I hope to finish this website with this post.

My friend and I were interested in seeing London and Berlin, and we decided to visit London first, because both of our flights left from Frankfurt, and this way, we wouldn’t be in a hurry to get back into Germany. For those of you that might be unfamiliar, most Western European countries are a part of what’s called the Schengen Agreement, which is a political agreement to allow international travel between member countries for 90 days, per 180 days. Our total stay was around 96 days, so we needed to be careful when coming back into Germany. We both applied for a Grenzübertrittsbescheinigung, which is a fancy word for border crossing certificate.

My traveling friend came Friday afternoon, and we really had to hurry. I helped her carry her bags up to my room (we were going to store our excess baggage in my house), and we literally ran to the bus station. Turned out that our bus was late, so the running was in vain. However, when the bus did arrive, my friend had a little shock when she had her tickets on her phone, and her phone did not have WiFi. Miraculously, she managed to figure out how to open documents in her internet cache, and we were off to Cologne. This trip took a couple hours. From Cologne, we hurriedly found the airport and our flight. From Cologne, we flew to London Stanstead Airport, then took a bus to my friend’s friend’s house.

Now, throughout my travels so far, I have been really lucky. I have not stayed with any serial killers, any thieves, or any malicious person whatsoever. But I think this situation was the luckiest one that I have ever experienced in Europe. We stayed right near the downtown area, with a family in a beautiful house. The only downside that I possibly could have thought of was that I shared a bed with my traveling friend. All in all though, such an incredible experience. London is home to several awesome museums, all of which are free to the public. I saw the original Rosetta Stone, a quirky play, and too many live performers to count. In London, they call the subway the “tube”. It’s incredibly dirty though, and our tour guide mentioned something about maintenance workers having mandatory breaks to prevent respiratory diseases. Oh, and I also saw the Queen. During one evening, I was able to have dinner with the parents of my friend’s friend. They were born and attended law school in the USA, yet decided to work in London (after of course, an internship in Hungary). Her family was equally as interesting, and I am so glad I met them!

After a couple days in London, my friend and I got back on the bus to the airport, and flew straight to Berlin. The flight was only an hour and a half or so, but we had a hangup at the border patrol station. They had questions about the border crossing certificate, since we had been in the Schengen zone for 92 days or so, and now wanted back in. We explained how our flight was leaving from Frankfurt in a couple days, and that we needed to go to Berlin to catch a train. He eventually let us in, only after consulting with his supervisor. Scary stuff, when you’re an illegal immigrant. Berlin was really awesome. It was where I discovered my love of currywurst, which is a type of sausage in special curry sauce. We also met a random British girl who just graduated high school. She was studying to be a fashion designer, and my friend and her had a lot in common, so we spent a lot of time with her for a day. We invited her to join us the next day, but we didn’t hear from her ever again. Our hostel was really sketchy, but it was fairly cheap. We were able to meet a civil engineering major from Texas, who decided to quit his job and travel for an extended period of time. He said he was uncomfortable staying in one place for too long, and seemed really happy getting to meet so many different people in Europe.

The rest of our time was fun, as we saw the sights and visited memorials and museums. Berlin is unlike any other city in Germany, as it is uniquely free-spirited and artsy. Hitler committed suicide here, and we were shown where his bunker was by our tour guide. They built a parking lot on top of it, as a means of not giving Hitler the recognition that he didn’t deserve. Overall, Berlin has more Cold War history than World War II. It was an interesting city, but I think I was anxious to get home and get ready for school.

As we were on the train to get back to the bus station, I asked my friend if she had her passport. With a look of terror, she said no, and dashed back to the hostel locker. I watched her stuff at the train station. Well, it turned out that we missed the critical train to get to the bus stop, so again we ran frantically to not miss our bus. Just as we arrived at the lot, we saw our bus leave. My friend thought about running in front of the bus to make it stop, but I yelled at her that it’s definitely not worth it.

So here we were, at a bus stop in Berlin, with out flights leaving the next day in the early afternoon. Our bus ride would take eight hours. Miraculously, my friend was able to sweet talk the bus clerk to sell us a new ticket for a later bus ride to Frankfurt. We bought that, and ended up in Frankfurt late that night. We took a train from Frankfurt to Darmstadt, where I made my friend some late dinner, and we caught a couple hours of sleep. The next day, we took the bus to the Frankfurt Airport. I saw that she got through the gate, and waited for my flight, anxious to get home. Once I boarded my plane, I kept myself busy by reading my book, IT, by Stephen King. I highly recommend this book because it’s really long, and holds your attention for a very long time.

