Hi all! I just spent a month in Germany; here are the slight details!

I left on Monday July 19 and had a nine hour flight to Germany. If you actually care, the movies on the flight were "Mighty Joe Young" (it was actually really good) and "Shakespeare in Love" (which I love!) Skip forward: I went to my host family and hung with Dagmar and her friends for two days. (Her family was in Holland) Then I went on a ten day excusion with my fellow Americans.

We first traveled on a six hour train ride to Nuremburg and spent two days there. We stayed in an old renovated castle which was on the most god-awful hill: I really built my thigh muscles! On our second day there we went to the former Nazi rally grounds. That was creepy. I stood near where Hitler did. The creepiest part was going to the museum and actually seeing photos.
Okay: After two days there we traveled to Fussen and stayed for three days. That was when we went to the castles. You see; this crazy King named Ludwig the 2nd was way into Wagner and fantasy, so he built three fairy tale castles. We went to two of them. Have you ever been to Disneyland? Well, the Cinderella castle there is modeled after Neuschwanstein (sp!). It is the most amazingly beautiful castle I have ever seen! Most of the rooms are themed after Wagner's opera Lohingrad. My favorite room was his bedroom; which had scenes from "Tristan & Isolde" in it. I really loved it. It was my favorite castle. The most amazing part is that it wasn't even finished. He died before they could really make it a extravagant castle!
The second of Ludwig's castles is Linderhof. It's modeled after Versaille. It was beautiful from the outside and had wonderful fountains and gardens, but the inside left something to be desired. It was a small castle and the rooms felt confining. Everything was done in gold and I sometimes felt it was all to much. (the focus of this one was show pieces and the focus of Neuschwanstein was paintings and scenery)

After Fussen we went to Munich. We were only there for two days, so I didn't get to do much. It's such a large city I would have liked to stay longer. We went to Dachau concentration camp. I almost cried looking at the museum. It was also very chilling seeing the stoves and ovens they used: and everything was original. The only good thing was that even though we saw the gas chamber; it was never used. It was all very interesting.

When I arrived back at Dagmar's (my host partner), I met her whole family. I'm talking everyone. Her mom, dad, brother, sister, her sister's boyfriend, her grandmother, her two aunts, her two uncles, and the dog. Luckily I had already met all her cousins! Anyway, the next four days aren't worth talking about in detail. Just let me say a few things:
German MTV is pretty cool. They have far more actual music than American MTV. Some of the popular German songs were very funny aswell.
German McDonald's rocks!!!!! They had the best quarter pounder I've ever had. And they had really good value meals. For 4$ you got a Big Mac (or any of the value meal choices) a large fries, and regular sized drink, and a milk shake. I thought it was a great deal, so I had it a lot!
Shopping in Germany was so fun! Although Gap is insanely expensive there, they have some really cool stores. I discovered and fell in love with H&M, which is an Old Navy/Gap/Express combo with really good prices. I bought alot there. My favorite was their really cheap hair clips. At Claire's in America they're like 10 dollars for two, but in Germany, it was like 2.50 for six. I love that! I also bought some really cute dresses.
Nivea. God, I love the stuff. Here it's on average 8 to 10 dollars. In Germany it's on average a 1.50 to 3. Can you believe it? I bought a lot. Basically, things from Paris were very inexpensive.

Starting school with Dagmar was interesting. I had to go to her classes. She's studying to be a Kindergarden teacher, so she took classes about childrens literature and television. Can you believe it? And, in Gym they played all these fun games. I found it interesting because these were 17 to 23 year olds playing games I play when I was 7. It was really fun.

I'm gonna skip forward a slight bit. So, I spent a week going to classes with Dagmar. I went shopping and bought a bunch of hairclips, two shirts,and two dresses. Then, on Saturday we went to Phantasialand.
Phantasialand is the German Disney knockoff. Most of the rides are pretty pathetic, but two were intensely awesome. Colorado Adventure was a railroad themed rollercoaster that I went on. It was so fun! I rode it four times. Mystery Castle is like Tower of Terror, but more hard core. They put you in seats attached to the wall and pull you up fifty feet or so and then repeatedly freefall drop you. It was so great! I went on three times. It made my teacher cry. But, I loved it.
On Sunday, I went to the biggest gothis cathedral in Europe. It was really nice.
The next week was basic. I went to school with Dagmar. There was fun stuff, but I don't feel like writing it!

I saw three movies in Germany. I saw "Eine Wie Keine" aka: "She's All That", "Edtv" and "Wild, Wild, West". Wild, Wild, West was a bad movie that was only fun b/c I was there with Nadia, who was another one of the German partners. She was hillarious! Just hearing her laugh made it funny. All the Germans (there were only three of them) thought this one joke about Georgia was hillarious. It was a fun time. And, Edtv was great! Even in German I understood and loved it. It must be my incredible everlasting love for Matthew McConaughey. I love him so much I even learned how to spell his name!
Oh, yeah. I saw the eclipse in Germany! It was almost 100% percent where I was. Unfortunately, it got cloudy five minutes before the height of the eclipse. I know... "!@^%^&^*^(&*^^@$%" ect. But, the stuff I did see was wonderful! Just thought I'd mention that!

Okay, in general, Germany was awesome. I loved the difference in cultures and now have an immense desire to go travel all over.