It's hard to believe that two weeks have gone by since I last updated you all! I have so many new pictures and I went to a bunch of cool places so I guess I should start up where I left off.
Faschingsdienstag is the Austrian festival equivalent of Mardi Gras, and it was quite the experience. We got out of class early to go to the parade, which was fun (even though I really don't like parades) - there were a lot of really strange floats and people dressed up in some crazy costumes... Most of the parade was focused on traditional Tirol. Most interesting were the witches, who walked around kind of terrorizing people and then offering them schnapps afterward. My German professor insisted that we paint our faces - that's why I look like a creepy clown.
After the parade we went out to the city's main dance club (ugh) and I came up with another costume (double ugh): I improvised a hipster get up that I think was pretty convincing.
The Saturday after Fat Tuesday, I went skiing again and bought my ski-pass for the rest of the season. It was very, very expensive :( But now I can go anytime that I want, and there will still be a couple of good months of skiing in the mountains around Innsbruck.
For Sunday afternoon we decided to take a short bus trip to Hall in Tirol. It took about twenty minutes to get there, and it was a really cool little town. There isn't much to do, but there were a lot of really cool old buildings and streets and it was nice to just walk around and look at stuff! The churches were really impressive - they were a little more simple than some of the other European churches I've been in, but they were very pretty.
We ended up sitting in a cafe for a while and drinking coffee - it was a really nice afternoon!
More on my February break tomorrow!
Inside the new Gedaechtniskirche
Old Gedaechtniskirche next to the new bell tower. The old church was destroyed in the bombings in WWII and left as a memorial.
Checkpoint Charlie
TV Tower - very cool views from the top!
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles
Potsdamer Platz
Jewish Memorial
Berlin Cathedral
Big church...?
The Round Tower
Main Shopping Area
Copenhagen Harbor
LONDON
London Eye
The Tower Bridge
The Millenium Bridge and St. Paul's Cathedral
Westminster Abbey
CAMBRIDGE
Trinity College
King's College
Cool map of Cambridge that I found on the Backs
The Mathematical Bridge - Queen's College
