First, I want to apologize to everybody who has tried to read this blog, but have had difficulty with the lack of updates. I found that I would rather tell people in person than type it out. I know that this means I will have to repeat stories a lot, but at least then I won't have to write anything. Also, questions mean that I don't only have to focus on what occurred, but how it looked and felt. I know I will get crap for this for a long time to come. I can take it.
Anyway, I will give a brief overview of all the future trips we took.
The next weekend after Nuerbergring, we took a trip to London, then Ireland, and then Scotland. These countries are all very beautiful, and it is great because they all speak English, it makes things really easy.
The next weekend we went to Rome, and the Vatican. It was a pretty interesting trip, with amazing food. After that we went to Alicante, Spain again. We both got our open water diving license. Also, we went with two of our Australian friends, and the World Cup started! The weekend after that we went to Greece. We went diving three times, all of which were amazing. We spent a day in Athens as well.
The next weekend I went to an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. I had a lot of fun, but was really sore from all the running. After that, we went to Berlin. It is a very interesting city, because a lot of it was destroyed during WWII, but there are still some fairly old things there. Also, Germany beat Argentina while we were there. It was a crazy few hours afterward. So much partying in the streets.
The next trip we took was to Krakow Poland. It is a very pretty city, and we took a tour of Auschwitz. That was a rather sobering experience.
This brings us to last weekend, which I used to go to another Ultimate tournament. Shaun's family came, so he was back in Italy.
This weekend, I am going to enjoy sleeping in, maybe going to a few places in the area if the weather is nice, and just enjoy being in Germany.
I hope that this will at least satisfy the curiosity of people until I see them and can fully explain all of our adventures. Until then.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Spain and Nuerburgring
In the interest of trying to catch up on my adventures in this thing, I am going to combine two trips together.
The second weekend of May Shaun and I went to Alicante Spain. This was our first trip using Ryan Air, which calls itself the 'low fares' airline. It has some pretty cheap flights, but they pack you in like no other airline I have ever seen. My upper leg didn't even fit between the seats. It was not the most comfortable flight, but it got us there. Getting to the airport was a little adventure too because we had to go to a regional airport which required us to take some trains a buses fairly early in the morning.
Once we got there, we found our hotel, which was right on the ocean, and then decided to go to the beach. We also needed lunch, so we stopped at a little cafe on the beach. It was pretty nice, and the food was very good. After that we found a nice little beach to lay down on and took a nap. It was nice to be able to sleep on the beach again. However, I can definitely say that the beach near my house on Lake Michigan is much better. I don't think there are many beaches in the world that can get better than that. I have a small argument with some friends from Australia about whether or not I can consider our beach a beach. I just keep telling them they don't even know.
Anyway, back to Alicante. The first night we were there we decided to see if we could go SCUBA diving anywhere. We found a place and made arrangements to see them the next day. They were actually in the next town to the south, and we got really excited when they said they could pick us up.
The next morning saw us getting up to go SCUBA diving. On our way to the dive shop, we discussed it with the instructor, and decided that we would begin the first part of our dive training. It wasn't too much more, and it last for life, so it seemed like a good idea. So that is what we did for that day and the next.
SCUBA diving is a lot of fun. I love being in the water, so actually being about to explore underwater was amazing. Getting used to the equipment takes a while, but it is well worth it. We are actually going back two weeks from now to finish up our dives so that we will be open water certified.
When we left we had to take a taxi to the airport because we had to leave so early. Spain is a very pretty place, and it is warm and sunny.
The weekend after the Spain trip saw us going to one of the biggest races in Europe. It is a 24 hour race. No joke. They have 3-4 drivers per team and they switch out every couple of hours. Because I am not a car person, I only went to this race because a friend asked us if we wanted to go and it sounded kinda interesting. If you want to know more, google '24 hour neurbergring'. That should give you the home page for the event. Anyhow, it was fun to see the start of the race. when all of those motors started to race, the sound was very impressive. However, it got kinda boring after that. The track is about 16 miles long, so each lap takes about 10 minutes, and that is in the daylight. At night it got kinda interesting for two reasons. We watched most of the race at the first turn after a long straight away through the stands. The cars have to slow down an lot, so at night you could see the brake discs heating up, and then cooling down even faster. It was a pretty sweet piece of engineering to see. Also, the cars misfire a lot, and at night you can see the flames coming out the back. That was fun.
