Valpo Voyager

Student Stories from Around the World

Tag: Stuttgart

My First Week in Reutlingen: Part 2

For some reason, I mistakenly thought that I’d have a ton of downtime here to not only to blog, but  to also keep a paper journal, to read for fun, and to catch up on missed TV shows. I was seriously concerned that I would get bored in my free time. Nope. That definitely won’t be a problem. Every day is filled with classes, homework, planned events, and unplanned adventures. So now I’ll do my best to sum up all the excitement of seven days into one post.

Sunday: On Sunday, we made our first of what will probably be many trips to the neighboring town of Tübingen. Unlike Reutlingen, Tübingen was not bombed during WWII, and therefore remains a perfectly preserved medieval town. It’s stereotypical Germany, where everything is at least 600 years old. Unfortunately, it was too foggy to get many good pictures of the town, but there was something creepily majestic about waking through a medieval castle in dense fog at twilight. Here’s the view from the top:

After our brief tour, we ate at the famous Neckermüller restaurant along with our professors and some other Valpo friends studying in Reutlingen and Tübingen.

Monday: Monday was the first day of classes. First, we had German, which for me, is a review, but also a welcome break from the advanced literature classes I’m used to at Valpo. Then, we had art history, which may sound less than thrilling to some, but the “living art” activity in which we act out paintings for Herr Springer to guess makes this class actually really fun. Last, we had economics with the man, the myth, the legend: Baldur Veit. The guy knows everyone in the state, has connections to numerous companies in the area, and apparently hangs out with the king of Malaysia. Fascinating.

Tuesdsay: Tuesdsay wasn’t terribly exciting, but I did get to experience the alleged “biggest schnitzel in the world,”that previous generations of Reutlingen students have recommended. The restaurant offers XXL and XL-sized schnitzel, and although I only got the XL, it was still bigger than the plate.

Wednesday: Wednesday was Mutscheltag, a Reutlingen-specific holiday where everybody gets together to play various dice games, in hopes of winning a Mutschel. Mutschel are star-shaped, handmade breads that come in several sizes, ranging from individual, to about 3 feet across. Herr Veit had organized a game night for all the international students, and there, I was surprisingly lucky enough to win 2 Mutschel. Sadly, I didn’t win this grand prize:

Thursday: On Thursday, we had the Luther and Bach class and Modern Germany, along with more German. The two history classes will definitely be the most challenging of the five, but they sound very interesting. That evening, we all ventured out to one of the pubs for karaoke. I didn’t participate this time around, but I think I’ll be ready next week!

Friday: Have I mentioned that we never have class on fridays? Sometimes we have events planned, and sometimes it’s just free time to travel. This week, we first had a historical tour of Reutlingen. This was interesting, and also another great opportunity for pictures.

The highlight of the tour was the narrowest street in the world, which is about a foot wide:
Later, we headed back to Tübingen, to visit our German professor and learn how to make Mutschel! I love that it’s totally normal here for professors to invite us to their homes…and provide baked goods. Soon, I’ll do a Spoonful of Zucker post for the Mutschel recipe.

Saturday: Finally, on Saturday, we made our first trip to Stuttgart to go to the Baden-Württemberg state museum. After a big dose of regional history, we had lunch at Vapiano, the greatest pasta restaurant in the world. (There’s one in Chicago too!) That evening, we explored downtown Reutlingen a little more, to bring a relaxing end to the week.

And that’s it in a nutshell! Check again next week for my latest adventures!

Spring Awakening

One of the famous events that Germany is known for is Oktoberfest. Seeing how it is not yet October we have not been able to experience the festival. So what is the next best thing? Why its Frühlingsfest, which is basically a Spring festival that happens the first couple of weeks of Spring. It just so happens that the second largest spring fest was only a short train ride away from Reutlingen University.

We took the train in to Stuttgart in the morning and we met up with a few of the German students that will be studying at Valpo next year. They first showed us the amusement park that is a huge strip of different rides complete with roller coaster and a Ferris wheel. For the most part it was similar to the rides we have at our amusement parks back home, minus all the safety requirements. So after having witness all these ride and wandered through the different shopping stands, we headed over to the beer tents.

