Parents week and Switzerland

Ok this one is long but so worth reading!

Monday was one of the best days of my life. Neil and Tonya Bordy arrived in Germany!!!! I went to their hotel straight from class and it was SO GOOD to see them. They were really jet lagged and tired and I had a paper to write so we split ways and met up later for dinner. Of course I took them to a German restaurant and of course they got Wiener Schnitzel. I was on cloud 9 all week spending time with them. 

Mom and Dad in Germany...

Tuesday after my classes, we took a little day trip to Nuremberg. Allie’s mom and her friend were in town as well so we all hopped on the train. This is where the trials were held for the Nazis of the Holocaust. My dad was especially interested and wanted to go somewhere to learn more about that! Here’s a typical Bordy story for you and keep in mind that we had limited time in Nuremberg. We got there around 3 went to eat first and the train to go back came at 7:30. By the time we decided what we wanted to do it was around 4. Since I had already taken a group trip to Nuremberg and went to a documentation museum, we tried to find somewhere else to go. We decided on the Palace of Justice which was the building the trials were held in. We didn’t know how to get there, so we spent the money and took a cab. It took a good 10 minutes to get there, it was further away than we thought. Once we got there, while my dad was paying, me and mom walked up to the gate and what do you know? It’s closed on Tuesdays. The ONLY day it was closed out of the week and we didn’t notice in the brochure. The cab driver had already driven away, we didn’t know what to do because we were so far away from the town square. We started walking back and considered taking a bus or tram but couldn’t find one anywhere. This would only happen to the Bordy Family. We just made an executive decision to go to the documentation center that I had already been to, which was fine with me (it was kind of our only option). We flagged down another taxi and were on our way. Shortly after we got in, the driver proceeded to tell us he wasn’t from Nuremberg and it showed because he had no idea where he was going. He took the longest and most traffic-y (if that’s a word) way to get to there. It was a extremely frustrating taxi ride to say the least. We FINALLY got to the museum and the rest is history...see what I did there hahaha. The rest of the day was nice. And I didn’t care what we did, I was just happy to be spending time with them! 

Thursday was the day we left for Switzerland. The plan was for me to get out of class and them to meet me at my dorm around 12:15. Well, they got lost and an hour later arrived to pick me up. The drive to Switzerland was the most beautiful drive I had ever been on. It took about 6 hours to get there plus stopping to eat. You can imagine the drive up the mountains wasn’t the easiest. My mom driving a stick shift winding up and around the mountains and even worse, in the dark, was not the smoothest of rides. It was pretty scary for all of us especially La Tonya. We stayed in a little town called Gimmelwald which required us to take a cable car up to. We finally made it, and let me tell you the town was DEAD. We stayed at ‘Liese’s Heart Place’, a room in a woman’s house that she rents out. Thankfully, a nice old woman asked us where we were going and showed us the way because otherwise, we would not have been able to find it. We got settled in and (I) went to sleep early. 

We slept in until around 9 on Friday morning. I will never in my life forget the moment I got up and looked out the window. The alps were right outside the window. I will just go ahead and say that Gimmelwald Switzerland was the most beautiful place I have ever seen, and will ever see in my life. 

This was the view right out side our window and it only got better through out the trip. The first thing we needed to do for the day was to convert our money to Swiss Franks. The little town was beautiful, but boy was nothing ever open when we needed it to be. We had to go back down to the town we parked our car in the go to the bank. It was no problem, because we also needed to eat and there we no restaurants in the little town of Gimmelwald. We just barely made it to the bank before it closed for lunch, got our money and ate at the nearest place we could find. OH how could I forget to mention this... Rick Steve’s Switzerland book was like the bible the entire weekend. We never left our room with out it. That told us all the great places to go and things to do. I don’t know what we would have done with out that book. Once we were done eating, we rode the cable car up to another town a little higher than ours called Murren. This town was a little more lively. It actually had a grocery store and restaurants and people. We shopped around and got grocery’s for dinner and breakfast for the rest of the weekend. Liese had told us that it was about a 45 minute walk up to Murren from Gimmelwald. Well, we all know with the hills and altitude we were not walking up, so we decided to take a little hike down. I’m so glad we did! It was so beautiful walking down with the alps popping out in front of you. I can’t even begin to explain to you how pretty it was. At one point, my mom mentioned it was so beautiful she wanted to cry. I thought that was a pretty accurate description. 

