Domstaedte

Hello!  I will update soon about my wonderful fall break trip, but I also did some more fun things (and study things) before I left.  Last Tuesday was the first day all month that there was no class!  So, my friends and I decided to take advantage of this and our German rail passes and took the ICE (InterCity Express - Germany's high-speed train) to Koeln (Cologne).  The weather was not that great but it was a great city.  The main attraction is the impressive Koelner Dom (Cologne Cathedral)!  It is probably the most well-known German cathedral.  I probably spent over 2 hours there!  The interior is so large and beautiful with so many stained glass windows!  It also houses the Reliquary of the Three Kings - which is a golden shrine that supposedly contains the bones of the Three Wise Men.  We also climbed all 500 steps up to the top of the cathedral which was exhausting but well worth it!  Afterwards, we walked to the Lindt Chocolate Museum on the Rhine River!  It was a pretty cool musuem with some free samples :]  Then we visited Sankt Maria im Kapitol - one of 12 romanesque cathedrals in Cologne.  I had particular interest in this church since I did a presentation on it in my German class back home!  It was really cool to see!!  The following day, our class took an excursion to Speyer!  we climbed to the top of the city gate for great views of the city and then walked to the huge romanesque cathedral!  It was a massive church and contains the largest crypt in Germany!  It was very interesting to see the differences between one of the largest gothic cathedrals (in Cologne) and the largest romanesque cathedral (in Speyer).  After touring the cathedral, we walked to the Rhine, where we relaxed for a bit before heading to the Mikwe, or Jewish bath house.  While we were there, we also found out that 12 out of 24 people in our program passed the written portion of the DSH - myself included!!  So, that meant that on Thursday, the 12 of us that passed had to take the oral portion.  We met at the study center at 10am with one of our professors, Frau Said, to practice for the test.  Then we waited for our scheduled test time.  The anxiety of waiting for the test was worse than the test itself!  I had to read a passage and then went into the questioning room with my friend Haleigh, where we were asked questions about the passage.  Luckily, we both passed!  It's exciting and definitely an accomplishment to have a German university tell you that you are somewhat proficient in German!!  It really boosts the confidence heading into the beginning of the semester :]

Koelner Dom!

One of many stained glass windows

The Reliquary of the Three Kings

The Sanctuary!

Me at the top!

Chocolate Museum!

St. Maria im Kapitol

ICE coming into the train station!

View of Maximilianstrasse in Speyer

Speyerer Dom!