Home! (July 31, 2007)

Complete Set of Photos

Well, after exactly 11 months in Germany, I made it home!

Back in Stuttgart, as I was getting on the first S-Bahn to the airport at 5 AM, Johannes ran up to me! He had woken up early and come with the train to take me to the airport! That was very nice of him to do that - he was a good "Lastesel," or "pack mule!"

The flight was uneventful - I had a good time watching a movie in the seat, playing games with the controller thing, and eating good French food. There was also a GPS monitor - we flew over England, Ireland, Greenland, Newfoundland, northern Quebec, and then the Thumb. The cool part was finally getting home - after I was "interrogated" by US Customs, I made it into the airport to see Mom, Dad, and Rachel, who had come to pick me up. Kevin was slaving away at band camp, so he didn't come.

The first thing that struck me was how big the cars are here! In the airport garage, there was a row of about 5 big SUV's next to each other, something you'd never see in Europe! I wanted to drive the car home, because I hadn't driven in a while, but I wasn't on the insurance yet, so I had to wait. The first thing we did was, at my request, stop at Taco Bell! Boy, did I miss that and the sweet, sweet Mountain Dew!

At home, I got to see our new, partially-remodeled basement, as well as Rob and Rupy, who surprised me! Later that night, my dad and I drove out to see my grandparents, as well as to prepare the Nighthawk (my motorcycle) for the next day, when I would get the insurance and license plate for it! Wednesday was when I got the plate for the Nighthawk and could commence terrorizing the streets of Mason!

I was never really jet-lagged... I was just awake for about 25 hours or so on Tuesday. I didn't have time to adjust either... I just had to do it! I was already so busy running around to offices, restaurants, and to visit people I didn't have time to sleep in much!

A few days after I arrived home, I made a shopping trip to Meijers. I was probably just like a little kid, skipping through the store with a huge smile on my face! After a year, I could buy Oreos, clam chowder, Colby-Jack cheese, green pop (Vault, etc.), corned beef hash, dill pickles, and more!

There's been so many other little things I've noticed that I've missed... driving, Bob and Tom on the radio, air conditioning, American TV, West Side pizza, and so much more! I miss Germany, of course, but it's also good to be home!

The End of my Stay in Germany (Last Week of July, 2007)

Complete Set of Photos

Well, my time in Germany is nearing an end. It's quite sad packing everything and making arrangements to come home, but I'm also excited to get back to my "normal" life and go back to Tech.

Before I even left the country, I had to cancel my residence at the town hall, cancel my health insurance, cancel my rental contract, withdraw from the university, cancel my internet, and make arrangements with my bank (I'm keeping my German bank account, at least temporarily).

Here are a few pictures of my room at the end of the year. It's a big change from when I first moved in - from bare, drab white walls to walls covered in flags, posters, and pictures. A lot of the stuff I acquired for my room I won't be able to take back home - I'm either selling everything or just leaving it in the basement for someone next year.

Monday night, the night before I left for the airport, I had a little "Abschiedsparty," or going away party. Dirk from climbing came over, as well as some of my roommates and some neighbors and other international students. I drank my last official German beer and then we all walked down to Vaihingen to eat my last Kebab, the greatest food invention of all time. I even asked the Kebab guy if I could take a picture of him, and he chuckled and said yeah.

Here's the Kebab guy cutting the meat off the spit, and here's the final product:


That pretty much did it for Germany. I had everything packed up, I had waited in countless lines to de-register (is that a word?) myself from everything, and I was actually getting a little excited to be going home! The next day, I had to wake up at 4 in the morning in order to take the first S-Bahn to the airport, so I went to bed a little early after saying goodbye to everyone.

Storndorf, Hessen with Isaac and Johannes (July 24-26, 2007)

Complete Set of Photos - Me
Complete Set of Photos - Isaac and Johannes

I just got back from one of the most coolest trips of the year - Isaac and I visited Johannes, our guide for the year, at his family home in Storndorf, Hessen, between Gießen and Fulda. It was very nice of Johannes and his parents to invite us there and I had a great time, seeing how a real German family lives and how a small German town is (as opposed to students in a big city).

We made it to Storndorf by using the Mitfahrgelegenheit from Stuttgart to Fulda, then a train, and then Johannes's mom picked us up at the train station near Storndorf. Because it was already 8 or 9 or so, we had a snack, met his dad as well, and then played some German Scrabble! This was cool - to make it easy for everyone, we allowed English and German words. They do have the tiles for the letters Ä, Ö, Ü, but not ß (it's the same as "ss" anyway).

