Too... Too Many Books.

Last night Rabea, Chelsea, Mimi, and I went to Hinkelstein (the dungeon-looking bar) to watch the Ukraine vs. Sweden game (Euro cup 2012 is going on right now for those of you who do not know). I'm usually not a big football fan, but I like to get into the games and it's an excuse to yell and be belligerent.

Mimi and I cheered for Ukraine while Rabea and Chelsea cheered for Sweden, and I can't deny that the slow motion shots were... wonderful. They have some beautiful men on this side of the planet. After UKRAINE WON (muahaha), we all went back home and I went back to cleaning out my room. I went to bed at 3 a.m. and then woke up at 9 a.m. to finish cleaning before my terrifying Haus Frau came to check me out of my room. After I was checked out I picked up my backpack and- no... that's an understatement... I had to FORKLIFT my backpack onto my back and then use a crane to get my suitcase down the hill and onto the bus. I didn't realize just how many books I had gotten while here and how difficult it would be to get everything back to the US.

I now had my Laufzettel and could make my way down to the Studentenwerk where I would get my €150,00 deposit. My Haus Frau told me that she took off €30,00 for cleaning (which they usually always do with everyone), so I was looking forward to having at least €100,00. This is where I had my last brush with German bureaucracy. I had to take my Laufzettel to an office in the Studentenwerk and get  it notarized or something, take that form and another to the accounting department and let them figure out the rest.

When I walked into the first office I didn't exactly know where I was going, this lady at the front desk (who was missing an arm) looked up and saw that I was a bit lost. There in that space where her other arm should be was a little finger-looking appendage that she used to point at a door next to me and say, "um die Ecke!" A little taken aback at what happened, I stumbled over to the door around the corner and went into the other office where I awkwardly announced what I was there for. A plump rosy-cheeked woman motioned over to me and without a word snatched my form and began typing, writing, and calculating and then had me sign a couple forms (which could very well have said that I would give them my first born child) and then told me to go to the accounting office. I walked around the corner and the appendage lady motioned to the exit. I walked into the accounting office and this tall regal blonde german lady came rushing over to me and offered me a seat and a candy (I took five, I was very nervous). She grabbed my form and started stamping things, writing things down, typing something on her computer, and brought out a giant accounting calculator and started plucking away on the keys like a lady with a mission. She then turned to me and said (in German), "You owe us €23,63." i was so taken aback by the fact that I walked in with the expectations of receiving over €100 and instead OWEING them money I said (in English), "WHAT?" And she proceeded to say it again, but in english and I said (in German), "No no no... I understand what you said, I just don't see how that could have happened." She looked down at the form and then back at her calculator and realized she had made a mistake... she reworked everything and turns out I only get €12,00 back. I didn't care as long as I didn't owe them money, I still got worked by the German Accounting Dep. though.
I walked out of that office and down to the second floor where Rabea's brother was watching my awfully heavy suitcase for me. Rabea went and turned my uCard in and I got at least €15,00 for that.

Now it was Goodbye Time. A few months ago Chelsea and I decided not to tell each other when we were leaving to go back to the US. I was able to keep it a secret, but somehow she had discovered that I was on the top floor of Studentenwerk and the only reason anybody goes up there is to get their room deposits back. So, she came up and waited while I went through that mess I had just described. When we rejoined Rabea's brother and Mimi downstairs, Chelsea took one look at my bags and the emotions started flooding, so she and I went outside and sat on a bench. I faced that castle and looked up at it thinking of all the times I had sat on this one particular bench just taking it all in. Chelsea and I sat there in almost complete silence, neither of us knowing what to say or how to even deal with this kind of situation. It was strange because she and I usually can't shut up when we are together, but this time it was just silence, and that's when you can tell when things are bad. We went back up to join the others where there was another 20 minutes of just awkward silence. Then I decided that I just had to go. I was feeling nauseous again from this whole farewell thing and I just needed to get moving. So, I said goodbye to Mimi and then Rabea plowed into me giving me a good old fashioned german bear hug. It was definitely really sweet. Chelsea and I just kind of stood there staring at each other.

She said, "I can feel my heartbeat in my fingers."
To which I replied, "Yeah... I think i'm going to puke."
"Yeah, me too."

Then she asked if we could have one of those awkward side-hugs and we did, but it was really painful. I took one last look at everyone and just turned right on my heel and headed for the Hauptbahnhof. As I walked out the doors I thought I could hear that little group laughing. Whether they were laughing about me or at me, I didn't care because that's exactly how I want to remember them: laughing.

As I was on the train watching the castle I loved so dearly slowly disappear into the distance, I didn't really feel nauseous anymore. I felt that weird bitter-sweet feeling when you leave somewhere that has so many wonderful things tied to it. In reality it was kind of like a strange sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, like I came, I saw, and I conquered. Though I still would have liked more time, it wasn't quite as painful as I had thought. I think it's the people I left that is really getting to me.

I wish someone had filmed me trying to get onto the train with my suitcase... at one point I was wedged in the door way with really know way out until by some miracle from the gods, I squeezed onto the train. Getting off the train in Frankfurt was a bit easier, I just kind of flopped down onto the platform like a whale, flopped around a bit, gasped for air, and then continued on like nothing had happened. I found my way to my hostel which is in the heart of Frankfurt's Red Light District. The hostel really isn't bad at all, it's situated between a couple really fine family-friendly places called, "American Pussy" and "Turkish Delight." Across the street is a lovely looking place with a creative name. It's called, "SEX SEX SEX." After a dropped all my stuff off in my room, I ran off to the spring market outside the Hauptbahnhof and got a Wurst and some Apfelwein, then I went into the Hauptbahnhof and sat down on a bench at Gleis 15 (the platform that usually goes in the direction of Marburg). An RE train was leaving to go to Marburg and I saw a few people I knew and played with the club-footed pigeons that were scuttling around on the floor. After another nice little walk I came back to my room to find another person in there snoring away. This kid is out like a rock. The hostel is having a BBQ and watching more Euro Cup games, so i'm going to go down there and join them. Not a bad way to spend my last night in Deutschland.

Now I just have to figure out how my book-laden back is going to survive tomorrow.

Tschüß!

... but we're not talking about that.

As my stay here in Germany is winding down a certain phrase is repeated continuously in every conversation I have with people and it goes a little something like this:

"Well, when I get back to the US..."
"BUT WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT!"

 Most of us refuse to acknowledge that there is this pending doom hanging over all of us within the next couple weeks. So we just don't talk about that, but I'm afraid right now I'm going to HAVE to talk about that.

 This last week everyone from what I've called, "The Wisconsin Horde" have all been moving out. They are the big group of about 40 people who are all from Wisconsin that randomly showed up at the beginning of January. I was friends with a few of them, but especially Kelli and Maggie who live on my floor. Maggie and I spent a lot of time out on our balcony drinking wine or tea with too many lemons. Kelli is the die-hard Packers fan who loves to cook and bake though she seems to think that she fails at both. The three of us have spent a lot of time just sitting on the balcony talking and talking. Maggie left a couple days ago and Kelli was supposed to leave yesterday, but she missed her flight because the cables between Marburg and Giessen (the only line to the Frankfurt Airport) was broken. So, she's crashing with me for the night which makes me happy because I was already missing her. She told me that as she was sitting on the train watching the castle disappear she started crying like a fiend and an old german lady asked her, "Alles in ordinung?" And Kelli replied through hysterical tears, "NEIN! ALLES IST NICHT IN ORDINUNG!" And apparently the lady was so freaked that she changed spots. Kelli is definitely one of the sweetest people I've ever met. And when she showed up at my dorm this morning she brought me a chocolate croissant. She just left to go biking through the canola fields for the last time and I'm staying in to clean my room and get some things in order for when I leave in the next couple weeks.

Cleaning is such a dangerous... DANGEROUS thing. It is one of the biggest memory joggers and is not a safe thing to do when you've been denying the inevitable. I started with the safest thing: the sink where I only had a few memories of binge-tea drinking with Spencer from last year and as I poured bleach into the basin I remembered cleaning the mold from my windows in -25 degree weather.
The real rough stuff happened when I started emptying and sorting my desk drawers. There I found stacks of maps from all of the different places I had been, the map of Marburg I never used, old train passes, bus reservations for Prague, boat tickets for Finland, trolley stubs, U-Bahn/S-Bahn maps from Berlin, and my RyanAir flight ticket stubs to Scotland, Ireland, and Estonia. I just continued to throw them all away (with the exception of the maps and the boat tickets now using as bookmarks), but I couldn't bring myself to throw away one particular thing I had found.

