Local Travels

Wednesday was a really long day for me.   I had tutoring from 8-12, which wasn’t too bad.  We spent almost an hour reading an article, which we discussed afterwards.  I had from 12-2 free, which is an awkward amount of time, because it’s much longer than I need to eat lunch, but not long enough for me to go to my dorm and back…  From 2-4 I had conversation class.  We played a kind of 20 questions where we had to ask questions about famous Americans (in German).   From 4-6 I had another tutorial.  I brought in an article about candy, and how it is villainized for being unhealthy, but is really no worse for you than many “health” foods, like granola bars or juice.   I found out the date of my presentation (December 1). 

That night I did some more work on applications before going to bed relatively early.  Yesterday (Thursday) was Bizz’s birthday.  Since neither of us had class we went to Heidelberg.  It is in the next state south (Baden-Wurttemberg) and only about 2 hours away.  We left a little before 7 am an got there at 9, when things start to open.  It is most famous for its castle, which was never really important when people lived there.  It was partially destroyed in the 30 Years War and not famous enough to rebuild.  By the early 1800s, the ruins were a popular inspiration for the Romantics, and the castle started becoming famous then.  At the castle, there was also a German Pharmacy museum and what was once the world’s largest wooden wine barrel.  It was very big.  The castle was very beautiful, and we took some nice pictures there.   There was also a nice shopping area where we purchased some chocolate.  Germans really like non-traditional chocolate flavors.  I got dark chocolate with strawberry pieces and pepper, and Bizz got dark chocolate with apple pieces, cinnamon, and caramel.  We made it back to Marburg around 8 or 8:30 that night, and I was pretty tired.  Fortunately, I’d done some of my homework on the train, so I didn’t have to worry about that.  Now I just have one short article left to read for Monday. 

This morning I got up and did some cleaning.  At 4, a couple people are coming over to make auflauf!  Yum!  I also need to spend some more quality time doing work…I want to go to Frankfurt on Saturday, particularly to the zoo!  I figure that since everything is closed on Sundays here, that can be my day to work.

Hope you all have a good weekend (even if it is shorter than mine!)

Getting into a New Routine

(Written on Tuesday night)

Yesterday was a fairly uneventful day.  In class, we got our syllabus.  I was pleased to discover that I had accidently done the readings for next week in addition to the ones I needed to do.  We also had to sign up for topics for our presentation and paper.  We have to write a minimum of 10 pages and speak for a minimum of 15 minutes.  I chose to cover STD education and prevention.  My presentation isn’t until the second week of December, but I will probably start working on it soon. 

I found a new way home from class.  Instead of a 5 minute walk, 15 minute bus ride, this way is a 15 minute walk and a 5 minute bus ride.  That may not sound better, but in the past when I’ve missed my bus, it’s taken me 30 or 40 minutes to walk between those points.  I also went grocery shopping and was delighted to find Milka bars (the world’s most delicious chocolate) on clearance for 49 cents!  I bought 5.  I think it’s an investment.  So far, I have only eaten one (the strawberry-yogurt-filled one).   (I would also like to point out that I just spelled joghurt the German way and couldn’t figure out why Word had a problem with it…). 

That afternoon I made meatballs using ground pork and matzo crackers.   I was really excited, because I’d never made them before.  They turned out to be very tasty, especially with my pasta in a tomato-cheese-broccoli-carrot sauce.  Later that evening I hung out with Bizz and some South Korean students.  They were very nice, but we had to speak German the whole time, which is hard when you’re tired.

Today I didn’t do a lot before class.  I’ve been really tired all day.  We watched a video in German in our lecture, which was a challenge.  It was not too hard to follow, except when the Austrians spoke.  I didn’t understand much of anything that they said.  It was strange when an English-speaker was interviewed, seeing subtitles beneath.  In tutorial, we had to pick the topics for our paper and presentation.  I am doing Daily Goods, but I hope to focus on either rice or corn.  We have to write our papers from a historical perspective, and address modern social and economic impacts.  The topics seem awfully broad for a 10-12 page paper.  

