Hochschule Reutlingen: The First Day of Classes

Mondays are so hard to endure after great weekends and even more wonderful Sundays! Oktoberfest was great, but I was not as caught up on sleep as I would be on a normal Monday.

Today was particularly busy in the office; it was the first day of classes, so we had many, MANY student dropping by and asking questions. I helped students sign up to get their residency permit and found myself informing many German students interested in taking a foreign language (Fremdsprache) that they do not need to register for their class quite yet, but just needed to attend and register online later. It would have been nice to record myself saying that sentence in German because I felt like a broken record repeating the same information over and over again.

Another task for today was envelope stuffing. The soon-to-be Erasmus students from Reutlingen needed to receive information about their grant, and I was the lucky person who got to prepare the envelopes. It may not have been a glorious job, but someone had to do it.

If you remember last week how I had to correct the links from the external website to the StudierenPlus program? Yes, that one. Well, apparently I somehow got the wrong links for every page that I had completed and needed to re-do them all. While that wasn't the best news, I took it, handled it as best as I could, and got to work.

After my particularly long day at work, I went downtown with Allie, Sarah, Gabi, and Rachel to find a dirndl for Allie. We were successful! She even got a discount because the time for Oktoberfest is slowly dwindling.

Once we were done with that, we stopped in the pub for a drink. I just hung out, while the others enjoyed their Banana-Weizens.

When we got back to the Hochschule, Allie and I ended up eating yufkas in Campus Kebab. They were, as usual, delicious!

Oktoberfest - The Most Magical Place on Earth!

Today, Joe, Tammi, and I were on our trains and heading to Munich for Oktoberfest. We used a Schönes-Wochenende ticket, which was only 42 Euros for both me and Joe (21 Euros each) to travel all day on the local trains.

Tammi, me, and Joe on the train to Munich!

We made it to Munich around 1:15 p.m., and headed on our quest to find Lederhosen for Joe, as he didn't find any in Reutlingen the day before.

We passed up the first few shops near the train station. Once we realized we were not going to find Lederhosen for much cheaper than 80 Euros, we stopped at a shop right off of the road we were taking to Oktoberfest. We found the type of Lederhosen Joe was searching for, and he tried them on... In the middle of the store. The shop owner actually told him that he could "drop trou" in the middle of the aisle to try these Lederhosen on. As Tammi and I turned our backs to give him some privacy, we couldn't stop laughing at the situation.

Joe ended up loving the dark, shorter Lederhosen that he tried on, and he was allowed to wear them on his way out. We continued on our way to Oktoberfest. It only took us about ten to fifteen minutes to get there!

The sights and smells, and just the feel of the Oktoberfest was, indeed, magical. I had heard others say it, but I supposed you have to experience something like this on your own before you can agree.

I grabbed a schnitzel sandwich right away when we walked into the fest.

Oktoberfest :)

There are rides, food stands, drink stands, and souvenir shops throughout all of Oktoberfest. It kind of reminded me of the Wisconsin State Fair that my family attends every year, but on a much bigger scale!

We attempted to find seats in a few of the beautifully decorated tents. The first two tents had not a seat in sight.

Tent at Oktoberfest

Tent at Oktoberfest

Tent at Oktoberfest

The tent we ended up in at Oktoberfest!

We decided, with our lack of luck at finding seats amongst the un-reserved seats in the tents, that we would hang out in the beer garden outside of the Lowenbrau tent. We each grabbed a beer and hung out.

The Biergarten at the Lowenbrau tent.

The Biergarten at the Lowenbrau tent.

After a while, a girl joined us. She explained how she was studying in Munich and that she is from Palestine. She really enjoyed Joe's English accent and stuck around for a bit. In fact, after she left, she returned about five minutes later with her friend to come and talk to us. They both invited us inside to their table in a reserved section where we could stand in the warmth for a bit. Needless to say, we accepted.

