In front of a French embassy
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The joys of Freiburg!
Week of 17.01.2011
This week was our intensive learning phase of the European Union and the German language before our field trip study to Berlin and Prague. Each morning we had two sessions on the EU and an afternoon German class. We learned much about the EU, what it is, who holds leadership, how it has evolved, its legislative processes, and more. Our German class was much less rigorous. We started each session with words we wanted to learn, what something read, etc. My favorite day was our fieldtrip to the supermarket to learn about food! We set off with a grocery list in the supermarket below Karstadt (I find it very different that grocery stores will be located at the bottom of department stores, access with an escalator, and won’t have any windows). I learned so many more German words, including milch (milk), brot (bread), saft (juice), kartoffell (potato), and kase (cheese). I love shopping for groceries here in Germany!
The weather in Freiburg is usually the warmest of all Germany. It has been warmer in Germany than in my hometown, Chattanooga Tennessee. The other day, Freiburg did get some snow! I enjoyed seeing the German children trying to catch snow on their tongues and compare their winter boots! I spent the afternoon in Munster Cathedral, Rick Steeves guidebook in hand, and ate a delicious bratwurst in the plaza.
It was my first time doing laundry and what a fiasco! As I know very, very little German I did not know how to operate the washing machine and dryer in our complex. I ended up spreading all my clothes around my room, window open to dry everything. Thank goodness I didn’t shrink all my clothes like my friend!
Saturday afternoon was quite an experience, my first SC Freiburg football match! I had no idea how intense football is to Germans until we boarded the tram. Each stop from Charlottenbergerstrasse to the stadium we added Germans of all ages dressed in warm clothes and Freiburg scarves. We were packed sardines by the time we reached the stadium! The fans were wild and the opposing team only had a small corner of the stadium. The student sections are standing only behind the goals. Fans had huge flags that they waved throughout the entire game and they held out their scarves when the SC Freiburg song played. Of course I had to enjoy the game with a brezel and beir! The match ended in a tie, 1-1. I’m sure I’ll go to another game when its warmer weather!
Berlin and Prague all next week!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Copenhagen, Denmark
Hello everybody,
Wow…. you get to Copenhagen and that is the first thing you say to yourself. Copenhagen really is a combination of old and modern art. It is attractive, beautiful and glamorous city. This is my fourth day in Denmark and I have loved every minute of it. The last four days have been the best days for me and I am sure there are more to follow.
Just to give an update on things, I am going to tell you about my journey to Denmark. I flew to New York from North Carolina and had a connecting flight from there to Copenhagen. There were a lot of DIS students coming to Copenhagen, from New York; we all covered more than half of the plane. It was so nice to meet them all, everybody was super friendly and excited about the trip. (It was a relief to know that everybody was on the same page). We arrived in Copenhagen at 7:30 am and were received by the DIS staff at Copenhagen airport. We got into our buses and were dropped at our housing where the housing staff warmly welcomed us.
Our dorm staff had all kinds of fruits for us, (apparently that’s Danish snack food here). After a while, we went to our rooms to get a little rest and meet again at night for a dinner party where we had pizza.
We went on exploring the city next day where each person was given 50 Kroners (Danish currency) to have lunch during out Scavenger hunt. I was planning a full three-course meal since I thought 50DKK was a huge amount of sum. It was not until I got into the restaurant, that I realized that prices were sky high for food. I ordered a Spanish salad; believe it or not it was $49.5 DKK. It was so shocking but then I did my calculations and realized that it was only $10 for the salad, which was a appropriate price for a good salad.
I am living in the DIS residential halls where I share bathroom and kitchen with other students. There are almost 15 of us living at one floor. I have my own room, which is very neat and cozy. I can see big and old-fashioned European style buildings from here.
There are three things that you must know about Copenhagen; first and foremost almost everybody here speaks English so you don’t have to worry if you can’t speak Danish. (I have not met a person who does not know English but the sad part is they almost write everything in Danish, it is rare to see any English translation). Secondly, they love to ride bicycles and they walk everywhere. (No wonder they have the perfect figures). Third, you got to love the bread if you come here. (Down here they have all kinds of bread and its included in every meal).
