‘S isch aifach die greeschti Fasnacht in dr ganze Schwiiz!

It’s Monday at 4:00 am and, suddenly, all the lights go off simultaneously; next thing you know, there are people wearing bizarre costumes and masks while fifing/drumming with lamps on their heads. Where in the world would this ever happen? In no other place than Switzerland, of course! You’ve probably already heard that the Swiss like to do things a bit different from time to time, well, this is by no means the exception.

In Basel, the Carnival (Fastnacht, in Standard German) kicks off at exactly four in the morning the Monday after Ash Wednesday, why? I’m not quite sure, but all I know is that the Catholic Church is not a big fan of the timing, more on that later.

The journey for me started at ~23:45 when we hopped on a DB train. The ride was not unusual, since I’ve been to Basel several times before, due to its proximity to Freiburg. This time, however, the train was mostly full with people who were really excited about the famous basler Fasnacht Morgenstraich–which I’ll translate as “Basel Carnival Morning Parade”–who were already drinking their badischer Wein (von der Soonneee verwöööhnt!) literally left and right. Upon arrival, our group started growing because there were several people we met on the way, as well as others whom we already knew but did not know were coming, so we decided to walk from the Basel Badischer Bahnhof, in north Basel, to the center city, which took somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes. The walk there was not as boring as I had expected it to be, mainly because we stopped several times to take photos/eat/chat with drunken-locals-with-an-even-more-incomprehensible-Swiss-German (I even took a photo with one, but had to delete to make space for videos). Another interesting stop was at a sausage booth, just after crossing the Rhein. At said booth, I asked the person selling the food for a “Weißwuascht,” and then the man chuckled and told me something along the lines of “Weißwurst? Mr sin i dr Schwiiz, nid i Bayern!” (“White sausage? We’re in Switzerland, not in Bavaria!”) and then he laughed again and told me the Swiss-German word for it, but it was impossible to pronounce and at the moment I can’t remember it. Later on, a friend asked a man in the street when the “Umzug” was coming and he was told that there are no Umzugs in Switzerland, that those happen in Germany and that, however, there is a “Straich” (Streich, in Standard German) coming at four in the morning. The Swiss seem to be very proud of their culture and non-German (?) heritage, or at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten every time I’ve been there, but maybe it seems that way to me because people here don’t seem to feel (or admit to) being proud of their German heritage since that’s still a taboo, for obvious reasons.

The parade itself was very surreal, to say the least. By around three or so we were fed and awaiting what we knew was about to come, so we decided to go to one of the streets close to one of the bigger churches (not the Münster). By this hour there were already thousands upon thousands of anxious spectators, most of which seemed to be Swiss. Then, suddenly, it all got dark in an instant, people cheered and fifing was heard. From then on everything seemed, very bizarre and weird in the best possible way. The costumes they were wearing, along with their masks, somehow did not seem out of place when one looked at the lamps they wore on their heads.

There was more to the Morgenstraich than the music and the light. Something else that always captivates the attention of the spectators is the message each float displays. This year, some of the more popular topics were: the Pope, Environmental Problems, Retirment Age, Russia, and loss of ‘Swiss’ Culture–even Homer (not the Odyssey one, but the Simpsons one) made a cameo! The main issue they had with Pope Benedict XVI was his antiquated, colonialistic and intolerant view of the world. Some of the main things they mentioned were his intolerance of other non-Catholic Churches and his crazy public statements, such as saying in Brazil that the natives in South Amercia were ’silently longing’ for Christianity and arguing that Galileo’s trail was fair and just. Of course, no critique of the Catholic Church would be complete without the mentioning the opposition to contraceptives.

(Ratzikal: Roma locuta. Causa finita. Locus Dei.)

(“Only one Church protects eternally and this Church: that’s me”)

(“it’s just too warm”)

That’s just a quick sample of the many floats that were there. The last hour or so of our stay was different, because we started walking between musical groups with some of the locals, the interesting part, though scary at some points, is that the groups sometimes stopped while those behind us continued on, and then turned around and walked towards us! This shenanigans continued until our departure, sometime between 6- and 7:30. I was able to go to bed by just around 8:30–good times. This semester is virtually over now. What’s next? Sverige.

- Bork Bork.

Tu vuò fà l’americano… in la Francia?!

