The Post to End All Posts

Here's the story: I got back from my vacation on the Riviera but then my mother came, so I really didn't have much time to retell my adventures before we were whisked off to Berlin and Munich and wherenot. So this post should cover about 3 weeks of topics. I know I won't be able to pound all of that into one session of typing, so I'll briefly go over every day, then when I have time, go back and edit my posts to fill in details and fun stuff.

I hardly know where to start. Beyond retelling my adventures, I've also pondered hard and decided not to go through all the trouble of posting all my pictures from Switzerland and the Riviera, since most of you will simply see them soon enough anyway. I may change my mind later; we'll have to see. On the other hand, I will dig up some nice links to complement my narrative, for those of you with black-and-white imaginations.

Wednesday (July 27) night went okay, but there was a really low turnout, not much liquor, and nobody wanted to do very much since the ground was wet from a storm that had passed through earlier. Besides that, Geli, Valerie, and I (pretty much the only three people there I knew... well, okay, that's a lie, but there weren't a whole ton more) felt like going home and to bed since we had a train to catch at 7:00 AM and Valerie had a flight to catch out to Ghent I believe, where her dancing group will be performing over the next three weeks. So that's what we did.

Thursday, July 28: München, the city of cousinly love.
This morning we got on a nice comfy train with Chrissy, Tina, Nico, and Nico's cousin Timo to head out to Munich, or München as it is in the native tongue, pronounced something like MYOON-chin, but not really. Suffice it to say it's really hard to pronounce. We got in around 10ish, found the youth hostel quite close to the train station, and checked in. Basically everything there was English, including the people, which sort of struck me as odd at first but then I got used to it.
The six of us went walking through downtown Munich and to the Victuellenmarkt (I believe), ate some, saw some sights, and then we split, the guys wanting to go check out the Allianz Arena (soccer) and the girls wanting to go to the English Garden. We headed up there around noonish, or maybe a bit later, to find out that the tour we wanted to take didn't have an opening until about 5:30 that afternoon. We luckily had been provided with transportation passes by the company through which we'd booked our train tickets, so we hopped back on the S-Bahn (some sort of rail car thing) and went to visit Nico's (but not Timo's) other cousin Simeon. They chatted for a bit, we sat outside and drank liquids in the hot hot heat. I noticed on the thermometer there that it was topping 40 degrees Celsius (for those of you that didn't convert back in the 1970's, that's upwards of 104°F). Nico asked about nightclubs in the city, Simeon couldn't think of any, we sweated some more, then finally we left.
Back onto the S-Bahn with the intention of meeting the girls shortly before heading back out to Allianz. Note: a lot of our communication/planning is done on the fly via cell phones. So we got off the S-Bahn at Studentenstadt where they told us. We figured out which direction the garden was, searched around for someway to get there, got lost, wandered some fifteen minutes to half an hour, then got a call from the girls saying that they were actually at Universität, not Studentenstadt. By the time we got back to the S-Bahn station I realized we would have less than 15 minutes to spend with the girls were we to meet up with them before we needed to catch the S-Bahn back up to the Arena, so a phone call and S-Bahn ride later found us early at teh Allianz Arena. The interesting part here is that, as I mentioned before, the weather is upwards of 100°F, and the walk from the stop to the Arena is at least a kilometer long over an utterly flat stretch without any semblance of shade anywhere. It was planned this way to house (don't quote me on this) the largest parking garage in Germany underneath the ground close to the arena. We made this stretch a total of four times over the day (twice there and back to the stop). The tour itself was pretty good, the stadium is amazing and totally state of the art, covered with over 2500 air cushions which can be individually lit red, blue, or white (the colors of Bayern-München, TSV München, and the German National Soccer Team respectively, not purposefully America's colors), seating 66,000, retractable roof, all that jazz.
It was past 7 by the time we made it back to the youth hostel, where the girls already were, having also eaten in the meantime. I didn't really want to, but we went out to McDonald's for supper, the girls caught up to us a bit later, and then we went in search of somewhere/something to do for the night. We were engaged early on by someone handing out advertisements for Ladies' Night at a bar, which the girls really seemed to like, considering that they would've gotten quite cheap entrance and free vodka and longdrinks until 11. However, we passed it by, and headed to the Hofbräuhaus, a city landmark famous for, among many other things, being the site of the first mass meeting of the Nazi Party. There was a nice, comfortable German drinking atmosphere inside, with a wonderful authentic oompa-style band that played some John Denver and a haze of smoke that one could hardly see through. Unfortunately, they had, for some reason, restricted the drinking age to 18 and older. We left shortly after finding this out. Calling Simeon again, we got directions to a low-key cocktail bar. We hung out for a while in the oppressive heat, having cocktails and beer from the keg. Another one of Nico's cousins (but again not Timo's) met us there. He was a strange fellow but he knew a lot about the nightclubs in town when we asked him, and he bought an extra cocktail for Chrissy because she liked the taste so much. Eventually (around maybe 11:30) we left with him and found our way to a gas station somewhere. The guys (myself included, naturally) bought some beer. Now for an example of German alcohol policy: there are drinks called "alco-pops" i think, which are sweet tasting drinks in which you can't taste the alcohol, which are restricted to those 18 and above, an exception to the standard requirement of 16 years. Geli and Tina wanted to have some Smirnoff lemonade, which classified as "alco-pop." They were in the vicintiy of the counter when they noticed this, and simply turned to Nico's cousin (older, by the way, around 20) and gave him their drinks and money to pay for them right in front of the cashier. And he had no problem buying them either, although he did eventually give the girls back their money, being the cavalier he was.
We headed shortly thereafter (a little past midnight) to the English Garden. We found a park bench and the seven of us sat in the darkness drinking and chatting. I'd finished my beer, so Nico's cousin gave me another (I guess handing out free alcohol was his thing, I dunno) from the six pack he'd bought. It was a Beck's Green Lemon and was quite tasty. Eventually around one we headed back to the subway and split from our newfound friend, and navigated our way back to the youth hostel.

