Nuermberg, School and Grocery Store Anxiety

To my sorority sisters: I brought a few Kappa Kappa Gamma shirts with me and they generate the best reactions from the Germans. Explaining Greek Life to students who have only seen it in the movies is interesting (movies such as "House Bunny" and "Animal House"). It is even more entertaining to hear other American students try and explain a sorority to the Germans...I will write a letter to the house detailing the conversations I have heard. I love the stares of wonder that I get after a German has heard an explanation of a sorority...

I think it's about one month into living abroad that students begin to get homesick. I'm not homesick, but I've been very nostalgic. I have been listening to a ton of Tom Petty and Bob Dylan everyday and thinking a lot about the Rocky Mountains (I know they aren't close to Portland, but I associate them with family trips and being a kid). On my list of things to do when I get home are spend time with all my cousins, aunts and uncles, my grandparents and my sisters and parents. I am so thankful for their support. I think my time in Germany would not be so great if I didn't have such great people to come home to.

Last weekend I travelled by train to Nuermberg. The city is known for its toys, Christmas displays (during Christmas time), Lebkuchen (soft gingerbread) and some type of sausage, I can't remember which (every town makes a "special" wurst). I visited the Docu-zentrum on the old Nazi Party Rally Grounds. Thirteen of us visited the indoor museum and half of us stayed to tour the grounds. The museum included a piece of film from the Nuermberg Trials. It was chilling to listen to the "doctors" give an account of what happened within the concentration camps. It is difficult to imagine the magnitude of the gatherings that happened in Nuermberg. I posted some facebook pics of the trip. We noticed that the city seemed to have no interest in preserving the area. I think the history is so dark and the destruction of the monuments in 1945 so symbolic that there is a hesitancy to preserve or recreate what once stood there. The city website has no information regarding the docu-zentrum. Below is some lebkuchen.

Last Monday I took my first real exam for Human Resource Management and Organization. There is no such thing as a multiple-choice test at this university. My first two classes were all essay...ugh. The students said it's impossible to finish most tests. For two hours we sat and "wrote" our tests--much more difficult than the business tests at OSU!

This week I lalso began and ended a class where I learned how to use Microsoft Office Project (very exciting, I know). In three days I learned what normally takes 2 weeks to teach (according to our guest professor. She was a Type A personality from Houston...'nuf said). Our exam was 75% of our grade and consisted of a group project assigned at 9am Friday morning and due at 3:30pm that same day. I worked with a German and Singaporean student to complete the project.

This is a picture I took in my project management class. Microsoft Office Project looks an aweful lot like Free Cell...I wish I got a picture of the French guy, cause he was playing a skiing video game on his laptop.

Two weeks ago I watched Germany's Next Top Model, hosted by Heidi Klum. It was the ideal show for me because the models have very simple thoughts expressed with very simple words, so it's easy for me to understand.

I have become good friends with one of the French exchange students, Marie. We go together to the swimming pool to work out every so often. She invited me over for dinner after one of our swims and we ate a simple meal of salad, bread, and wine with cheese for dessert. Her boyfriend had taken the train to Bad Mergentheim from Paris the week before and had brought Marie and me French butter. I normally don't use butter for anything other than baking, however, Marie raved about this stuff...once you try French butter I don't think you will ever eat toast or dinner rolls with anything else. The stuff could stand on its own.

Marie showed me pictures of the town where her French grandma lives. It is a small town on the West Coast of France and besides the castles along the bulkhead, it looks very similar to the small harbor towns along Puget Sound. It was refreshing to get out of my loud student house for an evening of good conversation with Marie. We have very similar values and interests and she and I can actually have meaningful conversation. It was also nice to eat a lighter dinner than those I eat with the German students.

I still have not gotten completely comfortable with the supermarket here. The WinCo of Bad Mergentheim is called "Handelsaf" (the American students and I call it the "David Hasselhof" store because of the name and "Baywatch" color scheme). I always enter the store with confidence--carrying my reuseable shopping bag and grocery list, yet almost every time I get ready to pay I have anxiety. One of the greatest challenges for me is understanding numbers spoken in German and counting out Euros. I. hate. it! Luckily, I think all the nice old lady cashiers recognize me now and speak very, VERY slowly and after twenty seconds of me fumbling through my coin purse they politely tell me to dump all my coins on the conveyor belt for them to count out :) oh dear. (dad, don't worry, I double check what they take from me and cross-reference it with my receipt!)

I have been riding my bike along the Tauber River every other day as time has allowed. The valley is very similar to the Willamette Valley and the ride is not unlike the rides I take around Bald Hill. I can even smell cow manure when the wind blows. The bike is a huge gift for me because me feet hurt so much from walking everywhere. Maria's daughter Birgit gave it to me when I left her house on Easter weekend.

Pics from my bike ride

I don't know if I have a third eye or maybe an extra limb that I'm unaware of, but every time I walk in the town I feel like all the old ladies are staring at me. I have tried dressing like the German girls and walking like the German girls (which is no different than I already walk) and yet I get "the stink-eye." As I write, I remember that in Germany many people do not smile at strangers because it's seen as superficial (I'm probably a walking "fake" because I smile at everyone. Oops.) In the States, most people quit staring at you if they see you notice them, however, here I can take a triple-take at someone and they never break eye contact.

This was a long post. If you made it this far: high five to you, because I would've stopped reading after the third paragraph :) Have a great week! I leave for Berlin tomorrow morning so I will be a little MIA for a week.

Tschuss!