Die Ersten Tage

Mein Zimmer

Hey gang. So Air Canada/Lufthansa managed to lose my bag with both my computer cord and ethernet cable. So I have been out of contact for the past day or so, but they managed to get me everything, so now I have the interwebz. Yay! So with that, I will tell you about my first days in Tübingen.  

To start, this place is incredible. It looks like one of those too-perfect towns that are always featured on postcards and the like. All the buildings are super old and brightly coloured. The city wasn't bombed in the war like Stuttgart, so it still has all of the old buildings intact, some of which are from the 1500s. 

Anyways, yesterday, I got dropped off at my apartment at around 1:30PM. It's some pretty cool digs. The building was just remodeled four years ago so the entire thing is quite modern looking and nice. I unpacked most of my stuff and met one of my housemates, a German girl named Charlotte. She is incredibly nice and showed me the ropes, namely how the apartment works and how to do German recycling (that shit is intense). After all of this, I took a shower and a nap and then overslept. So I was late to Ute's office, which is on the other side of town, roughly a 25-30 minute walk from my apartment. 

Und weider

I finally got there (and didn't get lost doing it!), and then the group (5 undergrads, one grad student, and Ute) went for a walk around the city. Like I said, beautiful, old, all that. The highlight of the entire thing was the old University prison. Up until the late 1800s, the University had a prison and was in charge of prosecuting petty crimes committed by those affiliated with the university. So if you backtalked to your professor, you'd end up in prison for like three days or something, but with that, it kind of became a thing to end up the jail. Your friends would bring you provisions (wine and some bread and the like), and you'd graffiti the walls. There's graffiti from famous Tübingen alums like Hegel, really hilarious. 

After walking around, we went to a "Gastbraurei" called Neckarmüller, which serves very delicious schwäbisches Essen and is also a microbrewery. We stayed there for a while, had a few beers and a good dinner, and then Ute left us to our own devices. Which meant we went, booked bus tickets to München (Oktoberfest!), then bought some beers and went and chilled on the steps of St. Johannes Kirche to drink them. There, we got harassed by an old drunk guy with a 1920s hat that had a feather in it (now called Yankee Doodle), who said he didn't want to hear Frauenstimmen...misogynistic bastard. (Note: today, we saw him again--three times--he still was drunk, but he wasn't wearing a shirt and only had on one shoe.) After the church steps, we went to Theron and Elizabeth's rooms in the Altstadt and looked through the treasures previous Tufts students had left them, which included a hollowed out book, a crazy awesome wig, and a red cowboy hat with fringe on it. I got back home around 1:30 and promptly passed out. 

Der Blick vom Schloss

This morning, we had to be at Ute's office at 10:30 for more orienting. This time, we combined wandering and sitting in her office doing tedious paperwork. We opened bank accounts and went to the Schloss (castle) on top of the very large hill. (I will never complain about the Tufts hill again.) On the bright side, at the top of this hill, there was a lovely view of Tübingen. Around 2:30, we stopped and got Döner (nomzzzzzz), and then went back to Ute's office for some last minute talking stuff and to pick up all the crap we left there. Afterwards, we gradually made our way to the Südstadt, stopping to get ethernet cables and attempt to get SIM cards (still  unsuccessful), with me looking like a huge purple turtle ("Ich bin ein Schildkraut") on account of the large backpack, which the airlines had delivered earlier. We dropped that off at my apartment and then went to Kaufland, which seems to be the German equivalent of Wal-Mart. They have everything and my God is it cheap. I got some essentials (cereal, eggs, butter, juice, pasta, and a towel) all for less than 20€. Craziness. 

So yeah, that's about it as far as my time in Tübingen is concerned. It has been great this far, and I keep on thinking that I can't believe I live here. It's too damn cool.