not enough time for a real post, but

This cracks me up, especially after having a bit of crash-course learning about politics here. There is an election coming here, so Weimar was littered with political posters, but none as convincing as Herr Spieth holding a snowglobe of Parliment.

Rita and I outside of Friedrich Schiller's house

Taken behind a large memorial a km or so outside of Buckenwald. The memorial was strange because it was erected in the 50's when the Eastern German governement was pushing its communist ticket... so I guess nothing is as it would seem. Jacky, Tony, Me, Keinst; if you can, check out the background... we had an amazing view.

Love You To

ILP and its assorted experiences have fashioned me into the most bipolar version of myself I've ever encountered.

Its Thursday afternoon and I do not have class tomorrow PRAISE THE LORD, though I do have to meet in front of our classroom on Waldweg (Street) at 8am tomorrow. From there we are taking a bus the 2-3 hours to Weimar, Germany. For those of you who aren't in the know (which is probably most anybody reading this... save perhaps my dad), Weimar is a big deal as far as German culture goes. Goethe and Schiller both set up residence there, as well as Bach, Franz Liszt (of whom we have the absolute scariest picture in our reader for class, talk about Ungeheuer), and Nietzsche. The Weimar Republic (1919-1933) got its name from the city (because the Constitution was signed there), Bauhaus spent its formative years here (the architectural style/movement... not the band), and about 20 km outside the city was the site of Buchenwald. So all in all Weimar is a pretty interesting place. I know we are seeing both Goethe and Schiller's homes tomorrow... I don't know what else, but as long as I am able to hold up it should be a good time. Its gotta be better than sitting in the ninth floor of our classroom unit, straining to hear my soft-spoken German teacher's voice over the howling wind (seriously, its like I spent 3 hours in a haunted house every morning).

After class this afternoon I had my first Sprechstunde (literally, speaking hour... but more like a short meeting) with my teacher. I always get nervous talking to language teachers one on one, and I have barely been participating in class, and the papers I've been writing for homework the past few nights have been completed when I've been way too tired... but it turned out being fine. I don't know yet what I got on my placement test (he had misplaced my grade, but there were some jerks who were flaunting their scores), but everything we talked about made me feel a lot better. I walked away feeling that familiar frustration, like someone has placed a knife between your teeth and you've got to try to emit some coherent sounds without the blade slicing your throat open, but thats starting to feel normal. I talked to him about my worries about not finding any sources for my Referat, and he told me he'd look and either email me or try to bring something in for me next week. Then he mentioned I need to talk more in class, and I nodded with the "yeah, I know" look, but everything he said was just so nice to hear. I have been hesitant to sing this mans praises, just because I am waiting for something to happen and crush the few things that I hold in fondness here, but it looks like here we are good. He sort of reminds me of the professor I had for five of the six quarters of German I took at UCSC. Its not that Walter Campbell and I had a better than average teacher-student relationship, but I was just so charmed by his ways and sense of humor that I loved him (as do all of the UCSC kids here who had him). Its harder this time around with Matthias Beilein, probably because he is actually German, but in other ways that makes him better.

There are three teachers for the ILP course this summer, a woman teaching the lowest class, and two men for the Mittelstufe and Oberstufe. Herr Beilein, Lehrer of the Oberstufe, rides his bike in his good-for-every-day-of-the-week black suit. Each day he stands around smoking with the other teachers during the Pause, always sporting a different colored shirt. He wears the type of glasses that I've come to think of as German, just because I don't really recall seeing them in such abundance anywhere else. These "German" glasses are the round lensed kind, the sort one would assume would detract from ones appearance. My teacher always has a sort of rumpled look about him, but even through that he manages to seem intimidating until you actually sit down and talk with him. But as he was talking to me in our meeting this afternoon I was surprised once again by how nice he is. I have gotten out of the habit of assuming that people will be nice to you (German kids don't smile back at you like American ones automatically do... out of all the Kinder I've encountered here, only one baby smiled back at me, and I think it was just because it wasn't old enough to know better), so it sort of surprises me when someone seems to be going out of their way to make you feel better. He wasn't throwing rose petals at my feet or anything, but he was (very rapidly) talking about how I had come to him after the first day of class and said I wasn't sure if I had been placed in the right class blah blah blah, and he was refuting those early claims with evidence from the past two weeks. I think he might have been going a bit out of his way because I know I am not that much up to speed, but he did say some nice things about my writing that were unexpected. But all in all him saying "Keine Sorgen" just made me feel so much better. Thats all I need to hear. It'd also be nice to wake up and realize that my two Referaete are over, but I think that feeling is still a good way off.

