Freiburg Journal
24. September
I'm taking a jaunt over to Berlin for about a week, then on to Regensburg to visit a friend from camp (and perhaps partake in the Oktoberfest festivities).
Today's activites included:
-a "birthday party" involving a hike on a vineyard-covered demi-mountain, from which the birthday boy was conspicuously absent (I guess he got lazy at the last minute and stood us up)
-chatting with a old wine producer while trying the "neuer Suesser"--which is essentially grape juice--and politely pretending to understand his thick Badish accent and very understated boastings about his two children
-eating walnuts with said wine producer, who was cracking them much faster than the group of us could down them
-talking cars and politics (and historical politics and East German politics) with my roommate
-realizing that the Germans invert the "miles per gallon" measure into "liters per 100km" and that, consequently, it is nearly impossible to explain how ridiculously fuel-inefficient a Hummer is without having a calculator for a brain
-scrumptious dinner: Flammkuchen and a Kugel. Schokolecker.
20. September
Feeling incredibly and shamefully lazy when it comes to the prospect of arranging an internship. Hab gar keinen Bock. In better news, I had visitors for the past few days--two friends from camp this past summer. We didn't exactly paint the town red, but we managed maybe a pinkish hue, and it was a great distraction from all the subjunctive grammar madness.
18. September
I just realized that the direct translation of the German word for vacuum cleaner is "dust sucker". Funny it's taken me this long to realize that.
12. September
Room is newly outfitted with 100 euros' worth of IKEA junk. I LOVE it! I've also taken to hanging free tourist maps on my walls for lack of anything more substantial to help combat the mind-numbing institutional whiteness. Good thing I tend to like the aesthetics of maps. And a fun factoid: Germany has its own version of Facebook called "StudiVZ", and it's pretty much the spitting image of our own beloved time-killing stalkers' paradise (I sense a lawsuit coming on), except it's red! It's like I've fallen through the center of the Earth and come out in a new land where...well, where Facebook is RED.
I made dinner really late last night, starting at about 8, as I was washing my new IKEA bed linens. My roommate was around and we started talking politics, and the next thing I knew it was 11 (!) and I'd forgotten about my laundry. Goal for the next week: find some sort of justification for why Bush's intelligence vacuum isn't necessarily sucking all Americans down with him.
9. September
Wine tasting in Elsass today included: Cremant Rose, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, and one other one that I've forgotten but that wasn't all that good. It was one sleepy bus ride back, let me tell you. I'm also really loving my dorm complex, which is notoriously hippie-ish and which is about as close as you can get to Grinnell without actually being in Grinnell. The Americans from the program all got together for a grill party while the Germans sat around watching from their windows until we managed to get the coals started, then about twenty people congregated and started grilling random Würste they had lying around in their fridges. Cuteness.
Grrr. I hate being an introvert and not liking the night life (except the occasional beer garden). I'm not even THAT bad--it just feels like it, and it's kind of soul-sucking.
I really like beng a nerd, but it's not as fun here as it is in Grinnell...
For all interested parties: I currently have no internet access, but am optimistic that it will be coming soon and that I will then be able to give much more thorough updates.
Jetzt geht alles langsam bergab... I arrived to find a grimy apartment, no roommates, and two trash bags that were starting to spawn fruit flies. In the meantime, I've met two roommates--one who evokes in me some weird high school catty paranoia, the other who is incredibly chill and Grinnellian--and the apartment has gotten a bit cleaner. I've pledged to clean the bathroom myself tomorrow. I also had an interesting chat about the Weimar Republic and the German legal system, which was pleasantly educational and helped fulfill my daily dosage of "Grinnell moments". Please recognize how incredibly special our school is, people.
Grinnell seems very inaccessible right now, and it scares me. How can I be getting cold feet right now? I'm exhausted.
"For the barrier of language is sometimes a blessed barrier, which only lets pass what is good. Or--to put the thing less cynically--we may be better in new clean words, which have never been tainted by our pettiness or vice." ~E.M. Forester, "Where Angels Fear to Tread"
I'm taking a jaunt over to Berlin for about a week, then on to Regensburg to visit a friend from camp (and perhaps partake in the Oktoberfest festivities).
