See you in Shell (and other bad Easter puns)

Hey gang, so the second full week of class is over, and on that front, there isn't much to report. All of my classes are good, and I think this semester is going to be both more interesting and challenging, what with the two seminars and all. Basically, I am starting to get back into the swing of things. 

On Wednesday afternoon, my friend Cornelius (remember the guy that I met in Paris?) came to visit. He was originally planning on attending university in Heidelberg for the Wintersemester, but for some reason changed his mind, and so he came to hang out and see all the wonderful things that Tübingen has to offer (which is a lot–Tübingen is pretty damn awesome).

To start, after finishing my James Bond class on Wednesday, the two of us went up the Schloss Café for Unterwegs Café English, which was fun, as per the usual. The next day, we walked around, saw pretty much all of Tübingen, went to the Schloss, rode on a Stockerkahn (think gondola) with Lisa, Lasse, and Lasse's two Norwegian friends, and then went to Kaffeestunde with Ute and the other Tufts kids. Then for dinner, we (and like 10 other people) did schwäbisches Essen at the Neckarmüller, because when there is a guest in town they must have schwäbisch food. Then we spent the night hang out with the Deutsch Kompaktlers (or I guess I should say the old Deutsch Kompaktlers–we're old now, how weird) and drinking on the church steps and then in Hannah's WG. Cornelius left pretty early the next morning to catch a train to Göttingen (another large university town) and then back to Berlin.

Both Friday and Saturday weren't terribly eventful. I did some lounging and a bunch of reading for class, and Lisa, Hannah, Sarah Müller, Lasse and I watched the first Spiderman (the Andrew Garfield one) in order to prepare everyone for the second one which was released recently.

Then Sunday, despite me not being religious, Easter Sunday was packed. I woke up early to make broccoli salad and do some more reading and then met up with Hannah at 13:30 to head up to Unterwegs brunch. Brunch was filled with food (pancakes, hashbrowns, and even grits–my first real grits) and games. We had a chocolate hunt, pin-the-tail-on-the-bunny, and various other egg-related games which got me a bit covered in hard-boiled egg. Not quite as bad as Erin and Beth though. At the end, they played Russian Roulette with eggs (half were boiled and half weren't and then they broke them over their heads). So that was awesome and hilarious. Also I got to see Germans try Peeps for the first time, which was pretty priceless. 

After all that shenanigans, Hannah and I made our way back to the Altstadt to commence with Easter dinner festivities. It was a very last minute decision that we made, but on Saturday, Lisa, Hannah, Lucia, and I decided to have a "Secret Easter Bunny" basket exchange, which is basically exactly like a Secret Santa. So we all made baskets, and exchanged them, which was quite fun. Then we continued with egg dyeing. Lasse showed up, and we used the "Ei da Vinci" egg-dyeing kit that I bought and made some beautiful eggs. 

Afterwards, we made a lovely Easter dinner of Maultaschen, eggs, onions, and zucchini, a cranberry walnut salad, and my broccoli salad. Then we watched the Prince of Egypt, and that was about Easter. 

Today, we also have the day off, because more Easter stuff and so we are going to do some preliminary checking out of Frühlingsfest and then go and see Spiderman 2 in English in Corso in Vaihingen, because there are no OV or OmU (Original Version or Originalfassung mit Untertitel–read not dubbed) in Tübingen. 

So yeah, that's about my week. Even more fun things to come, with Frühlingsfest and then my internship starting next Monday. Bis später, dudes! 

It looks like a synchronized swimming bike

Hey gang, so it's been a little while, and I am sorry for that. Not too much has happened this week outside of the mundane school-starting shenanigans, so that's what you get to hear about. Get stoked. 

To start, Tübingen has been beautiful. Literally 65-70ºF and sunny every day with the exception of Tuesday afternoon. I am in love with this weather. However, it is not at all conducive for productivity. The Sommersemester is going to be hard. 

Anyways, I have no classes on Mondays, and therefore, my school year didn't officially start until Tuesday. However, Monday was filled with sign-ups. As it was last semesters, while some classes you sign up for way before the semester, and some have sign-up days on the first day of the semester. The two big ones for me being art classes and ADaF (German as a foreign language). So in the morning, I headed to the Neue Aula to sign up for art classes, met up with Caroline, got falafel with her and her friend Dan, went home, and then went back into town to sign up for ADaF courses. I got everything I wanted–thanks to Ute who got us all really good sign-up times. Later that day, it was the first day of Unterwegs Zumba, and afterwards, I went with Lisa, Hannah, Erin, Emily, and Drew to Saints and Scholars for burgers. (Super productive after working out, I know.) 

Then Tuesday, I had my first class: International Political Economy in English. Which was good and pretty interesting. Despite not needing it for credits or anything, I think I am going to stick with it. The rest of Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I went to the gym, ate dinner, you know, normal stuff. 