It’s night here, which means it is pitch-dark and there is also a melodious silence in the crisp air; maybe it has to do with Christmas’ arrival. A .5 cm layer of frost ([der] Frost, in German) covers everything and it almost looks like snow, except that it’s made up of weird crystals that, when seen from up close, look like pine trees. It has been that way for a while (it was -8°C last night) and that is not something get evokes feelings of cheerfulness and happy-go-lucky-ness which meant that the stress of midterms worsened. What solved the problem? A spontaneous road trip that spanned four countries: driving from Stuttgart (A), Germany, to Nice (E), France; with a stop in Milan (D), Italy, on the way there and in Basel (C), Switzerland, on the way back. What made this trip crazier and seemingly random is that fact that I was asked to ride along nearing midnight a Friday and by ~13:00 of the following day we were crossing the Swiss border in a hybrid car. Usually I’m not somebody who enjoys being in a car for hours, but this drive is very different. My trip started in Freiburg (B), which is at the edge of the Black Forest, and took me through the Swiss Alps and part of northern Italy to end in the Côte d’Azur, in the French Mediterranean. Seeing everything change suddenly withing a couple of hours is a really amazing experience and it became most obvious in Switzerland. If you didn’t know already know it, Switzerland is a very multicultural country (four official languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh) that believes in neutrality (its official name is Confœderatio Helvetica, in Latin) and it is for that reason that its de facto capital is in Bern, while the federal supreme court is in Lausanne, and other important offices are spread over the country. How sudden are the changes there? Well, at one point we entered a long tunnel and, suddenly, at the end of it everything was in Italian and not in German. Crossing the Italian border was also different, even though people still spoke the same language. I know this is very stereotypical, but the driving was crazy! People drove a lot more recklessly, faster, and used the horn a lot more often; oddly enough, that made it feel a little like Ecuador.

It was already dark when we entered Italy, so we decided to take a short detour and eat dinner in Milan. The way the streets are laid out, the road conditions, the vegetations, the smells, faster cars breaking traffic laws, speeding motorcycles, music all around us seemed very Latin American–I loved it. We walked around a bit in the old city, in la Piazza del Duomo, and went into la Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II where we ate a incredibly delicious, albeit expensive, dinner. After having spent no more than four hours there, we continued our journey to Nice, but Italy left a good after-taste in my mouth and I can barely wait until I go to Padua, Verona, and Venice in late January.

A small sign (smaller than the “Welcome to North Carolina” signs) let us know we had entered France and, once again, everything suddenly (within a few dozen feet) changed to French, but it wasn’t just the language, but other things like speed limits and road signs looked slightly different. The whole ride from the back seat seemed like a blurry watercolor painting with oil pastel highlights, specially when driving in the Mediterranean area where Italy meets France: driving next to precipice with mountains on one side and the sea on the other.

The arrival in Nice was very stressful because it was very late and we were cranky. To make matters worse, it’s virtually impossible to find a free parking spot because the streets are very narrow in this old city and everybody has a car. After finally managing to park the car we made it to the hotel and slept like logs. The morning thereafter started a lot earlier than I had planned and waking up early was definitely worth it. The sun shone much more intensely than I would’ve had anticipated and the wind blew, which made it very cold, but I didn’t mind at all, because I hadn’t seen a beach in months! Walking around the city was a very refreshing experience, from the daily routine in cold, dark, and cloudy Germany. I hadn’t seen a sun this bright and a Carolina-blue sky in a while and that combination made everything around me look like a hybrid between an oil painting and something out of a technicolor movie. Most of the houses ranged from a light papaya color to a warmer light mustard color, the water fluctuated in coloration from a very deep blue to almost turquoise. The mountains in the backdrop were a washy sandy beige dotted with trees of varying hues. In the distance we saw a hill that overlooked the sea and we made our way there, with the water on our right side. We encountered people going into the frigid water; a small improvised petting-zoo with sheep, cows, goats, and horses; street musicians playing music to which an old lady happily danced; a small Christmas market; and we also saw rollerblader zoom past us.

