Busy last week, busy next week!

Lots of new pictures with the busy week we had! I was going to add a caption under each picture, but then the website makes the blog entry so long, so I will just describe them in order, hope that works okay for you guys! After the awesome donkey carriage ride on Sunday, we went to a cute little cafe basically in a forest with Julianes mom, Anna, and I had my first Irish Coffee. Let me just say it was Whiskey with a side of coffee... it was really fun though and we had time to plan our week, so  we began by going to look at castles on Monday. The first couple pictures are of Wewelsberg Castle, which was built from 1603-1609. After 1934 it was used by the SS (protection squad for Hitler) under Heinrich Himmler and was to be expanded as the central SS-cult-site. It is triangular in shape, which was very unique for it's time. The next castle is the Paderborn Castle, which was built around the 13th century, and was the former residence of aristocratic bishops. It is gorgeous and has a museum inside that at times has art and photography exhibitions, one of which Juliane, her mom and I went to. It was about the natural beauty of nature and it was stunning. Now we are on to the Buchenwald concentration camp, which was one of the first and largest concentration camps on German soil. 238,380 people of various nationalities were incarcerated in Buchenwald, and the number of deaths in Buchenwald is estimated at 56,000. The camp was not technically an extermination camp, but the massive number of deaths were primarily caused by literally being worked to death, starvation and human experimentation. Being at the camp was such an intense feeling with overwhelming emotion to know what those people went through. It was about 18 degrees when we were there and we were all freezing, but the conditions were nothing compared to what they suffered through, obviously. The room with the doors is where many, many prisoners were being punished for any reason the SS wanted, and they basically waited to die from being hung, shot in the back of the neck or tortured to death. Anyway, it was an educational experience to say the least. The next pictures are in the town, Weimar, which is where Hotel Elephant is located. Hitler gave a well-known speech from the balcony and the town is well known for him staying at that hotel on occasion in the 30's and 40's. We had lunch at a nice cafe, and Weimar really has beautiful architecture all around, including the city hall which is the 8th pic. The picture of me is when I was driving 160 kilometers per hour on the AUTOBAHN!! It was so awesome! My main goal at some point is to rent a Ferrari and take a tour through Germany using only the Autobahn. Even going as fast as I was, Audi's and BMW's were FLYING by us. On Friday, Juliane, her mom and I went to an unbelievable cave in Attendorn. It is 3 million years old and so gorgeous. I have never been in a cave before, so I became a little claustrophobic, but I was fine after a little while. The rate of growth of the formations is estimated at 1 mm every 10 years. Can you believe that!  Friday night, Juliane, me, Julianes mom, Lena and her boyfriend went bowling! It was really fun, and they bowl just like we do in the states. The bowling alley was actually called New Orleans! Needless to say, Lenas boyfriend won all the games; there was also a raffle drawing going on and the man picked me to draw numbers out of a hat, but I lost for our team : ( We would have won a bar of chocolate, so we were all not to upset.The last four pictures are of last night, and for the first picture of us, left to right is Sabine, me, Lia and Juliane. Lia and Sabine are Julianes best friends, and they were so sweet and welcoming! I had such an awesome time with them. **Thank you both for having me over, it was so fun!!!** We had a fabulous dinner as well as a cocktail party with delicious drinks including Rumba (soooo goooood) and strawberry daquiris! We played a game called SingStar, which starts out pretty embarrassing because you sing along to all kinds of songs and the game judges you on how well you sing the song, but after a couple drinks, it becomes really fun! The picture of me with my arm up was when I was singing Air Supply, "All out of Love". It helped me with my pitch ; ) The dinner was with a hot plate type cook stove and these little mini-pots, and you pile the mini-pot full of vegetables, fruits, meats or whatever, then you put cheese on top of the mini-pot, place it under the hot plate and wait a few minutes. After the cheese is deliciously melted, your mini-pot is done and it is SOOOO YUMMY!! So that explains my amazing week in Paderborn! A few random things I forgot to mention: we also rode bicycles to town which was so nice and parts of the trail were so peaceful. We have lucked out with nice weather lately! Today it rained, but I think it was due. Juliane and I also visited an animal shelter last Thursday and took some very sweet, excited dogs on a walk. Germany is wonderful in many ways, but in regards to animal care, they truly take such good care of the animals in the shelter. They do not euthanize the animals, they just  try to create more room and have very strict spay/neuter rules. The cat rooms actually had so many warm, fuzzy beds, heaters and so many toys, you wouldn't believe it. They were really overwhelmed with cats; I think there was about 35-40 of them. Many of the dogs were German Shepherds, as well as smaller, mixed breeds. We took an older German Shepherd and a Chihuahua/ Jack Russell mix on the walk. It was a satisfying thing to do, and there were so many other people doing it as well, I loved it. This morning, Julianes mom invited me, Juliane, her sister Anna Lena and her boyfriend Jannis to an amazing breakfast buffet at a beautiful cafe in town. It was so filling and you could not have asked for a better selection and more delicious food! Also, every day we go over to where Julianes horse Nina is, and clean the paddock area and while Juliane works with Nina, I brush Eddie, Carlos, or any of the other wonderful animals there. I have really fallen in love with Glissi, a 30+ year old Icelander who is so sweet and has a bum front left leg, so he reminds me so much of my Cheyenne. Anyway, it is getting late and I am getting pretty tired, so I hope you all enjoy the pics and are surviving the crazy weather all around the world! Juliane and I are heading to Freiberg on Tuesday to visit her sister, so I am really excited for that and will post again soon!! Have a fulfilling week everyone!

