Last Days in Germany

It's time to wrap up my time in Germany already! It flew by and I can't believe it's over. I've learned so much but in so many ways I feel like I'm just starting to really get a feel for things (language, culture, etc). Auf jeden Fall (in any case), I've come a long way from where I was on Day 1 and that's all that matters.

Things I will NOT Miss About Bayreuth:

1) Rain all day long every day.
2) Spending my evenings in my room with instant pasta and my computer. (Nothin' like Grey's Anatomy or Cinderella auf Deutsch to entertain me in the evenings. I am REALLY looking forward to having a kitchen again!)
3) Mensa food! (Salad: lettuce, cucumbers and carrots. Every day for lunch. For seven weeks.)
4) Not being able to go to church.

Things I WILL Miss About Bayreuth:

1) Being able to get delicious ice cream on every street corner (Cinnamon is the best flavor ever!)
2) The European "Cafe culture" - where all you do on weekends is rotate from one cafe to the next.
3) Going to the movies and having it feel like you are being productive and educational (since it's in German!).
4) Visiting a new city/country every weekend. (Ellen and I joked that we're going to have to take trips on the weekends in Evanston too.. to cool places. Like Milwaukee.)
5) Sprachkurs every morning where you discuss current events and just about everything else under the sun with your classmates. (Fact: I just capitalized "Sun" and had to fix it. Because it's a noun. I have maybe spoken a good bit of German recently. :))
6) Saying "Genau!"(exactly!), "Echt?"(really?), "Nei!" (Nah or No way) und "Stimmt" (Yep! or That's exactly it!). German expressions are just so much better than English ones!
7) Being able to flash my student ID card and taking the bus anywhere I want for free.
8) Learning SO MUCH even though it feels like you aren't learning anything because you don't have to do very much homework.

Overall, my time in Germany has been amazing and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm so glad I came, so glad that I spent these seven weeks in Bayreuth instead of anywhere else. My German skills have really exploded while I've been here and I can now say that the immersion experience is definitely worth it (and it works amazingly quickly!). In the course of seven weeks, my comprehension skills have gone WAY up (I can understand basically anything now, except for really technical German) and I am completely comfortable speaking German all day, every day. I will definitely miss speaking German all the time, but at the same time, I'm ready to get back to Northwestern and start my junior year.

Hooray for learning! Hooray for Bayreuth! Hooray for German! :-)

A Day in Salzburg

This was my last weekend in Germany and so I wanted to do something special. I went back and forth between a lot of things in my head, trying to decide between doing the university tour (to Weimar) or maybe even going to Berlin.. I kept getting stumped, because Berlin was going to be just too expensive (train tickets alone were 120 Euros!) and I really wanted to do something cool. While talking to my dad about my dilemma, he suggested going to Salzburg. It's only four hours away by train AND it's in a different country. I looked it up and the train tickets were significantly cheaper than Berlin, and so I decided to go for it! None of my friends had the desire to spend nine hours on a train for eight hours in Salzburg, so my trip ended up being alone.

My train left at 5:48 on a Saturday morning and I got to see what Bayreuth looks like at that incredibly early hour. The only people on the streets were definitely people that hadn't been to bed and had been having "fun" the night before. But I got to the train station ohne Problem (without problem) and all my transfers to Salzburg (Bayreuth-Nuremberg, Nuremberg-Munich, Munich-Salzburg) went smoothly.

The first thing I decided to do upon arriving in Salzburg was to see the Mirabell Gartens, which was where part of the Sound of Music was filmed. I took pictures by the steps and imagined myself singing my way up the steps - which I would have done if I hadn't been by myself. I was reminded of something an acquaintance of mine told me when I was fifteen: Looking crazy by yourself just means you're crazy. Looking crazy with friends means you're having fun.

