2 months!

 Well ladies and gentleman, sehr geehrte Herrn und Frauen, its been two months and I havent cracked yet. Actually the opposite, I am having such a better time here than I could have ever imagined. I am actually thinking about staying an entire year now, it only makes more and more sense the more I think about it. This past week I played soccer for the first time here for the University's team, and not to be too cocky, but I think I showed those girls a think or two about Fussball. I was actually quite surprised at how bad the girls were, or perhaps bad is the wrong word, it was more "inexperienced." They were surprised to learn that I was not on the varsity team for OSU, and the coach explained that many girls from the Bundesliga go to America to play for the colleges there. Yesterday was the VWL party, which stands for Volks-Wirtschafts-Lehrer which is the major of my Bonn Buddy. The turned an entire building of the University into a club-like setting with multi-colored strobe lights and multiple DJs and a cover charge. One of the weirdest things was when we entered they gave all of us snuff, like the tobacco product, I guess they are really laxed about that sort of thing here, because I could never imagine in a million years OSU giving me a pack of cigarettes or anything like that. It was very fun though, the party, and it was really weird to think that my Bonn Buddy has classes in the building.

Here is a picture of my Bonn Buddy Katharina (she is the one on the right) and her friend Laura (left). Laura studies Psych, and she was actually considering studying abroad at OSU next year, before she even knew that is where I was from. On the way home, we found this advent calendar with chocolates in it, and it was too funny to not take a picture of:

 

Today I took a boat ride with my coupon down the Rhein to Koenigswinter, even though it is so close, it still took just about an hour to get there. I took a video of it:

Below they tried to do a "Titanic" reenactment, but for safety reasons, decided against it ;P

After we got to Koenigswinter, we had a little coffee and cake to be really German on this lovely Sunday afternoon. We were at a quaint little cafe on the Rhein that was sort of a French-Hipster type hangout, which I thought Anthony Bourdain would be reluctant but pleased with. I had the best coffee Ive had since coming here and the most delicious cheesecake with raspberries. The cheesecake was really whipped, so it wasnt what one would normally think of. If you look at the picture below, Hanna (the person to my left) got a hot chocolate and they gave her the cutest little spoon with  a bend in it to rest on the cup. I thought of Dad and his new Sunday morning espresso routine and how he would think that was really cool.  

The weather has been really cooperative recently, around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and I am hoping it stays too. I am so excited for these next two months especially with planned trips to Berlin, Oslo, and Paris, not to mention Model UN and Coldplay followed by the visit of the rest of the Corcoran clan, which may bring about trips elsewhere. Small possibility of Cork, Ireland for New Years. Also a ski trip to Austria has been set up by the study abroad office, it would be so cool to say "oh I just learned to ski on the Alps, maybe you've heard of them." My next door neighbor here is from Budapest and now I am talking about visiting him sometime as well. I really feel like studying here makes me in the center of the world. Everything that seems so far away is suddenly just a train ride away. It is one of the coolest feelings in the world

The hills are alive... Koenigswinter

Today we went to Koenigswinter, which is a place south of Bonn on the Rhein. The sun and water made for great pictures and a relaxing day of  "spazieren gehen"  

This place looks like a beach, and if I wouldnt have already known, I would have never guessed I was in Germany

Its now a tradition that me and Bruna have to attempt a jumping picture everywhere we go

Bruna, Miguel and I

just hangin' out

 Here is another Portuguese person and a Hungarian person.

Unfortunately I dont have many stories to go along with today, other than the pictures that you see. Classes have gone into full swing so I am pretty busy because of that. I just recently found out that I will be representing Columbia in the Security council for the international Bonn Model UN competition next month. Trips to various cities are in the works. Stay posted, activity will pick up soon.

Climbing to the top of Koelner Dom

We climbed to the top of the Dom in Cologne today with photos to document it:

Another pretty day, we keep getting lucky on all of the excursions we decide to go on. It took about 20 min to climb up the Dom and the entire time it was a small, narrow spiral staircase, it was very dizzy-ing. 

To the North

At the top with Nina from Australia, Dorothee from Louisiana, and Emmi from Finland

I signed the top, so now my name is on the Koelner Dom and St. Paul's Cathedral, which monument is next Europe? Gotta collect 'em all

There was graffiti on here that spanned several decades, it was one of the coolest parts of seeing the top.

