Realm: Journalistic Subrealm: Aug. 12-16
Aug. 18th, 2005 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
choco_froshSorry for the long silence. We spent Sunday morning on a bus, and didn’t get our internet connections activated until today: everything here in Bavaria was closed on Monday for the Feast of the Assumption (Maria Himmelfahrt). But fear not, I have not been devoured by rampaging Holsteins!
Cut for a journal of my life. Entries on topics of specific interest to follow.
Friday night (the 12th) we went out to an Irish Karaoke bar in Frankfurt. Yes, you heard me correctly. Apparently this is a Fulbright tradition. Of this evening, I will say only a) OMG, the prices, and b) it’s a real pain when you’ve learned a song at least somewhat as a folksong, and then the record’s at a different tempo… I left early (well, “early”), so missed all my colleagues singing “Hit me Baby One more time”.
Saturday was more orientation, followed by an epic dinner. I think our director drank most of us under the table—at any rate, he was still up when I went to bed. Much strange conversation.
Sunday we got up at a hideous hour for breakfast and, after a last group photo, split up—half of us are in Kiel on the north coast of Germany (familiar to anyone who’s played Risk). The rest of us said goodbye to them, then somehow hauled all our luggage out to the “disco bus” and drove to Regensburg in Bavaria, where our guides (Julia and Clara) gave us a quick bus tour of the University campus, with what they aptly described as “häßliche Gebäude”, before taking us to our oh-so-lovely early 80’s dorms. My Mitwöhnercomprised one Fulbrighter (Amanda) and three German guys whom I’ve barely seen. Amanda proved herself a princess by complaining about the state of her floor and mopping it. (I then got clean floor envy and mopped mine, too.) She then proved herself even more of a princess by objecting to the state of the bathroom and kitchen, and arranging to transfer to another apartment. The German guys are, admittedly, slobs. Anyway, We all went out to a pizzeria (in a medieval basement—actually rather nice) for dinner, and met some of our instructors for the next six weeks, inc. the ultra-camp Andreas.
Incidentally, at this (and every event since) somebody has overslept or missed a bus, and so completely failed to show up.
I thought that was going to be me at dinner on Monday. But we’ll get to that anon. Our guides prepared breakfast for us, at what seemed by now the shockingly late hour of 9:30. That was the theme for the day: a lot of dead time. We went on a boating trip down the Rhine to a sort of German Panthéon (“die Walhalla”) in the afternoon, and then had two hours to kill before dinner…most of us went on a quick tour of the city (in the rain--I pealed off partway through) whilst everyone else headed for the nearest café. These seem to be other themes of this language course: it’s raining, and 9/10 of the Fulbrighters are desperately looking for caffeine. Anyway, I got back to the meeting point by the historic Würst-küche at the appointed time, and found noone there…so stood around fuming for ten minutes before concluding that I’d gotten the time wrong, and hurryied across the 800-year-old Steinerne Brücke to our restaurant...which appeared to be closed. Fumed my way back to the bridge, where I met the whole !@£$% group coming toward me...joined them, headed back to the restaurant, ate tasty Bavarian food. (Mm…calories...)
An additional member of the group (Paula) joined us that evening. We’d been jokingly speculating over dinner (before my attempt to translate Sir Mixalot into German) that she sould be Californian, six feet tall, and blond, or ugly, Hawaiian, and dressed exclusively in Abercrombie and Fitch (a concept that we then had to explain at some length to Gisela, one of the language instructors, who’s younger than a lot of us are). In fact, she’s from New York, shortish, bespectacles, and with dyed-red hair. Go figure.
Tuesday: walked up to the University (everyone seems keen to go everywhere on foot…well, it helps us burn off the beer and sausage). Had yet another language test, then received large chunks of cash, network IDs, and many cookies. Got a quick tour of the university campus, then headed to the Mensa (dining hall) for lunch. Edible, but no Driscoll, nor again Berkeley. I somehow managed NOT to be the last one to our meeting point that afternoon for another tour of the city…despite having missed two buses. (I suspect that the guide was wrong about a couple of points of historical detail, but this is never a good thing to say, even when you know it for a fact and have a good grasp of the language, neither of which is true here). Then headed home…see next post for the saga of Josh’s dinner. As of when I’m writing this, I’m sitting in my dorm, bored, wishing we had internet access and/or a TV room in this building. I like Germany on the whole, but certain aspects of the current situation really suck.
