3 more countries! Part:DUBLIN

An update from Dublin, London and Krakow will come shortly after I bake some brownies and eat them 😀 hold tight

Ok so, the brownies turned out pretty ok. Nothing compared to american boxes brownies—oh my word.
Anyway, I finally caught up on all the sleep I missed while on my big trip. Let us begin with why I took this trip in the first place. Its goes back to the castle at namedy and all the students from all the countri
es who were there. One of my Trier friends, Kerstin (pronounced “cas-teen”), who started talking to one of the boys from Ireland and so when they were leaving they told us to visit and she and I said heck yes we’ll visit. So after weeks of me waiting for her to get back with me to finally plan something real she backed out so she could buy a new camera. It turned out to be ok though, because I quickly recruited Jenn to come with me to dublin, and to persuade her to go to Krakow, too so I could see the cute boy from the castle I threw in London- her dream city- into the itenerary as well. We found the 5 plane tickets we needed for real cheap on ryanair and everything was
booked in a couple days!
We arrived in Dublin noonish and the city was so cute and awesome and small and we walked around almost the whole thing on that first day. We went all the way down O’Connell Street, over the Liffey Bridge, past the Temple Bar and a Big Cathedral BUT the most important stop we made was at the Guinness Storehouse, which in the eyes of us two designers and Guinness lovers was a glorious place. The typography and design of the whole exhibit was really nice and after learning how its brewed and looking at years of old advertising campaigns we made it to the top for our free pint! And the guy who poured my pint made a four leaf clover on the top of the Guinness so I asked it he could do anything else, and he said he could make a heart but I’d have to earn it 😉 I tried..
We finally met up with Luke (our Dublin friend who Kerstin had been talking to) and he was running late for his soccer game so he took us to watch. I couldn’t believe I got to watch a live soccer game in Ireland. Turns out they weren’t the best and lost 4-0, but it rained a little on and off and I got a lot of pictures of rainbows that were forming everywhere! We stayed at his house with his family and the next day we shopped on Grafton Street, and tried to get into the public library to ogle the stacks, but there were none to see so I had to be content with taking an illegal picture of the reading room. 🙁 We asked an old man working there where all the books were and he explained in detail how the process worked. We kept talking to him and he told us all about this one book he though we would like, and then asked us if we were going to get drunk that night, haha, which Jenn answered “a little.” Then he asked how many pints of Guinness Jenn could drink and she promptly answered “10” to which he thought was quite amazing and told the next 4 people who walked by that “this girl here can drink 10 pints of Guinness.” I love the Irish.
That night after a yummy indian dinner we met up at the Village Bar to watch the Barcelona vs Man U game, which was really awesome to be in Ireland for as well. I couldn’t believe how expensive everything was there— one Guinness cost 6 euros!! But after buying one Guinness each we didn’t pay for anything else the rest of the night. More of our Dublin friends from the castle showed up, and it was so good to see them again! They paid for our drinks the rest of the night and I tried some Baileys on ice which was very tasty, and very authentic of course.. This was the night we were planning on staying up all night because our flight to London was the next morning at 6 ish. So we left the bar with them and all their friends that we met, and we went looking for a place to dance, but it was too expensive to get in, so Luke and Dave decided to give us a proper night tour of Dublin. We walked all through the streets while they gave us history, and it was really cute how much they knew and how passionate they were about their little country 🙂 We stopped at the Burger King which seemed to be the meeting place for all Dublin kids at 3 am, and chilled until it was time to go catch a cab. Oh and also, there were bouncers at BK because Irish people get so fiesty.. crazy.


