So, ich bin hier in Trier. 

Sorry for no updates sooner, the trip over here was a little wild and it took a few days to get oriented with the city.  I got myself good and lost the first day as I was exploring the city, and I ended up getting directions from a hooker (they are everwhere!!  Prostitution is legal and government-regulated so they’re all actually very professional).  I’ve been given a map and much better directions, so I’m starting to understand where things are, or at least how to get back to our hostel.

Anyway, the city is gorgeous and I’ve only seen a small part of it so far.  I have a few pictures of Porta Nigra (the old Roman city gate, which is the largest one outside the city of Rome), but we’ll be touring the inside of the gate (it’s more like a castle really) as well as some of the other ruins later next week so I’ll put those pictures up then.  The only thing I’ve been able to explore in depth was the Dom.  This might be the most stunning cathedral I’ve ever seen.  It’s much smaller than the one in Köln but architecturally its much more interesting.  The original structure was built in 250 AD and parts of the foundation are still intact as they kept building over it.  Most of the current structure is from the Rennaissance, but there are parts from different periods. 

Classes started yesterday and are going well.  They gave us a DaF (Deutsch auf Fremdsprachen- german as a second language) teacher so that’s been really helpful as none of us can really speak it that well.  The university is very cool, i’ll have to put up pictures of it later because the architecture is insane.  I’ve never seen anything like it, the whole campus looks like a Lego space station.  It is also the only place in the city where you can find cheap coffee (under €3!!) because the government subsidizes the food for students.

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The rest of the Dom photos are here (I have so many on my camera but the computer I’m working on has a slow connection so I only added a few- more later!)http://www.flickr.com/photos/18357363@N00/sets/72157605386257452/