Marburg: The First Few Days

Basically the flight out to Germany was less than exciting. I slept a little bit on the plane, but not too much. I was due to meet up with another lone traveler at the Regionalbahnhof, but that didn’t happen because my flight out of Philadelphia left about an hour and half late. SO… wittle Maddie was left to fend for herself. Let me tell you this… it wasn’t very graceful. Airports freak me out like none other… German airports are the seventh circle of Dante’s Hell. Everything was also in English, but it will only tell you what is in the other room, so you have to choose a room and hope that you get to a room that leads to the room you need.
German customs: Good. God. Talk about big, bald, intimidating POLIZEI. STAMP “OKAY, GOOD!”

I found where to buy my ticket and walk up to order it and the guy sputters off in German. Here is my face: ?___? I say to him, “Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch.” Then he says in English, “Oh, I thought you German. That funny!” Yes. Hilarious. So I get my ticket and I walk down the stairs with my suitcase looking oh so conspicuous. I wasn’t sure what platform I was supposed to be on. I checked and rechecked my little notebook that had the recommended directions, but (as things go with me) it all turned into Chinese. I asked, auf Deutsch, this hippy guy if I was on the right platform and showed him my ticket. He responded saying, “Ja! Gleis eins! Nummer neun! Elf minuten!” He didn’t really say that, but that’s all I got out of the gibberish. Luckily it was exactly what I needed. Hippy Guy rolled me a cigarette as a gift and said, “Wilkommen!” Then he proceeded to tell me to wait three stops then get off the train.

So I road the S-Bahn to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. Lost again. Where is Hippy Guy when you need him? I asked some college-age kid about where to go after this and he told me. At least… I THINK he told me. I didn’t really understand anything he said, but I nodded and thanked him and proceeded on my merry little way. I asked this other young looking guy, and he proceeded to tell me. He was understandable enough until at one point he said to me, “Es tut mir leid, ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch.” I looked at him and was like… “English?” And he said, “YES! I’m from London! Good god, you’re American aren’t you? I thought you were a German. That’s funny.” Yes. Hilarious. Again. Turns out I was still downstairs when I needed to be upstairs. I had 5 minutes to catch this train. Launching myself onto the escalators I went up and BEHOLD: FRANKFURT HAUPTBAHNHOF. Giant. Tourist-friendly. Hurray!

The train ride consisted of me slipping in and out of sleep. I fell asleep to Frankfurt passing me by and snapped awake to a bunch of fields with lots of flowers, but mostly farms. Sleep again. Then I woke up at the perfect moment to get my first glimpse of Marburg. It is situated on a hill that seems random, but considering the architecture of the land it makes sense. I just wondered why they chose THIS hill. Anyway, I get off at the Marburg an der Lahn stop and heard some English. Fellow IUSPers! Yay! We make our way to the front where we are greeted by Nora, who takes us to the Studentendorf. Hills. Hills. So many hills. We walk into the student center of the dorms to find other IUSPers exchanging awkward introductions. “What’s your name? Where are you from? Blah blah blah.” (Note, we’re STILL doing this.)
Next item: Paperwork. So. Much. Paperwork. I just wanted to go to my room and sleep. I started having a mini-freak out session in my room, but then I finally got to sleep. Two hours later I snapped awake and went back to the student center where I met up with Emily from Pennsylvania and Micah from Idaho. We were joined by a few others and went out on the town with a guide, which was exactly what I needed to calm my nerves. It is about a 15-20 minute bus ride to town. Our guide showed us where to get groceries, the atm, cheap stores, and a few of the main bars. He then took us up into Oberstadt. HELLO LOVE! When you Google Marburg, and you see those pictures of the old-school German buildings? It’s all that.

Then we went to the grocery store. If you know me, then you know that grocery stores scare me. Now, a GERMAN grocery store?! Yeah I walked out with apples, bananas, febreze (frischehauch), and Nutella. What we all didn’t know is that the buses that day stopped working at 8.09 p.m. It was now 9.00 and we had to walk back to the Studentendorf with whatever we bought. That was about… 35 or so minutes with the lot of us. That is when I had my first introduction to………………. THE HILL. It is evil. Pure. Evil. Steeper than Everest and the buses don’t go up it. And guess what? WE GET TO CLIMB UP IT EVERY DAY!!! Ah well, exercise puhpuhpuhpuh. I basically hit the pillow and was gone to the world.

