Making up for lost time...

Ok so it has been quite a while since I last wrote and I apologize profusely to those of you who check this every couple of days hoping for the next bit of my adventure. Anyways...

We finished our ILP language program on Thursday, Sept. 21 and then we had a 2.5 week break before we had to be back to start university. Most people went to Italy over the break and several even stopped by Oktoberfest on the way. I decided that beyond a picture of me holding an enormous beerstein, Muenchen and Oktoberfest didn't really have anything to offer me at this time of year. I decided instead to visit some friends in Great Britain.

My trip started on Saturday (the 23rd) when I got on a 4 hour train to Hamburg to visit Ingo for a few days. However, I realized halfway through the train ride that London is not in Germany and that I would in fact need my passport to board my flight to London. Rather than get a train back to Goettingen right away, I went on to Hamburg so that I wouldn't miss the show at the planetarium that evening. The planetarium was fun and the narrator of the show was Tom Hanks (or at least it would have been if it were in English...but it was the voice of German "Tom Hanks"--the person who always dubs for him--haha). Then I had to get up early Sunday morning to get a 4 hour train back to Goettingen, grab my passport and then a 2 hour train back to Hannover. All in all a fun day on the trains. Monday I went to Ingo's praktikum (internship) with him and heard all about the filing system they employ at this particular office...very intriguing. Then Ingo and I explored Hamburg and went to a "Sneak Preview" movie.

Sneak Preview is an interesting concept in Hamburg. Rather than being a movie that is about to come out, they turn it into a whole experience. First of all you don't know what movie they are going to show when you buy the tickets, then they throw bags of chips into the audience, and they have a random little auction before the movie starts. Then during the movie, which turned out to be "My Super-Ex-Girlfriend" (now I know why I didn't see it in the US, it was in English though), everyone in the audience makes lots of noise and gets really involved. It was a lot of fun and mostly students, but surprisingly not all.

Anyways then we got home around 1am, slept for 3 hours and left for the airport around 4:30 am so I could catch my early flight to London. Travel was fine and I got to London and then promptly flew to Edinburgh to meet Fiona. The security line in Gatwick was insane, it put Disneyland lines to shame. Fiona picked me up at the airport and then we drove back to St. Andrews. Scotland is extremely beautiful and St. Andrews especially. There is the North Sea and beaches and amazing stone buildings, castle and cathedral ruins, and the golf course obviously. I spent the week with Fiona and her roommate Ellie in their amazing flat. We explored St. Andrews, visited Stirling Castle (where we had the most hilarious scottish tour guide--he wasn't your typical tour guide--he had several tattoos and piercings, but he was probably in his mid-40s and he had an awesome accent and said "wee bit" so many times), and we even went up to Dunkeld, a small town on the edge of the highlands, to visit Fiona's grandfather. That was seriously such a fine time and if you want to hear more about Scotland's beautiful green hills, the delicious steak pie, or all the sheep--let me know and I can elaborate. Oh and we also went to the Union, the university bar/club (because they don't allow clubs in St. Andrews itself) on Friday night to the 'Bop' which is basically just dancing. It was great!

Then I hopped on a bus from Perth (near Dunkeld) to London. It was supposed to leave at 9:30am so we got to the bus station around 8:45 just so that we would have time and all would be ok. It turns out we went to the wrong bus station in Perth and it was good I had the time because I had to get a taxi and rush over to the other station. I arrived just in time (9:25am) to realize that my bus had been delayed in Aberdeen because someone had gotten sick. Then a bus showed up about 20 minutes later (not my bus), another came 15 mins after that (also not my bus), a third showed up 5 minutes later (still not my bus)...but none of these buses could leave because of the people on my bus who needed to transfer to the other buses. My bus eventually showed up at 10:30, everyone got on to the correct bus and we departed. I got in to the London bus station a short 10.5 hours later at 9pm. Then I was supposed to meet Chantelle's boyfriend so that he could get me to Egham (Royal Holloway University where Chantelle studies)...some communication wires got crossed and it took us 40 minutes to find each other. I ended up just standing out in an open area of the train station and then I heard someone call my name...'thank you God'...luckily I made it safely to Chantelle's and she greeted me with Jerk chicken, corn on the cob, a pita and hot tea. It turned out to be a good day after all.

