Dortmund and the Wolf!

The next day after Berlin was a long day. We had an all day drive to Dortmund. Supposedly 5 hours but it was probably about 6-8 hours adding all the traffic and stops. There really wasn't anything to blog about until we stopped at this little town called Wolfenbuttel. It is to die for. I would like to live here, k thanks.

The town looks like it is straight out of the story books. From the hour or so that we were here, I've seen that the town consists of a school, a huge green park, and a town center type of place where the food and shopping is. We got off the bus and walked through the park to get to the center. On the way, my friend Nate and I got stopped by this German kid who explained that he was doing a photo mural project and needed a diverse of people. Well, I'm diverse... So he took pictures of us, random but it was funny.


The center part of the city is the cutest part! There were so many different places to eat! We stopped at this backerei, which is German for bakery. I got this chocolate vanilla swirl cookie that was the size of my hand and it was the best cookie ever. For lunch, I got a pizza brochen (German for "little" bread), a salami sandwich, and a Capri Sun all for under $5. I love non-tourist towns. We didn't spend much time here but it was seriously the best pit stop we've had on this trip!

We continued our trip to Dortmund and finally reached our destination 10 minutes before dinner was served. We did another YSA Outreach and had yet another fun time with them. I made a lot of friends here and they are awesome! I am Facebook friends with some of them! 

Our host family for the night was THE best one I've had on this trip. Their names are Walter and Heicke, they're an old couple and just the sweetest people. And their house is beautiful! It is four stories high and we got our own rooms AND got to do laundry. I also got the chance to get to know them the best. They introduced Mormon coffee and wine to us and German birthday cake. They were all delicious beyond belief. Walter said that if I am ever back in Dortmund, I am welcome to stay at their house again. I believe I will be taking up his offer sometime in the future! :) 

Back to Berlin!

Another chance to see Berlin! Where to begin...so much to tell.

We walked around as a huge group for the majority of the day. We started the day by going to the Brandenburg Gate. On the way there we passed by a huge park that was begging me to go trotting through, but we couldn't stop. The park reminded me of Central Park, it was green and full of people reading, napping, walking their dogs, etc. And at night, the park is lit up with twinkle lights...how romantic! 

The Brandenburg Gate and square is sweet! It was beautiful and majestic but also full of tourists, which means gypsies. One woman came up to my friend Jory and handed him a piece of paper begging for money. Our tour mom Sister Peterson came storming over yelling "NO! Mom says NO!" and led him away. The gypsy went around and shoved her! Good thing she was the coolest tour mom and shoved right back. It was my only encounter with gypsies this trip but it was enough haha. Then we proceeded to take a group photo in front of the gate, it took about a whole five minutes tops. But this angry tourist came up and started yelling at our director about how long we were taking. Oh Berlin, what a sight to see.

We visited a memorial to the Holocaust. It is a huge lot with square "statues" that look like plain tomb stones. They are all different heights and they start from the shortest on the outer rims into the tallest on the inside. It looked like something that would be in Inception. If it wasn't a memorial, we probably would've wreaked havoc in there.


We also stopped at the most beautiful square in Berlin. It is surrounded by four very beautiful and tall buildings with a statue in the middle. It was pretty but I honestly can tell you it just looks like any other square in Europe. :P

We continued our walking around the city where we saw a lot of pretty buildings, museums, trees, people. It became all a blur once my mood went from amused to sour because I was so tired and hungry. I did remember seeing a statue that was supposed to be Humpty Dumpty. I didn't really see the resemblance, but I guess that's why I'm a musician and not an artist. --------------------------------------------->>>>>>>

We finally reach a destination: the Pergamon Museum. The museum consists of a lot of pretty architecture from different countries and time periods. I was still hungry so I sulked most of the time spent there. But! I did see some cool stuff like the tomb of a pharaoh and his mummy(ick). After the museum, it was finally time to eat! We stopped at an Australian restaurant where we got cheeseburgers (oh heaven). But the braver ones had kangaroo meat(once again, ick).

 We got to visit the Berlin Wall! That was a lot cooler than I expected. One side of the wall is covered by murals and it's super neat, the other is littered with graffiti but equally awesome.

After the tour of the city, we went back to the stake center and chilled until our first YSA Outreach. We had dinner with the ward, had spiritual thought, performed some musical numbers, and played some games. The YSA Outreach is definitely one of my favorite parts about tour.

After Berlin, we take a 5 hour drive and head over to Dortmund! :)

Eisenhutten...what?