Overnight the four of us that went slept in our light Mercedes C-class that we rented. Not the most comfortable night ever, but it worked. We didn't even have to pay for parking, so can't complain too much. Near the end of the race we drove to some other places where you could see the track. This is a week long event, with the end being the race, so the camping areas we went too looked like refugee camps or something. There were people everywhere, and as they packed up, they left garbage everywhere as well. It was rather sad.
All is all, it was a good weekend. Got to see some interesting things and it was probably the most relaxing we have had in a while.
The second weekend of May Shaun and I went to Alicante Spain. This was our first trip using Ryan Air, which calls itself the 'low fares' airline. It has some pretty cheap flights, but they pack you in like no other airline I have ever seen. My upper leg didn't even fit between the seats. It was not the most comfortable flight, but it got us there. Getting to the airport was a little adventure too because we had to go to a regional airport which required us to take some trains a buses fairly early in the morning.
Once we got there, we found our hotel, which was right on the ocean, and then decided to go to the beach. We also needed lunch, so we stopped at a little cafe on the beach. It was pretty nice, and the food was very good. After that we found a nice little beach to lay down on and took a nap. It was nice to be able to sleep on the beach again. However, I can definitely say that the beach near my house on Lake Michigan is much better. I don't think there are many beaches in the world that can get better than that. I have a small argument with some friends from Australia about whether or not I can consider our beach a beach. I just keep telling them they don't even know.
Anyway, back to Alicante. The first night we were there we decided to see if we could go SCUBA diving anywhere. We found a place and made arrangements to see them the next day. They were actually in the next town to the south, and we got really excited when they said they could pick us up.
The next morning saw us getting up to go SCUBA diving. On our way to the dive shop, we discussed it with the instructor, and decided that we would begin the first part of our dive training. It wasn't too much more, and it last for life, so it seemed like a good idea. So that is what we did for that day and the next.
SCUBA diving is a lot of fun. I love being in the water, so actually being about to explore underwater was amazing. Getting used to the equipment takes a while, but it is well worth it. We are actually going back two weeks from now to finish up our dives so that we will be open water certified.
When we left we had to take a taxi to the airport because we had to leave so early. Spain is a very pretty place, and it is warm and sunny.
The weekend after the Spain trip saw us going to one of the biggest races in Europe. It is a 24 hour race. No joke. They have 3-4 drivers per team and they switch out every couple of hours. Because I am not a car person, I only went to this race because a friend asked us if we wanted to go and it sounded kinda interesting. If you want to know more, google '24 hour neurbergring'. That should give you the home page for the event. Anyhow, it was fun to see the start of the race. when all of those motors started to race, the sound was very impressive. However, it got kinda boring after that. The track is about 16 miles long, so each lap takes about 10 minutes, and that is in the daylight. At night it got kinda interesting for two reasons. We watched most of the race at the first turn after a long straight away through the stands. The cars have to slow down an lot, so at night you could see the brake discs heating up, and then cooling down even faster. It was a pretty sweet piece of engineering to see. Also, the cars misfire a lot, and at night you can see the flames coming out the back. That was fun.
Overnight the four of us that went slept in our light Mercedes C-class that we rented. Not the most comfortable night ever, but it worked. We didn't even have to pay for parking, so can't complain too much. Near the end of the race we drove to some other places where you could see the track. This is a week long event, with the end being the race, so the camping areas we went too looked like refugee camps or something. There were people everywhere, and as they packed up, they left garbage everywhere as well. It was rather sad.
All is all, it was a good weekend. Got to see some interesting things and it was probably the most relaxing we have had in a while.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Trip to Paris
I am doing a really bad job of writing in this. Since the last post, a lot has happened. We finished our intensive German course, which I passed with the equivalent of a B, but thanks to only the credit transferring, it doesn't really matter. Real classes started then, which I will describe in my next post. This time I want to talk about our trip to Paris.
