Valpo Voyager

Student Stories from Around the World

Author: Zach Nelson (page 1 of 2)

La Petite France

Die Weihnachtszeit in Deutschland

December 15, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Hallo everyone! December has certainly been an adventurous month so far, and I have even more planned for the coming weeks!

 

If fall in Baden-Württemberg was Weinfest season, the last month or so has definitely brought about the beginning of Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) season. The Germans are very into their “Markts” (Markets), which feature all sorts of stands, booths, and tents with people food, crafts, and other Christmas decorations and presents of all varieties. Although I have yet to find something at a Christmas market that I actually need, they are very nice to walk through, and enjoy the atmosphere. There’s nothing much more German than walking around a Christmas market on a cold day with a mug of hot, spiced wine and some marzipan as accordion players perform in the background!

Esslingen

 

 

On Saturday, December 3rd I visited a “Mittelalterliche Weihnachtsmarkt” (Medieval Christmas Market) in the nearby town of Esslingen. The town itself was absolutely beautiful – very picturesque and stereotypically “European.” The market itself was giant – it seemed to consume every open space in the entire little town. In addition to the regular market taking place (with fruits, vegetables and other groceries, similar to the weekly markets in Tübingen), there was also a regular, non-medieval Christmas market, AND the medieval Christmas market. It was a little bit of a maze navigating through it all, but the people dressed up as pirates and other medieval characters unknown to me were a good indicator of which market we were passing through. I‘m not a giant fan of Renaissance fairs / Medieval-themed things (some people get really into it) but it was still really cool to walk through and see all the themes and everybody dressed up. I didn’t get a chance to learn much about the town itself, but I definitely plan on visiting again when I can get a clear view of everything!

 

Since we were nearly to Stuttgart and had already boughten a Baden-Württemberg day pass for the train, we decided to go all the way into the city and see the Christmas market there. It was much easier getting on a train out of Esslingen than taking a train to Esslingen, as the Medieval Christmas Market is quite well-known in the area, and draws quite the crowd! Stuttgart was beautiful as always, and very festive-looking for the Christmas season. It was frigidly cold, but shortly after arriving I bought myself a Glühwein to keep warm! At many of the Christmas markets here (and some other ones, for that matter) you can buy Glühwein in special mugs with the name of the city and Weihnachtsmarkt written on them. In Germany, you always have to pay a deposit for glass bottles, coffee mugs at markets, etc. but many people choose to keep their mugs and not return them for the deposit. I’ve started collecting the Christmas market mugs, because I think they‘re really practical souvenirs, and they‘re not that expensive 😉 A mug of Glühwein in Stuttgart was €2.50, plus €2 Pfand (deposit.) So for €4.50, you can get some Glühwein and a souvenir mug for €2 cheaper than an empty souvenir mug from the Tourist Information Center in Tübingen. And, for someone like me who drinks coffee every day regardless of what country I‘m in, mugs serve a very useful purpose!

 

The Christmas Market in Stuttgart was probably my favorite one so far – but we didn’t end up staying long because of how cold it was. There was ice-skating, live music, plenty of food stands selling all sorts of traditional Christmas-season foods, and of course, all of the vendors selling Christmas Tree ornaments and everything else you could possibly decorate your house with for the season. It‘s really a shame that I don‘t go to Stuttgart more often – that‘s something I am going to change for the duration of my time here! It‘s so close, and there‘s so much to do there – it‘s just too bad that Stuttgart lies outside of the region where our student semester tickets for the busses/trains are valid. If I could go the whole way for free, I would spend much more time there for sure, since it‘s easy enough to get there.

Christmas Market in Strasbourg

 

 

Last Saturday, the 10th, I spent the day in Strasbourg, France on a day-trip organized by StudIT, the international student organization here at the Uni Tübingen. With the exception of having to wait for 45 minutes in the cold rain at 7:00 AM for the bus to arrive, it was a really great day. For €15, we were provided with transportation to and from Strasbourg, and a bus tour of the city. Strasbourg is an important city for the European Union, as the EU Parliament is based there, so it was really interesting to see all of the EU buildings etc. The bus tour took us through many interesting parts of the city, which was filled with so many different types of architecture, and I wish we would have had enough time to walk through everything we observed from the bus. After our tour, our tour guide took us through the city and showed us some different parts of the Weihnachtsmarkt that was going on there, and gave us (Jake, Hannah, Rachel, Emily, Me, and my French friend, Nathan) some tips on where to find a good restaurant. Much like Esslingen on an infinitely-larger scale, the city was engulfed in Weihnachtsmärkte – there were 12 separate Christmas Markets going on in nearly every open area of the city center. The market itself was much like the German ones, with a little bit of a French flair in terms of the food etc. being sold. Oh yeah, and because everything was written in French.

La Petite France

We were super lucky to have Nathan along to act as our translator, because although some of the vendors spoke German (because Strasbourg is directly on the border), many did not. AKA, we were complete idiots wandering through France. At lunch, he was nice enough to order for the five of us after translating the menu, as we clogged the line and surely annoyed everyone waiting behind us. It brought me back to my childhood memories of my family going through drive-throughs in our van. Nathan was like stressed-out parent speaking to the person at the other end of the microphone, trying to get all the orders right as all the kids in the back seat simultaneously screamed their detailed orders up to the front. Then of course, there‘s that moment when the car pulls away from the final window where you get your food, and after everything has been distributed and mom puts on the blinker to turn back onto the highway, someone realizes that they got the wrong order, or that something crucial is missing. That‘s what happened with my potatoes. So, Nathan dutifully left the table to return to the counter where he informed the employee that one of the stupid Americans didn’t get his potatoes. Problem solved. Merci beaucoup, monsieur.

After lunch, we walked to a very beautiful and well-known part of the city called “La Petit France” (The little France) before slowly making our way back to the bus and walking through the different markets. Like every European City, there was a giant church in the city center, where we poked inside to take a look and some pictures as well. We were surprised to see that there was a rockin‘ childrens‘ Nativity Program going on open to the public, with songs in English, German, and French. It was the most lively Christmas story I’ve ever seen. I’ve never heard christmas songs in church with so much bass – it was so cool I took a video. Overall, it was a great day in France, and now that I know a little more about the city, I hope to go back sometime in the Spring when it‘s a little warmer. Surprisingly to me, a lot of people actually complained about the trip, and although the organization was a little shaky at times, I really enjoyed it. For €15, I doubt you could take the train even halfway there, and we got to see a lot of interesting places over the six or so hours that we were there.

Disco Church! The most rockin’ Christmas Pageant I’ve ever seen.

On Friday night, we got an email from Professor Malchow, Valpo‘s resident director in Reutlingen, about an opportunity to go to Bavaria on Sunday. Jake, Hannah and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity (poor Rachel was sick), and it turned out to be a really great day. For only €8 this time, we got the chance to tour the Dachau Concentration Camp, and see the city of Augsburg.

 

Concentration Camp visits are quite obviously, an extremely somber and depressing experience (I also toured Buchenwald as a high school student), but nonetheless part of an important chapter in history from which much can be learned. Although it‘s always a struggle for the Germans to deal with such a dark part of history, I think they do a great job openly acknowledging what happened and allowing everyone free access to the concentration camps (converted into museums) to learn about what went on there. None of us felt right about taking pictures, (although there were people who had pictures taken of them posing in front of the crematorium ovens) but I‘m sure I won‘t need any to remember the visit. It‘s a very powerful experience to walk through the barracks that were once overcrowded with people for whom every day was a struggle just to survive. Walking through the crematorium, gas chamber, and rooms where dead bodies were piled from floor to ceiling is an experience that can‘t really be put into words. It‘s truly sickening to see the cruelty of humanity in its worst form. Although unbelievably sad and depressing, I think it‘s important to see and learn about, and the displays throughout the camp and the main museum building are interesting, and well-presented. There are also audio-guides available (the only part of the self-guided tour that costs money) but ours didn’t seem to match up very well with the displays/areas of the camp.