Tonight I am planning on working on some research applications.  I also need to check when applications become available for some summer internships, because I think it’s soon.  Since I have 8 am class tomorrow, I’d better go to bed early, too!  I am exhausted.

I decided not to go to Milan this weekend.  I realized that my plane ticket would end up costing about 200 Euros, which is 4 or 5 times as much as you usually pay.  I just don’t think it’s worth it.  I’d rather try to do something else.  I’m not sure what I’m doing this weekend, but I’m looking at making some small trips using my Hesse train ticket.  I’d like to go to Heidelberg and Frankfurt.  With a four-day weekend, it is very possible I’ll do both.

The Rest of the Weekend

I spent Saturday being gloriously lazy.  I didn't sleep in too much, but I stayed in my pajamas until late afternoon.  The good thing about having to get up around 7 every day is that 8:30 and 9:00 seem really late, even though you're not missing the entire day.   Although I said I was gloriously lazy, I was somewhat productive.  I made a pot of soup (which is pretty tasty), and finished my homework for Monday. 

I also did some thinking about travelling and where I want to go this semester.  So far I am planning on going to Milan this weekend (provided everything works out...this opportunity kind of dropped into my hands last minute), with a possible day trip to Venice.  I would love to go to Italy, so I'm pretty excited.   I am also pretty sure I'll go to Edinburgh and Glasgow for a long weekend. 

Saturday night I went salsa dancing for a little bit.  It was fun.  I was glad to see Adi (Columbia) again.  She was in my language course for the first 6 weeks.  I think I am going to sign up for salsa lessons tomorrow morning.  It is only 20 or 25 Euros for the semester. 

This morning I got up and went to church.  There is an EMK here, which is the German branch of the UMC.  I hoped that since I'm familiar with the UMC's layout I'd be able to follow pretty well, but that wasn't necessarily the case.  There were only 12 people at the church, possibly because the sermon was 35 minutes long!  I really have to focus to understand spoken German, and it was more than I could handle. That afternoon Katie (WV) came over.  We hung out for a while then planned our trip to Edinburgh.  It is extremely inexpensive to travel there, and train tickets to Glasgow are about 15 Euros round trip.  We (and possibly some other girls from the group) will go there either November 18-21 or December 2-5.  I really loved Edinburgh the last time I was there, and I am excited to see Glasgow for the first time.

Katie and I then went out for dinner, where we ate delicious Auflaeufe.  Auflauf is the singular.  It's the casserole that I talked about before.  This time, mine was cheese tortellini with ham and broccoli in a tomato-cream sauce, covered with a layer of cheese.  I love that it comes in your own personal casserole dish, which is almost as big as your face!  It's a lot of food, but it's so delicious and hot.   

I just have class from 12-2 tomorrow, after which I desperately need to go grocery shopping.  I have very little food in my apartment, except the soup I made.  I'm looking forward to a few days of class and then--hopefully!--4 days in Milan!

The Rest of the Week

On Wednesday I had class from 8-12.  8 am class, in Marburg, means getting up at 6 am at the latest.  It wasn’t fun.  But, I found out that I can catch a later bus into town, so I might be able to sleep in until 6:30 next week!  Class was really good.  Our tutor just had us (there’s 8 or 9 of us in there) discuss different aspects of Reproductive Health and education.  Since we’re mainly from different states, we all had different experiences.  Since so many people in the class had their oral exam that afternoon, we actually got done around 10:30 am. 

Both of my afternoon classes were cancelled, which was wonderful.  I can’t imagine the next 7 weeks and having 8 hours of class on Wednesday s.  Although I’ve had 7 hours a day, every day, for the last 6 weeks, so maybe it won’t be that bad. 

That evening, Bizz came over for dinner.  I supplied the left-over curry and she brought fresh-from-the-store ice cream.  Then we, along with 3 other girls from our program, went to volleyball.  It was okay…we had to do a lot of running and stretches first, which was unpleasant.  Then, we just did drills with throwing the ball…we never got to hit it.  I’m not going back next week, but it was still fun. 

