April & May

Can't believe I haven't updated this thing in over two months. Here's a little summary of what's been going on:

Engineering classes started the second week of April. Tuesdays I have class until 6pm and Thursdays I have class starting at 7am. Gah, it hasn't gotten any easier yet.

The first weekend we got back, most of the engineers got together. It felt really good to see everyone. I didn't realize how much I missed them! That Saturday most of us went on a river cruise down the Elbe to a little town called Pilnitz. There was a palace there with a beautiful garden/fountain. The weather was pretty crappy that morning: typical Germany, raining, cold, etc. Thankfully, by the time we got to the palace, the clouds cleared away a bit and we saw the sun! Yay! The trip took a long almost all day, and later that night we celebrated the bagillion April birthdays we had among our group. Note: cheesecake is NO replacement for birthday cake.

A week or so later, I had about 15 people over for chili. Megan and I made a huge batch from scratch. I found out that I get so nervous being a host! I was so ancy leading up to everyone's arrival. Hopefully it'll get easier. In the end it was a success! Everyone loved the chili! Here's a picture of our masterpiece:



The night of May 4th was a TU Dresden annual Nachtwanderung, or NaWa for short, which means "night wandering". That night, TUD students bar hop to the different student clubs, which all have special bands, etc. Shuttle buses run specifically for the event to each of the clubs. A pretty big group of us participated in the school event. It was a lot of fun, and we met a lot of Germans along the way! Our German was put to good use!

Sprinkled within April and May, we had a few really beautiful days here in Dresden. We filled it with good ol' barbecues, playing frisbee in the Großer Garten, and walking around the Old City. We also took a trip to the Saxon Alps, which is a huge hiking area about an hour train ride from Dresden. Our student train passes cover the area so the trip was free. The guys went bouldering here, and the girls that tagged along had a picnic and hiked the area.

The last two weeks before I left for Greece were jammed packed with homework, exams, and getting ready. It was absolutely insane, which made vacation taste even sweeter.