-14 Degrees

So as im typing this it is currently -14 degrees Celsius. And if you are not familiar with Celsius, thats goddamn cold. The past few days have been really really REALLY cold. Even a full winter gear up does very little to keep the chill out. Face numbness is almost instantainous. But the cold also means snow. Which we have a fair bit of now. The past few days it's been casually snowing, since Wednesday i believe. But not really that much snow. Just enough to cover the ground and make the buses late. In other news my epic journey to England begins tomorrow at 22:55. Tom and I will be taking the 22:55 train to Nürnburg then catching the underground to the airport which we will be waiting at until our flight at 6:30 monday morning. Gonna be another all nighter from the looks of it. But i will be happy to begin my English Christmas adventure. So not really too much more to update on. Everyone is pretty much headed back home by now. Kinda sad to see people go, because when everyone's back there's only about 4 weeks left in the semester. And that means the people who are only here for one semester will not be with us much longer. Sadness. But yea so live long and prosper and i will update when i get to ol'Blighty. OH! and everyone needs to watch these videos if you are familiar at all with Star Wars.

It snowed today

It snowed today! Like real snow! It was flippin sweet, finally we get a little white coating to make it feel like the Solstice! Great times. I cant believe how fast the holidays have come upon me. Honestly it feel just like yesterday i was getting off the train in Würzburg, and now im preparing myself for my English Christmas, which begins next Monday for those who dont know. However im also kinda sad. Im sad about everyone leaving and my happy little Würzburg family being taken apart for the holidays. I have myself in a very good place here and most of that is because of my friends here. And now everyone's going away for the holidays and we wont get to party in the New Year together. Saddening. Stupid Xmas! But in other news i got to check out a German Fraternity house yesterday. It was awesome. My face2face partner is an active member of one of the Catholic Bruderschaften here in Würzburg. So after we had our speaking last night he invited me to see the house and grab a beer there. It really was amazing. I felt so German sitting there among the German intellectuals drinking beer and hanging out. The frats here are actually useful for society, unlike the stupid ones in the US where they try to feign a purpose by making their members do community service or some bullshit that helps them sleep at night, when their real purpose is just to host parties, and taken advantage of drunk girls. The German Fraternities have a history steeped in the struggle for a united German Nationstate. Dating all the way back to when Napoleon conquered the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The German Fraternal societies were created to fight against the French occupation and help spread political ideas that would lead to revolution where German could be united as one country. So score one point for Germans being awesome.

New Layout!

Hello all hope you enjoy the more holiday themed layout. Ive given up trying to find a better layout that'll let me post my pictures properly. But you can just click on them and im pretty sure they'll take you to my photobucket page where you can get a better look at them. But yes to Christmas is less than two weeks away. Its a real head trip for me. It hardly feels like ive been here for that long but look on it now ive been in Würburg for almost 3 and a half months. Scarely feels that way. Time is just wizzing by with reckless abandon. The weeks seem to go by faster and faster. Its already saturday but it doesnt feel like a whole week pased since last saturday. I suppose its a good thing though, cause that means im having a good time and time flies when you're having fun. And truer words were never spoken. Last night we had a wine tasting for one of my classes. We It was held in the wine cellar of the big palace in Würzburg. The wines we had for tasting were 6 local Franconian wines, and one local sparkeling wine, all grown either in Würzburg or very near by. I would have to say that last night was one of the most fun nights ive had here in Würzburg. The wine was absolutly delicious. As most people know im not a wine guy, or at least i didnt used to be. But i would say after last night you can safely count me in the wine drinkers' camp. The six wines were on a sliding scale of price. We started off with a couple of the less expensive "thinking" wines, which were considered dry wines. Then the last two were very sweet very frutiy wines, ones you would probably serve to guests to impress them. But only one glass, cause any more and the sweetness would get to you. Or at least to me. So if anyone needs Franconian wine reccomendations, i would say i am at least partialy versed in the wines of this lovely loverly region of the world. Our Professor, who was running the wine tasting, gave very long excllent explainations of the different types of wine and the stories behind some of the different types, and how the wine cellar used to be used by the prince bishop of Würzburg and just generally the huge importance of Wine to this area. I do also recall him more than one boasting about how much better the wine here is to Italian and French wine. And i would be inclined to believe him. I mean Goethe used to order a yearly supply of Franconian wine numbering in the hundreds of liters. So if a living literary god orders that much wine from somewhere it must be some of the best wine anywhere. Hmm this speaking of wine has left me desiring a glass. But alas i gotta get back to my fun fun fun studying in the library. OH! and i got a new haircut. Its awesome, very German. If i didnt have a quite apparent American accent with my German one would almost think i belonged here. MERRY SOLSTICE!

