1. We went to Poland with our program. Excluding the long bus rides there and back, I really liked Krakow. A lot of the people on our program let the poor planning of the bus times get them down, but I really don't see why that should spoil the trip. We got a tour of the city, which was great. I really liked out tour guide and Krakow is a much more beautiful city than I thought it would be. We went to Auschwitz, which I will not describe as I am unable to do the experience justice. I will say, rather, that if you have the opportunity I would recommend going. It is an invaluable experience. We also went to see the salt mines. A lot of our group did not like them...I think they were expecting something cooler...but lets face it...its a salt mine, not a gold mine :) I liked it. There is a beautiful chapel inside with chandeliers made of rock salt (well, everything is made of rock salt, but the chandeliers are beautiful). You can rent the chapel to get married. Destination wedding anyone?? My friend Justin said he would not marry me in the salt mines...sad I know (and no, Mom, this is not someone I would actually marry). I took a pretty cool video in the mines, although most of it had to be on night vision so its a bit funky. The below is a group of us at a restaurant in Poland.
2.) Lauren from Willamette visited with her friend Jessamyn. They are studying in Germany outside of Stuttgart. We had a lot of fun showing them around Prague. The weather was beautiful and we walked in the park as well as showing them the Castle, the Bridge, the Clock, the Squares etc. It was really fun to see someone from WU and her friend was great as well. The below is Kelsey, Lauren, and me.
3.) The people we stayed with in Dublin visited. We had 5 extra people sleeping in our apartment at one point :) We also showed them around, although they were here during the week so we had classes through some of it. I really enjoy having people come stay with us. Its really fun.
4.) I went to Cannes to visit Annie. She is studying in Rennes and was staying with a friend (Maryann) in Cannes who she met at Taize. Maryann is an English teaching assistant in Le Cannet, which is sort of like a suburb of Cannes. She lives with two friend girls who were nice, but not overly friendly. Her housemates brother and his friend were staying there as well (good to know we are not the only people who cram visitors in!). Her brother and his friend are studying to be shepherds, which is pretty cool. Most of Maryann's friends are other English assistants. We met a Canadian guy, a Scottish girl, another American, and another girl who was possibly also Scottish but she did not really talk all that much. The Scottish girl Maria was really nice - and reminded me of someone I might meet at GV - she told the shepherd guy she would try to find him work in Scott land :) Even though he speaks neither English nor Gaelic. The weather in Cannes was beautiful. Luckily I did not get sunburned. We spent a lot of time on the beach and it was very relaxing.
This is our last week of classes, next week is "finals" although I only have papers. The picture below is from our last Prague as a living history class. We hiked up this hill outside of Prague (we took a 1 car train out there...it was quite odd) and it was a really beautiful day.
