"Totes Tier" is not a German speciality.

OK, I'm finally going to update again! I am so jealous that everyone is finished with junior year/senior year. I'm only in the fourth week of the semester and I have almost "keine Lust" to do schoolwork. When the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the Alps are beckoning, and on your way to class you see people enjoying themselves at the outdoor cafes, eating ice cream, and just plain having a good ol' time, studying just doesn't seem to fit into all that. ::sigh:: So much for summer vacation. Actually I will get a vacation at the end of May, but it definitely wont be for R&R. Since Kandra and I are hoping to see as much of Bavaria and Austria as possible in five days, we decided to add more time to our trip by cutting out sleep and traveling at night. I feel like I should wear one of those "Sleep is overrated" T-shirts from Common Grounds, even though normally that is not my opinion. Only when I'm exploring Europe. Speaking of which, we are going to spend two days in Vienna! It turned out to be in our budget after all. I'm so excited! We've already bought our train tickets and booked rooms at the youth hostels, so there's no going back now.
Anyway, tonight I cooked Mexican food for my roommates. I know I said I was going to do that last week, but one of them couldn't make it last week, so it was moved to this Monday. (Actually, he didn't show up tonight, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway). I went shopping on Friday for the ingredients and that had to be the most tiring thing I've done so far, outside of the snow hike. I went to four different stores in search of jalapenos with no luck. I also couldn't find enchilada sauce, but I wasn't really expecting to find that anyway. However, I found some other random spicy pepper and used that instead, and I used queso instead of enchilada sauce. Fortunately, one store had an international aisle and I managed to find refried beans, tortillas, and tortilla chips. So the entire meal consisted of enchiladas, refried beans, rice, guacamole, and pico de gallo. My roommates said they loved it and one of them wants the recipe. I was so proud of myself.
During the meal, we discussed who would be making the next WG Essen. My roommate Daniel volunteered and said he didn't know what he was going to make but most likely "totes Tier" with some vegetables. I thought "totes Tier" was just one word and asked him if that was a normal German dish, at which point everyone busted out laughing and said it would be hilarious if I went into a restaurant and ordered "totes Tier". He then repeated himself slowly, at which point I realized "totes Tier" was not one word but two, and meant "dead animal". I feel so sorry for Daniel. Almost every time he speaks German with me, I completely misunderstand him. One time he wanted to know if I would have a problem if he had some friends over for a get together, to which I cheerily replied "yes". Oops. The next time he talked to me, he was trying to explain that I should make a point to buy coffee, because we don't add coffee to the list of the items that we pay each other back for, because not everyone drinks coffee. For some reason, I thought he told me that I shouldn't drink the coffee that I didn't make, and so I apologized and poured the coffee back into the coffee pot. Then tonight, he was trying to explain how to cut the herbs that he had been growing on the window, and I thought he was telling me that it was a part of my kitchen cleaning duties to cut the herbs. Fortunately, he realized what I was thinking and told me very adamantly not to cut back all the herbs he had worked so hard to grow. He was simply saying that I could use them if I wanted. Poor Daniel. Good thing he speaks English.
Anyway, I think that's all for now! Please keep updating your blogs in the summer! I love reading them! It makes me feel connected. Speaking of which, I can't believe its only five more days until Jenny graduates. It seems like it was only yesterday we went to our first Halloween Organ Concert. (Well, not really. But it still seems too soon!).
Okay, everyone, Tschuess!

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.)

Flammkuchen and my Stressful Life

Actually, the Flammkuchen thing was last night, not Monday night, so I really didn't have a lot to talk about yesterday. Flammkuchen could be called the German equivalent of pizza. It was really good, and also the first home-made thing I've eaten in a month. I had lots of fun hanging out with everybody and I got to meet a few new people. I have a really funny story about Maniwa, the Japanese girl I mentioned earlier, however I really don't know how to write about it without sounding dirty or inappropriate. I'll tell you all about it when I get back. Lets just say that the Japanese don't seem to understand the concept of ''personal space''.
Today, I am going to attempt to secure my temporary resident permit, now that I finally have the hundred other documents I need to get it. Please pray that it works out. After I get it, I should be able to matriculate to the university, get my student ID card, and an Internet password. I'm hoping to do that tomorrow morning, but we'll see. I also just realized that my bus pass is going to expire tomorrow, so I need to buy a new one. And I need to pack tonight, because I'm moving into my new dorm tomorrow afternoon. This means I should probably do my laundry tonight, which scares me a bit, considering the German washing and drying machines still confuse me. (Last time I did laundry, I didn't set the dryer right, and my clothes didn't get dry. So naturally, the smart thing to do would be to dry them again. However, you have to go to a place called the Service Point, which, of course, has stupid German office hours and is only open an hour at a time, and buy special coins to put in the machines. So if you run out of washing/drying coins and the office isn't open, you have to improvise. This means that I had all my clothes laid out to dry in every possible open space in my room for two days. Not fun.) Anyway, after I get all of this done, I should be okay. Today was the last day of my language class. Yay! My final grade was a 2, so I'm a bit disappointed, but oh, well. I learned a lot. Tomorrow, there is no class, and then on Friday, the Intensive Course starts, and that lasts for a week. I found out the other day, that only about eight other people signed up for it. This is because everyone wants to go traveling during the Easter holidays. (I'm such a nerd). After the course, I'll only have about five days to go traveling, because I also signed up for an orientation session at the university starting on the tenth. Another interesting thing I found out about German universities, is that if you want to register for a class, you simply show up and the professor will put you on the roster. Weird. I'm planning on taking all of my German classes through the language school, because I don't feel really confident about taking a German literature class with the native speakers. However, that's okay, because I registered to take Medieval German Literature next semester with my favorite German professor. You know, the one who shares my name? ; )
I do feel confident with taking British literature through the university, considering that's taught in English.
Okay, that's all for now. I don't know how often I'm going to update from now on, because tomorrow is the last day I'll get free Internet through the language school. Oh, well.
Wiedersehen!

