The Life of Diana

WOW I have been in America for some time now... and have only taken four photos!!!  This is not to say that I am not having a BRILLIANT time though.  I promise to start taking more photos soon though... I am in Cincinnati, Ohio right now with my family... and we cannot leave home... you actually will get arrested if you are caught driving right now!!! Can you believe it??? We got about 12 inches of snow.  But anyway here are some photos from when I was in NY.  I had a wonderful evening eating at Vegetarian's Paradise 2.... yummmm mango chicken.... and then hanging out with people at some bar... here we are at the bar...

hehe Lysandra is not an alchy... she swears!!!

Zion!!! Corona bottle blocked Lysandra's face!!!

Oh by the way... meet Lysandra and the infamous Zion.

And a wonderful (completely unflattering) photo of Scott and me.

hehe ok so yah Santa seems to have vomitted in NY more than normal too!!! AHHHHH Santa!!! Stoooooooooop!!! Awww I miss Rachel ;) and Shoop and Ness and Taty and everyone!!!! Merry X-mas... Happy Holidays... and a healthy and happy new years.... oh but I will re-wish you all that later.

Hugs,

Diana :)

I just got back from Germany early yesterday morning.  It was such a fun trip!!  Although, I am exhausted now hehe.  But I want to document my trip to Germany before I forget crucial moments (and before everyone on the trip hunts me down and kills me for not posting the photos before going back to America hehe).  I am going to NY tomorrow... so everyone make sure to come say bye to me today!!! I will miss all of you sooooo much!!

I woke up at 4:30 am on December 7th to catch a train from Cambridge to Stansted airport just to get to the airport and find out our flight was delayed a bit... but we did get a chance to meet everyone and learn everyone's names.

This is right across from the youth hostel we stayed in... Germany was completed spewed on by santa claus... christmas was EVERYWHERE... they even have christmas trees on their machinery.

After we checked into our youth hostel (Jugendherberge... hehe start learning German!!!)... we took the bus back into the center of Heidelberg.

Next we grabbed some food at this local restaraunt where many of us had Italian food... you will notice that trend throughout the trip haha.

Everyone on my side of the table ordered the same thing... it was meant to be macaroni and cheese... but it wasn't the good ol' processed Kraft type... it had some white soft cheese and tomatoes and weird things in it... but it was good.

After dinner we went to our first christmas market.

Here is where we taught Neo what a nutcracker was hahaha.

This is the cool building near the bus stop at the train station, which we spent lots of time at since our timing seemed to be so perfect for always missing the bus and waiting 30 minutes for the next one hahaha.

Everything was all lit up and pretty at night.

Neo... content with his newfound knowledge of nutcrackers haha.

Everyone was freezing so got gluhwein (hot mulled wine)... I just tasted a sip, but personally I think I prefer the kinder gluhwein (the kid's version without alchol hahaha).

Everyone sells gluhwein and gingerbread and chocolate covered everything... soooo yummy and pretty!!

hehe so I couldn't find a sign of Channukah anywhere... but this is about as close as I could find.

Gingerbread in just about every shape and size with just about any kind of decoration you can possibly dream of.

hehe I am admiring the gingerbread cookies... although come to think of it... I never even bough a gingerbread cookie... but I did have a taste of someone's.

What in the world is Neo eating here??? hehe why is it that everyone just ate constantly on this trip?? it is almost a good thing my stomach hurt the whole time!!

Group picture with the gingerbread hehe... me, David, Neo and Helena.

They had really cute scenes and people and insects made out of metal... all hand made.

They had lots of cute little chachkies (hehe spelling??) hand made out of just about any medium you might desire.

Who in their right mind names a store Schmuck's Paradise???

And the Christmas market just keeps going on and on and on...

This is kind of like the second Christmas market within Heidelberg.

I really wonder what people do here when it is NOT Christmas haha.

Everything is colorful and cheerful... check out these gorgeous hand made candles... insanely expensive though... well for American standards anyway.

These are SUCH cute oil lamps... the wicks are burned through the dragon's nostrels and so as it burns it looks like the dragon is blowing smoke and flames... SOOOO adorable... but also crazily expensive.

