Getting to Germany was kind of a relief. Not because Portugal was bad or anything, but the ease of communication with people who can readily speak English is something I will not take for granted anymore. Of course, Marissa and I didn’t know how much of a relief it would be until we got there. It turns out Germany feels and looks quite a bit like Wisconsin, where we both

grew up. We kept having strange deja-vu moments where we’d forget we weren’t actually in Wisconsin, actually. But, I digress. Hannah Heagy, a friend of ours who is another year-long person, met us at the airport and brought us back to Tubingen with her. Walking into her room made both of us a little jealous, because it’s much bigger than the rooms Marissa and I have in our respective cities. Much more conducive to hosting large sleepovers, which is basically what we did for a week. That night we pretty much crashed, because flying and making connecting flights and such is kind of exhausting.

The first day in Germany, Hannah showed us around Tubingen a bit. We walked down to the river and through the park on the island in the middle of it. We got doner kebabs from the corner shop, which were surprisingly good, and walked through the charming, winding streets of the German town. Hannah showed us all around the older part of the town, including a gorgeous church. Outside the church, there was a plaque to commemorate the discovery of DNA. I thought this was hilarious, because they tell us in Cambridge that DNA was discovered here. Turns out the molecule was discovered in Tubingen, but the double-helix structure was discovered in Cambridge. So, technically, it was both. There’s a fun fact for ya.

We also walked up the hill to the castle. (My time in Germany and Portugal reminded me that not everywhere in the world is as blessedly flat as Cambridge is. My legs protested. Loudly.) I probably will never get over being able to just like, walk up to these amazing structures that were built centuries ago. It was just up the hill. And apparently the University of Tubingen uses the rooms for classes and dorm space, so people even get to LIVE in the castle, which, not fair. Basically, seeing Tubingen was lovely and it felt a bit like coming home, because the atmosphere was just so homey. That night, Hannah’s mom and brothers (who had visited her for Christmas, lucky girl) took us out to dinner at a nice restaurant where I had extremely satisfactory soup and chips.

The next day, we decided to be productive little college students. Hannah and I both had papers to work on, so we headed over to the library of the university. Along the way, Hannah pointed out a bunch of the university buildings, which were surprisingly modern. I guess at this point I expect everything in Europe to be old, but that’s not always the case. So, we were somewhat responsible on that particular day, and after the library we went to the grocery store to stock up on food for the week. We ended up having a fabulous dinner and wine while watching Frozen together. We didn’t know it at the time, but movie nights turned out to be a thing we did almost every night.

The day after that was Sunday, but Marissa and I slept through church… we slept pretty solidly until about 10:30, which had become pretty weird to me since being over here. But we grabbed the free day to take a hike up in the hills. The forests around Tubingen are lovely, and it was just cold enough to give the air a little bit of bite, and there was even frost on the grass where the sun was blocked by the hills (keep in mind that I’m a Wisconsin girl who hasn’t seen snow yet this winter… I’m going through withdrawal). We hiked through the woods to an old monastery in the hills, which was surprisingly large and surrounded by a cute little village. You’d think I’d get desensitized to gorgeous old buildings and massive stone churches with intricate stained glass windows, but it hasn’t happened yet. Walking those halls, and around those walls, is just an amazing experience every time. Being able to walk up the stairs and duck through tiny stone doorways, being able to look off of rough balconies and step over uneven cobblestone–it just doesn’t get old.

New Year’s Eve was a pretty fabulous day. We got a bunch of food and dressed up and had a fancy-ish dinner with a bunch of Hannah’s friends from the University. After dinner, we walked up to a meadow on the side of a hill where we’d been told a lot of the kids from the city gathered. We got up there, and the view was instantly amazing. We could see at least half of Tubingen laid out before us, all lit up with New Year’s revelry. It took us a little bit to find a spot that our big group could fit, and get settled in, but by the time we did there were already a few fireworks going off. Apparently, fireworks are only allowed in Germany for the four days around New Year’s, so people kind of go all out. I could barely see because of all the sulfur, or hear due to fireworks exploding all around me, by the time we got to the actual countdown part. But we did count down from sixty together, as a group of crazy Americans, and screamed ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR’ and shot off champagne as the clock struck twelve. Of course, that was also the moment where the entire city, our hillside included, basically exploded with the amount of fireworks that went off. It was nuts; it was amazing; it was one of the most incredible nights of my life. We lit sparklers and sang Auld Lang Syne and screamed when wayward fireworks exploded too close to our feet. You could say we started off the New Year with a bang.

On New Year’s Day, Hannah, Marissa, and I took the train into

Stuttgart to visit the Art Gallery, because it was free for people 20 and under on New Year’s. This was pretty cool, even though I think we might have gone through it backwards. We started with the modern stuff, and ended up with Renaissance art. It turns out that we got there too late to get through everything though, because there was still a whole section of the museum we had to leave unexplored by closing time. Fortunately, Stuttgart was still lively and bright, despite the darkness that had already fallen. There was even a skating rink in the town square, along with the gorgeous fountains and castle. So we wandered through the people, and the big shopping district street, and eventually ended up back at the train station, and headed back to Tubingen.

My final full day in Germany consisted of a trip to the second most visited castle in Germany–Hohenzollern Castle on the edge of the Black Forest (The first most visited is, of course, Neuschwanstein). This trip involved train, then bus, than a nice steep hike up to the castle itself. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously windy at the top of this mountain, so we didn’t get to eat our well-planned lunch of nutella and croissants outside like we wanted to. But the beauty of the castle made up for it. Walking up the winding ‘driveway’ was an experience in itself. To get inside the rooms, you had to have a tour, so we ended up slipping and sliding on the polished floors with the ridiculously large slipper things they gave us to cover our shoes as we walked through. The coolest part of the tour was definitely the treasury, where we got to see the crown of the Prussian royal family, original scores by Mozart, and an amazingly embroidered dress that once belonged to Queen Louise.

The next day, Hannah and Marissa put me on a bus, and I headed to the airport to fly back to England. My holiday adventure was interesting and incredibly fun, but I won’t deny that I breathed a sigh of relief upon arrival in Cambridge. As much as I love seeing the rest of Europe, Cambridge is the place I clicked with the fastest, and it’s become my home over here. It was a massive relief to be back in this familiar space.

With a bit of tiredness, nostalgia, and love,

Bryn