Cologne, Germany with the DAAD Stipend Recipiants

Hello Everybody!

To start, I would like to say that unfortunately my weeks tend to be pretty typical, so if there is a week when I do not post, it is because I have not done anything more out of the ordinary than going to lectures, cooking, eating, exercising, and learning.  I figure that stuff is not all that interesting, so I can leave it out for now.  In saying that, however, my studies are becoming a little bit easier!!  After the first two weeks, I am starting to develop a routine and getting used to the speed at which the lectures are being taught.  For every lecture I have, the professor has his/her notes posted online that I can print out, bring with me to lecture, and make my own notes!  It's a perfect situation!  Anyways, let us talk about Cologne!

Well last week Friday, I was to wake up at about 6:00am for I had to pack, eat breakfast, and prepare to head off to Köln/Cologne, Germany for that Friday and Saturday.  I got to the train without any troubles, for I had woken up early enough to recompense for any delays.  The train ride was only about one hour, and it left and arrived just as punctually as the reputation (which is more of a stereotype) of the German train system upholds!  After arriving in Köln, I had to walk but five minutes from the train station to the hostel, in which I was to be staying over night.  Once there, I met up with a small group of other DAAD students, and we waited together until our check-in time at 11:30am, so about one hour.

Once we received our keys, we went up to a conference room to meet the faces of our contacts at DAAD, with whom we had up until that weekend only been communicating through email, and to receive some general information about the itinerary for the weekend and the DAAD organization.  The it was off to see some sights!

Our hostel was on the east side of the Rhein River, and we were walking over to the west side to see the Dom.  A side note that we learned from a Köln resident on our tour: the West side of the river in Köln is considered the 'right' side, and the East side of the river is considered the 'wrong' side by the Köln people!
But anyways, here was the first sight we could see as we began crossing the bridge to the 'Right' side of Köln.

And as we crept up upon the Dom from the south side, this is what we saw.

And then again the Dom from the west side of it.  You can see that while standing under it, it is very difficult to capture all of its monstrosity.

We were then met by a group of tour guides, who took us on a tour around some of the historical areas in Köln, including a museum with a very wonderful mosaic, unfortunately I did not take many pictures during my stay in Köln.  We also got to learn a lot about the Dom and some of the other surrounding monuments.
The Dom wasn't finished until the 19th century, if I remember what our guide said correctly, but it also is the home of the bones of the Three Wise Men, for those of you who know the story.  At the peak of the Dom, there is a gold star, the Star of Bethlehem, under which the bones of the Wise Men were to be held, but they are instead held underneath a different part of the Dom, and there is a golden cross for the Wise Men to rest under.  (In the first picture, you can sort of see the cross and the Star of Bethlehem.)
On the south side of the Dom there is also a door with a blue crest on it.  Our guide told us that that door is only opened for one person: the Pope.

The rest of our tour took us through some other historic sites, like I had said, including a Roman structure, which was completely destroyed during WWII and rebuilt, and the world's first cologne production facility.  No, cologne was not invented in France, it was in fact invented in Köln (Cologne), Germany.  Go figure.

After our tour, we went to a tower to see a 360 degree view of Köln.  The weather was not very nice, so I only managed to get two good pictures from this tower.

Then we ate a fabulous dinner at this restaurant called L'Orange.  After that we went back to the hostel for a short while before heading back across the river to have a few drinks and experience the beer famously known as 'Kölsch.'  Since we had to wake up early for breakfast the next day, we all were back in the hostel around 11:30 for bed.

The next day was a bit less exciting.  We had breakfast, and then we were given a lot of information about the higher education system in Germany, and it gave me some ideas for if I wanted to pursue further education after my Bachelor degree.  We had a coffee break during the information session to catch up and talk with many others about our experiences in Germany so far and what not.  After the information session, we had lunch and were then released from our DAAD responsibilities for the weekend.  A friend of mine, who I had just met on Friday, and I went on another short tour of Köln before I needed to head to the Hauptbahnhof to catch my train back to Frankfurt.

That was it for the DAAD weekend in Köln!  I met a lot of really awesome people from Canada and the USA, and I hope that I can visit some of them if I am ever in the cities in Germany in which they are currently studying!

Strasbourg, France

So at around 5:30 on Saturday morning, I awoke to the bright, shining moon!!  "Ah, it is going to be a good day, for I woke up before the sun," I thought to myself.  I ate breakfast, met a friend outside of the building, and we were off to the Hauptbahnhof, at which we met up with the group of fellow travelers all going in the direction: Strasbourg!

We got on the bus at around 8:00, and we were off on a three hour trip to France.

Once we arrived in France, we were immediately bombarded by three or four men trying to sell us those little umbrella hat things, sunglasses, beads, and other things which would scream, "TOURIST!!"  After we all got off of the bus, we began walking, in a group of about 50, towards the Place de la Cathédrale, to see one of the largest cathedrals in the Europe, which had been the largest building in the world until sometime in the 19th Century.  That is pretty cool!