Group photo on the way to the bus stop... Helena, me, David, Oliver, Richard, Neo, Tonyee, Colin, Anitha, Chelsea, Sheena, and Katie... hehe and if I spelled or will mis-spell anyone's name... I am sooooooooo sorry!!! Just let me know and I will change it :)

Next day we went to the castle at Heidelberg.

The castle itself wasn't that gorgeous... in fact it looked a lot like ruins... although we didn't get to go inside since we had no tour guide, because the english tour was only at 11 and that would have been a loooong wait.

hehe I love the red tape... totally adds to the ambience ;)

YAAAY group photo... as I promised... posted online before Monday hehe. 

David... being smart... wearing a hat... as my ears freeze haha.

Cool looking entry way to the castle.

More ruins I think... not sure what it was used for haha.

This is the largest vat in Heidelberg? in Germany? in the world? haha well my German isn't that great as we will see later... but this is a huge vat... see us standing on top? The light blue dot is me ;)

This photo called for special options... so I ran down the stairs to take it myself hehe.

Colin and Oli with a smaller vat.

Chelsea and me with the smaller vat...

Ok so cool story... see the hole towards the bottom of the vat?  They used to send little children in through that hole to clean the vat, and they would tie a rope to the child... and as soon as the child stopped making noise, they knew they had to pull the child out by the rope because they had passed out from the fumes... and then they would send in the next child... now aren't you glad you weren't a child back then??

Never did figure out what this wheel was here for... other than for a cool photo opp!!

Crazy face group photo!!

The nicest part of the castle was the view... too bad the sky was rather overcast.

This is an overview of the town of Heidelberg.

The architecture was pretty cool.

YAAAY group photo in the tower!!

I wonder why most buildings have a red roof?

Prince Charming... come save me... I am trapped... hehe I feel like rapunzel almost... and the fact that my hair is super long might add to that sensation.

The sky, believe it or not, was actually blue in this direction... although you would never know it from how white it looks.

YAAY for group photos... here we actually became smart and decided to only have photos taken with my camera since I had an awesome camera and would definitely share them with everyone.

hmmmm now what should we do?

ohhh good idea... we can do our group's favorite thing... EAT hahaha!!

David and I split an apple strudel with vanilla sauce since there was no way we would both be able to eat our own... it was yummy, although I must admit that I prefer traditional american apple pie with vanilla ice cream more.

Here I am taking my first bite hehe.

Richard and Oli... both looking rather content...

Then we paid 2.50 euros to take a bus to the top of this huge hill / mountain... but it was too foggy and yucky so the view wasn't so hot... hehe this was our biggest waste of money on the trip for sure!!

The light fixtures were cool... or Sheena and I thought so... oh Sheena is the amazing girl who organized the entire trip... she studies German and French at Cambridge and spent a year basically going around Germany previously.

hehe we tried so hard to make it worth the 2.50 euros to go to the top... we squeezed every possible photo we could out of this place!!

And after 10 minutes we took the bus back down... doesn't this photo remind you if that scene from Stigmata on the subway?

Here is the christmas market during the day with the castle in the background.

Now lets zoom in on the castle...

This street is a classic German street... this is what I think of when I think of Germany.

And here is where we ran around from place to place begging for the use of a toilet hehe.

Isn't this tower, bridge, structure, whatever it might be called, really coool looking?

Of course we have to stop on the bridge for 50,000 more photos hehehe... being a tourist is fantastic!!

Photos with people in it are just so much more interesting!!

But we have some scenic pictures to be well rounded...

This sign says this way to the philosipher's path... hehe see how great my german is??

So we walked up 5,000,000 stairs called the philosipher's path and ummm contemplated life when we weren't dying.

And more importantly... we stopped to take crucial photos :)

Now we are about at the same level as the castle we were at earlier in the day... or so it seems...

David trying not to be in my photo...

But tooo bad... he has now just given in...

It looked so quiet and sweet looking down on it.

More scenic photos...

