A Piece of Texas in Freiburg

Yesterday evening and this morning I was lucky enough to have the company of my always fun and entertaining Uncle John! He is spending some time skiing in Switzerland and he took the train from the ski village to Freiburg and I picked him up at the train station yesterday evening. We got him checked into his hotel then headed out into town in search of a place to eat. We settled on Martinsbräu, which is the oldest brewery in all of Freiburg. I had some good old-fashioned Schnitzel and potatoes and Uncle John had a lamb steak, both of which were accompanied by delicious house-brewed beer. After dinner we headed back to my dorm so I could show him where and how I live here in Freiburg. He was quite a hit with my roommates!

Uncle John became an
honorary roommate :)

This morning I picked him up at 10 from the hotel (and was complimented on my promptness), then we went for breakfast at my favorite cafe, Cafe Aspekt. We had very European breakfasts with lots of rolls, jam, cheese, ham, and OJ. And a Chai Latte for me. :) Since I didn't have class until 2 in the afternoon we wandered for a few hours through the city and visited various shops and sights in the city center. Unfortunately the time flew by and it came time for me to take my leave and for him to catch his train back to Switzerland. I'm extremely glad he came to visit (although I was slightly disappointed that he didn't bring his cowboy hat) and I look forward to the next family member to make their way to Germany, whoever it may be! :) *cough Mom, Dad...*

A Very Merry Viennese Christmas

Well, I'm back from Christmas in Vienna! Have been for a while but I took a few days for myself to recuperate and catch up with family and friends. The task of writing this post is also a bit daunting because I feel like I have so much to say! I'll just start from the beginning.

So I arose sickeningly early at 5:23 am on Sunday, December 23rd in order to catch the 6:20 tram to the main train station.  I showered, quickly ran through my packing checklist, checked my bags one more time, then met Allison at the tram stop and head to the station. Once our train got to the platform we rode to Karlsruhe, transferred and rode to Munich, then our third and final train took us to Vienna.

Hofburg Imperial Palace

Once we arrived we headed to our hostel, a nice place called "Hostel Ruthensteiner" that I would recommend to anyone traveling to Vienna needing a place to stay. The staff was very friendly and it had a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. Ok, commercial over! After checking in we got a map from the front desk and scoped out a few places to eat and settled on a restaurant called Mariahilferbrau. I had the beef goulasch (absolutely delicious) while Allison had the chili (equally delicious), both of which were complemented nicely with a couple of beers. The next day we headed out into the city and saw the Christmas market, had breakfast at a bakery, and took in some of the historical buildings around town.

The days were nice, but the nights were awesome. I don't know what it is, but Vienna was full of Australians, particularly our hostel. That made for good conversation, a friendly atmosphere, and lots of laughter! We hung out at the hostel bar, went to an "Australian pub" one night (which the Australians hated), and a bar/restaurant called Mozart's that stayed open until 6 in the morning. I won't go into detail,  but good times were had, songs were sung, a guitar was played, drinks were drunk, and dumplings were eaten. Mostly.

All of Schönbrunn Palace that I
could fit on my camera screen

My favorite sight in Vienna would probably be Schönbrunn Palace. Schönbrunn, meaning "beautiful spring", was a summer palace that was requisitioned by the Allied Forces after WWII and used as offices for the British Delegation to the Allied Commission for Austria. Later it was used for important events such as the meeting between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev (secretary of the communist party in Soviet Union, partially responsible for the de-Stalinization of Soviet Union) in 1961 [Thank you, Wikipedia]. The palace is now a museum and a small number of the palace's 1,441 is open to the public. We took the Grand Tour so we saw 40-something rooms including bed chambers, dining rooms, dressing rooms, libraries, secret meeting rooms, and the ball room. It was truly majestic but hard to believe that people actually lived there because it was so extravagant and had to have required so much upkeep! To top off the experience, there was a huge Christmas Market on the palace grounds to visit after the tour.Vienna was beautiful and a wonderful place to spend the Christmas holiday, but I'd like to go back one day, maybe in the summer time to experience the good weather and open shops!

