You’re going to spend a year abroad. This is no small feat. You have been well prepared, and it’s unlikely that anything I could possibly write will change that. Despite that, here’s some stuff that I wrote to try to help you prepare for your year.

Some of these things are (hopefully understandably) centered around southwest Germany and the Reutlingen program. Sorry about that. Just kidding, not really.

VIEP = Valparaiso International Engineering Program. Take five years instead of 4 to finish your undergraduate degree by adding a semester of overseas study and an internship abroad, and end up wth a language (German, French, Spanish, Chinese) minor or major.

Skype your family as often as you please.

Foreign language faculty at VU advised that exposure to the English language should be limited as much as possible. The thought behind this is to allow yourself to the opportunity for as thorough immersion as possible. This makes sense – the more German (or French or Spanish or Chinese) you hear and use, the better you will be able to consistently and accurately speak and understand it.

This advice, though well-intentioned, is bogus, or at best unnecessary. For one, English is the common language in the dorms (at least in Reutlingen – I cannot speak for the other programs), even before German. You’re automatically in an environment where you’ll need to hear and use English all the time. No need to impose false barriers on your experience that won’t make any difference.

Next, you’re probably going to be plagued with some homesickness, at least once during your time abroad (if you’re not, maybe see somebody about that). Skipping home is a great way to help some of this go away. Your family is important (understatement), and it’s important to maintain that relationship.

Granted, you should not spend 100% of your free time calling home. You have a new place to explore (and getting out can also help with homesickness). But if you do your thing, you’ll experience plenty of immersion as-is. You’ll be just as fluent as you otherwise would have been, and you’ll also get to share your experiences regularly with your loved ones.

Find a family.

I can’t give advice on how to do this, as I more or less had a family waiting for me when I arrived (though I have heard that churches can be good, if that’s your thing). Back in 1980 (or something), my mom did a 3-week (or so) exchange program. She stayed with the Neumärker Family, and fortunately stayed in touch over the years. The then-12-year-old, now-decidedly-older-and-altogether-wondeful-year-old Isa conveniently lives with her husband Jojo and children Rebecca and Cassian near Stuttgart, which is conveniently close to Reutlingen, which is conveniently where I am living this year.

Hopefully, you will have the sense to see a substitute family as more than an outlet for laundry and meals. Spending time around kids is therapeutic, no matter how active or crazy they may be. At the very least, it gets you outside for exercise, and it also exposes you to a facet of German language that you otherwise wouldn’t be hearing. In my case, these kids are less familiar with Americans than the dorm crowd is, so the quality of questions is WAY better for meaningful introspection about myself and my country.

Furthermore, immersion better than this does not exist. You get people who will correct your deutsch in a snap, and who will get it right 100% of the time way faster than any classmate or dictionary ever could. You’re also not in an environment where you can get away with just doing your thing (in my case, programming and playing with twisty puzzles and reading Game of Thrones). You are expected to converse and follow directions. Instead of having to make the choice to put shoes on and go outside for immersion, you can get it from the comfort of your pajamas.

A family can also provide irreplaceable insight into local traditions. Sure, you can read about this stuff in books or on Wikipedia, but experiencing it gives you far more insight and appreciation. Plus it’s more fun than reading about foreign traditions on Wikipedia, and I can say that because I’ve tried it.

Buy your own plane tickets.

I fell for the trap of going with the group plane ride, and along with it, the group prices. The logic that “group prices mean discounts” does not apply for flights, or if it does, it sure didn’t for me.

You can even buy your outbound ticket on the same flight as the rest of the group, but save a few hundred bucks by doing so.

Don’t go for a round trip ticket either, unless you are reasonably certain that you can change your return flight for free. This will most certainly not be the case with the group rate. Round trip tickets are good for short trips, and on the short term, they can even save money. Since you can’t book flights until a year in advance anyway, these savings will not be present by a round trip booking for VIEP participants.

Public Transportation

There’s a thing called the Anschluss Studi-Ticket, which is an extension of your Naldo pass into the Stuttgart region. Super cheap (in the long term, meaning ~$300 one-time), and way worthwhile. If the Naldo region gets boring for you (it shouldn’t, but just in case it somehow does), this gives you a (somewhat) big city to explore. At current prices, it pays for itself in just over 9 visits.

Networking

Herr Veit is the most important friend of VIEP at the Hochschule Reutlingen. He’s so well-connected that I’m pretty sure the only German official who doesn’t answer directly to him is Angela Merkel. He’s a huge support for VIEP participants, and will gladly help you secure a co-op during your second semester. (It’s also possible to accomplish this through other means – Herr Veit is certainly not the only path to a placement)

However, he’s a busy man. You may have to be more explicit with him than feels polite in order to get your point across. He also comes with a very quick turnaround time. Just be prepared to hit the ground running, and you’ll do just fine.

