May 25, 2013 - I was Kidnapped (not literally)

So I was kidnapped but not by a stranger so stop freaking out now. I'll get into that later. Also, I know this was a day late and you'll see why in a moment. And lastly, Dad wanted some pictures of Spandau so I'm going to post them on Facebook either tonight or tomorrow after I get to Heilbronn. I have more stuff to do today so I'm not sure I will have time. Right now I have to finish this post before supper so here we go... Yesterday morning I missed because I slept until 11:30. I know, I know Mom. I need to get up earlier. But I needed...

May 25, 2013 - Music, Rain and Football

I really should already be in bed so I'm going to type this quickly. Please excuse any hideous spelling errors. I'm sleepy. Usually the title of my posts are only a tiny section of what I did that day but this one is literally everything that went on today. Allow me to elaborate. I made it back home around 2pm from Jasper's. I had enough time to get upstairs and have Till tell me that Ralf and Weebee were coming home soon and we would leave shortly after that to go to the Berlin Philharmonic Concert before they walked in the door. So I...

May 24, 2013 - Mosel river Trier to Bernkastel-Kues

May 24 2013 We biked about 45 miles for a total 207 miles. We started the day with breakfast with our AirBNB host Jorg. We discussed some of his work and other topics. He is a Landscape Architect and enjoys his work. He is currently working in Luxembourg. He particularly likes to lead hikes in the Eifel area along the Mosel river. We then headed downstream. On the Mosel river. The first part between Trier and Schweich is rather un interesting, but beyond it was. Plenty of vineyards filled the hills above the river. Still early in the...

May 23, 2013 - 8am was a long time ago.

What is up friends? I am getting sleepy and it isn't even midnight yet. But that's because I expelled the most energy today than I have in about a week. I went all over the place today so prepare yourselves for an (hopefully) interesting post. I set my alarm today for 8am. Now, I did actually wake up then but I definitely did not GET up then. I laid in bed in a half sleep for another hour or so then I got up and got ready. The cleaning lady was here (I can't for the life of me remember her name. I know they've told it to me at least twice...

May 23, 2013 - Lab Starts

It's been awhile since my last entry, I'll try to keep it up! This week has been pretty busy now that the labs have started. Today we had our first experiment in wood gasification. The experiment was to measure the fluidization point of a mixture of sand and wood chips. Pretty much what this means is that we shoot air up through the bottom of a container holding wood chips and sand, with enough pressure the mixture will begin to act essentially as a fluid, and the pressure that this happens at is the fluidization point. This has many...

May 22, 2013 - Today...did not go as planned.

So it took 9 seconds but considering how bad I am at guessing time and distance, I'd say that was pretty darn close. I had totally planned on getting up at a decent hour and going on a picture taking spree of Spandau today. I had only the best intentions but then two things happened. As I mentioned before, my jetlag reared its ugly head and didn't let me sleep until 6am so I didn't wake up until 12:40. But Carly, you could've set an alarm. Yea well, I didn't think about it in the 6 extra hours I had awake yesterday. My bad. Also when I did...

May 22, 2013 - First Day Fun

I'm only on my second post and I'm already a day behind. Of course. Anyway, hello all and welcome to the second installment of Carly's German Travels part 2. Prepare yourselves for my spotty recollection of yesterday as I went into a jetlag coma last night and am having trouble remembering where all we went. Maybe as I start typing it will all come back to me. I forgot how to use the ENTER key and space bar on my computer yesterday so today I'm going to make actual paragraphs like I know how to write an essay. So my day started at about...

May 21, 2013 - Oh hey I'm in Germany again!

First off let me welcome back all of my adoring fans. I hope you are ready for another round of strange and unnecessarily informative blog posts. I also want to add that it is 2:50am and mom just reminded me to do this so I will make it short and sweet then get into the good stuff tomorrow. Typical right? I know. Alright let's do this! So my epic journey (and by epic I mean long and painfully boring) from Greensboro to Charlotte to Newark to London and finally to Berlin began on the 19th at 9:20am with my first flight from PTI to CLT. Joke...

May 18, 2013 - Saying hello to the Rhine

The weather was not that good so we decided to do a bit of a drive tour to have a look at the Rhine River. We headed for the small town of Rees and discovered a lovely river side walk with sculptures and old town walls. The river was busy with regularly transport barges going up and down. We then drove on to the larger town Emmerich which although had a promenade is was more touristy. Again the barges kept going up and down the Rhine! Our final stop was the town of Kleve. Where we walked up to the Swan Castle home of Anne of Cleves, the...

May 18, 2013 - Soccer

A few days ago one of the students bought a soccer ball and played with a group from our trip. They were going to play again and this time i decided to join them although I have no athletic clothing. I ended up playing with an old t-shirt, a pair of shorts, and barefoot. The field was on turf as well, not grass, and my feet were killing me! A little while into playing with our group, a German high school soccer team showed up to practice. The couch came over to us and we decided that after they warmed up that we would skirmish! That's...

May 17, 2013 - Romans not in Rome!

It was still cold and grey but not wet so we headed first to the nearby small town of Kalkar. The market square was dominated by the 15th century brick Gothic Rathaus a very impressive building. We enjoyed a gentle wander through the streets and looked inside the St Nicolai Church. This church had an amazing collection of nine Gothic altars all carved in wood. In reading the information about the high altar we learnt that it took three craftsmen twelve years to complete! From Kalkar we headed to the outskirts of Xanten to the LVR-...

May 16, 2013 - Dusseldorf and beyond, some......

May 16 2013 Biked about 25 miles today After our arrival in Dusseldorf we gathered up all our belongings and took the train from the airport to the Hauptbahnhof. We were looking for the " official" Tourist Information booth to figure out where we wanted to rent our bikes. We were directed to the Rad station at the bahnhof. They were very helpful adjusting and helping us with these brand new "city bikes". They are 8 speed hybrid bikes with 32 c wheels and coaster brake. Very nice bikes. After some gear adjustment, we headed for the Rhine...