So, I am now located at my permanent host family. It’s weird to think about, but I believe I will be able to get used to it. I woke up at 7 this morning for some reason, so I figured “hey, why don’t I just write my blog.” I was going to attempt to get it done yesterday, but I was distracted by my host family playing Wii Tennis in the living room, and then when I finally came to my room and finished my journal, I was too tired. Plus, there was a marriage party going on at my neighbors house, so its not like I can concentrate with “So ein schöner Tag” und “Das Rote Pferd” (those of you that were in my German class know what I’m talking about. Yes, they really do play those songs.) blasting in the background. Instead I went up to my bed that lies precariously on top of the wall in this weird second story of my room.
School’s out for Summer!
It was my last week in Bonn, so naturally we had to wrap up school. We had an oral final on Tuesday and our written final was on Friday. Monday we had a day of review, I suppose. We played a game where people had to leave the room and come up with an alibi, so that they are not accused of murder. Me and my partner totally owned, because our alibi was what we actually did Sunday night, which was that we went bowling with friends and her host brother (I bowled a 189, I’m so proud of myself). Wednesday we even went to a Cafe as part of our class. It was awesome. After the final on Thursday (they were really not so bad. I think I did alright.) all I had to worry about was the Abschiedsparty.
Party every day!
Or just a couple days in the week. . . Wednesday our group went out to a bar for the last time (yeah, right before finals, I know, but it was the last chance to do so). It was fun; we made a big Prost to ourselves and each other, wishing everybody luck in our permanent home. However, it was not until Friday that I started realizing how much I’m going to miss everyone. Friday was the going away party that was provided by the AIB. It was just a grill out and some of us had things to present at the end of it. I was so focused on preparing my sketch and this collage I made for the teachers and Hartwig, that when the realization hit that I was moving permanently to a town for ten months, it hit pretty hard. Everything went well though. I spent the whole day that day preparing the collage on my computer and then attempting to get it printed out, which was quite the hassle, and then I had to practice the sketch we were going to do. We did “Who’s on first” by Abbot & Costello. It went pretty well and hopefully it thoroughly confused the Germans. Shout out to all you PPP people: Good luck, I hope you're adjusting well to your host families. If not just let me know and I'll give 'em a stern talking to.
Long Train Runnin’
Here comes the interesting part. I got home at a reasonable hour Friday night, but I was tired, so I figured “Hey, why don’t I just wake up early to finish packing (I had a good amount of stuff packed but not all of it) then I can be on my way.” Well, thanks to chaos theory, things did not go nearly as planned. Of course, my alarm was set for weekdays only; I had set it that way, but the day I had to leave was a Saturday, not a weekday. You all are smart cookies; you know by now what happened, but I’ll tell you anyway. I woke up at 8:30 by myself, instead of 6:00 with the alarm. My train came at 9:21. I had not even finished packing. Quickly I woke up, finished packing by about 8:50 or so and got all my stuff out of my room. Then I thought, “where the heck is my host mom?” She was supposed to take me to the train station and she was nowhere in the house. I gave her a ring and it turned out she was already in front of the house with the car ready to load, but I can’t say my heart didn’t skip a beat there. Soon, I realized that I had no idea where my set of keys to the apartment was, and I had to start looking for those. I had taken my lego keychain off of it that very morning, but for some reason put the keys somewhere else. I concluded that I must have packed them somewhere and I would have to send them by mail, and we were on the road by 9:00. While riding in the car I had a last minute moment of inspiration and I found my keys in the pocket of my backpack where I always put my keys, go figure. By the time I get to the train station I have five minutes to spare. I’m really stressed, hungry, and sweating like a pig, but I said goodbye to my host mom, man handled my two suitcases, French horn, and backpack down the stairs and up the escalator in time to see my train rolling it. Unfortunately I assumed that the person who I would traveling with would be waiting for me at the actual platform two minutes before the train leaves, but that wasn’t the case. I got on the train and held the door, telling the train workers that I was waiting on someone. Turns out she was waiting in the McDonalds and struggling to get her bags out onto the platform. Soon, we got all of the stuff on the to the train, and we were off to Köln.
But that’s not all. We had a little bit of time on the train to get our stuff organized and figure out the best way to carry it all. The problem was that she had a big bag with a broken handle, another suitcase, a small duffel bag, two purses, and some plastic bags with shoes in them that were hung precariously on the suitcase. I believe we ended up switching some bags around and using a belt to roll the broken suitcase, but we didn’t figure that arrangement out until the train change in Hannover. In Köln we had only six minutes to get off our train and on to the next one. Fortunately, the platform was simply on the other side of the platform we got off. Unfortunately, the train car was parked about ten miles down the platform. So, I went ahead to try to find the right train car (it was of course the furthest one) and by the time I found it, I had no idea what happened to my traveling partner. She called me and explained that her shoe had ended up underneath the train somehow, and that she is on some other train car, but we both indeed made it on the train. She made two trips to get her suitcases in our car, but eventually we got settled in. By settled in I mean we just put our suitcases in the area near the door and sat there instead of finding our seats and then figuring out what to do with our huge suitcases. It was just a lot simpler this way. The ride to Hannover was two hours, so I finally had time to relax. I went to get some breakfast, and even had time to brush my teeth and shave. The transition in Hannover was a lot more successful and we had a generous twelve minutes this time around, so it was overall just less stressful. By the time we got to Göttingen, I was able to enjoy the beautiful scenery and I got moved in without any problems.
Oh Little Town of Ebergötzen?
I know there aren’t any songs about it, but Ebergötzen is really a nice little town. Well built, good looking houses with gardens everywhere, plenty of greenery accompanied by a little creek, and the Hartz mountains on either side make it quite the picturesque place. Shortly after I got there I walked with my host mom to the soccer game that my host dad was coaching that afternoon. It was a fun game to watch, and I find it so strange that she knows almost everyone. I suppose I’ll have to get used to that. The house is really nice, and quite interesting. Basically there’s a house in which we live on the top floor over two other families, and attached to it is a barn, which is now partly a jewelry shop and the rest is used for storage. There’s some chickens in our back yard too. And there are two cats.
Let’s see. . . what else. . . My family is super awesome btw. The twins are living with us as well for two weeks. They pretty cool as well, and funny. They both enjoy soccer and computer things. I don’t know what, but they are on the computer a lot doing something. Also, Ebergötzen has a sister city in Hungary, where I might be able to travel in October. I’m pretty excited for that, but it’s not one hundred percent yet, because my host dad is going there with his soccer team and is going to see if I can tag along. I hope so.
Coda
It took me a while to get internet access because the Wifi was “unsichtbar” which I now know means invisible. That was an adventure. Eventually the nephew of my host mom came and helped us out, but it was worth it, because I have Wifi now and I don’t have to plug my computer into the wall anymore (it wasn’t that big of a deal before, but now I don’t have to worry about tying up the internet). So now my gaggles of fans don’t have to worry about me not being able to post this blog.
I had a delicious German breakfast this morning. It made me happy.
Skez
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Last Bonnsch Blog
It’s the beginning of my last week here in Bonn. I am sure going to miss the little city. It’s really a nice place to live. It’s not to big, not to small, in the vicinity of Cologne, but not as busy. It’s going to be exciting moving to Ebergötzen to start my schooling and internship, but at the same time it’ll be hard to say goodbye to all the good friends I just made. With that said, a had a pretty awesome second to last week here in Bonn, and I’m sure you want to hear about it. If not, then I think you entered the wrong URL into your web browser.
Köln
I spent quite a bit of time in Cologne this week actually, more than usual at least. We went there for school twice this week. On Tuesday we went there instead of the regular school day to go to an art museum called the Museum-Ludwig. It was pretty cool actually. The art was usually pretty interesting, mostly art from the late 19th century until today. The advanced class had to prepare a two minute speech about one of the paintings in the museum, and I did one called Au Rendez-vous des Amis by Max Ernst, a Dada artist who studied in Bonn. They had a lot of cool Dada and Surrealist paintings there, which I enjoy.
Train Fail!
