Welcome Hotel Essen

... Our last bit of industrial culture was a gasometer in Oberhausen. I swear I'm not making that name up. A long time ago teh gasometer did some complicated process with steam and gas but now its a huge empty cylinder. Its actually not quite empty. The first floor currently houses 58 satellite pictures of earth in an exibit called "The Eye of Heaven." We even found a picture of the circles made by irrigation hoses near Garden City. The lady at the desk was impressed that ...

... pretty tough for everyone, especially yesterday. I have said goodbye to all of my friends. Tara has left for her host family, Santiago has left to his host family, Trevor went to visit his fiance and son before flying home today. I think that Rafael from Chile might still be around but he is travelling around seeing Karneval all weekend in Düsseldorf and Köln.

I went on Thursday ...

... in my head. I didn't buy the program because it cost nearly as much as my ticket and I couldn't justify it. (The last week of a holiday u want to live like a rich man, but must live like a poor man). There was a beautiful song which I am sure was about a woman on her wedding day. I really wanted a copy! We went to the stall where they were selling the CDs but because it was all brand new music, they hadn't recorded it yet. Gretel (from Cuba/Sth Africa) bought a CD ...

... So Monday I had classes, and then bought a dirndle. (A German traditional costume) I want to wear it to Karneval and I'm sure that I will also wear it when I come home. When I got back to the hotel I worked out in the Kraftraum before making dinner, doing some preparation for my class presentation Thurs and then I went to bed.

Tuesday I had classes, (our politics teacher made us start earlier because last lesson half the class came late -I was in the good half of course ...

... at buying some warm boots. And I might be able to fulfil Michael's wish of building a snowman after all.

A couple of my classmates are going to Neuschwanstein this weekend (It'll look amazing with the snow I am sure), and most people are going to Amsterdam. (It's only 2 hours away.) I would have been happy to go to either place, but I have worked out my own independent itinerary because of the fact that I have to go to Lauterbach on Friday ...

... singers were superb. The overture and the orchestra were amazing!
After the Opera, I made a snack for tea and then went to bed.

Monday morning we had language, and then in the afternoon we had IKK where we looked at prejudices, stereotypes, cliches and jokes. Most of them were quite funny, however all written in German. If I get the chance I will try and translate a couple to post on my next blog.

After class I went into ...

... there had white hair and looked at us disapprovingly. The only 'young people' were couples of aybe 30 or 40 who were obviously there on dates and some of those ladies wore exquisite ball gowns. Guess what I was wearing...sneakers, jeans and a jumper!! Ooops!

La Boheme was really good. It helped to have the storyline of Rent in my head as we went. Some parts were a little confusing. The sets were amazing, costumes very simple for the artists and ...

... singing. I would buy a copy here if it wasn't so expensive, but I can't justify spending 30 euro $60 AUD on one DVD.

In the afternoon we met Herr Bayer, our politics and Berlin teacher and looked at some video footage from the reunification time in Berlin.

After class I went to the Hauptbahnhof for a couple of reasons, 1) that I wanted to purchase my train ticket to Fulda for the following weekend so that I can visit Cori and ...

... sure that I go to my room and then give me a call at the hotel. I have to be there because I am not allowed to go out anywhere. Thanks so much for ur message! It makes me miss u even more!
Don"t worry about my safety. Luckily the hurricane changed direction and will hit the eastern states worse than here.
So I"ll go now. Still cooking dinner and it's 10pm. I will try and leave another blog entry tomorrow if I can to let u know what I get up to.
Sarah

... was to greet you from far away, give bamboo mats and bring pineapple from time to time - no matter if you came back for another massage or not. Anyways, we didn't always go to that beach. There was Railey beach only a 10 min taxi boat ride away. That's an isolated peninsular which can only be reached by boat. The beach is just lovely, white sand, turquoise water, shady palm trees and amazing limestone cliffs on both ends and in the back. There are some nice and expensive hotels on ...