I couldn't resist uploading pictures now rather than later!! By the way, it was below freezing temperature!

Eddie and I!

Juliane with her horse Nina, and dogs Ben and Sally

Heading out on our adventure!

Mona the donkey, Patrick the owner, Nikole and I!

Carmen, Patrick, Me and Nikole with an Icelanders head between us!

Brrrr.... say cheese!!

I was afraid Sally would scare Mona the donkey by jumping up on the cart but it didnt phase her!

Carlos, the cutest little donkey and I, and Juliane with Nina, Ben and Sally

In Paderborn!

 Hey guys! I arrived in Paderborn Thursday evening and really like it here. Juliane and her family are SO, SO welcoming and sweet, they make me feel right at home. I am almost back to 100% healthy, although yesterday I fell down their stairs in the house and totally broke my toe! There really isn't anything you can do for broken toes, so I just ice it and take Ibuprofen. Other than that, I am doing great and it is so nice to be with Juliane, we mostly talk about Mallorca and how much we miss it! Yesterday we went into town (above pictures other than the last one, thats in Mosbach) and walked around to look at all the shops and cafes. We went to a beautiful cafe and had a lovely latte, then we went to a little restaurant and had the typical Paderborn meal; it's a big sausage covered with ketchup and a little curry powder sprinkled on top, with pommes frittes! It was very delicious. After that, Juliane took me to meet her horse, Nina who is a very interesting, moody little mare but she loves her owner so that is all that matters. I have never met a horse that when she meets a stranger, she will not let you pet her, pins her ears and squeals at the top of her lungs! But, at the facility where Nina is, there are many other horses and donkeys, one of which I fell in love with, Eddie, who is a very cute, sweet little donkey. They also have Icelanders, which are these short, stout little horses who are very sweet and I think next week we will take them out and ride! The people who own the property have two very cute dogs, one is an Australian Shepherd actually, and the other is a mix of collie and who knows what else, so since Juliane cannot ride her mare anymore due to old age, we took Nina and the dogs on a walk! We walked down a nice trail which also bordered two big lakes that the dogs loved to play in, even though it was SO cold! It has been pretty cold here, averaging about freezing, but we bundle up with lots of coats and seem to do fine. Last night we went into town and tried to go to a couple bars, most of which were full but we finally found one and had very tasty Sangria which made for a really good time. Today we are heading to Wewelsburg where there is an amazing castle to look at that was built in 1603! Afterward, Juliane wants to show me how the donkeys can pull a cart so I will definitely take pictures of that for you all to see... should be interesting!! We head to her sisters in the south of Germany on the first of March, which is when I think we are going to Switzerland! For this coming week, Juliane and I have made plans to go sightseeing, drive on the Autobahn (YAY!!!) and visit a concentration camp, Buchenwald, which is about 3 hours away. I will post next weekend with new pictures and tell you all about our new adventures! I hope everyone is doing absolutely lovely and will post soon! Tschuss! -informal goodbye in German : )

I have Broncihitis!!!

