Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I know you've all gotten a lot of snow over the past few weeks, but today is the first snow for us. I'm pretty excited about it, actually, because most of the people I know think that frost counts as snow. Hopefully, now they'll see the difference between frost and snow.

I'm sorry I havn't updated in so long, I know, I should have, but the mood just never struck me. So heres a rundown of the things that have happened in the past month.

I went to Heidelberg and Mannheim for class. They combined two classes together for the trip, and the other class had things to do in Heidelberg, so the people in my class got 5 hours to bum around. It was good, the Christmas Market was there so we drank lots and lots of glühwein and went shopping. We found a pizza hut, but didn't eat there (I think we all wanted to, but nobody wanted to suggest it.) we did eat at this nice little thai place. Everything in Heidelberg is in french, english, and german, which is good for tourists, but a little annoying for us. We went up to the top of the cathedral there, which was super fun, though the stairs were really tiny. Peter hit his head on the way up because the stairs were also built for people who are only 5'5" or so. it was pretty funny. I was really disappointed that we didn't get to go to the castle in Heidelberg. I kept saying "Guys, I really want to make sure we get up this castle..." and everyone else said "oh, we have tons of time!" which, we all know is code for "we're never going to make it up there". It's a good thing i'm going back sometime in the next two weeks. Mannheim was nice, but we only got to see the Mosque there. It was a really beautiful Mosque, but by that time in the night we were all ready to go home and get to bed.

Ali, my friend studying in Spain, came to visit for a weekend. It was the tops. She came in on Thursday and left on monday. We had the best time. We took lots of walks and ate good flammkuchen, went to a movie (the golden compass... it was AWFUL), watched some TV, cooked for a bunch of my friends. It was so nice to see someone from home. Especially her, because we didn't have to do anything to have a good time. It rained the whole weekend, but that didn't stop us from climbing jesuitschloss or schlossberg. I can't wait to go visit her in Spain.

My friend Peter held a christmas party, which was super fun. I met a lot of new people that I hadn't met before, including some really rude French girls. It's very strange to meet the French here, theres a lot of tension between the French and the Americans... even amongst those who are friends. I've had french people tell me to burn my passport upon meeting me, and these girls at the party grabbed a pen and wrote "Stop The Iraq War" on Ryan's arm. He was telling me about how even though he agrees with that statement he found it extremely rude, as do I. My french is quite awful, (I only know a few phrases, such as 'what time is it?' and 'I don't speak french. do you speak german or english?') and it makes me scared to go to france. Whenever we do go to france, we usually try to speak in german as much as possible, and try not to let on that we speak any english. we shouldn't have to be embarrassed to speak english in front of these people, but we all are. My friend Jenna is coming soon, and she wanted to go to a smaller french town... It would have been ok for a day trip, but not only was it far away, but being a small french town put me right off. I'm ok with sticking to the larger/tourist cities such as Straßbourg and Paris, because there are many other germans and americans there. especially in Paris, where we might be american, but at least we're not the loudest. Anyway, Peter had this party, it was fun.

All of my room mates went home for christmas, so I've been hanging out by myself. I'm really enjoying the downtime. I've gotten to watch lots of movies, cook for myself, watch lots of TV without being in anyone's way. It's all very exciting. I spent Christmas with the local stray cat, "Willie/Wilhelm" or "Mishka" depending on who you ask. He's very sweet. He came by last night while I was making dinner for myself, and I fed him and let him sleep on the couch, until I had to kick him out for the night. In the summer, we just leave the window open and he comes and goes as he pleases. He came back this morning, and I let him in, he's been following me around ever since (climbing all over my keyboard, playing with my shoe laces, attacking the pillow on the couch). Right now he's fallen asleep next to me. He could use a little bit of a bath, but i'm not about to take on a task like that.