Die Fuggerei

We spent the afternoon in the beautiful city of Augsburg, beginning with a tour of the “Fuggerei.” The Fuggerei was the first “low-income housing project” founded by in the year 1521 by a man named Jakob Fugger, or, “Jakob the rich.” At the time, he had roughly ten times the amount of money that Bill Gates does today (adjusted of course for inflation and what not). Jakob Fugger was a banker as well as a nobleman in the Holy Roman Empire, and wanted to do something for the community, many suspect, out of guilt for his vast wealth and/or other life mistakes etc. (That part wasn’t exactly clear to me!) Anyway, the entire neighborhood was beautiful, and perfectly taken care of. To this day, residents only pay 88 cents to live there for the entire year, but the list of applicants is always growing. True to the original tradition upon which the Fuggerei was founded, residents must be Catholic (it is required that they pray three times a day, and because there are prayers to the virgin Mary, Protestants cannot fulfill this requirement), live in Augsburg, and demonstrate need. Once residents are back on their feet again, it is expected that they move out and make the apartments available for others in their times of need. The Fuggerei is largely supported by tourist money, as people like ourselves tour the neighborhood daily. To keep everything looking visually attractive and well taken care of, no trash cans are permitted to be left outside the apartments – everything must be brought to a collection center. We were able to tour an apartment preserved in its original condition from the time the Fuggerei was built, as well as a modern apartment, which featured a bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room loaded with all of the modern conveniences and comforts of home. The ground-floor apartments all have their own gardens, and every apartment unit has its own door – which was a symbol of status and dignity in the 1500s. During the second world war, bombs meant to be dropped on the nearby Rathaus were carried by the wind in the direction of the Fuggerei, were a large portion of the housing development was destroyed. One person died in the bombing, but the rest were safe in the Fuggerei Bunker, which has since been converted into a museum. Shortly after, the damaged apartments were reconstructed, and today there is absolutely no indication that any part of the beautifully-kept Fuggerei was once in ruins.

Mozart’s Grandpa lived in the Fuggerei!

After our tour, we ate an excellent Bavarian lunch in the Rathskeller before making our way toward the Weihnachtsmarkt. We stepped inside a church in the marketplace to have a look around, and then proceeded to climb to the top of the bell tower for a view of the city and the christmas market below.

The Augsburger Weihnachtsmarkt from above.

The Augsburger Weihnachtsmarkt was one of my favorites that we have visited so far. The weather wasn’t too cold, the market wasn’t large enough to get lost in, every stand had something interesting to look at, and the christmas spirit felt by all was greatly enhanced with a cone of roasted nuts and a glühwein (which, once again, came in a really cool souvenir mug!) We didn’t have a ton of time to hang around, and after about an hour at the market we were back on the bus for the three-and-a-half hour ride back to Tübingen.

Beautiful Augsburg. From the bell tower.

This weekend is equally busy: Tomorrow, (on Friday) I am going to Nürnberg to see the city as well as the largest / most famous Christmas market in Germany. Saturday I‘m off to Zürich to explore the city a little, and to visit Switzerland for the first time, which I‘m very excited about 🙂

 

The Augsburger Weihnachtsmarkt

This semester blogging for Valpo as a Study Abroad Representative has been great. Unfortunately, due to funding issues, I was not able to be granted a job for the second semester. If you are interested in continuing to read my blog posts / tweets, I will post the links below!

 

Thanks for reading, and bis dann!

 

http://abroadintuebingen.blogspot.com/

 

http://twitter.com/#!/zmnelson

Skyline - Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt on the Main [River])

Frankfurt, Sinterklaas, and Aufenthaltsgenehmigungen!

November 27, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Last weekend I had the opportunity to spend a few days visiting a good friend in Frankfurt. Besides short layovers at the train station (one of the largest in Germany), I haven‘t gotten to spend much time in Frankfurt, although I got to know the city pretty well as an exchange student there in early 2009. Jamina (my German friend) was an exchange student at my high school in 2006-2007, and we‘ve kept in contact ever since. Frankfurt is a beautiful city – for a population of “only” roughly 650,000 (a smaller city, for American standards) it’s the only German city with a picturesque skyline full of skyscrapers. Such a cityscape is pretty unusual for Germany. Much like Chicago, Frankfurt is a business-city, specifically, a banking city. Just about every major European bank has an office there, most German banks are based there, it’s where the German Stock Exchange is located, and it is the banking center the European Union. Frankfurt is actually very safe city to visit despite having one of the highest crime rates in Europe. The reason for that statistic is because nearly all credit card fraud and identity theft that occurs in Germany is credited to Frankfurt, where the banks are based. The city itself features many museums, historic buildings (such as the birthplace Goethe), great shopping, excellent public transportation, as well as art, music, and theater.

 

Skyline - Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt on the Main (River))

The Commerzbank Building - Frankfurt's "Sears Tower"

As a Medical Student, Jamina doesn’t have tons of time to spare, but I was grateful for the long weekend between her exams to visit! On Thursday directly after my classes I left for the train station, and made my way to Stuttgart. I was surprised to have found a train from Stuttgart to Frankfurt for €20 a couple days earlier, which in comparison to the other offers was significantly cheaper. I have a “Bahnkarte 50“ (a discount card for students through German Rail that allows me to pay half price for train travel), which makes the normal-priced tickets seem even more expensive.

 

**Note for future Tübingen study-abroad students: In my opinion, it‘s really worth it to invest in a Bahnkarte 50 ermäßigt. For €118, you pay half price on all train travel in Germany for the entire year. If you plan on going anywhere out of the immediate Tübingen area, you can really save a lot of money. Even going to Stuttgart, you can save a few euros each way, and if you take more than six train trips throughout the year at an average cost of €40 per round trip (before the reduction) the card will have already paid for itself. That figure is based on the average round trip to Frankfurt and back, (average as in good deal, but not out of the question) as I have lots of friends in the Frankfurt area. If you‘re planning on going further than an hour-and-a-half by train, you can save even more money. Lots of people like to buy the “Eurail“ passes, but in my opinion, it makes much more sense to buy the Bahnkarte 50. That way, you can save money by traveling by train within Germany, and if you want to travel internationally, you can always find cheap flights, thus saving lots of time and lots of money. Eurail passes are quite expensive, and although it‘s something of a European novelty to travel by train, it is not difficult to find good deals on airline tickets, which takes significantly less time. For example, last month we flew round trip to Vienna for €60, and the direct flight from Stuttgart took less than two hours. A train from Stuttgart to Vienna costs minimally €130, requires at least one transfer with layover, and requires minimally seven hours. And Austria borders Germany. Imagine going somewhere even further…**

Movie Night!

Anyway, after a short train trip and a tram ride to Jamina‘s apartment, I was treated to a great gluten-free dinner that she cooked for me before catching up on various aspects of life from the past three years, as well as watching a German movie. It‘s amazing how close you remain with good friends, regardless of how much time has passed. Jamina lives in a really cool apartment building near the Commerzbank Arena where the soccer team Eintracht Frankfurt plays. The building itself is actually intended for senior citizens who still live on their own, but because it is subsidized by the government for those living on fixed incomes, students are eligible to live there too. Walking down the hallways, you can tell whether you‘re passing a senior citizen‘s room or a student‘s room depending on whether a bicycle or a walker is sitting outside the door. I had to laugh to myself just a little bit, but the apartment itself was very luxurious compared to the living accommodations of the average American student, and nicer than my German dorm room too! Surprisingly, even though it has a living room, sleeping area, bathroom, and full kitchen, it was only a little more expensive than what I‘m paying per month in Tübingen. Plus, it‘s right on the tram line which makes getting to the city very accessible.

The "Hauptwache" = Trendy shopping district, which is in my opinion, the closest thing you'll find in Germany to Michigan Avenue. If you're an American mall store fan, you'll love it: this mall has one of the only Hollister stores in Germany. If you're into Euro style, this street is also home to five multi-story H&M stores. (Score!)

Although we didn’t have any big plans in particular, we did have the chance to do some shopping, check out the German Film Museum, see an open studio night at big artist studio building, walk through the city, and visit some places I enjoyed as an exchange student, including the European Union Central Bank where the Occupy Frankfurt protest was taking place. I’ve been reading a decent amount about the Occupy fill-in-the-blank protests, and it was interesting to see the one in Frankfurt. I had 5 hours to kill on Friday while Jamina was in class, so it was nice to just wander around a little bit and see how much of the city I remembered! And no visit to Frankfurt would be complete without a visit to a historic area of the city known as “Sachsenhausen” for a glass of Apple Wine, which we also crossed off the list.