Group photo on top of this huge mountain.... wow what a trek!!!

My gorgeous artistic shot of the day... the full quality version of this photo is AMAZING... it really looks 3-D.

Finally... a shot without lots of trees and branches in the way...

Doesn't this look so peaceful?? I never thought I would think of Germany as being peaceful.... woah!!

hahahaha Arabs? Schmucks??? What does this sign say???????? Schmuck must not mean what we think it means in America.

And more Schmuck signs haha....

The signs are quite cute...

The crepes were uber yummy... and they had the best invention ever... a crepe filled with marzipan!!!

hehe not sure why I am making this confused look...

But this is where I laughed and blew powdered sugar all over everyone haha.

And next... guess what we did... we went to eat AGAIN!!!!

Nobody ate anything on my end of the table, so we just took lots of photos.

AHHHH we forgot Chelsea in the last photo...

The funny thing is that somehow after everyone "paid" we were short A LOT like 8 euros... but I guess that happens with HUGE groups... I didn't eat anything here though, so at least we knew it couldn't possibly be me YAAY!!

AAHHHH we need some entertainment!!!

Oh good... a photo with Chelsea's camera can count as a new form of entertainment.

The cute santa chocolate thing that our waiter gave us.

We ran out of things to do in Heidelberg, so we went to see the university... and we went in the library and saw this super old globe... so old that it doesn't even have all of America on it yet hahahaha.  The Cambridge UL is sooooo much better!!!

This is the outside of their uni library.

And here is the student jail hehe... no longer in use... but interesting...

Here is a bit about the student dungeon ("the karzer")... "It served from 1712 to 1914 as a prison for students, over whom the university administration had legal sovereignty.  Violations of public order could not be punished by the judicial authorities of the town.  Usual violations were: Disturbing the night-time peace by drunkenness, misbehaviour, chasing citizens' pigs and their squeaking piglets through the alleys, extinguishing street lamps.  These were minor "crimes" punished with up to two weeks in prison.  When the "Amtmann" (policeman) was teased, insulted or resistance was offered against him it often went to four weeks (the "amtmann" represented the State).  In the course of the nineteenth century and up to 1914, when the prison was closed because of World War One, it impaired the honour of a student not to have been imprisoned at least once during his time of study in Heidelberg.  There was no water in the prison flat.  It had to be fetched from the well in the courtyard.  There also was no kitchen.  For the first two days delinquents were "starved" on dry bread and water.  Later on they were allowed to have meals sen from the outside, from restaurants, landladies or friends.  Alchol was not prohibited.  They could visit each other in their "cells", receive visits from outside and even follow lectures.  There was a door to the university.  There were five cells with hard iron beds and straw mattresses, two tables in each room and a few stools.  Many prisoners engraved their names in the wood.  To kill time they played cards and decorated walls and ceilings in their rooms and the staircase with the silhouettes of thei fellow prisoners, the coats of arms of their fraternities, the date of their imprisonment and funny verses.  In those days, nearly all students were members of a fraternity.  There was a big variety of fraternities, wearing different "colours" (uniforms, special hats and ribbons across the chest).  Many of them were hostile against each other and fought in duels.  Unauthorized duels were sentenced with imprisonment.  The black colour of the ceiling paintings is candlesoot, for the walls students used soot of their small iron stoves, now protected with varnish.  Other colours were brought in from outside.  Some students left their photos imbeded in the doors of their rooms.  Cells were "baptized" with names like Sanscouci (after the Prussian palace in Potsdam), Grand Hotel, Palais Roal.  The bathroom was named Royal Throne.

Awwww poor little Diana is locked in the student dungeon.

Here is one of the cells... you can see the silhouttes they made of each other out of soot.

Yuck... who would want to stay here??? I thought youth hostels were bad!!

Such comfy looking beds...

I want to know who really studied while in here? And if they didn't study... why did they need a desk??  Ohhhhh I know... because they needed something to engrave their name in.

Group photo... everyone looks so happy to be in prison haha.

David and I aren't happy... we are soooo good to go!!!

Oh my gosh... Richard must have been in here in his past life.