Friday, July 29: German with an Australian Accent
We headed out around 9ish the next morning, which was quite early for most of the others; we had taken up in a 26-bed room (co-ed, but there weren't any gender-specific rooms at the EuroHostel anyway) and everyone but Geli and I complained of being kept awake by snoring or other sleeping-people-noises. Our first stop of the day was Das Deutsche Museum. It was absolutely huge, including five stories packed with exhibits and about every form of science or technology one could think of. An added bonus was that most of the information printed was also in English, being the big tourist point that it is. One of the most impressive displays/exhibits concerned electrical power and current; there were machines in there capable of delivering up to 800,000 volts, and they were put to action. Even outside of that, I could've easily spent at least two days wandering through the halls, doing the interactive experiments, reading about technology and its history and everthing there...
Unfortunately the rest of the group was quite tired and the girls wanted to do some shopping. Geli was still fairly interested, so we stayed and wandered and eventually left to meet up with the others at Subway (a German favorite) around 2:00. I've got nothing against Subway but I opted for the much more Bavarian course of Weißwurst, Breze, und Bier.
After meeting the others we agreed to go over to the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, which the girls had already seen but the boys still wanted to see, and it was pretty.
From there we headed out to the Olympiastadion, site of the 1972 Summer Olympic Games hosted by Munich. Unfortunately it was a short trek from the S-Bahn and, though there was some shade provided by trees, the heat was much like Thusday's in that it was unbearably hot. Reaching the grounds, I contracted a horrible nosebleed, and we noticed that most of what was there seemed to be the settings of a strange carnival of sorts. We essentially pulled two benches into the shade and a few of us fell asleep, too tired and heat-exhausted to move.
It may be an appropriate time to mention that the greatest thing about America, at least in summertime, happens to be water fountains. I have seen two free water fountains in all of Europe (not couting the Amsterdam airport). The more horrible thing is that the people selling drinks know this and tend to charge an arm and a leg for their products, i.e. 2-3€ for usually less than a half liter. This was especially noticed in München in the hot hot heat, where we often felt a need to consume said liquids. I'm sure the six of us bought over 100€ worth of beverages in about 30 hours.
We made our hot and tired way back to the youth hostel, where we picked up all of our stuff, and then Geli and I said our good-byes and headed off to meet up with her cousin Martina. We found their neighborhood easily, it was quiet and quite nice. She took us to the small apartment where she lived with her boyfriend, Simon. He's from Australia. We'd originally planned to grill, but dark clouds rolled in and we buckled down for a thunderstorm. Simon (who had worked for a time as a chef, though he was now employed as an English teacher in Munich) instead made curry, which was spicy but nonetheless good. We then played an interesting bilingual game of Scrabble, in which the native English speaking males played German words, and the native German speaking females played English ones. It was quite difficult because the bilinguality on the board significantly cut down opportunities for expanding on words. After this, as well as the storm, was over, we headed outside for a walk on one of Munich's streets. Geli and Martina chatted and walked ahead, while Simon and I also chatted and followed.
The interesting part about our chatting was that it was in German. Well, maybe that's not really the interesting part; I just needed a good paragraph starter. Simon had (has) been learning German since about 2000, essentially the same amount of time as I. At first in conversation, I didn't notice any mistakes, and it gave me heart that there's still a chance a native English speaker can become seemingly fluent in "That Awful German Language." Unfortunately as I heard him speak more, I noticed quite frequently errors in his speech, typical errors that someone coming from English makes: a wrong adjective ending here, mixed word order there, he used dative instead of accusative after that one preposition, he said "Hast du eine Entscheidung gemacht?" *wince*. Of course I expect that my grammar is no better and probably worse than his, and naturally I still understood him quite clearly in his "broken German" since it was broken in favor of English; the disappointing thing about it is that my prospective fluency in the German tongue seems to still float quite a few years and a bit of hard work away. Nonetheless, we had a nice chat about himself, foreigners in Munich, and the sad fact that Germans aren't proud of their country.
We stopped at an ice cream parlor, then went back to their place, where we slept that night.

Saturday, July 30: Flight into the Mountains
Anyway, Manfred and Frank came earlier than expected (around 10-11) in the morning, though we did end up staying there so that they could visit - well, Manfred could visit with Martina and Frank could play Xbox with Simon - until about 2ish. We took off in the car, drove in basically a big circle around Munich, then found our way out. We hit some slow traffic heading back westards toward Baden-Württemburg, since it's the first weekend of summer vacation in both Baden-Württemburg and Bavaria. Nonetheless, we made a short pass through Austria and saw a tiny bit of Lake Constance before heading through Zurich and eventually ending in Lucerne, Switzerland. We set up camp in the rain after about 5-6 hours of driving and went out to eat. We had to change money, since the independent Swiss don't use Euros, and even beyond that everything was more expensive in Switzerland. However, it was in the mountains, on a lake, and it was totally beautiful.

