I'm like, famous. A little bit. They're writing us up in the newspaper for our tutoring/talking to high school students thing, and they're going to interview us for regional radio, and we will possibly be on television. Whaddaya know.

Last night at Raimund's was interesting... First, we got real lost on the way, and it was raining. Then it was snowing. Anyway, then we got there and ate pie and hung out with the organizer of the youth center and some guy who apparently helps with the youth center, but is also a student at one of the Gymnasiums (like college-prep high school) writing his Abitur (Big-Ass Final Exam) in English. Hmm. People in the 13th grade (Yes, they go through 13 here) are acutally our age, since they start later. So Anna and I are all like, "Damn, I'd like to help him out with his English..." ::wink:: Anyway, they were nice.

We also had a Feuerzangenbolle, which is like flaming punch. You heat up some red wine in a fondue pot like thing, then take a rod of sugar, balance it on a slotted thing over the wine, soak it in rum, and set it on fire. It burns a beautiful blue, and the caramelized sugar sweetens the wine.... Yum. We were there for about 4 hours (and poor Pamela was very sleepy!) and finally walked home in the cold, just a little bit giggly.

I had my Jewish Authors class this morning, and it promises to be pretty all right. I had to sign up to present on a theme... ugh, oral presentations in a language I don't actually speak... I think I chose, "Jewish Self-criticism," so now I have to figure out what to read. Sigh. That's the thing. There aren't really book lists or required readings. You're just supposed to know.

 
Fencing was fun, except as a warmup, we not only ran up and down the stairs, but be also jumped. Jumping wasn't bad. It was the hopping that I couldn't really get on board with. How does one hop up the stairs? In my case, not very coordinatedly.

Then Anna and I went to Jazz choir to see how that was. The guy told us he didn't really need anymore people, but then he asked us where we were from, and when we told him America, he was like, "Aaaaaaah, maybe you could stay a little longer?" Heh. They need some help with English pronunciation and such... They're singing 'Love Me Tender' and some horrid Kirby Shaw thing. It's funny to hear Germans try to sing American pop music. Actually, the best was when I heard two girls trying to do a gospel piece yesterday. I mean, I'm real white, but damn. That just didn't quite work. So we'll hang out and be American a couple times so they can sing better. And maybe I'll see about forming an a cappella group. Wouldn't be hard.

BUT... I am learning to play the guitar. Anna taught me two chords, and I think those two will keep me busy for a little while. I'm very excited!

I'm wearing my last pair of clean socks, so I'm going to do some laundry. Then, that thing at Raimund's, and after that, beer.

Tomorrow, my only Proseminar starts... 20th century Jewish Literature. Should be all right.... Anna and Vincenzo are both in it, too. I'm excited about that, too! I'm just excited about life.

 
I am real sleepy. I had choir yesterday evening, then we had an audience/dinner thing with the mayor, then we went out for a beer (I had a Cola-weizen, which is half beer and half Coke. It's not nearly as good as Goaß, which they drink in Straubing and is the same thing except it also contains a shot of Kirsch--cherry liqueur. Mmmmm.) I decided not to take the theology class that started at 8 this morning, not entirely because I went to bed at one and 7 rolled around real early, but also because I'm taking enough already. I'm trying to chill out a little more. I've got fencing in 20 minutes. ::grin::

This morning I bought some new sheets, because if you'll remember, I was less than thrilled with the ones provided at the dorm. They're quite nice and satiny, and go with the one thing I've got hanging on the wall.... Heh, another reason I'm all about the Italian... He was showing me his paintings in his room, and I admired a Monet print he had on the wall. He's like, "I hate Monet. You like it? You can have it." So now my room looks a little less depressing. Bright sheets, one piece of art.... I'll slowly wipe out the white.

We're going over to Raimund's place tonight to talk about what we're going to talk about when we go over to the school. Sigh. How American. We can't figure out if he's really friendly or a creepy old man. Anyway, there's going to be apple pie.

I made strides with the Czech girls last night, also. Man, people miss out on a whole lot when they don't go out. Alternately, they sleep and are not tired for class.

Time for fencing!