In that vein, I should go get to some work. Before that, though, I have to comment about how much I love this weather, even though that might be a passing feeling if it stays like this for another 5 months (apparently this is weather akin to what is supposed to happen in October). I also love the amount of coats and jackets one can purchase over here. Of all the money I have dropped in the past few weeks (but really, I have been trying to be cheap... I have just had to pay for a lot of things this month only because I've just moved here), I have only purchased three articles of clothing- a tan courderoy blazer (very academic), a Uni Goettingen sweatshirt (very American- no one wears hoodies here), and then today, a teal zip up jacket. I am still in the market for a good Regenmantel (rain coat), but I want to look around a bit more before I take the plunge. Every time I go shopping here I have the desire to return to America with a closet full of jackets and coats.

And a on a passing note- the next time a group of Germans invite you to play cards with them, decline unless you have a good hour to spend feeling really confused about some more-complex-than-should-be-allowed version of Go Fish. Heed my words, people, because you'll come out of there feeling more confused about the world than when you went in.

bah

Things are reaching hyperventilation status. My group Referat (oral presentation) is next Friday, and today we got assigned our presentation dates for our personal Referats, and mine is next Thursday. Of the three huge projects we have this summer, two of mine are in the next week, and I haven't done a thing for either of them.

So to try to combat feeling so overwhelmed I went to the library after class to start research... too bad the library makes absolutely no sense. I won't even go into it, but when I searched my topic (stereotypes of Germans and Americans in comparison), the closest match I got was "Indians in unlikely places." Indians in unlikely places. How am I going to squeeze out a 10-15 minute speech when the only source one of the best libraries in Germany can give me is something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything. It wouldn't be so bad if these projects were different, but looking stupid on paper is a lot different than looking stupid in front of a class full of people... when is ILP over again?

still got it!

Chaos! Insanity! Meredith can a bike ride!

lets get out of town and forever be free

Since my 21st birthday has been celebrated in various forms starting around the end of July, it made sense that I went out more Saturday night than I did Sunday (the actual day of birth). After a nice Saturday of sleeping, organizing things, and minimal work, Jacky and I rode into town to Cinemaxx, the big movie theatre here. I think there are two or three other Kinos here, but Cinemaxx is by far the largest and plays the most "Hollywood" movies. We had minimal success finding movie listings online, so we ended up going to Cinemaxx just because it was the only theatre's website that made any sense. We ended up watching Charlie und die Schokoladen Fabrik, which I had luckily seen and enjoyed previously (auf Englisch). It was fun seeing it the second time around, and noticing all that you really do lose in translation (most imported movies here are dubbed in German... so I can foresee watching Hollywood movies in German only to go home to realize wait, those actor's voices suddenly sound different). We tried to look around and gauge the German audience's reactions to things, but it was kind of hard to tell in the dark. I was most interested to see how the Germans reacted to the portrayl of Augustus Gloop, the fat German boy who is the first to go once the tour of the chocolate factory is underway. They seemed to take the american stereotyping of them as fat and gluttinous pretty well, I thought.

After the movie we rode into town to an Indischiner Imbiss. I don't believe I've ever had any Indian food, so I am glad to be broadening my horizons on a nearly daily basis (and by broadening I normally mean realizing how terrible and funny it is to be perpetually misunderstood).

I spent most of Sunday homeworking on and off. I wasn't as productive as I had hoped, I think primarily because I couldn't shake the feeling that it just wasn't right to be doing homework on my birthday (my own fault, though). I did discover that of the few shared music libraries I can see on iTunes, one of them had some good music, and so I made good use of that.

Class today felt better than previously, if only because our unit on German politics is coming to a close. We have a test on Thursday, and I just studied some with Kate, and hopefully will be able to get a group together to study the next two days because... God knows I have no idea what the hell is going on.

This afternoon Jacky and I went on another adventure, this time to pick up a package from my mom. The street we needed to get to had a big purple line between it and where we are, so I went to ask the kindly woman who works at the housing office here at the Siedlung. As usual it was all a little nebulous, but luckily Jacky was there to be picking up information as well. It was only when the woman said something about going over a mountain that I started getting worried.

As it turned out, the mountain wasn't so bad, and the ride to the alternative post office (I talked to Kate and apparently she was able to pick up her package at the post office in town... I have no idea why mine got sent out to the outskirts of town) was actually pretty nice. It was my first time taking in the sights of the industrial sector of Goettingen, and even though most industry really isn't so schoen, the area still retained an amazing amount of charm.

