In and around Hessen

So before I get to talking about Paris, I want to update that the two weekends after Berlin, I stayed in and around the Hessen state of Germany (mainly Darmstadt where I live and go to school). I used the time to hang out more with the Erasmus students. We had a party for Jackie's 21st birthday, took a day trip to Wiesbaden (sidenote: Wiesbaden is the capital of Hessen which has these natural springs you can get water from...hot mineral metal tasting water, but it is said to cure illness and since we were all feeling a bit rough from Jackie's birthday the night before, we filled up our Nalgene's and tried to choke a bit of it down. sidenote 2: Everyone finds it amusing that Jenae and I carry Nalgene bottles everywhere with us filled with water or crystal light, they are so into conserving and reusing and recycling and such here that you would think they would all use waterbottles...), carved some pumpkins for Halloween, and my Turkish friend Yaya had everyone over the other night for crepe night. Yaya makes the best crepes around and provides all the yummy fixings, so that was very fun and tasty! Our friends from Ohio State that go to Schwabisch Gmund (Jackie and Shaina) came in for the 21st birthday party and it is always fun to spend time with the Ohioans. Other than that I have been working on projects a lot, running, eating, reading, the usual stuff I would do at home. Travel was getting quite exhaustive so it was nice to be in Darmstadt for a bit, but it is always so darn rainy here!! Which makes it excruciatingly hard to get out of bed on a Sunday morning. Just wanted to throw a quick update in about everyday life here, which is not as comforting or familiar as at home. I have been missing being able to lounge on the couch and watch tv (my flat does not have a tv in our main room, it broke the day before I moved in) and I was sad I was not at the shoe for my last buckeye home game :( but alas, I was in PARIS, which I will detail in the next post :)