That wasn’t the end of that day however. Oh no, not by far. I went again to the zoo that afternoon with a few friends, because it was such an awesome zoo and they hadn’t all seen it. I guess it wasn’t the best time to go though, because many of the animals were asleep, especially at the beginning. Maybe it was their afternoon siesta; I don’t know. Anyway, that evening we left Köln in the evening to get back to Bonn, so we decided to take the train that went from Köln over Bonn, Beuel, ect. to the end destination of Koblenz, which is pretty far south of Bonn. Little did we know that “Bonn-Beuel” did not mean we’d be passing through the Hauptbahnhof, but rather through the Beuel part of Bonn. So, we obliviously passed through Bonn and slowly realized that we did not recognize any of the stops we were going through. So we could have A.) stopped in some random place and most likely have to sleep at the train station for the night, or B.) waited until we got to the Koblenz Hauptbahnhof where we could take an IC back to Bonn, although that would cost money. We decided to take option B, because sleeping in a train station really didn’t sound appealing. Of course there was no train until one in the morning that could take us to Bonn and we had to chuck out twelve Euros for it, so that was pretty lame. We just chilled in McDonalds for an hour or so (I broke my vow to never eat at a McDonalds in Germany, because I didn’t have dinner and it was the only place open). The train ride back was thankfully uneventful, although we got there at 1:33 or so, and my last U-Bahn was at 1:20. We missed the first night bus that left at 1:30 and had to wait another hour for the next one. The night buses go in a very round-about route, so I didn’t get to my flat until ten past 3 AM, it was lovely. Oh, and it was raining. Getting up for school the next morning was lots of fun.
Chocolate Museum (mmm. . .)
Thursday I went to Cologne again to get a present for Hector’s (our student guide person) birthday. That was fun; we grilled by the biergarten and almost everyone in our group showed up. The next time was on Friday, when we were supposed to go somewhere and take a boat back to Bonn on the Rhein. That would have been fun, but I had to go to an appointment with the Stadtamt about my Passport and my visa that lets me intern here (which was really easy by the way they just had difficulty finding my papers in Hamburg, so I went there and got my visa and left. I am now legal). So when we discovered that the train was not running today, I was not entirely disappointed, because I couldn’t go anyway. Instead everyone went to the zoo (It would have been my third time, so I didn’t mind that I had to miss it.) After that I rejoined them in Köln for the chocolate museum in the afternoon. The chocolate museum was really cool, but I do love food science, so I’m partial. Basically there’s one section about growing cocoa and the cocoa trade, and then you move into a place where you can see all the machines used to make chocolate and it explains the process. Then you move into a place where they show the history of chocolate and information about many of the different types and brands. At the end you can visit the store of course, which has all sorts of crazy chocolate flavors (or should I say flavours). After that I chilled in Köln for a while longer, because it does look really cool at night, especially the Dom. There was some kind of fest there by the Rhein which had some good food and they were playing random music into the night. Some of it was pretty good, but initially there was a drag queen singing, which was just weird.
Euchre!
Yes, I finally got to play Euchre last week! Go figure nobody else in the group knew how to play. It made me feel like a real Hoosier. But I got my Euchre fix, and I’m happy. Plus I enjoy the look on other people’s faces when I get in the barn. Shortest section ever.
Düsseldorf
On Saturday I went to Dusseldorf (I can’t figure out if there is supposed to be an umlaut on the u or not. I think so, but only in German). It’s a pretty cool city. The best part is over by the Rhein, which seems to be ridiculously far away from the Hauptbahnhof in my opinion. It’s the Altstadt, so much of the cool architecture is there, as well as good restaurants and street cafes. I had some Thai food for lunch, green curry to be exact, and it was delicious (It was no Jasmine Thai, but I’ll take it). Not to mention it was decently spicy, which was nice.
There was also some festival going on in Dusseldorf that weekend, so I’ve come to the conclusion that German cities just always have something going on on weekends, especially during the summer. There was a two man band that we watched for a while that played some classic rock. It was funny because they were both guitar players and singers, so the background was provided via computer. Pretty much the drums and bass were invisible. One guy had a pretty good voice for classic rock in my opinion, and the other just sounded like he was singing AC/DC which was good only when he was actually singing AC/DC. It was lots of fun. Another thing was that along the Rhein there was a bunch of outdoor restaurants where you could sit and have a beer or some food if you wanted. It was a lovely day, perfect for that kind of thing. Hmm. . . let’s see, what else. . . There is a nice park in the middle of the city which is pretty much a big walking path surrounded by woods. I succeeded in getting stuck upside down on a swing at the playground there because I left my backpack on. It was really a defining moment for me. Oh, and one more thing, there was an unusually large amount of bachelor and bachelorette parties going around that day. You can identify them because of they are all dressed similarly and are usually trying to sell something or something like that. I got offered schnapps for a Euro, but I just wasn’t feeling it that night, so I had to turn it down.
Ende
Well that pretty much sums it up for this week. The only other thing is that I went to a museum for calculators, but you don’t want to hear about that (It actually was pretty interesting, but I am a nerd, so . . .). I leave for Göttingen next Saturday bright and early, so I don’t know if I will have a blog up by this time again next week. If not just hang in there; I believe in you.
Shout out to all of you that are starting college in these subsequent weeks. Good luck, have fun, don’t kill yourself with classes as I’m sure you will. I’m gonna go ahead an admit that it’s really strange reading about it all on Facebook without being in the same situation, but I don’t mind, I’m excited for you all.
Skez
Köln
I spent quite a bit of time in Cologne this week actually, more than usual at least. We went there for school twice this week. On Tuesday we went there instead of the regular school day to go to an art museum called the Museum-Ludwig. It was pretty cool actually. The art was usually pretty interesting, mostly art from the late 19th century until today. The advanced class had to prepare a two minute speech about one of the paintings in the museum, and I did one called Au Rendez-vous des Amis by Max Ernst, a Dada artist who studied in Bonn. They had a lot of cool Dada and Surrealist paintings there, which I enjoy.
Train Fail!
That wasn’t the end of that day however. Oh no, not by far. I went again to the zoo that afternoon with a few friends, because it was such an awesome zoo and they hadn’t all seen it. I guess it wasn’t the best time to go though, because many of the animals were asleep, especially at the beginning. Maybe it was their afternoon siesta; I don’t know. Anyway, that evening we left Köln in the evening to get back to Bonn, so we decided to take the train that went from Köln over Bonn, Beuel, ect. to the end destination of Koblenz, which is pretty far south of Bonn. Little did we know that “Bonn-Beuel” did not mean we’d be passing through the Hauptbahnhof, but rather through the Beuel part of Bonn. So, we obliviously passed through Bonn and slowly realized that we did not recognize any of the stops we were going through. So we could have A.) stopped in some random place and most likely have to sleep at the train station for the night, or B.) waited until we got to the Koblenz Hauptbahnhof where we could take an IC back to Bonn, although that would cost money. We decided to take option B, because sleeping in a train station really didn’t sound appealing. Of course there was no train until one in the morning that could take us to Bonn and we had to chuck out twelve Euros for it, so that was pretty lame. We just chilled in McDonalds for an hour or so (I broke my vow to never eat at a McDonalds in Germany, because I didn’t have dinner and it was the only place open). The train ride back was thankfully uneventful, although we got there at 1:33 or so, and my last U-Bahn was at 1:20. We missed the first night bus that left at 1:30 and had to wait another hour for the next one. The night buses go in a very round-about route, so I didn’t get to my flat until ten past 3 AM, it was lovely. Oh, and it was raining. Getting up for school the next morning was lots of fun.
Chocolate Museum (mmm. . .)
Thursday I went to Cologne again to get a present for Hector’s (our student guide person) birthday. That was fun; we grilled by the biergarten and almost everyone in our group showed up. The next time was on Friday, when we were supposed to go somewhere and take a boat back to Bonn on the Rhein. That would have been fun, but I had to go to an appointment with the Stadtamt about my Passport and my visa that lets me intern here (which was really easy by the way they just had difficulty finding my papers in Hamburg, so I went there and got my visa and left. I am now legal). So when we discovered that the train was not running today, I was not entirely disappointed, because I couldn’t go anyway. Instead everyone went to the zoo (It would have been my third time, so I didn’t mind that I had to miss it.) After that I rejoined them in Köln for the chocolate museum in the afternoon. The chocolate museum was really cool, but I do love food science, so I’m partial. Basically there’s one section about growing cocoa and the cocoa trade, and then you move into a place where you can see all the machines used to make chocolate and it explains the process. Then you move into a place where they show the history of chocolate and information about many of the different types and brands. At the end you can visit the store of course, which has all sorts of crazy chocolate flavors (or should I say flavours). After that I chilled in Köln for a while longer, because it does look really cool at night, especially the Dom. There was some kind of fest there by the Rhein which had some good food and they were playing random music into the night. Some of it was pretty good, but initially there was a drag queen singing, which was just weird.
Euchre!
Yes, I finally got to play Euchre last week! Go figure nobody else in the group knew how to play. It made me feel like a real Hoosier. But I got my Euchre fix, and I’m happy. Plus I enjoy the look on other people’s faces when I get in the barn. Shortest section ever.
