Europe Through My Lens

I’ll be honest that I have no clue what to write for this blog post. As I mentioned in my last blog post, we had Pentecost Break (Pfingstferien) from Monday, May 25, 2026, to Saturday, May 30, 2026. I had loads of plans to go on hikes, but unfortunately, I was only able to go on two before I got blisters on both of my heels. These blisters weren’t related to hiking; actually, my hiking boots are really amazing. I got these blisters from breaking in some new shoes.

I had watched a movie on Netflix called Woodwalkers. It’s definitely a kids’ movie, but my German comprehension is similar to a kid’s comprehension, so it worked out. Also, Netflix had English subtitles. Honestly, I really enjoyed the movie. I guess I’ll discuss the movie more, so this post has more to it since I haven’t done much in the last two weeks. The movie is based on a book series written for kids. It’s written in German, so I definitely don’t have a good enough understanding to read the book series, but kind of interested in trying.

The characters in the movie are half human and half animal, and they can shapeshift between being human and their animal forms at their will. The movie follows a shapeshifter named Carag, who is raised as a puma with his family in their puma forms, but one day he decides he wants to live as a human with humans. His father is severely afraid of humans, which is why his whole family didn’t just change into their human forms. When Carag joins the human world, he is placed in a foster family where he is given the name Jay because he appears to have forgotten his name given to him by his puma family. After failing to fit into the human world, a secret boarding school called Clearwater High finds him. This school teaches kids how to control their shapeshifting powers.

So I watched this movie, but it ended on a cliffhanger, so I needed to know if it had a second movie. Netflix didn’t have it, but that was because it was still in theaters. So I found a theater that had it showing, and I went and watched it a couple of days after I watched it. But anyway, since I was only going to watch a movie, I thought I could break in these shoes, but I failed to take the precautions like wearing thicker socks. The second movie wasn’t as good as the first one, and wasn’t satisfying. This movie also had a cliffhanger, and the antagonist didn’t get justice for his corruption. It was annoying. But I think the funniest part is watching German producers create a movie that takes place in the United States. The boarding school, Clearwater High, is set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The only thing that bothered me as an American watching the film was how they set up a scene in the hospital. They showed someone being admitted for a simple foot injury, when in the case of that injury, he would likely go in through the ER, where he would be triaged. During that triage, it would be clear that his injury wasn’t that severe, and he definitely wouldn’t have been admitted. But that’s just me nitpicking the movie.

I had bought my ticket online, and through the online ticket buying process, I was able to pre-purchase my drinks and snacks for the movie. I got water and Skittles because I wanted to see if there was a difference in taste between US Skittles and German Skittles. I’d say there is a difference. I liked the German Skittles better. I googled it while I was writing this blog post because I was curious. The biggest difference I found is that the grape-flavored Skittle in Germany and Europe is made using blackcurrant. Also, the coloring is created using natural extracts. I already knew the part about the coloring being from natural extracts, but the grape skittle being blackcurrant was very interesting.

My Recent Hikes

Neither of these hikes was during the actual school break, but I only have classes from Monday to Wednesday, so it was a break for me. I wrote out a hike and then I realized that I had discussed it during my last blog post, so I guess there will only be one hike discussed in this blog post.

On May 24th, I went on a 9.76 mile hike with 3,550 ft of elevation gain. This hike took me three hours and thirty minutes, which isn’t long at all, but I also paused my watch during breaks, so that isn’t entirely accurate. I bagged two peaks on this hike, Schlossberg, which is 2,275 ft., and Runder Berg, which is 2,325 ft. So they weren’t that tall, but Schlossberg was so cool because it had castle ruins at the top of it. The castle ruins were of Burgruine Hohenurach. I had taken my camera, so I actually got some pretty cool photos from it. This hike had two waterfalls, but the second one was way smaller and could barely be called a waterfall in my opinion. But a waterfall is a waterfall, and I loved it. The first one was blocked off by a gate, which seemed to be something that had just been put in place because the people I encountered seemed just as surprised and annoyed by it as I was. It made me wonder if someone had gotten hurt or just pushed the rules of the trail, so they blocked it off. At the second “waterfall,” someone had a Bernese Mountain Dog. It was really cute, and at that moment, I wished I had more confidence, general confidence, and in my German, because I would’ve loved to go up to them and compliment their dog. I grew up around Bernese Mountain dogs, and I do love them. Toward the end of the hike, I also called my mom because I knew she likely would be awake by that time, even though it was roughly 6 a.m. in Maine. So I called her so she could see the gorgeous view. I also just needed to kill some time before my train got there. I still had to wait about forty minutes for my train, but at least the view was pretty.

