Ciao Bella!

Sorry for the delayed posting...we had a jam-packed weekend! We saw everything there was to see in Rome in 2 days, which means I am definitely ready for a foot massage when I get home. Any volunteers?

Tomorrow, we make our final presentation to the Leipzig Eagle's Basketball team. Say a little prayer for us that we get rest tonight and do our best tomorrow. We have worked hard - now we're ready to WOW them with what we've found! We'll post some highlights of the presentation later.

And now, a preview of the Rome post to come!

raspberry and chocolate.

the forum.

Highlights: Gelato. Oh, and the history was amazing too... :)

Lowlights: Rome may have some of the worst bathrooms and smelliest men. Yuck.

But overall, the trip was incredible and Rome is definitely my favorite place I've ever traveled to! Look forward to more pictures soon.

3 days. Then home.

Love yall,

Sylvia

Beachside in Berlin, then Rockin' in Roma

Thursday morning we had a much needed restful morning, then we set out for Berlin!

Upon arrival, we navigated the massive underground system to find our awesome 1 star hotel, and then to see a few new sites in Berlin.
To our amazement, we discovered our new favorite place! We went to the East Side Gallery, which is a 2 Kilometer stretch of the Berlin Wall left intact, but now artists have been commissioned to paint on different parts of it. It is really cool!

But...the best thing we found was behind the Wall, along the river. Someone brought in a ton of sand, and set up a beach front type area. There was lawn chairs and food and drinks galore!

Sylvia and I sat and enjoyed the people, good music, and evening atmosphere along the river for a while, but then realized that we needed to go back to the real world

We grabbed some Calamari and Pommes for dinner...
And headed back to get a good night's sleep before our 4am morning wake up call to get to the airport on time.

Friday

So I'm going to give a basic rundown, with a lot of pictures, because that's the best part!

4:20AM, leave our hotel to catch the series of public transportation vehicles that eventually reach the airport which is only 4 Kilometers away.

Anyways we reach the airport a little over an hour later, grab some breakfast and settle in to wait for our flight at 7.

9:00AM Arrive in Roma!

11:00 Set out to see the sites, we began, of course, at the Colosseum.



After this we grabbed an over-priced, yet tasty, pizza lunch from a local vendor and set out to explore Palatine Hill and onto the Forum.

The Arch of Constantine

Palatine Hill

Part of the Roman Forum

The lofty history accompanying these three sites alone is incredible. I feel like I should have someone from the discover channel, preferably with a British accent following me around explaining every rock that is placed "just so, because of this or that," but maybe that's why some people pay for tour guides.

Gotta love all the FREE and tasty water in ROMA!

Either way, the whole area was incredible

After The Forum, we took a long walk over Capitol Hill, and down the other side, stopping for our first, but not last Gelatto!We hit the Pantheon next, with it's amazing design, and breathtaking frescos, and everything else! Don't worry, we grabbed another Gelato near the pantheon.


Next, I dragged Sylvia on a little personal quest of my own, We went to see my alltime, out of the way, favorite Roma Attraction, the Church of Santa Maria Della Vitoria. It's a Tiny Church filled with works by Bernini!

The Ectasy of St. Theresa, Bernini
read Angels and Demons Lately?

Watermelon snack on the way to the churches
Another amazing Santa Maria Church
We had dinner with some Jen, Josh, Brad and Phillip in the Campo di' Fiori at a Pizza place, then headed for a night walk across Roma.

First, Piazza Navono
Then,Four Rivers Fountain in front of the Pantheon
The Trevi Fountain
Spanish Steps
and We Finally dragged our tired and dirty feet back to our hostel for an some sleep!

The Turtle Always Wins

After a long week of working hard, we had a little time to play.

We met early in the morning to finalize plans for the project before everyone took off for the weekend, and then we set out for some fun in the sun....Canoeing down the Elster River.

It started as a sweet innocent canoe trip along the beautiful canal behind our apartments, but then developed into a little something more...as would any water event where boys are involved.

Introducing, the Tortoise...
And the Hare...
It started some some innocent splashing...

Then some ambushes...