On Thursday I didn’t have any classes!  I had considered going to Frankfurt, but I felt like being lazy and sleeping in.  I went to the library and did some trip planning, then I came back to my dorm to clean…as always.  I feel like my dorm never stays clean, that the floors just attract dirt somehow. That night, Bizz and I went to salsa dancing lessons.  It was so much fun!  The teachers were college students from Columbia and Brazil, and they did a great job.  We learned four basic salsa steps, and then some spins.  We also did a brief lesson on meringue.  I really want to sign up for this class.  I’m just not sure if I will take it on Monday or Thursday nights.  Then a lot of IUSP people hung out that night.  After not seeing each other for a week, it was nice for a reunion.  It’s really strange from being together all of the time, to really having to make an attempt to see each other.

Today I cleaned my room (AGAIN) and read some Supreme Court transcripts for class.  They’re actually really interesting.  It seems like you don’t think about the Constitutional reasons for legislation.  So, I’m glad I am enjoying it, since we have about 30-40 pages to read! 

Dan (a senior chemistry major from Marshall) came to visit me around noon today.  I was really excited to see him.  He is studying in Giessen, which is only a 15 minute train ride away.  His train got here faster than I could walk from my room to the train station!  We walked around the city and I showed him the sights.  It was cold today!  It was around 35 but felt colder with the wind.  It was nice catching up with him.  He invited me to Giessen sometime, and I want to go.  They seem to have some interesting things there, like a flea market every Saturday, and an interactive math museum. 

This evening I worked on my schedule for next semester.  It’s so hard to believe I’m scheduling already!  I’m not sure what my plans for tomorrow are.  Tomorrow night one of the salsa teachers is having another salsa lesson, so I think I might go to that, too.  Hope you all are having a good weekend!

German Lectures

I thought I'd update again today, since I have some time. 

My class this afternoon was boring. It was the first day, so I just got to listen to roll call and the reading of the syllabus (in German).  Most of that stuff doesn't apply to me, and I couldn't follow a lot of it. For me to understand spoken German for a long period, I really have to focus, but it's easy for me to tune people out.

Class got over early, then I had my first tutorial. The class is Food, Diet, and Globalization, if I didn't say that earlier.  I have to write a 10-12 page paper on something related to that, but I haven't been given more details yet, and I have to give a 30 minute presentation of the paper, which shouldn't be too bad, either.  Both assignments are in English and the presentation is only for the international students in my class.

My two afternoon classes tomorrow are cancelled, so I'm happy about that. Not much else is new, but I wanted to update on my classes!

The Students Arrive!

So, Monday was the first day of University classes, and the population of the town exploded.  All the buses are packed.  My dorm is never quiet.  There is no hot water.  I’d like to complain about that one for a minute.  Maybe I’ve just been living in the lap of luxury at Marshall, but I’ve never had the showers there run out of hot water.  Sometimes it’s only been warm, but it has never been as painfully cold as the water was today.  Considering it’s in the 30s outside and I don’t know how to work the heaters in my room, I consider this cold water detrimental to my health.  It’s certainly detrimental to my hygiene, because I never want to shower again.  It was awful.

But.  I will make an attempt to be less negative.  Yesterday morning I had to get up early to take my language oral exam.  I also got back my old exams, on which I had scored 80%, 80%, 66% for an average of 75%, which was pretty good as far as I’m concerned.  I’m not sure how that will transfer in the US, but I am hopeful that it will go up the necessary 5 points for a B, considering that I was told I had done a very good job.  Either way, I am very proud of my performance, because I have improved a huge amount since I’ve been here. 

My oral exam wasn’t bad.  I was given a comic strip with no captions and I had to make up the story to go along with it.  Then they asked me a few questions, like if it was a realistic scenario, etc.  I had to talk for 10-15 minutes, and I did much better than I thought I would.  I got a 77% on that part of the exam, which took my average to a 76%! 