Hey all, how is everyone? I have been REALLY sick since last Sunday, so I apologize for nothing new until now. I had a fever of 103 on Wednesday, and that is when I decided to go to the doctor. Lisa was kind enough to find me a doctor that was close and took my insurance. He did not speak much English, but I pointed to what was hurting or bothering me, and he sent me home with 6 boxes of medicine and told me I had Bronchitis! I am sooooo happy because I am feeling SO much better, and just have a horrible cough left which should be gone hopefully soon. I can't explain to you all how happy I am that I feel better, I was in pretty bad shape for a couple days, thats for sure. The Friday before I got sick, Mikey and I went out and met up with some of his friends, and we had SO much fun! We met up with a group of like 6-7 people and went to a few bars to start the night out, then went to a place called The Cave which literally is a cave and had amazing music with an awesome dance floor! One of Mikeys friends introduced me to a nurse from Bosnia, and we definitely hit it off and had so much information to share with each other so I hope to meet up with him again because he completed his nursing studies in the states, and now does basically traveling nursing which is something I have always been interested in. Anyway, the weather here has been really nice and I hope it continues to be that way since now I am feeling up to go outside! I leave here in 5 days to Paderborne, which I am definitely excited for. Tomorrow I think we are going into Rammstein which is two hours away, but it should be nice to see another city I haven't seen before. Sorry, I only  have  a few pics from our night out but hopefully soon I will have some more of towns and stuff! I can't believe I am heading home in less than a month! I am looking forward to it actually, and I am not sure if I already wrote about it, but I have applied for an animal rescue internship up north of Seattle; it is a 3 month long, housing included internship and I would be working mainly with cruelty investigations as well as taking care of horse rescues. I completed my phone interview last week (in the midst of being super sick, but the lady was so sweet about it) and I will find out later next week if I was accepted! I will absolutely keep you all informed as to how that goes, as well as everything else that is going on around here! Talk to you all soon!!!

It snowed yesterday in Germany!

Hey everyone! For most of you, it is like 2:30 am but its 11:30 am for me and I thought I would write a semi-quick blog post! I am in Mosbach, Germany which is where my wonderful friends, Lisa and Michael live. It is such a cute little town, and just about an hour away by train is Heidelberg, which is a bigger town with lots of shops and restaurants, as well as that awesome castle you see in my pictures. These pictures are random ones I took when we were in Heidelberg, and I will definitely take more when I get a chance, but it was absolutely FREEZING cold that day, and I could hardly push the button on my phone to take a picture my hands were so cold, so I will definitely take more soon. It snowed yesterday which was really fun! I haven't seen snow since I started traveling, and Lisa and Michael have a yellow lab, Moose, who I actually found and gave to them when he was a little puppy, so Mikey (LIsa and Michaels son) and I took Moose out for some fun with his ball in the snow. After that we went and bought Doner (pronounced durner) which is like the gyros but Turkish, not Greek. Anyway, then I wanted to buy Lisa some fresh flowers for the house, so Mikey took me to a flower store and the man strictly spoke German, so that was kind of difficult, but it worked out fine and the man was so nice although the entire time, neither one of us had any idea what each other were saying, but the bouquet turned out very pretty. Mikey and I also went and played pool a couple days ago at a pool hall down the road, which was SO fun! I don't know why I love pool so much because I am not that good, but I really enjoy it so we had a great time. The awesome thing about this place, well, in Europe generally, is that you walk everywhere you need to go, and if the place is to far, you can take a train or tram! It is such a nice experience for me to live in a small town with so much to do and everything within walking distance. I will take pictures of where I am, Mosbach, today and show you how cute it is on my next blog post. Other than that, I am loving my time here with my great, wonderful friends and having a nice, relaxing break. I will leave to meet up with Juliane (friend from Mallorca, who lives in Germany) on the 17th and spend time with her and her family until March 1st, which is when we leave to her sisters, and it sounds like the town she lives in borders Switzerland, so I think we will head there for a day or two! After that, we will both leave her sisters on March 5th, but I am coming back to Lisa and Michaels until I fly out home on March 10th, and Juliane will go home. Their place is closer to Frankfurt which is where I fly out, and Julianes place is about 5 hours from there. Lisa and Michael were kind enough to invite me again to stay, which is so awesome, because hostels in Frankfurt are expensive and I was going to just head there and stay at a place close to the airport, but I would much rather be here with them : ) I really hope you all are doing good, I heard from a couple people the weather in WA seems to be mild lately, and even had a few days of sunshine!! Thank you everyone who looks at my blog, I really appreciate it more than you know! Keep in touch either by email or comments, I love to read them! Have a great weekend!