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!
Hi gang, so this week didn't involve any travelling. Now that classes are picking up, it's starting to look like I might actually have to do homework--on the weekends, oh God. How quickly I have forgotten my Tufts study habits. But regardless of my remaining in Tübingen, it has still been a very fun week. (Sidenote: that's actually one of the perks of staying here for a year. You don't have to constantly feel like you should be travelling and seeing things every weekend, because if worse comes to worst, I'll get to see it during the two months we have in between semesters. For now, I can just enjoy Tübingen and the surrounding area some weekends. And it's quite a bit easier to meet real Tübingen folks this way as well.)
In any case, this week involved a lot of school. Tuesday and Wednesday always feel like marathon days, because all of my classes (with the exception of my seminar on Thursday at 8AM) are within the span of those 48 hours, and they start rather early in the morning and end rather late. And when I am not in class on these days, I, by and large, live in Brechtbau, which is the foreign language building and was probably really cool once, like maybe in the 1980s, but is currently just falling apart and its basement bathrooms look like dungeons. But it has a decent café-type thing and the wifi is far better than in the Uni Bib, so there's that. Also there's a new doughnut shop that just opened right next door. So studying there has a lot of attractions. In any case, despite the packed two days and living in the Brechtbau, it's awesome starting class at 8AM on Tuesday and finishing with them for the week on 10AM on Thursday. Happy ~5 Day Weekend every weekend. :)
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| Riding the Struggle Bus |
So those are the class schedule things. There's also the "Oh my God, we have a test in this class in 2 weeks" freak out on Thursday morning. Yeah, that was really cool, and it was this freak out that led me to the top of the Hegelbau on Friday morning to figure out 1) how the Zeitgeschichte Seminarraum (one of Tübingen's many random libraries) works 2) where my Zeitgeschichte (the aforementioned freak-out class) reading is and 3) how in the hell to use a German copier. All of these are the reason for the post title: an English-ism that, according to a friend of mine, has been adopted by the Germans. I also want to make "mit dem Strugglebus fahren" a thing. So on Friday morning, there was a lot of confusion, asking people what in the hell this whole "German library" thing is. Eventually with the help of the librarian I figured out where the Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte archives were (in a side room on the main part of the library, kept in encyclopedia looking books, instead of the magazine I was expecting). I grabbed a few of the relevant anthologies and then made my way downstairs to the copier (naturally after asking where that was--I really looked like a helpless idiot, if that wasn't already apparent). I then came with my large anthologies back downstairs to the woman who had my ID. (Here you can't bring any backpacks into the stacks part of the libraries, because they don't want you to steal books. So I had to borrow a lock, give this sweet little old woman my ID, and take my stuff downstairs to the lockers in the basement/dungeon.) She gave it back so I could use the copiers. However, German copiers are not immediately apparent as to how exactly they work. So after a minute or so of looking confused, this sweet little old woman came over and showed me exactly how to use it, and then again after I wanted to double-side the sheets and couldn't quite figure out how. (1 seitig>1 seitig, 2 seitig>1 seitig, 1 seitig>2 seitig, and 2 seitig>2 seitig got a little bit confusing .) So there was that. I eventually got the hang of it. So just like everything in Germany, I have to look rather dumb before I can actually get things right.
