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Well I don't have much time so I'm not sure how long or detailed this will be but here it goes. Oh and no judging on grammar or spelling, POW. I have now been in Europe for a little over a week, I guess this is officially my 8th day in Europe. I left on a flight with my friend Elliott from DFW after a frantic evening of packing. I had had my Organic Chemistry II final the previous day which was 19 pages of an culmination of 10 weeks of materials encompassing 22 chapters. I say that because it explains why I wasn't able to get things together much before the departure. The flight went from DFW to Amsterdam which was about 9 hours. It was pretty rough. I of course was lucky enough to be seated near a screaming child and behind someone who never had his seat in the upright position. During the final hours of the flight, I was standing and walking around quite a bit. We landed in Amsterdam and had a short layover until our flight to Gotenberg, Sweden. In Sweden we had a little bit of a scare in the airport, but we got it all sorted out. In Sweden we stayed with the Shasteen family. Mrs. Shasteen was my tennis coach all through high school and always had said I was welcome to come to Sweden to stay with her and her family. The Shasteen's have three great kids that I knew from when they lived back in the USA, and Mr. Shasteen is a Texas native which was great. Elliott and I had an amazing time in Sweden. It was really a beautiful country. We were able to tour around Gotenberg which is the second largest city in Sweden and also able to see some of the not so populated hills of Sweden. Elliott and I took alot of pictures while we were there because of how nice everything was. I will put a link to the pictures at the end of this. Our only regret about Sweden was that we didn't have much time. We were able to see many things and spend some great time with the Shasteen's, but it wasn't long enough by any means. Oh and by the way, there are ALOT of very good looking people in Sweden just like you may have heard. We were only in Sweden for 2 nights and then we were off to Germany.
From Gotenberg Elliott and I flew to Berlin then to Nuremberg where we were picked up at the airport by the Jojo Hirmke and her family. Jojo went to Meridian Community College with both Elliott and me. I was very very excited to be in Germany for the first time. Living in Lindsay and being part of a family that comes from Germany it was very exciting to finally be in a place that I had always heard so much about. We stayed in a town called Bamberg. Bamberg is a world heritage site and has many beautiful places and things to see. There is a town hall that was constructed in the middle of a river, an area known as Little Venice along that river, 10 breweries for a town of 70,000 which does not include the breweries just outside the town, a cathedral thats over 1000 years old,and many other churches. Bamberg is also the basketball capital of Germany, which the Hirmke family is very much a part of. Jojo plays college basketball, her boyfriend plays pro-basketball, her dad is a basketball coach, and all her brothers and sisters play. Bamberg has a week long beerfest which we were lucky enough to be around for. It was alot of fun, and we were able to hang out as many of the locals did. We also traveled to Nuremberg, Germany. Many of you may have heard of Nuremberg because of the Nuremberg Trials for WWII. Nuremberg was also pretty much the government capital for Hitler, and we were able to see where he held his government. In Nuremberg we visited a old castle and were able to get some great pictures from the top of it of the entire city of Nuremberg. Germany was a really great country, and we had a great time there. Again the only thing lacking was more time there. I hope to be able to visit Germany and Sweden again soon in the future.
We are now finally in Spain. Elliott is in a hostel for the first bit of time then he will be taking a tour for a few days since his program doesn't start until the 1st of September. I, however, am already in a hotel with my program going through the orientation process. I will get assigned to my host family tomorrow and classes start Monday. Today we did have a small walk about town, and I was able to visit the cathedral here in Sevilla. The cathedral here houses Christopher Columbus's tomb which was very exciting. The cathedral is huge and beautiful. It is the largest Gothic style building in the world. Volume-wise it is the 4th largest church in the world and by floor plan it is the 5th largest church in the world. The interior is decorated like you would not believe and is incredible. It has parts that are from the 8th century, but I'm not sure when the entire thing was built. It has Roman stones at the bottom of it from ruins. Anyway, we have more orientation stuff tonight at 5. I think Elliott and I are going to watch tennis until around then. Until next time.
oh... this got a bit longer than I had expected... oh well. I'm going to put the links to my pictures below this and I should be posting pictures as much as I can. I'll try to let people know when I update this blog too.
Pictures:
Joe
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