On the way back we found the famed Mini Mall grocery store, where I stocked up on (amongst other things) a plate of coconut (they have so many different kinds of fruit here... I think they are shipped from all over the continent, but still, a surprising amount of exotica), and a giant chocolate bar. Its surprising that my unhealthy attachment to chocolate hasn't lessened since I've been living in Germany... ahem. I have also been eating an enormous amount of bread-products here. In a lot of groceries and markets here, where in America we'd have Starbucks or some other coffee chain, they have little mini bakeries. That said, I'm still not too worried about about my massive bread/chocolate consumption, because if the past few days have been any indication, I think I am going to be doing enough bike riding to get me the mannliest thighs this side of the Weser.

wherever you go, there you are

Its Saturday afternoon and I still haven't really started on homework. I had just been digging into some articles we read in class yesterday (but I am rereading before I start my paper on them, because, surprise surprise, I didn't really grasp much information the first time around) when Jacky showed up at my door around 2 this afternoon. We had planned to go to the flea market this morning, but we both slept in due to the rain and our own prolonged exhaustion. We ended up riding our bikes (this continues to be a great adventure for me) into town to get some groceries before the shops closed (most shops close around 4 on Saturdays, and aren't open at all on Sundays). When we made our way back home through the tree-lined streets, the rain hailing down softly, our rickety bikes laden with groceries, I felt like we were in some European movie. It just seemed all too idyllic.

What does not, however, seem so idyllic is all the work laying in front of me. This weekend I need to read some articles, write a paper (on them, I think?), dig into the 200 page novel that we are supposed complete a week from now (I haven't started), and either go over all the information we've covered in class this past week and figure out what the heck it all means, or otherwise somehow educate myself on German government and current politics. I don't even understand this stuff in English.

What has been a spot of sun in the past few days of my life was last night's happenings. Recently I have been kind of down about my birthday being this weekend. I have a lot of work to do and I'm homesick and the few people here I would like to celebrate with are for the most part out of town this weekend (Jacky is here, but a lot of people went traveling this weekend... namely Steven and Keinst to Hannover, and Rita and Emily to Koeln to see the Pope). Tomorrow is my 21st birthday and apart from it happening to occur in Europe I felt like there was going to be nothing special about it. So after a Friday afternoon of shopping downtown and spending all my energy doing my best to feel optimistic about Life as it stands, I was relieved to hear that we were all just going to hang out and watch a movie in the lounge of Haus 12 (where Keinst lives). I had just hopped out of the shower when Jacky came by to get me, and so when I walked into the dark lounge that joins Haus 10 and 12, among my first thoughts were "Oh no, these pictures are going to look wretched." A terrible first thought to form when you realize that the mass of huddle figures in the corner are your friends who are throwing you a surprise party, but what can you do. It took me a good minute to register what was going on, but lots of cameras and then the lights on and just feeling very, very surprised. It was a small affair, but I was still surprised with how resourceful my friends had been without me ever having the slightest idea. There was some alcohol (off of which everyone seemed to get drunk except me), and Steven and Rita had procured a apple streudel-esque cake from some tiny bakery somewhere. There were probably around 20 of us there, all folks from the UC's except for two of my floormates, Sajjad and Mannfred, who had somehow gotten taken along for the ride (apparently they thought we were just going to watch a movie too). I continued to feel very surprised and so glad that my birthday would not just go off without so much as a whimper. We all sat around and talked and Keinst gave out massages, and eventually people started trickling out to go fufill their late Friday evening adventures. Eventually a group of us left to go into town, first for Doerner and then to a pub. We never made it to the pub, just because it had been such a long week for all of us, but it meant a lot to me that people had put effort into something like this for me.

Walking back home last night from town, L-R: Neesha, Kai (who is Japanese... nothing like a Japanese girl who speaks English almost as well as you and German far better than you to make you feel like you've missed the boat), Steven, me, and Keinst.

Motion Picture Soundtrack

Tomorrow is my last day of class for the week, and then a whole weekend. I am so excited for the morning I can wake up and know that I don't have to spend the next four hours in a prolonged headache.

I have been feeling better today, which is a blessing because yesterday wasn't so good. This afternoon was the first one of this past week where I haven't felt I had to rush home to do work. After class we met downtown to go to an exhibition in the old Universitaet Bibliothek (university library). It was on Gutingi, which is the name of the 10th century village that eventually blossomed into beautiful Goettingen. Goettingen has been more beautiful as of late, if only because today one could actually see the sun.

In an effort to be optimistic about this rough patch, let me share something completely inconsequential that really excited me about living in Germany: Here in Goettingen we don't have skunks or raccoons (at least, to my knowledge). Instead, our trashcan scavengers are hedgehogs. Hedgehogs! The cute let-me-just-pick-you-up-and-put-you-in-my-pocket kind. I freaked out the first time I saw one.

And now I am just going to include random bits I've written over the past week and a half so they don't just get forgotten about. Excuse the lack of coherence.

One of the first things I noticed when I moved here were door handles and the way doors open. I kept thinking, es macht keine Sinne! I think I've finally gotten the hang of it, but I still get surprised now and then. I can't even explain how its different, because now that I live here I can't remember what its like at home. All the same, it needs to be noted that that was one of my most common observations within those first few days.

The next big thing for me were scents. Everything here smells different from anything I've ever smelt before, and though I can no longer notice (I really could only notice the first two days, after that I got used to it and could no longer recognize it), I really remember it being shockingly different. Its like my hall has its own distinct scent (somewhere between tobacco, laundry and mustiness), as does this part of town, as does downtown... and all the food, people, etc etc etc.