Next on my list was to climb up to a castle on a hill, overlooking the city. On the way there, I strolled through Old Town and enjoyed gorgeous architecture on all sides. I also passed by a gigantic church - the Dom Cathedral. Next to the church, there were people drawing portraits of tourists and I was reminded of another of my childhood dreams. As a child, I got my portrait drawn in a big park in Almaty. For some reason, I really want to have that done again. I'm not entirely sure why, but it"s just been something I've always wanted to do. Needless to say, my college student budget-oriented mind did not allow me to sit for a portrait in Salzburg, but maybe someday!

The walk up to the castle was decently steep, which was fine on the way up but made the walk down a bit more difficult for my knees. I missed having my hiking poles! But the view from the top down onto the city was absolutely gorgeous. Add the castle to another of the things I have climbed to get my view of the city below!

After coming down from the castle, I stopped for some afternoon coffee while I looked around me to decide what I wanted to do next. My time in Salzburg was incredibly limited and didn't allow me to see the Trick Fountains or a couple of the other things that are located outside of the city. But, incredibly enough, right next to the place where I was having coffee I saw a museum dedicated to Mozart! I knew I couldn't come to Salzburg and not see something Mozart-related (besides all the Mozart Kugels everywhere), so after I rested up with my coffee, I bought my ticket, got my audio guide "auf Deutsch" and made my way through the museum. It was nice, not too big, and I got to hear a lot of Mozart's music played, which was cool, since he's my favorite composer.

Afterwards, I wandered around the city for a bit more and then it was time for me to catch my train back to Bayreuth! I wish I had had more time in Salzburg, because it was, without a doubt, one of my absolute favorite cities. It was beautiful, simple, with lots of incredibly things to see. I was very glad I went! (I also am now one country up on my brother. We have this competition about who can visit the most countries and as most of our traveling up until this point has been together, we're fairly close to even. He's been to Hungary without me, though, and I got the Czech Republic earlier this trip - which made us tied. Now, though, I've been to Austria, so I'm winning. In case anyone was wondering.)

I also had a pleasantly surprising experience on the train back to Bayreuth. On one of my legs, I sat next to a very talkative German older woman who engaged in an hour and a half of active conversation with me. Now anyone who knows me knows that I'm not such a fan of talking to strangers in general - but, when the strangers are speaking German, it's a completely different story. I was also struck by something. On my very first day in Germany, on the train to Bayreuth, it was quite difficult for me to understand the people on the train when I asked them if the seat next to them was taken. They were very nice and tried to explain to me that it was reserved but the person with the reservation wasn't there yet - but I had no idea what they were saying. And now here I was, six weeks later, engaging in absolutely normal conversation with the woman next to me on the train. Yes, there were words here and there that I didn't understand, but I would say my percentage of understanding was 90%! I guess that just goes to show you what significant time in the country that speaks the language you are learning does... I was quite pleased. :)

Munich!

Since our afternoon classes were canceled today, we took advantage of the extra hours (and of the "Bayern Ticket" which allows up to 5 people to travel within Bayern for a total of only 28 Euros) to head to one of Germany's most beautiful cities: Munich! I booked us a youth hostel for the night and Anna, Ellen, Donya and I took one of our best weekend trips yet.

Friday afternoon we wandered through the city, enjoyed gorgeous buildings and famous sites. Ellen guided us through the city with the help of her camera, which had pictures from the last time she visited Munich, three or four years ago.

Despite my fears (online bookings are always a little bit iffy!), our youth hostel ended up being great. Very clean, we had a room for the four of us, and 5 minutes walk from the center of Old Town, which was great for site seeing. We had dinner across from the main square and then sampled some local ice cream: the Orange Chocolate flavor was a big hit!

After a leisurely morning and some of the best pastries we've had yet, we went to the Deutsche Museum. Though the name makes it sound important, it really was a somewhat boring, hands-off science museum. We got huge discounts for being students, though, so we laughed our way through it and enjoyed the few things where you could "press buttons." My personal favorite was a weaving machine, where you had to pull the shuttle across the frame using the correct amount of friction.

