no hair for my hairbrush.

well. i'm back. seventeen days on the mediterranean coast (more or less). more of less on the coast, not more or less seventeen days. actually, it might have been fifteen days. it was, to the say the least, pretty incredible. i loved every city we went to, we had great weather for the first ten days, and i saw things i never thought i'd see in my life.

(side note: i got my hair cut by a guy named benito today. it's really short. i mean really, really short.)

two week adventure, part I:

we started the trip in greece back 

on october 17. we flew into thessaloniki after a sleepless night in the stuttgart airport. we actually attempted to sleep on some benches facing the doors we first walked out after we landed in stuttgart way back on august 27. anyway, thessaloniki. no one lost luggage, which was a huge blessing. we took a bus in to the main train station and found out there

 was a train leaving for athens in about 15 minutes. the boys of the group (THE GROUP: charli, mackenzie, rahj, alex, john, and myself) left us then to go climb mount olympus. we asked at the eurail information desk if we needed seat reservations for the train. the woman said no. we got on the train. everyone had seat reservations. we asked the conductor. he said we needed seat reservations. we ran back to the ticket counter. the 

woman said there were no reservations left, and we could just stand on the train. we ran back to the train. we stood in a gangway near the bathroom. the conductor didn't think that our eurail passes let us be on the train without a seat reservation, but we told him that the ticket people said it was ok. he let us stay on the train, but it was about 6 hours of moving seats 

and sitting on the floor and back and forth. we eventually made it to athens. immediately upon arriving in athens, i rolled my ankle (which is still bothering me). good start to the trip.

we found our hostel, and then found a

 restaurant in a nearby square. we hadn't eaten since dinner the night before. as soon as we sat down, the waiter brought us ice water. ICE WATER. i literally haven't had ice water since caroline's house in august. we took pictures with the ice water and immediately downed it. we all got incredible food, and then went back to our hostel and went to bed.

the next morning we got up and went out in search of a beach. i had directions to a hot springs lake from a website, but the hostel receptionist told...other...directions. so we tried to follow those and ended up at a marina somewhere with no beach in site and no internet directions handy. we eventually made it out to the beach with a little luck, a long bus ride, and a little help from a british couple who had been "coming he

re for 30 years, and never been to the lagoon". at the beach we witnessed a man catch an octopus by hand and kill it by slamming (not the right word) against a rock and rubbing it around to get it's brains...or something...out.

the mediterranean was a little cold that day, but the water is so clear and blue. it was really beautiful, and we were the only tourists.

our next day in athens was spent on a walking tour with an interesting fellow named walter. walter took us to all the big athens sites: the roman agora, the (actual? greek?) agora, the acropolis, hadrian's arch, the roman temple to zeus, the 1896 olympic stadium, and the president's house. it was a fun tour with a bunch of people our age, and walter was a great tour guide. i loved the acropolis - the parthenon is breathtaking. the scaffolding just gives that extra touch, too. the scaffolding has been there longer than i've been alive. a small period for a structure built in the 5th century, but still. maybe they should just let it fall down on its own.

after the tour, rahj and i met blake (from school) for lunch. he is studying abroad in athens this semester. we ate at this great little restaurant on top of a hit right next to the acropolis. literally, we ate lunch looking at the acropolis. the meal was amazing, too. and then it started DOWNPOURING. we walked back to the train station in torrential rain. i didn't have an umbrella, and after an ankle-deep puddle, i was walking around barefoot in athens. it was hilarious, actually. my shoes still smell awful, though.

that night we went back to the acropolis and went up on the hill where paul gave his sermon to the unknown god (tom, i got you a rock from there!). it's the best view of athens, and we took some really cool pictures with the acropolis all lit up in the background. unfortunately, i don't have any pictures, because my camera was stolen on the metro just prior to this outing. i don't want to talk about it.

