Easter done Right

Well, what can I say. I was quite lame in terms of socializing for a few days last week, but never fear: I made up for that come the weekend.

Before that, though, I must briefly say: I GOT MY LAPTOP! Finally. UPS tried to deliver it to my room, but I literally missed the delivery due to class by 3 minutes. That meant, being that this weekend was a holiday, the next delivery attempt would have been TODAY (the following Wednesday, almost a week later), so I enlisted the help of one of the resident assistances in Martinskloster (my dorm). At first, she helped me by calling UPS and asking them to hold the package. Then, she helped me find the correct trains and buses to use to get to the city (yes, it ended up in a different city) where the package was between 7-8pm that night. Finally, though, she opted to just have me pay her for the gas and drive me to Wittolich and back.

This city is about a 45 minute drive away, quite a pain just to pick up a laptop whose delivery I missed by 3 minutes. Even so, it was quite nice of my RA to help me... although I was a bit scared of her driving. :) The laptop works great, although it did get a good scratch in the back of the screen during shipping (which cost $250 just to ship from Savannah here)... and it's far heavier than I was expecting. But, all's well that ends well, and now that I paid to get a mobile internet "stick," I even have internet! What a novelty!

Anyway, as is popular (once more) to do here in Trier, I participated in several "barbecues" over the extended Easter weekend. As always, they were great... and excellent ways to spend abundant amounts of time for those such as myself who forgot to plan trips anywhere over the 4 day weekend. Even so, I think my plans for the coming months will more than make up for that (as I will discuss in a moment), and staying in Trier gave me the chance to spend more time with the Erasmus and German students/random people.

Care to know something HIGHLY interesting and/or entertaining? Germany, the nation priding itself on modernism, is home to many, MANY old churches. That's all well and good; from my conversations with the locals here, the churches/basilicas/cathedrals/doms (whatever you like to call the given building) largely represent a proud history of beautiful architecture; the religious population is far less than it was in years past, and likely even less like that known in the generally monotheistic American population.

Having said that, there is apparently a rule in Trier that after midnight on Good Friday, no dancing is allowed. All the bars and clubs closed around midnight Friday due to this rule. Seriously. I thought it was a joke at first, but it's legit! On top of that, Good Friday and Easter Monday are both national holidays... so it was as though it was a usual Sunday this past Friday, Sunday, and Monday, meaning NOTHING aside from a few restaurants was open. Saturday? Business as usual. So, randomly in the mix of 4 days off, there's a Saturday where the streets are jam-packed with tourists and locals hitting up all the shops.

It's hard to beat the "kine tanzen" rule, though. No dancing. Priceless...

Moving on a bit, come Easter Sunday, I partook in something I intend to make a tradition in my family's celebrations back home upon my return. One of the hippies here from Salt Lake City decided we're getting too old to enjoy Easter egg hunts, but why should the children always have all the fun on Easter? So, a new game involving slightly different rules than egg hunts was born: The Easter Beer Hunt.

Yes, you read that correctly. The goal of the game: have groups of 4 people each bring a "kiste" (20 pack, constituting a case here) of beer. Label all the beers a team color, then have all the teams search for the beers the other teams hid. The location? The University. This would probably not go over so well on many levels in America, but considering you can buy beer here in the cafeteria... whatever.

So, there were 3 teams of 4 people participating... it seems all well and good to FIND the beer, but there's a catch: prior to ANY of your team members finding another beer, the one that has just been located must be consumed in its entirety. So, to win, you essentially have to chug the better part of 20 beers per team in rapid succession. I'd say it's a great way to spend Easter! Long story short, general debauchery ending in most of us falling (or being thrown into) the University duck pond ensued. Epic win. Pictures are on Facebook for those of you interested.

Moving on... I've been planning several trips in the last week, as briefly noted in my last post or so. First, this Saturday a friend of mine studying in England is coming to Trier for the week. This should be interesting, considering he actually speaks German and I do not... no telling what we'll get into. Then, the week or so following that (May 12-17), I'll be switching places with him and hitching a flight to England to visit him for a week. I've never been... and I land in London! It should prove highly interesting, especially considering my absolute love of British language and humor (humour).

After that, we have a few plans in and out for the remaining weeks of May... likely several day trips by trains to relatively local cities near Trier. As I've said, you can use your student card to use the trains and buses in all cities within a certain range of Trier for FREE, so it works out well.

Come June (specifically, May 31), I'm flying to Milan. The intended goal here is to meet my aunt in Nice, France, but unfortunately there are no direct flights to Nice from either Luxembourg or Frankfurt-Hahn airports (those closest to me); the closest I could do is fly to Dublin, Ireland, then to Nice... but as much as I would like to, it'd be out of my budget and time range. So, I'm thinking I'll spend a day or so in Milan, then either rent a car and drive to Nice (it's only about 3 and a half hours), or perhaps take a train if I can figure out how to not make 20 connections. I'll have to be back from the whole ordeal by Sunday June 5th, though, being that I'm already skipping Monday classes on my trip to England... and I'm only allowed to skip 2 classes per course, so I've got to be careful.

