This is where the Germany blogs begin...if you are looking for pictures of my trip for the month of July, go to where the pictures start and work your way back up the page.

Another outing our group went on was to a place called Salzbergwerk. It was a salt mine and before we were allowed to go down inside the mine, everyone had to put on these ridiculously attractive jumpsuits :-) I must say, I felt like the 8th dwarf.

At another Biergarten, but this time near the salt mine where there was a very lovely little lake called Koenigsee.

Each year at the end of the school year, Ernst Mach holds what is called Sommerfest (Summer Fest) for all of the students and their families. There is music and dancing and all kinds of foods, drinks, and desserts and is pretty much just an all-around good time. We don't really do school things like this unless you count band barbecues or something...so I thought it was really fun! The highlight for me was that some German guys in my exchange group had formed a band and were allowed to play a set. I expected them to bust out something more traditionally German (techno, anyone?) but then they started playing and it was JACK JOHNSON!!! With a cute German accent!!!! Needless to say, it made my year.

More Sommerfest pictures...with my crazy Britt and Coleman friends :-)

Kathrin didn't tell me, but Sommerfest continued LATE into the night...CRAZY late into the night...emphasis on the crazy!

Laura, Laura, and I waiting at a bus stop before our tour of Munich...

A rather famous location in Munich called Karlsplatz...all of the really famous places in the city are kind of right next to each other so you can walk between them all...the historic district, the main shopping place, the food market, everything. It's my favorite part of the city!

LoveloveLOVE this picture. Another one of the famous Muenchen Loewen (Munich Lions), this guy is one of two standing guard over a major historic Stadttor (City gate)...the eyes get me every time.

We had kind of bad luck with rain, but it was ok cause this time I was prepared with my umbrella!

The entire group (Deutsche und Amis...Germans and Americans) went on an outing to Schloss Neuschwanstein, Neuschwanstein Castle. If you don't quite recognize that name, it is the castle that Walt Disney modeled his fairytale castle from. Even with the lousy weather, it was still really crazy to see. Inside it was even more dramatic and glamorous because Koenig Ludwig (King Ludwig), the builder and primary inhabitant of the castle, was extremely eccentric and was actually even insane. (No really. Clinically insane.) He had FAR too much money to know what to do with and went all out on the castle...crazy art, huge tapestries, ornate carvings, with jewel tones throughout. Whoa.

Another example of art-that-comes-out-of-the-wall...

Britt, Laura, Laura, and I playing "The Ha Game." If you've never heard of it, ask a twelve year old girl :-)

This is my "OH MY GOD I'M IN GERMANY!" face. I had just spent approximately 20 hours in transit and had finally made it through the final gate, with Kathrin and her dad waiting for me.

Wow, talk about beautiful sunsets. This was taken at Bugasee, a little man-made lake in Haar. It's pretty small, but totally perfect to spend an afternoon laying around in the sun and swimming. The lake was created a few years ago because Munich hosted a really famous garden show (wow! that rhymed!) and now it is maintained by the city so the people who live in Haar can enjoy it.

This is something I actually find REALLY cool...it's a monument located right outside Ludwig Maximillian's University, where die Geschwister Scholl (the Scholl siblings) attended. The Scholl siblings were two of the very few students, as well as some of the youngest, who decided to take a stand against Hitler and the Nazi regime. What they did in order to fight was begin what came to be known as Die Weise Rose, or, The White Rose, in English. Members wrote anti-Hitler pamphlets and passed them out all over the city. When the Gestappo finally caught onto the Scholls, both were tried and charged to be executed by guillotine. Hans Scholl was executed before his sister, Sophie, but at the last minute before her execution, Sophie Scholl gathered as many pamphlets as she could and threw them all over the square in front of the university in the hopes that people would pick them up and see the truth. How cool is that??!

This is a little section of Bremen (Yes, just like the story "The Brementown Musicians" with the donkey and the dog and the cat and the rooster. Same city.) where there are a billion little alleyways and everything is brick or stone. The inside is almost entirely brick though so you're walking on cobbled streets that are maybe 6 feet wide, surrounded by 3-4 story tall brick buildings and can barely see the sky. Talk about surreal. It seriously made me think that I was walking down Diagon Alley. And yes, I did just make a dorky Harry Potter reference.

This is the Brandenberger Tor in Berlin. Basically, it was a huge city gate that separated East Berlin from West Berlin and so now it's a hugely ridiculous famous landmark. Like, you don't go to Berlin without seeing this. We didn't get that great of a view though because of all the tents and people in front. When we scheduled our time in Berlin, we failed to realize that it was Berlin Fashion Week. Oops! :-) I went into a Prada store and tried on a 500-Euro pair of sunglasses. Egad!