Once we got back to Gimmelwald and dropped off the groceries, made out way back to the cable car station to go all the way up to the very top mountain called Schilthorn. It was 10,000 feet up. A James Bond movie was also filmed there (I couldn’t tell you which one). It took about 20 minutes to get up there and once we did, there was more beauty. The view was great. I feel like I’m being so repetitive saying how beautiful it was, but there’s no other way to describe it. We spent a good time up there and went back down the Murren for some wifi. It was all around a great day. Very relaxed full of the best scenery I’ve ever seen. 

The Schilthorn views...

Saturday I was again amazed to wake up and see the view. It just didn’t get old. I also forgot to tell about the cows right outside the house. When we walked in the back yard we were feet away from Swiss cows enjoying a morning snack of swiss grass. That was pretty awesome. 

Looking through our holy book (Rick Steve’s travel guide) it told us about some hikes. He rated each hike in their difficulties. We thought an “easy” 2 hour hike to some glacier fields sounded appealing so we woke up the next day and started on the hike. Get ready for a good story... Before we started we found a man outside in his yard and asked for directions to the start of this hike. He nicely showed us which direction and the last thing he said to us, leaning over his fence was, “I hope you have good shoes on” Well I looked like this... 

We started it out and because of the altitude, my mom was a little worried. Going up a smaller hill in the town winded her so in the first 10 minutes of our hike when we started going down hill, the thought of going up this hill was not a good one to Tonya. Well, we kept going down and down the hill and she knew her limit and decided to drop out. After 15 minutes of this supposedly “easy” hike, it was only me and my dad left. We kept going, and about 15 minutes later we found a sign that pointed in the way we needed to go. It started going up hill at this point, and it was not easy. We stopped numerous times to take breaks. This is when we decided this hike should not have been put in the easy category. After about 45 minutes of continuous uphill hiking, we came to a split in the trail with no signs. We used out best judgement and picked the one that went uphill (why we did that who knows). It was already hard before, but the trail became more and more steep and more and more strenuous. At some points it would be so uphill we couldn’t see the rest of the trail. And at some points we would go up the steep hill and finally think it went down, but instead turned a corner and went even more uphill. My dad and I were dying. This was NOT and easy hike. We could not stop saying how good of a decision it was that mom turned back. There would have been a rescue helicopter come get her in those alps if she had continued.  We sat down and and got the Rick Steve book out, because surely we were on the wrong trail. It said we should have crossed raging rapids and gone through a shooting range (yikes) and we had done neither. Fortunately, we looked down and there was the bridge that we needed to cross. Sure enough, Neilsky and I climbed down the mountain relying only on rocks in the grass to keep us from sliding down. We got down to the lower trail thinking it was going to get better and not so uphill. It got worse. We got so high there was snow on the ground. We also got the the point we were practically climbing rocks. The trail just kept getting worse and worse and it didn’t feel like we were getting any closer. I will say, the scenery was just as beautiful as it has been all weekend, if not more, but it was just miserable.