On the 2nd, two of my good friends from home are coming to visit, and I'm really excited about that. We're going to go to Heidelberg, Straßbourg, Basel, Shauinsland, and maybe Stuttgart. It's going to be the best. I can't wait to feed them flammkuchen and show them all my favorite hang outs. My roommates all speak a little english, which will be good for my friends. I'm excited for them to meet my roomies, they're all really fun.

Happy thanksgiving!

So, here's some pictures from last night, namely, what we ate (sadly small, right?) the gnome and the puritan, and a picture of all the IMP kids who were there. there were only 3 or 4 people missing. it was great!

freerice!

Oh! before I forget, you all need to visit freerice.com Not only do you learn things (and thus feel good about yourself for being a smarty pants) you also get to donate free rice! (and thus feel good about yourself for helping out the world)

quick

Here's a quick update, with some pictures to go along with it. Sorry it's been so long! I'm about to go off to France for the day. We're going to go see a play and generally bum around in Strasbourg for awhile. I'm pretty excited, the whole thing only cost me 12 euro. But here's a bit about the pictures i put up:

The Shoes are my new favorite shoes in the world, even if they give me blisters. They're the pink ones i bought in Ireland (Completely worth it, right? right).

Then, just before Holloween, we had Taco night. Those are my friends Lisa and Peter. We made tacos for eight, and still had left overs. I don't think I've ever been so happy to eat mexican. Lisa's room mates explained to us that europeans don't really eat mexican food because they prefer italian and spanish more. I think they're crazy, tacos are delicious! someone should open a chipotle here.

We also carved pumpkins. Mine's the one on the left, can you tell?

recently i've been really busy with school. We're in our 4th or 5th week, and it's all a little crazy. I'm taking one class in english though, about Kurt Vonnegut. I really like it, especially the part where the teacher thinks we're (there are four of us in the class) not native english speakers because she isn't. She also makes up words. it's pretty special. All my other classes are mostly with international students, and I swung it so that I don't have any presentations in any of my classes, which I think is really good because I don't do well with presentations in english and in german it's 1000 times more difficult.

Alright, well, I'm off to france!

solid

My classes look like they're solidifying. I'm taking one on Kurt Vonnegut where the teacher makes up words ("Ironical instead of Ironic") or makes up definitions for german speakers that don't help... or make any sense ("birdshot - it's shot from birds" american: "Isn't it the pellets inside a shotgun shell?" "yes, exactly, shot from birds!" or "you won't find many kurt vonnegut words in the dictionary. Like Doosey- that ones onomonpaeic!") I feel bad for the people in my class who aren't native english speakers, because they have to wade through all that.
Then German politics (Required), Figure drawing, Goethe's Werther, History of German Lit. I'm excited about Werther and figure drawing. Though, theres this old lady in figure drawing who keeps telling me and Janessa that we need to buy better pencils and paper and what not, even though we like our pencils and paper. I don't think she knows we're poor exchange students. Probably hasn't seen the latest value of the USD.
Stayed in all weekend which was nice, mostly we just made pizza and played cards. Looks like its going to become a regular thing. Biss went back to her city, so we asked Kyle to play in our Hearts game which I think is going to be on Tuesday nights. I'm really excited.

Holloween

Tomorrow is holloween, and unlike back home where it's usually celebrated the weekend before or the weekend after, here all the celebrations are actually on holloween because November 1st is All Saints Day, and nothing is open on all saints day. Its pretty exciting. I'm probably going to a mass in the Cathedral because there is a choir thing that Lisa invited me to. supposedly it's a really really long mass though, so I don't know how long I'll stay. As for holloween, I wasn't going to dress up this year simply because I didn't want to buy anything and every costume I thought of was either going to turn out super expensive, or just not work out at all. I guess I could have just bought a stuffed dinosaur and gone around going "I'm Gertrude! how do you not know who I am?!?" (kudos to those of you who get this reference... namely, Otto and Russ, because i'm sure you're the only ones). Instead, Peter forced me to buy one of those skeleton onesies they make for little kids at Aldi for 2.49euro. Lets hope it fits... otherwise, i might go as a college student.
Aunt Peg, I know you asked when I'm coming home and I wanted to let you all know that it'll be sometime next august. not so sure exactly when, but it'll be sometime next august. I'll probably travel until I havn't got any money left at all and then come home and see the Star Wars exhibit at the Science museum (theres gonna be a millenium falcon.).
Other than that, things are going much better this week. I had to drop one of the classes I was going to take because it was just to fast for me, but I found a figure drawing class (in the archeology department? strange) for 2 credits, and a lecture for 3 credits that doesn't involve any work. And, Werther seems to be working out great, it's all international students and the teacher is very very clear. The Referate doesn't seem difficult either, which is really nice because Referates have been stressing me out the most.