If you see the mountains in the background, that is the Siebengebirge which is a little past Bonn, the cities are very close.

Me in the bell tower doing me Quasimodo Hunchback of Notre Dame 

Afterwords, we all went to a cafe to watch a soccer game, which was actually being played in Cologne. Cologne ended up winning 3-0.

I thought that this was a hilarious translation. To say "unpeeled potatoes" they translated it to "Potatoes boiled in their jackets"

Wildgehege

I went exploring with my neighbor in the forest and went to a wild animal sanctuary. I took some photos to show you, I dont know how interesting it will be to look at for you, but I enjoyed going there and thought it was share-worthy

All of the pigs were big, brown and hairy. There was a dog about the same size as the pigs and when the dog walked by the pen, all of the pigs stampeded over to see what was going on, the dog seemed really perplexed by this.

The guy who I was walking with is from Hungary, and we didnt know the word for deer in German, so we kept calling them "Bambi" until we finally saw a sign with the word in German. =)

This guy kept making the weirdest noises for a mating call or something, and the family standing next to us kept trying to imitate the call back so he would keep doing it. It was hilarious.  

I think hearing little kids speak german is one of the most enjoyable things that I bare witness to here, I was a super creeper and took a video of these kids trying to feed a deer (who eat the buckeye seeds as well I found out).

First Day of School, First Movie, Potluck

This week is the first week of classes, so I have been having a unique experience trying to figure everything out. Monday I worked with a German Kindergarten (ages 3-5) who are learning English. It was really funny to me, because it seems as if they didn't even realize when they were speaking English and when they were speaking German. They would speak to me in Germenglish, which was quite adorable. I was supposed to do an internship for the whole semester with this school, however I would have to drop a lot of my classes, which I don't think is worthwhile. Tuesday I went to the movies and saw Maennerherzen. It was quite hilarious, and I understood the whole movie perfectly fine. If anyone wants to see the trailer it is here:

We got there a bit early, so no one was in the theaters so I took a picture of everyone because I know that Mom wants to see more pictures in these blogs of other people.

Yesterday I had my first class on German economics, and I thought it was funny that I was the only non-asian in the classroom. It was raining all yesterday and my professor told us that we should be happy because the rain is good for the grapes which is good for the wine industry which is good for the German economy. Today I had my first international relations class, and apart from me being in the back and construction going on directly outside, it was not too hard to comprehend. He talked a lot about theories of international relations (realism, liberalism, neorealism, etc...) which I have learned in literally every international relations classes I have ever taken, so the concepts were not too hard for me to grasp. 

Yesterday I was invited to a potluck at one of the German student's houses. We were instructed to bring something from our mother country, so I brought Mac n Cheese, the most American thing I could think of. Most people were actually really excited to try it because they had never eaten it. On of the Germans was telling me that some fast food places try to sell mac and cheese every so often, but it always fails because people dont see the point in paying for (as he called it) cheesy noodles.

We ate sandwiches from Norway with brown cheese and marmalade on it, then pflammkuchen (with onions and prosciutto), and a salad, then meatballs, then this soup from Poland made out of beets, and then a spring-roll-ish dish with meat inside, then irish soda bread, then Mac and Cheese, and eggplant parmesan. Then from Finland someone made a blueberry pie and from Italy someone made a chocolate cake (it was someone's birthday). It was really fun trying food from all over the world. (lamest ending sentence of a blog yet, but I have a class in a little so live with it)     

Schedule

This week is the first week of official classes here in Bonn, so as requested, I am adding my schedule to this blog to inform everyone what I will be studying here. So the schedule above is a work-in-progress, because a lot of these things will be changed and moved around. Basically the items in blue are classes that I am taking out of the "Auslandsamt" meaning that I am taking them with other non-native German speakers. These classes include Vocabulary and Conversation, German Economics and Trade, and Phonetics. The items in red are more subject to change because they are the classes I will be taking in the University with people who are native German speakers. So far these classes include Germany in Europe 1949-2011, Culture and Social Structure, Region-Building; Regional Integration as a Worldwide Structural Characteristic of International Relations, and The "long" 19th Century: Germany from the French Revolution to the First World War. Two of these classes will probably be dropped, I am seeing which ones I like the best. Then I have signed up for soccer, but this will probably change too, because I am now going to try to play for Ippendorf, which is a local team where I live. Also I have an interview tomorrow with an internship in the area to teach English to kids 7 and below, which will also affect how much classes I will be able to have in my schedule. So I will keep people posted if they are so interested.

