Classes, Wonderful News, and Future Travel Plans

Hello Everyone! Thanks for waiting so long for me to update. I have lots of questions to answer and lots of stuff to talk about! First off, the semester has finally begun. This feels really weird, because I keep getting e-mails from Baylor people/groups that say things like "Don't study too hard for finals!". I wont be taking my finals until the end of July, and even then I only have two real finals, one for Written German and one for English Literature. For Oral German, I need to give a short presentation, and for the German Literature class I'm taking, all I need to do is print out my notes at the end of the semester and give them to the professor. I'm sure that sounds like the easiest class in the world, but its really hard to take good notes when your German skills are only at the intermediate level and your professor speaks at the collegiate level. I don't have this problem in my other classes because English Lit. is taught in English and the other two classes are designed for international students and the professors are really easy to understand. Fortunately for me, two of my roommates are also taking the German Lit. class, and they've offered to help me. It feels really weird to have each of my classes only one day a week and to have two days in the week on which I don't have class. Also, even though the semester is so short, there's plenty of holidays/breaks. If I calculated correctly, the actual amount of time I'll be spending in class here would be equal to a month of classes at Baylor. And this is a normal German semester! (They have a Winter/Summer semesters instead of our Fall/Spring semesters). One of my roommates was totally shocked to learn that we get a three month break in the summer!
Anyway, to answer Katie's question, a "WG Essen" is just a term we came up with to describe our monthly meal together. (WG stands for Wohngemeinschaft, the apartment/dorm type place we're living in, and "Essen" means "meal" or "food" in German). We decided to have a BBQ outside. More like the German version of a BBQ, which didn't involve BBQ and was a lot healthier. We had grilled pork steaks and turkey sausages, and a ton of grilled vegetables and a vegetable salad. It was really good and I got to practice my German a lot. My roommates kind of roped me into cooking Mexican food for them on Monday night. Every other Monday one person is supposed to cook a meal for the other five. In deciding this, they asked me what my favorite meal was, to which I promptly replied, "chicken enchiladas". They asked if I could cook Mexican food, and upon hearing my affirmative, it was five to one on who would be cooking on Monday night. So tomorrow, I have to spend my day hunting down Mexican food ingredients or similar things with which I can use to improvise. (Shopping on a Sunday is not an option in Germany).

On to my really great news! I just realized I've never mentioned this on my blog, but right before I left for Germany, I got e-mails from Dr. Good and Dr. McGlashan saying they wanted to nominate any junior German majors who wanted to go for a seminar called the Graduate School Experience in German studies at the University of Minnesota. They said the selection process was very competitive, only 15 students in the country would get to go, and if their nomination was successful the trip would be free, covered by a scholarship provided by DAAD. Anyway, I asked to be nominated and my nomination was successful! Yay! Unfortunately, my schedule is going to be a bit tight when I get back, because I'll only have two weeks before I leave for Minnesota, and then I'll get back from Minnesota two days before classes start at Baylor. Not fun, but it'll be worth it.
Anyway, do you remember that German Department scholarship I said I applied for? Well, anyway, I won it! I am SOO happy! I even won more than I won last year! (That could be because there are less German majors this year, but I'd prefer not to think of it that way). Anyway, I've been on Cloud Nine for a week now.
On a more upsetting note, I was forced to take an "Incomplete" for Independent Readings this semester, mainly because stupid Amazon.com just informed me that they recently discovered that they never had in stock one of the books I ordered. Mind you, they tell me this THREE MONTHS after I order it. ????? Anyway, I reordered it through Barns & Noble, and it should arrive next week. (Assuming it doesn't take them a ridiculous amount of time to realize they don't actually have it).

Anyway, at the end of May, there are no classes for a week due to some sort of Catholic holiday. (I think). Kandra and I have decided to travel together to the east part of Germany and to Austria. I'm SOO excited! Our main stops will include Neuschwanstein Castle, Innsbruck, Hitler's Eagle's Nest, and Salzburg. Unfortunately, we wont be going to Vienna. It was part of the original plan until we added up the cost and saw that would be going over our travel budget (even though we're planning on staying in youth hostels and living off of peanut butter and jelly). So we had to either cut out Salzburg or Vienna, and we both agreed to cut out Vienna. Oh, well. Hopefully, I'll get another opportunity in the future.

Finally to answer Jenny's questions. I've been thinking about going to Indiana for graduate school for a while now, I guess I just never mentioned that to you. Sorry. That's not set in stone, though. I also have a couple of other schools in mind and I've also considered applying for a Fulbright Scholarship. We'll have to see. And as much as I'd like to tell you that "Freddy" is some hot German guy I've met, the truth is that "Freddy" is my brother's online name. Please don't ask.

Anyway, that's all for now! I'll update soon!
Ciao!

