Wednesday, April 27, 2011

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...

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Inconsistencies

 I decided it may be time to add a few notes on cultural differences removed from the act of doing things... so, like George Carlin, I've been jotting down a list of things I notice in daily life. Except, unlike George, not all of these piss me off. Really, just the technology and door things piss me off. See yesterday.

In classes, I've noticed people using graphing paper to take notes on... and not just some, most do. I'm not quite sure why yet, either; no one appears to be writing inside each individual block, so the point seems moot to me. I don't know, maybe they just want to save paper... because that's a big thing here. Seriously, I have seen random people taking paper out of trash cans and placing it into recycling. Now there's something you rarely see in America...

Something else I've noticed in classes is the sheer rudeness of many students. When I say rude, I mean by American standards; in the classes I have attended thus far, it is quite common for random people throughout the class (depending on the class size) to carry on their own conversations throughout the class. If you get a class in a lecture hall, you'd best sit close to the teacher or by one of the auditorium speakers if you want to hear anything! The teachers, especially in the large classes, do not seem to notice. In my American classes, teachers will stop class as though college students are children (because they are acting so) until the noise subsides.

With this said, though, you'd best not be late to class... someone was about 4 minutes late yesterday to one of my 200 student lecture halls, and the professor stopped speaking and stared at the person all the way to his seat. "It's quite nice of you to join us," was all he said before shaking his head and continuing the lecture.

Almost all of the classes I am enrolled in require a presentation of some kind... even more so than American universities, in that the length requirement is, in the least, ten minutes. It's quite humorous to me; the reasoning for the presentations is that "English speaking countries, especially America, emphasize public speaking at a very young age, and we must try to catch up." I find this to be a highly exaggerated notion, but it could just be that my small-town upbringing allowed me to escape this fate. In any event, the emphasis is always NOT to go over time... and I'm talking about 20 minute presentations. I have participated in public speaking the better part of my life, but I am the exception to the rule of other American students in my experience. Yet, it baffles me that you could possibly go over the time limit on a 20 minute presentation at this college level. What on earth do the Germans have to talk about?

If I may digress for a moment, I'm already confusing myself as I learn the German language, especially with capitalization's and spelling... first, spell check on these German computers is obviously set to German, so everything I type in English shows up as incorrect. You can fix this, but it's a pain to have to switch Windows's native language every time you log onto a computer on campus. Second, the keyboards are laid out slightly differently, and while I always switch the input language to English, it is still difficult to type; the keys (especially the left shift key) are smaller and shaped slightly differently, making it a bit hard to type correctly. If you don't know the English keyboard by heart, you can't type correctly even with Windows set to English keyboards... the keyboard itself is labeled slightly different, especially with the symbols. The X and Y keys are also switched, making it quite a pain for someone whose last name is Strozzo... not Stroyyo.

Finally, in terms of the language itself, EVERY noun is capitalized, making it difficult to differentiate someone or some place's name and a regular word I don't know. It's also wreaking havoc on my knowledge of when to capitalize in English... such as saying "earth" or "Earth," depending on the context, from before.

Moving on. This point gets me still. It scared me at first, but after classes end, it is customary for all the students to beat on the desks/chairs/anything they can pound their hands on as an applause. It's quite startling, really; even in my smaller classes of 20 or so, everyone ferociously beats on the tables as an applause after the seminar ends. I asked one of the students in my Business English Presentations class about this, and she seemed surprised we did not do it as well. There's culture for you!

Leaving the realm of just the classroom, I'm finding Americans are far less known "personally" than I thought we would be; on the one hand, Germans have quite an impressive knowledge of American history, business, and language. On the other, current societal knowledge is lacking; as is to be expected, we are judged on the actions of our Government as though the entire population thinks likewise, as well as idiot media such as that viewed on MTV. This is quite frustrating, in that the general consensus of those I have spoken with (which, again, is not all-encompassing) is that we still, as a nation, operate under a Bush mentality. That in and of itself assumes we agreed with the former administration's policies, which further skews the Germans' understanding of our general disposition.

At the same time, though, the American military presence here in Trier due to the nearby Air Force (?) base [side note-- I had to search for the ? mark on this keyboard], does not help our image; generally, they come into bars in hordes, smashed, and proceed to act just like they often do in America: like asses. I generalize here, but it is because the stereotype is holding as truth in the Germans' minds. The running German joke to Americans such as myself is, "So... who's on the list to be carpet bombed this week?" Unfortunate as it may be, "our" foreign policy is still little more than a humorous [albeit not challenged] bit of afternoon conversation to Germans.

