Mit Einem Lachenden und Einem Weinenden Auge

I think the definition of bittersweet should be something like: “the feeling one gets when returning home after studying abroad.” I’ve been kind of an emotional mess these last several days. One minute I’m absolutely dying to go home, and the next I’m wishing there was a way to freeze time. Seriously, I can switch back and forth between the two extremes a couple times a day. Currently, I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m really, really looking forward to going home; but I know I’m going to miss Germany like CRAZY.

Last week I went to Vienna with Mark and TJ for a few days. Vienna (or Wien) is unlike most large tourist cities that I’ve been to in the fact that it doesn’t have a significantly well know building/monument. I realized this on our first evening walking around trying to figure out what to do the next day. It then dawned on me that I know absolutely nothing about Vienna… Kind of embarrassing, actually. I know virtually nothing about one of Europe’s most popular cities. Not only that, a German speaking city! Then it occurred to me that we never really studied anything in German class but GERMANY. I wonder why Austria and Switzerland are “forgotten about” in most German classes… All of this led to a discussion about how ignorant most people are about the world. There are a surprising number of college students in the States who don’t know where Austria is or even recognize the NAME Austria. They assume you mean Australia. Sick. I was also shocked to find out that there were people in my German classes that didn’t know Hitler was from Austria. Or Mozart, Freud, etc. Anyways, Vienna was just as beautiful as I had always heard it would be. I didn’t actually go in many buildings because there was SO much to see. We did a LOT of walking.

After I got back from Vienna, I used a day to start packing and getting things in order to go back to the States. Friday was my last day trip using my Eurorail pass. I chose to go to Aachen, Germany. When Monica found out where I was going, I got the common, “why?? I wouldn’t even know what to do there.” Germans just don’t get it… I want to see a large variety of places across the country. Big citys, small towns, everything! I don’t necessarily DO anything when I go places for a day. I just want to look at the buildings, hear different dialects, and get a glimpse of the cultural differences across Germany. Anyway, from what I saw of Aachen; it was a cute city.

Yesterday was another day devoted to packing and laundry and such. I borrowed a scale from Monica, and it’s a good thing I did. I keep shifting things around in my luggage and getting rid of things to make sure all bags stay under the weight limit. I don’t really know how I accumulated so much in a semester when I was TRYING to be frugal!? Although, to be fair; not everything in my luggage is for me… lol.

It’s hard to believe that tonight will be my last night in Tübingen. I move out tomorrow morning and will go to Frankfurt for the remaining 15ish hours in Germany. I took one last little excursion this morning to Sigmaringen because it was free with my semester ticket and there is a castle there! On the train ride, as I watched the scenery fly by my window, I scolded myself for not making this little excursion earlier so that I would have had time to get off and explore all of the little towns along the way. Ah well, nothing I can do about it now. In my defense, I didn’t know I could go so far on the semester ticket until a couple months ago… Sigmaringen was absolutely marvelous! It is a charming town with a big castle… maybe one of my favorite castles I’ve toured thus far! Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside the castle. One of the things I liked so much about the castle is that it had a very “lived in” feeling to it. (Many castles and palaces are too perfectly restored and kept up to imagine that someone ever lived there) Royalty lived there recently enough that there was actually a bathroom, light bulbs, and a doorbell system installed! At the same time, everything else was old fashioned enough that it felt like you walked straight into the 1700s or so. Two thoughts kept running repeatedly through my head during the castle tour (given in German) 1. Why can’t a take pictures?! And 2. Why can’t I be a princess?!

*Sigh* I guess I should get back to cleaning and such…

Land of the Midnight Sun

I certainly had a nice and relaxing trip to Sweden this week. I visited Sandra, my “host cousin,” for a few days in Stockholm. Although I hadn’t seen Sandra for 10 years, it didn’t take long to feel like I knew her well. And, like 10 years ago, I found myself wanting to adopt her as the older sister I always wanted. She just seems to fit well into the family. Just enough “crazy” to have some Rinkenberger blood! She claims that it is okay to be a bit crazy if you live in Sweden because they only see the sun for a few months of the year. Excuses, excuses! lol. Oh, and we pretty much wear the exact same size in everything! Meaning… double the wardrobe?!? Haha.

Sandra’s has a cute, well-decorated apartment not to far from Stockholm. Apparently, the Swedish are really into home décor; which explains all of the home décor shops I came across. Hmm, I could get used to that. We seemed to stop at most of them, but that was fine by me as I enjoy decorating and shopping.

As my trip wore on, I discovered more and more Swedish words that were similar to German. I kept guessing what things said and freaking Sandra out because I was often correct. After accidentally using an ATM in Swedish, Sandra said, “Whatever. I’m not even impressed anymore. I’m just getting used to you being really intelligent.” I tried to explain that a lot of things were fairly easy to guess because of my knowledge of German. “Yeah, but still.” So, yeah, I enjoyed the language aspect of being in Sweden. It was like a game trying to guess the meaning of various signs.

Another thing that made my stay in Sweden so nice was that it felt a little more like being at home in some ways. Part of this is due to the fact that Sandra sort of feels like family, partly having real home cooked meals, and then just relaxing in the evenings watching movies and TV in ENGLISH again. (The Swedish only have subtitles rather than dubbed television) Sandra was shocked to find out that I had never seen “Walk the Line,” so we watched that one night. During commercial breaks, I would either get more to drink/ snack on or tease Sandra’s cat, Foxy, with the laser. Endless entertainment, eh?

This may come as a shock to some, but I have gotten quite good about trying new foods. I tried some new dishes with Sandra including this stuff called Kroppkaka. It was…interesting. It is a traditional Swedish dish which consists of potato dumplings with a filling of onions, pork or bacon. Common ingredients are potatoes, wheat flour, onion, salt and minced pork. It is served with butter and lingonberry jam. Don’t ask me where the idea for THAT recipe came from. Seems about as random as it gets. And…well, I don’t think I’ll be missing that dish anytime soon. But hey, at least I tried the local cuisine. I also tried Wayne’s Coffee (ok, not quite as adventurous), which is the Swedish version of Starbucks. Would you believe that Sweden does not have a SINGLE Starbucks?!? I didn’t think there were any developed countries left in the World without a single Starbucks! So yeah, Wayne’s Coffee was alright, but I still prefer Starbucks, Panera, Kaldi’s, and other American coffee companies. Of course, I tried the Swedish chocolate without hesitation. No complaints there!

While in Sweden for a few days, I was able to see a nice variety of things at a very relaxing pace. I saw everything from the city of Stockholm itself, castles, and Sigtuna to a little Viking village near Sandra’s town.

I'm Coming Home (Soon) If You're Ready Or Not.

I will be home in just under 20 days! As my departure date approaches, I've been thinking about all of the things I'm looking forward to about being home. It's a list that keeps growing:

• Seeing my parents
• Hanging out with my best friends
• Mom’s wonderful cooking
• Hugs
• FREE water in restaurants and water fountains in public buidings
• FREE bathrooms
• Having my very own scanner and printer again
• Stores are open later and on Sundays
• Scrapbooking
• Skating and coaching. Who doesn’t love the start of the skating season??
• Random retail therapy trips with my mom
• Getting a regular dose of Dad’s lame jokes
• Printing pictures from my trips (It’s going to take FOREVER to choose which ones I want printed…)
• Seeing Jefferson City again
• Coffee experiments with Mom
• REAL American BBQs (The Germans think they have American style BBQs, but they are so wrong)
• Ice cubes
• Seeing the new Harry Potter movie
• A greater selection of coffee and coffee products
• Sleeping in a real bed
• The sounds of a Missouri summer night (who’d of thought??)
• Eating fast food and at restaurants that aren’t available in Europe
• Panera Bread (so amazing it deserves it’s own slot)
• Moving into my new apartment
• Mizzou’s Rec Center
• Volunteering at the Language Pre-school
• Mizzou football season! There’s something about driving along the highway and seeing tiger tails flapping in the wind that can never be replaced.
• Simply walking around Mizzou’s campus
• Watching football games with Dad and annoying him with my questions/ commentary even though I know he secretly enjoys it.
• Missouri Autumn
• Driving my own car
• Occasional mudslides with the fam
• Getting involved with MU’s exchange students and hopefully meeting a few from Germany!
• Talking everyone’s ear off about Germany
• Family dinner
• Being surrounded by MU pride on a daily basis
• Eavesdropping on Mom’s half of her weekly conversations with Grandma R.
• The fact that I will still get a ton of e-mails from Dad every week even though I will only a half hour away. Funny.
• Washers and Dryers that WORK and work well
• Having a dishwasher
• Disposals (AKA: No more Bio Müll!)
• Having an income again
• FREE condiments at restaurants
• Chilling in Memorial Union
• Things will be cheaper and more affordable
• I’ll have a microwave in my kitchen again!
• Catching up on The Office. Hopefully having an Office marathon with Holly…
• Taking classes that serve a purpose and are interesting
• The structure of Mizzou’s courses
• Using the Mizzou library
• Re-reading Harry Potter (if I have time)
• Random drives/ shopping/ Sonic runs with Simpson
• Keeping it classy with Becky Billings. (Which probably entails making laps around Hy-vee for free samples…)
• Having a larger selection of outfits and shoes at my fingertips every morning
• Schutz, Jess-Jess, and Wilson
• Lazy Sunday afternoons
• No deposits on shopping carts or bottled beverages (Germany’s way of getting people to recycle).
• Simply being home. There’s no place like home.
• Did I mention my family? I love my family!!!

