Wurzburg: Day 3

This post was added to the blog by my sister Suzy, while in Germany with my mom!

Today was our second full day in Wurzburg. Karl-Heinz once again devoted his whole day to showing us around the city. He picked us up at the hotel and we headed on a brief walking tour to see some sights near the Market Square.

The first place we went inside was the city cathedral aka the Dom. The city is essentially built around this church. The cathedral is huge and is used for big events, like a recent church choir performance by choirs all over Germany. Inside was amazing, full of detailed work and very beautiful. There was an enormous organ in the back that caught our eye as well.

Next, we walked around the corner to the Neumunster Church. This church was very unique in that there was a mixture of old style architecture as well as new modern art and detailing. Outside of the church is a special place called the Lusam Garden. There it is said that a Franconian apostle is buried. It was this tiny peaceful garden that you would never know even existed. Here in the garden the architecture of the cloister wing still stands. When we left the garden we walked a few streets away to hear the Wurzburg Glockenspiel. Four times each day the bells play a couple songs lasting less than 10 minutes, it was cute!

Our meeting with the Deputy Mayor was next. We went to the city hall to meet with her. Inside I got distracted by all the women I saw waiting to be married. KH told us that in Germany you must be married in a city hall first by the government before you get married in a church! Who knew?! Anyway, we had a great meeting with the Mayor. She's visited Rochester before and has a daughter living in Michigan. It was good for mom to continue building the relationship between our two sister cities.

On our way back towards Market Square we did some window shopping and went into a local bookstore. We stopped inside Mary's Chapel or Marienkapelle. There was a lot of red and yellow sandstone inside this beautiful gothic church. Finally it was time for lunch...Bratwurst!!! KH took us to this little stand in the middle of the square to get real German Bratwurst. A long sausage cut in half to fit on a delicious round role and covered with yellow mustard. It was so good, moms favorite meal of the city!

After we went back to the hotel for a short break KH and Birget picked us up and we drove to see Fortress Marienberg! Perhaps my favorite sight in the city. I took tons of pictures for one special friend of mine :) Before The Residence was constructed this was the home of the Prince Bishops. The fortress was ancient, huge, rambling and built to withstand any kind of assault. It was only breached once by the Sweeds. Some cool aspects of this historic landmark were the over 800 year old well, an even older church, a keep or watch tower/dungeon and a bathing area that was apparently for horses and livestock. Inside the walls were beautiful gardens that you can't see from the outside. When we walked to the edge of the fortress we could see the whole city in front of us. Right down below where we were standing were thousands of grape vines growing in perfect rows up and down the hill. It was amazing!

We went back to KHs house for tea and a business meeting.  Our day ended with dinner at a bier garten with KH and Birget,  exchange student Brianna from Rochester and her host family.

We loved Wurzburg!!!  Off to Rennes tomorrow!
Suzy

Suz and Mom in Wurzburg!

Wurzburg: Day 2

This post was added to the blog by my sister Suzy, while in Germany with my mom!

We woke up this morning excited to spend our first full day in the city. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling very well. Perhaps it was the change in weather, something I ate or just exhaustion from traveling and not sleeping much. Anyways, we ate a little breakfast at our hotel-Hotel Alter Kranan and I tried to pull myself together for our first adventure.

KH picked us up and we headed to visit a school called The Mozart-Schonborn-Gymnasium. We went to this school in particular because one of KH friends is a language teacher there. It used to be two separate schools but has been  combined into one. KH friend, Wolfgang Hugo gave us a wonderful tour of the school which is both a middle school and a high school. The school year is ending for the students at the end of July and many of them were out of the building on school trips. We got to look into a few classrooms and mom and I even sat in on one 7th grade English class. The teacher let them ask us questions and they were too funny! We helped them find Rochester and NYC on a U.S. map. Although we were trying to talk up Rochester and the exchange program, all they really wanted to know about was NYC and how many gangs there are and how much crime there is. The students impressed us with their English and their teacher Ms. Clemens was wonderful. We really enjoyed our time at the school.

I decided to head back to the hotel and rest while mom went on to the next place. KH took her by car to the church on the hill near the fortress called the Kappele. It was built in the 1700s and was a beautiful Baroque style church. Afterward they went to a small nearby pub for a light lunch. Mom even ate a traditional potato soup... with mushrooms!