Though most of the stereotypes of Germans I haven’t found true during this semester, Frühlingsfest definitely explained where those stereotypes came from. The tent which was probably the size of football field was packed filled with lederhosen and dirndls. They served liters of beer that servers would bring five in one hand. There was traditional German songs playing and people standing on the benches dancing, hugging and singing with the liters of beers. Other people were eating traditional German food and talking about “football” or how we Americans say it, “soccer.” This whole excursion was definitely one of my favorite cultural events since being in Germany because it was just fun to watch and see that some of the stereotypes are true about Germans which definitely is not a bad thing!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The time after fall break has basically been filled with festivals (and a couple class trips). Thanksgiving, many Christmas markets, a chocolate festival.. It’s crazy. The first one was Thanksgiving. The international program at Hochschule Reutlingen (the university) puts on a Thanksgiving dinner every year for all the American students and other international students who are interested. They asked everyone to bring a dessert, but provided turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn. All the staples of a Thanksgiving dinner except the green beans. Because for some reason they think that corn is this American thing that we always eat. Since they only eat corn on top of salads or pizza, which I think is weird, but whatever. (And I don’t have any pictures of the night since my camera was apparently dead without me realizing.. Oh well.)

Reutlingen Christmas market

Advent calendar on a house

It was so nice to have that little taste of home, since obviously Germany doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. The downside: the rediscovery that a bunch of Americans in one room is super loud and annoying. Yay America. It’s going to be interesting just how much my perception of Americans has changed when I get back. I can only imagine that I’ll be a little annoyed at times..

So that was Thanksgiving. And then that weekend all the Christmas markets started going up! I had never been to one before, even though there are a few in some of the big cities in the U.S., like Chicago. Of course, being at those would be nothing like actually being in Germany at a market, because it is an experience I think everyone should have. It’s just rows and rows of wooden stalls selling scarves and hats, ornaments, candies, brats, miniature houses, nutcrackers, and anything else related to Christmas. And of course all decorated with lights and garlands. It really is beautiful.

I already wrote about the one in Vienna at the end of fall break, and since then I’ve been to several. The one in Reutlingen of course, which is surprisingly large for such a small city. It even has an ice rink. And my favorite part was the advent calendar they projected onto one of the houses downtown. So creative. And just awesome.

Part of the Nuremberg Christmas market

Next event of this time was a trip I took with a bunch of international students to Nuremberg. The home of the original Christmas market. Nuremberg itself is a really cool city, and I wish I had had more time to look around, since I was only there for a few hours. It’s one of the few towns left in Germany with the city wall still remaining and in good shape, and is really just beautiful. The Christmas market though, that was amazing even though it was super crowded. Anything you wanted to find, you could find there. And the bands and choirs playing on the stage added even more to the atmosphere of Christmas. I had thought that being one of the original Christmas markets would have made it bigger, but that was the only disappointment. And we were still able to make use of the few hours there wandering the stalls and drinking Gluehwein, the spiced hot wine that’s a specialty in the winter.

Part of the group in front of Schloss Ludwigsburg

Next stop: Ludwigsburg! There’s a somewhat famous palace here, and it’s only just over an hour train ride from Reutlingen, so we decided to make a class day out of it for our German culture/literature/history class. The interior was gorgeous, especially the two chapels and the theater. As a nature lover, though, I was drawn to the gardens more. They were beautiful, they even had a fairy tale part that was closed, but had figurines scattered throughout a wooded part to be sort of a fairy tale world. Ludwigsburg also had a Christmas market that we had some time to visit. And I finally found a cheap winter hat! So of course I picked the one with the most colors. I’m now the proud owner of a purple, blue, and lime green hat from Germany!

The weekend after this class trip I went to Stuttgart with Sarah for some Christmas market browsing and Christmas shopping (since we’re running out of time pretty quickly). Neither of us had actually been anywhere in Stuttgart besides the airport and the train station, so it was good just to walk around the city itself. It reminded both of us of Christmastime in Chicago- tons of people walking around in coats, scarves, and hats, and crowding all the stores and malls doing their shopping, and eating at brat places along the main pedestrian area. It could’ve only been more beautiful if it had been snowing. The Christmas market was completely packed with people. Which was frustrating, but on the other hand gave us plenty of time to look at everything in the stalls while in stand-stills in the vast crowds. And it was gigantic, so we had plenty of stalls for stall-browsing while we stood in the crowds.