Sunday, July 31: William Tell, William Tell, Shoot your arrow, Aim it well
In the morning I accidentally rolled up my sleeping bag and deflated my air matress, thinking we were leaving. Not the case. Instead, we went into the city proper, looked around the old part of town, and called Marina on the cell phone to wish her happy birthday. There were some really old things in the town like a big wooden covered bridge that went across a river, and the old stone city walls, with towers that we could climb and look out of and take big beautiful pictures of the lake and town and mountains out of. Gorgeous. After this, we voted largely against going to an automative/car museum, and instead took a drive around the Vierwaldstätter See, the lake (I don't know its English name) on which Lucerne sits. Geli and Frank slept for quite a bit, but the scenery was beautiful. Road construction in Switzerland unfortunately tends to be tunnels as often as not, and the inside of mountains tends to block the otherwise great view.

Monday, August 1
Onward. It happened to be the equivalent of Switzerland's Fourth of July, so there was much festivity that we saw as the mountains got higher the farther south we went. The views were breathtaking and we ended up on a lake in northern Italy for the night. Upon arrival we learned there were no places left for tents, leaving us to rent a nice small house-like structure for the night.

Tuesday, August 2: Scenes from an Italian Highway
We headed even farther south today. The first part was an ugly flat stretch through Italy that reminded me almost of Iowa. My first glance of the Mediterranean was greeted alongside a 3 to 4 hour traffic delay upon a highway (a literal highway, as in hundreds of feet above the ground, rather than a freeway as in Minnesota) due to a huge accident up ahead. We eventually made it through and got to an okay campsite, although the toilet and shower facilities were, well, not good to say the least. We lounged on the beach, Frank and I swam a bit, and we went out later that night to see the Italian nightlife.

Wednesday, August 3: C'est la vie
We started towards France along the Riviera. Around noonish, we took a break at a beach, did some swimming, some napping, some sunbathing. It was a stark contrast to my own family vacations, which tend to include a lot of running around and doing stuff. I didn't mind it one bit. Unfortunately, as we got to the campground we'd intended to stay at (on the French side, now) we learned that we wouldn't be able to camp there. This was followed by at least an hour of wandering around the area trying to find a campsite to stay at, most of which were full. We went through Monte Carlo and saw some of Nice from the car, two things we hadn't planned to do until tomorrow, but whatever. We ended up finding a real nice place, although it was some distance from the shore, and camped there for the night.

Thursday, August 4
We didn't take down camp, but instead went back towards the coast for the day, stopping and checking out Nice and Cannes, very nice and expensive cities on the French Riviera. We went back to the campsite and had a good time, played some cards; it was a very nice place to stay, and an added plus was that they had kittens there.

Friday, August 5
We took the Napoleon Route, the way the French emperor took coming back from Elba after his banishment. I believe he deliberately chose the most winding and turbulent route possible through the region, because most of us were quite carsick and had to stop fairly often along the stretch. Not to mention that it wasn't very pretty at all. We drove essentially the whole day, ended up at a nice site in Geneva, played with a giant chessboard, and saw Lake Geneva.

Saturday, August 6
Earlier we went into Geneva, which was essentially dead, even the marketplace at noon was lacking. Also, being in the French section, little was in German, so I was lost. We left lacking things to do after seeing all the banks and large lakeside buildings. It was then a decent way through all of Switzerland (again nice scenery) and back home to Ludwigsburg.

Sunday, August 7
Church in the morning followed by some chillin'. We were basically just preparing for my mother to come.

Monday, August 8: Meine Freiheit wird verloren
My mother came at 10:45 or so, really tired since she hadn't slept. We met her and brought her home, she unpacked and laid down briefly, we had lunch, chatted, she met some folks, and we went into town for a real German supper.

Tuesday, August 9
We went through all of Ludwigsburg, starting from the Marktplatz (which was busy with the market, but nothing compared to Saturday) and going to the bank, the train station, my school, and ending up going by the Bärenwiese and through the palace grounds. Somewhere along the wayon the 8th or 9th (can't remember) we took a tour of the palace itself as well.

Wednesday, August 10
Got up early and jumped on a train to Berlin. My mom was covered with poison ivy when she arrived and it had been spreading with little resistance, so she wanted to find a doctor. We also got some schedules for tours and whatnot and walked around parts of the city, the Potsdamer Platz and other areas. It was a cool place but fairly old and dirty.

Thursday, August 11
We finally found a clinic that would take my mother, so we waited there for a long time, and then she was able to get a prescription. The other important part of the day included a long long time spent at the Checkpoint Charlie museum. It was interesting but at the same time really long and drawn out. I was constantly caught in the mix of choosing between reading English and German explanations.

Friday, August 12
We got a bus tour around some of the bigger sites of the city like the Bundestag (house of their parliamentary body) and other parts of the city, some of which we'd seen back on Wednesday. After that we waited a long time for our train to Munich, which was delayed. We finally got it, finding our seats right behind the driver, except for when the train changed directions, at which point we were in the back car facing backwards. We arrived at our hotel by 9 and found a really nice Italian restaraunt.

Saturday, August 13
This day was full of fun fun fun as I took my mom around parts of Munich that I'd seen before. This basically included most of what I did the first time around, I may elaborate on this when I feel like it, but for the short version just read the first few days' worth of entries. Also met up with the group from the Diocese of Duluth at the hotel, really good to see a lot of those guys again.

I'll get on with the rest sometime later, most likely after I'm back in the States...
Auf Wiedersehen.

Act Two: The Beginning of the End

Monday was our second day of learning Chinese. We were supposed to have the numbers down pat, and I did. We also learned how to look up symbols in the dictionary, through a method of first referencing the "radical" within the symbol. The tricky part is that there is no rule as to which part of the symbol (or where in the symbol) the radical can be found. It's a tricky trial-and-error process, but I got the hang of it.