The night before we left, Shaun asked me if I wanted to go to Paris for the weekend. I said sure, but we really never decided anything. The next morning at breakfast we actually started to talk about actually going. We decided to and then went to our class. The professor never showed up, and we left the class early. We tried to catch the next train to Paris, but it was leaving half an hour after we left the class, and we didn't have anything packed. The next train left a few hours later. We took that one. I describe this because I think it shows how spontaneous this trip was.
We got to Paris after a 4ish hour ride. We found a hostel and then went out for dinner. We found a pizzeria that was still open, so we went in. I should say now that I speak almost no French, so a French menu didn't mean anything to me. I ordered a pizza that seemed good. That was a bad choice. The pizza I ordered had tuna and corn. I don't like tuna, and corn does not belong on a pizza. The pizza also had an egg cooked on it, which wasn't too bad. Suffice it to say, dinner was interesting.
The next morning we went to the Louvre. It is a pretty cool museum, and the building is even better. The building was huge. There were so many rooms that we definitely didn't see all of it in 4-5 hours there. It would have been better if we had gotten one of those translator things that have head phones, but that takes a really long time, and we didn't think about it. All of the placards were written in French. Also, a lot of the museum is art and sculptures, and while it impressive and I know I could never do the same things, it doesn't mean much to me and I can only look at art for so long. After the Louvre, we went to the Arc de Triumph. It was pretty cool, and the view from there was spectacular. After that we walked around the main part of the city and then went to dinner.
The next day we took a river boat tour. It was pretty cool, seeing most of the major points of interest in just an hour. We also went to an aquarium. It was rather disappointing, and it was more expensive than the Louvre. We weren't there for very long. On Saturday we also walked around again. We saw a few embassies and then decided we would look for US embassy. We wandered around for several hours, but didn't find it. For dinner we had mussels, which didn't seem that appetizing, but weren't actually that bad. It was another unique dining experience. After dinner we went to see Iron Man 2. Apparently it came out in France before the in the US. Who knew?
The next day we went to see Notre Dame. It is a very impressive church. However, I think there were a lot of people who were there to see the building, not the church. It kinda made me sad, and a little angry. It didn't feel quite like a church because of all of the tourists. We also went to mass there. It was in French, so I didn't understand anything, but it was kinda cool.
On Monday we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The weather wasn't the nicest, but it was our last day so we had to go.
Overall, Paris is a nice city to visit. However, it is fairly dirty. There were a lot of places that smelled like urine and many of the public trash cans were over flowing. I could wander around the city for days looking at the cool buildings and visiting places that aren't as famous, but our days were full as it was. Also, it is expensive, like everything else in Europe.
The night before we left, Shaun asked me if I wanted to go to Paris for the weekend. I said sure, but we really never decided anything. The next morning at breakfast we actually started to talk about actually going. We decided to and then went to our class. The professor never showed up, and we left the class early. We tried to catch the next train to Paris, but it was leaving half an hour after we left the class, and we didn't have anything packed. The next train left a few hours later. We took that one. I describe this because I think it shows how spontaneous this trip was.
We got to Paris after a 4ish hour ride. We found a hostel and then went out for dinner. We found a pizzeria that was still open, so we went in. I should say now that I speak almost no French, so a French menu didn't mean anything to me. I ordered a pizza that seemed good. That was a bad choice. The pizza I ordered had tuna and corn. I don't like tuna, and corn does not belong on a pizza. The pizza also had an egg cooked on it, which wasn't too bad. Suffice it to say, dinner was interesting.
The next morning we went to the Louvre. It is a pretty cool museum, and the building is even better. The building was huge. There were so many rooms that we definitely didn't see all of it in 4-5 hours there. It would have been better if we had gotten one of those translator things that have head phones, but that takes a really long time, and we didn't think about it. All of the placards were written in French. Also, a lot of the museum is art and sculptures, and while it impressive and I know I could never do the same things, it doesn't mean much to me and I can only look at art for so long. After the Louvre, we went to the Arc de Triumph. It was pretty cool, and the view from there was spectacular. After that we walked around the main part of the city and then went to dinner.