“It's Berlin. We go to bed at 4 am.”

My trip to Berlin last week was all kinds of interesting. First of all, I was sightseeing with Mark and TJ. If you knew them, you could imagine how that would make for a unique (and at times extremely frustrating) travel experience. Then there’s the fact that we stayed with one of my Mizzou German Professors. Olaf is probably the craziest professor in the department, as a matter of fact. He still lives the “college lifestyle” which just makes guys like Mark and TJ idolize him even more. Finally, it’s Berlin. Berlin is just interesting by definition.

The trip to Berlin was slightly chaotic before even leaving Tübingen. My internet decided to stop working the day before, so I didn’t have Olaf’s contact information, access to the train schedules, or any clue when Mark was going to get to Berlin. I still had packing to do that morning, had to find a way to get internet access, and I had a couple classes to attend. Monday was my second encounter with Tübingen Universitaet’s library. The more I learn about that library, the more I miss Mizzou’s library. It took me at least an hour to finally get online at the library. I had to go up to various help desks and explain in broken German that I wasn’t able to get online/ I didn’t understand what to do and where to go to fix the problem. TJ suggested we just go to an internet café, but I wasn’t going to pay for something that I knew I could get for free… even if it WAS a major headache.

Once we got on the train in Tübingen, everything went smoothly for several hours. However, when we reached Hannover, things went wrong. We had a couple minutes to transfer trains in Hannover, but the first train arrived a few minutes too late. We sprinted to the platform only to find that the train had left. Then we noticed the sign said that the train we “missed” was running 10 minutes late. Sweet! 10 minutes came and went; still there was no sign of our train. I was getting confused by everything, so I decided to check out the main departure/arrival board. That’s when I realized something was very off. ALL of the trains were running late. ALL of them. In GERMANY. The board was entirely screwed up and most of the trains were running late by an hour or more. An hour or MORE. I was kind of freaking out at that point because we were already supposed to arrive in Berlin after 11:00pm, now I had no idea how late it would be.

TJ and I got some Chinese food while waiting for a train to Berlin. We weren’t the only people confused. It seemed as if everyone in the station was wandering around with the same dumbfounded expressions. After waiting over an hour, we finally found a high speed train to Berlin. We quickly boarded the train only to wait another 20 minutes for the train to actually move. TJ called Olaf to let him know we would be getting in much later than expected. (When he called, Mark and Olaf were on their way to pick us up at the train station, but since we would be late they changed there route to a bar instead.) Luckily a guy sitting nearby overheard our conversation about the trains being late and explained what had happened. Apparently, someone had committed suicide on the tracks and all trains going through Hannover’s main station were suffering long delays. Once the train finally started moving, the staff apologized for the delays and offered free drinks, chocolates, and a voucher for a free train pass.
We got to Berlin around 1:30 Tuesday morning. Olaf and Mark had gone to a bar/ beach dance club right next to the train station. When they picked us up, I apologized again for getting in so late; and Olaf replied, “Oh well. It's Berlin. We go to bed at 4 am.” (I kind of laughed; but by the end of the trip, I realized he hadn’t been joking) To my surprise, we went back to the bar that Mark and Olaf had been at for an hour or so. When Olaf took us back to his apartment, I was more than ready for bed; but then they put a movie in! So much for getting up early the next morning…

Sure enough, we got a late start the next day. I woke up at 9:00 but had to wait around for my lazy friends to get up. I was starving and dying to see Berlin, but noooo. They had to sleep! We didn’t leave the apartment until noon. NOON. Ridiculous.

Luckily everything was within walking distance from Olaf’s apartment. Seriously. The Brandenburger Tor, the Berliner Dom, the Reichstag, parts of the Berlin Wall, everything. The only problem is that there was so much to see that we needed another day or 5. The next day we went to Potsdam (just outside of Berlin). We didn’t get an early start that day either. Slightly earlier… 11:00. I will blame this on Mark. I’ve found that most things can be blamed on Mark in one way or another. That night they insisted we go clubbing because “Courtney, how many times are you going to be in BERLIN?” I finally gave in and accepted that we would be getting to be late yet again.

My last day in Berlin was crammed packed. I still had to get souvenirs and there were a number of things that I still wanted to see. It became apparent that morning that Mark wasn’t going to wake up until noon or so, so TJ and I left early to get souvenirs without him. Around 1:00, we got a call from Olaf asking where we had gone. Apparently we had to get our stuff out of his apartment ASAP because he had a friend coming at 4:00. (Things were obviously not clearly communicated earlier…). I still hadn’t finished my shopping, but we immediately sped walked back to Olaf’s. Olaf then took us to a youth hostel where Mark and TJ booked a room because they planned to stay one more day. While they were checking in, I was getting antsy about getting my souvenirs and getting to the train station. It was a little after 4:00 when we finally got to the Berlin Hbf. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and found the next train headed in the direction of Tübingen. I still didn’t have all of the souvenirs I had planned on getting, but TJ promised to pick them up for me on their way back to the hostel that evening.

The train ride was rather uneventful. I mostly sat there looking through my photos and wishing I hadn’t gotten such a late start home. The schedule put me home around 2:00am. Looking at the ticket, I decided the route seemed strange. Why would I go all the way to Karlsruhe rather than switching trains in Frankfurt? There are constantly trains going from Frankfurt to Stuttgart. That would save me time and get me home earlier than the schedule I had printed off… Hmm. So, like an idiot, I decided to change my route without knowing the train schedules for certain. As soon as I reached Frankfurt, I rushed over to look at the timetable to find the quickest route to Tübingen. The screen showed only one possible route to Tübingen for that evening. Hmm… I would have to go via Karlsruhe…wait…WHAT?? I immediately dashed back to the train I had previously gotten off of just in time to see it pulling away. I just stood there starring for a few minutes before walking over to the Starbucks where I sipped my Mocha tearfully for an hour before the next train to Stuttgart arrived.

As luck would have it, I got to Stuttgart at 00:55. 8 minutes after the departure of the last train to Tübingen… I printed off the schedule for the very first train to Tübingen the next morning (5:15) and searched for a bench to “sleep” on for the night. I found a small waiting room with hard wooden benches that I decided would have to do. Not long after I got settled (or as settled as you can get on a wooden bench), a couple security guys came in to check for tickets. If you don’t have a ticket, you have to leave the train station. There was and old homeless looking lady on the bench next to me that kept arguing with the security men. They told her she couldn’t stay there without a ticket and if she didn’t leave immediately, the police would be called. She finally got up grumbling and pleading saying that she wasn’t foreign. She had lived in Germany for 39 years and they “can’t do this.” It was an interesting scene to watch take place. Although I was dead tired and upset about having to sleep in a train station, I was able to understand everything being said.

It was quiet an experience…I’ve never felt so homeless and alone. I got back to my apartment at 6:30 the next morning, showered, and went straight to bed. I slept until 6:30 pm when I received a call from Alyssa asking if I wanted to go to Zurich the next day. I agreed even though I was completely worn out from Berlin.