Düsseldorf
On Saturday I went to Dusseldorf (I can’t figure out if there is supposed to be an umlaut on the u or not. I think so, but only in German). It’s a pretty cool city. The best part is over by the Rhein, which seems to be ridiculously far away from the Hauptbahnhof in my opinion. It’s the Altstadt, so much of the cool architecture is there, as well as good restaurants and street cafes. I had some Thai food for lunch, green curry to be exact, and it was delicious (It was no Jasmine Thai, but I’ll take it). Not to mention it was decently spicy, which was nice.
There was also some festival going on in Dusseldorf that weekend, so I’ve come to the conclusion that German cities just always have something going on on weekends, especially during the summer. There was a two man band that we watched for a while that played some classic rock. It was funny because they were both guitar players and singers, so the background was provided via computer. Pretty much the drums and bass were invisible. One guy had a pretty good voice for classic rock in my opinion, and the other just sounded like he was singing AC/DC which was good only when he was actually singing AC/DC. It was lots of fun. Another thing was that along the Rhein there was a bunch of outdoor restaurants where you could sit and have a beer or some food if you wanted. It was a lovely day, perfect for that kind of thing. Hmm. . . let’s see, what else. . . There is a nice park in the middle of the city which is pretty much a big walking path surrounded by woods. I succeeded in getting stuck upside down on a swing at the playground there because I left my backpack on. It was really a defining moment for me. Oh, and one more thing, there was an unusually large amount of bachelor and bachelorette parties going around that day. You can identify them because of they are all dressed similarly and are usually trying to sell something or something like that. I got offered schnapps for a Euro, but I just wasn’t feeling it that night, so I had to turn it down.
Ende
Well that pretty much sums it up for this week. The only other thing is that I went to a museum for calculators, but you don’t want to hear about that (It actually was pretty interesting, but I am a nerd, so . . .). I leave for Göttingen next Saturday bright and early, so I don’t know if I will have a blog up by this time again next week. If not just hang in there; I believe in you.
Shout out to all of you that are starting college in these subsequent weeks. Good luck, have fun, don’t kill yourself with classes as I’m sure you will. I’m gonna go ahead an admit that it’s really strange reading about it all on Facebook without being in the same situation, but I don’t mind, I’m excited for you all.
Skez
Sunday, August 8, 2010
My Week in Under 2000 Words.
So, its hard to believe that I only have two more weeks left here in Bonn. I am really excited for my next place, but I feel like I have finally gotten adjusted this week. I have a relatively constant routine, I’m used to the way things are and where things are, and everything’s not so awkward anymore. My host family is really great, I had a barbecue today with them and felt totally fine conversing with them, minus the usual language barriers, but that’s just how it always is. I’ll talk more about that later, but those are just my general feelings about this week. I feel like I’ve surpassed a mini hump in my adjustment here in Germany, and I feel much better than I did at the beginning of the week for lots of reasons. Anyway, I’ll start my blog now. By the way, I never really proof read these, so I apologize if you grammar Nazis out there are getting irritated.
Klasse
Everything as far as class goes is pretty much routine. It’s pretty difficult most times, and can be boring sometimes, but mostly it keeps my interest if I’m not particularly tired that morning. We always have class from 9 to 1, so I’ve figured out how to keep my tummy happy during and after this time slot. The building that the classrooms are in, the AIB, has a little kitchen where I’ve been storing food that I get from the Netto, this dirt-cheap grocery store, to make sandwiches, ramen noodles, and such. For some reason this place is way cheaper than anything that we have in the US. I take care of lunch for the week for only five Euro, including soda or juice, or whatever I want to drink.
On Monday during class we learned a whole bunch of Schimpfwörter (for, you know, cultural reasons) which was pretty fun. Now I know what the Germans are yelling when I screw something up, or they’re just in a bad mood for some reason, which is nice. I suppose I would have liked to remain blissfully ignorant, however.
The grammar we’re learning is pretty complicated. We’ve been doing things like reflexive verbs and some complicated passive voice stuff, things that we just don’t have in English (we have passive voice, but it uses the same “to be” verb). And some of the German conjunctions can get pretty obnoxious, but so is life. There’s not really a heck of a lot of new vocab for me during class, but I’ve learned quite a bit.
Friday’s class was especially fun. We went to the Hofgarten, a huge field next to the University building, and played games. We did relay races involving German grammar, a German word game, a dictation race, and this game where you have to tie a balloon to your ankle and run around trying to pop the other team’s balloons. Mine popped pretty early on the grass, because I blew it up too much, but it was still fun to watch. If our class didn’t win than we at least had the best spirit. Our classmate made this awesome Griffin mascot on a piece of cardboard with “Anis Advanced Armee” written on it (Ani is our teacher). We all dressed up in black and had black war paint on, or mustaches. Oh and by the way there was this bum who was there for the first half it, who had clearly spent the night there on his skateboard. He was great.
The best part, however was our little scavenger hunt thing afterwards. Our classes had two apples to trade for as much/the coolest stuff we could find. By the way, the stereotype that Germans are not friendly or warm, is totally not true. Most of them were extremely willing to help, or just laughed at us when we told them our assignment. Even if they didn’t have anything good to trade, they still were willing to talk to us for a little bit. Anyway we ended up with some gummies, a pair of shoes, a pair of flip flops (different sizes), and a flower. It was so much fun.
Update: I still don’t have my visa yet, but I have an appointment with this guy in Bonn about it on friday. I hope it’s just a sit down, sign here type of deal, but am extremely worried that it could be a sit down and let us interrogate you for hours in German about your past type of deal. Then they might deport me or something. Or maybe they’ll give me citizenship. That’d be pretty cool, but impossible.
Excursions!
Let’s see, what excursions did I go on this week? On Tuesday we did a little tour of Konrad Adenauer’s house with another set of German kids who were doing some week long camp for German-American relations, I think, just like last week. This time when we ate dinner with them, we played ultimate frisbee with them too, which was super fun. I hadn’t played since we played that one midnight game in the States, so it was refreshing.
On Wednesday I went with a couple people to the Drachenfelz, just for fun. Everybody else had gone there when I was at my brother’s wedding. It’s one of the Sieben Gebirge (seven mountains) on the other side of the Rhein, where you can hike all the way to the top. There’s a castle in the middle of the mountain, and then really old ruins of another one at the very top. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to hike like that, so it was really great.
Thursday was our last tour of Köln with Hartwig and a pretty good one at that. We went to a Gestapo jail, where they kept many prisoners during the war. They were many different nationalities, and were there to get interrogated mostly. Many of them died there. The cells were so tiny, and they used to be filled with thirty or more people at once. All the writing on the walls had been documented and much of it you could walk by and read in both English and German. Overall it was an extremely powerful place, and it made me extremely depressed for the a long time afterward. We visited another church with the Black Madonna in it, and then went to try some Kölnisch Wasser, aka Cologne, the original fragrance named after the city. There’s a fountain in the store where you can just stick your hands in and put it on, or just take a long sniff of it if you prefer. It really clears the sinuses. After that was more bakery tasting, where I had possibly the best pastry that I have ever had. Ever.
I don’t know if this counts as an excursion, but I also went to the grocery store in Tannenbusch Mitte on Friday to get some butter. Before, the store didn’t make any sense to me. There was only fresh fruits and vegetables, cosmetics, drinks, and other cooking stuff, like pots and pans, but no dairy products, dried food, canned food, baking needs, jam, or anything like that. Friday, however I discovered there was a whole other floor in which you have to go all the way to the back of the store to find. It makes so much sense now. . .
Saturday, I went to the Zoo in Köln. German zoos are much more exciting than American zoos, I’ve decided. There are hardly any cages for the safer animals, such as the birds and Giraffes and such, which is pretty funny, considering that totally wouldn’t fly in the US. (haha, get it? Because the birds are always caged there?) Literally there was this closed in room which you had to walk through where there were buzzards just kinda chilling within feet of you. There was even one on the sidewalk, which I just kinda walked past, and it definitely could have bitten me. I love it, it’s great.
Cookies
Wow, I did a lot this week. I attempted on Saturday to bake cookies for the first time, which was initially pretty fail. I didn’t find enough flour, plus I don’t think my host mom has anything to measure stuff with. Measuring is pretty important when it comes to baking, and I was pretty much eyeing everything, plus it was all in grams. So my first cookies were really ugly looking and not really sweet enough at all. Today, my mother pointed me towards where she kept the rest of the flour, which had been recently invaded by ants unfortunately. So, I added some ant-flour which made them a lot thicker and prettier, then I rolled them in sugar before baking which made them sweeter and more impressive looking. Then came the trial. I gave them to my family to try after dinner (we had a barbecue) with some coffee. Great success! My host brother even took some back to his apartment. I also enjoyed how surprised they were that I put the cookies in the oven as balls, and then they flatten out while baking. I thought that was a fairly normal thing, but apparently not.