The people I interact with here the most are the people I already knew coming here (fellow UCSCers). I don't think its because we all at least knew of one another when we came here (we all had German classes together at some point), but rather they are just the people I click with the best. There are still a good number of people new to me in the program here that I like, but even on the first day I definitely noticed how Americans can get the reputation for being brash, obnoxious and sometimes just... unlikeable.

saturday: went out into the country on the EAP bus (went to the anniversary of a salt mine, german miners singing songs outfitted in black uniforms, went to a little place off the Autobahn that just has a bunch of miniature replicas of the most famous castles and estates in Germany... really random and sort of creepy), exhaustion hit its peak, better now. that night jacky and i had our first real meal in a few days (my god how satisfying), and then met up with a bunch of people at Thanner's (traditional-looking pub). From there Emily (also from SC), Rita, Jacky and I hit Savoy once more. We got there 11:30 ish and for a bit I was worried, because when we had gone on Wednesday the club had been absolutely packed and when we arrived on Saturday there were a good amount of people there but no one was dancing. All we had to do was order drinks and wait it out, because within an hour the place was jammed. Music selections were once again strange (too much latin, and then all of a sudden an Elvis song?), got to know Emily a bit better, and went up by the pole and danced with her just because hey, why not. It was got really ridiculous when a bunch of (American) oldies came on, and the german girls who had been dancing up by the poles all night were somehow trying to sex that up. I don't care what you look like or how well you can move, there is no way that you can grind to something that was crooned over 50 years ago.

sunday: first really free day. woke up to go grocery shopping with jacky (turns out the sign that had said the store would be open for just a few hours on sunday morning was for the baeckeri inside the grocery store, not the actual grocery store itself... yeah, nothing is open here on sundays), went to eat, napped, hung out with Rita, Steven and Jacky (watched pirates episodes of sex and the city!). Really glad I am getting along with some of the people here at least, ironic that the people I am getting along with best are people from my own school that I already sort of knew. had my first experience ordering pizza, and with our delivery order we actually ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio. I know it kind of goes againist the not spending money on things idea, but it was just too funny of an idea to pass up. pizza and wine.


And... thats about all I had already at least jotted down. Another thought that just came to me is that everything here is dubbed, so tonight while Jacky and I were doing homework in her floor's "living room," I watched half an episode of Scrubs dubbed in German. We couldn't get any of the jokes, but we were laughing all the same just because its so strange to hear weird German voices substituted for the actors you feel you know so well.

I finally got my bike fixed(?), and Jacky bought hers off the side of the street while we were on our way downtown today. So, we had our first excursion this evening to the Pennymarkt (discount grocery store of sorts). I haven't ridden a bike for years, and this one looks a little rickety... but hopefully I'll manage. It was free, except for the 12 Euro I had to pay to get it fixed from when it was just sort of given to me. Jacky and I are planning on riding to class in the morning... luckily Kreuzbegring has a bike lane. And oh Goodness in Heaven, I forgot to mention that I finally found some bottled water today that was by some miracle of Abraham not carbonated. Praise be!

paper towels as tissues

DeliciousDeth (21:24:17): I keep freaking out that I don't know if I should stay in this class or not. I don't want to switch, 1. because it'd be a hassle, 2. because I don't know if I'd be happy with it even if I did switch, and 3. because I really do want to challenge myself and get better... but I keep having these freak-outs about it. I am mostly following what he is talking about in class, but at least with this topic (German political system) I have absolutely nothing to contribute. Jacky and my mom seem to be hinting that they think I should try to switch, but even though that sounds like a good idea I still don't want to. I keep hoping that from here on out it will somehow get better. Could you help me out with an opinion?
theARTfoolDODGER (21:26:59): I think you should stay. Firstly, you have always been the best or among the best students in our german class. You can succeed in this level. I think it just seems a little overwhelming, a feeling which I share. Secondly, you should challenge yourself, and as I said before, you are capable of doing this class. You were put in it for a reason. I think when faced with difficulty we all often tend to think "OH NO! I CAN'T DO THIS!" even when we really can. So, my opinion is just hang in there. You will do well.


Yekko (21:49:03): if you accept the fact that what you're going through is pretty normal, then at least you can roll with the punches and understand it's temporary and you'll feel normal again eventually
Yekko (21:49:06): that does help a little



I keep telling myself, keep on truckin'

exhaustion replaces fatigue

I don't really have time for a real post, but it just needs to be said that everything here is an "adventure," like trying to figure out the washing machines just now, for instance. It takes five 20 cent Euros to wash the tiniest load of laundry. I don't have enough money for a second load, let a lone for the one dryer (I had to go around to all the different buildings in the Siedlung to look for open washers, and since there were none, had to wait in the basement of my building for the owners of the clothing in the washers to come and fetch their belongings), so I will probably hang most everything out on these clothing racks that line every hall.