This afternoon I watched Shutter Island, Modern Family, and Arrested Development with Bruna and Miguel in German. Arrested Development, believe it or not, was by far the hardest to understand because it was so fast. I find that it is very weird to see german dubbed films, because I know how Leonardo DiCaprio should speak, and when a german voice comes out it is quite weird. Sundays are very lazy because nothing is open, and the weather is also getting bad, so I feel like I have been in hibernation all day.

Plans in formulation for Paris and Amsterdam, hopefully have them figured out by the end of the week.

Also, as I may have told some people, I now have a host family. I was supposed to have dinner with them last week, however the dad had to be taken to the hospital (for what I am not sure) so it has been postponed to a later date. 

Had my first Berliner yesterday, and it was all that I would have expected out of Germany. Fresh, flavorful, not over-the-top. I didn't know until one of the Polish girls told me that American doughnuts are the only ones with holes in them, I did not fact check this, but it seems plausible. People here know funny things about American culture based on what they see on TV. For example during the parade, there was an American-Football team (like the sport, not a team from America) and they had their own cheerleaders who did a lift right in front of us. All of the people who I was with looked at me and said "ohh it is just like the movies." I told Bruna she will have to watch Toddler's and Tiaras sometime to get a true taste of America. Her and Miguel had never heard of Modern Family, so that was fun to watch in German, because it is rather slow and easy to understand.

I have been getting a lot more compliments on my German and my vocabulary. I was telling people that I am kind of proud that know when people hear me speaking German they ask if I am from Great Britain, which I think is a step in the right direction. Hopefully this Phonetics class will help. Any topics that people are curious about here in Germany, ask me on the comments section. 

...If this is how they make their chocolate....

...its hard to imagine how they make their cars (quote from Miguel who is in the picture below, I'll let you guess which one). Sorry I have not posted in about a week, last Monday was the day of German unification, and I took a lot of videos of the parade because it was so interesting to see all of the cultures within Germany represented, however there was a problem with the German card, so I guess I need to stick the the American one. So I looked up a small video on Youtube if anyone would like to watch a couple of seconds of the parade:

Angela Merkel came, but unfortunately kept her location very secretive. An interesting thing about her trip here, however, is that she actually went to a church here and sat through a sermon, which is her 3rd time doing this as Chancellor. Merkel grew up in the DDR, so I have heard that religion is not a pillar of her life, however her dad is a pastor at an Evangelist church. Most of the famous churches here are Catholic (because they are older), however less than a mile from where I live there is a very famous evangelist church, which is actually the one Merkel went to. So anyway, that is a little background for why I did not blog earlier.

So on Thursday we were supposed to go to Amsterdam, but a series of conflicts made that a choice that wasn't exactly ideal. So instead we jumped on a train without knowing where we were going and ended up at the Chocolate Museum/Lindt Chocolate factory

^my roommate is on the right, Bruna, and Magda and Miguel

USA produces the most chocolate, something to brag about I guess

So the name I gave this blog is funny to me because when you hear that someplace is a chocolate factory, you kind of get this image in your mind of a Willy-Wonka type place with many colors and happy people, but instead what I found is something that I can simply explain with the adjective "German"

^Here is there version of the Willy Wonka chocolate waterfall, we got to taste some, and it could have been the best chocolate I have ever eaten.

^This is the German part I was telling you about

Little chocolates on a conveyor belt 

Here is Bruna in front of a Chocolate Robot

Here is an old candy wrapper, the most colorful thing by far in the factory

Chocolate sculptures (the block says "To our golden anniversary")

Chocolate bars with gummi bears

Max und Moritz candy!

Me and Miguel and Bruna in front of the Milka cow

Here is an old-school gum ball machine

At the end of the museum, they had a series of old chocolate commercials, maybe you will be able to get the gist of them, I think they are rather funny to watch

p.s. tomorrow I will post my class schedule for those of you so interested