Blog has changed locations

Since I already was paying for a webhost, but not using it, I’ve migrated my blog onto my new site, benlaird.com. So you can check things out there.

Bayerisch Brez’n und Bergen

I’m sitting on my couch in my new room thinking about this last week. It did not compare to my first week in Köln in terms of me being totally unprepared. Yet it still was one of those weeks that, because it was still quite a foreign experience, seemed to pass very quickly and very slowly at the same time.

So, brief recap:

My first night, the family had a friend over for dinner. He spoke to me in front of the family from across the table, and I did what I normally do in those situations: smile and nod. I assumed that I was not understanding him because my ability to understand native German speakers is awful. That was partly the case, but I later found out that he only speaks Bayerische, the dialect in Bayern. He apparently does not know how to speak Hochdeutsch (regular German). So I gained back 2 or 3% of my pride.

The week involved finding my S-Bahn stop, going into the city to register for school (The Technical University of Munich) and to buy a train ticket, going 15 minutes south to Tutzing to find any sign of life (aka a grocery store), and plenty of meals with the family. They eat breakfast every morning at around 6:45am, which clearly I miss. They said it is totally fine to eat later. They apparently have a maid, or some kind of helper, and she showed me how to make tea, where the bread is, etc… I do eat dinner together with the family, which is always cool.

My host parents are real sports when it comes to my poor German. They weren’t saying anything to me at first if I messed up, so at dinner I said (in german), “I obviously make tons of mistakes, so it is completely ok to correct me” . So now they still don’t say anything about most of my mistakes, because my Host Mom Gudila said I would get annoyed at so many corrections. However, if they notice that if I’m not totally off, they’ll correct me, which is good.

Also, I spent a day in a tent at Oktoberfest and went hiking in the Alps the next day. Oktoberfest was crazy, with thousands of people in Lederhosen in these huge tent like buildings. We definitely have nothing like it in the US. The next day, I met up with some people from TUMi, which is the international student group at my University. It turns out that one of them was a PPPler from last year who came back to Germany. We hiked about 20 km in the Bayerische Voralpen (Translated literally, ‘before Alps’) , which I guess is the area of mountains before you get to some of the monster mountains in Austria.

This hike was pretty hard, which can be attributed to the fact that I haven’t worked out in 2 months now. The first couple hours had some pretty steep uphill parts, and I was not handling them very well. But once we hit the summit, wow. Just awesome. Like many of the things I’ve seen, pictures do a better job than words. So check out the pics.

That’s it for now. More to come this week.

-Ben

PICS – ALPS
PICS – OKTOBERFEST

In München

Short Update:
I’m in München! I took a 6 hour ICE train from Köln Saturday morning. I navigated from my house to the S-Bahn, and took that to the Hauptbahnhof, and caught my train to München, all with my 60-65 lb suitcase, very full garment bag, hiking pack, and messenger bag. It was a great workout.

I met my host father, Christoph, in the Hauptbahnhof with one of his sons, Stanislaus. We drove home, and I got to settle in. I have a bedroom on the third floor of the house, with a nice bathroom. It’s nice. Of course, describing it won’t be as good posting pictures, which I will do tomorrow.

The nice things: I get to hang out with the kids and eat with the family. Corbinian, Stanislaus, Marcello, and Odilia really like me and want to do stuff. We’ve fought with wooden swords and played soccer alot. Today, I went sailing on the Starnberger See with the family and a family friend. It is actually a little strange for me, adjusting to being around several kids, since it has definitely been a while. But I know that this year will be alot cooler with family to experience things with.

I will post more later, once things slow down a tad.
Ben

Was man über Köln wissen muss

I was talking with Larisa, and realized that I have a ton of little things I’ve noticed about Germany that I have yet to write down. And considering that this week flew by and I have not done any travelling, this entry will be a conglomeration of completely unrelated observations.
This is also my last post from Köln, as I am moving to München on Saturday morning. So here we go, in list form:

