Laundry

Today has been really stressful because there have been a ton of last minute travel changes for tomorrow and there are huge protests going on in the city today because of the NATO meetings all week in Strasbourg, France. We were warned not to go downtown, but I had to anyway because I needed to pay my rent, which is due tomorrow. That was pretty confusing in itself, especially when the lady started talking to me in really fast German and I understood something completely different than Emily did. Oh well, it's paid now so I don't have to worry about it anymore.

Anyway, ever since I wrote my entry about doing laundry, I've gotten a lot of questions about it. I had to do some more today in anticipation of my trip so I brought down my camera and took some pictures. Click on them to enlarge cause some of the writing is hard to read.
Here is my laundry room. It's in my dorm, but we have to share with 2 other dorms. There are 4 washers and 1 dryer. Note how TINY they are!!


Here is the dial on the washer. Cryptic symbols and temperature choice. It is all in Celsius so you have to be really careful!

The key to the cryptic symbols. I speak German and this doesn't make sense to me.


The dryer dial. Random number choices and more cryptic symbols


And the key to the dryer. This one is even more confusing than the washer.
Oh and there is no indication anywhere on the dryer of when your laundry will be done! Today I started the washer and it said there were 20 minutes left. I went out to three different stores, came back, and it said 25 minutes left! I don't get it!

"Old people and bathrooms are never a good combination"--Emily Lines

I am back from my weekend in the Black Forest, and boy I have never been so happy to be back in Freiburg! I spent all day trying to think of how to write this entry because honestly I don't even know where to begin....My weekend was interesting to say the least.

There are 9 German universities in the UMass program, all in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, so the 17 of us spending spring semester in Germany all met at the main train station here in Freiburg to go to a hostel in the Black Forest owned by the program's director and her husband. We were supposed to hike up to the cabin, but the weather was so awful that we all got a ride up. That should have been the first red flag.

The weather was terrible all weekend. Here is a picture of what the view looked like during one of the clear moments, and then of how it looked for the rest of the time we were there. All of the activities that were planned for us were supposed to be outside. We were going to visit a 400 year old farmhouse and take a hike around the mountain, but both of those were ruled out given the conditions. They had no backup plans of what we were going to do in case of inclement weather, so we were all stuck in the cabin for 2 days with absolutely nothing to do! There was no TV, no computers, and no one even brought any games because we were told over and over again to pack lightly. There was one deck of cards and that was it. The hallways weren't heated at all, so we spent all our time running from room to room and quickly closing the doors! I ended up going outside with people when they took their cigarette breaks just so I had an excuse to go outside! There were a lot of...unique personalities on this excursion, and none of us ever really bonded or "clicked," to say the least. Somewhere around the second day, everyone was going stir crazy and ready to leave out of sheer boredom. Jon told me he would have walked back to Freiburg had he known the way. I would be lying if I said I wouldn't have joined him.

During the day, we had a seminar class where we discussed cultural differences between the US and Germany, and went over a lot of the bureaucratic things that need to be done. I was really lucky in choosing Freiburg because since the UMass office is located here, everything has already been taken care of for the kids studying here. A really large part of the second day was spent doing academic advising, which I also already did before I left Freiburg. While everyone else at all the other universities was freaking out about getting stuff done, I knew that I had nothing to worry about, so that was definitely a good thing.

The cabin itself was cool, and decorated to look like a really authentic German black forest home, complete with working cuckoo clocks, good luck pigs, and dolls and statues of men and women in traditional Black Forest clothing. The food there was overall pretty good, and the first time I've consistently had square, filling meals since I've been in Germany. The first night we had a traditional German meal of schnitzel and mashed potatoes, with a salad and yogurt with mixed berries in it for dessert. Breakfast was always a bunch of rolls and jams. The second day we had some good spaghetti for lunch. We also could have as many free sodas as we wanted which was cool. At night, we slept in rooms with double bunk beds. There was one room for the guys and one for the girls. We had a weird sleeping bag thing and two wool blankets to keep us warm. Last night we played a fun game which was a cross between German pictionary and charades, which continued long into the night, even after the program directors went to bed.