Zurich was absolutely beautiful of course, and I got to use up all but 40 cents of my Swiss Francs. Not bad. I finally heard a good deal of Swiss German, and I must say it is the hardest dialect to understand. It sounds pretty awesome, but I don’t know what they are saying 70% of the time… I picked up a free magazine about different parts of Switzerland, and I look forward to my next trip in the incredible Alpen region. It won’t be this semester, unfortunately; but someday. I really do love Switzerland. :)

Dark Blue

Let me just say, first off, grocery stores in Germany are a complete joke. I just got back from a shopping trip were I was able to find only half of the things on my grocery list. HALF! Granted, I was at the Rewe near my WG, which is a pathetic grocery store even by German standards, but still. Among the things I couldn’t find: dried banana chips, raisins, baby carrots, peanut butter, string cheese, and get this: eggs. I kid you not! I couldn’t find EGGS in a grocery store. I guess they were sold out, but tell me, when have you EVER been to a grocery store where they were sold out of EGGS? Ridiculous. Perhaps some of the items can be found, and I just don’t know my way around yet. (I swear the eggs were NOT there though. I looked for at least 15 minutes)

Failed shopping trip after failed shopping trip makes me wonder how long it takes to figure out the German grocery store organization. Although, I have a suspicion that Germans themselves don’t really understand it. I know Markus doesn’t. However, since Markus is a guy and doesn’t cook much; I probably can’t use him as an example, huh? Well anyway, close to 5 months isn’t enough time to figure out a small grocery store that I shop in a couple times a week. This is one of the reasons why I’ve been eating the same things all semester. I have about 3-4 meals that I rotate around. It’s getting old and I’ve been putting on weight, so I decided to spice things up a bit and try different foods. (Yes, Corky Porky is finally living up to her name)

I just realized that I should have chosen to do this adventurous shopping trip on some day other than a Monday. Dumb move on my part; Mondays never go smoothly. I had a Referat (presentation) today that I wasn’t well prepared for and a grammar test that I also wasn’t prepared for. This time I actually have a fairly reasonable excuse…well, maybe. I wasn’t in Tübingen at all last weekend. Friday I went to Neuschwanstein with Monica and a couple others and then to Koln on Saturday and Sunday with my history class.

Even though I had already been to Neuschwanstein, I jumped at the invitation to join Monica and her Canadian friend who was visiting. It was either go to a beautiful fairytale castle, or sit in my room and work or a boring Referat all day. Easy choice. Maybe not the most responsible choice, but who makes responsible and academically correct choices while abroad? Exactly. I enjoyed Neuschwanstein just as much as last time if not more due to my excellent traveling buddies. We (ok, mostly I) enjoyed making fun of Monica the whole time for finding the castles and scenic landscapes of Bavaria to be somewhat “ho-hum”. Honestly, Germans have don’t seem to appreciate how beautiful their country is. I didn’t take a TON of pictures this time around because I already had several of the angles in ’05.

Oh… Köln. Well I made it there, but not without a bit of panicking. The bus was to leave the uni building at 7:30 and I realized at 7:20 that the bus I had planned on taking doesn’t run that early on Saturdays. Luckily for me, I live only a 15-minute-RUN from where the bus would pick us up. 15 minutes running and I had only 10. So, I began to run awkwardly with my luggage across town cursing under my breath. WHY hadn’t I been more careful when I checked the bus schedule? I did NOT pay for a trip that I wouldn’t get to go on! WHY can’t the bus simply pick me up in front of my WG like it does for all of the Fichtenweg people?? Finally I made it to the bus stop 8 minutes after they said they would leave. I sighed with relief and collapsed into the seat behind Chris only about a minute before the bus started up and took off. (No, they weren’t waiting on me; I just lucked out.)

When we arrived in Köln that evening, we unloaded our stuff in our rooms and headed straight to dinner. It was the first time I had eaten in a youth hostel and I guess it wasn’t too bad. After dinner I set out to explore Köln on my own a bit before heading back to my room to work on the stupid Referat. I soon found a Starbucks and bought a tasty, long awaited frappaccino. (some say I have a Starbucks radar) On my way back to the youth hostel, I encountered my class heading into the city with the professor. I asked Chris where they were all going and he said, “Oh, they’re showing us were some of the best bars are.” Figures. On every class excursion I’ve gone on so far, we are provided with information about/ directions to bars. Do they ever direct us to the nearest Starbucks? Oh, no! No wonder I don’t make many friends. Almost everyone else studies abroad to party and get wasted in as many different cities as possible. I think there were a few people on the trip that actually felt sorry for me. One person asked me, “so…do you not have any friends in class?” Only, the way he asked it, it sounded more like he thought I have NO friends. Period. I have friends. Very good friends. Most of them, however, are back home in the States. (I miss you guys!)

This Isn’t Go Fish!

Last weekend I finally went on another trip. I went to Eltze (a small town near Hannover) to visit Mark and his family. It was pretty entertaining and I was a bit surprised by how different things were staying with them vs. Monica’s family. I enjoyed Mark’s cousin Gustav. He’s a cheerful, plump, 72-year-old German. He knows a bit of English, but we mostly communicated auf Deutsch. Gustav has trouble saying “please” and it comes out more like “pleahza.” He also doesn’t seem to know that we don’t have the same word for please and you’re welcome like they do in German. So almost every time I said “danke” he responded with “pleahze.” lol. It was cute. Gustav and his wife, Helga, found it incredibly odd that I didn’t load up my bread with butter. Gustav would notice that I left it off and shake his head and tell me “No, no. Butter! Butter! You need butter!” I also got a kick out of how no matter how much Mark and I would eat, it was never enough. “Eat, Eat! More bread? You must eat! You’re so thin! Maybe you’re afraid you’ll get fat like me? Ok…it doesn’t matter. Vodka??” (This stuff was said in German, of course, but I’m translating for those of you who don’t know German) An example of how much they wanted us to eat: After a few rolls, a bratwurst, and 3 steaks, Mark finally insisted that he simply couldn’t eat any more. Gustav was a little disappointed but was at least happy that Mark still wanted to drink.

Friday and Saturday included day trips to Hamburg and Hannover. The landscape and architecture in this area of Germany is a lot different from what I’m used to seeing in the south. The cities were pretty, but I wish the weather had been a little better. It rained off and on the whole weekend. And, judging from the forecast, it will rain for another week still. It has been ridiculously cold lately when you consider its late June and all. I’ve been wearing fleece jackets everyday and I’m still cold. At least in Tübingen I can eat my meals indoors. For some reason, Gustav and Helga always had lunch and dinner outside. I mean… if you have to wear a jacket and drape a blanket over your lap, isn’t that a sign that it’s too cold to eat outdoors?? Apparently not. Oh, silly Germans. :) It was an enjoyable weekend.

Monday wasn’t the greatest. Mondays are always kind of exhausting for me because I have class for 7 hours straight with only a few little breaks. In the SAME classroom. Bleh. Maybe the reason I can’t motivate myself to work on my literature Referat is due to the fact that I’m still getting over exhaustion from Monday. I love how my brain gets fried the very first day of the week. How convenient!

Markus left a little bit ago. I swear that guy is going to eat me out of house and home! lol. Just kidding. I prefer cooking for more than just myself. After lunch we played Scrabble auf Deutsch for a bit. I figured it would be easier playing with a German because they would be able to open the board up a bit. Well, Markus had never played Scrabble and kept trying to bend the rules. At one point I said, “Man, I could really use an ‘s’.” He then hands me one of his tiles and asked me if I had an “e”. I was just like, “This isn’t Go Fish, Markus!”