On the flip side, I sometimes feel as though I am a novelty item to the Germans, especially the younger ones. It had not occurred to me that Germans would have little interaction with actual Americans, but it appears to be the case. Keep in mind here that I live in a relatively small city, so this has a large part to do with it; Trier is not even on the American mini-map I bought of Germany. Still, almost every "younger" person (i.e., under age 25) is absolutely infatuated with the fact that I am American. Many times have I had conversations with random Germans eager to try out their English on an actual English speaker, and I repeatedly hear how cool it is that I am American... that I am part of the "American Dream," and that "[I] live in the land of opportunity." So, on top of their English being decades ahead of my German, the younger generation seems infatuated with our culture... yet have met so few actual Americans that their view of "us" is severely skewed.

Political activism is far more common with Europeans in my experience as well. Don't get me wrong---many Americans are quite politically active. But, in my experience, the common person in America cares far less about the political system than any of the other nationalities I have met thus far. In fact, in the hundreds of people I have spoken with in the last month, I cannot think of the first person who has ever mentioned NOT voting. Any time I say I do not vote, I get looks of confusion, and sometimes even anger! I think the general mindset of Europeans is that they have much more control over their systems of governing than I am accustomed to feeling in America. But that may be just me.

In other news, I met another random person after class last night who happens to be the student in charge of an international concert event going on in the next two weeks consisting of performances (singing, dancing, etc) from various international students. It should be fun! I may help out with the theater logistics, being that I have some experience with them. Even so, the technology in the auditorium the event takes place in is... well, archaic, so I'll have to see what happens.

I'm also buying tickets to go to a 3-day music festival north of Trier in Stutsgard (?), headlined by Foo Fighters! It sounds like a hippie fest; apparently you go, drink a lot, camp out [literally], and listen to random bands for 3 days straight. Sounds like a win to me. Finally, I'm planning to visit a friend in England in May, so I will hopefully buy airline tickets to there within the next day or so!

Well, now that I've ranted on the inner workings of the cultural knowledge I've gained primarily in social settings, I should go do the whole homework thing. I have a 15 minute presentation over Plymouth Rock in my American Politics course... how ironic. The bummer is that, being that I still have no laptop, I'm having to use the German computers to prepare a PowerPoint presentation. This means PowerPoint has all its commands written in German, and it's been awhile since I've had to use the program anyway. We'll see how this goes.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Thoughts, Comments, Concerns...

Well, as usual... the last week has been a blast. Among other things, I visited various parks in Trier, attended several beginning-of-the-semester parties, and visited the quaint town of Koblenz.

But, before the brief entertaining bits, I suppose I should comment on the whole reason I'm actually here: school. Oh, what fun it is to enroll in 9 classes to be considered "full time" by US standards. It truly makes no sense to me; the most anyone else (non-Erasmus) takes is 6, so for whatever reason it seems that class requirements are far different in Germany.

Another problem coming up is that no one, not even the instructors, seems to know just how many "points" any given class offers. It is quite frustrating to me, considering I'm used to all classes being worth 3 "hours" by US standards, with some exceptions clearly noted before registration. Here, though, due to some system switching in the Masters-level classes, the value of each class is different than in past years, confusing even the administrators.

For example, different departments offer various class types that are all worth different amounts of points depending on the department, class type, and assignments given. In most "seminar" classes, for example, you can get 2-3 points by just attending the lectures, but up to 6 points if you write some ridiculously long term paper, give a detailed oral presentation, and take an exam. When these assignments are and are not required, though, is still a mystery to me. In America, we (as students) just do whatever the professor says to do for our grade. Here, though, the decision making appears to be up to the student.

All in all, though, basing my judgement on the classes I have thus attended, I like the classes here better than any of the other 4 universities I have attended; the professors that I have had are all legitimately interested in the subjects they teach (at least in my experience), and all seem more than willing to help out in any way possible. This is not to say that the same caring exists in American universities, but in my experience more budget cuts have forced professors into things they do not want to do, and the increased stress shows in their performance.