An extra long synopsis of Amsterdam

Finally back in Trier from a long few weeks of travel travel. Two days after I got back from the castle I left for Amsterdam to celebrate Queen’s Day with the 5 Americans and some of our friends from Trier—Oula from Finland (he also just answers to “Finland”), and Jelena and Marthe who are both from Holland. The girls drove Anie, Jenn and I which was really awesome because we got to save a bunch of money and drive on the autobahn and see the countryside of Germany, Belgium and Holland on a short little road trip. We even got Cheetoes for Anie at a gas station and other junk food items to get the real road trip feel. Marthe dropped us all of in Jelena’s hometown of Den Bosch, and then headed to her hometown while we split from Jelena to take the train the rest of the way to Amsterdam to meet the rest of the kids coming in by train from Trier. We had 4 hours until they arrived so we left the train station in Amsterdam and we didn’t get more than 15 meters from the station before Anie was asking people where the closest coffee shop was. Jenn and I walked away pretending like we weren’t with her, but surprisingly enough she found 2 brazilian girls looking for the same thing so we made quick friends and walked together to a busy looking area of the city and stopped in the first shop we came to. I took pictures and had a coffee as Jenn and Anie excitedly partook in the novelty Amsterdam traditions 😛 We continued on our exploration and saw the city setting up for the Queen’s day festivities with people prematurely sporting their orange garb, found chocolate covered waffles and ate them, and stumbled upon the red light district on our search to find orange tights to wear the next day. No luck, so we wen’t back to the train station and met the others then took the train to Haarlem, just 10 min out, to meet Oula’s finnish friend, Meija (may-uh) who we were staying with.


She met us at the station and we followed her to her dorm. Her room was insanely big and the floor was covered with a motley of mattresses she had found for us! She was awesome. I went to sleep early because my cold was getting worse :/, and the others joined the Queen’s Day Eve party that quickly moved to the city bars when they ran out of beer. Kind of a bummer since they got to meet all the floormates, but I was happy to be fresh for Queen’s Day. We got an early start and left the dorm at 9am to stop by the grocery store and then catch the train to amsterdam! The train was packed with some people already drunk, and when we got off the train in Amsterdam it was like an orange St. Patrick’s day in Chicago. There were so many people it was insane. The whole morning we walked the streets looking at people’s outfits, dancing to the music that people-packed boats were playing in the canals, smelling foods cooking in stands, looking through all the junk that people had laid on blankets to sell and fervently searching for a space brownie for me and KP, which we soon realized did not exist in Amsterdam.

We finally met up with Meija and the kids from her dorm in a park where everyone was just laying and smoking and drinking and eating yummy stroopwafles and chillin. KP and I had given up on the brownie and opted for a space brownie which made the short walk there pretty funny, but once our butts hit the grass we passed out for a couple of hours. When I woke up Jenn painted my nails orange, and then we left to find food with KP and stumbled upon a loempia stand (like 8″ fried veggie spring rolls mmmm) and bought a few since they were only 1 euro! We got back to the park and everyone was waiting for DJ Tiesto to start playing, but some of the dorm kids came from the music area and told us that there had been a minute of silence for something that had happened in the city with the Queen and that the music was cancelled for the night. The millions of Queen’s day celebrators unanimously began to head to the train station which made the walk like a slow stampede. We lost Jarred, who was really drunk and out of minutes on his phone so we were glad to see him arrive back at the dorm just 15 minutes behind us. I went to sleep again, as my cold had never been worse, and everyone went out to Haarlem again.

The next day, when everyone had awful hangovers we decided to go to the North Sea beach, which was actually closer to Haarlem than Amsterdam. It was too cold to swim, but perfect for lounging and eating and chilling out for a day. I finally got to play frisbee! Which I was so excited about because I forgot mine in Texas, but Meija’s floormate from France, Baptiste, brought it and played with me! We left and everyone got drinks at the cheap grocery store at the beach for the going away party for Lori- Meija’s English floormate. Jenn and I left the dorm and had dinner at the chinese restaurant in Haarlem that not only had good fried rice, but also made a mean cappuccino.. so I had 2. I hung out for an hour or two at the dorm, just talking to people and such, but the smoke that had accumulated in the kitchen was too much for my still sick lungs and already itchy eyes so I went back to the room. I ended up skyping until 5, because I couldn’t sleep from those 2 dang cappuccinos I had at 6, but It was good because I got to watch all the festivities.

