Three Weeks In Germany

Greetings, all interested parties!

Sorry it took so long to post again. The process of matriculation (and thereby the process of being able to use the university's internet service in the dorm room) was long, arduous, and frustrating at times, but I finally managed to put all the puzzle pieces in their correct places. Aside from an official student ID card from the University of Tübingen, I'm an actual registered exchange student here!

Things have been going quite well so far! My room in Tübingen is modest. It resembles the room I had at Miami during my first year. This room has a sink, mirror, closet, desk, desk lamp, heating element, and a bed. There's a window too, and it actually opens fully! Quite different from the metal hurricane shutters at Miami.

I've met two people so far in Tübingen. That seems like a small number for the time I've been here. Let me assure you: it is a small number. There's one thing you must remember about the German people (and European people at large): they take their privacy very seriously. As an example: whereas we Americans tend to leave most doors open in our houses (with the occasional exceptions being bedrooms and bathrooms), Europeans keep all their doors shut with almost-religious fervence. This means that when you look down a hallway, it's anyone's guess which door is a bedroom and which is the bathroom; the process of elimination usually leads to awkward moments, especially in the morning when you're in your boxers looking for the shower.

For me in the dorms, this means that I won't be able to meet friends like I did in Miami with my door open and music blaring, nor can I walk around to see who else has an open door.

However, each group of five rooms on each floor has their own kitchen facilities, in which I met my neighbor, a nice girl who is unfortunately leaving to live in her own apartment next week. Figures, right?

I initially met the other girl when I first arrived in Tübingen at the office of the Studentenwerk. We both had our bags and were clearly tired of lugging our crap around. We didn't really get a chance to talk or get to know each other, but about a week and a half later, we met again by accident at the Burgeramt (which is some sort of government office) where we both were applying for our student residence permit. She recognized me before I recognized her, and we got to talking. Her name is Laura and she's from Latvia, a small country in the north of Europe, just to the west of Russia and to the north of Poland. She's real nice, so we'll see where that goes!

My big ol' box of stuff arrived yesterday, which was another adventure entirely. In my box I had included some generic nasal decongestant and cold medicine, which you're apparently not allowed to import to Germany. I had the option to either have these items seized, to send the whole package back to the States, or to ship the generic medicines to an Apotheke (drug store), where I could pick them up. Frankly, the Target-brand meds weren't that worth it, so I just had the German customs office seize the meds and I took the box of the remaining items. Of course, I had to travel to a neighboring town in Germany called Reutlingen in order to do all of this, because that's where the regional customs office is.

I'm quickly realizing the extent of the German bureacracy system. They've got a damn office and department for every conceivable task, and they're all in different places in the city. Also, they naturally hold typical German working hours, which ranges from five hours in the morning (and that's it) to an eight-hour day with a hour and a half lunch break. This usually meant that by the time I got finished with one step in the matriculation process, the other offices were closed. A good example of all of this is getting my internet set up in my room. The office that dealt with the university's network needed to have my matriculation confirmed before they could give me my credentials to use the network. Of course, when I finally got that confirmation and my credentials, I found out that I had to sign into the university's email service in order to activate my credentials, which I couldn't do in my goddamn room because I didn't have internet there yet.

So you can see where the frustration comes from!

Other than all that, though, I've had a great time so far here. I spent the last week and a half in a German town called Münster, where I did the exchange with St. Paul's. I still have several friends there, so I visit them everytime I'm in the area. I stayed with a girl from the exchanged named Maike Sandker. Her and her family were very hospitable towards me, for which I'm very thankful. It was just too lonely in Tübingen, so I had to be with folks that I knew for a bit! My semester doesn't start until April 20th, so I might make another trip up there, as well as a trip up to Flensburg, which is a German town right next to Denmark in the north of Germany.

When I'm not trekking around Tübingen doing matriculation-related things, I'm visiting every small restaurant and bar that I can find. There's a huge amount of history and character in these places, and many have a locally-brewed beer on tap. One larger bar/restaurant that I visited called the Neckarmüller overlooks the small river running through Tübingen, and they have a brewery attached to the restaurant itself. The beer was unquestionably delicious, and it amazes me that it has been brewed according to the same small-batch recipe in the same building and same location for the past century or two.

This is unrelated, but my guitar amp doesn't seem to be working properly. I think it's because I have to remove the grounding pole so it can fit into the transformer (since the voltage on the plugs is different here and must be adjusted so my electronics don't fry). I'm looking into a way to fix it, but needless to say, it's a big pain in the ass, since that amp was the main reason for me shipping that huge box of crap all the way over here!

Well, this post has gotten pretty long, so I'll cut it off here. I'll let you all know how things progress!
I miss you all. Let me know how things have been going back home!

- Alex

T-Minus 28 Hours

Hey everybody! Welcome to my blog about my upcoming semester abroad in Germany, and all the interesting, crazy, enlightening, and possibly stupid stuff I'm going to get into while over there!

Just kidding; I don't do stupid stuff. Anyone I know can tell you that.

But seriously, it's now 9:40 AM on Tuesday, March 3rd, which is 27 hours and 55 minutes from when my plane leaves the gate at BWI.

I still have to pack everything. EVERYthing. Procrastinator? Yeah, pretty much.

I'm so damn excited, though! Nervous slightly, yeah, for sure...mostly about two big things.

1) The initial trip to the University of Tübingen is going to be rather ridiculous. I'm flying from BWI to JFK airport in New York, then from JFK to Dublin International Airport in Ireland, and then from there (at 5:00 in the morning) to Frankfurt International in Germany, from which I have to take a train to Stuttgart, at which point I'll change trains and go to Tübingen, which will then lead to me walking with my luggage (or taking a cab, if I'm feeling beat) to the housing office, where I will pay my deposit in cash and get my key for my room. Then I'll go to my room and collapse, most likely.

2) I will know absolutely no one in this town. It's not a particularly huge concern, since I was in the same situation in Miami three years ago which worked out great. But this is a different country. Whoof!

Anyway, I should go pack or something. I'll try to update this blog as often as reasonable. It won't be everyday: "Today I woke up and went to class and ate food and went to bed", but I'll keep you all posted on how things go so that you won't miss a thing. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cheer...it'll be good, I promise! Hahaha.

By the way: I'm calling this blog "Alex Does Europe", which is a variation of the title of the movie "Beavis and Butthead Do America". That's where that comes from, and I'm sure there are other examples of that type of wordplay that you can think of.