Before I forget, I'd like to thank all of you who sent me Holloween cards. You'd be suprised how many of my american friends here who don't get any mail at all. Its really nice to get things in the mail. Miss you all!

more class

This weekend I've been super busy with things to do. Not only is it the first week of classes, and I still need to finish figuring out what I need to do (the hope is that this one class about German Lit where the only work is taking notes works out). Other than that, I'm definately taking a class on Kurt Vonegut, Goethe's Werther, and German Politics. I've only had two Kurt Vonnegut classes so far, and I'm enjoying it more than any of the other ones. It's partially because the Teacher isn't a native english speaker (the class is taught in english), and she often makes up words. Today, my favorite was "Fragmentaltion".

Anyway, this weekend was a lot of fun. On friday we carved pumpkins and ate a ton of candy, pizza, and french fries while watching Arrested Development. Saturday was even better. At noon, Cameron called me and he, his girlfriend Arwen, Lisa, and I climbed up Schlossberg. It was a really steep climb with a fantastic view. When we came back down, we met up with Janessa and Monika for Tea and Hot Chocolate and the Tea and Chocolate house by the Cathedral. That was everything we expected, right up to the paintings of kittens on the walls. Afterward we went to Migros and found CHEDDAR CHEESE. it was fantastic. I went back a bought a second block today (we ate the first one). We ended up making tacos (mmmmm, mexican) for 8 people and it was absolutely fantastic. I've never eaten tacos so quickly in my life. Then when I went home my room mate came by and told me it was her birthday so if I wanted to eat with them she'd really like that. So I had some Artichokes with my room mates (also, super super good) and they complimented me on how awesome my room looks (which is tottally true. I wish i could bring all this stuff home so my room could look just like this). Then all of us Americans went out to this big club festival, which turned out to be a bust because it was cold and we all elected to wear skirts... that and it seems every 16 year old decided to come out as well for the festival. Sunday, a bunch of us met up for lunch of left over tacos and then went out for Cake and Coffee at Limette down the street. They've got the best cake and coffee. (cake and coffee on sunday is a traditional german thing to do). It was really good. We had cake and coffee last weekend too, wo I think its going to become a trend.

class

This is the most stressful thing I have ever done.

what to do

Tomorrow, classes start. I have two on mondays, but only because one is twice a week. In the morning I have a Kurt Vonegut class... actually taught in english, but i'm only taking it as a back up because the class I actually wanted was full (or canceled. there is debate because the guy told me one thing, and Hillary something else). Then at night I have an IES center course (in german). It should be ok, The other two classes I'm taking is one on Political and Church power struggles in Germany and one on Goethe's Werther. I'm excited about the Werther one, even if it wasn't one of my first choices either. I am excited because I don't have class on Fridays, but all of my classes are night classes. I hate night classes. I can never motivate myself to sit through class from 6-8pm. it's just too late in the day, plus I'm much more productive if i'm forced to get up early.

Its been really nice here recently, but COLD. fall has definately hit, and it's nice to finally feel like school is really starting. I'm happy to be done with this month of nothingness that i've had to busy myself with.

