Living in a Fairytale Land

"Jedes Leiden und Übel führt leicht im stillen irgend einen zu gute kommenden Ersatz mit sich"

--Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm

Good Afternoon Everyone! 

The quote above roughly translated says something like, "All suffering and evils can easily lead one to a quiet, good alternative." I could be wrong, so if so (Tim or whoever) correct me! I just chose a random quote by the Brothers Grimm because it is fitting for this blog post. The Philipps-Universität Marburg was where the Brothers once studied, long long ago. Its hard to forget that fact, when many of the streets here are named after them.

Yesterday I took walk up to the Landgrafenschloss, the castle that presides above the city. It was hard not to imagine life back in the late 1700's, and with Marburg's quaint city and beautiful geography; I may or may not have imagined being in a fairytale for a little while.

All in all things are going well here, and since pictures are worth a thousand words (sorry for the cliche) I am going to tell you the events of my week through pictures, with little blurbs below.

Pferd! Horses in the Oberstadt in Marburg. This picture was taken when a few of us were looking for an adventure. So we roamed the streets and even were offered some fresh "Pflammkuchen"  (pancakes) from out of a 4th floor  apartment window. We declined the generous but strange offer and continued on our way. Of course thats when we realized we were really hungry, so we stopped in a cafe and I ordered another Auflauf, the casserole-like cheese thing, this time with salmon and spinach. It was delicious! But I really need to make a budget. It is too easy to spend money here.

Spaghetti-Eis! A Marburg specialty. Somehow they push the ice cream through a spaghetti noodle maker and voila! Ice cream that looks like spaghetti noodles--with raspberry sauce playing the part of the sauce! Delicious. 

I had to document the blue sky that appeared yesterday. Finally a day of sun shine and little clouds! 

This is a view of Marburg from the Mensa, the student union/cafeteria. Behind the bikes is the river Lahn, but its not very pretty right now. Last week it was incredibly high, it felt like I was in Eau Claire.

This is James, Clemence, and I standing before the Marburger Rathaus. The city hall, I have yet to see the rooster at the top crow on the hour, but one of these days I'll be there at the right time.

On my way to the castle! We walked along a winding cobblestone road up the hillside, with old rock walls lined with ivy and vines. Yeah, it was pretty cool!

A view of the castle--almost up the hill!

We stopped along the way to take pictures, when the sun actually comes out, you have to take advantage of it! 

Me and Marburg :)

Clemence and I again--we met in our class, she is from Cameroon, Africa.

The wall was green! 

So this was my adventure from yesterday. Today I will be going on a city tour of Marburg, to learn more about the history of  all these places I have pictures of. I'm sure I'll be going to the castle again, and taking more pictures...but when I post again I can offer a little more knowledge behind the pretty views.

Have a great weekend everyone!

B