Stuttgart Christmas

The final festival I’ve been to is the Tuebingen Chocolate festival, also last weekend. Apparently it’s really popular, because there were chocolate stalls from all over the world and people in throngs trying to get to the stalls to buy some bars or hot chocolate (or even chocolate beer or chocolate noodles). I decided not to go too crazy, so I stuck with hot chocolate with chili, although chocolate beer sounded really intriguing.

After a day of fighting crowds in Stuttgart and then a day fighting them in Tuebingen, we decided to be done with crowds for a while. Which was fine, because it was our second to last weekend in Germany.. So really, our last weekend to go anywhere except for maybe a few hours to a nearby town.

We leave on Tuesday already, and there are finals to finish up, stuff to pack, rooms to clean, and plenty of people to say good-bye to before we head off. I’m kind of sad. It’s been an incredible semester, and I’m sure I won’t realize just how much I’ve grown and learned and changed until I get back to the States. Living here is so normal now. The language is so normal, the public transportation so normal, the hills so normal, the colorful money, the ability to buy alcohol, pedestrian areas downtown, sorting trash into four bins, living with people from all corners of the world, even the showers that only spray for 30 seconds before you have to press the button again, all of it is so normal, it’s just a day in the life. Coming back home is going to be a culture shock–it will seem like everything has changed a little bit, when really it’s mostly my perceptions that have changed.

With hot chocolate at the festival

This semester has been absolutely amazing. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. I’ve learned so much about myself and about the world, and I only hope I can take my experiences back with me and that they will have changed me for the better, and for good. So likely this is my last post until I get back, and then maybe I’ll do one about the transition back to American ways of life. Aus Deutschland zum letzten Mal, tschüß!

 

Catch up part 2: Weekend excursion and field trips to Stuttgart!

Okay, now that I am back from my five-day trip to Vienna (blog to come!) I can finally continue to play blog entry catch up.

On Friday September 30th, I traveled to northern Hessen (a centrally-located state in Germany) to visit some friends for the long weekend, as Monday, October 3rd is a national holiday in Germany (Day of German Reunification.) As a high school student, I had the opportunity to travel to both Germany and northern Italy with my German class during the spring of my junior year in 2008. Since then, I have remained good friends with my host family (the Stübers).

I began my travels with the train from Tübingen to Stuttgart, and then by car with a perfect stranger from Stuttgart to Fulda, from which point I continued with the train to Eschwege. In Germany, there is a website called “Mitfahrgelegenheit” (literally, “Opportunity to ride along”) where people can post trips they are making by car, and how much space they have for others to ride along and split the cost of gas. It is somewhat similar to the “Rideshare” board back at VU, and in other ways it is essentially glorified hitchhiking. It is, however, significantly cheaper than taking the train, and although I had my qualms about it at first, it turned out to be a very nice way to travel. There were three of us riding along plus the driver, so it was a very cramped ride in the back seat of a tiny BMW, but everyone was very nice and it was an excellent opportunity to practice my German as well. In the United States, I think many people would see the concept of “Mitfahrgelegenheit” as dangerous, or untrustworthy. In Germany, where the conservation of resources and money is a high cultural priority, it is seen as a way to be less wasteful and to save time and money. Before picking up the other two passengers, I talked for awhile with the driver about Mitfahrgelegenheit in respect to the culture of Germany, and why many Americans would be weary about trusting someone they didn’t know to drive them somewhere. He told me an interesting story about an American friend of his, who was under the impression that Germany was a dangerous place because people were not allowed to carry guns and defend themselves if necessary. We both had a good laugh about that one…

Anyway, the weekend of September 30th was an especially eventful one in the Stübers little town near Eschwege, because it happened to be the weekend of their annual “Kirmes” festival. Jonas, my high school exchange partner, was one of the event organizers this year, so both he and his family were kept very busy putting on the festival.

Every night there was a different themed dance party in a giant beer tent, and during the day there were parades, bumper cars, carnival-type games, and other festivities. I arrived late on Friday – shortly before midnight – but after unpacking all of my things, I was dropped off at the tent where we proceeded to partake in the Kirmes revelry until 4:30 AM. It took almost eight hours to get from Tübingen to Eschwege, mostly due to an obscenely long traffic jam on the Autobahn, so I was already exhausted at midnight. Needless to say, but 4:30 I was quite ready for bed.

