Back to a Daily Grind...(except this Daily Grind is pretty frickin awesome)

Ahhhh, finally its Friday again. This Friday of mine has been spent the most ideal way I could think; beginning with some kind of ridiculously delicious pastry from the bakery down the street, coffee, therapeutic cleaning, listening to NPR Tiny Desk Concerts on YouTube (shoutout to my girl Claire Tyler on telling me about how awesome they are/I miss you and stuff), and probably what I’m most thrilled about, planning things to do/places to go during R-92’s weeklong trip to Leipzig beginning on Monday. I guess the one really negative part of my week has been doing laundry perfectly well the first load time I did it, and then subsequently screwing it up royally on the same machine like less than 3 hours later aaaand I wasn’t able to find Herr Pehlke today to get my two €0,50 coins back to do laundry today so thats cool. -__-

(Buuuuuut on the brightside its my final payday AND final end-of-the-month bonus check Friday from my summer internship at RUM, and I got paid quite a bit more than I was expecting, so knowing my bank account is a lot healthier is making everything in life just a little better)

ANYWAYS, dayum. What a week! A week ago today I posted that we were all hitting up Stuttgart the next day, and indeed we went and had a grand ol’ time exploring the city.

Aren’t we precious? (and no, we don't all have jaundice)

Other pictures from Stuttgart last Saturday:

Interactive "find things you like to do and plan them" touchscreen installation in Stuttgart

Alt Schloss, meaning "Old Castle" (above 3 pictures)

Museum courtyard, Stuttgart (above 2)

Fresh market in Stuttgart (above 3)

Church alter; this building was in ruins post WW2, was restored from the wreckage, 
and was to be modernized in the 1990s.

Random shots of the city (above 4)

Alter of another Stuttgart church

After a fun/enjoyable/relaxing week of Reutligen shenanigans, it was time to begin our classes with our Valpo professor on Wednesday afternoon, which are 1) Modern Germany, an in depth exploration and discussion of the history of politics of Germany, and 2) Luther and Bach, a class entirely devoted to its two title namesakes. In fact, this is why all of us R-92ers are departing for Leipzig/Wittenburg/Erfurt for the week this Monday morning in effort to understand more about the history and influences of both Bach and Luther (Valpo music majors, if you gave me a mailing address, consider this as a not-at-all subtle clue as to where I’m probs gonna purchase you postcards). 

Also on Wednesday, the Weindorf wine festival/tasting opened in downtown Reutlingen, and me and a few of the ladies in my group got the opportunity to try some wines from the Baden-Württemberg area (but not the Reutlingen area wines, which are apparently quite unpleasant to the taste). Now, I’m no wine expert of any kind, as I’m blissfully content with the $4.99 bottles of Barefoot Pinot Grigio from Famous Liquors at home, but I really enjoyed what I was able to try from a couple different vendors the other night, PLUS for €0,50 I was able to take home a wine glass. 

Does anyone else find it ironic that a wine festival opened on Wednesday, which people in the states frequently call “Wine Wednesday”? Haaaaahahaha thats the best unintentional wit ever. 

Weindorf pictures!

 First glass: Grüner Veltiner from Österreich; described as "leichter, feinfruchiger Weisser", meaning "light, fine fruity, white". 

Second glass: Schwarzriesling, meaning "black riesling". 

Typically I don't like Rieslings because they tends to be overwhelmingly sweet, but this was a fantastic choice. 

Going back to the upcoming trip next week, I’m SO SO SO SOSOSOSO SO SOOOOO EXCITED to see Leipzig/Wittenburg/Erfurt. Not only to explore different parts of this breathtakingly magnificent country, but also to understand more about Luther; the rebellious man who stood up against the catholic church in 1517 who is the reason that I am a church confirmed “Lutheran”, and to understand more about Bach, whose composed cantatas echo beautifully throughout the building almost every Sunday afternoon at my K-8th grade school/home church, Grace Lutheran. As a child that was born and raised as a "Luther"an and has been cocooned in a Lutheran education since before I can remember all the way up to the present day, and as a person who was blessed enough to have a church with such an extraordinary music program with so many opportunities for me to sing/become exposed to such talented composers such as Bach throughout my entire life has contributed to shaping me into who I am today. In short, the topics of this class have become a huge part of my overall being, and (warning: this is extra cliché) as a part of this whole self-discovery thing that I’m aiming at working towards this semester, I think that studying, learning and understanding more about these men and their overall effects on society, the church  and people throughout the past few centuries to all the way to this present day will help me understand not only what I grew up around on a deeper and broader level.

