Yea for my dad!!!

After reading my last post, my dad did a little bit of research and now I'm able to at least get to Pandora with regularity and all the TV stations - as well as Hulu on occasion!!!

Whoo hooo!!

Thanks Dad!!

We interrupt this blog to complain...

I'm going to bitch a little bit right now.  I know...you're thinking to yourselves, what the heck else do you do on this blog...seriously!!  But this time I'm going to be complaining about technology and the lack of services that one can receive in Germany.  For example.  I cannot watch Hulu - which is a Web service that allows you to put various television programs in a queue and then watch them at your leisure.  I had been watching a couple of tv programs in the US via hulu....but that's all over now.  Even if I tunnel in through my university's VPN software, it can tell that I'm not in the US.  I also can't watch the shows directly from the tv network Web sites.  They can tell I'm not in the US and block me from watching....

The same goes for Pandora - which is like internet radio, but it will create playlists for you based on the songs you insert into the program.  Kinda like the iTunes Genius feature, but you don't have to download the songs.  Finally, I was trying to link to a youtube video that a friend had posted and I couldn't get to it because I'm in Germany.  Come on people!!!  What happened to freedom of speech?!!  What happened to international cooperation?!!  If anyone has suggestions I'm open to them.  Otherwise I'm going to have to start listening to German radio, and honestly that way lies madness.  I mean Rammstein is ok, but they get very little radio play.  Most German radio is techno, dance and top 40 crapola, in which I have no interest.  blah...

München und Oktoberfest - The Beginning

So after that jam packed day at the Bodensee, we decided that we would get up at the crack of dawn and head to Munich.  The German rail system has a pretty sweet ticket called the “Schönes Wochenende” ticket where 5 people can travel one day on the same ticket anywhere in Germany for the 37 Euros as long as the trip doesn’t go beyond 3am the following day, so if you leave at 6:30 am on Saturday and the trip is good until 3am Sunday morning.  It’s not a bad deal, and if you are just doing a day trip it means you can travel all the way to Munich and back for 7.40 if you’ve got 5 people.  The only downside is that you can only travel on regional trains which often stop at every little town along the way and often take a bit longer, but it’s super cheap so who cares.

Konstanz – The Narrative

So Friday my language course planned an expedition to the Bodensee – known as Lake Constance for English speakers.  The plan was for everyone to gather behind the language institute building and depart promptly at 9am, and we almost made it, but one of the language tutors, who was responsible for the scavenger hunt around the city, overslept.  So we left a little late and then drove over to pick her up outside her apartment.

Konstanz und Oktoberfest

I will have a longer post about my grand birthday weekend, but for now, here are some photos to give you an idea.

Photos from Konstanz und Oktoberfest

Ouch...

I’m starting to think that I might have bruised a bone in my ankle during my trip here.  I have a lot of random bruises, which are finally fading, but that's normal for me, the ankle thing is another story.  I’ve accidentally hit the outside of my left ankle about 3 times since I’ve been here – very lightly mind you – and it hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt.  I hit it on something in the grocery store yesterday and it almost took my breath away. It’s just in one spot where I appear to have a little bruise and it’s a bit tender to the touch.  I think I might take a couple of ibuprofen and put some ice on it.

But tomorrow....after I have some birthday wine.....

Happy birthday to me!!!

A few stories/observations and stories from the past 2 weeks.

1) I tried to sleep while the Brazilians in my building had parties – twice.

The first party I didn’t know anything about.  It was the first Saturday I was here and all of a sudden the bell for our floor kept ringing and more and more people were coming upstairs.  Now at this point I had a pretty serious case of jet lag and I had taken a nap earlier in the day, which was probably a bad idea.  I was really trying to get on a regular sleep schedule, so the party was particularly disturbing.  But what was most disturbing about this party was the fact that they went away at around 11pm, and I got a couple of hours of sleep, until they came back at 3am and started listening to music and drinking some more.