Today was my second day of ILP, the Intensive Language Program. When these people say intensive, they really mean it. I got placed in the highest of the three classes (based on my performance on the written test and oral interview last Wednesday), but I don't think I belong there. These people are insane. I can't even describe the amount of work I am supposed to churn out tonight... and I really don't want to think about the big projects that are due in the coming weeks. I talked to Professor Beilein after class today to tell him I had some worries about my abilities as they relate to the level of this class (too bad I couldn't really express myself that accurately), but from what I could gather (we were rushing down nine flights of stairs, and he was speaking in his quiet German way) he didn't seem to think I had too much of a problem. I just hope I can keep up and improve as rapidly as is possible. Jacky has been doing me the favor of making a good number of jokes about how any social life I had hoped for this summer is now completely out of the question... I can hope she is wrong, but that will remain to be seen. I wasted my afternoon (class is from 9:00-12:45) doing the tour of the library (ours is one of the best libraries in the country, and yet it isn't even half-way digitalized), and then trying to just do a bit of laundry. Its like life here is tailor-made to frustrate.

Other than that, things are fine. I am learning how to completely swallow my pride, and banish any sense of egoism I may have carried around the past two decades. And speaking of that, my birthday is really soon.

the earth is not a cold dead place

Weender Strasse, die Innenstadt, Goettingen, Niedersachsen, Germany, Europa, die Welt

random scraps

I keep meeting people when I am at my worst. Another night of dragging myself back to my room feeling nauseous, and then I have to run into someone in the kitchen. I can barely think in English, I don't know how I am supposed to not only explain myself in German, but understand German spoken with a Chinese accent.

Friday was mostly a wash, though now I can say that I have ordered banana beer (Hefe mit Anana). I stayed up too late Thursday night writing, and even after having taken a nap after our tour of the Nord Uni (north part of the university), I feel like someone has swung a bat at not only my stomach but at any social skills I have been in posession of the past two decades. Instead of going to the "rally" downtown (when one of the orientation leaders annouced we were going to a rally everyone sort of looked blankly around at one another... we finally figured out he meant something more akin to a scavenger hunt than a rally), all my tired friends and I watched a Chinese version of Hero in the living room on Jacky's floor. I had wanted to go do the hunt, and then go with the group to a club afterwards, but everyone I would have wanted to hang out with was too tired to walk back down to town, and I couldn't really say that I didn't feel the same. All the same guys from Jacky's floor that we had met the night previous were around, and I felt like a complete loser when I said that instead of drinking with them, or going into town later to a bar or club or something, I was going back to my room to pass out. Unfortunately I can't just pass out because my body is rebelling againist me once again, so I am forcing down some bread and cheese. I'd eat the nectarine I took from our lunch at the Nord Mensa, but I have got to have something for tomorrow. This is pitiful, my eating habits are really moving into scavenger mode. Once I start riding a bike everywhere (which will hopefully be soon, because my legs are literally aching from walking every waking moment) I think my body might feel better. Apparently we have to pay 30 Euro a month to use the gym, and so in an effort to be able to provide our bodies with sufficent sustenance (using money for food rather than to lift weights) Jacky and I are planning to go on riding expeditions together through town. If I ride my bike everywhere then the need to use a gym will be lessened considerably. I am also hoping that I am going to be able to take some dance classes once the semester starts up.

I am sure everyone I hang out with a regular basis here (so far, mostly my better friends that came here from Santa Cruz) is sick of me saying this, but I think when you all see me next I am going to be missing big patches of flesh, or at the very least dropped down a weight class. My limbs are going to rebel from lack of sustenance and just tear themselves away from the main unit. Its a grim picture but I can't really see any alternative. Jacky and I have been doing a little shopping, and trying to each get the cheapest things between us to share and try out together. Right now I am hewing away at this block of compact bread called Roggenkraft (only 0,39 Euro). Its pretty decent with other things, a little harder plain like I am encountering now. The rest of my food is in the kitchen all the way down the hall and down the stairs, and right now that is too far away for me.

Apart from scare-eating, we need to take into account the excessive walking. Walking is really nice, but when you have to stop and take breathers to stretch your calves because you live three Atlantics away from all the places you are having to visit on a daily basis, it just feels a little too ridiculous. Of course I am exaggerating (more like three North Seas), because I really do like the walking. Even the getting-lost hasn't been bad, because we've (again, just Jacky and I) really gotten to see a lot of the city that I don't think other people have (which, have I mentioned yet, I am pretty much in love with). But yeah, the walking. I like to think that it is preparing me for the cross-continent excursions I am hoping for myself come vacation time. When Jackie and I were busy getting late for Professor Keller's welcome brunch today, she commented that she thought we'd be good traveling together (this is while we are lost). I think she is right. I suggested that for our three(?) week break (after the ILP [Intensive Language Program] ends and before the semester starts), we head down to some places in Eastern Europe, after we do Oktoberfest. There we will probably be able to use our German all the time, and it makes more sense to go from Southern Germany to Eastern Europe now rather than later.