Ende
That pretty much covers anything and everything that I would want to tell you and you would want to know, I hope. It’s really super fun here, I even found a good hamburger place that reminds me of Bub’s and the notorious Big Ugly. Have you ever listened to Mr. T speak German? You should give it a try. It’s great.
Shout out to Keith and Gayle. Congratulations on being pregnant!
Skez
Klasse
Everything as far as class goes is pretty much routine. It’s pretty difficult most times, and can be boring sometimes, but mostly it keeps my interest if I’m not particularly tired that morning. We always have class from 9 to 1, so I’ve figured out how to keep my tummy happy during and after this time slot. The building that the classrooms are in, the AIB, has a little kitchen where I’ve been storing food that I get from the Netto, this dirt-cheap grocery store, to make sandwiches, ramen noodles, and such. For some reason this place is way cheaper than anything that we have in the US. I take care of lunch for the week for only five Euro, including soda or juice, or whatever I want to drink.
On Monday during class we learned a whole bunch of Schimpfwörter (for, you know, cultural reasons) which was pretty fun. Now I know what the Germans are yelling when I screw something up, or they’re just in a bad mood for some reason, which is nice. I suppose I would have liked to remain blissfully ignorant, however.
The grammar we’re learning is pretty complicated. We’ve been doing things like reflexive verbs and some complicated passive voice stuff, things that we just don’t have in English (we have passive voice, but it uses the same “to be” verb). And some of the German conjunctions can get pretty obnoxious, but so is life. There’s not really a heck of a lot of new vocab for me during class, but I’ve learned quite a bit.
Friday’s class was especially fun. We went to the Hofgarten, a huge field next to the University building, and played games. We did relay races involving German grammar, a German word game, a dictation race, and this game where you have to tie a balloon to your ankle and run around trying to pop the other team’s balloons. Mine popped pretty early on the grass, because I blew it up too much, but it was still fun to watch. If our class didn’t win than we at least had the best spirit. Our classmate made this awesome Griffin mascot on a piece of cardboard with “Anis Advanced Armee” written on it (Ani is our teacher). We all dressed up in black and had black war paint on, or mustaches. Oh and by the way there was this bum who was there for the first half it, who had clearly spent the night there on his skateboard. He was great.
The best part, however was our little scavenger hunt thing afterwards. Our classes had two apples to trade for as much/the coolest stuff we could find. By the way, the stereotype that Germans are not friendly or warm, is totally not true. Most of them were extremely willing to help, or just laughed at us when we told them our assignment. Even if they didn’t have anything good to trade, they still were willing to talk to us for a little bit. Anyway we ended up with some gummies, a pair of shoes, a pair of flip flops (different sizes), and a flower. It was so much fun.
Update: I still don’t have my visa yet, but I have an appointment with this guy in Bonn about it on friday. I hope it’s just a sit down, sign here type of deal, but am extremely worried that it could be a sit down and let us interrogate you for hours in German about your past type of deal. Then they might deport me or something. Or maybe they’ll give me citizenship. That’d be pretty cool, but impossible.
Excursions!
Let’s see, what excursions did I go on this week? On Tuesday we did a little tour of Konrad Adenauer’s house with another set of German kids who were doing some week long camp for German-American relations, I think, just like last week. This time when we ate dinner with them, we played ultimate frisbee with them too, which was super fun. I hadn’t played since we played that one midnight game in the States, so it was refreshing.
On Wednesday I went with a couple people to the Drachenfelz, just for fun. Everybody else had gone there when I was at my brother’s wedding. It’s one of the Sieben Gebirge (seven mountains) on the other side of the Rhein, where you can hike all the way to the top. There’s a castle in the middle of the mountain, and then really old ruins of another one at the very top. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to hike like that, so it was really great.
Thursday was our last tour of Köln with Hartwig and a pretty good one at that. We went to a Gestapo jail, where they kept many prisoners during the war. They were many different nationalities, and were there to get interrogated mostly. Many of them died there. The cells were so tiny, and they used to be filled with thirty or more people at once. All the writing on the walls had been documented and much of it you could walk by and read in both English and German. Overall it was an extremely powerful place, and it made me extremely depressed for the a long time afterward. We visited another church with the Black Madonna in it, and then went to try some Kölnisch Wasser, aka Cologne, the original fragrance named after the city. There’s a fountain in the store where you can just stick your hands in and put it on, or just take a long sniff of it if you prefer. It really clears the sinuses. After that was more bakery tasting, where I had possibly the best pastry that I have ever had. Ever.
I don’t know if this counts as an excursion, but I also went to the grocery store in Tannenbusch Mitte on Friday to get some butter. Before, the store didn’t make any sense to me. There was only fresh fruits and vegetables, cosmetics, drinks, and other cooking stuff, like pots and pans, but no dairy products, dried food, canned food, baking needs, jam, or anything like that. Friday, however I discovered there was a whole other floor in which you have to go all the way to the back of the store to find. It makes so much sense now. . .
Saturday, I went to the Zoo in Köln. German zoos are much more exciting than American zoos, I’ve decided. There are hardly any cages for the safer animals, such as the birds and Giraffes and such, which is pretty funny, considering that totally wouldn’t fly in the US. (haha, get it? Because the birds are always caged there?) Literally there was this closed in room which you had to walk through where there were buzzards just kinda chilling within feet of you. There was even one on the sidewalk, which I just kinda walked past, and it definitely could have bitten me. I love it, it’s great.
Cookies
Wow, I did a lot this week. I attempted on Saturday to bake cookies for the first time, which was initially pretty fail. I didn’t find enough flour, plus I don’t think my host mom has anything to measure stuff with. Measuring is pretty important when it comes to baking, and I was pretty much eyeing everything, plus it was all in grams. So my first cookies were really ugly looking and not really sweet enough at all. Today, my mother pointed me towards where she kept the rest of the flour, which had been recently invaded by ants unfortunately. So, I added some ant-flour which made them a lot thicker and prettier, then I rolled them in sugar before baking which made them sweeter and more impressive looking. Then came the trial. I gave them to my family to try after dinner (we had a barbecue) with some coffee. Great success! My host brother even took some back to his apartment. I also enjoyed how surprised they were that I put the cookies in the oven as balls, and then they flatten out while baking. I thought that was a fairly normal thing, but apparently not.
Ende
That pretty much covers anything and everything that I would want to tell you and you would want to know, I hope. It’s really super fun here, I even found a good hamburger place that reminds me of Bub’s and the notorious Big Ugly. Have you ever listened to Mr. T speak German? You should give it a try. It’s great.
Shout out to Keith and Gayle. Congratulations on being pregnant!
Skez
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Blog #6 (Blog #5 was deemed "Too German for the Internet" by the FCC)
Ok, so blog entry number 6 . . . Haribo, German project, discount stores, getting lost in the city, WWII tour, scavenger hunt, getting talked to by random German people while I pretend to know what there saying, Ping Pong, eighteenth century castle, and somewhere between all that I slept and ate. Alright, see you next week.
You’re still here? Oh, well I suppose you want more details, right? Geez, so demanding. . .
(Ha, “geez” is a word recognized by spell check. Did you know that? I didn’t know that.)
Haribo macht Kinder froh!
As you may or may not know, Bonn is the home town of one of the greatest contributors to mankind. No not Beethoven, Hans Riegel, father of the gummy bear. The Haribo (Hans Riegel Bonn) factory is located right here in Bonn and I can go visit their store any time I want. On Monday, our entire group went to visit the store, and let me tell you, it was like candy heaven. Not only did I have access to every kind of candy Haribo makes, but a lot of it was really cheap. I went ahead and got a mixed bag of gummy’s that I picked out myself and a mystery 4kg box. The bag had all my favorite gummy’s in it: Frogs, apple rings, and sour strips. That was in case the mystery box had nothing but those awful candy coated marshmallow things and frosted licorice. It was only 1 Euro for quite a bit of candy. It probably would have been about 3 to 4 dollars in the US. The mystery box, however, is where it’s at. 4kg of candy in a windowless box for a discount price, because they’re extras from the factory or something like that. The problem was that I had no idea what was inside. I ended up getting a really good box (in my opinion) minus the miniature rat marshmallows that are only okay.
My German German Presentation in Germany
Yes, I had to do a presentation in front of everybody in German. It was not all that much fun, but at least I found my subject interesting. The trouble was that not everybody could understand what I was saying, because we all come from different backgrounds as far as knowing the language goes. As a result, I had to incorporate English translations into my Powerpoint, something I’ve really never done, and I found it difficult to switch back and forth between German and English. It was not my best presentation ever, but it’s over now, so at least I got it out of the way.
