Geteiltes Leid

Ist geteiltes Leid wirklich halbe Leid? Ist geteiltes Glück wirklich halbe Glück? Das weiß ich aber nicht. Meine Freundin ist eine Ozean weg von mir. Ich könnte vorstellen, dass wenn wir streiten, wäre es schlimmer als jetzt aber im Moment kann ich nur denken an sie. Meine wahre Sehnsucht ist in Amerika und obwohl ich wirklich Deutschland liebe, denke ich meistens nur an sie. Wenn sie hier wäre, würde ich überhaupt kein Heimweh haben. Das heißt, dass ich wirklich kein Heimweh haben, sondern nur Liebeskummer.

Ich hab sie wirklich Lieb, wie ich vorher noch nie hatte, doch es bringt gar nicht, darüber zu beklagen. Jetzt geh ich mal ins Bett und hoffe, dass Morgen besser ist.

Und jetzt auf Deutsch

Ich weiß, dass niemand dieses Blog liest aber trotzdem möchte ich jetzt sage, dass ab sofort werden alle Einträge auf Deutsch geschrieben. Ich fange wahrscheinlich ein neue, englischsprachige Blog an aber dieses Blog bleibt auf Deutsch. Ich soll mein Deutsch üben und ich finde, dass es immer besser ist, wenn man etwas einfach "freiwillig" in einer Fremdsprache schreibt, damit man seine eigene Ideen in dieser Sprache entwickeln kann. Wer nur bestimmte Hausaufgaben und grammatikalische Übungen macht ist vielleicht ein bisschen wie einer von Pawlows Hunden. Also in den nächsten Tagen schreib ich einen richtige Eintrag, bis dann.


PS In case some one was actually reading this, I'm going to only write in German from now on, but I will probably start an English-language blog soon as well.

Germany's Most Wanted

The first night I was in Tübingen I stayed in a youth hostel since I arrived too late to move stuff into my Wohnheim (sorta like a cross between a dorm and an apartment). I was actually pretty excited about the prospect since I had spent my first few nights in Germany in a hostel in Frankfurt and had a really good time. A big part of that was because Andrew met me there and it was good to see him since it had been a while since we'd hung out, but on top of that it seemed like the hostel crowd was generally very friendly and up for having a good time. The only downside of the stay in Frankfurt was that some random sketchy guys stole cameras and cell phones from some people we met there, which had me a bit on edge. But I figured that Tübingen was this little town and the people in the hostel would probably be mostly other students like me and hence at least somewhat trustworthy.

I checked into the hostel a rather late (I think maybe around 7pm) and was a bit tired since I had been on the train all day. I figured I would go to my room, greet my roommates, have a beer with them and call it a night. After getting my key I walked cheerfully up the stairs and opened the door to my room, expecting to see it full of a bunch of new, international students making plans for the evening.

What I saw instead was one random, weird guy sitting alone in the dark screaming into a cell phone in German. The smell of cologne and hair mousse hung thickly in the air. Mind mind couldn't process the situation; why were there no cute French girls in this hostel like there were in Frankfurt? Where were all the other people? Why was the light off? And most important, who on earth would use toiletries that smell like this?

The guy immediately ceased his conversation upon seeing me, looked at me rather intently and started speaking to me in German. Now I realize that my German is quite flawed and was even worse then, but I think this guy would have been hard to understand even if I was a native speaker. Imagine a brand new, fresh-off-the-boat immigrant who comes to the States not knowing English so well running into Steve Buscemi's character from Fargo his first week and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I was dealing with. It took a good couple minutes for him to communicate his point (he wanted to know how many people were with me) and it didn't help that every time I didn't understand what he was saying, he would just say it louder, faster and embellished with a few German obscenities. Definitely not who I was looking for.

As the evening progressed, two more people came to the room: a German guy who thankfully spoke English (helping to ease the tension between me and the first guy in the room, who spoke no English) and an Italian guy, Pierro, who knew English, but no German and was also a student. We made some random conversation and I explained my situation. The guy who was first in the room, who we'll call Steve, seemed to be very interested in my living situation here. He asked me how much my rent was. I thought it was a weird question, but I told him anyway.