Jarred had gotten pretty stupid drunk, and had come into the room and laid on the bed with a goofy look on his face looking at me for a few seconds, I laughed and then he preceded to make a pepperoni sandwich for himself. He grabbed 3 slices of bread and I pointed out this mistake so he angrily and hastily ate one of the slices. He ate his sandwich. Then made another one. Then laid down as Anie and Oula drunkenly came in the room. Apparently Jarred had moaned a few times so Anie suggested I put the trash can by his bed. I went to sleep and woke up later to an overwhelming smell of baby powder, jarred finally laying down to sleep, and Jenn and Anie poking their head in the room laughing so hard they weren’t making noise except when they needed more air. In the morning I found out that Jarred had indeed needed to throw up, but instead of using the trash can he had ran past the bathroom in the room, down the hall and had thrown up on the third floor landing, down the stairs, threw up on the second floor landing, down those stairs, and all the way down on his way outside where he threw up even more. We had woke up in the morning because Baptiste came into the room to tell Jarred that there was a lady cleaning up his puke and she was really mad. He went out to help her clean it and she wouldn’t let him, but when she asked him if it was his puke he said no. He was so embarassed and said he wouldn’t drink for a week, which so far he has actually accomplished. It’s been 4 days!

Anyway, that day we went shopping in Amsterdam, and I bought a dress! We ate yummy Indian food for dinner and went back and went to sleep early, and left the next day—Jenn, Anie and I to Den Bosch and the others to amsterdam for their 1pm train. We hung out in Den Bosch till 7, which turned out to be a cute town as well! There were so many cheap shoe stores and I bought some black boots for 35 euros! We had more coffee and chilled and found loempias and shopped until we met up with Jelena and Marthe, bought some fries with curry ketchup, and got some necessities at the train station grocery store (peanut butter finally! stroopwafles and fresh orange juice! dutch specialties) and then we drove the 3 hours back to lovely Trier. An exhausting trip, but an amazing experience! Hopefully I can go back some day to visit the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijk’s Museum and Ruben’s House and the Flower Market…..







Oh Hai Princess

This past week was so crazy and so amazing, and to be honest I can’t believe it was real. I got the opportunity to participate in an international project where 77 young artists from 7 schools in poland, germany, belgium, france, and ireland came together for week-long workshops in different facets of art leading up to a big exhibition held at the castle of Namedy, Germany. I took the photography workshop, because this was actually the form my photo class was in this semester for Trier. There were also workshops in ceramics, architecture, land art, metal sculpture, visual art and illustration, performance and media. Everyone stayed in hostels in the town over called Andernach, and we took a 5 min train every morning to Namedy to work on our projects at the castle all day, and came back every night to chill. For some reason I was really outgoing all week, and ended up meeting almost all of the 77 student and it was so much fun and some of my french came back to moemory and i also learned a few things in polish!


Communication the whole week was extremely interesting because it played so many good and bad roles. There were a few kids who didn’t talk much at all and after a few drinks weren’t so afraid to speak in english with me, and then there were kids who were extremely talkative and funny with little mistakes. I didn’t really get much feedback for my project at all, which was the worst part of the language barrier, but it was also good to have such a new experience of being so free in what I chose to do and how I did it. I learned that I didn’t really care for it and I work the best with rules, but good times anyway! My old roommate Silke was incharge of the whole thing, with another guy Dirk, and I was so impressed with them. It really was an amazing opportunity and I was so happy to get Silkes text offering me a place at the castle!

Here are a few of the photos I had in my final presentation. I hung 7 frames from a tree in the courtyard with my photographs in them, and left one frame open. It was the biggest gold frame, and I set up a small table infront of it with 3 disposable cameras for anyone and everyone to take pictures of themselves through the frame. It went along with the theme of the whole project which was “transforming memories.” My concept was based on how the too-good-to-be-true reality of being in a castle and being surrounded by so many artists and creative energy was just so surreal and didn’t really feel “real”. This was reflected in my photos by taking real things and making them abstract and dreamlike. And I was happy because I didn’t have to touch them in photoshop minus the red one where 2 pictures were put together. Here they are, hope you like em!