Once at the foot of the hill we started going up, stopping every few steps to take more photos of the slightly ever-changing view of an intensely blue sea that seemed to be in flames where the sun reflected the light. At the edge of this water, small polished stones served as buffers and created what looked like a half moon from that height. The wind blew even harder and I couldn’t help but stop and just look at the water for a while. The city looks a lot different from up there and it gives you a very different perspective than walking among tall housings in narrow, curving, sloping cobblestone streets. On the way down, we decided to go off on a little detour and went down the other other side of the hill to close to where the lighthouse protrudes into the sea. The road was very curvy and very few cars were on it and trees and paths were also all around us, most of which led to unknown locations on the hill. Being down there, so close to the water, was also something I had missed and that compels me to want to come back in the warmer months, but before all the hordes of people overcrowd the place and before it gets unbearably hot. The food? Also amazing and, luckily, not as expensive as in Milan, though a bit more than what I’d pay here in Freiburg. And that day had come to an end. We left early the next morning and made a small stop in Basel, where we saw the Weihnachtsmarkt and were confused several times by not only by how they speak the language, but also by the Swiss norms and standards.

Events like these do seem ephemeral, but memories aren’t.

La vida no es la que uno vivió, sino la que uno recuerda, y cómo la recuerda para contarla.
– Gabriel García Márquez.

Laßt mich nicht erfrieren…

It has been a while since I last wrote here, but not much has happened.   Right now it seems as though things around me are changing at a faster rate than I am. Some of the main differences are that it’s December now, which means that it gets dark by 16:30 and it is cold, very cold–though it hasn’t been as cold lately as it had been; a couple of weeks ago when we had several weeks of -5 °C mornings. I quite like the cold here, but only when we get snow; that is the reason why I went with some friends to Schauinsland, the closest mountain we have to Freiburg. It truly was one of those postcard-like places people image when they think of snowy Germany, complete with huts where people could eat a hot Gulasch, chow down a Wurst, or drink some Glühwein. This place is very popular with the locals, because one can get to the base of the mountain for free with the unlimited public transportation ticket, and from then on one pays 9,50€ to go up with a cable car. I was amazed by how much snow was there since it was only mid November! But, there was a lot more snow in…

Austria

I went to Innsbruck, in the Tyrol area of the Alps, in early November. I really liked the city, but not as much as its surroundings. In a way, it felt like I hadn’t left Germany, but it was still a bit different, but in a way that other German states differ from each other. Maybe it felt like that because the people there talked really weird and at the same time it felt like I was still in Germany because there was only a small sign on the side of the road letting me know I was in Austrian territory, coupled with a text message O2 sent me outlining my roaming options. I’m glad I’m not a vegetarian, because it seemed harder to find good vegetarian options in Tyrol. How bad is it? Well the Innsbruck University of Medicine invited us to a dinner every night we were there and the options of the third day were: a dish with four types of meats and fish with bacon for Vegetarians. I decided to go with the “vegetarian” menu because I had eaten meat about three times a day the past two days. It is also not as green as Freiburg is, because every bathroom I used only had paper towels that weren’t even made out of recycled paper, but this perception could be slightly off, since Freiburg is as green as it gets and then it goes a little further. The people there were generally nice and friendly, but the bus driver had warned us that things will be a little different, because Austrians are a little slower than Germans (as in moving slower) and this proved to be true. Maybe the speak so weird because of the cold that prohibits them from moving their mouth in certain ways, hindering the proper enunciation of certain German words. Die Strassenbahn kommt, the tram comes, ends up sounding like D’ Bim kim. The generic greeting in this area is either Servus! or Grüß Gott! Which brings me to my next point: this area of Austria, not unlike Bavaria, is VERY Catholic. In the old area of town, most–if not all–important buildings, as well as others of less significance, had façades with busts of Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus in her arms. There were also crucifixes in the corners of big rooms and everybody proudly told you they were Catholic and also stated that virtually everybody in Innsbruck is Catholic. It was more present and latent than even in Ecuador, it seemed, and it contrasted starkly with Germany’s predominant deism and just-cultural Christianity. Even Freiburg does not feel as Catholic as Innsbruck and it seems like we have a Catholic church in every block. Among some of the things we did, we went to the Aline Zoo, where I saw bears and beavers up-close. There were also owls, wolves, lynxes, etc… On the way back to Germany we went on a little detour and stopped by what is arguably the most famous castle in the world: Neuschwanstein Schloss. If you’ve been to Magic Kingdom, the resemblance will be quite obvious and that seems to be one of the reasons why so many American tourists make this one Germany’s most visited and photographed buildings. The place is really cool, but most of the interior is not accessible to tourists, but what is just as interesting is a bit of the history of the crazy king, Ludwig II. von Bayern. Read up a little on him and then you’ll probably be just as puzzled as most people who visit the castle.

