About to leave for Christmas Vacation

Tomorrow (Fri 23.12.05) I'm going to be leaving for my Christmas/New Years vacation.

It's quite an interesting trip. Here is what is goin' down.

23.12.05 - Train to Luzern (Switzerland)
ski and stuff... Christmas... Meet up with Canadian friend
27.12.05 - Train to Geneva (or early 28.12.05)
28.12.05 - Fly to Edinburgh (Scotland)
new years there
01.01.06 - Train to Glasgow
03.01.06 - Fly from Glasgow to Belfast
- Another American will be there arriving the same day as us.
- There we meet up with the Canadian who we were with in Switzerland
- Another friend of ours is from Belfast. We will be spending some time with
her family, until we decide to go down to Dublin
10.01.06 - Fly from Dublin to Stuttgart


All in all I think it's going to be hectic but definitely doable. I only have 400 or so pictures so they are going to be the best.

See you in the 2006

Long time no see...

I realize that my last post was almost a month ago. I did make a weekend trip to Munich earlier on, but I really think it wasn't all that eventful. It was my third time being there and it was really more tiring than anything else. We went to a pretty cool technical museum. From oil drilling to boats, planes, and astronomy. There was an Australian bar that we went to. It was fun.

And really, nothing exceptional has happened since then. We added a few members to the 5 Liter beer club.. There is a 5 liter ceramic Stein that they have. So far we have as members
1st. Mark (me. USA)
2nd. Dan (CANADA)
3rd. Chris (CANADA)
4th. Simon (CANADA)
5th. Scott (USA)
6th. René (CANADA)

too many Canadians......................

Travel Goal

Since traveling here is so cheap, I think I'm going to set a goal for myself:

To have visited every country in Europe by the time my school year is over. (I'm not counting the Balkans or the very far East Bloc) (oh and I'm counting from trips before this year too)
So there is:
Iceland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Portugal, Spain, Andorra, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Malta, Greece, Slovakia (BRATISLAVA BABY!!), Turkey, and Cyprus

What I need to do still:
Iceland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Portugal, Andorra, Czech Republic, Malta, Greece, Slovakia, Turkey, and Cyprus

I have about 8.5 months left. It's doable. 12 countries.

Back from London

London was fun. I met up with friends from school (Jason and Nick) and Jason and I went around London doing the regular tourism things. We also went to a few pubs there and had some good beers. London is pretty ridiculous as far as prices go. When I was in Mallorca, to get into a castle and walk around was 2€. In London to get into St. Paul's Cathedral they were asking for 11 pounds. No thanks. Anyways, Jason and Nick live with a bunch of Cal Poly students, and in the building it's all California students. It seems like it would be a lot of fun. They do have to back to America mid December though. I was talking with a lot of them and we're all pretty much in the same boat. We either don't want to go back to America or we will miss Europe. I'm one of the former. It's just so much more fun here, you can actually travel around... As opposed to going like to Austin, TX for a weekend. Who would want to do something like that? In Germany it's about a 2 hour flight to anywhere in Europe, and the prices are usually less than 100€ round trip.

OK....so they live in South Kensington which is obviously the nice part of town (by all the Ferarris and such driving around), and we took a stroll through London without maps or good directions from strangers. It turned out to be a 4 hour walk in the cold. When I left Stuttgart to fly to London, it was snowing. When I got to London it was about just as cold, but it didn't snow or rain, which was good. It was just really windy though.
I got back to Stuttgart a few days later to see snow everywhere. It stopped snowing since then, but I hear it should pick up a bit later. Can't wait.

I'm going to Vienna (Wien) this weekend by train. That should be really fun. There are some American people who've lived there temporarily right before they moved to Stuttgart for school - they're organising this trip so it should be good. I'll have more pictures when I get back from Vienna.

Back from Mallorca!

Wow, that was amazing!

So I went to Mallorca with Alex, JP, Lillan, Björn, Ryan, and an Alaskan we met there named James.

We had a really good time in Mallorca. We went to the beach one day, I did a little swimming in the Mediterranean, took a Rent-a-car through 1/2 of the island and up into the mountains, and then we visited a pretty cool castle up on a mountain. I took a lot of photos; they should be up on the website by Friday (25.11.05) morning. But the weather was really great. Almost as nice as California would be this time of year.