In happy news, I got a package yesterday full of books from Tim. I'm already a hundred pages into 100 years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. it's really good. It's translated from spanish, and I've read other books translated from spanish to english before and they always have the same feel to them. I think there is a tone to spanish books translated to english that is hard to duplicate.

katze, oder?

this would be the second time this week a stray cat has wandered into my room howling for attention, jumped up on my bed, rummaged around in my blankets and either fallen asleep or laid down.

... it's a good thing i think there are only two stray cats in this neighborhood.

Cards

I bonded with my room mates last night! We played this little kid game similar to double solitare, except without the solitare part. Pretty much you just put cards in order and fight to get as many in the center as possible. I pretty much swept the floor every single time. We must have played 7 or 8 times, and I think I only lost twice. I thank Grandma Elliott for that one, keeping me on my toes, thanks Grandma. It was really nice to play some cards, we learned all the suits in German (Kreuz-club, Pik-spade, Karo-diamond, Herz-heart). We also learned their verison of Crazy 8s, which is called MaoMao. It was fun... I wanted to ask them if any of them played Cribbage, only I couldn't remember the "Ihr" conjugation of "Spielen"... or really the "Ihr" conjugation of anything, so I didn't ask. My plan is to teach Janessa and then leave my board out some day and see if anyone knows what it is.

photos from ireland! yay!

This first photo is one of the Cliffs of Moher. It's of the O'Brian watch tower there. Its super pretty. I have tons of photos of it, the watchtower is strangely tiny though. You'd think they'd want something bigger, but I guess not. This was the only day It rained the entire time we were in Ireland. Go figure, the day we take a tour and spend an hour running around outside, has to be the day that it decides to rain like mad and drench us. It turned out alright, because we got some amazing photos, and really, whats Ireland without a little rain. We did almost get left behind because we were buying souvineers at the gift shop and didn't keep track of the time.
this next photo is of a castle where they apparently hold daily mideavel dinners in the summer. It'd be interesting to see, but i'm sure its way expensive, just like everything else in Ireland. I mean really, 20 euro for a hamburger and half a plate of fries? granted, the ketchup was free for once, but not worth 20euro.
this next photo is of a fantastic teeshirt I saw in a window. Apparently they don't like certainty in the UK because Galway - just PROBABLY the best city in Ireland. no proof, jury is still out, can't decide if they like belfast, cork, or dublin more, no, no.
This last photo is of Oscar Wilde and his brother. They really like their writers in Ireland, very proud of their literary heritage. My big question, though, was what's it like to be Oscar Wilde's Brother? Apparently, he was also a writer. But how do you go about your life saying "oh yeah, I'm Oscar Wilde's brother! yeah, he's pretty cool... i'm a writer too y'know... oh, you havn't heard of me? no, i can't get you his autograph." ect, ect.

Ireland

Got back from Ireland the day before yesterday, and heres a general summary of what we did:

The first day, we had to catch a train to Mainz, and then a bus from there to the frankfurt Hahn airport. We arrived the night before, because our plane was scheduled to leave at 9 in the morning. So, we booked a hostel that claimed it was near the airport, which was not the case. Because it was just cheaper to stay at the Frankfurt Hahn airport hotel than to pay for the room at the hostel +taxi to and from, we just stayed there. Even if we do have to pay for the first hostel, it's still cheaper than taking the taxi out there. Plus, this way we got our own bathroom and a TV.

