AACHEN!!!!!!

because html code apparently hates me, i'm describing things here. this first picture is of a shrine that holds charlemagne's bones. the second is stained glass in the aachener dom. i should point out that "dom" is german for "cathedral". the third is also a stained glass window. the fourth is a shrine that supposedly holds the cloth that john the baptist's head was wrapped in. the fifth is an eagle/bat music stand.

i had this really beautiful post but i hate html code so this is what you get. sorry. i'll return to my normal format later.

the architecture post

the story behind this picture is funny. i wore my contact lenses today and ya-ling and ying-tsu (who are on the right of the picture), two girls in my class really wanted a picture of me because i looked pretty. the other girl is janet. then we spent about ten minutes taking pictures of all of us. i thought i'd spare you most of the pictures and just give you the one of the four of us.

this is the city hall building in aachen. aachen is on the border of belgium and germany. i really want to go to belgium for some reason. a couple hours after this picture was taken, there was a big demonstration having to do with children's rights. a big group of women and men with strollers came through town. it was interesting to watch.

this is a picture of the front of the aachen church we visited. isn't it pretty? i thought so.

the reason we went to this church is because charlemagne's remains are there. and this may or may not have been his throne. apparently, it's from the same time but no one knows for sure. oh well. it's still history.

this is a picture of the tower to the church. i think it looks more important from this angle.

there are more pictures i'll add later; the site is being weird and won't let me put up more.
until then!

st. patrick's day and beethoven's birth house

this is the bar we went to for st. patrick's day. it was so busy. there were a lot of americans at this bar, too.

this is me and martin and tanner. martin's from australia. i seem to have some sort of weird look on my face. ignore it.

we met these really nice young german girls who said we spoke german well but they might have been lying. we're not sure. the girls are the two girls that are not me, sheree, or martin. in case you couldn't figure that out yourself. i should point out that my shirt is wet because someone spilled a drink on me. i won't say who, but it most definitely wasn't me.

this is the band that we was playing that night. there were actually two bands, one upstairs and one downstairs. it was pretty fun but we were all packed in there like sausages. i ended up winning a free drink somehow. that was pretty neat.

saturday, me and some of my friends went to beethoven's birth house. i thought it was really interesting but i think my friends thought it was boring. this is the front of the house.

we couldn't take picutres of the insides. this is the back of the house.

this is a statue of beethoven in the courtyard. it was fun and it was a pretty relaxing weekend. which i needed.

i'll post more pictures later of the city when i finally remember to bring my camera when i go into the city. some day, some day.

my trip to an old farm, or: goats and the awesome poster justin sent me.

ok, so we went to this replica of a 1700s farm or something. i don't know. it was pretty boring honestly. our tour guide kept going on and on about stuff that i didn't really find interesting so i zoned out most of the time. sorry. i'm a bad student. anyway, this is a picture of a building and a thing there. the whole place was basically like that. the only time the group got excited about anything there was for the animals. you'll see in a minute....

this was in the schoolroom. i like it. it's cute.

i seriously took about 20 pictures of the goats. this is one of the best ones. i have some "blurry goat pictures" if anyone's interested. goats move too fast...

i'm probably going to get bird flu from being this close to these chickens.

and then we found the cats....

CAT!!!!!!!!!

ok, admittedly, this is a pretty cool picture. but since we're being honest, i mainly took it for the cat. i'm such a bad student....

this is a picture of the TOTALLY ROCKING POSTER that my friend justin sent me to make me feel more at home. IT'S SO AWESOME!!!!!! i put it on the wall opposite my bed so it's the first thing i see in the morning. thank you james young and co., thank you.

and that's the update. i think you'll agree that these pictures are more lauren-like. and hopefully more interesting. stay tuned next time for "conclusion of the mystery of the flaming pole".

marksburg and a wine tasting.

this is the castle that we went to in marksburg, a medieval village. it was pretty cool and it high up in the mountains.