The European Union Central Bank - Occupy Frankfurt Protest

Hhmm..... Not quite.

 

Every (German) protest needs a VW Microbus!

I returned from Frankfurt on Sunday night, and Monday evening we were invited to celebrate the Belgian “Sinterklaas” day, which normally takes place on November 6th. It is comparable to the German St. Nikolaus day that some people celebrate in the United States as well. One of our Belgian friends here, Helena, had a visit from her parents two weeks ago, who brought along the largest assortment of Belgian Sinterklaas day chocolate I’ve ever seen. (haha.) They had homemade hot chocolate and Belgian beer for us to sample, and the table was festively decorated. Each place was set with a couple of carefully-arranged Sinterklaas chocolates. They even had a couple extra-large chocolate Sinterklaases (like the chocolate bunnies we eat at Easter) that we broke into and shared amongst ourselves. At the end of the night we were all very full and couldn’t bring ourselves to look at another piece of chocolate, but they had so much left over that they joked about having a second Sinterklaas party this week. German chocolate is quite good, but just as the Europeans will tell you, Swiss and Belgian chocolate is top-quality. It totally puts Hersheys to shame.

 

 

According to the tradition, Sinterklaas lives in Spain, and comes to Belgium every November 6th on a ship loaded full of goodies for all the good Belgian children. (There are actually two variations of this holiday in Belgium: The Sinterklaas day on November 6th in one part of the country, and another gift-bearing figure who comes to children in the other half of the country a few weeks later. I’ve forgotten the exact details…) Sinterklaas is one of the sources of the American “Santa Claus“ tradition (hence the similarity between the names) and just like the American version, knows everything about every child. He even keeps a book in which he writes about the goodness or badness of every Belgian child in the half of the country for which he is responsible.

Sinterklaas Day! Complete with Belgian Chocolate of every variety!

My third adventure for this blog post regards a trip to the Bürgeramt (City Government Building) to visit the most unhappy, unfriendly, and blatantly-rude public workers in the entire Federal Republic of Germany. Much like the DMV, (or as it is known in Indiana, the BMV) the Bürgeramt is full of generally stressed-out and unhappy people, waiting for appointments requiring a library‘s worth of paperwork required for an important document of some sort that you can only hope to receive from somebody who is sick and tired of telling people all day long that they forgot to bring such and such necessary piece of paper. As of last week, I have now been in the European Union for three months, the maximum amount of time granted to tourists to remain in the country. Now that I am no longer officially a tourist, I needed to get a visa (Aufenthaltsgenehmigung) to stay for the rest of the year, and avoid imminent deportation.

 

Although I managed to bring all of the necessary documents along with my fee of €50, I forgot to convert my height to centimeters. When the woman asked me what my height was, I had no idea what to tell her, as I‘m pretty sure “Six feet, two inches“ would not have held much water on an application for a European visa. She rolled her eyes at me, scowled, and sighed angrily, as she threw her drawer open, pulled out an extendable ruler, and told me to stand against the wall. Out of fear, I complied as she measured me, wrote down my height in centimeters, and angrily slammed the drawer of her desk shut. With that, I was handed an information pamphlet and instructions for my next visit as soon as my visa arrives in the mail from Berlin. Mission Aufenthaltsgenehmigung: accomplished. Deportation avoided. As I walked out, I could hear the same employee shouting (really, shouting) at the people who were next in line. I must have gotten off easy.

 

That‘s all for this post! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving break back at home! Check out Jake‘s upcoming blog to read about our trip to the Ritter Sport Museum and the Thanksgiving dinner we hosted last night for our new international friends. (It must have been an accident, but we managed to pull everything together without burning/ruining anything!)

 

Bis dann,

 

Zach

Burg Hollenzollern (out the bus window)

University Life + Weekend Excursions

November 12, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Greetings from Tübingen! Sorry it’s been a while – I haven’t actually fallen off the face of the earth, regardless of how it may seem. In this blog, I’ll be writing about two recent weekend day trips right after a short summary of my life over the past few weeks!

 

Everything here has definitely been starting to settle down a little bit, with the start of the winter semester. It’s been a little difficult getting used to the German university system in that I have so much extra time. Or so it seems… At home, there is absolutely ALWAYS something to do when I’m at Valpo. Always a paper to write, a book to read, a presentation to practice, a quiz to study for, an assignment to complete, a meeting to attend etc. Here, my classes meet once a week (with the exception of Theology, which meets twice a week) as opposed to courses at Valpo, which usually require 3 or 4 class periods per week. While American universities practice “Continuous Assessment” throughout the course of the semester, German universities typically place most, if not all of the emphasis, on a final presentation and/or exam. In some of my classes here, the only grade I will receive all semester long is the final exam grade.

 

What does that mean? No homework! Or so I originally thought. What it really means is that I’ve got to get a move on, and get myself on track to learning tons of material. (I know, I sound like a giant slacker, but many of the German students I’ve talked to also haven’t done much yet this semester either… Which makes me feel better. I’ve just been allowing myself to experience the life of a typical German student by living a comfortable life of social events while getting to know people and places. Just for a few short weeks 🙂

 

There’s really nothing assigned that I have to do, but there are online articles, books, and other supplementary materials that may very well be required knowledge for the tests in February. Which means that over the past few days, I’ve been scrambling a little to get organized with my course materials and start the learning process of preparing for the final exams. Almost every course here has PDF files online containing all the necessary course information, which I spent a painstaking 1.5 hours as well as €15 printing out in the library last week. (You’d think that printing something would be as easy as clicking print, confirming the print job by clicking “OK,” walking to the nearest printer, and collecting your double-sided document. Not here. Such as simple, everyday task would be too easy for the Germans, who like to complicate things just a little too much sometimes. But I’m not complaining! Just a cultural difference, and me poking a little fun!)

 

Anyway, during a conversation with a German friend here who studied for one semester in Missouri, I was told that universities in America are “easier” than in Germany. I found that opinion to be interesting, but I simply could not agree. It is a wonder that I survived the courseload I had last semester at home – it was in no way easy! There is, however, some truth to his comment, in regards to how American students are expected to learn. In my opinion, the American university system has much more structure than that of Germany. Students are expected to keep up with the pace of the course, but they are also told what they need to learn by the given deadlines (more or less.) Such a system leaves no room for the “guessing game” of, “what will be important on the test, what does the professor find most valuable, and what do I need to learn?” that I feel I’m currently struggling to play. In many of my courses at home, the semester is broken up into thirds, with three large exams at the end of every section rather than one single exam at the end. The content isn’t easier, but it is helpful actually knowing what you have to learn and be responsible for. At the end of the day you’re still learning, you just don’t have to take a lucky stab in the dark at a semester’s worth of content. Just my opinion…

 

Anyway, on Tuesday of last week, I decided to join another class, after already missing the first two. I figured that I had the extra time in my weekly schedule to pick up another marketing class, so after a few emails back and forth with the professor, I was officially registered for “Industriegütermarketing” (Industrial Goods Marketing.) The only catch was that I have to give a presentation with two other people next Wednesday, during our first “Übung” period. (An übung is similar to a “lab” course at Valpo – the material covered coincides with what is being taught in the lectures, and during this period you are given the chance to work through and apply the content learned in class.)

 

For the presentation, I’ll be talking about a case study about an electric company in New York, and explaining why they did not get a bid to build electric motor components for a company in Ohio. At home, this would be an extremely interesting topic to me, as a business major. Here, although interesting, it’s pretty complex. The case study has quite a few characters and a complex sequence of events that’s not exactly easy to understand, much less present. I’ve already had to give a few presentations in my language courses but it’s much easier presenting to other international students who, much like myself, are still in the process of learning German and don’t yet speak it perfectly!

 

So, other than a little slap in the face by reality and some homework etc. I really haven’t been up to too many exciting ventures besides the two small trips I’m about to write about! Next weekend, I’m off to Frankfurt to visit one of my best friends who was an exchange student in my High School, and I may be going to Sweden at the end of next month, but that remains to be determined! I have a couple different options for how I’ll be spending Christmas, but I haven’t been able to decide yet between them!

