Ein Monat später

(a month later)

Here we are a month later and a lot has been going on here in Deutschland. It looks like I have a pretty ridiculous backlog of stuff to talk about. Here's a quick rundown of what's been going on:

At the end of April our summer semester finally started. My course load is really light since Wheaton counts the six months I'm here just like a normal semester at Wheaton (3 1/2 months) so I essentially have one long, watered down semester while I'm here.

Right now I'm taking three classes: an English-German translation course which is catered towards native English speakers, a conversation class (we basically just talk about interesting stuff for an hour and a half), and a intro course on the German political system. The first two are Deutsch als Fremdsprache (DAF) courses (think ESL) so they come with the expectation that I'm still learning German. The last one is a bit harder since it's a legit Poli Sci class meant for regular university students. Thankfully, the professor is pretty accommodating and our program sets us up with tutors so it remains manageable. I do have an oral presentation in a month which should be interesting.

Outside of classes, I've managed to get some more traveling in. About a month ago, a bunch of us exchange students made a trip down to Passau, a little town on the Austrian border for their Dult carnival. Dult is a mixture of a fair/carnival and Bavarian ridiculousness. You have the standard carnival rides and midway stuff but you also have beer tents/halls filled with endless picnic tables and beer served by the liter. A lot of people wear Lederhosen/Dirndl and there's generally a lot of loud singing, dancing on tables, etc. Basically, all you could ever want from life.

Here are a few pictures to illustrate my point:

it's kind of sad when wearing normal clothing makes you stick out in a crowd
(Lukas, Jarell, Phil, Leigh, Kaci)

all of us barely crammed into the bus on the way there

Bierhimmel (beer heaven) which was freakishly quiet and had kids boxing

Henry and Mike wearing their matching lederhosen

A week or so after our trip to Passau, Regensburg's Dult started up, though I missed the first week of it. Instead of spending the weekend in Bierhimmel, I went to Dresden and Weimar with the other Wheaton students and Tessa Lee, our German professor from back at Wheaton.

The trip was busy but fun. Wheaton basically spoiled us the whole weekend, which was great. Unfortunately, my camera's batteries died after the first day so I didn't get any pictures of Weimar.

The Wheaton crew outside the train station at Dresden

(Tyler, Lukas, Kathryn, Tessa Lee, Melissa)

A museum we visited which houses an absurd collection of treasures collected by Augustus the Strong (ruler of Saxon, King of Poland). There were about 10 rooms filled with every mannner of shiny object you could imagine.

The cafe we had dinner at

The theater - we went to a ballet there on our second night

Dresden was in East Germany (the DDR) and still has remnants from that era

Frauenkirche, rebuilt following the war. The darker stones are the originals. The inside has an oddly colorful pastel faux marble paintjob.

the Zwinger (click for full size)

Melissa and Kathryn in our hotel room

Tyler and Lukas

In the interest of actually posting this sometime within the next month, I'll cut this post off here and add some more stuff later.