Aside from professors, I enjoy the classes thus based largely on the fact that it the material is being taught from a totally different prospective than what I am used to. This, actually, is the most refreshing bit of "educating" I've had in awhile; I'm not bored! For example, I just came from a class on an American author, Kurt Vonnegut, taught by a German professor (in English). During part of the lecture, the professor noted historical significance in Germany surrounding past war sites by saying "Just up the road, where the battle of so-and-so was fought." That's a new one for me... the history is up close and personal, right around me!

Professors seem to have a less tight leash, so to say, in terms of what they are allowed to say too. Political correctness exists, but not to any degree of what it does in America; another class I have on British linguistics is taught by a Scottish man who blatantly bashes other British nationalities throughout the class. He has no problem making a joke about a Welsh man not knowing "of these things," whatever the subject. In America, he would be fired for that!

But, aside from the classes, I do have a few gripes. First is easy access to technology. As I type this, there is a line of at least 20 students waiting to print something from one of the library's limited computer labs. The printers rarely work, and if they do, it is usually only a small portion. Last week, every printer in the library was broken one day, and the next the entire school network went down. If this was a high school, these would not be big deals. But, coming from what I did not realize was a technological Mecca in America, it blows my mind that in Germany, the country with the strongest economy in the EU, in the year 2011, I can come to a university and not have internet access or online class access. Yes, I am spoiled... but having a broken laptop ties me to the university, and that is quite a frustrating experience indeed.

Another gripe: doors. Yes, doors. Can someone please tell me the logic behind putting what appear to be double-doors at every entrance to any given hallway, yet only having one side that opens? Seriously, the width of the hallway is then limited to those of us taking turns to come in and out of a classroom-sized door where there is space for a "real" door. With 20,000 plus students at Universitat Trier, it's quite a pain to have to wait forever to get in and out of any building. Imagine a door at Wal-Mart and the volume of people coming in and out. Then, imagine that only half of one of the 4 doors is able to open, and it is not automatic. Traffic jam.

Seriously, the library has a huge revolving door to conserve on energy costs. Great. But just in front of it? A door smaller than the size of a classroom door. So, huge volumes of people can go through the revolving door only to get bottle necked at the useless second "gate." I'm not a fan. Nonetheless, it's not my responsibility, so I will wait patiently with every other person trying to go to the same places.

Moving on... about 18 of us took the train (for free as students) to Koblenz, a small town about an hour and a half away, on Saturday. It was quite lovely! Like many German towns, it played host to old castle-style complexes and a variety of other old-styled buildings. Some sort of expedition was going on, and the entire city was accessible for a 5 Euro ticket including access to a sky-lift to a castle-museum. Flowers were everywhere! It was truly beautiful... I have posted the link for the Facebook picture album below. We had a lovely time, and are planning more excursions for the near future.


In any event, more to come tomorrow. For now, off to a bit of Deutsch studying, then who knows what lurks about in the city tonight...

Monday, April 11, 2011

Classes Begin

Well, I would have posted more recently were it not for the fact that my laptop screen has died, or "gone kaput," as they say here. Great timing, right? Thankfully, my family is shipping me a new one from the States... which will take far longer than I would like.

In any event, the last week has been nonstop! As the week has progressed, I have taken part in an international food tasting evening (quite tasty... Erasmus students brought dishes from their home country), an end-of-erasmus-orientation party (which, although on campus, was shut down by police by 2am... yet to figure out why), seen a rugby game, and partaken in various grilling excursions to the beautiful Palace Garden. I have taken more pictures than Carter has pills, but I say it's for the best. It's truly a "college experience" now; being that I do not have to work, I can engage in what college is all about: socializing!

Aside from the fun and games, my German is coming about so-so as well. I am up to about 300 vocabulary words, but I am best at recognizing words (reading) rather than saying them. I still cannot understand a lick of what anyone says, but once again... the Germans are far more intelligent in that their education system is set-up to teach English to most people at a very young age. I feel quite dumb when 6 year olds want to talk to me in English on the bus, while giggling with their friends in German. While I can obviously not be sure, I feel that this bilingual way of life will soon begin to show up as far superior to American [and most other nations'] monolingualism in international relations, business, and culture.

But, what do I know. Actually, what I know is that  I can relatively successfully get about in Germany, but if a German knowing no English were to try to do likewise in America, it would be a difficult experience indeed.