Alas, I arrived at the Cleveland-Hopkins Airport around 5 PM. I was tired, but happy to be back on American soil, and to see my brothers and parents once again. Three months is a long time to spend away from home, but I learned a lot about myself, Europe, and the world as a whole. Thanks for joining me as I recollected my thoughts on my journey. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing!

Later,

Tom Ziebro

Well, with school starting, I really haven’t had time to put the finishing touches on my blog. In the interest of time, I hope to finish the website soon. Before I reflect on my entire trip, I thought it was only appropriate to retell the events that transpired before returning to the United States.

I decided to spend my last weekend exploring Frankfurt. I decided to go home and come back, since I only lived 30 minutes away, and trains are very reliable. This was nice having a native guide me around the city. He was primarily interested in the night life, and showed me where all the cool bars and clubs were. We also visited his favorite “American” bar, which was relatively empty. Despite the vacancy, we had a very fulfilling conversation about philosophy, religion, etc. Growing up in Argentina, raised in Italy, and finally living in Germany, he had a very interesting perspective on the world, and I realized that exploring Europe is just one step down the path toward understanding other cultures.

We went down to the Main River and took in the sights and the atmosphere. Unfortunately, my roommate had injured his spine, and did not want to visit the clubs, although he expressed extreme interest in exposing me to that aspect of Frankfurt. We rode back to the house, and I planned my next day in the city.

I was hoping to wake up before 9:00, but I forgot to plug in my phone, and overslept the time that I was hoping to depart on a cruise. I talked to the lady at the tourist center, and she said that she recommended returning on Sunday, because the full day experience was worth it. So I just spent that day exploring the city, kind of wandering around, experiencing everything that I could, well-aware that this was my last weekend in the Frankfurt area. I visited all the places I went at night with my roommate, and saw lots of street musicians!

Sunday was a blast. I went on a cruise of the Main River, and saw dozens of beautiful castles on a stretch of the river that apparently has been named a UNESCO World Heritage site. Our tour guides were very funny, and I enjoyed the wine tasting. I was able to taste this special kind of wine that was made of frozen grapes. Of course, this stuff was extremely expensive (around a hundred dollars per bottle), but boy, it had a characteristic taste. I’m not sure that I liked the taste, it was way to sweet for my palate, but I don’t usually like white wine.

On the way home, I managed to get stopped for the first time on the German train system. I had purchased a train ticket, but I forgot that it was only good on the S-bahn, not the Regio-bahn. So I had to purchase the ticket at full price, which was only 16 Euros. It still felt like a lot to me. But after this weekend, I had one week left of work, a week left to travel, and finally, it was time to come home to the United States of America.

Bis eine Woche!

Tom Ziebro

Hello all,

Hamburg was an interesting getaway. One of the DAAD interns that I met in Heidelberg needed to check out of her dormitory on Friday, and her flight left on Monday, so she was forced to stay in a hotel for a couple nights. She invited me over to keep her company for those couple of days, so I got a free place to stay for a couple nights.

I took BlaBlaCar from Frankfurt to Hamburg, and that was an exhausting ride. It was somewhere around 7 hours of nonstop driving. The car was very small, and my knees did not take very kindly to being stuffed into the seat in front of me. However, I did get to Hamburg for only 21 Euros on Friday night. I met up with my friend at the hotel, and pretty much went straight to bed.

The following day (Saturday), we went on a bus tour, which showed us the highlights of the city. We were able to buy the Hamburg Card which is a tourist bulk discount card which allowed us to eat fairly cheaply. We checked out all the tourist attractions, including the warehouse district and the town hall. We were also able to watch the LGBT parade through the center of town. That day must have been some kind of holiday, because lots of buildings were flying rainbow flags.

At this point, I had the opportunity to try on some Lederhosen, which was, well, an interesting feeling. Turns out that leather doesn’t breathe very well, and those were the days that Germany had record high temperatures. I wasn’t a fan.