 After stepping up rocks like you would step up on an elliptical machine, we had to take a break. It has been around an hour and a half now and if felt like 5 hours. We had also noticed we hadn’t seen one person on this trail. At this point, we felt so defeated, we decided to go back. The trail was not going down hill any time soon and we just couldn’t do it anymore. We turned around and it was all down hill from there. UNTIL we got to the last 30 minutes. This was tough, but nothing we hadn’t done before. We pushed through it and somehow through some miracle made it back to the house. I will never forget that hike for as long as I live. I was done with physical activity for the rest of my life. After telling mom the story, resting, and eating a late lunch, we wanted to get our money’s worth for the cable car passes we bought and went back up to Schilthorn. On the cable car up, at the very end of our ride, we happened to see 5 people hiking up the mountain to Schilthorn. Obviously, after my experience today that made me nauseous to even think about. Rick Steve rated that hike extremely difficult, so I literally couldn’t imagine what that would be like if I thought his “easy” was extremely difficult. We stayed up at Schilthorn a little longer this time and took the last cable car down which was at 6:03. Dad and I were in the gift shop finishing up some purchases when mom comes in and tells us the people that were hiking up were just about to get up here. We rushed up to go watch. Right when we got out there the last 2 were just getting there. And what do you know, they are speaking english (which is really exciting to hear here). My mom, of course, started cheering for them. We got to talking to them and two were clearly American. We asked them where they were from and one was from Cincinnati , Ohio. What a small world. Only an hour and a half away from us and we are meeting in Switzerland. They were all young adults, a couple years older than me, working for an internship. We started asking them questions about their hike and told us they started at 9 o clock that morning. I could not believe it. They made what I did earlier look like nothing. I couldn’t believe I was complaining about an hour and a half of hiking when they did 9 hours of it. Even worse, it was getting dark and they had to go all the way back down. One chose to take the cable car down which was absolutely understandable. Once we got down to Murren we were starving. I had a bit of trust issues with Rick Steve because of previous activities that day but we went to a restaurant that he recommended and boy was it the best meal I’d had in a long time. It was the perfect ending to a very long day. As you can imagine, I was exhausted and went to sleep right when we got back to the house. We had to get up early-ish on Sunday and get back to Regensburg. 

This trip was so much fun and I am extremely lucky I got to spend it with my mom and dad. I loved every second of it (well maybe not the hike). We got back into Regensburg at around 5. I had a test and some homework due the next day so they only stayed for a little while and went back to their hotel. My mom and dad left Monday afternoon and it was really sad to see them go. I can’t stop thinking about how fortunate I am for getting to spend time with the best parents in the world while in a different continent. I was so happy they got to see and experience a little of what I do here everyday. I love you mom and dad thank you so much for coming!! 

Annnnnnd that’s where this blog ends. Stay tuned for the Neuschwanstein castle this weekend and fall break the weekend after that.

Budapest

Budapest

It was Allie’s 21st Birthday weekend and a rower reunion in Budapest. Allie, Paige, and I rode a 7 hour train ride to meet up with some rowing friends, Morgan and Sarah. Also, our friend from Spain, Pedro, that studied in Murray my freshman year met up with us. The train ride through Austria was BEAUTIFUL. I could not stop looking out the window ohhh-ing and aww-ing all of the scenery. Morgan and Pedro met us as the train station in Budapest and it was a beautiful reunion! It was so good to see them and it was awesome that we normally see each other on Kentucky Lake and at practice but we were in Budapest!! Thursday night was so much fun. We met Morgan and Sarah’s friends, ate dinner and drank some wine, and went out to a dub-step club on a boat.  I got told by one of their friends that I was funnier than YouTube which was a great compliment. Allie, Paige, and I were all very tired from getting up for class and traveling all day so we went home early and went to sleep.

Here's a picture of the whole gang from Thursday night...

Friday, we got a late start to the day. We slept in a little which was so nice because I hadn’t slept in in who knows how long. It was nice to have friends to show us around because we didn’t have to plan anything. And we got to hang out with friends and relax! Once we got out and ready to start the day, Morgan and Sarah took us to the Budapest Castle and Cathedral. 

The architecture in Budapest was amazing.  The roofs were so pretty and the building looked so different from anything I had seen in Europe so far. The cathedral and Castle were very close to each other. We chose to go to the cathedral first. It was just unlike any cathedral I had ever seen. The roof was just so pretty. 

There was also a great place to see the whole city and take pictures.  We spent some time there sight seeing and taking pictures. Here’s a funny story...When it was time to go Morgan, Sarah, and Paige were all waiting for the rest of us. I was walking towards them and there was really cute yorkie looking dog. Just as I was saying “That is such a cute...” it started oinking at me. I’m not exaggerating when I say oinking. I could NOT stop laughing. It might have been a “you had to be there moment” but it was hilarious.  We walked over to the castle and walked on the grounds.  We saw the changing of the guards, just like we did in Prague. Took some pictures and headed back.

