Welcome to Gaia! ::

[[ K, so, we get in to see all the people we were staying with holding a big sign saying welcome to germany, it made me smile so big! On the ride from Frankfurt to their school I stared out the window, it was so beautiful! With how south that is, the alps are close, so there are mountains and hills galore! And so much farm land, just for cattle too! Most of the crop farming was in a different area. For the first couple of days we went to school with them, kids stay in the same class except for some classes like music and science, and the teachers move around, and they get out at one.
The first city we visited was Bonn, and omg it is so beautiful, it was one of the old capitols, so it still has a bunch of old federal buildings from pre-wwII, and we went to a history museum, kinda boring, but full of facts. Then Cologne, to the cathedral, so many stairs!! 533 in a spiral tower with many four feet of room and people going up and down, though the view from the top was beautiful!! You could see the entire city, though the cathedral was under construction in most parts due to repairs (acid rain), so we didn't get to see much of it besides the tower. After that we went to the Lindt chocolate museum, it was really interesting, but my favorite part was that it closes at 6 to become the factory, because it's a fully operational factory that has those parts covered in thick plastic, so you can see everything, that and the gift shop is just chocolate ^-^
(( This will probably be out of order as my days blurred together))
We also went to Trier and toured the Roman ruins, they were so amazing, most of the buildings didn't use mortar to keep the stones together, though most were either repaired or the upper floors were ruined. The best part was that the Porta Neigra is the entrance into the outdoor shopping zone, were all the buildings bottom floors were transformed into stores, but the upper floors kept in their same old style. Though we got rained on and didn't get to see the... forgot the name, but their version of the Colosseum. Found out that people in Trier building basements tend to find ruins and destroy them so they don't have to move. The entire place is covered in ruins underground.
Koblez: We didn't do much here, but we went to Marxburg, which is the only castle that was never ruined, so everything was original save some fixtures like wood and windows. And it is illegal to build a bridge over the Rhein, so we took cable cars to see this old fortress up at the top of a mountain, then back down to see the rest of the city, and I'm pretty sure we went chopping here too for a couple hours. This is also where the Mosel and the Rhein meet, joining into just the Rhein, a big thing for German geography.
In Mainz we did boring tours of this radio and tv station, then another tour of the parliament building, because every state has a board of parliament, super old building, but beautiful, then to the Gutenberg press museum to take a picture for my mommy. You're not allowed to, but they let me(:
Frankfurt: We went to the zoo, and boy do I have a story for that!! So, this baby orangutan stuck it's hand out and one guy touched it, took a picture, then the other touched it and didn't see the mommy come, so she grabbed his arm, and bit his finger, almost broke his arm, and probably his finger, there was a space where you could touch the fence that nobody saw, and I knew these two, it was so effing scary, I was just standing there like full out flipping out. Then we went shopping and the one who got bit met us up and got his bangs dyed the colors of the german flag xD And I went shopping ^-^
We went to two public viewings for soccer, and boy to they love it, people dress all up for it! Germany won both games too(:
And Kirmes, we went to two, they're like huge parties in tents that have like some carnival stuff outside, the bigger the area the better they are, but either way they are so much fun!
Think that's everything, any questions? Like about stuff there? I could go on and on about a lot of it, but I can never think of the stuff unless it's asked(: ]]