 

And, we're off! Our group before hiking to the Würmlinger Kapelle (Chapel of Würmlingen)

On Saturday, October 29 a group of us hiked to a chapel (the Würmlinger Kapelle) right outside of nearby Würmlingen. (You may remember my post a few weeks back about our first failed attempt to hike there, but this time we knew the way!) Among our group were Rachel, Jake, and I from Valpo, a friend of Jake who was visiting from Spain, two friends from Deutsch Kompakt, and a couple French friends that I’ve met over the past few weeks. We started at 11:00 AM on the Neckarbrücke (the Neckar Bridge) and made our way through the castle, and down the path to the chapel.

 

The Würmlinger Kapelle, and the beautiful Fall colors

The hike took about two hours to finally reach the chapel, where we proceeded to look around for awhile, and visit the grave of a former supporter and financial contributor to Valpo’s German program who lived in Würmlingen. The chapel is 961 years old, and somewhat of a well-known landmark for this region. It has been honored over the years by many poets, including Ludwig Uhland of Tübingen.

 

Picnic, and nap in the grass!

See this link for the text of Uhland’s poem (in German): http://www.historisches-wuerttemberg.de/kultur/dichter/uhland/kapelle.htm

 

There were a couple steep ascents, but overall it wasn’t a bad hike. The chapel is on top of a large hill covered in small vineyards, and the view from the top was beautiful. We all brought picnics along, which we enjoyed at the bottom of the hill before taking a nap on the grass. For the end of October, the weather was nothing like what I would have expected at this time of year after having lived 20 years in the brutally-cold Midwest. It really felt like it could have been a month-and-a-half earlier. After another two-hour hike back, we were back in Tübingen. I can only speak for myself, but the 10k trek tired me out more than I expected it to. All in all, it was a great day, and a must-do day trip for everyone who studies in Tübingen or Reutlingen!

 

Weekend excursion number 2 was a trip to nearby Burg Hollenzollern, (Hollenzollern Castle), home of the royal family of Prussia. Although the country of Prussia was effectively dissolved by the Nazis in 1932 and officially ceased to exist in 1947, the castle remains one of several official residences of Georg Friedrich, the current prince of Prussia. I find it strange that there is still a royal, extremely-wealthy Prussian family. They have their own website: http://www.preussen.de/en/today.html. In a way, it must be pretty nice to be the prince of a non-existent country. You’re royal, loaded, and you have absolutely zero political power or work to do! You could finance your whole life with the interest of all the investments and bank accounts started by your historically-royal and powerful family. And you get to carry the title, “Prince of Prussia.” Sounds great to me!

Burg Hollenzollern (out the bus window)

The castle is the third to have stood atop the mountain in the Swabian Alb range (not to be confused with the Alps, which has a very similar sound in German). It was completed in 1867, which means that it is both relatively new and in very good condition in comparison to most castles in Germany. Burg Hollenzolern has a very fairy-tale-like appearance to it, and although it fits the image that comes to mind when most Americans hear the word, “Castle,” it’s really quite unique. Most castles in Germany are multiple hundreds of years old. They’re cold, impersonal, and in many cases, nothing more than archaeological ruins.

Jake, Hannah, and Rachel make the climb up to the castle from the bus stop

We had originally planned on taking the tour in English, as Jake’s friend visiting from Spain was still with us. After buying the ticket and standing in the extremely long line, we were nearly an hour late for the English tour. It was a very beautiful October day, and Burg Hollenzollern simply couldn’t accommodate all the tourists that wanted in on the 1:00 tour. So, 45 minutes later, our tour began in German. It was no problem for us, and translating everything into English was good practice.

Inside the castle courtyard

Photography was prohibited inside of the castle, so I unfortunately don’t have any pictures to post from inside. The tour was excellent, and it is also a must-see for any tourists to the area / students studying in Reutlingen or Tübingen.

Another view of the Burg Hollenzollern

The castle also has a Biergarten and an excellent restaurant, where we elected to have dinner. There were a few hardy people enjoying the food and beer in the biergarten, but by the time evening rolled around it was too cold for us outside! The restaurant featured all sorts of traditional Swabian foods, including my favorite variety of Potato Salad typical of Southwest Germany.

 

Check out this website for more information about Burg Hollenzollern: http://www.burg-hohenzollern.com/startpage.html.

 

That’s all for now!

 

Next blog post to come sometime next week about my upcoming trip to Frankfurt! Wish me luck this week in classes as I attempt to understand everything! The philosophy “Fake it until you make it,” has never had so much relevance in my life as it does right now 😉

Check out my album October 2011 in Tübingen + Vienna! to see all my pictures from the two day-trips described above! (They’re at the end of the album.)

https://picasaweb.google.com/117445044945979223598/October2011InTubingenVienna?authuser=0&feat=directlink

 

Bis dann!

Belvedere from the front

Living large in Vienna!

October 19, 2011 / / 0 Comments

With the end of our five-week intensive German course came a small, one-week break prior to the start of the semester this week Monday. So, we had the last-minute idea to travel somewhere and take advantage of this last opportunity until Christmas break. At first, we decided to go to Berlin, but after some disappointing searches for cheap flights, I uncovered something called “Blind Booking,” through Germanwings, a discount airline that flies out of nearby Stuttgart.

Hostel Hütteldorf

 

For €60 per person, we could get round-trip tickets to one of six cities: London, Lisbon, Rome, Barcelona, Berlin, or Vienna. The only catch is that you don’t find out where you are being sent until after the transaction has been processed. A surprise trip was fine with us! We figured that we had a one out of six chance of getting our original wish (for more than €100 cheaper) and that we would gladly go to any of those cities. For €5, you could pay to exclude a city, which we had originally planned to do with London, as we will all have friends studying in nearby Cambridge next semester who we had planned on visiting anyway. With the five of us plus a Canadian friend named Helina who wanted to come along, this addition put us over the limit of my credit card, so we just had to keep London in the mix and hope for the best! It was a bit of a pain having to pay for all of our tickets together, but it was better than the alternative of everyone paying their own way and being sent to six different cities in Europe.

Emily, Jake, Hannah, Helina, and Rachel at breakfast! Maybe not quite awake yet...

 

As we excitedly clicked through the online purchasing process, we soon learned that we would be flying to Vienna, and the search for a Youth Hostel began shortly after. I used HostelWorld, whom I follow on Twitter, to search for a place to stay and I was very pleased with the result. The website had excellent reviews and information, and the hostel turned out to be perfect. It was a little further out of the city, but within 5 minutes of a subway station, where trains into the city came every 3-8 minutes. It was only a 15 minute ride, and I was extremely impressed with the public transportation system in Vienna. I don’t think we ever waited more than 5 minutes for the subway. It seemed like every time we walked up the stairs to the platform, one was just pulling in to take us wherever we wanted to go. At the hostel, we had the option of purchasing “Vienna Cards,” which allowed us to travel on any tram, bus, or train for 72 hours for €18. It also came with discounts to museums, so it was really an incredible value. Although everything in Vienna was pretty expensive, train travel compared to Germany was very cheap.

Vienna's shopping/commercial district

 

Our housing accommodations for the five-day trip, “Hostel Hütteldorf,” were quite comfortable. We shared a six-person room complete with a table and chairs where we sat every night to plan our next day’s activities. The hostel came with free internet access and free breakfast, which we did out best to fill up on every morning. As an added bonus, there was almost always a big bowl of apples on the front desk, from which I always grabbed a couple for snacks or to pack in my lunch for the next day. When you’re a poor college student traveling through another country, it’s amazing how a bowl of free apples can seem like a luxury… In any case, we had really good luck with the hostel, and would gladly go back or recommend it to anyone.

 

We arrived in Vienna around 8:00 PM on October 12th, and checked into our hostel after an excellent dinner at a Viennese restaurant that Jake knew of, from having been there a few short weeks before.

 

We accomplished so incredibly much over five days that I hope I’ll be able to describe the first half of the trip with enough detail! Jake will be doing a post soon on the second half.

 

The Stephansdom

 

On Thursday, we woke up in time to catch breakfast, which was put away promptly each day at 9:00, and took the subway into the city. We checked out the Karlsplatz train station, built in the Jugendstil style of architecture, (as recommended by Professor DeMaris) before visiting a few churches, and making our way through the shopping district, and the Altstadt (Old City.) We also purchased tickets for a musical that we saw later that night, as well as tickets for an opera that we saw on Friday night. The Musical was called, “Ich war noch niemals in New York” (“I have never been to New York,” or “I have not yet been to New York,”) and it is fairly popular here in Europe right now. It is based on the songs of Austrian composer Udo Jürgens, and although you could tell the plot was written to include the music, it was nonetheless enjoyable. The songs were great and well-performed, and the story was light and funny. The opera for which we bought tickets was Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” (The Magic Flute) and it was excellent!