Sleepless in Freiburg

I'm a real student in Germany now.

...

Honestly, this has been the worst week I've had since I've been here and tomorrow (Thursday) is going to be longest day of the week, complete with having a 6-page research paper due as well as a final exam for my grammar and composition course, with another 5-page essay due the day after. And then there's the small fact that "tomorrow" is actually "today" since I'm sitting in the University Library at 4:30 a.m. waiting for the city trams to start running again. I'm here with friends so it's not that bad, plus I get to admire the illogical way in which the Germans organized their books while learning all about German, British, and American war time propaganda from 1914-1918. But I'm not complaining. Does it sound like I'm complaining? 'Cuz I'm not!

Random watercolor person whom I pity.
I know the pain she's going through... I know it well.

I suppose I brought this upon myself, what with my poor time management skills and all, but I consider this to be a learning experience. It takes more time than I thought it would to pick a research topic, gather information from various sources in various languages, translate said sources (when necessary), formulate a coherent and semi-intelligent sounding thesis in German, think of what I want to say in the body of the paper in English, then translate to German, keeping in mind that some things will not translate the way I want them to. And yes Mom, I actually read through my sources, not just the first and last chapters :)

So after having just finished my first official German research paper, I feel like I can finally call myself a student at a German University! Up until now it's just been a few worksheets here, a couple of reading assignments there, and an oral presentation or two. All of which I suppose are hard work in their own right, but it just doesn't quite compare to the stress of writing a formal paper. With footnotes! I guess it wasn't too bad for the humanities kids, but for someone who hasn't written a non-technical paper since high school, it was rather anstrengend (stressful on the mind/body). However, I've learned my lesson and I'll be ready to tackle the next essay that comes my way!

Hopefully my next post will be more about the wonders of Deutschland and less about my failures as a student! :)

Food Babies and Free Beer!

Turkey! Just as good as the ones in the states :)

Last Friday a good portion of the AYF students gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving together. We had a huge room in the basement of one of the dorm buildings and (almost) everyone signed up to bring some kind of delicious food item to the dinner. We gathered at 6 pm and socialized for a bit to allow the accidental latecomers and the people who are always "fashionably late" to arrive, although there were more than a few grumbles from people's mouths and stomachs alike. Once everything was in order, we had quite an impressive spread which I would say could have rivaled any Thanksgiving dinner back in the states! There were mashed potatoes, fresh grilled vegetables (carrots, zucchini, etc.), scalloped potatoes, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce, green beans, green bean casserole, garlic bread and rolls, and of course Turkey! The dessert table was overflowing as well - there was homemade apple pie, pumpkin pie, and more pie that tasted like sweet potato pie but the baker swears that it was pumpkin. It was delicious either way! We also had a fresh sliced fruit and dip spread and freshly baked cookies.

Aside from the delicious food, the company was great as well! The majority of us present were AYF affiliated, but some brought their friends and/or roommates. A special Russian guitar quartet was also invited and they performed a few songs for us because they are friends of the AYF program Resident Director. All in all it was a wonderful time and many laughs were had! All of us left with "food babies" since we ate so much it felt like we had an extra few pounds in our bellies!

Beer provided by the sponsoring company

That same night there also happened to be a dorm party in my building, so after the dinner I headed back to my place, birthed my food baby (let my dinner settle), cleaned up a bit, and waited with my housemates for the "guests" to arrive. I put guests in quotation marks because of the more than 100 people in attendance, I only knew a handful of them, but it wasn't bad. I met lots of people that night, listened to good music, stopped a guy from stealing eggs out of our fridge, and finally made it to bed at half past 3. One of the guys who lives on the floor below me got the company that he works for to sponsor the party. Apparently if he had enough people in attendance and advertised their products during the event, they were willing to pay for the costs of the party. So we had a packed dorm, free beer, wine, and red bull, and blasting music - all in all it made for a pretty fun Friday night! Although I lost a good chunk of my day on Saturday cleaning up with my housemates :(

Celebrating with my fellow Americans really tempered my holiday homesickness - I'm already looking forward to Christmas!