After my exams I had to get ready for class.  It’s Reproductive Health Policy in the US.  Our teacher is an American who did her Masters at Marburg.  She is very nice, and the class has a relaxed seminar format.  There are about 16 students in there…I think 8 of us are Americans from my program, and 8 are from other places (mainly German, but there’s a Dutch girl in there too).  Many of the European students already have a degree.  Our tutor is in the Masters program.  She seems pretty nice, but we’ll have to see on Wednesday when I spend 4 hours with her! 

After class I went grocery shopping with Lizzie (MA) and then we hung out for a little bit and did Internet stuff.  I uploaded my pictures from Frankfurt and Bremerhaven, as well as the pictures of the chocolate pear mouse I ate. 

Last night I went to Gesellschafttanz class.  That’s ballroom dancing, in most other languages.  It was okay.  It wasn’t any harder to learn in German than in English, but I didn’t really like the teacher.  His attitude of himself was a little too good.  Bizz and I had a lot of fun, although we had to take turn being the man.  We learned to waltz, both right and left, although I think most people there already knew how.  Then we learned samba, which was a lot of fun, although we only learned to do it in one direction so we just had to make big circles around the room.   I might go back next week.  I’m not sure. 

I’m going to spend some time this morning cooking.  I already made hashbrowns, eggs, and sausage for breakfast.  But I bought some potatoes, clearance “Ham Goulash,” which I assume means pork for soup, and Turkish flatbread.  The curry I made is still a little too spicy, so I am trying to add some bland things to it to cut it down. I have class from 2-6 today.  It’s 2 hours of Food, Diet, and Globalization, and then 2 hours of tutoring for that class.  I might go play another free sport tonight, if there’s anything good being offered. 

Northern Adventures

I got up early on Saturday to get to the train station by 7:30.  My train came a little before 8, and I was off!  I think I had to change trains 3 times, maybe 4, and each wait was fairly long (about an hour).  The only bad thing about my passes is how limited you are in the trains you can take.  But!  I successfully made it to Bremerhaven around 2:30 pm.  Jan-Niclaas picked me up at the train station and drove me to their house.  I met his parents, who were very nice, and fed me cocoa and chocolate cake.  Jan and I spoke English together, but I spoke German with his parents.  It was good practice.  For those of you who haven’t heard about him, Jan was one of the international delegates at the National Youth Science Camp the year that I went.  He is currently in his last year of high school, but he won the chance to go to science camp as a prize for a science fair, which is really cool.

Then, Jan and I went to the beach!!!  However, there were no babes in bikinis.  Probably because it was about 40 degrees outside, with a sharp wind off of the water.  Or because it was the North Sea.  Jan says that Bremerhaven is the third biggest port city in Europe.  The port I saw was huge, with tons of container ships.  Evidently it is where most German cars are exported from, and it’s where many American soldiers entered the country after World War 2.  One of their claims to fame is that Elvis performed there.   Another, less flattering, claim to fame is that they have the highest unemployment rate in Germany.  It also has some close connections to America.  In the 1900s, hundreds of thousands of people from the area immigrated to America.  There was an American Immigration Museum, but it was closed on Saturdays, as was the Maritime/Polar Museum.

We walked around the town some and checked out the new tourist center.  There’s a hotel that looks like the one in Dubai, but smaller.  There’s also a very expensive, Mediterranean themed mall right beside it.   We ate dinner with Jan’s parents, which included a cucumber salad.  I had heard about such things but had never tried one.  I realized that I don’t hate cucumbers.  I guess I always assumed I did without really trying them  It was interesting getting the German perspective on things like grocery store hours in the US and Europe, and how the rest of Germany really feels about Bavaria. 

This morning, I had to get up at 5 to get ready for my train.  I hadn’t intended to spend the night, but it was either that or spend 1-7 am in the Goettingen train station.  Consequently, I had no pajamas, clean clothes, or toiletries.  But, I’m in college, so that’s pretty much typical dorm life.  So, we got up, ate breakfast, and left.   Getting back to Marburg was quite the adventure.