Place de la Cathédrale

Cathédrale

After taking a few pictures, we began on a tour towards what is known as little France.  We saw several older buildings and houses, which had the traditional German cross beam designs.  The reasoning for that is that Strasbourg had switched between German and French ownership at least five times throughout history.

The views were nice, and because so many people wanted to take pictures, we actually lost a good half of the group during our walk through this city.




We had met up again at 13:45 to get on a boat tour, which would take us along a small river known as L'Ill.  The tour lasted almost an hour, and we got to listen to some of the history of the city Strasbourg.  After our tour, the small group of friends, with whom I was, and I went to a traditional French restaurant to have Tarte flambée/Flammenkuchen (really thin pizza without sauce; only butter, cheese, and bacon bits).  It was so delicious!!!

By the time we finished, it was time to meet back up at the cathedral, for we were then to head home for the day.  We got home around 21:30, and I just had some late dinner and wine with a group of friends, most of whom were not on the trip to Strasbourg, so we got to discuss some of the things we did.  As per usual, our discussions were fun and went a long time, and I turned in late to bed, to wake up even later on Sunday.  But that was okay, because it was a good weekend nonetheless!!

First week of classes!!!

Though I realize it has been a while since I posted, maybe a week or two, I cannot remember, I have a good reason.  My charging cord for my computer and cell phone both broke, and because of that, when I had time to post this weekend, I had no energy on any of these devices.  But that has been taken care of.

Talk about that extremely frightening, overwhelming first day of school feeling.  I am not talking about coming back for your senior year of high school; I am talking about full-fledged HOLY COW College is scary, or even first day of middle school type stuff.  Except that needs to be multiplied by German^2 (That is "German*German," the speed at which the German in my lectures was spoken is provided in the multiplication of German by German.)  My first lecture of the week was the most difficult thing I think I have yet to have experienced.  90 minutes of Linear Algebra is hard in English, but multiply that by the German^2, which I explained earlier, and it becomes anybody's worst nightmare.  I suppose I should probably just explain my whole week shortly.

Monday:
10:00-11:45 Linear Algebra.  I frantically took notes to keep up with what the professor was writing on the smart board.  It was not until later in the day, that I found out that all of her written notes from lecture, a voice recording of each lecture, and her past lecture sheets were all online!!!  That makes learning the material that much easier; PLUS! one of the recommended literatures is written in English!

11:46-12:23 I was on the bus from Campus Bockenheim to go to Campus Westend for my Mikroökonomie 2 course.  Yes, unfortunately I have to switch campuses one to three times a day... But it is a good thing I have a bicycle, so the commute is only about 8 minutes, as opposed to waiting for the bus, then being crammed into it like a sardine for 10 minutes.  After I arrived at Campus Westend, found my room, sat down, and waited until the travel period between courses (about 30 minutes) was over, someone in the room announced that our course would not be held until the following week.  Woo!  No class on the first day.  I then went to grab a bite to eat at the student cafeteria in Campus Westend.

12:30-16:00 After lunch, I walked back toward Campus Bockenheim, which only took about 20 minutes, so that I could relax and figure out my schedule for the coming semester before I had a German writing course (which I have since then decided is not what I thought it would be, and I dropped it.)  Then I sat through that course, and afterwords went back home, ate dinner, and copied some of my Lin. Algebra notes into a cleaner notebook.  I used the online resources to have many an epiphany about some of the things in lecture, which made no sense due to the language barrier.

Tuesday:
I woke up not so early, but I was able to get to meet up with friends and go to my first lecture/course, which was supposed to be a German course for which I had already registered.  Upon arriving at the lecture and talking with the professor, I was informed that there was no room, though I had been assured of the opposite, and was told to come again on Thursday.  So I had then time to exercise, which is always great!

I then had no lectures until 14:00, which was Marketing 1.  The professor spoke very articulately and at a good pace, so I had not any problems understanding what he was explaining.  After that course ended at 15:45, I had to rush from Campus Westend, where I was, to Campus Bockenheim on my bike.

Back in Bockenheim, I was to attend the Übung (practice/tutoring/exercise) session for my Linear Algebra course.  This session lasted until 18:00, after which I went home, ate, studied, and went to bed.

Wednesday was fantastic this week, for I had NO lectures!!!  But I bought some warmer bed sheets, trained at the gym, ate, and studied a lot of Linear Algebra!

Thursday was the fun day.  I had lecture from 8:00-16:30 in the following order:
Management (which will eventually be taught in English, but on the first day was all in German)
Linear Algebra (once again, ridiculously difficult to understand)
Another German writing course (which turned out to be again not what I was expecting the course to be, plus there were too many people in the small lecture room.)
AkadeMi (which was the course I attended Tuesday, but was told to come back on Thursday, which I did, and I was allowed to take part in the course.)