Our afternoon adventure was much more successful, though. We had a late lunch at the Hofbrauhaus, which is one of Munich's main attractions. The place was HUGE inside and was absolutely packed with both tourists and regulars. Live music accompanied our search for a table.


Once we were seated, we perused the menu while the other girls ordered what the brewery is actually famous for: beer! One of the main attractions of the Hofbrauhaus is that you can order beer by the liter - a specialty which was not exactly to my taste. Here I am, sampling Anna's beverage (a disgrace to the German nation!):

My personal favorite memory from the Hofbrauhaus? A Bretzl (German pretzel) the size of my head!

After lunch, we climbed St Peter's Church, a church near the main square which allows you to look out over the entire city. I have to say that after touring quite a few cities this summer, climbing a tower is one of my favorite things to do. In Dresden it was the Frauenkirche, in Prague it was the clock tower, here, Peterskirche... it's a great way to get an "überblick" of the city - to see huge chunks of the city at a time.

But our time in Munich was short-lived, as evening drew nearer and the last train back to Bayreuth approached. We wandered through the city some more and Donya discovered the "coat of her dreams" in Benetton (a beautiful green fall coat which she later convinced her mother to let her buy).

Overall, the weekend was an incredible success and I would have to say that Munich was one of my favorite cities! Beautiful, clean, not overcrowded with tourists. The buildings are all quite quaint, in a grandiose sort of way. If I had to choose a city to spend more time in, Munich would definitely make my list!

Underground Adventures and What Santa Claus Does in the Summer

Today, instead of going to the Literature Fachkurs with my friends, I departed on the excursion that I have been waiting for since before I came to Bayreuth - underground caves and a hike! I was a bit worried that I only had my tennis shoes with me (since my hiking boots did NOT make the weight cut to come with me to Europe), but as my friends reassured me, my expectations of what a hike is supposed to be are slightly different from that of normal people.

The bus ride there only took 35 minutes, which was wonderfully short, and we got out of the bus and began our hike. True to my friends' opinions, it was maybe a 20 minute walk (albeit up and down a slippery hill, but there was a path/railing the whole way) to the underground caves. At that point, I decided it should not be called a hike. A walk. A nature stroll. Anything less than an hour does not get to even go NEAR the word "hike." And actually, anything less than a DAY isn't a hike, but that's being picky.

Anyway, despite the misnomered nature stroll, the caves were quite cool. There were stalactites everywhere and the inside was quite damp (dripping-water-on-the-head kind of damp). We walked around, took pictures, and heard a tour in dialected German that I only understand about half of (well, and halfway through I stopped paying attention. Details!).


After the caves, we went back to tour a nearby castle, taking a shorter and less steep way back, proving Claire's point, that the walk was "nur für Spass" (just for fun). Claire is a French student who filmed my video project for me in August and I spent the entire day with her and her group of friends (a guy from Belgium, a girl from the UK, and a guy from South Korea). We spoke only German (since that was our most common language), so that was nice.

The castle proved to be a bit of a misnomer as well, though. It has been turned into a hotel, built on the grounds where the old castle used to stand (though it was actually destroyed several hundred years ago). The most amusing part, though, was our tour guide. He looked exactly the way you might expect a German Santa Claus to look and I decided that Santa must be a tour guide in the summer. Economic crisis, you know, you have to be versatile to pay the bills.



All in all, it was quite a successful excursion! One of the best yet! And without question better than classes. :)

Weekend in Nuremberg

Our lovely friend Fiona was able to work in a return trip to Bayreuth for this last weekend and came to the gala and the last party with me and my group of friends (two girls from NU - three, if you count me, a girl from France, and a guy from England). We all took the train on Saturday into Nuremberg, where we enjoyed a breezy afternoon seeing the sights and shopping around.