It's Eisenhuttenstadt, haha what a mouthful...only in Germany. This is a tiny little town in the suburbs of Berlin.  It was cozy, kind of reminded me of Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls.

We had a mild day here after all the sightseeing we did in Dresden and Prague. We visited a place called The Museum of Everyday Life. It features household items in Germany from the 50's. We saw things that were familiar to us and some that weren't. We learned about the punks in Germany back in the day, how cool. It was pretty neat to see some things we still use today that have evolved with the advancement of technology. The best part about this museum was when we left. No it wasn't THAT boring, but because we left Josh behind! He fell asleep in one of the rooms in the museum, we didn't even realize we left him until he called us during dinner! Needless to say, this definitely outshone whatever the museum had to offer us.

After the museum, we headed over to our concert venue- the Friedrich Wolf Theater. It was our first venue with dressing rooms! I felt so spoiled haha. The concert was fantastic because we had an awesome audience. We played 3 encores! There was this little girl that was inactive or is an investigator who LOVED Asians so the hosts of the concert wanted me to meet her. I was kind of wary at first since I felt like I was being exploited (haha) but she was really cute! She was so excited to meet me and gave me a picture she drew. I did a good deed :P

We left with host families for the night and we got a way sweet one. Their back yard basically consisted of the remains of the Berlin wall. When it was torn down back in the day, they witnessed the whole thing and collected some of the remains. We got to take some home! Their cat was cool too, it could catch its treats with its paw and eat it. Obviously I don't interact with animals enough anymore that little things like that amuses me.

Eisenhuttenstadt was pretty chill, I liked it mostly because the name was long and I can actually pronounce it. But every city we visit was a neat experience and this was no less :)

Prague...Czech!

We were surprised with a trip to the Czech Republic to visit Prague! Well it wasn't much of a surprise we saw it coming but it was still exciting to know we would be visiting a fifth country!

The drive over was absolutely gorgeous. The one thing that never ceases to take my breath away is the water everywhere and the green that surrounds it. The Czech Republic felt even more countryside than Germany and it was just perfect.

Prague is ridiculous. It's overwhelmed with tourists, but the more the merrier right? We walked through Wenceslas Square, which is famous for the historical event where some guy lit himself on fire in protest of some conflict (it was really loud when it was explained to us, I couldn't hear a thing!). And the shopping looked to die for. Once again, everyone is sooooo fashionable in Europe. And I can see why, the clothing stores are amazing. It was a really long walk to get to the center of everything but it was worth it because everything just looked so interesting.

Then it was more walking across the Charles Bridge. This bridge is long but full of  statues, street performers, and vendors. It was an adventure just crossing it.

We ate at this cool looking restaurant that used to be a bishop's courthouse...whatever that means. I ate some duck! It was dang good. And of course only in Europe would they serve you two kinds of bread as side dishes.

After lunch, we proceeded to go looking for the way to the Prague castle where we found the entrance to the garden underneath it. It cost two euro to climb up a bunch of stairs and get really hot. But it was beautiful! The view overlooking the city and the architecture was amazing.

Finally, the Prague Castle and cathedral. What can I say...wow wow wow wow wow wow. The church is HUGE! My goodness it was beautiful though. The inside was nice and cool which was pleasant after a long grueling walk. The stained glass was unbelievably remarkable. Neither pictures nor words could do it justice so I'll just leave the mystery as an incentive for y'all to go visit on your own. To this day I still don't know exactly what parts were the castle because all I saw were huge, tall, beautiful buildings all around me. But it was a sight to see for sure.

Our last attraction was the astronomical clock striking on the hour and it was REALLY...not a big deal. But the cool thing about it is that it dates back to 1410 and is the oldest working clock in Europe. Legends say that if the clock ever stopped working then bad things would happen to the city...oooh I'd like to see that happen. It strikes every hour on the hour and when it does a guy comes out on the top of the tower and plays the trumpet on each side. Even if it was anticlimactic, it was something that needed to be seen once in a lifetime.

We finished our day eating gelato and trdelnk. Trdelnk is this dough coated in sugar and wrapped around a large stick thing and baked/fried. It's just like a weirdly shaped donut but soooo delicious!



Usually the group sticks to a rule that whenever we have free time, we must stick to a group of 3. There's no limit to how big our group is. It's probably not the best idea to have a big group, but we ended up with a group of 14. We had to create our own count off system. By the end of the day, we didn't lose anybody! Even after splitting up, we still found each other. We were a good group :)

Prague was overwhelming, but it was such a good day. I still have a ton of crown left from that day, I guess it'll be souvenirs now...or just an excuse to go back!

