Hey guys! The past month I haven’t had a single weekend where I have
been at home, which has been insane but also very very very tiring. The first
weekend of March (3-4th) I had the weekend in Eisenburg with all of
the other exchange students which I explained in my last post, but two words it
was ‘super fun!’.
The second weekend of March (11th-12th )
myself along with two other exchange students, Lindsay (RYE from America) and
Savannah (RYE from Taiwan) who I had met
at the previous weekend, organized to meet up in Saarbrücken for the weekend. It was a lot of fun spending time a different
city to my own with more shops and different sites to see! We spent some time
in a beautiful church in the middle of Saarbrucken and I have to say I will
never get tired of exploring churches because it is so different to what we
have back in New Zealand. I also have to mention that the 4 Euros I spent on
noodles and an ice-cream was definitely money not wasted, I absolutely adored
this food!! After a Mexican dinner of nachos we caught a train and then a bus
back to Lindsay’s house for the night. Her host parents were lovely and again
it was so cool to spend some time in another Rotary family.
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| Inside a beautiful church |
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| Lindsay, Myself and Savannah |
The next weekend started early for me as my school had two days off,
which worked perfectly as I was able to once again travel to Saarbrücken on
Thursday to meet a friend that I had actually met in Queenstown. We met through
school, as she was an exchange student from Germany on a two month exchange to
New Zealand. For me to comprehend that I was seeing someone that I had met a
few months previous to my exchange was kinda mind blowing. Once I arrived in
Saarbrucken on the FLIXBUS (highly recommend this company for cheap travel- it
cost me 10 euros to get to Saarbrücken and back) Laura and her Mum picked me up
and went to a French baguette shop for lunch. It was delicious and I sat there
thinking that it was crazy that I was around 15 minutes from France. This was
very evident too, as we explored further as nearly every second person was
speaking French. This whole concept of driving to another country for an
afternoon of shopping is absolutely crazy but so amazing!! After lunch Laura
and I walked to the ‘Historisches Mueseum Saar’ which I found extremely interesting!
Particulary the ruins of a castle that we had to go underground to see. The
castle of Saarbrücken was first mentioned in German history in 999 AD. It’s
appearance changed dramatically over the following years, due to different
rulers and their preferences. Count Johann IV of Nassau-Saarbrucken
strengthened the castle in the 16th century by adding ramparts
(defensive wall) and bastions (extension of a special part of wall to help aid defensive fire- to put it
simply). Next came Count Ludwig who ordered the castle to actually be
demolished, and had a ‘Renaissance-
style palace’ built in its place, and this happened in the 17th
Century’. The moat and some of the defensive walls (fortification) is still
present today. This part of history is
what is on display that I visited during my time in Saarbrücken. And quite
frankly blown away by how much history was present ( being blown away seems to
be a reoccurring them in my life here in Germany). It was so hard to believe
that I was walking among castle ruins from the 13th century through
to the 18th century. After the exciting afternoon of castle ruins
exploring, we went to Laura’s grandma’s house were we ate a traditional
Saarland dish, however presently I cannot for the life of me remember what it
is called, oops. The next day Laura had school, so I went along with her to
experience what it was like in another German school. This day was very hard
for me as I did not understand what was going on probably 99% of the time, but
that was ok it was cool to see Laura’s school and meet her friends. On Saturday
following a large brekkie (including literal chocolate that you can put on
bread- simply amazing) Laura and I went to the Saarbrücken Zoo. It was nice to
see animals that I had never seen up close before such as pumas, jaguars and a
range of lemurs just to name a few. However I was very surprised at the lack of
space the animals had to move, and quite frankly it made me very angry. Seeing
this fuelled my aspiration to get into Zoology in university, and to research
these animals in the wild instead of seeing them locked in cages in the middle
of the city. Seeing this zoo, I don’t think will stop me from visiting other
zoo’s but it has educated and influenced
me to get into the preservation of animals in their natural habitat. After
meeting Laura’s mum in Saarbrucken we drove around 45 minutes to a ‘famous bend
in the river’ named the ‘Saarschleife’ it was awesome to see and have some
pictures taken there. On Sunday after watching some insane downhill ski racing
on TV- It was very very exciting I travelled back to Landau.
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| Castle |
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| Saarschleife |
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| I love this old building |
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| Saarbrücken Zoo |
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| Saarbrücken Zoo |
On Saturday the 25th March my host dad, Werner picked me
up and we travelled to the North of Germany once of again to visit Claude and
her daughter Stella. We attended Claude’s Mum’s birthday and it was really nice
to experience ‘Kaffee und Kuchen’ (Coffee and Cake) not to mention it was
really delicious!!During the weekend there was very limited English spoken
(only if I really didn’t understand something) which was great. Not everything
that was being said I understood, but if I didn’t understand every word I
understood the general concept of the conversation which was great. On Sunday
it became very evident that spring has truly arrived as everybody sat outside
for hours just enjoying the warmth of the sun, it was truly so good as its been
nothing but cold since I arrived in Germany so its great to finally have some
long awaited warmth.
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| Werner, Claude, Stella and myself |
Between the many trips that I have made this month I have been
spending a lot of time hanging out with friends (both German and other exchange
students) and my host family which has been awesome. School has been well,
long. However I am not complaining, as I would never have the lovely people that
I go to school with if I didn’t have to attend school. Next Monday I begin my
Euro tour which I am SO excited for- I don’t have words to describe how
fantastic this trip will be. Over 6000 km of travel , over 18 cities in Europe
with 64 other exchange students. How could it get any better?!
That’s all for now, catch you after the Euro tour!!
Jasmine x
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