Welp, its almost 17:30 (5:30PM for all of you 12 hour clock users), and I have roughly 1289372149728462 things to do before we go to a Tübingen club called “Top Ten” this evening. I’ll have to let you all know next time how it stacks up next to Wrigleyville/Lincoln Park ;)

Tschuss! I’ll post again when I’m in Leipzig!

Love always, miss you all, and until next time,

Rachel

P.S. I'm never buying shirts that say anything unless I know exactly what they say... 

Home Sweet Germany

First of all, for those interested: here's a summary of my flight and transport to Reutlingen in review:

8.5 hour flight when I thought it would be 7/barely slept/was in disbelief over how luxurious Zurich’s airport is/almost missed our connecting flight to Stuttgart because we got yelled at by customs for not having our VISAs yet/sprinted to the gate which was a bus that took us to the plane/had a 30 minute flight to Stuttgart/one of my fellow cohorts lost her checked bag/met up with Professor Ostoyich who was holding an unmistakable brown and gold Valpo umbrella/took bus to Reutlingen University on the morning of August 21st.

And.....well folks......I absolutely love it here.

Everything feels like a dream (...in both the literal and figurative sense, because my half hour “power nap” at 16:00/4PM  on Wednesday turned into a 15 hour coma until 7:00 the following morning). I can’t express in words how beautiful it is here. I suppose I didn’t quite know what to expect before I got here, but the moment that I exited from the baggage claim, I was infatuated. The air just feels so...different. Cleaner maybe? The entire atmosphere is nothing like what I’ve ever felt or seen. The mountains are breathtakingly beautiful to look at as I walk around town/look out my room window, and while the rolling hills and twisted streets give my unathletic and out of shape ass quite the workout, they make this place feel as though its like a dream.

The building I’m living in is Theophil-Wurm-Haus, known shorthandedly as just Wurmhaus, which is a lot more pleasant than it sounds like it would be if you judge it from the name. In addition to me and my roommate, there are four other R-92ers in our building, Gabi (http://gabriellekosloske.wordpress.com/), Amanda (http://amandaindeutschland.blogspot.de), Sam, and Eric. Me and my roommate Chelsea (http://blondeineurope.blogspot.com/) live on the third (well, technically fourth, but here they start with ground floor and call the next floor up as 1). Our room is extra nice, and its outfitted in some budget-friendly/trendy furniture from Sweden’s finest, Ikea. Our Hausmeister (landlord) is Herr Pehlke, who is pretty fluent in English and is very eager to make our experience here positive, and really wants to encourage interaction with the German students that live in our building. Thus far, me and Chelsea have met our neighbor, China (pronounced CHEE-nah), who is very nice and welcoming, and also comes across as pretty badass, as she has a giant stuffed animal-esque boar head on the outside of her room door, has a piercing in the center of her lower lip, and walks around wearing these zany frog slippers. We’ve also met Doreen, our floor speaker who is also kind and friendly, who has lived in Wurmhaus for two years now. At the end of every floor, there is a common living room with a table/couches/TV, and kitchen with allotted freezer/fridge/cabinet space for every room on the floor.

The view from my third floor room.

Yesterday morning, we met Herr Veit, my econ professor and the head of the International program at Reutlingen University. He’s been working with Valpo Study Abroad since 1980, and he even pushed his two week holiday back juuuuust so he could meet us yesterday morning and give a tour of the campus/tell us more about the school because he absolutely loves Valpo students. 

The campus at this moment is kinda....well..dead. Not only do classes not even begin for RU students until September 30th, but the campus doesn’t even begin making meals at Mensa (the cafeteria) until September 9th. Plus, campus, actually Reutlingen in general, isn’t looking as picturesque as one would expect this fall, because a few weeks ago there was a horrible storm with TENNIS BALL SIZED hail that severely dented cars, broke windows and the outdoor blinds on windows, broke signs on stores, created paint chips and dinged up walls on the outside of homes/buildings AND caused all the trees to lose their leaves earlier. The damage from the storm makes the whole campus look kinda look like its falling apart/in the aftermath of Chernobyl, but other than that, its such a pretty campus! 

