The Euro

Sorry, I'm gonna go "economist" on you for a minute here:

The idea of having a common currency in Europe was established in 1992 by the European Union under the Treaty of Maastricht. The biggest issue with this was deciding who could and could not join the common currency system. The same year, they fixed 5 conditions for the membership in the currency:
1. The inflation rate should be nearly the same in all countries so there is no difference between the internal and external value of the money. This was figured out by taking the inflation rate of the three lowest countries in the EU and averaging them. This is how they found the figure for how much the inflation rate should be allowed to change in the common currency system.
2. The interest rate is composed of two variables: the marginal productivity of capital (the real interest rate), and the riskiness of a country. It was decided that the risk should be the same in all the countries, so they took the average risk of the three lowest countries and decided that was the upper limit for risk in a country when they wanted to join the system.
3. The exchange rate criterion (developed previously, but still put into use) which took currencies from all the European countries and plugged them into a formula which took the exchange rate from that country as well as the quantity of that country's currency in the basket of goods (this depended on the National GNP vs. the European GNP) to figure out a country's worth in the EU.
4. The budget deficit should be less than 3% of the country's GNP
5. Aggregated governmental debts should be less than 60% of total GNP

In May 1998, all European Union countries could join the Euro system, except for Greece who had a poor economy, and Sweden, England, and Denmark who decided to withhold. As of January 1, 1999, the Euro was used only for over border transactions and 3 years later it was introduced everywhere.

The Euro coins have different things on the back of them according to which country you're in, so it's fun to check out your coins and see where your money has been. The bills are interesting too, because they have doors and bridges on them, so as not to favor one country over another, and to symbolize the opening of doors and crossing of bridges across the European Union as a whole. As the monetary value of the bill increases, the doors and bridges become more modern.

I like using the Euro but I think it's annoying that there are .01 and .02 cent coins, because you get dirty looks most places when you use them, and some places won't even accept them. Also, expect evil looks when trying to break any amount higher than a 20, but don't expect to get anything lower than a 50 when you go to the ATM! I think having 1 and 2 Euro coins makes a lot more sense than having the $1 bill (and now I understand why they are trying to get the $1 coin to catch on in the US), and I definitely missed paying in coins when I was back in the states. They're all about exact change in Europe, and don't even try pulling out a credit card because they will look at you like you're crazy!

Creepin'

You may have noticed the lack of pictures of the group I hang out with on this blog. This is because the boys think it's funny to creep around in the background of all the nice pictures that me and Emily try to take. We know it's coming now too, but for some reason we still try to take nice pictures.
Here are some examples. There are tons and tons more. Thanks, boys.

Badisch vs. Swabisch

Germany does not have a lot of nationalistic pride for obvious reasons, but instead has a ton of regional pride. It's hard not to get caught up in it when you're here, especially in the south. I live in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, which used to be made up of the smaller states of Baden, Hohenzollern, and Wuerttemberg, but came together as one in 1951.
Even though it's one state now, there is still a lot of rivalry between the people who lived in Baden (this includes Freiburg) and the people who lived in Wuerttemberg (aka the Swabians). For example, I've heard some terrible yet hilarious jokes about the Swabians since I've been here which I probably should not write on this blog for political incorrectness reasons that would never fly in the United States. The most noticeable difference is the dialects. The people from Freiburg speak a dialect called "badisch" and the people from Stuttgart, for example, our state's capital, speak a dialect called "swabisch." I cannot understand a word of either of these dialects which drives me slightly insane.

I just found out that my favorite Elvis song is actually written in the swabisch dialect. I thought it was in the Bavarian dialect before, but I can't understand any of these crazy German dialects, so what do I know? I'm not sure if I have to like the song less now...

Woah.

So while I was off exploring the world, having fun at dinner parties, laying out in the sun, and people watching at cafes, I was not doing any school work. It was ok at the time, and yes it was totally worth it, but now all of a sudden I'm less than a month away before the end of the semester and everything is piling up, which kind of comes as a shock after not doing any real work since last December.
I had a presentation on Thursday and another one this coming Thursday. I also have two final exams: one on July 8th and one the 16th and the mother of all work, a 10-12 page paper for my literature of the Weimar Republic class. This might be ok if we were using American sized paper, or were allowed to use double spacing, or 1.25 inch margins, but this sucker has to be on A4 paper, 1.5 space, 1in margins. Do you KNOW how much more I have to write because of that?! Totally insane.
So I am locking myself in my room now and working until I get things done or go crazy. Right now I am going crazy so I decided to stop for the night.