Later on Saturday, we were able to meet up with some other friends that my Heidelberg friend worked with in Lubeck. We went to a little summer fair, and were able to ride some miniature roller coasters. It was really nice. Then we decided to check out the night life in Hamburg. That morning (Sunday), we looked through the fish market (they actually sell more than just fish), and later that day we went to the International Ship Museum. Tons of ships, and lots of cool maritime information. I actually took BlaBlaCar back to Darmstadt, with the same driver. His name was Olaf.

Overall, a brief, relaxing weekend.

Bis bald,

Tom Ziebro

Beautiful weekend in Geneva. I’m writing this really late, but I can remember most of what happened.

Honestly, Geneva was a lot like Zurich in that it had a very high quality of life, and it was very clean. It was also like Zurich in that it was expensive, and a little boring. However, my adventure getting down there was anything but boring.

I decided to take BlaBlaCar down to Geneva, and CouchSurf for a place to stay. My BlaBlaCar driver was a lot of fun, as well as my fellow riders. The driver was from the French-speaking part of Switzerland, one of the riders was from Spain, and another was from Germany. And here I am, from the United States. It was really fun to talk and joke around with them. Really fun, until we were rear-ended by the car behind us when we had to stop quickly. It really didn’t feel like too big of a blow, so I wasn’t too worried, but our driver was a little bent out of shape because apparently it was her boyfriend’s car. The guy that hit us didn’t pull over, and instead the car in front of us stopped to make sure everything was okay. None of us could even see a scratch, so that was good.

The funny thing was, that in the car I knew that my CouchSurfing host lived in Geneva near the train station, but I didn’t know her exact street address, or if she would still be awake when I arrived in town (it was already midnight by the time I got to Lausanne, the train stop where my driver dropped me off). I was really flattered that my BlaBlaCar driver gave me her phone number in case my CouchSurfing host fell through, then I could stay at her place. Very kind! Turned out that my host sent me her address while I was on the train to Geneva. I ended up arriving at 1:30, which was much later than the 11:00 that I had initially planned for.

My host was very kind, but she lived in an apartment above a kabab shop, on the fifth floor, and gosh her apartment was small. I can only imagine what she’s paying in rent. Anyway, she was fun to talk to, and very young at heart.

The visit to CERN was a ton of fun. I got to see a lot of cool stuff, but I swear half the time I didn’t know what I was looking at. Our tour guides were really helpful though, and the tour itself was free! It’s hard to be dissatisfied for that price. We then split off for the rest of the day, and I pretended to be a tour guide (I had bought an audioguide and explored a little before CERN), so it was fun to again spend time exploring with some fellow Americans. There was a fair going on near Lake Geneva, so we spent some time down there. It was a great time.

It was at this moment that I realized that none of my BlaBlaCar contacts worked out to get me home to Darmstadt. This meant that I needed to bite the bullet and take the train from Geneva to Darmstadt. The good news was that it was only 5 hours or so long. The bad news was that it set me back 149€, and when I’m already running low on money, this was a lot. But it was secure, and I was guaranteed to have a ride home.

The following morning we took a walk at the newer parts of Geneva, and we were able to visit the United Nations, the Red Cross Museum, and the World Trade Organization. Really cool places to be, and I highly recommend seeing them when in Geneva. I wish I could have stayed longer. When trying to find my way home, I had to ask a tourist assistant for directions, and I was surprised to learn that she was Canadian, studying in Geneva. She said that it was far cheaper to pay for plane tickets and study in Europe than paying tuition in Canada. If this was true, I’m sure it’s even more cost-effective when compared to the U.S. What a thought! I could get my master’s degree in Germany!

The train ride was pretty uneventful, but overall, a weekend well worth it. Seeing CERN and going down into the tunnels where they keep the particle accelerator tubes was breathtaking and I’m glad I was able to be there.

Au revoir!

Tom Ziebro

Hello again! For those of you wondering, the title of this post is, “Weekend Fun in the Czech Republic”. I used Google Translate, so I’m not sure that it’s 100% correct. Not this past weekend, but the one before that one, was when we went to Prague, the capital and most populous city.

We decided to take the bus to Prague, which left around 1:00, and we arrived around 9:00. It was a disgustingly long ride, and I hope to never have to sit for that long again. The sad part is that my flight is 8 hours long as well :(. When we finally arrived, I forgot my sunglasses on the bus, which really bummed me out. The first thing we did was exchange currency. Turns out that €1 = 27 Kč, so I was able to obtain 2000 Kč by paying €54 or so. Things also costed more, but not much more.