The Castle grounds

The whole gang

 Morgan and Sarah had been talking about how good the food in Budapest was so they took us to a restaurant that had delicious food and we headed back. We rested at their apartment for a while and went out for some drinks. We wanted to rest up on Friday night because Saturday was Allie’s 21st Birthday and we wanted to go out and party hardy on Saturday night! 

Saturday WAS ALLIE’S BIRTHDAY!!!! We got up kind of late again and went to have breakfast at Morgan and Sarah’s favorite place. Afterwards, we went to the thermal baths which was so cool!! They are naturally heated. It was really nice and relaxing. How many people can say “I went to a spa in Budapest for my 21st birthday”

 We got something called Langos for lunch. It was a funnel cake type dough with garlic and cheese. It might have been as good as the fried cheese we had in Prague. So good. Then we walked around the grounds of a random castle we stumbled upon. I have no idea what castle it was or what, but it was beautiful. We went back to their flat to rest up for the night ahead of us. We underestimated how much time we had and had to hurry to get ready. THEN the moment I had been waiting for this whole semester, I got to give Allie her birthday present.... a shot book. 

This was a complete surprise to Allie. I have no idea how all those people and I kept it a secret but we did! When I revealed the shot book, she cried. She loved everyones page, thank you to everyone who made one for her!! After we got the crying over with, we started our big night out! 

Me and my bestie on her 21st Birthday!

We started the night out at Morgan and Sarah’s friends apartment and made our way to a club. The club was a little like the one in Prague, it had a lot of floors and different music in each room. I had a lot of fun and I’m so glad she got to spend her 21st in Budapest! We had to get up really early the next morning to catch our train which was not fun. I had such a great weekend catching up with the rowers abroad! 

Berlin was WILD

Ok so this is the longest I have gone with out blogging and I want to apologize. I know you guys wait by your computers every day just for me to post the link to my blog on my facebook... haha (yeah right). I also want to apologize for the lack of details on the trip to Berlin and Budapest because it has been so long, but I will try my best. 

Berlin

So we only had Monday and Tuesday of classes that week which was SO nice. Wednesday was the German holiday of Unity. On Wednesday, some of the group, including me, went to a winery about 30 minutes away from Regensburg. I guess American winerys are different than German ones because once we got there, it was pretty much a restaurant and we just ordered a nice wine. It was a good activity to do on our day off. After that we went back to pack for Berlin!

This was a group trip which meant there were 16 students and a couple adults attending this trip. We woke up bright and early and got to the train station where we were meeting our bus driver. Allie and I immediately rushed in to get our favorite breakfast, a butter pretzel (it sounds disgusting but it is so so so good). Our bus driver drove up and his bus had bright colors and “wild” written on it. This was the theme of our trip. We (me and allie) could’t stop cracking ‘wild’ jokes. The trip was a WILD ride. It was raining, so it was wet and wild. At least WE got a kick out of ourselves.  It took us what felt like forever to get to Berlin but we finally arrived.  We were told we had about 20 minutes to get settled in to our youth hostel and to meet back down at the bus for a little tour. We took a bus ride around Berlin, but it was getting late and dark. We tried to go up into a place I don’t ever remember the name of but it was closed. They dropped us off at the Sony center and we weren’t really sure why because it was all restaurants and we had already eaten. Most of the group ended up in Dunkin Donuts playing a good ole game of psychiatrist. It’s a really fun mind game, it was a nice time of group bonding. When it was time, we went back to the hostel and the rest is history.

The next morning, we woke up early to go on a walking tour of Berlin. I was not prepared for the weather because it was cold and rainy all weekend. The tour started out to be interesting but as time went on I became less and less interested and more and more cold. We did get to see some really pretty buildings. I am very sad to say I don’t know the names or the significance of any of the buildings we saw on that walking tour. We did get to see the Brandenburg Gate and a memorial of the holocaust. We decided to end the tour early because we were starving and cold and wet. A student helper in the program told us there was a really good store that was cheap and really cute, so we were ready to be inside and to go shopping! We finally found our way through the subways and to that mall and boy did it feel good! The store that we were told to go to was called Primark.  As soon as we got off the subway it seemed like EVERY single person had at least two huge Primark bags. I knew I was going to love the store. And love it I did. I won’t go into too much detail but I’ll just say it was one of the best stores I have ever been in. They had everything. Clothes, jewelry, bags, and more. I was in heaven.  Two hours and 80 Euros later I had conquered that store and boy did it feel good! We were all wiped out from shopping and went back to the hostel to rest up for the big night ahead of us.  Caroline and Lisa, our student helpers of the program were taking us out to a fun night club in Berlin.  I won’t go into much detail, but we had a pretty good time in there. They played great music and it’s not a fun night unless someone has a good ole dance off (which they did)! 