Cut for a journal of my life. Entries on topics of specific interest to follow.
Friday night (the 12th) we went out to an Irish Karaoke bar in Frankfurt. Yes, you heard me correctly. Apparently this is a Fulbright tradition. Of this evening, I will say only a) OMG, the prices, and b) it’s a real pain when you’ve learned a song at least somewhat as a folksong, and then the record’s at a different tempo… I left early (well, “early”), so missed all my colleagues singing “Hit me Baby One more time”.
Saturday was more orientation, followed by an epic dinner. I think our director drank most of us under the table—at any rate, he was still up when I went to bed. Much strange conversation.
Sunday we got up at a hideous hour for breakfast and, after a last group photo, split up—half of us are in Kiel on the north coast of Germany (familiar to anyone who’s played Risk). The rest of us said goodbye to them, then somehow hauled all our luggage out to the “disco bus” and drove to Regensburg in Bavaria, where our guides (Julia and Clara) gave us a quick bus tour of the University campus, with what they aptly described as “häßliche Gebäude”, before taking us to our oh-so-lovely early 80’s dorms. My Mitwöhnercomprised one Fulbrighter (Amanda) and three German guys whom I’ve barely seen. Amanda proved herself a princess by complaining about the state of her floor and mopping it. (I then got clean floor envy and mopped mine, too.) She then proved herself even more of a princess by objecting to the state of the bathroom and kitchen, and arranging to transfer to another apartment. The German guys are, admittedly, slobs. Anyway, We all went out to a pizzeria (in a medieval basement—actually rather nice) for dinner, and met some of our instructors for the next six weeks, inc. the ultra-camp Andreas.
Incidentally, at this (and every event since) somebody has overslept or missed a bus, and so completely failed to show up.
I thought that was going to be me at dinner on Monday. But we’ll get to that anon. Our guides prepared breakfast for us, at what seemed by now the shockingly late hour of 9:30. That was the theme for the day: a lot of dead time. We went on a boating trip down the Rhine to a sort of German Panthéon (“die Walhalla”) in the afternoon, and then had two hours to kill before dinner…most of us went on a quick tour of the city (in the rain--I pealed off partway through) whilst everyone else headed for the nearest café. These seem to be other themes of this language course: it’s raining, and 9/10 of the Fulbrighters are desperately looking for caffeine. Anyway, I got back to the meeting point by the historic Würst-küche at the appointed time, and found noone there…so stood around fuming for ten minutes before concluding that I’d gotten the time wrong, and hurryied across the 800-year-old Steinerne Brücke to our restaurant...which appeared to be closed. Fumed my way back to the bridge, where I met the whole !@£$% group coming toward me...joined them, headed back to the restaurant, ate tasty Bavarian food. (Mm…calories...)
An additional member of the group (Paula) joined us that evening. We’d been jokingly speculating over dinner (before my attempt to translate Sir Mixalot into German) that she sould be Californian, six feet tall, and blond, or ugly, Hawaiian, and dressed exclusively in Abercrombie and Fitch (a concept that we then had to explain at some length to Gisela, one of the language instructors, who’s younger than a lot of us are). In fact, she’s from New York, shortish, bespectacles, and with dyed-red hair. Go figure.
Tuesday: walked up to the University (everyone seems keen to go everywhere on foot…well, it helps us burn off the beer and sausage). Had yet another language test, then received large chunks of cash, network IDs, and many cookies. Got a quick tour of the university campus, then headed to the Mensa (dining hall) for lunch. Edible, but no Driscoll, nor again Berkeley. I somehow managed NOT to be the last one to our meeting point that afternoon for another tour of the city…despite having missed two buses. (I suspect that the guide was wrong about a couple of points of historical detail, but this is never a good thing to say, even when you know it for a fact and have a good grasp of the language, neither of which is true here). Then headed home…see next post for the saga of Josh’s dinner. As of when I’m writing this, I’m sitting in my dorm, bored, wishing we had internet access and/or a TV room in this building. I like Germany on the whole, but certain aspects of the current situation really suck.
