By Rachel Blair
Hi guys! I’m super excited to tell you all that I’m writing this blog from Tubingen, Germany! It’s Thursday, and I arrived here this morning and it’s been such an amazing day. I’m not going to lie, it was a bit rough this morning getting here. My friend Camille and I booked these tickets in early September with her cousin who lives in Germany and is the person that we’re staying with. However, Camille and I didn’t actually look at the tickets until Wednesday, discovering that we had to transfer twice and had no idea how to get to the train station we were leaving from. But, we figured it out, and it was only a 30-minute metro ride. The problems started when we hopped on our first train.
Since we bought the tickets with her cousin, we used this German website because she found really good tickets for us. Little did we know that the ticket was in German and that it was telling us for the first train that we had assigned seats. So, we get on the train and find two really good seats. Right after we sat down, this couple came up to us and told us that we were sitting in their seats, mind you there was no one else in that car. We asked them how to find our seats and so they showed us, but not really. When leaving that car, we ran into a guy who worked at the station and he just told us to walk down, it’s on the right, and two. We walked a little bit and I saw a big two on the side of one of the trains, so I was like this must be it. By then, Camille and I had figured out that we weren’t sitting together, I was seat 105 and she was 103, so we were like that’s okay. We found the seats in that car and thought we had finally figured it out. Ha. This guy comes up to Camille and tells her that she was sitting in his seat. Now when that happened, there were only 10 minutes left until the train left and we had no idea what we were doing. We got off the train and just started walking. As each car passed, I was able to figure out the pattern, and got us to the right seats. After that, it was smooth sailing except for the fact that we managed to sit in first class for the last train and got kicked to the back by the conductor and had to do the walk of shame.
All that mattered was that we made it in one piece and found her cousin standing on the platform waiting for us. After that, her cousin made us food, we explored Tubingen for a little and now we’re preparing to go to Octoberfest tomorrow. Sadly, we’re catching a 9:37 train, but it should be lots of fun.
Now about Paris, it is wonderful, and I still can’t get over my spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower. I’ve been exploring Paris a little more each day. I’ve gone to the Louvre, the Luxembourg Gardens, Versailles, and so many other awesome places. I have also finished the GW marketing class which I really liked. Having the classes broken up this way has really made time fly. It feels weird to be done with one class already. But, I will say that I’ve already had two classes canceled, one was marketing and the other was econ, which was probably the most amount of classes I’ve ever had canceled because GW never cancels classes. Both of those canceled classes made it easier to travel around Paris and find new spots.
One last bit of great news, people keep coming up to me and asking me questions in French, mostly directions, and this one lady apologized after, saying that I look French. I’m blending in! Once you start to get the routine down, and get adjusted to an area, life becomes a lot simpler. I would say the biggest thing about moving to a new city and understanding the metro system. Once you understand the metro system of a city, you know that city.
Paris is amazing, and I am enjoying every bit of it. I wish I didn’t have to take classes, but that’s all a part of the deal. A little sacrifice that has to be made so I can be in this beautiful city, with amazing people, exploring not only Paris, but Europe as well. Next time, I’ll be able to tell you more about Germany, but that’s it for now! Keep exploring!
3 Above: Finally, we have some amazing pictures of Tubingen, Germany. It’s a beautiful place, and I can’t wait to explore even more!