Alles Gute, Herr Veit!

Today, Claudia and I met around 9:00 a.m. to finish cleaning out the Wurm-Saal. This is the room that we had the Scavenger Hunt pizza event last night. While the event was fun and many students helped to clean up, there was still a lot of cleaning to be done.

Claudia and I finished moving crates of drinks back into the RIO storage room in Wurm-Haus, and made a few trips down to the trash area. It was such a tease to see exactly where I needed to take all of these empty pizza boxes, but had to walk around the building and down a bunch of stairs in a rain storm. Not one of my best moments, I'll admit.

Once we had gotten most of the garbage out, Claudia left me to it. I had to vacuum the room, which was covered in crumbs from the night before. The things I do for my internship...

After I was done with that and just about to leave for the office, I got a call from Brigitte - it was Herr Veit's birthday today, and he wanted me to pick up a few things from the store before I came in. I made a Penny stop and got some cheese, lunch meat, butter, and grapes, and headed on in.

I could smell the fresh bakery buns that Herr Veit brought in for his birthday celebration that were in the other room. For two hours, I sat, did my work, and waited. While I was waiting, I finished up the RIO Intensivkurs certificates for the students using Mail Merge and then stamped them all.

Karin also wanted to begin going through the Tandem program information with me - she had sent out an email that morning and we had a ton of new applicants, which was exciting.

The Tandem program is a really great program that the international office offer students. Each willing student submits their native language, the language they wish to learn, their age, and their interests so I can pair them with someone who can help them learn the language they wish to speak better.

Once Herr Veit got back from the lecture he was giving, we all sat down, with a few people from other offices down the hall, to a birthday lunch. Everything was delicious - we made sandwiches from the fresh buns and pretzels. Something that I have not seen outside of Europe (or, at least, not that I remember) is putting butter on the sandwich bun, and then putting the meat and cheese. It is fantastic.

Apparently in Germany it is a tradition for the birthday person to bring in something for everyone to enjoy.

We also all had a glass of Sekt (sparkling wine). Herr Veit almost blew a hole in the ceiling when he tried to open the second bottle! My lunch break was not really a break today, but it was absolutely worth spending more time with my colleagues. As everyone was speaking in German, I was mentally exhausted trying to keep up.

For the afternoon, I asked Brigitte if I could help her with anything - she handed me a stack of rental contracts and security deposit information from this semester and last semester. I had to separate the stack into semester, then sort each stack by dorm building. It wasn't particularly stimulating work, but I knew it had to get done. I finished off my day in the office with that task.

After I had finished the afternoon part of my shift, I went home with the intentions of taking an hour-long nap. That one hour nap turned into a three hour nap, but I think it was good for my body to catch up on some sleep!

The First Half of My Work Week

The last few days of work were pretty standard days in the office. Students have been coming in to pay October's rent for the last few days, so I have been doing a lot more of the face-to-face interaction than computer work.

When I am not helping students pay for their rent, I am usually updating the RIO website with new or updated information. I also began to work on the grades for the RIO Intensivkurs certificates. I set up the spreadsheet for the Mail Merge function.

Last night, Lineke, Amy, and I did dinner together. I had found this ridiculously good looking recipe for chicken taquitos. They were fantastic and we had some good bonding time.

Tonight, there was a scavenger hunt for the Student4Student people. Student4Student is an organization on campus where a German student is there as a guide and mentor for an international student. Many times, the German S4S will meet the international student to give them their key and will help show them the ropes of Reutlingen life.

During the day, Augusto, Tobi, and I set up the Wurm-Saal for the pizza party that was to follow the scavenger hunt. I ended up going for the pizza part, as I had class during the scavenger hunt part of the night. A few of the students helped me and Claudia clean up the Wurm-Saal a bit, but we are planning on coming back tomorrow morning to do most of the cleaning.

After the scavenger hunt/pizza night, the plan was to go check out a club downtown. We ended up having a good time just hanging out in Wurm-Haus and did not want to make the trek to get downtown tonight.

