Excursions II - Weimar

Our second stop during our class excursions was Weimar, where we stayed for 4 nights. I'd have to say that out of all of the places we visited, Weimar was one of my favorites - I think this has to do with the fact that, for me it felt more "German." By German I mean, it had the cobblestone road, the half-timber houses, the big open squares, etc. It's what I imagined Germany would be like before I came over here. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Berlin - it is my home away from home after all - the only thing is, it's an international city, so you don't really that get that "typical" German feeling that is more present in Weimar. There's also a lot of really good German food in Weimar (they have the best Bratwurst by far)!!!!

While we were in Weimar, we stayed at this, to be honest, what kind of appeared to be an abandoned building. But, don't worry, it wasn't. It's owned by one of professor's friends, who is in the process of turning it into a Yiddish Music School - random, I know. But it was actually a pretty cool place - it was pretty big, and there were so many places to go explore and check out! It was kind of fun living there, and we were also able to do a little community service, and help clean up the place some. We did work in the garden (raking leaves, replanting plants, building garden beds), as well as tear up flooring and tear down wall paper! It's a lot more fun than it sounds! lol!

As a good-bye to Weimar we all went out to dinner together at this German restaurant our last night there - and we all basically ordered the same thing - Kartoffel Klöße. They're sort of like potato dumplings, I guess, I'm not really quite sure how else to describe them other than to say that they were absolutely delicious!!! :-)

Here's a pic of them I stole from Google Images:

Overall, the thing I think I liked most about Weimar is that we had the most time to explore by ourselves - like we didn't really have any scheduled guided tours - so I feel like I really got to know the city and the people, more so than I did in other places where we would just follow a tour guide around. We got to go explore places like the Palace, the Market Square, some old ruins, etc. all on our own time and own pace - which was nice, I really liked it!