So then Tuesday we went to a musuem in Stuttgart which had a display of ancient art of East and South Asia. It was okay, but those sorts of museums really aren't my style. On the other hand, I am definitely looking forward to the Deutsches Museum, an interactive science/techinical musuem in Munich and supposedly the best in the land. Later on, I also attended the Schulfest (school festival) in which many of the groups that did projects showcased their work to the public. We didn't, nor did a number of others that had nothing to show, like the group who learned Bridge. Geli and Valerie's group did their Dance/Artistik combination twice more, some bands played, there was a flea market at which I bought a copy of Robinson Crusoe auf Deutsch, and a good time was had by all who attended.

Wednesday we had our last day of school, a half day. The teacher asked me to get up and tell the class about my stay and about my expectations and what surprised me and so on. I got a commendation for my work with Herr Horlacher.

But I'm making this short because I've got to get going. We're going down to the Neckarwiese to celebrate the end of school right about now, so this will be my last post for quite a while. Adios, take care of yourselves, and I'll be back around August 7th or so to check up on the New World again. ;)

PS Morgan I'm doing great thanks.
Also Jeff yes class gets cancelled quite often.

Au reviour.

Where Has the Time Gone?

So I realize I've been a little lax with updating this place. Make sure you're comfortable/have some sustainance nearby, because this could get long.

Thursday was our last day of real school. I'm sure I've said this a million times, but Friday, Monday, and Tuesday are project days, and Wednesday is only a half day. It brought back kind of a nostalgic deja voux experience (I could've sworn I was falling into this sort of mellow apathy just two months back...) but it feels good to finally be at the end. It was a pretty low-key day, too. First hour Musik fällt aus (was cancelled), second hour was Gemeinschaftskunde, in which the teacher for some reason decided upon insisting to continue teaching, introducing basic economic principles like Nachfrage und Angebot (supply and demand). Suffice it to say I was utterly confused by these complicated terms. Okay, okay... sarcasm is a little hard to convey over the internet. Basic economic theory is essentially the easiest and most boring thing ever. I showed up for Mathe 12 third hour to learn that Herr Kunde didn't feel like teaching, so we were free to go. I went back to Geli's Englisch class (Geli actually wasn't there the whole day; she was working downstairs at the Bücherrückgabe) and we watched Bowling for Columbine for an hour and a half. (Each period is only 45 minutes, so that was two class hours.) Fifth hour, the Deutsch teacher invited us out to ice cream, which was really nice, and then sixth hour we watched a documentary film about the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party in Geschichte (History). It ended up being pretty boring and I think a number (including the teacher) dozed off at some point... I spent a large part of the rest of the day researching more colleges and scholarships. An utterly unproductive day overall, as most scholarships aren't open to application until September (at least), but I did get the scoop on a few colleges, so it wasn't totally useless.

Freitag. We didn't have to be in to school until 9:40, since I guess the teacher didn't feel like coming in until then. Fine by me, although 9:40 was ridiculously late in practice, as good as it sounds. I woke up before my alarm, ate breakfast, and still had like an hour to sit around. Once we got there, though, we were set to work. Myself and 8 others from Geli's class opted to leran Chinese from the Chemistry teacher. His English is quite good, even if he speaks kind of funnily, but I really don't know why he would have reason to learn Chinese. After 4 hours, though, I scolded myself for ever thinking German was hard. Essentially, Chinese writing is extremely complicated, in that when two things are added together, they don't necessarily equal their sum. The written word for "family" is the word for "pig" under the word for "roof." Don't ask me. Essentially, though, he told us that when a Chinese person runs across a word they don't know, there's really no figuring it out just by looking at it, and one must use context or go to an extensive dictionary, which is quite complicated due to the fact that there are no letters and hence no alphabetical method of arrangement. Not to mention that the fine Caligraphie isn't easily written with Bleistift oder Kuli (pencil or pen). We barely got through the numbers, as well as some methods for finding and writing the symbols using a computer, before it was 1:00. It was an interesting Friday night, because there were no birthdays or parties, at least none that Geli and I were invited to. Just a quiet night at home...

Saturday I got up reasonably early and went into the Marktplatz with Manfred, to shop for some fresh fruits and vegetables, largely for the party that I was having later on. If you read Chris Derby's blog (and I'm sure many of you don't), I announced there that Geli and her friends were throwing me a Euro-Houlapalooza. It was on Saturday. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We then went and picked up Geli from her dance practice and went to the supermarket Lebensmittelgeschäft. That word is the difference between the difficulties in Chinese and German. Well, also that Chinese doesn't use letters, but... Lebens (living) + mittel (means) + geschäft (store) = grocery store, the store selling the means of life i.e. food. Much more straightforward than pig under roof. But I've gotten off again on a tangent. We bought a large shopping cart full of food and stuff, then went home and started setting up for the party. I'd invited about 25-30 people on Wednesday and Thursday, so I was pleased with the about 20 or so that showed up. We grilled some hamburgers and brats, blew up some balloons, sat on the couch and talked, devoured a watermelon, etc. I got a lot of pictures, which could show up over on the right at any time, so be prepared. More detailed coverage of Euro-Houlapalooza will be forthcoming with the pictures I'm sure. Hopefully I get around to doing that. Eventually.

Sonntag. Church. After that the family took me out to Maulbronn, which is home of one of the oldest and best-perserved monastaries in Deutschland. We took a tour, did all the touristy stuff, you know, looked over the old buildings and whatnot. It was fairly interesting, and there was an elaborate water and heating system that was extraordinarily advanced for its time. Then we came home and ate some leftovers from the party. Manfred took his class out to a theater production in Stuttgart.