I got from Bremerhaven to Bremen with no problems.  But when I got to Bremen, I realized that my next train (which left in half an hour) was one I wasn’t allowed to take with my pass.  So, I had to find a ticket machine, find a new timetable (which I had to do in two sections, because in order to save 40 E each direction, I had to route myself through Goettingen), print it, and make it to the new train, which left about the same time as the old one.  I did that successfully, and made it to Hannover.  At Hannover, I considered buying some food, but didn’t because I thought I’d have long enough at the next stop.  Well, my train was late.  I could see the station in the distance as we sat on the tracks for 10 minutes.  I only had 8 minutes to get to my next train, so I didn’t get to eat then, either.  Unfortunately, I made another mistake with my timetable, and caught an ICE train instead of an IC.  Which meant that I was committing the crime of “schwarzfahren,” or riding with an invalid ticket.  I could have been fined a huge amount of money, but they were really nice (probably because they could tell I was a confused foreign college student) and just told me not to do it again.  I felt bad, but on the other hand, it was really nice to get from Goettingen to Kassel in 21 minutes!  We went up to 250 km/h.  I was impressed.  When I got to Kassel, I had 5 minutes to get to my last train, so I sprinted.  No lunch for me.  I got back to Marburg around 1:35, and of course, my bus wasn’t going to run again until 2:30.  So I had to make the long hike up the mountain to Studentendorf in the cold, cold wind. 

I had a really good trip, and I really enjoyed seeing Jan again, but I was glad to be back!  Pictures will follow soon!  (and hopefully all my old pictures and captions will get updated, too!)

Addendum

I think everyone should know that my vegetable curry turned out very well.  It consists of peas, carrots, spinach, and corn, and lots and lots of curry powder.  I may have misjudged how much to use.  Still, those of my tastebuds that have not been fried tell me that is very tasty.  Hopefully it will continue to be so for the next 10 or so meals that I get out of it!

Busy Week

Well, I can’t remember the last time I updated.  That’s probably a problem…  I think it was Sunday, though.  If not, Sunday was pretty boring.  I went shopping, since the stores were open because of all the festivals in town.

This week, I really got lucky in terms of having classes cancelled.  Monday we just reviewed in my morning class, and then had presentations in the afternoon.  On Tuesday my morning class was cancelled, so I used that time to run some errands and study for my exams.

On Wednesday, my afternoon conversation class was cancelled.  To celebrate, I went out to lunch with Bizz and Michael (PA) from my morning language class.  It was very cold, so we all ordered an Auflauf for lunch.  It’s one of the most popular dishes in Marburg, and it comes in a million varieties.  The restaurant where we ate had about 20.  Auflauf just means casserole, but they normally have noodles and/or potatoes, some kind of meat, some kind of cream sauce, veggies, and a nice thick layer of cheese baked on top. You get them in something that resembles a giant dog bowl.  I got the potato auflauf, because I had heard good things about it.  It was potatoes, noodles, cheese, chicken, and creamy cheese sauce.  I think next time I will try a different one.  They are really fairly cheap.  It was a struggle for me to finish it, but I persevered.  I was not going to waste warm, delicious food that I didn’t have to cook!

On Thursday, we reviewed more in my morning class.  The grading is so hard to judge…on one paper we were told that a score of 55-65 percent was “not bad” but we have to get that to pass the class!  To me, the lowest possible passing score is not “not bad”.  I got a 68 on that paper, so I wasn’t sure how to feel about it.  I’m nervous about grades transferring, because we were told that we should get pass/fail rather than letter grade credit, probably because barely passing is considered “not bad”.  We were also told that because the class is much harder than at American universities, we should try to get credit for it, even if we don’t pass the class!   I’m not sure how that works, but the program leader acted like it was fairly routine. 