This morning the energy was high because everyone was so excited to get back to their respective universities after a long long weekend. It was still snowing and very foggy, but we were told that we had to hike back down to the bus stop ourselves. We were all invited back for the 4th of July weekend, but as we were walking, we all agreed that we definitely didn't want to go back, and perhaps that was the moment we all finally bonded. Jon was nice enough to take this picture of me against the "gorgeous" scenery as we were hiking. You couldn't even see 10 feet in front of you the whole way! We finally made it to the train station where we quickly said our goodbyes and all headed to our separate trains. I was so happy that I didn't have to travel 4 or 5 hours back like some other people, but instead was back in my dorm in 20 minutes. I took the hottest shower to warm up and then an amazing nap, and felt like a totally different person.

Later on, Jon and I met up with Mitch and Emily, who just got back from Paris to trade stories over dinner. Jon and I both agreed that hanging out with them and laughing hysterically at the stories of our terrible weekend compared to their amazing one totally saved our weekend. It's nice to be back again, if only for a short time. Tuesday I'm off to Paris!

Fitty Dent

So, I'm on spring break for the next three weeks and it should be all fun and games and yet I'm extremely stressed out because everything seems to be all happening at once for me. This includes choosing housing for my senior year at Mt. Holyoke, anxiously awaiting Mt. Holyoke class registration which should be going up within the next week, packing and planning and working out final details for my 2 week trip across Europe, trying to figure out banking and paying my rent for the first time, trying to buy semester public transportation tickets and discount train ticket deals, etc, and the biggest woe of my life right now: registering for German classes. I had an advising meeting today with the program director here, as well as the woman who runs the program from UMass Amherst, since she is here for the week. Classes that I thought were worth 4 credits are only worth 3 (maybe 2?). I almost ended up taking a graduate level economics class because I read it wrong. I'm still confused about double-transferring back credits (from Uni Freiburg to UMass to Mt. Holyoke). I came out of my meeting so stressed out that I was ready to buy a ticket back to Boston and just forget this whole mess.

Yesterday was my last language class and to celebrate, we had a big party. Everyone brought something to eat and my teacher bought in candles and lit them. That would never fly in the United States! After class I had to go to the store and buy a bunch of travel sized toothpaste, shampoo, and conditioner for my trip. In one store I found denture cleaner called "Fitty Dent" and I thought that was the funniest thing to happen all week. I keep imagining old people dropping their grillz in some Fitty Dent trying to get them clean.

In my first blog entry I noted that one of the things I was going to miss the most while abroad was grilled cheese sandwiches. I am happy to report that yesterday I invited all my friends over and we made delicious grilled cheese sandwiches with potato chips on the side and we sat around and watched the King of Queens on TV overdubbed in German. I'm so far away but yet it's like I've never left home at all. I think this is both a good and bad thing.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for the Black Forest for my UMass orientation, so I won't have access to a computer until Sunday. Bis dann!

"I dropped my €.50 in the olives!"--Mitchell Holthaus

After class today I headed over to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in order to buy a train ticket to Paris for my vacation next week. I was pretty nervous about buying a train ticket in German, I'm not going to lie. I had to take a number like going to the deli and wait for my turn. When my number was finally called, the man who waited on me did not help to calm my fears! I went up to him and asked for a ticket to Paris and he was just like, "Wait! Wait! Are you number 449?" I said that I was and he was like, "Ok good, congratulations, you're in the right place then." I don't need any sass from you, buddy. Then I began to explain that I wanted a ticket for Paris for March 31st, and he had this funny smirk on his face, I could tell that he thought my terrible American accent was hilarious, but I think I did a pretty good job of explaining what I wanted! It was especially hard to concentrate because this man had the longest fingernails that I have ever seen in my life, and I couldn't stop thinking about what my mom always said about guys with long fingernails: that they snort coke off of them. Thanks, Mom. I did it though; I got my ticket to Paris for €74 with one change in Mannheim. Interacting with real Germans about real issues like this and having them understand is a confidence booster for me so hopefully I will be able to do it more often in the coming months. I feel like I do not speak as much German here as I should, and I feel guilty about that. Sometimes my friends and I speak German to each other for a while, but then we always go back into English, for convenience sake.

After getting train tickets (Emily bought some too for her European adventures), me, her, Mitch, and Jon all went to a Döner Kepab place near by for some delicious Turkish food for lunch. We all payed individually and then waited outside for the rest of the group to finish paying. Mitch was the last to leave the restaurant and when he came out he was shaking his head and complaining that he always makes a fool of himself. We asked him what was wrong and he told us that when he went to pay the man, he accidentally dropped his €.50 coin in the bowl of olives behind the counter! The man took pity on poor Mitch and told him not to worry about it. We all died laughing. I'm glad we weren't in the restaurant to witness that because we probably would have caused a riot with our hysterical laughter.

