Thursday, May 19, 2016

Day 12: May 19th

Today we rode to Ulm in one of the high- speed trains, which was really cool because it only took us 40 minutes to get there.  As soon as we got there, we took a tour throughout the city.  It rained the entire day, so we all had umbrellas and raincoats on, but if it had been a pretty day I think Ulm would have been one of my favorite places to visit.  There were a bunch of rivers that went right through the middle of the city and in between houses.
The Ulmer Munster- the Lutheran Church in the center of town

Inside the church with the original stained glass that survived WWII

One of the walls of the church.  You can't really tell in the picture, but the wall on the left slants out.  The top of the wall is further out than the bottom of the wall.

The church from the back

Katha and I

Katie and I standing on the Ulm Wall

The Ulm wall, with some houses in the background

One of the rivers

After our tour, we went to a pancake house for lunch.  They served a lot of different pancakes, including sweet ones, savory ones and spicy ones.  I really liked this lunch, because I have only ever heard of sweet pancakes.  I got a savory pancake with ham and pineapple- basically the pancake version of a Hawaiian pizza.  The pancake was absolutely amazing, and I'll probably try and recreate it at home using crepes.   

The outside of the pancake house
This is how my pancake came

And how it looked after it was folded up

After the pancakes, we returned to Ulmer Munster, where we climbed up all 768 steps to the top of the spire.  768 steps is a lot, especially when you've already walked around all day!  The entire way up to the top we walked up a small spiral staircase, which had 2 different balconies and then the final top balcony.  I get very claustrophobic, so walking up over 700 steps in a small spiral staircase surrounded by many people and no windows was very, very difficult.  I was excited for the first balcony, because I thought I would have room to spread out and breathe, but it turned out to only be one little hallway only big enough for one person to fit through, and entirely closed in by walls and bars, which only made me more claustrophobic- at least the stairs gave me enough room to move my arms!

When we finally made it to the top, you could see all of Ulm spread out from all sides- it was beautiful!! I'm not sure that the view was worth 768 steps, but it was definitely really cool and it made for an amazing experience!  After we came down from the very top spire balcony, we all hung out on a wider balcony, where you could still see most of the city, but there was room to move around and lay down.   


Some pictures from the very top of the Ulmer Munster 

Me, Sydney and Veronica still looking energetic (mostly)- at the beginning of the climb

The three of us again at the end of the climb, at the very top

mid- climb (still alive but we're barely breathing!)

Me, Veronica, Sydney and Sam at the biggest balcony

Looking up from the biggest balcony- the column on the far left is the final spiral staircase up to the top

How small the staircases were- this one had plenty of windows!

Laying down at the top balcony

After we all got down from climbing, we took the train back to Augsburg, where we ran back to the hotel to change and then went to our last goodbye dinner with all the German students. This dinner was very fun, but very sad.  I sat next to Ben (SGL Ben) and we talked for a long time.  Tonight was probably one of the first times I had heard him talk, outside of talking about the project.  He only came on two different company trips with us, and no cultural trips, because he had signed up late.  The only time I saw him all week was during group project meetings.  I really liked talking to him and getting to know him, but it was bittersweet because this was our last dinner.  The other two boys in our group, Jan and Christoph, I had seen from the beginning so I already knew them pretty well and had the chance to talk to them.  As a whole, the goodbye dinner was really fun and we all had a great time, but it was sad to think about how I'll probably never see them again.  The German boys brought us gifts too-  a beer mug full of German candy and an energy drink version of Spezi.

As we walked home, the sunset was absolutely beautiful, and for me it kind of summed up our entire trip-  very unforgettable and beautiful, and I thought this sunset was a good way to start to end our trip.

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