Sunday, August 31, 2008

First Weekend in Aachen

Wow it has been an amazing weekend! On Friday I spent the day getting set up in my apartment, making a visit to the International Office in the Fochhochschule (FH), and drinking beer with the new buddies. Now one thing worth mentioning: You know all those times people tell you that the German beer is so much better than American? It is absolutely true. I’ve been drinking the “cheap” stuff and it tastes amazing even when warm. It’s nourishing like water, but takes like Heaven. I have to watch out because I might have taken too much a liking to it!

On Saturday, the weather in Aachen was absolutely beautiful. The sky was cloudless, there was a slight breeze, and the temperature was around 70. Now its important to know that days like this are rare in Aachen. A typical day in Aachen is overcast or storming with ranging temperatures. When ever there is weather like this in Aachen, everything stops and people go out the make to most of it. So with my new friends Alex, Eli, and Samir, I spent the day eating barbequed German food, playing Fussball (Soccer), and enjoying the amazing weather. We were out there for over 7 hours!

It’s now Sunday afternoon, and I have just finished playing a game of pick up street Fussball, and I have some time to reflect back. One thing that I’ve learned is the importance of learning German. There are many people that can speak varying levels of English, but for the most part everything functions in German. One could survive in Germany knowing only English, but to thrive, one must speak German. I feel like the little kid just learning to speak who can mutter a couple of phrases while the grownups have the real conversation. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad situation. One of my goals in coming here is to learn to speak German. I have never been more motivated in my life to learn the language and if I keep working hard at it, I should be a functional German speaker in a few months. Tschuss!

From the Beginning

Right now I’m sitting in my new room, jet-lagged as all get out, thinking about the events of yesterday. Apart from long plane ride and the lack of sleep, things worked out perfectly yesterday. So when I got off the plane in Cologne, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew I had to get to the train station, so I followed the signs and eventually made it. Keep in mind at this point I had around 120 lbs. of luggage I was hauling around (never again) and I needed to get to the student office by 12:45 to get my housing contract. So when I got there, I couldn’t read any of the signs and generally had no idea what it took to get a train to Aachen. So after a couple of minutes starring at this foreign ticket machine, this girl, Bianca, who seemed to understand what was going on came up behind me. I explained to her that I had no idea of what I was doing and I was trying to get to Aachen. It turned out she was meeting a friend and going to Aachen as well. So Bianca and I bought a group travel ticket (much cheaper) and met up with her friend Comin. As it turns out, there is no train that goes directly to Aachen, which I didn’t know, so good thing I met up with her.

On the train ride, it turned out that the 3 of us needed to go to essentially the same place and were under the same time crunch. Comin, who had a GPS system, was able to show me the city of Aachen and all the places and the directions that I needed to go. One thing worth mentioning, there were many situations where there were no escalators or elevators or there was an area inconvenient to roll the bags and I needed to carry my 120lbs load with me. Every time this happened, Comin would grab one of the large bags and help me. One funny moment, we needed to get off the train quickly because it was our stop, so Comin and I grabbed the bags. He was in front of me carrying the more awkward bag, and because of its shape he managed to get stuck in the isle with it. We thought the train was going to leave and so we frantically tried to get it loose and the doors began to close. We finally got it free and ran to the doors. It turned out that this was the end of the line and the train was going no where, so no need to panic. We agreed from then on that I would grad the awkward bag!Anyways ,there is no way I would have been able to make it without his help.

After we got off the train, I followed them to the bus. Once we got off the bus, Comin showed me on his GPS system how to get to my destiniation and the 3 of us parted ways. I got to the office at 12:30 as the doors were closing! I was the last person to get my contract that day. Once I got my contract, I set off to find my dorm, the Schillerstrasse 88. I stumbled out the doors with my all my bags and started walking. The dorm at this point was almost 2 miles away, so I looked for the closest bus stop to get there. It turned out that I got on the wrong bus, so I when I got off, I was closer but had a long walk ahead of me. I found the beginning of Schillerstrasse (Schiller Street) and began to walk towards 88. At this point I was already tired and on little sleep, but I had no other choice. As I poured out all the sweat I had left in my body, I made my way to the Wohnnung (flat). When I got there I asked the first person I saw, Eli, if he knew where the Hausmeister was. He took me to his office, but it turned out that I had just missed him and that I needed to make an appointment. Eli then called the landlords assistant and explained to him that I needed a place to stay and that if he didn’t come in I would have to stay on the street. The landlords assistant, Andrew, graciously decided to come by a few hours later and let me into my flat. While we were waiting for Andrew, Eli asked me “Do you drink beer man?” This was the greatest thing I had ever heard. I of course said yes and we went to Eli apartment. I spent the rest of the day meeting Eli’s friends, drinking amazing German beer, playing hacky-sack, watching German tv, being fed dinner by Alex a Russian student, and then finally stumbling back to my room to go to sleep.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Welcome To My Page

Welcome everyone to my first blog page. Here I will be keeping everyone up to date with my studies and travels in Aachen Germany. Just to update those who might have questions on what I'm doing, I will be studying business at the Aachen School of Applied Sciences. I will be studying for 2 semesters, after which I will receive a German Diploma and be returning to the States August of 2009. Other than traveling to some of the various countries surrounding Germany, my goals are to learn to speak German fluently, begin to understand the business world in Germany, and setup possibilities to work internationally and put to use my German. I am very excited and if anyone has advice, I'm all ears!

Some Thoughts Before the Plunge...

Its crazy to think that in less than a week I will be leaving the country for my first time to spend a year in Germany. Being a last second sort of guy, I find myself frantically running around, finding new things that I would like or need to do before I leave. Currently I'm attempting to cram in 3 levels of the Rosetta Stone Deutsch, set up this blog thing here, figure out what I need to pack, pack, plan one last beach trip, go on the trip, say goodbye to everyone (not good at goodbyes),...... then GO!

So I'm the only person from George Mason that is going on this program, I haven't heard from anyone in the States that are going, and I don't know anyone over in Aachen. Doesn't get any more exciting than that! Who am I going to be hanging with? What is the town going to be like? I hear going abroad is an eye opening experience; what does that mean for me? These are just some of the questions that run through my mind as the day gets closer. Not worth losing sleep over, I guess. Anyways, speaking of sleep, I have a long 3 days of work at Silverado ahead of me and its time to hit to ol' dusty trail. Guten Nacht!