I've decided that this blog is going on hiatus. :P

Seriously, though, I'll probably have about one more update and then be off and on my way... Where? you ask. Well, I'll tell you, I say. Wednesday is only a half day of school; the evening and night are sure to be marked by much fun and drinking down at the Neckarwiese, the beautiful fields down by the river, a meeting place for kids to celebrate the end of school. We'll drag ourselves out of bed (if we get that far) around 7 Thursday morning to catch a train headed over to Munich. Going on this trip will be Geli, Chrissy, Tina, Nico, his cousin Timo, and I. We'll be staying there in a Jugendherberge (youth hostel of sorts), visiting the city and seeing the sights, for example the Deutsches Museum, probably the best musuem in Germany due to its technical and interactive content. We'll hang out there until Friday I think, at which point Manfred and Frank will pick up Geli and I and take us on vacation. We'll head south by Lake Constance and into the Swiss Alps, tenting our way through and then racing across the ugly part of northern Italy until hitting the Italian and French Riverias, including Monaco and Monte Carlo, around Wednesday and Thursday. We'll get about as far west as Nice, then head north again, back through Switzerland, hitting Geneva and maybe Bonn before getting back into Ludwigsburg Saturday or Sunday before my mother comes on Monday (August 8th, to reference). She'll stay with us briefly, then early Wednesday morning, Marina, Geli, my mum and I will take off for Berlin. We hope to see a bit of the city before leaving Friday afternoon for Munich. We'll get in that night, sleep over, and then meet the incoming World Youth Day pilgrims from the Diocese of Duluth (that includes Brainerd and Nisswa, by the way) on Saturday the 13th. That program takes us a week until Sunday the 21st, where we'll end up in Cologne, over on the other side of Germany. I'm basically lost as to our itinerary in between, but we'll hopefully make it back to Ludwigsburg that Sunday night. Monday I'm sure I'll be saying a final goodbye to many of my friends and acquaintances from Germany, at least the closer ones, and then Tuesday is our final departure from Ludwigsburg and the Reinhardts. We'll check out Stuttgart during the day and take an overnight train to Paris, hoping to arrive the morning of Wednesday the 24th. We'll do stuff in Paris, you know, the Louvre and Notre Dame and whatnot, spend a day in Versailles, then fly out around 1 o'clock Friday, August 26, 2005, and hopefully arrive around 3 or 4ish CST at HHH in Minneapolis.

As you can see, this doesn't leave me much time to use the computer, which is why I'm trying to get all that out of the way beforehand. Also, expect large delays in updates after Wednesday ;)

I hope I don't have to change money (again) in Switzerland.

Nobody really commented for me to answer outside of Matt, so I'll wrap up with our Twain quote and then those of you that are Deutsch illiterate can go read Don Quixote... j/k Parker :P

"A dream...I was trying to explain to St. Peter, and was doing it in the German tongue, because I didn't want to be too explicit."
- Mark Twain's Speeches, 1923

Hallo Matt, es freut mich von dir zu hören! Ich mochte deinen Kommentar; du kannst uns mehr von diesen "Strand Haasen," so zu sagen, erzählen, wenn du willst. Hast du auch deine AP Noten? Ich will wissen, ob du eine 5 für Deutsch gekriegt hast. Ich schätze, daß du hast... und auch Englisch. Hoffentlich war mein Blog nicht zu schwer durch zu lesen, ich weiß daß ich echt lang schreiben kann. Wann gehst du denn heim? Und wann habt ihr's vor, Berlin zu besuchen? Als du gelesen hast, ich bin da von 10ten bis 12ten August... Hoffentlich können wir uns sehen, bevor du an die Uni gehst. Das wär' mir traurig, wenn ich dich nicht wieder sehen könnte... :( Tara und Mitch, ihr müsst auch hier auf Deutsch Kommentaren lassen, nicht weil ich will Deutsch hören -ich kann's wenn ich will, natürlich ;)- aber weil es ist grausam gegen unseren kleinen gelben Freund, und es macht mich froh, ihn ärgerlich zu sehen! Bis dann.

Summer: A Play in Three Acts

SYNOPSIS
Act One: Jason and his friends take a trip to New York City. However, this is a lot of work, so doesn't really count as summer. He does manage to experience about half a week once he arrives in Germany, though, before going back to school.

Act Two: Finally done with school in Germany, Jason and his German friends head over to Munich to have a good time. Coming home, he goes out for about a week with his family through Switzerland and the area. This is both fun and relaxing and counts for another week and a half of "summer."

Act Three: After World Youth Day in Cologne, Jason and his mother go back to Ludwigsburg for some R & R. Later that week, they also take it fairly easy in Paris, and have a fun time. They then go back to the good old United States, where Jason meets some of his friends and they have a good time, totally around another week and a half before Jason leaves again to tour some colleges in the area.

My calculations of actual summer time put me safely below one month for the year 2005. But, enough whining on my part.

Tuesday I met with Herr Horlacher, the Chemie 11 teacher, with whom I'd discussed this device that he would supposedly give to me to take back to the states. I spent a large part of the day translating the website for it, as well as starting to look at some colleges. I decided eventually against Macalester, or however its spelled... it's about 4 times as expensive as the U of M and, as far as I can tell, not much, if at all, better. I also decided to switch out of AP Comparative Government for AP Chemistry next year. I stayed up quite late finishing an essay that the German teacher asked me to write.