"Bond"-ing with Germans, Saucy Popcorn, Thanksgiving!

On Thursday I was invited to eat dinner with my tandem partner Christine and her roommates Lena and Sarah (and another girl whose name I can't remember!) at their apartment. It was a wonderful time and I got lots of practice speaking and listening to German, reading German recipes, and watching Germany's version of "The Voice" on television. For dinner we cooked Kartoffelbrei (mashed potatoes), Rotkraut (red cabbage), and Frikadelle (fricadelle), a very German meal. We had a mixture of sparkling water and apple juice to drink, then we lounged on the couch and ate gummy bears for dessert while watching the Germans sing their hearts out.

"Skyfall" movie poster

My tandem partner Christine, Sarah and I went to the movies together Saturday evening to see Skyfall, the new Bond movie! The movie was stunningly excellent, it definitely lived up to the hype, and I think I may have loved it even more because I saw it in German and I understood almost all of the dialogue! That's a milestone for me. :) German movie theaters, like almost everything here, are very logical. The tickets cost different amounts depending on where you sit in the theater, so the lower level seats are less expensive than the higher seats. Also, every ticket has a seating assignment on it, so they really maximize the space and make it less chaotic. For popular movies like "Skyfall", people reserve seats in advance, but if they don't pick up their tickets earlier than half an hour before the show starts, they can be sold to others. It's definitely an interesting system. And of course, since it was my first German movie experience, I wanted to go all out! I decided to get some popcorn and a drink from the concession stand. I was feeling mighty grown-up 'cuz I had my money ready and I already knew what I was going to say in my head. It went quite smoothly until- "Salze oder süße?" The guy was asking if I wanted salty or sweet popcorn, but in my mind "salze" sounded like "soße" which means sauce in English, and I surely did not want any soggy, saucy popcorn! So I asked for süße and munched happily throughout the film, but I learned my lesson and next time I'll go for the regular salty popcorn!

Thanksgiving is this Thursday and AYF is having a group Thanksgiving dinner and I wasn't sure what to bring, but since I've never cooked heavy duty dishes like Mac and Cheese (not out of a box) or stuffing, I decided to play it safe and bake my cheddar/garlic butter biscuits. I finally found extra sharp cheddar cheese here in Germany so I think I'm all set for Thursday!

Later this week I'll do another post about the Thanksgiving gathering, hopefully with pictures!

Bis dann!

Overview of my Winter Semester Classes

I am currently in my third week of University classes here in Freiburg and I seem to have fallen back into the rhythm of the whole school thing pretty easily, considering the fact that I actually went 6 months without having a full semester of classes since U of M let out so early for the summer and Germany's classes didn't start until the end of October. I must admit it's kind of strange not having any technical classes. No math, no science, just literature, grammar, and history. It's different but still enjoyable.

My classes:

The USA in WWI: A University history course about the role of the United States in the first World War. We read texts about the war in English and German and discuss them as a class. We also choose topics to give an oral presentation about each week. This is probably my most challenging class because it's full of native German speakers and the conversations can get a bit deep and beyond my knowledge of German vocabulary. Also, the professor speaks a mile a minute, but I get the gist of things.

Contrastive Linguistics: This is one of my favorite classes. It is an introductory English seminar about linguistics and comparing and contrasting the English and German languages. The professor is this cool, funny old guy from Berlin who speaks a ton of languages (or a least a few words from a ton of languages) and is a fan of class participation. It's basically a large group discussion comparing the languages which is quite helpful for me because knowing linguistically how German and English differ from one another will help me grasp the German language better.

German Grammar and Composition: This is a good class, not because it's particularly interesting but because I know it's extremely helpful. It's basically a continuation of the intensive language course I had during my first month here in Freiburg.

