Wenn Jetzt Sommer Wär

Here is the link to a song that we listened to the other day in Tutorium. Basically, he is singing about all the different things he would be doing if it were summer. It makes me kind of miss the summer and miss kamp. It also gives me a bug to go adventuring. Good thing class is almost finished.

Pohlman "Wenn Jetzt Sommer Wär"

Oh, you are supposed to take classes at school

The time has come for me to pick classes for this semester as well as next fall. Kind of terrifying that I am looking at classes fo my last year in college. That is something for anothe time though. I have finally deided on the classes that I want to take while I am here.

Gender and Biography- this class fulfills my social sciences requirement, becuase living in another country doesn't count as a social science...

Goethe's Elective Affinities- I have to take a german culture or literature class, good thing we are going to be studying one of the books I have already read.

Translation- this class is through the International Language Program. It is for native English speakers and will look at translating texts from English to German and vice versa taking notice of the nuances of both languages along the way

Toxicology- not really sure where this is coming from, it is a lecture which means that there won't be a test though, and if I play my cards right I should be able to get some chemistry credit for it.

That is what my work load for the semester looks like. I know it doesn't look like much, but remember everything will be in German. I am pretty stoked about it.

In other news, I reserved my place on a train to Vienna. Baller.

What time is it?

Today I woke up, got dressed for church, caught the bus, went to the bakery to get some breakfast, and got to church five minutes before Mass was supposed to start. I walked in as people were walking out. Germany had Daylight Savings Time last night. I got to church as it was ending, not as it was beginning. Typical.

Official Spring Break Itenerary

So, it probably can't be considered official because I still don't have the train tickets, but I did make all the hostel reservations today. Here is where I am going to be and the dates that I will be there

April 4th: Ballet in Stuttgart
April 5th: Overnight train to Vienna
April 6th: Hostel Ruthensteiner
April 7th: Overnight train to Zurich
April 8th: City Backpacker
April 9th: Overnight train to Rome
April 10th: Stephanie Bedinghaus's couch
April 11th: " " "
April 12th: " " "
April 13th: Overnight train to Paris
April 14th: BVJ Louvre
April 15th: BVJ Louvre
April 16th: train to Amsterdam Flying Pig hostel
April 17th: Overnight train to Copenhagen
April 18th: Danhostel
April 19th: Return to Germany

Sounds like I am up for an adventure. I can't wait

Ludwigsburg and Esslingen

On Wednesday the Deutsch Kompakt course took a day excursion to Ludwigsburg and Esslingen, two town each about an hour away from Tuebingen. The bus left at 8:30 in the morning. Kind of early, but they had pretzels and juice for breakfast so that helped to make up for the early start time.

The first stop of the day was the castle in Ludwigsburg. It was ridiculous. I wouldn't have called it a castle, more of a mansion or palace. There were 250 rooms, and we didn't even get through fifty of them in the hour and a half that we were there. We did see some pretty spectacular paintings of old kings and queens of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The first King weighed 200 kilos, approximately 440 pounds.

After we finished our tour in the castle we went to the Film Academy in Ludwigsburg. There are three other film academies in Germany besides the one that we saw. We were given tours by a couple of students, and then we got to watch a couple of the films that had been made by students there. They were really good.

After the we finished watching movies we loaded back into the bus to head to Esslingen. In Esslingen we were supposed to have a tour of the city, but the weather was absolutely terrible. So most people hunkered down in cafes to wait for dinner. I found a juggling store to amuse myself in.

At seven o'clock we all met in a wine cellar for dinner and wine tasting. It was a typical german dinner, bread, ham, salami, cheese, mustard, hardboiled eggs, pickles, cucumber, and tomatoes. It was very tasty and a really enjoyable evening. After dinner everyone got back on the bus and headed back to Tuebingen.

Blaubeuren

Last week I, along with the other students in my language class, travelled to the small mountain town of Blaubeuren to spend a week at the Heinrich-Fabri Institute owned by the University of Tuebingen. It was truely a phenomenal week. The days were full of hanging out with new friends, practicing German, and exploring the new area. While we were there I literally climbed a mountain a day. Granted, they weren't exceptionally high, but one of the other students and I had the conversation about whether they were small mountains or very large hills. Mountain was the unanimous decision. The entire time we were there the weather was beautiful. A little bit cloudy in the mornings but all the afternoons were bright and sunny, something that has been quite rare so far.

One day we tood an excursion to Ulm. We did a small tour of the city with our class and then we had the rest of the night to ourselves. The church in Ulm has the world's tallest church tower. There are 768 steps that you can climb to get to the top. On a good day, you can see all the way to the Alps. It was a good day. The city of Ulm is situated on the Donau and the Donau is the border between Baden Wurttemberg and Bayern. Naturally, I went over to Bayern for no other reason than to say that I did.

The time in Blaubeuren was truely a lot of fun, it was nice to have the opportunity to get to know the people in my class a little more. For instance, I learned that my tutorin, Pia, can juggle and we did little bits of juggling together all week. Then she turned juggling into a grammar game and I lost intrest.

Hope you enjoy the pictures from Blaubeuren.