Nuremberg is a beautiful, old city with lots of history. We saw the "National Socialist" history last time we were in Nuremberg, and this time we took the time to wander around and see beautiful buildings. Like Prague (and other old cities), Nuremberg is divided into the "new" and "old" cities. The Alt Stadt (old city) is divided from the rest of the city by a huge, old wall.

In the middle of the old city, there is a large cathedral/castle, which bears an enormous resemblance to the cathedral in Prague. I guess ancient architects worked together?

We answered Sporcle quizzes late into the night and spent the night in a gorgeous hotel, sponsored by Fiona's mother (to whom we were ever grateful). On Sunday, we said goodbye to Felix, as he headed back to England to continue his studies. Sad day!

The four girls hung around Nuremberg for a bit longer, enjoying Belgian waffles and quality tea. Fiona is from the UK and thus values a cup of good tea with milk as much as I do. In fact, Saturday night, when I ordered hot tea with milk, the waitress asked me if I was British. "No," I thought, "Asian."

Another wonderful perk of Nuremberg? Starbucks! Bayreuth is a small town and thus doesn't have many chains and certainly no international ones. I don't mind because the local food and coffee are quite good, but I was pleased to order and enjoy a skinny hazelnut latte. Ah, life's smaller pleasures!

Sommeruni Gala

As most of the students at the Sommeruni are only staying for four weeks, we had a gala last night where the music, film, and journalism students presented the things that they had been working on in the course of the quarter. There were four short films, three journalism pieces, and 18 (yes, 18) musical pieces. The gala lasted for over four hours - which was a bit on the long side, but it was impressive that students who hadn't known each other at all a month ago were able to pull something together in that amount of time.

It was a bit strange for everyone to be saying goodbye, though, because I'm still here for three more weeks. I will meet new people, have new experiences, and not say goodbye to Germany quite yet. But 230 out of 260 students are leaving, so it made perfect sense to have a big "to-do" for them.

All the people who participated were given a rose (thus the picture) and we walked home late at night in the (unsurprising) pouring rain, laughing the whole way.

This weekend, my dad came to visit me in Bayreuth and take me on a trip to Prague. How excited I was when I woke up Friday morning and saw that the weather prediction: chance of rain, 0%. I have never seen that here (since it rains basically every day, no joke) but I was so pleased that it happened on the day when my dad was coming!

We spent Friday night in Bayreuth and I took him around to my favorite places - a coffee shop, a nice dinner place, the "best ice cream in the city" (according to Ellen, one of my friends here). We got up Saturday morning and drove the 3 and a half hours to Prague, with me as a navigator, which only ended in us getting lost once - and even then, it was the "scenic tour of working Germany."

Prague was filled with beautifully architectured, old buildings. It didn't rain the entire weekend, which was a novelty for me. We did the "tourist" things - and in Prague, there are quite a few tourists - saw the clock tower, toured the (gigantic!) castle and cathedral.



Friday night, we went to a beautiful fountain show with music, dancers, and fountains that danced and looked like fireworks. It was quite interesting because we had never seen anything quite like that.


We enjoyed Starbucks, shopped around a little, but mostly enjoyed some really wonderful conversations. I am so, so glad that we got to spend a weekend together! It was great to have someone from my family here, as I am a bit alone in Germany. The weekend together allowed me to get recharged and be ready (and excited!) for my next four weeks in Germany.

Moedlereuth

On today's excursion, we visited a teeny tiny village (not kidding about the size - there were 50 inhabitants) known as "Little Berlin." Apparently, when the German Wall was up, this town was divided down the middle, just like Berlin. Normally, if a town was on the border, they would send the inhabitants to one side or the other, but they went ahead and divided this one. It's famous and only an hour away, so we took a trip to visit it and went on a tour of what the German wall and the border patrol would have looked like at the time.


The tour was given in German and English -by the same guy. It looked a bit like schizophrenia - he would tell us a section of the tour in German, and then turn right around and repeat it in English. Sometimes, he forgot where he had left off in his translation of himself and would ask the German speakers what he had said last. It was amusing.