Ich war noch niemals in New York!

 

While we were walking through the city, we saw a bunch of police officers near the Opera house. They asked us all to wait on the street, and although we didn’t understand why, we of course complied. A few minutes later, a motorcade of police motorcycles and Mercedes-Benzes bearing Saudi Arabian flags drove by, as we all watched curiously. Later, we learned that they had just come from a ceremony in which a Saudi-backed religious center in Vienna was officially opened. In Saudi Arabia, the only legal religion is Islam. The idea behind the religious center in Vienna is that by funding a council of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus to engage others in inter-religious dialogue, the Saudis can also learn how to slowly begin to integrate other religions into their country as well. I think it’s an interesting concept.

 

Anyway, we also visited an art museum called “Belvedere,” which took up all of Thursday afternoon. The museum wasn’t obscenely giant like the Chicago art institute, but it was big enough to tire you out after a couple hours of taking it all in. It was great to see so many works of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, whom we spent a lot of time discussing in German 220. The museum was located inside of an old palace and the grounds as well as the building itself were absolutely stunning.

 

Belvedere

Emily, Jake, Hannah, Rachel and Me in front of Belvedere

Belvedere from the front

 

On Friday, we did a little shopping (I bought a new coat!) and later explored the altstadt a little more, this time going inside of the Stephansdom (a giant church in the city center) as well as visiting Mozart’s house. We decided not to take a tour of Mozart’s house in the interest of time, but we did poke around inside just for a bit. Afterwards, we took the tram down the historic “Ringstraße” (Ring Street) to the Austrian Parliament building. Where the “Ringstraße” currently stands there once stood a wall that surrounded the city of Vienna. As the city expanded, there simply wasn’t enough space inside the wall, so it was torn down, as the need for protection had also grown weaker over the years. At Parliament, we took a fifty-minute tour of the building and the various chambers, and learned a little about how the Austrian government functions. The tour was given in German as well as English, so although we understood nearly everything, it was nice to have the English in case there were technical government terms that we didn’t get the first time around in German. The Austrian Parliament was heavily damaged during World War II, but has since been restored to its original likeness. It’s a beautiful building! While we were touring one of the open reception lobby-type areas, tables were being set up for some sort of a formal state dinner that was to occur the following night.

 

Mozart's house!

Me in front of the Austrian Parliament

Assembly chamber - Austrian Parliament

 

On Saturday, Rachel, I, and our Canadian friend Helina visited the Esperanto Museum at the Austrian National Library. Esperanto is a planned language that was invented during the early 1900’s, and this museum, housed entirely in one room, is the only one of its kind. The idea behind Esperanto was that it could serve as a new international language that was very easy to learn and understand. It is a combination of many European languages (specifically Romance Languages) and it is the most successful planned language ever created. Its founder, Ludwig Zamenhof, grew up in a town in present-day Poland where the languages of Polish, German, Yiddish, Russian, and Belarusian were spoken among the many immigrants living there. His goal was to devise a language to bridge the language barriers among the various ethnic groups in his town. The museum was very interesting, and I’m almost positive it’s the only place in the world where you can choose to read or hear the exhibits in either German, English, or Esperanto.

 

That’s all for now! Check out my pictures at: https://picasaweb.google.com/117445044945979223598

Thanks for reading!

Bis Dann!

Mercedes-Benz Museum

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

October 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

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

Remnants of the ancient settlement on the Bodensee at the “Pfahlbau Museum.”

Catch up blog Part 1 of 2! Hiking to Würmlingen / Bodensee Class Trip

October 11, 2011 / / 0 Comments

As of last Friday, our five-week intensive German course is finished. Now that I’m done studying everything there is to know about German grammar, I finally have some time to catch up on my blogging – but unfortunately not too much, because I’m leaving for Vienna in eight hours!

It’s been awhile since my last post, but I’ll try my best to write a little bit about some of the things I’ve done over the past few weeks! Because of how many things I want to write about (and the fact that it is 5 AM and I haven’t gone to sleep yet) this will have to be part one of two “catch up” entries, but part two will have to wait until I am back from Vienna!

September 18th – Trek to Würmlingen
As I mentioned in my last blog, the five of us Valpo Tübingen students became hopelessly lost in the woods on the way to visit the Brixners – longtime friends and professors of Valparaiso University. As of earlier this year, the Brixners retired from their jobs as professors at the VU Reutlingen program, and they were awarded with honorary doctorates from President Heckler at the graduation commencement in May. They absolutely love Valpo students, and even though they no longer work with them on a daily basis, they invited us to their house for dinner.

Emily and I in the middle of a field. (Dancing to entertain ourselves. We were so bored and lost.)

Mr. and Mrs. Brixner live in a town called Würmlingen – which although only a few minutes by car, is about a 1.5 hour hike through the forest from Tübingen. According to the Brixners, it is tradition that when students are invited to their house for dinner that they hike from Tübingen, along a path that originates near the castle. We were told by many that the path was clearly marked, and that finding our way would be absolutely no problem. In reality, it was anything but clearly marked! We had even read three sets of directions before setting out for Würmlingen.

The church we should have walked past. Zoomed in from a very far distance.

The path began as a concrete road, which turned into a concrete path, which became a gravel path, and eventually a dirt trail through the forest, splitting off into a multitude of unmarked forks every few minutes along the way. We were pretty successful with guessing which fork to take initially, until we made a small mistake. Luckily, we came across a woman hiking through the forest, who directed us back to the right path, and told us which signs to follow. We weren’t that far astray, so five minutes later, and we were back on the right track.

We continued onward for awhile before coming to a point where the trail split into three paths. A sign that read “Würmlingen” hung indecisively and unhelpfully between two of the paths, and after much discussion and some disagreement, we decided to take the path to the right. It was wrong, and added an extra hour and a half to our trip. So rather than visiting a picturesque, well-known chapel on top of a mountain shortly before arriving at the Brixners’ house, we took a much more pastoral route. Instead, we saw horse farms, streams, empty fields, towns, and an unfamiliar train station before realizing that we had arrived in the wrong place.

After walking about 45 minutes along the side of a road connecting the towns, we finally ended up in a neighborhood where sweet Mrs. Brixner was pacing the sidewalks in search of the five lost Americans for whom she had spent the day cooking. It was a little embarrassing, but they were happy to see and feed us nonetheless! After touring their house and garden and being entertained by Mr. Brixner’s stories, we were served the best German meal I’ve ever had – consisting of potato salad, meat, salad, and ice cream cake.

September 28th – Class trip to the lake of Constance
On September 28th our entire Deutsch Kompakt Kurs (German Compact Course) took a trip to the “Bodensee” (Lake of Constance) and the city of “Konstanz.” The Bodensee is one of the largest lakes in Europe, as well as one of southern Germany’s largest sources of drinking water.

Rococo Church Exterior

We began our tour with a stop at a Rococo-style Church close to Konstanz, right next to the water. The exterior, although beautiful, wasn’t particularly “churchy” looking, but the inside was absolutely stunning. Some people don’t like the Rococo style due to the complete sensory-overload decorations that adorn every centimeter of the interior, but I found it fascinating. Absolutely everywhere you could lay eyes upon was in some way decorative. Sitting through a long sermon during a church service there would be no problem – there’s so much to look at!

Complete sensory overload! Rococo church interior

From the Rococo church we hiked along the lake for about 30 minutes until we reached the “Pfahlbau Museum.” Here we learned about the Bronze and Stone Age settlements that were discovered dating back to 850 BC. Because the forest was so extremely thick, an entire village of wooden, thatched-roofed houses was built directly over the water on stilts. Some of the original buildings remain and some are recreations, but it was still very interesting to see and learn about. The tour guide was slightly difficult to understand at times, but I think I took most of the important details away from the experience.

Remnants of the ancient settlement on the Bodensee at the “Pfahlbau Museum.”

The next stop was a tour of Meersburg Castle, which happens to be the oldest currently-inhabited castle in Europe. The lakeside castle was a very important location during the reformation, but it is perhaps better known as the home of German Poetess, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff.