When they were done they came back to the hotel to get me. After a nap and some juice and crackers I was feeling so much better! It was time to visit the "Residence Palace". This is known as one of the most important castles in Europe. It was built from 1720-1744 as a place for the Prince Bishop of Wurzburg to live. Hundreds of years ago the bishops of Wurzburg were given the secular power to rule the city thus making them princes and bishops. Each time a new bishop was chosen he also became the secular ruler, or the prince. I could write for hours about what we saw inside The Residence. One room was made all of mirrors, another was made all of white ornate stucco and sculptures that were hanging off the walls and down from the ceiling. Gold covered almost every room and tapestries hung on the largest of walls throughout the castle. But the most fantastic artwork was a 360 degree domed ceiling painting that hung over the grand staircase. The painting was done in only 10 months by the famed Venetian artist Tiepolo. The ceiling was a self-supporting vault that was unharmed when the rest of the building was mostly destroyed in 1945. On each side he represented a different continent of the known world at the time. America had wild beasts roaming and was being represented by a woman on an alligator. At the end we visited the back gardens, they were spectacular!

We went back to the hotel for a short rest before heading to the Kiliani Festival for dinner. We took the street car to the festival with KH and his wife. Its a 3 week festival that happens every year at this time. Basically a mini Octoberfest. There were rides and activities for the kids and a huge tent set up for the beer festival part, where we went. We had so much fun! The traditional food to eat at the festival is roasted chicken which is not a usual food around here. We were so impressed, it was so good!! We drank beer out of a HUGE mug too. There were groups of people standing on the long picnic tables singing and dancing to the live band that was playing. My favorite moment was when they started singing "Sweet Caroline" and the YMCA. People were dressed in traditional German clothes to help celebrate as well.

What a fun way to end a great day in Wurzburg!
Suzy

Suzy in Wurzburg!

Wurzburg!

This post was added to the blog by my sister Suzy, while in Germany with my mom!

Today we arrived in Frankfurt, Germany after leaving nyc late last night. We arrived around 10:40am, earlier than we were supposed to. No problems with the flight or customs. Note to self, how sweet were the Singapore airlines flight attendants outfits?!

Mom and I got our bags and waited anxiously to meet Karl -  Heinz. He is the ATAD liaison in Wurzburg. Took a while to find him but once we did everything went smoothly. We had to walk a very long way to get to his car. When we got there, most of the cars in the garage were VW, Audi, and Mercedes!

We started the roughly 120km drive to Wurzburg from Frankfurt. The traffic was unreal!!! The "autobahn" or thruway has no speed limit and people can go as fast or be as reckless as they want, yet somehow it manages to still get clogged with traffic. It took us almost 2.5 hours to get to our hotel, over an hour more than it should have. Needless to say we got to take a detour and see the German countryside, lots of Apple trees, rolling hills, grape vines, flowers, very green! In fact, not so different from upstate NY. We saw sheep and goats grazing and drove thru some very cute villages. Karl-Heinz pointed out all the red roofs, which we loved. The buildings were largely made of red sand stone. Very cool.

Once we got to Wurzburg tho it was perfect. Mom described it as a doll house hotel. Nothing is huge but it has this interesting feel of a quaint and modern style put together. Our room has one of the best views of the city, we can see the Main River, the fortress and the 1000 year old bridge.

Next was time for a nap...

We awoke refreshed and got ready to meet Karl-Heinz (I think ill call him KH) and his wife, Birgit. We first walked over to the old bridge and Karl-Hienz gave us the full history. The bridge is called Alte Mainbrucke. This once was only bridge allowing people to get from one side of the city to the other. KH told us an interesting story about how when the US were bombing the city in March of 1945 some German soldier panicked and blew up the middle of the bridge so the US soldiers couldn't pass. The US then used equipment that they had to cross the broken bridge anyway. I guess the Germans think he was a very foolish soldier.

KH pointed out many other parts of the city as we stood in the middle of the bridge. We got an idea of how the city is laid out and what other things we would be seeing while we are here visiting. Next we walked through part of the old city. We saw the Market Square and all the shops and restaurants around it. The area is nice because it is for pedestrians and bicyclists only!