Erinner' mich wie wir am kleinen Schlossplatz 'rum gesessen sind

Well, my original plans for the weekend sort of fell through, but that’s okay. It has been nice to rest after a busy week. On Tuesday Markus came over for lunch, and then I went to a movie with Monica later in the evening. We saw Der Womanizer. It wasn’t very good, but it was in German and it was an interesting experience. In Germany you have to buy as specific seat in the theater. So, the closer you sit to the screen, the cheaper your ticket is. I don’t like that because I can’t stand sitting close to the screen…

Alyssa and I decided to take a short day trip to Bad Urach on Wednesday because it is included in our Tübingen semester tickets. Bad Urach is a small town about an hour away by train and is known for its waterfalls. After checking out the town of Bad Urach and grabbing lunch at a bakery, we set off to find the waterfall. As luck would have it, the signs along the trail didn’t provide directions to the waterfall! Instead we came across signs explaining things such as the water cycle. Sweet, we’re lost in the woods, but at least we know that water evaporates and forms clouds! Awesome, just awesome. After about an hour or more of hiking through the woods with out luck, we decided we must be on the WRONG mountain. So… we went back in the direction of town to find a trail on the other mountain. Luckily, we managed to find the correct trail this time. However, the directions posted along the trails were rather confusing. In the end, we found the waterfall. It was a nice and scenic walk, but I think my body would have preferred knowing the shortest route from the get go!

Thursday Alyssa, Stephanie and I hopped on a train to Freiburg. I had been interested in seeing Freiburg since before I got to Germany because I had considered studying there at one time. Freiburg is the “capital” of the Black Forest. We mainly just wondered around and sampled some fantastic black forest cake. It was a beautiful city and it had a couple of Starbucks, but I’m still glad I chose to study in Tübingen!

Friday was also fairly busy for me. I met up with Markus in Stuttgart for the first part of the day and then met up with Alyssa and Stephanie again to go to IKEA. I had been very curious about this massive home décor store for quite awhile. I don’t know if I was simply too tired, or what, but I didn’t find it that exciting. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I would have to ship anything that I bought back to the States and… idk, it just wasn’t worth it. I think I surprised the others because I didn’t buy a single thing at IKEA. It’s pretty unheard of I guess, but I only have 2 months left… I can deal with what I already have.

Beste Zeit deines Lebens

Sorry about May... I kind of just took it easy last month and didn’t have much exciting news/ travel adventures to report. It looks as if my last 2 months (Is that REALLY all I have left???) will be a little more exciting.

Last Friday I hung out with Monica, her boyfriend, and his roommate. We went to the outlet mall in Metzingen for the afternoon. (I’m quite proud to say that I didn’t buy a single thing!) Once we got back to Tübingen, Alex (Monica’s boyfriend) made this really amazing Indian dish for dinner. It was nice to spend time with a group of Germans again, but also very mentally exhausting for me... Especially trying to listen to Daniel because he speaks REALLY fast. Even other Germans think he speaks too fast.

I woke up bright and early Saturday for the day trip to Basel, Switzerland. The exchange student group organized the trip so that it cost only 16 Euro per person! I can’t get over how cheap and quickly you can reach another country. Insane! Since I still have some Swiss-francs left, I decided I need to fit in another trip back to Switzerland before the end of the semester! Dad suggested exchanging it for Euros, but that’s a silly idea. (Sorry, Dad). I guess I will just have to suffer through a trip to Zurich or something in order to spend the rest of my Swiss-francs. ;)

Yesterday I went over to Alyssa’s to make travel plans and then to Stephanie’s for game night. We played Apples to Apples and enjoyed s’mores with a group of 4 Americans and 2 Germans. Making the s’mores turned out to be pretty entertaining. One of the German girl’s marshmallows caught on fire, and she started waving the stick around like crazy sending the flaming marshmallow flying through the air. The whole episode brought up the question: “I wonder if anyone has ever accidentally burned a WG down while trying to make s’mores?” Well, luckily, we didn’t burn anything down, and had an enjoyable evening. The game was in English, so now I’m on the look out for German games such as Äpfel zu Äpfeln and Scrabble auf Deutsch! I think those would make really good souvenirs!

As for my plans this week, thus far I intend to go to Bad Urach, Freiburg, Zurich, and see a German movie in the theater with Monica. Part of me wants to travel like crazy for my last two months abroad; and the other part of me wants to just stick around Tübingen and hang out with Germans, so I can improve my German as much as possible while I still can. I’ve heard that people who study abroad for only one semester start to feel really comfortable speaking German right around the time they have to leave! That’s probably going to happen to me…I need more time!!!

This Is the Easy Life. This Is the Simple Life, Baby.

As much as I will be teased about having a field with grazing cattle as my backyard, I don’t care. I like them! I enjoy sitting by my window sipping coffee in the mornings and just watching them. There’s something very peaceful and calming about it. From my bedroom window I see only grass, trees, flowers, and cows. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Perhaps it is a similar Anblick to that which my German ancestors had so long ago? Oh, happy German cows… :)

There are many things about living in Germany that make me feel like I’ve stepped back through time. Some of these things are very subtle, others not so much. Obviously, the buildings give you that feeling. There’s also the fact that there aren’t many microwaves, garbage disposals are nowhere to be found, and many Germans don’t use things like dryers or dish washing machines. (Yes, I realize hanging my clothes to dry would be easier, more European, and cheaper, but there is nowhere in my room to easily do that.) The streets have farmers markets and bakeries around every corner, and something about German culture and behaviors simply seems old fashioned. I’m not able to pinpoint many of these differences, but they’re there.

This week has gone by very slowly and uneventfully for me. I haven’t met up with any of my German friends all week (schedule conflicts), and my classes have been making me want to rip my hair out. My literature class, for example, consists of an hour and a half of discussing a chapter from a German novel. All that time for ONE chapter. My German vocabulary doesn’t allow me to discuss things for that long without repeating myself over and over. In fact, I don’t think I could do it in English either. It only makes me more frustrated that I can’t hear the professor half the time. She barely speaks above a whisper and has a very weak and unsteady voice. It’s as if she is going to burst into tears at any moment. I don’t know... Then of course there are all the other foreign exchange students. Some of them have very good German vocabularies and grammar, but I can’t understand them because of their accents! I have to try really hard to understand German when it is spoken by anyone other than Germans or other Americans. zB: I get extremely irritated with the girls from Poland and The Czech Republic that speak WAY too softly. If you think I speak softly sometimes, just listen to these girls!

My history class is hard to follow because we have no book or handouts during class. He doesn’t do a Powerpoint either. He just stands up there and guides the class in discussion over…not really sure? It’s impossible for me to follow without anything to look at or read. I’m a visual learner, so this format is difficult for me even if it were taught auf Englisch. It takes every ounce of willpower in me to focus and keep myself from drifting off into my own thoughts, planning where I would like to travel, doodling, etc.

Half of the time I’m intrigued by my speech training course for international students, and the other half of the time I’m almost bored to tears. We spend too much time on warming up our voices and preparing for speech in my opinion. Every class is the EXACT same thing for the first 20 minutes. It is very tempting arrive late just so I don’t have to go through the warm up exercises. The nice part of the class is when I am able to tie the lesson into the things I learned in American Phonetics. I also soak up any speech therapy related terms he throws at us. Many of them are the same/ very similar, but it still makes me happy. I have already discovered several things that I have been mispronouncing in German thanks to that class. I guess all in all, the “speech therapy” class is my favorite despite the fact that he moves too slowly through some of the material.

At least my long week is going to end on a fun note. Tomorrow I’m going to a small town near Kaiserslautern. I was invited to visit Monica’s hometown Saturday-Sunday! This is exciting for me because it will be my first visit to a German home! Her parents don’t speak a word of English, so it will provide me with more German practice. Well, it will actually FORCE me to speak German, but you know. lol. I wish I could hang out and travel with Germans all the time. I enjoy spending time with them far more than spending time with my fellow exchange students...

I Hate These Machines with Every Fiber of My Being

So… I just got back from putting a load of laundry in one of the washing machines downstairs. I absolutely dread doing my laundry here because I get ripped off at least 30% of the time and it takes FOREVER! Really now, what year is this? Shouldn’t dryers be able to do their jobs in less than an hour and a half??? Worse yet is when you wait for the hour and a half only to find your clothes are still extremely damp! (Then you get the joy of paying yet again.) What gives Neuhalde???

Today I may have gotten a little angrier at the machine than necessary, but this is getting ridiculous! I paid the 1.50 Euro for the wash cycle only to have the machine refuse to start! That pretty much sent me flying of the handle. I yelled a few nasty words at it and proceeded to kick the machine repeatedly as hard as I could. I know that never actually helps, but it was as close as I could get to destroying the machine Office Space style…

Now, the logical thing to do would be to complain to Neuhalde’s Hausmeister, but A.)He scares me. B.)I don’t actually know if he has any control over such matters. C.)My German skills are not good enough to file a complaint. Grrr! So yeah, if I were keeping track of the amount I’ve spent on laundry in Neuhalde with NO results it would be 7.50 Euro. If I were keeping track.

