ok, I know I said my next post would be about Karneval, but that is going to be an extremely long post and I don't have time right now, but soon, I promise. Get excited about pics of Germans in costume gone crazy.
I just wanted to write real quick about the end of my time here at the Goethe-Institute in Bonn. We (we being me and the 3 other Americans) are leaving Friday after for Tuebingen, where we will spend the remainder of our time. So, I only have 2 days of class left here at the G-I, and I honestly can't believe how quickly the time has gone. I'm excited for Tuebingen, but at the moment I'm really quite sad to be leaving Bonn. I'm going to miss all of the people here. It's so weird to get close to people for a month and then all of a sudden everyone leaves and in all likelihood you will never see them again. "Schade", but what can you do? I've enjoyed my time here so much and I'll always have the memories (and the 650 photos I took this month alone). And some of the people I've grown closest to will still be in Germany for awhile (albeit not in Tuebingen) so who knows, maybe I'll cross paths with them again (since, you know, Germany is so tiny that you just run into people all over the place). I'm sure once I get to Tuebingen I'll be super excited about my new town and new friends, but I still wish I could stay.
Ok, next post = less emotion and more pictures. Night!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Just Pictures!
Naturally the day it was sunny in Koeln was the day I was taking the train to Essen.
even though it literally snowed about 1/1000 of an inch, we still managed to have a little snowball fight. And Ian is far too big for that teeter-totter
Bowling! (I scored an 85, oh yeah)
I love this picture of Ian and Pedrus (Pedrus was slouching so Ian looks even more gigantic) 
Playing "Kicker" at Maya and messing around in Bonn-Zentrum
This old cemetery by the Godesburg is really interesting. I think German cemeteries are beautiful because each grave is like a small garden, and there are tons of statues.
They even provide you with watering cans to care for the plants around the graves!
Street performer in Koeln. The funny thing is that now I'm so used to seeing people running around in costumes for Karneval that at first I didn't even notice and assumed it was just another reveler.
A slightly better view of the Dom. We had a kinda nice day here (note the hint of blue sky), so I took the train 35 minutes each way to stay in Koeln for 25 minutes and take pictures of the Dom. Oh well, I have a Bahnkarte, so it was free.
I may or may not be slightly obsessed with the Koelner Dom. It's just so huge and intricate, it fascinates me. In the photo on the right you can see how they are constantly rebuilding and repairing parts of the Dom.
And this is why I love Cologne...Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Things I Miss About America
Since I've been here for over a month now, I feel I'm justified in missing a few things from the homeland. Don't worry, I'm loving it here in Germany, and the pros definitely outweight the cons, but there are some aspects of life in Germany that I'm not a huge fan of. So, in no particular order, here is a list of things I miss:
1) This one actually is the most important: the sun!! Germany is extremely dreary in the winter. While I was visiting Pascal in Essen we actually had a string of about 3-4 sunny days, but in the 2 weeks since I've been at the Goethe-Institute I've literally seen the sun twice. No joke. Why oh why didn't I study abroad in Australia or somewhere??
2) Another weather-related one: normal forms of precipitation. Schneegen (see post below) sucks. Living in St. Louis the past 2 years has gotten me slightly acclimated to gross slushy weather, but not really. Spokane has it right: it's either snowing, legitimately raining (none of this weird drizzle/mist crap) or nothing. Period. Oh, and no humidity: Germany is far too damp.
3) I'm not used to European measurements yet (aka the metric system, Celsius, the Euro). I miss knowing what all those numbers actually mean. If somebody says to me that Cologne is 20 kilometers from Bonn (I have no idea if that's right, by the way), that means nothing to me until I pause to do a rough calculation. It's slightly better with the temperature, but I still have to sometimes convert to Fahrenheit in my head. And with money, if I see a price of 5 Euros I automatically think "5 dollars", but that is actually incorrect because the current exchange rate is 1.2637 dollars for every euro (according to Yahoo Currency Converter). So I end up spending more money than I think.
4) Doors. All the doors have handles on both sides, so sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether to push or pull. Nothing like running into a door in front of a bunch of foreigners because you pushed instead of pulled.
