September 2012
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June 2012
11 posts
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Differences between England and the States.
This should come as no surprise but while I’ve been in England, I’ve noticed some unusual differences between the States and here. And driving on the opposite side of the road isn’t one of them.
The Brits don’t have much American junk food and what they do have, the have to pay an arm and a leg for. $14 for a box of Lucky Charms? You wouldn’t pay more than $5 in...
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Day 5- Magdalen College
Yesterday, Leslie and I had a leisurely morning. We decided to not attend the lecture for the day and instead lounged in our room writing postcards and checking email.
For lunch, we made our way over to Pret, a local sandwich chain that makes their sandwiches fresh each day and gives the leftovers to local homeless shelters. Once we grabbed our lunches, we attempted to find a place to sit and...
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Day 4- The Kilns, the Scholars, and the Pubs
Today, we headed off to the Kilns, which is where C.S. Lewis lived from 1930 til his death in 1963. We were lead around the house by the Scholar in Residence, Johnathan, who actually lives at The Kilns. We also met the cat Warley, named after C.S. Lewis’s brother who lived at The Kilns with him. The cat took a liking to anyone who would pet him.
While touring the house, we learned that...
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Day 3- Palaces and Walks
This morning, Leslie and I went to Blenheim Palace with her cousins. The drive was only half an hour and it was really nice. From the outside, the palace reminded me of Schloss Sansouci in Postsdam, Germany. The outsides looked very similar, but Blenheim is much bigger.
We started our day at the palace in the gardens, which were very pretty. We stopped at the little temple where Winston...
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Day 2- Church, Shopping and Football
Today started with a Full English breakfast, which was quite good. The stereotype of the British not drinking coffee is totally false, though. We had coffee with breakfast and it was good (not the watery, shameful excuse for coffee I had on the flight over). During breakfast, we discovered that more of our lost travelers had made it in late last night.
After breakfast, we headed off to Church....
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Day 1 - Travel and Arrival
The trip started off quite well. Leslie and I left VA around 7am for Atlanta and things went off without a hitch. We thought we might have to be switched to a later flight because they’d overbooked the one we were on, and we had plenty of time to spare before our flight from GA to GB, but everyone was able to fit on the plane and things went as planned.
We got to Atlanta and strolled...
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Tonight's fortune cookie: "You will step on the...
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Here's the plan for this blog:
Posts will be made between 6 and 8 pm EST, which means that they will be queued as it’ll be between midnight and 2 am GMT when the posts go up.
I will update with text posts daily; photo posts will depend on the internet speed. I will try to have a “Photo of the Day” everyday.
Posts will start Saturday 23 June
Less than a week left!
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10 days til Oxford!
So much to do between then and now!
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Coming Soon: JessitheBlonde in Oxford!
We leave in 2 weeks. And I can’t wait.
January 2011
18 posts
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Day 11: Reunified Germany/LEGOLAND
We were supposed to learn about Reunified Germany, but we were able to cover most of it during the other days here. The only thing left was the Reichstag Building, which Sara said was best to see at night.
We woke up about 9 and decided to go to Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast instead of having the breakfast downstairs. I think we’re all sick of bread and meat & cheese for...
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Day 10: East Berlin
We started our day by heading to another Soviet Monument, but this time, it was in East Berlin. The monument was MASSIVE. It was set-up like a park and you entered through an archway. Then, after walking a few yards, we came across a statue of a mother who was facing the main part of the monument. We looked in the direction she was facing and saw the biggest statue of the trip, on top of a hill,...
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Day 9: West Berlin (or the day I busted my butt on...
We stopped at Brandenburger Tor so Dennen could get his donut fix for the day and it was the first time we got to see it while the sun was out. I also stopped to get a pretzel, which was good, but I still prefer Auntie Ann’s from home. There were guys dressed up like the Green Army men from Toy Story at Brandenburger Tor, so we of course had to take pictures with them. …well, I took...
