And now the ball is rolling. A really big ball. Like in Indiana Jones, where if I don’t keep up I’m going to die a horrible death. No, that’s not really how I feel, although sometimes everything does seems surreal. It doesn’t quite seem like I’m going to be here for a year yet, but that will come with time, or if it doesn’t than . . . whatever. So, if seems like I’m jumping from subject to subject just trying to fit everything in, it’s because I am.
Anyway this week was my first real week in Germany and with it comes the Denglish. Denglish is a not-so-rare speaking disorder that affects German exchange students everywhere, especially ones that had trouble speaking English to begin with. Symptoms include saying things such as “that is genough Erdberries” and putting verbs at the end of sentences for no apparent reason. I am already experiencing early warning signs, which is grave news.
As with last week I continue to make mistakes (have you ever tried to speak German with a fellow who has a pretty thick Portuguese accent? It’s quite difficult) but not so many this time around. I’ll tell you about them in due time along with all the other lovely awkward moments that I have been experiencing (ok, maybe not all of them. For that you need a premium subscription)
By the way, I divided this blog into sections, so that if you find something really boring, you can skip it. Don't feel bad, I would too.
Monschau
On the Sunday the AIB took us to a quaint little village in the Eifel region called Monschau. It looked like something that you’d see on a postcard. Modest little houses, cobblestone streets, small trinket shops, and the remains of a castle that once loomed over the valley made it look like something that you’d only see in pictures, except I was there, I promise. I forgot my camera so you’ll just have to believe me.
Besides walking around, we visited a mustard mill, which was pretty cool. The mustard there is exquisite (forget everything you know about American mustard and try some. It’s awesome). Tip: Stuffed up? Got pressure built up in the sinuses? Try this: stick your head into a mustard mill and take a deep breath through your nose. It really uh . . . does something. They have 18 or 19 different flavors of mustard there. My favorite was the honey mustard and chili mustard, but I didn’t try all of them.
Bob sledding in the summer = fantastic. This is what I love about Germany. You can start a business that involves giving people the opportunity to go down a metal track on a sled with wheels and a brake. You don’t have to worry about getting sued because there wasn’t at least five feet of cushion on either side (or because of a lack of safety at all). It was so much fun. I went down three times, crashed once, and had a blast. The scenery was absolutely beautiful too. Afterwards we hung out at this somewhat dangerous playground which really topped of my experience in Monschau.
Note: There was a barbecue after that in case you were curious. Good food. I met the president of the partnership between Indianapolis and Cologne and got his card, which was pretty cool.
Schule
School is still pretty lame in Germany. I have German classes during the week from 9 till 1. I made it into the advanced class with about seven other people or so, and we do a lot of reading, writing, and grammar. It’s actually a pretty fun class compared to regular high school classes, it’s just that four hours can be pretty long.
Tours
It’s hot here in Germany. I like tours as well as the next guy (especially when they are about German things), but when it’s 35 degrees or hotter I find it really difficult to have a good time. I really didn’t expect for it to be this hot here, it’s ridiculous. Germans never have air conditioning either, so it’s pretty bad.
Anyway we took a couple tours of Bonn. I pretty much know my way around now, although it’s hard to connect names with places. One of the tours was about Bonn’s history. It was originally a Roman city so there are a lot of Roman ruins beneath the soil, but it’s known for being the capital of West Germany during the cold war. It’s a nice not-too-big-but-not-too-small city, which was one of the reasons they chose it. It’s relatively unimportant and they wanted to make sure that when Germany is reunified there would be no question that Berlin should be the capital. Today Deutsche Telecom is probably the biggest company in Bonn. It’s known as T-mobile in America. Famous people that live there include Beethoven and Schumann. Both have their respective house-museums. We visited the Schumann house and will visit the Beethoven house this week.