Honestly, our hostel was a little sketchy. The first night we shared a room with three other people, two of them girls. Kinda strange. But it was okay, everyone was nice. Oh, but someone was snoring really loudly. The next morning we did mostly sightseeing. Prague is a fantastic city for architecture, with its many castles and fortresses. Street musicians were also really entertaining. That night, we went to a Jazz bar to see a live band play. I really enjoyed that part. Turns out the band was from Tennessee, which really brought home back to me.

The next day, we went on a walking tour, and learned all about Prague, which used to be the capital of Bohemia. It went through significant religious conflicts throughout its history, with the Catholic Church conflicting with the local denominations. Then there was the Communism Era. It was interesting to notice the difference in architecture between buildings built during the Communist period, the Baroque period, and the modern period. Like most of the rest of Europe, Prague had several old castles. Also, because it was so hot that day, Prague has water trucks that circulate the city, spraying water all over the people walking down the streets. Overall, I would say that Prague was a very young, extremely tourist-friendly city. I enjoyed just seeing the sights and talking to people. The night life isn’t so bad either, but I elected to not participate in that.

We got back to Frankfurt with BlaBlaCar, then took the S-Bahn back to Darmstadt. It was around 1:00 when I finally got back to the house. But I had a lot of fun hanging out with my fellow Americans, and I learned quite a bit of Czech history!

Ahoj!

Tom Ziebro

Honestly, I was a little disappointed with Zurich. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t nearly as fun as some of the other cities that I’ve visited.

It started with a super long bus ride (like 8 hours or so). Ridiculous. It was worse because it was an hour and a half late. I did make some friends on the bus ride though, and I enjoyed talking to most of the people on the bus. I met an American studying abroad. It was pretty neat.

I stayed with a group of DAAD RISE interns with a CouchSurfing host. He was super nice! He gave us a ride from the train station to his house, and gave us breakfast every morning. Housing in Zurich is extremely expensive, so it was such a blessing to get such a good deal.

We went on a couple tours on Saturday, and saw some old churches. It was interesting to notice the contrasting styles from the churches in Rome, and in the other parts of Germany. Kind of a newer style, but I’m not an artist, so I won’t attempt to categorize it :P. Oh, and the water in Switzerland is so clean that you can see the bottom of the lakes and rivers. It was so clean that we decided to swim in it. It was nice to relax once again. The thought just occurred to me this week that school is starting in a month, and I should make sure that I get my fair share of relaxation before the stresses of exams and homework set in.

Saturday we had a little barbecue (we brought our own meat and our host grilled it for us), and got to meet yet two more travelers from Singapore. It was very fun to be at the junction of Swiss, American, and Singaporian (?) culture. That night our host also showed us the night scene in Zurich. Again, I don’t mean to be a downer, but the fact that everything was 2 or 3 times more expensive was a major killjoy for me. And people there were just a little…serious?

Sunday we went for a little hike to the top of a mountain, and the view was incredible! I got some great pictures. We then gathered our things and took the bus back home. All in all, it was a simple and relaxing weekend. I’ll try to update this post if I can think of anything else.

mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Tom Ziebro

Hello everyone!

Once again, I apologize for being a little behind schedule, but you know, that’s life. Today, I want to reflect on my experiences at the DAAD RISE Scholarship Conference in Heidelberg, Germany. For me, it was the perfect location, since I live no more than an hour away from the site.

The event formally began on Thursday from to 4:00 to 6:00, but I decided to get there a bit early, to do some exploring. I used BlaBlaCar to get there at around 11:00, and boarded the bus to get to the hostel. When I got there, the nice administrative people wouldn’t let me check in and unload my bags until 4:00, but I was able to get a locker for my one carry-on bag. I left the hostel around 11:30 to see what Heidelberg had to offer.