We danced, sang the songs that we knew, and drank our masses. At one point, Tammi and I headed to the restroom. The line was, of course, ridiculous! We ended up meeting a girl from the Rheinland. She was right before us in line. I initially asked if she was in line for the restroom, to which she responded "Was fuer Dialect ist das?!" in regards to my German. I responded, saying I was from the US, and that is why my German has an accent. I think she was surprised and also happy that I, an American, could speak German! I was also happy because she did not immediately switch from German to English, but allowed me the chance to practice what I know.

After the restroom, we decided to head to another tent. We ended up, after much confusion, meeting my Uncle Jay and friend, Mathias. While we were waiting, we took some pictures in front of the tent we were just in:

In front of the Lowenbrau tent.

We sat outside in the Biergarten of the Pauliner tent, where we all ordered a mass. It was wonderful to catch up with Jay and Mathias. Joe and Jay got into what seemed like a great conversation, and I just took in my surroundings... and took pictures, of course!

At the Pauliner Biergarten!
Jay, Mathias, me, Tammi, and Joe

It was so great to catch up with an old friend!

Jay ended up getting us a huge pretzel to split, which was phenomenal, and later, a few Oktoberfest chickens!

Prost!

We also made a few new friends at our table. These gentlemen from Ireland were extremely nice, and were also our photographers for part of the night.

Overall, the day and that night were extremely successful. I think we spent the perfect amount of time at Oktoberfest. Jay escorted us back to the Hauptbahnhof to catch our train.

Thanks for the wonderful evening, Jay!

We were exhausted on the way home, but it didn't matter. We got to spend the day experiencing one of the best places on earth. I look forward to the next time I get to go to the Wiesn.

Guten Nacht!

 

American Pancakes and Kulturnacht

Ahh, sleeping in. What a wonderful feeling on a lazy Saturday!

I headed over to Pennymarkt with Julia and Joe in the late morning to pick up a few essentials for our pancakes.

Julia took over the cooking, using a recipe from home, and let me tell you - that Finnish girl's American pancakes were the best pancakes I have ever had in my life! We got some berries to go on top of the pancakes, and we also cut up some honeydew melon on the side. Good God, I was stuffed.

It was when we were eating pancakes that Sam, one of the Valpo students, was telling us about his Oktoberfest experience. Before this point, I was very sure that I was not going to make the trip to the Wiesen in Munich. However, Sam explained that Oktoberfest is not like anything you have ever experienced; there are rides, great food, and even better beer, along with crowds of people who are all looking to have the same experience that you are.

I could feel my resolve fading from "Eh, I could take or leave Oktoberfest," to "I MUST GO TO OKTOBERFEST!" We decided to head to Munich tomorrow on a whim.

Before we could head to Munich, though, we had to get through the rest of our Saturday. We ended up going into town to search for some Lederhosen for Joe when I received a call from a Student4Student who could not give the keys to her two students that day. It was frustrating, but understandably necessary, for me to be pulled away from my fun and in to work.

I would have been fine handing out the keys to these girls, but not when they keep me waiting for over two hours for them - I was told that 5:00 p.m. is when they would arrive, and they showed up around 7:00 p.m. I was furious, but couldn't show it. Again, like many other circumstances where I have to deal with people I may not be particularly happy with, I pasted a smile on my face and welcomed them to their new home in Reutlingen.

That night, some friends and  I experienced the Reutlingen Kulturnacht. There were people of all ages sitting around the Marktplatz, or stopping in a shop to hear some music or poetry along the streets of downtown Reutlingen. My friends and I ended up in the Irish pub with a Student4Student (different than the earlier Student4Student) and his friends. He walked up to me, and when I introduced myself, he asked me if I knew his cousin, Mathias. I met Mathias when he studied abroad at Valpo in the Fall of 2010, and then hung out with him when I was abroad in Germany for the first time in Spring of 2011. What a small world that I would meet the cousin of one of the few people I know in Germany!

A Visit to the Hospital

This morning, I did what I could - unfortunately for me, the folder with all of my files was unavailable due to a network error! I was so relieved to find that once the network was back up that I would have all of my files. Phew.

