New Apartment, Independent Living, and the Beginning of the University Classes

Admittedly it has been a while since my last blog posting and that is due in part to the fact that I have not had internet access in my new apartment and in part because I have not had a lot to report. I finished my home stay last Wednesday. The rest of the stay was enjoyable and relaxing although not filled with any adventured. I am looking forward to having continued contact with my host mom Wilma and her friends, however.
I moved into my own Studenten Wohnheim (literal translation is "Student Hostel" pictured at left) and it is definitely an interesting experience. It is an upgrade from an American style dormitory but not quite as nice as having a full fledged apartment. I lucked out though in that I only share my kitchen and bathroom with one other person and not an entire floor like some Wohnheim's require. My roommate (whom I share just the bathroom and kitchen with) is Chinese. She is incredibly nice, incredibly quiet, and she speaks only broken English and no German at all.Everyday (even when I have no scheduled activities or events) I make it a point to leave my Wohnheim for a few hours in order to avoid going crazy from boredom.
The first few days on my own were slightly boring. I had anticipated having a large amount of time occupied by running errands and getting things set up, however, everything took surprisingly less time than I had anticipated. I attended the orientation that the university offered for international students. The orientation was helpful and I met a few people, however, it can sometimes be a challenge to meet international students as they tend to travel together in groups from their home country and tend to speak together primarily in their native language.
On last Friday evening I met up with two of my American friends Lena (who went to UP and is a teaching assistant with Fulbright) and Karin (who is also a Fulbright teaching assistant) and we attended a modern version of Swan Lake in Essen. This rendition was.....interesting. The dancing was phenomenal and the music was wonderful (of course) but the costumes, backdrop, choreography, and the concept in general was bizarre. The ballet took place on the modern party scene and so the dancers all wore dark purples, blacks, and greys (many of the men in leather pants). As swans the costumes were tutus alone with no leotards underneath. The dancers (both male and female swans) were forced to hold up a portion of the tutu in the front in order to avoid exposing their chests. This costuming only allowed them the use of 1 arm at a time while dancing, however, most of the dancing was done with only elbow/arm movements (ie. a similar fashion to the way somebody would imitate a chicken). I suppose this positioning made their movements much more swan like, however, it was unusual for a rendition of Swan Lake.
After viewing the ballet we headed to the Mexican restaurant that we had found on our previous excursion in Essen. It was delicious. We all had a homemade beer which is part beer from the tap, part ginger ale, part tequila, and part lime. Then we all headed to the train station in order to go our separate ways. At the train station we ended up having to wait an hour because the German train conductors were again striking this Friday (as well as other days during the week).
On Saturday and Sunday I was alone. I was able to do some shopping and wander around in the sunshine on Saturday. The weather was gorgeous and I have determined that I do like Duisburg. It is definitely the most amazing European (or even German city) but it is pretty and it has its quirks. It is much different than what I had expected based on people's reactions when they heard I would be going to Duisburg. The pictures on this post are from Duisburg.
On Sunday the weather was again beautiful. I had planned on going to a museum but the weather changed my mind (best to save a museum for a rainy day when I have nothing else to do). I decided to wander around the Innenhafen (Inner harbor - biggest inland port in all of Europe) in order to take some pictures and enjoy the weather. I ended up stumbling upon a festival that was being hosted by a German TV station that had just opened a new studio on the harbor. As part of the festival there were Soap stars from the show "Verbotene Liebe" (Forbidden Love) as well as cartoon characters and live music. The musicians were singing American songs (with some minor pronunciation problems) and at one point the lead singer tried to get the crowd to wave their arms to the music. Of course this is Germany and so only a few audience members caught on to the idea while the rest just stood there with their beer in one hand and either a wurst or a cigarette in the other (it seems stereotypical but it is indeed a true observation from this particular event).
Class began on Monday (a building at the University is pictured at right) and I had my first lecture in a lecture hall of 200 people. The German students were all in cliques making it virtually impossible to approach any of them and make new friends. It also made it a little difficult to hear as they would talk with their neighbors throughout the majority of the 1st lecture despite the Professors request that people not talk. This is much different than any experience I have ever had in the U.S. In the U.S. it seems a few whispered words or comments at certain moments are permissible but no Professor would tolerate this amount of noise and students would likely be called out. I have learned that I will be needing to sit front and center in order to be able to pay attention to what is going on.
The class I will take on Tuesday did not begin this week so I did not have class again until Wednesday. My classes on Wednesday (and Tuesday) are part of the Masters level program so they are much smaller and in fact my first class on Wednesday was a seminar and not a lecture. When waiting in the hall for class to begin it seemed as if all the students already knew each other - again making it difficult for me to approach anybody. The class had 21 students and at the beginning the Professor made us all go around and say our names and where we had completed our B.A. Normally this would not make me the least bit nervous, however, knowing that I now had to speak in German (which I know well enough to complete the task) in front of native German speakers, I was terrified. My heart was pounding, hands sweating and shaking. Of course my introduction of myself went fine but it was terrifying nonetheless. The Professor then began to go over the syllabus and I learned that we were going to be required to give a 20 minute presentation with a partner and a 10 minute commentary on somebody else's presentation during the course of the semester. Once again I was an internal nervous wreck - not only about the presentation but also about finding a partner. Luckily the girl next to me (Nadine) quickly asked me to be her partner and we picked a topic in which more than half of the reading assignments were in English. It is lucky that many of the reading assignments are in English (the nature of Political Science literature) but it also can make it difficult for me in terms of explaining my ideas in German since the German vocabulary is not readily available in the article.
After class Nadine asked me and some of the other class members if they would like to go get coffee. It seems that they did not all know each other they had just all had one class together the previous day. This made me extremely happy because I now have the same opportunity of making new friends in the Masters program that all of the other students do. At coffee we all learned each others names and chatted about our lives (where we were from, hobbies, where we studied, internships, politics, etc.) Everyone was extremely nice and friendly and I feel much more comfortable with the idea of presenting in front of them now. A group of us also went to lunch together later that day and it was nice to finally be eating with a group and not by myself in the MENSA (cafeteria). I have a few other classes with these students and I am looking forward to getting to know them better and to finally have some German friends.
Last night I attended an International Cafe with Lena, Jason (another Fulbright TA who lives in my Wohnheim), and Steve (another American poli sci student that I had met at the international student orientation). The theme of the cafe was Tunisia meets China and there were presentations on both of the countries as well as food to try. It was interesting to interact with such a diverse group of people.
This weekend I am attending a big University party for the Social Science students with Nadine, Lena, and a few others. Then on Saturday I am going to Duesseldorf with Lena and Karin in order to view a Museum exhibit titled "Bonjour Russia". It contains French and Russian masterpieces that are available for viewing in the West for the first time ever. It will be fun to check out the city of Duesseldorf as well. It is only about 15-30 minutes away and I am able to travel there for free with my Student ID.

