Reaching 20 countries!!

Denmark is in green, Sweden in orange

I spent this weekend in Denmark and Sweden.  Denmark was country #19 and Sweden was country #20!!  I have now spent time in twenty countries on four continents!!  Only 174 more to go....

This was one last trip before heading back to the States.  Zeba and I left for Denmark on Wednesday afternoon, and we stayed with my uncles friend in Copenhagen.

Here is our story:

Wednesday:
We left Bremen on Wednesday afternoon.  We were planning to take a train to Hamburg, and catch our bus there.  We heard that the train drivers were striking, so out of concern of getting there on time, we left as early as we could.  Since I had class at 8 am, the earliest we could leave was 11:30.  We got to Hamburg no problem, with about two hours before our bus!

In Copenhagen, Denmark

The bus was great!  We had business class seats(which for some reason cost less then regular seats...) so we had wifi and a free snack!  In order to get to Copenhagen, we had to cross the Baltic Sea.  By ferry.  This was a 45 minute ride on a huge ferry, which had a mall inside.  It was a lot of fun getting to see the Baltic.  We got back on land and continued our journey.

When we arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, our host had a wonderful dinner prepared for us!  We ate pork sausage like things, delicious (not-American) potato salad and tomatoes!  After dinner we went on a walk around Copenhagen, and our host took us to Tivoli Gardens.  Tivoli is a beautiful place, that kind of reminded me of Disneyland, but I think I like it better then Disney!

Thursday:

In the Cannon Museum!

Thursday morning our host left for her parents house.  We had the apartment to our self until late Friday night!  On Thursday we explored Copenhagen, went to two museums and on a boat tour!  We also ate delicious sandwiches and Belgium waffles! (mine had ice cream on it!)

The first museum we went to was the Denmark National Museum.  It had artifacts and information from Denmark and European history.  It was very interesting, and apparently Pokemon is a part of history...
The second museum was a cannon museum.  I liked this museum, it had cannons from all throughout history!

In Christiana.  I was scared because
there were signs everywhere saying not
to take pictures...due to the drugs
being sold in the area

Friday:
On Friday we were going to go to Sweden, but we woke up too late...so we relaxed till mid afternoon and then we decided to walk around the city again.  We went to a part of the city called Christiana.  Christiana used to be a military place, for defending Copenhagen.  But in the 70's hippies took over it and built interesting buildings.  Today it is a place with art, interesting buildings, music, and a flea market.  It also is a place where you can find marijuana....lots and lots of marijuana...

Saturday:

Me, in country #20!!

On Saturday we finally went to Sweden!  Sweden is the 20th country I have spent time in!  We left in the early afternoon, and got on a train to Malmo, Sweden.  We weren't sure what to do there, we didn't even have any of the Swedish Currency.  So the first thing we did was exchange money.  Then we wondered around the city, and found a boat tour.  We went on the tour and learned a bit about Sweden!  Then we sat in a coffee shop and ate delicious cheesecake.  At around 6 pm we headed back to Denmark.

Denmark Storm

Going back to Denmark was quite chaotic.  The storm started in Sweden, but while we were there it was just a lot of thunder and lightning.  By the time we reached Denmark, it was crazy rain.  They say that in those two hours Denmark got as much rain as they usually get in two months.  155 mm, or 6 inches.  The trams were not running on time, so we were stuck at the tram station for a while.  But eventually we made it to our final stop.  Problem was that the stop was about a 15 minute walk from our house.  The water on the roads was about 5 inches deep.  And it was raining very hard.  We were soaked within seconds.  Lightning was going every couple of seconds, and the thunder was very very loud.  Zeba, who is from India, described it as a monsoon.  We eventually made it home, and showed up at our hosts apartment soaked!  But she graciously let us in, and helped us get dried off.  And she had even made us dinner :)

Sunday:

Under the castle!

Sunday morning Zeba and I went to an art museum.  It had really beautiful paintings and statues.  We started realizing the affects of the night before's storm when I received a text from our host, telling us that her basement had flooded and she had to save what she could.  We got home to find everything mostly okay, and then we headed off to a castle.  As we drove to and from the castle, which was north of Copenhagen, we saw more of the storms effects.  People all through town were draining water from their stores and basements, and their ruined items laid on the sidewalk.  The power was out in some places, and many of the highways and roads were flooded.  Getting there and back took about a half an hour longer then it should have.  But the drive was along the Baltic Sea, and was quite beautiful.

The castle was beautiful.  It was near Sweden, and we could see Sweden's coast across the Baltic.  (The castle even had cannons pointed towards Sweden :D)  We explored below the castle, where the soldiers lived.  There were winding, dark halls.  It was really cool, but kind of creepy!  We also explored the ballrooms and royal apartments.

Traveling home:
That night we left for Germany at 11:45 pm.  Somehow, amazingly, on a bus full of people from Africa, India, Europe and other places, I managed to sit next to a guy from California...he was taking his last, and first, trip before heading off to medical school.  We talked for a couple of hours, and got to know each other quite well.  Funny thing is neither of us thought to introduce ourselves till an hour into our conversation!

