The Final Stretch...

In my efforts to remember as many German idioms as possible, I think I've buried some American idioms in a deep, dark crevice of my brain that my preconscious can't seem to rescue at the moment. Perhaps because it's almost 1 a.m. on a Monday morning. I'm only up this late because I don't have school till 1 p.m. tomorrow! So I find that rather nice that I can sleep in! But I intended "the final stretch" as my last month in my exchange year; that's right, we're now in June.

So the two main things that have happened since I last wrote would be that I went to London, England (my third European capital city in 3 weeks), with my school, and I had a four-day weekend! London was a lot of fun. I was exhausted being sleep-deprived due to the annoying bus driver, border control, acting as translator, and the heat. We got to see the main attractions in London, like Big Ben, Picadelly Circus, Hyde Park
(where we saw a "Royal Salute for the Queen"), Buckingham Palace (My Fencing Buddy, Wiebke, and I), etc. We had great weather, and it felt a little too hot at times. I also got confused switching between English and German at times, but it was still awesome!!


London had something interesting where you could see 250 elephants all over the city. The idea is to make everyone aware of an endangered species of Elephant...I've forgotten the exact one. They are all painted differently with every color or pattern/texture you can imagine.


That was Wednesday, and the weekend started for us as soon as we got home early Thursday morning. My fellow CBYXer, Emily, and her host sister, Eva, came to visit. We went to Düsseldorf and Köln, and did some bike riding around the farmlands of Krefeld. And in general, it's a blast when exchange students get together. We went up the Rhein Tower in Düsseldorf , walked around the architectural district
and the old town. We even found a piece of the Berlin Wall in Düsseldorf. In Köln, we walked to the top of the Kölner Cathedral (there's an elevator in the Rhein Tower, but not in the cathedral), sat on the grass along the Rhein River, and checked out the bridge with all the locks. (I described the bridge back in January: And the bridge that goes over the Rhein River has thousands of locks with names or initials of couples. And this signifies the forever love they possess. They lock the lock on the bridge and then throw the key into the Rhein.)

And so to conclude on Sunday, I went with Claude to das Haus der Seidenkultur (House of the Silk Culture). And I recently found out that Krefeld is the Stadt wie Samt und Seide (the city like velvet and silk). Krefeld is a city that has already reached its pinnacle. Krefeld was once a very wealthy city, and Krefeld is known for having made handmade velvet and silk products, for example ties. I was told that Obama wears ties made by certain a company in Krefeld. After the wars, most of Krefeld was destroyed and the city started to lose its prestige, and due to changed times, the silk and velvet industries are computerized and mechanical. But, on a better note, I do have a respect for the people that spent so many hours doing, what I consider to be, such tedious work. But I felt like it was a great cultural lesson to learn more about what I've called home for the last six months.


On Wednesday, I'll be in Berlin for my End-of-Stay Camp. Amazing to think that I've reached this point in my year!

Bis dann,
Matt