Yesterday we took the train to Karlsruhe which is a cool city that's right near the French border. There was a zoo that we hung out at and then checked out downtown which is supposed to have some of the best shopping around. The weather was sunny and HOT so we ended the day by buying some fresh strawberries and kiwi, and took the train back to Freiburg where we went to our favorite restaurant where all the waiters hate us: Bella Italia.

How I Embarrassed Myself on German Radio

On Tuesday, Emily and I were sitting in one of the University buildings when this guy came up to us, told us that he was from Freiburg Radio, and asked us if he could interview us about the elections. We told him that we were American students and couldn't vote in the elections, so we had no idea what was going on about them, and he was totally shocked. He turned on his tape recorder and asked me how I felt about not being able to vote. I went on for a good 2 minutes about how the elections didn't really matter to me because I'm a US citizen and the issues there are more important than the issues here etc. The whole time he was giving me kind of a weird look. Then Emily asked, "Wait. What elections do you mean?" Turns out he meant the UNIVERSITY elections that had happened earlier that day. Whoops.
This entire interview was conducted in English by the way. We are idiots.

Fahrscheine Kontrolle

I am going to try and write more little entries about daily life in Germany, because I figure that there's a bunch of things that I see as normal that other people probably don't know about. Also this blog is severely lacking in entries for June, sad.

In Germany, all the buses, trams, and trains run on an honor system. This means that you have to buy your ticket before you get on the public transportation, but nowhere do you have to put your card into a machine in order to enter (like on the T in Boston), and it's usually not checked. I read somewhere (ie. Wikipedia) that the public transportation is checked only about 25% of the time.

When you're riding some sort of public transportation without a ticket, you're known as a Schwarzfahrer (black rider). Ticket checks are random and absolutely terrifying. Tonight I got checked on the tram for just the second time since I've gotten here in March (I ride on the tram about 6 times a day; I seriously never get checked). A group of 3-4 men will get on the tram at a random stop dressed in plain clothes. They wait a few seconds until the tram is moving, and then pull out their badges and ask everyone to present their tickets. If you are caught without a ticket, you're forcefully removed at the next stop and have to pay a 40 Euro fine. I'm not sure how many people ride the trams daily as a Schwarzfahrer, but the fear of ever getting caught without a ticket is enough for me to never ever attempt it.

German Bureaucracy

There are so many things that I love about Germany: how everything is always on time, how delicious the food is, how crazy obedient dogs are (none of them are on leashes, but yet they never run up and try to sniff you), but the one thing I will never understand about Germany is their crazy bureaucracy.

Germans are stereotypical for being punctual and orderly, so their bureaucracy will never make sense to me. Today I had to go to student services and turn in some forms. I got these forms in the mail 3 weeks ago about moving out of my apartment. There were 3 of the exact same form that I had to fill out with the date I was moving out, when the next person could move in, and then sign and date all of them. I was already confused about what these forms were asking for and why I had to fill them out 3 times, but I did it anyway. Then, they had to be returned to student services by Thursday. Of course that was a difficult task too. The student services place is only open certain days a week, and the guy we needed to see to hand them in is only there on Tuesdays and Thursdays for half an hour each. We walked in the building and there was a weird light in the shape of a flower. If the light was red that meant office hours weren't open, green meant he was in. The light was thankfully green, and we were led through a set of double doors, and then up a staircase and down the hall to this guy's office. Of course, there was already a line waiting because of the limited amount of time he meets with students. When we finally got in, he basically told us that these forms we filled out in triplicate and signed were really just guesstimates and actually didn't mean anything. We're going to get the REAL forms in the mail once the end of the semester comes closer.

I
Don't
Get
It.

Bank of International Settlements

On Friday I went to Basel for a field trip at the Bank of International Settlements, which we found out is one of the most important banks in the world because it's the bank the serves all the central banks. It's a very high security bank and usually it doesn't take visitors, but my professor had connections so we got special permission to visit it. We had to dress up and I felt pretty official in my business casual taking the train to Switzerland for the day! I wish I could live in Freiburg and work in Basel, that would be awesome.

Anyway, security there was INTENSE. When we walked in, we had to give them our passports and in turn, they handed us an ID badge with our name and country on it. We held these badges up to a sensor which opened a door for us. Then we had to go into a Star Trek like portal that completely shut us in, scanned our bodies for 10 seconds, and let us out the other side. It was slightly terrifying not knowing if the doors on the other side were going to open or not!