After this, I'm planning a road trip with several of the other Erasmus students whereby we all rent a car and drive to Prague, Vienna, and Munich. Ohhhhh I can't wait! I've heard Austria is absolutely beautiful, and when I'm not driving (as we'll take turns), I fully intend to photograph all the countryside I can. This will be a week-long trip from June 10-15 (as we have this week off from Uni for Pentecost, another religious holiday), and literally as soon as we return to Trier late on the 15th/early on the 16th, we're turning around and going to the music festival I mentioned earlier. Foo Fighters, Incubus, Sum 41, Sublime with Rome... it should be an epic win, especially considering the festival is 3 days long, and all you do is camp and party for its duration. Right up my ally, I do believe... should meet some interesting people!

Literally two days after we get back (Return Sunday June 19th, leave again the 21st), ten or so of us are hopping on the train for Paris for a few days! These plans have yet to be set in stone, but we can get there and back for about 60 Euros on the train, and being that the majority of the trip will be on the French TGV, the total time is only about 3 hours!

Although I have yet to plan it, I intend to throughly explore Italy (and perhaps a bit of Greece/Croatia) in the latter part of July/early August. I haven't found anyone who wants to necessarily go on this with me yet, though, so it may be a lone trip. We shall see...

In case I haven't noted my ability to PAY for all of this, it's quite different from traveling in America. First, Europe has a killer rail system that, although sometimes a bit pricey depending on the time you choose to go, can get you pretty much anywhere. Second, Europe is home to a multitude of "discount airlines," namely the England-based Ryan Air, that can get you to hundreds of destinations in Europe for next to nothing.

For example, my flight to AND from England costs me a total of like 40 Euros, or about $55. That's not bad! American airlines do not offer these kinds of deals, yet discount airlines like Ryan Air offer special deals to random places often for $10 round trip! The trick is, you can't bring luggage with you... just your carry on bag; luggage and other "administrative costs" add money quickly, but even so it ends up being far cheaper than an American ticket any day!

Leaving the realm of trip planning, I'll go on to this week's intentions. For the last two nights, I've attended "burger abend" and "schnitzel abend" with several of the Americans and Brits at a local restaurant. The restaurant has special features each night ("abend" being night) whereby you can get an entire meal and a beer for under 10 Euros. It's quite tasty! Tonight, we were supposed to go to some sushi bar that offers all you can eat and all the wine you can drink for 13 Euros, but I've just been told it's closed. Perhaps I will go visit the Thai restaurant I am so fond of near the train station, the very first place I ate when I arrived totally lost in Trier. For the price, it's amazing; you can order literally two vegetarian meals (not that I am one, but they're really cheap), a soup (that's quite good), and a beer for like 11 Euros. That's plenty to take home as leftovers!

Eating out, as I have calculated, is generally as cheap or cheaper than me cooking at home. The exceptions to this are spaghetti/noodles and... well, that's it. This is simply due to the fact that, if you go to the right place and order the right meal, the cost of buying pots/pans/food to cook with for one semester is actually greater than spending the money to eat out each night. Of course, I could eat at far more expensive places and blow this theory away, but still... I would have nothing to do with the pots/cooking supplies I'd need to cook every night when I leave, so it would be throwing money down the drain. Luckily, I was able to get a spaghetti boiling pot from the International Office from a former Erasmus student, else even spaghetti would be almost cost inhibitive.

If I don't go for Thai tonight, I'm trying to decide whether or not to help out again with the upcoming International Concert rehearsals; I've been asked by one of the German girls in my Business English Presentations class to help critique and act as an audience to the 20 some-odd people performing native dances, musical pieces, and songs. I helped last Wednesday, and I must say... many of them are VERY good! The actual show is totally organized and performed by students, and admission to the show (Monday May 2) is free. The only problem is, the rehearsals last a very long time (only starting at 8pm), and I must catch the last bus back into the city (which on Wednesday is around 11pm), else I get stuck here. We shall see.

The rest of the week: one of the large clubs is having a party tomorrow night (called Exhaus), but I doubt I'll go; due to the shortage of clubs here (only maybe 3 large ones), they get PACKED when parties happen... and often, you find yourself unable to even get in the door after waiting well over an hour. This is not my style. Even so, the good thing is that knowing many people allows you to find out something is ALWAYS going on, so if studying or watching Top Gear is not my priority for the night... something can happen. :)

Well, that's all I have for now. I'm currently downloading (courtesy of the Uni VPN wireless network which I loathe) the entire series of the British comedy "Waiting for God." I need a little comedic relief after having to read about 50 pages worth of Linguistic Studies and a ridiculously long American speech from the 1910's...