Somewhere Along the Line, I Developed a Liking for Brezeln

Guess what. I have been in Tübingen about two months now! That means I am a third of the way through my semester abroad. CRAZY! I now have 15 stars on my Germany map marking the places I’ve visited. (I will get to add more this weekend when I go to Kassel and ??mystery??) I suppose it’s time for the good ol’ “what do I like better about Germany VS what do I miss” blog.

The most obvious one to start out with would be the food -Oops! I mean family and friends! ;) But honestly you guys, that’s a given! Anyway, I desperately miss full home cooked meals. Yes, I have a kitchen here, but very limited kitchen supplies. Not to mention the fact that when cooking for one, you end up wasting a LOT of food. Seeing as how everything is so expensive here, I can’t afford to waste food. My typical diet consists of mini pizzas, fruit, and deli sandwiches. I don’t get even close to the right amount of meat and vegetables that I should be eating… The only “real” meat I ever get is by eating out. (and of course that is rare because of the cost)

A little known fact about Germans is that they actually drink more coffee than beer! You would think that would translate to having a HUGE selection of coffee and coffee products- WRONG. Germans typically drink their coffee black and with no added flavor or sugars! Basically, the only place you find the kind of coffee I like Starbucks! I do love Starbucks, but Tübingen doesn’t have one and people should be able to make „fun“ coffee in their own homes!

Water… omg. It should NOT be this difficult to get good natural water! The water in Germany’s restaurants typically isn’t free and it costs a lot. I hate ordering water only to be given the WRONG kind of water! I do NOT want any carbonation or sulfur taste to my water; why is that so hard to understand?? Also, there are no water fountains to be found… I could rant about water for an entire blog, but nobody needs or wants that. Let’s just say I almost always have a water bottle with me everywhere I go. If I forget my water, I get pretty ticked.

Hmm… now that I just whined about the food/drink for three paragraphs, I should point out that there are German foods and such that I will REALLY miss when I am back in the States. 1.) Döner!!! 2.) Schoko-croissants (3. German Brezeln with Apfel Schorle (Brezeln weren’t that high on my list until just recently. I just realized today that I have purchased 5 in the last three days! Don’t worry; I haven’t gotten to the point where I want them for breakfast. That’ a common German thing, but so is Nutella for breakfast. That is much more me. lol) 4.) the Eis. Particularly, Nutella Eis. (ice cream) 5.) the Bakeries on EVERY corner.

Transportation. I love how the train system in Germany is incredibly efficient and can take you virtually anywhere. In the states on the other hand, I wouldn’t dream of traveling all over by train. Amtrak is so SO inferior that it doesn’t seem like it should be considered the same mode of transportation. The trains and busses here are almost always exactly on time. When they aren’t, I’m tempted to take a picture of the sign saying the train is running late. But hey, at least you are informed that the train will be late and by how much. Psh, Amtrak fails again! I wouldn’t go so far as to say I prefer everything about transportation in Germany. Public transportation, yes; but I miss having my own car to drive sometimes. It is a pain to have to switch bus lines multiple times just to go visit friends living on the other side of town.

Germany is far more environmentally friendly than the U.S. There are recycling bins EVERYWHERE! In Germany I don’t have to deal with digging through the trash after my roommates to recycle their water bottles and such. The German recycling system just suits me. Also, the Germans really love their flowers, gardens, and parks. They also spend quality time relaxing in those beautiful parks. I will definitely miss that when I’m in the states. I’m getting really spoiled by the fact that everything is so beautiful and CLEAN in Germany!

Shopping is entirely different in Germany. You bag your own groceries, rent shopping carts, and there is a noticeable lack of customer service here. (That is especially true in restaurants.) I wish the stores would stay open later than they do. I still haven’t quite gotten used to everything closing around 7:00pm. And of course nothing is really open on Sundays. Aside from the crappy hours and lack of customer service, I prefer clothes shopping in Europe. I really like the European style of dress, and there seems to be more to choose from here. Before I go on, I need to clarify that I like the European styles for females. The males over here dress so… metro? I will never be a fan of the Man-pris or Euro mullets! Eww! Ew, ew, ew, EW! Those fashions should have died long ago! Scratch that- they never should have existed in the first place!

Now for a few more random things I miss about home: Skating. Full showers where you don’t have a curtain constantly blowing in on you! The ease of doing laundry… here it is SUCH a pain and (here’s a shocker:) expensive! The availability of affordable things and places like Target. The ease of signing up for classes at MU. The fact that MU provides you with easy access to computers and other technology that is included in your tuition. Being able to PRINT things!

Of course, let’s not forget one of the top reasons that Germany is AMAZING: The language! I love the German language and the fact that I am constantly surrounded by it. That doesn’t mean, however, that I always know what is going on. It’s just fun! Even though I’m in Germany; English books, music, and movies are readily available. If only the United States would have decent access to things in foreign languages… America’s low level of interest and attention to foreign language is a HUGE pet peeve of mine! I hate telling people that I only speak one language. Monolingualism is overly common for Americans, and I think our country should be ashamed of that!

Some Rules Are Made to be Broken

I had a great time visiting Holly in London. I saw all the main tourist attractions and more. There was never a dull moment and there was always plenty to do. I spent quite a bit of money but… well… when in London?? Haha.

Holly didn’t have class on Wednesday, so that was by far our busiest day. We woke up fairly early to go buy tickets to the musical Wicked and for the London Bus Tour. Our tickets to Wicked were only around 30 pounds. (Keep in mind this is a professional musical. Broadway quality!) The bus tour took us around London and stopped here and there so people could get off and take pictures or do whatever. We stopped at Buckingham Palace, Westminster and Big Ben. We then had lunch and made our way to the Freud Museum!! Sadly, pictures aren’t allowed in the museum. It was neat to look around Freud’s old London home and the greatest gift shop of all time but… something was just missing. My only regret about my entire London trip was that I didn’t jump the rope and lie on Freud’s couch. Of course, if I were to break that rule, breaking the photography rule would be a given! Honestly, wouldn’t it be worth the being kicked out and paying a fine to lie on FREUD’S COUCH??? I certainly think so! lol. I should have done it… It would have made a great story for the grandkids someday! For real, of all the museums to get kicked out of and for all the reasons to get kicked out, that would have been the best, hands down!! Then it was back to Primark to do a bit more shopping... (I told myself I wouldn’t buy many clothes in Europe… oops). After a quick dinner, we rushed over to the theater to see Wicked. Neither Holly nor I had ever seen it. It was a great show! I may have taken a couple of “illegal” photos of the set… Somehow, we still had a bit of energy after the show and decided to go check out the London Bridge at night. It’s sooo pretty!

Thursday was my last full day of London. We went to the Tower of London (pictures weren’t allowed, but I snuck a few anyway) after lunch for a few hours and then made a quick trip to Hyde Park. After Holly got out of class I decided we should go back to The Rocket for dinner. We went via double decker bus this time around. It was great. :) We clocked in fairly early since I had to wake up at 4:00am to go back to Germany the next morning. Like I said, great trip, but I should have jumped over the rope and lied on Freud’s couch…

I Have Found That Ducks Opinions of Me Very Much Depends On Whether or Not I Have Bread...

I’m currently sitting in a dorm in London that overlooks Regent’s Park. Holly has several classes today, so that gives me time for a long overdue blog entry!

Last Wednesday I went on a solo adventure with my Eurorail Pass! I hopped on a train to Nürnberg and then to Würzburg. I had no set train times or even specific places to visit in the two cities. I basically wandered around for a few hours in each place. I didn’t have a map, but I didn’t get lost once! (Dad says that means I didn’t have a true adventure. psh, What does he know!? haha) It was a very long day, but I got to add two new stars to the places-I’ve-visited map!

Friday morning was also a fairly early morning. I had to go to Stuttgart to pick Holly up from the airport! I was a bit nervous about getting there and finding Holly ok, but everything went smoothly! The bus ride to the airport was quite scenic and everything went well on Holly’s end as well.

