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[Feb. 15th, 2006|07:12 pm] |
I am sick. Anna from Hungary gave me anti-fever pills.
I had an oral exam today over the decolonisation of India. My fever was so distracting, it was very hard to articulate my complicated thoughts into beautiful German sentences. That is my excuse for getting a 2,5. That gets transfered as a B.
All my other grades are A's so far.
Why, you terrible virus, have you sabotaged my grade?
Tonight is the last big party before the majority of the exchange students go home. But I need to go back to bed unfortunately. . .
Oh yah and semester break starts next week. :) |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 9th, 2006|06:17 pm] |
Wow, I just cleared out my inbox to the extent that I can see emails clear from the beginning of August on the first page. I'm so proud of myself ;)
Magda got was "shocked and hurt" on Monday, when I didn't let her cheat off my Spanish final.
My roommates then explained to me that everyone always cheats off each other here and that they would have been quite angry if someone didn't let them cheat on a final.
I find that. . . dumb. Do your own work, Europeans. We're not in high school anymore. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 8th, 2006|03:57 pm] |
I got a 2 on my Spanish final. Which is like an A-.
Christmas
I was in a bit of a last minute bind not knowing where I was going for Christmas, when Marco insisted that I spend the holidays with his family. Hmmmmm. . . it was a very unusual setup, because I didn't know his family at all, and there I was spending the most important holiday of the year with them. What was most inconvenient, was that I could hardly understand anything his parents or grandparents said and I had to frequently ask them to repeat, due to their very strong Swabian dialect. Marco's sister Tanja, and her boyfriend, Frank, however spent a lot of time talking to me and sympathized with my difficulties. Frank, who spends a lot of time in the USA, says it is almost impossible for him to understand Southerners in the US.
We ate fish, German potato salad, and this delicious and unusual noodle dish with beef sauce. Marco and I played a few games with his nieces:
Mensch, ärger dich nicht! (Man, don't get angry!): Sorry!
Fange (Catch): tag
Wer hat Angst vor dem schwarzen Mann (Who's afraid of the black man): Red Rover
I told Marco their version of Red Rover sounded very rascist and he cracked up. Then again, they probably didn't know there were actually black people in the world until 100 years ago, right? =P
Marco's mom bought bought me a pair of socks for Christmas. . . the whole gift exchange was kind of weird. .
train delayed again
In the winter months people tend to get very depressed here, because it gets so dark and cold. Consequently, your train gets delayed every once in a while for two hours, because someones jumped in front of it to kill him/herself. Well, it happened to me once months ago and it happened to my roommate the other day. Pretty morbid
my birthday
What can I say? It was wonderful. Marco's birthday is 3 days before mine, so it was only natural that we organize a party together. Plus Magda, one of the exchange students from Poland also has her birthday in a few days, so the three of us celebrated together. We put together a big dance party using my apartment and the apartment across the hall from us. A lot of exchange students came and a few Germans, including my old friend Christian from Berlin, who was an exchange student at my school my senior year.
Ise gave me a photobook with various pictures of us and wrote some cute captions to each picture. Caro gave me a pair of socks with the German flag on them. Marco made a photo collage out of photos of Caro, Ise, Marco and me and hung it on my wall. And Caro and Ise cooked me birthday brunch of Würst, Kartoffelbrei, and some Kraut stuff.
Oh yes and Kira baked me a cake.
Ööps I already said some of that in my previous entry |
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[Feb. 2nd, 2006|03:41 pm] |
Today is my birthday. My friend, Christian, from Berlin is also coming to visit today and is staying for the weekend. I haven't seen him since high school.
My roommates cooked me a birthday breakfast of Würst, Kartoffelbrei, and some Kraut stuff. They also gifted me with some socks with the German flag on them and a photo book with cute, little captions and drawings to go with the pictures. What good German friends I have :)
Tomorrow we're having a dance party with a lot of exchange students and a few Germans. Today I am studying for my Spanish final on Monday until Christian gets here.
I can only get internet access by waiting in the long line at the computer lab in the PH. Which I find quite impractical. And I can't upload my beautiful pictures.
dommage.
I'm tired of sorting the trash between 5 bins. The Germans need to invent an auto-sorter. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 30th, 2006|05:59 pm] |
My already unreliable WLAN internet access completely disappeared a week ago. I can't come online. And I can't upload the pictures from Heidelberg and Munich.