That afternoon was my history/culture/art/literature/philosophy/music/political system/economics exam.  As you can guess, there was a lot of material on it.  Again, I have no idea how they’ll grade it.  I imagine there will have to be some kind of scale, but I’m just not sure.  Since in Germany usually only the top 5% of the class gets As, and only the next 5-10% get Bs, I don’t know how it will work out.  I did my best, but it would be really nice to know that I’m going to get a transferrable credit that won’t ruin my GPA.  At least we have 8 other grades in this class, unlike the language one, where it all comes down to the exam. 

Last night, even though I was really tired from having class all morning and an exam all afternoon, I had to go grocery shopping and then study more for my exam today.  I got up early this morning to pick up a package.  For some reason the pick-up area is only open between 7:15 and 12 Monday-Friday, which makes things inconvenient.   But I was glad to get my package, and I still made it to my exam in plenty of time.  The exam this morning was exhausting.  It was a full 3 hours long.  The first part was reading comprehension, with fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and short essay questions.  Then we had to do some grammatical exercises, which are the only part I’m very confident about.  After a short break, we had listening comprehension, which is really hard.  The teacher reads a one page article, and we have to answer questions about it.  Some of them are fill-in-the-blank phrases, but you can’t copy them straight down; you have to change them to be grammatically correct because the question is different from the text you heard.  The worst are when we have to do short answer questions in our own words, because half the time you get marked down for copying down the text (not using your own words) and the other half of the time you get marked down for “phantasieren”, or having an opinion.  I got a lot of points taken off the last practice exam because I wrote (in my own words) that the travelers didn’t get enough to eat, when the text said they lived off of white bread and Coke because that’s all they could afford.  It makes it really frustrating to reword things.  I was supposed to say something like, “because they had no money, their only groceries were bread and Coke”.  That’s the kind of thing we’re supposed to do, just re-word it, and it’s incredibly hard to know exactly what the teachers want.  No one in the class can do it, and we always get lectured about it.   Then the third section (sorry I got distracted by that rant) was a text production.  We had to write about what people in our homeland do for vacation, what the Germans do for vacation, and what we like to do for vacation.  We’ll see how it goes.

This afternoon I am going to clean my room, attempt to make vegetable curry (unless I go out to the store and find some affordable meat first), and relax!  I have another test on Monday, but I can’t really prepare for it.  We’ll be given a picture and some questions, and will have to talk about the picture with our professor in German for 15 minutes or so.  Because I’ve never had to talk in German, except for reading my answers in class, this is really hard for me.  I’m visiting my friend Jan in Bremerhaven on Saturday, and I think I’m only going to let him speak German to me, no English.  I need to practice.   Although I speak German to people in Marburg, it’s mainly to ask where the olive oil is, or to order food, so that might not be particularly helpful. 

On the bright side, not matter how I do on my exams, I know I’ve gotten much better at German while I’ve been here.  When I first got here, I had to practice how to introduce myself to my neighbor and tell her I had some questions.  Even then, I couldn’t ask the questions I wanted.  Now, I can communicate with people in stores fairly well.  If I want to know something, I can generally make myself understood.  My writing has also gotten much better.  When I think about how much I can write in German now, and how hard it was to write a paragraph in German for my ISEP application, I’m really proud of myself.   Before I left, I thought I’d be fairly fluent by the time I got back to the US, and I see now that that’s not the case, but I still know that I’ve learned so much.  And since I start an all-German lecture course on Tuesday, I’m sure I will be learning much more. 

Oktober!

So, I see that I have once again been remiss in my blogging.  What's happened since last Sunday?  

Class this week was pretty easy...I think we're mainly supposed to be reviewing.  My scores are a little higher, although it's so hard to judge what's a good score.  I got my first two compliments on my work this week.  Yee haw.  I've been studying in the evenings, which has helped some.

Not too much happened at the beginning of the week. I realized late Tuesday night that I had a presentation due on Thursday, so I spent a lot of Wednesday eveing working on that.  Thursday was my first night without homework, so I hung out with some friends in the evening.  I also bought a German thesaurus for 8 Euros and a copy of Gone With the Wind (the book) in German for 2.50!  I am very excited to try to read it.