Update! (Finally)

Okay, I'm really sorry that I haven't updated for ten days, but I've been trying to accumulate stuff to talk about. Okay, here goes.
I've finally finished up all the paper work issues I need to deal with and can finally settle down a bit. The Intensive Course ended last Thursday and since then I've been on "vacation". Unfortunately, this included doing research for Dr. Wisely, which I am really, super, super, behind on even now. I've only written about one page of the paper I need to write for him, that's already overdue. (Though its not too bad because it needs to be two to four pages, and I've already started the next book, so I should be able to catch up easily).
I also had to run around doing paper work junk. I finally finished filling out my lease for my WG, and am now an official student of the university, and also an official temporary resident of Germany, so I wont be deported. (Not that I was really worried about that).
I did do a bit of exploring during the break. Last Saturday, the day it snowed in Texas, (which weirdly enough was really hot here), I went to a nature park on the outskirts of town called the Bergwelt Schauinsland. The park is up in the mountains, so in order to get to it, you can either be really lame and take a bus, or you can take the gondola. I totally thought of how much Katie would have enjoyed the gondola ride, considering I know you feel having one at Baylor would make it a top-rate university. Its the longest gondola ride in the world, (no kidding), lasting forty minutes, there and back. While up there, all I did was walk around on the trials, take pictures of the mountains, and collect rocks for my rock collection. There were a couple of museums there and a mini zoo, but it too far away for me to walk to and manage to catch the last gondola back down the mountain.
Today, Kandra (one of the other girls from Baylor) and I went to the very touristy town of Titisee. We decided to hike around the lake (FYI "see" means "lake" auf Deutsch), and look through all the shops. We also packed our lunch so we could save money. It was a really cheap excursion, and I had lots of fun. My feet were really hurting by the time I got home, though.
Tonight, I went to a beer garden with some of the people who were in the language course. And no, sorry, I didn't drink a beer. Maybe I'll have one to celebrate Jenny's graduation.
I just want to say that I have some really great roommates. (Even though a bag of pasta I bought is now mysteriously missing). They're really helpful with my German and everything else. Next week, all six of us are going to go out for a "WG Essen". I'm really excited about it.
Monday I finally start class. I'm taking four classes, two through the language school and two through the university itself: Oral German, German Writing Skills, An Overview of German Literary History II, and also An Introduction to Literary Studies. (The last one is not a German class, but the one that Baylor will count as British Literature). The classes are each two hours long, and are each only one day a week. So I have two classes on Monday, one on Tuesday, and one on Thursday. Not the most ideal schedule, but I didn't really get a choice.
Okay, that's all for now. I'll try to be a bit more prompt in my updates.
Auf Wiedersehen!

New Dorm, Mexican Food and Foreignors, and Grocery Shopping

Okay, I just told Jenny I wasn't going to update today because of problems with my power converters, but I'm going to try anyway. First thing, is that I moved into my new dorm on Thursday, and I absolutely love it! I have five roommates and we each get a key to a flat. Inside, is sir rooms, a kitchen, a living room, and two bathrooms. I have such a huge room! Its way bigger than my room at Memorial. The bathroom is the size of a broom closet, but oh, well. I'm really happy to have a complete kitchen, complete with dishes. I can cook for myself now! I'm so happy. I totally can't do that at Baylor considering I share one kitchen with about two hundred other people. Three of my roommates are guys, which is really weird. One of them came and introduced himself to me in the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth. Its really hard to speak German around a mouthful of toothpaste.
Anyway, last night one of the other girls from Baylor asked me to go eat with her at that Mexican restaurant I talked about. She also invited four of her friends, an Italian, two French girls, and a girl from England (What do you call them? Franks and Brits?), none of whom have ever eaten Mexican food before. It was funny when they wanted to know the proper way to eat a taco or roll up a fajita. I'm really sad that their first introduction to Mexican food was warped by German culture. Kandra and I explained (or more so Kandra than me, considering her German is much better) that Mexican food is much better in Texas.
Anyway, I went shopping today at a store called Real-. Its kind of like Wal-Mart. Some of the German food packaging/items were really funny. For example, some of the milk isn't kept cold, and you buy American salad dressing, like we buy Italian and French. The salad dressing flavors were really weird. I finally decided to try Jogurt Zitrone (yogurt lemon). Hopefully that doesn't taste bad. I also bought a laundry bag that had its size on the outside of the package in metric units. I assumed it would be large because it was a laundry bag, but I honestly don't think that it could hold more than three outfits. Oh, well. I'm really glad I bought it anyway, because I forgot that German grocery stores make you bag your own groceries in a bag you bring. Oops. People were giving me funny stares while I was tearing open the packaging around the laundry bag and then when I was lugging a laundry bag full of groceries onto the tram.
Okay, I think that's all for now. I still have lots of paperwork/registration issues to deal with, so please pray for me!
Just for you Daddy....Allfeetarethesame!
(We'll see how many people get that.)