Essen, Germany

On Friday I was in Essen, Germany in order to spend some time with a few of my friends from the University of Portland who are working with Fulbright as English teaching assistants in German schools. Essen is about 40 minutes from Moers by train, but will only be about 10 minutes away once I am living in Duisburg. It was exciting to spend some time with familiar faces and to meet one of their teaching assistant friends.
We spent the first part of the day walking around the downtown area and perusing the selection at numerous bookstores. Trevor, Lena, and Karin had all learned that Essen had a few Mexican restaurants and so we decided to venture there for lunch. Upon venturing to the restaurants we learned that they did not open until 3 or 4 p.m. We decided, however, to wait for our lunch because we were all craving Mexican food and there is no German substitute.
While waiting, we wandered around a bit longer and Lena, Karin, and I bought tickets for Swan Lake next Friday. Little did we know that this is a modern version of the ballet that takes place in the modern "party scene". Needless to say it should be interesting. I will post a blurb about the ballet after I attend.
Finally it was 3 p.m. so we headed to the Mexican restaurant which was surprisingly delicious (You never know what you can expect from Mexican food in Germany)!
After lunch, Karin had to head back to the town where she is living, Kamen, so we walked her back to the train station. Trevor, Lena, and I then headed to Gruva Park. This park is possibly one of the most beautiful and interesting city parks that I have ever been to. In addition to numerous flowers, trees, green grass, and ponds, there is a Hundertwasser Haus (a famous architect who did not believe in straight lines - pictured above) that is used as a Ronald McDonald Foundation Children's Hospital, a bath house, a swimming pool, numerous children's play areas, and lots of birdlife (thanks in part to a large aviary that houses Owls, Hawks, Eagles, Parrots, Herons, Storks, etc.). It was a peaceful place where I would love to spend more time. I have posted pictures of the park for your viewing pleasure.
After our adventure in the park, we walked through an area that everybody had told Lena is a wonderful part of the city. It was pretty, but not anything incredibly special. We stopped off at a grocery store in order to purchase some water (it is so easy to become dehydrated in Germany because you constantly drink coffee and water is not as readily available since the Europeans do not believe in drinking water out of the tap). I mention this stop at the grocery store only because the cashier stopped the woman in front of us for a "backpack" check as she suspected the woman of stealing. There were indeed items of food in the woman's backpack and a manager was called to the front. We, however, did not stick around long enough to find out if she was indeed stealing or if the items were from a different store.
Finally we walked past the Aalto Theater (where we will see the ballet next week) and the Philharmonie and headed back to the train station. I had just missed one train back to Moers, so we ended up waiting for an hour at the train station. I then hopped on my train back to Moers, however, due to the train strikes in Germany on Friday I ended up having to wait an additional hour in Duisburg for the next train to Moers. It is interesting how the train strike worked and it is likely one of the most organized and least inconvenient strikes I have ever witnessed. The train engineers who were striking were only allowed to stop certain regional trains in areas where passengers would be able to catch a faster train (which would normally be more expensive, but during the strike was allowed in order to accomodate passengers). There were frequent announcements of which particular train passengers could catch if the train they were originally scheduled for was cancelled due to the strike. I guess one could say it was more a strike in principal than an actual strike that caused severe disruptions to the lives of Germans.

Venlo, Holland

Last week I had the opportunity to spend a few hours in Venlo, Holland with my host mother and her friend Gudrun. It took us less than 20 minutes to drive to Venlo. Once we arrived we spent some time walking around looking at various shops and admiring the architecture. We also stopped for a cappucino as "kaffee pause" (coffee break) is an important part of every German's day at around 3:30 in the afternoon.
Most of the shops in Venlo are surpisingly unique. There was one shop in particular that sold unique decorations and furnishings for the home. I found a table and chair set that I love, but it is likely impractical to ship such a large item back to the U.S. and so I might end up having to put my own creativity to the test in order to see if I can duplicate such an item.
The weather was not the nicest, so I was unable to sit in the numerous thrones or jester's chairs (pictured at right) as I was unwilling to get my pants wet for a picture. I can probably return to Venlo at some point since it is so incredibly close.