First, Holly and I headed to the center of Stuttgart for lunch and Starbucks in the main square. We decided to grab lunch at a Doner stand because Holly needed to try one and most places were closed for Good Friday. (The Germans make a bigger deal out of Easter than most Americans.) Lunch was great, and we even sat next to an American couple living in Germany for the wife’s job… speech pathology!! What are the ODDS?

After lunch we headed to Starbucks for “dessert” coffee. They were out of toffee nut syrup for our mocha frappuccinos so we tried almond syrup. It was just as phenomenal as the toffee nut! We then went to the main square with all the flowers and fountains to enjoy our tasty purchases. The weather was absolutely PERFEKT, so we played in the fountain with some little kids and a couple ducks! (By play in the fountain I mean put our feet in… not sure you are allowed to run through the fountains… lol)

Holly choose to go to the Stuttgart zoo/ botanical garden from the choices I provided. I had never been to Wilhelma Zoo, but we found it without any problems. It was by far the coolest zoo I’ve ever been to. Okay, to be fair, I think I’ve only been to one other zoo… but it WAS cool. It was beautiful, entertaining, and just pure awesomeness. (As most places are when visited with Holly I’ve come to find).

The next day we made our way to Hohenzollern (a castle about a half an hour south of Tübingen. As with many castles, it was perched high up on a Mountain. It slightly resembled Hogwarts. The hike up to the castle from the shuttle stop was a lot of work, so we rewarded ourselves with the picnic lunch I had prepared. As always, the view from the castle was fantastic, and I got lots of pictures of everything. There were a couple of moats and draw bridges around the castle, and Holly and I concluded that they should have water and plastic inflated alligators in them! (You KNOW that would be fun) We also decided on the way down to shuttle stop that the castle should have a giant slide down the mountain. But no, just long scenic walk down a mountain in perfect weather. When we got to the shuttle stop, I tried to figure out when the next shuttle would come to take us back to town. As it turned out, we had over 2 hours to wait! Neither Holly nor I are patient enough for something like that, so we bought some ice cream and proceeded to hike down the mountain. By the time we made it back to the Hechingen train station, we had walked down a mountain, across a field, over the autobahn, and through town. Needless to say we were tired and hungry. We grabbed a snack at the little train station cafe before the train back to Tübingen. I tried Currywurst for the first time and I don’t feel the need to ever order it again. It wasn’t horrible; it just wasn’t anything special.

Upon arrival in Tübingen we ate at the Neckarmuller and stopped at the grocery store so Holly could buy German chocolate. We ended up with handfuls of various chocolate bars and a carton of black forest cake flavored ice cream. Of course we dumped our purchases on the kitchen table as soon as we got back to my apartment and proceeded to dish up the ice cream. To make room in the freezer, I had to take out an old ice cream carton that was nearly empty. I poured water in the carton to let it soak while we enjoyed our easter/German candy. As luck would have it, my roommate, Martin walked into the kitchen during our chocolate sampling. He looked over and said hi as usual and it dawned on me how bad it looked that we were sitting at the table with ice cream and a mountain of chocolate. I looked down at the table and then at Holly. Mistake. She did the exact same thing and we exchanged a look and started cracking up without a word. I think this confused Martin a bit. “Is everything alright?…” The giggle fits continued for at least a half an hour. Fun times… lol.

We got up fairly early on Easter morning so we could go to an Easter service and see more of Tübingen. Since Holly doesn’t know German and we had a lot to do, we only stayed for about a half hour. I was excited because I was able to understand a good portion of the sermon!

The trip to London on Sunday included a train, bus and plane. Things didn’t go 100% according to plan, but everything worked out well in the end. The high speed train to Frankfurt had individual compartments like in Harry Potter. We were surprised that we were allowed to sit in them. Although…it was probably better that way for the other passengers because Holly and I were having a good time and were a bit noisier than the other passengers. So yeah, having our own compartment was awesome.

Holly and I arrived in London at approx. 11:30pm Sunday and it took quite a while to find transportation from Stansted Airport to her dorm in Regents Park. Then the bus to her dorm took about an hour. So… it was super late when we finally got to her room and went to sleep. We decided to push the London bus tour back to Wednesday so we could sleep in a bit Monday morning.

Yesterday (Monday) was my first full day in London! We started out with a full English breakfast and then shopped a bit. Holly took me to a clothing store called Primark. I WISH we had Primark in the States. Everything is REALLY inexpensive. Zum Beispiel, I got a nice pair of jeans for only 6 pounds!! INSANE! After that, we went to Starbucks and headed back to Holly’s dorm. Along the way we bought a loaf of bread to feed the ducks in Regents Park. It was great! Feeding ducks is so therapeutic… Later we went to a pub for dinner (where holly made fun of me for not ordering any alcohol… “It’s a PUB, Courtney” True… but my water is kostenlos) After dinner we ventured over to Kings Cross. One guess as to why this was on our itinerary... Yep, platform 9 ¾. The old Harry Potter obsession never completely dies. And hey, we saw several other groups and people doing the same thing that looked around our age… so yeah. Before heading back to Holly’s place, we stopped at Big Ben to see it all lit up at night. It was a great day…pictures won’t be posted for a while though. I didn’t bring my laptop to London with me, and I may be pretty busy when I get back to Tübingen.

Sunny With A High Of 75

Stuttgart is amazing! I really enjoyed the trip with Deutsch Kompakt on Friday. I even liked the Mercedes Benz Museum despite the fact that cars are not really my thing. Everything in the Museum was just so clean, crisp, and shiny. I was not as fascinated with the cars as most people though. I was the first one to finish walking through the museum; and, unlike Chris, I came nowhere close to missing the bus.



The ballet was also nice. We saw The Taming of the Shrew. (Thankfully we didn’t see Romeo and Juliet. I fully despise that story!) Half of the time I was comparing the formations and steps to skating and thinking up choreography for synchro. Some things never change. lol. The opera house that we saw the ballet in was really nice, but I wish the refreshments hadn’t been so pricy.

Now for the REAL excitement! Yesterday Monica, Chris, Sarah and I went to Stuttgart for the last skating session of the season! I was SO excited when we got close enough to see the arena. I straight up squealed… The other people in the group seemed amused by how excited I was. I guess you have to be a skater to appreciate exactly how exciting it is to skate in Europe. When we finally got on the ice, the rink guard saw me take a picture and came over to tell me I couldn’t have a camera on the ice. LAME! *Honestly, I’m skating in GERMANY; I’m GOING to take pictures! It was no biggy… I just had to be a little more stealth about my picture taking.



After skating, we decided to go up in the Stuttgart Fernsehturm for a good view of the city. The weather was nice, but a bit cloudier than I would have liked. The booklet about Stuttgart from Deutsch Kompakt said that Stuttgart’s Fernsehturm was the first in the world! Before heading home, we stopped at a Starbucks and took a leisurely walk back to the train station.

Oh hey, es ist Frühling!

I’m done with my Deutsch Kompakt course! (well, technically) We had our Abschlusstest on Wednesday and the classes are over. However, they are taking us on one last excursion today. We are going to Stuttgart to see the Mercedes Benz museum and a ballet. I’m looking forward to it because the weather has been beautiful lately! It’s exciting that everything is finally starting to turn green and flowers are popping up all over! Yesterday the weather was so nice that I had to go out and walk around town a bit. I bought Eis (ice cream), took a few more pictures, and discovered places in Tübingen that I hadn’t seen before! Wunderschön!

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Also this week, I met up with several Germans that want to practice their English and help me with German. All of them are incredibly nice and very interesting. One of the girls, Monica, lives across the hall from me and invited me to watch German television in her Zimmer last night! So cool! That’s not all; Monica and I are going skating in Stuttgart TOMORROW!!! Skating has been on my mind quite a bit lately and I was getting a little homesick because of it. Speaking of skating, it’s ice show weekend back home! I won’t get to see the show until I get home in August, but you can bet I’m looking forward to watching the tape! This is the first ice show that I have not been in or watched in 12 years!!! For any skaters reading this: Have a FANTASTISCH show, SK8 GR8, und VIEL GLÜCK!!!