Haha... we met an Alaskan guy at our Hostel and we did touristy stuff with him. As we were leaving an art exhibit, there were these 3 old ugly Spanish women who were forcing the guys to wear flowers or leaves or something random.. Then they wanted the guys to pay for them. As we were walking away James the Alaskan checked his pocket, only to notice that 20€ were missing....... not cool.

The nights were pretty cool. The first night Barcelona was playing Real Madrid and beat them 3-0 at their own stadium. Embarassing for Madrid. There were an unbelievable amount of Irish/British Pubs there. Probably two pubs per other late night establishment. We were at a hostel with 7 stories, and the top story was a place where you could eat or enjoy dinner and a view. It was really a nice hostel.

Next Stop: MALLORCA!

The forecasting here for weather is so bad. Every hour they say it's going to start snowing here one day or the next, and then back to the first. I was waiting for it to snow, but it's kind pissing me off now. With that in mind, I agreed to go to a trip to see some California weather again... in Mallorca. Going from 4-9°C weather to 22°C.. god its going to be great.

Mallorca: http://images.google.de/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=mallorca

I'll be there from Nov. Saturday the 19th - Nov. Wednesday the 23rd.
I'll take my camera and possibly my computer to store images and recharge stuff. I don't know yet.

But I'll be back Wednesday, Thursday, and then Friday morning im going to London to visit Jason until Monday.

I'll try to update this before I leave and when I get back from the Island.

Late.

Random Thought - Döner

So there is this Turkish food over here called Döner. When I initially got here it was like the most grotesque food ever. It's essentially a 100 lb stick of meat rotating in the shop around a hot toaster heater. Then they have this pita bread that they put it in with kräuter etc. They open it up with their hairy hands and fill it with electric-shaved-meat-from-the-stick and then put all sorts of stuff on it.

But it's soo good. From all the Americans I've talked to, only New York City has it.. I dont think it passes health inspections in the US... wonder why only New York can pass... ok maybe I don't..

U.S.A. vs. Deutschland Ice Hockey Game

Last night 9. Nov, I went up to Mannheim to watch the US hockey team take on the Germans. We received free tickets from a friend, and all we had to pay was the expenses for travel. We were going there expecting to see NHL players and stuff, but soon we found out (thanks to a team roster) that not 1 of the players for the American team actually played in the NHL, but moved to europe to play for teams over there.
With that being said, they were not exceptional. We left halfway through the last period and the Americans were down 5 to 2... I checked online just now and they actually lost 7-2 to the Germans. It was a fun experience and there are some really funny stories about going there... but I think you really have had to have been there. We were doing a little drinking on the way there because the beer at the Arena was about 3€ for a cup. bs. My friend forgot his jacket on the train, so we were like. Shit.. oh well. Then we went to get food and he pats all his pockets.. "guys....." and he had his wallet in his jacket. We talked to the service people and said they will try and have it returned. So we went to the restaurant, ate some food, then went to the Arena. There my other friend kinda crushed some lady´s beer while getting up so someone could pass by. So we decided to get ourselves a beer there and her one too. While we were removing them from the impossibly difficult beer holder they gave us, Ryan (the guy who lost his wallet and jacket) kinda jerked one beer out of the holder and it poured all over him. Allllll over. Well the game ended pretty bad... 5-2... i mean come on. So we got a taxi to the train station. To our amazement, they found the jacket and everything was still in the wallet. While we were boarding the train Ryan sort of stepped between the track and the train, sending him into the stairs of the train and his food flying all over the place. Haha, it was such a bad night for him... he wasn't even going to go.

Travel Plans in Germany (so far)

So far most of my/our travel plans haven't made it passed the planning stage. There are always rumors of going to Prague or other places, but I'll make a list of what I've already bought tickets for..
November 25-28: London to visit Jason

December late.. not exact yet: Switzerland to Ski in the Alps, then to N. Ireland to visit a friend

January 25-29: Rome for a birthday

February 20-25: Torino, Italy for the Olympics
- We are seeing:
- Ice Hockey Canada vs. Czech Republic
- Snowboarding men's qualifying and finals
- Freestyle skiing men's finals
- A day in Milan and then flying back to Stuttgart

We are applying for some World Cup tickets for June. There are tickets that were previously bought but some will be returned.. so I think we're pretty near the front in line for those, so we'll have to see if we get lucky.