these are the steps leading up to the main part of the castle. if you look to the right, you can see a little bit of our tour guide's arm. the tour was completely in german but there were a lot of us who didn't understand a lot of what he said because of his accent and the fact that he was talking about medieval things that we didn't know the words for. oh well. it was neat anyway.

this is the smallest cannon the castle had. it was a pretty neat view.

this is the view out of one of the windows. i'm pretty sure that's the rhein river.

they made wine in this castle and these are the wine barrels. there were drawings on the wall next to them that showed different steps in the wine making process. some of us were joking that they were the directions.

medieval torture devices. because no medieval castle should be without them.

can you guess what this is? i'll give you a minute....

no? a chastity belt. when the men went off to war, they would put these on their women until they got back. this was the one thing in the tour EVERYONE understood. pretty funny.

after the castle, they took us to a winery and gave us a tour and we had a tasting. this is a bad picture of the vineyard. they went almost all the way up the hillsides. it was really interesting to see an almost vertical vineyard.

this is the group of people i sat with at the wine tasting. from left to right: me, bill, nick, sharee (australia), lindsey, andy, patricia (spain), and paulina (poland). most of us were from michigan. that's why i didn't tell you where they were from.

well, that was a really long post. sorry. i'll start updating more regularly. it's not like i can go outside and do anything. it's too cold.

the mandatory "what the rest of my room looks like" post

this is what one of my walls looks like with the posters up i brought with me. they keep falling down. and i want more posters. i can't take the white walls.


this is the bathroom. it's so tiny. although not as tiny as the dressing room i was in today. i could barely turn around! yikes!


this is the toilet. you know, in case you forgot what they looked like.


this is my "kitchen". and when i say "kitchen", i mean "a small stove top, refrigerator, and some cabinets". and if you think about leaving while i'm getting something out of the fridge, you can forget it. one thing at a time, man.


cereal. this is what i've been eating for breakfast. it looks nothing like the picture on the box...


...see? brown. very, very brown.

ok, ok. i promise to start taking pictures of the city. and pigeons. well, not too many pigeon photos.

my weekend.

technically, the chicken was part of my weekend but i felt that he deserved his own post. so here are more non-chicken pictures from my weekend.

this is me in front of the rhein river. i accidentally walked along the rhine from city center to my dorm. it only takes about a half an hour but i didn't mean to walk that far. oh well. now i know how easy it is...

this is the rhein river and some buildings on the other side of the river. i've only been over the river once and it was on accident. because i took the wrong bus. oops.

this picture is funny because the name of the boat is poseidon. and it says it's a party boat. i sure don't want to party on that boat...

the whole reason i bought this juice is because of the brand name. i will try every flavor of hitchcock juice.

CHICKEN!!!!!!!!!!

hahahahaha! chicken! the little white tulip-looking thing is a tip cup. after i took this picture, the chicken played a little tune on the accordion. i love that chicken. the funny thing is that it was sitting near a restaurant called "hähnchen" which means "young male chicken". chicken.

BONN!

now i'm in germany. so you don't have to look at some cat pictures. although they are some mighty fine cats



this is the view from my room. i think those are apartments.


this is one corner of my really bare room. i haven't put posters or anything up but i will tonight. i will also take a picture of the other side of my room and the bathroom and kitchen area. because it's hilarious.


this is at the welcome party. there is a whole group of taiwanese kids here, too. i met some of them and then i went back to sit with these girls pictured. i couldn't remember how to say "it was nice to meet you in german so i just said "tschüss!" (pronounced "ch-OO-ss") and they said it back and it was SO CUTE! anyway, these girls are (from left to right) janet (her real taiwanese name is hsiao-ching huang), sharee (she's from australia but her family just moved to amsterdam and she said she'd take me there sometime when she goes home to visit), lindsey, and me.

that's all for this one. i'll be updating more often now that i have internet.
bye!