Stressfree Weekend

After 10 days of travel last week and midterms this coming week, I decided it was a good idea to just stay local and hang out this weekend. A lot of people had this same idea, so it wasn't too lonely being at the castle and I was able to catch up on a little R&R.

Friday I went to a town called Arcen that is about 10 or 15 minutes away from Well and went to a thermal bath/spa there. It was so relaxing and helped me really unwind. For 11 euros, you got 2.5 hours in the baths and saunas there. You could pay more for massages and stuff like that, which I passed on although it would be really nice to do if I had the money for it. However, there were about 5 or so different baths the size of pools that each had different kinds of jets and water falls. They even had a lazy river. Then on top of that they had about 6 different saunas, each of which had a different aroma in them. I left and every single muscle in my body was so relaxed and it just felt so amazing. The rest of the day I spent watching American TV shows online and eating food I bought at the grocery store.

On Saturday I went to Frankfurt, Germany for a few hours and met my friend Josefine for lunch. Josefine is a year younger than me and when I was a senior in high school, she was a foreign exchange student for the year. I haven't seen her in almost two years, but we have still kept in touch on and off since then. It was so nice to see her again. I left well at around 7am and got a bus to Nijmegen to get an 8:44 train to Frankfurt. The train took about 3.5 hours but it was not bad at all. When I got there around noon, Josefine was waiting for me on the platform. We spent about 2 minutes just hugging each other because we were so excited. She showed me around a little bit and it was really really nice. It wasn't the best place I have been so far, but it was really cute and it was fun to be there with her.


The center of town. Isn't it just SOO German looking?


Some skyscrapers on the Rhine.





Me and Josefine on top of some big mall that overlooks the city.



After walking around for a little bit, Josefine asked me what I wanted for lunch and I told her "Something really German...Like bratwurst." So we found a place that had cheap food (Only 2.20 euros for a bratwurst). It was delicious.


Me with the bratwurst.

After we ate and did some people watching, we decided to find a place where I could try this apple wine that Josefine kept talking about. It was like apple juice, but with alcohol. We sat at this bar/cafe place and just talked for about an hour. We had a really nice conversation about the differences in American and German cultures. We talked about what the Germans think of the Americans. Before I knew it, it was time for me to catch my train at 4pm back to Nijmegen. We said goodbye and I got back on the train again.

I was able to eavesdrop on some really dumb American girls who were sitting behind me, but other than that it was pretty uneventful. All the trains came when they were supposed to. One ran 10 minutes late, but in reality we got there at the same exact point it was supposed to come. I felt like this was good test to see if I am able to travel alone, and I believe I passed. There were a few times when I was a little unsure about what was going on, but I just trusted my instincts and it turned out to be right. After our travel break to Prague, I am going to Paris by myself and I was a little nervous about it at first. However after this weekend, I feel up to doing it. It is a little scary being on a train, surrounded by people all speaking a different language, with everything written in another language (I could not figure out how to lock the door to the bathroom on the train because everything was in German or Dutch, I'm still not sure. So I basically just peed really quick and hoped no one came in) crossing the border of a foreign country into another foreign country in which you know neither of the languages at all, but oh well, I live in a castle.