P.S. Thanks for the camera tips!

Schneewanderung, Triff die Robinsons, und Mexikanisches Essen

Hello, everyone! I'm feeling pretty good today, considering I don't have a lot to do for once. Well, actually I need to work really hard on my research for Dr. Wisely because I'm pretty far behind. Though, I suppose that was to be expected. At least, I hope so.
Anyway, I didn't have as much fun on the snow hike as expected. Fortunately, I wasn't too cold, because I layered like crazy, but the hike lasted for two and a half hours. Two and half hours, uphill, carrying a sled, in temperatures in the teens Fahrenheit. I was super tired and super sore afterward. And then when we finally got to the top of the Feldberg, we only got to sled for about ten minutes, because our sleds were due back at the rental place in about twenty minutes. It seems that we got lost on the mountain, which is why we ran out of time. Oh, well. The view was fantastic. Snow, the Black Forest, and Alps, as far as you could see. I was so excited to see this much snow. I'm not sure exactly how deep the snow was off the trail, but when I accidentally walked into a snow drift off the trail, I got buried up to my waist in snow. I only have two pictures of the snow, because there is something seriously wrong with my camera. I discovered that the batteries only last long enough to take about two to three pictures before they die. I experimented with this theory in my dorm room, just to make sure that I wasn't accidentally turning the camera on while it was in my backpack. Weird. Maybe I should buy Energizer instead of Duracell.
After we got back back from the hike and everyone had had a chance to shower and nap, the group met at some bar, which I didn't stay at for very long. It was underground, really smokey, had no tables, and had the most horrible sounding music playing so loud, that you had to shout to hear your own voice. Not my cup of tea.
After church on Sunday, I decided to go and watch a film in German. I almost watched Mitten ins Herz in German, since I'd already watched it in English, and thought I could probably easily understand it. But instead, I decided on Triff die Robinsons. I didn't understand everything, but enough to enjoy it and to understand the plot. At the theater, I saw posters for some upcoming movies including, Spiderman 3, the third pirate movie, and Harry Potter. I think it will be interesting to watch them in German. (I think I'll just deal with the dubbed voices). I figure if I don't understand it very well, I can always watch them later in English at the other theater or when I come home.
Last night, I discovered in my Freiburg guidebook that there is a Mexican restaurant here called El Paso. I was super excited and decided to eat dinner there. However, Germans are seriously lacking in Mexican culinary skills. I ordered Enchiladas Rancheros, and I got a plate with with two ''enchiladas'', which were made out of hard taco shells, and had meat and sauce inside that tasted a lot like a sloppy joe. No ranchero sauce. Also, there was watermelon, grape, orange, and kiwi fruit slices on the plate. The rice and beans were okay, although the beans were black, not refried. It didn't taste bad, but it was definitely not Mexican food. Oh, well. I probably should have known better anyway.
Tonight, the group is going over to one of the language school director's dorm room (I found out that most of the directors are students) to make Flammkuchen. That should be fun.
Okay, that's all for now.
Ciao!

Yay! Fun stuff to talk about!

I finally have good news and fun stuff to talk about. I really enjoyed Katie's and Jenny's blogs about Florida. I became really jealous when I saw the beach pictures, considering it was snowing here when I looked at them. In fact, its still snowing here. On the one hand, this is extremely exciting, because I've never seen this much snow before. On the other hand, I REALLY hate the cold weather. I'm totally ready for summer. The German summer, not the Texas summer. That's a bit too warm for comfort.
Anyway, I found out today that I'm going to have no trouble moving into my new dorm next week. Yay! I don't have to stay in a youth hostel. The new place I'll be living is in the German ghetto, but oh well. The building itself looks nice. Also, I discovered, fortunately not the hard way, that it would take way more than thirty minutes to walk from my dorm to the school. The tram ride itself took about twenty minutes, so I don't think I'm going to mind spending the money for a semester pass.
Also, last night, the group watched the German movie that just won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. (I totally forgot the name). I didn't understand all of it, but I think I got the gist. Afterwards, we went to an Irish pub and a drinks and had fun Irish dancing. Well, actually, I didn't exactly have a drink. I had a Coconut Kiss, which is the non-alcoholic equivalent of a Pina Colada. Sorry to disappoint you Jenny. I had a blast Irish dancing. I realized afterwards, that this was the first time I've ever actually been social dancing. Irish dancing is sort of like a combination of line dancing and square dancing set to Irish sounding music. Fortunately, they teach you how to do the dances before they start, or else I wouldn't have tried it. Though, I still had a bit of a struggle, considering all the instructions were in German.
Okay, I think that's all for now. I have to go fill out the scholarship application for the German Department Scholarship. Please pray that I'll get it!
Bis später!