At the Baltic! Not at 1 am though...
this was the first time we crossed!

At around 2 am our bus had to cross the Baltic Sea, by ferry.  This meant that we had to get off of the bus. Luckily the ferry is huge, and has stores and restaurants.  So I got a bite to eat and sat down with Zeba and two other young traveler's we had met, one who was on our bus and one on the bus in front of us.  It was a lot of fun getting to know other young travelers!

After the ferry, at 3 am, I fell asleep...kind of...I fell as asleep as you can when you are squished in a tiny space on a bus and there is lightning going off every few seconds....we arrived in Hamburg at 5 am, and had an hour to wait for a train to Bremen.  The best part of the story?  I had class at 8...I arrived in Bremen at 7:30 am and went straight to class, I was the first person there!

Prayer requests:
-Pray for my landlady's and I's relationship.  I will post more later about what happened, but to sum it up: She tried to kick me out yesterday.  I have been praying that God will use me to show her Jesus through my attitude and lack of cussing or yelling at her even when she is frustrating me and causing a lot of stress in my life.  Please join me in praying about this.
-Pray for me as I finish up homework and get ready to travel back to America in one week!!
-Pray for me to have patience as I am very excited for Blue Slide Camp and almost cannot stand waiting three more weeks for it!
-Pray for me and the other camp staff as we prepare for camp!  Also pray for the campers, that they will grow in their relationship with God!

Praises:
-Praise God that I was able to reach 20 countries!! There were times in the last 4.5 months that It thought I wouldn't reach my goal, but I would pray about it, and now I have!
-Praise God that the e. coli outbreak is mostly over!

A Crash Course in European History



Prague, Czech Republic

 My friends and I enjoyed our last road trip so much that we decided to go on another one!! This time to another side of Europe and with a few different people.

Liandri, Zeba, Claudia, Fiorella and I took off from Bremen on Friday morning and headed to Prague, Czech Republic!

 Here is our story:



Friday:

In Dresden



Friday morning we all met up at 8 am.  We packed the car and ran into our first problem: the GPS was taking over 40 minutes to load our directions...so we waited around for a while and finally at around 9 we were on the road!  About an hour later, after driving through little German villages and farmland, we began to wonder why we had not hit the highway yet.  Then we realized that the GPS was set to "avoid motorways".  We changed that setting, and finally got to the highway! We decided to stop in Dresden, Germany for a couple of hours on our way to Prague.  We didn't know what there was to do there, so we got out and walked around.  We found some really neat buildings and went to a beautiful church that had recently been rebuilt after it was destroyed during WW2.

Zeba and I during our first
 moments in Prague!

After exploring Dresden, we were back on our way to Prague.  At around 8 pm we arrived!  It was raining like crazy and there was thunder and lightning going on.  The streets were flooding, which was making driving quite hazardous.  Our GPS was not working well due to the fact that Czech has had a lot of construction recently.  It was trying to lead us down nonexistent roads...and even took us the wrong direction down a one way street that luckily lead to a dead end...we found a Chinese restaurant and ate delicious Chinese food for dinner!  After being slightly lost, driving around for a while and calling the hostel, we finally found our place to stay and got a good nights sleep!!

Saturday:

Charles Bridge in Prague

Saturday morning we walked from our hostel into the city.  There was a free three hour tour of the city starting in the Old Town Center, so we went to that.  It was a great tour that told us all about the history of the city.  We saw things like a six hundred year old human arm hanging in a church and a Jewish Ghetto from WW2.  After the tour my friends and I headed to the Prague Castle, which is one of the largest castles in Europe, but then Zeba and I decided that we would rather go back to the city.  On the tour I had seen signs for the Museum of Communism, and I thought that that sounded interesting.  So Zeba and I back tracked on the tour route and found the museum.  Interestingly the museum is between a McDonalds and a Casino.  The way our tour guide described it is: "The Museum of Communism is next to a McDonalds, can't get much more American or capitalistic then that.  And its beneath a casino, where you can play Texas Holdem.  Again, you can't get much more American then that."  Apparently, America is the opposite of Communism. 

I went in and spent about an hour learning about Communism and the history of The Czech Republic:


Sign for the Museum of Communism.
Note the very angry looking doll.

The museum started with information about how The Czeh Republic was taken over by Communism.  Czech had been given to Hitler by France and Britain before WW2, in an attempt to keep Hitler from starting a war.  (We all know how well that worked out...).  Then towards the end of the war, the Germans had control over Prague.  The Americans and the Soviets werre both heading towards Prague from different directions.  The Americans had agreed to free Czech from Hitler only to a certain point, and Prague was not inside that area, so the Soviets freed Prague.  After a couple years of some sort of democrocy, Communism took over.
The museum then went on to tell about life under Communism.  It told about empty stores and an emphasis on labor.  It told about education of children and the inprisonment of people who were successful before Communism.  It then went on to tell about the overthrow of Communism.