The next day we took a river boat tour. It was pretty cool, seeing most of the major points of interest in just an hour. We also went to an aquarium. It was rather disappointing, and it was more expensive than the Louvre. We weren't there for very long. On Saturday we also walked around again. We saw a few embassies and then decided we would look for US embassy. We wandered around for several hours, but didn't find it. For dinner we had mussels, which didn't seem that appetizing, but weren't actually that bad. It was another unique dining experience. After dinner we went to see Iron Man 2. Apparently it came out in France before the in the US. Who knew?
The next day we went to see Notre Dame. It is a very impressive church. However, I think there were a lot of people who were there to see the building, not the church. It kinda made me sad, and a little angry. It didn't feel quite like a church because of all of the tourists. We also went to mass there. It was in French, so I didn't understand anything, but it was kinda cool.
On Monday we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The weather wasn't the nicest, but it was our last day so we had to go.
Overall, Paris is a nice city to visit. However, it is fairly dirty. There were a lot of places that smelled like urine and many of the public trash cans were over flowing. I could wander around the city for days looking at the cool buildings and visiting places that aren't as famous, but our days were full as it was. Also, it is expensive, like everything else in Europe.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Easter Weekend
For Easter, Shaun and I went to Switzerland to go skiing. We had Good Friday off, and the Monday after, so it seemed like a good time to take an extended trip.
We left Friday night, taking the overnight (cheaper) train to Brig, Switzerland. This was definitely the worst part of the trip. We took about 7 different trains to get there, and I don't think we were ever on a train for more than an hour and a half. For overnight night trips, this is not good because we hardly slept. What made it even worse was that we were Bern, Switzerland for 4 hours. 4 hour layovers don't sound too bad, but that is because airports are covered, and warm. Most train stations are not. There was a warm area in the train station, but it was closed between 12:30 AM and 6:00. We were there between 2 and 6. So, we wandered around for about 2 hours, and eventually found a stairwell that was sort of warm. However, after an hour security came and kicked us out. It was altogether bad planning. We did manage to sleep some though, me 3 hours and Shaun about 2.So, after our super long, sleepless trip to Switzerland, we skiied most of the day. The resort (?) we skiied at was called Saastal. Specifically, we were at Saas Fee, which is a little town at around 1800 meters (just over 5900 feet). There are no cars in the town, so we had to take a bus to get there. It is an amazingly beautiful town. There are mountains on all sides, and the town is a classic Swiss town. It seemed to be geared completely toward skiing all day, and partying all night.
Anyway, the mountain we skiied on was huge. There were two stations from which you could start skiing on the lower half of the mountain, and from the higher one, you could take this crazy mountain train to the top of the ski area, at around 3500 meters (11500 feet). From there you could take a T-bar up another 100 meters. Of course the first thing we did was go up to the highest skiing point. It was beautiful. We were above the clouds and we could see mountains in the distance. The top of the mountain was a glacier. We saw some people climbing to the top of the mountain, which looked like an insane climb.
Back to the skiing. We were at the very top of the mountain, and decided we would ski to the very bottom. It took us a half hour! It was the longest straight skiing session of my life! Such a big mountain. The skiing the first day was nothing special, other than the fact we were on a mountain, and also a glacier. One thing to note, is that they don't have night skiing on mountains, so the lifts close pretty early.
We left before the lifts closed because we were so exhausted, and went to our hotel in Saas Almagell. We had a nice little hotel in the middle of the town. The best part of it was the hot tub and sauna in this weird basement thing. We had to go outside to get to it though. That was a good way to end an day full of skiing.