 
I'm a little uninformed about goings on in the homeland, but I just read Jeremy's first film review (i.e. a review of his film playing at the Palm Beach Film Festival) in Ain't It Cool News! My friends are all going to be famous. ::grin::

 
I just had my first two classes. 18th Century Bavarian History is going to involve a lot of me not understanding what's going on... Thankfully, I can decipher Bavarian accents pretty well, so I'm going to have less trouble with it than Pamela will. We're the only two foreigners in the class, though. He talks fast, with a heavy accent, and without writing anything down. All the Germans scribble notes furiously. I, too, took 4 pages of notes, but I'll have to see later how much of it means anything. It will probably help me to understand things better since I'll have to explain a lot of it to Pamela--teaching is the best way to learn!

I also had Linear Algebra II.... which I discovered doesn't cover any more material than I had in Linear Algebra at home. Sigh. How am I going to get credit for that? Life is rough. I'm going to go chat with the professor, but I think I'll end up staying in it not to learn any more math, but devlop my mathematical vocabulary in German. Besides, the Lin Al is important stuff, and looking at it in a different way might help me really master it.

I ordered some books for my Number Theory class... Whooo, amazon.de! We looked around at the local bookstores with little success, so I asked someone how they get textbooks, and that was my answer. Amazing. They hand out these ridiculous bibliographies in class, and I don't really know how much you should read/have to read.... That's an important question for my history class. For number theory, though, I just ordered one of the list that was in German, and one that was English. They're way cheaper than math books in the states.

Also, I got mail! I was the first one! I got a card from my Allison. Great happiness!

I did some hardcore chillin' with Europeans yesterday. I'm nursing a crush on the Italian, Vincenzo. We were hanging out and talking for quite a while. Politics, art, life, love, you name it! I am incredibly jealous of him, actually. He had to learn Latin and Greek in school, dated a French girl for years so he speaks perfect French, obviously speaks German and Italian since he's from Italy and doing school in German, and speaks reasonable Spanish and English. He says English is his worst, so he wants to practice, but it's really quite good, and in fact, better than my German. Jerk. I love language, but have very few oppurtunities to learn even little bits of most languages, let alone be nearly fluent in like 7. And he paints... and plays the guitar... and is really cute... and really old... heh. We're babies around here. I'm probably the second youngest student in the entire University (the youngest being Kay, who is also 20, but a sophmore). So, they start later, and are far more laid back about getting around to finishing their degrees. 6 years is normal, and in fact I believe the recommended amount of time. So Vincenzo's 27, but he told me I was too old for him anyway, because he's not going to get married until he's 40, and his wife will be 25. Italians are great.

Then, later in the evening, I ate dinner while Delphine and Eva were in the kitchen. Delphine is French (dude, I know) and Eva is from the Czech Republic. We somehow got into a very serious 'What's up with the war?' conversation. I think it was good, though, and I may in fact be single-handedly responsible for mending US-France relations. Heh, maybe not. I think that on both sides, people understand what's going on and that there's a cultural misunderstanding (because, y'know, the French are mysterious or whatever) but that you put people in groups and they need to be pissed off about something. But I was telling her that I'm not really so much a Bush fan, and that most people in America really aren't either. That's an easy thing to explain if you just remind them about the election, and how elections in general tend to go. They think it's weird and scary that so few people vote. It went well, and I don't think we're going to have problems between the American and French students. Hooray!

 
I like the European way of eating. We eat a light breakfast, usually bread based. Then, we eat a big lunch we get at the student cafeteria thing which is soooooo cheap--like, the prices for the main dishes start with the number 1. Everything is less than $2, can you believe it? That's the main meal. Then in the afternoon you eat something sweet and have some coffee. I'm all about that. Dinner is not really dinner, but bread and maybe a bit of salad or soup or something small. It rules.

Today we had to do a bunch of bureaucratic stuff, so i didn't get to go to class yet again. I will have class for the first time at 8:30 in the morning. Nervous! I did go see one of my math professors, though, and she gave me the notes from the lecture I missed, and was generally most excellent. I had to really psych myself up to do that, too.