To be honest, I have not missed anything back home yet; Copenhagen has so much to offer to you that you just forget the rest of the world. I came to this small city to explore Europe and without any doubt that is exactly what I am doing. This is 12:30 am in Denmark, which means it would be around 6:30 pm in US. There are so many activities arranged for us tomorrow. We start classes this Thursday and we are going to two castles this weekend. I am really sleepy right now, even though half of my dorm fellows are in a Danish club somewhere in the city, I decided to have the night off. I would be in touch soon with a lot of cool photographs. Bye
Monday, January 17, 2011
Vienna: Week 1
I have been in Austria for 5 days now, but this is the first time I have been able to get to my computer. I have been so busy ever since I left for the airport last Wednesday. Back in Georgia we actually had snow (*see photo) which later turned into ice: lots and lots of ice. At our mountain house in northeast Georgia we had about 10 inches of snow and it hadn’t melted at all the morning I left. From past experiences we knew that the snow-plowman doesn’t plow all the way down to our house, so we moved our car about half a mile down the gravel road to be sure we could get out. We figured it wouldn’t be too bad to walk up there, especially since we do it frequently…we were wrong. We rarely walk up there in snow, never in 10 inches of snow, and never with 50+ pounds of luggage. Using our problem solving skills my mom, dad, and I grabbed some sleds to put the luggage on and drag to the top of the hill. I am confident this made it much easier than simply carrying my bags, but it was still shockingly difficult. About halfway up the hill I realized I should probably start going to the gym more often.After we finally got in the car and left the mountains we drove down to Atlanta where the highway was covered in ice. Some out of state people have recently said Georgians were “wimps” when it comes to snow, and we may be on occasion, but this particular instance was not one of those occasions. Half of the highway was covered with at least 5 inches of ice. We progressed down a major highway at about 8 miles an hour before we decided to hop on Marta. We made it safely to the airport and I boarded my plane. I had a layover in France, which I was really excited about until I saw the airport. Charles de Gaulle is huge and confusing. As I was trying to navigate my way to my next gate I met another IES student from Atlanta. We found our plane together and got to know each other as we waited to board. We had mutual friends and got along great.
Our first day in Vienna consisted of sightseeing in the airport. We waited for all the other IES students to arrive, and instead of going to our apartments/housing in Vienna we loaded buses and drove 4 hours to the Austrian mountains: to Deutchlandsberg specifically.
We stayed there for four days and got to know the other students and visited a castle near our hotel. It was fun, but long and I could not have been more ready to get to Vienna.
Sunday night we finally made it to Wien!! I was so excited. One of my roommates and I caught a cab and started to head to our apartment. Our cab was a new Mercedes and our cab driver was adorable. He gave us little tidbits about the city, and was as excited as us when we told him where we were living. We live in the 9th district of Vienna and our apartment is wonderful. The building is a light yellow and made in the Baroque style. The inside has beautiful tiling and great old curvy stairs. It was a bit of a hike to our flat with the luggage, but we made it with a little help from our landlady.
I wanted to see the city, but my roommates and I were all so tired we just ordered pizza and went straight to bed. We had to be up early on Monday to go to the police station and register with our address as a resident in Vienna. After that we went to school for our first class.
For the next 3 weeks we will only be taking German. “Intensive German”… after one day I can tell you, intense is an understatement. We will meet for three hours a day, Monday thru Friday. Today we only met for an hour and a half but I already feel like the material I have to learn by tomorrow is what would normally be learned in months. By tomorrow we are to have studied and learned a list of vocabulary, all the primary question words (who, what, when, etc), common Austrian idioms, how to conjugation a regular verb in the present tense(1st person singular & plural, 2nd person singular & plural, and 3rd person singular & plural), and numbers 1 through 100. My brain feels like gupe just imagine all of this information… that being said, I am off to study…
Ein, zwei, drei….goodnight all.
... photos of my first week of Freiburg
Above: A view of Freiburg, Germany
Munster Cathedral before sunset
Left: A view of the ruined Staufen castle and vineyards
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