1. The German Pfand. In Germany, you pay a pfand (deposit) on every bottle you buy. Instead of it being only 5 cents though, like in the US, it’s anywhere from 15-25 cents. So when you buy a 6pack of Apfelschorle(carbonated apple juice) you pay 1.50 in a deposit, and 1.20 for the juice. But when you build up a lot of bottles, returning them and getting the money back is fun. The Pfand, is very useful as an antilittering device. If you get 25 cents per bottle, you won’t see any on the ground.
2. Apfelschorle. See above. I drink this everyday. It’s really really good.
3. Deutsche Bahn. The German train system is a work of art. For instance…I lived in DC for the summer, and I will return next year. DC’s metro has like 4 or 5 lines. Not so complicated. Köln has like 25. And the S-Bahn and U-Bahn sometimes run into the same station, sometimes not. And that is just in the city. Plus, I have a book that lists every train that leaves from or arrives in Köln to almost every city in Germany. So I can plan on which train I want to take next April if I want. So yeah, I’m very impressed with the trains.
4. Gas. I’ve mentioned this before, but gas here is around €1.20/Liter, which is roughly $7/gallon. As a result, I have not seen any Hummers or Ford Excursions around. Mostly hatchback Ford Focuses (Foci??).
5. Public bathrooms. You have to pay to use a bathroom here. Which I actually don’t mind. They tend to be cleaner since they aren’t used by 1000 people a minute.
6. Döner. I wrote about this in my last entry, so no explanation other than they are awesome.
7. Same with pretzels.
8. And yoghurt.
9. English. You don’t run into people very often who speak only 1 language. Most people under the age of 30 have taken English in school, to complement their native German, and some take a third language as a kid.
10. Doughnuts- Known as Berliners in Germany, (Jelly doughnuts in America), these treats often make my day.
11. American abundance. In the US, I always buy $60 or more of groceries in a trip. Why not? Everyone has big fridges, and you get bags in the store. Not here. Many people only have minifridges, and you bring your own bags to the store. Washing machines also. People who wash a lot of clothes would lose it here. The washing machine is very small, half as big as a US one at best, and most people don’t have dryers. Ugh.
12. Back to drinks. I just realized that I haven’t seen Pepsi once anywhere in Europe. Coke and Fanta. That’s it. Fanta is huge here.
13. Houses. It’s interesting, that you don’t see large houses spread out everywhere. Atleast around here, houses are clustered together around the closest S-Bahn stop.
14. Euro clothes. I bought plaid Euro pants. They might look ridiculous, but I don’t care. I think they look good.

Well that’s it for now. I will post more random thoughts to the blog whenever.
Be well,
Ben

Seeing the best Germany has to offer + some exciting news

Hi everyone,
It’s been a while, so I have plenty to write about. I’ve made 2 small trips since Paris, both in Germany.

Last weekend, I went with a few friends down to Cochem and Koblenz in the Mosul Valley. The Mosul Valley is famous for its wine. On the train on the way down, we saw dozens of fields of grapes. It is amazing here, because the grapes grow on patches of land that are almost vertical. I have no idea how they are picked. Check out the pictures to see what I mean. Taking trains in Germany is actually pretty expensive, but if you take advantage of the deals it works out great. Deutsche Bahn has a special called Schönes Wochenende (Good Weekend). We buy one ticket for €32, and we can travel anywhere in Germany on Regionaltrains. The deal is that up to 5 people can travel on that 1 ticket. So I got 6 hours of travel of the trains for around €7. Not bad.

So some of us from Köln met other PPPlers from Saarbrücken. We ended up spending most of the day hiking to Burg Eltz, one of the best castles in Europe. It’s tucked deep in the woods, but it was worth the hike. We got lunch at the only restaurant we could find in this tiny German town and had some real German food. I actually ended up ordering a steak and fries, and received chicken and fries. Not exactly German, but I’ve been eating plenty of bratwurst and schnitzel, so it’s ok.

At the castle, we took a tour, and got to see how the royal family lived 500 years ago. The ancient kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, it was all very cool. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the inside but my pictures from the outside were awesome.

That evening, we bought some nice Mosul wine, and ate dinner in a Döner shop. Now, I have to explain Döner, because it is amazing. Döner is basically Turkish fast food, and it is what I eat when I want something cheap and very very filling. It’s a sandwich with either lamb meat or chicken, and filled with lettuce, tomato, onion, Tsaschiki sauce, and hot sauce, and I like to have cheese on it. It is really heavy, really greasy, and really good. (That white block is feta cheese)

So after we ate, we took a train back to Köln, and we got back early enough for me to catch one of the last trains back to my house. I really really enjoy traveling on the trains here, especially at night. It is so relaxing to have a 3 hour train ride through the country and read a book or listen to my iPod. I miss driving, but for going long distances, the train wins hands down.

