Ich bin im Arsch.

And what a week it has been. Well five days, I guess. Such a short amount of time, but so many things have happened. Am Anfang, I went to Blaubeuren with the Deutsch Kompakt kids. The map shows the route from Tübingen to Blaubeuren. It's a little bit longer than an hour. The scenery is a little different than the train ride to Stuttgart. More small mountains that large steep hills and a lot more fields. It's absolutely gorgeous.

In any case, we left for Blaubeuren on Sunday. In this small, "one stop light" town (pretty sure there is only one stop light, although don't quote me on it) is the Heinrich-Fabri Institut named after some bishop guy who made Blaubeuren more respectable (they had a Badhaus, which was effectively a Roman bath, so pretty much a brothel, next to the nun's cloister and he didn't like that, so he shut it down) in like the 1400s or some nonsense. It's effectively an Eberhard Karls Universität-owned hotel with class rooms. It's quite nice. 

Evillllll

So I guess I am going to try to give you the SparkNotes version of this week, because really a lot of shit happened. First, some general themes. Blaubeuren was fucking freezing. My God. In Tübingen, it's cold as tits in the morning, but then it gets to be roasting in the afternoon (like a 30° difference; it's some crazy nonsense). The Tutorinnen told us that it would be "colder in Blaubeuren" to we should bring some "warmer clothes," nothing to indicate that it would be that drastic. But that's that. Second theme, everyone in Deutsch Kompakt is lovely and wonderful, and this past week was so crazy fun. Third, the Germans have a way of saying that something is kaputt or whatever. Fun fact: it's not im Arsch. You can say "Mein Handy ist am Arsch" if it's dead. If you say, "mein Handy is im Arsch" it means your phone is up your butt. Just in case you were wondering. Also the phrases "dreckiges Tier" and "kotzende Flugsaurier," I learned those too. Very important stuff. 

To start, we got there and laid down our stuff, and immediately, we were thrown into our "Stadtspiel" where we had to go around Blaubeuren and ask people things about about the city and it's history ("Was ist blau in Blaubeuren?" oder "Wer ist schöne Lau?" zum Beispiel). So Marlena, Yasmine, Julius and myself romped around the kleines Dorf, wherein a fucking goose hissed at us and nearly ate our toes (I'm convinced that Arschloch was gonna kill me). We asked a bunch of old people things and in general had a lot of fun. AND we didn't get last place in the game (yay, 9th out of 10!).  So yeah, that night we hung out with kids in our program, drank biers, played music (well Julius, Theron, and Yasmine did that; I was just the 'Wortmeisterin'), and played Arschloch (/Asshole/Shiteater/whatever the hell it's called).

Der Blick von Kreuzberg

The next day was an early wake up call for class. (9AM is still such a disgusting hour.) And I guess the biggest event of Monday was that we found the Kreuzberg, which was a five minute walk up the hill from the Fabri Institut. It's a large hill/small mountain with a large stone cross on top, and my God, is it awesome. So beautifully serene. Unless you are making a racket and drinking on top of it like we did later. :P But yeah super beautiful. At night, you can see the stars, and for us, there were a bunch of shooting stars (I saw at least 5 or 6). Crazy cool. So yeah, Monday: Kreuzberg finding, general debauchery, fun stuff.

The Blue Gatorade Blautopf

Tuesday was the same old with the early wake up call and class. But we didn't have Tutorium, because we were going on a "Wanderung" (more of a Spaziergang, but whatever) to the ruins of an old castle on top of one of Blaubeuren's small mountains. First, we walked through the Kloster (the old nun cloister in Blaubeuren) and got a tour of that and then saw the illustrious Blautopf, which a small pond filled with what looks like blue Gatorade (but is really just water with a lot of calcium in it). But, dude, those Schloss ruins. So cool. The view of Blaubeuren was sick. Tuesday night was more Kreuzberg chilling, bier drinking, and music playing. Quite fun. 

View from the Castle Ruins

On Wednesday, we went to Ulm, and, my God, was that freezing. But that's neither here nor there. Andrea, one of the teachers, gave us a tour, and then we commenced the climb. In Ulm gibt es die Ulmer Münster. This is a huge motherfucking church that took roughly 500 years to build. When it was started in the late 1300s, Ulm had 5,000 people. This thing can hold 30,000, because hell, why not? It also has a really, really, really tall tower (768 steps), and, boy, did we climb all of it. It was rather exhausting and terrifying, because, you know, heights. And it was colder than a witch's teat at the top with the wind and the rain, but all in all, it was pretty damn cool. Afterwards, the Tufts kids walked around, got some Wörterbücher, and had some gute schwäbisches Essen (more Maultauschen, woooo), and then when back to Blaubeuren for a chill evening of guitar playing and wine. Twas lovely. 

Ulmer Münster

Thursday was an insanely lovely day. The best part of which was the Theaterstücken. Everyone in the program had to do a skit. In my group were 6 people, two Americans, a Finn, a Dane, a Norwegian, and a Spaniard. My God was it fun. We had been working on if for the past two days, and my group was laughing just about the entire time we were making it. Our skit was about a schwäbische Familie and we were fighting over what TV program to watch. We had an Opa and a Vater who wanted to watch football, a Mutter (me) who controlled the father (our group decided with sex--bring out your inner porn star amirite), a teenage boy in his "wild phase" (he was a gay Communist), a 10 year old girl who wanted to watch Pokemon, and a American aunt with a really strong American accent. So naturally, chair flipping, offensive jokes, chereographed dancing to the Pokemon theme song, and general chaos ensued. It was hilarious and awesome, but all the skits were hilarious. After our skits and dinner, the entire group then went to the Kinder Kneipe, a high school bar in a boarding school which is in the Kloster. So yeah, drinking and dancing in a church with 15 and 16 year-olds. But it was actually super, super fun. We got back to the Fabri Institut and continued our partying, much to the chagrin of the neighbors. 

Eine große, glückliche schwäbische Familie

Today, Friday, we had class and then returned to Tübingen with the promise of more debauchery at Top 10 this evening. 

So yeah, this week super awesome and I got to know so many awesome awesome people. I'm trying to think if there's any else to update you on. I just had a conversation with my housemate entirely in German. I'm quite proud. There's improvement! Also, I can't believe I have only been here two weeks. The plane ride here feels like it was ages ago. But yeah, that's about everything for now. Peace out, kids.