I had to deal with some upset people who could now not receive their Naldo Bescheinigungen (student confirmation) until Monday, but after six years in the restaurant industry, that was no problem.

Because of the computer problems, I decided to take my afternoon off from the office. During this time, I relaxed and waited for some Kettering students to arrive. Two guys knocked on my door a little later than expected, but they had made it.

I got them settled in their new room and helped them figure out where a few key places were. I also gave them some advice about living in Reutlingen. I ended up slightly chatting their ears off, but I hope they got something useful from all that I had spouted off at them. :)

Once that task was done, I went with Joe, Alejandro, and Julia to visit poor Chris in the hospital. He had surgery on his arm that morning to put some screws in, and he was going to have to stay at least one night in the hospital. We arrived kind of late, about 9 p.m., and we were slightly worried that we wouldn't be allowed in because it was past visiting hours. What are German visiting hours, you may ask? We may never know.

When we arrived at the hospital, about a 15 minute walk from the Stadtmitte bus stop, we were unsure where exactly to enter. We ended up following a woman who pressed a button and was admitted through a side door into the hospital. My plan was to just walk in like we knew what we were doing and head straight to Stock 6, Zimmer 6 (floor 6, room 6), but Joe and Julia held back, and Alejandro crept in like he was robbing a bank. After receiving a weird look from a receptionist behind a glass wall, I simply stated that we were here to visit our friend on floor 6, room 6 (in Deutsch, of course) and she pointed us in the right direction. We were in!

We wandered, and had we been following Alejandro, we would have been lost for forever. I, luckily, had just enough information from Chris to figure out the wing he was in, as well as figure out where the sixth floor was. It seems easy, but when half of the hospital does not have a sixth or seventh floor, you have to do some searching.

The strange thing about this hospital was the lack of people. On our walk around the hospital, we did not see one other person on our journey - no nurses, no janitors, no family members of patients. There was nothing and no one! The silence was unnatural and strange.

Alas, despite our troubles finding the floor and the room, we found Chris! I peeked my head in and he headed out to meet us so we wouldn't disturb his roommate, Robbie. Robbie, apparently, fell off of a roof and shattered his foot. Yikes.

We went into this nice lounge area and hung out with Chris for a while. He looked exhausted, but it looked like he was glad for some English-speaking company. Joe brought Chris some chocolate, his phone charger, and Chris' newly-arrived Harry Potter book in German.

We left after about an hour and headed back downtown. We stopped at a Chinese noodle shop, which sold inexpensive and delicious noodles with fried pieces of chicken. Julia, Joe, and I ended up relaxing in a lounge once we got home. It was decided that, after we had gotten a good night's rest, we would make some pancakes in the morning. Not crepes, but real, thick American pancakes. I am excited. :)

The Tübingen Tour and Stockerkahn Ride

Today, Gus was training me on how to use StudierenPlus, another part of the Hochschule Reutlingen website. This site is specifically for students looking to sign up for RIO workshops. He taught me more about the site, as I am going to be linking our external website to this StudierenPlus to make registration easier for students.
 
Once that was complete and I had done most of my work for the day, I left the office around noon. I was going to run home to eat some food, but ran into a friend on the way. We both headed to the Mensa in order to eat before the Tübingen excursion that some of the RIO students were attending.
 
We began with a tour of Tübingen. I somehow got roped into giving an English tour for part of the group so that we would have smaller groups to tour with. I wish I knew more about the sites in Tubingen, but I did what I could. We took a beautiful walk around the city and I showed them, most notably, the castle and the Marktplatz. We ended our tour here and my colleague Tobias and I grabbed some Kaffee und Kuchen in our free time. We had about an hour before we had to head back to the Neckar River to do our Stockerkahn (punting boat) ride.

I attempted to Vine for the first time. I think it turned out pretty well!
 
The Stockerkahn ride was so peaceful and beautiful on the Neckar. We got to lean back and enjoy the pleasant weather, all while hearing stories from our Stockerkahn driver. The man reminded me a lot of the gondola drivers of Venice.