This has not been an exhaustive list.

“Really small and lots of fun” could be an ad for a car, but it also nicely covers Luxembourg. The country is the clear outlier on the GDP-per-capita list among its European sisters, but what a cool place it is!

I was first there in October, for just a short time on my way back from Brussels. It was cool enough that I had to return, so Rachel and I spent a day there for the “New Year” half of our December-January break. I will be going back for a third time in June when my parents visit, regardless of whether or not they finalize their travel plans cough cough. (update: Because I write slowly, plans have since been at least written down somewhere).

Autumn overtakes Luxembourg City.

This doesn’t show much of Luxembourg, but it does show how happy people might be while they’re there.

Luxembourg is one of the handful of non-Germany, german-speaking countries in the world, but French and Luxembourgish are also official languages. Although my spoken french has dwindled to a mere speck since I started studying German, I was surprised to find that the french signs in the museums and on the monuments were far easier to read than the german ones that contained the same information. I also managed to “parle français” to secure us museum tickets “pour deux étudiants,” though the receptionist may have just been patient and polite. Hard to say for certain.

Before we get going, here’s a short list of things not to like about Luxembourg:

1. The flag looks like a faded version of the flag of the Netherlands (both are in the generic “2 darker colors with a lighter band in the middle” pattern)
2. It’s not the cheapest place to visit
3. You might have to explain where it is to people who haven’t heard of it before.

Flag of Luxembourg, and royal residence. From my brief stopover in the fall. The single car on the road does not reflect reality.

Walk out of the train station and go to the right down the big road. You’ll be wanting to handle Luxembourg City on foot, since the traffic isn’t that great. You’ll be doing a fair amount of walking, but that’s the best way to see the city. Go straight past the expensive shops and the malls – they’re just the same as anywhere else. You’ll come to a viaduct over a gorge, and that’s where the real fun begins.

This is just a bridge, but it’s a cool looking bridge. Stone viaducts are nice distinct bits of architecture, and if you look at the people, you can get a sense of just how deep the gorge is.

I could try to explain the layout of the city, but if you just know that it has gorges going right through it,

View down the gorge from above.

View up the gorge from below. Notice the people both above and below the walls. I know this is basically the same picture as before, but whatever.

What is it that makes Luxembourg so much fun? It’s tricky to say for certain. Maybe I was excited about celebrating the new year with Rachel, but that doesn’t explain why I enjoyed it the first time. A city with this much topography in such close proximity to your usual urban amenities is bound to be a good time.

It probably has something to do with the public and accessible ruins. In one place, we just walked into a residential area, which led us right into some more ruins. Unlike Heidelberg, these ruins were explained. Not a complete history, but at least signs that gave a brief indication of historical significance.

The ruins are typical fortress parts, and the newer building is a retirement center. I think it’s this juxtaposition that makes the place so neat.

I’m really not sure why we didn’t take more pictures. Sorry about that.

This is just another rail viaduct, nothing special. But the picture was taken from an old mill/protective structure to keep bad guys out of the ravine while still letting water in, and in that sense is kind of neat.

Who needs a selfie stick when you have long arms (and when you can find other ways to look like an idiot, not pictured)?

More picturesque. Old town.

“Oh, you’re going to be in Europe? You have to see _______.” –many people to me, prior to my departure.

Many times, this advice is wonderful. Such tidbits have led me and/or my family to discover gems like Hallstatt (Austria), Ulm (Germany), and Bruges (Belgium).

However, there are plenty of duds mixed in with this well-intentioned advice. Here are my recommendations of places you can absolutely skip.

Real quick, one of the quickest ways to judge the value of wherever you travel is the density of selfie sticks. The fewer, the better. This method certainly isn’t 100% foolproof, but it’s a great quick test.

Some clever Germans will refer to the selfie stick as a Deppenszepter – an idiot scepter. I absolutely love this term, and have made it my mission to tell everybody who cares to listen.

So many people recommended the Nürnberg Christmas Market. It’s the largest in the world. Christmas markets are wonderful, so it would make sense that the largest delivers the largest dose of wonderful, right?

My fiancée and I were here on our way to Prague, and spent the afternoon at the market. It was the last Saturday before Christmas, and the crowds were INTENSE. It was nothing short of underwhelming and awful.

Instead of checking out the Nürnberger Weihnachtsmarkt, I would recommend going to Oktoberfest in München to experience the crowds (and the alcohol to take your mind off of them), and then just go to any Christmas market anywhere other than Nürnberg.

I apologize for the low-quality picture, but it both shows the crowds in Nürnberg and reflects the low-quality time that was to be had there.