Which leads me back to both fun things and, unchronologically, to the start of my week. I didn't really do much during the day on Sunday besides print out some reading for my econ and poli sci classes. However, that evening, Hannah invited me to go to Wohnzimmer and watch Tatort with some people from this student group that we're becoming a part of. (It's kind of in that awkward stage where we are either still becoming a part of it or are already a part of it and I just don't know.) So to backtrack: Tatort is a German crime show (translated to English as Crime Scene), which comes on every Sunday. Each episode is set in a one of a few different major location in German and the actors in each are associated with the place. It's been running since the 1970s. And from what I understand, Germans love it. This past Sunday's was set in Erfurt and handelt von the murder of a teenage girl. (Sorry not sorry for the Denglish...it was really the first thing that came to my head...I'm starting to talk kind of funny.) So Hannah, Erin (an American who works for Unterwegs), a German guy named Max, and I watched Tatort in Wohnzimmer sitting at an old sewing table. (More background: Wohnzimmer is a sort of hipster-y bar in Tübingen. It's set up like a living room, hence the name, with couches and random tables--ie an old sewing table--, has a large projector to watch football matches, Tatort, etc, and has tons of board games. It's pretty cool.) Now here comes the struggle part. I went up to the bar and asked for a Paulaner. I didn't specify Hefeweizen, because I figured everyone's first assumption when they heard Paulaner was beer. Well, nope. I went back to the table with a bottle, I didn't really pay too much attention to it. However, when I opened it is tasted like Coke mixed with Sprite. That's because this Paulaner was called a Spezi. It's a weird, but still pretty good soda drink. Most certainly not a beer. When everyone was done laughing, Max's response was "I have never seen someone fail to order a beer in Germany." I have a talent. (Although Max did reassure me the same could have happened to him, as most humans would assume that, when one is asking for a Paulaner, a beer--and not a weird soda drink--is desired.)
In addition, this week, I did zumba with Unterwegs people on Monday and began my English conversation group-leading with the local high school students on Tuesday. That was really fun, and the 7 girls are cool. We played some games, and they told me they are going to teach me Schwäbisch. So I might come back talking really funny. (Schwäbisch German, in addition to having completely different words for things, has a really hilarious accent.)
Then on Thursday, there was Donnerstag Abend with Unterwegs, which was great fun. It's cool to becoming part of this group. The people are super awesome and funny, and they feed me free food every other Thursday, so that doesn't suck. Each Donnerstag Abend involves a dinner, some kids in the group playing music, a speech, dessert, and great conversation. During this one, I learned from Max that "ich habe gestrugglet" "(at least amongst him and his friends) is a thing. A thing that I am now going to use a lot. So yeah, Donnerstag Abend, great fun.
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| She's a beaut. |
Nothing too much happened on Friday besides me making a bomb avocado, tomato, Landschicken (similar to bacon) and Swiss cheese (although not called Swiss cheese) grilled cheese andthe copier struggles and then 4 hours of "intracultural communication" nonsense. Ute asked us to go to this workshop with this woman, who basically told us to reflect on our experiences and told us not to assume that the Germans will act how we think they will. I'm being bratty. The stuff was pretty interesting. But 4 hours with this woman (who was nice when she wasn't doing her job, but was rather condescending when she was) and no food (it was 12:30 to 4:30, as in right over lunch) made me rather cranky. Afterwards, we had a lovely dinner of ribs and Kartoffelsalat at Marlena's place. That was awesome and delicious. I also made 6 and a half avocados worth of guacamole again, to use up the rest of the cilantro in my fridge. So I definitely ate at least 2 avocados yesterday. Then later, Hannah, Louise, Lisa, Anna, and I went to see Thor 2...in German. The movie was surprisingly understandable. Especially given the last time I saw a movie in German (The World's End). It wasn't really just having to get the gist of things most of the time, but I actually understood each entire sentence. I don't know if that's because Thor's screenplay was simpler to understand, or my German is getting better. I liked it, but I don't think I will know whether or not it's a good movie until I see it in English.
So yeah, that's a very extended summary of my adventures this week. Big news for the upcoming weeks: I'm going to Prague next weekend! Team Spain and Friends and myself (to name everyone: Dani, Julius, Luiza, Parvati, Chichi, Gonzalo, and I) are leaving on Thursday for the lovely city that is Prague. This time, we're going to find the John Lennon Wall. Then a week after we get back, Tufts is taking us to Leipzig, Jena, and Weimar for a week. Which is awesome for two reasons: no school for a week and I get to see Max! Finally, SCHWEDEN IST IN 26 TAGE!! In any case, I should probably stop procrastinating and start doing my homework. Bis später, Kinder.