"That's a pity," he responded after I told him. "You must have had to bring the whole first month's rent with you in cash."

Now at this point I'm very suspicious of this guy. I didn't have the first month's rent with me in cash (I had to wire transfer it), but I did have money for the deposit with me, my passport and a whole host of other things (computer, ipod, camera, etc) that I wasn't interested in parting company with. I slept with one night open that night and in the morning, checked my stuff to make sure everything was still there.

That morning I asked to use Steve's phone to call the housing people and see when I could move in. He responded by taking me to a million ATMs and trying to get me to do something that he couldn't quite communicate. I later found out that he was trying to get me to buy minutes for his phone, which you can do with a German bank card but not an American one (I didn't have a German bank account just yet). That was totally crap, since I just wanted to make a 30 second phone call and he was trying to get me to put a bunch of money on his phone (I think the least amount you can put on a phone at a time is 15 Euro). I told him I was going since I had stuff to take care of and just generally wanted to get away from him.

That night when I got all of my stuff safely to my Wohnheim, I felt a great since of relief that my good friend Steve hadn't managed to steal anything from me.

I didn't really think much about old Steve in the following weeks. Really the only thing I thought about was running into him on the street, which I absolutely dreaded. But time went on and there was no sign of the guy around town, thankfully.

Last night there was a big party for the beginning of the semester and I happened to run into Pierro. We talked a bit and I asked him the usual questions about class and everything else and at some point we started talking about ol' Steve. You see, Pierro stayed for a bit in the youth hostel since he didn't have his housing situation 100% figured out, so he got to know ol' Steve a bit better (although I suppose not that well since he doesn't speak any German). A day or two after I left, Steve vanished without a trace and not long after, the cops showed up at the hostel looking for him. I knew there was something about that guy I didn't trust!

I am apparently too lazy to blog...

Okay, for some reason I find it incredibly difficult to actually take five minutes and write a blog. Since I've been here for going on two months and have yet to make a single, real blog entry, I will try to recap with a few lists of things I have done.

Awesome things I have done in the last two months (in no particular order):

• Played the first few bars of More Than Words on a guitar just for fun, only to have everyone else in the room join in singing.


• Drank caipirinha with real, live Brazilians ;-)


• Went to heavy metal night at the student bar and won a free poster and CD. Note that heavy metal night in Germany means they play Dark Funeral and Slayer \m/, not like heavy metal night in America where they play Poison and Bon Jovi.


• Found innumerable, creative ways to open a bottle of beer, as there is no bottle opener in my kitchen.


• Traveled to the beautiful Cinque Terra region of Italy, hiked between all the towns, chilled with friends.


• Tried Slacklining in the rain (and still had fun!).


• Had a picnic on an island in the Neckar river on an idyllic German Sunday afternoon.


• Watched VfB Stuttgart kick the living crap out of FCN, 3-0 baby!


• Improved my German a vast amount (although I still have a long ways to go).


• Met a German dude who did a high school exchange program in Arizona (Desert Ridge High School).


• Probably a lot more things that I forgot (I may come back and edit this post later)

Silly things I have done in the last two months:

• Got on the wrong bus the first day of class and almost was late.


• Confused the word "Adler" (German for "eagle") with "Alter" (German for "dude"). Hence when someone asked me if I knew what animal was on the German flag, I told them "A dude's on the German flag!"


• Put too much spicy mustard on my food thinking it would be wimpy like pretty much everything else in this country that's billed as being "spicy." I kid you not, there were tears in my eyes, ha ha ha!


• Probably a lot of things I forgot (I probably won't add more to this list since I did way more silly things than I'd want to admit, ha ha ha)

Things I like about Germany:

• Politeness. At least here in Tübingen random people on the street are very friendly, as are people working in stores, restaurants, etc. For example, it's quite common for people in elevators to greet you when you walk in and say "Ciao" when you leave. I have not observed this as much in America (although granted I don't deal with elevators that much).


• Public Transportation. Buses actually show up early and wait for people.


