One Month Mark

Well first I would have to start with apologizing again for keeping you all in the dark about my adventures here in Germany! I've been one busy bee these past couple weeks and hope it hasn't discouraged any of you readers from keeping tabs on my blog! But if you haven't been following at home, today marks the One month and 3 day mark since i've been here and must I say that time is going faster than a canoe down a waterfall. The things i've seen, the places i've gone, and the people i've met have been so astounding and its only been a month! I try my hardest to really take advantage of everything around me and the time I have, but i must admit i dont always do that. But with the time i do take advantage of i do make the best of. There's just so much of this world to be seen, so much to be done and I feel just so thankful and so blessed that I have this what could be a once in a lifetime chance to be here and to do all these things. I am equally as blessed to have everyone back home readers, or non readers, just everyone that supported me before I left and keep supporting me even after a month in. I'm getting to that point where I start to realize how little time i really do have here, and how after the shows all over and everyone flys back to their home, how much I'm really gonna miss everyone here, building all these friendships and these memories, that one day when I look at a map of Germany, or am speaking german I'm always gonna remember the people I shared this trip with and almost everything id did here depending on the night and how much beer was consumed haha. But I still have so much time left and I'm happy to have a realization such as this, because it makes each day in Germany that much more important, and to make sure to make every day count. But in other news!! The weather here is starting to become sooooo nice! Today it was a balmy 66 degrees, with a nice cool breeze and if I could live in that exact weather all the time i can tell you that'd be the life. I get to finally stretch my muscles and unwind after the long winter with a couple runs around marburg, some soccer games here and there, and just spending an afternoon soaking up some sun by the river. I will hopefully be visiting Kassel this weekend, then Berlin next weekend, THEN either Venice or Munich the next weekend and the one I pick to go that weekend, ill just be going to the next weekend haha. And I know what you're thinking "Neal?! How can you afford to go to Venice?" and with that i respond fear not my avid reader, flights to places around europe cost less than the computer screen you're reading this on, much less! I checked a flight to venice today and to go there it only costs 22 Euros. And the face your making at this point was the very same face I made when I saw it too. So lets just say with all these cheap trips, I hope to be doing some European trips on top of my german trips. I hope to also go to Barcelona, AND on a sort of different note, for those who know who these guys are Jay-Z and Kanye West are gonna be playing in Frankfurt June 5th, 3 days before my program ends here in marburg and i am for sure going and its gonna be NUUUUUUTTTTTZZZZZZ!!!! (Pardon the bad grammar). But its getting a little late here in Germany so to wrap this post up, I hope everyone reading is having ein schones Tag (great day) and hope all is well with you and you're family and friends, and have no fear I will be back one of these days ahead. I love you all and will work harder on getting posts out there for you hungry readers to read up on and remember    

"Whatever you can vividly imagine, you can achieve. Everything in this world and everything around you was once an idea in the mind of its inventor or creator." Jim Donovan.

Weekend in Cologne

Hello everybody!! Its 10:33 am over where I am on a cold and cloudy tuesday morning, which in comparison to what you all are having over in wisconsin is still very cold. But no matter what the weather I still have so much to tell you about my first weekend travelling to a different city and this weekend it was Cologne! Now of course friday we had class and all, but when all you can think about is travelling to a new city and experiencing all these new things, you dont really pay attention in class at all! The train ride there wasn't anything special and it was a 3 hour train ride and we left at four so it got dark half way through so we couldn't enjoy the scenery on the way there. But once we finally got there and was on our way to the hostel things got better. Colonge is soooooo big!! I mean I guess when you come from the town of Lake Mills really any city with large buildings and buses and trains is really big, but when we got to the hostel I was kind of skeptical, but thats just because ive never been in one, and the thought of sleeping in a room with other people is just kind of new for me, but then i found out that besides me and my two friends staying in the room two other people from my school were staying there, but there was this one Albanian guy that seriously was thee creepiest guy ive ever met. He was bald and had a huge scar on the back of his head and someone asked him where he got it and he responded with "If I told you Id have to kill you"....well isnt that just delightful. And he always came into the common room where we all were hanging out, but he wouldnt say anything, he would just sit with us and stare or be on cell phone, so lets just say i slept with all of my belongings with me in my bed. But other then that the rest of the people were seriously beyond cool and came from everyone on the globe! There was this german guy, but heres the catch, he spent a year in australia so he spoke english with an australian accent. There was these to metal heads one from norway and one from germany, that were drinking schnapps like it was water, and one of them took a shot by putting it in his hand, setting it on fire, and then just drinking it out of his hand and then the rest of the schnapps on his hand he just lit on fire! These guys were seriously crazy and they said the only way to open a beer is with their teeth so all night they were cracking bottles open with their mouth. There was a guy from australia, and these two guys from england, that just took over the party. This one James guy kept yelling "THERE ARE SO MANY GERMANS EVERYWHERE" haha and kept telling his joke "Wanna know the best thing about England is? AMERICA!!!" We started consuming adult beverages around 7 o clock playing card games, and bar dice and didnt end up leaving the hostel until around midnight and thats because we got kicked out for being to loud so at that point we went out to a club where I kept up with the party for a long time, but once 3 a.m. came around I was one dead battery, but all the germans around us were still going full force and i thought to myself "Man, these germans really know how to party all night" and I didnt end up getting to bed until 4 a.m. But I have to say hands down that this last weekend was one of the best weekends of my life haha. Oh and before any of this happend during the day we got up at 9 and just devoured the free breakfast they offered at the hostel and then from 10 to 3 we just walked around the entire city seeing the HUGE dome and the bridge with the locks on them which when someone is in love or when someone gets married they go to this bridge with a lock and with any design on it they want and they lock it on the bridge then through the key into the Rhine river which I think is pretty cool. And while we were on our adventure we came around the Berlin soccer team that was playing in Cologne that day and seriously they walked literally right passed us that I could reach out and touch them. Even though the last day there i felt myself getting sick and now today I have quite a cold, it was all worth it and I might be going down to Munich this weekend for, I hope, even more fun than I had this last weekend. It's just so crazy to be so far from home and go to all these places and meet all these people from around the world, that I may not ever see again, but its just so great that I got to meet them.