Laura, Laura, and I again, this time back in Munich. (Sorry there isn't a better order of all these pictures...) On our first school day we had an appointment to meet the Burgermeister (Mayor) of Haar, which is basically a little suburb of Munich where everyone's exchange partners lived and went to school. Since das Rathaus (the city hall) is pretty close to the school we decided to save money by just walking. Lucky for us, the second we got to the sidewalk it started downpouring. Since we were still not quite in the German mindset, we forgot our umbrellas at home and everyone was TOTALLY DRENCHED by the time we arrived. Interesting note, EVERYONE uses umbrellas in Germany. You can be in a public place and at the first little hint of sprinkling, an entire sea of umbrellas automatically rises up around you. They still took our picture with der Burgermeister and put it in the newspaper though!

Yes, this is a bicycle garage. And guess where it is? In the basement of their high school! SOOO many people ride bikes!!!

Ernst Mach Gymnasium, the high school where our exchange partners attend, decided to undergo a sort of beautification project a few years ago so they did all kinds of really intense art projects of all kinds and put them up all over walls. This lovely piece (:-)) was my favorite. Something I noticed though, is that Germans are huge fans of art that comes out at you...for example, there was another piece at Ernst Mach in which a VW Bug was cut in half and stuck up against the wall in the hallway with a driving scene painted on the wall around it. Cool.

I wrote about this in the first picture blog. Me being sick. Train station. Elevated feet. Yeehaw!

Me with my fancy new hiking backpack (thanks Dad!) as we embark on our Germany Tour...we ended up spending a significant amount of time hanging out in train stations so this was a fairly common thing to see. People just kinda chill so we just kinda copied them. In a group of 24 you automatically stand out super-a-lot so we tried to look as normal as possible...

My first time on an ICE train. That is actually an acronym, but it's in German and I forget what it is. Basicaly ICE=Look At Me I'm A Really Fast Train! We got lucky though because it started raining just as we climbed aboard.

This is Der Dom (The Dome) in Koeln, Deutschland (Cologne, Germany). It is the biggest, most architecturally crazy, most awe-inspiring building I have ever seen in my entire life. What is visible in this picture really doesn't capture even half of the feeling you get standing near it...and it only shows a little piece of the front. It makes you feel really small and insignificant when you stand next to it...


More pics coming later! I promise! (Hehe...and no, it won't take another month.)

This was on my first full day. I was at a battle of the bands. I made a funny face. I took a picture. Silly Lorraine!

Also at the battle of bands...with my friend Britt. I have known her since my first year at Bellingham and we've had classes together and a that good stuff...she didn't think it was taking and it kind of caught her by surprise. Lucky her, now her surprise is posted on the internet :-)

I'm terribly sorry this is sideways, but as I have previously stated, haven't quite gotten the hang of this picture stuff...Anyway. This picture is me kissing one the the Munich Lions...kind of like Seattle has pigs all over, Munich has lions...Berlin has bears...they're just kind of cute and characteristic touches I think. This guy was sitting the the Muenchen Hauptbahnhof (Munich main train station) and we had a bunch of time to kill so I figured it was a nice photo op.

Laura, Lorraine, and Laura. How cute. We were a nice little trio throughout the trip...we always roomed together in the hotels and hostels on our 10-day Germany tour and kind of ended up being associated as a single entity instead of three individual people...hmmm... :-)

Dang. This whole picture lining up thing isn't working. Sorry. I'll try to make it better. With the next set of pictures :-)

Here are finally some pictures from Germany! They will show up as being different blogs...because I am not so skilled at picture-blogging. But enjoy!
This is Lehner's Biergarten...it's a local favorite and was definitely a good place to go for a meal or to just hang out...and for those of you who aren't so familiar with German culture, a Biergarten (Beer Garden) isn't a place people go to drink...it's a place for families and is kind of the equivalent to places like Applebee's or Red Robin...only with traditional German food :-)


Kathrin (meine Austausschulerin, or exchange partner, in English) and I waiting for our dinner at Lehner's.

Kassspaetzen anyone? Kassspaetzen could be considered the German version of Mac'n'cheese I guess...but it is homemade noodles, therefore is much more filling and dense, with real cheese. And not cheddar either because they don't have cheddar cheese in Germany!






This is me with my host mother, Gabi. We were at the farewell party thrown by the Americans...














My new friend Laura and I making sad faces right before we loaded the bus to go back to the airport... :-(

I didn't really know Laura at all until the trip, but over the course of the month we became super buddies. She is an actress and loves England (and those cute accents!) and is altogether a lovely person.







So that other blog about me puking all over the train platform and station? Ya, this is right before.

I had never heard of this, but apparently it helps when you're sick to put your feet way up above your head. There were actually a few things about like, hygiene and illness and stuff that seemed to be common German knowledge that I had never even heard of...