Turns out, that there’s a really old Roman castle near the Altstadt, and a really old university, but that’s really all Heidelberg has to offer, from a tourism point of view. Now, Heidelberg has all the entertainment of any sizable city (bars, libraries, public parks, etc.) but I was really disappointed with its unique attractions. Regardless, I toured the castle, and browsed through the Pharmacy Museum (weird that it’s right in the middle of a castle, right?). Oh, and apparently the largest barrel in the world is also located there. There was a king that once lived there, and it was said that he drank so much that he needed the barrell to store his wine. This thing had to have been 40 feet tall! The views were also really nice; Heidelberg is a truly beautiful city.

When 4:00 came around, I was finally able to check in. There was a bit of a delay from the DAAD administration as they organized themselves (I don’t blame them because there were so many of us), so we ended up getting to our rooms around 4:30. There was also a considerable line of people waiting to check in, but I didn’t mind this at all, because I met quite a few interns, and rather liked getting to know what they were working on. It turned out that they grouped people into rooms based on who was near in line, so I got to room with a bunch of British guys, and someone from OSU who I had met before the semester was over.

Next came the barbecue. In the United States, when someone invites another to a barbecue, they can usually expect an assortment not only of meat, but also fruit salad or vegetable salad. In Germany, barbecues mean meat, and lots of it! There were 5 different kinds of meat prepared for us, consisting of sausages, chicken, and steak. Really delicious.

After that, I was glad to see that one of the guys that I met from the Munich language class had started a game of ultimate frisbee, and I happily joined in. It was a lot of fun to play a game with all the interns involved, even if I didn’t score any points. When it started getting dark, a group of us decided to check out the Neckar River. It was a little far by foot, maybe a half hour walk or so, but it was really cool to see so many RISE interns mixing with the native Germans where the River went under the bridge. It was really scenic and cool.

The following day began with a welcoming ceremony. It was definitely over 40°C, which is above 100°F. It was so hot, that on the bus, I was creating a puddle of sweat from the rivers of persperation on my elbows. What really surprised me was how little everyone else was sweating. I guess that’s just me, haha. We got to the room where the ceremony was held, and it was so hot that people were falling asleep. Programs instantly turned into fans, and windows were immediately opened despite the lack of breeze. There was a musical group that performed between speakers, some kind of fusion between pop and latin music. I would have definitely enjoyed them better if it wasn’t so hot. I thought the speakers were mostly average: there was a representative from the Canadian government, the U.S. government, and the British government, but I enjoyed hearing a former DAAD intern’s experiences the most. She was in our shoes a little while ago, married a German guy, and decided to pursue a PhD in Germany! She now has a couple kids and lives in Germany. Gosh, I don’t know if I could do that.

Germany is not the place to be when the summers get hot. Most buildings do not have air conditioning, and there are no public drinking fountains. The whole drinking fountain thing really bums me out more than anything. I used to be able to hop from drinking fountain to drinking fountain without bringing any water bottle, but that’s simply not possible here.

Much to our relief, when the ceremony was finished, we began a tour of Heidelberg after a quick lunch break. It was alright; we heard about all the history and saw all the landmarks, but it was all ancient history, and either I didn’t find it interesting, or was too uncomfortable to pay attention. When the tour was finished, we were able to get dinner at one of the breweries. It was good, but the portions were very small. That seems to be common with European restaurants, and I’m not a fan! The food is always very tasty, but you only get a taste.

Heading back, we had just enough time to jump in the pool to cool off. The entrance fee was €4, but since we were a minute late, the pool was closed (but still allowed guests to swim for another hour). Because we were so hot, we decided to jump the turnstiles, and that turned out to be one of the best decisions I made during the entire trip. It was absolutely wonderful to cool off in the pool. After that, I think we just headed back to the hostel and went to bed. I might update this post if I remember anything else. This was a good Friday.

Saturday was the day of the presentations from the fellow interns. I attended all the interns from OSU that I could, and saw a couple other presentations. They all had one thing in common: all of them highlighted background information; there was little to be said about what the intern had actually done either in the lab or in the field. Whatever the case, it was nice to hear science in English again.

The program officially ended at 2:00 with a group picture and horderves. It was really sad to say goodbye to all these people that I had just met a couple days ago. We went back to the hostel to check out, but I still retained my locker, so I just moved my things down there for a while. See, DAAD had provided the hostel to us from Thursday night until Saturday afternoon, and a couple of my friends wanted to still do things that day and Sunday (since none of us had anything to do until Monday). One of my friends found a CouchSurfing host for me and another person, so that was the plan for Saturday night.