Temporary fix.

Ok so problem with pictures and formating has been fixed temporarily. I'll try to get it workin better tomorrow some time. but enjoy for now !

Just a quick side note.

Just a quick side note. I have just noticed that my pictures i just posted are sort of messed up. I dunno why that is but it frustrates me. Im gonna try and fix up but no promises. So just bear with me if i cant get it figured out.

Ich würde dich besser magen, wenn wir mit einander schlafen würden

So YES!!! Indeed it is Christmas here. Christmas big time. And i am loving it. Europe doesnt do Halloween or Thanksgiving, but that extra holiday spirit gets saved up for the Christmas season. And they dont pull any punches here with it at all. Specktacular really. Truthfully there is no better incarnation of the Christmas spirit in Germany than the "Christmas Market". I have never been to a Christmas Market before. Ok well maybe never a real one. Maybe a little half assed one put on by a church or whatever for a weekend back in the states. But here one can go to a full blown huge Christmas Market that is open everyday from the last weekend of November until right before Christmas. Its brilliant. Nothing gets you in the Christmas mood more than having a cup of steaming hot Glühwein and Bratwurt mit Brötchen while walking around the Christmas Market taking in the feeling. So essentially, for those who may not know, a Christmas Market is like a festival with lots of vendors and food. The vendors sell tons of different Christmas things. Everything from ornaments and candels, to cookware and jewlery. Its a huge selection of just general knick knacky stuff. Really great. And they're usually huge, taking up an entire market place. The one in Würzburg is pretty big taking up the entire markt platz and spilling over onto the side streets and main street. It is a great time, to go and just hang out there with a bunch of friends and just people watch. Of course one could also drop some money on awesome little Christmasy things. The Christmas Market in Würzburg is really beautiful. Tons of different vendors, tons of food stands, tons of delicious sweets stands, and of course lots of Glühwein. I think it would be safe to say that i have become a big fan of Glühwein. Glühwein is a spiced red wine that is served hot and is a traditional Christmas drink. Its great to warm up with, however one cup is enough to make you a little loopy. I bet is probably has something to do with the beverage being served hot. But it is good, real good. And when you get one they give it to you in a real cup with a deposit on it. So you can return the cup for your deposit or keep it for a souvenir. I have a pretty fair collection going on right now myself. I have already been the Würzburg Christmas Market a couple of times this past week. But i forgot my camera everytime. I'll try and grab a few shots of the market here and put em up for everyone to see. But today we all did a day trip to the Christmas Market in Rothenburg. Rothenburg is a little town east of Würzburg. The town is picturesque. Just stepping off the train i felt like i was falling in "A Christmas Carol". Very very nice. The Christmas market there was just what i had expected from the town. So beautiful, with delicious drinks and food to be had. We had a little dinner at a traditional German restaurant, which was also quite delicious. Then made a walk around the Market and saw the sights. And of course the evening would not be complete without a hot cup of something. To my delight they were serving cups of hot Honey Wine at the market. So seeing as hot i had already indulged in a Glühwein that day, Honey Wine sounded interesting. And it was SOOOO GOOD! Really sweet, couldnt even taste the alchole in it. MMMMMMM no wonder its the drink of the gods. So yes picture time! This was the view entering the old villiage. The inner town is surrounded by an old wall which was pretty cool. A couple of shots upon entering the actual villiage. HORSES! So a few shots of the Market Place and of the Christmas Market. A couple of window displays from the stores around the market. NIGHTFALL! Tom, keepin' it gangsta since 1781.... So as you can see it really was beautiful, and one could easily waste away an entire day or two just lost in the film quality of that town. But yes in conclusion Christmas in Germany = Awesome, and Mike = Happy. And dont forget, try some Glühwein! It'll make you be awesome!

