Finishing up!

It has been a few days since I have written a blog, but it has been busy now that it’s coming down to the end. On Saturday me and 4 other girls made a day trip to Berlin. Even though we had to wake up at 2:30 a.m. to catch a 3:08 a.m. bus so that we could catch a 4:19 a.m. train it was still a great day! We actually ran into one of our teachers, Dr. Jones and his wife when we got to the Berlin Wall. It turned out to be very fortunate for us that we did too. Dr. Jones and his wife had done a bike tour the day before so we ended up tagging along with them all day. They are a very fun couple to hangout with and knew a lot about the area from their tour. We ate a nice lunch with them, saw the Bradenburg Gate and the Victory Tower (aka the “Chick on a Stick” dubbed so by American Soldiers, and the name stuck!). We also saw a library that housed books that people would check out just because they were banned, so that they could burn them. In front of this library is actually the location where the books were burned and there is an underground room to memorialize this. People assumed the best way to keep people from reading the banned books was to remove them, which to me is very sad. We also saw the hotel that Micheal Jackson dangled his kid out of… We saw the area that was home to many the American Embassy and many others. It was a long day and a lot of walking, but well worth it! We would not have seen half of what we did if it hadn’t been for running into our teacher and we would not have learned half as much either.

After the long day, we were not looking forward to the train ride except for just getting back to the hotel. The trip was about 5 hours each way. And by this 2^nd hour of travel back to Bremen we started to get a little delirious and were laughing a lot, (I’m sure not to the amusement of any locals..) but we did have a good time and I got to be even better friends with the girls I was traveling with. There are about 3 girls on this trip that I am so glad to have met and definitely see myself hanging out with them once I get back to Wilmington.

Sunday we spent several hours at Starbucks studying for our final exams which are on Tuesday. We ended up meeting a girl from North Carolina there. This is very weird in Bremen because it is not a very touristy city and anyone we’ve met from America has not been in Bremen. She is graduated from ECU and is now working in Bremen, but will return home soon with her total trip being about 2 years. It was very interesting to talk to her and we were able to relate on a lot of topics. She gave us some good suggestions and advice for the rest of our trip.

Today (Monday) was our last day of classes, which is just crazy! Even for only having 8 days of actual class it flew by! On Tuesday we have both final exams, so we spent a lot of today after class studying. There is so much material in such a little amount of time and we don’t have a Reading Day to catch up. International Business isn’t so bad, but Finance is a hard class to do this short because I feel we are missing out on a lot of important things we would normally cover and probably use in future classes.

This may be repetitive, but I cannot remember if I mentioned it in a previous blog. Last Tuesday we were forced from our classroom for a fire drill. Once outside we learned it was actually a bomb threat. Fortunately we found 2 very cool beach areas down the road from the school that we returned to, but we lost about 30-45 min of class. Once we returned to class they informed us that everything was fine. We had just gotten started again when they returned only to tell us that when the police came, they didn’t actually search the building. They waited until 10:30 when the threat said the bomb was and then when it didn’t go off, let us back in. So thankfully the school decided it was best to cancel all classes for the day. So we went from 9 days of class to 8 days of class. We also had to push back an exam in our afternoon class. (Bummer…)

So now I am about to go to bed so I am well-rested for a long test day! Afterwards we are doing some last minute Bremen shopping and then all of us are going out one last time to celebrate together.

Unfortunately the internet at the hotel is very come-and-go, so sometimes my blogs may be delayed or I may not respond to an e-mail or facebook immediately and that’s probably why! I will most likely write one more time before I return home! I am so excited about coming home! I love it here but I miss my friends and family and Bayli so much! Thank you all for supporting for me and praying for me. Please continue to pray for me as I travel home! Thank you again and I hope to see you all soon! J