(one of charli's photos from the night).

our last day in athens consisted of alex, john, and i attempting to visit the national museum. we failed miserably. then we flew to rome.

that might be enough break-recounting for now. today is election day! and we don't have class tomorrow because our professor is watching election coverage all night. i'm taking advantage of the day by going to düsseldorf to visit the K20 and K21 musuems. it's about three and a half hours away by train, but i'll use that time to study german (since we have a test the day after my twenty-first birthday (thank you, frau brixner)). i'm going alone, but i'm pretty sure i can handle the german rail system blindfolded. i'm excited. i won't be blindfolded.

the mediterranean... tomorrow!

i've been awful about posting lately. the weeks since i got back from sweden have been nuts. we've been so busy with projects and tests in every class. apologies to grandma and uncle chris, i read your e-mails, but i haven't had the time to sit down and write a proper response.

we're leaving for a bus to the airport to take a flight to thessalonika in about 20 minutes. i will be gone until november 2 in greece, italy, and southern france! i'm so excited, but really nervous at the moment. we have everything planned and two copies of all the confirmations and an itinerary sent to our parents, so i think we should be fine.

hope all is well in the states (and the other continents reading this (hi meg!)). i've heard gas prices are down, stocks are down, housing is down... yikes. i guess all isn't well, but i'm praying over here for it to get better. the exchange rate is beter because the euro is getting worse; that's about the only good thing coming out of it right now.

wish i could write more but my 20 minutes is now 17 and i still have to take my trash out. i'll write lots and lots when i'm back (because we don't have homework the second half of the semester!).

(megan, i hope your homestay and safari were great - i can't wait to hear all about them!)

a thank you note.

dearest madre,

those travel bags you found at walmart have saved my life. i fit the sweaters, scarves, and sweatshirt for a weekend in sweden into a school backpack with room for shoes and my blow-dryer. that's what i call success, and i owe it all to you.

(yes, it's 2:45 am.)

love your favorite oldest daughter,

kati

maybe it's the weather.

there are crows dive-bombing my window. i've seen over a hundred crows fly over the mountains and towards our part of Reutlingen in the last hour or so. they swoop down towards my window and land on the roof above. it's like The Birds. i'm not leaving my building tonight. if i could upload pictures, i would take a picture of the flock flying over the mountains. i'm scared.

mid-week post!

thought i'd write quickly between homework assignments (or postponing them).

the baths at Baden-Baden were AMAZING. the best and most relaxing three hours of my life. a great way to spend 15 euros, 3 hours, and the last punch left on our German rail pass. i definitely recommend it to anyone who visits Germany. spectacular. the weather was nice, too. about 60 degrees (Fahrenheit) and sunny outside, so the pools outside (heated) were very nice. it was just a relaxing afternoon.

this week we're all very busy. we have a debate, a state report and scrapbook, and an art report all due before we leave for our two week break (which begins two weeks from Thursday). i'm currently researching my debate topic, which is the negative side of "Priests should be allowed to marry." Catholics thinks some crazy things, that's all i'm saying.

i'm mostly worried about the debate; i think the state presentation/scrapbook will be a breeze, and i'm actually excited about my art project (duh). i'm doing a report on Liberty in the Barricades by Eugene Delacroix, which, in addition to being on display in the Louvre, is the cover of the new Coldplay album... i'm trying to find a connection.

this weekend Mackenzie and i are going to SWEDEN. we leave on Thursday, and we have to miss our German class. i decided to take German pass-fail because i know the teacher is going to hate us after we miss her class. oh well, going to Sweden to visit Nate was at the top of my list of things to do while in Europe, so i'm not overly concerned about it. Mackenzie is going to visit an exchange student who stayed with her in high school. incidentally, they both live in the same city (Göteburg), so it's really convenient for us to travel together. and i get to wash my jeans and DRY THEM at Nate's house. that's probably going to be the most exciting part of the trip. our jeans are getting all stretched out because we can't dry them here because the dryers just make your clothes hot, they don't actually get any drier when they're in there.

i started a new book today called "Three Cups of Tea". Charli read it, and she loved it, so i'm borrowing it. let's face it, we all knew i was never actually going to finish The Brothers Karamazov. it's way too huge to take with me anywhere anyway. i'm also reading Martin Marty's biography of Martin Luther. while i think it's extremely odd that Martin Marty just happens to be a Martin Luther scholar, i'm enjoy the book. he doesn't use any commas, though. i love commas, and his comma usage upsets me to the point where i have to read sentences five times before i understand them. when i can get past his "creative" disregard for the mid-sentence pause, however, i enjoy his writing and the story of Martin Luther.