The next morning, the flight was fine, though Ryanair is a shady, shady flight company... they hand wrote all our names on our boarding passes. I guess thats what you get when you pay a cent/ticket. We arrived in Dublin just fine, and arrived at our hostel (which was bright blue), which was a block from the main street in Dublin. We got settled, and then walked around for awhile. There was this really cool statue of James Joyce right outside our hostel, I got a picture of it (pictures to come in awhile, when i've loaded them) but only with a fake James Joyce in front of it. That day we just walked around town a bit, took some pictures, looked in some shops and came to the realization that if we wanted to eat, it was going to cost us between 10-20euros/meal, unless we went to McDonalds. That night we went to a movie theater and saw Superbad, which I highly recommend to anyone who likes gross out sex comedies with a bit of heart. The weird thing about the movies there is that, while they show commertials like they do in america, the comertials are terrifying. Not so much the comertials, but the Public Service Announcements. There was one for speeding that was just beyond graphic. After that we checked the map and went to find a bar in the popular "Temple Bar" district, hopefully with traditional Irish music. We found one... which played Irish music for about ten minutes and then switched to classic rock (read: "Sweet Home Alabama"). So after eating some free, rediculously good, chicken appetizer things, we went home.

The next day, we did some more shopping, but actually bought some things. I needed to buy a bag because I packed so lightly, that I didn't have any room to bring anything home... or for that matter a purse to carry my wallet in. So, I bought a beautiful plaid green/brown one that was acutally extremely cheap for its size, compared to all the bags that I had looked at previously. Then we went in search of the National Art Gallery, which was near Trinity College. We got extremely lost in terms of where the gallery was, but never in terms of where the hostel was. We found this really amazing park across the street from the gallery with this sweet statue of Oscar Wilde, and play grounds and big grassy areas. It was my favorite place in Dublin that we found. That night, we got all dolled up (we had to, I bought the most beautiful pink heels. They've got this really cool antiqued rose look to them) and went out. We quickly learned that all the bars advertising "traditional Irish music" actually played "classic rock" and were filled with the 45+ crowd. So, we found a club a little more suited to our tastes and watched this random 55 year old man drink in the middle of the room all by himself (the rest was filled with the 20something crowd). We named him "Awkward Dad". We enjoyed a couple guinness, which was good, but beyond expensive and then booked it home.

the day after that was saturday, and Janessa (the girl i've been travelling with) had an appointment to get a Tattoo. We spent most of the day doing that, because it ended up being really big. It's also one of the most beautiful tattoos i've ever seen. It's a Saint Christopher that takes up most of her left side. That day was boring for me, because they wouldn't let me in the parlor to hold her hand while it was getting done. I had to sit in the lobby with the artist's creepy friend, being creeped upon by him until Janessa came out and said it was going to be another hour or so, so I could go do something else if I wanted... So i went to the hostel and took a nap and read some James Joyce. That night we went back to the movie theater and saw The Kingdom, which I wanted to like, but It just left me with this awful sick feeling afterward. We both just felt physically ill after seeing it, so we went home.

On Sunday, we wanted to go to mass in an irish cathederal, but we didn't get up in time, so we just caught the bus to Galway. Overall, Galway was a much prettier and better city than Dublin. It was cleaner, prettier, and just more likeable. Plus, our youth hostel was amazing. it was the best youth hostel i could have asked for. Super well maintained. I would definately recommend it to anyone. When we got there, the guy at the desk said that if we were interested there was a market going on in town, but only for about another hour, so we dropped off our stuff and then booked it to the market... which turned out to be half a block of people selling things out of the backs of their cars. Its ok, though, because we got to see the main pedestrian street.

Monday, we went on a bus tour of the Cliffs of Moher... and we almost missed our bus back to Galway. We were right on time. The tour was super interesting, I wish that we had done more of them. The cliffs were beautiful, but it rained the whole time. I figure, what's Ireland without a little rain, but it's not so much fun to be drenched. We also got to see a ton of O'brian Castles and Tree circles and this old tomb. The Tree circles were really interesting because they're protected by the Faeries of the underworld as the legend goes.

Tuesday, we puttered around the city and discovered this amazing mexican food resturaunt. They don't do Mexican here in Germany, and as U of M students who eat Chipotle and Burrito Loco on a regular basis, we were really excited to get some burritos in our stomachs. Tuesday was really nice and we had a lot of fun walking around town, taking pictures and things (there was another statue of Oscar Wilde that we found. Apparently, Oscar Wilde has a brother - also a writer - who knew?).

