Weimar

I'm really getting quite behind, but luckily (aside from a presentation) nothing very important happened besides last weekend, so I can catch up. My photos do a good job recording most of the important things that I leave out of this blog.

Welcome to Weimar! (credit: Google Auto-Awesome)

This past weekend I traveled to Weimar for the second weekend trip with the university. The same bus driver with the same bus came to pick us up at the same place, but he took us somewhere completely different than the previous weekend: the city at the center of German culture. The bus ride was very fun, because I found some people that I at least recognized from either lunches or the previous weekend, and we easily started talking. It took about 4 hours to reach Weimar from Berlin, but I remember it passing quite quickly.

Göthe's statue inside an outdoor stage

Weimar is a small little town of 70,000 or so people. It is really quite amazing how small it is when you learn about how much German history has taken place in this town. We jumped off the bus and loaded our bags into the locker room of the hostel again (I had packed even less than last time, so I just kept my backpack) and then we headed off to the center of town, where we were going to meet our tour guides after a short break. 17 people who had bought tickets had decided not to show up, so we were a much smaller group. After a quick lunch at a restaurant on the central square (I didn't have the famous Thüringen Bratwurst, and I am going to be regretting that for a while), we met up with the tour guides.

Because the group was small enough, they were able to split the groups up into a German language group and an English language group. I happily chose the German side, and he immediately began telling us all about Göthe, the most famous of the people from Weimar. He then told us about Schiller, Beethoven, Nietzsche, and more while we walked through the city. It is a pretty beautiful city, and I enjoyed hearing all the tour in German (and understanding most of it), but the most obvious thing I noticed is that all of the most famous houses were yellow. I had a lot of fun, but that was the part that stuck out to me. We then had some ice cream (I had my first "Heiß und Eis" where they have ice cream with hot berries...it was great, but not as good as I remember. I'll keep trying) between the tour of the city and the tour of Göthe's house.

His house was FILLED with statues

Our second tour of the day was through the famous house and collections of Göthe. This was fun, but not very interesting to me. After the tour we went back to the youth hostel and checked in. Then a bunch of us went across the street to try to get some dinner or drinks (water for me). The drinks were there, but it turned out to be only a tapas bar. Still, the chairs were really comfortable and we were sitting around a huge round table, so I enjoyed it. We talked a bunch and I tasted some cheese that literally tasted like the way a cave smells. One of the more surprising things about the trip. After the biergarten, we trecked back into town in search of food. We ended up spending some time at a good Turkish place. Tired, we tredged back home (after laughing and talking for hours) and went to sleep.

Perfect weather for a concentration camp

The next day, we packed up and headed to the more depressing part of our trip: Buchenwald. The weather was perfect: drizzly and grey. I had been looking forward to getting the opportunity to visit a concentration camp. I have been very interesting in how all of this could possibly happen. This time I chose the English guide, in order to understand absolutely all of what was said. (Though I realized halfway through that I am about adept enough at German that I get about the same information: either the guide stumbles through English and I understand everything, although he can't convey everything perfectly; or I stumble through German, and I catch about the main points. It was a fun realization.)

The US Army showed up at 3:15 on April 11, 1945. The clock at the
entrance to the camp is stopped to that time

The guide was excellent. he made everything very real, and must have been an actor as well, because he was able to finish off his talks about different things very well. He even would re-enact some things regarding the camp, like calling the prisoners to the gate, which made a strong impression. He also imparted some special tidbits which were very interesting to know (for example: the name for a concentration camp in German is Konzentrationslage. Normally, when you abbreviate words in German, you take the two first letters of the word, so here K and L, and that is your abbreviation: Kl, and thus all of the official papers in the SS had Kl written on them. The Germans realized, however, that if they abbreviated it Kz for KonZentrationslage, it sounds much more evil. The way to say those two letters in German is "Ka-Tzet". Much more intimidating to the ear, and thus that was the abbreviation used for the populous.).

It looks creepy no matter how you see it

During our tour, we saw the layout of the camp, the crematorium, and a recreation of a place set up to exterminate Soviet soldiers. Buchenwald was just a labor camp, so there were no big extermination centers like at Auschwitz. The area was much less developed though, giving it the impression of being more real. Very very intense. I found it all very interesting, but it did take me some time to cheer up after leaving the place.

All in all, a great tour and a great trip. Less than two weeks left until the end of this term! Man does the time fly by.

Hamburg

Yes, this is a belated post, but I have had a lot to do this past week and haven't totally felt like sitting down to write about it.