Moving on, I've finally signed up for classes and began them today. In order to meet US requirements for "full time" (12 hours), I must take 24 ETCS points. Don't ask me what they are; all I know is that they equate to some kind of credit based on the degree you seek. I also know that 2 ETCS points equal roughly 1 US hour. The fact that many courses here offer 3 points then greatly disappoints an American student; whereas in Savannah I would take 4 classes to be considered "full time" for Uncle Sam, here I must take at least 6 for the credits to transfer correctly.

On the plus side, though, Germany offers far more options in terms of classes; over 75 classes are taught in English here at the University of Trier, and among them are subject areas ranging from business to economics to science to literature. Within those areas, there are also distinctions between lecture classes, seminars, and participation classes, all offering differing numbers of credits and responsibilities. It's quite difficult to get it all straight, but the presence of options makes me much happier than what I am used to in America.

And what's more, school is basically free for Europeans! Of courseyou must keep in mind the fact that they pay anywhere from 40-50% of their income in taxes... but for that, they get what we would call "universal healthcare," free secondary and post secondary education (for the most part), and a variety of other services that we must pay out of pocket in America. It all boils down to the age-old question of whether or not "bigger government" is worth it or not.

My class load is thus:
British Sociological Linguistics
German Phonetics (beginner)
English Business Presentations
Industrial Organization
Corporate Finance
American Speechmaking and Rhetoric

They sound like a mouthfull, but luckily each class meets only one day a week for about 2 hours, with the exception of my Industrial Organization class which meets twice. I have no classes on Wednesday or Friday, and only one on Thursday morning, giving me ample time to travel [hopefully]! These classes together will yield me 29 ETCS points upon completion, so if need be I can still drop a class and fulfill my US requirements.

Now that I have my classes, I have a better idea of when I can travel about Europe. It would be far easier if I had my laptop with internet in my dorm, though, as travel searching requires massive amounts of internet time if a good deal is to be found. While many have offered for me to use their laptops, it takes a bit longer to research... most of the keyboards are not laid out in US English format.

Oh well, hopefully HP will ship quickly, and my problems resolved!