My second small trip was yesterday, when I went with a few other PPPlers to Frankfurt for the International Auto Austellung, which is, from what I heard, the biggest car show in the world. After being there, I can’t argue. All the big names were there: BMW, Mercedes, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Audi. Hyundai also made an appearance, but they were a bit less impressive. This was big enough that German Chancellor Angela Merkel came the other day.

We walked around for around 5 hours and saw the coolest cars I have ever seen. Mercedes had one of the largest and most impressive exhibitions, complete with special lighting, music, special car run ways, and more. The Mercedes building was the size of a large warehouse and had probably 50 or 60 cars. We got to see their whole commercial line up, including their €100,000 models, as well as their new concepts. We also saw the new €1.5 Million Lamborghini. They are only making 20 in the whole world. I was impressed. Words can’t do these cars justice, so you really just need to check out all the pics. Links will be posted.

It is strange to think about, but I actually have less than 2 weeks left in Cologne. On the 29th, I move to my host family in Munich. Now this is really cool. I am living with the family of Herr Prinz von Bayern. If that is confusing, he is the Prince of Bavaria. His actual last name is Prinz von Bayern. And I am living with his family for 10 months. They apparently have a new exchange student every year. I know very little about them, other than they have some kids, are very involved with the Catholic church in Bayern, he has a missionary brother in Africa, and that I get to go to official events with them like Operas and other important things the prince would attend.

As you can imagine…I am very excited.

MOSUL PICS

Paris!

Hi everyone!
I have plenty to talk about, but will break it into a couple posts so that nothing gets missed. So for this post I will just talk about Paris. I definitely have plenty to talk about.

So I went on a Paris trip with other people in my language school. The school set it up, which was nice, because reserving a hotel room and booking a train is a pain, especially when you don’t speak French. So for €160, I got a bus ride to Paris, 2 nights in a Best Western, and 2 huge French breakfasts with unlimited croissants. Not too shabby.

So we got to Paris at 8pm Friday night, checked in, and went back out to see the sights. We learned to navigate the French metro, and we hit up the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe. There will be a link in here for all my pics in another facebook album. I took 270, but whittled them down for you. The trains stop running in Paris at 12:30am for some reason, so we decided to take a taxi home. This ended up being a big issue. We started walking across Paris at 1ish, and decided to catch a cab after a little bit. We started looking maybe at 1:30am, and thought it would be fine, because cabs were everywhere. Unfortunately, they were all full. Like, all 600 that passed us. So we kept walking. Two hours and something like 5-6 miles later, we finally flagged a cab down. I swear, it was insane how difficult it was to find a cab.

So, the next day, sore feet and all, I went to the Eiffel Tower with Pat (another PPPler). We found that for only €4, you could climb the steps to the 2nd level of the tower, and avoid the huge line for the elevator. From the second floor, you had to take the elevator to the top, which was another €4 and a 30 minute wait. Not bad at all. The view was obviously amazing. Check out the photos.

After the tower, a few of us went to the Louvre. We were able to find a cheap food place around the corner (surprisingly), so I got a panini. I was pretty happy with the food situation. Tarts, baguettes, crepes, paninis…I had it. We even found a place where we had a sit down dinner for less than €10. All we had to do was avoid the 33 cL soda (12oz ish), which was €3.80. Yeah, I’m not kidding. That’s $5.20 for a can of soda. We steered clear of that.

The Louvre was very cool. We made the obligatory walk over to the Mona Lisa, and I spent a couple hours seeing hundreds of other amazing paintings and sculptures. The descriptions were all in French, which made it a bit tough to figure out what was what, but it was cool to just walk around and take it all in.

That evening, we walked around Notre Dame, ate dinner, watched the street acts, and some other things. It was definitely cool. France has a ton going on there. We made it back to our hotel earlier, to avoid the previous night’s fiasco.

Sunday was calmer, as we had seen much of what we wanted to see. We explored the area around the Louvre, and went into one of the royal palaces. By the end of the day, we were happy to get on our bus and go back, because we couldn’t handle any more walking. It was definitely a workout.