Biomüll – the bane of my existence

So I recycle.  I’m pretty diligent about knowing what’s recyclable and what’s not, but the Germans take this to a whole new level.  In fact, there’s a blog for my dorm, and the first post that the Tutor for our dorm put up, was about how to separate your garbage.  We had an entire hour in my class (well maybe not quite an hour, but whatever) about how to separate your garbage.  Apparently foreigners just don’t get this concept.  But really, what’s so hard about reading the directions and following them.  Seriously.

Earplugs

I'm testing out a set of ear plugs right now while my floormates are hanging out in the hallway.  Two notes on ear plugs.  #1:  If you have tinnitus (aka ringing in your ears) it makes it a lot worse.  All you can hear in your head is the ringing.  #2: If people in the hallway are using it as a soccer field, earplugs will not dampen the noise completely.  Plus you'll feel the vibrations of the tromping around in the hallway through the floor.

Hopefully they'll work when the inevitable next party happens.  I'll keep you posted.   :)

Victory will be mine!!!

So last Thursday was a day for some major victories, among them getting a good chunk of my paperwork taken care of as well as getting health insurance and a bank account.  Today I had two additional victories which I would like to share.

Victory number one: I emailed two professors to see if I could participate in their classes.  For some classes you just sign up for the course online and you’re in.  For others you have to email the professor directly and they will tell you if you’re in, if the class is full, etc.  One of the professors got back to me and said that the class was full.  I knew this already, but I figured that asking couldn’t hurt.  Sometimes they set aside a certain number of slots for foreign students, so if those weren’t filled then I had a shot.  It wasn’t the best fit of a course, so it wasn’t too upsetting.

The other professor wrote back and said that she would be happy to have me in her class.  Yea!!!  But now I had to look for another class because I can’t just take one class.  So I looked online again, and a course that I thought had disappeared off of the schedule was suddenly there again.  This course actually fits perfectly with some of the works on which my dissertation will focus, namely the philosophical idea of the Sublime.  So I emailed the professor, while I was in my room for lunch.  When I came back 2 hours later, I had an email from him saying that he would be happy to have me in the class and giving me further instructions for what books to get and what forms to fill out.  AWESOME!!!

So that was victory number one – well really you could call those two victories, but I don’t want to exaggerate.  :)

Victory number two:  I found Kaufland today.  There are two grocery stores in the Altstadt.  The first is Edeka, which is nice, relatively large, but a little expensive.  The second grocery store is Plus which is tiny, a little dirty, and cheap.  Kaufland is a little outside of town – maybe a 10 minute walk (1.3 km according to Google maps) but totally worth it.  They have a huge produce section, a huge frozen food section and…wait for it…frozen turkey so I can make Thanksgiving dinner in November!!!! Yea!!!!

But seriously this place has everything and a huge selection of everything that they have. I would highly recommend going there, and maybe stocking up on some of the basics like pasta, sauce mixes, etc.  If I lived closer it might make sense to buy meat, beer and wine there too, but it’s a bit of a trek to carry that stuff back.  We’ll see.  I’ve got a lot more time here to figure that out.

Sweet Jesus….not a Guitar!!!

So Cicero, one of the Brazilians who live on my floor of the building, just bought a guitar.  He’s not a bad guitar player, but I am currently listening to Miss Colorado, her friend Mr. Boston, and the other Brazilians trying to sing.  Now the Brazilians aren’t bad, if only because I don’t know what the hell they are singing, so really, who cares, but Miss Colorado is a TERRIBLE singer.  Now, let me be clear, I know what bad singing is.  My father’s singing is so bad that the people in front of us in church got up from their seats and moved one time.  But Miss Colorado is completely tone deaf.  Plus she has this nasal kinda whiny voice that really grates even when she just talks.  Argh…seriously….it’s killing me.  I’ll have to take some video of their “jam sessions” in the kitchen so you all can at least hear how bad her singing is.

Oh God, they’re trying to sing Bon Jovi now…please make them stop.

Here’s the other thing about Miss Colorado.  She has all of this music on her iPod from the 80s and she acts as though nobody has heard it before.  Right now they’re trying to sing Brian Adams songs, and soon they will be moving on to Rush or some other such nonsense.  I guess the Brazilians have never heard them before, but seriously, the other night at the birthday party from one of the women in the dorm, she was listening to something an acting as though it was new and nobody had heard it before.  The woman, whose birthday it was, is a little older than me and we gave each other a knowing glance and continued about our business.