Part of the Castle Exterior

 

Looking out the castle window! Bedroom of the famous German poetess!

We ended our day with a ferry-ride to the city of Konstanz, where we were given the chance to explore the city before joining for dinner at a Turkish restaurant. Some people in the course took advantage of the free time and crossed the border into Switzerland, but I decided to stay in Konstanz and see some of the sights, landmarks, and churches in the city itself.

Yet another giant, old, beautiful, European church! Konstanz.

 

The Bodensee, and flags of the states and countries that border it

That’s all for now! I’m off to bed so I can wake up in a few hours, shove some clothes in a backpack, and be out the door en route to the airport.

Bis dann!

 

Language Retreat! A Week in Blaubeuren

September 24, 2011 / / 0 Comments

First of all, sorry for not having posted anything in an extremely long time! Our German course here is really starting to pick up, and lately we’ve had more tests, projects, presentations, and homework than we’ve known what to do with. Other than all of the work (which is really helping our German skills very much), the course itself has been very enjoyable.

 

The best part so far, in my opinion, was definitely last week. On Sunday, September 11th we departed for a weeklong “language retreat” of sorts in Blaubeuren, a small town in the Alb mountains about an hour away from Tübingen. The University of Tübingen has conference/retreat center in Blaubeuren, where we were housed in single, double, and triple rooms. Our accommodations were comparable to a pretty nice hotel, and the food they served us was amazing – absolutely no comparison to the cheap groceries we have become accustomed to here in Tübingen. Because I am gluten intolerant, they would even cook me special meals and place them out on the buffet line with a little sign that said ,,Glutenfrei” (Gluten Free.) Our classes and tutorial sessions continued as normal with the exception of a three-hour midday break, which we often used to explore as much of the city as we could before running back. Although the workload didn’t decrease, we still all found time to be social and expand a little bit beyond our regular friend groups that have formed over the past few weeks. In Tübingen we typically only spend time with the other students in our class, but I really enjoyed having more opportunities to branch out and meet some people from the other two classes.

 

A view of the "Heinrich Fabri Institut" where we spent a week in Blaubeuren. (The three tan buildings in the back are where we stayed and took classes.)

 

Anyway, the city of Blaubeuren is named after its most famous landmark, known as the “Blautopf,” which translates literally to “Blue Pot” (or “Blue Bowl”.) The picturesque Blautopf is a crystal-blue spring that feeds the Blau River, which eventually flows into the Danube in nearby Ulm. The vibrant blue color is the result of a high concentration of limestone, and it reminded me instantly of the bright-blue Caribbean water on the beach in Cozumel. The spring itself is approximately 70 feet deep, and serves as the entrance to an extensive underground cave system. Unfortunately, these caves have only been explored a handful of times by experienced scuba divers. There have been a number of fatalities and accidents while exploring, so permission to scuba dive in the Blautopf is seldom granted.

 

The crystal-blue Blautopf

The picturesque Blautopf and Mill

 

The surrounding landscape is not only beautiful, but historically significant as well. In addition to the underwater caves, there are also many caves in the surrounding mountains where ancient artifacts have been found. Among the most notable of these artifacts are the oldest piece of artwork ever discovered (a small sculpture called, “Lion Man,”) and the world’s oldest known musical instrument, both of which date back approximately 40,000 years ago. These and many other artifacts are housed in Blaubeuren’s “Urgeschichtliches Museum” (Pre-history Museum) – a small but interesting museum full of exhibits about the caves and the ancient neanderthals who inhabited them.

 

The world's oldest known piece of art. The Löwenmensch. (Lion Man)

 

Another one of our day excursions was a hike to the ruins of an old castle in the mountains that overlook the small, pastoral town of Blaubeuren. After a couple hours of hiking we finally reached the tiny castle, and the view was breathtaking. It vaguely reminded me of climbing to the top of Yosemite falls in California and looking out over Yosemite Valley, however, the Alb Mountains are not nearly as high.

 

A view of the Ruins

"Inside" the Castle Ruins

The Castle (to the right on top of the rocky cliffs)

 

The next day we all took the train to nearby Ulm, where there was also no shortage of picturesque views. Ulm is a small city of 105,000 that is famous for the church located in  its city center. Construction on the “Ulmer Münster” (The Minster of Ulm) began in 1377, and it became the world’s tallest church tower upon completion in the late 1800’s, a record it still holds today. It was constructed in the gothic style of architecture, so gargoyles and flying buttresses are in no short supply. Many of us took advantage of the opportunity to climb the hundreds of stairs to the top of the tower where there is a very small observation deck. So small, actually, that we were stuck for about 25 minutes at the top because the influx of tourists caused a traffic jam in the narrow spiral staircase. Afterwards, we crossed the river into Bavaria where we ate dinner at a nice Biergarten before taking the train back for the night.

 

The Ulmer Münster

 

A closeup view of the Flying Buttress architecture

 

Minster Interior

 

Looking up towards the staircase column and observation deck

Traffic Jam! Rachel and Jake stuck in the staircase waiting to get to the Observation Deck

View from the tower. Ulm (Baden-Württemberg) and New Ulm (Bavaria) separated by the Danube River

 

Our last night in Blaubeuren was concluded by a visit to an “Internatschule” (Boarding School). The school is attended by students from 9th to 13th grade, and is housed in a Monastery that was founded in 1085 by Catholic monks. The Monastery is yet another truly historical landmark in Blaubeuren, and became protestant during the height of the Reformation. The architecture was absolutely stunning – I was really jealous of the students who get to live and go to school there!

 

A view of the Monastery

The Blautopf with the Monastery in the background

So after we had made our way through the touristy part of the monastery and into the boarding school, we were welcomed by the students into their bar. That’s right – their school has a bar. We were explained that the “Internatsbar” is somewhat of an experiment, for the purpose of teaching kids how to responsibly enjoy alcohol at a young age. The more I thought about it, the more I actually really liked the idea. There was no hard liquor – only beer, wine, champagne, and soda, and it is only open on Thursdays until 11:00 PM. In Germany, the drinking age for beer, wine, and champagne is 16, while the age limit for hard liquor is 18, so the younger students are of course not allowed to have alcohol. This was a pretty stark contrast to America, where “Alcohol” is a forbidden swearword in public schools, not to be uttered by a single underage soul. I think our high drinking age presents many problems, in particular, the fact that many people don’t know how to responsibly enjoy it once they are old enough because alcohol is such a taboo subject in America. I have no idea how well the experiment is working for them, but I think it’s a very interesting concept at any rate.

 

We spent a couple hours visiting with the students, and had a lot of interesting conversations. Some were more interested than others to meet the “international college students from Tübingen,” but the questions they asked us about our home countries were interesting, and good conversation starters. We, in turn, got to learn about their experiences living at a boarding school away from home, which was also very interesting. A few lucky members of our group were even offered tours of the students’ living quarters.

 

I think that pretty much sums up last week! I have a couple more things I’d like to blog about, which I’m hoping I can get to on Tuesday night. On Monday I have another big grammar test, and on Tuesday I have to give a presentation (by memory) about German Wine. I guess I know what I’ll spend all of tomorrow doing! On Wednesday we are taking a class trip to the Bodensee (“The Lake of Constance”) in the south between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

 

Today, Hannah, Rachel, Emily, Jake and I walked to the home of the Brixners, longtime friends of VU and former professors for the VU Reutlingen program. There we were very hospitably served with one of the best dinners I have had in a long time. My next blog will be about our experiences there, and our 3.5 hour walk through the woods. Needless to say we got hopelessly lost.

 

That’s all for now!

 

Bis dann!

View from the Castle Park where we spent many of our "Summer" days.

The end of “Summer”

September 11, 2011 / / 0 Comments

With the beginning of the “Deutsch Kompakt Kurs” this Monday came the end of my two-week summer vacation in Germany. After the hardest semester of my life this spring and an exhausting summer full of hard work and preparation for my year abroad, it was really nice to have a few weeks to myself to relax and settle in to my new “home” in Tübingen. Yes, indeed, my few short days of summer are over.

View from the Castle Park where we spent many of our "Summer" days.