Jacky and I have been trying to speak to one another in German most of the time... its a lot harder to speak German with the other English students than I would have thought. I guess other people don't realize that after a certain point people are going to stop speaking English to us (this time being at least when the semester starts and our classes are, guess what guys, taught exclusively auf Deutsch). The only people I am speaking English with are the other Americans... the shopkeepers of Weender Strasse and related streets have already gotten their dose of my poor German.

Going back to talking about food: If there is one thing I already do not understand about the people of this nation, it is why everyone is okay with every single drink being carbonated. I'd think there would have been protests or something by this point. Its ridiculous. The only non carbonated water you can find is tap water, and that is only served if you ask specifically for it (Leitungswasser, or Wasser ohne Kohlensaeure). So Dehydration and I have once again met up as old friends, and now and then I try to combat her gentle advances with large quantities of apple juice and (get this) banana juice. But as one could guess, this might not be the best planning. After I finished the written test on Wednesday, I went downstairs to a soda machine and was overjoyed when I saw something labeled as "table water." Wrong again my friends. Still carbonated.

Deutschland na klar

I guess the easiest way to start this is to say I have no idea where to begin.

If you count 2 am as being the beginning of a new day and not towards the end of an old one, today is my fifth day in Germany. I've meant to sit down and record all the events of the past week (because believe me, there hasn't ever been a more eventful week in my life), but I really, truly have not had more than a few hours to myself. Any hours that did not fall under the Orientation Week Schedule were submitted to exploring the Siedlung (my dorm), trying to establish some relationships with people here, or (more often) getting lost around the city.

I got three hours of sleep the night before the day I left, and I wasn't able to get more than perhaps a half hour of uncomfortable sleep on the 11 hour flight to Frankfurt. Once in Germany the sleeping situation didn't improve that much. The few chunks of unscheduled time most other people have used for sleeping I've devoted to unpacking and trying (largely unsucessfully) to reestablish contact with persons in the States. Sleeping continues to be a problem, mostly because there is not enough time for it. Everyone stays out pretty late here, and then since I've gotten my Internet up I have come back to my room to do a little talking with folks while the time difference is good.

So let's start. After the flight from LAX to SFX (on which was both LA natives Jacky and Steven, friends of mine from German classes), we headed to our international terminal, where Rita and Antoinette, more UCSCers, were. That terminal was the first place I think I've ever been where I was hearing German spoken all around me (outside of a German course). At 10:15am on Monday, August 8th I arrived in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. First passport stamp, first experience as a loud, obnoxious, and perpetually confused American. After some misunderstandings we finally found the two German men holding the "Welcome EAP Students" sign. All of us UC kids who had taken the group flight (the majority of us, the people who didn't take it were mostly already here) piled into a large charter bus to take the two/three hour ride to Goettingen. One of the first things we heard from David (Daah-veed) and Jan, two of our German orientation leaders, was an offer for free beer in the van. The idea of an authority figure offering us free alcohol was too much of a kick in the pants to resist for more than just this one 20 year old Californian.

All but three of the 34 UC students here were placed in one of two large residence halls, the Studentendorf or the Studentensiedlung. The bunch of us at the Siedlung were dropped off first, along with our two orientation leaders, Judith (You-dit) and Catherine (Katarina). Basically, we were handed our keys and told to meet the group outside of Haus 6 in three hours. It was truly thrilling when I realized that there was no elevator to help me wrassle with my 88 pound suitcase (seriously, LAX just bought itself a new terminal with the $$$ we had to put up for it being 13 pounds overweight). I guess I have just been really babied by going to a UC, because it was sort of a shock to be dropped off and be like, okay, take it from here! This might have made more sense to me if I hadn't spent the past 21 hours traveling (driving to LA, then flying from LA to SF, SF to Frankfurt, driving from Frankfurt to Goettingen). But I was able to lug my luggage up to my hall, which because of my room placement made me think of Adams Upper First circa freshman year of college, and then enjoy the first sight of my new home for the next year.

It was all sort of overwhelming, especially given my mental and physical state, but I took it all in as best I could. My first thought about my room was that it felt very European. I was very excited and pleased, even though the last tenant had not exactly cleaned the place up after they moved out. For the first few days I thought one of my doors was broken, but then I realized that its just a strange window/door combination. Its kind of hard to explain, but basically if you pull the door handle out way one its like a door that leads out to a little grate that overlooks a lawn, and if you pull the handle the other way the top part of the door leans towards you, creating a giant slanted window. Its really pretty strange. Other than that initial miscalculation, nothing is really wrong with the room. At some point I am going to need to buy some supplies to give it a better cleaning... but obviously thats sort of at the bottom of the list at this point. The faucet drips constantly, which is a lot less annoying than it could be, but I still hope its going to be fixed (it was kind of hard to tell, but when I turned in my housing contracts today the woman said something about someone coming to fix it). The layout is a little strange, and my closet is impossibly high... and since I don't really have more than the five hangers the previous tenant left, all of my clothes are just folded in random cupboards in my bathroom. My friend Jacky who lives in Haus 13 has a room that is a lot better layed out than mine, but I think mine might be a tad larger.