Oh, the Christmas Markets have opened for business here. That is as typisch Deutsch as it gets, but more on that another time.

Mein Leben als Student.

Most people write in their travel blogs about their anecdotes and anything else they find out of the ordinary in comparison to their normal life, back at home, but this place, to some degree, also feels like home now. Sitting here, writing this entry, it feels like I’ve always lived here in Freiburg, like I belong here; I think that’s the reason why I haven’t been blogging much. Waking up every morning, eating my German cereal (sorry, no Müsli) with my organic soy milk no longer feels new and exciting, walking by buildings with giant drawings on them seems as natural and alltäglich as walking past a pirate ship with a sandbox next to it and seeing tree houses on my way to the tram stop. People stop me for directions every now and then, which means I don’t look as lost as I once did, I know short-cuts around the old city, and know when my stop is, even if I’m with my eyes closed sleeping or reading a book and I have also started to memorize the umsteigen Möglichkeiten announcements in the trams.

Things are changing here as well: the Bächle (pictured) are not currently running and “the leaves that [were] green turn[ed] to brown.” But perhaps the main thing that has changed is that I am no longer in what seemed like a very long vacation; classes have started. I have almost finished my first two week of regular classes and I am slowly transitioning into the academic mood in which I need to be, but it is not very easy, since I haven’t had any real university work since the end of April. The classes I am taking are not overly difficult, but that is a good thing this semester because I not only need to readjust to the academic environment, but I also need to adjust to the German academic environment. The class in which I have to do the most work is linguistics, but it is definitely worth it since I am learning a lot and I am enjoying it, but perhaps most of my classmates will see that as masochism. I also will not be part of that 40% of students who fail the class (durchfallen), but in order for that to happen I must spend a lot of time outside of class preparing myself by doing things like analyzing the what happens in my mouth when I make certain sounds and pairing them with their corresponding IPA counterparts. This class is made up of three parts: a Vorlesung (lecture), a Seminar, and a Tutorat (tutorial), which total about 6 hours a week. My other classes? Die Leiden des jungen Werther, Deutsche Literaturgeschichte im Überblick: Teil 1 (Overview of German literature history: part 1), and German-Spanish translation. So far the experience has been very positive and there are some differences that I really like, such as students generally having more respect and appreciation for professors.

eins… zwo… drei… jetzt geht’s los aufm Wasen!

What is one of the first things that comes to mind when most people think about Germany? A horrible event in its past, Lederhosen, small cars, Apfelschorle, but… aren’t I forgetting something? Well, Germans are also, perhaps above many other things, known for their beer and their festivals involving copious amounts of it. It turns out that the German drinking culture has deep historical roots (see Reinheitsgebot), starting centuries and centuries ago when the Church finally removed the ban on alcohol drinking during lent (or something like that), so, what were monks (Paulaner!) to do? Brew rich and tasty beer to help with the nourishment; rumor has it that seven small beers equal a Schnitzel, but I’m not entirely sure about that. Drinking is also not a taboo and is not slightly demonized as it is in the states, for example, as mentioned in an earlier entry, there is a famous Biergarten here in Freiburg (Hausbrauerei Feierling) that is next to some kind of, well, Kindergarten or childcare place. Beer at Church? Warum nicht? A couple of weeks ago I went on a hike in the neighboring mountains and went to the St. Ottilien Chapel. I think she, Ottilien, was born without sight and abandoned by her father who wanted to kill her, but later regained her sight and did some healings, or something of the sort, but back to the point. Next to this Chapel there was another Biergarten! I can already hear some of you gasping, but it is totally acceptable here, because nobody thinks anything bad about enjoying a beer or two with friends and family. That is exactly the point: enjoying it, but with moderation. It seems people here know how to better control their drinking and, even though they might be ganz besoffen, most will not do anything bother others, do something stupid, or drink themselves to death.

Lots of drinking was what happened last week, during the Cannstatter Volksfest (colloquially/better known as „Wasen“) in Stuttgart. This was one of those events that will stay with me until the end of my life and it will always bring a smile to my face. Why? Well, imagine thousands of strangers sitting at benches, singing and drinking together like best friends without worrying about much else, being one, singing in unison. Sons, fathers, and grandfathers; together. What more can I say? Watch this video I made:

Da simmer dabei! Dat is prima, VIVA COLONIA!
Wir lieben das Leben, die Liebe und die Lust
Wir glauben an den lieben Gott und hab’n noch immer Durst!

