Hi Everyone! 

I have been home for two weeks now and just wanted to send an update. I made it home safe and have been enjoying my time at home with the family. I am finishing up the semester with school. In January I start full time student teaching at Sandy Ridge with the fourth grade class I have been working with. It is hard to believe how fast the eight weeks went by while I was away in Germany. It was a great experience and I am thankful that I was able to participate in such a great experience. There is no words to describe everything that I have learned from the trip. I hope to be able to share my experience with everyone and for the students in my class if you are ever given the opportunity to study or travel abroad take full advantage of it as it is a priceless experience. 

Hey everyone! 

So this is my last week in Germany. This week is going to packed full. Today I have been relaxing and getting my self ready for this week and getting some school work done. Tomorrow is a day of school for me. Wednesday in the morning we are going to visit a school, we will be visiting a combined middle school and high school which over here is called a realaschule and a gymnasium. The second half of Wednesday I will be in class again. Thursday I will be going into the town of Stuttgart to get some last minute souvenirs as well as to see all of the holiday decorations. They have a holiday market over here that opens in middle of November with a whole bunch of little shops and an ice skating rink and holiday decorations are set up everywhere. Friday I will be packing and cleaning up the room I have been staying in. On Saturday I come home. We will be leaving here super early, 12:30pm Friday night/Saturday morning your time which is 6:30 in the morning Germany time. I will be landing in Charlotte on Saturday afternoon. :) 

Hope everyone has a great rest of your week I will post and update about the school visit in the afternoon on Wednesday and then I might have one more post after that otherwise my next post will be once I land back home in Charlotte. 

See you all soon! :) 

- Miss. Kim 

Hi everyone, 

This weekend I went to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. I just got back last night after being on a train for 12 hours because of layovers on the way back. It was a long day with trains but I have made it back safely to my room. In Amsterdam  I stayed on the 20th floor of a hotel that was located on the water, the view out of the window was amazing. We saw all of the boats pull into the harbor and we were able to see some of the large windmills around the harbor. 

We took a guided boat tour through the canals of Amsterdam, which was really neat to learn about the history and see things that you can't always see while walking the streets. Some of the people in Amsterdam live in boat houses which is literally a house on the water, it has two levels and the inside looks just like a house that we live in. It was neat to see how the people live. 
After the tour we stopped and visited the Van Gogh museum. Van Gogh is a famous painter who lived in Amsterdam. Then we visited the Anne Frank house. Anne Frank was alive during World War 2 and this house was where her and her family were in hiding during the war, they were hiding from the Nazi government. The family was found and they went sent to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland. The concentration camp is similar to the one that I was able to visit in Dachau. 

Then on Sunday, SinterKlauss arrived in Amsterdam. Sinter Klauss is like Santa Claus but he arrives on November 13th from Spain on a boat and then he stays in Amsterdam until December 5th. While he stays in Amsterdam he visits schools and talks with children. He also visits local children's hospitals and talks with the kids. 

Look at the pictures for some pictures from Amsterdam! :) 

I come home on Saturday, I will update again later today with everything about my last week in Germany! 

- Miss. Kim

Hola! 

I landed back in Germany safely from Spain last night. Spain was a lot of fun, we were able to go the beach and see the sand and the beach there is the Balearic Sea which leads into the Mediterranean sea. It was awesome to see a beach in an European country. It looked the same as american beach just a different shore line. We also visited the Pablo Picasso museum, he was a Spanish painter. We were able to see the church and buildings that were designed by the famous Spanish architect Guadi. 

We also visited the aquarium while we there as well as we saw the monument statue that was built in honor of Christopher Columbus, a famous explorer from the 1800's. 

You can see the pictures posted under the pictures link. 

Hope you are all doing well. I am going to Amsterdam this Friday through Sunday and then I will be back in Stuttgart, Germany until I leave to come back to North Carolina next Saturday. I will update again soon! 

See you all soon! :) 

Hi everyone! 

Boo! Happy Halloween! 



It is Halloween! :)  I arrived back in Stuttgart last night from Paris, France. While in France I visited the Effel tower, Notre Dame, the aquarium, the Louve and versailles as well as many other places. I had a crepe from a street stand was delicious. I am currently working on uploading pictures and updating this website for you! Today I am going to explore the town of Stuttgart, where I am staying. There are many little shops and things to explore. Tonight the group of us studying over here is going to our professors apartment for some american dinner and then we are attending a costume party where eight of us will be dressed as Snow White and the seven Dwarfs. (pictures will be posted)  Tomorrow is a holiday in Germany and I will be visiting the Mercedes museum which is about 30 minutes from where I am staying. I will post pictures of that as well. 