Yesterday afternoon I went to Frankfurt with the study abroad group.  It's really nice that it's only an hour away and that it's free for students to go there!  We had a brief tour of the Jewish museum with areas of the medieval ghetto that was there.  After that I walked around the Römerberg (which I had done a presentation about on Thursday) and saw some sights.  I tried the Apfelwein, which is evidently a Frankfurt specialty, and of course had wurst.  Almost all the time when I eat out, it's bread and sausages.  I don't think they're very big on side dishes here. 

Frankfurt's huge international book sale is this weekend.  While I didn't get to go to it, I did find a hardcover copy of Harry Potter I in German for 4 Euros.  My library is growing rapidly.

This morning I did some cooking and cleaning before going into town.  There are huge markets and festivals everwhere today!  There's a farmer's market-charity fundraiser market by the church, a hand-crafts market in the Oberstadt, and some kind of huge carnival by the river.  I bought some Christmas presents, got a FREE loaf of bread (I got a Welcome to Marburg coupon book!) and ate a Shokobirnemaus.  Which was a chocolate-covered pear half on a stick that was decorated to look like a mouse!  It was adorable and tasty. 

Once I get done in the library I am going back to the market by the river, since I haven't been there yet. Maybe I'll invest in some currywurst or waffles for lunch!  Tonight about 6 or 7 girls are coming over.  We are having a wine and cheese tasting.  I bought some spicy Oriental goat cheese today.  It's made here in Marburg, and it is very tasty, although it does have quite a kick to it!

Also, I found out my schedule for the second part of the semester!  Next week is my last week of intensive language class, then I go to normal University classes.  I will have class from 12-2 on Mon, 2-6 on Tues, and 8-12 and 2-6 on Wed.  I am glad to have a long weekend for travel.  I have been in contact with my friend Jan-Niclass who lives in Bremerhaven about going to visit him next weekend.  I have not seen him since Science Camp. 

Hope you all are having a good week!  The fall here is beautiful!  The leaves are turning on the hills, and it reminds me a lot of home.

A Week's Worth of Info

Apologies for not updating my blog in a week.  I promise, I am still alive and well, just busy.

Class this week was okay, except our professors feel the need to tell us every day that we don’t know enough, that we’re not studying enough or working hard enough in class.  That gets kind of old.  I have my own thoughts on the situation, but I will not discuss them here.  On Friday we had a practice test, which is supposed to help prepare us for next week.  I need to do a lot of reviewing, but the surprise exam wasn’t as hard as I thought.

My culture class is going pretty well.  I really like doing role plays about German history/economics.  Last week I was a German business owner who wanted to relocate the company to a foreign country.  I got to hear the countries’ sales pitches of why they were the right place for us.  It was interesting.

On Wednesday night we did Brenner for the Taiwanese students.  We had sausage-egg casserole (everyone loved it, Mama), egg-in-a-basket, French toast, fruit salad, and hashbrowns.  That should have been enough, except we were only expecting about 20 people and nearly 40 showed up.  After 2 emergency batches of scrambled eggs and toast, everyone had plenty to eat.  It was a lot of fun, although it was a lot of work, too! 

Friday afternoon we left for Rudesheim.  It’s along the Rhine, not too far from Frankfurt and Mainz.  Our hostel was up on a hill, overlooking the town.  It was really beautiful—vineyards as far as you could see, and the river at the bottom of the valley.  Friday night we explored the town, then headed up to the hostel.  I bought some souvenirs…their Christmas wares were out already and it was so hard to resist!  It was a long walk to the hostel, but you could see all the stars very well. 

The next morning, we walked up to a huge monument on the hill.  It was extremely foggy.  I think the statue was called the Niederwalddenkmal (or something like that).  I also think (although I’m not sure) it was to commemorate the Germans repelling the French back to their side of the river.  Or something.  It was very impressive, nevertheless.