Wednesday was super-everything-at-once day. I had my two seminars (das Politische System der EU and Der Agent des Zeitgeists. James Bond-Filme als historische Quelle–so a political science seminar about the political system of the EU and James Bond movies as history, respectively). I also had to sign up for Tufts fall semester classes at 3, and the university wifi was down. The Tufts kids and I had intentions of getting together in the library to sign up for classes together, but that quickly came to having Camp Class Sign-Up in Elizabeth's room. 

I had to leave before my 3PM sign-up time because of my poli sci seminar at 2, which I proceeded to make a bit of a fool of myself looking for the room. This building is a large one with a north entrance and a south entrance, and whatever architect decided that the building should be separated down the middle with no possible way to go from one way to the other should be severely scolded, because that is incredibly unpraktisch and unlogisch. Now before I go any further, I should say that I was incredibly nervous for this class. It's a seminar, so that means I have to speak intelligently in German about complicated political topics. Furthermore, I thought the entire class would be comprised of Germans, and so that would be super intimidating. However, after arriving, I was put at ease. I got there to 4 people sitting in the room, one guy and three girls. After some silence, one of the girls asked my name, and I told her and then said I was from the States. She told me her name and that her and her friends were from Russia. And then the last girl chimed saying she was from Poland. The guy responded with "ich bin ganz normal; aus Deutschland." So I was put very much as ease that I wasn't the only one who didn't speak German as their native language. Also the professor didn't end up showing up. (He was sick as it turns out.) So I was able to sign up for Tufts classes completely on time. 

Afterwards, Marlena, Elizabeth, Caroline, and I had victory falafel in the Alte Botanische Garten, where we hung out until Elizabeth and my James Bond class at 6. We got there early, because the professor had told us that there would be quite a crowd, and ended up being some of the first five people there. Harvey rolled in 10 minutes later, and together, we made an Austauschstudenten corner. The professor came in, kicked out everyone that wasn't let in or an international student, and then started the class. And god, is it going to be cool. I can barely contain my excitement. After class ended, I went to Elizabeth's for gin and tonic with her housemates, and then went home after the eventful day.


Thursday was much less eventful. After a slow start, I went to the library to do some of my reading. Hannah met me there at 4, and we went to Edeka to get meat for the Unterwegs first Donnerstagabend of the semester/barbecue. As usual, Donnerstagabend was awesome with tasty food, awesome music, and fun people. Afterwards, Hannah and I met up with Lisa, Lasse, Mike, Claire and her friend and went to a bar for a while, and that was that. 

Friday was the much-anticipated Tufts grill-party. :) That night, we went over to Marlena's house to chow down on food and play some music. She made burgers, baked beans, and potato salad, Yasmine brought guac, and I brought Nana's broccoli salad. It was all super tasty, and we left for the Semesteranfangsparty quite full. Anyways, just like last semester, the first Friday of the semester is the Kuckuck Semesteranfangsparty. However, unlike last semester it wasn't actually at Kuckuck (a location with a lot of bus traffic). This year it was at the Mensa Morgenstelle (on a hill with next to no buses). The party was quite cool and fun, but we hiked both up and down the hill, which wasn't great and left us getting home and close to 4:30AM. 

Then the next morning, I woke up at 8AM for the bike flea market. (Woooooooo!) After meeting up with the Tufts students, we went to the wrong location and Yasmine and I only actually managed to make it to the actual location because some nice guy had made the same mistake and offered to take us over in his car. By the time we got there, there were already quite a crowd, but there were still quite a few bikes left. And that was how I met Rocky. Rocky is my beautiful mountain bike, and he is awesome. Yasmine bought an equally wonderful 80s looking bike, that, if it were a person, would have been a cheerleader and synchronized swimmer in the 80s. It's named Bunny, and her and Rocky are dating, in a Grease-type scenario. We rode the bikes back into town, got locks, and then went back home for some down-time before heading to Metzingen with Julius, Marlena, and Caroline to go outlet shopping. However, the outlet-shopping was sad, expensive, and didn't include sundresses. So I am not going to talk about it any further. Once we got back, we had a nice Italian dinner, and then I went home, chilled, and went to bed. 

Then there was today, Caroline and I went to the only English movie theater in the area and saw Captain America. And oh my God, IR nerd freak out, it was beautiful. Watch it! However, the only theater in the area is Vaihingen, so the 2 hour long movie turned into a roughly 5 hour excursion. But I am still content with my Sunday. After I got back, I went with Hannah to a biergarten, and that's been about my Sunday. 

So that's my week. All of my classes are starting this week, so things will ramp up a bit. And then it's Easter, so hooray for everything closing! But hopefully that means chilling and hiking. So that'll be good. Anyways, bis später, gang!