Me in Old Town Prague

 The overthrow of Communism in The Czech Republic is interestingly similar to what we see going on in the Middle East today.  It all started in 1969 with a college student lighting himself on fire in protest of Communism.  He died three days later.  You may remember the young Tunisian man lighting himself on fire late last year, which sparked what now has been over six months of protests accross the Middle East.  The Czech mans death would not cause the overthrow of Communism for twenty more years.  In 1989, on the twentieth anniversary of his death, the people of The Czech Republic decided it was time to overthrow Communism once and for all.  They protested, mostly peacefully although the police did get quite violent.  And as I'm sure you know, the fall of the Berlin Wall came in 1989, and Communism all accross Europe ended.

After the museum, Zeba and I met back up with Liandri, Fiorella and Claudia at Starbucks in the Old Town Center.  Accross from Starbucks there is a quite amazing clock.  It was built in the 1700's, and still stands today.  It is the Prague Astronomical Clock.  Every hour, on the hour, it goes off. 

This is what it does:

Prague Astronomical Clock

First, there are four small statues.  Three of them are men, one holding a mirror to symbolyze vanity, the next a money bag to symbolize greed, and the third represented a "Turkish Infidel".  In between them there is a skeleton holding a bell.  When the clock goes off, the three men shake their heads to show that what they are is bad.  And the skeleton rings his bell, I suppose to symbolise death, perhaps caused by what the three men represent.  Then, the twelve appostles take turns coming through two doors.  At the end of this all, a rooster at the top of the clock crows.  Now, this clock, though famous, was quite a dissapointment to many tourists.  I personally found it amazing, but apparently not everyone agrees with me.  In an attempt to solve this problem, the Czech government recently decided to add to the clock.  Once the clock does its thing, a man comes out at the top of the tour above the clock, and blows a trumpet.  Then he waves to the hundreds of poeple below and everyone claps.  Apparently the governments attempt worked!

Sunday:

A Mosque-ish Synagogue

Sunday was quite a busy day. We debated and debated how we wanted to spend it.  Before we left for Prague we found out that Berlin was not far out of the way between Bremen and Prague, and thought that stopping there might be a nice idea.  But we still wanted more time in Prague.  So we decided to spend Sunday morning there and leave for Berlin by 10 am.  Zeba and I really wanted to go back to the Jewish Ghetto, while the others decided to explore the city some more.  The Jewish Ghetto was very interesting.  During WW2, it was the most run down part of the city.  The streets were below the river, so they flooded regularly.  The Jews from Prague were forced to live there.  But today, it is now called Josefov, The Jewish Quarter, and is the most expensive part of the city!  In the Ghetto there are many Synagogues.  One was very interesting, when I first saw it, I thought "Oh a Mosque!"  I later found out that many others thought the same thing as me.  This Synagogue was built at time when the Jews and Muslims somewhat got along, so they built a Mosque-ish Synagogue to represent their relationship.  There was another Synagogue that held the Jewish Museum, and outside of it was the Jewish Cemetary.  First, Zeba and I went to the museum.  On its walls were the names of 80,000 Jews who died in a nearby concentraion camp called Terezin.  These names were handwritten and included the peoples birthdays, dates of entering the camp and dates of death.  Seeing the sheer number of people who died was astonishing.  And these names represented only a tiny proportion of the people who died in the Holocaust.  But I got through that part without crying.  It was the next part of the museum that brought tears to my eyes. 



The wall of the Jewish Cemetery
near the Jewish Museum

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, a former art student at the Bauhaus in Germany, was imprisoned in Terezin.  Knowing that, while the adults could cope with the terrible situation, the children would not cope so well, she decided to start art lessons for the children at the concentration camp.  Though the Nazi's allowed the art lessons to occur, they would not allow further education.  But the people of Terezin took advantage of this opportunity to sneak in reading, history and math lessons for the children.  And Terezin held many of the best educated Jews, so the children were able to get probably the best education they could considering the situation they were in.  Throughout her time in Terezin, Dicker-Brandeis collected over 4,500 drawings from the children.  Some of these drawings were of normal, childhood things.  Sometimes they were of toys, family members, houses, etc.  But, many of the drawings represented the terrible things these childrens were witnessing.  Some of the drawings showed life inside the camp, what the barracks looked like, the work people did.  Two of the drawings stuck out to me.  The first was called "The Other Side of the Gate".  It was a drawing of both sides of the entrance to Terezin.  One side showed chilren playing with their happy parents.  The other side showed people working.  This showed the huge difference between life in the camp and life outside, and the children were aware of the difference. The next painting that stuck out to me brough tears to my eyes because it was of something a child should never witness.  In fact just writing about it brings tears to my eyes again.  It was called "The Execution".  It depicted the hanging of a Jew.  You could tell the person was a Jew because they had a Star of David pinned on their shirt.  Before seeing these drawings, I had never realized how many children were apart of the Holocaust.  Though some of these young artists were freed, most of them were sent to Auschwitz where they eventually died.  After hearing this, all I could think was "Who would do that?  Who could kill children?" 