A slight redemption came in the form of a choir comprising old Bavarians. They were singing Joy to the World in the most stereotypically German way possible, particularly with regard to their pronunciation. Accents can tend to be masked by singing, but this was not the case here. Some of them were proudly sporting grumpy frowns. Like Rachel and I, they clearly wanted to be elsewhere. No amount of christmas joy or red tacky holiday sweater could have made the guy on the top left smile. While the sight of this particular gentleman did bring us smiles, it did not go very far to redeem the experience.

My German friend Dom told me when I visited him in September something to the effect of “I’ve heard Heidelberg can be beautiful and romantic, but I’ve never been there”. Or something to that effect 🙂

Heidelberg has the looks of a good destination, and it has the tourists and the reputation for being potentially worth the visit.  There’s an American Air Force base nearby, so many Americans have Heidelberg on their mind. I received several recommendations from people stateside, as well as from some people I’ve met here. There’s a castle in a great location above the city, with a sweeping view of the valley below.

We got there, and saw a glimpse of the castle ruins on the hillside. So far, so good. We walked the way from the hauptbahnhof towards the ruins to check them out. Hiking up the hill, we came to a ticket booth and gladly paid the fee to get to see the ruins. There were some good outlooks, full of people taking selfies and pictures against a backdrop of the valley underneath.

All three of me took advantage of the scenery in Heidelberg.

We walked inside, and the most notable attractions pointed out by any kind of sign were the exits. There was an apothecary museum and a stupid-large barrel. We skipped the museum, but scraped the bottom of the barrel and investigated the barrel. It was impressively large, but completely inadequately explained. Every sign that referenced the barrel was indicating its location. Nothing discussed its purpose or any significant facts. We walked around further. The only other accessible parts of the castle were outside, so that’s where we went. Looking at the place from the outside, it should have had promise. The ruins looked cool, and had chain-fences – clearly designed for people to be behind. Yet nobody was behind them. Maybe there was a good reason for this, but since this reason wasn’t made clear to us, we’re going to chalk it up to the castle, and the city along with it, as a stupid place to visit.

Part of one of the towers looked like it had fallen off. I had to go to Wikipedia to learn that it was for power storage, and was split in an explosion. This would have been great to know at the time the picture was taken.

Take a leaf out of Rick Steves’ travel guides. He excludes Heidelberg, and for good reason.  Here’s a list of “good” reasons to visit Heidelberg:

1. You’re completing a degree in tourist studies, possibly with a concentration in the Deppenszepter.
2. You have a family member or friend who was/is stationed in Heidelberg, and you want to get a sense of their locale.
3. You’re thinking about studying at, or are otherwise interested in the university – the oldest in Germany.

In some sense, Dom was right. Heidelberg has everything it needs to look fantastic. Really beautiful postcards of gorgeous ruins in a spectacular landscape. And Rachel and I didn’t have a bad time in Heidelberg – it was a pleasant way to spend our day. However, our enjoyment was largely due to getting to spend time with each other, partly aided by the ease with which we could mock the lack of things to do there.

“Only Americans go to Heidelberg – Germans never do!” admonished  Isa, a close German friend, upon our return. “I hope you learned your lesson to ask the locals first next time.”

I’m going to add Dublin to the back of this list, with the warning that my opinions are likely tainted by the fact that I wasn’t feeling so great while I was there.

The whole place smelled like manufacturing or welding, somewhat burnt-metallic and cringe-worthy, which definitely did not help to make me feel better.

I had also assumed that my expectation of ‘people being drunk in the streets’ was a false supposition. It was, unfortunately, an entirely correct supposition. Dublin is a great place for a lively party out in public, which is another way of saying that it’s not that great of a place.

Additionally, I am proud of my German heritage. I’m protestant and reserved and opinionated about the definition of good beer. Admittedly, I went to Dublin because I wanted to check Ireland off my list and because the $15 flight from Birmingham was too good to pass. This is massively unfair to Ireland, and I know that. I do hope to return at some point (especially to the lesser-populated parts of the country), and I hope that I will be feeling better when I’m there.

This is a continuation of the best parts of my spring break trip to the British Isles. Find part I here.

As promised earlier, this post is to contain details on Northern Wales and an awakening of sorts. Let’s start with Wales.

Caernarfon Castle at night.

Caernarfon was calm and empty, which probably contributed to 1/3 of my enjoyment there. I shared the hostel with no more than two other people the entire time, and had a six-bed room to myself the whole time. They furnished cereal for breakfast, which was easy for them, but was an extra treat for a person who hadn’t had cereal for breakfast in way too long. The hostel also had surprisingly fast internet, though this was likely due to the emptiness. ALSO: They had a brand new puppy. Like, they brought it home the day before I arrived. It figured out stairs while I was there, but still didn’t quite get the hang of running and barking. So cute!