I also got to set up my Uni Freiburg email account today. I had three options for domain names, either @uranus.uni-freiburg.de, @neptun.uni-freiburg.de, or @merkur.uni-freiburg.de. THIS WAS THE HARDEST DECISION I HAVE HAD TO MAKE ALL WEEK! I ended up going with uranus because I thought it was funny. Someday I hope to have the maturity level beyond that of a 10 year old boy, but I don't know if that is going to happen anytime soon.

I only have 2 more days of my language class (thank God) and then I'm on break for the next 3 weeks until real classes start. I will have my courses at the University from April 20-July 26, which is why I will be in Germany for so long into the summer. I have registered for two classes so far: a seminar on Germany and Europe, and a seminar on women's education in Germany. I am also planning on taking two economics courses: one called Business Cultures and the other is called "International Trade, Market Integration, and the EU." Only 2 of those 4 classes are in German which I feel incredibly guilty about, but there are no other economics classes I could take for economics credit, which I kind of need for my major.

Today I finally met with my Hausmeister, and I was pretty pleased with myself that I explained to him in German which dorm I lived in and that I had no mailbox key and he understood everything and gave me all my new keys for my room, mailbox, and safe. I feel a lot better now because I actually have an address in Germany now, so it's like I ACTUALLY live here.

After class I did some major grocery shopping because it's unbelivable how little food I have left by the end of the week. The grocery store that is cheapest and closest to me is kind of a shock compared to American grocery stores. There are only 3 aisles: the first has snack food and alcohol, the second has tolietry items, and the third is mostly candy and sweets. In the front are the fruits and veggies, and in the back there is a freezer section with milk, meats, cheeses, and yogurts, and ice creams and frozen dinners, and another small section with breads, jams, and cereal and that's about it. It is hard to buy a lot of food when the selection is so slim! It's also hard to buy food when you have to bring your own bag! I wasn't finished shopping, but had to be because I had no more room in my sack and couldn't carry anything else in my hands. Hopefully what I got will last me more than a few days.

I've been busy making plans and booking tickets and hostels for my 3 week spring break. I will be traveling with Amber, my friend from Mt. Holyoke who is currently spending the semester in Copenhagen. From March 31-April 5th we'll be in Paris and then we're flying to Rome for a few days and Florence for a few days before returning to our respective countries on April 11. I'm very excited to be seeing more of Europe while I'm here!

"I sat across from the dog."--Mitchell Holthaus

One of my goals in life has always been to eat lunch in a foreign country and come back before the day was over, and my mission was accomplished today in Basel, Switzerland!

I think there were about 32 of us that went, and we met at the train station in Freiburg at 8:45 this morning. The train to Switzerland was only about an hour long, and I found out that we can go there anytime we want for free with our RegioKarte tickets we get as students here!

It was freezing out today but clear and beautiful, so it was perfect to take in the city. I was extremely excited upon my arrival in the country, as you can see from the photo of me and my friend Emily. When we got there we took a weird boat thing across the Rhein and then did a walking tour of the city. Since it was such a beautiful day, there were a ton of people out and about walking, and there was an outdoor market in the center of town. Switzerland really classes it up by having entire bands perform on the street with intense instruments like cellos and violins.

We got an hour for lunch and were allowed to explore the city on our own. Emily, Mitch, Jen, Todd, and I went searching for some food. We were really confused because at first we couldn't find anywhere to eat and then once we did, the prices for everything were outrageous! Switzerland is not part of the EU so they still use the Swiss Franc. I remembered from work that one dollar was worth about the same as a Swiss Franc, but everything was so expensive that that didn't seem right. A Big Mac from McDonalds was more than 7 Swiss Francs! We figured my conversion must be wrong and eventually settled on an Italian place where I had THE MOST AMAZING TORTELLINI OF MY LIFE! They were so soft and tender and the sauce was delicious, and the cheese was fresh. I have never eaten so slow because I wanted to savor every bite. When the bill came it was basically a disaster because it was in Francs but we only had Euros (which they do accept in Basel since it's so close to the border, but we couldn't pay for the bill separately like we usually do). Turns out, by the way, that 1 Franc is $1.09 and my tortellini was 15.50. The most expensive (but most delicious) pasta of my life and worth every cent.