Mittwoch. No first or last hour, also no school in the afternoon. The beginning of the end is nigh. Some teachers gave their last instruction to the kids today, and the kids gave their teachers little gifts. During third hour the history teacher came to oversee the Buchrückgabe, or returning of rented books from the school. Once all the books were sorted into their appropriate piles, he turned to me and asked (he likes to speak English a lot, and I don't stop him),
"Jason! Have you ever been to Hell?"
"Uh..." Can't say that I have...
"I mean that's what they call the basement of this school."
"Ah. No."
So he made me carry one of the stacks. The place wasn't bad at all. This was basically just a story to show that Herr Folk is quite often really weird. More on a related subject later. After school, we went with the class to one of the larger churches in the area to watch an orchestra perform part of Haydn's Schöpfung, "Creation," which includes the orchestra, a choir, and three soloists who sing parts equated to Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel in Milton's Paradise Lost. That was about all that was interesting; it was like German opera, and though it was quite good, I started nodding off due to my late night the night before, which wasn't a good thing since I was sitting right next to the German teacher. I tried to be discrete about it, but I think I failed. Later on, I worked more on the translation, then went and played tennis with Manfred. We played with two other guys, one a native Croat (or Croatian?) who'd left Yugoslavia about 10 years ago due to troubles there. I first lost to the non-Croat 6-3 in singles, then Manfred and I beat them 6-2 in doubles, then the Croat and I lead 3-2 before we had to quit because of rain. I wouldn't call them Croat and non-Croat if I knew their names (I think non-Croat's is Gustav or Gregor or something starting with a G), but it's hard enough to remember the names of the kids I see every day without adding on Manfred's tennis buddies. It was quite fun playing with them, and we had also played with them Sunday, winning 6-4, 6-3 (I forgot to mention this, by the way).

About what I referenced by Herr Folk. Too often my answer is "yeah..."
"Habscha groan' dig nar gobbledegook, marg da natsho maifde?" (this isn't German by the way)
"Uhhh... yeah, yeah..." *smile* I could be selling my soul for all I know. More logically I would say "What was that?" or "One more time, slower please?" But it's not just I. It's basicaly human nature to go with the flow when one doesn't understand, I've decided, based on a conversation I had with Herr Folk. He asked about my future plans, and he was quite knowledgable about the colleges in the US, knowing about Notre Dame for one, and certainly identifying MIT as the top of its class.
"Well... are you familiar with the ACT test?"
"Oh yeah, sure... sure."
"Well. I scored a 36."
"Ah... but is that good enough for MIT, do you think?"
"Uh... ... ?"
"It's out of 40-some, isn't it?"
"No; 36."

INTERMISSION

Now that you're back:
Anonymous. Today I'll guess Nathan Kruise. That's got to be it. I'm almost 100% certain its one of my cousins, I'll just need to narrow those guys down.
David Hasselhoff was once HUGE in Germany. He's not really anymore. At least as far as I know.
I've given Mother the thumbs down on Kettering and MacAlester I believe, though I'd still like to check out U of W-Madison, MichTech, U of Chicago, and Marquette. Does anyone else know of decent colleges in that area that I should check out? By that area, I mean Wisconsin. Notre Dame is pretty much off my list too (sorry Tim; I know a few people that go there and I think it's a great school, just not the right one for me, you know?). Northwestern might be a possibility as well.
Hehe. Dad, I was the one that told Mom about John's ACT score. In case anyone's wondering, John Valesano scored a 35 on the ACT; must be something in the water. I guess we'll be expecting big things of Mattson and Holbrook now. Heck, for all we know, Holbrook could have a 36 as well... anyway, my formal congrats here.
By the way, if I plan on applying to MIT, I'm going to need to take three SAT II subject tests (just one more hassle for my mother to put up with surely). They need to be Math, Science, and one other. I think I could do Math II, Physics (probably over Chem), and either US History or German (with or without listening). The full list can be found here, if you're interested).

"...mastery of the art and spirit of the Germanic language enables a man to travel all day in one sentence without changing cars."
- Christian Science

Was Für Ungluck!

Hello... yeah it's been a while. Not much... how 'bout you?

Friday. Hmm, I don't know if I can even remember back that far. School was pretty normal as far as I know... and that night? Ahh, yes. We had a going-away party for two girls from our class. I've told some people some things, but those were mostly false. One girl is going to Panama, one to Michigan, both for the whole year, unlike what I told some of you. Other students in the class are taking foregin exchange trips to Spain for 3 months, France for 2, Poland, etc. etc. all over the place. But this party was just for the two of them. It was held nestled on the side of a large hill covered with vineyards. I estimated its height to be about comparable to Ski Gull, though such hills are quite normal in the sub-Black Hills region, unlike in Minnesota's flatlands. Going out to the edge, one could get a beautiful panoramic view of the surrouning countryside. In fact, at one point, Lala, Geli and I wandered away from the rest of the party to go sit in a vineyard. We chatted for a while, then they saw an old shirtless grandpa with a hoe or some instrument walking through the rows of grapevines. They panicked and started to flee. As I joined them, Lala whispered their explanation: "illegal." Ah. So we headed up the hill, trying to go silently but quickly, and failing fairly well at that, until we saw someone else by one of the exits at the top. We ended up running in circles, avoiding the grandpa and this other person while seeking an exit. Eventually we found it, and ran back to the party. It was a fun time overall, though at the end it began to rain. They had a tent, but construction in the dark would be improbable and probably too slow, so they suggested packing everyone who wanted to stay into the four cars that were there. Mind you, there were like 40-50 people and 4 small European cars. Geli opted to call her mother. We also offered rides to Lala and two other girls who lived in the area, and the five of us headed off down the road. Then it started to rain. Then to pour. I loved it. Eventually we got down to a highway of sorts, and waited momentarily for Marina. It got interesting at this point, because instead of bringing the minivan like we'd thought, she brought the new 2-door Ford Fiesta, seen here. So, we had a little car-packing adventure of our own. Luckily the ride didn't take too long. Or should I say unluckily ;)

Saturday. Geli and Valerie's dance group gave a performance. They did some hip-hop dances and weren't bad, but they didn't hold a match to the Kixters. Afterwards the plans had been to head into Waldhaus, which everyone hates on Saturday, but for some reason they still go there. Not today; we met Lala and Julie (i think. she's the French foreign exchange student) and went to the Beach Bar. It was laid back and cool and we had fun. We also found out that Julie's trip is getting cut a few weeks short of her scheduled two months because her grandfather died and she's going home. I think. I'm not entirely sure, I believe most of the things in that situation are still up in the air...