I rediscovered my first train ticket from Frankfurt to Marburg. As I stared at it I saw all of my former anxieties, fears, and anticipations. I knew then that I would come to love this place, though I had no idea exactly how MUCH leaving Marburg would hurt me. Even right now I'm just staring at the screen with no idea what to write as the rain pours hard against my window in good Marburg fashion. I'm so terrified to go back to the U.S. Aside from my usual fears of having to talk to the Haus Frau to check out, getting my boarding pass printed, getting to the trainstation, and then getting to the airport... I'm terrified of how I'm going to feel when I get home. I know there will be that surge of excitement to see a few people again, but how long will that last? I know that I wont be able to communicate everything that's happened to me properly and that basically nobody will quite understand what's happened to me. I'm definitely certain that my family and friends will want to take a frying pan to my face every time I bring up Marburg or Germany, but that's all I can relate things to.

It's going to be strange only hearing English with the occasional Spanish thrown in here and there. In Marburg it's always German, but since there are so many study abroad students we also have a lot of Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Hungarian, Italian, Slovanian, Slovakian, Russian, Polish, Czech, French, Romanian...etc.

I guess I wont know how things will go down until I get back to the U. S.

There we go. I talked about "that." I guess I just needed to get it out there and now I can go back to cleaning and then prancing around drinking by the Lahn and just enjoying what little time I have left in my favorite place.

The City Nobody Wanted to Leave: Dresden

We arrived in Dresden around three in the afternoon to sunny weather with a temperature in the late 70's early 80's. I haven't felt this weather since last Oktober. Needless to say, we all got a little crazy because Marburg had been so cold and rainy. The hostel room was better than I had anticipated. It had large windows and a balcony (keyword here being balcony). The view looked out over Dresden, but I didn't take much time to scope it out because we decided to run down to the Elbe (river through Dresden).

As you can tell, it was a bright clear day and the air was humid and warm. When I stepped off the bus, I was reminded of a quote by Jack Kerouac: “The air was so sweet in New Orleans it seemed to come in soft bandannas; and you could smell the river and really smell the people, and mud, and molasses, and every kind of tropical exhaltation with your nose suddenly removed from the dry ices of a Northern Winter.” A bunch of us ran down to the grass by the river (some with a Maß beer, some with glasses of wine) and sprawled out on the long grass in a way that looked like we were photosynthesizing. As I dug my heels and hands into the grass laying on my back propped up by my elbows, I looked out at this amazing panoramic and couldn't help but smile. When the bells of the dozens of cathedrals went off and the steam boats rolled by, it seemed as though every happy feeling i've ever had, every beautiful thing i've ever seen pulsated under my skin and then exploded from every pore. It was a feeling beyond that of non-belief, it was one of those feelings where you just know that you exist. Life didn't pause, it didn't go slowly, it kept with natural time and it was perfect. I felt each blade of grass, each cool breeze, every cathedral bell that rang and every blow from the steamboats resonated in my chest. In those few moments, I found myself in my own little european pari-nirvana. After we managed to pull ourselves off the grass (you can imagine what a difficult task that was), we headed for the Altstadt to look around. Everywhere I looked there was landscape of some unbelievable baroque marvel. We stopped and watched a band of hippies perform some kind of artsy-musical piece and then continued onward through a large gateway into the Altstadt where a huge May market was going on. Flowers and flowers and more flowers throwing up everywhere. In the center of the market was a large colorful May pole surrounded by elaborately carved wooden stands selling all kinds of food, clothes, and knick knacks. We all got some kind of variation of a Bratwurst and sat down to watch the market at work. Some people were bustling along buying things left and right while others sat at long, colorful tables drinking beer and smoking. Having had a long day, we decided to go back to the hostel. On the way, we stopped for ice cream. I got my classic favorite of chocolate and lemon and walked down the street a ways to where a gypsy was hard at work plucking keys and pushing and pulling her accordion. We continued down the street and under this long arch-tunnel where an opera singer stood singing Ave Maria. We stopped to listen and then continued on our way back to the hostel where we spent a good night inside drinking tea and simply talking. That night I went out on the balcony with a book and sat there watching fireworks shoot across the Dresden skyline. The next day we were scheduled for a city tour, so we all jumped out of bed eager to see more of the city. The first half of the tour was spent, to my dislike, on a bus where we drove around the suburbs of Dresden and then came back to the Altstadt where we filed out and separated into groups. The next half of the tour was on the Dresdner Zwinger.

Simply a Baroque masterpiece. After the tour, we walked around the May market again and got more wurst. Then we met up with some other people and we went to heaven the Museum of Fine Art. And it is there, that I died and was reborn multiple times. I saw so many paintings that i've spent years and years looking at and studying in textbooks including a couple that I wrote very large essays on (Raphael's Sistine Madonna, and Nicolas Poussin's Realm of Flora). I also saw tons of work by Rubens, Rembrandt, Füssli, Claude Lorraine, Coreggio, and the list runs on and on. When I left that museum, there was nothing that could pull me down, I was freakishly happy. After the museum we went back to the hostel, put some things down, and then went to dinner. I also did some walking around behind the hostel in an area I decided to call, "Hippyland." And it was just that. Streets and streets of no cars and just bicycles, naked people walking around, dreadlocks, cotton clothes, multiple instruments, everyone sitting down on patches of grass or walls playing music or talking. The oldest person in this neighborhood was probably 35. It seemed to be all the students living in one massive area. I sat down on a wall and ended up talking to a few art students from Holland and Germany. We had a great time talking about nerdy philosophical stuff and geeking out about the museum of fine art. After a couple beers, I said farewell to them and went back to the hostel to find friends and wine. When my roommates went to bed I was still on a museum-high and went to the balcony below me to visit some friends there where we drank more wine and they let me ramble on and on (more passionately than normal) about all of the works of art I saw in the museum and why I loved them. After they went to sleep, I went down yet another floor to another group of people and spent some time with them. I then returned to my room and grabbed my book and went outside once more to enjoy the cool night air. The next morning we all shuffled into a bus and were swept off to the Elbe River & Sandstone Mountains. The drive there, alone, was MAGNIFICENT. We passed through fields and fields of bright yellow canola flowers.

We arrived at the summer residence of August the Strong (king of Saxony/Poland from way back when). Three GIANT and elaborately decorated mansions surrounded a large courtyard of tightly organized flowers. It was a little too mindblowingly colorful. We then proceeded into what was called, "The English Gardens." It was basically a forest with a gravel path cut through the center of it. In any case, it was simply gorgeous. Tall light green trees surrounded by long grass, multiple kinds of bright flowers, and red squirrels with long ears and colorful ducks scampering all over the place. There was a point in our tour when we walked by a bunch of lilac trees, without hesitation it seemed like half the group purposefully faceplanted into the lilac trees and for a minute all you could hear were the deep inhales of jazzed students. The Sandstone Mountains is also named, "Little Switzerland" because of the nature, and I believe it. Everything looks a lot different than most places i've seen in Germany. We went out to this look out point and could see for miles. Not far away, we could see the Czech border. We then continued on through more canola fields to an old fortress situated on the top of a giant plateau. After all of this we made our way back to the city where we all spread off, many going back to the Elbe, and others itching to take a nap in their beds. I went off by myself and walked around the city and Hippyland a bit more just enjoying what I was seeing and enjoying everything that had happened that day. I sat on a bench in the middle of a giant park and pulled out my book. After a couple hours I went back to the hostel for tea, and then went and sat on my balcony overlooking Dresden. I sat there for another hour or so listening to music and drawing. I then left to hang out with people and check out a jazz/blues bar a couple blocks away. I sat in the bar moving my head to the beat of the music, and when more and more people arrived it got louder and louder and everyone started clapping and cheering as the horns blew up and down creating insane scales and jumping from high note to low note with ease. I sat with a couple young kids from southern France and another old couple from Belgium. We all clapped along, drank, and laughed as the music escalated and eventually quieted down. I returned to the hostel with my head in a daze. I could either spend the rest of my life here or I couldn't stand how utterly perfect it was. The next day, everyone sluggishly moved around due to the madness that had been the night before. We all had to leave the city by noon and nobody seemed particularly happy about having to leave so soon. I know that I, for one, was not. Before we left there was a giant steamboat parade (for May Day) on the Elbe and tons of parades and protests around the city. I'm sad that we had to leave that day... I would have liked to see more of what May Day in Dresden produces. The ride back to Marburg went by quickly with my book and the fantastic scenery of zillions and zillions of canola flower fields. I came back to find Marburg in the full swing of Spring. All of the trees were tall and the leaves poured out of the branches mixing with one another to the point that I couldn't tell which branches and leaves belonged to which trees. Many of the trees were so full that they bent into each other creating large green archways over the dirt paths of the forest. I was happy to come back from Dresden with such wonderful weather in Marburg, it made returning a lot easier. Then again, the next day we were pelted with golfball-sized hailstones......... doesn't matter. Marburg has character. I swear i'll get around to writing the post about Estonia and Finland. I just found it a lot easier to write about Dresden because I was just there and for a shorter amount of time.