Other tours include a tour of a fire station cut short by a fire, the Koelner Dom, and a German modern history museum that was really quite interesting. The Koelner Dom is a huge cathedral in Cologne built in 1248 (but it wasn’t finished until the 1800s) in the Gothic style. It’s pretty sweet. Our guide, Hartwig, knew a lot about it, which made it really great. After the tour we went up the 515 steps to the top of one of the towers where one can get a breathtaking view of the city. Of course when you’re in Germany you need to try all of the pastries, so Harwig also took us bakery testing! Delish!
Ok, ok, here’s a good story. Five other people and I had decided to take an earlier train than everyone else because we wanted to head back to Bonn and get ready for the concert (it’s about a 23 minute train ride and we were going to go to a classical concert from the University). Well, the air conditioning in the train was broken, and everyone in the train was dripping with sweat. Longest 24 minutes of my life. Everyone was sweating gallons (or liters here, I suppose). If I had leaned forward, I would have created a small system of lakes at my feet from my chin drippings. When we finally got back we discovered that everyone else in Cologne was delayed because of a fire on the tracks. Oh well, the concert was pretty good, although only six or seven people showed up initially.
Soccer!
Soccer in Germany is like a religion. Everybody gets together at a certain place and time to watch the game, drinking their sacramental beer. Plus, it pretty much gets it’s own holiday too (or at least there are so many people playing hooky that it might as well be). I went to a bar with some friends on monday to watch the Netherlands v. Uruguay game, and then to a beer garden for the Germany v. Spain game. Everybody was really excited for the latter, which made for a fun atmosphere. Not to mention I had a voovoozella to play with. I stuck my horn mouthpiece in it to make some cool sounds. Good idea. Suddenly, after the game, all these Spanish fans came out of the woodworks. They weren’t there before the game, but they were sure around to gloat afterwards (I’m suspicious). Tip: When you choose a random beer to drink because you don’t know any, make sure it’s not a nonalcoholic beer. Those are just. . . awful.
Host Family
My host family is pretty cool. My mom is single lady with two kids, a girl my age who just finished her Abi (like the SAT except harder), and a boy who’s in his early twenties and lives in downtown Bonn. She has a boyfriend who I met once at a barbecue who also has a daughter, but she’s about 13 or 14 maybe. My host brother and sister are half Afghani, I think. I don’t really know much about that yet, but I do know that they have lived with just the mom pretty much all their life. The sister has a boyfriend that I have also met. He’s also my age and is from Portugal, so he’s pretty cool. I think he speaks 4 languages or something like that already, but not English. The only problem with that is his Portuguese accent while speaking German is difficult for me to understand, so overall it’s hard to communicate. That’s nothing new though.
When I hang out with Germans, I’m mostly with my host brother, David, and his friends. They’re all older than me, but it’s fun to do stuff with them. On Saturday we went (my host mom drove us) to the beach on this inlet from the Rhein river. The weather was so hot, it was quite nice to go. David claimed he needed to work on his tan, even though he’s already very dark skinned. I got a nice tan too that day, playing frisbee and sitting in the sun. David’s the type of guy who wears sunglasses and a chain necklace while swimming and then makes fun of himself for it. It’s great. He also wears sunglasses at night.
By the way, the Rhein is a really pretty river. If you ever go to Bonn and want to do something fun for free, go down to the tiny little beach area underneath the Kennedy beach and watch the day disappear. You can even make a fire there in the beach. When I went there was a thunderstorm coming, so I could see the storm across the river flashing, and it would reflect in the water. Cool, but I inevitably got soaked.
My real family is also here in Bonn, which is kinda weird. Matt has lived here for almost a year already, and it’s the nearest we have lived to each other, if you don’t count him visiting at home. He really is two minutes on the train and a fifteen minute walk from my house, so although I’ve been really busy I can still just meet up with him for breakfast or whatever sometimes. My mom came in on Saturday too, for his wedding in two weeks (in Bremen), kind of unusual for this type of program, but the wedding is just making everything weird.
Ende
Well, I think that’s everything. Pretty busy schedule, so I’ve probably left something out. If I’ve offended you, or you just want to make fun of me, by all means comment below.
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