Dresden, Germany

I can almost safely say Dresden has been my absolute favorite by far. It was the perfect balance of tourists versus locals. It has the beautiful historic buildings and the history to go along with it. But it doesn't lose the excitement of a tourist spot where everyone is running around like children in a candy store.

To get from our bus stop to the center of the city, we walked through a park that looks like it came out of a movie set. The sun was shining onto a sparkling lake surrounded by the greenest green that only exists in Europe. Then we reach the central square and everyone is in awe because it is breath taking. Just wait for the pictures I took to hit Facebook, it will prove everything I'm saying right now.

Street performers overflow the city but they only add to the classy-ness of the city because they're playing classical music or singing opera in the tunnels. Overall the city is so clean even if it is filled with tourists. We walked around and did the usual sightseeing in the old buildings. Until we reached the Church of the Holy Cross where we lit a prayer candle for fun and climbed the 257 stairs up to the top and overlooked the entire city of Dresden. There's no better way to see Europe than to climb to the top of any church building and look down.

After our physical exercise, we shopped and ate at a market that looks like our farmers markets but I think they're more permanent in their location. Oh my, we ate so many different German goodies. I had Turkish Delight for the first time(not good), if that was what the Snow Queen bribed Edmund with, then he seriously got ripped off. We also ate this snack called Krappelchen (decent) that was basically powdered sugar fried dough. We deemed that it was called Krappelchen because when you ate it, you get "crap" all over your "chin". We also had a dessert I don't know the name of that was a German chocolate cheesecake(very good). But by the end of the day, the best thing to go in my belly was a coke with plenty of caffeine because we just about died from a full day of walking.

We also visited the famous Church of Our Lady which had exquisite details outside and inside the building. The inside is basically covered with gold and had incredible art, architecture, and statues. Around the church, there were so many of those human statues and some of them looked so real, I don't know how they do it.

Dresden was absolutely gorgeous and I can easily spend another week there. So I'm crossing my fingers it won't be long before I get to go back again!

Freiberg, Germany

Freiberg was my first favorite city in Germany but certainly not my last. It is a tiny little town rich of history. We played a concert there our first night in honor of their 850th anniversary. It's incredible how far they've come and yet the age old beauty of the town can still be captured. It was our first experience dealing with sticky weather, extreme fatigue, and numerous pre-concert disasters. But the venue we played in was a church that was just magnificent- tall ceilings, beautiful cathedral architecture, etc., so it made it worthwhile.

We stayed in temple housing for two days and it was quite pleasant. The only place that had wifi was the church building next door. But it was locked most of the time so you see a bunch of students including the leaders huddling outside the door like penguins trying to Facebook and Skype. It was a funny picture.

The first night we were served some decent food besides these weird potato dumplings. It was a weird texture and I couldn't make myself finish it, which is rare because I eat anything edible within tangible range. But it basically is the only weird/gross food I have eaten since being here. I also need to add that every meal served to us is accompanied by chocolate. I don't know if it's a European lifestyle or just courtesy to guests but I love it. Our Sunday lunch was absolutely incredible though. It was Russian red soup or German cheese soup, and both just insanely satisfied my taste buds. The Russian soup was like an explosion of favors in my mouth. While the German soup felt like home on the country side(hot dang, blogging about this makes me really hungry).

We put on a musical program for the local ward on Sunday and sat through all three hours of church. Relief society was a neat experience because it was awesome to see that though we were all speaking different languages, we understood each other spiritually because we all speak the same gospel. It was definitely a testimony building experience.

After church and before leaving for Dresden, we got to go into the Freiberg temple and see the baptistry. They told us that the open house of this temple had 10,000 people in attendance, members and non-members(my numbers might be off but just know it's a huge number). What an amazing opportunity to be inside a temple in Europe.

Frreiberg was a relaxing visit and it was just beautiful. This is definitely going on my list of potential cities to live in :)

So Much Catching Up To Do...

Hallo!

I am soooo behind on blogging! But I am keeping track of all my adventures on my phone and will post them as soon as I get more Internet time. I hope I can skype with some of you soon. If I get Internet, I am usually online at around 2 to 4 pm Provo time.

Since my last post about Berlin, we have visited Freiberg, Dresden, Prague, Eisenhuttenstadt, and back to Berlin. It has been long and tiring but super worth it. I learned how to count 1 through 10 in German today! I would prove it but I don´t know how to spell the words out :P

We are headed to Dortmund tomorrow, our last stop in Germany before we head to the Netherlands. I will be updating my experiences with all the above locations soon, stay tuned!

Guten Nacht!