Bucketlisting and Berlin 3.0

This last weekend the group took a weekend trip to Berlin. We took a bus ride that I didn't really time, but I managed to make it through Der Fliegende Holländer and Madama Butterfly with time to spare before we arrived so i'm going to guess it was about 6 or so hours. We arrived at our hostel situated on the edge of Kreuzberg (not the sketch part, the better part down the street from Potsdamer Platz). I went into the hostel, dropped my stuff off, called Emily and went straight to get me a giant plate of currywurst.

After eating by the Brandenburger Tor, Emily and I went for a walk around the Holocaust Memorial and Friedrichstrasse seeing as how she will be leaving Germany in a couple weeks and wanted to revisit a few places. Afterwards we met up with Matt and headed towards Checkpoint Charlie to Erin and Niko's new apartment stopping by an outdoor book sale across the street from Humboldt where I snagged myself a DDR children's book. We sat around Erin and Niko's place drinking wine and champagne with them, Lina from Dusseldorf, and their new pet turtle Spencer. We then went out for cocktails and then ended up at some burger place built by the gods. Matt and I ended up leaving and had a long walk back home in the rain and ended up chilling in the lobby of the hostel for some time.

The next day I slept in until 13.30 and went for a long bookstore hunt with Matt and then met up with Emily. We went to her place in Zehlendorf where her host mom once again made the best damn pizza i've ever had. We couldn't stay long because we had an opera we had to get to.

When we arrived at the opera house I hung outside for a little bit just to people watch. I saw a tall slender man wearing a tuxedo with tails and his date wearing a backless floor-length red gown and a complicated looking bun. They were both smoking cigarettes with long black cigarette-holders. It was a perfect image and I wish I could have gotten a picture. It was interesting to see how everyone was dressed. It ranged from Tuxedo's and gowns to jeans and sneakers. Nobody really minded what the other was wearing, it was kind of a dress-how-you-feel kind of atmosphere. Everyone was there just to have a great time at the opera. The last few weeks I had been feeling absolutely miserable with the idea of my own personal, "impending doom." AKA the reality that i'm going to have to leave Germany and go back to Utah very soon. I got a knot in my stomach every time I thought about it, but for those few hours as I sat there watching La Traviata, the knot loosened and my entire body surrendered itself to my greatest weakness: a good opera. Sounds lame, I know... but it is true. The super titles were all in German and I really didn't find it a problem understanding everything, however when the plot would twist naturally the singing got faster which means that the super titles went faster resulting in my ultimate confusion. I found myself thinking, "The hell? They were just in love and now they hate each other? WAIT A MINUTE WHO JUST DIED? WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!" Eventually Emily and I decided to just kick back and enjoy the music. After the opera we grabbed some beer and chilled in the hostel with a bunch of other people until the wee hours of the morning and we all went to bed.

The next day I went out with Lyndsey and Claire to the Jewish Museum. The architecture of the building was in a zig-zag formation with the hallways slightly slanting up or down creating a Willy Wonka effect where people at the end of the hallway would seem tiny while others seemed like giants. After the museum we went to an Easter Carnival in Alexanderplatz and ate some good old fashioned Bratwurst. Lyndsey and I then went into the Berliner Dom where we were greeted with a rehearsal performance of Handel's Messiah. It was ethereal music in a breath-taking building and a place I could have spent all day in. We went to the top of the Dom for an awesome view of Berlin and then down down down into the crypts where the minivan-sized coffins of who knows how many famous dead royals are placed. It was a bit shocking to see all of the coffins for dead royal babies... incest really doesn't pay, eh?

We then left for the hostel and I gave Lyndsey a foot massage in payment for making her go all the way up to the Dome and then down in the Crypts. My preconception that I was awful at foot massages was once again proven true. But hey... I tried.
Then we went to dinner at some "mexican" restaurant and then went back to the hostel for a relaxed night before we left the next morning.

Overall Berlin 3.0 was a fantastic trip that crossed off some things on my bucket list. The next to be crossed off is, "travel to some random country you know nothing about." That will be crossed off on the 19th when I head off to Estonia. Excitement Excitement.

Sloth an der Lahn

The days since my last post seemed to have slipped by rather quickly (to my dismay).
Someone pointed out to me the other day that the amount of time I have left here can be counted easily in weeks. I think it's 11 or 12 weeks left now and that just sounds AWFUL to me.

I haven't really noticed time slipping by so quickly, but I think that happens when you get so comfortable in one place that it becomes home and everything that was once exciting is now normal. It was fun to watch the new people in the program come in and experience Germany and Marburg for the first time. It kind of got me back into exploring this small town and looking even closer at things that I see every day. The whole last month has made me take a step back and appreciate where I am and what I do every day.

The language classes started earlier this month and i'm in a much higher level than I was last semester (which is excellent). I love my class because it is incredibly easy with just a few challenges to keep me busy. What's really excellent about this semester is that I only have to do the language class and NOT the culture class. Which means that I get to leave at 12.30 while everyone else has to come back from lunch at 14.00 and stay until 16.00 for the culture class. Believe it or not, those few hours make a big difference in the day. I have more time to walk home, do homework, and read a bit.

The weather has been absolutely AMAZING the last couple weeks. Last Thursday or Friday (I don't remember) everyone passed out on the grass by the Lahn and just went catatonic. This weekend pretty much consisted of everyone getting together and grilling Bratwurst, drinking beer, playing Frisbee, listening to music, and taking naps. Friday night we had a bonfire in Studentendorf with food and alcohol (duh). There were a TON of people there and we had an awesome time and then went off to Schwarz-Weiss to hang out some more. Saturday night was my "birthday party night."
Friend/Twin Chelsea brought over a bottle of champagne, two bottles of wine, and a bottle of rum to split. Emily was visiting from Berlin and kindly offered to help us "empty" the bottles. I don't really drink a lot. I mean, it may seem like I do, but really it's one or two beers every time I go out to drink. I figured since it was my birthday night, I could let my usual facade slide. And boy did I.
The night turned a little hazy with all of the people I ran into and all of the places I went, but I remember being sung "Happy Birthday" to in a ton of different languages.

My actual birthday, yesterday, was very very chill. I went out in the early afternoon to go join the others sitting by the Lahn. After 4 quick hours there, I left to walk around Marburg and ran into some other people on their way to dinner. I joined them and had a really relaxing meal outside in Oberstadt. After walking around the city a bit more I went home and took a nap. Afterwards, I went to Lyndsey's (Mama Aussie) and had tea which ended up just being us drinking tea and watching cat videos. No complaints there.

The rest of the week will probably be filled with more slothful events with the coming of even better weather.

Of Aachen and Berlin 2.0

This blog is gathering cobwebs, so I suppose I should write something, yeah?

Almost a month ago I decided to go visit my friend Erin and her boyfriend Niko up in Aachen (right on the border of Germany and Belgium). As I sat in the Frankfurt Hbf waiting for a train that came 40 minutes late, I ended up meeting a musician from Belgium. He looked about in his 60's and had a well-sized Belgium belly and a big bushy mustache. Turns out he plays the stand up bass for a jazz band and teaches at a music conservatory in Brussels. We talked a lot about jazz and Big Band music and their influence on modern artists. I probably shouldn't say modern because the only musicians we could really trace direct routes from jazz and Big Band at the time were from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. We ended up sitting together on the train and passed the time talking about different instruments we've played and he got a good laugh when I told him I played the stand up bass when I was 13 and had to stand on a chair because I was so short. It was fun to watch him grade the sheet music of some of his pupils. He seemed a little excited to be using his red pen... I don't know if his students will favor him quite as much when they get their homework back.

When we pulled into Cologne, he pointed out the cathedral to me and we ended up in a long discussion about architecture which lead to Prague which lead to Mozart which lead back to jazz music which somehow lead to different flavors of toothpaste. When we reached the Aachen Hbf, we shook hands and exchanged email addresses for a possible visit to Brussels in the spring time. At this time i'd like to thank good old Jean-Louis for making that 5 hour train ride seem like nothing at all.

Erin and Niko came to meet me at the Hbf and pretended to not recognize me because I wasn't wearing my red moccasins (for those of you not in the know, they are a defining item in the cartoon character that is my physical appearance). Unfortunately, due to the weather, I had to lay my moccasins aside for a little while. You'd think i'd be able to wear them, holes and all, in the snow... but my hobbit feet simply aren't as tough as they used to be. Anyway, we went out for dinner and cocktails and then went to their apartment to sleep, seeing as how it was late at night by this time. The next morning, Niko went off to study for his exams while Erin and I chilled in the apartment and caught up on all of the random nothings we had both been doing.