Oh and if you want a little look at what my weekend was kind of like here's this.

Meine erste Geburtstag im Deutschland

I apologize for my recent absence to all my die hard fans out there! It's been an adventurous couple days, but the most adventurous of them all would have to be today of course my birthday of all days! Classes are going great and I have one of the coolest teachers that the whole class likes and makes class just that much better! Just yesterday for class we took a day trip around the city to the train station, the to the post office, then to the grocery store, and finally to lunch where we had to order in German! Now the trip might of sounded nice and care free with no troubles but no care free and trouble free does not go hand in hand with being Neal Fagan. So since I had prior troubles with buying tickets and by troubles I mean I spend 120 euros on tickets both on Monday when I needed tickets for Friday. Yeah.... I made the same face you are probably making right now after reading that. So almost 200 euros later I got my tickets to cologne this weekend so thank God for that! Next on our trouble train is the post office where I had a simple gift to send back home which is easy right?? Wrong.... I had fitted the gift in a medium box that I bought but it was over 1 kg which made it more expensive to send so she had advised to switch to a completely different box and re write all of the sending information, might I add I was the only person left to send something and the the group was waiting/yelling at me for taking so long but I finally got it sent out and the day the trouble train started back up towards the next stop, the grocery store! Now before I continue since I switched boxes I had this large box I had to carry around since i bought it so remember that. Now at the grocery store the teacher and given us a sheet of paper with questions on it and like a scavenger hunt we had to either ask or find all the answers with 3 teams of 3. So as soon as we started everyone's racing around and I had no idea what I had to find or how to find it so I'm walking aimlessly around the store who my large box and to maybe get one answer at least I get in line at the butcher to ask him a question on the sheet and as soon as it was my turn the guy up and leaves and goes where ever butchers go when they are trying to avoid me so that was fun. And at the end of the hunt my team mates could only stare at me with disappointment since their pages were. Filled and mine had only one answer on it...which I later found out was th wrong answer. So after we left the store we approached our final destination on the trouble train was our nice luncheon! Which actually the pace was actually really really cool the place from the outside was small but it went back so far and was the most warm feeling, quaint,and like hand made wood everywhere! And because it's Easter season they had eggs hanging from the ceiling everywhere! But backup the story! So we all get to our table and the waitress starts asking what we would like to drink now being the stingy guy I am I had water with me and wasnt originally gonna order anything to drink but I figure that might of been rude so as everyone is going around some people ordered mineral water which in Germany means water with carbonation in it so it's like soda water which is very much an acquired taste that I do not care for at all but at the time I didn't know which water was which so I of course say blankly "Mineral water, bitte!" and once she left we all started talking about which water was which and I find out I just ordered the type of water I don't like and everyone starts laughing at me. And once our magnificent waitress brought my water in a bottle and a cup my friend next to me poured the whole bottle in the glass so that I can thoroughly enjoy every last drop... And then after we all ordered the food started coming one by one and all I ordered was some eggs ,but I guess in Germany eggs take an ungodly long amount of time to be made because while everyone was already half done with their meal I finally got mine and was able to enjoy my meal with everyone. Now don't get me wrong I'm not complaining about moments like these cause as a matter of fact without moments like these I wouldn't have such great and comedic things to blog about!! SPEAKING of comedic things and coming back to today, my birthday, a number of funny and comedic things happens today startif with the wonderful bus strike we had today! I saw the sign last night that there would be no busses and thought man what are the chances that the one day they have a bus strike is the 20th anniversary of my birth. And so this morning as we are all sitting by the road waiting for a taxi at like 840 in the morning a bunch of us decide " you know what? Let's just walk!!" so we did....we walked 45 into town and made it to class around 930 but what made the walk so much better was the great morning we had and when we finally got to class my wonderful teacher put out 4 candles and got me a present and put up a banner saying happy birthday in german. And I had happy birthday sung to me in german, English, and Russian so I can say with a smile it's been a great birthday. But now it's time to walk home because the busses still are on strike so until next time! Stay golden all of you!!


Neal