FRIDAY!  I had off!!  I went to the Ausländerbehörde in order to turn in my paper work to get my residence permit, which will be coming shortly.  In the meantime, I have to carry around a form saying that I have received my permit, it is just in processing at the moment.  After that, which took two and a half hours, though I had an appointment, I was able to train, study, eat a good few meals, spend time with friends, and then turn in not too late, for I had a new adventure the next day!! Which I will write about in the next post.

Catching up!!

All right, I know it has been some time since my last post, and I am here now to alleviate any curiosity you may have been having about what I have been up to! :)

Since my trip to Oktoberfest, I have had the entire week free of responsibilities!!  And I have been enjoying it a lot.  Most of the time I have gotten some extra sleep, gone to the gym, and purchased a few important things like notebooks and the works.

Some of my other purchases have been a bit more substantial, because they will be bringing with them a great deal of life long memories (at least that is the plan)!  These include: a reserved place on a day trip to Strasbourg, France, next weekend; a reserved place on a bus to Amsterdam for the weekend; a train ticket to and from Cologne, Germany for a orientation reception for my DAAD Stipend; a ticket to see the operas "Don Giovanni" (in May; the tickets were practically sold out!!) and "The Magic Flute"; another purchase was for a performance of Beethoven's "9th Symphony".

As many of those who know me well know, I will be thoroughly enjoying those last three events because of my constant listening to classical music and finding enjoyment from watching operas!!  I am just glad because I will actually get to see them in REAL LIFE!!!

Some other things I have done this week include attending an information session, giving me a lot of helpful information regarding lectures, exams, and the university in general; taking part in a campus tour through one of the four campuses at my university, Campus Westend; and most recently, attending a party hosted by/for medical students at the Goethe-Universität.  The cool thing about this party is that it was right on the same block as the Klinikum (university clinic), where all of the medical students will be either attending courses or working on a Praktikum (internship).  This party was thrown in this rundown building, and it was absolutely a ton of fun!!  Our attendance fee/entrance charge was mainly recommended for entrance, but it was to support the medical students, as sort of a fundraiser.  The music was great, the building was packed full of people, but we all still had a wonderful time, and we danced so long, that we were able to catch the first Straßenbahn (tram) home at 4:00am!!

Starting Monday, however, I will begin attending lectures; I will only have one or two a day, but after we get into lectures more, I will be attending what are called Übungen (practices), where you get to work on the things learned in lectures with smaller groups of people.  Since the course selection system is different here than in the States, I am a bit worried about doing something in correctly, but I have been ensured many a time that it is way easier than I think!  We will see how that goes.

Until next time!

End of class and other assorted events!!

After four weeks of taking a language intensive course, I have taken the closing exam and received my grade.  I received a 2, which is typically equivalent to a B in American school systems, and with it I received confirmation that I could potentially receive some credit back at my university in the States, which would be nice.

After our exam, that Wednesday, the majority of my language group and I went to a nice restaurant to celebrate the end of the course and the friends we have made along the way!  Then we returned to the building, in which I live, for there was also an event being held by one of the international groups, and that was a meeting point.  We then went down into the inner city to visit a very popular night club, which unfortunately only a portion of our large group was able to enter, my not being part of it, but another group of friends and I were able to go to another bar and enjoy the night!!

The following day, I spent mostly resting from the night before, and then on Friday I met early in the morning for a follow up lecture with the language course.  After the lecture concluded, I met with a few other students from the course, and we took a day trip to Wiesbaden, which is near Frankfurt.

We enjoyed walking around the city, having some frozen yoghurt, and grabbing some coffee before heading back to Frankfurt.

That day I turned in a bit early because on Saturday...
I woke up at 6:00 to prepare for a day trip to Munich to visit Oktoberfest on its last weekend!!  Two friends and I met up with our ride share at 8:00 to begin the three-ish hour drive, by car, to Munich.  When we arrived slightly after 11:00, the three of us walked to the festival grounds!  We waited in line at one of the beer tents, in which all manner of fun Oktoberfest music could be heard.  My two friends were able to get into the building when the first large group was let in, but I, unfortunately, did not make the cut, and was forced to wait in line.  I waited for several hours, hoping they would let us in soon, but eventually was tired of waiting, so I decided to take off, grab a bite to eat, and it was then that I was informed that two of my friends, one from America, Erin, and one an old GAPP buddy, Lupo, were excited to meet up with me!  I informed my two friends, who were in the beer tent, that I was going, and we had made plans to meet up with the ride share guy at the end of the night.

I then spent several hours warming up, eating dinner, and conversing with Erin about her experiences in Bonn for the last month and catching up with Lupo about his studies!  Erin then took Lupo and me to meet some of her international friends, whom she met in Bonn and with whom she was staying in Munich.  At around 21:40 (9:40pm), I parted with Lupo and Erin at the main Hauptbahnhof (main train station) and met with one of my friends at our meeting point.  We had unfortunately lost our other buddy, but the two of us made it back to Frankfurt at around 1:45am Sunday morning, and our friend was able to get home as well, by train.

Tips for those wishing to visit Oktoberfest: plan very far ahead; reserve a place, so you do not have to wait in line; and prepare thoroughly for the weather.