So those are the highlights. We definitely crammed a bunch into our weekend. It was a cool place.

Random things: My two awesome roommates moved out my house and went back to Taiwan. Otto and Febe spent two months at the CDC like me, and really helped me adjust to Germany. They spoke English pretty well, which was a huge help that first week. Also, I found out that Otto is a Christian guy who plays guitar in his college ministry band, just like me, which was pretty cool to hear. So, Hi Otto and Febe if you are reading this. You guys rock.

Also, I passed my German exam to move onto Grundstufe 3, from Grundstufe 2. I definitely didn’t do that well, because my grammar is still awful, but I did well enough to pass. And I spoke to host mother in german last night for 15-20 last night about Paris, and she said my German is much better than when I came. And that is what matters.

So that’s it for now. I will write another post in a day or 2 about my living situation when I move to München, because it is pretty awesome. So stay tuned.

So I hope everyone is well. Keep the emails and comments coming. I love to read them.

Ben

PICS

Woops

Here is the link for my Belgium pics. I forgot I put them in a new album.

Belgium Pics

Time is flying by

It’s pretty weird to think that I left for the start of the program at Georgetown University a month ago on Tuesday. I’m half done in Köln already, as I move to München on September 29th. Strange to think about. So here is what I have been up to.

Last weekend I went on my first big trip of the year. I went to Belgium along with fellow PPPler’s Justus, Braden, Pat, Katie, Anna, and Maggie. Side note: I will refer to all the people in my program as PPPler’s from now on. PPP is the German name of the program, and is what everyone calls us. PPP stands for the Parlementarisches Patenshafts Programm for Jungen Berufstätige. Something like that.

So we left early on Saturday morning, taking a train out of the Köln Hauptbahnhof (main train station). We took the train to the Brussels Hauptbahnhof, which worked great. It was only a 3 hour trip, and we got a group rate so the train was only 40€ round trip. So once we arrived in Brussels, we basically just acted like tourists, walking around the city and taking photos. We stumbled on the royal palace, and took the tour. I wouldn’t mind living in that place. It was pretty large.

So after the tour, we needed food. We walked down to the city center, where our hostel was. There were tons of places to eat, mostly French places. Brussels has much more French going on than Flemish or Dutch, from what I heard atleast. Since there are so many languages floating around, English was actually around more than in Germany. Anyways, I went to a little French shop and got a sandwich and fries.

The fries, or Pommes Frittes, deserve a whole paragraph, because they are AWESOME. You get a paper bag with a massive amount of crispy large fries. They are not even related to McDonalds. Also, in Europe you pay for your condiments, even ketchup, so when you pay .50€ for ketchup or mayo, you get a massive amount. Pat, Justus, Braden and I got our food and sat in the street of Brussels. It was a good lunch.

So I was very full after this, but I figured that I won’t be in Brussels anytime soon after the weekend, so I went and got a Belgium waffle with strawberries and cream. Look at the picture on my facebook album. I’m not even going to try to describe how good a real Belgian Waffle is. Just amazing.

That afternoon we stumbled on some kind of celebration of Mannekin Pis. From what I understood, there was an induction ceremony for this beer club, with Delerium beer. It took place at the little Mannekin Pis statue, which is a little boy peeing water. Only after the ceremony, they hooked a beer line into the little statue, so he peed beer, which we got for free. It was very strange, but funny.

One of the coolest things about Brussels: There is one of those very European thin alleys, with tiny restaurants on both sides the whole way down. Just dozens of little French restaurants serving mussels and other seafood. We were not passing this up, so we found one where we got an appetizer, entrée, and dessert for 14€. The mussels were pretty great, and sitting outside in the middle of all these restaurants was just awesome. The French waiter knew we were American, and was pretty rude to tell the truth. Whatever.

So that night we went to a couple street concerts. There was a concert series in the city that weekend, so we went to a French hip hop concert, and a couple rock concerts in the main square. We also went to a bar that apparently had the Guinness World Record because they have a selection of 2000 beers. It was pretty impressive, with a French band dressed like pirates playing.

The next day, our group split off to do a couple different things. The guys and I decided to go to a flea market in Brussels, and then take the train to Antwerp. The flea market was mostly junk, but I did find the book American Tabloid, which I got for 50 cents. I thought it was funny to find that book in a Belgian flea market, but I wasn’t complaining.