After our meeting with Herr Veit and eating lunch, we were fortunate enough to go on two tours of the city of Reutlingen; one with our professor and his wife and 5-year old daughter Daphne, who thinks I look like her Jasmine from Aladdin Barbie/really really really likes the pictures I have on my phone of my pets, and became my new best friend yesterday. She basically never let go of my hand. D’awwwww:

   

Anyways, Professor O showed us a shortcut into town through a public park, and pointed out a slew of interesting restaurants/places to go in town, including:

1. A delicious ice cream place that offers ice cream scoops for 1 euro, 

that also proudly serves Red Bull flavored ice cream:

2. A disco-country-club hybrid place owned by an 80-something year old man that doesn’t button up his shirt all the way but probably should.

3. The equivalent to Macy’s department store:

4. The “Irish Pub” of Reutlingen. Typically throughout Europe, “Irish Pub” means that its a place where the national language is NOT spoken and people go there to escape and get away (...but don’t people who go to bars in  general kind of do the same thing?)

Following our tour with Professor O, we had a (semi) pleasant 2.5 hour long walking tour of the history of Reutlingen from a precious little woman who was impossible to hear 90% of the time, but she showed us a few little interesting parts of the town, including a fountain that shows the 12 guilds of Reutligen,

The beautiful St. Mary’s church in Reutlingen, built from 1247–1343,

and the narrowest street in the world.

Following that ridiculously informative and long tour, we bid our adieus to Professor O and his family for the weekend, and the ten of us went out for some much needed drinks, and naturally, we got beer.

 ...and I may or may not have gotten two. 

This second beer pictured is arguably the greatest beer I’ve ever had ever. Like ever.

As for the adjustment to living here, its been a little rough, but not at all bad. I’m pretty over the jet-lag by this point which is a HUGE blessing. My German isn’t coming back to me as much as I thought it would’ve been by this point, but I definitely could be struggling more. I find myself still saying “thank you” instead of “danke”, and “one” instead of “eins”, and so forth. The locals seem pretty used to coming across international students, so they’ve been pretty helpful when I start word vomiting German-lish.

Surprisingly, the things I thought would be the most difficult to adjust to have been quite easy, such as converting dollars to euros and using military time as opposed to AM/PM. I’m not entirely sure if I’ll ever get used to drinking bubbly mineral water though, but lucky for me, the Penny Markt that’s basically 3 seconds away from my building has plenty of 1.5 litres of still water that I’m currently downing.

It is absolutely fascinating to see how different things are here in comparison to the states, and yet how similar other things are. For example, German building construction is very solid, meaning that its very easy for mold to grow if the room is not exposed to fresh air for at least 10-15 minutes a day, so even when its freezing out, we are to open our windows to circulate fresh air. Speaking of windows, the way German windows function is pretty genius. Every window has a lever. When the lever is locked in the upright position, your window cracks open vertically, and when the lever is locked in the sideways position, your window opens from the side, and lastly, when the lever is locked in the downright position, your window is locked. On the outside of the window, you have these metal blinds that kindof remind me of prison blinds, but they’re quite functional when it comes to privacy.

Germany is VERY cutting edge when it comes to recycling their products. For example: whenever you buy drinks, whether it be beer, Coca Cola Light or water, you can insert your bottle into a machine called the “Pfandflasche”, meaning “refundable bottle deposit”, and you receive money back anytime you insert your used bottles with the pfandflashe logo into the machine. The garbage here is separated into five categories; Altpapier (old paper/cardboard), Biomüll (biodegradable materials, meaning all food leftovers), Gelber Sack (plastic), Restmüll (non-biodegradable materials), and Glas (meaning, as the name would suggest, glass). Also, in my building the showers operate by pushing a button, where the water is automatically warm and lasts for 30 seconds before stopping completely. You're more than welcome to push the button in the shower multiple times so you're able to have an adequate and full shower, but the overall intention with this showering method is obviously not to waste any water. While I think the idea is genius and I'm 100% okay with the use of this button, finding that button with shampoo in my eye was exactly as fun as it sounds like it would be this morning.

Welp, family dinner down the hall is served and I'm extra late, so I must say tschuss for now! Tonight we’re going to be exploring the night life of Reutligen, and tomorrow we’re taking the train to Stuttgart to visit the Mercedes Benz museum in addition to checking out a castle. I can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Love always,

Rachel

P.S. Here’s a picture of two pigeons fighting over a hotdog in the middle of town because I have the maturity of a 4 year old and find it absolutely hysterical.

P.P.S. More photos of this beautiful city for your viewing pleasure:

Yep, Aldi is a thing here.

....aaaaand it looks just like American Aldi.