Rain and Net Neutrality

Well, it rained for a good bit of the day, so I cancelled my plans to hang out at Schlossberg. Oh well.

Hey, since you're all obviously using the Internet to read this blog right at this very moment, you're hopefully aware of the threat to Net Neutrality - that is, your ability to control what you see on the Internet and at what speed without interference from communication companies like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon.

Click on the image below to visit www.savetheinternet.com and see where ( or if ) your Congress Person stands on Net Neutrality.




Or, if that's all too complicated, watch "Ask a Ninja: Special Delivery 4: Net Neutrality"

Week 2

Hey Everyone!

Well, it's been nearly two weeks since I landed in Germany. Nothing disastrous has happened so far. Which is good. Of course.

Monday, the 11th, I started an intensive language course at the International House in Freiburg. I've got a grammar and a conversation class. Much like President Bush's stages of grief over 9/11 ( Denial - Anger- Anger - Anger - Hannukah - Denial ) I went through several stages of denial that summer is over.

First day is always exciting. Something new! Something to do other than sit in front of my laptop in the evenings! New faces, new challenges! Better German skillz!

The second day I found myself frustrated. Who the f*ck labels verbs as accusative and dative? I struggled against this socially constructed binary system. But that didn't really help me get anywhere on my homework. Not only that, but sometimes it was hard to tell what we had been instructed to do in class. These were actual Germans speaking actual German to us! I sorta wanted them to cut me a bit of slack and speak more slowly. I mean, have mercy!

The third day I came to accept it all. Hey, it actually does sorta make sense to organize verbs in this manner! Now I can actually remember what pronoun to us in certain contexts! And hey, it's cool that our instructors don't baby us with dumbed-down German. I mean, it's an intensive course that I'm paying a lot for, right? Exactly.

The fourth day was panic. So many verbs and words and only a few more weeks to remember it all and then use it in my daily life! Not to mention I had a Referat the next day that still hadn't been fleshed out ...

The fifth day was half panic, half resigning myself to fate. Referat was written, but the class didn't really know/couldn't remember how we had to present it. In pairs or split up? A bit of panic, some last minute preparation. They cut us some slack and let us choose how we wanted to present. ("Zusammen!"). Hey, it was Friday! Everything went well.

Friday night there was a party for a guy down the hall from me and the whole floor was invited. Chatted with the Amis and spent the rest of the evening telling my life story to some of my Mitbewohnerinnen ( floormates ) in German. Okay, my German still needs some work, but at least I can carry a conversation for an hour or more.

A few things about Freiburg:
Very few advertisements shouting in your face. Mostly just the S-Bahns covered in a skin of advertisements and a few posters about safe-sex and upcoming concerts or parties.

Everyone has a plant. Or more. And sometimes even more. A tons of green roofs that I can see from UZH.

It's very hard to find celery at the open market. I don't think anyone sells it. Which I find very odd. But oh well!



I know I'm home everytime I step into the elevator.



Market at the Muenster. A few entries below there's another picture of a few stalls in front of the church. That picture faces the one I've posted just above.

Markt am Muenster

People watching : the national German sport

Deutsch - warum nicht?

http://www.podcastingnews.com/forum/links.php?id=110&start=25&sid=491b275e71180ec6b024b1fdd158dc88

A podcast for anyone wanting to brush up on or learn some German. Great for learning to listen. Explained and narrated in English.

Videos

My very messy room.



A pigeon visits. For some reason this has 38 views. Crazy people.

Shauinsland

Today we took a local train and a bus up into the Schauinsland, a part of the Black Forest outside of Freiburg. Most of the AYFers showed up and the families of our program co-ordinators as well.

Heute haben wir beim Zug nach das Schauinsland gefahren. Die Meistenheit der AYFeren haben teilgenommen ( und die Familien unseren Programme-Koordinatoren auch ).



My lunch. At least, part of it. Wurst on a piece of bread. Mmm.

Mein Mittagessen. Wurst mit Brot. Lecker.




