Mattie was one of 17 Wingate students who participated in the Fall
2006 Wingate-In-London program. The group of juniors and seniors
lived together in flats and studied art, history, theatre and
English literature with one Wingate faculty member and British
adjuncts. Mattie grew up in a small town in North Carolina not too
far from Wingate. She enjoys reading, watching movies, hanging out
with friends and family, and art (especially photography).
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| Floating Down the Rhine |
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Posted by:
Mattie on 10/29/06 |
Hello again all! I went to Germany for fall
break and I wanted to let you all know that I had a great time.
My cousin lives in Bonn, Germany and works for a church there as
their Youth Pastor. I was able to stay with her for five days
and take a walk in her shoes and also let her show me her
Germany.
I arrived there on Thursday afternoon and went to her apartment
to drop off my things and then was off to the larger city of
Bonn to get some dinner and I will have to say that I did eat
well the whole trip, well better than I allow myself to in
London. It is so expensive to eat and live well in London. I was
able to sample the local cuisine and meet new people all along
the way. There was much to see and get used to in Germany. For
one, they allow dogs to go everywhere, like in the airport and
into restaurants. All the ones that I saw were very well
behaved. The best thing that we did was take a train up the
Rhine and through all the small little towns that border the
river. The all have their specialty. Some were wine, others were
shops and pottery, but all the towns were very cute and
beautiful. One thing that Germany has that the U.S. does not is
all the castles. They were all up and down the Rhine! There were
so many that you could see a new one every time that you went
around the bend of the river. There was even one that was turned
into a youth hostel. At one point my cousin and I looked at each
other and were like, “let's just stay in the castle tonight”.
But we ended up just staying at her apartment because I had to
leave the next day. I had a great time hanging out with her and
miss her very much. We get along so well, but I had to come back
to London and get back to school and the assignments that I had
for the next week.
After returning it was nice to see everyone back here in the
flats because I have grown close to the people in the program
and I did miss them while away. We had class on Wednesday and
Thursday and then were able to have the weekend off. Yesterday
five of us went to the Camden Road Market. It was great because
it was so different than the Market that I went to in Paris. It
had many vendors that were artists and also my favorite part was
the vintage shops. It was so much fun to go through all the old
clothing and shoes and just everything that you can think of
from the sixties to the eighties. I found a great bag, and one
of the guys found a suit for Halloween. I am still having a
great time here and would highly recommend looking into the
study abroad program if you are at all interested because this
is the best thing that I have ever done. I am having the
experience of a life time. I came here to have fun and to find
out who I was, and I am having a blast but more importantly I am
slowly seeing the person that I am growing up to be.