5) TV program times. I actually watch very little TV here, but when I do want to, I can never figure out when anything is on. The reason for this is that, unlike in America where every show starts on the hour or half-hour (you know, normal times), the shows here just start whenever they want to. 8:10 maybe, or perhaps 6:07, who knows!
6) Salad. Seriously, is it so hard to put a damn salad on the menu?? If you do manage to find a restaurant that serves salad, it's way more expensive than in the US. I miss the salads in Hilltop :(
7) Store hours. Up until a year or two ago Germany had very strict laws regulating what hours stores were and were not allowed to be open. They could only be open until 5 or 6 on weekdays, 8 on saturdays, and not at all on Sundays. Most of those laws have been abolished and stored are generally open until about 8 on the weekdays (the grocery stores until about 10), but they haven't really caught on to the being open on sunday thing, which sucks, because that's usually my prime shopping day. Where's a 24-hour Walgreens when you need one?
8) Going with the store/shopping theme, I miss going into a store and being familiar with the brands. Here when I go grocery shopping I don't recognize any of them, so I don't know which products are good or not. I am slowly gaining some familiarity though; for example, "Ja!" brand products are my favorite. They make everything, and the products cost 1/2 the price for about 2/3 of the quality, so not too bad.
9) I miss having people bag your groceries at the store. Customer service in general sucks in Germany. You can seriously wait 45 minutes to get your check at a restaurant. The cashiers at the stores are usually unfriendly if not downright rude, and you have to simultaneously pay and get your change while bagging your own groceries (have to bring your own bag, of course) and trying not to get in the way of the customers behind you. It makes shopping so much more stressful.
10) There is a serious lack of signage in Germany. There are no big, clear, neon signs telling me where to go. It can sometimes be extremely difficult to find shops or restaurants, because they're all just mixed in with apartments and houses. I also almost couldn't find the Goethe-Institute when I first arrived because the only indicator was a small placard which attached to the house and half-hidden behind a bush. I think the Europeans do this to toughen their kids up, lol.
11) And finally, this may sound strange, but I miss jaywalking. NOBODY jaywalks here. Now, I know that in the US you're not supposed to jaywalk either, but everybody does, especially when no cars are around. But here, even though the crosswalk lights (Ampel) take forever, nobody will cross the street on red, regardless if there are no cars for miles. I jaywalked once and got the dirtiest look from this German grandma, and my friend actually got yelled at once. I guess Germans just follow rules better than Americans :)
Mahlzeit (dinnertime)! that's all for now!
1) This one actually is the most important: the sun!! Germany is extremely dreary in the winter. While I was visiting Pascal in Essen we actually had a string of about 3-4 sunny days, but in the 2 weeks since I've been at the Goethe-Institute I've literally seen the sun twice. No joke. Why oh why didn't I study abroad in Australia or somewhere??
2) Another weather-related one: normal forms of precipitation. Schneegen (see post below) sucks. Living in St. Louis the past 2 years has gotten me slightly acclimated to gross slushy weather, but not really. Spokane has it right: it's either snowing, legitimately raining (none of this weird drizzle/mist crap) or nothing. Period. Oh, and no humidity: Germany is far too damp.
3) I'm not used to European measurements yet (aka the metric system, Celsius, the Euro). I miss knowing what all those numbers actually mean. If somebody says to me that Cologne is 20 kilometers from Bonn (I have no idea if that's right, by the way), that means nothing to me until I pause to do a rough calculation. It's slightly better with the temperature, but I still have to sometimes convert to Fahrenheit in my head. And with money, if I see a price of 5 Euros I automatically think "5 dollars", but that is actually incorrect because the current exchange rate is 1.2637 dollars for every euro (according to Yahoo Currency Converter). So I end up spending more money than I think.
4) Doors. All the doors have handles on both sides, so sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether to push or pull. Nothing like running into a door in front of a bunch of foreigners because you pushed instead of pulled.
5) TV program times. I actually watch very little TV here, but when I do want to, I can never figure out when anything is on. The reason for this is that, unlike in America where every show starts on the hour or half-hour (you know, normal times), the shows here just start whenever they want to. 8:10 maybe, or perhaps 6:07, who knows!