Wednesday, we had to check out of our Youth Hostel by 10:30, but we weren't leaving the city until 1:15am on the bus to the Dublin Air Port. I woke up with the worst sore throat and no voice. It was awful. Again, we just puttered around and played some cards with some people we had met at our Youth Hostel. It was fun, but I started to feel more and more sick, and Janessa really wanted to get moving back to Germany, so we caught the 6pm bus instead of the 1:15am one and ended up sleeping on some benches in the Airport. As the day went on, I felt sicker and sicker, and i'm sure sleeping on the benches didn't help. The worst though, was that I had really, truely fallen asleep when a police man poked me and woke me up, asking to see our Passports and flight confirmation number. Of course, it took me forever to find my confirmation number, and it was really scary... and disorienting, having just woken up (and by this time, i'm positive I had a fever). It all turned out Ok. We got on our flight at 7am the next morning, hopped th bus to Mainz, got an earlier train ticket back to Freiburg, met some really nice people on the Bahn and got back by 3pm... at which point I promptly passed out and have been nursing the Flu ever since.

I did go out for pizza last night with my friends, it's so nice to be back in Germany. Leaving Germany made me really home sick for Wisconsin/Minnesota, and coming back to Germany helped, if only to have a group of people around me who are willing to go buy me Ramen(as close to campbells as we can get) and generally help me get over being sick.

Squirrel

I SAW A HEDGEHOG! (thats right, a real, live, wild hedgehog)

Lisa's Birthday

It was Lisa's 21st birthday last night, so of course we had a pretty pretty pink princess party, where everyone had to wear pink/get dressed up and her room mates made dinner and we brought her fun princess themed presents such as a can of peas and a disney princess book. Matt and Auna even performed a play, which was pretty fantastic, and everyone had momosas. It was really fantastic, There are tons of pictures of us all dressed up in pink, but here's my favorite from the night:a little taste of home, far far away.

Suche

We've only not had class for a couple of days now, and i'm already out of my mind with boredom. There simply isn't much to do(especially when you're avoiding spending money). Plus all of the Erasmus students left(european exchange students), which means all the people I met in class are gone, and I'm left with my Ami friends. So, I guess it's a good thing I leave for dublin in less than a week. Janessa and I spent all of yesterday planning our trip, which really just involved looking at pictures of Galway and deciding it was the only other city we wanted to visit. She has a friend in Belfast we could have stayed with, but we decided that Galway was simply cooler... and this way we don't have to exchange our currency.
I've been trying to get to the movie theater since I got here, but i've seen just about everything they've got out. They've got one theater that plays 2 or 3 of their movies in english, which is nice, except i've seen all of them and it's hard to convince me to see a movie for $8 with bad dubbing that i'll probably only understand parts of.
I'm pretty sure most of my room mates moved back in this morning, because I have never heard so much noise in our common area. I know Benny came back two days ago, and Fritjof and Nina last night. Nina doesn't completely count because she's moving out in a few days.
It also rains a lot here. I should have brought my rain boots.

cheese

why is there no cheddar here?

Rugby

The world cup of Rugby was last night(Ireland vs. France) so a bunch of us trekked into town to go to an Irish pub, which was strange because we were cheering for france. Either way, it was a fun time, France won by some ridiculous amount of points, but who knows how they scored them because I watched the game pretty intently and I still havn't got a clue what was going on. Mostly, It looked like a bunch of people sitting on each other and throwing a ball backwards. It was pretty violent.

I also went to Ikea yesterday and bought myself the cheapest rug they had (9.) it's pretty sweet, they also had a much cheaper pillow than before, thankfully, because I needed a new pillow. But my favorite purchase from Ikea is my brand new Ficus tree. Its pretty sweet. Peter named it, but it's pretty inappropriate, so i'm not going to repeat it. Lets hope my ficus doesn't die. I'm a little sad though that if it doesn't die I probably won't be able to take it home. whatevs.