In the Jewish Cemetery

After spending time in the Jewish Museum, Zeba and I went to the Jewish Cemetary.  According to Jewish customs, a Jew can not be cremated or burried in a tomb above ground.  They have to be burried underground.  During WW2, this cemetary filled up.  The Jews went to the authorities asking for another cemetary, and were denied.  To solve this problem, the Jews added a pile of dirt on top of the graves, and burried the new dead in the new pile of dirt. They repeated this everytime they ran out of room, and ended up having to add dirt about 11 times.  Now, the cemetary is extremely tall.  You can walk around the outside walls, and the walls go up to about the first story of a house, almost full to the top with graves.  They say thousands are burried there.  When you go into the cemetary, all you see are probably over a thousand tombstones seemingly piled on top of each other.  There is no room to walk between them, and they are all different shapes and sizes. 

Me in TV Tower

After spending time in the Jewish Ghetto, we went on to Berlin.  I had been in Berlin before, so had only one goal for my second trip there: to go to the top of TV Tower.  I had not done that my first time in Berlin, and regretted it.  Luckily we parked near the TV Tower, so while my friends went off to fulfill their Berlin goals, I went up to the tower.  It was a very interesting view of all of Berlin, my favorite part was seeing Brandenburg gate and the tower just past it from up so high.  After spending about an hour in the TV Tower, I joined Zeba in starbucks and grabbed a drink.  Liandri called me and said she wanted to go to the Berlin Wall.  Liandri had not been to Berlin before, so we were trying to take her to the "got to see" parts of Berlin.  Fiorella had taken her to Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial.  Liandri met up with Zeba and I and we made our way to the wall.  This time we went to a part of the wall I had not spent time at before, the Berlin Wall Memorial.  It contained pieces of the wall, ruins of gaurd towers, and pictures of those who had died trying to cross the wall.  Something new hit me on this trip to the wall.  As I was walking past it I realized I was walking through what once was "No Man's Land", a place that people in the past had been shot for trying to walk through.
 
After Berlin we made our way back to Bremen. We hit a lot of traffic at about ten pm at night.  We reached Bremen a little after midnight, and after dropping the car off and calling a taxi, I got home at around two am. 


In front of the Berlin Wall



Overall it was a great trip, I felt like in those three days I went through a crash course of the last one hundred years of European history!  Prague is now my favorite European city, and I want to go back soon.  God also used this trip in my life.  From learning about Prague's history, I really became intersted in Europes history of religion, and current nonreligious people.  Throughout that trip, I kept thinking "how can this history of religion be used to bring these people back to Christ?" 

Prayer Requests:
(I know these are long...but they are very important so please read and pray!)
-The past couple of posts I reported on an improvement in my relationship with my landlady. But, yesterday things got worse again.  My landlady came to my apartment and told me she was "very angry" about the mess and that I had to clean it.  It is not that messy, there were about five unwashed dishes, and there were some things laying around my room.   I am feeling like she is invading my privacy, and have been informed by many Germans that she does not have the right to be coming into my room without telling me when I am not home.  I have started locking my bedroom door, but I cannot lock the whole apartment.  I am hoping that locking the bedroom will at least garuntee me some privacy.  Please pray for this situation, right now leaving this apartment is the only reason I am looking forward to leaving Germany.  I also feel that I need to talk to my landlady about this, so please pray for wisdom and courage in doing that.

-God has been speaking to me a lot recently.  My whole time in Germany has been a giant spiritual battle, which has been hard but has been helping me grow.  I have been praying about what God has for me next, because, for my whole life, and even more so now, I have felt that America is not where God wants me permanently.  Right now I am looking at going on a six month missions trip, possibly back to Europe, after I graduate from college next year.  This trip would be with the International Missions Board.  Please pray as I seek after Gods will in what exactly He has called me to do next. 

Praises:

-Praise God for the many opportunities I have had to travel!

-Praise God for keeping us safe on our road trip!

-Praise God that I am no longer feeling lonely here in Germany!
-Praise God for the many friendships I have made here!

Weekend in Poland

Wroclaw, Poland

I love to travel.  One of my life goals is to travel to every country on earth.  This last weekend I got to add a new country to the list, bringing the total to 16 countries I have spent time in!  I to Poland to visit my friends Joel, Renata, Daniel, Eric and Amelia!  I have known this family my whole life(Renata was at my birth) but do not get to see them very often, so it was great to spend the weekend with them!

FRIDAY:
At 8 pm I embarked on a journey to Wroclaw, Poland.  I got on a bus in Bremen and left for a ten hour ride.  I brought some snacks and drinks and cleaned out my iPod before I left so I would have room for movies.  I hoped that maybe I would sleep a few hours, especially considering I was going to arrive in Wroclaw at 6 am.  I managed maybe two hours of sleep...the bus stopped every hour or two, and they played a very loud Polish movie until 1 am.  At 6 am Joel picked me up at the bus stop, and I went straight to sleep at their house.  (They had planned a hike for the afternoon, so I figured it would be important to sleep a few hours :D).