We woke up the next morning early (again) to take a bus tour. That tour was wild! It was still cold and rainy, but at least we were in a bus! First, we went to the Olympic stadium where me and a couple other retired gymnasts relived some dreams of ours.

 Next we went to Charlottenburg Palace. This was a short but fun visit. I love seeing old castles and palaces! Here are some ***PICTURES*** 

The last stop was the Berlin Wall. Which was obviously a really cool thing to see! 

 I did a little modeling ...

After the bus tour, we ate and did a little tourist shopping. We also had a Civ assignment to go into an artifact museum and pick out and artifact to talk about. I really wish we had more time to look through this because it was actually a really cool museum with really cool artifacts. We didn’t have time because we met up with other people in our group that were going to the RitterSport factory to make your own chocolate bar. This chocolate is one of the best I have ever tasted. We then took some of the other people in our group back to Primark so they could experience all of it’s goodness. By that time, it was about 8 o clock and I was starving. We met Caroline and Lisa at a Mexican restaurant and ate. That was one of the most exhausting days. All I wanted to do was get back in my hostel bed and go to sleep. Which was exactly what I did! 

Our hostel was really close to the Berlin Zoo, so a couple me ad a couple other people decided to spend our last morning at the zoo. I'm so glad we went!! I have never seen so many baby animals in my life. Including monkey's. I was in heaven in the monkey exhibit. It was the best zoo I had even been to!  We traveled all day for the rest of the day and got back to Regensburg! Berlin was really fun, but I think the weather played a huge role. It wasn’t my favorite place we have gone but I still am so lucky to have had the opportunity! 

Nurnberg, Oktoberfest and more!

Oh man where to start! I'm sorry for not writing a blog last week, but nothing really exciting happened so I didn't feel the need to write one. This past week/weekend on the other hand is a different story!

So like I said nothing exciting happened 2 weeks ago, I went to all my classes went out a couple times on the weekend nothing really to report. One thing is that I know I said I wouldn't get homesick but I did! Can you believe it?

Okay so skipping to Tuesday September 25, mine and Allie's roommates invited us to a party that they were throwing on our balcony! This was our first balcony party and I will go into detail in a little bit. So I already blogged before about how in Prague we met some New Zealand friends that we had so much fun with during the pub crawl. We figured out we were all going to Oktoberfest the same weekend. Me and Allie mentioned we knew a place where you could get cheap Dirndls and Liederhosen's (the stereotypical German outfit) in Regensburg. The New Zealanders decided to come to Regensburg and stay a couple nights before they headed to Munich which brings us to Tuesday night.  The boys were supposed to Facebook us when they got in so we could meet up and hang out. They contacted us around 9 that night to let us know their hostel was closed for the night, and they were just going to find some grass to sleep on for the night. Well that wasn't going to fly with me when I had a perfectly good hard floor for them to sleep on.  Next thing you know we had our friends from New Zealand show up and come to our balcony party! I loved the balcony parties a lot more than going out to the clubs. It's a lot cheaper first of all, and much more fun! Since we had class in the morning we decided to go to sleep. One slept in my room on a blow up mattress, two in allies room on some blankets (her room is bigger than mine so she hogged all the guys haha), one in the car, and one is our friend Mary's room. We stayed up talking for over an hour and a half and I am so glad we met them. They are so cool and so much fun to be around! The next day after classes the boys picked up me and Allie in their mini van they are traveling Europe in, and we went to find some cheap outfits! They had a little luck but not much. Afterwards we had a brewery tour and Stammtisch at an extremely German restaurant. All in all a great 24 hours!