Sunday was church as normal this time. In the afternoon, there was another performance, this one linking Geli's hip-hop dance group with the Artistik AG a sort of circus and juggling club at Mörike Gymnasium (that's the school I attend, in case you're wondering). It was much better than on Saturday, incorporting some "modern circus" flavors (eerie music, strange dress for a circus i.e. tuxedos or flowing white dresses) with more modern hip-hop dance moves. I brought my camera, but I didn't want to turn on my flash, and therefore none of the pictures turned out, unfortunately.

Monday is today. I overslept on accident, didn't have breakfast, and our class had to work two hours in the school garden on the first Monday of the year to earn a Hitzefrei, as well as the first on which our gym class was already cancelled. Turned out to be a fairly rotten day overall (hence the title, what bad luck!) but nothing is bringing me down from those AP grades. I also found out that there will sadly be little chance of me giving this presentation on Brainerd due to scheduling conflicts, so my great thanks to everyone laboring to get pictures for me, but they will unfortunately not be needed. Also, my great stash I pulled off the Dispatch is now practically useless, so I'm just as disappointed as you all are. Thanks anyway.

Mitch, ich hatte Bilder von dir schon genommen, ein mit Schnee und ein paar Landschaften. Ganz toll Fotographie! Danke schön für die anderen, aber ich brauchen sie jetzt leider nicht. Weiter, viel glück mit den Zähnen. Ich hab' diese Operation noch nie gehabt, und ich weiß nicht ob ich werd', aber hoffentlich wirst du rasch wieder heil.

I'm running out of witty introductions for the comments section, so we'll just skip to that:
I find that funny that WSN blocks blogs. It just shows how much they've caught on.
Okay anonymous. I'll have to assume you're one of the names I've already given, since I've basically narrowed down those with the shooting game in the basement. Today I'll say Taylor Streiff.
By the way, I didn't really go to that Harry Potter party. It was in Stuttgart, and I was just joking about attending. I'm fairly certain that the translators only get copies at the release of the English version, so it won't come out in German for another half year or so. The English version is being sold, since so many Germans speak English, but it's certainly not as big a deal over here. And no, I haven't heard a word from Matt. He supposedly comes back from Italy on like the 24th.
I know a few people haven't gotten scores back, there's a chance you guys messed something up with the system (i.e. didn't enter the same info on multiple tests or, more likely, between 10th and 11th grades). I DO know that Tay got his back, and that he fell just short of National AP Scholar, leaving the only valid possibility in my mind to Jennifer Dens.
Hey Tim, good to hear from you again; I know, my posts tend to get long sometimes. I'm sort of disappointed, I hope Mr. Hewitt's opinion of me doesn't drop drastically, but I'm definintely relieved that I got a 4 rather than a 3. Also, the gender ratio in our class is about 7:1 in the boys' favor, in case you were wondering...
By the way, I really loved Dad's sports coat. We were on the dinner cruise where I was wearing it. I went into the bathroom. Glancing to the right, I was stunned by an incredibly good-looking and sharp dressed fellow until I realized it was a mirror ;)

Some pictures of my teachers, for those of you who were wondering:
LINK
It'd be best if you opened two windows and referred back to this one for names.
Frau Amelung - Französich
Herr Bürkle - Mathe 10 and Physik
Frau Dockhorn - Englisch. She's not on the site, but you can find a pic of her here. Just kidding ;)
Herr Horlacher - Chemie 11
Herr Hornberger - Sport
Herr Jünemann - Biologie
Herr Kunde - Mathe 12
Herr Oßwald - Chemie 10 und 12
Frau Reck-Fechter - Religion
Herr Reinhardt - Not my teacher ;)
Frau Scheuer - Deutsch
Herr Schüller - Spanisch. He looks funny clean shaven; normally he has a salt and pepper beard.

"Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth."
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

No News is Good News

No German news, only good American news, that is. This will largely be a post about your comments and also some other things that concern me personally, so if you're not actually that interested in stuff that's not German, feel free to breeze right over this part.

That said:

AP Grades
My mother made me guess over MSN, and I got two grades wrong, so I guess I owe her two Rittersport chocolate bars when she comes over here. On four of the tests, I guessed "5" and was correct:
Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, American Government, and Calculus.
Considering my very poor second essay on Psychology, I guessed a 4, but was pleasantly surprised to receive a 5.
I once watched a show which interviewed Stephen Hawking on his research on black holes. He commented that he'd made a bet with another scientist, but for some reason had bet against the theories he had developed. He explained it thus: "If I were proved right, the joy would exceed the small loss of this bet. If my life's work were proven wrong, however, I would still have the small consolation of winning the wager." I knew that I passed the AP Literature and Composition test, but I needed a 4 to be named National AP Scholar as a Junior. Therefore, I guessed a 3, and will gladly buy my mother her second candy bar.
If you're confused:
Microeconomics: 5
Macroeconomics: 5
American Government: 5
Calculus: 5
Psychology: 5
Lit & Comp: 4
With 8 APs recieveing grades of 4 or 5 and a total average above 4 (Statistics 5 and American History 4 were my other two), I will be awarded the title of National AP Scholar after my junior year, a feat accomplished only by Parker Kienholz and (potentially) Taylor Stevenson.