Caernarfon Castle, the city, and the Strait of Anglesey, on a beautiful cloudy Welsh day.

The city is situated right on the Strait of Anglesey with a view of the similarly-named island (the island is not also called “Strait of Anglesey – it’s not a strait. Duh). Snowdonia National Park is very close, but wasn’t visible from Caernarfon due to the welsh fog and/or night time. The castle was about 100 meters from my hostel, which itself was only separated from the Strait by the town wall and a bike path.

The castle is “where the Prince of Wales gets princed,” which how my dad contextualized his recommendation. Another part of his recommendation was written in a journal from the days of film cameras: “I went overboard and took ten photos that day.”  In the 21st century, I enjoyed not having the film constraint, as is made obvious in this post.

When I visited the castle, I kept saying “WOW!” Thorough recommendation on that one. It had the ruiney good looks that castles should have, but it also had plenty of information on why the ruins were the way they are (not that I’m mad or anything…Heidelberg!). Plenty of passages to scramble around, plenty of tiny staircases to climb. There was also a fair deal of head-bonk danger, but the cool factor made up for this.

You don’t have to look hard to find people enjoying their time at Caernarfon Castle. You will have to look hard to find some dead bird parts, more on that below.

Inside Caernarfon Castle. The circular disk is “where the Prince of Wales gets Princed”

This room in Caernarfon Castle did not pose any immediate headbonk dangers, but the doorway could have caused problems.

One weird thing about Caernarfon – there were uncomfortably many parts of dead birds, just hanging out all over the place. Seagull wings, complete skeletons of smaller birds, and the like. I didn’t particularly care to know how they got there or what happened to the rest of the birds.

None of these birds were dead or incomplete.

Quite close by is a rather unremarkable place with a most remarkable name: Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, often shortened to Llanfair PG. The sign at the train station was particularly suited to being recorded in a panorama.

Just in case your eyes glazed right past the long, foreign, and likely unpronounceable-for-you word, take a look at four L’s in a row near the end. Welsh orthography will catch you off guard if you’re not careful. Here are a few tricks I picked up:

1. “F” sounds like “V”, but “ff” sounds like regular “f”.
2. A “w” goes “oo”
3. A double “dd” makes a “th” sound
4. The double “ll” is when your mouth makes the shape of an L, but then you breathe out. This is the best way I’ve come across to explain this particular noise. It’s not that easy.
5. Everybody in Wales speaks English, so just do your thing. They’re accustomed to you butchering their words, but are nonetheless really friendly and welcoming.

After Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch, I walked along the strait towards Beaumaris (“beautiful marsh,” approximately french), another nearby castle. Along the way, there were some fantastic views of Snowdonia. These mountains aren’t particularly high, but they apparently pose enough of a technical challenge that they served as a training platform for the team that first summited Everest.

Snowdonia and the Strait of Anglesey. Snowdon itself is on the right.

Beaumaris would have been pretty thoroughly awesome had I not been to Caernarfon Castle the day before.  It was still cool, don’t get me wrong.  But it just wasn’t nearly as well-groomed as Caernarfon. However, the ruin-factor made it nonetheless VERY enjoyable. What it lacked in amenities was more than compensated by the sheer size of the place.

Beaumaris from above. Check out the person in the middle for a sense of scale.

The complex has a concentric design, with a taller “keep” surrounded by a wall with an open-ish space between the two. The whole place is massive, in a way that could be explained, but is really best left to personal experience. The ruiny quality of the castle was also quite cool. Plenty of stones to scramble around, and plenty of staircases to run carefully walk up and down, and plenty of opportunities to imagine Castle life in the 1200s.

Beaumaris interior ruins

While we’re on the subject of castles and fortifications, let’s talk briefly about moats. Moats are not filled with alligators – this is Europe, not Florida. Rather, they’re open-ish areas that make attackers easy to fill with arrows. Bonus points for the defense team if the attackers are slowed down, for instance by the muddiness one might find in a beautiful marsh.

This image of the outside of Beaumaris Castle doesn’t really help to give a sense of scale, but it does show the moat.

My least favorite part of Beaumaris was definitely the multitude of seagulls and pigeons that were hiding out in the nooks and crannies, waiting to fly out and scare you shirtless. At the very least, very few of these birds seemed to be dead or mutilated.

And now for the awakening. This was in Cambridge. Last day on the trip, before heading back to Germany. Of course I’m going to spend my last day in the English-speaking world watching the new Star Wars film – The Force Awakens, of course! And what a treat it was. The theater was as empty as Caernarfon, and the film lived up to all of my expectations. I was embarrassingly excited, which made the emptiness of the theater even better.