Instead, we went to the campus bar CaRe for a little bit. The music was not as terrible as it has been the last few times we have checked it out. It was nice to see Dawn, one of the PPP students who just moved into Wurm-Haus, interact with my international and Valpo friends. I think that she will fit in well here. :)

Traveling Home and Girl's Night

Today was our last day in Lucerne. As our hostel was so far from the train station, when we checked out and went to walk around the city some more, we had to take our bags with us.

We walked over by the train station and ended up crossing the covered bridge. The bridge was such an incredible piece of history of the city. The beautiful flowers that adorned it made it picturesque, and there were these worn paintings of events that happened in the city dating back hundreds of years.

The Kapellbruecke, the oldest covered bridge in Europe!

 

The Kapellbruecke!

 

After the bridge, food was the next order of business. We ended up in a little café, a ways off of the beaten path. It smelled like Broadway Café, something I have been craving since I have gotten here! Their menu was much less substantial than Broadway's, but it did the trick.

We window shopped a little bit, and then decided that our bags were heavy and we wanted to relax for the remaining hour until our train arrived. I got my Starbucks (the pumpkin spice latte I have been craving!), we purchased some Swiss chocolate, and stopped in the grocery store in the train station to spend our last CHF.

Mmm pumpkin spice latte! :)

In the chocolate store, I received a compliment on my German. :) The woman behind the counter told me that my German was very good, and that she could understand me very well. I was extremely flattered. I feel like I have been working hard at speaking the language, and it is nice to have my efforts noticed.

The train ride home seemed to take forever. We did not sleep as much on these trains as we did on the way to Fribourg. It also did not seem to agree with me - I ended up with a migraine and, as soon as we got home, I was down for the count and ended up having to take a nap to recover a bit.

Once I was recovered and had eaten some dinner, Amy and I headed up a few floors to Lineke's room for girl's night. About 10 of us crammed into the room to watch "Something Borrowed," drink some tea, and eat delicious snacky foods. It was a stereotypical girl's night to the max and I enjoyed every second of it. I had missed my friends from Reutlingen the last few days, and it was good to be back with them.

The Golden Round Trip Tour - Lake Lucerne and Mount Pilatus

Despite the dismal weather forecast for the day in Lucerne, Amy, Eric, and I ended up buying tickets to do the Golden Round Trip tour. This included a boat ride on Lake Lucerne to the bottom of Mount Pilatus, a cog railway ride up the mountain (the steepest in the world!), a cable car to get back down the mountain, and a bus ride back to the train station. The hostel we stayed at had discounted group tickets for the people staying there, so we got to pay a little less for this experience.

The woman who worked at the hostel advised us against going, but I couldn't leave Lucerne without going up Pilatus. This ended up being worth every penny we spent and then some.

The weather seemed to be holding out for us on our 15 minute walk to the train station. We waited for the boat to arrive, and promptly boarded. We went to the top deck because we figured we would be able to see more. Once the ticket guy arrived, though, we all found out that this deck was just for first class passengers. Ugh.

We headed downstairs and sat down at a table inside near a window. We went outside every once in a while to take some pictures, but mostly we just enjoyed the view. It sprinkled on and off throughout our trip to the base of the mountain.

While it was kind of gray, there were bits of blue sky peeking out from behind the clouds and the clouds and fog that formed in the mountains around Lake Lucerne made a beautiful picture.

Our misty view of the mountains from Lake Lucerne

Our misty view of the mountains from Lake Lucerne

The beautiful mountains, green grass, and Swiss houses on the lake

The boat ride took longer than I had expected - we arrived at the base of Mount Pilatus almost two hours later.

There was a short walk, and then we were at the cog railway. We were the last people allowed in to squeeze into one of the cars. We ended up in a car with seven other people (it was quite a squeeze) and we began out ascent. Because of the angles of the seats, we sat comfortably all the way up the mountain.

The cog railway cars

We paused in the middle of our descent up the mountain

In our ride up the mountain, I was reminded how truly small the world is. Two of the seven people in our car were a father and his six-year-old son. They ended up being from Reutlingen!