After that we met back up with the rest of the group and went to the Basler Muenster, or cathedral so we could climb to the top. It was extremely steep, the stairs were extremely narrow, all we had was a tiny rope to hang on to, and my legs were shaking so bad I could hardly move. The view was totally worth it though!

We went to two museums in the late afternoon. The first one was a modern art muesum, complete with random red square paintings and scribbles on pieces of paper that totally went over everyone's head, and the second was an art museum with paintings from Picasso and Van Gough which was pretty cool, but by this point we were all too tired to care.

After a long day in Basel, it was finally time to return back home to Freiburg! It is amazing how Freiburg is starting to feel like home. I'm pretty sure that everyone passed out from exhaustion on the train.

You can check out the rest of my pictures from my day in Basel here!

"I've been itchy all day, don't judge me!"--Jon Salvilla

Today I had my big test for my language course which went ok but like I always say, grammar has never been my strong point.
After class, we were walking to the train station and had to stop and wait for a light to change at a busy intersection. The light turned green and some tool on his motorcycle with his girlfriend tried to be cool and pop a wheelie for all of us waiting at the intersection to see, but instead it went horribly wrong and she fell off the back and into the middle of the street. She was just lying there for a minute or so and everyone rushed into the street to see if she was ok. It was really scary, and I never felt so helpless, not really being able to communicate with these people and not even knowing what the German version of 911 was (apparently its 110 for police and 112 for fire and ambulance). She got up and was ok, albeit a little shaken.

We also had the last lecture for our film class which was sad because I really enjoyed that class and will miss it a lot. When that was over, Mitch, Jon, Emily, and I decided to go see Slumdog Millionaire, which was just released in the country today. It's so new that the overdubbed version hasn't come out yet and we got to watch in English with German subtitles. Before the movie they played a ton of commericals and in one especially corny commerical there were these 3 women walking around Hollywood in what was an advertisment for a German store which doesn't even exist in America. Jon said loudly, "Aren't those girls supposed to be Grrrmen though?" and all the German people around us overheard died laughing, it was hysterical and also shows how much of Germany actually speaks English and can understand every word we're saying in public. The movie was absolutely amazing though, I'm so glad I got to see it.

After that we went out for dinner at an Italian Restaurant which was really nice and a lot of fun. I'm not kidding when I say I don't think I've ever laughed as hard in my life as I have these past few weeks in Germany. The four of us have a lot of fun together and are always joking around.

Tomorrow I am going to Switzerland for the day, you know, no big deal or anything, so I'm sure I'll have some exciting pictures and an interesting blog post!

"Hey, it's the one week anniversary of the cave incident!"--Jon Salvilla

I am floating on Cloud 9 right now because today I bought a hair dryer and I also did laundry for the first time, so I'm going to be a completely different person tomorrow walking to class with dry hair and clean clothes!! Neither of these was an easy feat, however.

I never considered myself high maintenance, but my hair dryer from home only works for about 30 seconds at a time here even with a converter, and my straightener only goes up to about 90 degrees and isn't hot enough to actually straighten my hair. I feel disgusting going to school every day with wet hair so I finally broke down and found a hairdryer today for just 11 Euro. Even just walking through the store carrying the box made me extremely happy!

Laundry is another story in itself. I love how I can sit in my dorm room here, 3600 miles from South Hadley, MA, but I can still look up North Rockefeller Hall, where I lived last semester and not only see which washers and dryers are in use, but how many minutes each of them has left. Here, I had to go to an office between 19:00 and 20:00 tonight and buy special tokens for my laundry. One load of wash costs 1,50 Euro and to dry costs 1,80 Euro. The laundry room is thankfully in my dorm, but we share it with 2 other dorms I believe. There are 5 washing machines and ONE dryer. They are all extremely tiny and look like they're from the 70s. They all have a million settings and strange symbols which are completely in German, so I had no idea what was going on and took a guess. I put it on the coolest setting for wash (30 degrees C) and hoped for the best. Everything seemed ok, so I stuck my stuff in the dryer. There were also a whole bunch of settings on it so I chose "shranktrocken +". I have absolutely no idea what that means, and the dryer gave me no indicator of when it would finish. So I left and prayed that everything would be ok for the next hour and a half.