SPD ftw!

So i would just like to take a moment to let all of the readers out there that if you ever plan on taking a German politics course at a German Uni, then you would do well to prepare yourself for unreasonable amounts of horridly boring and tedious reading. Well thats not to say that its exactly an unreasonable amount. In terms of pure page numbers its pretty light. But when taken into consideration that its all auf Deutsch with tons of new and interesting words i do not know, it makes sense that my reading speed slows to 10 pages an hour. And let me please clarify before anyone jumps to the conclusion that since i read slow i suck at German, i certainly do not. These politics readings are the types of readings that would still take me a boring painful hour or so to get through in english. So you can that imagine trying to do reading for a tedious topic in a completely different language could possiblely not be fun. However when it comes to reading German fiction i have no problem sitting down and getting through it staying focused. When im reading fiction i tend not to stop to look up very many words, i try to power through and get the meaning of words from context. At a maximum for fiction books i try to limit myself to 5 words or so per two pages depending on the size of the book and what its about. That way you dont get stuck in the rut where it takes you an hour to read an entire page of your book because you've looked up everyword. As for reading the newpaper usually i try not to look up any words when im reading the paper. Maybe a word or two from the headlines, but usually i dont look up anything. Now that i think about i guess this is strange. But its been working for me so far. This past week i have determined that a large part of the short comings of my listing comprehension is my lack of more German vocab. I have the distinct disadvantage of this only being the third year that i am studying German. Whereas most of the other foreign students here have been studying German for 4 or more years. So just by having more exposure to it in the classroom than i have had will allow for them to have a bigger German vocab. Which has lead me to resolve myself to improve my vocab. I got me a nice new comprehensive German to English dictionary and will begin keeping a little dictionary of my own of words i encounter around and will be making study lists from them. I put it on here so that i have some accountability for keeping up with my vocab. GENAU! Ummmm yes i do believe that is it for the time being so enjoy this awesome trailer for the new Fatih Akin movie!

What a WEEK!

Yes indeed what a week it has been. Where to begin. Well last friday (the 13th!!) I and a few friends went to go check out Passion Pit in Munich. Which was beyond awesome. If you have the means i would highly suggest going to check them out. It was in this small club in downtown Munich called "59to1" it was sIIck! However what was not quite as sick was the 6 hour total train ride back from Munich. So we left Würzburg around 6pm and we did not return to Würzburg until nearly 8am this following morning. Pretty crazy. But the fast paced week does not end there. From there i had to grab a couple hours of Zs and then get myself up to Frankfurt airport to go and pick up my Father and bring him back to Würzburg. Which ended up going smoother than i would have thought. And we spent the weekend doing all the super crazy cool things there are to do here in Würzburg. I would say it was a weekend well spent. The admiral left on Tuesday morning, extremely early. I dont think i ever want to wake up at 5am again. I accompanied him up to the airport and got him all situated there before returning back to Wü for my evening classes, and karoke later that night. Then umm yea wednesday, thursday, and friday were pretty much a blur of being overtired, classes, and fighting with german burecrats over my passport. That last one was annoying as all hell BUT! i am not officially in with the city and i feel good about it. Ummm yea so things here are still going pretty well. Classes are kicking into the normal gears of stuff. Fair amounts of work to be done this weekend. But i am meeting more cool Germans which is awesome. I got to meet my face2face speaking partner yesterday. Face2face is a program put on by the language center here in Würzburg. Where you register online with them and tell them what your main language is and what language you want to learn. And they match you up with someone who's main language is the one you want to learn and who wants to learn your main language. so its pretty cool. And you actually get credit for it as well, which rocks. But ich muss jetzt gehen. Bis später internet.