That day was probably the most fun I had all weekend. We were able to just relax and swim in the river. We ended up meeting another group of people, and our reasoning was the more the merrier. We were able to get dinner at an Italian place, and split a couple of pizzas. We got ice cream at one of the malls, then swimming again. Honestly, it was really just nice to hang out with some American people. We headed back to the hostel to gather our things and seek out our accommodations. Turned out that the host that my friend had found was an hour by train, and the trains only ran once an hour. So we turned that down when we realized that we couldn’t get there before midnight. One of the girls that we had met up with wanted to go out for drinks (being that it was July 4th and all), and she didn’t have anyone to go with. I didn’t have anywhere to stay really (although I could have booked another night at the hostel for €27, but I was too stubborn to hand it over), so I decided to join her.

We had a really great time. We went from bar to bar, me ordering the cheapest things, her ordering the most original. I honestly lost track of time. When everything closed down at around 3:30, we began walking back to the hostel. The funny thing was, her train left sometime around 6:30, and it was still really hot at the hostel (because of all the light concrete heating up the building). So she thought it could be fun to take a little nap by the river. Heck, I thought, I had no other room booked or anything. So that was a pleasant night. It was so much cooler than being inside, and my things were safely locked up at the hostel. Beautiful scenery.

That morning, as we walked back to the hostel to gather our things (this was around 5:30), I realized how tired I was after walking all day and surviving the heat for so long. Oh, I also badly needed a shower. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a group of DAAD people enter the hostel laughing (most likely drunker than a skunk), with one of the interns having blood on his knee. After closer inspection, I saw that there was actually a bone sticking out of his knee! So we made sure that he got medical attention. It was convenient that there was a hospital just across the street. Apparently, he had tripped and fallen on one of the train rails. Ouch.

Not wanting to do any more walking, my new friend and I split a taxi ride to the train station. I could have stayed at the hostel, and wait to hear back from my other friends (who were going to do things on Sunday), but I felt so tired, exhausted, and gross that I decided to hop on the next train to Darmstadt. Like I said, it was fairly close, and it only costed €9,00 so why not? As soon as I got home I sat in the fraternity pool, and later took a cold shower. I went to bed early that night, and got something like 14 hours of sleep. Not bad.

TL;DR: It was a super fun weekend 🙂

Bis später!

Tom Ziebro

Well, as usual, things have become rather hectic in Deutschland, and I am very far behind my weekly posting schedule. Today was the first day that I have time to write. Every other day has been jam-packed not only with work things, but also planning and administrative nonsense.

After Paris, I really didn’t have any travel plans with anyone from DAAD, so I decided to CouchSurf. For those of you that haven’t heard, CouchSurfing is a website where people with vacant beds or couches volunteer to host travelers. The benefit to the traveler is wonderfully free accommodation, and the benefit to the host is the cultural exchange that takes place when meeting new people. Sometimes, the host is free during the day, and can be your personal tour guide throughout the city.

So I did this in Cologne, and had a lot of fun with my host. She was a student the same age as me, so she needed to study during the day, but she showed me some of the culture at night. Cologne is a beautiful city, and actually has a lot of Roman history. For example, the Cologne Cathedral (one of the most beautiful midieval churches in Europe) was built on what was once a Roman colony. In fact, its name comes from the Latin Colonia, meaning colony. I saw a lot of different things, including the Cologne Cathedral, the Chocolate Museam, the Rhine River (I actually went on a little cruise), and the National Socialism Documentation Center. This last place was probably the most eerie, as it used to be a detention facility for public enemies of the Nazi Party. The original writings of prisoners still remains on the walls, after all these years, commenting on the horrible living conditions in the facility. There were people that didn’t know why they were there, people that were forced to starve for months at a time. This facility was one of many that perpetrated the Nazi tactics of fear as a means of control.

While I was on the boat cruise, I met a nice woman, who I thought was around my age. Turned out that she just turned 30 years old, and that she worked as a mechanical engineer for a company that had a branch in Mannheim (not so far away from Darmstadt). So we talked awhile about the differences from the U.S. and Germany, and about travel, places to see, and things to do. She was actually impressed with all the places that I’ve been so far, so that made me happy. She actually did not like Germany so far, which is unfortunate because she was required to stay there for 3 years for work, and she just got there this past winter.