When I went back down to check on it, there was a guy there waiting and he asked me how much longer my dryer had. I told him I had no idea and he asked if I could wait for it to be done so he could dry his clothes. I said I would, but forgot my suitcase(/hamper/laundry transporter) upstairs, so I went to go get it and on the way I tripped and fell right in front of him and basically made a fool of myself and he died laughing. When I came back he said something to me in German and I had no idea what it meant, so I asked him to repeat it and I still had no idea, so I decided to stop my dryer early, since I think he was getting mad that I was still using it. Miraculously, everything was dry and nothing shrunk (I tried stuff on to make 100% sure), so now I have clean clothes that smell good, it just wasn't as graceful a process as I imagined it to be.

The other exciting things of the day are that I registered for a class about women's higher education in Germany which will be amazing, we analyzed one of my favorite movies of all time, Run Lola Run, in my German film class, and we got to play kid's Taboo in my language class! Tomorrow I have my big test in my language class, and it's hard to study and take it seriously when I know I'm not getting any credit for this course at all.

"I got bones in my piece"--Mitchell Holthaus

It has officially been 2 weeks now since I've been here and time is flying, yet crawling at the same time. Overall I'm feeling more comfortable with things like ordering in German and using the trams to get around town, but I'm still missing stupid little things from home like dryer sheets, 8.5 x 11 sized paper, and my DVD collection, so I guess I'm learning how materialistic I really am. I've noticed a lot of interesting things since I've been here, like the high count of children with mullets, the extremely strong Freiburger accents which I can barely understand, and how much smaller in size everything is compared to sizes in the US.

The weather has been sunny and beautiful the past few days and crocuses and little daisies are in bloom everywhere, so I guess spring is just around the corner. There is now a market on the Muensterplatz every day, and all the Freiburgers go there to socialize, buy fresh fruits, and eat Wurst, which is exactly what I did today. When the woman at the Wurst stand asked which kind of bratwurst I preferred, I thought I would be all savvy and use my German to ask her what the difference was. I had absolutely no idea what she said when she was explaining the difference to me though, so I ended up just pointing at one of them like an idiot. Tonight we went over to Emily's place for dinner and she cooked an amazing salmon dish with rice and sauce. She lives about 25 minutes away from me by tram and the area where she lives is hilarious because there are actual gypsies who live in trailers and make bon fires at night living outside of her dorm! Did you know that gypsies were real?? Oh Freiburg...

"I like pulp, but I couldn't deal with banana strings in my juice"--Mitchell Holthaus

Just a quick update before I go to bed. I didn't do my homework tonight so I have to wake up extra early and get it done tomorrow.

After class today a bunch of us went out to eat at a cafe. I got a salami baguette which was delicious, and pineapple juice to drink. I miss free water like in the US, here water usually costs more than juice or soda, not to mention it has gross bubbles in it, so I've been experimenting. I almost got banana juice, which is where the quote in the title comes from, but I don't know if I would want banana strings in my drink either. Jon is offended that I only portray him in my blog as a guy who eats too much ketchup, and I promised him I would show him in a different light, but it's hard to do after watching him pull an entire bottle of ketchup out of his messenger bag to pour all over his turkey sandwich in the restaurant today! So sorry Jon, maybe another day.

Then I had to go to the UMass office and officially enroll in the University of Freiburg. This was actually really complicated and annoying. There were several forms we had to fill out and attach passport pictures to, and we had to enroll in each specific subject we wanted to take courses in individually with crazy numerical codes. You could only enroll in up to 3 subjects though, so I chose German, Economics, and History. I am already stressing about registering for classes here: some classes you just show up to on the first day and you're registered, others you need to go to the department office and sign up, some you can register for online, and some you need to email the professor. As much as registering for classes back at home gives me an ulcer with the corrupt online system, at least it's all in once place!

Today is St. Patrick's Day (and my dad's birthday, Happy Birthday Dad!!!) but it is totally not a big deal in Germany. I think more Americans were talking about it than anyone else. I was one of the few to wear green today, and it's definitely weird to be in a place where the majority of the people are not Irish, like in Boston. Tonight Mitch and Emily came over for dinner and I made them my specialty (ie. pasta with butter and cheese, or the only thing I know how to cook) and afterward we decided to celebrate the holiday, so we went to the store and bought 1 euro strawberry wine (hardcore, I know) and some ice cream cake. The wine was absolutely disgusting and the ice cream cake, though delicious, was a little too much. We all kind of feel sick now, which is why I'm going to bed instead of doing my German homework...
Lesson learned today: 1 Euro wine is only 1 Euro for a reason.