I was also "tagged," so I shall fill this out and post it here.
1) Total Number of Books I own: 2 over here... probably around 40 or so back home too.

2) Last Book I Bought: "Deutsche Geschichte von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart; Eine marxistische Einführung," and "Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben? Goethes schönste Gedichte." (German history from the beginning to th present; a Marxistic introduction and Goethe's most beautiful poems")

3) Last Book I Read: Working on "Der kleine Hobbit" right now... last book I read fully though would be "Mourning Become Electra," if that counts as a book...

4) Books That Mean A Lot to me: Stranger in a Strange Land, one of the first "classic" books I've picked up and read on my own. The Great Gatsby, an excellent book overall. Also, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, not because it's that good, but because I had to have saved myself with that on that AP Lit test ;)

5) "TAG" 5 ppl. who basically MUST post this on their blog: Josh Mattson, Derby, Jen Dens, Tara, Josiah

Thanks for the references, I took a few pics from Holbrook and Derby. I also plan on scrounging through Mitch's here; speaking of which, I'm linking his blog onto here. Don't know why that slipped my mind before...

Pressing Matters:
Anonymous. I know you're not who I think, because I don't think you're anyone. Argh! But do answer me, have I said your name already when I was just listing them off? I need to know if those people are still fair game...
Hey Morgan! Liz already commented here too... If you do want to send me a pic, I'll post it up in my gallery, sure. Sorry I didn't mention you guys by name... Things are going great, keep checking in for more updates!
Yes, Josh, you're right. In fact, I probably should've taken Geli out with my friends a whole lot more when I was over there, which is something I sort of regret at this point... she always had her own group though, and our group didn't even do too much, sadly.
We'll be in Munich (München as it's called in German, though even I have difficulties pronouncing that one) over the summer vacation for a short period, staying in a youth hostel. Also, I don't need a haircut; I'll be just fine.
I'm still editing and cutting for my project, but I'll let everyone know which pictuers I take from which Flickrs, just so that you all know.
SCHOOL'S ALMOST OUT: 4 days of instruction, Mon - Thurs, then Friday we begin working on projects. I'm in a group learning Chinese from the Chemistry teacher. This goes on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. Wednesday is the last day of school, a half day consisting basically of sitting and doing not much. Then, finally, freedom.
When you say you're going to "pay for that," Dad, do you mean get guff from me for sending mother over here? Or suffer without her for two weeks over there (again)? Or are you just talking about the cost of the plane tickets? ;)

Since this wasn't a real post, it warrants no Twain quote or German portion.

European Solidarity

The first notice anything's happened comes a week later:
We participated in this.
The announcement came over the loudspeakers a few hours beforehand, commenting that as many people were injured as there were students in the school. We, along with surely much of Europe, stood our silent two minutes.

Wednesday kind of dragged on by. I don't have too much to say about it, really. It was just another old school day. There was one interesting part, in French class, where they were watching a movie about some kid reading a book. Excerpts from the story he was reading were continuously being interwoven into his own plot-line. At one point, the main character meets and talks to a giant turtle; this being dubbed into French, I for some reason could hardly contain my laughter. It was utterly ridiculous. We also went shopping. I bought some presents. I couldn't find any Refused or Hives, guys, but I WAS able to find CDs from the greatest band to ever grace Europe - Pilos Puntos - so you'll forgive me if you get those instead ;)

Today = Thursday. Today I received two projects. In German, the class is working on some poetry; the teacher asked me and the French foreign exchange student to translate one into our own languages, not literally but so that they also made a poem of sorts. Furthermore, she asked for a one-page essay about my trip, including my expectations and experiences. Later on, the History teacher asked me to prepare a 15-minute presentation on "where I come from," most likely including school, the area, and all whatnot. If anyone has a really good gallery of Brainerd, you can post it here. I'll be bringing in pics on a CD.

Graded on in-class participation:
I'm not sure what's up with the camera, I didn't even notice anything about the dates. Maybe it got confused and thought it had time travelled when that awesome pic of Geli and I was taken. lolz. Also, I didn't say I don't eat meat, just not in giant slabs (the one on top isn't the one we eat :P )
Again. I'm sure I wasn't drunk. Though I probably wouldn't tell you if I was, knowing how some people that happen to be female and live in the same house as I do tend to overreact about things. But I wasn't intoxicated.
Anonymous. I'm sure lots of people know who you are. But I'm not like other people. My bank of possible people has been essentially empty for about a month now... but keep 'em coming.
I don't believe I ever said I wasn't homesick in the least. There are occasionally things that I miss, especially when I read through e-mails or blogs from back home. However, all in all I'm glad I'm here.

Ich hab' meinen Kommentar gelesen, und vielleicht glaubt ihr, weil ich "man kann besser 'ne Fremdsprache sprechen wenn er getrunken ist" gesagt hab, daß ich besoffen war. Vielleicht stimmt das Sprichwort, aber daß ich besoffen war ist überhaupt falsch, und eine dreckige Lüge obendrein.

"My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it."
- "That Awful German Language," Appendix D of A Tramp Abroad

How true that is. A number of people told me that they took French before English because it's so much harder; they're probably as fluent in either, even though they've had French for two more years. Really, all that's tricky is pronunciation and spelling; those are essentially the only two easy things in German. Also verbs aren't *usually* too bad, with (naturally) a few exceptions.