The disco parties every night where pretty similar, with the exception of the music, which changed. Friday night was a mix of everything, Saturday night was more traditional German music, and Sunday night featured a live band playing “Oldies” music from both Germany and the United States, among other countries. I was introduced to so many people I could barely keep up with what was happening as I tried to dance along to music I had never heard before. As someone who does not speak German as a native language, it is enough of a mental workout for me to understand everything that’s going on in normal conversation. The music was so loud that most of the time I could barely hear well enough to struggle through the task of comprehending what was being said to me, so I did a lot of nodding and smiling. It’s amazing what you can tell just by a person’s facial expressions, even if you can’t hear or understand them.

The thing that shocked everyone I was introduced to most was not that an American had come to attend a beerfest in a town of 700 people, but that I could not actually drink the beer; I’m gluten intolerant. Many people after meeting me and talking with me for awhile would abruptly interrupt the conversation to ask if I would like a drink. And not just any drink, but a beer. Before they would disappear into the enormous crowd, I would have to explain that although I would love something to drink, that I was allergic to wheat and couldn’t drink beer. “You can’t drink beer?!?” they would ask. “Then what can you drink?” At first, I didn’t know myself what was on the menu, so I would just say, “I’m not sure… What other things do they serve here?” After a few long minutes of thought, my friend Daisy answered, “Whiskey cola!” So, from that point onward, I was brought many whiskey colas. It was as if some mad bartender kept mixing them up just for me, and sending them out to the dance floor on a long conveyor belt, from which everyone then grabbed a drink to offer to the Stübers’ American friend. At one point I had three whiskey colas to finish…

A blurry picture of kids with lanterns in the Fackelumzug

The Kirmes festivities also included two parades, both of which I was asked to participate in. The first parade was a Torch Parade, or, “Fackelumzug.” All the adults carried torches (with giant, dangerous, blazing flames) and the kids all carried battery-operated lanterns to prevent the town from burning to the ground. Daisy and Jonas’ seven-year-old sister could barely contain her excitement for the entire day leading up to the torch parade – she was so excited to walk through the town with me and to carry her lantern. I am quite certain that I was introduced to every child in the entire town as, “Zach, mein Freund aus Amerika!” (Zach, my friend from America.)

My friend Daisy and I in the Fackelumzug

My second Kirmes parade experience was without a giant torch, but I did get to wear a chef hat and carry a banner! My friend Daisy plays on a women’s soccer team comprised of two neighboring towns, and a couple of the players from her team got together to walk in the parade. The coach dressed up like a chef, and I helped carry one of two banners with phrases that fit the cooking theme. Daisy’s little sister took on the role of throwing candy to the children watching the parade from the sidewalk. I found this to be a little funny, because the streets were so narrow that “throwing” the candy really wasn’t necessary as it is in parades back home. All she had to do was drop it on the ground next to the curb, or maybe toss it just a little bit.

Me with Daisy’s soccer team before the parade

After sleeping in a little bit on Monday, I was back to the train station to make the long trip back to Tübingen via train and Mitfahrgelegenheit. All in all, my weekend with the Stübers / at the Kirmes festival was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed comparing their “small town festival” to those back home. There were more similarities that I would have imagined.

Mercedes-Benz Museum

Since I was caught up on my blogging, I have also been on two field trips to nearby Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg. The first time was with my German course, and consisted of seeing the Mercedes-Benz museum, and then watching an Opera – La Traviata. The Mercedes-Benz Museum was excellent, and as a car enthusiast, I enjoyed myself very much. Even for those who aren’t all that car-crazy, I still think it would be a really fun museum to visit. For example, there is a “Room of Celebrities” exhibit that features Princess Diana’s Mercedes-Benz sports car as well as a Popemobile. The architecture of the building is great, both exterior and interior. Once inside, everyone receives an audio guide, and is taken to the top floor via elevator, where you arrive in a room with just a model of a horse in the middle to represent the age before cars were invented. Shortly after comes the exhibit about the first cars ever invented. After this point, the museum splits into two downward intertwining spiral directions – one featuring more technical exhibits, and the other featuring more historical exhibits. I made sure I saw both sides before descending to the floor below! Although I’m not a big opera fan, La Traviata was interesting to see and hear. (I was actually able to see Die Zauberflöte in Vienna a few days ago, which was really cool, so maybe my opinion on Operas has changed? More to come on that soon! At any rate, La Traviata wasn’t my favorite.)