Take A Second, Take A Second To Make This Last

Wow, apparently I am the worst of all of my friends at updating regularly. But, to be fair, I take far more pictures than anyone (with the exception of The Little One of course). There is a link to my new flickr page on the right side of the screen. I load all of my pictures on there, so they aren’t really edited. Also, it’s impossible to do everything. You have to decide if it is more important to do your homework and study (supposedly this is expected when you study abroad???), do laundry, go grocery shopping (takes an hour +), fixing meals, cleaning so my new roommate doesn’t freak out, or update my blog. Sorry to say that smelling good and not starving to death takes precedence over updating… Haha. However, if you don’t have your fill of “what’s going on in Courtney’s life” you can always read the blogs of other people in Deutsch Kompakt. They do a very nice job. :)

Ages ago (a week… wait, that’s it??), Deutsch Kompakt took us to Blaubeuren for a week. We were provided with 3 fabulous meals a day and spoiled with having class in the same building that we lived in. In other words, you didn’t need to bundle up or leave really early for class! Also, there were TVs in all of the rooms! YES!!! While other people went out drinking, I would spend the evenings watching German television. I was really excited to find my favorite shows like Monk, House, and Private practice auf Deutsch! Even more exciting, I could actually follow what was going on! Success!
All in all, Blaubeuren was great, but it’s nice to be back in Tuebingen!

This week we had a couple days of regular class and exams; then we had a day long excursion to Ludwigsburg and Esslingen. The bus left at 8:30am and we didn’t get back until 10:30pm. The bus ride was nice. I wish all of my travel in Europe could be by tour busses. They are nice. Also, the tutors came around offering everyone drinks and Bretzeln (soft pretzels). It was a nice surprise. I find that Deutsch Kompakt does that fairly often. We get a LOT for money. I would say the course, although initially pretty expensive, is more than worth it. In fact, now I’m surprised that it didn’t cost a lot more!

We saw the Ludwigsburg Schloss, went on a tour of the Ludwigsburg Film Academy, and then went to Esslingen for the rest of the afternoon and had dinner with wine tasting. My favorite part of the day was definitely the castle tour. Basically, I love castles and it appears that I may have an obsession with chandeliers. Perhaps these obsessions arise from the child that is still in me? Playing princesses was pretty much a daily thing for my friends and me when we were kids. We had some good times, but nobody ever wanted to be the evil witch. I mean, there HAD to be an evil witch! All princesses that rode flying unicorns had an evil witch that lived nearby, right? lol.

Yesterday my class went to the computer lab to look up classes that we want to take this semester. The computers were amusing to some of us. They looked like they were computers from the 80s. Forgive me; I’m used to Mizzou’s state of the art technology in every building. So finding classes at a German university is no easy task. Most of the classes had no credits listed and no way to sign up for them. You just show up on the first day for most lectures. I have no idea if I’m planning to take enough courses this semester. MU says I need 30 ECTS credits… but what happens if I end up with only 28 or something? The classes I’m planning to take are as follows: Intensive Deutsch, 60 Jahre Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Junge Literatur (kiddy lit.), Middle English (the only English class I will be taking) and Aussprachetraning fur International Studierende (a class to help foreigners with German pronunciation).

Finally, after class, I met up with my tandem partner (conversation partner), Markus. Luckily, he recognized me from my Studi picture, because I didn’t recognize him. I think he may have had an older picture up and he was much taller than I had expected. (We’re talking somewhere over 6 feet tall). Markus requested to be my tandem partner because he wanted to improve/practice his English and help me with German. Well, his English is really good. No surprise there! After talking with him for an hour and a half or so, I only used one word that he didn’t know: obesity. Of course Germans wouldn’t need that word. lol. It was entertaining, and we plan to meet again next week. Hopefully I will be able to speak a little more German next time. My brain was kaputt yesterday!

Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann

It may be impossible to update more than once a week or so... There is more homework and such required of me in my emersion course than I had expected. It seems odd that I am almost halfway through Deutsch Kompakt already! I still don’t know enough German to feel totally comfortable. I wouldn’t object to Deutsch Kompakt being twice as long, even if it is completely exhausting.

I’ve gotten to the point where my brain doesn’t seem to function fully in either German OR English. There is this bizarre mixture of the languages that I think in and probably dream in as well. It’s pretty cool… but a little disconcerting when I can’t think of English words! The other day in class, we were learning vocabulary to discuss our living arrangements. Since there is absolutely no English allowed in class, they describe all vocabulary auf deutsch. Well, I about went crazy trying to come up with the English word for “Hausmeister.” I knew exactly what a Hausmeister was, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what I call them back home! Landlord! Thank you for reminding me, Dad!

Another interesting portion of Deutsch Kompakt was the day we spent on pronunciation. The instructor would have us take turns trying to make individual phonemes correctly. She would largely exaggerate the sounds that we had trouble with. It was funny for me. Here I am making random isolated sounds in classroom and noticing that everyone around me seems to feel a little awkward about the whole thing. We even received handouts showing the positions our tongues should be in to make each sound! Hmm… when have experienced something similar to this? Oh right, last year in American Phonetics! lol. I am mostly likely the only one that gets such a thrill out of the “German speech therapy sessions.”

I am posting more photo links for your viewing pleasure. The albums are of my first week in Tübingen and of a hike we went on to a restaurant/ brewery 30-45 minutes outside of Tübingen. The hike was absolutely beautiful. I’ve never considered myself to be very outdoorsy, but I really loved that little outing! It also gave me the chance to get to know some of my fellow exchange students a little better.

Tomorrow, Deutsch Kompakt leaves for Blaubeuren. We will be in this tiny German town for 5 days. From what I have heard, there will be no internet access in Blaubeuren. We will stay in a giant house owned by the Uni. Also, we supposedly are provided with real German meals! Yay! I was asked why we are going to Blaubeuren, specifically, as opposed to a bigger German city. I decided that they choose this remote little German town to force us into speaking more German. Because Tübingen is a university town, most people can speak English really well. That may not be the case in Blaubeuren. Also, I’m thinking there is a good possibility that they will bug our rooms and make sure we are speaking German at all times. lol. Just kidding… but, well… it’s possible? Haha. Anyhow, I better go pack for Blaubeuren!

Tschüss!

Oh, one more thing! I would like to thank all of my family and friends for their prayers, support, and encouragement. You are all so wonderful and I really appreciate it. I feel so loved! :) Of course, it goes without saying that I will miss you all VERY much! I will try to keep this blog as much as possible.

From the Land of Fairytales

I’m not entirely sure how to go about writing this because it has been so long since my last post… Well, I guess, technically, it hasn’t been that long. So much has happened since my first day in Europe that if feels like I have been in Tübingen for at least a month! My first few days in Tübingen were quite stressful and anxiety provoking, but now that I have been here a week I absolutely LOVE it!! I’m already dreading leaving in August! lol. (Not that I won’t be excited to see everyone, it’s just that Tübingen is THAT awesome.)

I had a wonderful time in Lyon. I’m glad I chose to visit Uncle Kevin and Aunt Therese before heading to Germany. I got to get over my jetlag in a very comfortable environment. Also, it was nice getting to spend time with the other Graggs because I hadn’t seen any of them in several years. I hadn’t seen Eamon since he was in 2^nd grade as a matter of fact! Besides, getting teased by Uncle Kevin kind of made me feel at home because my dad is constantly teasing. (Uncle Kevin is my dad’s brother). While I was in Lyon I tried lamb for the first time, kept forgetting to say “pardon” when I bumped into people, drank a couple gallons of peach tea, got accused of knocking a car’s side mirror off with my giant camera bag (the mirror was ALREADY broken, I swear!), ate lots of banquettes, helped pick on Eamon, and seriously considered dog-napping Freckles, and took 232 pictures! You can find the link to my Lyon photos to the side of my blog under “lovely links.”

I left for Tübingen on Saturday the 28th at 7:10 in the morning. That means I had to get up at 5:00 am! It made for quite a long and tiring day of travel. I took the train from Lyon to Strasbourg- to Stuttgart- to Tübingen. The train ride to Strasbourg seamed to take forever, and the man that came around to check tickets had an entire conversation about me to the people sitting nearby. He asked if I could speak any French and I just shrugged and shook my head, so he took that as the go-ahead to laugh at me with some of the passengers. Um, hellooo, I know enough to pick up that you are talking about me and the fact that I speak English and no French. After 10 minutes of chatting, he turned back to me and asked where I was headed. When he realized I was going to Germany he asked if I spoke any German. “Ja, ein bisschen.” He then immediately turns to the woman behind him and says, “ Ohhh, she knows German” or something like that. I caught a few words. I swear some of those French people have sticks up their butts. I wonder if THEY ever go on vacation to a country where THEY don’t speak the language. Whatever. I tend to offend French people unintentionally. It’s one of those facts of life that I’ve come to accept.