Johannes's mom works in the kindergarten in the town, so the next morning we went to visit her and to see a real German kindergarten! It was very cool - nicer than mine was, and this one even had a ball pit! Isaac and I sang the ABC song in English and the German kids sang something for us too. Johannes then showed us his elementary school and some other areas of the town. It's a very small villiage (he said maybe 1000 people or so) with a lot of farms and windmills (the power-generating kind) around.

Our next stop was the town of Alsfeld, just 15 minutes or so away by car. This town is well over 1000 years old and has a lot of the medieval style "Fachwerkhäuser" half-timbered houses. The town hall is a famous building there, and on a building next to that, they had the "Pranger," which was a metal collar attached to the wall where the villagers would be chained for a while to be publicly humiliated back in the Middle Ages. This was a cool town though - you could really see where the old walls were, how close together the houses are, how narrow the streets are, and so on.

We also stopped by Johannes's high school, which is also in Alsfeld. He designed the "Abi 2002" logo (Class of 2002) that's painted above the door.

Next, we stopped in the town of Lauterbach, also not too far away. There were also many of the houses like in Alsfeld, a medieval tower, as well as the river through the middle with the stepping stones from the Middle Ages! We also picked up some Lauterbacher beer, the oldest beer in Hessen, founded in 1527!

After a ride on a metal bobsled type thing, from the top of which we could see the skyline of Frankfurt, we went to go see a castle complex nearby too. It still amazes me how many castles there are here, and how many are still in use and in good condition! Look closely at the horizon in this picture... you can see Frankfurt.

After dinner, Johannes and his dad, a history teacher at a high school in Alsfeld, took me to a field just outside of town where they had the old border stones from about 500 years ago that marked the border between Storndorf and another city in Hessen. Because the stone is so old, it's hard to see what the design is, but on the one side it's a lion in a boxing pose (Hessen's symbol even today) with a star underneath, and on the other it's a blank coat-of-arms shape (Storndorf).

We grilled out in the garden of the house that night, visited a lot with his parents, and then played Rummikub while drinking some of that Lauterbacher beer, as well as apple wine from the area (I didn't like that much!).

The next day, we went off to Fulda, the closest bigger city. This is more of a Baroque type city, but they still had a bunch of the half-timbered buildings and a church that was more than a thousand years old. The park in the center was really nice too - we took a break from trying to catch a duck and went tree climbing!

After that, it was back to his house in Storndorf to say goodbye to his parents. We all took a picture together and then headed back to Stuttgart in his parent's car.


Also, for anyone who's interested, I took a few pictures of a German house (they look a bit different from what we're used to). They're in my pictures.

German Bureaucracy!

Well, no stay in Germany would be complete without having to go through the famous bureaucracy... yet again. When you get here, you have to register at a bunch of offices, and you have to unregister from those same offices when you leave too. On Monday I was running around the whole day doing this. Here's a quick narrative of that day:

First, I woke up early and rode my bike (the bus stop is gone for the week because of construction) to Vaihingen to cancel my health insurance. I stopped on the way at a hardware/hobby store to see if I could find something to fix my glasses... (the left arm part randomly broke off a few days earlier and had been tied on temporarily with string). I went the insurance office and found out that I needed the form that shows I unregistered myself with the government, as well as the form that says I'm no longer registered as a student at the university. So, nothing could be done and I had to go back to my apartment. On the way, I had to stop at the international office to get a copy of my application for the unregister from the university form (it takes two months to get the real certificate back), and also to find out that I have to have my grades mailed to the center later because the office of the German classes is moving to a different building and is unable to give out grades right away. This means it will take longer until I get my transcripts to Tech.

Then, I went back to my apartment to study a bit, to warm up for my German CS oral exam that afternoon. After eating lunch, I went to the caretaker's office, waited in line for 15 minutes to make an appointment to move out of my apartment (he has to inspect the room). That finally being done, I had to scoot to the CS building to take my exam. I did well enough to get Tech credit, but not as good as I would have wanted.

After that, I finally had some time to fix my glasses. What I found at the hobby store were some little plastic/rubber things called "shrink sleeves," about the diameter of a big coffee stirrer. What I did was cut off an inch, wedged the two broken ends of my glasses in there, and we held it over a flame, so the plastic shrank really tight. It worked really nice and is black and is not very bulky, so it's a good fix for now. The best part - it only cost me 3 EUR!

Then, I had to ride my bike back to Vaihingen to the insurance place, now that I knew what papers to bring. So, my insurance stops at the end of the month, but they still have to bill me for a month (when the money is pulled from your account, it's actually for the month before), so I have to keep my German bank account until at least the middle of August, not cancel it like we're supposed to.

Because it matters with the bank account, I had to call up to this other office from the apartments to find out how I get my 300 EUR deposit back from my room. I have to go in person, on the 30th, after the caretaker checks out my room, to this office, pick up my money in cash, and then deposit it into my German account. Then, when I get home, I have to either transfer it through the international system or with PayPal or something.