Funny moment: our tour guide made a comment about how Pirates of the Caribbean was a horrible movie . I, naturally, made a face, because Pirates of the Caribbean is a work of pure genius. He picked up on it, though, and said, "Well, you probably think Titanic is great too." And everyone laughed. :-)

Best part of the entire day? That it did not rain until we got on the bus to go home. Hooray!

A Dream Come True

The most interesting thing that happened today was that I finally found an article of clothing that I have been looking for actively for over a year. A long sweater/cardigan with buttons. I have been wanting one for a very, very long time and today I finally found one, in our very own Bayreuth mall. Hooray!


Also, it's now the end of the second week and I'm starting to feel like things are clicking so much faster. I can tell that it's getting easier every day to speak German, to understand what's going on around me. In my journalism lecture, we've been talking about the differences between the German media system and the media system in other countries and I understood well up to 85% of what my instructor was saying, which was a huge leap from earlier. I'm so glad that I'm here for seven weeks, though. Most of the people in the program (230 out of 260) are only staying for four weeks, because they have to get back for school to start. But there are 30 people staying for seven weeks, and I am one of them. Northwestern's late start is finally useful! I feel like I've learned so much in these two weeks, so I can't wait to see what's going to happen over the next five!

Nuremburg

Today, instead of the second half of our morning class and all of our afternoon class, we had a chance to take a trip to Nuremburg and see all the "National Socialist" buildings. Nuremburg was the headquarters of the National Socialist (unsure if that's the correct English translation) party and was where Hitler made all his speeches and gathered his power. It was really powerful and meaningful to see the buildings and stand in the very places where such monumental things happened.



We then went to a museum where I took a German audio tour of the museum documenting the rise of the Nazi party where I was inspired to write my book about the Gulag. Ok, so it's not exactly the same thing, but it all happened in the same time period, under dictators pressing for an ideal that was destroying everything around them. The whole time I was there, I could see the faces of the people I interviewed last summer and I wanted to write about them so much that it actually hurt. I love that feeling, though, because every time I get it, I know I've chosen the right profession. Every time I feel like my heart might break if I don't get out there and do something, and tell stories, I know that God has put me in the right place, where I can learn the right things that will help me go out there and make a difference, no matter what I end up doing.

Difficult Times

One of my friends here had an emergency at home which mandated that she fly immediately home. We booked her flights for the next day, but Bayreuth is unfortunately situated in a place where it's practically impossible to get to convenient airports. So this morning, another girl and I got up and made our way to the Bayreuth rental car agency where the fact that she could only drive automatic made us have to rent a BMW 500 series. Needless to say, she wasn't going to complain...


We drove to the Munich aiport with myself as the navigator (for some very strange reason, everyone here thinks I am the go-to-person for directions. I think they are a wee bit confused, but I haven't gotten us lost yet, so maybe I'm growing!), said our goodbyes to sweet Fiona, and found our way back to Bayreuth. All in all, a successful journey.

Dresden

This weekend we took our first excursion - and in proper Bayreuth style, it rained all day long! We drove to the city of Dresden, which is supposedly 2 and a half hours away by bus. Unfortunately, because of the rain, the German Autobahn was completely stopped up and it took us five and a half hours to get there. Which, understandably, considerably shortened our time in the city itself. But, nonetheless, I loved getting to see the old buildings.



My friends and I purchased tickets to climb to the top of the Frauenkirche, a church with a tower where you can see the entire city in one "Blick" (moment). Beautiful city, even in the rain!

Day Five!

Things are beginning to get a little rhythm by the time today rolls around. You get up, you go to your morning classes, you have lunch in the cafeteria (and in case anyone is wondering, the salad bar is wonderful and the hot foods are not-so-wonderful- good thing I like salad!), you go to your afternoon classes. When you get out, you either go on an excursion or go home before coming back in the evening to either go to a lecture or hang out with people. I skipped the excursion today because there are only so many museums I can deal with a week without falling over in pure exhaustion – and instead went home to make a list of vocabulary words that I’m learning and watch an episode of television. It was good to get a break! Later that evening, I hung out with some people and we wandered around the city until we got hungry and got a late-night dinner (10:30) of spaghetti carbonara. Yum!