The next day we ate breakfast at the hotel. They have really good 'continental' breakfasts here, with fresh breads, cold cuts, yogurt, granola, juices and other delicious things. Then we spent most of the day on the mountain skiing. This day there was harsh weather on the mountain. We pretty much skiied in a blizzard. We couldn't see more than 100 feet in front of us, there was that much snow. Probably not the safest to ski in, but it was exciting and we went slower. The weird part of this was that it wasn't even snowing on the lower half of the mountain. Changing elevation does some crazy things. It all amounted to another great day of skiing.
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. We left Monday morning to go back to Stuttgart. We were in Brig, Switzerland for a while and wondered around for a while. Another beautiful city of Switzerland. Mountains everywhere. The train ride back to Stuttgart was much shorter and easier than the one we took to get there.
This is a mountain by Brig. It is also now the desktop background for my computer.
All in all, a great weekend of skiing.
We left Friday night, taking the overnight (cheaper) train to Brig, Switzerland. This was definitely the worst part of the trip. We took about 7 different trains to get there, and I don't think we were ever on a train for more than an hour and a half. For overnight night trips, this is not good because we hardly slept. What made it even worse was that we were Bern, Switzerland for 4 hours. 4 hour layovers don't sound too bad, but that is because airports are covered, and warm. Most train stations are not. There was a warm area in the train station, but it was closed between 12:30 AM and 6:00. We were there between 2 and 6. So, we wandered around for about 2 hours, and eventually found a stairwell that was sort of warm. However, after an hour security came and kicked us out. It was altogether bad planning. We did manage to sleep some though, me 3 hours and Shaun about 2.So, after our super long, sleepless trip to Switzerland, we skiied most of the day. The resort (?) we skiied at was called Saastal. Specifically, we were at Saas Fee, which is a little town at around 1800 meters (just over 5900 feet). There are no cars in the town, so we had to take a bus to get there. It is an amazingly beautiful town. There are mountains on all sides, and the town is a classic Swiss town. It seemed to be geared completely toward skiing all day, and partying all night.
Anyway, the mountain we skiied on was huge. There were two stations from which you could start skiing on the lower half of the mountain, and from the higher one, you could take this crazy mountain train to the top of the ski area, at around 3500 meters (11500 feet). From there you could take a T-bar up another 100 meters. Of course the first thing we did was go up to the highest skiing point. It was beautiful. We were above the clouds and we could see mountains in the distance. The top of the mountain was a glacier. We saw some people climbing to the top of the mountain, which looked like an insane climb.
Back to the skiing. We were at the very top of the mountain, and decided we would ski to the very bottom. It took us a half hour! It was the longest straight skiing session of my life! Such a big mountain. The skiing the first day was nothing special, other than the fact we were on a mountain, and also a glacier. One thing to note, is that they don't have night skiing on mountains, so the lifts close pretty early.
We left before the lifts closed because we were so exhausted, and went to our hotel in Saas Almagell. We had a nice little hotel in the middle of the town. The best part of it was the hot tub and sauna in this weird basement thing. We had to go outside to get to it though. That was a good way to end an day full of skiing.
The next day we ate breakfast at the hotel. They have really good 'continental' breakfasts here, with fresh breads, cold cuts, yogurt, granola, juices and other delicious things. Then we spent most of the day on the mountain skiing. This day there was harsh weather on the mountain. We pretty much skiied in a blizzard. We couldn't see more than 100 feet in front of us, there was that much snow. Probably not the safest to ski in, but it was exciting and we went slower. The weird part of this was that it wasn't even snowing on the lower half of the mountain. Changing elevation does some crazy things. It all amounted to another great day of skiing.
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. We left Monday morning to go back to Stuttgart. We were in Brig, Switzerland for a while and wondered around for a while. Another beautiful city of Switzerland. Mountains everywhere. The train ride back to Stuttgart was much shorter and easier than the one we took to get there.
This is a mountain by Brig. It is also now the desktop background for my computer.
All in all, a great weekend of skiing.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Two weekends, two trips. And more.
So, it has been a while since I have written.