Overall, it was just a relaxing weekend. Cologne was not that far away from Darmstadt, and it was nice to visit a big city without worrying about plane flights or train rides. I used BlaBlaCar to get home; it’s really starting to grow on me. The person that I rode with was actually really interesting. She was attending a Hochschule, which is like a college instead of a university, for biomedical engineering. I got home and went straight to bed. A beautiful weekend!

Bis dann!

Tom Ziebro

Last week was busy. Tuesday I decided to go to the ATM to withdraw some cash (I was really low), and to my surprise, the ATM told me that the transaction could not be placed! I tried cash advancing my credit card to no avail, then decided to try the debit card again. I tried it over and over, and then, while the card was still in the machine, I remembered that I forgot to pay my credit card bill! I had to do this now, because it was the last day to pay, and if I didn’t remember, there would be late f– Clunk. The machine withdrew my card, and went back to a blank screen. I couldn’t get my debit card back!

Thus began the long and tiring process where I would ask the ATM people who was responsible, and they direct me to the building staff, who would then direct me to the front desk, who would then direct me to the bank people, who would redirect me to the ATM people. All in German! Thankfully, I was able to get my card back by Thursday, the day that I left for Paris.

I was going to ride the bus for 9 hours, but when the website didn’t take my payment, I relied on the trains to get me there. Special price was 89€, which was a little pricey, but I would only take 4 hours, and I would have a little more room to move around, which my knees appreciated. I boarded my connecting train from Darmstadt to Frankfurt, and was really excited to go to Paris!

Turns out, the connecting train was 10 minutes late, and the high-speed train that was traveling from Frankfurt to Paris was scheduled to leave 10 minutes after the the connecting train. This translated to me missing the last train to Paris on Thursday night. Fortunately, the nice people at Deutsche Bahn scheduled me another trip to Paris on Friday morning! They even paid for my hotel, all free of charge. My favorite part of the hotel: free American-style all-you-can-eat breakfast. I swear I ate them out of house and home.

The trip was rather pleasant. I brought a book, and while I’m typically not the reading type, I’m actually pretty interested in it. Oh, I also met a Marine stationed in the Paris area, and it was nice to talk to an American for a while. I got to Paris, and began the process of finding where my friend lived.

The tram system in Paris is much like the rest of Europe, so I felt pretty comfortable with navigation. The next obstacle to my journey was that the person I was staying with had to work that day, so she could only meet up after 5pm! I got there at 2PM, so I decided to get some pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower, and take in a lot of the culture of Paris. I was staying in an area known as Ecole Militaire, which means something along the lines of Military School. One thing that I noticed about the Eiffel Tower is how many merchants are trying to sell worthless junk. And also pickpockets, TONS of pickpockets. They like to ask you to sign some petition, then someone gets close behind you to take your wallet. There was a guy that decided to wrap a piece of yarn around my wrist and try to ask for 10€ for it. I pretty much laughed at that, and he got the message.

During my time in Paris, I saw a ton of historic landmarks and sights. I went up in the Eiffel Tower (I climbed all the stairs), I saw Notre Dame, toured a couple churches, and also paid a visit to the catacombs. This was probably my favorite part of Paris, and I’m so glad I was able to see them. I actually got in line to see the catacombs sometime around 9:00 in the morning, and actually entered the catacombs sometime around 1:30. So that’s 4.5 hours of waiting? Sounds about right. The time went by pretty quickly though, as I met some guys from Luisiana studying culinary arts at a renowned university in Lyon.

The overall vibe of going down underneath the ground, with the musty wet rock walls, and seeing skeleton after skeleton and bone after bone of corpses was breathtaking. I would have loved to stayed down there all day, but unfortunately, here again, I had scheduled a ride at 3:00 at the Paris train station. I ended up only spending an hour in the catacombs, which put me at 2:30, and bought a souvenir, which put me at 2:40. Since my tram ride was so long that I would be late, my friend was kind enough to meet me at the train station with my bag, and off I went.

I used something called BlaBlaCar to get home. I think it operates similarly to Uber, although I’ve never used Uber before. It’s a website of people going from point A to point B, that want a little help paying for gas money. Not exactly like hitchhiking, Mom! But kinda 😉 Anyway, it was much cheaper than paying for a train back (<100€), and my other options were really slim. And I also wasn’t alone; there was another guy going to Frankfurt just like me.