Then we have to find dates to go to Prague, Amsterdam, Berlin, and then Finland

If anyone wants me to pick up some things while I'm at any of those places, just ask and I'll see what I can do.

Halloween in Germany

For Halloween some of my American and Candian friends put on a party. It was actually on Halloween, and since the following day was a national holiday (Alleheiligen - All Saint's Day) there wasn't any school. It was a pretty fun party, but apparently dressing up is only a North American thing. No one outside of Mex,CAN,USA ever dressed up for Halloween before. With that being said, their costumes were pretty bad... Actually everyone's were pretty bad. It's almost impossible to get a good costume that most people in an international party will understand. They on average were just vague wierd clothes... like a construction worker suit with an Oktoberfest hat.. jaaaa.


TROLL BAR
Last night was pretty fun. We got a bunch of people together to go to the Troll Bar. They have some pretty big beers there. You can buy a liter of beer... just a normal beer stein here. Then they have 2 liter beers in ceramic, 3 liter beers, and then the big daddy 5 liter steins. We saw the 5 liter mug the last time we were there, and I told my friends that I would do it the next time I came. Well.. I ordered it. It took about 2 or so hours to finish, but I did it without going to the bathroom either. The next time we go there someone else will order it - everyone is on the plan to do it before they leave Germany. Ill get some pictures from friends and put it on webshots later so you can see what it looks like. Spike's people... I'm pretty sure it's the Friendship Mug.. Apparently they cost something like $125 a piece.

Classes and Universität Stuttgart

In America we have a catalogue with a paragraph description of every course. You register for classes long before going to them.
Here in Germany, there isn't a catalogue at all. You don't register for classes, only tests. You only receive the name of the course along with what building and what time it is. You're expected to go to the first two weeks of class just to see if you want to go to it or not. Classes are only once a week, so it's not THAT bad, but come on. The tests are really only dependent on what the instructor wants. It can be an oral presentation that you've been researching yourself for the entire semester, or just a 10-20 page paper about a certain subject.
The grading system is 1,2,3,4, or 5. 1 is best, 5 is fail. If you fail a class twice, you cant register for the test anymore. If you don't finish a test in a required class, you don't graduate. They really try to make it seem that you should be honored to have to work so hard to get anything done here.

Since the beginning of September all the new international students had to go to an "intensive german course" to bring our german up to speed. We finished 2 weeks ago. Today I finished my first real Deutsch als Fremdsprache (german as a foreign language) classes at the Universität Stuttgart. I took three today, and jesus christ... what have our "intensive course" instructors been doing for the past month and a half? I swear that we haven`t been prepared at all for what we are expected to do here. There were people in the DaF(Deutsch als Fremdsprache) classes who have been here for years. I'm only taking DaF classes... how can we do anything but fail in real classes that we can take??

I'm going to another VfB Stuttgart Fußball game on Saturday, and there is a Halloween party Monday night, to check back for updates. I also posted all the DTM (Deutschen Tourenwagen Masters) pics on my webshots page. The link is to the right.

Tschüß

Random Comment - Germans

When you go to a different country, you expect that some things will obviously be different. But it really never occurred to me that something can be completely normal in Germany, but seen as rude in America.
For instance - what I would call common courtesy.
If you´re in line at the Post office, no one will cut in front of you. That´s really no problem. But if you´re waiting for the S-Bahn (subway) at the platform and the door stops right in front of you, there will be 3 or 4 Germans running in front of you, and of course there will be one seat too few for you. If you´re waiting for the bus it´s the same thing, but I think it´s more "every man for himself" with busses. Like the mentality is if you aren`t one of the first on the bus they might leave you behind.

Another thing - Germans and being helpful. It probably really just is cultural - if youre walking down a crowded street, everyone walks as if everyone else was in their way. There is a cold glare straight forward. "I am walking here and this is my path." So in the same sense, German strangers will only be helpful until they feel that they are no longer unhelpful. I will elaborate about Universtität Stuttgart next.