Edinburgh and Caernarfon. I could probably end this post there, but that would be boring for you and displeasing to the Valpo Voyager Blog-Gods, so I won’t.

Quick note: the last entry was a bit of a downer. Sorry about that. This one should be much better.

London was also a highlight of sorts. I’m not going to talk about it though. It’s one of the biggest places in the world, and definitely worth a visit. However, the abundance of literature about the place doesn’t merit my musings. Just go there.

Also, enjoy some pictures.

Albert Memorial, Royal Albert Hall, and uncharacteristically nice weather for London.

I got carried away, and took this illegal photo inside St. Pauls Cathedral in the City of London.

What can I say, it’s London. Here’s your seat-of-the-british-government photo.

Coventry Cathedral gets a definitive stamp of approval, though that’s more than can be said for the rest of the town. The medieval church was destroyed during the Blitz, but instead of knocking the ruins down, they were incorporated into the new structure, in a very cool way. After getting a tour of the new building (led by a Roman Catholic lady from Plochingen, 20 minutes away from Reutlingen), I spent some time enjoying this holy and wholly photogenic space.

Creation mosaic window, Coventry Cathedral

Ecumenical Chapel, Coventry Cathedral

Looking Down (or up?) the nave in Coventry Cathedral.

The ruins of the medieval Coventry Cathedral.

Edinburgh is a wonderfully distinct place. It’s built on and around the remains of a volcano, and it that alone doesn’t make you want to visit, I’m not sure what will (fine print: you can’t really see the volcano, but you can see the volcanic basalt, and you can imagine what it might have looked like millennia ago). If you’re interested in literature, your options include Robert Louis Stevenson, Sirs Arthur Conan Doyle and Walter Scott, and JK Rowling. If architecture and city planning is your cup of tea, there are fascinating contrasts to be found between the old and new cities, and plenty of history to explore in the valley between the two. If you’re fond of whiskey, old enough to buy it, and mature enough to actually enjoy it, Edinburgh can be pretty good (though this is only because it’s the capital – the best whiskey experiences are farther north, apparently).

The castle provided plenty of information and wonderful views of the city and the surroundings. I arrived right after it opened, and was able to walk right in. By the time I left an hour and a half later, the line was well out the gate. Suckers.

When I got to the castle, I was able to look to the south and see mountains covered in snow. As soon as I snapped some pictures and thought to myself, “Wow, I wish it would snow here!” it started sleeting, and did not stop for the rest of the day. This time the sucker was I.

The old city is very pedestrian friendly. It’s full of “closes,” which look like sketchy alleys but are far from sketchy. Go down any one of these to escape the tourists and see another part of the city, even if only to see something different. It’s a great place to “get lost” because you’ll never be too far from where you need to be, and yet you’d never be able to guess it by just looking at your surroundings.

One of the super highlights for me was meeting people from England, New Zealand, and Alaska in the hostel, and spending the evenings with them. Fred, Dom, Ant, Alicia, Reid, and Daena sucked me into a game of Scrabble in the lounge, and Jack and Jenna were soon to follow. We split the costs of drinks, but the conversation was free. And it was well worth it. Cultural compare-and-contrast, discussion of the New Zealand Flag Referendum, and discussions of the impacts the refugee crisis has on day-to-day lives in London, Nottingham, and Reutlingen were all punctuated by juggling and puzzles and more Scrabble. I even considered adjusting the end of my itinerary to get to see the Nottingham people again, but it turned out not to be feasible on my end, so I dropped the investigation before asking them if any of them could spare a couch for a night.

We also came across some Germans in the hostel. The couple was from Herrenberg, which is like half an hour away from Reutlingen. It was pretty refreshing to get to talk German with somebody for the first time in a week. However, they were interested in what I’m going to call ‘chemical tourism,’ and the conversation fizzled out after they asked us, “Nimmt ihr Drogen?”

Admittedly, Edinburgh probably appealed to me as much as it did because it immediately followed Dublin, which did not appeal at all. I think I would still have enjoyed the city on its own, and the experience in general – even without the comparison to Dublin. The strong winds grayness provided a perfect contrast to the warmth of the architecture, and the weather made that warmth feel doubly welcoming once you got inside.

I found out after visiting that, like Cincinnati, Edinburgh has Munich as a sister city. However, Edinburgh and Cincinnati are not sister cities. I think I’ve exposed a serious flaw in the sister city system. Also: sister city system. Say that five times fast.

Edinburgh at sunset, taken from Arthur’s Seat. Really, this is mostly just sunset taken from Arthur’s seat, but there IS some Edinburgh somewhere in there, I swear!