Finally, I had some time to sit on the balcony couch and eat a Popsicle!

The Seilbahn and Zahnradbahn (July 20, 2007)

Complete Set of Photos

Today, Johannes, Isaac and I went to ride on the Seilbahn ("rope-train") and the Zahnradbahn ("teeth-wheeled train") in Stuttgart. These are special trains in the normal public transportation line (they cost the same as everything else, etc.). They are different from the normal trains because they have to go up steep hills (Stuttgart is in a valley, so there are lots of hills everywhere).

The Seilbahn is cool - it's about eighty years old and has been restored and so on through the years. It consists of a set of tracks that goes up a hill from a valley to a cemetery in the forest. There are two cars on either end of the cable-pulley system. When one car is at the bottom, there's another at the top. When the car from the bottom climbs the hill, the one at the top goes down (there's a change in the middle so they don't collide!). The local nickname for this tram is the "widow express" because of the cemetery!

The Zahnradbahn is just like a normal U-Bahn train (the yellow ones), except the part that drives it is a gear underneath between the two normal train wheels. Between the tracks is a toothed track that the gear meshes with.

In between, we walked through the woods, eating berries and looking at the rich people's houses, all the while enjoying the cool views of the valley and vineyards.

Konstanz and the Bodensee (July 14, 2007)

Complete Set of Photos

On Saturday James, Johannes and I travelled to Konstanz, a famous German city right on the border of Switzerland and also on the shore of the largest lake in Germany, the Bodensee (Lake Constance in English). This is a popular city with tourists (German tourists too) because of the location on the lake and the fact that it wasn't destroyed in WWII, so there are lots of old buildings and narrow alleyways around. It butts right up with a city in Switzerland (which was neutral in WWII), so the people in Konstanz would just leave the lights on at night and the Allied bombers couldn't tell the difference between Switzerland and Germany!

It was nice that Johannes went with us - he did his Zivildienst (German males have to to about a year of either military or community service, he did the community service) working as an ambulance driver here, so he knew his way around. While we were wandering around getting our bearings, we saw the border crossing for Switzerland. My previous Swiss passport stamp had been stamped over by the Hungarian customs guys, so I got a new stamp at the border, we all walked about 5 minutes into Switzerland, and then we turned around and walked right back to Germany! We sure knew it was Switzerland right away - we saw a parked Ferrari within sight of the border, and an Aston Martin later that day!

Throughout the day, we saw some of the old buildings (some houses were built in the 1200's and still have people living in them!, the big cathedral, and many cool alleyways, walls, and medieval towers. Coincidentally, the local Gay Pride parade also took place that day - we saw the floats blasting "YMCA" and "It's Raining Men" go rolling by, followed by groups of dancers!






Because it was one of the hottest days of the year (why we came to the Bodensee in the first place), we went to a beach on the Bodensee. Because it's right on the border to the Alps, it's very cold, clear water with a rocky shore and a rocky bottom. It's about the same as Lake Superior. We could stay in the water for about 10 minutes before we had to come out again! While we were at the beach, we randomly met up with DJ, Gerald, and Daisy, three other fellow exchange students from Stuttgart. We all ended up on the same train back to Stuttgart later that night too. It was a great way to spend a hot summer day!

Preparing to go Home...

Well, after 11 months exactly in Germany, I will be returning to the USA. I am looking forward to going back home again, but I will also really miss Germany. As the Germans say, "Ich gehe zurück mit einem lächelnden Augen und einem weinenden Augen" ("I'm going back with one smiling eye and one crying eye!). Here's a list of things that I will look forward to doing in the USA when I get back, as well as things I will miss about Germany (not in order):

Things to do when I get back!

• Go to Taco Bell, Whitecastle, Wendy's, Arby's
• Ride my motorcycle
• Go camping!
• Drive a car again
• See friends, family, cat
• Drink Mountain Dew/Mello Yello
• Go shopping in the middle of the night without bringing my own bags or a coin for the shopping cart, go really slow in the checkout line, and then take my groceries home in a car!
• Go to businesses on a Sunday
• Eat a huge steak
• Try to not speak to people in German out of habit (I've already done it on the phone)

Things I'll miss about Germany:

• Döner Kebab!!!!
• Maultaschen
• The metric system
• The Autobahn
• The bike paths that go everywhere
• Castles
• Beer
• The S-Bahn / all public transportation
• Nudity in TV (how they just don't care here)
• Efficiency
• Skinny blond women everywhere
• Mülltrennung (garbage sorting)
• Duschgel

The 4th of July - In Germany! (July 4, 2007 of course!)