My subject was actually pretty fun. I was talking about the Dassler brothers, Adolf and Rudolf, and their rival companies Adidas and PUMA. They originally had their own shoe company that made the first cleats before the war, and Adolf (Adi) provided these cleats to Jesse Owens during the 1936 Olympics to help him win all those Gold medals. Then, after the war, they had a fallout and started their own companies. The family feud was so big, that even their hometown was split between Adidas and PUMA. They had separate bakeries and clothing shops, separate soccer teams, and even mixed marriages were frowned upon. They were pretty much like rival gangs.
Anyway, I’ll stop ranting about that now and start talking about
Getting lost in the city
I would highly suggest if you’re in any city, in Bonn or elsewhere, just walking around for a while. Go get lost with some friends. It’s tons of fun, you get to know the city a little bit better, and you will most likely happen upon something really entertaining. This week I went walking around in Köln again after our bakery testing (those are always a pleasure). It was semi-raining the whole day but still lots of fun. We visited a lovely park with dangerous and muddy playground equipment. I ended up going down a super awesome slide and getting my pants soaked, as well as a jungle gym, a crazy tilted rotating thing, and a zip line. And then we played Frisbee. I’m kinda curious as to what my host mom thinks about what happened to my pants.
Oh yeah, and in case I didn’t mention this before, our group goes every week to Köln together, because Hartwig absolutely love the city and gives awesome tours. At the end of the tour we get a bakery testing where he gets samples from the bakery for us to try all of their products. It’s fantastic.
Schlacht im Hürtgenwald
Wednesday our Group went with a group of German kids from a different program to a site in the Eifel region where the battle of the Hurtgen forest took place. There were a lot of casualties from both side and there is a memorial site for them there. It was overall pretty depressing and I don’t think the tour guide did a very good job, probably because he had to give the tour in English.
Anyway the German kids were fun to talk to. They were from all over the country and came here to study English for 4 days. We went to where they were staying outside of Bonn and ate dinner with them there. I got to practice a little bit of German, but not much, because they obviously wanted to speak English with us. There was another guy named Tim there. It was awesome.
Brühl
Yesterday I went to Brühl with some friends for the afternoon. There was a cool castle there. Not a medieval one, but it was like a big mansion from the 19th century, I think. Mostly Clemens August, the archbishop of Köln lived in it, but there were other important figures who stayed there, Queen Victoria for instance. It was pretty much this ridiculously huge, ridiculously ornate house. Every little thing was decorated to the utmost detail, it was incredible. Afterwards we went walking around the town, but most everything was closing by then, so we soon went back to Bonn.
Ende
Just some other things to sum up before I sign off.
There’s some kind of anime convention going on here in Bonn, so I have been seeing plenty of random anime characters walking around. These people really go all out when it comes to their costume wearing. The funny thing is that I’m such a nerd I can recognize quite a few of them. I saw some people from One Piece, Naruto, Inuyasha, and others, they all kind of run together as generic anime people after a while. My personal favorite was some guy dressed up as a Gundam. Oh, and there was an Ash Ketchem walking around too. He was by himself which was kind of weird. I saw my brother’s pastor, who did the wedding, in his wife in the train station two separate times too, which was a funny coincidence. They weren’t dressed up as anime characters though.
You know what’s really annoying? Random Germans that go up to you and talk to you about something that you can’t understand because they are talking too fast and slangily and are probably drunk. I just keep on saying “nein” or “nee” to them and they eventually go away. Random Germans who play frisbee with you, however, are awesome.
We watched “Das Wunder von Bern” again by the way for all you people that were in my German V class. Except this time I got to watch it all the way through without stopping to do a worksheet in between, which was nice. There was no German subtitles, however, which made it a little harder. Good movie.
That’s it. I’m probably forgetting something, but that’s okay, because you probably don’t even want to hear about it.
Skez
You’re still here? Oh, well I suppose you want more details, right? Geez, so demanding. . .
(Ha, “geez” is a word recognized by spell check. Did you know that? I didn’t know that.)
Haribo macht Kinder froh!
As you may or may not know, Bonn is the home town of one of the greatest contributors to mankind. No not Beethoven, Hans Riegel, father of the gummy bear. The Haribo (Hans Riegel Bonn) factory is located right here in Bonn and I can go visit their store any time I want. On Monday, our entire group went to visit the store, and let me tell you, it was like candy heaven. Not only did I have access to every kind of candy Haribo makes, but a lot of it was really cheap. I went ahead and got a mixed bag of gummy’s that I picked out myself and a mystery 4kg box. The bag had all my favorite gummy’s in it: Frogs, apple rings, and sour strips. That was in case the mystery box had nothing but those awful candy coated marshmallow things and frosted licorice. It was only 1 Euro for quite a bit of candy. It probably would have been about 3 to 4 dollars in the US. The mystery box, however, is where it’s at. 4kg of candy in a windowless box for a discount price, because they’re extras from the factory or something like that. The problem was that I had no idea what was inside. I ended up getting a really good box (in my opinion) minus the miniature rat marshmallows that are only okay.
My German German Presentation in Germany
Yes, I had to do a presentation in front of everybody in German. It was not all that much fun, but at least I found my subject interesting. The trouble was that not everybody could understand what I was saying, because we all come from different backgrounds as far as knowing the language goes. As a result, I had to incorporate English translations into my Powerpoint, something I’ve really never done, and I found it difficult to switch back and forth between German and English. It was not my best presentation ever, but it’s over now, so at least I got it out of the way.
My subject was actually pretty fun. I was talking about the Dassler brothers, Adolf and Rudolf, and their rival companies Adidas and PUMA. They originally had their own shoe company that made the first cleats before the war, and Adolf (Adi) provided these cleats to Jesse Owens during the 1936 Olympics to help him win all those Gold medals. Then, after the war, they had a fallout and started their own companies. The family feud was so big, that even their hometown was split between Adidas and PUMA. They had separate bakeries and clothing shops, separate soccer teams, and even mixed marriages were frowned upon. They were pretty much like rival gangs.
Anyway, I’ll stop ranting about that now and start talking about
Getting lost in the city
I would highly suggest if you’re in any city, in Bonn or elsewhere, just walking around for a while. Go get lost with some friends. It’s tons of fun, you get to know the city a little bit better, and you will most likely happen upon something really entertaining. This week I went walking around in Köln again after our bakery testing (those are always a pleasure). It was semi-raining the whole day but still lots of fun. We visited a lovely park with dangerous and muddy playground equipment. I ended up going down a super awesome slide and getting my pants soaked, as well as a jungle gym, a crazy tilted rotating thing, and a zip line. And then we played Frisbee. I’m kinda curious as to what my host mom thinks about what happened to my pants.
Oh yeah, and in case I didn’t mention this before, our group goes every week to Köln together, because Hartwig absolutely love the city and gives awesome tours. At the end of the tour we get a bakery testing where he gets samples from the bakery for us to try all of their products. It’s fantastic.
Schlacht im Hürtgenwald
Wednesday our Group went with a group of German kids from a different program to a site in the Eifel region where the battle of the Hurtgen forest took place. There were a lot of casualties from both side and there is a memorial site for them there. It was overall pretty depressing and I don’t think the tour guide did a very good job, probably because he had to give the tour in English.
Anyway the German kids were fun to talk to. They were from all over the country and came here to study English for 4 days. We went to where they were staying outside of Bonn and ate dinner with them there. I got to practice a little bit of German, but not much, because they obviously wanted to speak English with us. There was another guy named Tim there. It was awesome.
Brühl
Yesterday I went to Brühl with some friends for the afternoon. There was a cool castle there. Not a medieval one, but it was like a big mansion from the 19th century, I think. Mostly Clemens August, the archbishop of Köln lived in it, but there were other important figures who stayed there, Queen Victoria for instance. It was pretty much this ridiculously huge, ridiculously ornate house. Every little thing was decorated to the utmost detail, it was incredible. Afterwards we went walking around the town, but most everything was closing by then, so we soon went back to Bonn.
Ende
Just some other things to sum up before I sign off.
There’s some kind of anime convention going on here in Bonn, so I have been seeing plenty of random anime characters walking around. These people really go all out when it comes to their costume wearing. The funny thing is that I’m such a nerd I can recognize quite a few of them. I saw some people from One Piece, Naruto, Inuyasha, and others, they all kind of run together as generic anime people after a while. My personal favorite was some guy dressed up as a Gundam. Oh, and there was an Ash Ketchem walking around too. He was by himself which was kind of weird. I saw my brother’s pastor, who did the wedding, in his wife in the train station two separate times too, which was a funny coincidence. They weren’t dressed up as anime characters though.
You know what’s really annoying? Random Germans that go up to you and talk to you about something that you can’t understand because they are talking too fast and slangily and are probably drunk. I just keep on saying “nein” or “nee” to them and they eventually go away. Random Germans who play frisbee with you, however, are awesome.