Then some tippie canoe...
Followed by revenge!
If we had to end up in the River, the boys were coming down with us.

They Turtle might seem slow and weak in the beginning, but he Always wins the race!
Poor Boys...
Don't worry, we all made it back safely
After cleaning up, we headed for a tour of Amazon, and had a great time learning about the different processes that our good go through before landing on our doorstep. We saw the delivery and shipment stations, as well as the sorting and picking lines.

It was amazing to see how much of the process was done by people instead of machines! Our tour there was very informative, and Amazon seems like a great company!

Today, we are headed to Rome for the Weekend! It's going to a wonderful experience full of history and excitement! We'll be back on Sunday for more work work work, and then give our final presentation to the Eagles on Tuesday Morning!

We'll be seeing you all soon, Less than a week!

Love, Jenny

All wrapped up in Prague...

SATURDAY:

By Saturday, we were already pretty exhausted! Not only were we in a new place, but we were having to try to communicate in a completely new language (fortunately many people spoke English!) and deal with a totally new currency. (I got jeans for 299 CK....it sounds expensive, but that is only about sixteen American dollars!)

We decided to explore our side of town before going to the main part of the city. Amazingly, we found an amazing monument by wandering around with no map - it was called the Vysehrad, a gorgeous fortress with a huge wall that looked out over the city.

Inside was a church and a graveyard. Unfortunately, we missed seeing the church by about 3 minutes! I still got a few pictures of the inside though, through the glass in the door.

The inside of the church. The ceilings were so beautiful!

Another gorgeous graveyard.

View from the wall

Prague is so pretty!

After the wall, we headed to the "mini" Eiffel Tower in Prague. The line to ride up to the tower was at least an hour and a half long, and would probably cost about 10 euros. So we (some of us reluctantly) decided to trek up the mountain. It was rough work! After that walk,  I could definitely feel the effects of the German food I've been eating! It was worth it though. Now I can say I've been to two Eiffel Towers!

It definitely looks a lot taller  in real life than it actually is! This tower is only 60 meters high in comparison to the 273 meter high Eiffel Tower.

The Jewish Quarter is closed on Saturdays, because of the Sabbath, so we saved that for Sunday. After having seen most of the sights we wanted to, we headed to the old town square for some souvenir shopping! We successfully found a decent crystal place. Not the cheapest (we had lots of warning NOT to buy cheap crystal in Prague!) but reasonable with what seemed to be pretty high quality crystal. Some of you reading this should be excited - there may be some crystal headed your way!

It only rained for a few minutes on Saturday, and we ducked into the Salvador Dali exhibit in the Old Town Square. Laura and I had both studied Dali a lot in our middle school and high school Spanish classes, so it was cool to see a lot of his work outside of the textbooks. In case you didn't know, though, Salvador Dali was CRAZY. Talented, but crazy.

This was one of his coolest pieces of work. I couldn't see it at first, but this is a collage that from far away looks like Abraham Lincoln. It was so weird - you can see Lincoln so much better through the camera's lens! Without it, Lincoln is much more difficult to see.

This was the view out of the exhibit. There was a folk dancing competition in Prague this weekend, and there were people dressed up everywhere we went! Can you see the crazy headdresses?

Jenny, Laura, and I waiting for the bus.

We had dinner at a great local restaurant - it wasn't easy to find, but it was a little underground restaurant on one of the main streets. We think it was much more of a "local" place rather than a tourist restaurant. I had good intentions of trying some more good Czech food, but when I saw some of the interesting choices (pork knee) I opted for familiar chicken breast. Maybe I'll be more willing to try the native food in Italy...pizza and gelato? I can do that!

Our basement restaurant - I wanted to find an underground pizza place recommended to me by family, but this was a good substitute. Thank you for all of the Prague advice, Terry!

We all were asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. One more day! 

OK mom you were right...I should have brought my Chacos! Sperry's are not the most practical shoes for miles and miles of walking.

SUNDAY:

We didn't sleep in on Sunday, but we went straight to the Jewish Quarter. This was probably my favorite part of the whole weekend.

