Too Fun for Words

Okay, today is all about fun! I am currently in Bad Bentheim Germany for their Medieval Festival, and it has been worth every cent of the trip. Before I start running into my experiences here, I would like to give some advice to anyone reading this interested in international studies. Find something that you love doing at home (water skying, rock climbing, juggling, rock music, or whatever) and search for similar events in the country you are visiting. Given my own experiences working at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in Larkspur Colorado, well worth a a weekend to visit, the medieval festivals held the greatest appeal. Do not misread, being on my own in Germany was very exciting, but I could barely contain myself when I started to find different festivals that I could attend here in Germany. I now have some many things that I want to do, there is not enough time in my trip for me to see it all, especially if I plan to continue learning at the University. I am not too proud to admit, I am more than a little homesick, but planning these trips has already made the time pass faster and kept me excited.

For all students attending TU-Braunschweig, there is something important you should know. With your student ID you can travel through all of Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) on the commuter trains completely free (yes, free). When planning a trip, just make sure that the train you are taking does not cross out of Lower Saxony and that you are the right kind of train. Now that that has been said, here is a wonderful resource that I have used to find many different and interesting  events, like the Fireworks Competition in Hannover. The place to go is this link right here. If you are interested in Medieval Festivals like I am, or just want to give them a look, you will have to do some searching. Here are some links to the Bad Bentheim festival and Kaltenberg.

I would also like to give two more simple bits of advice from my own experience on this trip. Check your plans and be able to laugh at your mistakes. When I originally planned for this weekend, I found a Hotel that was less than a 15 minute walk from the festival. Apparently, that is not the link I clicked on, because when I arrived, I found out that my Hotel was actually about 8 km away. Instead of a 15 minute walk, I had a 1 hour 20 minute walk. This kind of thing will happen, just laugh and keep going. The festival was in the park right next to the Huge Castle, very hard to miss. Given how cheap the tickets were, there really were some top notch performers at the festival. It was just so wonderful that I could hardly wait to blog about it, and now that I am here, words are just failing me. I think I will just leave with very strong encouragment for others to seek out similar experiences and some pictures. Guten tag.