After some time away from Berlin in Frankfurt, Nuremberg, and Austria, it was time for me to return and take more shots of my home city, Berlin. One fine sunny Sunday, my host dad and I resolved we couldn't let the excellent weather go to waste and headed out to nearby Potsdam. Potsdam is the capital city of the German state that surrounds Berlin, Brandenburg, and plays host to a number of famous, picturesque castles. We hopped...

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I whizzed down the hill towards the town in the valley below, the wind rushing by me and the sun glinting off the snow. I couldn't believe it - I was skiing in the Alps! This month, February, has been full of exciting adventures in new places. Let's start at the beginning, when I went on a little ski vacation with my host family. My host family's destination was the idyllic ski town of Saalbach-Hinterglemm, nestled high...

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January 24, 2015, 8:00 am: my first and last evening in Nuremberg was behind me, and the clock was ticking - I had just 7 hours in the town before my bus left, and there was a lot to see. It was time to do some efficient sightseeing, which just happens to be a specialty of mine. Nuremberg is certainly associated with imperial history in the 14th to 16th centuries, but more recently, it also earned a designation of a less savory...

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After my seminar in Frankfurt, I wasn't ready to head back up north to Berlin just yet. Instead, I hopped on a bus for 3 hours and arrived in Nuremberg, which, with a population of 510,000, is Bavaria's second-biggest city (after Munich, of course). The city was around as early as 1050, and to this day it still has a charming Old Town with lots of impressive medieval architecture.  Of course, much of the Old Town was...

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Last month, I had to get away from it all in Berlin and thus headed south to Frankfurt! No, I really did have to - my exchange program's mid-year seminar was on the agenda, and all 75 American participants were required to train into Frankfurt so we could discuss our experiences and reflect on the past half-year. While a week of discussions and lectures may not sound like a lot of fun, it was actually a great experience and I...

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