We were informed that the Tubingen Stockerkahns were originally from hundreds of years ago when there were no bridges connecting the banks of the Neckar River in the city. The Stockerkahns were used to transport people and goods between the two banks. Yes, there is another place in East Berlin that also uses boats like these, but the seating is different - in the Tubingen Stockerkahn, you sit facing the rest of the boat, which makes for easy conversation; up in Berlin, the seats are "church-style" in that everyone is facing the front. Stockerkahns are different from the gondolas because of the way they are driven. The Stockerkahn drivers use the bottom of the river to push off and drive the boat, while the gondola drivers paddle.

And, now that you know everything you could possibly want to know about Stockerkahns, I digress.

One last note - I got to drive the boat. :) It is so much more difficult than it appears!

*Pictures to come; my computer is being moody!*

This literally just made my day. Enjoy.

Justin Timberlake Shows Us How Dumb We Sound When We Use Hashtags

A Long Day

Tired Calie = Cranky Calie. You would think I would understand this by now, but the night was fun and it was worth being a little tired today, I guess!

The office was busy today. When I wasn't working on the Kettering student information or helping with another project, I was doing my normal tasks of helping direct students where they needed to go.

During my lunch break, I blissfully took a nap, though not for very long! Lineke made Chris and me some pasta for lunch. We ate it outside (the weather was beautiful today and yesterday!) and hung out for about a half hour. Poor Chris broke his arm a few days ago.

Back in the office, and more of the same. Tonight was the second part of the movie night. The second half of the movie was pretty rough, but I made it through! It was Taria's birthday tonight, so I stopped by Litt-Haus for a few minutes. There were quite a few people, and it was nice to see them all. :) Unfortunately, we were meeting on the 6th floor, and a few people walked out of the elevator on the ground level and someone (cough, cough, Lineke!) pressed ALL of the buttons in the elevator! Needless to say, I walked up those six flights for stairs.

I went to bed kind of early tonight, which was good after my long night last night!

Work and a Goodbye

Every time we are not open for either a morning or an afternoon at work, it is so blissfully quiet in the office. I have come to enjoy the time when we don't take walk-ins in the office. I get to focus on tasks that have been assigned to me at my own pace and without distraction and it is WONDERFUL.

This morning, as happens every Monday morning, we were closed. The afternoon was just as busy as it was quiet in the morning, but I at least had time for my nice two hour lunch break (I am going to miss those when I come home!).

I am continuing my work to prepare everything for the Kettering University students that will arrive this weekend.

This evening, a sad event took place. One of the students from Sheffield is going home. We went out for a few drinks over at Joli and the Irish Pub to send him off. He had only been here for 6 days and, despite our best efforts, couldn't be convinced to stay.

It is really interesting for me to talk to someone who had little to no desire to study abroad. I knew even before I was in college that I was going to study abroad and that I was going to Germany. I had learned the language for 6 years before and it was just an obvious option for me since I stayed in town to go to college. To talk to someone who just had no interest in it blows my mind! But, to each his own.

An Excursion to Heidelberg

Despite going to bed early, I was still tired on Saturday morning. I took a nice nap on the bus for about an hour. Naps on buses in Germany are a difficult thing. With all the winding roads, it is hard to relax and sleep. We had a problem with some traffic on the way. We ended up getting to Heidelberg about an hour after we had planned.

We began our city tour with a view of the beautiful castle from a square in town.

View of the Heidelberg Castle from a square below.

Instead of doing an entire city tour once we arrived, we decided to grab some food at the Heidelberg University Mensa.

The Heidelberg University Mensa

We had a beautiful day in Heidelberg! The weather was perfect, and the sun was shining, so we decided to sit outside with out food.

Once we finished eating, we began our city tour. We saw the old and new universities of Heidelberg, a students jail, a church in Heidelberg, and took a walk up the hill to the castle. The whole time, Thorston, a German professor at the university who was giving us our tour, was explaining the sites we were seeing in German, while I translated everything into English. This was done with the help of some of the Mexican students whose German was better than mine!