Stocherkahnrennen

The Stocherkahnrennen is a race that happens in Tübingen. It brings in a lot of tourists, but it also creates a lot of noise for the university. I had a migraine and didn’t really want to go, but I went anyway. Mostly for the photography opportunities and blog content. But since I went alone and got there at 1, I didn’t get a great view. However, I would say that I got some pretty cool photos of the event, even if I had to lean over the bridge railing with my camera’s telephoto lens to get any photos. I took 140 photos of the event, and only 28 photos made the cut after editing and deleting the blurry shots. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my shutter speed up high enough. I started it at 500, but then soon moved it up to 800, which is where I kept it, but afterwards I realized I should have had it at 1,000. But oh well, I’ll keep that in mind if/when I do more sports photography.

For this post, I decided to do some research on the event to provide some more context. The Stocherkahnrennen is a traditional boat race that takes place in Tübingen on the Neckar River. This race is done with Stocherkähne, which apparently translates to “punting boat” in English. These boats are propelled using punting poles or Stocherstangen. Since I didn’t have a good view, I couldn’t see the costumes very well, but there is a costume competition part of the race. I did see people dressed in costumes dancing on boats to music. One boat was dressed as surgeons, and they had something that made it look like they were doing surgery. According to Wikipedia, I know, don’t judge me for using Wikipedia, but anyway, Wikipedia talks about how it was started in 1956 by members of Tübinger Lichtenstein, which is a frat here. It began as a dedication ceremony for the frat’s new punt boat. Apparently, once again, according to Wikipedia, the first evidence of Stocherkähne being used recreationally by frats was during the 19th century.

I will include my photographs, as usual, at the end.

My Weeks in Photos

I realized I have loads of photos I want to include, but also this is called Europe Through My Lens, so I guess that’s the point. I’m starting with the hike I mentioned.

This one right here is the one I was kind of the most proud of of the photos that I took of the ruins. I liked that you could see the view through the window, even with the wall being the main focus.

The trail actually followed up those stairs on the left. I was very grateful that my hiking boots are waterproof.

This was the waterfall that was blocked off. This was the best picture I could get of it. It was unfortunate, but still cool.

You can see the Castle ruins from this point. It was so cool to see where I had started.

This is the second “waterfall,” which is more like a watering hole, if I’m being honest, but this is also where I saw the Bernese Mountain dog. He loved how cool the water was.

This flowed into the watering hole/waterfall that is pictured above. I thought it was really cool.

This is where I called my mom at the end of the hike. There was a nice bench, and I could see the castle ruins from there too.

I saw this guy making a dog out of what I assume to be sand when I was on the bus on my way back from the hike. It was so cool, I had to take a photo.

I walk through here on my way back from the gym. I think in this specific photo, I was walking back from run club.

The next photos are from yesterday of the Stocherkahnrennen.

This and the next two after this are just to show how big the crowd was for the event.

This is a photo I took with my phone since I only had my telephoto lens. Well, I had another lens, but it was so packed that I didn’t dare change my lens. The next photos are all photos that I took with my telephoto lens of the race.

This guy was part of the boat with the surgery costumes that I mentioned earlier.

While this isn’t a very clear photo, I wanted to include it to show how close the boats got at times. It was a race, which meant there were some collisions.

I know I have no pictures of women here, but that’s because they all came out blurry. Some really cool ones came out blurry, and I was very annoyed about it once I had them downloaded and I was going through all of them.

Bonus picture of a dinner I made recently because I thought it looked good. It had a lot of vegetables, so I had sent it to my mom to make her feel better about my diet.

This week, one of my lecturers reminded us that this week marked halfway through the semester, and I thought that was wild. We actually have to register for exam slots starting early next week. We have until July 6th, but I need to get mine out of the way as soon as I can, unless I don’t need to be in Germany to submit them.

Overall, I’m very happy with how my photography came out over the last couple of weeks, especially my photos of the Stocherkahnrennen and the castle ruins. Now that my blisters are basically healed, I can start to get back to doing the things I love, like hiking and running. It was a long couple of weeks without being able to do those things. So thank god my blisters are nearly completely healed.