We rode a ski-lift type thing into town, which gave us a great view of the vineyards, and then did some museum tours.  Our first museum was a collection of mechanical musical instruments until the 1930s.  So, player pianos, old music boxes, carousel organs.  It was very strange and interesting.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Then, we went to the medieval torture museum.  I was expecting the kind of hokey tourist trap that every European city of any size has…something that’s more like a haunted house than a museum…but that was definitely t the case.  It was partnered with Amnesty International, and it was a very  depressing exhibit.  It was awful. 

Afterwards, we had to drown our sorrows in the best of cheap German cuisine—Currywurst, Pommes, and Eis. We all wanted to gather strength for the wine tasting that we had that afternoon.  The wine tasting was very nice.  We got to try 4 kinds of wine, plus we were given a lot of complimentary bread and cheese.  The winery was family-run and their prices were pretty reasonable.   Some girls and I chipped in to each buy half a bottle of Riesling Spaetlese, which was fruitier than most Rieslings.  At 9 Euros a bottle, it’s about 6 times what I normally spend on Riesling, but evidently Spaetleses can be pretty pricey.  I think everyone enjoyed the wine-tasting, and not just because it was free booze.  It was really neat seeing all the vineyards around and then getting to test what was made. 

Immediately after the wine tasting, we went on a 5-hour cruise of the Rhine.  It was a good thing we didn’t get too much wine!  The tour was really beautiful.  I can’t even keep track of how many castles we saw along the way!  Some of them were built in the 900s.  We also passed the Loreley, which is a sharp bend in the river with rock cliffs on either side and a little sand bar in the middle.  The Loreley, a siren, would cause ships to wreck with her beauty and her voice.  There was a statue, and we got to hear the Loreley song (evidently it’s a big deal). 

5 hours on a boat was a long time, especially given the cold wind off of the river.  Afterwards, I went out for my first real German dinner!  I got schnitzel, which disappointingly just came with a slice of bread, no sides.  The only bad thing about Rudesheim was that it was such a tourist town that cheap, or even reasonably-priced, food was hard to find, regardless of quality.  I guess they know that most people who go there have more money than college students.  It seems like a lot of things in the town were aimed toward retired couples. 

This morning (Sunday) I got up early enough to take pictures of the sunrise.  It was absolutely amazing, as I’m sure you will see when I get my pictures uploaded.  It was such a great view, with the vineyards, and the river, and the city, and the sunrise.  We then went to…don’t laugh…a pony farm, where everyone got to pet the ponies, goats, horse, and cats that live there.   The ponies were fat and complacent.  After that, we drove into town and did some shopping.  I picked up lunch at a bakery.  German sandwiches can be quite interesting.  Frequently, they involve a thin layer of some meat (mine was roasted chicken), some sauce for flavor (barbeque), a layer of cream cheese, usually flavored (mine tasted fruity), lettuce, and then fruit.  Often it’s grapes, but I’ve also had peach slices.  Today it was mandarin orange bits.  I’m a bit puzzled by having fruit on a meat sandwich, but it was quite tasty.

We then drove to a cloister near the Rhine.  I can’t (unfortunately) remember the name or the order of monks, but it was founded in 1136 and much of it is unchanged.  It was a functioning cloister until 1803, and now the state of Hesse owns it.  It was known as the Wine Cloister, because evidently their wine was exceptionally good, and the profits from it made the cloister fairly rich. 

It was about a 2 hour drive back to Marburg, so I was back in my dorm around 5 pm.  I reheated some leftovers (pasta with tomato-cheese sauce, spinach, and peas) and did massive quantities of laundry.  We had tons of homework this weekend, but I did all of it in the evenings on the trip.  Evidently the solution to us “not working hard enough” is to give us a lot of homework all the time.  We had 3 worksheets and an essay this weekend.   I hope this week isn’t too bad.  I’m looking forward to our trip to Frnakfurt on Friday afternoon.  Our free Hesse train passes started on October 1, so I’m looking forward to doing some local travelling!