Just about a month.

I have spent just about a month here in Germany and I am so adjusted, that I over-correct my typing end end up pressing the ‘y’ button instead of the ‘z’ (they’re switched in German keyboards). I also walk everywhere and using a tram is as natural as breathing. I really like not having to give a tip at restaurants and always just paying the shown amount (taxes are already included in the price), but the service here is definitely slower and not as friendly as in most places in the USA. I’ve adjusted to that, as I also have learned to deal with the bureaucracy and bad costumer service. I had a problem with my cellphone service a couple of days ago: I decided to change my pre-paid service (O2 Loop) to a post-paid plan service without a contract (O2 Genion S, ohne Handy), since it is much cheaper and it also gives me a local number for my “home zone”, but the salesman somehow put me in the one with a Basispreis (Genion M, with 10€ Basispreis per month, 24 month contract) and not the one below (without a Basispreis and also without a contract) even though I had specifically told him I did not want a contract since I was going to spend less than a year in the country. Anyway, I called costumer service and finally fixed it, but they were not as apologetic and friendly as US costumer service would have been. The number porting from the pre-paid is still an issue, but it is nowhere as important as not having the plan I wanted. In that day I accomplished a lot, specially because I finally got my residence permit after waiting about 2 hours and being the last person before they closed for the day (8-12 Öffnungszeiten). I also registered at the university (Immatrikulation), which means I am finally done with the necessary paper work, though smaller things will come.

Here is a video I took from the Schlossberg here in Freiburg, looking east/south-east:

It’s really interesting to look back at how I perceived the city when I arrived. Now smaller mental maps of the city are falling together as tetris pieces to form a larger mental map of the city in my head (hah! That long sentence is also an example of the that influence Germany and its language is having on me). I can now easily find my way around the old city, since that is where I spend most of my time. The more time I spend in the city the more used I get to the greenness of the city, specially since now I live in a building with solar panels on its roof. The following is a video about solar energy in Freiburg and this is actually in the Vauban area, where I live… that building with the colorful metal panels is where the Alnatura organic market is and it also is diagonal to the tram-stop I take every morning. It’s a bit bizarre seeing such a long segment on this area since, well, it is such an important part of my life now–it’s where I live!

Möchten Sie ein Gummiband auf Ihrem Flammenkuchen?

I have been in this country for more than three weeks and I am settled in. I am mostly used to the cultural differences, but somethings still strike me as odd. As some of you probably have already heard, costumer service, as a whole, is not the best here in Europe and the bureaucracy is absurdly complicated here in Germany.

A couple of days ago I went for a walk with one of my flat-mates, a Canadian girl, around Vauban (where all the streets, except the main one, are named after Nazi opposers) and I was surprised to see how green and architecturally interesting it is. Also, at the end of Vauban-Allee, one can make a left and go on a train where there are horses and cows; as one walks up the a hill side, the many vineyards become visible and one gets a great view of the city from above. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera, oh well, I have a lot of time left. After that, we went to eat at a restaurant close to the student housing, where we waited about 30 minutes for the waitress to take our order (the place was not even busy at all) and after having eaten ~3/4 of my Flammenkuchen I realized that that thing that looked like an onion was actually a RUBBER BAND! After about 20 minutes of having called the waitress, she came and I explained the issue to her, then she proceeded to remove the plate and said she was going to bring a new one, but I told her I didn’t want a new one, so she gave me weird look and left it on the table. I ended up finishing the slice I was eating and later asked her for the bill (another 15 minutes passed) and told her I was only paying for the drinks, she asked why, and I told her why… she gave me a half-smile and said that it was OK, but that next time I should let her know as soon as I notice it. Odd? Yes.

This incident is more funny than annoying or upsetting, which what I am about to tell is. As you may have read on previous entries, I am not a big fan of German bureaucrazy, but some things are just ridiculous. A couple of days ago I went, for the second time, to try to get my residency permit; this time I only had to wait in line for about an hour. Once I finally had the chance to talk to her, but she told I could not get my residence permit until I registered at the university, which I cannot do without the residency permit. What? Yes. That really upsets me, specially because she did she say she recognizes that it is a Teufelskreis, but that some countries have privileges and can get the Aufenhaltserlaubnis (residence permit) without the Immatrikulation (registration). What now? Well, I am waiting until next week when I can do my Immatrikulation so that I can then, hopefully, get the Aufenhaltserlaubnis.