Sorry. |
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[Jan. 19th, 2006|02:32 pm] |
Marco and I spontaneously decided to travel to Heidelberg tomorrow. We tried inviting Emily, Rachel, and Caro, but Caro said no and we couldn't reach the others. On Saturday, Caro, Marco, and I are traveling to Munich for free (it is an event for the exchange students being held by the PH, but because there are so many free seats in the bus, some Germans are being allowed to come as well).
German Chris (for those of you out of the know, he is a friend of mine who lives in Berlin, who was an exchange student at my high school), who has never seen Stuttgart, is planning to come visit in two weeks. At which time I will hold a glorious birthday party (wow, I'm almost 20. . .).
I am currently stressing out about completing all of my end of the semester work. My Englightenment/Christianity and Islam teacher wanted that I hold a speech covering the American englightenment, but after a couple weeks of strenuous search, and coming to the determination that there wasn't a single book in the PH's library regarding the subject, he assigned me today the new topic of Transcendentalism (a purely American movement). I poked around in the library once again today and found one single book on the topic, aptly titled, "Amerikanischer Transzendentalismus". It is difficult reading.
Schwäbisch (Swabian)
Swabian is the local dialect in this region of Baden-Württemberg and one of about 50 major dialects throughout Germany alone. I don't understand Swabian. I speak High German. Now, the fact that I don't understand Swabian doesn't actually have a tremendous impact on matters here, except that I barely catch a word when people over 45 years of age speak. Thankfully (or not?), all regional dialects are quickly dying, ever since Hitler began uniting the country in language way back in the pre-WW2 era. High German is now the standard, and I understand anyone around my age very well. In the case of youths, there are only a few small differences in vocabulary, such as the Swabian tendency to say "net" instead of "nicht" (which means not).
Speaking with adult Germans, however, can be extremely frustrating and embaressing. (How many times am I allowed to say "I beg your pardon" ?) |
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[Jan. 18th, 2006|05:45 am] |
I have a guilty conscience, as I have a tremendous information debt to my friends, family, and acquaintences back in the states. I decided today to try to alleviate a small part of that. I suppose the biggest reason why I've hardly written anything is because I had the feeling that I had to tell my Germany story chronologically. But I'm not going to bother with that. I'll just throw in thoughts as they come to me, okay?
My roommate's family is from the former USSR
My most interesting roommate, Caro, moved in during the Christmas break and replaced the infamous and unbearable Patricia. I enjoy speaking with her about her childhood and her family's history living in the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik aka the formerly Soviet half of Germany). As a child, although the Berlin Wall had recently fallen, she still felt the very strong sense of communism, as everyone had relatively the same clothes, the same cars, the same everything. It was, in fact, a great shock for her to visit her first shopping mall in West Berlin, where everything was colorful, and there was such a plethora of brands, and styles for every product. She remembers as a child asking her mother where all the pretty West Berlin cars came from, that now were popping up all over the streets. Her parents both have a tremendous passion for animals and both wanted to become veterinarians. However, the Soviet government had quotas, allowing only certain numbers of people to study in each field, so that their labor force and it's certifications always matched the labor demand relatively evenly. Hence, her father became a veterinarian and her mother (who was allegedly too short to work with barn animals, which were the primary occupation of veterinarians), became a doctor.
She has also noticed the same cool social trend as I here in the region of Baden-Württemberg and complains that she has not made a single friends at the PH with whom she may spend her free time, and that it was much easier to get to know people in Celle, Lower Saxony.
the people of Baden-Württemberg are not friendly
I hate the social atmosphere here. The people are extremely reserved and disinterested in the lives of others in comparison to Americans. However, I have often been told the people of northern Germany should be extremely extroverted and friendly in comparison to the peoples of the southern states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. Granted, I have quite a few friends with whom I can spend my free time, if one counts the 48 exchange students here at the Pädagogische Hochschule, however, I somehow feel my purpose here is to get acquainted with Germans, not Italians, Frenchies (why doesn't English have a proper genderless noun for people from France?), Hungarians, Poles, Norwegians, Australians, and Americans.
the food here is delectable
It is simply better here. To be quite frank, I don't think the fact that I like what I've been eating here has so much to do with a cultural difference, as the fact that I don't live with my parents anymore. I hate fast food. I've only eaten it twice (once at Burger King and once at McDonald's) since I got here.
