we are champs at Germany (just not the language).

So the reasoning behind this weekend was to spend the least possibly amount of money while still doing something fun. Success? I think so.

What we did was a Discovery Tour through the school. This meant that we could pay for the trip through our pre-paid account that we used to buy our textbooks, and since my textbooks were so cheap this semester (this is like… the only time I can ever say this) I had some money left over to pay for the trip. So we were traveling with a pretty big group compared to what I have been traveling with - 11 people with the student events coordinator who came with us, Kelley. This was great because I got to meet some people that I haven't really gotten to know yet! But I think my preferred travel group cap size would be like five. Having too many people makes decision-making too hard. But more on that later! haha

We took a train to Cologne Germany first and it was probably my favorite train ride so far because we talked with people almost the entire way and the scenery was gorgeous! When we got to Cologne we popped outside the train station for a few seconds to see the gorgeous cathedral (the Dom) and then went to our hostel to drop off our bags. The hostel was nice and very new so it was clean. I liked that. After that we all wandered out to find dinner. Before we left I had looked up a few places on some travel sites and there was one restaurant close to our hostel that letsgo.com had recommended as a go-to restaurant in Cologne. And it was GOOD. Me and Aunna split two cheap meals so we could try more things, but I tried a little of the more expensive meals my friends got too. There was this marinated beef that I'm a little jealous I didn't get. But saving money was the point of this trip! After that we wandered in a shopping district where most of the stores were already closed and ended up back at the hostel to play cards while we waited for the rain to stop and clubs to open.

:: the massive Dom cathedral ::

It was already pretty late when we decided to leave and we got one of the hostel employees to circle good areas for nightlife on our map and explain the metro to us. One really nice thing about Cologne was that they had 24-hour metros! So we made our way down there, missing two of the trains before we caught one because everyone had to buy tickets (although apparently we could have gotten away without buying them, as evidenced by the fact that our friend Matt didn't buy one and was fine). This is one of the reasons I don't like traveling in big groups; mobilizing large groups of people is so difficult! So we finally got down to the club/bar district and it looked like a really fun place. We walked up and down the street, but unfortunately some of the clubs had dress codes and they wouldn't let some people in because of T-shirts and all that. So that was definitely a bummer… By the time we did find a place without a dress code, a lot of people in our group were tired and just wanted to head back to the hostel. That wouldn't have been a problem, except at this particular hostel after 1am you had to show a key to get back inside… and we only had one key per room. So then we all WALKED back because some people thought the metro was too complicated (it wasn't) slash we were kinda hoping we would see a chill place on the way home that everyone wouldn't mind stopping at. But our hostel was just a little farther away than we thought… so by the time we got home, even I was ready to just crash. It was probably for the best, because we had a LONG, good day ahead of us on Saturday.

Lessons to be learned from Friday night: travel in smaller groups. Bring at least one nice-ish outfit each weekend. Everyone get their own key for the hostel.

On Saturday we woke up early and enjoyed a surprisingly good free hostel breakfast. Usually this means like a slice of bread, but we got rolls with lots of different spread and meat and cheese and coffee. Very nice. I drank my not-so-good coffee for the caffeine, but with the foreknowledge that there was a STARBUCKS WAITING FOR US IN THE TRAIN STATION. That's right. Now, granted, I don't drink a lot of Starbucks in the States because I love the independent coffee shop at my school called Kofenya, but I haven't had any American-style flavored coffee since I got here. And seriously. Chai tea lattes from Starbucks are good. (Random note: There were actually a lot of US restaurants and stores in Germany… not sure why this is, but we kept spotting Pizza Huts and Burger Kings and you name it. Don't worry, we ate German food all weekend haha). So we got Starbucks and greatly enjoyed that little taste of home.

:: supporting American economy while abroad ::

Starbucks in hand, we got on the train to Moselkern. Another good train ride, particularly funny for two reasons: the train was really full so we had to sit next to the bathroom and either watched people go in or go to sit down in the seats directly next to the bathroom and then realize where they were. Also we got into a discussion about phones and in this discussion one of the guys on this trip told us about this RIDICULOUS system he uses for his cell phone. He has a spreadsheet of all his numbers and depending on where he is (school home ect) only puts the relevant numbers in his phone and deletes the others. So he spent a good portion of this trip defending his system while we all laughed about how ridiculous it was.

Not important.

When we got to Moselkern we started our hike! It was about an hour and twenty minutes up and down a small mountain to a castle that was very pretty. We spent the afternoon there and got yet another good meal after the tour. I got potato pancakes with apple sauce and a pretzel with cheese. The potato pancakes were soooo good. Pretzel… eh, I've had better at Steinkellers. Then we hiked back down (I liked this hike better) and headed off to Cochem.

:: finally made it to the castle ::

In Cochem we did a wine-tasting at an award-winning family owned vineyard called Family Winery Rademacher. It was so so good. We learned a little about their whole wine-making process and then tasted four wines. We tried three white wines, because that was their specialty, and then one red wine. I loved the white wine, but I wasn't a huge fan of their red wine. It had a bit of a cherry taste and I'm not really big on cherry. I ended up buying one bottle of my favorite, the Riesling Karat Cochemer Herrenberg. It had a sort of citrus, apple sort of taste. So good.

:: Rademacher wines ::

After that our group split ways and me and Aunna went back to Luxembourg with Kelley because we were saving money! Hoo-rah. The cool thing was that we didn't even have to pay for our ticket home because the German leg of the trip was already covered by a ticket we used earlier in the day and the Luxembourg leg was covered by our handy-dandy Jumbopass that lets us travel anywhere in Luxembourg for free.

But wait, there's still more to this story. We stopped in Trier for a few hours to walk around and get some dinner. Trier was a Roman city back in the day, so there were some old Roman buildings around. That was pretty cool. Dinner was great too! And it was so fun to hang out with Kelley more and get to know her because she's kind of close to our age and is just a fun person in general. I will definitely be going back to Trier because its only a 45 minute, 7 euro train ride and there's some good shopping that was closed when we were there. Sooo yeah.

Today was pretty chill. Me and Aunna explored Luxembourg City for awhile and then randomly ran into Kelley again in the city centre and got kebabs for lunch. Then she offered us a ride home and we got to forego the 40 minute train ride for a 20 minute car ride! The rest of the day we just relaxed at Aunna's house (where I am now) with her internet to upload some pictures and Skype with friends. So it was a nice relaxing weekend in preparation for next weekend and the following week: ROME, MILAN, PISA, AND COMO. :D I'm so so so so so excited. But until then, some highlights to look forward to this week are a symphony tomorrow night with my music class, the return of our amazing Dean LeTerre from his trip to America, the premiere of How I Met Your Mother which time zones and copyrights will not stop me from watching, and writing a paper that I found out about over the weekend. Awesome.