All in all, I had a ton of fun getting to see Paris and the French countryside. I can say that there are a lot of differences between France and Germany. The first is food. German food is typically heavy, and most Germans eat quickly and efficiently. Food is for sustenance, while in France, meals are meant for enjoyment and pleasure. French food is typically served in much smaller portions than I am used to, and the meal lasts longer than I’m used to. I guess that’s so they can savor every bite. The language was different, German public transportation is better, and French people are a little more friendly than Germans at first (maybe they knew I was a tourist), but all in all, it was lotsa fun!

I’m planning a trip to Cologne this weekend. However, because I’ll be gone earlier in the week next weekend for the intern conference in Heidelberg, I didn’t want to take off Friday of this week. I’ll keep you posted on that trip. Not really sure what’s there, but it’s close and cheap to travel!

Au Revoir!

Tom Ziebro

Getting back to the Ciampino airport from our campground was an interesting experience. Our flight was at 10:25 AM, and I was planning to get up at 7:00, and leave by 7:30, so that Sarah and I would have plenty of time to get where we needed to go.

Turns out that we both overslept a little, and we ended up leaving by 8:30. We got to the central train station around 9:00, and only had an hour to get up to the airport before the boarding gates closed. We checked the trains, and none actually go to the Ciampino airport. We checked the busses, and all of them were booked. Our last hope was to wait in line for a taxi before we missed our flight. Luckily, the line went pretty quickly, and we managed to meet a group of three girls who were trying to get to Ciampino as well. We split the €30 cost amongst the 5 of us, which turned out to be a really good deal. We got to the airport somewhere around 9:50, and the boarding gates were closing at 9:55. We rushed through security, and jumped in the boarding line, just as it was starting to move. I breathed a great sigh of relief as the plane took off, fully aware that the second half of our journey was yet to come.

When we got to Frankfurt Hahn airport, we rode the bus for a couple hours to get to Frankfurt am Main, at which point we took a train back down to Darmstadt. It ended up being 16:00 by the time we finally arrived. I decided to work for as long as I could, and surprisingly, I got a lot done. The next couple of days at work were alright. I’m getting to know more people, I’m becoming more familiar with my project, and I’m getting better with navigating the city. So overall, it’s becoming more comfortable.

Friday, I was invited to a barbecue, on the occasion that it was a coworker’s birthday. This was a lot of fun, since we all brought our own meat, and there was potato salad and pasta salad. I find that I’m more confident with my German skills in a social atmosphere, but in a technical atmosphere I get lost pretty quickly. I went home and found the fraternity guys celebrating another person’s birthday. It was alright. I’m not really one to enjoy drinking, so I just kinda talked to people. The overall consensus is that most Germans appreciate when Americans try to speak German. Most of them say that German is not really an essential language, and are modest about their own English-speaking skills. I would contest that my German-speaking abilities are nowhere near their English-speaking abilities, but then again, they take English in grade school.

In other news, I finally found a gym that’s economical. It’s really far away from where I live, but not too far from where I work, so I think I’ll just go after work, then take the bus home. When I went on Saturday, it seemed pretty packed, but not too much so that I couldn’t accomplish some much-needed lifting. I’m going to try again on Monday, to see how full it is during the week. Saturday ended with a little hangout with the fraternity brothers, on the Herrngarten. It was nice to just relax outside on a nice day.

Sunday, I went to a Catholic church. However, the mass was completely in German, so I really couldn’t understand any of it. This is why I’m a firm believer in the Latin mass, because the exact words are spoken throughout the entire world. It’s very easy for meanings to be lost in translation.

After church, one of the fraternity brothers asked me if I wanted to ride bikes with him. “Sure!” I said, not knowing how serious he was about riding. We rode for probably an hour, and I had a lot of fun. If it weren’t for the really uncomfortable seat, I would have stayed out all day. We came to a place called Ludwigshöhe, which is the top of a sizable mountain. The view was incredible! We could see all of Darmstadt, and even to Frankfurt. The idea of trail biking had never really occurred to me as a fun activity, but that day’s trip convinced me otherwise. Although, I will say, that some of those hills were a little dangerous

Bis später!

—

Tom Ziebro