4/14/08-4/18/08

Having class from 9am-4:30pm Monday thru Friday is tough enough! When you have to sit through a macroeconomic theory class for that long it makes it even tougher! I wish I could report that this past week was a nice change of pace, but sadly due to macroeconomic theory, it has been change of pace that I would rather not have had!

On Thursday, my class got a day off from lecture so we could visit the Audi headquarters in Neckarsulm, Germany. We got a tour of the main showroom building and also a tour of the A8 manufacturing plant. Seeing first hand how a car is made is really amazing! The Germans really love their automobiles!

München 4/11/08-4/13/08

München, as the Germans call it, is an amazing city! It is definitely a city that one needs to visit more than once, not just to drink beer in the “beer capital of the world,” but also to gain a better understanding of what transpired here during WWII.

Leaving Bad Mergentheim on Friday morning put us in Munich in the early afternoon. Upon arrival we all went to the Hoftbrauhous (a world famous beer hall that Hitler would frequently visit) to drink our first ever “mas” (one-liter glass beer mug). On Saturday, before we took our bike tour, we went to see the Glockenspiel in the Merianplatz! After witnessing the Glockenspiel’s show, we embarked on our bike tour around Munich. I would say the highlight from the tour was seeing the Nazi Air Force building and also the Munich Parliament. The old Nazi Air Force building was not bombed during WWII due to the fact that Hitler had the building camouflaged and in turn our armed forces used it as a point of strategic reference for fighting the war within Munich. The Munich Parliament caught my eye because the pillars in front of the building are a vivid reminder of what happened here during the war. Each one of the pillars has cavities from shrapnel hitting them during the war.

On Sunday we traveled to Dachau to see the concentration camp. Although much of the camp has been reconstructed, it is still a very sobering feeling taking it all in. There was not one highlight of the trip to Dachau for me. But I can say that the one sight that has stayed with me since the visit is the crematorium. Knowing that many innocent people were executed within this building had the biggest effect on me that day.

4/6/08-4/10/08

With our first business class starting on Monday, it has been nice to finally get into the rhythm that I have been seeking since I arrived here in Germany. I do not know if I have mentioned it yet, but the schedule is in blocks of classes throughout the next 11 weeks. As we did this week, we will be taking one class at a time and then having a final test when the class culminates after about 1 ½ weeks to 2 weeks time.

Our first class of the term, project management, started this past Monday. As I write this I am happy to say I have already completed one class within four days time! With lecture starting at 9am and going until 4:30pm you really cover A LOT of material. One thing you don’t really think about when beginning a class schedule like that is the energy it takes to listen and pay attention for that length of time. Only after four days of it I am already feeling the effects. I am confident that I will get used to it by next week!

Within our project management class we had a professor who has had quite a bit of practical experience. He has worked for numerous companies throughout the world, conducting projects that they have specifically hired him to complete. His lecture style was rather engaging most of the time. But as you can imagine, paying attention from 9am to 4:30pm is rather impossible! One side note about this is that the German students were the only ones to bring laptops to class on Monday. Since they have been through this learning style much of their lives, they know what tools they need to keep themselves entertained throughout class. On Wednesday almost everybody brought their laptop to class……gaming and facebooking during lecture makes it go by a little quicker!

With our final group presentations going well on Thursday, it makes it a lot easier to enjoy Munich this weekend. The five of us OSU students are headed there to see the sights! Should be awesome!

4/5/08

During the day I just lounged around the apartment and read….! I am reading a book titled “Echo Park,” by Michael Connelly. After only reading about 10 chapter of it thus far, I can tell you a very interesting mystery is brewing!

Tonight around 6pm, all of us international students went over to one of the German students apartment to have a small party before we headed out to take part in the “Night Groove!” The German students fixed a bunch of traditional German finger food for us to try. It was very good! To explain what “night groove” is, it happens once every year and consists of each bar in Bad Mergentheim having an in-house band. It is pretty much a big bar hop….going from one bar to another throughout the night. In the middle of town there is a big town square where there was a beer garden set up with a live band.

The highlight of the night took place once the bars started closing at 2am when we all went to the “discotec!” We got a short bus ride to the discotec with a bunch of Europeans that started a traditional fútbol song…..craziest bus ride I have ever been a part of! Upon arriving at the discotec we waited in line for about 20 minutes to get in. Once within this place you immediately start checking for your wallet and other valuable belongings to make sure you are still in possession of them! Some of the most interesting looking people inhabited this place on Saturday night…some that looked rather normal and others that looked as though they had done a few too many drugs! We finally left at 3am…spending one hour too long at this place! Happy to say my clothes I wore that night still smell like smoke….I probably do as well!