Day Four

Today consisted of:

1)Language classes in the morning where we talked about how foreigners perceive the German culture

2)An excursion to the Hermitage, a beautiful park with castles and gardens

3)A delicious popsicle that tasted just like frozen orange juice

4)Walking through the city with some friends

5)Cooking vegetable lasagna with my roommates in the evening!

The last point was the best thing that happened all day. To begin with, it’s slightly difficult for me to ever even really SEE my roommates because we have completely opposite schedules. So, I had only actually ever seen them when I met them, and then never again. For three entire days! Then, I bumped into one of them in the morning (this morning) and she invited me to come make dinner with them that night. I was highly excited because I kind of wanted to get to know them better. It’s slightly awkward to live in a house where you don’t really know the other occupants and I was finding myself afraid to leave my room to go to the bathroom in case I would bump into one of them and they would be angry with me for taking up too much space. So we spent a wonderful evening cooking together and now going to the bathroom is slightly less intimidating, which I find to be a great accomplishment.

Being a Journalist

“I am in way over my head and I have no idea what’s going on,” was what I thought today after lunch, when my Journalism course began. The morning had been fairly low-key, with few speeches of welcome from the university president and the mayor of the city, and then a regular-seeming German class where everyone was pretty much at my level. But as soon as I walked into my journalism course, I realized something here was not quite right. Everyone looked significantly older than me and everyone’s German was significantly better than mine (and when I say significant, I mean really that they were absolutely fluent). Turns out, almost everyone else in the class was a practicing, working journalist in the real world. My two years of journalistic experience didn’t hold much ground with people actually working for TV channels.

“We’ll focus primarily on writing articles in this class,” our instructor said. (Actually, he said: we’llfocusprimarilyonwritingarticlesinthisclass. I have NEVER heard anyone speak as fast as he did, which unfortunately meant that I only understood about 40% of what he said)

Well, that’s great, I thought, since my written German is about at a third grade level. At a stretch.

When our instructor dismissed us for break, I literally thought I might die. I understood nothing of what was going on. I was the worst out of everyone by about four hundred times. I had no idea how I was going to survive the next weeks.
Thankfully, though, my positive mindset kicked in about then. I remembered that I learn really quickly and that, even if I can’t catch totally up, I can at least significantly close the gap within the coming weeks. I remembered that it actually doesn’t matter if I don’t know what’s going on, as long as I try my best and turn in articles every week, since the class is only graded pass/fail. I remembered that I’m not here to be the best, but rather to learn, which means that being the worst is GREAT because that way, I can learn the most. I also remembered how many classes I’ve started at very bottom only to end up in the upper midlde by the end.

When I went back for our evening class (yes, the journalism course is so intense that, once a week, while all the rest of the students have a sport program, we get class again! Makes me feel right at home) I was far better prepared. I told the instructor that I was sorry that my German wasn’t as good as everyone else’s, but that I would try my best to keep up. My comprehension of his incredibly fast speech went up to about 60%, which was a huge jump. And, best of all, he explained exactly what he needed from us.

An article a week about something that’s going on at the Sommer Uni. In journalist jargon, an event story. No problem! We did those back in freshman year.

Blog entries about whatever we feel like. Also, not a big deal. I’ll get my creative juices flowing and send it to our instructor ahead of time so that he can check the spelling.

A TV package made and filmed with the film students. As if I didn’t do one of those a week all quarter in 322. And, I don’t even have to worry about filming/editing – all I have to do is write the story.

And that was it. That is the extent of my torture in the next three weeks. Coming from a Northwestern student used to a life of crazy stress, one or two things due a week is incredibly low-key. Even if it’s in a language that I don’t really speak. :-)