Mein Gott. Wien.

And...freak out time about Vienna.  Central College seems to be very good at not telling us most of the important information until right before we absolutely have to know it.  That will be the meeting on Wednesday afternoon, and then we leave Thursday morning.  And...dragging my way-over-the-weight-limit-suitcase to ZOB, the bus stop across town.  I still don't know a lot about what happens once we actually arrive in the city - registering with the city, whaaaaat? - and I'm sure on Wednesday they will just throw all the information at us.  So, nervous about that, and about spring break a little, because getting to the Amsterdam hostel to meet Rachel might be difficult, and Charles de Gaulle is always insane and I have no French abilities, but at least Copenhagen has calmed down some and we're just going to Legoland all day anyway.

But...I am very excited for Vienna.  I looked up the district I'm living in (again, thank you Central for not telling me much).  It's the 9th, pretty much full of University buildings and otherwise academically related things.  It looks pretty.  

On Thursday Laura came to visit and we had lots of German adventures.  And by lots of German adventures, I mean that we went to the ruins, Comburg, went to some bars and a good restaurant, and frolicked around Schwaebisch Hall.  This time, I remembered to bring my camera to Comburg, and it was just as beautiful as I remembered.  I also decided that the wall overlooking the city in the ruins is my favorite place to sit possibly ever.  Laura walked around photographing things and I sat there for maybe 30 minutes and was completely calm. 

On Friday night friends and I borrowed the Goethe Kino (actually, we got Gesine to come make it work for us) and watched The Third Man, in honor of our upcoming travels.  It was very intriguing, and now I sort of wish Vienna was all black and white and everyone there spoke in film noir dialogue.  But hopefully we are taking The Third Man tour there, and we can all pretend to chase Orson Wells everywhere.  And yay, I understood most of the German in it.  Furthermore, Holly Martins might be the best name I've heard, and now I wish I could play the zither.

So...more from me once I'm in Vienna.

Bauchschmertz :(

This day has been full of food.  I was at the Steinmeyer's house all day, basically eating the entire time.  They made me waffles, which are really good German-style, but then they kept making waffles.  They made three batches of batter.  I don't know why that many waffles were necessary, but they were very good.  I would have thought that would be enough food for the evening, but then a huge platter of sausages, cheeses, breads, pickles, peppers, and apples arrived on my lap.  I managed almost half of it, while watching a German crime drama show that was completely more insane than most of the same American genre.

Yesterday I went to Nurnberg.  The bus ride there was interesting because they guy that was taking us would not stop talking for the entire time, about things nobody wanted to hear about.  It was 8:30 in the morning and we really just wanted to sleep, but he was on the loudspeaker the whole time explaining things like, "If you see a truck with a blue stripe, it's from Poland" in German.  For one and a half hours.  I turned up my iPod all the way.  Then he was leading a tour when we got there, which my friends and I started out on but quickly realized it was just more of him talking forever and ever, and so we (not-so-discreetly) ditched it.  

We ended up with a very American breakfast of omelets (finally, there are otherwise no scrambled eggs to be found in Germany, at least not that I've seen).  Then we just walked around for awhile, not really sure what we were looking at, but it was all very pretty.  There were lots of very old, gigantic churches.  We went inside a lot of them, and saw that they all were, as usual here, reconstructions, since the originals got bombed.  But still, very beautiful.  We also found a castle.  A castle for what or who, we don't know, but it was fun.  And later on the drive out, we saw Hitler's crazy copy of the Colosseum, where he thought he could build all of the biggest and most important buildings in the world, but make them better.  Admittedly, it was pretty impressive.