Semesterferien Round-Up

So this post is a little self-serving. But I just want to do a bit of a round-up and post this fancy map up here. Wild ain't it? 

It has truly been an incredible two months, and I feel so lucky that I got to spend it traveling around, seeing all sorts of new and wonderful things, meeting new friends, and catching up with a few old ones (as kitschy as all of that sounds). 

I'm not sure what else I can say on that front. Anyways, it's been wonderful, and now onto the Sommersemester!

PS/news that can go here, I guess: my housemates in Boston just got a new kitten, and I am unable to convey my excitement and all the emotions that I feel.

Wasserfälle über Wasserfälle

This is Schweizer Deutsch.

Hey dudes or should I say Grüezi-Moin, because Schweizer Deutsch, amirite? So I just returned from a short jaunt to that lovely little trilingual country to the south. The Eurrail passes that Hannah and I had bought for our Italian adventure still had a few days left on them, so we decided to head to Interlaken, Switzerland, being pretty close to us (only about 5 hours on trains). And it was German-speaking (in the loosest sense of the term–Schweizer Deutsch is crazy), which is always a perk. 

To start, Interlaken is a bit of a tourist trap located between two lakes (hence the name, I guess). People go there to do any number of outdoorsy activities, but seeing as it's April and the end of the winter season and the slow start of the summer season, it's pretty much off season there. The weather is really hit or miss for site-seeing (ie taking cable cars to the tops of really tall mountains). In addition, it's also super expensive, because, well, Switzerland. So we were glad to be there, but also glad that we weren't there for a terribly long time, because going broke sucks. 


Anyways, we arrived in the early afternoon on Friday to gorgeous weather. The forecast said either clouds or rain and luckily we only got passing clouds. So after putting our stuff in our wonderful and adorably Swiss hostel, Balmers Herberge, we wandered around the city center. The city center consists of an array of different types of restaurants (there was so much Thai food!), tourist shops, mountaineering gear shops, and expensive brand-name stores (think Prada stores). It didn't take us long to wander through the center, as it is quite small. But during this walk, we found/did some important things. First, we exchanged money. Swiss money is the coolest currency I have ever seen. So many colors. Second, and more importantly, we found a Mexican restaurant. Now, everywhere that I have been in Europe, I have yet to see an actual proper Mexican restaurant. I'm not talking a burrito stand. Those are everywhere. This place was a restaurant, and due to our 8 months of being enchilada-deprived, we decided to go there. So after wandering through town, we went to the grocery store, a place called COOP, got food for sandwiches for the next day's hike, some cheese, chocolate, and beer. After putting that in the hostel, we went back to the Mexican restaurant. 


My God, was that the best decision ever. The wait staff was incredibly friendly. The amused us when we spoke to them in German (me) and Spanish (Hannah)–albeit they were quite confused with the simultaneous two different languages. We got margaritas and enchiladas (both of which absolutely kicked ass and we were so happy). After we finished eating, our waiter came up to us and after I asked for the check (auf Deutsch), he asked "where are you guys from?" I assume the question because he had probably heard us speaking English to each other and then the German and Spanish to him. We told him the States, and then he said he was from Florida and in the same breath not to believe anything he says. After that the manager (or at least I think he was the manager) came up to us, and I asked, in German, if we could pay separately. His response to my question was "it's really weird going up to someone and expecting them to speak to you in one language, and then them speaking to you in another." Afterwards, he chatted with Hannah in Spanish about her time in Chile and ended the entire conversation saying that we spoke good German (to me) and good Spanish (to Hannah). I'll call it a meal of accomplishments. 


After that, we went back to the hostel and spent the rest of the evening hanging out with people from hostel (a guy who was born in New Jersey, grew up in Hong Kong, went to boarding school in Scotland, and university in Washington state, and three American girls who had been studying in Oxford for something that they called the Hilary semester or something along those lines). We ate cheese and chocolate, and drank beer and it was definitely a great Swiss evening. 

The next day we woke up early. One of the guys in our room (an older gentleman who had been coming to Interlaken, to our exact hostel, in fact, every year since 1973; his name is Jim) recommended a hike for us to do that didn't involve much elevation. It was far too foggy to go much further than 700m above sea level. He told us of some waterfalls somewhere along the Brienzersee (the large lake east of Interlaken). We asked the reception about it, and they pointed us towards the commuter boat that took us to a place called Giessbachsee. So we went into town and then hiked a little further along the boat route because we had an hour or two until the boat left its first spot. We made it to Böningen, its second stop, with 40 minutes before the boat came, so we hung out at the beach until the boat picked us up. 

After the boat picked us up, it was another 30 minutes until Giessbach because the boat made zig-zags across the lake at various stops, but we didn't mind. I mean, seriously, a lake in the middle of the mountains. You can just relax and enjoy the scenery. 

