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!
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