Sycamore and Buckeye Trees

Today began with a massive case of jet-lag... or as the Germans call it, Jet-lag. However I found that my choice of setting my alarm from 7 am may have been a little over-doing it for my 10am class. I ended up navigating my way through the city perfectly fine and arriving an hour early. It was actually a perfect morning, weather-wise, and a perfect first look at the University building. The big courtyard in front was filled with people (and the dogs here are much better trained). After giving myself a self-tour of the area, I made my way into class, which turned out to be a boring speech that we have already gotten about 12 times. It was funny because it was all in German, and there is a hefty portion of the group that does not know any German, and when groups were being called they had no idea what was going on. We were split up into groups to do a walking tour of Bonn (which, oddly enough, did not include Beethoven's birthplace). We ate in the Mensa, which is like a cafeteria, and I had Goulash and fruit. It was not very good, but my tour-guides (students about my age, although it is hard to tell because most students here are mid-twenties), assured me that they did not like it as well and it was "scheisse." They thought it was funny to ask me what schimpfwoerters I knew, and they were very impressed that I knew "Schlampe." We then went to the library, which is located right on the Rhine (which Katharina had mentioned the day before) and so it is very nice. Everything in Bonn is very close together and it is all located around the Hauptbahnhof, so navigating became easier. I noticed that all of the trees downtown are either Sycamore or Buckeye trees, which amused me, being an alumn/future alumn of schools bearing with those trees as their mascot. Bonn was ready for me to come I guess. After the tour we were left on Muenster Platz, where I went to get a cell phone (I only spoke German and the Kaufmann did not speak to me in English once which I was very proud of). So now I have a German Handy and I am connected to the world once more. I then rode the bus back to Ippendorf (the suburb that I live in) which is about a 7 min bus ride. This suburb is very nice and is filled with mostly families with kids and (well trained) dogs. After finally unpacking I had to go to the grocery store, which was fun for me to see all of the different foods and even American products that look different. They have Philadelphia cream cheese with Milka Schokolade inside (how can you not buy that?). I was thinking how hard it would be to be one of my fellow Austauschstudenten who doesnt know German, and doing something as easy as grocery shopping would be quite difficult. The American products (like Colgate or Ore Ide for example) jump out because of their familiarity, but they are about twice the price of the German brands. And they dont always have fun pictures or bright colors on the label. One thing that is delicious here is the milk. It tastes so fresh it could be right from a cow. I got 1 1/2 liters, but I fear that it may be gone by the morning. But on this note, something that I need to emphasize is that Germans love conservation and they love the environment. I dont mean that they recycle every once and a while or they go out of their way to pick up liter. This surpasses Al Gore by a long shot. Almost every part of German life is geared towards the green effort. No building that I have been in, save the airport, has had their air-conditioning running. No one throws out any plastic ever, ever, ever.... they sort every bit of trash. Every glass bottle is returned for money-back. So I've noticed as well that the refrigerator is kept warmer, ergo the Milk as well. For some reason this actually makes it taste better. So upon entering the Studentwohnheim, which is kept pitch black to conserve electricity (naturally), it is very spooky to walk though a dark, foreign, cement building. I finally met another one of my suite-mates (who is not dark or cement but indeed foreign) and he comes from Romania. Yes, I room with a boy I found out. Which is very odd considering that our shower room has two showers in it with only a clear glass separating them... I guess Germans are much, much better with nudity than we are, because in America that certainly would not fly. Hopefully I will not run into that problem and we will just keep it at that. Tomorrow is my exam and hopefully it goes well. Another early morning, and hopefully another good day. Bring it Germany!


p.s. I know that people were wondering about the German reactions to WWII, and I will address some of that. Today Bonn made it very clear to us that they were against the NSDAP the entire time, and once they had a stronghold of Germany, many of the brightest professors were sent away because of their religion or their progressive/out of the box style. This came to the great disappointment of many of the other professors who stayed in Bonn, some of whom even committed suicide. In 1942, the university suffered greatly when the city of Bonn had heavy air raids and most of the classrooms were destroyed. The university administrator told us with solemn pride that Bonn has enjoyed 66 years of peace in the university.