We went on one of the strangest tours I've ever been on. One ticket covered six different places, so we had to walk all over the quarter. It was definitely worth it! There were signs posted everywhere not to take pictures, but we managed (along with almost all of the tourists) to sneak a few. It was too amazing not to photograph!

All of the men were asked to wear a head covering. Brad was not thrilled to be wearing his Yarmulke, but he was a trooper.

This is the Jewish cemetery. For many years, any Jews in the Czech Republic had to live in this small area. They were also only allowed to bury their dead in this cemetery - over 100,000 people are buried here, some as many as 12 people deep! As you can see, all of the headstones are piled on top of each other. It was incredible.

Click on this picture - it should open in a bigger view. This is inside of the Pinkas Synagogue. Painted on the walls inside of this synagogue, there are over 80,00 names of Czech Holocaust victims. It was very moving and also amazing how precisely the names were written.

A picture of the ceiling of the Spanish Synagogue - I wasn't looking when I took this picture because the man behind me was asking people to put their cameras away. The ceiling was so ornate!

This is a picture of all of the people who gather to see the Astronomical clock every hour.... and this was a Sunday morning!

After stopping in a few more souvenir shops, we ran back to the hostel and then to the train - literally. We had an hour to get from the Old Town, to our hostel to get our bags, and then to the train station. In Prague, trains do not run on time like they do in Germany (we're spoiled, I guess...) so we were racing through the streets like typical crazy Americans. We arrived at our train five minutes too late - but thankfully, the train was delayed 20 minutes! Definitely an answer to prayer!

This was the double-decker train we took back to Leipzig. It was not a fast "ICE" train like the one that we took on our way to Prague, but it was ironically about 20 degrees colder than the "ICE" train.

When we returned, all of the students met in a group to discuss our weekends. It was great to be together again and to laugh at all of the experiences we had.

This is the only other travel picture I have so far. Grant, Branson, and Collin went to Paris! This weekend was the end of the Tour de France, so it was pretty crowded.

As is our tradition, we ended the evening with our communion in plastic shot glasses.

This week is going to be our last full week here! We are excited, but we know we'll be tired at the end. We are talking to players, interviewing staff of the basketball team, thinking of creative ways to promote the team around Leipzig, and working on our final presentation. We have a long way to go, but I know that our final presentation will add a lot of value to this team.

Last night, the girls went out with one of our German friends, Elfi. She is a businesswoman here in Leipzig, and it was great to hear about her experiences living and working here. Hopefully we'll see her again before we leave!

Love you all! Thanks for reading!

-Sylvia

Czech us out...In Prague!

I know it's been a couple days, so Here's the Catch up!

Thursday Morning:

Me, Sylvia, Brad, Laura and Josh all set out for an Adventure in the Czech Republic! We were a little unsure when we headed out because the train system is quite confusing and we have Eurail passes, but we aren't sure when we can use them and when we cannot use them! Luckily, our train trip went more smoothly than we could have planned it in a million years--We had someone watching over us!

View from the Train

We made it to Prague in only 3 hours from Leipzig, somewhere around 4:00. We put our stuff up in the hostel and got settled. The lady from our hostel was way over-enthusiastic, but incredibly sweet! She gave us maps and directions all around the city, not to mention our hostel was one of the safest places I've ever been!

We made it!

She directed us to a local restaurant for dinner, which had best (and cheapest) food ever!

This is known as Chicken Cake...The Czech translations were a little off

After dinner we weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves so we decided to explore a nearby park! We had lots of fun playing on their version of playgrounds, which are more like workout machines with sand under them, but either way it was a wonderful evening!

The girls in the Park

We were Pretty Exhausted from Traveling, so we turned in quite early. I'm pretty sure I was asleep before 10, which must be a record! It was a fun first day and we need some sleep for the days to come!

Friday:
Our Hostel lady brought us breakfast of Stracciatella (cookies and cream) yoguhrt and bread with Tea and coffee!

With full bellies we headed off to the Old Town Square, where we planned to meet for a FREE tour of PRAGUE! Our Tour guide's name was Stef and this was her first week working tours, but she was hilarious, and a great guide! Very knowledgeable.