We watched “Das Wunder von Bern” again by the way for all you people that were in my German V class. Except this time I got to watch it all the way through without stopping to do a worksheet in between, which was nice. There was no German subtitles, however, which made it a little harder. Good movie.
That’s it. I’m probably forgetting something, but that’s okay, because you probably don’t even want to hear about it.
Skez
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Weddings, Chickens, and Secret Nuke-Proof Safehouses
So, things are pretty much going really well. I don’t think weeks get much better than this one. There’s a lot to say here, so keep all arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times and put your seat is in the upright position until we have reached cruising altitude.
From Nuclear Apocalypse Protected Bunkers to Monasteries.
So, on Tuesday our group went to a Military Bunker that was built in the sixties in case of nuclear disaster. It’s super long and was built over a fairly large period of time, but of course, by the time it was finished, Russia could have blown it out of the water had it wanted to. Not only were their nuclear bombs stronger than ever, but the bunker was not as secret as West Germany thought it was. It’s kinda cool nonetheless, with it’s giant doors and decontamination rooms. Actually it was freezing cold. I’m pretty sure none of us were properly prepared for how cold it would be under there and by the end of the tour I just wanted to go back to the surface.
If you want to visit two completely different places in the same day, I’d highly suggest going to a monastery right after a visit to a military bunker. A serene church ornamented with statues and paintings that show its age is a great place to be after discussing nuclear war. I sat inside the chapel for quite some time, because it was so beautiful and quiet. It was really easy to just sit there, relax, and think for a while, until the organ comes blasting in. That’s right, while I was sitting there the organ suddenly began with “Amazing Grace,” and continued playing other hymns for quite some time. It was cool, just really surprising after the dead silence that came before it.
After that we went to the lake nearby. Some people went swimming, others decided to feed the ducks. I decided to feed the ducks, despite how tempting getting my clothes wet was.
Wedding!!
So, on Wednesday I went to Bremen via train (I love traveling by train by the way. Less stressful than by car, and simpler than by plane. You just get on the train and go.) to attend the wedding of my brother Matt and Talina, my new sister. That night was our “bachelor party” for Matt. Of course we didn’t want it to be a go and get drunk bachelor party, so instead we went Go-Kart racing. There’s a random go-kart place in the industrial area of Bremen in some abandoned parking garage that we took him too. Of course we didn’t know it was in such a sketchy location because my other brother Chris had planned it from America, so when we took him we made him look down so that he couldn’t see the signs. When we finally got up the several flights of stairs he was thoroughly confused.
The race track was on two levels of the parking garage, so the whole experience was pretty intense. It takes about fifty three seconds to make a lap and we had a whole 45 minutes to race after the fifteen minute “qualifications.” It was surprisingly exhausting. I only lasted 25 laps in the race before I started to feel sick (only three or four out of the eight of us lasted the whole time). The turns were really jerky, and the seats were not exactly cushioned, which made for a rough ride, and 45 minutes is a long time. Still, it was super fun; I had a blast. Plus, I had a beer with both of my brothers and my dad for the first time. I’ll have to write that down in the baby book.
Oh, and our presents for Matt: hot sauce, because Talina’s German, and therefore can’t handle anything spicy; Pop-tarts, because you can’t get anything quite so delicious in Europe; and Lego Creationary. Just imagine Pictionary with Legos. Yeah, I know you just drooled all over your keyboard. Don’t worry about it. Keep on reading.
Afterwards we went to this really pretty part of Bremen called the Schlachte. A “Schlachter” is a butcher, so it’s a pretty strange name, but it’s basically a wide cobblestone path with outdoor cafes and restaurants on either side. We went to a mexican restaurant that was quite delicious and I went back to the hotel with a very happy tummy.
Meanwhile . . .
Apparently it is a German tradition for the bride to go out with the girls before the wedding and try to sell something. Most of the time they try to sell condoms or booze or something like that, but in Talina’s case it was muffins. They baked a bunch of muffins beforehand and all of the girls went out into town to sell them while wearing these frilly headband things. They made quite a bit of money too, 62 euros. I obviously wasn’t there, but it sounded pretty fun. Oh, and Talina was wearing a spider-woman costume the whole time. Gotta love Germany.
The next day. . .
Thursday was the wedding . . . part 1. It’s required for a couple to go through a civil wedding that takes place in a government building designated for such a purpose, and then they can get married in a church if they so desire. Basically it was just “Sign here, sign there, here’s some advice about marriage” and you’re done. It was surprisingly quick and easy, but I know there was a lot more paperwork beforehand.
After the half marriage we went to the church in Achim (about 20 or 30 minutes by car outside of Bremen) to rehearse the wedding. The church was built in the 13th century, so it’s super old, and I got to play French Horn for part of the wedding, so playing in there was like playing in a cave. I didn’t need a microphone.
The church wedding the following day went really smoothly. I didn’t severely screw up my part of it, my mom and my brother Chris did an beautiful job of providing music on the piano and guitar to the songs we sang. The wedding was really enjoyable. the colors were a light apple green and white, so I got to wear an apple green bow-tie, which was pretty sweet. Not to mention the bride and groom were actually both wearing Converse sneakers with their formal clothing. Afterwards it rained, which means in Germany that they are going to have lots of babies.
Back at the hotel we partied it up at the reception, played some games, and danced the night away. I got to swing dance for a little bit again. Plus, meeting the Gehring family was really nice. They are a great bunch of people, and I found them all very interesting to talk to.
And finally on Saturday, I got to go walking around Bremen with the Gehrings and my family. Bremen is a charming city. They kept everything looking old, so it has a lot of character. There is an area that we walked through that has thin cobblestone paths with plenty of little shops and cafes. It’s all decorated with statues and fountains, half of which were related to the musicians of Bremen. If you don’t know what that is look it up, it’s a fun little children’s story.
But wait. . . there’s more!
Bochum: Where I thought I would be living. A big city in the middle of the sprawling metropolis known as the Ruhrgebiet. (I’m not sure I spelled that right). Apparently nobody like me there so they couldn’t find me a host family. Ebergoetzen: a small town of 2000 near Goettingen in southern Niedersachsen. Totally different location than where I thought I would be going, so it’s taken some mental adjustments. I’ll be living with a dad and mom that are both on their second marriage, so I have brothers (twins a little younger than me), but they live with their mom elsewhere. They visit often, however. The mom, a trilingual secretary, also has a daughter but she is out living on her own. The dad is a police officer, so I can’t be out too late drinking, darn. They have a big garden and ten chickens as well (you don’t know how excited I am about this fact). Their house looks really cool from the pictures, and I’m looking forward to moving in.
I don’t know what my internship will be yet, but I know a bit about what I will be doing as far a school goes. On one day of the week, I will be attending a class in Oekotrophologie. If you don’t know what that is, that’s because you’re really dumb. From what I understand in the class description (it was in German), it’s kind of like nutritional science. It sounds interesting, so I’m going to just go with it. The rest of the days I’m going to be working at my internship, whatever that will be.
Ende
That’s it for this week. As you can see there was a lot of excitement. I think we might be going to the Haribo factory soon too . . .
Wondering what’s in the German news? During the Love Parade (a massive Techno party that happens once a year in a different city) yesterday, several people got trampled to death because of the massive size of the crowd. There was 1.3 million people in a place meant for only 300,000, so naturally some trampling was inevitable. I’m trying to decide if this is worse than Black Friday. . .
From Nuclear Apocalypse Protected Bunkers to Monasteries.
So, on Tuesday our group went to a Military Bunker that was built in the sixties in case of nuclear disaster. It’s super long and was built over a fairly large period of time, but of course, by the time it was finished, Russia could have blown it out of the water had it wanted to. Not only were their nuclear bombs stronger than ever, but the bunker was not as secret as West Germany thought it was. It’s kinda cool nonetheless, with it’s giant doors and decontamination rooms. Actually it was freezing cold. I’m pretty sure none of us were properly prepared for how cold it would be under there and by the end of the tour I just wanted to go back to the surface.
If you want to visit two completely different places in the same day, I’d highly suggest going to a monastery right after a visit to a military bunker. A serene church ornamented with statues and paintings that show its age is a great place to be after discussing nuclear war. I sat inside the chapel for quite some time, because it was so beautiful and quiet. It was really easy to just sit there, relax, and think for a while, until the organ comes blasting in. That’s right, while I was sitting there the organ suddenly began with “Amazing Grace,” and continued playing other hymns for quite some time. It was cool, just really surprising after the dead silence that came before it.
After that we went to the lake nearby. Some people went swimming, others decided to feed the ducks. I decided to feed the ducks, despite how tempting getting my clothes wet was.
Wedding!!