So for those first free hours in Goettingen I wandered around exploring and tried to do a bit of unpacking. The Siedlung group met at 6 and we all walked into town for dinner. We ate at a Doener Imbiss, which has quickly become the hit with all the American kids. There are Doener places all over the city... it seems like its almost the cheeseburger of Germany. For those of you not in the know, Doener is a Turkish pita/sandwich/gyro-ish food. After dinner we went to Thanner's, a very traditional-looking German pub. I didn't order anything because I was so tired already, but unfortunately everyone else wanted to take their sweet time nursing their first round. By the time that people were discussing which bar we would go to next I asked Judith the way home so I could try and get some sleep. I couldn't believe that anyone else was able to carry on a decent conversation because I felt like the life had just been zapped out of me. Because of this (and the frequent reoccurences of this zappage of social skills) I am pretty sure that most of the UC kids I've met here are convinced that I am severely lacking in personality. Luckily it hasn't been bothering me too much.

Judith showed us part of the way back to the Siedlung, but we managed to get hopelessly lost anyhow, wandering the same street at 11 o' clock at night (or as I now am learning to think of it, 23 Uhr) for a good hour until we found our way home. That delightful jaunt after an (to throw in a complete understatement) exhausting day was followed by a complete meltdown. Think Hiroshima. But when I woke up early the next morning to go meet the group for the next long day, I was quite relieved to find that the few hours of sleep had restored my faith in my ability to make serious decisions in my life.

Tuesday was the official beginning of the run till you drop campaign. It started off with a group breakfast at the Siedlung to which I was LATE. It didn't occur to me the night previous that when the instruction booklet for my transformer read "this product may cause appliances to operate slower," that that meant my clock would be an hour and a half behind when Jacky knocked at my door to wake me up.

First on the agenda was to open a bank account at Commerz Bank. My rent and cell phone bill will be automatically deducted from this on a monthly basis, so I am hoping that makes my life a bit easier. My banker was a nice man with whom I was able to carry on an adult conversation relatively successfully in German. After a bit of talk about the future snow I think he even made some comment about us going horseback riding together at his farm once the weather improves (which I guess is only about 9 months away). Next I was herded off in a group to obtain Handys (cell phone). This is the part of the story where Sir Good German Salesman rattles off ten minutes of contract conditions to me and I just nod blindly and sign every paper he sticks in front of me. There is no better way to learn the verb for "sign" (unterstreichen) than by filling out paperwork for five days straight.

As a side note, even though that cell phone has made my life significantly better the past few days, it is still the most confusing product to come out of a Siemens factory. Even after we figured out how to switch the language to English (and believe me, this took its share of time), it refuses to make any sense. Its not necessary for anyone's understanding of my experience here to mention this, but even if the menu and applications are in English, when the spoken directions (like setting up voice mail, checking messages, etc) are in German, things don't really move any further away from being impossibly tricky.

So, we all ran around downtown all day Tuesday. It was the first time we got some time (between waiting around for this and waiting around for this) to sort of look around the city. Jacky and I made out first German purchases (alarm clock, bread, juice) at Karstadt, a department store, and Rewe, a small grocery. That night we met at Kartoffelhaus for a paid-by-EAP dinner. OH MY GOD SO GOOD. A lot of the food I've had here has sort of made my stomach upset later (I think mostly because I'm only having two meals a day, max), but this was perfect. I ordered the Grill Pfanne, which was basically three different kinds of Schnitzel and vegetables. I also ordered an Orangina to drink, because that is what Rita ordered and I had never tried one. It came in a cute little vase-like bottle, and so when I told the waitress I wanted to keep it (when she was picking up our finished plates), she gave me a strange look and then proceeded to ask me if I wanted the other bottles she had picked up at my table.

We got up bright and early on Wednesday morning for TESTING. When I read about this in my packet of information I was none too pleased, though I do understand its need. Anyhow, we had a written test in the morning and a group oral interview that afternoon. In the between time we went to the Uni and got our student ID cards. Hopefully I did well on the tests... I guess I'll find out soon enough, but the oral interview was a lot less pressure than I had expected. Since I was walking up at the front of the group when we went into the room, I was in the first group, which might have made it a little better too. After testing I went back to the Siedlung and went to find an "Internet tutor." Marcel took my money and forms and I had my Internet mostly working the next day.

