Eager Beaver

8 weeks and 4 days and then I'll be back in the States again.  I have to say, I'm really excited.  Although the advent of Spring here in Giessen has caused the days to go by faster, in reality, they seem to be slowing down.  There is a drag on my life clock like an electron beam slowing down ion beams to reduce their energy spread.  What can I do about that?  Not the ion beam but my life clock.  Write more?  Well with the nice weather, Rachel and I will be going out more often and for longer periods.  I guess I could tell of a few adventures we've had in the past week or so.  

There is a castle that one can see from the train station in Giessen.  It looks close but is really 8 km away.  Since seeing it the first time we arrived in Giessen, we have wanted to walk to it but never got around to doing it.  We had a nice day forecast, made some lunch, grabbed our water and went out the door!  I had done some searching using Google to figure out the general path and it was crazy.  The path wound across big roads and whittled down to dirt paths through farm land.  Oddly enough, it didn't seem as far on the way back.  We figured that's because we definitely knew how far we had to go still.  The picture from the top of the tower is facing towards Giessen.  

In other news, a large group of my friends, an equal number of Americans, Germans and French, decided to attack the restaurant known colloquially as the XXL restaurant.  It was actually Der Waldgeist and it has some of the largest plates of food you'll ever see.  The burgers were at least 6 full size restaurant burgers put together.  Knowing my limits, I settled for 600 grams of currywurst, which was amazing.  My friend Jeff on the other hand was going for the burger and very nearly made it through it.  People from other tables were watching him as he tried to finish it.  Finally, he got smart and stopped before he killed himself.  He did have 2 liters of beer to finish as well.  Another friend, Gökhan, was not so lucky with his burger.  I'm sure he is posing in this picture, but the feeling was there in all of us.  Needless to say I'm thinking I won't need to visit again anytime soon.  Whew!

And finally, on Sunday Rachel and I went to the Botanical Garden to hear a live band from Kassel play.  I believe it was a fundraiser event for the garden.  The band was called "Beat That Chicken" and don't ask me to explain the name.  A soul/blues band with a full line up of instrumentalist: horn, bone, alto/tenor sax, bari sax, guitar, bass, keys, drums and two vocalists.  And they were pretty good.  I bought their CD and love it.  It was really interesting listening to the in-between song talking, in German, and the song lines, in English.  The female vocalist has a really good voice and the male seemed to be using a unidirectional microphone since I couldn't hear him half the time.  He was a little rambunctious and whenever he moved his mouth away from right in front of the mic you couldn't hear him anymore.  There is a free swing band concert on the 4th of July that we're going to hit up and a jazz innovations trio on the 20th of June.  Should be a fun summer concert series.  

That's the latest from Giessen.  More after the break.  Prost!

Day I - Falling Snow

I'm from California.  I'm sure you've heard of it.  It's that place that has sunshine nearly every day of the year and where snow only falls high in the mountains.  Specifically, I'm from Sacramento, which is down in a valley.  Snow there is a 30 year or so rarity.  It doesn't rain much there either and so 4 years ago, I moved to Seattle.  And contrary to popular belief, it is not always raining there - it just seems like it does.  Since Seattle is at a higher latitude, I asked locals about snow.  They said it doesn't usually snow.  I guessed then there were winters where it never snowed.  Imagine my surprise when for the next 3 years, not only was there snow but it was so cold that the snow compressed and froze, lingering for a week if not more.  It only snowed once or twice but boy was it beautiful and special.  

Now I'm living in inland Germany.  It is winter and it has been snowing at least a little bit nearly every day for the past month.  Naturally I am rather tired of it by now since it hinders my mobility and makes for depressing walks to the grocery store.  But the snow is still beautiful and special even though it falls every day.  Watching the snow gently come down and cover the local cat's footprints while also coating the trees in white is a daily event.  The pleasure of sipping hot tea and reading a good book is also augmented by the regular precipitation.  It's just so funny to realize that I've seen more snow fall in the past month than I had in my whole life until now.

Second Week Down

I've been in Germany now for 2 weeks.  I'm not sure if I've fully acclimated yet or not since I had my first "I want to go home" moments today.  I think I did pretty good by making it to 2 weeks.  Last time I mentioned I'd finally been to the Lahn river which goes through Gießen and I was getting ready to do laundry.  Well, I went with Rachel and together, with some knowledge from friends who had done laundry already, we managed to each get a load of laundry done and dried.  I don't think I'm going to look forward to laundry day ever.  I have to go to a different building in my complex, down a flight of stairs and into a scary room with only 6 machines.  My predication is that it will be absolute chaos in there when the buildings are actually full of students instead of a quarter full for the summer.  

