Home

Yess! I am home and I am excited to be home, but I already miss Germany. I am glad to be in a comfortable place but I miss Germany because I was starting to get comfortable with the people and the setting there. There were a few other things that I liked while I was over there though. The sports night that we had was a lot of fun for me because I got to compete with other people, and what I liked the most about that is how I got to compete in soccer with Mike and other really awesome people. And not only did we get to compete with other people, we got to compete with people who were not only good at what they do, but were willing to come together as a team and play. That was quite exciting, but I think the thing that really made my trip was the Abschluss or graduation. That does sound weird because it makes it sounds like I just wanted to come home and have it done with, but I liked watching all of the skits being performed and all of the excitement that was involved. What made it more exciting though, was being able to perform our skit and making everyone in the audience laugh. That is what I really liked. There were other smaller points, where I made people laugh, that hit me throughout the program, but the graduation is the one that hit it in my mind. Abschluss also taught me what I have learned throughout the trip and that is how I can more readily understand spoken German.

Changes of attitude

When I came here, everybody was kind of agraid of eachother. But, people starting to get to know eachother. It was easier though to get to know those who either came from the same country or that spoke the same language, and a lot of the time it was both, but not always the case. Now though, it seems though a lot of people are getting comfotable with other groups and the such. If we spent a couple more weeks here, it may be that it would develop even more, quite possibly to the point that we would see a split where people would kind of separate themselves or start to distance themselves from the people who they got to know that annoyed them. I have not paid too much attention to the culture necessarily of Germany although people here seem to be really friendly but not everyone smiles. Algthough, it is not true that everybody in Cincinnati smiles, I feel though that people are more willing to smile Cincinnati. But I have to say that people do stop for you at the cross walks and that people can be more apt to help you in certain cases here.

Adaptation to life in Germany

Adapting to life here is kind of exhausting, I would have to say. First of all, and most of all, is that we for the most part do not have cars here, so our main means of transport is by foot. That is a really big thing, because class is about a 20 minute walk from where we are staying, and at least half of the trip to class is up hill, which makes it a lot of fun. I have had to give myself a lot more time to get to places, because, like today, I had to get to school to the town, then to the hostel then back to the school. That took me about an hour and a half. I also have been eating breakfast a lot more and eating a lot more during lunch. I have been a lot more tired because of the walking, but also because I love talking to people back in Cincinnati so much that some days I have stayed in the lab until 2 o´clock Ilmenau time because of the time change. With me walking more here, I have noticed that I take driving everywhere for granted, that I just can jump in a car and drive anywhere.

Food

I have posted quite a few pictures of food. One that I have not yet posted but will is of this food called . And yes there is a reason that the W is in parenthesis. What it basically is, is blood wurst cooked in a couple of other ingredients, that when mixed with the other ingredients and cooked, the meet actually curdles and creates lumps. I will post the picture later, but it looks disgusting and tastes disgusting as well. I actually got it from somebody else at the table that couldn´t finish it because she thought it was disgusting, and I couldn´t finish it either because it did not please my appetite.

As I kind of implied before, there are two nicknames the students here give that plate. The first nickname is derived from taking the w in the parenthesis out of the word and thus giving it, what I think, could be a pretty appropriate nickname for that meal. Sch(w)eisswurste is the word again. And to help you with that nickname, the first part of the dish without the w is a German cuss word, and the second part of the word is a type of sausage. I was told that the students at the Universität Technische would oftenly cross out that first w.

The second nickname is kind of find but disgusting. The second nickname is "tote OMA" which basically means dead grandmother. I forget if this nickname what just spread through word of mouth or was written on the menus that contained the name of the dish.

Dresden

To Dresden we all went on a bus and it took at least two to three hours to get there. It was a trip. It was well worth the trip though. At first, we had about an hour of free time, which was nice to take some preliminary pictures that we probably would have otherwise taken during the guided tour by foot. We had about a 2 hour guided tour. The first hour of the guided tour was by bus and the second hour of the tour was by foot. We saw great sites like the Frauenkirche, the Scwhinger, and the Ball thrower. After the two hour tour, starting at about 2, we had plenty of time to walk around and check everything out. We had from 2 until 10:30 to walk around and be back at the meeting spot, which was about a half an hour from the main area. In the main area there was this festival going on which was exciting. There was plenty of food, outdoor shops and music. Overall, I loved it.