My Final Travels (For Now)

It's been awhile since I last posted. I arrived back in the US a couple of weeks ago. During my last weeks in Europe I traveled more than I had in any other stretch of time there. I went to Copenhagen, Denmark, and in Germany I visited a friend in Karlsruhe and Heidelberg.

I had a blast in Copenhagen. If any of you are ever thinking about going to Europe, I definitely suggest a stop in Copenhagen. There are so many old buildings and beautiful gardens. The bike culture there is amazing. Everywhere you go there are bikes just sitting around and people pedaling past you. That said, the city is walkable if you're not against killing your feet.

Bikes for Rent in Copenhagen

One of the Palaces in Copenhagen

Colorful Houses in Copenhagen

Windmill in Copenhagen

Cherry Blossoms

Friend I made at the Royal Stables in Copenhagen

Royal Stables

The weekend after Copenhagen I took the bus to Karlsruhe to visit a friend I had met in Hamburg. Karlsruhe is a small university town. The main attraction is the garden of an old palace. After visiting the palace and its gardens the first day, the second day we took a train to Heidelberg.

Palace in Karlsruhe

Palace Gardens

Heidelberg has some of the oldest buildings in Germany that survived the World Wars. A river lines one side of the old town and above the river up on a mountain, is a pathway called Philosophenweg, Philosopher's way. There is a really cool stone path up the mountain to get to Philosophenweg. I'm pretty sure my friend was ready to abandon me after I made us walk up the path. It was a good workout, though. After we walked along Philosphenweg a bit and had seen all the sights, we went back across the river and to the castle. We didn't go inside the castle, as it's mostly ruins, but we did walk around in the gardens for awhile. We even made flower crowns.

View from Pilosophenweg

Path to Philosophenweg

Flower Crown!

Spring is Back in Action

With less than a month of my time in Hamburg left, I've started reflecting on everything I have done and learned, and what I want to do before I go back to America. I've done a lot of interesting things while I've been in Europe, but there's also a lot that I haven't done. I settled into a pattern just a few months after I first arrived and, unfortunately, that means that I haven't done too many amazing things. If family hadn't visited me a couple of times, I probably would be trying to see the main sites in my last two weeks here. As it is, there are still a few things that I want to see before I leave next month.

I've grown a lot in the last five and a half months. Aside from the obvious things, such as living on my own and learning a lot of German, I have gotten into better habits. Since I have been here I've started exercising regularly, I can cook more (does four meals count?), and I sleep way better. I've also started drinking green tea, which, outside of running, is probably the healthiest habit I have ever had.

Running has been a great way for me to explore the city around me. I don't like running on roads, but thankfully there are two paths within walking distance of my apartment that I enjoy going to. One is the park Planten un Blomen. It's a beautiful park with lots of trees, flowers, grassy areas, and ponds. It's a very popular place on the weekends and I've been enjoying seeing it come to life around me as Hamburg finally makes its way into spring. The other place I enjoy running is along the Alster. The Alster is the small lake in the middle of Hamburg. A lot of small sail boats go out on the water on nice days. You can also take boat tours on the lake. There's a good path that winds it's way along the shore of the Alster that is about 5-6 miles long. So far I haven't run around the whole thing, but my goal is to complete the circuit of it before I go home.

Planten un Blomen

Spring Came to Hamburg

A week ago I went for a run and was pleasantly surprised with how nice it was outside. In the week earlier flowers had started popping up from the ground and blooming, but on Sunday the sky was perfectly clear and the temperature had risen to a nice temperature in the mid-forties.

The first flowers I saw blooming.

Flowers!

Can't wait for this view to be green

There were so many people in the park. Couples going on walks or sitting together on benches in the sun, parents with children, people walking their dogs. Despite having to run around large groups of people clogging the paths, it was one of my favorite runs. It was so nice out that I saw people with ice cream cones on my walk back to the apartment. Of course, that inspired me to get my own ice cream cone and enjoy it next to the small lake.

My beautiful ice cream cone

Unfortunately, the next day dawned cloudy and cold. And every day since has been cold and windy, with some sprinkling of rain. So spring came and went in one day, but the glimpse of it was nice and promised nicer days to come. I just hope they come soon.

Traveling

I've finally managed to get out and travel around Germany a bit more, going to Luneburg and Bremen for a day. I've had such a great time and am planning several more short trips. Also, please excuse the lack of umlauds in this post.

Bremen has a section of town that is filled with old buildings. I have a great love of old buildings, one that I never realized I had until I came to Europe. It is incredible to see all that history in one place and that's something we don't really have, even in Philadelphia and D.C. we don't have building that compare to the ones here. We spent some time walking around the altstadt, the old part of the city, and appreciating that old building before we headed to the art museum. I was expecting Bremen's art museum to be small and inconsequential, once again I was incorrect. The building did indeed look small from the outside and the first floor seemed to confirm this. And then we went to the second floor. Room upon room on the second floor was filled with amazing art, works by both old masters like Picasso, Monet and Vermeer, and some interesting more modern works. I don't normally like spending large amounts of time in art museums, but I was really pleased by the one in Bremen.

My trip to Luneburg was a lot different than my trip to Bremen. I went with a group from my school, rather than a couple of friends and it was rainy and windy all day. Of course my umbrella broke shortly after was got there and I didn't have a hat or a hood, so I spent the whole day getting rained on.It actually ended up being a ton of fun, even though my hair was soaking wet by the end of the day. We went to a salt museum, because apparently Luneburg is an old salt mine city, as well as a chocolate store and a candy store. The chocolate store made the whole day worth it. They had fantastic hot chocolate and all the chocolate was very high quality.

Photo time!

Example of the architecture in Bremen.

One of the statues in Bremen.

The Bremen Cathedral.

Another statue in Bremen.

A building in Bremen,

More Bremen architecture.

This is a famous Bremen statue.
Apparently there is even a story about it. 

View of  Luneburg

One of Luneburg's old churches.

Holidays in Deutschland und Amsterdam

So this post is three weeks overdue (whoops), but here are some pictures of winter/Christmas time in Hamburg and of New Years in Amsterdam! I hope these hold you over until I manage to write another post. Enjoy!

Holidays in Hamburg

Holidays in Amsterdam