6) Salad. Seriously, is it so hard to put a damn salad on the menu?? If you do manage to find a restaurant that serves salad, it's way more expensive than in the US. I miss the salads in Hilltop :(
7) Store hours. Up until a year or two ago Germany had very strict laws regulating what hours stores were and were not allowed to be open. They could only be open until 5 or 6 on weekdays, 8 on saturdays, and not at all on Sundays. Most of those laws have been abolished and stored are generally open until about 8 on the weekdays (the grocery stores until about 10), but they haven't really caught on to the being open on sunday thing, which sucks, because that's usually my prime shopping day. Where's a 24-hour Walgreens when you need one?
8) Going with the store/shopping theme, I miss going into a store and being familiar with the brands. Here when I go grocery shopping I don't recognize any of them, so I don't know which products are good or not. I am slowly gaining some familiarity though; for example, "Ja!" brand products are my favorite. They make everything, and the products cost 1/2 the price for about 2/3 of the quality, so not too bad.
9) I miss having people bag your groceries at the store. Customer service in general sucks in Germany. You can seriously wait 45 minutes to get your check at a restaurant. The cashiers at the stores are usually unfriendly if not downright rude, and you have to simultaneously pay and get your change while bagging your own groceries (have to bring your own bag, of course) and trying not to get in the way of the customers behind you. It makes shopping so much more stressful.
10) There is a serious lack of signage in Germany. There are no big, clear, neon signs telling me where to go. It can sometimes be extremely difficult to find shops or restaurants, because they're all just mixed in with apartments and houses. I also almost couldn't find the Goethe-Institute when I first arrived because the only indicator was a small placard which attached to the house and half-hidden behind a bush. I think the Europeans do this to toughen their kids up, lol.
11) And finally, this may sound strange, but I miss jaywalking. NOBODY jaywalks here. Now, I know that in the US you're not supposed to jaywalk either, but everybody does, especially when no cars are around. But here, even though the crosswalk lights (Ampel) take forever, nobody will cross the street on red, regardless if there are no cars for miles. I jaywalked once and got the dirtiest look from this German grandma, and my friend actually got yelled at once. I guess Germans just follow rules better than Americans :)
Mahlzeit (dinnertime)! that's all for now!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sprechen Sie Denglish?
For those of you not in the know, Denglish is basically the same idea as Spanglish (a mixture of Deutsch and English). It's also becoming my primary mode of communication. I get so used to speaking German in class and with people here that if I switch to English with the other Americans I frequently end up saying things like "Could you geben me that pen?" or the time I thought of "wirklich" and "really" at the same time (they mean the same thing) and ended up saying "villy." Also, almost everybody here speaks at least some English, so we all tend to mix some English words in with our German. But that's all well and good, because Denglish is really a superior form of communication (better than German or English). With Denglish you can create your own words, such as my personal favorite, "schneegen." Schnee means snow and Regen means rain, so when it's snow/raining (wintry mix for you St. Louis folks), it's schneegening. Ok, I know I'm a huge nerd and love language too much. Moving on...
Below are a few pictures from my day trip to Cologne (Koeln to the germans). A group of us from the Goethe-Institut went on a Stadtfuehrung (city tour) with this crazy old man (about 70 maybe) who had huge 80s glasses and walked with a cane. He was awesome though, and knew tons of stuff about the city. The tour would have been a lot better though if we hadn't had such Scheisswetter. It was about 35, foggy, and alternately drizzling/snowing. Therefore, the pictures from Koeln are not that great; I'm definitely going back when the weather is better (of course that might take awhile here in Germany). After our Stadfuehrung Caroline and I met up with Leigh (another WashU student who's in the business school and doing an internship in Koeln). Pascal came down from Essen and we all went to this delicious currywurst cafe, Leigh showed us her apartment, and then Pascal and I went on a little dinner date while Caroline and Leigh went to a bar before Caroline and I headed back to Bonn. It was a really fun day and I definitely recommend Cologne for a visit. It's a very interesting city with an amazingly rich history and tons of stuff to do. There, that was my plug for Cologne.
In addition, you will also find below some random pictures from the Goethe-Institute and trips around Bonn. Probably won't be any new posts this weekend since I'm visiting Pascal in Essen, but I have some more pictures to put up next week. And next weekend is Karneval, which should be some crazy fun times, so I'll have lots of updates after that. Have a good weekend all!
