to the main road where the parade was. We were able to get close enough to see the bands and horses pulling wagons for each beer brewer. It was beautiful. After the parade is finished, the crowds of people watching follow into the street and follow the parade to the fest. Lots and lots of people! When we got to the fest the 8 of us split up into 4 and 4 because there were way too many people to keep all of us together. It made it a lot easier to get into the tents and get through the crowds. We met up with some people there that one of the girls went to high school with. We spent the day in the beer garden, Hofbrau, with them. Saw all kinds of crazy outfits and the traditional Lederhosens and Dirndls, anything goes really. There were so many rides there, many I've never seen before. The girls got me to ride the swing ride, which was way higher than the ones in the US (see below!) After riding a few rides, eating some awesome food, and buying souvenirs we made our way back to Heidelberg. The train rides home are always long so I slept most of the way.


I am still loving my 6th graders! They make me laugh everyday. The teachers I am working with are also awesome! So many great ideas and very willing to work with special education students. I have seen them make great modifications for the students in special education to make them successful in the general education classroom without making them stick out or having to be pulled out. I am just starting to take over the social studies, math, and language arts classes. I've been spending most of my Sundays or after school during the week grading papers :(

We just found a nice market that is bike riding distance away that we've been going to that has lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. The apple orchard is my favorite; the apples taste amazing! We also try and make it to the gym that is on base. After a month without TV we have finally got a DVD player so we are able to watch movies now, but not actual TV, which is fine with me because I love movies. One of my teachers is a huge movie buff and has tons of movies and she brings in all kinds for us. We have already watched a couple seasons of TV shows, along with quite a few movies.

All 8 of us are leaving Friday for Amsterdam. I am looking forward to getting away for the weekend! We have a few things planned already for while we are there but I will post the details later. I hope everyone has a great week! Love and miss you all!!

Finally Settled

I am getting a later start to this than I had planned but I will do a catch up on what has been going on the last 3 1/2 weeks, which I cannot believe it has been that long already!

Living on a military base is way different than I was expecting! We have 2 different ID cards that we have to carry at all times to get on base, to use when grocery shopping, at the bowling alley, movie theater, all kinds of places on base. It took us almost a week to get both of our ID's, so it was hard to keep food at the apartment for those first few days but we survived :) It also took a while to get used to walking and taking a bus or train to get anywhere, which we are still trying to get used to.

I started school 2 days after getting here to set up the classroom and get everything ready. I absolutely love my teacher I am working with and all the other staff I work with. The atmosphere is so fun and outgoing and very laid back. I felt very comfortable and welcomed right away. I follow a group of special education students that are included in general education classes throughout the day. I have just started teaching some of my own lessons, but for the most part I make my way around the room and make sure they are on task and keeping up with the rest of their class. I have also had to do a lot of reading assessments and I have begun to see how much paper work is involved!

I am living in an apartment with 8 girls! Yes, 8! Six of them are from Western Michigan University that I have had in all of my classes, so I know them all pretty well. The other 2 are from Miami of Ohio. They have fit in great and we all are getting along very well. Sharing one shower with 8 girls was tricky to get used to, especially since we are all getting ready to go to school at the same time, but we have finally got into a shower schedule. We have been doing a lot of our traveling together and it seems to be working for us. You will be seeing a lot of "family pics" from all our our trips.

Our first two weekends here we spent in Heidelberg. We went downtown and got a tour of the entire city from a teacher and her teacher's husband, who is a tour guide. We walked up to the castle and toured the castle grounds then went across the river and took a hike up "Philosopher's Way" which is high above the city and has an amazing view! He then showed us the city's library, the university, some fountains, and where to find the best ice cream and food.





Labor day weekend we spent the whole day Saturday in Mannheim. We knew of a castle to see and a water tower. While trying to find the castle we found a huge, beautiful building...after walking for an extra 20 minutes, realizing that cool, huge, beautiful building WAS the castle. Whoops! Anyways, we toured the castle and couldn't figure out what all the people and cameras were doing out front. Come to find out it was the auditions for Deutschland Super Star (Europe's American Idol). It was cool to see the whole crowd in action for recording. On Sunday we took a train to Lake Constance, which was so pretty! It is at the very bottom of Germany and is shared with Switzerland and Austria as well. It wasn't the nicest of days but we had our own fun.




This past weekend was our first big travel. We went to Brussels, Belgium and visited Brugge, Belgium for the day on Saturday. It didn't start out the greatest, seeing we got on the wrong train, but we ended up where we were supposed to be (kind of). We got off the train in Brussels, but had another hour and a half walk because we got off at the wrong Brussels train station. It made for a long night, but we finally made it to our hostel and went straight to bed. Early Saturday we took an hour train ride to Brugge and toured a brewery, walked through the town, and had lunch. I've never seen so many chocolate shops, waffles, and lace! Of course the chocolate was great, and the waffles were by far the best I have EVER had!! We made it back to Brussels for the evening and had dinner and went out for drinks. Sunday morning we visited a chocolate museum and saw the Mannequin Pis before heading back to Heidelberg.



I have been loving the food here way more than I was expecting too. I have been adventurous and trying everything at least once. I've had schnitzel, donor kabobs, seafood spaghetti, bretzels, and lots more that I have forgotten or can't pronounce.

I miss you all back home! I will try my best to keep this updated for you. This weekend we are planning on staying around here. There is a huge wine festival in Bad Durkheim, which is one of the biggest in Germany. We are also planning on heading downtown again and seeing some more of the city of Heidelberg.

Will write again soon!

Amy