144 - A Final and My Birthday

28.06.2012 - Donnerstag, Thursday

Whew, what a day! What a birthday! I had my normal BO class, my TM3 class was cancelled, or rather optional, so I took the time to study for my Betriebsorganization Klausur (Final exam) at 11:30am. So much stress, so much worry. I went through a prior exam and tried to learn what I could, but there were a lot of topics that were a little difficult for me to understand because of my not-growing-up-in-Germany thing. I arrived in his office, nervous of course, and not sure what to expect from a Müdliche Prüfung (Oral exam). Fortunately for me, Herr Schad (both my teacher and advisor) recognized this a problem for foreign students and gave me a simpler math version of the exam. He also explained to me that the idea behind the "mündliche Prüfung" was simply to have the ability to discuss my exam right afterwards.

I finished the exam somewhat quickly, trying to do everything perfectly. Unfortunately, one of the things on the exam was only from the previous Friday and I was not completely confident in my ability. After he looked it over and discussed it with me, he told me it was pretty good with only a few mistakes and said he would give me a 2. Which is the equivalent of an A! What a relief, what a weight off my shoulders. I felt fantastic. I finished and passed my exam with flying colors and was officially done with my classes (not exams!) for the semester. I feel like it made my Birthday even better because it felt so stress-free.

The weather was pretty great and warm, which was perfect for Rachel's and my plan to go to the pool again. We made ourselves some sandwiches, grabbed the Frizzante wine from Italy and headed to the pool for a wonderfully relaxing afternoon. Sure the pool was full of people, but it was great nevertheless.

 

We enjoyed the sun, the pool, our food, kind of the wine (we weren't thinking that "Frizzante" meant bubbly, and I don't really drink wine...) for several hours. However, the sun began to fade and hide behind clouds rather quickly. We did not make our way out quick enough and unfortunately were poured on during our 10 minute walk to the tram stop. The wet flip-flops made my feet hurt, so I had to resort to trekking barefoot.

 

 

It stopped raining a little while after we had already been soaked, fortunately. Now to find ourselves something to do with cake, or some sort of delicious dessert that would serve in place of one of us making a cake (since out apartments don't have actual ovens). We wandered through a few shops over the previous days and ended up just purchasing some Torten from a Bäckerei in the Hauptbahnhof. As you can see, I bought some sort of strawberry thing, and she a creamy, chocolate-y thing. My mom was wonderful enough to send me a few birthday things, so we had a candle that hummed "Happy Birthday" and a few candles for us to blow out ourselves.

 

After enjoying dinner and then our desserts, Rachel concocted a "Holy Grenade" shrine. The bottle reminded us of the Holy Grenade from Monty Python: Holy Grail, which is the reason behind it all. Again, a wine that I did not thoroughly enjoy, but it was still fun. Later, we went our ways and watched the game Deutschland g. Italien (Germany vs. Italy) (1:2 unfortunately) and slept.

142 - Visiting a Church and a Drink Market

26.6.2012 - Dienstag, Donnerstag

After classes, Rachel and I decided we would go visit a "Getränkemarkt", a drink/ beverage store, to see if they had any delicious cider that we had tried while in Swansea. Our main goal was to purchase it so we could drink it to celebrate our 21st birthdays on the 28th. However, we were pleasantly surprised on our way over to find a quaint little church not too far away. Becuase both of us really enjoy churches, we couldn't help but go inside and have a look around. Here is what we saw:

 

 

After our short visit, we continued on our mission. While wandering around the store, looking through various items, we were unsuccessful. It would appear the cider was a local delicacy of the UK and Germany just doesn't like ciders as much as other locations. While wandering around, we did find a few really funny things, like this picture for example.

 



In the end we purchased a Frizzante rosa wine and then a French rosa wine and called it good before returning back to our respective apartments and did whatever it is that we do.

138 - Pool & An EM Football Game

22.6.12 - Freitag, Friday

I was finished with classes by 9:30, it was a nice summer day albeit windy and not the most warm, and it was Friday. What else were we going to do aside from visiting the local pool and swimming around for a while? We were there for probably 3 hours enjoy swimming, snacks and whatever else we decided to do.

Fortunately, due to the weather, there was hardly anyone around, and that for most children, it was still school time (I think). Unfortunately, and annoyingly, there were two young reckless boys who were hassling us a little when we were trying to go down the slide. For example, you are supposed a little while for the person before you to go down so you don't bump into them or injure someone; however, after I went down the slide one of them rushed after me and was behind me the whole time. Instead of enjoying it, I was getting nervous about the bottom of the slide where he would surely land on me if I let myself slip under the water as I normally would. Likewise happened to Rachel the second time because she was kind enough to block them from doing it again. After that, we just played around in the water some more, away from the boys.

It amazed/s me that they don't have lifeguards actively on duty to yell at them for all of the things they were doing. Rachel, having been trained as one, was also disturbed by this.