After everyone was through security, we were led straight up to the conference room which was OFFICIAL! It was a huge round table with executive chairs, microphones at every seat, and 2 different kinds of water for every person. I was so excited that I was sitting in the same place where Ben Bernanke sits and discusses economic issues with other banking leaders of the world.

That wore off after about 5 minutes. The talk we had was way way over my head and led by kind of snotty Swiss bankers who used a lot of jargon and were a little too excited by finance. After I discovered where the digital clock was on the wall, it was all downhill, because I could see it flipping numbers every minute of the corner of my eye, and we were stuck in that room for 2.5 hours.

When the talk was over, the leader of our tour group excitedly told us that he got special permission to show us another part of the bank, in a separate building across the street. We all had to go through security again and when we were finally in, we found out that we could only look at the lobby and go nowhere else. The lobby was empty and there was nothing to see! Everyone was pretty disappointed, and going back through security to get out took forever.

It was rainy and cold, but I stuck around afterward for a tour of Basel, and then got lunch at my favorite little cafe with my friend Todd. I love being able to say I have a favorite little cafe in Basel. It was kind of a weird field trip overall, but hey, I'll take a trip to Basel any day!

Today there is a student strike at the university because Freiburg students now have to pay a yearly tuition of 500 Euro to take classes here! haha! There is going to be a big demonstration downtown (Germans are all about the demonstrations) and there have been flyers and posters everywhere.

My mom has been wanting me to write an entry about how cheap the food is here for a long time, but every time I come back from the grocery store I throw out my receipt so I always forget. But food is RIDICULOUSLY cheap here. I usually eat for under 10 Euros a week. Here is the breakdown of what I got this week:

half loaf of bread: .65
box of 10 assorted snacks (usually for parties but I like to cut them apart and bring them as snacks with my lunch): .99
bag of mozzerella cheese: 1.19
a 2 pound bucket of yogurt (no joke!): 1.59
frozen pizza: 1.79
pack of 4 American style blueberry muffins: 1.89 (expensive, but worth it!)

Other things I buy on occasion:
milk: .45
pasta: .69
small bottle of water: .29
1L bottle of soda: .39
bag of Haribo gummy bears: .89
Individual cups of yogurt: .22

More on Berlin

Let me first say that I am once again so happy to be back in Freiburg and so happy to be done with this intense traveling that we've been doing over the past 3 weeks. First Munich, then Salzburg, then Boston, then Berlin! I'm totally exhausted! So exhausted that when I got in from Berlin yesterday I took a 3.5 hour nap and still slept 8 hours last night! It will be nice to hang around Freiburg for a while (minus the whole going to class thing).

Anyway, our train to Berlin left at 5:52am on Thursday morning and since it was a holiday, all the trams were on weird schedules. We had to wake up at 4am and walk at least part of the way to the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train, and having stayed up talking the night before, we were all exhausted and working off of 4 hours sleep or less the next day.

Germany isn't that big, but I had no idea about the crazy temperature differences! It was way colder, way more windy, and rainy the entire weekend in Berlin and we were freezing! Our hostel situation was confusing in that we had to stay one night in the East and two in the West. I'm glad we did though, because you could really tell the difference between East and West, even after 20 years. Even our hostel in the West, which was the exact same as the one in the East cost more than double the price.

When we travel, we are intense. We get up early, get out early, and stay out late. We walk everywhere. Each day averages about 11 or 12 hours of straight walking. It's exhausting but we do see a lot. We visited the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag building, the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche whose ruins still remain after being bombed in WWII, we climbed to the top of the Siegessäule, a huge monument in the center of Berlin, we checked out the East Side Gallery, the longest remaining part of the Berlin Wall, saw the old 1936 Olympic Stadium, Checkpoint Charlie, and I could go on and on but you get the idea.

One cool thing we did was visit the German History Museum, which covered like 2 millennia of German history. We spent hours in there and I don't feel like I saw everything. We also visited a Stasi prison which would have been more interesting had we been able to understand our tour guide! Man he spoke fast German!

Sunday morning we were up again bright and early to take the train back to Freiburg. This time it was a direct shot, which was great that we didn't have to change, but at the same time kind of miserable that we had to sit there for 7.5 hours. I love how every time I arrive at the Freiburg Hauptbahnhof, I feel like I'm at home again.