The Language Barrier

Jenny's right. Baylor is more Puritan than the rest of America, but I bet you'd still be hard pressed to find a dorm with a bar in it. Anyway, last night was really fun. Manuela also invited some of her friends to join us, and so I ended up having drinks with two Italians, a French girl, (What do you call people from France anyway? Franks?), a Serb, a Luxembourger, another American, and another guy whose nationality I couldn't figure out because he didn't talk much. We all decided that we should only speak German. This was really interesting, considering none of us are fluent in it. I still had a lot of fun, though. Manuela, Claudia, and I had fun talking about the Italian and American versions of certain television shows and movies. Mainly Mary Poppins. They would sing a line from one of the songs in Italian, and then ask me to sing the same line back in English. They thought the English version of Chim Chimney (or however you spell that) was really funny. Also Manuela wanted to know what the English version of Donald Duck's nephews are. (It took me a moment to figure out what she wanted to know because she asked me, in German of course, ''What are the names of Doonalt Dook's three children?''). She thought the names Huey, Duey, and Louie were hilarious. The Italian version is something like Quack, Quirk, and Quark.
Today has been really frustrating because I haven't used any English. Even though Claudia knows English, we still only speak German with each other in our attempt to be able to speak it comfortably. In the cafeteria I ate with Claudia and five other Italians which I didn't know. Even though the rule is we should only speak German, they cheated a lot and spoke Italian, so half the time I had no idea what was going on. After we ate, they wanted to go out for Italian coffee, so I tagged along, and then decided from now on, I will only go to Starbucks for my coffee, because Italian coffee is way, way, way to strong. So is German. Its also pretty disgusting. This morning I went to Cafe Europa (German Java City), and got Milschkaffe. It tasted like milk with a shot of espresso in it. Even sugar didn't help. I was so happy when I found a Starbucks. They don't have my favorite Pumpkin Spice, but Hazelnut Chocolate makes up for it.
The cafeteria here is really different from Baylor. When you get in line, you have two choices. You can go through the line where they're serving Essen 1 and Essen 2 or you can go through the buffet line. If you go through the first line, you have a choice between two plates, each with a different meal on it, and then you pay the fixed price. If you go through the buffet line, you get what you want, and then you pay based on how much your plate weighs. (?) There is no ice anywhere and the only water you can get is carbonated mineral water (really disgusting). Also, the food isn't that good. I'll never complain about the Baylor cafeterias again. Its so much better.
I had the chance to hang out with the Americans last night too, but they wanted to go to the bar in the dorm and play Beer Pong, something which they were amazed I didn't know about. Somehow, I didn't think that was a good idea. By the way, what exactly is Beer Pong? (I wasn't told. I guess they thought I should just experience it).
I signed up to go to Heidelberg today, and I can't wait for this weekend. I also signed up to go to Strasbourg, and Mannheim. There was one other city which I could have signed up for, but the entire trip consisted of touring New Age art museums, and that didn't sound very interesting. I really want to go to Mannheim, but I didn't have a choice about Strasbourg, because its a requirement for the seminar I signed up for. By the way, in order to get full credit for this course you have to sign up for two seminars held in the afternoon. Right now I'm doing one on the European Union, and next week I'll do one on Intercultural Competence. I also might do the one on German Film History, and see what I'm missing in the class that I would have been taking with Jenny.
Anyway, that's all for today. Bis Morgen!