4/4/08

German class is finally coming to an end. Although it was a great experience learning the basics of the German language for a week, I am ready to move onto the business classes. The German students keep telling us that the business classes are rather challenging. I want Monday to arrive so I can finally find out for myself!

With today being the last day of German class, our teacher, who is from Würzburg, Germany (about a 30 minute drive to the north of Bad Mergentheim), gave us a celebration lunch in which she wanted us to experience one of her favorite German meals. The meal consisted of a white sausage, sweet mustard, and large pretzels. She really wanted us to be able to experience her favorite beer with the meal as well but didn’t want her chef (boss) to become agitated that she fed us beer before our German test, which was going to be taking place later in the day.

All seven of us students and our teacher went over to the Singapore student’s apartment, which is right next to campus, to cook the sausages and eventually eat the delicious food. Our teacher cooked 35 sausages for the eight of us to consume right before our test! Not to mention, we had about 20 large pretzels that also needed to be consumed. After five very good sausages, three large pretzels, and sweet mustard, I felt as though I would not be hungry for the next few days!

Later in the evening, Theresa, who is one of the German students at the University and also involved in the student government, set up a fun night for all of us to hangout at one of the local bars. All of us international students were there except for the Singapore students (they travel in a bunch…..when one stays behind they all stay behind). Either way it was a fun night of meeting more German students and also getting to know the other international students better.

Internet Update: After class I rushed home to meet our landlords (Herr Heppner and Frau Heppner) who were coming to pick up the rent money. After collecting the money, Herr Heppner informed me that his wife and daughter talked about the internet and decided that it was not going to work out due to security reasons. What ensued was 10 minutes of me trying to persuade them to give us the code to the wireless internet that their daughter has. Happy to say after those 10 minutes, they finally gave in and said they will come by tomorrow and supply us with the code. I really hope they do not fall back on their word seeing how this our last chance to get any type of internet at the apartment.

4/3/08

I can honestly say that German class has gotten much more entertaining over the past few days! Besides learning the basics of German, our teacher has also introduced us to German words that one would not want to repeat at church.

Yesterday in German class our teacher was telling us how to count in German. She used her hand as a tool and ended up giving us all the one-fingered salute! This launched us into a talk about German slang! Since she didn’t seem to have any problem flipping us off, we thought she would be a good source for German slang! We started the talk and it lasted for about a good 30 minutes! I will stop now without getting into to much detail.

Today consisted of much more of the same, German class, lunch, and more German class! After class, all of us international students were supposed to get a tour of Bad Mergentheim….unfortunately it was raining. We instead stuck to our information packets and listened to our would be tour guide give us some interesting information within one of the classrooms at the university about the “romantic road,” a building where Beethoven supposedly stayed within the city for about two weeks (don’t worry I have a picture of it), a restaurant within BM that has grape vines growing on the ceiling, and other areas of interest within BM. Aside from the tour guide stuff, we learned that we will be visiting Wurzburg, Germany as a class to view some of the sights within that city. Another day trip for the whole class is a trip to the headquarters of Audi!!! These day trips will be taking place on something the school calls “excursion days.” They are placed throughout the 12 weeks of school and are meant to give us an opportunity to see things that we may not have the chance to see on our own.

We have been trying to get internet within our apartment for some time now! After eating some dinner tonight, Scott and I figured that we needed to take things into our own hands to accomplish anything regarding establishing an internet connection. We have noticed that we get a strong signal from some other secured wireless network very close to our apartment. As it turns out, it is coming from the apartment above ours! The daughter of our landlord lives there with her three children. So us knowing full well that she does not speak any English, wrote her a note in German using the skills that we have gained from this short week of language class. We ventured up to her apartment and gave her the note. Basically what we were asking her for was the password to her wireless network so we could use the internet from our own apartment to call our family and friends. We offered to pay part of her monthly bill if she would let us use it. What ensued were a lot of SCHIZAS….obviously coming from her mouth! She was clearly upset at the language barrier. What came out of the “very hard to understand conversation,” was that she will let us know tomorrow if it will be ok for us to use her wireless internet. Hopefully she lets us….!

4/1/08

After a week of feeling rather homesick, I am slowly getting over it as I talk to you all back home and am reassured that you are all doing well. I guess the homesickness can be expected since this is my first trip to Europe and also since I will be here for five months. While on the plane to Europe I thought a lot about how I would have loved to have had my family and friends on this trip with me. But I have been trying to look at it from the perspective of I will come out of this a much stronger person for traveling here by myself. Not to mention, the relationships I have with my family members and friends will also be strengthened.