Two weekends ago Shaun and I went skiing in Austria. It was a trip planned by a group called AEGEE, which is a European organization that helps exchange students do things on campus and on the weekends. They do a lot of different things, like parties and trips. It is pretty cool. Anyway, the place we went to in Austria is called Warth Schroecken. It was a pretty cool mountain. There were quite a few blue (easy) paths for me to take down, which was good because it had been a long time since I had skied. We spent about 6 hours skiing, and most of that was actually going down the hill, unlike in Michigan where one spends more time riding up to the top than going down. There were a few times we went down in ungroomed areas, which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately it was quite warm, so the snow was heavy, and slow. (More about the weather in a second.) There were also a few really steep parts in which we both fell, hard. Shaun did a spectacular face plant into the snow, but he had the camera so I couldn't take a picture. I also fell, though it is more like tumbling than anything, as the pictures (coming shortly) show.
So, the weather. It was really sunny. Sunny enough that if you didn't wear sun screen, your face burned. Shaun and I considered such things briefly and because neither of us thought we would get 'snow burn', we didn't take any, even though it was offered to us. By the end of the day, we were very toasted, Shaun more so than I. We spent the next week walking around with red and peeling faces, and because of our sun glasses, everybody knew what had happened. It was a bad choice.
Our trip over Easter weekend is to Saes Fae Switzerland for more skiing. Don't worry, we have already bought the sun screen.
Last weekend we took a trip to Karlsruhe, a city northwest of Stuttgart. It was a trip put on by the International Zentrum (IZ). It was an interesting trip. The first place we went to was Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medien technologie (Center for Art and Media). It was definitely an art museum, because most of the stuff that was artistic, I didn't understand. This art wasn't painting and sculpture art. Instead it was art that utilizes technology to make statements and stuff like that. I found a few things to be cool, but I am not much of an art person. After that we went to the cities botanical garden and saw some cool things there, and the baroque castle built by the founder of the city. Castles are cool. Unfortunately it is now a museum, so it is not cool on the inside, but the outside is impressive.
After that we went to a brew house an took a tour of their beer making process. This is kinda misleading because it only took about 2 minutes to see everything. All in all it was a good trip though. A good way to spend a rainy Saturday.
The only eventful thing that has happened during the week is that we had a test. It was three hours long, and we had to wait for everybody to finish before we moved on to the next parts, so I did a lot of waiting. We got the test back today, and I did surprisingly well. In German, all nouns have genders, either masculine, feminine or neutral. I know it is the same in many languages, but in German there is almost no pattern or reason for the gender. This means that you just have to memorize the gender of, I don't know, several THOUSAND, words. For one, that is ridiculous, and two, I hate memorizing. The reason I mention all of this is because I thought I was going to do pretty poorly on the grammar part of the test because I didn't know the gender of about half the words. It turned out okay though.
Two weekends ago Shaun and I went skiing in Austria. It was a trip planned by a group called AEGEE, which is a European organization that helps exchange students do things on campus and on the weekends. They do a lot of different things, like parties and trips. It is pretty cool. Anyway, the place we went to in Austria is called Warth Schroecken. It was a pretty cool mountain. There were quite a few blue (easy) paths for me to take down, which was good because it had been a long time since I had skied. We spent about 6 hours skiing, and most of that was actually going down the hill, unlike in Michigan where one spends more time riding up to the top than going down. There were a few times we went down in ungroomed areas, which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately it was quite warm, so the snow was heavy, and slow. (More about the weather in a second.) There were also a few really steep parts in which we both fell, hard. Shaun did a spectacular face plant into the snow, but he had the camera so I couldn't take a picture. I also fell, though it is more like tumbling than anything, as the pictures (coming shortly) show.
So, the weather. It was really sunny. Sunny enough that if you didn't wear sun screen, your face burned. Shaun and I considered such things briefly and because neither of us thought we would get 'snow burn', we didn't take any, even though it was offered to us. By the end of the day, we were very toasted, Shaun more so than I. We spent the next week walking around with red and peeling faces, and because of our sun glasses, everybody knew what had happened. It was a bad choice.
Our trip over Easter weekend is to Saes Fae Switzerland for more skiing. Don't worry, we have already bought the sun screen.