That afternoon I skipped on the spaghetti dinner that the other Siedlung kids were planning in favor of hanging out in Jacky's room with her and Sean (Berkeley). I hadn't laughed so hard in awhile. When I was back in my building, I ran into some new faces in the kitchen, and they invited me to a party upstairs. I knew I had an obligation in an hour but I didn't want to refuse, so I sort of awkwardly followed the folks up to one of the living rooms (that joins Haus 2 and 4). I met some people in my building, most notably Tanya who lives down the hall from me (and I think just left to study in Paris for the semester), and Pakistani Sajjad who also lives down the hall. Sajjad (whose name I never want to say because I am so sure I am butchering the pronunciation) has been very nice and helpful the few times I've seen him so far. The last time I ran into him... well, I think he just loaned me a bike of his for the year. I'm still a little confused about the situation, but I am currently in posession of a bike lock key to a oldish purple bike parked out front, with a broken back tire.

After I took my leave from the "disco room party," I met the Siedlung group and we went into town to a "mexican" restaurant called El Sol. Apparently EAP had some money left over from our dinner the night previous, and so Catherine and Judith bought us all two rounds of drinks. I had a really well-made Pina Colada and something called the Hemingway Special. Jacky and I shared an order of nachos, which... weren't really nachos at all. After we had spent far too many hours waiting for everyone else to finish their drinks, we finally got going and hit a club called Savoy. It ended up being a really good time. We all danced and laughed at the strange choice of music. About 70% of what they played was American, and a lot of it was pretty terrible. All of the German stuff they played was pretty catchy, and we all soon found ourselves singing along with the choruses ("Bitte gibt mir nur ein Wort, bitte gibt mir bitte gibt mir", usw). But that had nothing on the golden moment of the night, where the group of us wore our American identity with pride. When the song Summer Nights came on we all freaked out, and once we realized that the Germans didn't really know it, we all really got into it. Our antics garned quite an audience, I remember. While we were waiting to leave, I had a chat with Tim from Leipzig. Germans have a reputation for being pretty cold and standoffish, and though I have found that to be somewhat true, there are definitely plenty of people in the other direction. On the way home from the club Jacky, Keinst and I met a severely drunken lad from Manchester. "I don't know where I been, where I am or where I'm goin'..." stagger stagger stagger. But he called us Luv when he crossed the street to find his own way home!

On Thursday we met in a classroom unit (where I think ILP, the Intensive Language Program, will be held) and completed paperwork for our residency permits (you don't have to have a Visa to live in Germany, rather a permit-type thing for the city in which you reside). After that we were able to let loose for a good chunk of the day. Jacky and I went into the Innenstadt (downtown) to try to get some more shopping done, and then ended up getting good and lost. We ended up being late to the EAP director's welcome brunch, but deep down I was proud of us for having figured out a bit more of the city than the other's might have. After the brunch (which was held at 1pm), Jacky and I went home with Steven and Eric to see the Dorf (the other large residence hall where EAP students are housed). It is really nice because it is right next to the city forest (city forest!), and location-wise they are a LOT closer to everything than we here at Siedlung are... but their rooms lack personality and are quite a bit smaller than mine. I think the atmosphere here might be a bit better too, just because at the Dorf the houses hold about 11 people, and here there are 14 people on my floor alone. We also have a Lebensraum (living room) that connects the two buildings together on every floor, and I have already run into a few people just hanging out there in the afternoons. I took the first steps to get my Internet up and running, and had my (surprisingly) first nap of the week. That night I went over to Jacky's to hang out with her, Steven, Eric (all Santa Cruz folks) and four of Jacky's floormates.

I haven't been in Germany even a week and I think I've met more international students than I ever would have in California. Her floormates included Turkish Bisschen (I think that's his name?), his Finnish girlfriend Lotte, German Christian, and Palestinian Fahdi. We all smoked apple hookah and I basically just sat there and listened while Steven ran the American side of the conversation. It took all I had just to keep up with things, and by the time the Palestine-Israel conflict conversation hit its third consecutive hour I just checked out completely. Even though I couldn't help feeling like no more than a fly on the wall, it was really interesting to sit there and listen to all these people from such varied backgrounds. Talking with most of the non-American people here I've met, but especially with that group of Jacky's floormates, makes me feel really young. Even beyond the fact that I am communicating like I haven't yet passed the second grade, it makes sense that I feel young. Most Germans who attend the Uni have gone through 13th grade in their "high school" (Gymnasium) before they even begin college. I don't know how old the people were we were talking to (though its something I always want to ask), but the three guys were all studying medicine and somewhere around finishing up. Another reason for feeling the age gap (or maybe its more about experience than age...) is that since it is summer break right now, most of the students still living here in the residence halls are working on theses or important-sounding things like that. For example, Rainer, a huge burly German I met in the kitchen the other day, is about to finish his PhD in Forrestry.

I have lots more to detail on, but this was a lengthy enough read in itself, so hopefully this gives you an idea of how this next chapter in my life has begun. I hope you are all doing well!

California, I will miss you.