Daniel, Joel and I on top of the mountain!

SATURDAY:
That afternoon Joel and Daniel took me on a hike to the top of a mountain and back.  This mountain is the highest in the area.  It is about a 30 minute drive from Wroclaw and has an interesting history of Slavic tribes.  You can find pagan idols all up and down the mountain.  Of course at some point the Christians came in and built a church at the top.  I am slightly out of shape, so the hike to the top was a little hard, but was fun.  The mountain is beautiful.  From the top you can see many towns spread throughout the valley below.  And you can climb a tower from which you can see even further.  We sat in the sun for a while and ate lunch before heading down the mountain.

Me with Poland in the background!

The trip down the mountain was quite adventurous.  We wanted to take a different trail down then we took up, so we found a route where we would start with one trail, then get on another and a little while later again switch to another trail.  So we headed off.  It started off well, we found the first trail then the second.  It was the third one that caused some problems.  We could not find it!  But we figured as long as we were heading downhill, we were going at least somewhat in the right direction.  So we kept going.  We ran into a couple deer on the way and walked along some beautiful trails.  After an hour or two we reached the bottom!  We found ourselves in a village, and stopped and asked where the town our car was in is located.  It was about 1.5 miles away!  So again we headed off, hiking through the Polish country side and through villages.  I quite enjoyed this and took many pictures.  We even made friends with a dog who followed us for a while.  We eventually made it to our car and stopped on the way home for ice cream!

PALM SUNDAY:

The plaza around the Synagogue

I attended a Polish speaking church for Palm Sunday.  Daniel helped me out by translating the sermon as much as he could.  I wanted to sing along with the songs, and though I knew some of them in English, I knew that my pronunciation of Polish was not to par...so I listened as they sang.  That afternoon Daniel and Eric took me on  a bike ride through some beautiful fields next to their house.  Sunday night Joel, Daniel and I went to a Jewish Synagogue for a Jazz concert.  It had an accordion, two guitars, a cello and a violin!  We also stopped at a Jewish coffee shop for some hot chocolate!

You can find these little dwarfs
 all over Wroclaw

MONDAY:
Today Renata took me on a tour of Wroclaw.  Wroclaw is a very interesting city with a diverse history.  Much of the city was destroyed during WW2, and due to Communism they were not really able to start rebuilding until 1989.  So now Wroclaw is a growing city with a lot of construction going on!  It was interesting to see the mix of old and new buildings as well as some war ruins.  There are also a lot of beautiful fountains around the city, and many interesting places to shop and eat.  One thing interesting about Wroclaw are the dwarfs you can find all over the city.  There are hundreds.  You can find them next to stores, restaurants and around other parts of the city.  These dwarfs were a form of protest against Communism during the 1980's.  A group called the Orange Alternative in Wroclaw would paint smiling dwarfs over Communist propaganda.  The statues showed up in Wroclaw in 2005 to remember the work this group did.

At the Japanese Garden

TUESDAY:
This was my last day in Wroclaw.  Joel, Daniel, Amelia and I went into Wroclaw to find a way to tire me out before my 10 hours bus ride that night :).  We ended up walking through a really beautiful Japanese Garden!  It had giant fish and beautiful paths to walk along. That night I headed back to Bremen.  Getting home was a little exciting...the bus line I was on, Sindbad, had about 10 buses show up all at once...so Joel and I ran around trying to figure out which was mine, none of which were.  Mine showed up about a half an hour late, and they did not have my name on the list.  It ended up that I accidentally bought a ticket for the next day.  Luckily someone didn't show up for the bus so they let me on!  I was able to sleep a little more on this ride,
and arrived back in Bremen safely and just in time to take a nap! 

Prayer Requests:
-This is my biggest prayer request: Lately I have found myself dreading going back to my apartment.  When I'm with friends or at a restaurant or store, I dread the idea of going home.  Not because I want to stay where I am, but because I am scared to run into my landlady.  Almost every time I come home she either tells me something I have done wrong or I come into my apartment and find that she has been in there without my permission.  I understand when I do something wrong, she has to tell me, but its not a good feeling to feel like you are always doing something wrong.  And, I don't like her invading my privacy by coming into my room without my permission.  Please pray for this situation and that God will give me wisdom on how to handle it.
-I have had a soar throat for a couple of days, please pray that it will get better soon!
-I have a lot of school work to do in the next 2.5 months.  Please pray that I will find time to do it all!
-Two friends and  I are traveling to Amsterdam and Belgium this weekend.  Please pray for safety as we travel.  We rented a car and depending on if the company can get us an automatic or not, I may be the driver.
-Pray for the Euro to Dollar exchange rate...right now its not moving in my favor!

