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.