I spent the week with Chantelle and we hung out, explored campus, watched movies, went to Windsor Castle, hung out in the university bars and over the weekend we went in to London and stayed with Chantelle's mum and 3-year-old brother, Tyler (he was a crack up). In London we went to Camden Town (comparable to Venice Beach) with amazing ethnic food stands and tons of stalls to buy anything and everything, then we walked around, had tea at the British Museum (quite disappointing really), walked around some more and rode the London Eye at night--absolutely amazing views! The next day we decided to redeem our English afternoon tea experience by getting tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace. It was a delightful afternoon with cucumber sandwiches, scones, tea and Victoria sponge cake. I was very much impressed and would recommend it to anyone, especially as it was delicious, reasonably priced and a lovely environment. We proceeded to explore Kensington park, the Royal Albert Hall and we searched for quite a while to see the Princess Diana memorial fountain (also extremely underwhelmed by the little waterless moat that it turned out to be). We spent Monday hanging out in Egham and doing some laundry so I could return to Germany with clean clothes (novel thought).

Tuesday morning I woke up at 4 am --(this feels familiar)--to get a taxi to the next train station and then a train to the airport. During my stop over and train switch in Clapham Junction there was a blind man asking for help, but no one was stopping. He could hear people walking by so he would yell when they didn't stop. Since I was the next person he was going to come across, I decided to help him, rather than get yelled at since I had 30 minutes until my train came. I took his arm and helped him up the stairs to his platform. He told me to leave him with someone and then I could catch my train. I looked around on platform 5 and 6, where we were standing, and of course there was not a single soul to be seen. I proceed to tell him that there is no one around and that I don't know what to do, but he starts yelling at me to leave him with someone. Every time I try to counter with "but there is no one here" he yells and me and tells me to shut up. Eventually I just get so frustrated that I start to cry, he finally realizes that it is rude to yell at the person helping you and decides to comfort me and see if I am ok. Of course he is only worried that someone will hear me, but anyways he stops yelling. I regain control of myself and calmly tell him that I cannot see anyone around us. He, for some reason, doesn't believe me and insists that there are people that I can't see (ironic, huh). Then at the very moment that I just can't take it anymore, I turn around and I see a man, who must have appeared out of thin air....probably an angel. I promptly walk the blind man over to him, thank him profusely and run away to get my train.---I have resolved to never help blind people again.

The train, plane, and train back to Goettingen was smooth sailing (especially since I had my passport) and I made it back around 4:30...only 12 hours of travel from England to Germany---gotta love how close everything in Europe is. :-)

Anyways I got back to Goettingen on October 10th and the next day we had an orientation to help us understand how we function in two universities at once. The rest of the week and weekend we didn't really do much. Classes started the following Monday (the 16th), but we realized that most classes don't start until the 2nd week for whatever reason. Since we didn't really know what classes we wanted to take, or what the classes would be like, we spent the first 2 weeks 'Class Shopping'. I have decided to take Literature in the 3rd Reich, French Revolution history class, Russian Foreign Policy 1856-1917, and an Argumentation/Discussion class for foreign students. I am also taking Estonian for beginners! Yay...such fun learning a new foreign language in a foreign language. It is pretty difficult, but there are only 10 students and I think it is going to be fun. I don't have class on Fridays and I only have 1 hour of class on Thursdays. Most classes in Germany only meet once (sometimes twice) a week for 2 hours (which means 2 academic hours--so really only 1.5 hours). Lectures are pretty difficult to understand, but all in all I think I will be ok and basically other than some homework in Estonian and for my Literature tutorial (designed for UC students) I will probably just be writing 2 papers, due at the end of the semester, and taking 2 tests. Not too shabby.

Ok I will bring this to a close...this is basically up to date now, it at least brings you up to speed on my travel and academic life. Social will come in the next update, as I recount the hilarious stories from our various Halloween parties. Happy Halloween and until next time.

P.S. I have uploaded all my pictures thus far on to my computer, but because I am not quite skilled at adding them to the blog, I intend to put them on a photo website and then have a link so that you can see pictures from Germany.