Anyway, we had to register at the 'Foreigner's Office' which I thought meant applying for our visas, but it didn't. We just had to fill out some forms saying that we're not German and we're hanging out for a few months. We also had to officially register for school, which required that we have several documents, including our letter of admittance, a receipt that we'd paid our 'semester contribution' (seriously, there's no tuition here--you just have to pay about $35 a semester), and documentation that we had bought the state health insurance. We're about ready to go in to the thing, when I can't find my freakin' health insurance forms. Ugh. I must have left them on my desk, because the things I thought were them were actually some bank documents. So, I walk back home (a 20 minute walk) and tear my room apart looking for these papers. I'm considering going over to the health insurance office and seeing if they can print me more forms when I decide to look through my backpack one more time. Oh, there they are. I've just wasted an hour of my life... I walk back to campus, chuckling to myself about how ironic it would be if I broke my ankle right now, just before my health insurance becomes valid. Seriously, cobblestone is rough. I don't see how I can ever wear heels. What do people in wheelchairs do? Vibrate? Do kids have messed up teeth from being pushed in strollers over the cobblestone streets/sidewalks?

 
Okay, no, it wasn't me.

 
Oh my God, do I smell European?

 
Oooh, one other funny thing. You know how in some cultures, they do the air kissing thing, but in our culture, really not? Yeah. Someone introduced me to this guy Sergio who's from... I don't know, somewhere in South America. I went to shake his hand, but then we got confused, and then I thought he was going to hug me, but no, we kissed cheeks. The Americans giggled. It's not even a German thing! It's just those crazy southern Europeans. And apparently the South Americans. Oh well.

 
Mm, yesterday, I bought a handprinted volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, because every pianist needs one.

Cripes, I haven't even gone over the weekend. Not really much to tell, though. Sunday we went to the 'Antique Market' which consisted of like 5 tables. If I didn't think it would break on the way back to the states, I would have bought an ancient German record. They also had some really cool books printed in that old German script... I might get one the next time they have the market in a few weeks. Saturday night we had gone over to KHG to watch a movie like the first weekend, except instead of being a wonderful touching movie like 'About a Boy' it was 'Ali,' which I haven't seen in English and is conceptually a little bit difficult if you don't understand all the talking. Also, it's real long. I had a bit of a headache after watching that. Also on Sunday (I'm all mixed up, aren't I?) we went on a walking tour of the city and stuff. Town of 14,000 citizens has 14 churches! 13 of which are Catholic! (one Evangelical which is a catch all for the handful of Protestants) The two main ones are beautfiul, though. Eichstätt is the seat of the diocese, so we have a bishop, and a big cathedral and stuff. We've also got a stunning church that belongs to the University that's called the Church of the Guardian Angel. There's some ridiculous number of representations of angels in it, but it's all gold (but not quite Rococo) and gorgeous. Gabriel di Gabrieli designed most of the city, if you're familiar with him. It's purty.

After the city tour, we had kind of a student meeting for new people at KHG. I found out what KHG stands for: Katholische Hochshul Gemeinschaft. It's like, the catholic student union, except everyone is catholic, so everyone goes. Also, the downstairs of the building is a bar, and the upstairs is a little chapel. Weird. There are also a couple meeting rooms. We met this guy, Raimund, who has his PhD (or European equivalent) in Catholic Higher Education. He founded the first (and so far only) center for service learning in Germany. We Americans have some good ideas, eh? Anyway, we were chatting with him, and he gets this idea that we should be like goodwill ambassadors and do some English tutoring at a local school. So we're going to go be guest speakers, help with some homework, and do some stuff. This will get him some press, and get the Americans some positive press as well, so it's not all war-related.

I didn't really grasp the gravity of the public opinion here until I picked up a copy of Spiegel last night. It's Germany's biggest weekly news and stuff magazine, if you're not familiar. The whole issue was about the war, and in particular, much was about how Europeans felt towards America. It was freakin' scary. According to their survey, less than a third of European citizens have a positive opinion of America in general, as opposed to about 2 thirds last year at this time. You wanna talk propaganda--this was intense. It had like a list of attributes, and how many surveyants felt that the adjective described America. On top it showed how the negative ones (like snotty or something) had increased and how the positive responses had decreased. It's like they're saying quite directly, 'America is these three bad things, and not these three good things, and all these people think so, so you should too.' Harsh. That's all I can say. I would have had *no* idea about all this from the news reports i've seen and the people i've had contact with, but now i'm a little bit freaked out. Stupid war.

 
Holy monkey, this keyboard is configured for English, not for German, and that really really confuses me.

If you ever e-mail on the weekend, be aware that I have no computer access on Sunday. Nothing is open in this town on Sunday, aside from a couple of places with food or drink, and their hours are seriously restricted. It's very traditionally Catholic. I am a student at the only Catholic University in all of Germany, and they're quite serious about it.

So, let's see.... Ack, going shopping. more later.