Looking south from Arthur’s Seat. There’s some fire/ice something or other here, but I don’t feel like being metaphorical and verbose at the moment.

They say that sunset is supposed to have the best lighting. I used to think that this was true, but now I’m not so certain.

Part II continues with Northern Wales, and an awakening of sorts.

Unless you know and can explain the difference between England, Great Britain, the UK, and the British Isles, you should probably check out this video by CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10.  Instead of being pedantic by clarifying all of these differences, I’m just going to go, and am going to expect you as the readers to understand these differences.  The video makes things sufficiently clear, so this is on you.

For convenience, I do call this my “UK trip,” even though I was also in Ireland.  However, Ireland was such a small part of the trip that I feel comfortable ignoring my own pedantry and saving a few syllables.  “UK trip” is three, while “British Isles” is 4, and doesn’t tell you anything about what was done.

Anyway, let’s start with the itinerary.

2 nights London
1 night Coventry
2 nights Dublin
3 nights Edinburgh
1 night in Yorkshire
3 nights in Caernarfon (pronounced something like “ka-NAR-ven”)
1 night in Oxford
3 nights in Cambridge

And then back to Stuttgart.

Now some overall reactions to the trip as a whole.

[GRUB]

The food and drinks were exactly as good as I would have expected english food and drinks to be – not very. Certainly palatable for a short period of time, but not world-class cuisine. I came back to Germany and remembered that bread had flavor. Within a day, I went out for my first Hefeweizen in too long, and it was heavenly.

Fish and chips are okay, but definitely not the kind of thing you want to have too often.  Haggis is far from yucky, but still probably not for everybody. There were some meat pies in Wales that weren’t terrible, but certainly not exceptional either. Guinness pretty smooth, and really easy to drink a lot of, but not really that great next to what I’m used to here.  There are also some good English, Scottish, and Welsh ales, but they just weren’t the same.

The best food options I came across were pizza (not English), Chicken Tikka Masala (kind of English, but disguised as Indian), and Chipotle (American/Mexican-ish). The Chipotle was even bland compared to what I’m used to in the US, but I hadn’t had any since July, so I’m certainly not complaining.  Plenty of places also had pretty good burgers.

Ritter Sport never costs 1.49, of anything (in Europe), never mind the exchange rates that would make it cost even more. This is a scandal! And I promise I’m not just being bitter for having forgotten to bring any of my own from Germany. Just kidding. I totally am.

[CURRENCY]

The coins were mostly completely stupid, but they did have some redeeming aspects. I might go into more detail later about why the Great British Pound coins suck, but to keep my blood pressure down, I’m going to try to focus on this single really really cool part: The Shield.

This single piece of great design almost completely makes up for the lazy design elsewhere in the same coins.

[ACCOMMODATIONS]

Two weeks was an awfully long time to be moving around and keeping busy. Maybe too long. It was REALLY nice to come back to the comfort and security of Germany.  Hostels are far from luxurious accommodation, and the buses (“coaches” as they’re referred to – incorrectly in my opinion) and trains weren’t quite as convenient for outsiders as they are in Germany.I also spent the entire time washing my clothes in sinks with the same bar of soap I used to wash myself. Three shirts and a single pair of pants for the whole time was certainly pushing things, particularly in my desire to stand in front of a sink to do my laundry.

Some of the hostels were nice. The one in Caernarfon was within spitting distance of both the castle and the nearest body of water, and the owners had brought home a puppy two days before I arrived. Edinburgh reminded me of the Harry Potter dormitories, and was full of really cool people. Cambridge had a pretty nice hostel with some environmentally friendly something or other initiative thingy thing (I was excited to go back to Germany at that point, so didn’t particularly care).

There was a wide variety of hostel quality though, and I’ve already mentioned the good ones. London found me at the way-top of a triple-bunked bed, and the luggage lockers did not work at all – but the location was great. The Dublin hostel was full of all kinds of people who were there for the party scene – not my favorite kinds of travelers. The oxford hostel was sketchy and with sketchy clientele, and the staff wasn’t that great at pretending to be friendly or helpful or good at speaking English. And none of these places had consistent internet access that they claimed to have.

That’s probably enough. I’ll focus on specific highlights in a subsequent post. Ultimately, I had a sufficiently good time, though I am not eager to repeat this any time in the near future.

Bring underwear and socks, and clothes that match the climate and cultural attitudes of wherever you’re going. This should go without saying. But beyond that, packing can be a somewhat stressful part of traveling, both for the simple weekend trips as well as for the whole semester. Some unnecessary things may sound like they could be useful, while other useful items may not occupy the foremost position in your mind. In this post, I will seek to differentiate between the useful and useless, as well as to provide some reasoning behind my assessments.