After the flea market, we walked over to the train station, and waited for the train to Antwerp. For 6€ round trip, it worked really well. In Antwerp, we went our for lunch and just walked around the city. It was cool to just walk around and see the street performers.

Back in Brussels, we found one more concert: Some sort of French folk music. It was definitely strange, but the more we watched the funnier it became. We ended up staying for about 2 hours, until we had to go catch our train back to Germany.

Part of the way we got cheap tickets to and from Brussels was that our return trip had some connections. With that, we got to experience some of Germany’s Regional Bahns. I would not be surprised if our train was one used 50 years ago. The ride home was an adventure.
Overall, a very cool trip.
This past week was more language school. I’m learning more and more. I hope to become a little more conversational in the next couple weeks. On Wednesday, I went to a bar to watch the Deutschland-England football(soccer) game. I love the pro-football culture here. The game was on in every bar we saw. For the record, the final score was Deutschland 2 – England 1, and everyone was happy.

Yesterday, I took the U-Bahn out to the last stop out east to Königforst and went hiking. It was fun to get out of the city and out in the country, where I feel a little more in my element. In the evening, I went to one Deutschland’s famous festivals with stands serving the 2 staples of the country: beer and bratwurst. I walked around with friends, then went and hung out on the steps of the Dom.

That’s it for now. I’ll try to post more often, so that I don’t end up writing 5 pages in one sitting.
Until later…
Ben

Adjustment Phase

We were warned that we would experience culture shock, and missing the US. You don’t really remember what that is like until it hits you. Now that I am here, I definitely understand. The culture shock has not really been a problem, other than the language barrier. Germany is similar to the USA in many ways, which has been the transition not terrible. Grocery stores have not been as bad as I was warned. I basically was told in preparation that the checkout lines are very stressful, because you must pack your own bags (that you bring by the way, plastic bags are not free here), and German checkout people are insanely fast. That is true, but luckily, I only buy 5 or 6 things at a time in the store, making checking out not bad. Like the US, the U-Bahn and S-Bahn system (Metro, Subway, in the US) is complicated the first day or 2, but is not a big deal after that. Other than that bad experience missing the S-Bahn I wrote about before, everything has been smooth.

Being away from the US is a little tougher to adjust to. Going from Cornell to Virginia for the summer was a bit of a change, since I was much more isolated than ever before. This is even more extreme. I was told that after those first couple days of ‘vacation feelings’ wear off and I realize that I will be here for an entire year, it would be a bit of a shock. And it was. But it is a growing experience.

I will adjust and feel more normal as my language skills improve. Which leads to my main activity: Language school. I attend the Carl Duisberg Centrum (CDC) 5 days a week for language training. I have class from 8.45-13.00 on Monday through Thursday, and 8.45 to 12.15 on Friday. I also have ‘Mediothek’, which is additional practice on computers and with audiotapes, on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

My teacher’s name is Frau Löber, and she has been good so far. In 6 days of class so far, we have pretty much covered everything I learned in my 3 years of High School German (which admittedly was not a ton). I’m definitely learning a lot of vocab, and am getting better at speaking. I still cannot understand people out on the street or on TV, because of how quickly they speak, but I am noticing words here and there. I’m sure that by the end of the month, I will be able to understand people speaking much better.

Highlight of the week: On Friday and Saturday night I went to the Alterstadt, which is in the heart of Köln, right next the Dom and the Rhine. It is the old part of the city, and looks very quaint and European. Tiny cobblestone streets, very old buildings, several classy Kölsch Kneipen (Bars for famous Kölsch beer), and plenty of little places to buy Bratwursts. I also learned that asking for a bratwurst did not guarantee you a sausage sandwich, which is what I expected. The guy chopped up my Wurst, and put it in a carton with sauce. So he asked me if I wanted bread, and I said sure. So I got my roll, but it wasn’t cut, which I thought was strange. I asked him to cut it then, and he chops it in half, vertically. Not ideal for a sandwich. But who cares. I now know that sandwiches are not always a given, and that the Bratwurst is amazing, no matter how you eat it.

Enough for now. I love hearing from you on Facebook, on through comments on the blog. Keep em coming, and I miss you all.

-Ben

Some pictures

This is the link to some of my facebook photos. It should work for people who don’t have facebook.

Pics