So I was sitting on the tram today thinking to myself that I should write an entry... and I realized it had been this long. So silly of me- but I have been very busy. Since I last wrote, I have done so much. SO much. In order to keep everything straight, I will go about this entry using numbers. Cause that's how I feel tonight- I miss them. I think they'll be a tiny bit unnecessary, but who really cares. Also, the pictures appear to have uploaded backwards, so we're doing this counter-intuitively.
1. Fall is in full swing here in Baden-Wurtemburg. The colors are pretty amazing as the Black Forest transitions to fall. I am hoping to take a Halloween gondola ride up a mountain to enjoy the fall Colors. It's funny, Halloween is completely an American holiday. But it's beginning to come here. There were pumpkins and maybe a couple costumes available around town. I'm wildly curious to see what is going to happen tomorrow night since Vauban has a lot of families around. 
2. Today we went to Eurocorps in Strasbourg. It was all right. The speaker kept putting us on the spot asking us about things and acronyms we had never heard of before. We looked VERY stupid, and instead of defending us, our teachers were annoyed. Frustrating since it's their job to teach us the answers to those questions, and they were making us look worse. Oh well, only another 48 days with those fools. We had lunch at the base, and then drove further into France to go to this old WWI German military fort. You might say, 'German? But you were in France!' Well, let me tell you. Alsace has a very divided history as France and Germany basically took terms having it apart of their countries. During the late 19th century, Alsace was a part of Germany. Anyway. The base housed a TON of personnel and covered a square mile. The majority of the base was underground. We got to see trenches and machine guns and cannons. Pretty cool, but the idea of trench warfare is chilling. And I wouldn't want to be on the other side of those machine guns. If cooled properly they can go till they run out of bullets. Fortunately, it was never attacked so no one really died there. We kept joking that it was too bad France and Germany put so much effort and money into both wars since the US won them both anyway. We found this funny but our German professors didn't. Sorry, Herr Schuler, but I'm pretty sure he's just bitter since Germany lost. Twice. In Germany's defense though, it was just supposed to deter France from taking Strasbourg while the Germans headed through Luxembourg and Brussels in order to take Paris. This was effective, but clearly I don't understand warfare because I think Germany should have just gone around the fort and taken the town anyway. Good thing I'm not in charge, because for whatever reason, this would not have worked.
3. Last wednesday we went to Strasbourg to see the European Parliament. The building was pretty bizarre but the chamber was awesome. We got to listen through headphones as translators converted everything as it was said. Unfortunately the important stuff was happening later in the day so we may have outnumbered the parliamentarians. There are over 700 of them, so that is impressive. It was AWESOME though. Nigel Farrage, from the UK, went crazy about the Lisbon Treaty. He said President Klaus should hang-on so that the UK could democratically ratify because it hasn't yet (It has, thought not through a referendum, which is a good thing.). He won't recognize the Lisbon Treaty until it's put to a referendum in the UK. Then the Commission President said what he needed to then switched to English to rebuke Farrage. Farrage got angry, and with the rest of the UK delegation, walked out. AWESOME. You can see Farrage's speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Yq-pvV1
After that we went into Strasbourg which was beautiful. The pictures were taken there. We had a good laugh though. I think Strasbourg is a little confused. It's cathedral is called Notre Dame (Our lady) and across the square was the Museé de l'Oeuvre. Hehe. Get it? It's like Paris... but not at all. But it was beautiful. We had all you can each Flammkuchen. Only that's the German name. Hmm. Doesn't matter. It was like a very thin crusted pizza. Without red sauce. It's a very traditional meal from Alsace. It came in rounds, and we thought it was the same each time... but turns out it was 4 different varieties. Clearly I don't have a very developed palate. Oh well! But ohhhhhh the dessert ones ROCKED. One was apple cinnamon and the other was covered in chocolate chips. That's my kind of flammkuchen!
4. Last friday we went to a winery just outside of Strasbourg. Are you counting? That's three times in 2 weeks. How silly. Anyway. It was really fun. We got to taste a million wines, yumm. A course related trip? Oh yes. It was really fun. Have you ever had Winterwine? Or It's proper name is EisWine. So good. The one we tried tasted like honey. oh! And we got to taste a wine that wasn't all the way finished... or something... that was literally an alcoholic fruit juice. Yummy. And they had a Weissbergunder wine. WEISSberGUNDER(son). I obviously bought it. Two of my names in one wine? That's simply too good to pass up.5. I got the H1N1 vaccine. This was a traumatic experience. Hurray for universalized healthcare in Germany? NOT. Sketchiest vaccine I have ever received. Plus the one available here isn't the one available in the US because something in the one I received isn't allowed in the US. Great. And then due to some awesome side effects, I learned gingers are officially more likely to experience side effects than everyone else. Ridiculous. But it's okay. Sarah Root helped me out in my late night crisis (well it was late in Germany), and let me know I was okay. I am so glad she (and Miah) helped me. I was definitely in crisis mode. Well? Crisis averted. And once I'm finally not feeling a bit sick, I will be INVINCIBLE against the swine. Yesss. I plan to lick doorknobs to make sure I'm exposed to make it all worth it.
6. Back at the ranch, I've been so busy. They keep us glued to the books here. In the past two weeks, I have written a 7 page paper, researched and written a four page outline for my term paper, done a presentation of France in preparation for the Model EU, written a mid-term, turned in 14 homeworks, plus a million readings. Even though I spend a lot of time traveling, they sure kick our butts while we're in Freiburg. And even on the trips we have academic meetings about everyday we're away. Actually, these are fun sometimes when we have dynamic speakers. This happens about once a trip and it's amazing when it does. So... I may be traveling and seeing a lot, but I'm hitting the books hard. Don't worry- I'm not having TOO much fun. Haha. It was pointed out to me the other day that I haven't really talked about academics- and it's a HUGE part of my experience here so I thought I should talk about it a little.
So that was much longer than I intended it to be, but I've been been doing a lot! So much to update on. I will try to be better about updating in the future.
Happy Halloween!
Anna
PS. Kidding about licking the doorknobs. That's totally disgusting.
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