I arrived in Tübingen around 4:00pm and was so wiped. I was tired, hungry, and couldn’t find the WC (bathroom). Since I was so exhausted from a day full of traveling, I wasn’t able to muster up the brain power to speak any German. Unfortunately, I had no understanding of Tübingen’s bus system. So what do I do? Lug my bags halfway across town to the youth hostel. I won’t lie, it sucked. I had a crappy map that didn’t seem to match-up with the street names at all and basically went with instinct based on the Google Earth maps I had studied. It’s not a pleasant walk when you are pulling your weight in luggage! Luckily, as soon as I had checked in at the youth hostel; a guy approached me asking if I need help with my bags. Thank God! There was no way I could get the bags up to the room by myself. No elevators. I soon found out that this helpful guy, Madison, was also in Deutsch Kompakt. After crashing for a while in my room, I ran into Madison again and we went off in search of dinner.

Sunday was not the greatest either. I woke up too late for breakfast and hadn’t had a good night’s sleep to begin with. I decided to search for a convenience store of some sort because the youth hostel didn’t have hand soap. Odd… Also, I needed to find an internet café to email mom and dad and let them know that I made it ok. Oh, and of course I was in search of food too. It must have slipped my mind that European stores and business are NOT open on Sundays. Even a lot of restaurants were closed! Needless to say, I was a bit crabby when I found an internet café and emailed my parents. Finally, around 2:00, I found a Döner stand. I had heard many good things about these sandwich-like things and decided I needed a picture of my very first Döner. Well, it’s quite a messy ordeal trying to eat a Döner; and as I reached in my purse for the camera I spilled half of it on the cobblestone. Hmmm… lucky day for the pigeons I suppose.

Later that night I met up with a bunch of people in Deutsch Kompakt at the Neckarmüller (a beer hall). Calley was there and had managed to get into her apartment early. Lucky! I felt much better about the week ahead once now that I knew some of the other exchange students. We set a time to leave the youth hostel the next morning to go sign our apartment contracts, so I was relieved to know that I would be going with a group.

Ugg, Monday! We had to check-out of the youth hostel by 9:30 that morning. Yet again, I had not had a restful sleep. So 9:00 on the dot, Madison, Jacob, Jeppe (he’s from Denmark) and I set off with our luggage to the bus stop way down the road. As luck would have it, it was drizzly. Eww. The guys helped me with my luggage and we made it to the Studentenwerk office to sign papers and pay deposits. Everything was fine until I finished signing the last of my paperwork and discovered everyone else had already left! There was absolutely no way I could find Neuhalde (my apartment) and carry my luggage without help! That was when I had a mini meltdown. I cried for about 15 minutes until I was able to pull myself together and remember that I know how to ask for a cab in German. Thankfully, the lady at the desk made the call for me. The cab driver was nice and helped me carry my bags to the apartment building. It actually wasn’t as expensive as I had expected. Only 10 Euros.

It felt SO good to finally be in my own room. I could finally unpack and begin settling in. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of my room. Also, the building is newer than I had imagined. My apartment suite even has a nice smell to it. Yay! There are 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and kitchen. I have my own room and it has a sink in it. Next, my top priority was getting internet in my room! Before I could do much unpacking, I had to go check-in for Deutsch Kompakt. Basically, it was a day of countless errands and running around. I also met my roommate. He knew I was American as soon as I told him my name. He’s really nice and helpful and speaks English perfectly. The other roommate is not in Tübingen right now because the normal semester doesn’t start until the end of April.

Tuesday was the placement exam (written and oral) and walking tour of Tübingen. I was more nervous than necessary about the exam. I was afraid my German wouldn’t be good enough to be in the program. (Someone had told me the day before they would send you to a different school in Tübingen if your German wasn’t good enough). Turns out, the people who where turned away hadn’t actually taken German before. All that worry for nothing!

Wednesday was the first day of actual classes. My class is the smallest of the 3 Deutsch Kompakt classes. We only have 9 students, and all of us except one are Americans. We did a list of words that described us that started with each letter of our name. Then we presented them. Kindergarten work is so awesome! lol. Something that excited me is when the instructor would catch people pronouncing words wrong. She would then launch into this mini speech therapy session with our class! SWEET! (ok, I’m a nerd. I realize this.) After class, I spent the entire afternoon walking around town with Anna (from Russia). She was very interesting and we tried to speak in German as much as possible. That evening we had a free dinner for Deutsch Kompakt. It was nice, but I have no idea what the food was. Lol. At the dinner, I actually met someone else who doesn’t really drink! He was one of the only other people drinking apple juice, so the topic came up. He said he, strangely enough, is here for the language rather than the parties! Yay! Lol

On Thursday I successfully opened a German bank account! Speaking only German! Yay, Courtney! Lol. Other than that, the day was just filled with more shopping, exploring, etc. Oh, and I figured out how to do laundry (with the help of a few friendly Germans)! It’s funny how simple everyday chores become a kind of puzzle in foreign countries.

Finally, Friday! I didn’t go out with the rest of the exchange students that went drinking and dancing. I wanted to finally have some time to relax in my room and chat with people back home on Skype. (My roommate, Matei, didn’t seem to understand why I was staying home on a Friday night.) Besides, the weather was doing this nasty wanna-be-snow-but-it’s-actually-misty-rain crap. Apparently that is common in Germany during the winter. Brrr!

Yesterday was spectacular! The weather was much nicer than predicted. After breakfast I found Kaufland! The bus that stops at the bottom of my hill goes straight to Kaufland (German superstore). I was so over stimulated by a being in a giant German superstore that I felt a bit light headed. I can’t explain in. I just get so ridiculously excited when I’m surrounded by German products, labels, signs, and language! I could have spent the whole day in Kaufland, but I needed lunch. So I managed to find the ingredients to make little pizzas like I used to make all the time back home. It took awhile to find everything, of course. When I went to get on the bus (line 7) that had brought me to Kaufland, I found that it switches to line 4! Huh? I thought the busses go in circles? Nooo! But, alas, I made it home. (It took nearly an hour to get back to my apartment). I was quite proud of my pizza that I made. (First meal I made in Germany!) After dinner I went out for coffee, shopping, and picture taking. I had a fabulous day, and think I may need to move here someday! LOVES IT!

PS: Sorry this is so long. If it helps, I DID leave out a lot! lol.

A Peach Ice Tea Reunion!

As most of you already know, I am staying at my Uncle Kevin's house until Saturday. I arrived in Lyon late last night (after a killer long layover in Heathrow) and was picked up by Uncle Kevin. His house is absolutely adorable! And I have already fallen in love with their dog, Freckles. Don't tell Schutz, Rachel! I hope to get pictures of everything up here soon... I'm such a sucker for European homes.

After a brief house tour, I took a quick (much needed shower. 36 hours without one... eww. lol) Then it was a quick phone call home , downing a liter + of peach tea, and lights out. It was tough deciding which I wanted more, to sleep or drink peach tea... lol. (FYI the peach tea in the U.S. is good, but it's nothing compared to the French peach tea!

So far today I have gone to lunch at Eamon's school (my 13-year-old cousin), shopped at the grocery store( I needed more peach tea!), and struggled to connect to Uncle Kevin's wireless internet with my own laptop. I'm on his laptop now because we ran out of ideas of things to try. I best be off to take pictures!

This is The Countdown

One month until I cross the pond for almost 6 months! It's exciting and terrifying at the same time. Lately, the more I try to plan everything, the more I realize that I have NO idea what I'm doing! I don't know what to pack, how to budget the trip, how to get from one place to another, or anything! In an attempt to maintain my sanity, I've scheduled a meeting at Mizzou with Leigh Anne next week (she went to Tübingen last year). So... that (in addition the the anti anxiety meds) should help me breath a little easier?

I'm sure I'll be fine, but I believe everyone is entitled to freak out a bit about things like this.