KH and his wife took us to a wonderful restaurant for dinner that has its only winery. They are friends with the owners there. Of course the wine was great, and we got to eat traditional German food. Mom ordered "pepper speak" or steak with pepper sauce. I got the Weiner Schnitzel! They both came with awesome potatoes!! We talked for many hours during dinner. KH struggles to speak English but its much better than he thinks it is. He explained a lot to us about how the German school system works. More about that later...

Back to the hotel and to sleep we went. We had only been here half a day and seen so much already!

Auf wierdersehn!
Suz

Karl Heinz, Mom and one of our ATAD students in Wurzburg!

CHI CHI CHI LE LE LE!

I cannot believe my summer here is over tomorrow. I have gotten to do so many awesome things while I have been here, and as much as I am excited to see my family back at home I will be really sad to leave my Chilean family and new friends here.
Martin and I spent our last week working hard on the documentary, and we aired a 7 minute version for our internship class and the professors in the international studies department yesterday. We had to give a 15 minute presentation in Spanish, and then we showed our documentary afterwards. It went really well! I think our class really liked it, and our professors asked us lots of questions about our experiences afterwards.
We realized throughout this process that the more we learned about the strike and the education system here in Chile, the more we realized how much there is to know and how deeply engrained in society this issue is. We sat down with our professor the other night for an intervew, since he was a college student in the 70's when Pinochet was in power, and he had a lot of interesting things to say. I have to be honest when I say my views of the situation in the schools here has changed completely since I arrived. I feel like I have been able to gain a well rounded viewpoint of the issues from all the people I have talked to, and can see how the current system is failing the people here in Chile. Im sad I wont be here to see the resolution that is sure to come, but I will definitely be watching and reading the news so that I can find out what happens.
We celebrated the 4th of July last night by watching the Chile/Mexico soccer game with some of our Chilean friends. They were playing in the first round of the Copa America in Mendoza, Argentina, and they won 2-1! Watching the game with Chileans was crazy...they were screaming at the top of their lungs every time someone lost the ball and when Chile scored...you could hear people screaming from every building on the street. It was 10 times crazier than when the Superbowl is on in the states! During the game the streets were deserted, not even the Micro's were running! It is definitely true that life stops down here when soccer is on. They play their next game Thursday night, so hopefully I will be able to watch it in the US!
Thinking about packing and saying goodbye to my friends and family is making me sad, but I know that it wont be goodbye forever as I know I will make it back here to Vina someday. I have had such a good time here, that I know I will make it a point to come back and visit someday whether it is later this year, in ten years, or in 50 years.
I have had so many new experiences and learned so many things while I am here that I truly can say I understand what people mean when they say that studying abroad is a life-changing experience. It forces you out of your comfort zone, but you end up learning and gaining a lot from the experiences.
My Spanish is infinitely better than before, as my vocabulary now is huge! I defintely could still use more practice, but I definitely know enough to communicate intelligently with other people.
It is going to be strange to step off the plane tomorrow and not hear people speaking Spanish anymore! I have been speaking Spanglish for the last six weeks so hopefully, mom and dad, you will forgive me if I have trouble switching over to English the first few days.
I have been dreaming in Spanish recently, and also have been starting to be able to understand Spanish without having to translate what people are saying first. Its a strange concept, but sometimes after I talk to someone I forget if we had our conversation in English or in Spanish, it all sounds the same to me now!
My friends here laugh at me, because I have developed a slight stutter when I speak in English. I am sure it will go away after a few days when I get home, but my mind just gets so confused sometimes that it trips itself up! I have also added a lot of Chilean slang to my vocabulary, I am sure the people in Spain later this summer will think it is funny!
I think it is about time that I go try to pack. It will be interesting to see how I am going to bring all this Chilean wine back...
Viva La Chile!

Julia Marie

The group out celebrating our last night in Chile!

It was so sad saying goodbye to Chilean friends, but we hung out together on the beach and set off fireworks in honor of the 4th of July!

Little Cami and I before I got on the bus to leave, she got to stay home from school to say goodbye!