Last weekend we took a trip to Karlsruhe, a city northwest of Stuttgart. It was a trip put on by the International Zentrum (IZ). It was an interesting trip. The first place we went to was Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medien technologie (Center for Art and Media). It was definitely an art museum, because most of the stuff that was artistic, I didn't understand. This art wasn't painting and sculpture art. Instead it was art that utilizes technology to make statements and stuff like that. I found a few things to be cool, but I am not much of an art person. After that we went to the cities botanical garden and saw some cool things there, and the baroque castle built by the founder of the city. Castles are cool. Unfortunately it is now a museum, so it is not cool on the inside, but the outside is impressive.
After that we went to a brew house an took a tour of their beer making process. This is kinda misleading because it only took about 2 minutes to see everything. All in all it was a good trip though. A good way to spend a rainy Saturday.The only eventful thing that has happened during the week is that we had a test. It was three hours long, and we had to wait for everybody to finish before we moved on to the next parts, so I did a lot of waiting. We got the test back today, and I did surprisingly well. In German, all nouns have genders, either masculine, feminine or neutral. I know it is the same in many languages, but in German there is almost no pattern or reason for the gender. This means that you just have to memorize the gender of, I don't know, several THOUSAND, words. For one, that is ridiculous, and two, I hate memorizing. The reason I mention all of this is because I thought I was going to do pretty poorly on the grammar part of the test because I didn't know the gender of about half the words. It turned out okay though.
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Next Two Weeks
A lot has happened since the last time I wrote on this.
The first week was pretty relaxed. They didn't have much planned for us. We had a placment test Wednesday, which took about 30 minutes. On Thursday we had our first class, but that was only for and hour, and then we took a short tour of the city. Friday we had a short time to speak with the teacher of the class, in German, so that they could decide if we were in the correct class. The rest of the time was pretty free. There was a welcoming party after that, with some pretty good food. The rest of the weekend, Shaun and I watched NCIS (auf Deutsch (meaning ''in German'')) and movies from America. Pretty lame way to spend the weekend, but neither of us felt like going out.
On Monday of last week the real class started. Shaun and I are in the same class, which is good. The class goes from 8 until 1:15, with 45 minutes of break in there. The class is good. I have covered all of the material so far that we have talked about, and I think all of the material we will talk about. If I had studied for the two months I was at home, I probably could have been in a more challenging class. Oh well. The classes have lots of different countries represented. There are 4 form America, 3 from Australia, 2 from Panama, Poland, Spain, and one from Iceland, Canada, Mexico, Turkey and probably some others I forgot.
I think I should explain now why I haven't been online for anything very much. The problem starts with the fact that the power here is 220 V, instead of 120. Also, there plugs are just two circular prongs. (Pictures will be coming once I can use my computer.) I knew that I needed to convert the power, and thus had a power converter. However, this converter has a maximum output of 50 Watts. Well, when I plugged in my computer, which takes 90 Watts, I blew a fuse. I found another fuse to replace it, but I can't plug in my computer because it will detroy the converter again. In order to solve this problem, I am going to plug my computer directly into the wall, which is ok because the plug for my computer can handle 240 V. However, the plugs don't match up so I ordered an adaptor off Amazon. There were two problems with this. One, it takes a really long time to get here. I orderd it a week and a half ago, and it still isn't suppose to arrive until Thursday. The other problem is that the shipping is rediculous. I paid less than 3 dollars for the adaptor, and the shipping, which i neglected to look at before I paid for it, was almot 39 dollars. Oops.
Moral of the story, hopefully I will be on Facebook and Skype more in a week.
Future plans: skiing in Austria on Saturday, and next Saturday going to Karlsruhe.
The first week was pretty relaxed. They didn't have much planned for us. We had a placment test Wednesday, which took about 30 minutes. On Thursday we had our first class, but that was only for and hour, and then we took a short tour of the city. Friday we had a short time to speak with the teacher of the class, in German, so that they could decide if we were in the correct class. The rest of the time was pretty free. There was a welcoming party after that, with some pretty good food. The rest of the weekend, Shaun and I watched NCIS (auf Deutsch (meaning ''in German'')) and movies from America. Pretty lame way to spend the weekend, but neither of us felt like going out.