Complete Set of Photos

This has got to be the one time where I felt the most American - Isaac and I threw a big 4th of July party in the courtyard of our apartment complex and almost every American and many other people of various nationalities came to celebrate! We had country music playing from Isaac's window and I ran my flag up the lamp post (the best we could do!) to set the mood.



The party started around 4 PM and picked up steam continually, ending sometime in the middle of the night. Most of the time, we occupied ourselves with grilling - we made hamburgers and wursts, of course, but also corn on the cob! People brought dips, salsas, desserts in flag designs, I brought three Grandma Miller apple pies, and I even made some corn dogs in a deep fryer later that night too! We had a ton of food and ate a lot of it that night. We also tossed the football around.










While we were grilling, some random guys walked by (no one knew them) and gave us two big bottle rocket things. This was very cool - fireworks are only legal in Germany around New Year's time, so you can't buy them now. After it had gotten dark, we heard some fireworks off in the distance - like I had kind of expected, the US Army base about a kilometer away was having a show! We all ran out into the field to watch and had a grand old time, singing the National Anthem loud and obnoxiously to annoy everyone else in the area! Then, we shot off our rockets!

I didn't take pictures with my own camera that night, but have some from other people. I'm still waiting on a few, so check back in the next few days.

Pictures from Around Stuttgart

These last few weeks that I'll be in Germany I've tried to take pictures of my apartment, the university, the town of Vaihingen, parts of Stuttgart, and pretty much the stuff I see everyday that I've never taken pictures of before! I try to wait for sunny days, which we haven't had in two weeks now, so there will be more pictures coming in the next few days. I'll just put links to the photo albums below with descriptions.

The Vaihingen Campus of the University of Stuttgart
Here are most of the major buildings on the Vaihingen campus. There's the two tall buildings, the CS building where my classes are, my bank, the cafeteria, and a whole bunch of others.

The Stuttgart Campus of the University of Stuttgart - This campus, the older one, is right in the middle of the city, kind of next to the train station. The only classes I have here are German - all technical classes are in Vaihingen. The tall dorm, Max-Kade, has a bar/club on top and they have a party there every Wednesday night.

Student Residences on the Vaihingen Campus
I rode around on my bike to get pictures of the different dorms and apartment complexes in Vaihingen for the students to live in. These are (for the most part) like palaces compared to back home!

A German neighborhood
This is the German neighborhood right across the street from my apartment. You can see how compact everything is, how many houses are actually duplexes, and how even in a normal neighborhood a lot of houses have underground garages to save space.

The Forest (Pfaffenwald) and Bike Paths - This is the forest that surrounds the Vaihingen campus. There are a lot of cool bike baths and such back there and I like to ride around when I'm bored. There's also a few long lakes with trails that go around them. Next to some of the trails, there are man-made creek things from the Nazi period.

Vaihingen
The part of Stuttgart that the university is in is called Vaihingen. It's one of the nicer areas of Stuttgart. I got some pictures of some streets, business complexes, the store, the town hall, and some other points of interest. This is all about a 5 minute bike ride from my apartment.

Stuttgart - Here's some pictures of the city of Stuttgart itself, including the Old and New Castles, Königsstraße (the main shopping street), the park, and much more. Some of the pictures are also in other blog stories.

Our "Pate:" Johannes (June 31, 2007)

Complete Set of Photos

It's about time I write an article about Johannes, our "guide" for our year here in Germany. By "we," I mean Isaac and Justin; I was adopted throughout the year! When all of the exchange students first arrive in Germany, we have to chance to get a "Pate," or "godfather," which is a student guide who helps up get out of the airport, get our visa, register for classes, and so on. Johannes was/is a most excellent guide for us, and was very helpful in helping us get settle into Germany and the university. Think about it - when we got here, we didn't even know where to go grocery shopping! Johannes helped us with everything, even long after his guide responsibilities were up, and I am very grateful for having Johannes as our guide!

Last Saturday, we had a "Brettspielabend," or board game night. For his birthday a few months ago, Justin, Isaac and I got him a nice, complicated board game to play (Johannes likes board games!). Because Justin had already gone home, only Isaac and I went to play it in Johannes's apartment in Stuttgart. Andre, Johannes's friend, joined in too. It sounds really nerdy and boring, but playing a German board game is interesting and it breaks the routine of birthday party, birthday party, birthday party! L to R is Andre, Isaac, Johannes, me.

The game is called "Die neuen Entdecker," or "the new discoverers," and is about discovering islands and such. I tried to obtain a German Scrabble game too (they do have the other letters with the two dots too!), but the game guy was away.



I also got some pictures of his apartment, which he shares with a couple of other guys. It's in the top floor of a building that was not destroyed in the war. From one of the skylight windows in the cool slanted roof, you can even see the Fernsehturm!