So, on Wednesday I went to Bremen via train (I love traveling by train by the way. Less stressful than by car, and simpler than by plane. You just get on the train and go.) to attend the wedding of my brother Matt and Talina, my new sister. That night was our “bachelor party” for Matt. Of course we didn’t want it to be a go and get drunk bachelor party, so instead we went Go-Kart racing. There’s a random go-kart place in the industrial area of Bremen in some abandoned parking garage that we took him too. Of course we didn’t know it was in such a sketchy location because my other brother Chris had planned it from America, so when we took him we made him look down so that he couldn’t see the signs. When we finally got up the several flights of stairs he was thoroughly confused.
The race track was on two levels of the parking garage, so the whole experience was pretty intense. It takes about fifty three seconds to make a lap and we had a whole 45 minutes to race after the fifteen minute “qualifications.” It was surprisingly exhausting. I only lasted 25 laps in the race before I started to feel sick (only three or four out of the eight of us lasted the whole time). The turns were really jerky, and the seats were not exactly cushioned, which made for a rough ride, and 45 minutes is a long time. Still, it was super fun; I had a blast. Plus, I had a beer with both of my brothers and my dad for the first time. I’ll have to write that down in the baby book.
Oh, and our presents for Matt: hot sauce, because Talina’s German, and therefore can’t handle anything spicy; Pop-tarts, because you can’t get anything quite so delicious in Europe; and Lego Creationary. Just imagine Pictionary with Legos. Yeah, I know you just drooled all over your keyboard. Don’t worry about it. Keep on reading.
Afterwards we went to this really pretty part of Bremen called the Schlachte. A “Schlachter” is a butcher, so it’s a pretty strange name, but it’s basically a wide cobblestone path with outdoor cafes and restaurants on either side. We went to a mexican restaurant that was quite delicious and I went back to the hotel with a very happy tummy.
Meanwhile . . .
Apparently it is a German tradition for the bride to go out with the girls before the wedding and try to sell something. Most of the time they try to sell condoms or booze or something like that, but in Talina’s case it was muffins. They baked a bunch of muffins beforehand and all of the girls went out into town to sell them while wearing these frilly headband things. They made quite a bit of money too, 62 euros. I obviously wasn’t there, but it sounded pretty fun. Oh, and Talina was wearing a spider-woman costume the whole time. Gotta love Germany.
The next day. . .
Thursday was the wedding . . . part 1. It’s required for a couple to go through a civil wedding that takes place in a government building designated for such a purpose, and then they can get married in a church if they so desire. Basically it was just “Sign here, sign there, here’s some advice about marriage” and you’re done. It was surprisingly quick and easy, but I know there was a lot more paperwork beforehand.
After the half marriage we went to the church in Achim (about 20 or 30 minutes by car outside of Bremen) to rehearse the wedding. The church was built in the 13th century, so it’s super old, and I got to play French Horn for part of the wedding, so playing in there was like playing in a cave. I didn’t need a microphone.
The church wedding the following day went really smoothly. I didn’t severely screw up my part of it, my mom and my brother Chris did an beautiful job of providing music on the piano and guitar to the songs we sang. The wedding was really enjoyable. the colors were a light apple green and white, so I got to wear an apple green bow-tie, which was pretty sweet. Not to mention the bride and groom were actually both wearing Converse sneakers with their formal clothing. Afterwards it rained, which means in Germany that they are going to have lots of babies.
Back at the hotel we partied it up at the reception, played some games, and danced the night away. I got to swing dance for a little bit again. Plus, meeting the Gehring family was really nice. They are a great bunch of people, and I found them all very interesting to talk to.
And finally on Saturday, I got to go walking around Bremen with the Gehrings and my family. Bremen is a charming city. They kept everything looking old, so it has a lot of character. There is an area that we walked through that has thin cobblestone paths with plenty of little shops and cafes. It’s all decorated with statues and fountains, half of which were related to the musicians of Bremen. If you don’t know what that is look it up, it’s a fun little children’s story.
But wait. . . there’s more!
Bochum: Where I thought I would be living. A big city in the middle of the sprawling metropolis known as the Ruhrgebiet. (I’m not sure I spelled that right). Apparently nobody like me there so they couldn’t find me a host family. Ebergoetzen: a small town of 2000 near Goettingen in southern Niedersachsen. Totally different location than where I thought I would be going, so it’s taken some mental adjustments. I’ll be living with a dad and mom that are both on their second marriage, so I have brothers (twins a little younger than me), but they live with their mom elsewhere. They visit often, however. The mom, a trilingual secretary, also has a daughter but she is out living on her own. The dad is a police officer, so I can’t be out too late drinking, darn. They have a big garden and ten chickens as well (you don’t know how excited I am about this fact). Their house looks really cool from the pictures, and I’m looking forward to moving in.
I don’t know what my internship will be yet, but I know a bit about what I will be doing as far a school goes. On one day of the week, I will be attending a class in Oekotrophologie. If you don’t know what that is, that’s because you’re really dumb. From what I understand in the class description (it was in German), it’s kind of like nutritional science. It sounds interesting, so I’m going to just go with it. The rest of the days I’m going to be working at my internship, whatever that will be.
Ende
That’s it for this week. As you can see there was a lot of excitement. I think we might be going to the Haribo factory soon too . . .
Wondering what’s in the German news? During the Love Parade (a massive Techno party that happens once a year in a different city) yesterday, several people got trampled to death because of the massive size of the crowd. There was 1.3 million people in a place meant for only 300,000, so naturally some trampling was inevitable. I’m trying to decide if this is worse than Black Friday. . .
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Thought for Food
What? It’s Sunday? How did that even happen? Honestly, my week went by so fast that I can’t even remember what we did on which day, so bear with me here. It was a weird week full of strange recreational activities, random field trips, and sore legs, but good nonetheless.
Strange Recreational Activities
So my host mom and her boyfriend like to go motorcycle driving. A lot. Not particularly strange in moderation, but when she’s gone for four days, I start to think it a little odd. Four days is a lot of time to be riding around on a motorcycle. Actually they went to some kind of convention or something that was at some place that somehow revolved around motorcycles (gimmie a break, everything’s in German). I guess I’m not the one to criticize. After all, I spent a week last summer doing nothing but playing French Horn. Oh, and next week she’s going to be gone too, doing the same thing for a few days again, but I’ll be at my brother’s wedding then anyway, so it doesn’t affect me (Not gonna lie, I’m super excited).
As a result of all that, I was fending for myself at the end of this week, sort of. I had microwave dinners for a couple meals, but I found ways to get some better food, like going to dinner with my real family who are now living with my brother in Bonn. It was Italian, and it was heavenly. I now know that I don’t really like wine, however.
Not only was my host mom gone, but also my German teacher, except she was going rock climbing. Not just rock climbing, but extreme rock climbing. For a whole week. Without food or water. And without using her feet. No, but seriously she went rock climbing for the entire week while she left our class to do random things that were not learning German. I think we were supposed to learn German, but our sub got sick the second day he was to be covering for her, so we went on random field trips, which brings me to topic number 2.
Bonus Question: What involves beer, man powered vehicles, and a bunch of crazy Kölners? The beer bike of course! Six or more hop on this moving bar powered by the pedaling of the drunk guys sitting on the barstools, enjoying the scenery around them while they move up and down the streets of downtown Köln. Or maybe they’re just enjoying the beer. Only in Germany. . .
Random Field Trips
While our teacher was gone we had this super awesome sub, for one day (just my class of about 8 people). On that day we visited the Federal Center for Political Education which is a place where anyone can go and pick up some information about political stuff. There are tons of books to choose from so that one can be well informed about hot political issues, government organizations, history, and other related subjects. The books are cheap, informative, unbiased (as far as I can tell, they are in German), and cover a wide range of topics. It was created after WWII for fairly obvious reasons considering the position Germany was in after that war, and is, in my opinion, a great way to make reliable information easily accessible for the common citizen. I personally found the material very difficult to read, but I try anyway. I got a book about protest songs that were created from after the war until today. It came with CDs that had the 43 songs on them too, so I was very happy (only six euros, I might add).
The next day our sub was sick, so we went with another guy who works at the AIB, our school, to a modern art museum. Turns out we were there an hour before it opened, so he bought us coffee. Yay! The museum was . . . well. . . modern art. You know how that goes. Apparently the people that make sure nobody does anything wrong there are really anal. They wouldn’t even let me take notes with a pen, only a pencil.
As if that wasn’t already too much standing around and walking through exhibits, we went with the whole group after that to a technical museum, a quite cramped one for 25 people at that. This was actually really interesting. There was stuff like a video of someone’s intestine that had a round worm, a liquid that was magnetic, and an electron particle accelerator. I thought it was fun, at least. At the end of the day, my legs were kinda tired, but I’d actually started getting used to all the walking that comes with the lifestyle here in Germany. Little did I know that my legs would really be put to the test in the near future.