Today's activites included:
-a "birthday party" involving a hike on a vineyard-covered demi-mountain, from which the birthday boy was conspicuously absent (I guess he got lazy at the last minute and stood us up)
-chatting with a old wine producer while trying the "neuer Suesser"--which is essentially grape juice--and politely pretending to understand his thick Badish accent and very understated boastings about his two children
-eating walnuts with said wine producer, who was cracking them much faster than the group of us could down them
-talking cars and politics (and historical politics and East German politics) with my roommate
-realizing that the Germans invert the "miles per gallon" measure into "liters per 100km" and that, consequently, it is nearly impossible to explain how ridiculously fuel-inefficient a Hummer is without having a calculator for a brain
-scrumptious dinner: Flammkuchen and a Kugel. Schokolecker.
20. September
Feeling incredibly and shamefully lazy when it comes to the prospect of arranging an internship. Hab gar keinen Bock. In better news, I had visitors for the past few days--two friends from camp this past summer. We didn't exactly paint the town red, but we managed maybe a pinkish hue, and it was a great distraction from all the subjunctive grammar madness.
18. September
I just realized that the direct translation of the German word for vacuum cleaner is "dust sucker". Funny it's taken me this long to realize that.
12. September
Room is newly outfitted with 100 euros' worth of IKEA junk. I LOVE it! I've also taken to hanging free tourist maps on my walls for lack of anything more substantial to help combat the mind-numbing institutional whiteness. Good thing I tend to like the aesthetics of maps. And a fun factoid: Germany has its own version of Facebook called "StudiVZ", and it's pretty much the spitting image of our own beloved time-killing stalkers' paradise (I sense a lawsuit coming on), except it's red! It's like I've fallen through the center of the Earth and come out in a new land where...well, where Facebook is RED.
I made dinner really late last night, starting at about 8, as I was washing my new IKEA bed linens. My roommate was around and we started talking politics, and the next thing I knew it was 11 (!) and I'd forgotten about my laundry. Goal for the next week: find some sort of justification for why Bush's intelligence vacuum isn't necessarily sucking all Americans down with him.
9. September
Wine tasting in Elsass today included: Cremant Rose, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, and one other one that I've forgotten but that wasn't all that good. It was one sleepy bus ride back, let me tell you. I'm also really loving my dorm complex, which is notoriously hippie-ish and which is about as close as you can get to Grinnell without actually being in Grinnell. The Americans from the program all got together for a grill party while the Germans sat around watching from their windows until we managed to get the coals started, then about twenty people congregated and started grilling random Würste they had lying around in their fridges. Cuteness.
Grrr. I hate being an introvert and not liking the night life (except the occasional beer garden). I'm not even THAT bad--it just feels like it, and it's kind of soul-sucking.
I really like beng a nerd, but it's not as fun here as it is in Grinnell...
For all interested parties: I currently have no internet access, but am optimistic that it will be coming soon and that I will then be able to give much more thorough updates.
Jetzt geht alles langsam bergab... I arrived to find a grimy apartment, no roommates, and two trash bags that were starting to spawn fruit flies. In the meantime, I've met two roommates--one who evokes in me some weird high school catty paranoia, the other who is incredibly chill and Grinnellian--and the apartment has gotten a bit cleaner. I've pledged to clean the bathroom myself tomorrow. I also had an interesting chat about the Weimar Republic and the German legal system, which was pleasantly educational and helped fulfill my daily dosage of "Grinnell moments". Please recognize how incredibly special our school is, people.
Grinnell seems very inaccessible right now, and it scares me. How can I be getting cold feet right now? I'm exhausted.
"For the barrier of language is sometimes a blessed barrier, which only lets pass what is good. Or--to put the thing less cynically--we may be better in new clean words, which have never been tainted by our pettiness or vice." ~E.M. Forester, "Where Angels Fear to Tread"