I SAW THE SUN TODAY!

Yea i did see the sun today! but only for a little bit. The weather here has been pretty gray and gloomy for a while now. Probably for the last week or so. But its still pretty nice. Good studying weather i would say. Ummm well things here are pretty good so far. Class is moving right along with the a frightening speed. Soon it'll be Decemeber, then christmas, then next semester then back home. Its really strange how fast time is moving along. But i'm loving it here so far, and i can only think it'll get better. So far my classes are not too much work. Most of the work i do for them is self imposed work i do on my own because i believe i need the practice or the extra review of the notes. My Mittlestufe class has been pretty easy so far with the teacher moving really slowly. But we actually did something today so i think it's gonna be picking up from here out. My goal is literally beat this Mittlestufe test to death so that i can place into the second level of the Oberstufe next semester. Dunno if they let me place but i can still rock out all over the Mittlestufe test. And if you doubt my sincerity, i have already started memorzing lists of verbs with prepositions for the test. SO BAM! My two real university classes are pretty awesome far. The political science class is pretty hard i would say. Because the teacher talks pretty fast, with a low voice, in a very echoy room which makes it hard for me to get everything he says in class. I must look like a mental patient in that class. I'm always in the 2nd or 3rd row, sitting straight up, on the edge of my seat listening to every word the professor says. Lucky he puts the notes up online after the class so i am able to take my time and go over them on my own outside of class so i dont fall behind. Thing is he doesnt do it in any sort of timely fashion. The class may be difficult but i am up for the challenge! OH! And one further development in my time here. The other night i had a slighty random encounter with this dude who runs a small theatre group in town. I was talking with one of my english friends here outside my building and he sort of just came out of the darkness and asked us if we were native english speakers. To which i replied yes of course. Apparently his group is doing an evening of Harold Pinter plays and he looking for more male actors who can speak english, since the plays are in english. So i gave him my number, and met up with him this evening to talk about what he wanted for the remaining roles. We did a few lines and he said he would like to have me aborad. So BAM! Now i am a part of a German theatre group doing english plays! Maybe not the best thing for my German, because the play is in english. BUT! the other kids that are already in the group are all Germans and so i am going to get to meet some more Germans! Which is flippin awesome because its really hard to meet Germans in the regular uni classes i have because they're so big. So i'll get to meet some more Germans and get more opportunities to practice my spoken German outside of class, and drunken bar encounters. So yea things are working out quite well quite well indeed! And in honor of the Wall here is a song about Germany. Awesome song.

Mein Schatz............

So tonight the big cinema in town had a special program called "Männer Abend" which is supposed to be a man's night at the cinema. And this month they had the second Lord of the Rings movie. Which was really cool auf Englisch but auf Deutsch is almost better. Gotta say i forgot how good those movies were. Seeing it again and auf Deutsch was a good idea. The characters really speak relatively slowly in the movies so it was a little easier for me to pick up the German word for word. Or if i didnt know what they were talking about i could think back the to the English version and plug in what i thought the conversation was. So it was a good experience for my Hören Kentnisse. Not that everything was really slow. But the dialogue was a little slower than i remember it being. But still AWESOME! And i also just tried me some Gluwein with a couple of Germans who live in my building. That stuff is interesting. For those that dont know, its sort of like a spiced wine thats served hot. Pretty much its a christmas thing around Germany. Its not too too sweet but not really bitter either. It certainly warrents more tasting! I believe thats it for now. Ummm classes are good, just wish there was more grammar in my German class, but beyond that not too bad. WORD!!!!! check out this awesome german musik video if you like zombies and Shaun of the Dead.