WARNING: Having only participated in the Reutlingen program, this entry is decidedly catered to my experiences in Germany.  The most important thing is to know both yourself and where you’re going, and to pack accordingly.

First, let’s start with the unnecessary items.

I think it’s a priority to point out that you don’t need to set up your US phone with international roaming. Furthermore, I’ll argue that you shouldn’t try to do this at all. Never mind that it can be expensive, but it also doesn’t help you contact anybody with a German phone number. If you have roaming, and you want to call one of your german friends, then your friend will also be charged extra to answer your call, and that’s no fun for anybody. Instead of using your same phone number, just get a phone when you get there. If you don’t mind secondhand phones, there should be plenty of options in the cage in the director’s basement. If you do mind, go to the store and get a €5 pay-as-you-go phone and a SIM card. I’ve been very satisfied with my service from Vodafone with the CallYa Talk&Text plan. It a per-use charge instead of monthly, and has very good rates for calling to and from [as far as I can tell] anywhere in the EU.

For the other things that one might use a smartphone, I’ll still argue that you don’t need to be able to access a cell network 100% of the time, if at all. Apple Maps can be accessed without wifi or a mobile signal, so navigation is no reason to pay the extra money. If you load the map ahead of time, then you’ll be able to see [approximately] where in the world you are without having to be connected. There are also offline map app options, such as Here, which could be worth investigating. Wifi (called WLAN in Germany) is also very prevalent, so you’re well connected when you need to be. If you find yourself on Facebook often, and think that you need to be able to access that whenever you want, roaming won’t help you, but rather enable you. You have a problem, so a bit of a Facebook break might actually be good for you.

You don’t need to bring blankets, pillows, or any other linens – these are provided by the program. Furthermore, you probably don’t need to bring your own toothpaste, deodorant, and toiletries. These can be purchased, or if you’re lucky, possibly even found for free in the director’s storage cage. Perhaps bring small quantities of these things to get you into the first few weeks, but beyond that, everything you would ever need can be bought at the store.

You don’t really need to bring your own paper, notebooks, or school supplies. All of these things are inexpensive, and can be bought in stores upon your arrival. If you’re not pressed for space or weight in your luggage, you may include these things, but they aren’t strictly necessary.

German paper is kind of funny – it looks like what we might call graph paper in the US. As an engineer, I use it’s green-tinted cousin regularly for everything, so I don’t mind it, but if you really want only horizontal lines on your paper, perhaps you should bring some of that.

Unless using a dictionary is absolutely necessary for your studies, you really don’t need to bring one. They’re heavy and take up an enormous amount of luggage space. Instead, consider a healthily cautious blend of dict.leo.org, wiktionary.org, and translate.google.com as a good source of translations and definitions. I urge caution here, because sometimes online translators can be faulty. However, if you approach them with a sense of skepticism, always looking out for errors, they can be useful. Plus, the internet doesn’t weigh anything or take up any space, leaving plenty of room in your luggage for all the other things you’d need.

An extreme example of why it pays to be careful with online translation software. For those who don’t speak German, Montag = Monday, Dienstag = Tuesday, Mittwoch = Mid week = Wednesday, Donnerstag = Thursday.

Now let’s talk about some absolutely useful things to have. Hopefully I shouldn’t need to mention passports, power adapters, and a camera. Rather, some of these things are less-than-obvious.

You absolutely must bring a carry on-sized backpack (or suitcase, but I prefer a backpack) that can hold a week’s worth of clothes and supplies in it. During the fall semester, people were scrambling to borrow such backpacks for our two-week break. This was astounding to me, since I figured that everybody would already have such a backpack. You may have good luck finding such luggage in a outdoor or sporting goods store. You might also consider asking your parents or looking around your basement or garage. Though my main bag was purchased new last summer, I also brought another smaller “basement backpack” that came to Reutlingen in 1985 with my mother. This was my bag for day trips, including to the classroom.

Have a train pass. I had one from October to January. Sure, they’re expensive (over $1000 for 3 months, less for 2 months), but so long as you make an effort to use it, it pays for itself relatively quickly. Plus the convenience of being able to get on (nearly) any train and go (nearly) anywhere in the continent is truly unparalleled. Now that mine has expired, I’m sorely missing it. I’m even debating purchasing another, but we’ll have to see. At any rate, you owe yourself the opportunity to travel like this, so buy one.

Also get the Naldo Semester Ticket. You’ll do this in the first week in Reutlingen, so don’t need to pack it before you leave, but it’s useful enough that it merits being mentioned. It’s good for busses in Reutlingen, as well as busses and trains in the immediate region. Check out this map to see where it can take you.