Me in front of the Mercedes-Benz Museum

Hannah, Emily, Jake and Rachel with their audio guides – Mercedes-Benz Museum

The second field trip to Stuttgart was to visit the Canstatter Wasen – the world’s second largest “Beerfest” after Oktoberfest in Munich. The Canstatter Wasen is not as well known because unlike Oktoberfest, it’s not a tourist destination. I was completely blown away by how large it was. The only thing I could compare it to would be the Wisconsin Sate Fair – complete with rides, roller coaters, carnival games, stores, and giant beer “tents.” Valpo’s connections with nearby Reutlingen University enabled us Tübingen students to get tickets to go along, as obtaining seats in the giant portable buildings they call “tents” can be difficult. Seeing the beerfest was an interesting experience, but it is not one that I need to repeat. Everyone from Valpo was given one coupon for food, and two coupons for beer – each coupon was redeemable for 1 “Mass” of beer, a giant mug filled with nearly two liters of beer. Because I can’t drink beer, standing on a table dancing among thousands of people holding giant mugs filled with two liters of beer while singing, dancing, spilling on you, blocking every imaginable exit, and being completely obnoxious wasn’t exactly enjoyable for me. I am sure that if I were also able to drink a two-liter mug of beer that my experiences would have been much different! All of the beer drinkers loved it. I however, had to pay almost €10 for carbonated apple juice. I would also like to point out that contrary to common belief, the German’s don’t actually walk around in public wearing lederhosen. Except for at beerfests, which are lederhosen extravaganzas. (The lederhosen-wearing, giant beer-drinking stereotype of Germans is largely untrue most every part of the year, except for beerfests such as the Canstatter Wasen.)

The Canstatter Wasen

A whole lot of crazy. And this was just the very beginning…

That’s all for this blog post! I’ll try to get my Vienna experiences up as soon as possible!

Bis Dann

Volksfest in Stuttgart

So it’s officially October here in Germany. And what does that mean? Oh yeah, Oktoberfest, of course!

Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany is probably the most famous, but there are Bierfests all over the country. After consulting with some German friends, we learned that making the trip to Munich might not be worth it. It was purportedly quite the experience, but very touristy, there’s nowhere left to spend the night, and everything is really expensive.

Instead, everyone suggested that we make a point to go to the Cannstatter Volksfest – Stuttgart’s version of “Oktoberfest” and the second largest Bierfest in the world.  They told us that there weren’t very many tourists, and it was probably the most authentic experience we could have.

On Saturday we decided to take the train into Stuttgart do a little shopping and then meet up with some other people from our German course at the fairgrounds.

We ate lunch at a café that serves traditional schwabisch food, just to complete the experience. Unfortunately we had terrible service.  Because customers here are expected to tip much less, there isn’t as much pressure for “service with a smile.”

Eventually we made our way to the Cannstatter Wasen – the grounds where the Volksfest is held. It was huge! There were rides and tents and food and toys and games and anything else you could dream of!

Canstatter Wasen

American Burgers! - "The Giant Hamburger"

Las Vegas!

Behind all the typical “carnival rides” they had giant beer tents that seat thousands of people. But these aren’t just like temporary cheap-o tents. These are like hardcore buildings they take up and down every year. And everything inside is done up to nines. It was surreal!

Dinkel Acker

 

The tent we were in

At first we had some difficulties meeting up with our friends from the course because it was so huge! We tried calling and texting but the German cell phone network kept crashing. That’s how many people there were at this Bierfest. The cell phones didn’t work. How crazy is that!?

Eventually we met up and sat with a bunch of German students. Because the Germans are pretty serious about their Bier consumption, they were pretty friendly.

Inside the tent

Panorama

We turned out to be one of the main attractions of the evening, with all the Germans taking turns teaching us all the traditional drinking songs. They showed us how to stand up and dance on the tables, as well as how to “properly” hold a Maß (1 Liter) of Bier.