Stirbt Langsam

SO! Alright so first week of classes = done and week two has begun. Things are picking up here. At least in terms of getting myself into a rythum of how i do what i need to get done. The last couple classes of last week went smoothly and were promptly followed by a party hardy weekend! Friday was friday just plain being friday! You really can't blame him for all the stuff he does to young people who want to blow off steam on his day. But you can be sure he leaves you with headaches and raspy voices the next day. Saturday was Halloween. Which was interesting. Halloween is pretty much non-exsistant here. There was a little party at one of the dorms in town, but that was really the only legit Halloween party going on last weekend. For probably two reasons: 1. Halloween just isnt big here. In the states its so commercial thats its hard to avoid buying arm loads of candy at the seasonal bargin prices just in case. Along with whatever you do for your Halloween. Germans know about Halloween but they don't really care about it. Maybe a little party or two, but they will never achieve the total and unmericful commercialization of the holiday like Americans. 2. And two apparently in Würzburg "All Saints Day" is a real big deal. By law all club like establishments had to be closed at midnight on November 1st. So literally on November 1st dancing and having fun is sorts of illegal. Which is probably why none of the clubs in town did any sort of Halloweeny stuff. Why bother if you just have to stop at 12. But from what i can tell so far, Christmas is going to flippin huge here. Like epic proportions. Literally the shops already have their Christmas displays out, selling small stuff mostly. But its still there so its gonna be awesome. Speaking of Christmas actually i just booked my flight to England for the holiday. I'm gonna be spending Xmas with my English buddy Tom and his family. Should be a good time. I'm looking forward to getting to see England. My dad raves about it at times when he is recounting his travels, says its one of the best places. So i'll get to see it this holiday season! And speaking of the admiral, he will be hear pretty soon as well for a weekend visit. Gonna be arockin!!!!

opps!

Well either i made a mistake or the information from my teacher was wrong. There was no Übung today for my Bundesrepublik Deutschland class, nor was there one yesterday. Opps someone messed up, and i do not believe it was me. I showed up to the room the sheet said und es war leer, nieman war da. Oh well at least i got all the reading done for the Übung when it actually starts next week, so my weekend suddenly got a little lighter. Denke ich PARTY MACHEN! In other news day 3 of classes is over and was quite successful. Had my first class of Einführung für germanistic Sprachwissenschaft today at 830! It was actually pretty cool. I understood pretty much everything the professor said and the slides he put up. And the class was packed too. Lots of kids there. It was in the biggest lecture hall in the Philiosophisches Institute. And then i had my first class of Deutsch Mittlestufe. Which was cool. It was strange to go from a class where the teacher speaks at full speed with a sort of local accent, to a class where the teacher speaks quite slowly in the "Hochdeutsch" as they call it and pronounces every part of every word. Almost made me feel like i should be in the next class. I think i actually should be in the next class, but i got marked up on a bunch of grammar stuff on my Aufbau Kurs Prüfung so im stuck in Mittlestufe for now. But i think it'll be better once we enter grammar mode. I am excited. Again i am very happy to have classes started. Everything is pretty awesome over here. Just gotta get me a guitar and it'll be awesome! Oh yea i almost forgot, i got bumbed out of my french class because it was overbooked. Kinda sucks but theres not much i can do. The other sections dont work with my time schedule. OH!!!! i also got my insurance card today. See! So i am now officially a part of the German health care system! I really do gotta say they have a pretty sweet setup here for Healthcare. Since im a student i get access to the state health plan for 63 Euro a month. So for 63 euro a month i can see any doctor i want, i can go to any hospital i want, and all i pay is that 63 euro. Its pretty awesome. The US could learn a thing or two about the German health care system. We're close in the states to something like this. we just gotta keep the Conservative nutjobs from screwing it up. Oh and as promised for my best brotherbuddy Mike here is the glorious Tankmen Infinity in German:

Würde ich wissen, wo das ist?

