Ich lebe noch! I'm still alive!

Music: Surf Wax America by Weezer on pandora.com
Books: Dracula by Bram Stoker and Gotik by Suckale et al.
Mood: tiiiiired but accomplished!


Hey Everyone!

Believe it or not, I'm still alive! The first two weeks of the semester were of course busy as I became reacclimated to being a university student ( gasp ), which means that there was work to be done.

This semester I have three days of classes, but they're pretty full. Mondays I'll have Medieval Painting from 13.00-16.00 ( the next meeting for that class isn't for two more weeks ) and Wilhelminian Foreign Policy from 18.00-20.00.

Tuesday: Botany from 8-10 and European Union from 12-14
Wednesday: Nothing nichts zilch nada zip
Thursday: Botany from 9-10, History Tutorat 10-12 ( it begins fifteen after the hour and that's just enough time to bike from the botanical gardens to the main campus ), and European Union 14-16. My busiest day!
Friday: Nuttin'

With the exception of the first few days of classes, time has been well spent. I meet a lot with Beki to go over our Botany handout and dig around in the main library and the Biology Library for up-to-date textbooks that explain our sparse handout in detail ( whether in German or English, though the Biology Library seems to be dominated by English ). It's pretty time consuming, but productive.

I've also grown out of the awkward-foreigner-sitting-silently-in-the-corner stage. Consider that last semester I only had one "true" university course - my other courses were with other Americans from the program. This semester I have three university courses ( four if you count the History Tutorat ) and only one AYF course and therefore will be mostly immersed in the German-speaking world ( I do need to keep my head above the water to breath ). So far I've been able to actively contribute to group projects ( at least planning ). Hey, small steps.



Today I went to Basel, Switzerland, to see the Kunstmuseum or Art Museum. It was nice travelling on my own for once and besides, it was recommended that I go see collections of medieval paintings for my Art History course. Basel was a medieval art center, if that's the correct term, and thus there was a good amount of late medieval ( ! ) art. Early medieval? Zzzz. Gag me with a spoon. Late is where it's at. Whatever it is. I would have gone through a second time to make sure it was all in my head and indeed I did for some of the more prominent artists, but museums can really knock the energy out of you, no matter how interesting they are. I've been to enough museums and large cathedrals now that I can spot a small Gruenewald across two rooms in a heartbeat and I get geeked about seeing similarities between the portrayal of the Prince of the World in Strasbourg, Freiburg, and Basel.



They've also got a lot of works by Arnold Boecklin, whom I had never heard of, but whose works I really like. They've also got a lot of modern art, from sketches to completed works, from Picasso to van Gogh and Roy Lichtenstein ( I was too worn out and hungry to make it to see Lichtenstein's works ).

If you're ever in Basel, the Kunstmuseum is definitely the place to go. They're got a good amount of everything - Golden Age Dutch art, late medieval, modern, 17th-19th century sketches and pencils. Mostly paintings and other things you can hang on the wall, with a couple of sculptures to spice things up.

Low point of the day, though, was the waitress at the museum's cafe ( holy crap, 4 CHF for a cup of tea ) switching to English when I said "I'd like a coffee... er, I mean, a tea" ( in German ). Slip of the tongue! I can speak @*#*& German! It sorta put me in a bad mood. If she wants to practice her English, she can practice with the hordes of tourists who don't speak French or German. If someone begins speaking with you in German, it means they're probably confident that they can continue on in German. ::sigh:: Anyhow, so I forced myself to speak more German while I was there. I ran into two wandering apprentices near the Muenster and although I already know what they do and tradition and blah blah blah I played tourist and asked them questions for the sake of speaking.

Well, since I had arrived in Basel around 11AM and spent 2 hours at the art museum, I decided to wander around and see things I had seen last time I was in Basel. I saw the Muenster with new, enlightened eyes, the town hall, and crossed the Rhine a few times. I also wanted to go to the Culture Museum because it's free, but they were closed to prepare for a new exhibit. The Museum of Natural History also looked really neat ( I loved the one in Dublin ), but by that time I had 1CHF in my pocket and there wasn't a bank in sight to make an exchange ( yes, I realize they'll take Euros ), but I had already spent enough time indoors, spent enough money, and it was soooo lovely outside compared to the last time I was in Basel. So I walked around a bit more, then made my way back to Basel SBB trainstation and get back in Freiburg around 6PM.



One day I shall return to Basel and purchase everything at this store. Holy crap. Calligraphy heaven.

Slideshow!

Here's that slideshow I made sometime around December. It's about 9 minutes long with pictures from the Black Forest around Freiburg, Heidelberg, Italy ( Florence and Assisi ), France ( Colmar ), and Switzerland ( Basel ).