DTM (Deutschen Tourenwagen Masters) RACE at HOCKENHEIMRING

This last Sunday I went to the last DTM race of the season with a couple of Finnish friends of mine. It was about 125km north of Stuttgart at Hockenheimring. We got there pretty early. There were actually three different kinds of races that day, and we got there for the first one at about 10:30. What we didnt know is that there were approximately 65,000 other people with cars who got there that early also. In my webshots page I'll have pictures up of the races. There are some good photos. We had to trek about 30 minutes to get to the Ring, through some forest, which was very different.
The first race was a Porsche race. All the cars were amazing. It was kind of dull though, because they were such good drivers and the racetrack was dry, so no one crashed or anything.
After that there was a Formula 3 race. That was ok. The cars were faster, but again there was nothing exceptional about it.
Then there was about a 1 hour 30 minute intermission complete with awful scandanavian bands. A-ha from Norway (wow, trash) and Anna Johnsson from Sweden. She blew. Then it started to rain. First drizzle, and then a pour. But about 10 minutes before the DTM race was scheduled to begin, it stopped raining and the sun actually came out. So that was really good for the race. It wasn't raining at the time of the race, but the course was nice and wet for some accidents. There were Mercedes, Audis, and Opels racing in there, and right in front of us were 4 accidents during the race. It was really fun to watch. The Finns had a race favorite, Mika Häkkinen, who was a really successful Formula 1 driver a few years ago. That made it more fun, to see them cheering when someone ahead of him got in a wreck, and if he passed the person in front of him.
At the end though due to the wrecks and the need for dry course tire changes, he ended up in 14th place. Not really what we were expecting. At the end though, it was well worth the time and the money for the tickets.

When we were leaving the parking lot (read - FIELD), we and about 100 other people drove through someone's field to get to another road. It took us a while to get back due to the crowd on the Autobahn, but it was nice.

How's that for a story without beer.

Bierlauf (Beer Run)

As I said earlier, all my classes are starting at week 2 of the semester. So the first week of school on Thursday the 20th this month, an on campus bar/restaurant sponsored the Bierlauf. Here is how it goes:
There are three people in each team. There are max five teams per category.
Categories include: International Team, New Student Team, Women Team, Major Team, and Young People Team
Each category is only racing against people in their own category.
So we (Team America) were going against Team FinnnPower and a Spanish team.
There were eight teams in total.
Here are the rules:
Each team must carry a 24 pack of Beck´s bottles (something like 2.6 liters of beer per person) including the heavy plastic container from point A to point B (3.8 km, or like 2.2 miles).
All the beers must be finished by the time you get to the finish line.
If you are missing bottles or bottle caps, or have unfinished beers, you´ll get at least a 5 minute penalty.
There are three stops were you have to blow up a plastic Beck´s guitar, fold a paper boat, and match some German beer types on a card.

1st place: A huge meal for three people and a pitcher of beck´s to share
2nd place: A 24 pack of Beck´s for the team
3rd place: A pitcher of Beer at the restaurant for the team

Our team was really only worried about the Finns. They run and drink a lot normally, so thats what we were really worried about. Everyone was surprised the Spanish didn´t show up 2 hours late. Because I was so confident in my team, Me, a basketball player from SC, and a lacrosse player from D.C., I bet Team Finnpower that if they do better than Team America, I would buy each of them a liter of the local beer at a different bar, including a different Finn who couldn´t race. IF WE did better than them, all four of them would each have to buy me a liter. This is going to be awesome!