i've been getting a decent amount of mail (just from Gavin and my mother, but i get something from Gavin once a week), and it has come to my attention that i'm on the the front of every Valpo brochure published so far this semester. that's all. i just think it's hilarious. Gavin pointed out that we (he's on there, too) get more zoomed in upon in every new version, and hopefully the brochure for the new union will be just our nostrils. i think that's gross, but funny. i hope it make it on the cover of that, too. maybe they will make a Valpo calendar of Gavin and me. at this rate, it doesn't seem to be that far in the future.

nothing that the road cannot heal.

things i've learned in Germany thus far:

1. dein hund ist hubshe: your dog is cute.

2. kleenex and hand soap is neither the best nor the worst way to wash a sink.

3. you can't buy music from iTunes if you're not in the US.

4. people don't say hi to each other on the street. smiling at a passerby warrants a very awkward look.

5. wattage matters, especially on small motorized appliances such as the hairdryer you brought from home.

6. public transportation is great.

7. German students eat horribly, smoke constantly, and take the elevator for three floors.

8. Germany is slightly larger than Montana.

9. hole-in-the-wall eateries and stands in squares are the best places to eat.

10. the customer is not always right in Germany.

11. make plans before you go, but be ready for anything. and bring a map.

oktoberfest was pretty incredible last week. the best way to describe it is like Warped Tour with beer instead of music. and far too many Australians. we also did an incredible amount of sightseeing while in Munich. we visited the 1972 Olympic Stadium to complete our tour of German Olympic stadiums. we went to Englischer Garten and made a nice promenade. then we got into the Deutches Museum for FREE. they had a huge ship exhibit there, so of course i took a million pictures of anchors and other ship-ly things. we also went on this ride outside the museum for 3 euro. it spun you around and you controlled your movements. i wish i had appreciated the physics of the ride, but i just thought it was fun to be up so high. then we walked around the marianplatz area of Munich and had ice cream.

this weekend Charli, Mackenzie, and i are going to Trier and Saarbrucken for my state project. the best part of the trip will be the way back, when we stop in Baden-Baden for the Roman baths.

if the internet worked at all here, i would post pictures. i'll keep trying, but for now, you will have to imagine what i'm up to.

the mountain out my window.

first of all, i apologize to all my faithful readers for not writing sooner. i didn't anticipate how busy we would be here. i wanted to sit down and write after my week in berlin and weimar, but then we were right off to salzburg three days later. now i'm back from salzburg, but leave for munich tomorrow afternoon!

today is exactly three weeks since we arrived in germany, but it has both gone so fast and feels like we've been here forever. in just three short weeks, however, we have self-titled this semester "disaster semester". on only our fifth day in Germany, Jenny left from Berlin to come back to Reutlingen and then go back to the States. i suppose she had pretty severe culture shock, and she never felt at ease anywhere we went. then over the weekend another girl found out she had a cyst, so she was in surgery on monday and will be in the hospital for a few more days. our professor was diagnosed with walking pneumonia (don't worry, i'm keeping my distance and spiking my juice with vitamin c packets (thanks uncle chris and jill)). and on monday, Kalyn fell and bit through her lip. she's been to the doctor and dentist and it sounds like she'll be ok, but it's still pretty awful that it happened. hopefully that will be the last injury of the semester (i'm also steering clear of volleyball courts).

Charli, Mackenzie, and i are going to hike up one of the mountains in Reutlingen today. Reutlingen is right in the middle of the Schwabische Alps, which is a nice little cluster of small mountains. there is a ruin of a tower at the top of one, and that is the one we are planning on conquering this afternoon.

i don't even know where to begin talking about everything. i could just make a list of what we've done so far, but i don't know how interesting that would be. i've done a lot of things: visited museums, palaces, gardens, monuments, churches. i've climbed a lot of stairs: two-hundred sixty in twenty-four hours while in Berlin, not to the mention the fact that i live on the eighth/top floor of my dorm. i've had a good amount of German beer: we're going to start the Reutlingen Bier- und Weinakademie Bierdiplom tonight.

i will write more tonight hopefully, but we want to get going on our mountain climbing adventure so that we are back by dinner time. i have a feeling i'm already late!