We set off to check out the Aachener Dom (another one of those jaw-dropping buildings). We sat down inside and just talked about what young folk in their twenties talk about. After a bit more walking outside we met up with Niko to take a breather and drink some tea. Erin and I went out for some awesomely greasy Turkish food and then went back to the apartment to make sure everything was in order for Niko's surprise birthday party. The birthday party was definitely something to behold... it was a small group of about ten of us. The next morning we took inventory of the alcohol to find that together we had consumed 52 bottles of beer and 3 bottles of champagne. I can tell you now that I only contributed to a bottle and a half of champagne and 3 beers. It's safe to blame the rest on the German men.

The next day Erin and I did a bit more wandering and we ended up in a bookstore (yeah, great... more clothes i'll have to throw out of my suitcase when I pack to come home). I was in one of those moods where I wanted everything so I honestly couldn't decide. I wasn't walking out of that store with nothing, though. I am physically and mentally incapable of doing such a thing. I decided to randomly pick a genre (plays) and was going to work from there. Then the thought occurred to me that I would love to read the works by Euripides in German. Sadly, I couldn't find anything by him so I settled with getting a volume of plays by Aeschylus. We all took our findings up to the cafe on the third floor and sat around talking about linguistics, anthropology, and all of that other bookstore talk. We went back to the apartment and had dinner and settled on the couch to read our new books and drink tea. Niko had to go to bed early so he could get up and study in the morning, so I went out on the balcony and spent some quality self time looking out at the fantastic view of the Aachen skyline.

I took a seat with my ipod and turned on some Bulgarian folk music (if you don't know this by now, I have a very strange repertoire of folk music from around the world). As I sat there and looked up at the stars (something I hadn't done for a long time given the constant clowdy appearance of Marburg), I had one of those moments where you find yourself completely satisfied. I realized completely that I love being in Germany, and that I don't want to be anywhere else at this time in my life. The next morning I went back to Marburg.

Deutsche Bahn Fail:

I've honestly never had too many problems with traveling by train here in Germany. I've had trains be late by 5 or 10 minutes, honestly nothing quite too damaging to the travel arrangements..... however, getting to Berlin was a nightmare.
I worked up three travel plans just in case the train was late or I missed a connection.

Plan A:

Marburg -> Kassel -> Hannover (meet up with Erin) -> Berlin Hbf (meet Emily).

Plan A required that everything be exactly on time, but we ended up stopping on the tracks for 10 minutes, so it was to be Plan B.

Plan B:

Marburg -> Kassel -> Berlin Hbf -> Berlin Suedkreuz (meet Emily).

Plan B ended up getting scratched out as well because the train decided to stop for 30 minutes outside of Kassel. Hurray.

Plan C:

Wait in Kassel for 43 minutes in negative degree temperatures -> Berlin Spandau (meet Emily).

Plan C ended up working perfectly. Though I was not a happy camper, but Karma decided to bless me with a table seat all to myself (a rare item) so I turned on Patti Smith and enjoyed the ride. I was writing in my journal as I traveled and here are some excerpts EXACTLY how they were written:

(15.20): There is a lady staring at me. She has been for the last 5 minutes.
(15.35): Staring lady is still keeping her gaze, I feel like I should throw my pen cap at her to see if she is even alive.
(15.55): SUCCESS! The sun is in Staring Lady's eyes now and she can stare no more! Muahahahahahahaha!!!
(16.11): OH MY GOD SHAGGY BABY COWS RUNNING OUTSIDE THE TRAIN!!!
(16.18): Staring lady resumed staring at me because the sun has set. Damn.
(17.00): The train just stopped because a beer truck tipped over next to the tracks. I can imagine the dialogue of the driver and his co-workers, "STOP ZE TRAIN! A BEER TRUCK HAS TIPPED OVER! WE MUST MOVE AT A STEADY 1 KM PER HOUR WIZ OCCASIONAL STOP TO MOURN ZE LOSS OF ZE BEER!" I wonder how many people fell when they slammed on the breaks. I think the Fates don't want me to get to Berlin judging from today's events.

When I stepped off the train in Spandau and was greeted by the smell of vomit, piss, and weed I realized I was back in Berlin. Mind you, not all of Berlin smells like this... but Spandau after dark definitely does. I met up with Emily and Erin and we went to Emily's host home in Zehlendorf. Her host mom has a Turkish name that I wont even begin to guess how to spell, so we'll call her Hostmom... either way, she's adorable. She made us a few different kinds of pizza: Veggie pizza, Tuna fish pizza, and a pizza topped with eggs. Every single one was SO GOOD. My mouth still waters when I think about the tuna fish pizza, it was made by the hands of the gods, I tell you. After dinner we headed out to a very relaxed bar in Kreuzberg with high ceilings and vintage photographs all over the place.

The next morning we woke up around 11.00 and were greeted by an elaborate German breakfast: A million kinds of bread, a variety of cheeses and meats, olives, oranges, honey, butter, nutella, black tea, and strong Turkish coffee. Next thing I knew it was well passed 13.00 and we had to leave to see an apartment for Erin. We reached the apartment just after 14.00, but the guy was not there so we waited an hour or so and then left. We then left to East Berlin to check out another apartment in a former DDR building. We were in and out pretty quick (mostly because we were shockingly hungry even after that large breakfast) so we went to Alexanderplatz to find food. After lunch we went to get coffee where I broke my Starbucks-virginity. I really didn't want to, but it was so Arschkalt that I caved in and got a coffee. Nothing special, really. Emily had to leave at 18.00 to meet up with a group for a tour of the Bundeskanzleramt, and Erin and I had to go see a guy about another apartment. At around 20.00, Erin and I met up with Emily and went back to a bar we had been to during our previous visit to Berlin. After a couple beers we headed out to go to Kreuzberg again, but for some reason (I don't remember why) we decided to find a place in Charlottenburg. This bar was apparently a 1920's type place that was closer to Zehlendorf. That place ended up being closed for a private birthday party, so we went to a different place in Steglitz. By the time we got home it was well passed 4 in the morning... I don't know how that happened. Aaah the mysteries of youth.

The next morning we were greeted, yet again, by another incredible German breakfast that lasted until around 13.30. After a few apartment searches we went to the Kaethe Kollwitz museum (which I was sooooo excited about). It was simply amazing. I was completely in love with her "Death" series. When exited the museum to find a blizzard (naturally on the one day I think it's safe to wear my moccasins). Erin and Emily were doing some freaky things driven by their craving for Sushi, so we satisfied their needs at a place we had gone in September with Erin's friend Nina. We were originally going to go to this "Lange Nacht" event where you pay a set price and get unlimited access to museums for a few hours, but it was so cold we decided to just pick up some beer and head back home. We sat at the kitchen table drinking beer with Hostmom and Veronica (another resident from Slovakia) until around midnight and then went to bed.

We went to bed so early because we had to get up in the wee hours of the day to go to another apartment appointment for Erin. After that, Erin headed back to Aachen and Emily and I decided to go to the Pergamon museum. It was great to see things that I find pasted in every single Art History book. We had to rush a bit unfortunately because of the time restraint, so we went to the Hbf and got currywurst. To my delight, the train ride back to Marburg was flawless and I managed to see a lot of German countryside that i've never seen before until the sun set. Though the weather is awful to be outside in, it does some incredible things to the landscape. Everything is covered in a blue/grey fog with a little bit of frost icing each tree. One thing about German nature... when you look at a landscape, you feel like you are looking at something with infinite detail.


When I came back to my dorm room in Marburg, I found that I was no longer alone. Mold had decided to take up residency around my windows and on parts of the surrounding wall. At first we were scared of each other, but then we became great friends. Eventually it began to crawl down onto my bed as I slept and whisper sweet nothings into my ear. All seemed well, but not all relationships are meant to be forever. The mold had to go. After a terrifying visit with the intimidating Haus Frau, I took some bleach to the wall and scrubbed the bugger out. When I approached the mold with my gloves and bleach it growled at me. Our parting was full of everything but "sweet sorrows." It didn't take the mold long to find someone new. I saw three other people wrote that they had a mold problem on the maintenance list... rebounds can be nasty.

As for me now... I finished watching Xena: Die Kriegerprinzessin (auf Deutsch of course) and I am not just kind of wandering around inside my own head. Poking at things with a stick, watching those weird little eye-floaties, reading here and there, drinking tea, drawing. Doing whatever it is that I do, and doing it well.

Of Kilts and Haunted Vaults

The trip to Edinburgh, Scotland and Dublin, Ireland creeped up on me like an itch.

Thursday afternoon we (Nicole, Alyssa, and Katie) made our way to the Marburg Hauptbahnhof where we took a train to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, then paid an annoying fee of 13 euro to take a 2 hour long bus ride to the Frankfurt Hahn airport.
RyanAir was not necessarily as terrifying as I have heard. In fact, take off was smooth and the entire flight was smooth until the landing where the wings of the plane resembled the wings of a frantic hummingbird.

Stepping out of the plane I was greeted by a huge gust of Scottish wind that nearly knocked me over. It's hard to describe the smell because it was one of the best smells my dear nose has ever had the pleasure of having. Even though it was airport air, it was SCOTTISH airport air. The warm air was a welcome change of pace after shivering to my skivvies in Marburg for the last few weeks.