The whole festival really reminded me of the smaller Galas or Fairs held in America around the Fourth of July. It was really an experience and I met some more German friends in the process!

 

 

First few days in Tübingen!

Famous view of Tübingen with the Neckar River in the foreground

 

Hallo aus Deutschland! It’s Sunday the 28th of August and after being here for three days, I can finally say I’m all finished unpacking, organizing, and moving into my little room here in Tübingen. It’s a little smaller than a freshman dorm at Valpo, but I get it all to myself and the entire building has been newly renovated. I’ll post some pictures as soon as I take some – knowing that I’ll be here for the entire year takes away the urgency I typically feel while traveling to capture every potentially-memorable photo, so I haven’t really taken any pictures yet.

 

I was hoping to do a blog post a little earlier, but I am still without my own username and  password to access the internet. With this blog post I’ll do a little bit of catching up of everything that’s happened over the past few days. It’s been pretty busy, and my jet lag still isn’t completely gone, so I’ll do my best to remember it! It will probably be another week or so before I’ll have internet in my room, but Jake, Hannah, and Emily have all found ways to get online, so I’ll at least be able to borrow their computers for the short term. (By the way, there are five us altogether from Valpo who are studying here in Tübingen – I’ll refer to them often throughout this next year of blogging, I’m sure!)

 

Both flights here went very smoothly and without problems. For the music people who may be reading this, the band My Chemical Romance was on our flight from Chicago to London! I had no idea of this, but Rachel stood in line next to them while boarding and was excited to tell all of us after we had landed at Heathrow.

 

When we arrived in Stuttgart I was tired and very hungry – being gluten intolerant, I could only eat about half of the surprisingly good looking food on the plane. Professor Malchow, the resident director for the Reutlingen program (and also the de-facto go-to person for the Tübingen program), met us as soon as we had collected our luggage. While we rested and ate some lunch, he filled us in on a lot of really helpful information while we waited for the Reutlingen students’ plane to arrive. I was so jet lagged and sleepy, so hopefully I’ll be able to remember all of the important points, anyway…

 

A big coach bus brought all of us Valpo students to our respective buildings in either Tübingen or Reutlingen. I was the first one dropped off, so I didn’t get to see where anyone else was living right away. As the bus pulled away, I was left standing on the sidewalk with three heavy suitcases and a backpack staring up the two flights of stairs leading into my building. At this moment, I was feeling pretty lonely and in shock about being dropped off in a completely foreign city that I knew next to nothing about. Luckily, that wore off soon enough.

 

All of us were very lucky to have Clara Ullrich and Stefanie Merk (two German students who lived in the German House and studied at Valpo last year) to help us move in and acclimate to our new rooms. Having also lived in the German House last year, Jake and I know them very well. This was especially helpful because they offered to drive us to go shopping for food and other necessities for our rooms, which I was extremely appreciative of.

 

On Friday, Jake, Hannah, Emily, Rachel and myself spent the day exploring the city, buying cheap cell phones, and visiting/comparing each others’ rooms. With the way the student housing agency is set up here in Tübingen, none of us knew very much about where we would be living until we actually got here. Hannah, Emily, and Rachel have a much more “urban” living experience than do Jake and myself. Their rooms are located right in the middle of Tübingen’s “Altstadt,” (historic, old part of the city) and very close to everything. Their buildings are older, but they are in easy walking distance of all the famous sights downtown, the university buildings, and many stores, restaurants, bars, ice cream shops, etc.

 

Jake and I live in an eight-story building that is much more similar to an American-style dorm building than to the house-type buildings where the girls live. It is about a half-hour walk to the city center and university buildings, but the building itself and rooms are pretty nice. I was surprised at how extremely messy all of our buildings are. Because of the way the German semesters are set up, many of the students who lived here prior to us just moved out at the end of July. I think move-out must work differently here, because all of our four buildings are full of junk in the hallways that old students apparently didn’t want to take with them. Pulling a suitcase down the hall was a bit of a challenge in some areas on Thursday… We have been told that a “deep-cleaning” of the buildings will occur sometime in September before all of the German students move back in, which I’m really hoping is true. Out of my 5-room wing, there are only three of us here, which is much more full than other parts of the building. On every floor or the “Neuhalde,” (the name of my building) there are five locked wings, with five rooms in each. Every wing shares one kitchen, two showers, and two bathrooms, so it feels much homier and more interconnected than the freshman dorms at Valpo.

