Back from Weimar!

Hey, all!

This weekend was a lot of fun! The four Middlebury exchange students who are studying in Mainz (I'm an honorary Middlebury student now) met up with the fifteen or so exchange students who are studying in Berlin on Friday night in Weimar, and we all had way too much food and stayed up way too late and had a blast. On Saturday, our group leader Heike gave us a tour of the city (for those of you who don't know much about Weimar, among other things, it's the city in which both Goethe and Schiller lived for a time) and in the afternoon we could do whatever we liked in the city (there are a plethora of museums and parks there). That afternoon, though, I hopped on a train for fifteen minutes and went to Jena where Claudia was already waiting with Josi, who lives there! We had a lovely afternoon drinking coffee and eating cake and walking through the botanical garden there where not only do they have massive impressive trees outside and lovely flowers, but also greenhouses with banana trees and cacti (obviously not in the same greenhouse!) and things, and I found that incredible! We sat under a banana tree for a while and I just looked up and remembered Thailand. It was awesome. :)

Then next day, I got together with the two of them again and we walked for a long time through the park in Weimar that follows the Ilm River, where they say you can walk for three hours without taking the same path twice. It was so peaceful and meditative to walk through the crunchy leaves and hear the trickling of the small river and watch the birds overhead. After the stress of the first week, it was purely sublime to walk and just talk with two good friends and let the afternoon drift lazily by. I'm so glad I went!

Josi was again an angel and took lots of pictures of Claudia and I in the park - I won't bore all of you readers by constantly posting pictures of just my girlfriend and me instead of the nice things that we see on our travels, but this time I really was a dork and forgot my camera at home! You'll definitely see some of the pictures (thank you SO much, Josi!) and tomorrow during our day off (hooray for Catholic holidays!), I will put the last touches on the (by now) ancient video about Mainz and get that up on youtube!

(Below is just a picture of me with my new BahnCard that finally came in the mail - this will make future trips with the Deutsche Bahn much nicer! :) )