We got off the bus towards the bottom of the South Bridge (though, at that time I had no idea what that meant). We were entirely lost. We started walking towards the castle seeing as how all that we knew of the Hostel's location was that it was near the castle. We ran into a group of Scotsmen and asked them for directions. They were drunk so it took a while to get any sort of information out of them. I figured that four girls asking about where the hostel was at the same time was one American too many, so I sort of stepped aside and looked around Edinburgh. Unfortunately there wasn't much to see because it was night time and street lamps are scarce. The wind picked up. No, that is too soft a term... the wind WENT CRAZY AND WANTED TO KILL US. It was very entertaining to say the least. I stood and leaned forward as much I could and got to almost a 45 degree angle thanks to the pressure of the wind. Alyssa was nearly dragged down a hill with her suitcase acting like a sail, while the rest of us were nearly blown down after her. We would have looked like four tumbleweeds screaming and giggling back down the South Bridge doomed to land in the Nor' Loch.

Suffice to say, the drunk Scotsmen were no help. We found a policeman and he told us that it would be simpler for him to just drive us to our hostel instead of attempting to tell us how to get there. I didn't understand what he meant until we started our drive and took who knows how many turns. We rolled up to the hostel with our police escort and hopped out thanking him with a few of the hostel residents for an audience. A part of me wishes he would have handcuffed us just for extra show. We got to our room (shared with fourteen other people) and made our beds. By this time it was 3 a.m. and were more than happy to sleep anywhere with a pillow. As I settled in and waited for sleep to descend, I noticed that a symphony was playing.

An orchestra of humans playing the age old Symphony of Snores. It started with the baritones (the men of the room, plus Nicole) moving in a rhythmic pace with the tenors following on their heels as to not let one nano-second of silence permeate the room. Somewhere in the 2nd movement of the symphony, the nice gentleman to my left began his great aria. An aria filled with so much gusto it could out due Pavarotti and Placido Domingo combined. The Aria of Phlegm hacked up and down with whizzing arpeggios and long drawn out notes that I never thought were humanly possible. I fell asleep somewhere between the third and fourth movements.

The next morning I was absolutely overflowing with excitement to see my Motherland. We found a breakfast and sat down to be greeted by a cheery waitress (something we were not used to living in Marburg). Alyssa got the American Breakfast, Nicole the Traditional Scottish Breakfast (complete with haggis and blood sausage), while Katie and I got pancakes. Both of us don't get very hungry when we are traveling. It was at this restaurant where I had my first taste of Scottish Breakfast tea. The tea and I were instantly in love. After breakfast, the girls left to go shower off the travel while I went up to the castle where I would meet them later. I circumnavigated Castle Hill and went up the switch-backed way. I got up to the top and found that I had completely lost my breath. Not only because of the horrendous climb, but by the view. I had never seen anything like this before. Everything was so expansive, yet so tightly packed together. It made me think of dominos closely placed edge-to-edge in tight rows. I honestly wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. Here I was, standing in a spot I had always wanted to go to since I was a wee little creature. And at that moment I was a full-fledged gremlin fulfilling a lifelong wish.

I walked down the Royal Mile and studied the architecture. It was the oddest yet most beautiful layout I had ever seen in my life. I got down to St. Giles' Cathedral and went inside. Again, I found that my breath had left me. The stained glass in that building was more beautiful than any I have seen thus far in my travels. I could help but take photographs, though NONE of them do justice. I walked back up to the Castle and met with the ladies. We all walked down the Royal Mile together where I found a new love in my life: Closes. For those who do not know, a "close" is a narrow street leading off from the Royal Mile. Each are named and each are dark and so... so... me.

We would be walking down the Royal Mile and the group would notice that they lost me. They would look around and see the tails of my long black coat as I bolted down a close. I must have gone down almost every close on the Royal Mile. My favorite close name was, Fleshmarket Close. It used to be a street for butcher shops, but was now vacant. I just love the name of it. It was very strange to be walking around and here/read everything in English. None of us were used to that and I felt particularly uncomfortable knowing where everything was. After these few months in Germany, I had somehow come to the conclusion that everything is difficult down to the smallest thing like buying stamps.

That day we walked around and talked about how excited we were to visit the Edinburgh Vaults that night. While in a shop at the castle there was a place where an assistant could look up family history. So I went up to the man and gave him my last name. It pulled up my coat of arms and history of my little Scottish clan. He turns to me and says, "You're from America, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Ah, well... welcome home little sister!" All in his cute lil Scottish accent.

The warm fuzzies from that exchange got a bit too unbearable and I had to bail. It is a nice memory though. :)

We all went back to the hostel to rest. While the ladies took a nap, I walked around and met some Spanish people who were staying at the same hostel as myself. I exercised my much depleted Spanish while they communicated in broken English. Charades. That was the name of the game.

The Edinburgh Vaults/The South Bridge Vaults are a series of chambers (connected by closes) formed in the 19 arches of the South Bridge. Completion of these were somewhere in the late 18th century. They were used for shops, but eventually became the epicenter of scum and villainy. It was said that the atmosphere in the vaults became so vile that the police stopped going there and it is also said that one could walk down a close and slit throats while walking by without anyone even noticing. Each of the vaults became inhabited by the poorest of the poor. Each vault held from 12 to 34 people. Due to the fact that the only plumbing in each vault was a corner, diseases began to spring up that nobody could (or can at present) really put a name to them. Not only were these vaults the center of disease, but murder, rape, bodysnatching, and other brutal crimes were a familiar event. The particular vaults we were to enter were used for Witch Trials (if you are familiar with how Scotland did Witch Trials, you can only imagine the energy displaced in those vaults). In short, Witch Trials consisted of brutal days of agonizing torture complete with ballbusters, thumb-screws, and who knows what else. First, those holding the trial would nail the suspect's right hand to his/her left knee and the left hand to the right knee. Then it was a few nights of horrible torture until a "confession."

At 10.00 at night, we made our way to the Royal Mile where we were to meet our tour guide to go on, "The Haunted Tour of Edinburgh's Vaults." Katie and I were absolutely ecstatic about this evening while Nicole and Alyssa were about to pee their pants. Nevertheless, we were all very excited... in our own ways. The tour began with a walk around the South Bridge as the guide explained to our group (around 15-20 people) the history of the bridge and the conditions in which these people lived. Then it was time for the vaults. We entered a big black door that lead us to a dimly lit room full of metal objects behind class cases. Each of these objects were legitimate torture devices used in the witch trials. I was absolutely elated. You should know, one of my morbid obsessions is the study of torture devices from the Medieval times/Spanish Inquisition. You know, the light and cheery stuff!

Next we were lead down a long and winding stone staircase. Down and down and down until we reached the bottom where the air was thick and old. I absolutely loved the smell. It was so thick it was like I was breathing history itself. The close was long, narrow, and dark with only a few torches lit here and there. As we stood in this dark passage, the tour guide introduced us to the story of one of the Vault's ghosts: The Watcher.

The Watcher is a man with long hair wearing a top hat and a long dark cloak. This particular ghost has no face and is quick to move. He moves from vault to vault blissfully unaware of anyone else present. Our tour guide told us a story of how he was leading a group down and saw someone go into a vault. He followed after the person to tell them that they shouldn't wander off by themselves. When he reached the vault, nobody was there. It was completely empty.

The next ghost is one they call, Maggie. She was once a prostitute in these slums and reported acts of violent physical abuse against her. The police never replied to her requests and her butchered corpse was found a few days later sprawled on the steps we stood on at that moment. She is more of a trickster and is very fond of playing jokes on men. There is a story where a man in the back of the tour felt a cold hand go down his pants. He thought how lucky he was that his wife decided to warm her hand in an ideal spot, but as he turned to look at his wife... she was not there. In fact, there was nobody around him. Awkward.

We then proceeded into a vault that had a large collection of stone slabs all arranged in a circle. This particular place is heralded by the strange phenomenon known as "cold spots." Patches of ice were found in the vault though the temperature was mildly warm. There is a story about a woman named Anne Cooper who was on the same tour. She stood at the back and listened to the story being told. All of a sudden she started sobbing uncontrollably. She was kneeling in the vault clutching her head. She was taken to an ambulance and she told them that she suddenly became freezing cold and something had grabbed the back of her head and forced her body down to her knees. This is not the first time this has happened, other reported cases include people feeling icy fingers in their hair. Once a ten-year-old boy was carried unconscious from the vaults after complaining that something cold was holding on to his head.

