Two posts from February that I forgot to post

 

Galentines Day (02/12-02/17/2022)

The other day, Emily and I discovered a very cute café with free Wi-Fi near the university and spent several hours there. They have really good chai lattes, snacks, and are even open on Sundays! I haven’t found many places to do homework so far, and I don’t like doing work at home, so I do plan on frequenting this café for the rest of the semester. We discovered this place after trying to study at the university library and getting confused by the locker system, and also realizing that we definitely would not have Wi-Fi if we were to try and work there.

Valentines day was coming up, and BMEN had an exam planned for the day after so we studied instead of celebrating. To fix this, we had galentines day on the 15^th, and all the girls came over to mine and Katie’s apartment. We all brought food and wine and had a nice break from studying and a stressful week.  

I also got on zoom with my friends back home and planned out my entire spring break this week. The current plan is to spend a full day in Kassel and the rest of the time in berlin, with a day trip to Potsdam. The next step is to book train tickets, which might confuse me, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Karl Marx, Margaritas, and general mayhem (02/18-02/20/2022)

Today Rike mentioned that we’ve already been here for a month and a half. It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long at all! I feel like this semester is moving so quickly, where usually spring semesters feel like they drag on forever. I just got back from Trier yesterday, where I spent the weekend with Emily and Avery. I think Trier is one of my favorite cities I’ve been to so far, although the trip there had some minor complications. On Friday night after classes, we took a train to get there. We had one connection in between, where we’d stop at Koblenz HBF. Unfortunately, we got off at the wrong stop, and had to walk (rather quickly) in stormy, windy weather to HBF. Upon getting on our next train, a tree had fallen into the tracks, blocking our way, and delaying us almost an hour for our arrival in Trier. To add on to this lovely evening, when we arrived at the apartment we rented, Avery realized she had to send pictures of her passport before receiving the check in code. However, the pictures she was trying to upload wouldn’t cooperate with the system because they were in the wrong format. We then proceeded to sit on a bench in front of a Holiday Inn Express to try and convert the passport photo to the correct type of file, or worst case, to get a room in the Holiday Inn. We ended up being able to convert the photo from Avery’s iPad, then airdrop it to Emily to upload it onto the check in form. This whole check in ordeal took us about an hour, and by the time we made it into the apartment it was nearly eleven o’clock. The only thing open for dinner at this point was Dominos, so we ordered for delivery, only to realize that they were not, in fact, open. But all this was definitely a struggle worth experiencing because the pizza place we found instead had the best pizza I’ve had since being in Germany.

We started the next day by going to see the Porta Nigra, which is a large roman city gate. After this trip to Trier, I have realized how badly I want to go to Rome and see all the ruins. We walked through the gate into the Altstadt, where we went to a café in a historical building. The old front door is located on the second floor, because the wealthy people would use ladders to get into their homes to prevent criminals from entering. On our way to the cathedral, we stopped by a statue of Karl Marx for pictures, as Trier is his birthplace. The Cathedral was so pretty, and very unique compared to other cathedrals I’ve seen so far because it was a mix of several different architectural styles throughout history. Part of it was gothic, another part was baroque, and other parts were Romanesque. This was also the first cathedral I’ve visited at exactly the right time of day for the stained glass to project colors all over the interior walls. My favorite part of the day though, was exploring the ruins of the Roman Imperial Baths. It was especially exciting when we realized that we could walk around in the underground parts of the excavation and explore the various tunnels and halls. It was so intricate and advanced for the time it was built in, with running water, and drainage systems, and heated flooring. On our way out, we stopped for pictures with a replica of the foot from the colossus of emperor Konstantin. This brings me to our next stop: the home of Karl Marx. This was a museum dedicated to Karl Marx’s life and teachings. We saw his birthplace, the chair he allegedly passed away in, as well as original printings of The Communist Manifesto and his personal annotated copy of The Wealth of Nations.

After leaving the Marx Museum, we went to get margaritas at Coyote Café, where we received paper straws that didn’t work on the blended margaritas because the ice chunks were too thick. After returning back to the apartment, we ordered pizza again from the same place we had discovered the other night and watched Star Wars dubbed in German.