Kaiserslautern Germany, Daily Life

I have now been living in Kaiserslautern for over a month and 1/2! Time sure does fly when your having fun. I feel as though I have learned so much. I realized that although I have been blogging about my trips I never spent much time to discusses my thoughts on Germany at large, the city I'm in, and the family I'm staying with. Most important the girls that I'm taking care of as an Au Pair.

I'll start with the girls. I think I have spoke a bit on my first post, but pictures are definitely needed to see their cuteness.

The oldest is Vivianna. She is 4 years old and can best be described as  ball of never ending energy. She is always ready to go go go!











The younger one is Sophia. She is a few moths shy of 2 years old. She is sweet, thoughtful, and very observant.












This picture I feels really shows their personality. We had a "photo shoot" one night, and this was my favorite picture.















This is the view from my bathroom window. I took it on one of the first mornings after arriving. The house is a three story, bright orange, German house. My room and bathroom is on the third floor.




We take walks around the block quite regularly to go on snail huts or go to the local play park. I always think it is so beautiful, every time we round the corner to go down the hill we can see a nearby church steeple. That's one thing I still can't get over about all of Europe. There are always random, beautiful churches, cathedrals, or castles everywhere you go it seems.








This is one of my favorite photos. On the way to the nearby outlet malls, on a rainy day, a beautiful rainbow came out over a little German village.








Germany is such a beautiful place. The people here are so environmentally conscious. It make me want to be a part of DoDEA when I graduate all the more. Working as a civilian with the military seems like the perfect job for me and the more I find out the more I want to move here! The possibilities seem endless and things I never even dreamed of seem to be a reality here as far as job opportunities.

Now some about the town. The town is comprised of 150,000 people (for me a good size town)! 50,000 of the people residing in the town are American's that work with the military in some way. Kaiserslautern holds the largest population of American's outside of the United States itself. So it makes it very easy for someone who doesn't know German, such as myself to get around the town and do things. People here are very nice and accepting of people of different cultures and languages.

I can't wait to finish out my stay here, and travels to nearby towns and countries. I am having such an amazing and life changing time. I could have never imagined how much I would have fallen in love with living here, among such a beautiful country and people.

London

This past weekend (June 7-10) I had the wonderful opportunity to go to London, England! I flew on Ryan Air, my first budget flight. Round trip was only $45. I left Frankfurt Hahn and flew to London Stansted, from there I was a 45 min bus ride from downtown London. By the time I got there on Friday (June 7) it was 4pm. I had to make it across town and find my way to the booth where I would pick up my London pass, which I purchased just like the Amsterdam pass so I could get discounts on places I would visit.

After, I made my way to my hostel The Pride of Paddington. I had never stayed in a hostel so I was a bit nervous, but it turned out to be a wonderful experience where I met several wonderful people. I  checked in, changed clothes, had a quick dinner with someone else who had just checked in, then ran to the tube with just enough time to head back downtown for a 7:30 show of The Lion King! I had been wanting to see it for a while and final I would be watching my first Broadway play in London!!The costuming was great, it was a smaller stage than I expected, but I'm happy I went.

By the time it was over it was late enough, and I was tired enough from my travel, that I headed back to Paddington for a good nights sleep.

Saturday morning (June 9) I hit the ground running. After a relaxing breakfast with three other girls I met, I headed toward Westminster Abby.

Followed by Big Bed of course and Parliament building 

Then I made my way via tube tubes to Tower hill, Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

(Tower of London)

Winding back down through crowds of people and street musician, I attempted to see Shakespeare's Globe theater, but it was closed so I stopped at the London Bridge Experience.... BIG mistake, I thought it would be history of the bridge, photos, information, etc. it was some history combined into a haunted house. I left half way though. 

Finally I made my way to London Eye just in time for sunset :)

 (London Eye)

 I ended the day in the center of all of London Piccadilly Circus, and had a fabulous dinner in China town. 

(Piccadilly Circus)

 The next day I decided to take things a bit slower. After a nice breakfast with some of the girls from the hostel again. I made my way to Buckingham Palace and made it just in time for changing of the guards at 11:30 am. It was once again very crowded but thank goodness, I made my way up closer and had a pretty good view.

 (Gate at Buckingham Palace, you can see the guards through the gate)

 (From a distance)

Then after a short train ride, Karren and I (a girl I met at The Pride of Paddington) arrived at Windsor Castle where the queen was at! Although I didn't get to see her :( The tour was very interesting, and although it took up the rest of the day, I felt, was well worth it. 

(Windsor Castle)

 Making the way back to Paddington I said goodbye to Karren and decided to make my way back downtown to spend some time. Since I had to leave to the airport at 3 am I didn't book a room for the night. My thought was I would leave Paddington take the double decker bus downtown, and then spend from 11pm - 3am having a fun night life in downtown London, boy was that the wrong decision.