I need to go buy some landry detergent, but heres a second photo before I go:

Oktoberfest

While Oktoberfest would be an awesome experience, it's not particularly worth it. It would cost about 144euro round trip by train(its a six hour ride) and if I did stay the night, I'd be sleeping on a park bench. That would be fine and dandy, if I wanted to lose all of my belongings. So, Instead I'm off to Ireland for 34euro round trip. I'll go back to Oktoberfest some time when I've thought it through and booked a hostel 3 months in advance. So, Ireland it is.

Ill

I am staying home sick from my first class today because I slept for 12 hours and still felt sick when I woke up. I feel much better now (strange, it was only 2 hours after that). tevs. But let me tell you about this awkwardness that just happened. A new room mate showed up, right before I was going to take a shower, while i was just chillin in my room. So, I went to shower and peeked in her door to see if she was there so I could introduce myself (her room is by the bathroom), and she wasn't there. So I took a shower. and when i got out her door was WIDE open and she was all chillin, but I couldn't introduce myself because I only had a towel on. let me tell you, it was mighty awkward. Well, Here are some photos of my room so you can have something pretty to look at:

More photos

Ok, so I'm going to try to put the rest of the photos up in one post (it's a little hard to tell what it'll look like, but lets hope this works. This one on the left, is also from Freiburger Muenster. It's pretty sweet, but I don't know what's going on in it.

The Next photo of the gold man is from a fountain just outside the muenster. also, super cool. It's in this open area that has a fresh market every day. I always forget about it though, so I havn't gotten the chance to shop there. Plus, I think it only goes on while I'm in class.

This next picture is of Martin's Tur (Martin's door) It's an old city gate they reconstructed after WWII (the whole city was reconstructed on the Middleages streetplan. ANyway, this is one of the original gates to the city.

The last one is of a typical Freiburg Street.

Pictures

So, this is the Freiburger Muenster: isn't it sweet? Cameron and I spent an entire day walking around and taking pictures last week, and this was my favorite that I took of the cathedral.
I'm in a lecture right now about the Freiburger Muenster, and i'd like you all to know that it started being built in 1200ad, and was finished almost 300 years later. Thats pretty sweet if you ask me. Also, it was one of the only things untouched after WWII in freiburg (mostly because the silly nazi's bombed themselves. silly nazis.) This next one is also just another great shot.

Vorlesungen

Today we started Lecture class on top of language class. I'm taking a course on the Freiburger Cathederal and one on idomatic sayings. The Cathedral one is both interesting and boring, and the Idomatic sayings one leaves me way in the dust. It's a good thing that I only need to attend to get credit. Next week I get to take one on the history of German film. I'm super excited. We'll probably watch metropolis, and you all know how much I adore metropolis.
I've gotten to hang out with my room mate Nina more recently because Fritjof isn't home and she is. She's super nice, last night I had a bunch of people over to discuss the Oktoberfest trip we want to take and she was super helpful. She told us about rideshare and planes and everything. We're pretty much planning on taking a train to Munchen and then hopping a flight to Dublin and spending a week or so travelling around. It's practically a two week trip, but we need to find some cheaper travel options. Right now, everything has been out of our price range. Tomorrow we're going to STA though to find out more about stuff from them.
I bought a hairdryer and a straightener the other day and it cost me an arm and a leg. it was absolutely ridiculous.

I was going to write more, but I want to put some pictures up, so there will be another post later tonight or perhaps tomorrow. tschau!

Sunday

In Germany, nothing is open on sunday. This means we are stuck watching german television... which is really just dubbed american television from 10 years ago. seriously. Ally McBeal was on last night. Right now we're watching Mona Lisa Smile though.

We went dancing last night, it was super fun. There was this spanish couple that was dancing that was just AMAZING. I have never felt like such a poor dancer. Peter and I spent most of our time imitating them and being like "Wow, no american can dance like that" then we came back to my apartment and listened to Justin Timberlake and chilled.