Since starting our orientation week on the 31^st I have been able to relieve some stress and the feeling of homesickness by trying to keep myself entertained while taking introductory German. It has been extremely hard at times to keep my mind off of my family and friends back at home. I have been trying to make the most of this opportunity to develop a basic understanding of the German language, but it’s extremely hard to stay focused even when you have the slightest feeling of homesickness.

First Week - Finally Here!

The sole purpose of this journal is to provide you all, my family and friends, with a way to keep up with what is happening/going on in my life while I am over here in Europe. I also intend for this to be a reference for myself for years to come as I look back on my first trip to Europe!

From the start of the flight from SFO to Frankfurt, I could not help but think about what could potentially go wrong once I arrived within Frankfurt. Also on my mind was how much I was going to miss my family and friends while I am on this five month long journey. From the beginning of the flight out of SFO I tried to engulf my mind in the Spanish papers that I brought along with me hoping that it would keep my mind off of the potential disasters upon arrival within Frankfurt and also my family and friends. Sad to say….it did not work! While looking over my Spanish papers for the first few hours of the flight I constantly became sidetracked about every five minutes due to thoughts about family and friends.

Trying not to make this a sob story of a journal entry, I did in fact find some solace and entertainment during the flight. It came through not having anyone sit in the middle seat (I had the window seat) so I could talk with the Irish born businessman who sat in the isle seat of my respective row. From the start of the flight I made the comment of how thankful I was that nobody was sitting in the middle seat between the two of us. He quickly agreed that his flight will be a lot less stressful due to the fact that nobody claimed the seat between us. Throughout the flight we talked about everything from what life was like for him growing up in Dublin, Ireland to the beer that he recommends within Germany. Most of my listening happened during the parts about “beer in Germany!”

Upon arrival within Frankfurt, it was about 33 degrees Fahrenheit, the kind of temperature and weather I did not want to arrive to. I quickly made my way to the baggage claim and got my backpack which was packed within a big duffle bag. What I should have done when I got my luggage was take it out of the duffle bag and carry it the correct way on my back! Well I decided to keep it within the duffle bag and drag this thing around like I had a nice suitcase with wheels. Judging by how much dust my duffle bag picked up while I was dragging it through the airport in Frankfurt, I would have to say I did the janitors job for them! Making my way through the heavy traffic of people within the airport I finally found the long distance train station. After getting my Euro rail ticket to Bad Mergentheim, I tried running with my huge backpack stuffed within the duffle bag so I could make the train correct train that had just arrived. I went down the escalator to the train platforms and saw the sign that said Wursberg. I stood in front of the open door to the train telling myself to say “sprechen sie english,” to the many people packed onto the train. It did not come out of my mouth….and as a result the doors to the train shut right in my face! I waited for another hour and got on the next train to Wursberg. Two hours later I arrived within Bad Mergentheim to very cold temperatures and some snow on the ground.

Within the next couple of days Scott and I traveled to Saanen, Switzerland to ski the Swiss Alps! We traveled by train for seven and a half hours during the day to finally arrive within the small town of Saanen. The train ride offered some spectacular views, especially when we entered the Swiss Alps! Once arriving in Saanen, Scott and I walked aimlessly around town with our backpacks looking for the hostel! We eventually found it after asking numerous people within the town to point us in the right direction. We spent the next day skiing in the alps of Switzerland!

Arriving back home to Bad Mergentheim from our quick trip to Saanen, we ate dinner at Scotts homestay. The mother cooked us a very good wiener schnitzel dinner. While eating our dinner she broke the news to us that our apartment only had one bed in it! This may be funny to some of you, but when you are faced with the actual reality of having to share a bed with another guy for 13 weeks, trust me, it’s not funny! The mother of the homestay, Frau Haag, took us over to the apartment to meet the owners and to also move in. We got a tour of the apartment from the husband and wife, both of whom do not speak english! I now know what it feels like to be talked to with A LOT of hand motions and very very slowly in a foreign language! You think it helps people understand….well it doesn’t! We found our bed (queen frame with two twin mattresses) within the lone bedroom of the apartment during our amazing tour in German! Luckily the apartment has a living room with two couches, one of which folds out like a futon. Also within the living room is a flat screen T.V. Funny how the owners manage to install a flat screen television with cable but no internet!

I hope everybody is well back home within California and Oregon!

I miss you all!

-Blair