Team America went 3 minutes before Team Finnnpower. We met at station 1. There we stole a bottle of their beer, so they would get a 15 minute penalty and we would win. Pretty cool eh. What we didn´t know is that they stole that beer back at station 2. So halfway between station 2 and station 3 we decided to chuck "their" beer into the woods so we would win. 2 minutes after we did that we were like... hey how many beers do you guys have??... so why is there a spot empty?? FINNS!!!!!!!!
So from that point on we looked into every garbage can for an empty Beck´s, but couldn´t find any. About 20 meters from the finish line we met a Canadian friend who just finished his Beck´s. He put it on the ground and I snatched it. We ran to the finish line. The officials counted our bottles and bottlecaps, and they said we only had 23 bottle caps. DAMN, only got his bottle! Just then Tim the Canadian slyly handed me the bottle cap to his beer and we finished at 42 minutes with no penalties. The Spanish team surprisingly (to us) finished at 42 minutes also. Team Finnnpower finished at 45 minutes.
So the Spanish Team and Team America both got 1st prize, which was a meal for 3 and a pitcher of Beck´s at the bar. Team Finnnpower only got a pitcher to share.

And on the side bet, each member of Finnnpower and their friend has to buy me a liter of the local beer here at the other bar. Team America, F*** YEAH!

After the race there was a free BBQ, but since most people threw up during the race, there was plenty of food to eat.

Volksfest

Oktoberfest in München wasn´t the only beer festival during October. We actually had our own which started a week after Oktoberfest. Although it wasn´t as well known, it was a bit better because the prices were a little better and it wasn´t nearly as touristy. Each tent was pretty impressive. They were all full of people all the time, with four taps running non-stop but still not going fast enough for the crowd at our favorite tent. Probably the most notable thing besides the good beer at a good price was the music. You would think that when you go to a German beer festival that you´d hear mainly German music, even folk music.
Besides the famous german
Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit, Gemütlichkeit song, there were few german songs.
I can´t tell you how many times the YMCA song played, or for that matter the "It´s Raining Men" song. It was pretty funny because everyone was really getting into those songs, and they really had no idea what was going on. Probably 80% of the songs were American, and some other ones like DJ Ötzi´s Hey Baby, wasn`t American but it was in English. Oh well, at least we knew what they were saying.

So in the end, I probably went to the 2 week Volksfest around 7 or 8 times. Definately feels like there is nothing to do once that is over. Oh well.

Random Comment - W.C.

After living in America for the past 21 years, I´ve really only experienced two different toilets. Our common american toilet, and the "turkish toilet" in France. (Basically a room with a place to put your feet, and a hole in the ground). But never before have I had to deal with this new cleaning technique.
It´s a pretty funny story actually.. I was at a VfB Fußball game a while back with a Swedish friend of mine was telling me about his Pakistani roommates. He said that everytime they went to the bathroom, they would fill up a waterbottle, and they would come out of the bathroom with it empty. He said that he would come in there afterwards and water would be EVERYWHERE. While it wasn´t that hard to believe, actually knowing that it was happening in my bathroom too was something else. I have a Tunisian roommate, and it recently turned Ramadan (04.10 - 04.11) Since the Muslims fast during the day, my roommate has company over for dinner etc. etc. But one day short after the 4th, I noticed there was a 2 liter waterbottle near the toilet. At first I was like.. uh... Naaahhh... And then today I couldn't believe it. It´s like someone took a shower with no curtains. And it´s not like it´s still clean water.. it´s foul. Anyway, I´m just waiting for Ramadan to end.

VfB Stuttgart (Bundesliga)

So far I've been to three Bundesliga Fußball games. They´re really fun to go to. Even though the VfB Stuttgart team isn´t that great, it´s really a great atmosphere. Decent tickets cost around 17,00 € per person, and everyone is always cheering or booing. A liter of "Sportbier" there costs about 5 € (like 6 dollars) and there is a guy with a small keg on his back pouring drinks for people during the game.
Probably the wierdest thing about the Fußball games here in Stuttgart is that they play David Hasselhoff right before they introduce the players, and then again once the game is over. I think he sings a song called VfB steh´ ich bei dir. Strange.

