Monday, March 22, 2010

Quick Update!

I've been really bad about posting lately! I've been super busy these past two weeks. We've been to Berlin and Prague the past two weekends. Stories and pictures to come!

On another note, Friday morning I leave for Spring break!! YAY! We bought our Eurail passes today, and all of our hostels are booked :) Now all that's left is a paper and a midterm exam!

Here's of list of where I will be traveling:
London, UK
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Brussels, Belgium
Paris, France
Madrid, Spain
Salamanca, Spain
Barcelona, Spain
Bern, Switzerland
then back to Dresden!

I can't believe it's already here! Ahh!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Schnitzel!




Saturday night, my German roommates Tim and Lucas cooked me, Rachel and Cassidy a German meal! We had homemade schnitzel, which is a pounded piece of pork that is then floured, dipped in egg, then in breadcrumbs, and fried. It's kind of like a chicken cutlet, but with pork instead. We also had some boiled kartoffel (potatoes), a really tasty mushroom sauce, sauteed mushrooms and onions, and mixed veggies. Everything was amazing, and the schnitzel was sooo good! I even liked the mushrooms, which was a big deal because I don't like mushrooms. We were very impressed by their cooking! It was nice to have a homemade German meal :)

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Hi Ho Hi Ho, It's Off to Work We Go!



Thursday we went to a Uranium mine in Pirna, about a 25 minute train ride outside of Dresden. We go to wear these intense mining outfits. The first layer was a pair of long underwear and high socks. On top of that, we wore some blue pants and matching blue jacket. We then wore a second, really heavy jacket. Then we got some sweet hard hats and yellow rain boots. Everything was so heavy, I felt like I gained 20 pounds just by putting on the clothes. Before we went into the mine, we were given a red belt that had a light and an oxygen tank on it. This thing was like 10 pounds by itself, it was so heavy, I could barely pick it up. I felt like such a wimp. Once the weight was distributed to my hips, it was much lighter. Go figure :)

After finally getting all of our gear on, we went 200 meters under ground to some of the tunnels in the mine. The elevator to bring us down was so rickety and a little scary, but being in the mine was really cool. The mine is actually no longer being used to harvest uranium. Ever since the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of Soviet control, the mine has been working on cleaning up the mine in order to fully shut it down. We learned about how they flood the mines with water from an underground spring, then run this water through a series of purification methods in order to return the water to the Elbe River. Overall, it was a really fun trip!

Monday, March 1, 2010

Disco Pogo

Possibly the best techno song here.