When the vault was first open, George Cameron decided to locate his pagan temple there. After all sorts of unexplainable happenings, it creeped even the Wickens out. George Cameron decided to spend a night in his vault all alone to confront the entities. Just after midnight, George heard something crawling through the blackness. Too afraid to turn on his flashlight, he began to chant protective incantations and the intruder receded. Next, the sound of a sobbing woman slunked about George from within the vault. Then, more biting, scratching, and sobbing noises began to permeate the darkness. The next morning, George placed the stone slabs in the vault and cast a spell to constrict all demons to that spot. Mind you, we were being told this story as we stood in the room. I was totally enthralled.

The last and final vault is said to be one of the most haunted places out of THE most haunted places in the world. Before we entered, the tour guide separated us by gender and lead the women to the right side of the vault and the men to the left side of the vault. The reason being that all of the attacks in the past seemed to happen to women while they were on the left side of the vault. People have walked from those vaults with scratches all over their bodies. Apparently it is a regular visiting place for the paramedics of Edinburgh. The tour guide turned off his flashlight in the vault and began to tell us the story:

The story of this vault is gruesome and sad. Back in the 18th century there was a large fire that set all of Edinburgh in flames. The people (some 35 bodies or so) thought that they would be safe inside the vault because it was made of stone. They locked themselves in and were completely trapped. The fire burned in the houses above them and the stone gradually began to heat up and the air thickened. The vault turned into a giant oven slowly baking the 35 people trapped inside for days. When the fire was over and workers broke into the vault to clean up the damage, they found a mass of mangled corpses. Mothers still clutching to their children, fingernail marks grooved deep in the stone walls. The workers took hold of an arm, but the flesh slid off from the bone like overcooked meat. Nicole clung to my arm as we listened to this story.

As the tour guide was wrapping up his dark tale someone let out an awful scream. This was followed by the screams of other women. Next thing I knew, half of my body was dragged to the ground as Nicole went straight to fetal position with Alyssa on her other side. Katie and I were simply annoyed that we couldn't (and wouldn't) hear the rest of the story. For the tour was over. The Tour Guide had taken advantage of the situation and grazed the arm of a girl in the tour with his walking stick. Well played, sir. We were led up and out and were given a drink voucher for our troubles. YAY! So we sat at the Banshee Bar and discussed what had just happened and previous hauntings we've all encountered in our life time. The rest of the night was full of drinking and goodwill towards your fellow Scotsman, but I could not get the vaults out of my brain. Something nasty had awoken inside me. I had found... a new obsession.

The next day we each got a traditional Scottish breakfast (full of meat and full of beans). We split off and went on our own little adventures. Katie and Alyssa ran off to look at shops and ended up finding a weird art gallery and a christmas store. Nicole and I found ourselves going into Mary King's Close. Nicole, at first, was not very excited about venturing back down into the dark regions of Edinburgh to explore more vaults and more death. But, I assured her that the tour was indeed not haunted. Or, at least, not meant to scare you. I don't think she believed me until she saw that a little boy was going on the tour as well. In any case, we had some time before the tour so we got FISH N CHIPSSSSSS. I say that with much gusto because it's one of my favorite meals on this planet. We also got a Gaelic Coffee (Scotch, coffee, and whipped cream). My tastebuds about exploded with glee.

The tour of Mary King's Close was guided by a buxom and robust Scottish woman dressed in an 18th century maid costume. She led us down the close and I was so happy to smell that familiar smell and breathe in that familiar old air. She took us into various rooms and told us about what had happened there and the living conditions of the people. Then she took us to a room that had a few mannequins set up to look like a plague doctor was visiting a plague-infected home. One more thing, I have always been OBSESSED with the plague doctor's uniform. I don't know why, but I think it's entrancing. The guide told a tale of how the plague came about. When she reached the part about rats she squeezed a little rat toy that made a squeaking noise that gave Nicole a start and she grabbed the sleeve of the guy in front of us. After our AWESOME tour of Mary King's Close, we had to head back to the Hostel to meet up with Katie and Alyssa so that we could get to the airport and shove off to Dublin.

As I walked up the outside steps to enter the airplane, I took a long and deep inhale of good Scottish air. I didn't/don't know when I will return there and I want to keep that memory fresh. Now I have a little saying in my head (thanks to Scotland): whenever I think of all my regrets and negative whatevers... I "Gardy Loo" it out my window and flush it down to the Nor' Loch.



Next Blog: Of Guinness and Irishmen. (Ireland)

Language Barrier Charades

In our program we have an option of having a "tandem partner."

A tandem partner is a native German speaker looking to improve his/her English, so they get paired up with a native English speaker hoping to improve his/her German. Basically you meet for 2 hours and speak 1 hour in English and 1 hour in German. Due to some oddities I landed myself with 2 tandem partners.

The Tale of Tandem 1:

The most awkward phase of meeting up with the tandem partner is arriving at the set location and staring down every person walking by as if to communicate telpathically:
"Are you the German I'm looking for?"
It's funny how these things just have a way of working themselves out, but I still hold fast to my belief that all Germans are telepathic. I don't know how to describe the evidence I have to support this assertion, but I believe myself to be correct.

Anyway, I meet up with Tandem 1 and we find a place to sit in the Mensa. Not an ideal location for someone not fluent in German because it is quite loud. We start in English and do the usual introductions such as, "I come from blah, this is what it's like, blah blah blah."
We got on the topic of the scale of the United States. Tandem 1 couldn't quite understand just how large Utah is. I told her, "Utah is almost as large as Germany." To which she replied with a confusing look. So I drew it for her and her eyes widened. "You tell me ffat (that) one ov your states is almost as large as my COUNTREEE?!"
Topics ranged from the size of streets in the Western United States, to the mountains, to contemporary immigration to the USA. Needless to say, both of us continued to land ourselves in conversations that were way above our vocabulary levels. Apparently she is in a class about Mexican immigration to the USA and how that parallels the Turkish immigration to Germany.

I also clarified for her the proper use of "a.m." and "p.m." when trying to communicate a specific time. When we were emailing to meet up she would write (in English), "we meet before Mensa from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.?" I found that ridiculous and assumed she meant p.m. My assumption was verified when she then asked if, "2 a.m. on Monday" would be better.


The Tale of Tandem 2:

More awkward attempts at German telepathy. I think I am getting the hang of this because I found this partner much quicker than the last. This time we sat by the Lahn where it was pretty quiet. Tandem 2's English was definitely not that great. It boiled down to us speaking in our own languages to each other with the occasional phrase in the other language. When we couldn't find an easy way of explaining things (which was often) we ended up playing charades. It must have been a sight.

We spoke mostly of holidays and the differences between the German school system and the American school system (for instance, when one semester starts and ends). The conversation didn't flow quite as easily as with Tandem 1. The reason I think is because Tandem 1 is an English major and wants to teach it so she has a lot of enthusiasm. Tandem 2 is studying Geography and is improving her English for traveling.


Thus ends this little tale.

I don't know if it shows, but right now I am having a difficult time piecing sentences together. I spent the last 2 hours reading Lord of the Rings in German and I found it a bit difficult to suddenly switch to writing full sentences in English. I'll be sure to take a breather before I do that again.

Tschuess from Marburg!

Of Weimar and Other Things

Another fantastic IUSP excursion.

It's been a while since I went to Weimar now, but I haven't found the time to write about it. Hopefully I can remember all of the important things.

Thankfully it was only a 2 hour bus ride instead of the 5 brutal hours to Berlin. When we arrived, we checked into our hostel and went right out to a city tour. Weimar, like Marburg, seems to be almost completely unscathed by WWII and the events that followed it. The city seems to be trapped in the age of Weimar Classicism, which seems reasonable given that Weimar Classicism is what they capitalize on.

The tour took us to all of the "important" places like the Weimar Marketplace (location of the Hotel Elephant), J.S. Bach's residence, the Franz Liszt School of Music, Goethe's Garden House, Franz Liszt's house, Bauhaus Universitaet, Schiller's house, and the Weimar Theatre.

When we were in the Weimar Marketplace, I couldn't help but feel like I had been there before. Everything looked strangely familiar and my mind just could not figure it out. And then: EPIPHANY. I realized as I looked up at the balcony of the Hotel Elephant that I was standing in the same place the Nazi's stood to hear Hiter speak. Not just that, I was looking directly at the SPOT where Hitler stood many many many times and addressed the people. I looked around the Marketplace again and my vision went from color to black and white with each blink. I realized that one of the reasons I had not recognized this place was because it wasn't draped in Nazi flags. At that moment, the Market Place was full of shops, venders, and outdoor cafe's like the 1930's/40's had never happened. It completely blew my mind.

After the tour, we were free for the afternoon and night. Erin, Niko, Spencer, Niki and I wandered into a Bier Garten called, "The Shakespeare Cafe," and Maddie had some of the BEST Schnitzel of her life as she sat and watched a cat experience a life or death situation as it attempted to jump from a tree onto a fence. Later we all went to a tavern-type bar where Goethe and Schiller (allegedly) hung out. The bar played nothing but disco and it was warmly welcomed at the "Ami-table."