The other five were Americans. We came to find out that they were from Illinois! What are the chances that the people in our car would all be from places that we know - places that we call home.

The ride was nice, but we couldn't see too much. The trees blocked most of our view. And then we reached the top of the mountain.

A view from our cog railway car of another car making its way up the mountain.

Unfortunately, we couldn't see very far down the mountain, but the experience was just as fantastic as if we could have. First, we walked for about ten minutes up to the top of one part of the mountain. We got a view of the hotel and visitor's center on top of the mountain, and a little bit down the mountain.

View from the highest point of the mountain

Hanging out on Mount Pilatus

Beautiful sign on our way up to the high point of the mountain. In English:

"Come and see the works of God, which are so wonderful! ... God brought you and praise, you have a work of creation accomplished with glory and beauty."

Afterwards, we decided to take a walk around the mountain some. The sign that we saw said that our walk was going to be about 40 minutes - we had assumed that the walk was round trip.

We took a bunch of pictures and just enjoyed ourselves for our walk. We even ended up seeing mountain goats!

Wandering the mountain

 

Oh, you know, just some mountain goats!

 

And then the rain came.

As we continued on our journey, we kept going away from where we had started. After we had walked about 40 minutes, one way, and once the path went from paved to rocky, we figured out that the 40-minute trail was NOT round trip. And so, in the pouring rain, we made our way back to where we started. We were freezing, wet, and ready to get warm, and we decided we would get some coffee as soon as we got back.

Just happy to be out of the rain, we stopped at a gift shop in the visitor's center. A woman saw us and asked us if we had tickets to go down the mountain by cable car. Because we had that round trip ticket, we said yes and were then informed that there would be no more cable car rides down the mountain and that we had to go, as soon as possible, to the information desk.

I'll admit it - panic started to set in. We hurried over to the info desk, where the woman informed us that there would be one more ride down the mountain, and that we had to hurry. So much for our coffee.

We actually ended up being the first people in the cable car. It was eventually filled to the max with people trying to get down the mountain the way their ticket would allow them to. As the car was filling up, I thought the situation sounded like a movie situation: our cable car was going to get stuck and we would be stranded for hours, or because of the wind, our car would detach from the cable and we would fall to our deaths.

It was slightly horrifying, despite the beauty we saw around us.

Despite my initial concerns, our ride down was mostly uneventful and actually provided us with the best view we had had all day! We got to see the entire city of Lucerne, the surrounding mountains, and the lake; everything was green and grey, and it was so beautiful.

Halfway down the mountain, we got off of the large cable car and switched to smaller cars that fit about four people. Amy, Eric, and I had one to ourselves, and we enjoyed the ride.

Cable car down the mountain

Cable car down the mountain

Beautiful view from the cable car down the mountain

At the base of the mountain, the sky was beautiful and blue, the sun was out, and we had a pleasant walk to the bus stop - of course.

We were ravenous and when we made it back to the city, we needed to get some food. I ended up eating a fajita, shared some guacamole and chips with Eric and Amy, and Amy and I split a crepe for dessert. It was so delicious and was definitely earned from all of the walking we had done.

Tonight, the carnival we had been seeing get set up for the last few days was finally open. We ended up walking through the area and peeking into the stalls for various products from around the region.

Carnival near the train station

After our huge meal and a stop at our hostel, we decided to take a walk around town. We found a Starbucks near the train station and I made the decision then that I would have to get a beverage, no matter what the cost, from this Starbucks before we got on the train.

The Old City of Fribourg and Travels to Lucerne

And I thought yesterday was a busy day - my poor body would disagree!

We woke up early this morning so we could walk around the city of Fribourg. Thankfully, there was free breakfast at our hostel! We walked into the dining room and the breakfast spread was beautiful. There was cereal, home-made (amazing) bread, butter/jams/nutella-esque spread, a cheese and meat tray, and fruit. They also had a pretty great coffee machine that we could use, as well.