Monday, April 4, 2011

Bonn, Luxembourg, and Beyond


The last few days have been busy! In the last 48 hours, I have partied in Trier (twice), visited Germany’s former capitol Bonn, and visited the historic Luxembourg City. If only I could find time to do my laundry…
As is customary in Germany, both Thursday and Friday nights consisted of heavy partying. Thursday, another pub crawl took place, and if I may say so… it was an epic success. I find little more joy than reminiscing through pictures of a night of good partying with fun people, and I took plenty of them! Friday was likewise… although somewhat more toned down. Not all can hang with the Irish and Italians, after all, and I happen to be part of both.
Saturday, we boarded a charter bus bright and early around 8am and headed to Bonn, Germany. During the ride there (which took approximately two hours), I discovered I am living less than an hour from the famed Nurburing racing track! For those of you not addicted to cars as I am, it is a track hailed as one of the world’s most difficult race tracks, and it acts as a breeding ground for companies such as Porsche, Lamborghini, BMW, Ferrari, and Aston Martin to test out new sports cars due to its long and constantly changing terrain. Naturally, I’m adding it to the list of places I want to visit.
Once in Bonn, I discovered a city highly similar to Washington, D.C. Architecture is very similar with many Greek and Roman-styled modern business and government buildings, and the beautifully landscaped Park Avenue-styled motorways matched those in American’s capitol as well. The first stop in the city was a modern German history museum, which I honestly had a hard time appreciating. While it was interesting, I do not consider the 1960s through today as “history,” but rather “culture.” Without being German or having a preview of “older” German history (such as that offered by Renaissance and other era museums), the exhibits really did not mean much to those of us not well versed in what it is to be “German.” I asked around, and I got a similar consensus.
Regardless, it was a great experience, and we were then shuttled to the city center. Here, the feel of older Germany was felt more, albeit a far fetch from the rich history of Trier. Bonn’s city center is gorgeous, though, in its own way; it shows a bustling, touristy modern German city while mixing relatively old churches and government buildings as elements of a truly German place. Luckily for us, a festival happened to be going on throughout the city, giving us insight into inner-Germany tourism.
I also found a Starbucks, which is probably the only American thing I miss in Trier (aside from easy access to internet…). The Finnish girl with us had never had it, so I naturally insisted on ordering her a Frappuccino, which she instantly loved. Ten points for American fake coffee!
Unfortunately, one of the Italian girls in our group somehow lost her wallet in Bonn, which is as close to the end of the world as it can get for an Erasmus student; identification cards, credit cards, money… pretty much everything you need while abroad is gone. This means she must visit the nearest Italian consulate (wherever it is) for a new passport and identification card, the German bank to get new account numbers and cards, and call every other company she has an affiliation with in Italy. All in all, it’s not a good situation.
Luckily for me, I know myself well enough to realize I’d lose my wallet, so I just keep my passport in my pocket at all times, along with my Visa card, Trier student ID, and whatever money I have. They only way I can lose it is to lose my pants… which, depending on how you look at it, has luckily not happened.
Upon return from Bonn, it was once again party time, and I spent a good deal of the night escorting random French people about the city and arguing with Germans about American politics. More on the argumentation later. Long story short, though, I ended up getting two hours of sleep due to my acceptance of an invitation to visit Luxembourg City the next morning around 8am by some random Bulgarian Erasmus girl I met in Bonn. Only I would do such a thing… but it ended up working out well!
Thus, bright and early, I caught the train with the Bulgarian and two of her friends from home… and we got along famously. I must say, though, I doubt I could travel with all three of them too often; they have a different view on life than me. By no means am I “grown up,” but these people are older than I am yet act younger. It’s possible that’s just my two hours of sleep talking, though.
Once in Luxembourg, we almost instantly ran into a random old man walking his dog who insisted on showing us around the key city sights for the next two hours. How lucky… a free tour guide! He, like most in Luxembourg (apparently), spoke fluent English, French, German, and Luxembourgish… which is actually a language. It’s French mixed with German, so I’m told. Even so, how’s that to make you feel instantly dumb!
In any event, Luxembourg’s cafes have outrageous prices, so we opted to try McDonald’s. It’s my first time in a European Micky D’s, and I must say… wow is it expensive! I paid 8 Euros for a meal… which is over $10! To be fair, the wrap I got was HUGE, but… odd that it was so pricy! Also, the McDonald’s was set up more like a restaurant whereby you ordered and you got a number for your trey… when it was ready, someone brought it up to you (two level restaurant). Strange.
But, the weather was beginning to decline by mid afternoon, so we caught the train back. The ticket from Trier to Luxembourg City and back was only 8 Euros round trip (yes, the same price I paid for McDonald’s), and it was just under an hour ride. After sharing pictures with my new Bulgarian friends, I headed for another group of people I had met the day before… although these I technically met in the wee hours of the morning of the same day. Brits!
We sat in an Indian restaurant that was highly expensive and not that tasty for quite some time before moving on to another bar for a bit, primarily discussing the differences between America and Britain/Europe. Here comes the argumentation again, yet these British are far quicker to point out America’s faults than most nationalities I have met. I find them highly amusing, truly… British humor, as I have said before, is my favorite!
But seriously, as soon as someone from Europe hears you are American, the favorite topic is American politics. Sadly, America still has an image of George Bush’s policies burnt into the eyes of many Europeans, and I am not lying when I say the primary jokes made against Americans are redneck jokes; many people I have met only want to know how many people I know who have married a sister or has the name of Cletus.
I have little interest in arguing with them, being that I have little interest in American policies to start with. Still, I’ve found it best to try to rectify the image “we” have somewhat by agreeing with them and then subtly making the same point slightly differently, thereby changing the mood of the argument. I surprise myself from time to time…
Although our image is not that great, the culture that has largely caused it is quite popular in Germany and throughout Europe, especially in the realm of popular culture. In fact, I spoke with someone from Italy wearing a Hollister shirt and a purse that said “I Love New York” who wanted to ask why Americans are so full of ourselves. Ah, culture.
Well, today is laundry day. Otherwise, I am going to have to buy an entirely new wardrobe… yet today is the first day I have been able to try; you must have a student ID with money on it, and being that I just received the card Friday, today was the first business day I could money-ize it. Classic. Not only that, but I’ve apparently breached my lousy 4gb internet allowance, and now have no internet in my dorm; they cut you off until you pay about $35 to reinstate it, and I have several choice words I can say for that, most of which have around four letters. So, here I sit at the University, 30 minutes from my dorm, typing for the blog.
Off to the post office to mail a few postcards to the family!
Here is the link to the photo album from Bonn:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2108357&id=1554191092&l=0c432a610c