The Bus

Last weekend we travelled to Hamburg. We rode in an absolutely beautiful bus which was all inclusive. There were wood floors between the seats, a bathroom, curtains, a button to make the seats a little wider apart if you wanted to...even a button to call an attendant for drink service (didn't work, sadly, but trying it was a nerve wracking experience). I sat next to Claire, a girl from my class, and behind Varun, another classmate. Claire, as I fully discovered through the eyes of this trip, is absolutely full of energy. Varun on the other hand, is practically silent. This made my Saturday very interesting and somewhat confusing. The bus left at 7:30, so I had to get up at about 6:15, which meant I was exhausted. I am not totally sure why it hit me so hard that weekend, but I was out for the count.

The bathroom was a little small

Nonetheless, I stayed awake throughout the car ride, and the rest of the day. We drove about 3 hours until stopping for a small break (mostly to buy food apparently, though many people used the bathrooms that you had to pay for instead of the one on the bus...I'm not totally sure why). We finally got to Hamburg at about 11-ish and unpacked our bags into the luggage room at the youth hostel so we could explore the city before the check-in time of 4:30.

We then walked to the middle of Hamburg to get our train passes and have some lunch. The chaperons had some trouble initially getting the train passes, so we went off to lunch first. Varun, Claire and I travelled around the square a bit looking for a good place to eat before choosing a fun Italian restaurant where you get a card when you enter and for each thing you get from the counters of chefs preparing your pasta in front of you, you hold your card up to a thing and they say what it is. After the ordering you go back to the cashier and pay. Very cool. I had some good pesto pasta.

Where we waited for the tour guide

We then went on a tour of the city. I wanted to do a German tour, but there weren't enough people who could speak good enough German to take a tour in it. The tour guide was great regardless. He was very funny and very approachable. We learned all about the city, the fire, and more. We ended by some docks and then headed back to the youth hostel to check in.

After checking in, Varun and I wanted to collapse in bed, but Claire's endless energy compelled us to go out to visit Michael's church. This is a very famous church in Hamburg, but sadly it was closed when we tried to get in. Varun and I were about ready to collapse, so we got some food (and he got some coffee) before deciding what to do next. We wanted to watch the Germany game, but we didn't want to stand the whole time or it be really loud. We found a fun place in a plaza to watch, but it was very loud. In the end we went to a café on the side of the plaza to watch. It got really cold and we headed inside to another tv.

After the game (which ended in a tie) we went back to the hostel to sleep. Claire was planning on waking up at 6 am the next morning to explore the town but both Varun and I opted out of that one.

The Queen Mary II is a big ship

After a great breakfast at the hostel, we went on a boat tour of the harbor. This was very very cool because there were many HUGE container ships (which made me think of Captain Phillips) and even the Queen Mary II was in the harbor. This is just a massive ship building, and ship holding area, and it was fun to experience. We even got to watch tug boats maneuvering a ship through the harbor.

The big ship and me!

After a long bus ride home, in which we watched "Easy A" and then got to see the GPS on the TVs somewhat like in an airplane, I collapsed into bed. I got a little sick on that trip, but I have since mostly recovered and just have to blow my nose every once in a while.

Hamburg and more

This past weekend I traveled to Hamburg. It was the first of two excursions I am doing this term, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only thing I would have changed was how early we left on Saturday, because I think that I would have enjoyed it even more with a little more sleep even if it meant sacrificing an hour of our 2 hour long lunch break.

I last wrote on Wednesday, so I have a lot to catch up on...

After school on Thursday, I watched a movie called "Soul Kitchen," which was about a man who owned a restaurant in Hamburg. I liked it more than the movie before, but not as much as the first movie. It was funny at parts and overall a good movie, in my opinion.

On Friday, I had a "Zwischenprüfung," or midterm. It was much more difficult than I had expected, and had some questions that I had absolutely no clue on (afterwards I found out that they went over those before I was in the class...so I don't feel too bad about that). It consisted of a listening element, where we listened to the news from the day before and answered some questions about it; a vocabulary element, which I considered pretty hard because some words were on there that I had no idea I was supposed to know; a grammar element, which I found pretty easy except for a conjunctions fill in the blank; a reading element about sleeping; and an essay element, where we were supposed to write 150 words about something. All of which in 90-100 minutes. Luckily I test quickly.