And David is out...

The words written in soot on the ceiling... I wonder what it all means haha...

Names engraved in the table...

Then we went shopping and to the Christmas market at Heidelberg again for the second night... this store had such cute boquets of tea and coffee!!

The next morning (december 9) we took the train to Ludwigsberg.

And of course... first thing we do... eat!! This pastry was quite crumbly and yummy... good choice!!

Neo's cookie was strange... it was super soft... and lemony.

And ever German's favorite thing... SAUSAGE!!! In any shape, size and color you might want!!

This is an overview of their Christmas market at Ludwigsberg... isn't the sky gorgeous for once??

They had fairly cool kaleidoskopes... but they were crazily expensive.

We decided to go see a nice palace... this is the garden of the palace.

The sun was so bright that we couldn't even open our eyes hehe.

David is trying so hard to keep his eyes open.

The excellent thing about my Nikon is that you can take two pictures in a row very fast... so that even if my eyes are closed in one, they aren't in the next one.

And the great thing about digital cameras is that you can just take photos of signs before you go do anything so you can remember the names of the places you go and what you see.

hmmmm I wonder if they made the land in front so large so it could fit lots of buses hahaha.

The outside of the palace.

And more of the outside of the palace...

And finally we are in... this is the carriage.

And the grand entrance...

This is the main room that you wait in if you were the visitor of the king.

Check out the chandelier...

This place had amazing chandeliers in just about every room!!

Another gorgeous chandelier... although the room is being worked on.

This is the inside waiting room for the king.

With yet another nice chandelier.

This is the king's throne... it has three steps leading up to it wheras the queen's throne only had two to show she was less important...

The benches were Egyptian inspired due to the influence of Napolean going to Egypt and bringing back that style to become popular in Europe.  Also, the big gold wine containers were given by a vineyard to the king, because he drank so much wine and was a valued customer.

This is the king's bedroom... he was apparently very fat, and although you can't see it in this picture, he had a painting of him with his white horse which was important to him, because she could actually kneel down so he could mount her... before with other horses they had to use a machine to hoist him onto the horse haha.

Here is a closeup of the King's bed and the door you see leads to the back staircases where the servants lived and could come wait on him if he ever rang a bell.

The king collected clocks, so he had tons of clocks throughout his palace.

Being a very fat man... the king's life revolved around food.  He even had this special clock which is a canon that you fill with gun powder.  It used to be outside in a garden, and whenever it would be noon, the sun would shine directly down and cause the gun powder to explode so the canon would go off, and the king would know it is noon and time for lunch.

This is a special lunar clock... hehe told you he loved clocks...

This is behind the scenes, where the servants used to work and live.

These are the creepy staircases for the servants.

And more creepy stairs...

This is the table the servant's used to eat at and prepare the king's clothes... the king and queen used to change clothes up to 15 times a day!!! Although they did not bathe often... maybe once a month... and they always had a doctor present because they thought it was bad for you because you sweat water and they thought the water only got in from bathing.

And next we went to the Queen's side of the palace.

This is the Queen's waiting room.

And this is her bedroom... much nicer than the king's in my opinion.

That chair in front of her bed is a special toilet chair that she would "go" in and then the servants would take it to clean it outside... so whatever room she was in, was the bathroom!!

This is a portrait of the king when he was old.

This is a picture of the queen's "microwave"... the kitchen was in a different section so that the kitchen smells would not fill the palace... but the queen wanted food hot and ready when she was hungry (she, like the king, was rather fat hehe)... so they would make a fire inside of this and keep food on the flat tray surface on top which would be warm from the fire, and ta da... instant microwave :)

This is perhaps the most gorgeous hall in the palace...

It has portraits of kings and their wives (only the wives that gave birth to a son that would become the king)... and the porcelain urns were considered very rare and expensive back when they were purchased.

This is the theatre in the palace.

The king loved theatre and even liked acting himself.

They still have shows here in the summer, which sell out very fast... but unfortunately it is FREEZING inside during the winter, so there are no shows then.

This is one of the church's inside.