Dieses Wochenende

This weekend there was a huge street festival which apparently happens every year around the same weekend here in Tübingen.  Apparently the city has a number of sister cities or maybe sister regions, and this street festival is in celebration of their relationship with Provence and Umbria.  There were street vendors selling food and wine from these various areas.  Right around the corner from my dorm, there was a butcher who, for the last few days has had a pig’s head in the booth.  I’m not quite sure what the deal was with the pig’s head, but there it was.  There were also cheeses that smelled awesome, and some that smelled absolutely disgusting, along with some very cool hand made leather goods and baskets.

Travel Update – The Final Chapter

So, where were we, ah yes, we’re in the dorm meeting the other folks on my floor.

Rent Update

They have managed to find my first month's rent!!!  Whooo Hoooo!!!!  That is the best news I've heard all week.

Travel Update – Part 3: Die Wohnheimverwaltung

So, at this point in the adventure I’m standing outside the Wohnheimverwaltung waiting for them to open at 1:30.  Now, I’ve worked with German bureaucracy before, so I know that if the time says 1:30 then the time is 1:30 and no earlier – in fact, if they could get away with starting later they probably would, but their conscience would get the better of them and they would still manage to make it to the door before the clock struck 1:31.  I say this because there is little to no point in opening the doors to look inside before 1:30 if they say that they open at 1:30.  Seriously people, where do you think you are?

Travel Update – Part 2

I finally found where I need to go to buy my ticket for the train to the main station.  I realize that the train that I want is coming in about 5 minutes and I need to hustle, so once one becomes available I hop on, buy my ticket, and head down with all of my luggage down the escalator.  Did I mention that this luggage is really frickin’ heavy?  I mean the escalator wasn’t bad, but do you think they have any train cars that are flush with the platform?  Not that I could see.  So then I had to pull the bags up into the train with me.  Um Yea…that didn’t work out so great, but with the help of a kind stranger I was able to get my bag into the train car.  I didn’t try to get into any of the seating areas and just stood with it in the entrance/exit area for the 12-14 minute ride to the station.

Then I had to get off, but that was easy I just pulled it and it dropped and made loud noises, but nothing broke, so I carried on to the escalator.  A note for any travelers out there, if you have heavy bags, put them in front of you when you go down an escalator, and behind you when you go up, that way the weight isn’t resting entirely on you during the entire escalator ride.

Travel Update – Part 1

This will probably be a couple of posts because I have been without internet access for a little while now and have been composing this all in a document as events have been unfolding.  Eventually I will get my own internet access – for now I’m using my neighbors username and password (shhhh don’t tell anyone).

Where should I begin – probably with “Day 1” which would be my first travel day 9/9/09.

Less than a Week

This time next week I'll be on a train somewhere between Zuerich and Tuebingen.  If something awful happens, the train stops not far from where my family lives, so I can always get off and call them.  :)  At some point I'll need to start packing.

The car is gone, though I know where the owner lives so I can drive by and stalk my car at any time.  But really I thought the separation anxiety would be worse.  It helps that a friend of ours is also leaving the country for a year and left his car with us, so we haven't been without a car.  I think you could be without a car in this area, it would just be really difficult to stock up on the groceries and buy provisions for our party on Saturday without one.

And I got a haircut.  I needed something that would be easy and for which I wouldn't need a blowdryer.  Behold the short hair.  I'm still playing around with it.  The clip in the front makes it a little more me.  You can't see it in this picture, but it's there.  Yesterday I wore a scarf and had the bangs peeking out the front.  I've had hair this short before, but I haven't had bangs in years.  All part of the grand adventure.

I have to go to campus today for one last meeting.  We have an annual meeting with the DGS and Chair to talk about how bad the budget situation is and blah blah blah....so that's today at 2pm.  Headed out soon to get some reading done while I'm on campus.  Yea!! Reading!!!!