Phillip in the Motherland

So… I have been forgetting…

So, es tut mir leid, I keep forgetting to update this.  So…hmm what was last? Nürnberg?  Ok.

So for the first long weekend I stayed in town except for to go to the salt mines outside of Salzberg.  Not gonna lie, it was pretty cool.  We took a mini train down into the mine and then walked around in it on foot.  

Slides brought us even lower.  I know, slides, right?  But they were really fun!

The best part was the underground salt lake.  The water was so still you’d have sworn there was no water at all.  The reflection of the ceiling of the cave on the water looked so perfect that it looked like a big empty hole… until we took a boat across it.  Talk about taking the ferry to Hades, floating on nothing.  But it was so cool!

This past weekend we visited the concentration camp in Dachau.  It was really cool, yet really creepy at the same time.  We saw where thousands of people were murdered and cremated.  It is something that just gives you the chills.  One of the coolest most creepy things I have ever done was stand in the gas chamber.  Chilling.

We also visited the Deutsches Museum, and it was huge!  There is a ton of stuff there, unfortunately like half of the exhibits were out of order and covered due to construction.  Oh well…

This next weekend I really want to go somewhere but I don’t know where, since I haven’t been able to travel outside of the city yet.  Any suggestions?

Well, this is all from me.  I’ll put a couple pics on here later. 

Our Erste Excursion

This weekend we went to Nürnberg, oder Nuremberg auf English. When we arrived we checked in to the youth hostel by the airport, which was actually not a bad place to stay.  And there was a surprising lack of youth…

On Saturday we toured the Stadt with two of our three professors.  One of the coolest places in Nürnberg is the Castle.  That castle is huge!  We walked around some of it, went to one of the courtyards, and took some pretty cool pictures around the castle.  This is a pic of the old moat that used to surround the castle.  In my opinion, they should refill it with water and keep it that way! 

Saturday night we found a club that was “American themed” which is in quotes because obviously it’s only their perception of American clubs.  Let me key you in:  The name of the bar was “Coyote Bar.”  Yes, like Coyote Ugly.  However, they did not have any American beer :/  Which is ok I guess because German beer is better, but if you want to be an American establishment, at least server some Buds.

Today consisted of a long haul back on the train and a visit to the modern art museum in Munich.  Which had some interesting things, but honestly some of it I wonder about.  Just like this one display which was LITERALLY a mound of dried clay on top of some hay sitting to the right of a rotary dial telephone.  It was called “Earth Telephone,” or something like that in German.  I mean c’mon.  There were also cars that were literally just compacted like at the junkyard, and other things that aren’t really art, or old, like a display of PlayStation 2s.  Yeah…

So now I’m incredibly tired and ready to pass out, even though it’s only 8pm.

Tschüß!

In Munich for the 4th

The 4th of July in Munich was pretty fun.  Unfortunately we did not get the day off for class :(  but we did go out after.  

We started with a trip to a small pond by one of the small towns, and we all hung out there for a while.  Then after we decided enough pond was enough, we ventured into downtown Munich for a little slice of patriotism.

We went into Hard Rock Cafe and it was crowded and loud.  They had a live band playing to celebrate the 4th and they had decorations of America everywhere.  Awesome.  I asked for a table for twelve, expecting over an hours wait but we got sat in under 5 minutes.  Impressive, right?

When our waitress came to take our order, We started ordering in German like we’re used to.  Only to then have the waitress tell us that she doesn’t speak but a few words of German, like thank you and you’re welcome.  Awesomely American.

When the dinner festivities commenced we stepped outside and lit up the sparklers that my host mom gave me for our celebrations.  One thing led to another, and about 20 or 25 people had sparklers going at once and we were all singing the American national anthem at the top of our lungs.

Patriotastic.  That should be a word.

First Weekend

So this weekend started out pretty fun with a tour of the Bavarian Film Studios.  They made the movie Das Boot, remember?  With the submarine?  Well I went through that very U-Boot.  It was really cool!  They also made the Never Ending Story and other films.  

Then last night there was a music festival in Gröbenzell.  There was live music at all of the bars in Groby.  The best part was on the street closest to where I live, the bands were playing music from AC/DC, Van Halen, Elvis, and I even heard a Flogging Molly song.  Pretty sweet.  I just wonder how many of those singers actually know the meaning to the words they were singing.

Today my host Dad took me to see the Nymphenburg Castle.  We didn’t take a tour of the inside, but we walked around the park on the outside.  And by park I pretty much mean forest.  It was really big, and really cool.  

I’ve been doing homework all day and it really is not fun… :/  Literally all day.  I woke up around noon for breakfast/lunch and started my homework at 1:30ish, took a break around 5 to see the Castle, came back for dinner at 7, and started homework again at 8:30ish.  I’m currently taking another break because it’s just too much German in one sitting for me to handle.  Also it’s about 10 o’clock.  Yeah, it’s a lot of homework.  Hopefully it will just help improve my German though, which as of now isn’t very good.

I keep trying my best to think things in German, be they small sentences.  The more I think in German, the more I will be able to speak in German.  That’s how it works, right?  I hope so.