We checked out after breakfast and got to store our bags downstairs while we walked around. 

The city was beautiful, but also very quiet for a Friday. Most of the stores didn't open until about 11 a.m., so we were walking through mostly-empty streets. There are pros and cons to that - I feel like we didn't really get a chance to see the city when it was awake!

Exploring Freiburg

We wandered into the big church in the old town, Nikolauskirche, and it was beautiful to wander around it. It was also convenient to wander into because it had started to rain a little bit. By the time we had our fill of the church, the rain had abated.

View of the Nikolauskirche from the street

The beautiful stained glass windows and artwork inside the Nikolauskirche.

 

Continuing our walk, we found one of the large bridges in town and took the stairs down to be by the river and the old town.

The beautiful scene of the old city of Freiburg - it has the largest old town in Europe!

The view of one of the bridges in Freiburg on our way down to the old town.

 

Once we got to the bottom, found a beautiful covered bridge that I had read about before arriving in Freiburg.

Pont de Berne

Pont de Berne

About halfway through our wanderings, Amy and Eric literally forced me to climb to the top of a large hill up to one of the old watch towers of Fribourg. The view was pretty, but good God, that was a terrible hike up the hill.

View from the top of the huge mountain. Yes, the bridge in this picture is the one pictured earlier.

There were a lot of sheep around!

We then continued our journey BACK down the hill so that we could walk through the old town.

Part of the old town wall in Fribourg

The Pont du Milieu

Some of the cobblestoned streets of the old town

Once we made it through the city of Fribourg, I grabbed a cup of coffee, while Amy and Eric shared some gelato. We made the executive decision to leave Fribourg a few hours earlier than planned because we had seen what we thought we could see in the amount of time that we had.

Training from Fribourg to Lucerne was a much more pleasant experience than our travels the day before. With the shorter distance between our point of origin and our destination, we got to Lucerne around 3:30.

We wandered along the lake to our hostel. I have missed being by the water! There was also a nice park, as well as snobby-looking, members-only boat club houses.

Our view as we walked to our hostel along Lake Lucerne

Our walk to the hostel

Our hostel was about a 2 minute walk from the beaches of Lake Lucerne - we could see it from our first floor room.

This beautiful lake-side spot near our hostel.

Once we got checked in and settled a bit, we needed to get some dinner. I convinced Amy and Eric to at least go to a restaurant where I could get some fondue.

We wandered into the city of Lucerne with blue skies and beautiful weather. It was too bad that we had gotten into the city too late to get to the top of Mount Pilatus that day, but oh well!

We made it to the fondue place and I had my special Swiss fondue!

Yum! Moite-moite fondue in Lucerne.

Once we were done with dinner, we walked around a little more and then headed home. I really liked the hostel that we stayed at in Lucerne! There was a kitchen available for cooking our own meals if we wished and the rooms were great - we had a little patio area facing the lake and there were lockers in the room for which we received a key for! Such a simple thing, but it was so nice to not have to worry about my things while we were out for the day or sleeping at night.

It was another early night, but after wandering around a large hill, the entire city of Fribourg, and then traveling to Lucerne, we were, once again, pretty beat.

A Day of Travel - Off to die Schweiz!

After a late night last night, an early morning today was a bit rough. Eric and I took the X3 bus to the airport to pick up my best friend (and his girlfriend) who is visiting for almost 3 weeks, so the early morning was worth it.

When we arrived, Amy had already gotten through security and customs. She flew at me and gave me the best hug I think I have ever received in my life. :) I have missed that girl!

We took the same X3 bus back to Reutlingen, made it back to the university, and got Amy kind of settled - as we were leaving for Switzerland a few hours after we got back to Reutlingen, she couldn't settle too much. I packed up my bag, we grabbed Amy a few Euros from the bank, and headed out around 1:30.

We took, total, four different trains to get to Fribourg (pronounced "FREE- boarg" we found out from a nice man on one of our trains). We all slept throughout the trip, as it was about a four hour trek.
 
