The Hooks' Adventure Continues!: A long week

A few days ago, I came back from almost a week in Germany. Well, sort of a week. We spent two days traveling each direction, so it was closer to three days in Germany.

On the way up to Melsungen (our sister city), you will never guess who/what I saw: Ötzi! For those of you who can’t recall off of the top of your head, he’s the iceman who was found in the Alps, and the oldest preserved body. I loved seeing the museum; it was really well organized. I got to see the first floor really well. It had all of the artifacts and I was very pleased that I could instantly recognize beyond any doubt the bow and arrows that were found on his body. I actually find it strange that the attacker didn’t take all of his materials off of his body... On the other two floors, they had all sorts of explanations on how they had come to the conclusions that they had. I unfortunately felt rather rushed on those floors. I would have really liked to spend more time in the museum, but I was the first one in and one of the last three out.

We spent the night in Austria. The next day on the road, we visited a couple cities, whose names I can’t remember; we never spent more than an hour in one city. We arrived in Melsungen in the evening, just in time to eat and go to bed. The next morning, we went to school with our host brother or sister. Then we met the mayor, had a brief talk about the sights we could look for, and then we were turned loose on the city. We were left free all afternoon. In the evening, we had to get back up to the school for dinner (wayyyyy yummy) and a concert, put on partly by their band, and partly by our students. And I got to impress some of my classmates by being able to backtrack! So that was good.

The second day, we went to school for part of the morning and then we visited Weimar and Erfurt. One of the things that struck me was how little there was in Weimar. There were just a lot of houses that Goethe and Schiller stayed in. I understand that they were two very important people, but I think it would have been more interesting if we had actually gone in the houses.

The third day, we went to school for the first couple of hours and then we we went to Kastel. There we were left entirely free for the afternoon. I was with some of my classmates who are very nice, but I don’t know all that well because we don’t hang out a lot. I must say it was rather flattering when they asked me to obtain information about shops (mostly because I was the only one who was not afraid to make a fool of myself).

The next morning, we left early. On the road, we stopped by Augusta, which my teacher called the “Christmas city” and we went into THE Christmas shop. The entire time that we were in there, I was busy thinking “It’s not Christmas unless there is a Christmas puzzle!” We also wisited Augsburg, and in particular the Fugherei and the cathedral. In the cathedral, I met a lovely nun, who was kind enough to show me around, causing me to be the last one out. All in all, a quiet day on the road.

The last day of the trip, we visited Trento. I saw the castle there, or some of it. We were in the city for all of an hour and a half, of which I spent an hour and a quarter in the castle, and fifteen minutes waiting for our teacher to get there (we had to be accompanied through the gates). I saw half of what I wanted to see a quarter as well as I would have liked. So to sum it up, I’m going back to Trento. I don’t know when, but I am! Thus I came home rather contented, although I would like to have seen a few more museums.

So that was that. My weekend was topped off when I went to a swim meet and did wonderfully, despite the fact that I had been out of the water for a week. I managed to accomplish my longtime goal of winning first place against a rival of mine (the closest I have ever come was a tie) in fly. Then I managed to wipe the competition out of the water in the IM. After that, my team won first place for our relay (we were the only ones in our category). That’s all of my news!

Ciao,

Florence