And another nice hall.

This was the king's casino where they played chess or poker.

Although, it was considered dangerous if the king or queen did not win.

This room was covered in mirrors because back then mirrors were almost as expensive as gold, so it showed how important the king was.

Here is an aerial view of the gardens.

The painting of the king in the back of this room is really freaky... it follows you with its eyes wherever you go.  And the ceiling has a gorgeous painting that makes it look rounded even though it is flat.

Here is the king's throne... well another throne anyway...

And here is yet another church... because apparently the king and queen had slightly different beliefs haha.

This is apparently what the palace looks like in the summer.

How confusing is this sign??? It points in a gazillion directions with tons of names.

This is the castle that Rapunzel lived in from the fairy tale apparently... or at least it is called Rapunzel's tower.

Neo and I got lost looking at the ducks... but don't worry we found everyone hehe.

This is the palace for a different season... but we didn't go inside.

Even the crosswalk light signals have little red men that look like christian crosses... this country is scary!!!

FREEEEEEEEEZING so drinking kinder gluhwein.

Anitha and me huddling for wamth.

Me coming up with a great thing to tell the waiter who was being rude to us... caption above my head reads "hmmmmmmm how do I say I want to punch you??"

Neo confirming the brilliant plan...

GRRRRRRRRR see what happens when you confuse slap and snake??

Shoooooooooot we missed the direct train.

So Sheena came up with a new plan when she wasn't sleeping...

While Neo just relaxed and read the Greek paper.

And Oli read his book about the biography of the english language.

And David read.... AHHHHHHH why was everyone reading???

Even Chelsea read haha..... wow an american reading???

Train #2... Neo still working on the greek paper...

And I am dying in stomach pain WAAAAAAAAAAAH

December 10 we packed up and left the hostel in Heidelberg and went to Stuttgart for the night.

This is the hostel lobby... does it look hospital-ish to you?

When we got to Stuttgart, we went to a Chinese restaraunt for lunch.

The other table actually ate with chopsticks... unlike my table hehe.

The Christmas market at Stuttgart was HUGE!!!

It was by far the biggest one we went to... but still almost everything was the same as was sold at all of the other markets.

This is some special palace we didn't go inside of hehe.

This is my picture with a green santa that Sheena wanted to take soooo badly... hehe Sheena is so adorable!!

These are really gorgeous and cool glass things made by hand.

We originially we going to go to 42nd Street the broadway show... but the cheap tickets were sold out... so we went to holiday on ice... an ice skating show.

we were quite bored before the show hehe.

So we had Colin take our photos.

This was what the stage looked like before the show began.

Me with Sheena... YAAAY you were so amazing Sheena... the trip went so smoothly!!

The stage when the show began.

Seceretly Chelsea and I took photos without flashes since they weren't allowed... but didn't they come out well?

They had funky music, bright colors and amazing skills.

During intermission we figured out what the cot that was near the stage was there for... for little boys who get overly excited about the second half of the show and pass out haha.

The ice skaters going around in circles...wheeeeeee!!

And the battle between the red and white people.

The dancing carousel scene...

The pirate ship began coming out...

And the canons went off...

And the grande finale... hehe there was no real story line or theme... the entire thing was kind of random hahaha.

And then we made a mad dash for the door to be sure we didn't miss the train back.

Our hostel in Stuttgart was so scary... but the british kids all thought it was very luxurious... good thing i never stayed in the really scary hostels in that case!!!!!

They even charged us 3 euros extra for the nasty unmatched sheets!!! What chutspa!!!

Me by my bed in the corner of the wall that was painted to look like blood was dripping out of the wall AHHHHHHHHHH!!!

December 11 we went to the airport at the crack of dawn for our flight home.

We had breakfast at the airport.

I had a croissant with marzipan in it yummmmmy yummmmy!!! I look sooo sleepy!!

The trip was super fun, and I hope we plan lots more trips together!!! If any of you come to NY ever, totally let me know so we can get together and hang out... and you won't have to stay in a scary freaky hostel hahahaha.

Hugs,

Diana :)