Berlin and Dresden






“..there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it..” Mark Twain in The Awful German Language


Oh man, OK so finally there’s a little time to give an update on the past few adventures—sars ktd! A couple weeks ago I was in Dresden for 4 days and then to Berlin for 3. It was a very exhausting trip, but really amazing just as well. I really loved Dresden because it felt much more like a small town, even though it’s really huge. The old side of Dresden was so impressive in how it was meticulously rebuilt after the bombings. It was mostly women who rebuilt the city because of all the lives lost in the war and such, and they tried to use the useable stones in the same places they came, so some of the buildings are spotted with dark and light stones.
New Dresden was also really hip and wonderful. There was some nice graffiti around, and there were a lot of punk rebels without a cause and lots of colored mohawks. It was a little difficult living all of us squeezed in the one hostel bedroom made for 2, but it was nice to wake up together for a wonderful breakfast made by monique and markus! (We were staying in monique’s boyfriends mom’s hostel- got it?) I also got to go to a flea market and bought a sweet 50’s bathingsuit (yes i bought a bathingsuit at a flea market nbd..) and a really old key that i made into a necklace! At night we got to hang out with some of their friends, but Inis was my favorite because she taught me how to poi and say a lot of things in german! Also one night they took us to this microbrewery that served bier in the liter mugs that you have to hold different so it can rest on your wrist while you drink it. Its crazy to think that monique just grew up in a city like that, jealous.

So then we have Berlin! I got lucky because Jenn’s friend Ben from KU actually is studying there right now for a year in the architecture program, and her and I stayed with him for the short time we were in Btown. The day we arrived he took us to a park and the weather was really nice so the park was full of people having fun and relaxing! I love Germany and their leisure! We got some walnut ice cream, and then at the next stand got some beer and walked through the park until we got to an abandoned amusement park, which is slightly hidden with all the overgrown vegetation. Ben had told us about some guards with dogs that were usually around so we walked around most of the park to make look-out and even saw some people on the other side making a cheap movie or something. So like how any good story starts i said “here, hold ma beer” and hoped over the fence. 5 seconds later the 2 guards with 2 big scary german shepherd came over and said some things in german that luckily Ben understood, but they made me delete the pictures I took on my camera and watched us as we climbed back over the fence. bummer. But I took a bunch of pics on the other side of the fence anyway.. The coolest part was the dinosaur park because all the dinos were missing their heads and fallen over, and it felt like a oversized toy graveyard.

The next day Ben had class so Jenn and I ventured off on our own into the city to shop—after we both put our gum on the berlin wall—and I realized just how big city Berlin was. We got lost everywhere we went trying to find the dots on the map that Ben drew to places they though we would like. It was pretty frustrating and everyone was dressed all fancy and hip, and I missed Trier and knowing my way around. That night we went to a really neat outside bar that was on a river, and i felt like i was in Louisiana on the Bayou or something, but it was very chill and we got to meet Ben’s friend Anja there who is really cute and is about to go to Australia for a year to follow a boy. how romantic. We had some of the best and cheapest falafels in Berlin. And walked a lot. And had a lot of coffee. And we’ll be going back for a trip through our school in Trier that will take us from Weimar, Dessau and Berling on a Bauhaus trail! We got back to trier finally at 1am and had to walk from our obscure drop off point to each of our respective homes. Finally home again… for 2 days! ha- the next adventure picks up from there and I’ll write it tomorrow! Thanks bye!
Germany DOES have peanut butter and microwaves