Later that evening, I am pretty sure we went to a viewing of the EM game of Deutschland g. Greichenland (Germany vs. Greece) football game. Of course, Germany won 4:2. It was a good night, and it's always fun to watch with large groups of people. Especially with those who feel so strongly about the game and have had a few beers already.

Day 137 - Random thoughts about differences between schools

21.6.12 - Donnerstag, Thursday

Oh man, the longer I'm in Germany, the more I dislike/ like the American school system. It's hard to explain... In Germany (in Baden-Wuerttemberg anyhow) tution is free and the tests at my school are completely open note and you only require 50% (only 35% in my TM3/Dynamics class) to pass on the one and only exam. At ISU I pay quite a bit more, have one cheat sheet if I'm lucky and require (generally) a 70% cumulative. So pay less, less is expected versus pay more, expect more. I think I prefer a class that constantly has you working for your grade because it gives you the ability to fix a mistake you have made. However, the amount you have to pay for it is not exactly pleasant. I suppose for these reasons a University in the US is more prestigious than a German Hochschule, but the Hochschule is so much more practical in how you learn.

Anyways, random thought I had while studying for one of my bring-whatever-you-want exams.

(Also, the exams and work are what are keeping me off the blog since I have at least 3 next week. I will have more time to update after my Dynamiks exam on the 3rd. Be prepared for having lots of stories. :) )

132 - Wiesbaden

16.6.12 - Samstag, Saturday

After a long and fun day in Würzburg, we (Rachel, Leif, and I) did some investigating on where we wanted to go and chose Wiesbaden because of several things around the city. I'm a huge fan of gothic architechure, so that was a selling point when I saw pictures of a church that looked amazing. We parked in a garage with normal looking doors that led to elevators and made our way around town. It was one of those towns that had some not-always-acturate information signs. I'm pretty sure we walked in circles a few times. Eventually we ignored a crooked sign and found the tourist info place and grabbed a map to help guide us (and chugged a lot of free, still water because it was toasty outside). Naturally, I took pictures of so many things, and actually got myself in a few! While wandering, I saw a very odd brain looking thing on top of a building, so I took a picture, apparently it was on top of the Rathauspassage (City Hall passage).

As we were wandering, we started hearing jazz music. We were kind of looking for it, but the group was walking and playing, so we didn't have to go out of our way. We also passed a place that clamed to have the largest  Kuckucuhr (Cuckoo Clock) of the world, with a Krug (Stein) to match! At the end of the street, we saw an interesting building and wandered towards it, while we waited I took a parazzi shot of the other two. The building would have been nice to visit, but it looked private or something so we kept going towards the small lake we spotted off to the side. It was about lunch time, so we all found a rock to sit on that wasn't covered in water and enjoyed our sandwiches and snacks while watch the gucks (goose-duck things) [Ente auf Deutsch]. After that, we wandered to the Kurhaus. We had no idea what it was, aside from it sounded interesting and was one of the places to visit.

As we were getting closer, everyone that was entering was very well dressed. I felt out of place wearing a tanktop, shorts and sneakers. After Rachel led the way in, we noticed that it seemed a lot like a casino to the right and the left and a large reception area in the middle. It was even more strange because all the fancy people were waiting in the entrance and noone was in the larger part of the hall. I felt even more awkward walking through because I was unsure if we were even allowed. I sucked it up and used the phrase Rachel said something along walk with confidence and you'll look like you know what you're doing. On the otherside was another pond and an ampitheater. We walked across the gravel to the ampitheater to see if there was a way up (we weren't the only ones investigating) only to find a door in the back that was locked. Well, why not just hop up on stage? Aside from it being about 6ft off the ground, I got myself up, with a little help, and had some fun on the old stage. Afterwards, we made our way up to a Russian Orthodox church on top of a hill. What a hike! I think I was a bit more excited than the other two, based on a picture or two.

We were not allowed to take pictures of the inside, and were only allowed into about a third of the church. I  wish we could have stayed for longer, but it looked like we had just arrived before closing time. We sat down for a bit to relax and then continued searching for more interesting things around the church. Not too far away was a large cemetary. I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but, European cemetaries are always beautiful and pleasant to visit. I found this one particularly interesting because it was quite different than all the others because it was Russian Orhtodox.



The way down was quite a bit faster and led us to a different part of the town, where we found a playground. Rachel and I let our inner children out and played on the black metal thing because it spun in circles. We had to wait for a few kids to get off so we didn't hurt them or something, a few teenagers had the same idea and hopped on just as we did. We spun for a while before we had enough and moved on, passing through the shopping district. Of course, we had to stop by the lego store and take a few pictures before making our way back to Mannheim. I think Leif and I got sushi and chatted for a while before calling it a night.

131 - Wuerzburg!

15.6.12 - Freitag, Friday

Waiting on pictures, please hold. (Happy Belated B-Day to Rachel on the 14th)