The next morning we made our way to the Buchenwald Concentration camp. The tour was fantastic, and there were a few parts that were a bit unnerving. Honestly, it was a much different experience than I had had when I visited Dachau in 2007. The impressions were not quite as deep this time around. Perhaps it's because Dachau was an actual Death Camp and Buchenwald was a Work Camp. I don't know, but it was still a great visit. The monument (big big big big big white tower looking over the valley) was incredible and the view was breathtaking.

The rest of the day was left at our disposal. Niki and I went to multiple book shops (Where I finally found The Tin Drum auf Deutsch!), and then we got lots of ice cream and walked around der Ilm Park. I don't even know if it does it justice to call it a "park." The place was a city of trees, fields, flowers, streams, and a few Classical houses crammed into various places. It would have been impossible to see the entire thing in one day by foot or bicycle.

The next morning a bunch of us set off to see the Anna Amalia Bibliothek. By far... one of the most BEAUTIFUL things I have ever seen in my entire life thus far. Unfortunately, they would not allow cameras on the inside, so I am left with mental pictures (which are fading every day to my disappointment). The rest of the day was full of silly nothings.

Back in Marburg

I have now completed 6 weeks of German Language and Culture classes. And now they are sending me on my merry little way. The actual semester begins on Monday and I definitely have those before-school jitters. I have two classes: Interface Culture and Sacred Buildings in Religion. Both of which are in German, but they luckily have tutorials in Englisch. The only thing I am worried about is that I have not heard from my tutor for the Sacred Buildings class. I have no way of contacting this person, and I am the only person in the program that is in this class. So, this means that I will be going it alone for the first day... maybe two days. I am scared out of my mind, but I will just have to put on my grown up pants and try not to stutter too much when attempting to speak German.

As for right now I find myself completely relaxed. Just a few moments ago I was sitting on the dorm balcony with a cup of tea and Mozart watching the red and orange sunset do its thing. Tomorrow I am off to Frankfurt for the Occupy Frankfurt protest. We'll see what goes down.

Tschuess from Marburg!

The Great Berlin Post

As Led Zeppelin would say in Bron-Y-Aur-Stomp, "My my, Lordy lord." That is all I can think of as I try to start this post. I suppose I should start at the beginning, and when I get to the end... stop.

Friday: We took a tour bus instead of invading the Marburg Hauptbahnhof. It was slower, but we got to see a lot of the countryside surrounding Marburg and Berlin. It's so funny how quickly the landscape changes. Marburg is surrounded by hills and tall dark forests, but as you slowly move north eastward, the landscape changes from a fairytale facade to a pop-up book. Soft and shallow hills with small clusters of trees here and there with castles on every hill top completely surround you. I barely looked away from the window the whole 5 hour bus ride. Being a landscape-junky, it's hard to NOT look out at the incredible German countryside. As we neared Berlin, I could see the landscape gradually becoming flat with clouds of industry popping up all over the place.

The ride into Berlin was strange. And when I say strange, I mean it looked NOTHING like I thought it would. Honestly, I don't know what I was expecting, but going from somewhere like Marburg to Berlin... you may be able to understand why I didn't feel like I was in Germany any more. I suppose it was because everything is so entirely new. I also realized that this was the first time I was visiting a city that was so profoundly impacted by WWII as well as the Soviets.

Our hostel was situated right in the centre of the city on Johannisstrasse between Friedrichstrasse and Universitaetstrasse. The first night was open for us to do whatever we'd like. Erin has a friend who was born and raised in Berlin named Nina. With her, Erin, Nicole, Spencer, Niki, Emily, and myself all headed out to hunt for food and beer. We ate at this place called, Asia Gourmet at one of the stations because it was cheap and actually not that bad. Then we went to a place called, The Pub where Nina used to work. It was a do-it-yourself kind of place. It was here that I discovered I am AWFUL at pouring beer. Absolutely... awful. I can't seem to grasp the 45 degree thing. Goddamn you, Geometry. Anyway, went there and then road the train back to the hostel where we had a few beers. There I met a group of Irish guys, an Australian, two French guys, and a group of pot-smoking Austrians. Twas a great introduction to Berlin and to hostels.

Saturday: Bright and early in the morning we left for the "Classical Tour" of Berlin in 3 hours. During that drive we saw Potsdamer Platz, the Regierungsviertel, Unter den Linden, the Brandenburg Gate, Kurfuerstendamm, Checkpoint Charlie, Galarie Lafayette, the Gendarmenmarkt, the Berlin Wall, and about 500 other awesome places. The next couple days we would get to explore these places more in depth on foot.
Lunch break consisted of us spending 45 minutes trying to find a bathroom. Then we remembered that Nina told us the night before to just use hotel bathrooms. Duh. So we chose the first hotel we saw and went in. You know a hotel is mighty expensive when its staircases are named after classical composers. After we waddled up the Rossini staircase to go to the Leonardo restroom, we found the Puccini toilets and pranced down the Beethoven staircase to exit through the Tchaikovsky doors.
Then we found a Vietnamese Restaurant that was cheap and seemed to fit us a bit better (i.e. no named doors or anything). As we sat and ate, the restaurant started playing Hawaiian music.

Erin: Dudes, why are they playing Hawaiian music?
Me: I don't know, maybe because we're at a Vietnamese restaurant in Berlin.

After that we took a two and a half hour walk through of "Jewish Berlin." We walked down the Spandauer Vorstadt and got to see the famous Hackesche Hoefe. It was incredible to see some of the buildings that were still standing that had bullet holes from WWII covering them. What I thought was quite sad was that outside every Jewish building, the Polizei stood there. Apparently they HAD to because of neo-nazi idiots. There were tons and tons and tons of memorials.
My initial impression of Berlin as a city: it is a city of memorials.
Emily brought up an interesting point that all of these memorials had something to do with absence. And she was right, all of the memorials we ran into had something to do with absence.

Later that night (after a long nap), Erin, Spencer, Niki, Nicole, Katie, and I left to go to an old school Bavarian restaurant. We realized that most of the food we had in Berlin was... Asian. We decided that was blasphemous and searched for German food. Went to a place called Maximillions. Jesus. Christ. The restaurant is set up like a Bavarian Oktoberfest tent with long tables and blue and white decorations littering the entire building, with a live band and all. Turns out they were celebrating the beginning of Oktoberfest. We sat our asses down and ate all the Bratwurst and Sauerkraut that we could. The whole time watching a crowd of people in their 40's and 50's mosh in front of the band. Needless to say, we were the only ones there under the age of 35, but we definitely had a great time. I never thought that when I learned the German song, Ein Prosit, that i'd ever use it. I sang it a good 15 times with the crowd that night. We left that night completely satisfied. I don't know if i've ever felt that kind of satisfaction from an evening before.

Sunday: Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. So. Much. RAIN. We began the day at a soggy Checkpoint Charlie, we then made our way to Brandenburg Gate, Bernauer Strasse, Eastside Gallery, and the Potsdamer Platz. Our awesome tour guide, Wolfgang, lived in East Berlin during the Soviet occupation. He told us a story of when he found out the Berlin wall had been knocked open. That night in November he had a soccer practice and he and his teammates had just finished and got in a car to drive home when the radio turned on and said, "The Wall is open." He said it was nothing but disbelief until they got there. Personally, I can't imagine what kind of emotions would be flooding through a person's body when they see that giant hole in that 155km wall.

At lunchbreak Erin, Spencer, Galen, Nicole, Niki, and I went back to Friedrichstrasse to find Currywurst. It. Is. Amazing. I don't care if it is just meat with curry powder and ketchup. Good LAWDY. After that we headed to the Berlin Hohenschönhausen. It is the site of the main remand prison for people detained by the former East German Ministry of State Security (aka Stasi). It's been a memorial since 1994 and, from 2000 on, has been an independent foundation under public law. Given that it has only been 20 years since this prison was in use, everything is definitely intact. It was almost like it had been (just cleaner). I thought it remarkable that I was standing somewhere that I had read thoroughly about months before. It was surreal to say the least and reminded me a lot of my visit to Dachau.

Later that evening we wanted to go all out seeing as how it was our last night in Berlin. We met up with Nina and took the S-Bahn to Southern Berlin where we went to a cheap Sushi place and then to bar. I had an enormous pina colada that must have been made by the Gods or something. Then we saw this flyer that said we could win a Jack Daniels t-shirt if we drank 2 of these lemonade-type drinks. We had to do it in 30 minutes seeing as how that's when the bar was closing. And we did. Oh... we did.
We hopped back on the S-Bahn and decided to change into our shirts while on the train. That was an experience. Falling over each other and hitting each side of the train and spinning off who knows what way. We got back to the hostel and decided to have a couple more beers. I ended up talking to this guy from France who asked me where in the US I was from and I told him Salt Lake City, Utah. He had a confused look and I told him the 2002 Olympics were there (that usually seems to be the best way for Europeans to know where I'm from). He didn't get it and asked me, "What major city is it near?" Uuuuuh.... I had never been asked that question before. Then I just decided to tell him that it was about 5-7 hours north of Las Vegas. "Ooooh, Vegas! I know, okay this is good!"