Well, I finally start classes tomorrow. I still need to see if I got into either of the History courses I requested. The first week of school you attend any classes you are interested in and if they don't suit you, then you simply stop showing up. Though they do pay a fee ( now 500 Euro, up from 100 Euro last year, but that's another subject ) they don't pay per credit hour and so there's no need to sign up through any unified system. For some classes, like History seminars, you fill out a form with a list of requested classes and then they post a ( tangible, paper )list of who got in. Some courses you need to e-mail the professor or assistant, others you simply show up for and take attendance.

I'm looking at:

Maler und Malerwerkstaetten des Mittelalters am Oberrhein ( Painting and Painting Centers of the Middle Ages along the Upper Rhine )

Exkursion im Mittelalter ( Medieval History with Fieldtrips )

Einfuehrung in die Oekologie, Morphologie, und Evolution der Pflanzen ( Introduction to Ecology, Morphology, and Evolution in Plants )

Nationalsozialistische Macht; Personen und Strukturen ( National Socialist Power; Personalities and Institutions )

Ruestung im Zeichen wilhelminische Weltpolitik ( Wilhelminian History, World Policy )

AYF Geschichte der EU ( AYF History of the EU )

In case I don't get into the Wilhelminian or National Socialist History courses I can fall back on the Medieval History course.

I also signed up for classes next year at MSU. I'll have to talk with my American prof here and see if I can get things straightened out.

On another note, here's some interesting information about biking in Freiburg, including maps and general information and statistics.

I've been biking for about a week now. It's going well. I can get to StuSie in 5 minutes, Vauban in 15, Haendel in 10, and to the University in 7 or so. The weather's been pleasant. A few days ago it was 80 degrees, but I hardly noticed, as 80 in Michigan = death due to the humidity that usually accompanies it.

Kaiserstuhl and Birds

Today I stopped by a bookstore in town and picked up a 1.50 Euro guide to birds in the Kaiserstuhl region.

If we hop into our time machine, I'll take you back to last summer, where I spent my lunches either reading Rolling Stone magazines in the lunch room or eating outside and watching birds. The warehouse backed right into the woods, which meant there was always some wonderful interaction with Mother Nature somewhere, whether it was wasps building nests on the windows, snakes in the basement, or spiders in someone's cubicle. In my corner of the warehouse we had a bird that would spend the better part of its day pecking at its reflection in the mirror windows outside. So, I spent a lot of time watching birds at work, is what I'm saying.

Fast forward to today. Mary got a little net full of birdseed for me for Christmas and I plopped it out on my windowsill, since there's no place to really hang it. It sat there for several months until some little finches figured out that it was food and then devoured it in several weeks. They're yellow, blue, black, and white and in general it was driving me nuts that I could only identify the ravens, pigeons, magpies, and woodpeckers, which are all also found in the USA.

Unfortunately, wikipedia and the Internet in general were failing me, so I turned to the good old-fashioned printed stuff. They've got the English and French names listed as well.

So far I've seen:
Ringeltaube/Wood pigeon
Buntspecht/Great spotted woodpecker
Elster/Magpie
Blaumeise/Blue tit
Amsel/Blackbird
Buchfink/Chaffinch

and likely others. I still can't identify the raptors I saw at the Hochburg. Red/brown back with a white belly and a tail that's white and black stripped on the bottom. ::shrugs::

Around Town

Easter was spent in Emmendingen, just a ten minute train ride out of Freiburg, with Beki and Alex. We walked to the Hochburg ruins, which took maybe 45 minutes to an hour. They were built over the course of several hundred years from the 11th to the 16th century ( I think ).







There were a couple of falcons swooping about. I'll try to find a book at the library to identify them sometime. Unfortunately I didn't get any clear pictures. Camera only zooms so much.



A few days ago I picked up my new ( used ) bike! I stopped by Die Bahn ( The German Rail ) at Cafe Velo ( a type of bike-related social center ) and saw a note posted for a bike for sale. It was quite a deal and came with working lights, a pump, and basket. I went to pick it up the next day in a little village called Kappel from a retiree who fixes up old bikes for a hobby. I've been using it to get around town into of the street car. Though I picked it up on Good Friday when public transportation didn't run as often, there was also less traffic on the roads, so it was easier to get accustomed to the signs, roads, ramps, etc. on my first day riding a bike around town.



The Wiwilli Bridge that goes into the Stuehlinger neighborhood. The Herz Jesu church to the left and Cafe Velo to the right.

Whoops

Ich hab' ploetzlich bemerkt, dass ich fast keine Photos von Freiburg gepostet (?) habe! Ich meine, natuerlich habe ich Photos von Freiburg gemacht, aber ich hab' sie nur in Facebook uploadet.

Deshalb koennt ihr Photos von Freiburg in der naechsten Tagen erwarten.

---

I've suddenly realized that I haven't posted any photos of Freiburg! Well, there are some of the area, but not of downtown or the university. I'll remedy this in the next few days. I do have photos, but they're only uploaded on Facebook. I'll get them on here soon.