Last week Thursday we made a school visit to Erdmanhausen, which is an elementary school about an hour from our dorms. The school is named after the author of Pippi longstocking. Pictures were already posted with captions to tell you about the school. The way things are taught is different as well as the way students act in the hallway. When going to lunch or recess or anywhere outside of their classroom they don't have to walk in lines or be quiet in the hallway. The school motto is let kids be kids. That motto is definitely in effect at the school. It was interesting to watch the students travel in the hallway and interact at recess. 

I hope everyone is doing well. I will be back to the states in 20 days! see everyone soon! :) 

- Miss. Kim 

Hey everyone! 

So the train strike that was happening here is over. The trains will be running normally which is good because tomorrow I am going to visit an elementary school in Germany. We will be visiting Edmunnhausen school, which is an elementary school that was based off of the book about pippy longstocking. I will take pictures to show you what a German classroom and students look like. Pictures will be posted probably on Monday or Tuesday. I will also be posting pictures from my week in London, Rome, Venice and Milan. Tomorrow night after the school visit I will be taking the bullet train to Paris, France. The bullet train is a train that goes up to 200 miles per hour. I will be leaving Germany around 7:00pm and getting to Paris about 10:00pm tomorrow night. I will make sure to take pictures of Paris and upload those as well on Tuesday. 

I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and a great weekend. I will be posting again on soon and pictures will be up Monday or Tuesday. 

There are only 24 days left on my adventure in Europe, I will keep everyone updated on where I am traveling to next. 

See you guy soon! :) 

Hey everyone! 

I hope you are all doing well. I just got back from a week of traveling through Europe. I visited many places. I started out last Saturday flying to London, England. I visited London until Wednesday then I took a plane to Rome Italy where I stayed for two days and then I took a train to Venice Italy staying for two days and then I finally ended the week in Milan Italy and came back to Stuttgart today. I was able to see many different landmarks and famous places though my travels (pictures will be posted soon). 
In London I visited many different places. 
- We did a guided tour of the city
- Abbey Road (famous from the Beatles album cover) 
- The changing of the guard (Buckingham Palace) 
- Tower Bridge (London Bridge) 
- Tower of London
- St. Paul's Cathedral 
- Shakespeare's Globe
- The London Eye (I rode it all the way to top, there was an awesome view of the city of London at the top) 
- Big Ben (the clock Tower) 
- Buckingham Palace
- Kensington Palace ( where princess Diana stayed) 
- Marble Arch 
- Madame Tussauds ( a wax museum where there were famous people made out of wax, some of them looked so real it was scary. Pictures will be posted soon) 
- Trafalgar Square
- Went in the London Dungeon 
- walked through Piccadilly circus (not an acutal circus, but a square with a bunch of small shops in it) 

In Italy I also visited many places 
Rome: 
- Did a guided tour of the city
- The Vatican ( a church)
- The Colosseum (the arena where they had gladiator fights back in medival times) 
- Trevi Fountain (thousands of people go there daily to through a penny into the fountain and make a wish) 
- The Pantheon 
Venice: 
- Took a Gondola Ride (like a canoe) 
- Did a ghost tour at night on Saint Marks island
- Visited Saint Marks island
Milan: 
- Guided tour of the city
- The mall where fashion week had occurred a few years ago.
- The original painting of The Last Supper

As you can see I was able to visit many places during the ten days I had available to travel. I will be posting pictures soon. As for now I am heading off to bed to wake up for class early tomorrow morning. There is a U-Bahn (germany subway) and Bus strike in Stuttgart so I will be walking to the nearest train stop about 35 minutes to catch the train to get to class in the morning. 
This week all 16 of us students will be making our first trip to a German elementary school. I will post on how that is. 
Thursday night I am leaving Germany by Train to travel to France and see Paris with the famous Eiffel Tower. 
Hope everyone has a great rest of your week and keep checking for pictures and more updates! 

See you soon! :) 

Well, I have made it half way through the week. We have been working in collaboration with German college students. We have been working closely together in order to learn about how German schools are different than American schools. This is done at the university we are studying and taking classes at. There have been many similarities and differences between theories in education between the two countries. While the majority is similarities, there are a few differences such as the way children get to and from school.  Overall I have learned lots and hope to be able to show you what I have learned once I get back to the states. 

Starting Saturday we have a week off oThis weekend I am off to London on Saturday through Wednesday and then Wednesday through the following Monday I will be traveling within Italy. I will update when I get the chance. Hope everyone has been doing well! 

See you soon! :) 

Hi Everyone!