The week began pretty slow, with some bureaucratic paperwork, a placement test, and a dinner for everyone in the course to get to know each other. Then on Wednesday at 9:00 AM sharp, we all hit the ground running at our first day of German Grammar bootcamp. The class Jake and I were placed into can be relatively difficult (in my opinion,) as well as slightly intimidating at times. One of our classmates is a Norwegian with a bachelors degree in German, who as you could imagine, speaks nearly flawlessly. Another one is a Swedish girl who grew up in Switzerland speaking German her whole life. Us Americans in the course are not quite there yet…

Rachel and I climbing the steps up to the castle!

Luckily, everyone in the course is extremely nice and friendly. The atmosphere is very comfortable, so nobody feels shy to speak up in class – we’re all of the understanding that as a bunch of foreigners here to learn German, we will all inherently make lots of mistakes. Sometimes it seems strange to speak German when the five of us Valpo students are together, or when we are with other Americans. It is much easier, however, to speak it with Koreans, Swedes, Belgians, Russians, and Brazilians, for example. (All you have to do is pretend they don’t speak English… Which they all do.) All in all, I’ve gotten to know a lot of very interesting people, and I’ve really learned a lot in the last week.

 

For this blog post, I’ve decided to do a “Top Ten” list of sorts, consisting of things I learned / found interesting / observed etc. this past week. Naturally, I learned a lot of new grammatical rules and conversational German phrases, but I’ll leave most of those out for the sake of not boring the non-German major blog readers. Many of the things listed below have something to do with the cultures represented in our course, as these are the people I’ve been talking to / getting to know over the last week!

 

1) Scandinavians (minus the Finns, i.e. Norwegians, Swedes, and the Danes) can all speak to each other and understand each other in their native languages. The three languages are pronounced very differently (almost as if they are dialects of the same language) but are still very similar. So similar, that the three nationalities have no problem communicating as long as they speak slow enough to “translate.” There’s also a really neat saying meaning, “Thanks for today,” that the Scandinavians say to each other at the end of the day that is also somewhat similar in each of the three languages.

 

2) Although Europeans in general are known for their ability to speak multiple languages, the Belgians and the Dutch are particularly well-known for their language abilities. For example, many Belgians can speak four languages (one Belgian girl in another class can speak six.) Because Belgium is such a small country, nearly everyone can speak both Flemish and French, regardless of whether they come from the French-speaking region, or the Flemish. They begin learning English at a very young age, and many then choose to learn German and perhaps even more languages. This fascinates me more and more each day as I attempt to learn my second language. Learning German has given me a very strong appreciation of multi-lingual people, because learning a language can feel very deceivingly and unbelievably difficult.

 

3) In German, there are two ways to say “you:” “Sie,” when you want to be formal, and “Du” when you are speaking casually with a family member, friend, or someone who has given you permission to speak to them on a more personal level. The distinction between “Sie” and “Du” is often times a very difficult one that hinges on multiple factors. As we were explained, using “Du” with someone is like a gift: if you are speaking to a superior, coworkers, someone older than you, or those with authority, you should always begin with “Sie.” If and when they tell you it is okay to use “Du,” (which depending on the situation, can be a big deal) it is impolite and rude to continue saying “Sie,” against their wishes. When speaking to kids, family members or other students you always use “Du,” but here are some of the more interesting distinctions we learned between the two forms:

  • When hiking in the mountains, you always greet passersby with “Sie,” unless you are higher in elevation than 1500 meters above sea level, in which case you always use “Du.”
  • Certain political parties in Germany have adopted either one or the other forms of you. For example, the more conservative CDU and FDP parties use Sie, and the more liberal Greens, SPD, and the “Lefts” use du. This applies not only to politicians and those who work for the political parties, but sometimes to the voters as well. An example directly from our teacher: If you typically vote Green, (as the majority of people actually do in this region of Germany,) and you know somebody to be CDU, you probably wouldn’t want to introduce yourself immediately as a Green voter by using “Du.”

 

4) (This one isn’t something I “learned,” per se, more something I’ve observed and find interesting.) Many countries, such as Brazil, are much more lax about citizenship than the United States, and allow for multiple citizenships and passports. One girl in our class is from Brazil, for example, and because her great-grandmother came from Italy, she is eligible for an Italian passport – which she is currently waiting to receive by mail. Just Imagine: how many people would love to have dual citizenship in the United States because their great-grandparents were born in another country? I might be wrong, but I don’t think it’s even possible anymore to have dual citizenship if your parents are from another country, much less grandparents or great-grandparents.

 

5) The alcohol laws across Europe are interesting, and quite varied. In Germany, it is apparently no problem to walk around in public with alcohol, as long as you aren’t belligerently drunk and/or causing problems. Last night, for example, a big group of us from Deutsch Kompakt went out for dinner. Afterwards, we found a bar where they were selling “Cocktails to Go,” for €5. We each bought one, and drank them as we sat on the steps near the marketplace for nearly three hours. In the United States, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find “Cocktails to Go,” (especially with our culture being dependent on cars and driving) or municipalities that would allow the free roaming around in public with Piña Coladas. I’ve always found it crazy that in Indiana, it is illegal to buy alcohol on Sundays. Surprisingly, in Norway, a country known to be quite liberal in comparison to the United States, you cannot buy alcohol not only on Sundays, but also after 8:00 PM on weekdays or after 6:00 PM on Saturdays.

 

6) Wifi is practically impossible to find here in Germany. This, and the fact that credit cards are often not accepted in the country home to Europe’s banking capital, are somewhat surprising to me. Germany is an extremely modernized country. In many ways, for example, its solid infrastructure and economy, I would say it is even more modernized than the United States. (Now gasp, and call me un-American. Just kidding. Kind of.) Still, it has somehow managed to leave widespread Wifi and credit/debit card acceptance in the dust. Interestingly enough, it’s not just us Americans who think this. A girl from New Zealand whom we met couldn’t understand why credit and debit cards are not widely accepted here, and the two Belgians in our class tried to take their laptops to Burger King in an unsuccessful search for Wifi.

 

7) Bureaucracy like you’ve never seen. The Germans love bureaucracy. The more complicated, the more forms, photos, permissions, numbers, passwords, and long lines, the better. Simple things like “Matriculating” that take 5 seconds in the United States can take much longer here. We were commiserating with the Belgians and Scandinavians about this as we stood in line with our envelope full of paperwork (complete with biometric photo) to register as official students – complete with internet access that will arrive in no less than one week. In other parts of Europe as well as at home, this is all done online. We login to DataVU, and click, “YES, I WILL be returning in Fall 2011” or, “NO, I will NOT be returning in Fall 2011.” Then we click to confirm our registration in all of our classes. Then we click “Submit.” Done. The Germans, however, love their paperwork and they love their personal contact. I guess I can see the benefit of personal contact in a world that seems to be losing its ability to interact with others. I just wish it would be a little less complicated and time-consuming. Oh, and did I mention that there is an “Exmatriculation” process that has to be completed when we leave next July?

 

8) English is truly the international language. It is so interesting to me that every time the Czech, Belgian, or Swedish students talk to each other, it is in a language that nobody else understands. When we Americans talk amongst ourselves in English, it’s not hard to see the heads turning and subtly leaning in to listen in on our conversation that everyone else can also understand. It fascinates me greatly that when the Italians have trouble speaking in German to the Danes, for example, or the Norwegians to the Czechs, they automatically switch to English to explain themselves. The Italians typically don’t learn Danish, just as the Danish typically don’t learn Italian, the Norwegians typically don’t learn Czech and the Czechs typically don’t learn Norwegian. They’re all here to learn German, a third or fourth language that is not their own, but when that fails they turn to their second or third foreign language: English. This presents a difficult challenge for Americans learning other languages (I mentioned this in my last entry,) but I also think it’s incredibly motivating to try hard to keep up with them!

 

Tomorrow we leave for our six-day-long class trip to Blaubeuren, a small town in the mountains where the University of Tübingen owns a house. From what we can tell it sounds like it will be a retreat or sorts, kind of a like a one-week German “camp,” complete with hikes to a waterfall. I don’t know much else, but I do know that I’ll be without internet until Friday. I’ll post an entry about the week upon my return!

 

Bis dann!

