The Past Week and Plans for Next Week

Once again time has flown (likely a common occurrence). This past Saturday our German classes took group field trips to one of two locations. My group went to Heidelberg, Germany, known for beautiful scenery, a gigantic castle, and its university. The others went to lake Constance, another beautiful place. 

The trip was a blast. We saw a good chunk of the old part of the town, including some churches, the university, and a memorial to Martin Luther, who worked on his Heidelberg Dissertation here.

My favorite part was the castle, hands down. I could not shake the feeling when I was there that of the epic history I was walking through. It was also fun to see towers that I think the Lord of the

Rings city of Gondor took ideas from. Inside there is a vat or gigantic keg for used for holding wine from the river valleys in the area. If I had to guess, it was probably 20 ft tall and 40 feet deep. Huge! This town has maybe 140,000 people with students, but the atmosphere is very nice. We spent the whole day here, but it flew by.

Today marks the end of my program's "intensive phase." What that means is that for the past week and a half or so we have had two hours of German class followed by an hour and a half of a crash European Union course. We had a half hour in between, but I am glad to be done with that schedule. Tomorrow morning, we leave for Basel, Switzerland to catch planes to either Riga, Latvia, or Tallinn, Estonia. My half of the program is headed to Riga. We spend two days there holding meetings with various government and academic people talking about the benefits and struggles of European integration that a small European country so close to Russia faced. After that we go to Berlin, where we will talk with similar people but in the German government (Bundestag). This should be very interesting. Historically, Riga was the largest city of the Swedish "empire," so there is a lot of history there. Berlin will no doubt hold much for us to learn as well. 

Today also included two tests, one in each subject :( that I am very glad to be done with. On Wednesday next week we return to class where I have, International Economic Relations of the EU, Advanced Composition, Reading and Conversation (German), Europe- The Dynamics of Integration: From the Marshall Plan to the Eastern Enlargement of the EU, Shifting Paradigms from 'Domestic' to 'European' Politics: Germany in the European Union, and lastly my continued seminar on the EU that ties in our field trips. A full schedule, but that first week, we start Wednesday, then are finished Thursday, and go skiing in the Alps on Friday!! What a week to look forward to. 

I went to my first German soccer (football) game yesterday, I leave for Riga tomorrow, and go skiing in the Alps next Friday. This program is amazing.

First Days in Freiburg

What a crazy week. Information overload. I want to write down everything that happened but not only would that take too much time but I don't think too many people want to read it all either. 

To keep things concise, I think this blog will be about my experiences thus far with the people I have met. First the Schmid Family. This is the family that I spent about seven days with when I first arrived in Germany. I couldn't have asked for a nicer family. They gave me a wonderful place to stay, showed me the sights and experiences of Straubing (near Regensburg) in Winter, and helped me practice my German. This first picture is of the Bavarian favorite game Eisstockschiessen, which is similar to shuffleboard but on ice and with disc-like objects that weigh almost 2 kilos.

Another thing that has really intrigued me about this trip so far has been the other students in my program. I have met many already and will likely develop great friendships. It is nice to have to have so many people (including my German roommates, which I will talk about next) able and willing to discuss politics in depth. However not everything has impressed me about everyone. 

It is still early in the program, but so many of my colleagues seem to have an attitude that this program is first an opportunity to party and second an opportunity to learn. I personally came with the idea that me and my parents were spending a lot of money for me to first have a career and life benefitting learning experience and second to explore and enjoy my new surroundings. For me the first and second go hand in hand, but I none-the-less feel that not everyone has the same level and feeling of responsibility and obligation to put forth one's best effort.  However, as time has passed I have found more and more people that share my views and it has been encouraging. 

The roommates. This has been an awesome surprise. My roommates so far (flatm

ates is better term since we all have our own rooms but shared bathrooms and kitchen) have been great. They are very helpful, instantly welcomed me into their circle,

 and are fun to hangout with and be around. Last night after making burgers together (I introduced them to adding butter to a toasted bun/butterburger) we played tabletop Fussball and then a game of poker. One is making cartoon characters of all of us with typical things

 we do/eat/drink to put on the outside of our door so that other people know who lives here. One roommate, Christoph is an English major and enjoys reading the Economist. We've already had some good discussions. This is my room to the right, prior to any decorating.

All in all es geht gut. Today we snowshoed to the highest point in the German Black Forest (see pic above). Classes start Monday, and we already have our first trip to Berlin and the Baltics on the 29th of January! Apparently we only have three or four weekends where nothing is planned for us. Here's to a busy, action-packed semester!

Some Good and Bad in Crossing the Pond

My United Airlines plane for my flight from Minneapolis to Chicago arrived on time, but apparently needed it’s tires pumped, and that delayed our boarding time to Chicago by 45 minutes. My flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was originally supposed to depart about 1 hour 55 minutes after my MSP to Chicago flight, but due to circumstances beyond my control, that turned into 55 minutes between flights at one of the worst airports for delays. Uh-oh.

Sure enough, our flight taxied up to the terminal in Chi-town about 5 minutes before the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt was supposed to depart. Luckily, the two gates were literally 4 gates apart. I ran. I got there. They said the gate was shut. Now what? Well thanks to the amazing people at Lufthansa, the plane didn’t taxi yet so they opened the doors, gave me a boarding pass and sent me on. My luggage didn't make it and is still MIA after 3 days (thanks United Airlines).

Once aboard I started heading back to the economy section where I assumed my ticket was supposed to be. But lo and behold, I am in row twelve, BUSINESS CLASS!!!! Apparently since it is a Sunday night, not many business people are heading to Frankfurt, and since I arrived so late, they knew no other business people were coming and upgraded me. My pictures hopefully give you an idea of what all Business Class in Lufthansa is all about. I had two seats to myself! By the way, if all that food and television were too stressful, all one needed to do was hit the massage button on the control (or one of the other four seat adjustment buttons) and worries would melt away. The meal pictured here was "Vorspeisen" or the "appetizer."