Heissgeliebt (Popular)

Last night Fiona and I ventured to the city of Stuttgart where the musical "Wicked" is playing. Yes, we saw the play in Germany; yes, they spoke german during the play; and yes, the songs were in german. It was awesome. When we arrived we picked up our tickets, and found out that our seats were in the third row. During the first half of the play we saw that there happened to be two empty seats in the first row. When intermission came around we immediately got up and comandeered those seats and watched the second half of the show from the front row. It was amazing. The conductor was alomst as fun to watch as the play because he was singing along the entire time, and he just looked like he was enjoying life. We told him thank you afterwards and that we had a lot of fun. (Yes, we spoke in german). Also, approximately half of the cast were the original people that were cast in Germany, pretty cool. It was a great night.

A Tiny Tour of Tuebingen

On Saturday, the weather was unbelievably nice. So, Fiona and I used the opportunity to discover Tuebingen, and take a few pictures along the way.

This is me in front of the main building of the University in Tuebingen.

The day started off with a quick look at the main building of the University in Tuebingen. After that we climbed the tower in the Evangelical church. There was an amazing view of the city from the top. Along the way we also found an old organ that was no longer connected to any pipes. We also got to see the bells in the tower. Unfortunately, we didn't time our ascent very well, so we were in the same room when the bells rang. We did a better way on the way down and got to see the mechanism that makes the bells ring in action. After the tower we went to the Tuebing Castle to get some more spectacular views of the city. After that we headed over to the Neckar River where there is an island in the middle. Along the river we found a pretty sweet bridge that we were able to climb out onto to take some pretty sweet pictures. For dinner, we ate at the WurstKueche for some traditional German fare. It was fantastic. After dinner we went back to the Neckar Bridge to take some pictures by night. It was a great day.

Fiona Came To Visit

First of all, I would like to apologize for the lack of updating. Internet has been pretty spotty in my room and I haven't felt like hogging a library computer for long enough to write a post. The good thing is that not a whole lot has actually happened.

I have successfully moved into my room in Tuebingen. It seems like it is bigger, but it is most likely the same-ish size as my room at Wash U, I just don't have all the stuff here that I do there. I live up on a mountain, so I have a great view from my window. The only down side is that town is down the mountain so I have to take a bus any time I want to go and do anything.

I have started the Deutsche Kompakt language course here. That means that I am in grammar class for three hours a day and I have a "tutorium" for an hour a half a day as well. The grammar stuff has been good so far, I have actually learned a whole new tense that I had previously just ignored. The tutorium is also pretty useful. Yesterday, we learned how to sort trash in Germany, which is a really useful skill. Anytime you go to throw something away there are approximately five different containers: yellow sack, bio trash, paper, rest trash, and glass. And that is the minimum, things can get sorted even more.

Yesterday, was also a very exciting day because Fiona, a good friend from WashU, got here. She is staying with me this weekend and next weekend and going to Italy during the week when I have class. It is nice to see a familiar face.

There is snow on the ground, the sky is blue, and the sun is shining the perfect combination to go out walking around exploring. Have a great day.

T-Town

There really hasn't been a whole lot going on in Tuebingen just yet.  A bit of exploring and getting to know the downtown area, and a bit of campus exploration will about sum up my time here so far.  

Today was a big shopping day.  I got a sheet for my bed, another towel, and a camping mat.  You may be thinking to yourself, "Self, now why would Caroline need a camping mattress?"  Fiona is coming on Friday and my bed is nowhere near big enough for the both of us so I got that so that we can take turns sleeping on the floor.  I also bought a cup today.  

We registered with the Deutsche Kompakt people today, tomorrow morning we take our placement exam.  Tonight we went out with a bunch of other Americans who are also here for the semester.

After having spent some time with them, I am feeling much more confident about my language abilities.  Not many of them could speak German at all.  When we were at dinner the Americans that were at the Goethe Institute with me were translating menus and ordering for people as well as helping in the paying process.  

It was kind of nice to be able to feel confident about my language.  I go through stages of feeling as though I know enough to get by and feeling totally inadequate.  When I am with a bunch of people who don't speak English or I am conversing with long lost relatives who don't speak English, I feel relatively confident about my language skills.  But when I am with the other people from my university and we are all interacting in a german setting I don't feel as confident.  Hopefully this second month of preparation will be helpful before classes actually start.  

Right now I don't have power in my room.  The rest of the building does seem to have power though.  Not really sure what to do about it, this really isn't ever a problem at WashU.  If it is still off in the morning I will look up the word for electricity and go try and find someone to fix it I suppose. 

I haven't taken any pictures in Tuebingen yet, but as soon as I do I will post them.  Thanks for following.

Tübingen

We got to Tübingen on the 27th without too much difficulty. Our original train was delayed for about an hour, but we were able to get here without any problems, just a little bit later than we had planned on. The first day here we met with Thomas and Christiana and had lunch and then wentwalking through the city center. Tübingen seems to be a really pretty town. I can´t wait to get the chance to explore it further.

My room is a bedroom with it´s own bathroom and shower. There is a kitchen on the floor that everyone shares. I am pretty pleased with the accomodations. My walls are depressingly bare at the moment but I should be able to remedy that soon. I don´t have internet in my room yet, but as soon as I do more elaborated explanations and pictures will come.

I went to Mass at St. John´s, the local Catholic Church. I was actually able to follow the entire Mass for the first time. The congregation there was actually a community not just a bunch of visitors. It was nice to be a part of a community again.

Tübingen seems to be a great college town, actually it wouldn´t exist without the college. I am going to go out and start exploring. I have to take advantage of the blue sky that is such a rare thing in Germany.