The next morning I had to get up at 6.30 to take the bus to the Bahnhof. From there we proceeded to this building next to Elizabethskirche where we took a German Language placement exam. The first was a written test with multiple-choice questions and then an essay. The essay showed a picture and we were to describe what might have happened in the picture. It showed two parents with a little girl and a policeman all standing in a wrecked home. It had a lot of objects thrown about the room so that you could list off what might have happened to those objects. Well, I don’t for the life of me remember a lot of German vocabulary. I had to show that I wasn’t completely incapable of writing something in German, so I did a Maddie thing. I’m still wondering if it was the right decision or not. I started writing about how the little girl in the picture was not actually a little girl, but an evil dwarf who cannot stand cleanliness. The second part of the test was speaking and listening. It was held individually in a tiny room. The teacher had a list of questions and a sheet with grades on it. I walked in and we greeted each other in german and had small talk. Then she gave me a few plausible scenarios and asked me how I would react to the situation and what I would say (all in German, of course). It was intimidating to sit there and watch her circle “A, B, B, C.” as I would respond to her questions. I still don’t know what level of German I got into, I will find that out on Monday. The rest of the day we wandered around bits of each campus (German colleges are spread out in the town) and took biometric photos for our Visa’s. What’s funny is that, THEY HAVE TO BE BIOMETRIC! Or as the German’s kept repeating, “MUST BE DEE BIOMETREEK!” Later that night we went to this bar in Oberstadt called, Ginkelstein. It’s like a cavern, basically. It was made in 1519 and definitely looks like it. Low, rounded ceilings, old school place for a fire. Very humid. Very very very cool. After that we had to walk back to the Studentendorf. We got lost on the way, but luckily ran into a couple of really nice Brazilians who were able to show us where to go.

Today (Sept. 3rd) was absolute hell at the beginning. I was due to meet up with a few people around 9.30 so that we wouldn’t get lost going down to the city. I got up at 8.30 like a good child and then decided… oh, I can set my alarm and get a couple more minutes. Next time I wake up: 10.20. We were supposed to be down at the Mensa by 10.00 to fill out our Visa applications. Maddie ran. Maddie afraid. Maddie found her way to the Mensa! Hurrah! Luckily I was not the only late one, there were about 10 other people that had gotten lost on the bus routes including the people I was supposed to meet up with. Visa’d it up and then Sierra, Emma, Jackie, and I took off to explore Marburg because we had the rest of the day free. We decided to go back to Oberstadt and look around. From there we decided to hike up to the castle. It was tiring, but worth it. The view was absolutely incredible. I think I’m going to climb up it again tomorrow, this time with my camera. As we sat at the top, a little quartet came out of the castle and sat down to play. I had no clue what they were playing but it sounded like 16th century German music, which would make sense given the location. A bunch of fancy looking people in evening gowns with champagne glasses came out too and listened. We didn’t feel fancy enough and left to go to this really cool courtyard (which I will take pictures of tomorrow). I could still hear the music from down there so I sat down and listened. A group of 80 year old Bavarians walked up to me and asked directions, luckily enough I knew what they were talking about and was able to help them out. They tried to talk a bit more, but it was beyond me. I don’t know if it was the accent or just me, but I had no clue what they were saying. After this, our little group found our way back to the Biergarten an der Lahn where some sort of festival was going on (at least that’s what the sign said). It was a really mellow occasion. Everyone was just sitting by the Lahn drinking, smoking, and talking. A few people were in the river swimming, in canoes, or on surfboards with a paddle. I went to order a drink and the lady working there asked me what part of Germany I was from. I don’t know if she was being serious or not.

After that we went back to the dorms and here we have been relaxing since then. We are most likely going to go back to the Ginkelstein later this evening.


Tschuess from Marburg!