It’s been such an exciting week in Trier for me, and it’s only wednesday. I moved into my house on Sunday, and my roommates cooked an awesome dinner for me complete with spargles, crepes and hollandaise sauce 🙂 mmmm. It’s also stopped raining and the temperatures are picking up! I’m sitting with my windows wide open right now listening to the glockenspiel of the cathedral, and the people walking below chat over coffee and little kids screaming and playing. Typical..

views from out of my window
Yesterday was my first class (not counting the German class) and I had Type Design with Mr Hogan. Luckily He had already prefaced the project in the meeting we had with him on Monday, because when we showed up at 10, It was the hardest thing ever to stay awake and try to pay attention. Every now and then he would catch us up to speed and turn to the four of us and ask us what we thought about it—terrifying. I don’t speak in class much at home and I would probably throw up if I had to here.. But he did give us a ten minute break where we ran across the street and grabbed our caffeine filled drinks of choice, and when we got back we got to watch a movie in English!
About America!
And it was sooooo embarassing!
The movie discussed the importance of the Eames’ lounge chair, and the history and politics of the 50’s—the era it was invented. No worries. I wrote down very important points the film made, and here we are:

1) America did not care about politics during the Cold War. They “went into a political amnesia” and instead focused on designing their cookie cutter homes with these lounge chairs and wearing wrinkle free dresses.

2) The lounge chair was perfect for watching media programs and drinking an ice cold Budweiser©.

3) “The Lounge Chairs price is as high as its leather is black.”

4) America has “a culture as cool as its jazz” which was seen through the Eames inventions, and especially they’re star: the Lounge Chair!

This film was so cheesy and hard to watch in a room full of German students who have probably not been to America yet. We all laughed when it first started—mostly out of awkwardness, but more importantly to let the kids know that we thought it was a little redicuclous. Also, I got real uncomfortable at one point when the British narrator was telling about the nazis and what was going on in Europe at the time. Oh well. Now we only have to come to small critique groups every other week so no more of that.. Our project is to choose a designed object (such as the Eames Lounge Chair) or we can
choose a Person/Artist and then design a logo for them using a typeface that we design. From those few letters used in their logo, we will design the rest of the alphabet for an almost complete Typeface! The two idea I’m going to start sketching with are the classic high wheel bicycles, and then Jose Fernando Borges, a Brazilian printmaker. I’ll start sketching and then see which one I think has more potential, but I love the contrast of the bicycle with the thin and thick of lines, and the contrast in sizes seen with the wheels, and with Borges his wood block prints are very bold and playful, with lost of different textures and fun characters. We’ll see…

Last night the neighbors from upstairs came over for a dinner party, an older couple in their 40s or so and I think perhaps the landlords. I had already known this woman as the “wine lady” who had frequently trapped my roommates upstairs drinking wine with her for hours so I was prepared when they walked in with 4 bottles for dinner. Vera once again cooked an awesome meal from her hometown in Bavaria, Ulm. She made Bubenspaetzle (meaning little boy penis haha, but they were inch long skinny gnocci that she shallow fried), Sauerkraut with pieces of ham (vegetarian-style for me!) and Apfelstrizie for dessert. And before dessert, the husband instructed me that a real German meal has to have schnapps in between the courses in order to be able to finish the meal. So after the group finished the 3 bottles of red wine, we all took a shot of pear schnapps (gross) and then followed it up with some apfelstrizie and white wine. I followed the group to tanja’s room where the smokers could smoke, and we just talked and hung out until midnight. Or at least that’s when I couldn’t stand the smoke anymore..

It was fun to see people come out of their shell with their english speaking for me. It feels like it’s getting easier for people when they start getting to know me and I guess begin caring about me and wanting me to actually take part in the conversations. More and more times in the night someone would turn to me to help translate what was just said, and at the end of the night much of the conversation was in english. It was so much fun trying to listen to funny stories, and traditions, and listen to old German bands, and even talk serious about religions for a bit. I may have lost a year from second hand smoke, but definitely worth it haha.

guten tag!