The Apartment below mine (peter's) has a Wii, so I think I might go there some time this week and play. It looks really fun. My apartment has Apples to Apples though which is also SWEET. it's in german though, so it'll be good to learn adjectives.

afar

I miss you all terribly.

along with good resturant service and being warm.


but I miss you the most.

Class

Had my first class. it was good. My computer still isn't working quite right (the lines change every time I turn it on, i probably shouldn't be on it right now). I'm super tired. bought a sweater because it is freaking cold here. I also havn't eaten a full meal yet today(this can't be good, but I skipped Mensa!) Still can't decide if I want a Mensa card. means I get a big meal for under 3 euro a day, but it smells funny in Mens and I don't like it. it makes me not want to eat.

Arrival

My trip overseas was quite harrowing. I was suprised, however, how IES was once I got here. They were nice enough to do my orientation in english(as at that point in time I had been awake for about 24 hours)... but not quite nice enough to give me the night off and allow me to sleep. I only got about an hour before I had to meet up with the other amerikanisher at IES to do more orientation and have dinner (which lasted another 4 hours). Eventually I got home at about 10 and got to go to sleep. At that point I had been awake for 31 hours straight and desperately needed to sleep.
I won't regail you all with the details of the train and how incredibly confusing it was, but I will tell you that it has rained since I got here with almost no stop. It was downpooring in every trainstation and on the walk to my apartment. The screen on my computer has these funny lines on it now and I'm not sure what to do about it. They're all at the bottom though, so I just moved the dock to the side of the screen and it seems to work alright. I'm afraid though that the screen is ruined and I'll have to pay thousands of dollars just to fix it.
My roommates are nice. I've only met two: Freidrich and a girl who's name starts with M that I can never remember. Freidrich helped me put my computer together (i.e. get internet) and he doesn't speak any english to me. I do live with one american student though, Ryan. He is also very nice (and reminds me that we have to leave).
My shoulders hurt from dragging my bags everywhere and my feet hurt from this tour we took today. Then we took this ridiculous sprachtest for placement where we had to read Kafka and define words we had never even remotely heard of. I got to go grocery shopping too, which could have ended with me and ten pounds of chocolate, but gladly didn't. I need to go to the Bakerei in the morning for breakfast. if I can find it.
Two girls and I went out for a beer after all that. We were supposed to meet up with all the other IES students at this one bar... only, we couldn't remember what it was called. So instead, I braved the UniCafe and ordered for all three of us. Apparently, I look very German because I've had many people ask me for directions/speak to me only in german... where as my new friend Janessa says one word when ordering and the woman behind the counter immediately says "Chicken or Beef?" in english. Poor girl. My room is huge, and I need to buy a book to read because I don't want to watch TV, and the book I bought at the airport got stolen or fell out somewhere after Heathrow(which is officially my least favorite airport ever).
Also, I have an address for everyone, but you need to tell me where to send it/email it (and also, give me yours!)

Leaving

I don't leave Madison for another two hours, but damn am I nervous.

Homework

Shitake, I forgot about my homework.

Packing

Holy crap. Apparently, my pile wasn't that big. Almost all of my clothing + bathroom stuff fit in one bag. I hope my shampoo doesn't explode on everything. I put it in a ziplock, but you never know.

I also had to pick out what i wanted to wear over the next two days, which i hate doing. I'll probably unpack half my thinks because my clothes don't quite suit my mood over the next two days. c'est la vie.

I hope I don't forget anything.

Packing

According to my mother and Katieskates, my pile of clothes is not that big. According to my pops, I need to whittle it down some more. He did give me permission to buy shoes and clothes when i get there. we had to convince him to let me bring shampoo and conditioner... because... y'know, I want to smell clean when I meet my german roommates.

I don't think I can whittle this down anymore.

Russia

Apparently, Getting a visa to Russia is extremely difficult.