It's been really hard to be motivated to do anything the past week.  The 9 week intensive course of German I took before coming here pretty much wiped me out.  The 5 days after the class and before I flew here went by in a blur of packing and making sure I had everything.  Then this international summer course started and at the end of the second week, it's just like it is the 11th week of the intensive course.  I need a vacation because I'm completely burned out.  That and a nearly complete lack of money means that I am getting some good reading time in since I can't afford to go out.  

We go to Heidelberg tomorrow and it is probably a 1.5 hour to 2 hour bus ride down.  I hear from multiple sources that it is the most beautiful place in Germany.  I guess we'll see and I will get pictures out hopefully on Sunday or Monday.  No other news I guess at the moment except I'm still working on getting a link set up to pictures so everyone can see.  Until later...

Welche Sprache sprichst du?

Okay, finally done with one whole week.  It's astonishing how long it feels it's been when it's only been 8 days or so.  So much has happened that it feels like a month has gone by already.  The summer course goes well.  Quickly, here is the way my week will go for the next 3 weeks.  Everyday there are language tutorials/classes for 1.5 hours followed by a half hour coffee break.  Then another 1.5 hours of tutorials followed by lunch.  On Monday and Wednesday lunch is 1 hour followed by 2 hours of instruction that focuses more on culture and what not (still in German though).  On Tuesday and Thursday lunch is 2 hours followed by 2 hours of a workshop.  I picked the Zeitung, or newspaper, and will be writing a short article on the history of Gießen.  On Fridays classes end at lunch.  Yay!

I've wandered much of Gießen now and must say it is a very interesting city.  The combination of rural and urban is extreme.  I live on the outskirts of town, give or take, and have two giant fields and a forest (nearly) to walk between on my way to a major street with a McDonalds, Burger King, gas station and 3 large stores plus many smaller stores.  There is a large river, the Lahn, flowing through the upper part of the city which I finally went and saw on Thursday I think, maybe it was Wednesday... I just don't know.  

Today I need to figure out where and how to do laundry since I used my last pair of socks on my Frankfurt excursion yesterday.  There, I had my first Starbucks since getting to this country and it was also the largest cup of coffee I'd seen yet.  Folks, just be prepared when you get here for nothing bigger than a tall when you order coffee.  I've been around this town and every place has the same kind of automatic (but freshly ground) coffee machines and the largest cup is a stinking coffee cup size.  I want something bigger!!  Anyhoo.  I'm still working on getting a Picassa thing going so non-Facebookers can see all the pics.  I'll figure it out soon enough.  In the meantime, go here and select the Gießen album or any album name from the places we'll go.  Hope the link works.  Let me know if it doesn't.  Until later....ciao!

Willkommen: Deutschland

Well, the big day finally came.  I am sitting in my apartment/dorm room in Gießen, Germany...finally.  After all the buildup and anticipation for coming here since winning a spot in this exchange program, I have made my way at least by plane and by train to this medium sized university city.  I AM TIRED.  15 or so hours of flying with 2 connections but no break (our planes landed, we ran, the next plane took off), made for a very rough travel day.  But, because we flew into and through the night, our arrival plus lack of sleep made us think that only a normal 9 or 10 hour day had gone by instead of the 17 or 18 hours from first take off to arrival in Gießen.  Thus, I slept just fine Thursday night and awoke refreshed Friday morning.  There is much that happened just on the way here but I merely include pictures that hopefully will reveal what has gone on.  But I'll come back to those. :)

So, first full day in Gießen! What happens?  To start, I haven't had the internet and have really been aching for it, which just goes to show how much I must be addicted.  Secondly, since this is a summer LANGUAGE course, we had to take a test first thing (before Coffee!!) to determine which level group we should be in.  They are trying to make sure that beginners aren't stuck with more advanced speakers of German and vice versa.  I won't find out my results ever but will be told what group I'm in on Monday.  It was interesting and just like the tests I recently was taking at UW, but there were words that I didn't understand.  Moving on and please forgive the length, I want to say a bit.

After the test, we had a Kaffeepause or Coffee break.  I met some new people there and would like to say a few words.  Victor, or as he is called at home Calin, is from Romania and does not know Germany very well, possibly at all.  He is here to learn.  His English is great and is an example of how messed up our country is when it comes to languages, but I digress.  Victor is a slow talker, not because he doesn't know how to say anything, but because he doesn't like to repeat himself.  Awesome.  Then I met two guys from Estonia (don't know where that is? look it up).  Pritt and Sander are interesting guys who also don't know German and have a thicker accent than Victor when they speak English.  On the train with Rachel, Jeff and I was a exchange student who will be here all year too named Yasmin.  She is from Turkey and has difficulty with German and English.  It has been interesting trying to talk with her.  Today, I tried to describe what 'humid' was.  It was difficult!  