Praises:
-Praise God for many opportunities to travel over this two week break from school!
-Praise God for the opportunities I have had to not go to places just as a tourist but to actually get to spend time with local families and getting to know their culture!
-Praise God for the relationships I have been able to build here in Europe and the opportunities I have had to share the Gospel with people!

Update from my iPod...

Note: Praise God!! My computer is now fixed!  I figured I would post this update anyways since it was pretty much ready to go at the time that my computer got fixed!

First of all, I'm sorry for the lack of updates! I was almost ready to update my blog when the unthinkable happened: my computer broke. (I know what your thinking: "Kims computer NEVER breaks!").

I am updating my blog from my iPod! My iPod is my only connection to the outside world now. I'm not used to depending so much on it, so it's been kinda exciting to have everything be touchable!

Homesickness:

A sign I found in Bremen
Never too far from home :)

I have been in Germany just over a month. That means I have now been out of America longer than ever before. And after next week I will have been away from my family longer than ever before. This has lead to the first true hit of homesickness, as I realize that this is not just another two to three week trip out of the country. At the same time I am starting to realize that I will not be in Germany much longer...so my emotions are kind of a mix between wanting to be home and wanting to stay in Germany longer.

I have also started to realize the hardships of living in another country. Nothing is easy...simply ordering a cheeseburger or buying a loaf of bread is hard because you don't know if the cashier will know English or if you'll know enough German to communicate. At first that was an adventure, but now it is just hard. It is a hardship I am learning through, and I am reminding myself everyday that I am here to learn and experience their language and culture.

Traveling:

St. Nikolai Church in Hamburg

The last month has been nohing short of amazing! Three weeks ago In spent a day in Hamburg. The highlight for me from that city was St. Nikolai. St. Nikolai is a church that was destroyed during WW2. The remnants of it, including a steeple that you can go to the top of, are now a WW2 memorial. This was the first time that I had the opportunity to learn about WW2 from Germanys point of view and was very interesting.

In front of the west side of the
Berlin Wall

Last weekend I spent three days in Berlin. I'm sure most of you know Berlins history with the Berlin wall. This again was very interesting to learn about from Germanys point of view. And I got to stand in front of the Berlin wall on both the east and west sides.  I also go to walk around Berlin's Holocaust Memorial.

Driving the pedal boat in
Bad Zwischenhahn

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in a city called Bad Zwischenhahn. This is a small tourist town in the north west Germany. It surrounds a large lake and you can rent boats for vey cheap! So five friends and I rented two pedal boats for a half an hour, costing a total of 11 €. I was the driver of my boat and had a great time pedaling around the lake!



Protests:

Logo for the protests in Germany

Back in December and January when he Arab World Protests first started I thought to myself "well atleast Germanys not protesting!". Little did I know the world events that were going to occur while I was in Germany...ever since the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan, Germans have been protesting the use of nuclear power in their country. Luckily these protests have been peaceful, but about once a week they protest on the route the trams take to my house, which means the trams to my house stop running for an unknown amount of time. This usually occurs when I am alone after dark trying to get home(at around 7 pm so not too late). The police and tram drivers give the people lots of information, but not in English. This has probably been my biggest challenge here, as I try to figure out how to communicate with people who oftentimes don't speak English and try to find my way home, or atleast figure out when the trams will be running again. I always manage to make English speaking friends at the tram stops and I always get home safe, usually about an hour later then I had planned on.

School:

My German Class!

And of course there is the whole reason I came to Germany.....school! School started two weeks ago. It was a bit of a rough start as the school here does not do a very good job of communicating. But after accidentally ditching one class and being late for another, I finally have my schedule figured out! I am taking four classes. One German language class and three computer classes. So far these are all very interesting. In one of my classes I am the oy person who does not speak German. So the whole class is in English for me...no one seems to mind, too much.....


God:

God has been teaching me a lot since I have been here.  I have met people from all over the world, and have learned about their religions and cultures.  I have had a lot of time to think about my life, my calling and my religion.  I know that I am called to spend my entire life serving God full time, but He has not fully revealed to me what this means.  Over the past almost twenty-one years this calling has been revealed in small bits and pieces. I believe that part of the reason God has brought me here to Germany is to show me, in more details, what His plan is for the rest of my life.  This has been exciting, challenging and hard.  I have been constantly under Satan's attacks and every day has been a battle.  One verse that has really stuck out to me over the last couple of weeks is Esther 4:14 "For if you remain silent at this time, relief will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish.  And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"  This verse has humbled me as I realized that if I were to not fulfill God's calling for my life, He would use someone else.  This verse also scared me as I thought of the possibility of not fulfilling God's calling, and what that would mean for my future.  And this verse gave me an excited peace, as I thought of God calling me for "such a time as this".  This is a topic I'm sure I will write on more in the future...for now it is something you can be praying for!

Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Germany

Prayer Requests:
-Please pray for my computer that all of its problems will be solved.  It is running again, but it is not completely fixed.
-Please pray for me as what I am studying here is not the same as back home.  Back home I study mostly computer programming, here it is mostly graphic design.
-Please pray for me as I continue to grow in Christ and learn about where God is leading me.
-Please pray as Easter Break is coming up and I am planning to travel during that time!