When we first got to Giessbach, it didn't look like really anything. The boat drops you off at the entrance to a cable car, which takes you up to a hotel and costs 6€ one way. We weren't really sure where to go until we found some trail signs. After that, we just started our way up the hill alongside the cable car, which is infinitely better than taking the lazy way up. The entire place is one gigantic waterfall that you can just climb up forever. Dreams do come true. We got up to the top of the cable car route which leads to a hotel, which I believe is closed until the summer and therefore looks super haunted. We checked out both the waterfall and the lakeside scenery, which is also just incredible. Gah, Switzerland. We walked up the waterfall path for a little while, but ended up heading over to the next town, Brienz, which the lake is named for (probably because it's at the very end of the lake, not because it's big or anything. Basically all that seems to be there is timber). Anyways, we started on our way. For a while it was normal hiking trail, but that quickly became road, and we felt like we were hitch-hiking. Along the way, we met some sort-of nice cow creatures that had super intimidating horns. We befriended in the only way that one can befriend a beautiful cow creature with gigantic horns–incredibly timidly.  

It took a while, but we eventually got to Brienz, where we ate sandwiches and I put my blistered feet in the water. Instead of taking the boat back, we decided to take the train, and once back in Interlaken, we went to COOP to get some pasta-making things for dinner, went back to the hostel, showered, and took a nap. Jim woke us up, and then we decided to go to the Irish pub next door to have a happy hour beer before starting to make dinner. Then there was dinner–Hannah's delicious brie, carrot, and onion gnocchi creation, the rest of our grocery store beer, and bad German television (some sort of talk show where people had to do any number of ridiculous challenges; oh and Cameron Diaz was there). Afterwards, we went to bed early, because of early-morning train wake-up (well early morning by my standards). 

Then today, we got up and took the train back to Tübingen without any hitches. Gotta love the Deutsche Bahn miracles. In other news, first official day of class tomorrow, but my first class isn't until Tuesday. Also I am pretty convinced that summer has come to Tübingen. It was probably 65ºF/18ºC when I got back today. Be jealous, America, be very jealous. So that's about what I've got for right now. But it is t-minus two weeks until Osterferien (Easter break) and the start of Frühlingsfest (time to break out the ol' dirndl), so wild times are a-comin'. Prepare yourself. In the meantime, bis später, gang. 

In France's stomach

Hey guys. So I have been home for quite a while, since my Interrail pass validity ended on the 27th, but I guess I have been so busy hanging out that I hadn't quite gotten around to this whole blogging thing. (It's been about 70ºF/21ºC here, which means that I have been outside in sandals and reading in the sun.) But yes, so for my time in Lyon. To preface, I wasn't there very long, so it wasn't terribly fascinating, but an adventure nonetheless. 

I managed to get there without a hitch and only got mildly lost getting to my hostel. So those are some small victories. I got settled in and then went out to do some night exploring, which basically meant looking for dinner. (I hadn't eaten very much as I had been on trains all day.) I ended up giving up and getting döner, where I made friends with the two guys running it. I spoke broken, elementary French and they spoke broken, elementary English, so it sort of worked. I went back to the hostel to eat, and then proceeded to finish High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. (Very good book, by the way.) Almost everyone in my hostel lounge seemed to be on their phones or computers, or talking with someone they already, so I didn't really talk to anyone, which was fine, because you're never lonely when you have a book. (How cheesy am I?)

The next day, I woke up a little late (for traveling at least), got breakfast, and spent the day exploring. Lyon is very pretty, and the main part is not exactly the most car friendly (lots of small alley ways). It's very cool. And I guess known for its food. ("If Paris is the heart of France, Lyon is the stomach.) However, Lyon seemed to be one of those places for fancy people with money. There aren't many hostels and all that lovely food is very expensive. So I did more backpacker/college kid things, such as bumming around and taking advantage of under 26 free entry to the Musée des Beaux Arts (which was completely empty when I went and kind of creepy). After that, I got a sandwich (ie a baguette with meat and cheese) and wandered up to the La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière, which is a beautiful basilica, but also on top of a very impressive hill and therefore quite a hike. But still cool. I then spent the rest of the sunny afternoon sitting in a nice park and reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Then there was coffee and a crêpe and then back to the hostel for a nap. 

I got up around 19h, with the resolve to find more food, which turned into me buying a microwaveable thing from the grocery store and eating it in the hostel. However, that was how I met Jula, a German girl from München. She was doing a French speaking course, and so I spent the evening in the hostel with her and her friends from that and drinking Belgian beer. So that was lovely. 

And then I left the next day. So that's about it for my adventure in Lyon, but it was quite nice nonetheless.