Sore legs
I guess they’re not as sore as I’d like to exaggerate them to be, but I did have a very active couple of days recently. On Friday, our group went south along the Rhein by bicycle to a historical location where a bridge used to be during WWII. The side that we were biking on was pretty flat, so it made for a nice ride, but the opposite side had the Sieben Gebirge and other beautiful hills (or small mountains, I suppose) that were absolutely stunning. It was perfect weather too, the only problem was that Germany doesn’t really have drinking fountains. I brought a bottle, but it soon ran out, so I filled it up at a bathroom tap (it’s usually ok to do that, I swear). Little did I know that that was not entirely the most potable water. It came from the Rhein without being sanitized. It was clear, and looked like it was good to drink, so I drank it unknowingly. After drinking about half of my bottle, I was informed of the sanitation issues it had. Too late. Here I am at home with dysentery. I’m typing this in the bathroom right now, in fact. Too much information? All right, I’m just kidding, everything’s okay. Anyway it was 21 miles round trip, unless I’m mistaken, and I enjoyed every bit of it.
Let’s see, I pretty much walked all day Saturday, too. I explored Cologne, where there are always interesting things going on. A bounty of street performers are ever present. Musicians, magicians, statue people, people that just paint themselves and don’t really look like statues, because it’s too windy, you name it. And then there’s the Beer Bike, but I already told you about that. After Cologne, I had a wonderful dinner with my real family, since my Dad just came into town. It made my tummy happy. Oh, and I got my French Horn back! Hooray!
Ende
So, I guess that’s it. Oh wait, there is something else. I don’t think I’m here entirely legally for the year yet. I need a visa, but since I was born in Germany there were complications. The German government needs to find my papers from where I was born and dig up any records they have of me being in Germany. You know how governments run: really slowly, so I haven’t heard anything back yet. I feel kinda like an illegal immigrant however. Or like I should have some mysterious past that I can’t let the government know about or else they’ll kick me out of the country. Oh well, nothing to do but sit and wait.
Oh, and here’s one more thing that I found interesting and strange about Germany. At least in Bonn and Cologne, they are really not that particular about recycling as I had assumed. I remember in Hamburg all the trash cans were split into parts, but here there are much more regular trash cans and a surprising amount of litter. Nor are they particular about bike paths. As a pedestrian I try to stay off of the bike path at all times in fear of getting run over, but I noticed during the bike ride that a lot of Germans ride on the pedestrian path, which is kind of annoying. Oh and one more thing that I wrongly assumed about Germans here. While they all have little bells on their bikes, hardly any of them use it. I don’t know how many time a bike snuck up on me and passed me, startling me as they passed. Again, kind of annoying, but I’m not one to complain. This country is awesome, and I love it.
Peace out,
Skez
Strange Recreational Activities
So my host mom and her boyfriend like to go motorcycle driving. A lot. Not particularly strange in moderation, but when she’s gone for four days, I start to think it a little odd. Four days is a lot of time to be riding around on a motorcycle. Actually they went to some kind of convention or something that was at some place that somehow revolved around motorcycles (gimmie a break, everything’s in German). I guess I’m not the one to criticize. After all, I spent a week last summer doing nothing but playing French Horn. Oh, and next week she’s going to be gone too, doing the same thing for a few days again, but I’ll be at my brother’s wedding then anyway, so it doesn’t affect me (Not gonna lie, I’m super excited).
As a result of all that, I was fending for myself at the end of this week, sort of. I had microwave dinners for a couple meals, but I found ways to get some better food, like going to dinner with my real family who are now living with my brother in Bonn. It was Italian, and it was heavenly. I now know that I don’t really like wine, however.
Not only was my host mom gone, but also my German teacher, except she was going rock climbing. Not just rock climbing, but extreme rock climbing. For a whole week. Without food or water. And without using her feet. No, but seriously she went rock climbing for the entire week while she left our class to do random things that were not learning German. I think we were supposed to learn German, but our sub got sick the second day he was to be covering for her, so we went on random field trips, which brings me to topic number 2.
Bonus Question: What involves beer, man powered vehicles, and a bunch of crazy Kölners? The beer bike of course! Six or more hop on this moving bar powered by the pedaling of the drunk guys sitting on the barstools, enjoying the scenery around them while they move up and down the streets of downtown Köln. Or maybe they’re just enjoying the beer. Only in Germany. . .
Random Field Trips
While our teacher was gone we had this super awesome sub, for one day (just my class of about 8 people). On that day we visited the Federal Center for Political Education which is a place where anyone can go and pick up some information about political stuff. There are tons of books to choose from so that one can be well informed about hot political issues, government organizations, history, and other related subjects. The books are cheap, informative, unbiased (as far as I can tell, they are in German), and cover a wide range of topics. It was created after WWII for fairly obvious reasons considering the position Germany was in after that war, and is, in my opinion, a great way to make reliable information easily accessible for the common citizen. I personally found the material very difficult to read, but I try anyway. I got a book about protest songs that were created from after the war until today. It came with CDs that had the 43 songs on them too, so I was very happy (only six euros, I might add).
The next day our sub was sick, so we went with another guy who works at the AIB, our school, to a modern art museum. Turns out we were there an hour before it opened, so he bought us coffee. Yay! The museum was . . . well. . . modern art. You know how that goes. Apparently the people that make sure nobody does anything wrong there are really anal. They wouldn’t even let me take notes with a pen, only a pencil.
As if that wasn’t already too much standing around and walking through exhibits, we went with the whole group after that to a technical museum, a quite cramped one for 25 people at that. This was actually really interesting. There was stuff like a video of someone’s intestine that had a round worm, a liquid that was magnetic, and an electron particle accelerator. I thought it was fun, at least. At the end of the day, my legs were kinda tired, but I’d actually started getting used to all the walking that comes with the lifestyle here in Germany. Little did I know that my legs would really be put to the test in the near future.
Sore legs
I guess they’re not as sore as I’d like to exaggerate them to be, but I did have a very active couple of days recently. On Friday, our group went south along the Rhein by bicycle to a historical location where a bridge used to be during WWII. The side that we were biking on was pretty flat, so it made for a nice ride, but the opposite side had the Sieben Gebirge and other beautiful hills (or small mountains, I suppose) that were absolutely stunning. It was perfect weather too, the only problem was that Germany doesn’t really have drinking fountains. I brought a bottle, but it soon ran out, so I filled it up at a bathroom tap (it’s usually ok to do that, I swear). Little did I know that that was not entirely the most potable water. It came from the Rhein without being sanitized. It was clear, and looked like it was good to drink, so I drank it unknowingly. After drinking about half of my bottle, I was informed of the sanitation issues it had. Too late. Here I am at home with dysentery. I’m typing this in the bathroom right now, in fact. Too much information? All right, I’m just kidding, everything’s okay. Anyway it was 21 miles round trip, unless I’m mistaken, and I enjoyed every bit of it.
Let’s see, I pretty much walked all day Saturday, too. I explored Cologne, where there are always interesting things going on. A bounty of street performers are ever present. Musicians, magicians, statue people, people that just paint themselves and don’t really look like statues, because it’s too windy, you name it. And then there’s the Beer Bike, but I already told you about that. After Cologne, I had a wonderful dinner with my real family, since my Dad just came into town. It made my tummy happy. Oh, and I got my French Horn back! Hooray!
Ende
So, I guess that’s it. Oh wait, there is something else. I don’t think I’m here entirely legally for the year yet. I need a visa, but since I was born in Germany there were complications. The German government needs to find my papers from where I was born and dig up any records they have of me being in Germany. You know how governments run: really slowly, so I haven’t heard anything back yet. I feel kinda like an illegal immigrant however. Or like I should have some mysterious past that I can’t let the government know about or else they’ll kick me out of the country. Oh well, nothing to do but sit and wait.
Oh, and here’s one more thing that I found interesting and strange about Germany. At least in Bonn and Cologne, they are really not that particular about recycling as I had assumed. I remember in Hamburg all the trash cans were split into parts, but here there are much more regular trash cans and a surprising amount of litter. Nor are they particular about bike paths. As a pedestrian I try to stay off of the bike path at all times in fear of getting run over, but I noticed during the bike ride that a lot of Germans ride on the pedestrian path, which is kind of annoying. Oh and one more thing that I wrongly assumed about Germans here. While they all have little bells on their bikes, hardly any of them use it. I don’t know how many time a bike snuck up on me and passed me, startling me as they passed. Again, kind of annoying, but I’m not one to complain. This country is awesome, and I love it.
Peace out,
Skez
Monday, July 12, 2010
From a Sleep Deprived Exchange Student
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.
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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