Praises:
-Praise God that my computer is working again!
-Praise God that I have made a wide variety of friends!
-Praise God for the people who bought me a bike this week!
-Praise God for the opportunities to travel around Germany!
-I finally found a place to get my favorite type of soda, Root Beer!!

One week!!

Well, I have been in Germany for a little over a week now!!  This week has been exciting, fun, hard, stressful and adventurous!  I'll try to sum it up as much as I can in this post...

St. Petri Dom, my favorite building in Bremen!

Major events of this week:

1. Attacked by a drunk guy on a tram!
  On Thursday morning, at about 1:30 am I was riding the tram home(after being lost on the trams, and stuck at a tram station for 43 minutes...) when a drunk man came and sat across from me.  He started trying to talk to me, and I ignored him as much as I could.  He got mad at me for having my feet on the chair and grabbed my leg and pulled it down.  A nice man sitting behind him stood up to stop him, and got him to kind of settle down.  But as soon as the nice man sat back down, the drunk man started getting mad at me again.  So the nice man stood back up and told the drunk man to change seats, and he did.  But within two minutes, the drunk man stood back up and started yelling at both me and the nice man.  He did not settle down until the nice man called the police.  The police came, and pulled our tram over.  Four police officers entered the tram, and took the drunk man off of it.  They asked me if I wanted to press charges, and I said no.  So they left, and I went home.  This event was pretty scary, especially since I had never experienced anything like this and it was 1:30 am.  I also felt helpless, because I had no cell phone to call for help, and if that nice man was not on the tram sitting so close to us, I do not know what would have happened.  The next day I bought a cell phone, and now I feel much more safe!


2. Orientation and German class

 This week I had orientation and took a German class!  The German class was four hours a day for 4 days!  I learned a lot of the basics, including how to count from 1 to 100.  I will continue learning German in a class for the rest of the semester.

Exploring the oldest part of the city!

3. Getting to know the city
 I spent a lot of time this week exploring Bremen.  Its a really beautiful city with huge, very old buildings!  I got to go inside some of them.  Some parts of Bremen have small roads with tiny shops surrounding them.  There is also a beautiful river that I walked around twice.


4. Finding a great church!

Going bowling with new friends from church!

 Last Sunday I attended the International Baptist Church of Bremen.  It was great!  I got to know a lot of people from all over the world, and even went bowling with a few of them!  I also found out about a Christian college group and weekly Bible studies!  I am excited to continue attending this church and getting to know its members!

Imitating the Seven Lazy Men statue
for a game at orientation!

5.  Getting to know the other international students, their cultures and their religions
 This week I have gotten to know many great people from all over the  world and from many different religions!  It has been great learning about their cultures and religions!  I have had a lot of fun hanging out with them and am excited to continue building the new friendships I have made!

The Weser River

What I am looking forward to in the next week:
1. Starting school! Having a regular schedule for the first time in three months will be great!
2. Starting the Adopt a Student program! I will be "adopting" a German family, and sharing my culture with them as well as learning about theirs!
3. Spending time with my new friends as well as making new ones!!







Praises:
1. Praise God for the nice man on the German tram!  The police asked him to leave the tram at a stop that wasn't his, so that they could talk to him.  This left him having to wait 30 minutes for the next tram.
2. Praise God that what happened on the trams was not as bad as it could have been!
3. Praise God for the new friendships I have made!
4. Praise God for the weather warming up!
5. Praise God that I have found a great church and am making friends there!!
6. Praise God that I have found other friends who do not want to drink!

Prayer requests:

At IKEA with friends!

1.  Pray for me as I learn how to be safe in Bremen.  What happened on the trams has made me more aware of dangers.  I am searching for more ways to be safe. Please also pray that nothing like that happens again!
2. Pray for me as I continue to build relationships, that they will be able to be strong friendships that last a lifetime!
3. Pray for me as I do things like start school and apply for a residents permit.  Applying for a residents permit takes a lot of paperwork, some of which I'm not sure I have right.

A Tale of Trams

Me! Not on a tram...

Today I attempted to ride the trams on my own for the first time!  I left my house, and walked to the nearby tram station.  Within a few minutes, the tram came!  And I got on.  I sat next to a guy who didn't seem overly excited to have me sitting there...and I wondered if maybe its not culturally acceptable to sit next to strangers on the tram.  I continued to sit there anyways.  I didn't really have a set place I was going, I was just looking for a store.  Two stops later I saw one! I got off the tram and bought the items I needed, and went to get on a tram going the opposite direction.  After a few minutes, a tram came!  And I didn't get on fast enough...a few minutes later, another tram came!  And it broke down 20 feet from the tram stop...a few minutes later it was working again, and I got on!  About three stops later, I realized that the tram was going the wrong direction.  So I rode it for one more stop, and got off.  I was now in City Center, but I wanted to be home.  I had six minutes until the next tram(one going the right direction this time) so I walked around City Center.  All was not lost, because I found a tram stop that I was meeting someone at the next day!  After three minutes of wondering around,  I worked my way back to the tram stop.  This is not easy as you may think, because at this particular part of town it is scary to cross the street.  There are trams going two different directions coming from three different directions.  And then there are also cars driving.  But I crossed the street, carefully, and got to the tram stop two minutes early!  When it came, I got on the tram!  And eventually got back to the stop that is near my house, and got off the tram!  All in all this was a fun little adventure, and now I feel more experienced in European tram riding!