The first Freitag

Ok so yesterday, since I didn’t write, I thought I should inform you all, whoever reads this, as to my experiences.  I had my first Wiener Schnitzel.  It was delicious.  The ketchup they gave me with the fries was darker and richer than the ketchup in America, and it was also really good.  Something about Germany plus food equals friggin’ delicious.  

Today My host father and brother took me to a Mexican restaurant in Dachau.  It was different than the Mexican food in America, but it was still really good.  And darn it, I’m just realizing that I should’ve had a margarita in the name of Puerto’s in Muncie.  Oh well, next time.

Tomorrow my host father is planning on taking me to the Munich film studios.  Too bad we didn’t go yesterday because freaking John Malkovich was in Munich.  I read that in the paper this morning.  Go me.  But seriously, John Malkovich?!  I wish I could’ve met him.

Also tomorrow is a music fest in Gröbenzell.  There will be a live band at each of the biergarten’s in Gröbenzell and I am looking forward to bar crawling with friends and my host family.

My fellow Gröbenzellite and I have come up with a term to call us in the town.  ”Grobys.”  Genius, right?

Ok, so it is time for bed.  Tchüß!

In case you were wondering where I am…

View Where I am in Germany in a larger map

Day Nummer 2

Today was a good fun day.  We first had yet another orientation to the program, but this one basically went over etiquette, all of which I thought was common sense.  We got our local cell phones which I’m pretty sure were made in 1995…literally… We also traveled about the old part of Munich, which was really cool.

I forgot to bring my camera to take pictures, but we went to Marienplatz and Altenplatz along with other old places around Munich.  The pigeons there will not move for anything, and I was really tempted to just kick one.  I did not, however.  

As we were walking through Munich, I witnessed people surfing on a river.  Yeah, that’s right, literally surfing on a river.  There is a place in the river where the water comes out from under the bridge in such a manner that forms a constant flow of perfect surfing wave.  The oddest place to have a market for wet suits and surfboards must be Munich.

After that we went to the Hofbrauhaus.  Delicious beer and pretzels.  We went later in the day so the pretzels weren’t so fresh, but they were still delicious all the same.

It’s funny how there are all these differences to America yet still similar.  Like the lightning bugs for example.  They still glow, yes, but they are a tad bluer, and instead of three seconds lit, three seconds off, three seconds lit, etc., they stay lit for thirty seconds or a minute and then are off for thirty seconds.  

I found in my room last night a very familiar book.  Maybe you recognize it?

Awesome.

So, das wars alles von mir.

The first…over 30 hours…

So I woke up on Monday morning, bright and early to arrive at the airport three hours ahead of time like we were supposed to do.  We ended up waiting at the airport for half the group which had either already gone through security or hadn’t shown up yet, and finally decided we should just go through security.  …which took literally less than two minutes.  Crazy, right?

The first flight was very short, Louisville to Atlanta, 50 minutes.  Not bad.  Then we had a three hour layover in Atlanta, where we visited the Heineken Bar and Grill…got a shitty sandwich for 7 dollars and a beer for 7 dollars more.  If one beer is 7 dollars, it’s an automatic keep the glass special right?   …Yeah I thought so too.  By the way, 7 dollar beers and plastic forks.  That place sucked.

The second flight was damn near ten hours.  Of which I slept…none.  I tried to go to sleep but by the time I would normally go to sleep in America, 1:30ish, we were landing in Munich at 7:30ish in the morning…already light out and everything.

Once clearing customs and boarding the S-Bahn (train) to our meeting place, I realized something.  The railways in America suck.  They feel like the cars are riding on the ties instead of the tracks.  The trains in Germany are amazing.  I swear if I didn’t know better I’d think it was the same as the magnetic monorail in Disney World.  The train was that smooth.  And yes, it travels on the same (ok maybe slightly different, but same looking nonetheless) type of rail as the trains do in America.

Our first meeting place was an Italian restaurant in Germany.  Makes sense right?  The food there was good.  Obviously I got a pizza (because I’m so adventurous).  It was really good.  I also had my first taste of authentic German beer.  Delicious.  And my first taste of Coca-Cola Light (diet coke for Germans).  That tasted like a mix of Diet Coke, Coke Zero, and Tab Cola.  It wasn’t bad, but it’s not the same.

We then got to meet up with our host families.  Basically all of my host family speaks English, broken or damn near perfect.  Which is good initially I think so I can be easily acquainted with the area and everything, but may get to be not so good later on when I’m actually trying to learn German.  I really like them though, they’re good people.

My host parents and I basically toured all of the town in which I’m staying:  Gröbenzell.  It is really not that big of a place, but it’s quaint.

I have to power through at least another two hours of non sleep so I can try to start with my sleep pattern in some sort of regularity.  

This is all I can rack by brain about from the past couple days.  Coming to follow, pictures of the flight.  Pics of Germany to come later.

On the way to Greatness!

I just arrived in the hotel in Louisville the night before I leave for Germany.  I just decided that I want to keep a blog about the trip because everyone will always be bugging me about what I did and things I saw.  

Not much to report so far other than I am getting excited for being able to finally go to Germany and that I am getting nervous about speaking nothing but German for six weeks.