• Food. Fruits and veggies taste better here (and being a vegetarian is at least as easy here as it is back home, more on this later). There are little bakeries all over where one can buy delicious bread, pastries, etc for cheap. Soda here is sweetened with sugar rather than corn syrup, making it taste much better. And don't even get me started about beer ;-)


• Nature. After walking for 15 minutes or so from where I live, I can find myself completely immersed in forest, not a building in site. I will definitely miss this when I go back home! Also, in March it wasn't uncommon to see it snowing with the sun out, which is strikingly beautiful to someone who's lived his whole life in the desert.


• Splitting checks. In many restaurants (at least in Tübingen), the waiter/waitress will come to the table with the bill and a purse of money, go around the table one by one and give everyone their correct change, as opposed to American waiters who make you suffer since all of your friends either only have $20 bills or debit cards ;-)


• On a similar note, the majority of ATMs in Germany seem "nicer" than their American counterparts. When I take out money, I get a couple of 5s, 10s and maybe one or two 20s, as opposed to American ATMs which only give you $20. Note that this doesn't seem to be the case everywhere in Europe. The whole time I was in Cinque Terra the ATMs would only give me 50s, which was rather annoying. You can also add minutes to your cell phone instantly at a German ATM if you have a German bank card.

Things I don't like about Germany:

• Showers. By American standards the showers here are rather small. As an American friend of mine pointed out, it seems that in America a shower is something to be enjoyed that refreshes you after sleeping/a hard day at work/the gym, whereas here it seems more like "Okay, let's just get this over with quick."



• The lack of peanut butter. Nutella is a basic human right here, but finding Skippy is a chore.


• The lack of good Mexican food, although I think coming from Arizona I'm particularly spoiled in this area.


• People telling me that all Americans are the same in a mildly condescending tone, but not being able to elaborate on any specific details as to how we're all the same (or how we are more similar than any other group of people), why us being the same is such a bad thing and refusing to accept that maybe, just maybe, they are a little prejudiced :p

Things I still don't get about Germany:

• Random English words and phrases all over the place. For example, I've seen the phrase "We're here for you" in a super market on the wall and the off-brand cola says "American taste" auf Englisch for some reason.


• The process of signing up for and taking classes seems like chaos compared to back home. In my computer science class, for example, the undergrads and grad students are mixed together and the amount of credits you receive is not fixed but rather dependent upon how many times a week you show up. It's enough to make you miss Web Reg ;-)

Okay, that's all for now, I will try to do better with keeping this thing up to date in the future!

Slight change of plans...

Right now my internet situation is a little up in the air and I'm having to rely on the odd visit to the internet cafe to check my email, etc. So for the time being, I probably won't post much if at all. Hopefully everything will be resolved soon enough!

Ahh, the first post...

Hi all,

I've decided to start this blog to chronicle my adventures in Germany for anyone who is interested in reading. Here are some basic facts about my journey:

• I am an undergraduate (Computer Science major, German Studies minor) at the University of Arizona taking a semester abroad at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in Tübingen, a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, roughly 20 miles south of Stuttgart.


• I have only taken 3 semesters of German in college. I studied Spanish in high school and I know a few helpful phrases ("Where is the bathroom?" "I would like...") in French and Italian.


• All of my classes are going to be in German, so I'd better learn quick ;-)


• I'm leaving for Germany on February 28th and returning to America on August 5th (just in time for school to start).


• I have been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for roughly two years. I figure I'll probably do some blogging about this since the only foreign country I've been to since becoming vegetarian was Canada.

I see myself mainly using this blog to discuss how I adapt to speaking a different language, living in a different culture and studying in a different educational system. Also, I'd love to post some cool stuff about various excursions I take and sights I see.

Additionally, I think I will write this blog entirely in English, however I plan on keeping some sort of journal (either online or maybe just on paper) in German. I'll keep you posted on my plans for that.

Alright, that's it for now, I have a lot of stuff to take care of before I go! I will try to update this blog fairly regularly while I'm Germany.

PS In case you're wondering, the name of my blog ("Nanu, dass du hier bist!") translates roughly to "Fancy seeing you here!"