We saw castles up on the hills, a huge, beautiful waterfall, and so many beautiful scenes on our way.
 
Once we reached Fribourg, everything went pretty smoothly in regard to finding our hostel. I had read reviews on HostelBookers.com (the site I booked the hostels on), and many people commented that the hostel was really difficult to find. I guess we got lucky!

We set all of our stuff down and went off in search of some food.

I think it was when we started looking for food that the cost of living in Switzerland really hit me. We ended up at a döner kebab place (which we thought would be a little bit less expensive than a cute cafe or somthing), but it wasn't so.

I got a Döner Meal, which included a döner kebab, fries, and a soda, for 13 CHF (CHF = Swiss Franks). I spent $14.37/10,58€ on fast food. Yikes. Though the meal was a lot of money, it was also the best döner kebab I have ever had in my life, so perhaps it was worth it. The place that we stopped for dinner was also closing as we were finishing up our food and we got a free piece of baklava, as I am assuming they would have just thrown it out anyways. This was also the best baklava I have ever had in my life, so, again, good life decisions.

We got back to the hostel around 8:30 p.m. and we were exhausted - with Amy re-adjusting to the time change, and Eric and I having gotten up early to pick her up from the station, I am not embarrassed to say that we went to bed around 9:00 p.m. We'll have plenty of sleep in the morning, though, and be able to get up early and explore.

Tuesday - Enrollment; Wednesday - B1 Deutsch, and a LONG Day

Yesterday, not too much happened. My main duty for the day (besides the normal busy morning) was to help a few students to enroll in the university. Brigitte held a session for Kettering, PPP, and another student, and I was tasked with guiding the students through the German enrollment paperwork, helping some of them register for the city, and helping get documents organized for the residency visa paperwork. Because there were not too many students, the task was enjoyable, and I answered as many questions as I could. I am becoming a pro at enrollment paperwork, registering within a German city, and residency visa information! 

While my Tuesday was not particularly crazy, my Wednesday was! We were only open from 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. today, but I was not in the office for about an hour of that time. I went over to building 8 to learn more about our StudierenPlus program - this program is a combination of Blackboard and DataVU. For those non-Valparaiso University readers, StudierenPlus is a combination of 1. a platform where professors can upload course content and announcements and 2. register for courses and workshops.

Learning more about this software from the content-producing side was interesting and informative. I am glad that I am getting this opportunity!

The rest of my morning was spent doing various tasks for people around the office. When my lunch break came, I realized that my work week was over (on a Wednesday at noon? That was weird!), and I had only my first German class separating me and my weekend in der Schweiz.

After my lunch break, I ended up running into Dawn, who was also taking the B1 German class in building 4 with me. We walked there together, getting there only a few minutes before class was to start - there was no one in the classroom. Not one person. So, we sat down and waited.

As the time wore on, a few more students trickled in. In all, there were about 8 of us, but still no professor. 15, 20 minutes came and went, and another student decided to go ask the international office what was going on. Karin ended up coming over to the classroom, informed us that our professor was here and ready to teach, and went off to find her.

Apparently there were two schedules, both with a different room number, and half of our class, as well as our professor, were in another room! They came to us, and 45 minutes after our start time, we actually began.

It was a wonderful experience. It is so good to be back in the classroom and learning the German language. It reminded me of middle school and high school when I most enjoyed learning the language! I think this class will be a partial review, but that is exactly what I need. 

The class is only once a week, but it is long. We are in the classroom for over three hours. The time seemed to go pretty fast, but by the end of that time period, I was ready to go home. 

Once I got home, I had to eat dinner. This was a little difficult, as I really need to go grocery shopping! Since Amy is coming tomorrow and I will be out of the country for over three days, I tried to not buy anything that could go bad. I ended up eating some leftovers that were in my fridge and just made it work. 

Tonight was the first time that Dawn got to meet some of my international friends. Everyone was hanging out on the 6th floor in Wurm-Haus and we decided to go to CaRe, the on-campus bar, for a little bit. Overall, a long, but wonderful day.