Then it was crash time.

Monday: The drive back was full of endless exhaustion. There was absolutely NO way of sleeping on that bus. It just wasn't made for that. So, I reverted back to the landscape. I sat there for hours watching little medieval kingdoms get closer and then pass away. Over and over and over again. Then the trees grew taller and the underbrush became more gnarled and dense: Aaah... we're close to Marburg. In fact we were just 24km's from Marburg at that time. It definitely has a distinct look to it. I found myself elated to be sleeping in my own bed again.

There are so many things from Berlin I wish I could express, but it's really impossible and this was my best shot.

Tschuess from Marburg!

Visa-venture

Today we had classes as usual, but then a group of us had to proceed to the Stadtbüro to finish applying for a Visa. Talk about German dependence on mountains of paperwork...

We are all waiting in a room that seems to be the standard for state buildings (harsh lighting, cheap nasty seats, awkward echos, occasional slamming doors, and stomping of heels). We all sat in chairs facing "The Door." The door that, if opened, you could not see what was behind it until you were in there. We had to go one at a time and as each person came back out they would joke around about being interrogated by a giant squad of Polizei. My turn is up. Deep breaths. Just hold your passport and application. Whoops dropped it. Aight, we cool.

I open The Door and this intimidating looking Frau flags me down to her cubicle. We'll call her Frau Visa for the sake of anonymity. Brown hair, brown eyes, sharp face. Doesn't match her cubicle AT ALL. It's covered in plants. Lots and lots and lots of plants with little stuffed creatures like squirrels and bunnies. I sit down.

"Deutsch oder English?"

I told her it didn't matter.

"Okay, we try English. Pass?"

Hand her my passport. She snatches it and checks that the application fits the passport info.

"Now I collect information."

A few moments of paperwork later...

"Okay, now finger."

Me: Wie bitte?

"Um... how is it called... um... finger... mark?"

Me: Finger print?

"Ja, feengar preent! I am sorry, I use only my school English."

It was at this point I explained to her that she may switch to German because I can understand it just fine. Then her Brumhilda-German side began to melt and all of a sudden she fit her atmosphere. Yes, she became fluffy stuffed squirrels and bunnies.

A few finger prints, a pamphlet all about my elektronische Visa, and a short conversation about German vs. English later... I was out the door and on my way to the next Stadtbüro office where I had to register with the city of Marburg. Lady spoke NO English, which was fine. Lots of "bedeutet's"on my end, but it wasn't too bad at all. The rest of the day was spent doing homework at the Mensa and then going shopping for groceries. Tonight i'm going to get together with some people and watch, "Jesus Camp." Should be a grand old time.

Berlin on Friday!

Tschuess from Marburg!

First Full Week

First full week of being in Marburg is complete!

It went by very very very slowly. In a way, I hope it continues to do so. I find that the city is getting smaller and smaller, but there is still a lot that I have not seen. Classes are pretty fun. There are about 8 of us in the class now, and we've just been covering the basics. Our teacher doesn't seem to speak a lot of English seeing as how she has Google Translator on her laptop and it took Spencer and I forever to try and ask why Germans use sponges instead of erasers to erase words on the chalkboard. We never got an answer. Ah well, one of those mysteries that will perhaps manifest itself in the next year.

It takes going to Germany for me to realize how little German I know, and yet how much I DO know. I'm definitely missing a few key vocabulary words, but those are easily fixed. I can now moderately find my way around town. It's really nice being in Marburg where there are tens of thousands of international students. It's nice because the locals seem to be more patient with my German and they speak slowly enough. It gets frustrating because I can understand about 99.9% of what people are saying, but I am incapable of responding in the way that I would like. I'm sure that will come with time and work as well.

The weekend is definitely welcome. I am excited to sleep in and then be able to walk around the city without having anywhere to be. I'll probably grab my camera and get some shots of places I go a lot for reference (i.e. Mensa, Elizabethskircheschule, Rudolphsplatz). Right now I am at the Mensa so that I can use the internet.

Regarding the internet: Wi Fi does not exist at the Studentendorf. I have to have an Ethernet cable. Finally got a hold of an Internet Tutor, who registered the wrong IP address and then told me that my Ethernet cable is broken. I just bought another one and then hopefully I will have internet in my room. One big problem: only 15 gBytes a month. This means: Hardly any Skype. Facebook chat is a big stretch. This is why Germans are so goddamn smart. They don't spend hours in front of the computer socializing.

Tonight looks like a bunch of us are going out on the town. I'll update if anything worth writing about happens.

Tschuess from Marburg!

Progress

Yesterday (Sunday, 4th) was our first day without having to do anything. It was so nice not having to be in a hurry or waiting around for something/someone. First order of business was to sleep in. Emily and I met up around 13.00 to walk to town. Here is the main thing: nothing is open in Marburg on a Sunday. The only things that were open were a few bars and restaurants, and I really had no problem with that because I only really wanted to just sit and people watch. I did, however, get a little disappointed to find a couple of my newly found favorite bars to be closed. Bad form.
Majority of the day was spent on the Internet trying to figure out how to activate my prepaid cell phone. This is probably the worst process ever. There is no translation for all of the text, it’s all in German and I had no idea what was going on. I know basic account information, but this was going waaay too in depth. It’s a goddamn prepaid phone, you guys. Seriously. So I think I did everything correctly, now I’m just waiting for my phone to activate (which they said could take 24 hours and right now I’m at about 14/24 hours).

After this, Emily and I walked around Universitaet Strasse and found somewhere to go for lunch. Now, Emily and I both were talking to each other about how neither of us have been able to eat an entire meal in Germany yet. Reasons unknown, but we figured it was just nerves. Where we went had the first full meal either of us has eaten so far (and I think you may know where this is going): Doener.
The Doener’s we had were excellent, a little too much cabbage on it though. Other than that, it was absolutely fantastic. There is another burger/doener place called “Mr. King” so tempted to go there just because of the name. I’m doing much better at finding my way around to certain places. It will come with time, I’m sure. It almost seems funny that we could not find our way to the Bahnhof and had to ask those Brazilians. Even though it’s about a day or so later, I know how to find it. Especially after last night’s ventures.

When you want to go to Oberstadt there are two ways in which you can get there: walk up a bunch of hills, or walk for a while and then take a really crowded elevator. Honestly with the amount of walking we’ve been doing, we have been willing to just smoosh ourselves into the elevator with the other Germans and Tourists. What is entertaining about this elevator is how AWKWARD it is. Here you are touching belly button to belly button with the person across from you. You both know that you don’t speak each other’s language very well so you just sit there in silence touching bellybuttons. THEN… there is this voice that comes on the speakers when you reach the top that says, “Oberstadt” in this really high/ stereotypical German voice. It makes us laugh every time. I’ll try to get it on video at some point so that you’ll see what I mean.

On the topic of beer:

On the night of the 3rd a bunch of us (IUSP kids) drank and hung out in Katerina’s dorm balcony. It’s a very pretty location that looks over the city of Marburg (castle and all). By midnight we were all a bit bored and walked to town, beers in hand. Went to a great bar, hung out some more, met a nice girl named Lisa (Lee-zuh), and then went to a 24 hour restaurant where we discussed entropy. Oooof course.

A note on nature: The owls here are absolutely insane. I’m convinced. They sound like wookies and owls who had children that like to dive bomb each other. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen these owls dive bomb each other out of trees. It is funny yet sad, but a little terrifying because the noise they make is so crazy.
The most common bird in Marburg is the Crow. Which makes me really happy considering that Crows are my 2nd favorite kind of bird. They are EVERYWHERE. Pigeon population is minimal (strangely shocking for Europe). One of the guides told me that they have wild hedgehogs and my friend saw one. I NEED ONE RIGHT NOW.

Anyway, not much more to report. Going to sleep for a little bit more because it is 6.45 am and I have to meet a couple people to go down to language classes around 8.00.

Farewell from Marburg!

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!

Greetings from Marburg!

(I know that grammar-savvy people will be reading this, just don't judge me)

There isn't much to say about the flights out to Marburg.
The train ride, however, was really cool. I was incredibly exhausted so I couldn't really keep my eyes open, but I managed to open them at just the right time. It was mostly fields, fields, and more fields. When my head hit the side of the window and I woke up, the train was turning around a corner and at the end of the corner... BAM. Marburg. Some random hill. It honestly looks JUST like the pictures.
First day was awful. Tired. Hungry. Sick. Then later that evening I went bumming around town with some people and felt 100 times better.

Anyway,

I will update more. Right now I am in the computer lab going through an "Internet-tutoren in den Studentenwohnheimen" and then we have to head out for visa application business.