German History from Unification to Reunification: This has been interesting so far, it's just rather difficult since the text we read is long and in fairly complicated German and I spend half of my time looking up words, but on the bright side my vocabulary is expanding! It's not terrible though since all of the students in the class are part of my study abroad program, so we all suffer together and the instructor takes what we say into account. Also, we're taking a class trip to Berlin in January, so that's something to look forward to! :)

German Literature: This is probably my least favorite class, but I've never really been one to enjoy being assigned a book, having to read it and discuss it, and then being told that I'm "thinking the wrong things" or "not getting the meaning the author intended." How do YOU know?! This was written in the 1800s, I doubt you know what he meant either... But aside from that the class is nice. It's a comfortable atmosphere so we feel fine with speaking up and making a fool of ourselves in broken German. Some of the things we've read (poems and short essays) haven't been too bad, but I don't quite know what to think about this section on German Romanticism...

Well, those are my classes for the first semester! And I truly can't complain because this is the first semester that I've never had a Friday class! Three day weekends are wonderful things...

Until next time!

Munchin' in München

The Rathaus or the Town Hall

Almost two weeks ago Tuesday and Wednesday I went with my friends Allison and Tucker on an overnight trip to Munich, Germany. Even though we didn't stay very long, I had a wonderful time! We caught a bus and arrived in the late evening after five hours of travel. Tucker has a friend from U of M who is studying for the year in Munich and he met up with us and took us out to eat at a popular restaurant called the "Hofbrauhaus." I had roast beef with little potato dumplings and a glass of beer. It was wonderfully German and wonderfully delicious! We also saw the Rathaus, which is this big elaborate building that used to serve as the town hall. We lamely turned in early for the night because, after discussing it, we realized that we were all dead tired and weren't really in the partying mood, so we headed back to the hostel and slept. Wednesday morning we got up early, partook in the free breakfast offered by the hostel (bread, jam, meat, cheese, boiled egg, juice, coffee, same old), checked out, and began to head out into the city. Off we went!!! Left right, left, right, le- uhhh, hold up! Where were we going? We realized we had no idea where to go or what to do, so we turned around and head into the lobby of the hostel where there was a huge stand full of pamphlets. Tucker whipped out his laptop to find ideas (and check his email) and I, firmly establishing myself as a tourist, leafed through the pamphlets and picked out a few places to see. We decided on a leisurely sight-seeing day since we had lots of time to kill until our bus left later that evening.

The first place we went was the "Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst München" or "The Munich City Museum of Egyptian Art." I know what you're thinking: 'That's not very German, why did they go there?' And you know what? It wasn't! But it was cool all the same and the free audio guides were auf Deutsch so I got a bit of practice in! We saw ancient Egyptian weapons, coffins, jewelry, hieroglyphic scrolls, cat sculptures, books, sphinxes, scarab beetles, egyptian gods, and more! I've always wanted to learn hieroglyphics or some sort of script language, and ancient egyptian history has always seemed really interesting to me, so maybe I'll read up on it some more in my free time!

Me with the City Garden in the background

The next stop was the City Garden, which was basically this huge expanse of green. Green grass, green trees, green people (as in environmentally friendly). It was beautiful and I got a ton of pictures, but too many to put in this entry. They will, however, eventually be on Facebook! :) After our visit to the City Garden, we became hungry and sought out some food which landed us at some kind of outdoor Turkish restaurant/stand. I had curry wurst which is basically just a weiss wurst in some curry-flavored sauce. It was okay, but it's apparently very popular in Berlin, so I suppose I should develop a taste for it before I visit there! After lunch we had a bit more time to kill so we visited random stores and churches (there were so many churches!) before finally heading back to the bus and beginning the journey back to Freiburg. I thoroughly enjoyed Munich and I would love to go back for another visit. The city has so much more to offer than just Oktoberfest and I'd love to seek out more cool spots that I didn't have time for during this first visit!

With any luck I will have another blog post up later this week detailing my first week of classes!