 

Rottenburg am Neckar (Rottenburg on the Neckar)

Day trip along the Neckar – Reutlingen and Rottenburg

September 4, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Yesterday the five of us decided to get another group day ticket for the train, and do some more exploring of the area. We started out in nearby Reutlingen, where the majority of Germany-bound Valpo students go to study abroad. Reutlingen, only about 12 minutes away by train, has a much more commercial look and feel to it which one notices immediately upon stepping out of the train.

 

Tübingen, a city famous for the university which opened its doors in the mid 1500s, has many small shops and cafes, but nothing quite like the department-store-lined-streets of Reutlingen. It was in one of these large stores (Galeria Kaufhof) where I finally located and purchased a french press coffee maker – something I have been actively searching for since we arrived here.

The Marienkirche in Reutlingen

The main reason we went to Reutlingen, however, was not to enable Zach’s morning cup of coffee addiction, but rather to visit the Reutlingen Weinfest (Wine Fest.) After two trips to the Stuttgart Weinfest, I was personally interested to see the one in Reutlingen, which started on Friday. (I think this must be the time of year for Weinfests, because they seem to be popping up everywhere.)

 

We didn’t sample any German wine this time, and although the Weinfest in Reutlingen was much smaller than in Stuttgart, I enjoyed it for all the same reasons. The atmosphere, first of all, was delightfully German – street performers playing the accordion serenade passersby, as they navigate the narrow passageways between the tents lining the narrow cobblestone streets. We tried to make reservations for dinner at a few of the restaurants which had tents there, but after learning that they were completely booked we settled for a nice big lunch instead. (How very German of us!)

Rachel and Hannah enjoying the Weinfest
Emily, Jake, and me at the Reutlingen Weinfest

The traditional Swabian food served at these Weinfests presents a reason in itself for visiting. I think any journalist from the Travel Channel would have a field day sampling and reviewing all the different cuisine of southwest Germany. Because I’m gluten intolerant, I asked the waitress for a recommendation of something made without wheat. She recommended an excellent salad made with Turkey, which I ordered along with a side of potato salad. The potato salad here has become one of my favorite things about Germany – it definitely tops the kind I like to get at home from the Piggly Wiggly. The salad was topped with corn, like most German salads are, which I find to be pretty interesting. The Germans don’t usually eat corn (no corn on the cob, etc.) because here it’s considered to be “animal food,” yet they sprinkle some on top of just about every salad you could possibly order.

 

Next we visited Reutlingen’s beautiful Marienkirche, an old, beautiful protestant church. If I’m correct, I believe it was heavily damaged during World War II, as Reutlingen was frequently bombed for its industry, but don’t quote me on that one. (I know for sure that Tübingen was unaffected during the war, as its local economy is based on the university rather than industry, which is why it has retained its medieval character throughout the years.) It was hard to get a decent picture from outside the church, as the narrow streets wouldn’t allow me to back far enough away to capture the whole building in one frame, but I did manage to get quite a few shots of the beautiful architecture from inside the building.

Looking towards the altar in the Marienkirche
A view of the organ and beautiful Gothic-style ceiling

 

After exploring the church, walking around the city, and doing some more shopping, we caught another train and went to Rottenburg. Rottenburg is much smaller than Tübingen or Reutlingen, but it shares the connection to Valparaiso University as a study abroad destination for those studying Church Music. By the time we got there it was around 6:00 PM, and just about everything was closed. The city, although quaint and beautiful, nestled along the Neckar River, felt eerily quiet and empty. Other than a few customers eating at a couple street cafes, we were the only ones walking through many of the tiny streets.

Rottenburg am Neckar (Rottenburg on the Neckar)

 

Nonetheless, we walked around until we had stumbled upon the marktplatz (marketplace), Rathaus (town hall), and St. Martin church, which we explored from the inside as well. The church’s interior felt much newer and more modern than any other European church I’ve ever visited, but it was a sight to see regardless. After we had taken a break to enjoy some watery €3 milkshakes, we headed back to the train station for the short ride back to Tübingen.

Rathaus and Marktplatz in Rottenburg
St. Martin Church

 

After learning so much about these cities and their connections to Valparaiso University, it was nice to see them in person and connect some images to my knowledge. Reutlingen, Tübingen, and Rottenburg are all very different and unique in their own ways, and it was fun to compare and contrast as we visited each city. I would sincerely encourage any Valpo student to come take advantage of the opportunity to study here in Germany’s southwest region of Swabia!

Houses along the Neckar
Old building in Rottenburg Marktplatz

The Fail Buzzer: Our Experiences Speaking German

September 2, 2011 / / 0 Comments

 

It goes without saying that many Germans can communicate pretty well in English. Even if they don’t speak it fluently, chances are that many people you come across will know enough of the language to have a simple conversation.

 

Quite frequently, when a member of our Valpo group here in Tübingen tries to start a conversation with somebody else in German, he/she gets a response in English. None of us are perfect at German, but I would say that we’re all pretty competent when it comes to day-to-day conversations. Whether ordering food at a restaurant, introducing yourself to someone new, asking for directions, or silently looking at a train schedule, it isn’t at all unusual for someone to drop everything to help the apparently-confused Americans.

 

I’m pretty sure that because so many people here speak English, they’re always looking for people to practice it with. In America, I know I look for opportunities to speak German to people too, since there are so few people to stay in practice with. Once I read in a travel guide booklet that the reason Germans prefer to speak English with foreigners is because they are a very orderly society, and easily frustrated when people aren’t able to simply communicate (I’m not quite sold on that one, but I guess it makes sense.) Other times, I think, “Maybe everyone here is just very friendly and always willing to help out.”

 

Regardless of the reason, unless I am actually extremely confused or at a total loss for words, I would prefer not to hear a response in English. I don’t mean to sound rude, but I am here for the entire year with my main purpose being, to come back as fluent in German as possible – a goal that hinges on the daily immersion in the  language. Many people here know this, which is why I’m grateful that my German neighbors and friends speak almost entirely in German with me.

 

After choosing the words, planning the word order, and practicing the sentence structure carefully in your head many times over, the outcome of a conversation can really make or break your day. I know that my grammar and word order may not be perfect, but I feel like I am almost always understandable. When you’re learning another language there’s nothing that feels better than getting through a difficult conversation without resorting back to your native language. On the contrary, the opposite outcome can sometimes be frustrating.

 

So our little Valpo group in Tübingen is constantly challenged to blend in with not only the culture, but the language and the way it is spoken. We try as hard as we can to hide our American accents and to express ourselves as thoroughly as we can. We’ve made an “inside” game of getting through conversations this way. When we receive a response in English, we imagine someone pressing a giant red “FAIL” button that makes a buzzer sound. Sometimes one of us even makes the noise out loud, as we laugh quietly at our inability to play German impostor.

 

For example:

At Ikea last week, and I ordered Swedish meatballs with gravy on the side for Jake who was watching our stuff at the table. I thought that what I said was understandable, as the man working behind the counter scooped up some meatballs and some gravy, which he did indeed put on the side. Then he faced me again and asked, “Would you like french fries too?”

 

“FAIL,” I thought, as I imagined the proverbial buzzer being pressed. “What did I say? Was it wrong to ask that way? Is my accent really that strong?” I thought.

 

As I walked away, he turned to me again and shouted, “ENJOY YOUR MEAL!” Everyone in line turned to look at the guy who couldn’t speak German, as I walked away embarrassed. Nobody else got a similar farewell.

 

In situations like this, I try as hard as possible to continue in German, hoping that the other person will switch back. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they’re pretty determined to speak their nearly-flawless English with you. Continuing to speak German can be pretty difficult for a few reasons. I know that my German is probably not as good as their English, not to mention that they switched to English because of some unknown mistake I made.

 

Anyway, I’ll have to do another post when we make it through an entire day without anybody having any “fail buzzer” experiences. Until then, we’ll all just keep trying! For the most part, people are very understanding and want to help us learn their language. Some people are even surprised that an American is trying to learn to speak to them in German.

 

I still have no internet, but my communication with people back home will improve once I do! I am really trying to limit myself, however, when it comes to email, Facebook etc. so that I can have a truly immersive experience. Our “Deutsch Kompakt Kurs” (German Compact Course) starts on Monday, and I’m getting pretty excited for it. I’ve heard a lot of great things about the program, and I’m looking forward to meeting some new people, traveling around the area, improving my language skills, and becoming more familiar with life in Germany.

 

Bis dann!

 

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