Well here's first thing's first. Ahhh thats better. I think im gonna be posting more Youtube videos with cool German stuff in them. So this week my classes have begun. I do have to say its pretty awesome so far. I know most people probably wouldnt consider a two hour lecture on German politics in German to be fun. But it was awesome! I really do love German and it was great to hear it in a class room setting again. So it was a two hour lecture about politcs in Germany. Its called Bundesrepublik Deutschland. And the class is sort of broken up into two parts. There is the Vorlesung which is the two hour lecture every monday. Then there is the Übung portion of the class. Which is a smaller Tutorium sort of thing. So essentially its broken up into 4 groups that meet once a week to go over more indepth whats covered in the lecture. You are assigned extra readings or whatever from the lecture for the Übung that you have to read for preparation. I actually just got through the reading for the Übung this week. It took me 4 hours last night and 3 and a half today to get through it. Was pretty dry stuff though that even in English would have been hard to get through but it German it was a battle of sorts. BUT I DID IT! And i would say i understood a portion of it as well. From what i've been taught, when you're reading in German you should not get caught up on getting every word just concentrate on getting the jist and dont look up every single word you dont know. Use context clues FooL! So i will be attending the Übung tomorrow evening. I am so excited that classes have started! I know its almost sacralige to say something like that. But i've literally had nothing that i had to do for the past 4 weeks. Since the language class ended i've just been hanging around with my friends here and partying. Which is all well and good but im ready to myself into some academics. The atmosphere of the university is really cool too. Just seeing all the students hustling and bustling about their business. Seeing the Mensa building packed out with people eating, writing, talking, and doing their Hausaufgaben. I just get a really good academic vibe here. Plus being in class is going to give me an opportunity to meet some more Germans. Which i am looking forward to. Also the view from my main campus is amazing. Its way up on a hill so you can see the whole city. Its especially nice when its dark out, so you can see all the stuff lit up. Oh and as i mentioned before the Admiral is coming to visit me next month. November 14th to the 17th. Gonna be flippin awesoME! Many pictures will be posted. Viele Gruße!

Lamas mit Hüten

Hilarious! Oh and in other news i just learned that my dear glorious admiral father is going to be visiting me next month. Can i get a hellz yes!

Der Die Das?

Alright everyone needs to check this video out. I would embed it here but its not enabled on the video. But check it out, it'll give you a better appreciation for German i think and its funny! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_t5aEchJVU In other news i noticed yesterday that Germans walk realllly fast. Or maybe im just slower. Dunno. But today is hopefully the last day of me not having internet in my room. Gonna go talk to the dude who runs to network tonight after my friend gets out of class. Cause we're gonna try to split the internet so its cheaper.

Könnte er wieder glücklich sein?

So here we go. The first week of real school. Well not exactly. For me at least this is really the push week of getting my classes picked out and straightened out. Which was my evening last night but its all figured out now. I have my class schedule in hand. This morning was spent at the Zentrum für Sprache where i picked out my German classes for the semester. As i had elaborated on earlier i was barred from taking the Oberstufe classes that i really wanted, which left me to take the Mittlestufe classes. So i am going to be taking the regular Mittlestufe as well at the Mittlestufe Hörenverstehen, and the Mittlestufe Aussprache Training. The registeration was a bitch and a half. Had to get up really early to be there for 9 and get a good spot on the line. But my the time we got there at quarter to, it was already quite long. I had a decent spot though, but then they called people into the room by what classes they wanted to sign up for as opposed to who was in line first. Frustrating. Despite that setback the registration was complete. Which allowed me to round out my schedule for the Winter semester. So beyond those three German classes i am also taking a political science class titled "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" and the intro Sprachwissenschaft seminar. Which for all the non German speakers, is sort of like a linguistics class. But they focus just on the German language. I think it should help me out a lot in terms of getting a different feel for the Geman language. I'm also gonna check out an English language course here that being offered by a teacher Veronica knows, who comes highly reccomended, and extended us a persona invitation to his class. Its on thursday nights and its a German history class of sorts. Could be fun. Oh yea and im taking a French class too. I think im gonna be a busy person. Here take a look. Dunno how the quality on that is going to look. But you get the idea. Things here, yea i would say they're pretty good. Just trying to keep my money on budget and get myself back to something resembling a normal sleep schedule. I was talking with a friend today, and we happened upon the fact that next week is Halloween! That is just unbelieveable to me. It feels like just the other day i was just getting here, jetlagged as all hell and trying to figure out which way is up. But im loving it here. I cannot wait until the semester starts. Oh and everyone should check out the new Rammstein album. Its the bomb diggity.