We took a tour of a house in the Schauinsland. It's over 400 years old and was inhabitted and functioned as a farm until the 1960s. I think the only thing that's new is the roof, which I think they said had been ruined by hail and needed replacing. As someone pointed out, this house is older than the USA. Our tourguide gave us a history of the house and how its architecture differed from others. Everything was under one roof - the animal stalls, the kitchen, the garage ( for lack of a better word ), the workshop, and the bedroom. Smoke was circulated throughout the house not only to warm it, but also to smoke meat and treat the wood with which the house was made.

When the ox, which they had used to haul lumber and do other tasks, died they would eat its meat and then hang its skull in the attic. There it would look over the welfare of the house and the family within. The house, in its 400+ years of existance, has never burned down.




The actual hike was wonderful. I was a bit winded after we reached the top, but in good shape. Lots of lovely trees and rocks that look like they could come alive and then speak very slowly to you.

Der Spaziergang war wunderbar. Danach war ich ein bisschen muede, aber hatte ich eine gut gelaunt. Es gab viele schoene Baeume und Steine, die vielleicht mit Leuten sprechen koennten ~_^




Luckily, the weather was wonderful for us. Only a few clouds in the sky and in the distance. At first it was a bit cool, but once you started walking you hardly noticed.


Gluecklich, das Wetter war schoen. Es gab nur wenige Wolken im Himmel. Anfangs war es ein bisschen kuhl, aber es wurde waermer wenn man den Spaziergang angefangen hatte.

Michael Dietrich

The historical tour really wasn't as cheesy as I thought it would be. It was actually very entertaining. Our tour guide, Michael "Neunfingerle" Dietrich, was quite the character and storyteller. It's an hour and a half long tour through the middle of the city, but with frequent stops at the Muenster, the Rathaus, and old University buildings. It started at 8PM when most of the crowds are gone and the moon is out, thus the tour is guided by lantern.




Most of the tour was in German, though his English is pretty good.

Well, I’m finally in Freiburg. I can’t tell you how long it took me to get here. Wait, yes I can and yes I will. It took me too long. My flight from Chicago to Dublin was cancelled and I had to wait another 24 hours for the next flight to take off. By the time I landed in Dublin I was exhausted from lugging my luggage around and took a nap while I waited to check in. Finally got on a plane to Frankfurt and landed around 7 o’clock. Got a Bahn 50 card at the Hauptbahnhof there, which gives me a 50% discount on all ticket purchases. 103 Euro, but worth it.

Train pulled into Freiburg at 11 o’clock. Picked up by one of the program co-ordinators and taken to my dorm. It doesn’t compare to the “Brodjects” at MSU, to say the least, but it’s pretty neat and really not that bad when it comes down to it. There’s lots of renovations going on, so it’s a bit dusty and noisy. I’ve met a few people on the floor, but I’ve been so busy getting tours of the city, creating a bank account, and all that good stuff that I haven’t had much time to really talk to anyone.

I have Internet access thanks to a couple of guys that live upstairs. A few of us chipped in to pay for a private Internet provider, rather than relying on the University’s apparently unreliable service. Internet access isn’t at all what it’s like at MSU. At MSU you’ve got a computer lab in every dorm complex without restrictions on surfing, wireless in the library and the Union, and more labs in Wells Hall, the Union, library, and various other locations. It’s very easy to get online. At the library here there’s about eight computers with which you are allowed to check only your mail – as long as it’s on a list they provide. So it was impossible to check my MSU mail. The only other computers there with Internet access were only for research and also did not allow me to check my MSU mail. So I was Internet-less for several days and I didn’t know if I would ever have it.

We went to IKEA yesterday and I got a neat area rug, a pillow, a lavender plant, a shopping bag, some dishes, and some plastic storage bowls.

I still really need to do my shopping for the week and hopefully I’ll have enough time between signing papers and signing more papers.
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It's evening now and I'm leaving for a cheesy historical tour of Freiburg. Bis spaeter!