OKTOBERFEST

Wow, what can I say about Oktoberfest? 24 September 2005

Oktoberfest is a festival that everyone should go to, but once is enough. It's a very big tourist spot, but it's not like it wasn't worth it.
As it was the first major festival I went to, it was really amazing when you compare it to America. The entire concept of drinking here is vastly different from in America - especially at colleges. They had enormous tents that they built, only to deconstruct them three weeks later for next year. There were people everywhere. We heard stories that if you leave Stuttgart for Munich after 6AM (getting there around 10:30 or 11:00), you won't get a seat. We didn't believe them, but we definatley should have. We looked for about two hours for a place to seat four people. Once we sat down we got a horrible waittress. After she gave us our first liters, she asked us if we preferred English or German. We said English. To that, she replied, "Tip is not a town in China." Wow. Anyway, three liters later I decided to meet up with some Finnish friends across Oktoberfest. I met with them, went back to the first table, got lost, my phone battery died, and I looked for about 30 minutes but couldn't find anybody. I already had three liters in about an hour and a half, and I didn't feel like drinking more alone in this huge beer festival. I took the S-Bahn (understreet train) back to the main train station, but of course somebody told me it was going the right direction, when it wasn't. So I finally got to the train station around 8 or 9pm, ready to go back to Stuttgart. Finally I find a train where Stuttgart is on the way to its final destination. Of course I missed the stop, and I got off the train at one station removed. Only then do I realize that it was like midnight, and it was the last train for the night. What to do... alone, in a city I haven't heard of waiting for a bus that's coming in 6 hours.. There was an underground passage from one side of the tracks to the other. I sat there for 6 hours unable to sleep, and not wanting to sleep for that matter. Awful.
The next morning at 6 AM I was at the station waiting for the bus to come. Then this German guy comes up and starts talking to me. He was telling me he was going to a party in Stuttgart... 6am.. ok you're strange. Then he was asking me how tall I was and how much I weighed.. At first I thought he was insane, but he told me he used to be a trainer and body builder kinda guy.. He thought I didn't believe him I guess, so while he was smoking his (hopefully) first cigarette of the day, he did pull ups on the train ticket machine and puffing away. Then he started yelling at the hills to hear his echo. I can't explain how happy I was when the first train came. Finally back in Stuttgart, I slept the entire next day.

It was pretty insane.

Mercedes Benz Museum

As part of our German Intensiv Kurs, we had a fieldtrip one day to the Merdeces Benz Museum. It was pretty fun there, but I picked up an audio guide that was in German. I thought I could handle it, but it was a pretty confusing layout etc. etc. (This means I just looked at cars for an hour and a half). At my webshots website there are a lot of pictures of the cars they have there. There were a number of really old cars, which was pretty interesting because you could really see how the cars developed from model to model. Aside from that, their racing cars were probably the most interesting by far. Kimi Räikkönen's F1 car was there, along with another famous DTM car. But I really suggest checking out the photos - some are pretty cool.

As for the Porsche Museum, I haven't really gotten enough people to go there to visit yet. The main theme of Stuttgart weekends is finding some other place to go to.

German Intensiv Kurs

So first let me start explaining how the German Intensive Course went. As I stated earlier, it was 5 days a week for 5 hours a day for 6 weeks. We had two teachers. One of them was good, and of course we had her only two days, while the other one we had for 3 days. I think everyone liked the course with the good teacher, but the bad one made it so painfully mind-numbing. There were about 25 students in the class, and she would go through everyone in the class over and over, so really you're only speaking for about 1 minute every half hour. And it's not like she tried to make it interesting either. I think she really just wanted us to hate it there just a little more than she did. She would make us do 10 or 20 minute assignments in class just so she could text messages on her phone. It was pretty ridiculous. So that course finally ended, and I think everyone surprisingly learned a lot - Try or not, your listening comprehension has to improve. I'm planning on taking only German as a Foreign Language classes, and for some reason those start a week after everyone else, so I had a week just to do nothing. It was great.
But first let me keep the updates coming.

- Mark

Update from my mass message e-mail, for those who forgot/didnt get it

E-MAIL SENT ORIGINALLY 9 September 2005.

