Busy

Hey all,

I know that i created this blog in hopes to write more often and keep track of things to inform everybody of back home. But it is kind of tough because during the mornings and afternoons o have class and that is when all the shops are open so always have to get groceries early and trying to get homework and such and then by the time night rolls around everybody is being social and your still doing leftover readings for you classes and all you want to do is relax a little. That's normally what the weekends are for back home to sit at home and do nothing maybe go out one night with friends but mostly do nothing but watch football and play video games with a little homework on Sunday. Here is a totally different story because half the reason people come here to study is to travel so on the weekends is the best time to do that. So once you make it through the busy week which also includes planning all the trips and booking travel and accommodations then you get on a train and try and see as much as you can of this completely foreign city with which you have a free map from the hostel and a couple broken phrases in the native language which you attempted to learn the week before. I would have to say that even though it is a lot of work and some stress it is well worth it. I am thoroughly enjoying the education and travel while over here. This last weekend was definitely one of my favorite weekends for some reasons which aren't what i expected when coming here. OK so.... It all started in class on Friday when my real good German friend (Philip) asked where i was going this weekend and i told him a couple places we had considered but we weren't sure due to the large presentations we had to give on the following Monday(which was today and my presentation went great, thanks for asking) but one of the places we had considered was a day trip to Cologne (Koln for the Germans) Germany but we were not sure. When i mentioned cologne he stopped me and said that he was actually from Cologne and was going home this weekend on Saturday and would give us a ride and we could stay at his place. I was so happy, in less than 5 minutes i had booked travel and a place to stay all for free haha. So we set out Saturday morning in Phillip's car, the 5 of us me, Brad and Mike from Butler University, Phillip and Ines one of our female friends from Portugal. The drive alone saved us a ton of money and an hour each way. It actually made me feel at home some because this was the first time i had been in a car for much time at all and back home everybody drives everywhere. Anyway we got to cologne and set out after Phillip printed off a map with a couple things that we wanted to check out. I will post pictures on facebook here in the next couple days but we went to the largest cathedral in Germany first and ate a bratwurst and fries from a street vendor which was delicious then we set off to the river which cuts through the city, there really wasn't much else to see in the city besides a couple museums which we didn't feel like going to. So we went to this bridge which also had a cable car track going over it and the river. We all bought round trip tickets for like 4 euro and went across. It was really cool actually despite the fact it was cold and rainy i was having a great time. Next we got to the other side of the river in the middle of a big park with really no idea of what to do next until we spotted a playground. Now this was no normal playground, it was awesome, it's like every ten year old boys dream, there was a sweet ropes course which was still challenging to me haha and a couple really big slides, a tire swing, and a mini zip line. So long story short we had fun and it was a really chill relaxed kind of fun. after that we went back to Philip's house had some dinner and he took us too one of his German friend's birthday party in Bonn. That was also really cool because they were all German and then us, but they were all very welcoming and friendly so it was a nice and fun evening, something we really couldn't of planned on our own. That is how my weekend went though and it was nice haha. But as i mentioned before i am still keeping busy as i am now starting to work on my 45 min case presentation for my class on Friday since i just finished my 30 min one today. As busy as i am still do love to hear from you and sorry if i do not respond right away or anything because just a lot going on, tough to remember sometimes!

Thanks for all the interest and contact,

Much Love

Devon Latimer

Friends

Hey,

Like i said i was going to start this week and start posting random stuff to just update any and all people so here goes haha. Ok so as stated in the title i have made many friends while over here and by now i've started to hang out with some more than others and it is always nice to start to get to know people more and more. I was initially hanging out with a lot of kids from california and those are the people that most of my pictures of traveling are with. They are a lot different than me but still from the states so most things are similar. It is really interesting to see how liberal a lot of people on the west coast really are! It's not a bad thing just very different than the surroundings i was raised in in my small town. I've also recently been hanging outj with a lot of Australians and they are a lot of fun becuase they speak english as there first language but its a very different english than ours. They ahve so many cool sayings and phrases they use and slang terms that are so different than ours. For instance in stead of McDonalds or Mickey D's as a lot of Americans call it they call it Mackers. I mean there are a ton of words its really funny. It is really funny to me when i'm talking to people who speak english as their second language and they use words or tenses that don't totally fit, i mean i don't laugh at them i just enjoy the little grammar mistakes. I have no room to talk though because for most of them it is at least their second if not third or fourth language and i only speak spanish otherwise but in no way am i fluent. There are two guys i hang out with a lot now and they are both from indiana so like we all come from a small townish and like very similar and they're just easy to get along with. Other than that i do have so many other friends from all over i have met, Argentina, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, everywhere its really nice. Also just on a separate note I am enjoying these theme nights with friends at this local pub type thing where everybody dresses up and goes out and dances its a lot of fun, like last night was hawaiian night and it was a good time. Also I will be going to a Netherlands vs. Sweden Socccer match tonight and am soo pumped! Thats some current news and just some random stuff going on here!

Welcome

Hello,

Just wanted to post something short on here so that when i started to tell people about the blog the wall wasn't blank. I think that i will continue to use this instead of writing letters out unless some people cannot access this. But this blog is nice because i can post from an email and i can also post random pictures and videos which i haven't been putting on facebook. If you have any questions feel free to ask i'll probably start blogging here in about a week or so and you can then follow based on how much you want too.

Much love,

Devon