Ich will gehen, wo die Welt eine Scheibe ist.....

So hello my internet fellows i have returned after a brief and frankly brutal hiatus i have returned once again!!!!! Here what happened. Apparently somehow the harddrive on my laptop became physically damaged. I have no idea how but it happened. Which means in order to fix my lovely laptop the harddrive needed to be replaced. And that resulted in me losing everything i had on it. So i'm kinda back to square one with my programs, videos, and some music. On the up side the guys at the Apple Store in Munich fixed it all and replaced my drive free of charge because i've got the protection plan. Schweet. It has not been a fun ordeal getting my laptop back in its proper working order but i guess if it had to happen better it happen now than in the future when i really need it. I got me a nice new pair of computer speakers yesterday at the Apple store to celebrate my victory over the little people. Nice, new, and really loud Bose speakers are now mine to annoy all of my neighbors with. My room is shaping up quite nicely also. Its gets more homey everyday. Recently i purchased a bunch of new bedding and pillows so my bed is now pretty sleep inducing. Save for the matress which is still a literal pain in my ass and general back. But i got me some sweet as string lights from Ikea which make my room look the definition of pimpin. The fitness centre on campus is now open to my usage. I've been trying to get back into going everyday but its pretty difficult considering their hours are terrible and their equipment is not up to snuff with what im used to. Also i pretty much just slacked off the entire month of September from the gym so i got the lazy factor coming in as well. Plus when the weather is bad, its a long walk from my appartment. Speaking of the weather i can say yesterday was the first snow for me here. On the way back from Munich with my laptop it was snowing right around Nuremburg. I think thats pretty neat. I can't remember the last time i saw snow in October. According to my friends it didnt snow up in Würzburg yesterday, but i think it can't be too far away. Lately its been cold as all hell here. My winter jacket is close to being on full duty. I do enjoy the colder weather though, just as long as its not raining. Cold rain is the worst. Which is what the weather today is. This week is the last week before classes start. Tuesday i have to go down to the Zfs to register for the German language classes i plan on taking this semester. Recently i had my whole schedule thrown into the proverbial fan. Had everything all picked out and was ready to rock and roll. I was gonna take 3 DaF classes (Deutsch als Fremdsprache) but two of the three i picked were Oberstufe level (like upper level). I figured that wouldnt be a problem because as foreigns we're allowed to take regular university classes so what would the difference be. But i emailed the Zfs just to be sure. And sure enough they said that i couldnt take those classes because i had only completed the Aufbau Kurs and needed to have completed the Mittlstufe Kurs to take what i wanted. And they reccomend that one should take all four of the Mittlestufe level classes that are offered. Which i think i am probably gonna do. Gotta go figure that out after i post this. But in conclusion. Laptop is fixed, weather is cold, German is fun to speak/read/learn, loud music is good music, new Rammstein album rocks, and Life is good.

so a bunch of stuff happened

and thats why i havent updated in forever. ok so lets get down to it. Says here my last post was on the 27th of september. so i'll try to do a recap. Havent been up to too much lately. My Sprachkurs ended the last full week of september so ive just been sort of BSing around town and Germany with my buddies here making the most of the gratidious free time we have before classes start next week. Ummm what else. I went to Nurmeberg the week before last for a little day trip which was quite fun. got some pics from that i'll be putting up. the weather is changing here. its been really cold and rainy lately. Kinda sucks. But i do enjoy the fall weather. Oh and my laptop is completely broken. the hard drive got damaged and lost the start up disk so i had to replace it. which has resulted in me losing all of my data on it. =(. That was my adventuer last week trying to figure what was wrong with it. so right now its checked into the Apple Store in Munich and will be fixed free of charge sometime next week. So yea i went to Munich this weekend. But my time grows short, gotta go meet some people and this German key board is throwing off my groove. I dont get why they feel then need to switch the spots of the Y and Z keys. kk more updates later when I return to the library.!