Stef always looked like she was dancing when she talked

Second Breakfast

We started off learning about the Old Town Square. There were rivalries in the Churches in the square, so there are several surrounding it. The weekend we were there, the square was hosting some sort of folk music festival from several European countries. Quite entertaining.

One of the Churches in old Town Square

The Best Part of the Old Town Square, and the First stop on our tour!
The Astronomical Clock!
formed with Zodiac signs, and other mystical designs, it predicted time date, moon phases and much more!
It puts on a show, every hour, a statue rings a bell and the 12 apostles appear
it's Quite funny, because everyone runs across the town square to see this on the hour, but the performance is very small, and almost comical
Definitely my favorite part!

After the old town square, We obviously had to move into the New town Square! It was the largest square in Europe! In the new town, there were quite a few modern shopping areas, but also what is called the Powder Tower, where in the War, Gunpowder was stored at the top of the Tower...seems like an easy target for the enemies to me...

Powder Tower

We stopped for Lunch at a popular local spot with incredible food!

BOHEMIAN BAGLES!

We then progressed into the Jewish Quarter of the city, which we revisited on Sunday, so more about that later! it was really a neat area though!

The Spanish Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter...Those two don't quite match

After the Jewish Quarter we began to wind down the tour towards the river, where we sat and listened to the rest of Prague's amazing history!

First Sighting of the castle in the distance!

After the tour we decided to head for Charles Bridge and then to the Castle.

Church before crossing Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge
Heres the legend on Charles Bridge, Rub this side of the Statue for Good health

But not this side!
(don't worry, I didn't touch it! We wanted to be extra-careful in Prague)

Next, we took the Long hike up to the Castle! We made a friend along the way

He Scared me and I screamed Ridiculously loud!

STC

The first View from the castle stairs out into the Beautiful city of Prague!

Here is the Cathedral at the Castle, it was stunning!
Another City View from the top

After a LONG day of Walking, the girls opted for some shopping and a little napping in the local park. We grabbed a snack of Fresh Cherries, yum and enjoyed the beautiful day and weather!

The best snack!

We were feeling a tad-bit homesick for the evening so we made an American night out of it! We headed to the Hard Rock Cafe ( A cultural experienc in intself) for a deliciously expensive meal! So worth it.

At the Hard Rock

Our Waiter Appreciated Texans!

Then as a special treat, the girls went to see a showing of HARRY POTTER! I've been waiting months for the release, as were the other girls, and it was worth every penny, or Czech crown anyways.

The Theatre sign

All in All, It was a wonderfully exhausting day! Two more adventure filled days to go!

Love,

Jenny

Only a week and a half left? What??

We were looking at the calendar today and realized how quickly the time has flown! It is amazing how what was once such a foreign place has now become sort of a "home" to the 16 students studying here. Even though we don't speak the language, we have developed a strange familiarity with the city of Leipzig. I may be speaking for myself here, but this city will definitely be missed!

Our first night in Leipzig. Hard to believe this was only 2 1/2 weeks ago!

One thing that is really different from home is the service here! At home, service is fast and efficient, and the server brings your bill as soon as you are done eating. Waiters and waitresses are paid differently here, and aren't as concerned with turning tables as people are in America. Service is very relaxed, to say the least, and you have to practically hunt your waiter or waitress down before you can pay!  Last night at the Safari restaurant, I think our waiter just plain forgot that we were even there... I went inside to find him and he helped us right away.

Here's a little German lesson for you:

"Zahlen bitte" (zah-lin bita) means "may I pay?"

Today was a pretty average day! Our group is exhausted. We're learning so much, inside and outside of the educational setting, that our brains are all on overload. We worked in our teams again today and will meet tomorrow morning to begin preparing our final presentation to the Leipzig Eagles team. For those of you who haven't been following, we're working on a marketing project to increase awareness of the women's professional basketball team, the Leipzig Eagles. We're working on totally re-vamping their image. It has been a huge task so far, but we're having a lot of fun and learning so much!

Follow the Eagles on Twitter! Search for LeipzigEagles.

You can also find us on Facebook and become a fan. (Do it if you're cool.)