Ah man, it was an adventure getting here to Trier finally! I rode on the plane with another classmate from Dallas, Anie, and we made it to London after watching 3 movies on the plane. She liked my idea to leave the airport and explore London over our long layover, but really we did not have as much time as we thought because apparently London traffic is the worst. Anyway we caught the Tube to Hyde Park Center and got to see some of the city on the ride. We walked through some parks and got to see buckingham palace and wandered around, got coffee, and stumbled upon a group lesson for roller-blading going on in the park. So awesome. The tube took 45 min to get to Hyde Park Center and we had to be at the airport 2hr prior to our next flight to Frankfurt, so we only had 1.5hr in London until we went back to meet up with Jarred at a pub in the airport for lunch. None of us were hungry because it was like 2 in the morning in the US, but Anie and I shared the fish n chips for novelty.


When we got to Frankfurt it was about 5 and they were in for going to Heidelberg first, so with help from many people we got our train tickets and boarded a full train and stood with out luggage for an hour next to the bathroom listening to people pee.. so far so good right? We ran to our next platform to get the Heidelberg train from Manheim and the same thing happened, but at least it was only 30 min. We got in late, and still had to figure out how to use the bus and find a place to sleep. What an adventure! We got to the hostel my dad had texted me directions too after riding the bus for 2 whole routes, and it turned out to be right next to a zoo! We could see the elephants right out of the window! We stayed in and had out first german beer and talked about everything that had happened in that one day that felt like 2.. then sleep FINALLY! except Anie didnt… darn jet lag

Next day we walked about 15/20 min to the city center (we had a good bearing of the city from our extensive ride on the bus the night before) and shopped at H&M where I got my “really german” jacket!! I’ll post a picture later, but I’m so happy! We ate at an italian restaurant and then headed back to the jugendherberge to sleep more and walked right past the bears habitat at the zoo next door. Only in Germany I guess? That night we caught the bus again to the city center- no more walking for us that day- and we searched for the bar we read about, Destille, known for the big tree growing in the middle of it! It was small and we were there early i guess because it became packed around 10 because it was the bartenders birthday! I got free german cake that was delicious! A big group of marines had a good time trying to flirt with Anie and I and Jarred ended up making 15 euros at the end of the night for the change from all the drinks they made him go get.. I was dubbed mama bear and got us safely back to the hostel after running away from the pirates! (the marines tried not to give up their identity as marines and thought pirates would be more believable?) 🙂

I’ve been staying with anja in Trier, and am about to leave to go meet my future roommates and then off to the foreign student party with free bier! haha More stories tomorrow! Enjoy the update. Guten Abend

Missing Nashvegas Already





Today is my last day at United Way!!! I can’t believe how fast time went by.. I have so much to look forward to and be excited about, so it hasn’t really set in yet. My cowerkers took me out to lunch at the German town cafe! and got me some cheesecake! Tonight we’re celebrating Cresson’s 21st birthday starting at midnight since I wont be here for it on Saturday! I made homemade Sangria for her, and we are going to a breakfast place in the morning, too! Someplace called Funky Griddle or something..? I’m excited. And I have to pick up my free bubble tea from Fat Straw on the way to the airport. Me and the owner had a good 45 min chat while I waited for Britta to get out of class. Meeting people has been my favorite part about this trip. Here are some recap pictures of fun times here in Nashvegas. I’ll miss it!
Hatch Show Print





I love when things happen that remind you of how small the world really is. a few weeks ago I was hanging out in centennial park, in the hopes of joining some pick-up ultimate frisbee game. After sitting long enough to build up courage, I walked over to a game going on. After a few games, I left and walked back over to where my roommates were hanging out in the park, and a guy that I had been playing with came over and introduced himself. I told him all my plans of why I was in Nashville and studying abroad, and him, my roommate, Britta, and I talked a long time about traveling and such. Very San Francisco, according to B. When he was telling me about all the places I needed to visit while I’m in Nashville, he mentioned Hatch Show Print and I went a little crazy to say the least.