Oktoberfest!!!!

Yes i went to Oktoberfest and i survived. It was insane! So damned awesome!!!! Ok so here's a play by play. With pictures for those of you with short attention spans. at 4:30am we got on a train from Würzburg to begin our journey to the Oktoberfest in Munich. In total it was about a 4 or 4 and a half hour train ride. Super fun. The ride started out slow and quiet for the most part. But at every stop more and more people in Lederhosen and Durndels got on the train and things got rowdier and rowdier. People were bringing on entire cases of beer at lik 6 or 7 in the morning and running through all of it before we hit Munich. And most people were wearing the traditional German dress. To quote my friend Tom who was with us, "I never felt so out of place wearing a pair of jeans in my life." i mean of course we didnt want to look out of place. we had our own little bit of pre Oktoberfest drinkables. Didnt have too much though. I hate liquer and wanted to save room for the delicious Oktoberfest beer. A couple of pics of us from the train. My fellow New Yorkers, Veronica and Nicole. New Yorkers again with our German/Chicago friend So after a quick changeover we arrived in Munich a little after 830am. Once we got orientated we eventually made our way through the city to the Oktoberfest area. It was so amazing. Soooo many people were there flooding in from all directions. And there were plenty of drunks for it being so early in the morning. But it was sweet as. So we took a couple of pics and then entered the compound. So the way Oktoberfest works is that its like a giant fair. With a big open avenue down the middle and bigs tents and stands on each side of it. The big tents and beer gardens are were all the action is. So you typically want to head for one of those if you want the full experience. It is better to book a table ahead of time for your party. That way you dont have to wander around looking for vaciencies and end up queing up for long periods of time outside the tents and gardens. We didnt have any reservations so we ended up waiting on line for about maybe an hour or so for this beer garden Which we got into. Since we didnt have a reserved table we had to sit outside which was fine cause it was a nice day. We at the ends of two tables across from the asile from eachother. I sat with my good English buddy Tom and the girls sat with our Chicago buddy across from us. And then the fun began! Yea i thought i took some more pictures but i guess i didnt get too many other good ones. Sorry Veronica. So as you can see our giant beer mugs were no laughing matter. One of those full is a liter of beer. And the beer at Oktoberfest is way stronger than any of that wimpy American stuff. Its around 8% proof. Which is significantly higher than most american beers which are more around 2 or 3%. I feel proud of myself that i got through about two and a half of those. Plus a giant delicious German pretzel. But i was pretty gone by the time i stopped. It was crazy. But at least i'm learning to drink like a German. Tom and i sat next to a bunch of really nice Dutch people. They were Prosting every 5 or 10 minutes hahaha. And then across from me was this cool German dude who kept offering everybody Snuff. In my inebriation i tried it a couple of times. It clears out your sinuses but it really bad for your nose in the long run. He kept saying it is obligatory for Oktoberfest haha. Around 330 or so Veronica wasnt feeling too good. We all hadnt had too much sleep the night before and eaten hardly anything. So it all hit her pretty hard so she got pretty sick and wanted to go home. I was starting to be ready to leave at that point too so i stepped up and volunteered to take her home. By the time we were leaving it was even more crowded than in the morning. Almost like Timesqaure during Christmas. But we made it out alright and caught a cab back to the train station. Which ended up a being a free cab because i found 10 Euro on the floor of the backseat. So we caught a train to Nuremburg around 5 and transferred then to a train bound for Würzburg and were back in town around 830. Pretty quiet train rides, except for me losing the Bayern ticket we had all bought it was fine. I think i might have tried to put it in my pocket in Munich and just missed. Oh well. It wasnt that bad to get another ticket from the conductor. We took a cab back to the dorm and i made sure Veronica was alright and made her some Rice and gave her Advil before i headed off to bed. I didnt know how tired i was until i got in my bed and passed out straigt until 11 this morning. Oktoberfest = AWESOME! And not the girls are talking about trying to do it again next weekend to get it right this time. So maybe i'll do it again =) oh and GO PATS!