Hey all,

So I've been in Germany now for over a week now and it's a lot of fun. I live in an on-campus apartment with 5 other people in my apartment. There are 2 people from China, one from Bulgaria, and one from Tunisia. (one room is open at the moment) Our building complex is pink and purple (great....) but the rooms are big.. I don't know what to do with it all. Near our laundry room we have a beer vending machine - 4 beer selections and a fruit drink and coke. Coke is the most expensive. While we're on the topic of prices, when you buy a 1/2 litre of good beer in stores it runs about € 0,59, which is about 70 cents. The OK water beer is about 30 cents for a 1/2 litre. The only problem is that you have to carry all the beer back with you on the bus etc. etc. All the wine, vodka, whiskey etc is cheap here too. The alcohol laws here are pretty lax too. You can pretty much drink wherever you want. On a bus, S-Bahn, or U-Bahn (subway and trolley system). Anyway, we have a few Americans in our complex and we have an outdoor ping pong table about 5 meters :) away from my room - and we're on a quest to find party cups and bring Beirut/beer pong to the Europeans. The problem is that Germans are ridiculous about recycling. They don't use aluminum much, and if you buy like a can of coke there's a 25 cent deposit on it (you get it back if you give the empty can to the shop). In America I basically recycle if the garbage can gets full... Here there are trash cans, paper recycling bins, plastic recycling bins, and metal recycling bins. If they catch you throwing away recyclable items in the trash they hand you a €40,00 ticket. Cool. On that note, finding plastic cups like party cups is very difficult. Even the toilet paper here is recycled!

The food here is pretty good too. I'm not really too impressed with the Turkish kebap shops though. Something about their ,,Fliegenfleisch" food that really doesn't make me hungry. I went to an Australian place last night and ordered their mixed grill. Kangaroo, crocodile, and Emu with mashed potatoes. Surprisingly good. So. Universität Stuttgart is a really nice school. It's a surprisingly big campus (see picture below). The town too is pretty big. It's modern and also has a old German touch to everything so it's still nice to experience it. I'm planning on going to the Porsche museum soon. They have tours of the factory of them building Porsches and I'll think I'll go to that.

The weather here is still amazing. It's a little hotter than California but there are barely ever any clouds in the sky and it also is a tad breezy to keep us cool. Apparently it's supposed to get pretty ugly any day now. Oh well.

Ah, German fashion. It's very difficult to describe. Most all the Germans (most always the under 50's people) are very image conscious. The only problem is what they define as in is border-line creepy/insane/ridiculous.
Shoes: The puma shoes that everyone wears are different enough. They're like pseudo-racing shoes, but with the most ridiculous colors. Like I saw one pair that put the yellow highlighter color to shame. A running shoe by new balance was in a LEGO color-scheme. I'll have to get some pictures.
Hair: Apparently mullets here are fashionable. Its not like Joe Dirt style... it's a euro mullet. It's all done in a salon where they usually dye the part thats past your natural hair line either blone or fuschia. It's quite hideous. Then there are the mohawks/fauxhawks - those are almost always dyed insane colors, but they usually only gel the top of their head. Then the super fashionable people combine the fauxhawks with the euromullets (fauxlets... or not) that is outrageous. Again pictures will be coming.
Women: Whoever made Euro-Trip has never been to Germany. I haven't seen one girl remotely like Mieke from Euro-Trip (not like I was basing my expectations on a movie for teens, but seriously... com-come on.come on.. what is this? Opposite day?) So... women here love short hair.. dyed.. and butch. (read gym teacher from High School High). So yeah, can't have everything.

Anything else.. I'm in my German intensive course right now. 5 hours of German 5 days a week for 6 weeks. Our class has 2 Canadians eh, 3 Americans, and pretty much everyone else is from Europe. Our class has a good number of people who take it upon themselves to make it more interesting, so it makes up for getting up at 6:30AM every day for class.

Ah the pictures. One is of a lake that's a 2 minute walk from campus. They have trails and drinking spots and lawns to lay down on near it. It's pretty awesome.
One is of a building on campus. There is an identical one right behind it but you can't see it. I think it's a math/physics building.
by the way - I will be uploading more and more pictures to:
http://community.webshots.com/user/markrcpde


keep a look out and send me a message soon!

Starting Info

Hey all,

This is my first addition to my "Blog" - I really havent updated anyone back home or wherever since mid September. So for that reason, I'm going to be updating events that I still can remember since them, and then I'll get onto the present.

So be sure to check back frequently, and visit my Webshots homepage for pictures etc. at
http://community.webshots.com/user/markrcpde

Ok, more updates coming soon!

Tschüß