This is it!!!!

Well, this is the day!!  Less then 5 hours from now I will wake up, pack up, get in the car, get to the airport and go!!  My flight leaves today (March 1) at 8 am!!

At this point, I'm not sure how to feel.  I've said all my goodbyes and gotten over the nervousness.  I'm excited, but it hasn't quite hit yet that I'm actually going to Germany.  Right now I'm just looking forward to traveling all day tomorrow.  International travel is probably my favorite thing in the world!  This will be my fourth international trip in five years, so I feel prepared for this one to be more on my own.  Special thanks to everyone who has lead the past international trips I have gone on, each of you played a part in helping me prepare for this trip :).

What God has taught me so far:
In the past three weeks I have spent a lot of time praying and reading Gods word.  God has shown me a couple verses that have become my life verses for this trip.  These verses are:

Mark 10:29-30
 “'Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life."

1 Corinthians 9:19-23.
"Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.  To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.  I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."

About two days ago I was feeling really sad about leaving my family.  I am very close to my parents, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents.  I had run into Mark 10:29-30 several times in the weeks before that and God reminded me of these verses as I felt sad.  He reminded me that I am going to Germany for Him and for the Gospel.  He reminded me that even though I am leaving my family, friends and home, and even though I am worried about finding friends in Germany, He would help me find friends, even family, there.  He also reminded me that things may not always be easy, I could deal with persecution and spiritual warfare.

As I thought more about Germany, I thought about my role in Gods plan in Germany.  I thought and prayed about how He would use me.  At this time, God reminded me of 1 Corinthians 9:19-23.  He reminded me that, like Paul, in order to truly reach people in Germany, I would have to become like them.  I mulled over what this would mean.  How do I reach people if they want to party, and I don't?  What is German culture like?  What about the international student's cultures?  How do I reach people who have come from all over the world to this one place?  How do I breach the language barrier?  Though I have ideas for the answers to these questions, I definitely don't have all the answers.  I believe this will be a process that God will lead me through.  And I believe and pray that I will grow greatly through learning how to become "German" or become whatever the culture is of the person I am talking to.

It is late now, so I will go to bed.  In my next post I will talk about how I have already started to see these verses become real in this trip.

One last thing before I go to bed:
Prayer requests:
-Pray for safety as we travel all day tomorrow.  We will be traveling from 8 am to 3 am PST.
-Pray for my ears.  I usually have a lot of ear pain while flying, I am praying to not have any this time around.
-Pray for me as I adjust to Germany and begin building relationships.

Praises:
-Praise God for a safe, fast, and pain free flight from Arcata to San Francisco!
-Praise God for a great family to stay the night with in the Bay Area!
-Praise God for my friends and family who were supportive, and caring, and loving in my last couple of weeks with them!

Where I will be living: Bremen, Germany

In three weeks I leave for Germany!  I leave Arcata on February 28, arrive in Bremen on March 2, and return to Arcata on July 13.  I am excited, nervous, and a little sad about the people I am leaving back in the States!  


I will be studying Computers at Hochschule Bremen, and will be living with a family near the university.  The house I will be living in is near the river, the school and the church I plan to attend!  It also has a garden and a washing machine.


While in Germany, I plan to travel around Europe. I plan to go to the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, and anywhere else I can!  Many of you know that I love to travel, and I am taking this as a great opportunity to travel around Europe.  


I will be updating this blog at least once a week, possibly more often.  You can also keep up with me on Facebook.  


What you can expect from this blog:
- Weekly updates on where I have traveled, what I have experienced and what I have learned.
- Pictures of fun and cool places I find around Europe.
- Updated prayer requests and praises.
- Stories, lots of stories!


What you can learn about Bremen:

River Weser

- 547,685 people live in Bremen.
- The metro area population is 2,400,000.
- The city is 126.15 square miles.
- Bremen is along the river Weser.
- Bremen is 37 miles south of the North Sea. 


What you can be praying for:
- I have a lot to do as I prepare to leave.  Please pray for time, and energy, and patience.
- Please pray for safety as I travel.
- Please pray for me as I adjust to a different culture, language, currency, and a new place to live.


What you can be praising God for:
- The school found me a place to live that is much closer to school, church, and most everything else in town!
- I will have my own room, bathroom, and kitchen!
- I have found an English speaking Protestant church near my house!

Citations: 
Facts and picture of Bremen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremen,_Germany
Picture of Europe: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3997.htm