As an additional note on the Naldo, if you want to save on train tickets to Stuttgart, buy them from Metzingen as your starting location instead of Reutlingen. Your Naldo pass can get you to Metzingen for free, so when you select it as your starting location instead of Reutlingen, you save €2.10 each way. Paying €10.20 instead of €12.30 may not seem like much of a savings, but it adds up quickly.

If you’re looking for an even cheaper (though slower) way to get to Stuttgart take the X3 bus to the Stuttgart Airport, and then the S-Bahn the rest of the way into town. This should cost you less that €5 each way.

Bring something that reminds you of home. I have one half of a set of two stuffed elephant toys, the other of which is with my fiancée Rachel back in the US. This elephant goes everywhere with me – within reason, of course. I don’t take it to class, but it has accompanied me on all of my big adventures.

Though the socks and the phone aren’t particularly special to me, I use them almost as often as the elephant. Peanut, by the way, is it’s name. Of course it has a name. Because I’m grown up, I now get to decide what that means. If you’re reading this, that statement applies to you too.

If you have easily portable hobbies, bring a few of them. I regularly play with mechanical puzzles (think Rubik’s cube), but figured that I’d be able to manage without one. This was a mistake. By the time Winter Break came around, I had purchased one online, had another brought from home, and received a third for Christmas that had been purchased at a Christmas market. Now, I’m doing much better.

From left to right: Purchased online; brought from home (thanks, Rachel!); Christmas present (thanks again, Rachel) from the Ulmer Weihnachtsmarkt.

Bring recipes, or have them in your head, or be able to find them online. Macaroni and cheese is a popular one among non-USAmericans. Brownies are also a bit of an USA phenomenon. Be prepared to share these with your floor mates.

I figured I’d be fine without a sewing kit, which turned out to be a foolish thing to figure. Now, I have one, and can highly recommend that you have one as well.

A laundry bag, or a plastic garbage bag in which you can store and transport laundry. Thicker works better, obviously. It’s also fairly useful to have spare bags, e.g. for dirty shoes, wet towels, or smelly laundry. This can help to keep your luggage clean. I promise I’m not your mother.

Finally, it’s ABSOLUTELY BENEFICIAL to have a good system to organize small change. This is often referred to as a wallet. Make sure it has a little button or zipper pocket for coins. Also, make sure that you use these coins over the course of the semester. In the fall, a classmate had a drawer full of nearly €40 in small change, and needed to get rid of it at the end of the semester. Since I was staying (still am!), I bought it all off of him at the bargain price of €30. Though I’ve been using them as diligently as possible, I still have a long way to go. However, even if they are going slowly, the wallet is still far superior to the failed organization system that is the classmate’s drawer.

This is more than a month into the €40 in 0.20-, 0.10-, 0.05-, 0.02-, and 0.01-cent pieces given to me by my classmate. I’m doing pretty well on the small ones, but the big ones still have a long way to go. Don’t travel in such a way that your money becomes organized like this by the people whom you give it to as you leave.

This shows a wallet with a button pouch – one of several acceptable ways to manage your small change from day to day. You can also see the aforementioned Naldo semester pass.

This isn’t something that you can bring, but you’ll certainly be unprepared for a semester abroad if you come without the desire to have new experiences and go new places. No matter how welcomed you are, you will not feel like you’re at home. This is the way it’s supposed to be. It will be uncomfortable. There will be things that you won’t be able to understand or do, simply because you’re not at home. You may even experience debilitating homesickness. However, it will also be fulfilling, and eye-opening. You will not return as the same person you were when you left. And this is just the way it should be. Whatever you bring with you, come with the expectation that you will change, the knowledge that it will be uncomfortable, and the guarantee that it will be okay no matter what.

I’m not going to lie, there are only a limited number of things that one can write about from abroad. Things are different here – well, duh. Doing stuff is fun – this should go without saying. And then I happened to be in Paris during the terrorist attacks last Friday.

Instead of sharing writings, I recorded a few videos to express my thoughts on the matter. While these may also be found on my YouTube Channel, they are embedded below in the order in which they should be viewed.

How Friday unfolded for the four of us Valpo students:

In-the-moment thoughts from Saturday, brought to you from under the Eiffel Tower:

These thoughts about Saturday and Sunday were compiled on Monday and Tuesday:

Extra footage from Paris:

Finally, to help lift your spirits after this rather depressing subject, a video of my cat from last year. Just in case it’s needed.

This is not an experience anybody should have to go through. Even so, I never experienced firsthand stress or danger, and was fortunate enough to be able to inform my family of my safety and of the attacks before they heard about them on their own. The four of us, along with all of our friends, families, and communities, are truly blessed in far more ways than we can count. May we not forget those ways, and not take the gifts of life and experience for granted. Amen.