I opened up my bank account with Deutsche Bank a couple of days ago, but that is not that exciting, specially since I get poorer by the day, as the € goes up and the $ gets weaker! It’s not all stress and paperwork, I promise; I have been been having a lot of fun. Last week I went to a Biergarten (Hausbrauerei Feierling) and I had some amazing beer that tasted like Hefe Weizen, but it wasn’t. I asked somebody and he told me it’s because it’s not pasteurized and has very little, if any, sour hops. Oh, by the way, this beer was organic–only in Germany! It was really an amazing experience: it was outside, the sun shone, the wind blew, and people sang Trinklieder. This is next to Augustinerplatz, if I remember correctly, and there were a lot of people singing and just chilling. The funny thing about this experience is that the Biergarten was shaded by chestnut trees and every time the wind blew, people yelled ,,vorsicht!” (“watch out!” more or less), but several people still got hit by the rapidly-falling chestnuts!

Grüße aus Freiburg im Breisgau!

I am sitting in Aspekt, a very chill cafe where one can order a beer (Hefe Weizen being my weapon of choice) and use their internet without cost (kostenlos, as people here say). The reason why I haven’t updated this is because I don’t have internet in my room and I have been busy with homework. The main thing that has happened since my last update is my arrival in Freiburg in my settling in.

Things I have gotten used to:

• Bringing my own grocery bags/buying one and bagging my own groceries.
• Always having the right-of-way in the old city, even when the cars have a green light.
• Seeing more bikes than cars.
• Speaking/hearing German all the time.
• Being the only one in my apartment who eats meat.

Things I have not gotten used to:

• Clapping at the end of every lecture.
• The bureaucracy and its crazy opening times.
• Not seeing familiar faces every day.

The city is very nice, in the way a lot of old European cities are. It is 900+ years old and it really shows, when you walk around the old city, through the cobble stone Fußgängerzone “streets” and go into a pub in an ancient dungeon-like basement. There are a lot of cathedrals and open markets. Old ladies on bikes? All the time. Little kids on unicycles? Sure, all the time in Vauban, where I live. There are also a lot of people who live on tree-house-like structures near to where I live, it’s so different here–I love it.

Anyway, I must go and study a bit. I get a lot of homework in my language course, but it is definitely worth it; my German has improved so much–I can barely believe it.

Abflug und Ankunft.

The flight 8-hours-and-45-minute flight from Charlotte to Munich had no problems or even remarkable anecdotes (except for the man sitting next to me who talked way too much). Somethings worth mentioning about Lufthansa are their quality of service and their tasty food; I was pleasantly surprised. I waited in the Munich airport for a couple of hours and took a flight to Frankfurt am Main that lasted less than 45 minutes, during which flight I slept more than in the longer flight from Charlotte. Once there, a cousin (thrice removed, vielleicht) came.

By this time I was mostly delirious from the exhaustion and the jet-lag; I was falling asleep mid-sentence (to some of you this may bring back memories from Berlin). The train ride to Mainz seemed like 2 minutes (perhaps because I was both bewildered and scared by a drunken Deutscher passed out on the floor) and it gave me a nice fast-forwarded view of the area through the Fenster. This brings me back to one of the more interesting things I have come across my short stay in this country: what I call Deuñol (doy-GNOHL). This mixture of Spanish and German has been the lingua franca between the people with whom I spent most of my time in Mainz. It was a bit weird in the beginning, but eventually hearing things like “achso, tengo que irme en el próximo Strassenbahn para tomar el Zug de las 0:15… ¡oye, no le pongas Kirschen al Kuchen!” doesn’t sound weird at all. As this shows, my experience so far in Germany has been a bit unorthodox, but maybe that is the norm for international (perhaps also for domestic) students here, after all, my first breakfast in this country was churros mit mate.

The city of Mainz is not very big, but it is does have a rich history (I think some Gutenberg dude was born there. He must’ve had some historical influence of some sort). It was very nice walking around the city with a breeze and a temperature of about 60° F, talking and smelling coffee and ice-cream. Seeing people sitting, just having a beer and playing guitar without running anywhere or worrying about having to hurry to be in X place was a very nice feeling. One of my favorite parts was just sitting next to a huge fountain composed of dozens of metal statues in Schillerplatz listening to a stranger playing guitar.