Hatch Show Print was pretty much the only place I had on my list of things I would cry about if I didn’t see it. We had talked a bit about Hatch Show in my letterpress class at KU, and even seen some large scale examples that we have in our rare books and prints library. I had even looked at doing my internship there, but the dates wouldn’t work—assuming I got accepted.

Anyway, he said that his uncle was actually the manager of Hatch Show for the past 25 years, and offered to give him a call and see if he would want to give me a little tour of the shop. I couldn’t even believe it. I was speechless in the sense that I couldn’t really think of anything else to say but, “thank you thank you thank you.” and how awesome it would be if this actually followed through.

Which it did.

I got the amazing privilege of a behind the scenes look at one of the nation’s oldest letterpress print shops..unbelievable. It’s been around for over 100 years, and still uses the same fonts and woodblocks, and bold, simple design as when it started. They’ve made posters for some of the biggest names in jazz and country history like BB King, Johnny Cash, Dylan, etc etc etc. They’re an American Institution, a Nashville landmark, and helped define the look of country music. Jim Sherraden was the uncle/manager that I got the honor to meet. He had grown up in Kansas, and even knew my letterpress teacher, and was familiar with the KU workshop! I couldn’t believe it. He was so nice, and so proud of his shop- I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite quotes,
“Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something to love it yourself.”-Donald Miller
I tried to absorb everything he said and ask as many questions as I could think of. We talked about importance of paper knowledge—one of my favorite nerdy topics!!! We talked about working with clients, met the interns on their first day (that could have been me!), the history of Hatch Show, and lots of technical talk. He then allowed me to wander and talk to the interns and take pictures at my will. I could have stayed there all day..
I’m not Homeless!





With the help of Anja, I found an apartment in Germany today! Here’s her secret email to me (she’s so awesome! ha)


Yeeeeeeeah.
Kim. Kim. Kim.
I have a room for you!!! It’s the “1rm/250E” one.
I write this via Email only to you cause I don’t want the others to get jealous.

It’s 4 min from Anja’s house, she told me, and ONE minute from school! Apparently they have a cat, which I’m very much a dog person, but my roommate back in lawrence just got one, so I guess this will be a good learning experience.. Anja Also sent me some pictures of the place. It looks so bright! I’m excited! Though, please note the washing machine sandwiched in between the stove and fridge.. haha. I will be living with 2 other girls, who are excited to be able to practice their english. Their names are Tanja and Claudi. Hopefully everything works out since no contracts have been signed, but I’m still excited!
The World is Small


More rain..

I’m so glad my friend Katie D is here with me to explore Nashville. I’m finally starting to feel like a little fish in a big city. Yesterday we went downtown to figure out how the bus system worked and everything I needed to do and pay to get to work every day. It seemed pricey though for a month pass- $78- way more than I pay on gas a month.. o well.

Downtown is pretty. I think there’s a lot more “districts” that we missed- where is the night life?? Where are the coffee shops?? I’ll figure it out.. I do love the architecture of the old looking buildings, though. There’s a lot on the Vanderbilt campus as well as city buildings downtown. I was so excited to go to the Public Library! There’s something about bookshelves that gets me going, but the aesthetic of the inside of the building did not match the facade. I’ll wait till Europe..

Katie and I also found ourselves at the Nashville State Museum, which is awesome. Lots of information about Andrew Jackson, which Katie was excited about- her family has weird obsessions?- and they also had a mummy. It was disgusting and really real, and I was just waiting for it to wake up like I was in a haunted house and kill me. The torture devices are always interesting, and I saw a lot of sweet daguerreotypes of random people.

We gave up looking for a coffee shop downtown, and headed back to a place called Fido that I’d heard Cresson talk a lot about. Very good coffee! Kt and I both worked at the same coffee shop for a year, so (humbly) we know our stuff, and it was perfect. We walked back in the rain and watched I <3>

Copyright Kim Koelling 2015. All Rights Reserved