 

On Saturday, the five of us had quite an eventful, adventure-filled day. We all split the cost of a “Baden-Württemberg Ticket,” which allowed us to travel anywhere in the state of Baden-Württemberg by bus, train, or tram all day long, as long as we were together. It is much cheaper than all buying individual tickets, and every German state has tickets like this. I am pretty familiar with “Deutsche Bahn” (“German Rail,” the national train system here) because I traveled by train very often as an exchange student here in High School.

 

In the morning we took the train to nearby Böblingen, where the closest Ikea is located. We all found some pretty neat things for our rooms, whether plates and silverware, bedding, or decorations. Ikea in Europe is almost exactly like Ikea in the U.S. I recognized many of the items from having seen them in Chicago, and it is still cheap, amazing, blue, yellow, and giant even by American standards – just like at home.

 

We all had a good laugh at ourselves after lunch. After we had checked out and bought everything, we decided to go back into the store (with our purchased merchandise) to eat lunch at the cafe. The lines were extremely long, but well worth the wait. After eating and visiting in the cafe for a few hours (to avoid the heavy rain outside) we were faced with the question of, “What is the best way to leave the store carrying bags of things we have already bought?”

 

Looking like the stupid and confused foreign kids, we all walked around for awhile thinking about how to leave and not make a scene. The Germans are very orderly people – the store had stairs marked “Up only” into the store and restaurant, and “Down only” back to the warehouse and checkout section. Even the hallways through the upstairs and downstairs were one-way-only loops, clearly marked with giant arrows.

 

After going down the upstairs, and up the downstairs, Jake decided that we should take the elevator marked, “KEIN FAHRT,” (NO ENTRY or literally, NO RIDE.) He was convinced that the elevator would take us down to the first floor, and open up right by the entrance where we could simply walk out of the store the way we came in. It did go down a floor, but instead of opening towards the entrance, the doors opened towards the warehouse and checkout area. Some other shoppers stepped out, probably wondering why weren’t doing the same. Jake was convinced the elevator would open on the other side if we just waited.

 

We did wait, and after a couple minutes, we all burst out laughing. Nothing happened. We were trapped in the elevator. It must have been an automatic elevator, because there were no buttons to control which floor it was going to next. We looked over to to the controls, and there were two buttons: an emergency call/alarm button, and another logo we did not recognize. I pressed the second one.

 

The doors to the warehouse opened back up, and we walked back into the store with our blue Ikea bags, trying as hard as possible not to laugh and cause a scene. We ended up just walking through the store to the checkout area. Once we got there, the group elected me to explain our situation to a checkout employee. After explaining that everything we had was already purchased, the story of us being hungry and going back upstairs to eat, getting lost, being confused, not knowing where to exit, and eventually ending up at the checkout, she nodded understandingly. Then we got scolded. “Normally, you are not allowed to go back into the store after leaving the checkout,” she said. “I will need to see your receipts.” This wasn’t a foreign concept to us at all – every store in the United States would say the same thing… We should have just eaten before we shopped, so we all felt pretty stupid.

 

Luckily, I already had my receipt ready to show her, and after looking it over she let us leave. And with a long walk back to the train station, our Böblingen adventure was over. That evening, we were back on the train to Stuttgart. There is a big, well-known “Weinfest” (Wine Fest) going on there right now, and we decided to go. A whole part of the city was designated as the “Weindorf” or, “Wine Village,” which I found to be a pretty accurate title. There were tents sponsored by restaurants serving food and delicious wine everywhere, and accordion players in the streets. The atmosphere was stereotypically and unmistakably German, and absolutely wonderful. It was extremely crowded and it took us forever to find a free table. Once we found a place to sit down and take in the atmosphere, it ended up being a very great and memorable night. More to come about the Weinfest on Jake’s blog, if he hasn’t already posted!

 

This has gotten to be a pretty long entry – I’ll have to stop being so long-winded…

 

Bis dann!

 

Links:

Hannah’s blog: http://www.travelwithsimba.blogspot.com

Emily’s blog: http://www.germanymeetsemily.blogspot.com

© 2024 Valpo Voyager

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