Schokolade überall!!!

 Hallo alles!

As my lovely mother pointed out, I haven't blogged for almost a week! I know you are just dying to hear about all of my adventures, but during the week I am extremely busy...or at least, I was. Today was the last day of our preliminary course, so next week it's alllll about testing. I'll explain.

I just finished three weeks of intensive German grammar. Three weeks of info that I probably would've learned in a semester back in the States! There have been plenty of ups and downs. I understand a good deal of the grammar construction, but this last week was rough because we were sort of combining all that we learned. And while I can remember it all separately, it becomes quite a challenge when I have to decide if I should be changing a sentence to passive or conjunctive 2 or another participle construction...and I know you don't even know what any of this means in English, so I'm sure you can imagine what the look on my face was like most of the time. My main flaw, though, is that there is a lot of vocab I do not know! When we go to museums and the guides are speaking rapid German I can usually pull out a good deal of the words, but if there's a word I don't know then I'm totally lost. Last week we did a practice listening comprehension and it was kind of a mess. It was about the history of gold and once again, we must have skipped the German Chemistry chapter back at Stonehill.

This is why I am a bit nervous for the DSH Prufung. Basically the DSH is like a German version of the SATs that international students take to demonstrate their language proficiency. If I pass, I can take any regular university course. If I fail, which they assure us is not a big deal (a bunch of people from the lower level class aren't even going to take it at all) then I am restricted to taking classes that are specifically for international students. They are still in German, but they go a bit slower, I think. So, I won't be totally upset if I do not pass, because I don't think I'm ready for the rapid German classes anyway. I keep having to remind myself that I've only been taking German for two years. TWO YEARS! That is the minimum amount of German experience you have to have before entering this program. Still, the written exam is on Monday and (if I pass that) the oral exam is Thursday. So, wish me luck!

But, yes, it has been a busy week! First of all I had to deal with the shock of Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of Green Day, entering rehab for substance abuse, and that took up some time. Then there was that whole five minutes where I laughed evilly about the general outrage I saw about replacement refs in the NFL. And of course I had a good "shake my fist at the skies" moment when Parks and Rec and Breaking Bad did not win Emmys. Then on Monday, I was literally out and about from 8:30am to 11:30pm. The thing about living so far from the Altstadt is that it takes too long to leave and come back for short periods of time, but hey, I've gotten used to it. Monday was spent in class, then lunch, then doing homework, then a pretty long meeting about this week's excursion, and then some friends and I went to the Mensa for dinner. Finally, after hanging out at AJY, we went to the Irish pub about 10 minutes away for their weekly trivia night. I like going there because it's a nice break. The trivia is in English and the bartender actually is Irish so I don't have to worry about my German. Plus, even though we lost, they gave us free beer, so hey!

Tuesday and Wednesday were more of the same, but there was one exception...I spent the majority of the time PLANNING MY TRIP TO ITALY! I can't even begin to tell you how stressful this was. I originally wanted to go on an Amalfi Coast trip for four days, but the trip began at 11:30pm on the Thursday I had my oral exam. After calling a bunch of places (which was quite a mess--I called some more wrong numbers and spoke some broken German and extremely broken Italian) I finally decided that I probably could not make that trip. Bummer. Then I had to search on every website ever and compare prices from every airport from here to Italy and my blood pressure was nicht so gut. Finally, I did it. I booked a flight to Rome, not for this Saturday, but the following Saturday. I will stay for the week because it's Fall Break. It's roundtrip, so I'll be back the Saturday after that! Now, I don't want to go into details about this trip yet because A) I have not hammered all of the details out because I am waiting on some people and B) I have some safety reasons but boy you are going to hear all about it when I get back! So no matter what, after all that stress, I will have gone to Italy! Whew.

Anyway, yesterday for the most part was sehr schön! We went to the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart followed by the RITTER SPORT CHOCOLATE FACTORY. AND I KNOW YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT RITTER SPORT IS BUT I'LL TELL YOU IN A SECOND AFTER I TAKE CAPS LOCK OFF. Well first of all the Mercedes museum was pretty cool. It was beautiful and we basically took an elevator to the top and walked down in a slow spiral. Each floor was a different era showcasing the shiny automobiles that Mercedes Benz had produced. It was basically one big timeline. I didn't understand the guide most of the time, despite our high tech ear phones, but luckily the displays were half in English. I am not the biggest car enthusiast, but they were really pretty, and it was honestly very cool. After our tour we ran to a restaurant to wolf down some lunch, seeing as we were very off schedule. Our bus driver got us lost so we were late, and in Germany being late is one of the worst things you can do. So (my mom will be happy to hear this) when I come back home I'll pretty much never be late for anything again. So strange. Anyway, on the way to the chocolate factory I used the bus bathroom and accidentally pressed "emergency" instead of "flush" so that was fun.

Moving on. Ritter Sport is a big chocolate company here in Germany. We thought they would take us for a tour through the factory, but I heard some German went swimming in the chocolate river and got stuck in a pipe, so the general public hasn't been allowed back since. Instead we watched a video of the factory, got free chocolate, got more free chocolate, and then went down to the giant chocolate store downstairs where everyone went a little bit nuts. Literally. Me included.

If there's one thing I can say, I am sure eating well here in Germany. I don't know if I've talked about this before, but I really like the food here. Lunch is the big meal, and they sure do it up right at the Mensa. There are actually two Mensas. One is not so great because it has fewer options, and I usually get a brie sandwich or some strange pizza. The other, however, is wonderful. It's buffet style and you pay based on weight. There are always potatoes au gratin and then some other form--Knödel, mashed, fries etc, then some meats, but also fresh cooked vegetables that are just so brightly colored and delicious. Then I get some bread that is clearly very high in fiber, and they usually have some sort of vegetarian dish. I can't describe them so well but they make me happy. Sometimes my friends all cook together, like on Thursday night we went to my friend Selma's dorm and our friend Brad cooked us Knödel and grilled cheese sandwiches. He loves to cook, thankfully, and it saves us a lot of money! He and my other friend Michele came over to my place tonight and we ate pasta with mozzarella, garlic bread and cookies for only 2 euros each. Then if I feel like going to a restaurant (doesn't happen so often now, but still) I usually go to a Turkish restaurant and get a doner. For you meat eaters it's basically shaved roasted lamb, two types of cabbage, lettuce, tomato, and yoghurt sauce. It doesn't taste like yogurt, really, it's just called that. Or you could go for the very spicy chili sauce, but that's not my kind of thing. My doner has cheese instead of meat, and it's very tasty. It's a better idea to get a Yufka though, because they're essentially the same thing but they're in a wrap so it's way less messy. And, of course, I have enough delicious German chocolate now for the rest of my life.

Anyway, so, I think that's about it for this week. Our last class was today and I hung out with Brad and Michele for dinner and now I am going to relax. Almost everyone went to Oktoberfest this weekend, but I know I'm going to study for the DSH! Actually, tomorrow, Heidelberg is having a big fall festival that I'm going to go to with Brad and Michele. I'm excited! There are supposedly big flea markets so I can pick up some cheap trinkets. Then I'll study. Of course.

The only other thing is that they finally gave us our German high speed rail pass. We have a semester ticket that takes us to most places in the surrounding area for free, but this rail pass gives us 5 free train rides anywhere in Germany. It even goes to Salzburg, Austria and Switzerland! The only catch is that once we use it for the first time, we have to use up the rest in a month. Not that that should be a problem of course

I have put pictures of this week on my Shutterfly, so enjoy!



I miiight have been this guy...