After we were done with being introduced to the itinerary of the course, we were set loose for the day.  Rachel and I both didn't have internet in our rooms so we decided to head downtown and find an electronic store to get some CAT5 cabling and Victor, Pritt and Sander came along.  I will have to tell more about downtown on my subsequent blogs so be ready for them.  But I will tell you that outside the store we found our cabling in was a Biergarten.  Yes, I had a beer with Rachel, Pritt and Victor.  I had a dunkel or dark half-liter beer on my first full day in Germany.  It was right I think.  It was amazing sitting in an actual German beer garden drinking German beer and thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'm actually in Germany which is in Europe.  What am I doing!?"  So, pictures ensue since I don't want to talk too much.  Love you all out there and if you're one of the anonymous readers, I thank you.  

Pic1: Rae and I after 10 hours or so of flying.

Pic2: Jeff and I after 10 hours or so of flying. (Honestly, no clue what the Icelandic flight attendant was doing.)

Pic3: A view of the building I'm in (it's the middle one in the back).  I have a view to a wooded area.  It's nicer than the courtyard and the room is nice too.

Pic4: My first beer in Germany with new friends Pritt (left) and Victor (middle).

Rediscovery

With only 8 days until the great grand adventure, my panic attacks have begun to come more frequently and even while I sleep.  The intensive language class is ending this week and since it has slowed down considerably (i.e. all homework is now completed, 3 days ahead of schedule), I have discovered something amazing.  Well its actually a rediscovery.  

I like science.  I mean REALLY like science.

It's like a festering scab wound thing that you just have to itch and it makes it worse but it feels so good and you just have to itch it one more time because of some weird feeling it gives that makes it feel better than when it is festering, scabbing... i think you get the idea.  I just read the two latest issues of Discover and Astronomy magazine and I'm borrowing the May issue of Science (very fancy) from the Physics department.  And I'm reading almost every article.  Geography, Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, Physics, and yes Astronomy.  I can't get enough.  Just one quarter without taking any kind of science class and I find that I can barely contain myself.  I want to be doing two research projects and learning how to present my work with new computer programs.  I can't wait for these plane rides so I can just sit and read magazines.  If only I could get my hands on the Astrophysical Journal I'd be set.  Alas, that costs quite a bit.  

Anyway, this just makes me feel better about the choice I made in picking the Sciences. Even though it is really hard at times, I enjoy it and just need to find that special niche where everything clicks for me.  I know that I'm not going to be a super genius, but I still love reading up on everything.  Jack of all trades, master of some - that's what I'm aiming for.  Prost!

Holy Cow!

So there are only 16 more days that I'll be in this country and then I'm gone for more than 11 months. I feel like there is so much to do and Rachel has even more that she has to get done. We're scrambling trying to finish our intensive German class, I'm praying that I haven't forgotten some important paperwork, and we're both still trying to get our crap organized and/or stored. In fact, I must be back to my homework. Prost!

Lernen Sie Deutsch!

We're in the fifth week of intensive German now. Tomorrow will be the halfway mark and will also signal that only five weeks remain until my journey to Giessen. Hoo boy! I admit to being in a state of disbelief still. I also think my subconscious is secretly panicking. Who honestly signs up to be away from everything and everybody they love for a whole year? I must have been slightly crazy that morning when I decided to put in my application. I'm sure that when I'm dropped off at the airport it will finally hit me that I won't see (insert person(s) who dropped me off) or anybody for more than a year. I might cry, honest. And then when I land in Frankfurt...oh my. Nobody speaking English, all the signs pointing this way and that saying things that I have to think about first...oi! Thanks goodness Rachel will be there. Of course, I think I'd be pissed if I got there and I heard English in the first five minutes. It's an airport. I left surrounded by English speakers. I'd like to arrive surrounded by German speakers.

In other news, there is no other news because intensive German is occupying my life.

Rachel and I are watching the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica from miniseries to finish right now. We're only 6 or 7 episodes in but watching it, for me, the second time only serves to increase my appreciation for how well done the show was done. Yes, there were times when it seemed the stories sucked or that it was drifting away from it's original concept and yes, there was the ending but it was still a great show and I'm happy Rachel likes it and I get to watch it again with somebody. I love knowing everything and catching the hints and rumors of what's to come. Additionally, the new Stargate series will be starting in October. I still don't know what to make of this addition to the series. No matter what the producers of SG-1, then Atlantis, and now Universe have to say, I think they intentionally canceled Atlantis because they wanted to throw all their money into Universe. It pisses me off because for 2 years they ran two shows at once. If they really wanted Universe, they could have kept Atlantis and finished it off decently. Instead, we got hack writers for the last two seasons who didn't know a story from their dirty laundry. I could rant for a while but nobody wants to read that. In fact, I'm astonished you got to this sentence. Thank you.