I board the bus at Paddington and instead of getting on the East route, I discovered I was on the West route. No problem I thought, I was rather enjoying the ride. Well when the bus finally arrived at the furthest west stop instead of circling back around I found the bus driver was pulling in to the service station for the night! I hesitantly made my way down from the second deck to find the bus driver was as surprised as I was to find he still had a passenger, who clearly had no idea what they were doing still on the bus. He directed me to the nearest bus station.

So in the middle of nowhere London with my hand fixed to my pepper spray, I began to attempt to navigate my way back toward civilization. When arriving at the bus stop it was to my dismay that I then discovered there were no direct routes to my destination. So I had two choices attempt to make several bus switches and slowly make my way, or option two walk another half block and try to take the tube before it closed. By this time it was 11:15 and the tubes closed at 11:30.

I was well versed in the tubes so I decided to take my chances. I rode the route, switching at the proper stop making it with 2 min. to spare for the last tube of the night to Piccadilly Circus (downtown London)! I made my way up from the tubes to my disappointment once more, the once roaring downtown life I had experience the night before on Saturday, was all but a dream. Left on Sunday night was the reminates of people trying to hurry home, and homeless people.

The only two places that appeared to be opened, in all irony, were KFC and McDonald's. I made my way to KFC so I could at least sit for a min., decide what I was going to do for the next three hours, and use the restroom. I stepped in for 5 min., by the time I came out there were coops, and security men everywhere. Not just in KFC but down the entire strip! I decided I would take my chances and head on to the station and wait for my bus at 3 am.

Finally arriving at 1 am, the station was all but deserted at well! So what else did I have to do? I found a set on some stairs bundled up and waited. To make matters worse it was 55 degrees and all I had on was a rain jacket and a T-shirt with jeans.

Thank goodness the bus arrived early at 2:10 and I arrived at the airport an hour later, exhausted. Still having  3 hours now before my plane flew out, I found a stop on the ground and tried to get some shut eye before the flight.

It is an experience I won't soon forget, and despite all the trouble I had on the last night I would't change a thing. Everyone needs some excitement in life and a small walk on the dangerous side of life.

Tips for London:
**Note times the tubes and buses run
**Only the weekend life runs late
**If you have the time go to Windsor Castle, it's well worth the time
**Don't miss changing of the guard, despite the crowds you should see it at least once  (daily at 11:30)

Amsterdam

Well as usual I am behind in blogging, but I feel rightfully so. June 1st I took a trip to Amsterdam, but as soon as I got back I began prepping for a 4 day journey to London. So between planning, taking care of the girls, researching, planning, etc. things got a bit hectic. Anyway I'm back on the horse and ready to ride. 

What to say about Amsterdam, crazy, fun, and way to much to do for the 12 hours I had there. It was the first city I felt completely and totally overwhelmed by the shear number of people. I enjoy city life, but this was just to much. Don't get me wrong, I loved the visit and the sites/ places to visit, but the queues everywhere were crazy. 

This trip, like the others I have taken, was do so via the ODR. So we left K-town (aka Kaiserslaughtern) at 4am and got the city at around 10am. I decided to explore this city alone, since there was noone on the bus I really made a connection with along the way.

 I had bought the Amsterdam tourist pass so it was one fee for several museums I wanted to see. I navigated my way to the Rijksmuseum. The next quote I got for the internet explaining what was there. 

"The museum has on display 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer. The museum also has a small Asian collection which is on display in the Asian Pavilion."

I really enjoyed the Rijksmuseum, and saw many paintings I had once only studied from a book. 

From there I made my way to the Van Gogh museum that was just across the way. Anyone who knows me well knows my love of Van Gogh, so of course that was a "must-do" on my list. Best of all I got to see my favorite painting "The Potato Eaters."

After two museums I was ready for a change of pace, I made my way back to where I started in the center of town in order to take a boat ride through some of the several canals that are in Amsterdam  I really enjoyed this tour because I got to relax, eat a pretzel and see many more of the main sites of Amsterdam including the Anne Frank house. 

With just a few hours left I ended the day with eating and shopping of course. I wandered up and down the busy streets stopping at whatever caught my eye. My best souvenir yet... wooden shoes! While wandering I run up on a protest against the Turkish media that of course I had to stop and film/take photos of. 

I hope one day I can go back and see some sites I had missed.

Tips for Amsterdam:
**"Coffee shops" are to be avoided, as they are code names for where to get drugs.
**Do NOT enter the red light district
**Watch your belongs careful and count your money from vendors
**Pot is sold... pretty much everywhere, so just be aware and watch out
**See the sights, have fun, just don't be stupid