We received our grades on Monday, and I received a 77%, which while it was lower than I have ever gotten on a German test, I think it is also very representative of the amount of material I learned so far. I think learning almost 80% of the new material in 3 weeks of intensive class is good. I like the German grading system more because it is more representative of the amount you learned, and gives me a higher goal to attain. The American system makes it far too easy to get an A, in my opinion.

After school I had a meeting with the gym trainer, Sebastain, to check out how fit I am. After doing the test I am convinced they give bad grades to make people think they should come in. They measured height, weight, body fat, bike endurance, balance, strength, and flexibility. He was very serious about the whole thing, and had me make an appointment for Monday (yesterday) to create a fitness plan. While I was laughing over the judgement process, I was looking forward to getting a plan, as I expected some pretty intense elements to result from such harsh grading.

Sadly, I was disappointed. We made some random plan, not at all focusing on my goals for the summer (build endurance and continue to get faster). I will give it about one day's worth of effort then go back to the plan that Matt is making for us.

I was thinking about writing about Hamburg as well in this post, but I have lost the energy, and wouldn't be able to give it the recap it deserves. That will wait until likely tomorrow.

A Mauer Video

Later today (hopefully) I will write up a new post about my weekend in Hamburg, but first I wanted to share the video about the Berlin Wall that I really like because it has a computer generated depiction of all of the measures installed in the wall. I first saw this one in 2010, and then again when visiting the museum at Bernauer Straße. I am currently writing an essay about the wall, so I wanted to find it for myself, and happily I did!

Busy Days

Well, it has been a combination of busy days and the WM at night keeping me from updating this blog. Spain just lost to Chile in a very interesting game after the Netherlands beat Australia! Now Chile and the Netherlands are guaranteed in to the bracket play, while Spain has been eliminated. My host family is psyched about this because Christa is from the Netherlands.

I haven't written anything since Sunday, so there is much to catch up on!

The crowd was huge

On Monday we had class, but then directly afterwards we took off to Fanmeile to join the crowd watching the Germany v Portugal game. Fanmeile occurs on the street between the Victory Column and the Brandenburg Gate. Basically the city sets up tons of huge TVs and lots of vendors show up, and tons of Germans watch the game there. It was a great atmosphere, and I picked some some fun Germany gear as well. Germany won, which made it even better, although I would have preferred a better game. They do this for every Germany group game, and every quarter, semi and final after that, so I will have another chance to go, if I want.

Half of the Deutsch-swag I got

On Tuesday after class, I went to practice with the ultimate team here, Wall City. On Tuesdays the second team (which I am "on") plays the first team. This was a ton of fun, and I played very well, though my quads tightened up and I stopped 2/3 of the way through the game because I didn't want to strain anything. We ended up winning the game, which I found very odd, seeing as that must imply the second team is about the same caliber as the first team. People were really trying to, so I am a bit confused about the team dynamic here. What was very fun was they actually use what is called the "German offense" (in the States) as a play...and it works great! I played very well the first couple of points until I put it a bit on the back burners because of my legs. Sadly I won't be able to play another game like this because I am not going to any of the tournaments. The team wants to keep these Tuesday practices for only full members of the team. I will still go on the Fridays when I can though.

Hamburger Bahnhof

Today we visited the Hamburger Bahnhof, which is a train station that has been converted into a modern art gallery. Now, I know that I am not much of an art person, but it is REALLY tough to know what is going on when you are looking at some of these pieces.

I spent 10 minutes with a classmate trying to figure out
if this was a chair or an art piece. Still don't know.

I mostly enjoyed the exhibits, though a couple really freaked me out. After the museum we went to a great Indonesian-Thai place and had a huge lunch for only about 6 Euros (although I added on some Guave nectar because it tastes amazing, so that brought me up to 11). After that I went to a fitness studio here and signed up for a 2 month contract. This was the only one that I could find that allowed me to do a contract less than one year, and they look good. They have some odd things going on though: As with all German fitness places, they have a sauna and shower that the people can use. HOWEVER, even though they have a sauna, it would cost me 10 euros more a month to use the TAP FOR WATER. It literally has a key that you need to use to use the tap. UNBELIEVABLE. I think they are including some personal training sessions and developing a plan with the price though, so all in all I really don't understand German fitness places. Very expensive, but very odd with what they are giving out.

This one was sort of cool, but the title was
"I think this was a pine tree." Artists are odd creatures

Friday is my  midterm, so I will be preparing for that tomorrow, but I am meeting with the fitness studio to do a physical (yeah, they wanted to do that too) after school on Friday, so that will be interesting. It is at 6, so depending on how long it takes, I might go to ultimate afterwards.