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Day 8: Nazi Berlin
Today was kind of miserable. It was sprinkling when we started our day and by the end of it, it was full on raining. And I forgot to grab my umbrella, so I was pretty much soaked by the end. =(
We started our day by walking down the street from our hotel to see signs that had been put up on Bayercher Platz. The plaques had some of the laws that were placed on Jews, like they could only shop from...
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Day 7: Jewish Berlin (or Preserving History:...
Today we went to several significant Jewish sights in Berlin. It was another day of finding things that don’t exist.
The New Synagogue, which some of the group thought was a Mosque the first time we saw it several days ago, was rebuilt after the war ended. It was very pretty from the outside, but as we entered, we had to have our bags and coats scanned and go through a body scanner. It was...
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Day 6: Weimar Germany
Today we got to see parts of Weimar Germany. We stopped at a Jewish cemetary to see that many grave stones were damaged and to realize that there were not people to fix up the cemetary and keep it looking nice. Nina and I both felt like we needed to help clean up the cemetary ourselves; placing gravestones back on their pedistals and such. It was so different than PATs visit to Elmwood Cemetary...
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Day 5: Free Day (Trip to Schloss Sanssouci)
So today had a bit of a late start. We got up at 8 and had a leisurely breakfast before Rebecca and I made our way towards Schloss Sanssouci in Potsdam. Once we got on the U-Bahn, we had no issues getting to Potsdam, however, once we got there we were completely lost.
We didn’t have a map of Postdam and our tourbooks only covered Berlin, so we started off in the complete opposite direction...
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Day 4: Old Berlin or "Church Day"
So today was a church day. We visited 4 historical churches plus the East Berlin TV tower, which was supposed to be for another day, but it was unusually sunny so we decided it was best to use the sun to our advantage and see the city from above. But more on that later.
First, we headed for Nikolaiveirtel (Nicholas Quarter), a reconstructed version of midevial Berlin. Not 3 minutes after leaving...
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Day 3: Der Mauer (The Berlin Wall) or "We're in a...
-“5% rule” -meaning that there’s a 75% chance that it’s this direction, 20% chance it’s in the other direction and a 5% chance that it’s in a third direction we didn’t know about.
Today was all about looking at/finding things that don’t exist anymore. Our first stop of the day was to the original city wall for Mideval Berlin. It was interesting to...
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Day 2: Schloss Charlottenburg
So, today we went to see Schloss Charlottenburg (Charlottenburg Palace). It was named after Sophie Charlotte who was the first Queen of Prussia. She had it built for her summer palace. It’s very pretty, as you can see in the picture below.
The grounds were very icy, so the main goal was to not bust our butts before we got inside. Dennen was the only one to fall, today, but that was...
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I finally slept. Then woke up at 3am, then again...
I decided it was best to just stay awake, instead of trying to go back to sleep.
I also got instructions for the breakfast buffet in German…didn’t understand a word. Thank God for hand gestures/people who talk with their hands, otherwise I would have just had coffee and a roll.
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Day 1
Guten Tag!
We’re finally in Berlin! After an hour flight, a 5 hour layover and an 8.5 hour flight we’re finally here. I haven’t really slept yet, just little snoozes on the plane every few hours. I probably won’t sleep until we’re in for the night. I did get to watch “The Social Network” on the flight, which was nice.
Anyway, after a minor freakout...
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It's Packing Day!
We leave tomorrow, so the group has been packing and getting ready all day. I just have a few more things to add, then I’ll be all set. I still think I’m bringing more than I really need, but it’s better to be over prepared, I guess.
ALSO: If you don’t see any posts after the 7th, it probably means that I either don’t have internet, or there isn’t cheap...
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Hi there!
This blog is going to be used to document VWC’s trip to Berlin, Germany. Expect lots of pictures and at least one text post per day of what we did/where we went. I hope you guys enjoy this.
The adventure starts in 3 days!