On Monday of last week the real class started. Shaun and I are in the same class, which is good. The class goes from 8 until 1:15, with 45 minutes of break in there. The class is good. I have covered all of the material so far that we have talked about, and I think all of the material we will talk about. If I had studied for the two months I was at home, I probably could have been in a more challenging class. Oh well. The classes have lots of different countries represented. There are 4 form America, 3 from Australia, 2 from Panama, Poland, Spain, and one from Iceland, Canada, Mexico, Turkey and probably some others I forgot.
I think I should explain now why I haven't been online for anything very much. The problem starts with the fact that the power here is 220 V, instead of 120. Also, there plugs are just two circular prongs. (Pictures will be coming once I can use my computer.) I knew that I needed to convert the power, and thus had a power converter. However, this converter has a maximum output of 50 Watts. Well, when I plugged in my computer, which takes 90 Watts, I blew a fuse. I found another fuse to replace it, but I can't plug in my computer because it will detroy the converter again. In order to solve this problem, I am going to plug my computer directly into the wall, which is ok because the plug for my computer can handle 240 V. However, the plugs don't match up so I ordered an adaptor off Amazon. There were two problems with this. One, it takes a really long time to get here. I orderd it a week and a half ago, and it still isn't suppose to arrive until Thursday. The other problem is that the shipping is rediculous. I paid less than 3 dollars for the adaptor, and the shipping, which i neglected to look at before I paid for it, was almot 39 dollars. Oops.
Moral of the story, hopefully I will be on Facebook and Skype more in a week.
Future plans: skiing in Austria on Saturday, and next Saturday going to Karlsruhe.
Monday, March 1, 2010
First Post from Germany
Well, I have made it to Germany. The trip here was eventful. For starters, I missed the flight I was scheduled for out of London to Stuttgart. This was the result of many things, such as leaving late, no tail wind, poor weather in Enlgand, and lines to get through security. I have concluded that this could only happen as a result of God testing me to be less confident in the way things are. This trip is going to be like that, I get the feeling. When you can understand the signs, and speech, and papers people give you, things are much easier. Too bad things aren't like that now.
To get to the youth hostel that I spent the night in, I walked down (down, as in down hill) a street about a mile , only to find that the hostel wasn't there. I then had to walk back up the hill, again a mile, to the spot I started and find the correct road. The directions I had said follow the sign to the hostel, after waking down the hill. I didn't know what the signs looked like, so that is what caused me problems. Apparently the signs for a hostel are a house with a tree next to it, with no writing at all. My bad for not knowing that.
Now I am at the Universität, with a room. That is really all I need, for now.
Another interesting thing to note, is that German keyboards are slightly different than American ones. For one, the 'z' and 'y' key are switched. It is kinda a pain. Also, there are keys with umlauts, the two dots over letters, that makes it much easier to type in German. Other differences aren't quite as big.
Shaun is here now, so I don't feel like such a pathetic person because I have someone to talk to.
Pictures of stuff will be coming, once I get settled with everything.
To get to the youth hostel that I spent the night in, I walked down (down, as in down hill) a street about a mile , only to find that the hostel wasn't there. I then had to walk back up the hill, again a mile, to the spot I started and find the correct road. The directions I had said follow the sign to the hostel, after waking down the hill. I didn't know what the signs looked like, so that is what caused me problems. Apparently the signs for a hostel are a house with a tree next to it, with no writing at all. My bad for not knowing that.
Now I am at the Universität, with a room. That is really all I need, for now.
Another interesting thing to note, is that German keyboards are slightly different than American ones. For one, the 'z' and 'y' key are switched. It is kinda a pain. Also, there are keys with umlauts, the two dots over letters, that makes it much easier to type in German. Other differences aren't quite as big.
Shaun is here now, so I don't feel like such a pathetic person because I have someone to talk to.
Pictures of stuff will be coming, once I get settled with everything.
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