The old and new universities were interesting because of the differences in styles of the buildings. The old university was more of the romantic style and of the Baroque time period. There were adornments and gold accents, making it stand out much more than its newer counterpart. The new university was a bland, white building.

The old university building is on the left, while the new one is on the right.

One of my favorite parts of Heidelberg was the student's jail in town! We got to wander around this building and see the artwork of students who were thrown in here for drinking too much (mostly fraternity men, according to Thorston). I saw mostly dates around the late 1800's.

The Students Jail in Heidelberg - where students who drank too much would have to spend some time.

Afterwards, we walked into a nearby church to see the beautiful architecture inside.

The church in Heidelberg

Thornston had a story about this church, as well! Apparently, back in the day, there used to be a sex shop across from the Jesuit church. After going through a few appeals, the sex shop was removed and a law put in place so that there could not be any visible signs for sex shops in the city!

Once we were done at the church, we wandered up over 200 steps up to the Heidelberg castle.

Students on the walk up to the Heidelberg Castle.

 

A beautiful home that we passed on our way up to the castle - I would LOVE to live up here with this view.

 

The view on our walk up to the Heidelberg Castle!

Inside the castle, Thorston explained a few things about the architecture, showed us our meeting point in the city below, and told us we had to check out the 200,000 Liter keg underneath the castle.

A beautiful view of Heidelberg from the castle.

View from the castle walls.

Inside the Heidelberg Castle!

The Heidelberg Castle

A few of us went and checked out the huge keg.

Some of the girls with a huge keg (this ended up NOT being the biggest keg in the world).

The biggest keg in the world! It held 200,000 Liters of alcohol!

 

After we saw the keg, we walked around the grounds of the castle and into the city.

The Heidelberg Castle

One of our first stops was at the Heidelberg Starbucks (it was the best beverages I have ever had in my life). We grabbed a cookie-like ball that is called a Schneeball, and just wandered around the antique streets of the city. It was relaxing and I had a really great time just checking out whatever we felt like.

Our group ended up being all women initially! We took a picture at one of the squares that looked up onto the Heidelberg Castle.

After we went to Starbucks (see cup in right hand :D) we stopped by the bridge in Heidelberg.

On the bridge, there were locks. This is one of my favorite pictures :)

Our group on the bridge with the Heidelberg Castle behind us.

The bridge in Heidelberg

Our bus ride home was much like the one there, minus the traffic. I also took a nap on the way home. I made some dinner and had a nice, quiet night in.

My day today, Sunday, was much the same! I slept for most of the day, something I have not done for a long time, and relaxed. I did some laundry and worked on this blog! :)

A Normal Day in Reutlingen

Well, I sure was tired today. Was it worth it? Yes.

Today, my work continued from yesterday. I focused mainly on the ESB Intensivkurs certificates and Kettering student information. During my lunch break, a nap was extremely necessary!

I continued my work later, and ended up heading home right on time.

Lineke and a few other people wanted to go to grab some food in town, and I went with them to hang out for a bit. We went to Alexandre in the downtown area, and tried Joe Pena's again. Joe Pena's service was just as bad as it was a few weeks ago, unfortunately.

We got back early, as most of us were going to the Heidelberg excursion tomorrow. :)

A Busy Day in the Office and A Birthday Night!

Ahh, the work is escalating even more. It is actually kind of nice to have more than enough work to get done throughout the day - it sure makes the day go by faster!

I got Naldo Bescheinigungen from Max to do, Brigitte wants me to make folders, fill out apps, and make Naldo Bescheinigungen for the incoming Kettering students, Karin wants me to create certificates of completion for the ESB Intensivkurs students, and Herr Veit requested that I edit a resume and cover letter for a girl applying for an internship at Bayer in the US.

PHEW. On top of all of that, I attempt to help incoming students as much as I can. When I cannot help them, then I direct them to the right person.