And, speaking of Hitler, my class this week was for some reason about assisted suicide, Sterbehilfe.  Since I am in the intermediate-advanced level, we are working on expressing our opinions on lots of topics auf Deutsch, but this was probably one of the more depressing we could have chosen.  The class was about the medical version and whether it should be legal or not, but researching it online led me to lots of stuff about Nazi "euthanasia" programs, and then pictures of all the death camps, and then I basically just felt horrible for a night.  I'm pretty sure I could not even go on a tour of one, or stand in the gas chambers, like I saw pictures of people doing.  And it all just reinforced my strong opposition to the death penalty, because there were pictures of Nazi gas chambers, and then pictures of American death penalty gas chambers, and they looked the same.

So...on better topics, last weekend I saw the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart, which was really really cool, and talked to some random German guy in German for awhile waiting for the train, which made me happy.  I also bought Harry Potter in German (Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban) and I loooooove it.  I'm learning a lot of new fantastical vocabulary, and I actually understand a lot, but that might be mostly because I've read it enough in English.  But I spent last Sunday, when it was beautiful and sunny but still very very cold outside, sitting in the park reading it, surrounded by ducks.  

Spring break is almost finalized, just working out Paris.  The hostel we are trying to get is very close to the Moulin Rouge, and I definitely want to go to a show.  And also, Laura is coming to visit on Thursday, and I am excited.

Gute Nacht.

They leave the West behind...

I am now returned from the exhausting Berlin trip.  (Thanks, German grammar, that is how it first came out).  Hanover was disastrous, but I am now a member of Hostelling International, which it looks like I'll need for the crazy Scandinavia trip we're trying to plan for spring break.

Yesterday I spent several hours at the Steinmeyer's house - my tandem partners.  Jona, the 5 year old boy, was mad at me for awhile because his mom made him came home since I was there, instead of play with his friend after kindergarten.  But then we got home and he put all of his toys all over me again and everything was fine.  We talked in English almost the whole time, but the mom, Keri, said she was very impressed with my German when I did use it.  She made me dinner again, and bought me a donut and cookies.  They love to give me stuff, and I'm not good enough at being direct and German-like to refuse it.  But I enjoyed it all.  Dad Klaus, who is my favorite German person I have ever met, came to take me home, in half the time it would have taken an American driver.  

It feels very strange having all the new Americans here.  Last month, there were a lot more students, and they were from more countries.  This month was the American invasion, and there are just less people over all.  My class is half American, except for the Turkish guys who also stayed another month, and are some of the nicest people I know.  Stephania made a surprise return, here to represent Italy for a little while longer.  We even talked about the American election, auf Deutsch naturlich, in my class.

Speaking of which, a reporter from Schwaebisch Hall came to talk to American students at Goethe about the election.  Unfortunately the first guy he found was Ben, who told him that he is very conservative, essentially in love with Mitt Romney, and thinks all the democratic candidates are crazy radicals.  He was not the best representation of America, and the rest of us were standing around embarrassed, especially when he talked about how great the Iraq War is and couldn't speak one word of German.  Luckily, the guy then talked to Suzanne from my class, who likes Obama and is way more liberal, and basically smarter about the whole thing.

Anyway, too bad for Ben Romney got kicked out of everything.

I also basically have my classes lined up for Vienna.  Three classes from Central (in partnership with the Uni, still obviously taught in German): German Literature from Realism to the end of the 20th Century, Theater in Theory and Praxis, the Music workshop which is only one weekend, and the History of Austria seminar that we all have to take.  Then one at the University, which I'll be counting towards my minor:  Love, Honor, and Adultery in Medieval Literature.  A little scared of doing things in Middle High German in a class taught all in Modern High German, but I am up for the challenge.  Vielleicht.  And then, according to Ruth, I am most likely getting an internship at Greenpeace.  Ganz toll.

Back to Stuttgart for a day this weekend, because why not.  Today Suzanne, Rachel, Rob and I climbed a mountain...it felt like...and found a meadow and giant expanses of farmland, where we proceeded to (yet again) pretend we were in The Sound of Music.  We have also already planned trips to Salzburg just for that purpose.

Gute Nacht, must face terrifying teacher in the morning.

Also, best picture of all time, when our tour guide made me and one other girl represent East and West Berlin.