Later that evening I spent the time making and eating Argentine empadas, payed a short visit to a good-bye party for a student from Spain, played BS, and went to bed (where I still suffered some let-lag). The morning thereafter, today, I came to Karlsruhe where I will be until I leave for Freiburg on Monday–I already have my ICE ticket!

More on Karlsruhe is to come.

My last full day in the Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, God willing.

There is a suitcase with a bunch of clothes that overflow like a volcanic eruption and next to it there are two piles of clothes: “no” and “maybe.” There is also a soon-to-be-dried load of laundry tumbling around downstairs. Most of that load of clothes will make up my second, smaller, suitcase–by the way, it happens to have a broken wheel. A few of those items in the washing machine will end up in either the “no” or in the “maybe” pile; I will fill up whatever space I may have left in the two suitcases with some things from the “maybe” pile. Shoes: everyday pair, semi-formal/casual, indoor soccer and cleats. Two ties, sandals, everyday belt, and a semi-formal/casual belt. I won’t take my “pillow jacket” (it has feathers) because it would take up half of my bigger suitcase and because I’m afraid to go up into our attic again (where now a family of squirrels has a permanent residence), because one of the springs is broken, so now there is support from only one side of the ladder; behind it are our stairs. That does not make the safest of environments, specially when I don’t want to take the risk that could delay my trip.

Here are some photos of the city, which are, to a great degree, most of what I know about the place. Apparently, Freiburg is known as the warmest city in Germany, but they still get a noticeable amount of snow every winter; luckily, I hear the summer heat is not as scorching as what I’m used to in the Ecuadorian coast or here in Charlotte this year. This milder weather also makes Freiburg a wine city, not a beer city like most of Germany. The city is also very green in all sense of the word. FiB also lies at the edge of the Black Forest and is ~20 km from the French border and ~60 from the Swiss one.

(source)

The university will also be very different than what I’m used to in UNC-Charlotte in many aspects. The campus is not centralized and isolated like UNCC’s; the campus is spread out througout the city, requiring students to take a tram to their next class a couple of blocks away or they may have to simply bike their way there, which seems to be one of the more popular choices.

There really isn’t any on-campus housing in the American sense, or at least like what the average American university has, so I will be living like a mile or two from the main office, which means I won’t be too far from most of the other classroom and administrative buildings. I will be living in the Studentendorf Vauban, which is in the area of town of the same name. I’ve been told this is the nicest place for students to live, as far as Studentenwerk housing goes. I will be on the first floor, meaning that I won’t have a balcony, but that won’t bother me much at all.

Another benefit of having the campus being part of the city itself is having many dining options, unlike UNCC’s absurdly overpriced (lunch now costs $9.20 at the dining halls) unhealthy food. The university cafeterias are the Mensa and they are much, much cheaper than UNCC’s food and very likely to also be healthier and tastier!

Having the university in the middle of the city will also provide much better socializing opportunities when compared with those offered by UNC-Charlotte, particularly because those without a car have their have very few ways of having fun because, once again, the school is isolated and virtually everything is only reachable by car.

That is all for what could be my last entry before finally being in Germany. Tschau.

Fast in Deutschland; fast bereit.

This trip has finally come together and I can hardly believe that this pipe dream I had a while ago has finally crystallized into a reality that awaits me in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Before March, I thought it’d be nice to perhaps, one day, study abroad for a semester in Germany, but after spending my Spring Break in Berlin (with a short side-trip to Dresden), I decided I’d do all I could to study in Germany for a year. As clichéd as this sounds, I could not have done this without the help of all those who believed in me and in this crazy idea. It doesn’t seem as crazy now, just a short 4 days away from taking a plane that will take me across an ocean, to a new country, to a new city I will call home for the next 11 months.

Freiburg im Breisgau will be this place, but as of now, it is just a dot on the Baden-Württemberg map. I will live on Merzhauserstraße, but it is just line on the map of Freiburg now. There are so many other abstractions that lack a deeper meaning, but I know they will acquire so much more of it as time goes by; day by day changing my life. (Yes, this does sound a lot like the beginning of L’Auberge Espagnole.)

Things that will be radically different:

• Die Sprache, natürlich (the language, of course).
• Not knowing anybody and not having my friends and family near-by.
• Being able to have a beer or two after class without it being a taboo.
• Living in a more urban area and having a centuries-old university campus that’s rooted in an even older centuries-old city.
• Having a good, reliable, and affordable public transportation system.

That is all for my first entry, auf Wiederschreiben.