Cheers for now!

How quickly can you learn German?

Hi everyone.

I've started my third week of summer intensive German (the whole first year of German in 9 weeks), which means that at the end of this week I will have completed the first quarter, equivalent to German 101. Wow. There have been five chapters worth of vocabulary each with about 100+ adjectives, prepositions, nouns, verbs, seperable verbs, and other kinds of words. Once again, I'm thankful for my better than average memory recall. It's incredible how much we cover every class period. We meet Monday through Friday for three hours each day and the time flies by. It's nothing short of astonishing and Rachel and I often wonder how slow normal 101 must be since we're not entirely overwhelmed with the amount we're learning.

(I believe that since I last wrote my social status has changed. Rachel is my beautiful girlfriend and we have been together for 2 months. Yay! Here is a picture of us at my Mom's house in Oregon next to the Columbia River. The land behind us and on the other side of the river is Washington.)Anywhoo, plans are continuing to come together for our year long physics exchange to Justus Liebig Universität in Giessen, Germany. We have our plane tickets (complete with connection in Reykjavik, Iceland) and our acceptance letters. That's about it so far. No worries though because I'm sure we won't forget too much if both of us are thinking about what to bring. Unfortunately, Rachel and I think alike probably 90% of the time. Problem? Possibly but I'm not going to worry about it.

And now I must needs be getting back to meine Hausaufgaben (homework). Until next time....

Prost!

Wold Update

Oh mercy! It's been over two months! Why did nobody say anything?! I just got done with my first legitimate all-nighter at school. I stayed up the whole night sitting at a table surrounded by friends and munchies and homework. I napped from 10-12:15 today after getting up at 6 yesterday. I begin with that so I can explain why I even have the time to blog right now. I still had homework that is due tomorrow that I just got done doing...at least for tonight. And since I still have a little bit of life left in me before I crash for (what I hope will be) restful sleep, I decided to come here and share as much of what I think is important that's happened in the past 2 months.

Where to begin? I've been accepted into a exchange program through the University of Washington to go and study physics (and other things) for 11 months in Giessen, Germany at the Justus-Leibig Universitat-Giessen. Wow, huh? A very good friend of mine is going along and we're going to pretty much have the most rockin' good time I think either of us may have ever had. I know I speak for myself at least. She's traveled off this continent before and is much more outgoing so she may not have as much of a shock as I do. I'm looking forward to sampling all the different foods...and beers. We're making plans for traveling around all of Europe, both together and on solo adventures. Now I can handle myself pretty well in a city like San Francisco or Seattle if I just get dumped in the middle of it somewhere. I could probably handle New York if I really concentrated. But a city in another country is I think going to be a lot different. Quite the learning curve.

This of course leads into a discussion of school. Summer courses will consist of one intensive German language class. It's the entire first year of German packed into 7 or 8 weeks. Needless to say, that'll be the only class I'm taking. Right now I'm taking 4 classes;

1. Astronomy 323 - Galaxies, Cosmology
2. Astronomy 480 - Observing
3. Physics 226 - Particles and Symmetries
4. Physics 321 - Electromagnetism 1

These classes are destroying my existence. Luckily there have been developments socially that balance the force of school (physics reference there if you caught it). Going out at least once a week for beers, doing homework away from the school with friends, and reading books not for school are just some of the ways I maintain sanity at the moment.

I've recently discovered the awesomeness of Pandora.com. If you put 2 or 3 artists in a playlist, you're going to get a pretty decent spread of similar music and I find it remarkable for finding all these songs I used to listen to on the radio when I was a kid. It's amazing. I put in Journey and Queen as my artists and I'm getting all sorts of other songs I recognize and new ones that I really enjoy. Same goes for my Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Brian Setzer Orchestra combo. Anyway, that was kind of random.

And with that sentence, I must say farewell again. I apologize but I am now crashing. I promise to blog more even though more and more events get added to my schedule book (which happens to be a moleskin(R)).

Cheers.

p.s. upcoming events I'm interested in:

1. Third Day Concert May 7th
   
2. Seattle Beer Week May 7th-17th
3. UW Undergraduate Symposium May 15th (I'm presenting. More on that later)
4. Visiting Momma May 22nd-25th