The day didn't slow down once I got off of work in the afternoon. I ran to Edeka to pick up some cake mixes for Julia's birthday, and prepared them. As we were meeting on the 2nd floor for dinner, I went up there to put my chocolate and lemon cakes in the oven. Lineke was upstairs and already working on the home-made pasta sauce.

While the cakes were baking, I ran downstairs to get ready and came upstairs just in time. People were starting to arrive for our dinner, and I began to glaze my cakes.

Dinner ended up being great! My eyes were a lot bigger than my stomach, and I got way more food than I should have. Once our dinner was done, we finished off the chocolate cake and half of the lemon cake.

Eating Julia's birthday dinner!

Julia with her birthday cakes!                Ava, Julia, me, and Emma after Julia's birthday dinner!

We rushed to catch our bus to Mexcalitos, as Julia wanted to get a margarita for her birthday. Unfortunately, Mexcalitos was really empty and everything was taking forever.

Hanging out at Mexcalitos for Julia's birthday!

Julia wanted to check out the Freshman Party at a new place in town, P&K. There was a bad DJ, but it was so much fun!

One of the new Sheffield students walked home with Tammi and me. Unfortunately, he doesn't like Reutlingen, and has been talking about going home already. Tammi and I spent the entire 30-40 minute walk home attempting to convince him to stay!

This seemingly innocent act of attempting to convince a student to stick it out in his study abroad situation IS public relations. I had learned so much during my time at the Valparaiso University Office of International Programs, and all that wonderful information about study abroad and how great it is for you and your future, how independent you come, and how great it looks for future employers because of all the skills you learn were all points that I brought forth for the student. He seemed like he was leaning more towards staying after our talk; I hope that Tammi and I made a difference and helped to convince him that leaving was not in his best interest.

TYPO3, Birthday Planning, and Switzerland Planning!

After working for hours with the TYPO3 program, a website editing software used mainly in Germany, I have found that I really enjoy updating and editing what hundreds of people will see and benefit from. Today, I was updating links to PDF files about Intercultural Communication and German Language workshops. I had to not only update the German site, but also the English.

The links that I was attempting to upload gave me and Claudia, our office expert on the TYPO3 program, a little bit of trouble. Despite our initial troubles, we tried a few different routes to get the files uploaded, and it finally happened.

Today, for the first time, I accepted the security deposit and first month's rent for a student. It was the first time that I had done it by myself and it went well.

My lunch break was spent picking up my debit card from the bank. Thankfully, there were no more problems! I am still unsure if I want to use it with the machine after the trouble I had with it the first time, but maybe I'll feel daring enough to do so soon!

Once I got back to the office, I continued my TYPO3 work. I finished up about a half hour early, and Karin told me I could go home. :) I needed to run into town to grab some money from the Deutsche Bank, and it was nice that I got a chance to do so.

The weather, as has been its habit lately, went from beautiful to rainy in about 5 minutes. I didn't stay in town long. I ended up running into Juan Carlos, one of the international students at the university, and we had a nice conversation on the bus ride home.

I decided to try a Roasted Garlic, Chicken, and White Herb Pizza that I had found on Pinterest for dinner. It ended up being DELICIOUS! I had an uncooked pizza crust kit from Pennymarkt that I used, and it ended up being really good.

It just happened that a few of the Valpo women were planning their Fall Break on the first floor where I was cooking my pizza, so I hung out there for a bit.

Once that was done, I met with Lineke, Stan, and Tammi to take a quick run to the Pennymarkt to pick up the food for tomorrow's dinner (for Julia's birthday!). Julia ended up walking in as we were picking up ingredients, which was a surprise! Once we grabbed everything (we decided to go and pick up a few things at Edeka tomorrow), we were about to leave the store, when we realized there were torrential downpours outside. We waited for a few minutes, and after the rain slowed, we ran back to the dorms with our spoils.

I met with Eric and Amy (Amy through Skype) and we talked for a bit about Switzerland. Once it was situated, I came back and booked some of the hostels and trains. I ended up staying awake a bit later than I had planned, but it felt wonderful having some of that out of the way.