Below are a few pictures from my day trip to Cologne (Koeln to the germans). A group of us from the Goethe-Institut went on a Stadtfuehrung (city tour) with this crazy old man (about 70 maybe) who had huge 80s glasses and walked with a cane. He was awesome though, and knew tons of stuff about the city. The tour would have been a lot better though if we hadn't had such Scheisswetter. It was about 35, foggy, and alternately drizzling/snowing. Therefore, the pictures from Koeln are not that great; I'm definitely going back when the weather is better (of course that might take awhile here in Germany). After our Stadfuehrung Caroline and I met up with Leigh (another WashU student who's in the business school and doing an internship in Koeln). Pascal came down from Essen and we all went to this delicious currywurst cafe, Leigh showed us her apartment, and then Pascal and I went on a little dinner date while Caroline and Leigh went to a bar before Caroline and I headed back to Bonn. It was a really fun day and I definitely recommend Cologne for a visit. It's a very interesting city with an amazingly rich history and tons of stuff to do. There, that was my plug for Cologne.
In addition, you will also find below some random pictures from the Goethe-Institute and trips around Bonn. Probably won't be any new posts this weekend since I'm visiting Pascal in Essen, but I have some more pictures to put up next week. And next weekend is Karneval, which should be some crazy fun times, so I'll have lots of updates after that. Have a good weekend all!
Oh, and happy Friday the 13th! Don't walk under any ladders!
This picture does not even being to do justice to the Koelner Dom (especially with the fog). The cathedral is MASSIVE and towers over everything, so it's pretty hard to get a good shot.
Pop quiz: what is the name of this architectural element? Give up? It's a flying buttress! Thank you AP European History...
The entire facade of the Dom is so intricately carved that it just boggles the mind
This is a carving from a fountain that depicts a legend about Cologne. According to the legend, when Cologne was first founded, the people who lived there never had to work. All the work was done during the night by dwarves, so the inhabitants of Cologne could relax all day. The dwarves were shy, however, and didn't want to be seen by humans. One night a young girl let her curiosity get the better of her and went out with a lantern to spy on the dwarves. The dwarves saw her and were so scared that they fled Cologne forever. After that, the people in Cologne (the Koelner) had to work like anybody else, but they were always wistful for the days when they didn't have to work. And that's why the Koelner are so lazy and like to party, even to this day (seriously, that's the reputation the Koelner have in the rest of Germany).
So I zoomed in to get a picture of this clock (which is on a church) and found this rather creepy decapitated head sculpture underneath. I'm really at a loss to explain what Blackbeard's head is doing on a church in Germany.
Along the Rhein there's tons of cool old houses and bars (and I really like plants on buildings)
You can see a little bit of the Gross-Sankt-Martin church
Now if only that were real ice cream....
Currywurst at Frits, yum! (oh, and seeing Pascal wasn't too bad either ;)
Caroline and Flat Stanley were quite excited to be in Leigh's hammock (the guy who owns the apartment is part Paraguayan (is that right?) and apparently a bit of a character. Hence why he installed a hammock above his bed.
Remember the pic of the little castle in Bad Godesberg? Well Caroline and I hiked up to it because we wanted to climb the tower. This is a view from the hill we were on across the Rhein to the "Siebengebirge" and some typical german foggy weather
The door to the Godesburg tower, which unfortunately is only open April-Oct. So basically that foiled Caroline and I's plans, but oh well.
The Posttower, aka the headquarters of the German Post, Postbank, etc. It's the 7th tallest building in Germany, is made almost entirely of glass, and the outside can light up in different colors. Unfortunately, the day we visited the weather was absolutely horrible, so we couldn't really see much, even from the 30th floor (you can usually see all the way to Cologne).
super-modern architecture isn't really my thing, but the building was nonetheless quite impressive
They had a room full of mailboxes from different countries (including the good ol' U.S. of A). Kind of weird, but cool.
would have been a nice view if the weather hadn't been so craptacular
Everything in Bonn somehow relates back to Beethoven
The awkward perspective of this pic is due to the fact that it was taken by Ian, who's 6'8" and towers over everything (and doesn't fit through the doors or in his bed)
Todd is the stir fry "Profi"!
Todd is the stir fry "Profi"!
oh the Zivis. they should really set a better example for us :)
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