A couple extremely common regional specialties here are Maultaschen (mouth bags??) and Spätzle. Maultaschen are like very large, overstuffed ravioli, filled with porc. I like to eat them cut up and fried with egg and cheese (although I feel quite unhealthy afterwards). Spätzle are egg-flour noodles. They taste good with cheese. . . traditionally with Elementar.
I have developed a significant affinity for garlic, since I got here. I keep a constant stash of fresh garlic in my cabinet and put several cloves in just about everything I cook (when I cook alone). My roommates and friends, however, tend to complain if I try to compliment anything we cook together with the stuff.
I wasn't particularly big on salad before I got here, but I have grown quite fond of the stuff, because it tastes so much better with FRESH mozzarella, oil, and vinegar, than with ranch and other disgusting American inovationss which generally make salad more abhorrent.
I also drink a lot of tee. It makes me feel sophisticated and adult-like.
the McDonald's in the center of Amsterdam is treated like a 5 star restaurant
It is some four or five stories high, the architecture includes a lot of marble and generally resembles a very high class establishment. Soft orchestrial music can be heard in the background, everyone wears a suit or a dress, and there is a glass dish in front of "le privé" where you are obliged to donate 50 cents if you want to take a leak. I heard that the prices also reflected the high class atmosphere, but I was in such a hurry to get in there, do my duty, and get out, I didn't take a glance. I think I would have had to ask for a menu, though.
oh and by the way, I went to Amsterdam for New Year's
But I don't feel like writing about right now. . . |
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| Overview on things and such |
[Oct. 30th, 2005|11:57 am] |
Tübingen
I spent my first month in Germany in this quiant little college town. I had an orientation there with all the other American exchange students in my program, which consisted of intensive language courses and excursions to nearby cities. I found it quite lame and looked forward to coming to Ludwigsburg, where I could finally speak German all the time instead of English (and meet Germans).
In Tübingen, I got to know especially well two American girls named Emily and Rachel, and a German fellow named Marco. The four of us spent much time together and Marco showed us around a bit.
Ludwigsburg
After my month-long orientation, I moved to Ludwigsburg, where my school, die Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg, is located. For those of you who aren't in the know, the word pedagogy means more or less teaching and I am hence attending a teaching institute. The campus here is very nice, my dormitory is a a five minute walk from the school and the school is a five minute walk from a wildlife preserve. And if you walk through the wildlife preserve, you end up at Ludwigsburg castle. And if you venture a little farther and walk around to the other side of the castle, you end up in the "Innenstadt" or downtown. In all these very old, rustic, German cities, however, the word downtown is hardly appropriate. There are no large office buildings in this downtown. In the center there lies an old market square adorned with a fountain and two attractive-looking churches, and in the area, one can see in the architechture hints of the age of the city.
Ludwigsburg is, by the way, a suburb of Stuttgart. The Stuttgart central train station is only 20 minutes away by streetcar.
Everything here is under construction
Everywhere you go in this country, you will see scaffolding and construction sites along streets and buildings. I find it especially detracts from the beauty of all the old majestic buildings here to see them constantly being renovated. However, it is not just the old buildings. If you ever take a look at Stuttgart from the top of the central train station tower, you will notice that there are large crains poking out above the buildings everywhere. It was explained to us that Stuttgart along with all other major German cities was completely flattened to a pile of rubble in World War 2 by American bombers, and they've been rebuilding for the last 60 years. What I find especially tragic is that most all the beautiful historical buildings such as Neuschloss (New Castle) were rebuilt from scratch after the war and knowing this really takes the historical flavor out of these structures.
Postscript
I hate the internet and I hate email, online journals, and all other things that involve typing. Consequently, I have been extremely lazy about responding to email or filling out this online blog. I apologize, but I just want to let you know that you should expect this behavior to continue and it will always be hard to contact me, because I detest sitting in front of my computer. Sorry.
My address in Germany
Joshua Lang
Montessoriweg 3 / 212
Ludwigsburg 71634
Germany |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 25th, 2005|11:47 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sick | ] |
I just bought my plane ticket this week. I have a five and a half hour wait in Seattle and a one and a half hour wait in Copenhagen. *freu*
Now I just have to wait 3 months. =/ It has already been the longest 3 months of my life, since I discovered I was accepted into the program. |
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