Recent developments...

News:

Sadly, my blogging about Germany will be coming to an end in 13 days. I could not get a job to stay over my 90 day visa. Also, I recently found out that it is going to take longer to get the fiance visa for Patrick to come over when we get married. I do have to get a job first, too :). So, Patrick and I are back to long distance and skype until the fiance visa comes through and he can move to California. We will make it work though :) we always do. 

That is about it for tonight. 

Gerolstein and Cologne :)

I am gonna warn you... this is a very long blog!

This week we finally took our much anticipated trip up to visit Burg Gerhardstein and Cologne. We had an absolutely amazing time! We left on Monday about 1pm and made it up to Cologne about 7 that night because of the stop in Gerolstein. Patrick's brother attends the university in Cologne, which made the trip so much cheaper and easier.

Gerolstein is where my ancestors are from, and where Burg Gerhardstein is. Burg Gerhardstein is the ruins of a castle, destroyed during the 18th century and further degraded during WWII. We spent about an hour trying to find it because since they renamed it, apparently no one knows the old name of it. We were basically sent on a wild goose chase, that included us walking down a trail in the cold, only to see the castle about 2 miles away on top of a hill. We walked back to the car and finally found the place. It really is ruins, but you can still tell what was where. The castle overlooks the entire city. 

On our hunt to find the castle, we found this
church that was built in the 1600s

And then we were on our way to Cologne. It only took us about an hour to drive the rest of the way there. Our first night we just got settled in, walked to the grocery store, and relaxed before our "tourist day". Because we had a few weeks to plan, we already knew exactly where we wanted to go. The main reason we wanted to go to Cologne was to put our lock on the Hohenzollern bridge. If you have never heard of this, I'll explain. A few years ago, Cologne started following in the footsteps of a few places, Russia, China, Italy, etc. People started attatching love locks on the bridge, and throwing the keys into the Rhein River. The locks are a symbol of love, and not just couples attach them. We saw locks between friends, and couples who had a main lock and a small lock attached for each child. I first saw this on pinterest, and was so excited to actually be able to do this. Because the bridge is only for foot traffic and public transportation, it was easy to do. 

We had both heard before how amazing the Cologne Dom was, but didn't actually realize it until we were there. It is the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Standing next to it makes you feel so small. Originally we were planning on climbing up to the top of the Dom, but I didn't want to test Patrick's fear of heights twice in one day. Actually, that is a lie, I didn't want to climb 500-something stairs, and then go back down! So we decided to just walk around. 

We took the train up to Heumarkt to have a “Koelsch”, which is a special Cologne kind of beer. It was refreshing because of how warm it was (the weather has been amazing lately). Heumakt is a square of restaurants and bars.

We then took the U-bahn to a preserved Nazi prison which had been turned into a prison. I had read on trip advisor that this was definitely something worth seeing. The museum part was interesting, but I couldn’t read anything of the news articles or anything on the walls (it was in German, of course), so I had to have a headset which just summarized everything. The basement was the best part of the museum. It was preserved in the almost original state from where prisoners were kept during the Nazi takeover in Germany. Inside the cells, there were even original writings of prisoners on the wall. Some of these were really hard to read, especially those written as goodbyes to loved ones. It is much different to read about the conditions for some people than to see for yourself.

Thankfully, we planned a fun thing (at least for me) to do after the museum. They have gondolas that go over the Rhein River. For those of you that know Patrick, you know he has a pretty good sized fear of heights. Once we got up to the top and started looking around it was better. You could see all around the river, the Dom, and all four bridges. The ride ends at a gorgeous park, which has a huge playground where any kid could spend hours. I had fun there. We got lost looking for a U-bahn station, and ended up walking about 2 miles back.

We were so tired that we decided to go back and relax at the apartment before going to see the Dom and bridge at night. The great thing was we got so much use of our day pass for the U-bahn, which was 7.50 euro.

The Dom is amazing at night! The way it is lit highlights all the architectural characteristics; this gives it a completely different view at night. The bridge lights aren’t as impressive as I thought they would be. In some pictures online they are very bright, but I guess I know now that someone has been using too much Photoshop.

We headed back to Stuttgart today. Tomorrow the Hunger Games are premiering at the English movie theater, which we are seeing the first showing of. After that we are heading to a place that has saunas and different pools. It will be a nice way to end a great week. 

By the way... this person is a big cheater!

I realized it has been almost 3 weeks...

I am a bad blogger. Patrick and I have been busy trying to explore around Stuttgart before his break ends. So far we have been to Wurtzburg (for work, but it was still cool), the Ritter Sport Chocolate Factory, the gorgeous church/duck pond that is really close to our house, and the English movie theater.
Patrick's friend owns a DJ/entertainment company, so he helps him out sometimes. The other day we went up to Wurtzburg to drop off/pick up something. They have this giant fortress/castle looking thing that is built into the side of a hill. My pictures just don't do it justice, but it was hard to work around the busy street/trees that were in the way.

The day before yesterday, Patrick told me that we had to get up earlyish on Monday because he had a surprise for me. Tadaa! We wound up at the Ritter Sport Chocolate Factory. For those of you who have never had this chocolate, it is absolutely amazing. They sell certain kinds in America, but nothing to compare to what they have over here! Sadly, the museum was closed, but we were able to go into the chocolate shop. For those of you that know me pretty well, this was my own, personal version of heaven. Patrick and I have been eating healthy and working out lately (trying to look good in my wedding dress), so chocolate has been a no-no for the past 2 weeks. Needless to say, we bought too much. That is an understatement, we bought like 2lbs. of the stuff.

We chose the perfect day to go to the church/duck pond. It was definitely the best weather we have had in awhile. It was nice to just walk around and sit down and look at the duckies. You are not allowed to feed them, they get sick. Apparently American duckies have far stronger stomachs than German duckies.

It was awesome to find a movie theater that shows original movies in English. It is really really small, and only shows 2 different movies each night, but it works. We went to see Safe House last week, and this week we saw This Means War. Since Safe House is newer or more popular, it was in the big room with the big screen. This Means War was in a room that probably only sat 50 people, with a screen that was pretty tiny. Both movies are great. There is one big difference between movie theaters in Germany and those in America, they sell alcohol in German ones.

Oh, and you can drink in the car if you aren't driving. The crazy part about this is, Germany has half as many alcohol-related car accidents than we do (I read a study about it), even though you are allowed open containers and you are allowed to drink (beer and wine) at 16.

Cheers :)

We are going to be heading up to Cologne and Gerolstein in the next couple weeks. Cologne has his awesome bridge where couples put their names on padlocks and throw the keys into the river. I have been waiting to do that since I decided to move here. Gerolstein is where my ancestors came from. There used to be a castle names Burg Gerhardstein, but it was mostly destroyed. Patrick read a story about my ancestors, apparently they were not well liked people. It should be a fun 4.5 hour road trip in the smart car though!