Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Trip Update #2

For this update, I thought it would be nice to get some different points of view. After all, I am only one of the 15 students on this trip, and I cannot speak for everybody.

As I mentioned in my last update, on Saturday we took a day trip to Trier and Luxembourg. One of the other students was nice enough to tell me a little bit about his takeaway from the trip while also sharing some of the photos he took. Hunter Schaefer wrote, “Triar is a very beautiful city, with lots of religious landmarks; there are churches and a saint atop a fountain that I particularly found interesting. One of the churches I entered was extraordinarily large inside and acted as a sort of religious museum.










“In Luxembourg we took  a tour of the city and saw some high cliffs, a bit of the castle, and the parliament house from the outside.”




On Sunday, we had time to spend with our host families. As a result, everybody did different activities, and a few people were kind enough to tell me about their day. Mason Hancock said, “This past Sunday I visited the Battenburg castle, a 1300 year old fort overlooking the valley. To get there, my family and I hiked approximately 16 kilometers there, stopping once at a small lake called ‘Monster Lake’ to get refreshments. Afterward, we hiked to the top of the mountain, then proceeded to walk along the top to reach the castle. Once there, there was a restaurant actually in the castle, allowing us to dine on bratwurst and salad. After eating, we walked to the top to view the valley, which was a spectacular sight. Once finished, we hiked back, passing through vineyards ripe with grapes for wine, eventually leading to the back garden of my host family's house.”

 

 

He wasn’t the only one to visit a castle either. Michael France “went to a pretty neato castle.” When asked more about the experience, he said, “The castle is called Eltz castle and was originally owned by three different families. The castle is still owned by a descendent of the last family to have kept ownership over the last 1000 years. This is also home to the last remaining renaissance bed in all of Germany.”


Brittany Vick went on a boat tour of the Rhine river. “So for me my family has taken me on a tour of the Rhine and we got off the boat at the Rheinstein castle where we hiked up to the castle and participated in the quiz the castle offered like a scavenger hunt. The quiz showed the cultural history of how Germany was. Such as taxes they took on the river to allow boats to go through. After that we hiked down the hill and went through the local village and ate at a local restaurant. There I had speatle (might be spelled wrong ask mom) with cheese which tasted very similar to the equivalent American Mac and cheese. The portion sizes were larger than in America and it tasted much healthier. The grape I had there was made local and tasted fresher and more amazing than welches. I was very surprised to see that in Germany refills costed. Proceeding from that we went back on the boat to go home. The boat ride overall was roughly 4 hours from the ride there to bsck with the ride bsck being the longest. On this tour I got to see all types of old building. Mainly being castles and bishops. Information was told about all of the building and their historical significance. One story I found interesting was a specific hill where it was said that the German equivalence of a siren/mermaid used to trap sailors and cause them to smash into a rock leading to their death.”




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Trip Update #4

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