Tonight was group karaoke night, and we had a blast! The singing wasn't the greatest quality, but it was definitely an A for enthusiasm.

Brad started off the evening with Elton John's "Rocket Man" (The hat was for inspiration.)

"Sweet Home Alabama"

"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" Typical Karaoke! Gotta love it.

(I couldn't resist posting this picture...Jenny's face is hilarious!)

Tomorrow, after our group meeting, we will all go on our first free travel weekend! Our group is splitting up and going to several different places. Students will be traveling to Paris, London, Munich, Denmark, and Prague (that's us!). So check back for updates on Sunday!

And tonight I have to give a shout out to our youngest faithful follower that I'm aware of.

Thanks to Brooke Kehl for keeping up with us! Miss you, friend. :)

Pray for no rain this weekend...seriously,

Sylvia

Put on your Adventure hat

The past two days have included many great adventures around Leipzig!

Yesterday was a good work day for all of our teams. We had time both in the morning and all afternoon to get some things accomplished for our project. The clock is starting to tick on our project so we all made time lines for the next two weeks!

For lunch, Sylvia and I had our first adventure. After the Hong Kong Bistro incident, we were both a little hesitant to try Asian food again, but we decided to try out the Vietnamese Asia Bistro. The menu was almost impossible to read and the lady cooked the food on a tiny grill in front of us, but this adventure definitely payed off! It was AMAZING, and we will return frequently I'm sure!

After a hard day's work, we decided to attend a local Bach Concert, outside the ThomasKirche (The Church where Bach worked), in the City Center. Despite bouts of rain, we enjoyed an amazing concert while sipping some coffee and hot chocolate, and Eating the world's most amazing chocolate cake from the Bachstueb'l, a nearby cafe.

cappuccino

Laura's Amazing Apple Streusel

After the concert we adventured in search of the student life or a local band. We went to a recommended local hangout, but it appeared that there was a Gothic concert going on, so we opted for another option. We found a restaurant out in the middle of a Huge park, called the Glas Haus. We ordered our new favorite German snack, Pommes!

Eating our Pommes!

Today has been a whole new adventure! It was another big workday for the groups. My group went on a long search to find the city hall. This is what we found first...

This is the Court house, not quite town hall, but we were getting warmer...

This is a Fox we saw in a parking lot on our quest for the Townhall! Crazy!
Finally, we found it

Once there, my group experienced the language barrier in full force today. We were trying to figure out how to get a permit for the Eagles to set up an exhibition in the City Center. However, the lady helping us completely misunderstood our request, even though we used mostly German, and she eventually gave us directions to the Eagle's stadium. Defeated we went home, but learned valueable lessons in the differences between German/American culture, and also the difficulty of doing business with a language barrier.

This afternoon, Laura and I stumbled upon a HUGE market that apparantely only comes twice a week! I bought some fresh strawberries and bell peppers and Laura got all the incredients for some amazing fresh pasta, yum!
at 4, our group went for a tour of the DHL corporation. They workers all work from 9PM to 6AM! It was cool to see the incredible technology that allows thousands of packages to be scanned, sorted, and sent out in a matter of 24 hours in many cases. It's brilliant!

Yes, we actually had to wear these awesome vests on our tour

Our final adventure of the day was actually a Safari...to dinner! Some of the boys saw a safari places for dinner, and asked if we were going to take the journey. Well of course we can't say not to an adventure! Grant, Colin, Sterling, and Branson all ordered mystery foods, and liked them. I suspect Grant will be returning again because he LOVED his dinner. Miriam and Lindsey ordered Ostrich meat with vegetables for dinner, and Sylvia and I split Antelope meat! It was amazing.

Antelope Meat, topped with some sweet potatoe fries!

Luckily, dinner included some awesome authentic African Entertainment.
This guy sang Authentic African chants, complete with animal noises, drums, and tribal dances! It was a fun, entertaining dinner!

We hope to keep the adventures coming the next couple days, while working hard on our project. it is going to get harder over the next couple weeks as we approach crunch time, so remember us in your thoughts and prayers!

We appreciate all your comments, prayers, and support!

Love,
Jenny