Thursday was also an exciting day because we got to row on the Danube!! The woman who gave us the city tour was a member at one of the Rowing clubs in Regensburg. She picked us up from our dorm and we arrived to their boathouse. I could go on and on about details of rowing for hours, but I'll spare you. I will say they row A LOT differently than we do. One difference is that they skull in all boats which is when you have 2 oars instead of one. Another difference was that their boats were humongous and they had the smallest blades on their oars (sorry only rowers will understand this). It was really weird and different but also so cool because the technique and everything else was the same. I think it is so cool to know that what I do in Murray Kentucky is (pretty much) the same thing someone does in Regensburg Germany. SO COOL.

That's us rowing with a beautiful rainbow in the background!

Friday we took a group trip to Nurnberg, Germany. It takes about a hour by train to get there from Regensburg. First we went to a documentation center from the holocaust. Nurnberg is mostly known for where they held the trials for the people involved in the holocaust (obviously something my dad, Neilsky would love) It was really interesting!

The whole gang

Afterwards we were free to walk around grab something to eat and meet at the original house of Albrecht Durer which was an artist in 1400-1500s. We talked around an ate at some food stands in the square then headed over. We had a tour of this artists house, but this was not like any other tour. They had an actress as the tour guide acting like the artists wife. I'll just say it was a strange way to do a tour but to each his own. The lady was really convincing and it was kind of awkward at some points not knowing whether to feel bad for her because she was sad about not having kids or not. It was just odd, but interesting. Heres a small clip that I recorded and as you can tell everyone is VERY interested haha

Also here are some pictures from Nurnberg...enjoy

Okay so now the moment all of you have been waiting for... OKTOBERFEST
I went with a group of seven girls including myself. We got up early in the morn to catch the first bus to Munich. We were told that since we were going on a weekend that we need to be there early in order to consider getting a seat in one of the Bier Gartens. Apparently, everyone else had that idea too and the train was packed! We were so lucky to get a seat on the train. This is no understatement when I tell you everything we did that day, there were thousands of other people around. It was one of the craziest things I've ever experienced with all the people, and drunk people at that! Once we got there we finally made our way to Oktoberfest. We followed some guys in Liederhosens (I'm not sure if I'm spelling that correct) and made it the Oktoberfest. Once we got there, we had no idea what to do except find somewhere to order a Liter of beer! We asked around to see which bier garten to go in and finally made a decision. Every single thing we did, we have to wait in line or in a packed crowd. We had to get up close to the tape that was blocking the entrance, along with 3 guards. We made it in two by two and finally we were all in. We found some guys that helped up order a liter of beer.

After we got our liter we decided to walk around and try to find somewhere to sit. This was an impossible task let me tell you. We finally found some Italian guys who let me and my friend kristen sit at the end of their table. And soon after, the rest our our group got the table right behind us.

This was probably my favorite part of the day, sitting around talking with people we didn't know and enjoying a liter of beer at Oktoberfest. By the end of the drink I was feeling pretty good! We had planned to meet up with our New Zealand friends so we left that tent and made our way to another one. This next tent we got into was by far the hardest to get into. Those guards had no mercy for us and were pushing the crowds away and were not being very nice. I have no idea how we did it, but we got in. A big thanks to Allie for staying strong up in the front! It took us so long to get in to the tent that our friends had already left. We stayed in there for a while but decided to leave and meet up with them. There was a huge communication issue and we never got to see our New Zealand friends. Our group got split up and this was a big mistake. After about an hour and half of searching for each other we finally found a meeting point and we were starving. It was also starting to rain so we decided to stick with our plan and go to Hard Rock Cafe. And boy was that the best decision we have ever made. We got there around 4 and it was (can you guess?) PACKED. We got a table after about a 30 minute wait which was great and it was one of the most delicious meals I have had since I've been here. We got free refills and tons of ice in our drink. I got a burger with guacamole on it and boy was it scrumptious. After leaving hard rock it was raining even more and we decided it was about time for us to go. We walked back to the train station and on the way stopped to buy some souvenirs. All in all it was a great day with great people! I had the time of my life!

I think that's all I've got. I keep apologizing for making these so long but I just can't help it!