Pre-Departure

It's 10 pm and I still have to pack for the trip tomorrow! That's the problem with doing laundry in Germany - the dryer doesn't work and hang-drying clothes doesn't always get them dry in time for packing. We also have to wear business formal for five straight days. Trying to create five different outfits out of my limited options is quite the task, but so it goes.

It's going to be so exciting to see two new countries and re-visit France. This is just a quick note to say that I probably won't be able to update the blog until I get back next Sunday, but at least I'll have some pictures (and hopefully some good stories) then. Talk to you all later!

P.S. My flatmate and I were pretty evenly matched on the ski hill, but I'd have to say he's a bit better than me. Oh well - we had a great time regardless!

Glad That's Over

Whew, what a long week! Two midterms and an essay are always so much harder when you start the week off with an all-nighter, even if it was at a carnival in Switzerland.

Carnival in Basel was pretty fun, even though it entailed being up all night and going to class at 9 am. We got there around 3:00 am or so and got some drinks while we waited for the parade to start at 4. Basel is special because all the lights in the city go out as the parade starts. Then, a massive procession of masked figures and floats proceeds through the streets. It was quite different from Fasnacht in Freiburg, and I think I prefer the latter. In Freiburg there is quite a bit of interaction with the public (i.e. songs, cheers, candy-throwing, etc.), but that doesn't really happen in Basel. We basically just watched the parade, and while it was nice to see all the different costumes, I think I'll remain loyal to Freiburg. We got back home at about 7:00 am or so and I had to go to class at 9:00. Our professor was well aware that we were going to Basel and had in fact encouraged it, but we still felt bad since we ALL fell asleep in class at one point or another. Everyone was just so exhausted. It felt great to get some sleep that night, but I still don't feel like I've fully recovered since I had so much work to do this week and couldn't get as much sleep as I wanted.

Fortunately, my work is finished now. Next week, we're going on our second field trip! We're going to Luxembourg on Monday to see the European Court of Justice and then we'll be in Brussels by the evening. We'll be in Brussels for a few days, where we'll see the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, and NATO headquarters (!). Then, we head on over to Paris for meetings at the EU Institute for Security Studies and the French Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs. Students in different classes will have some additional meetings as well. I can't wait for this trip - not only do we have a really interesting academic schedule, we get to see some great cities! I'm especially looking forward to returning to Paris. I'll try to take lots of pictures and post a detailed update when I return.

I'm going to try to get some sleep tonight because my flatmate and I are planning to go skiing tomorrow. We have a little wager on who will be the better skier. Guess we'll see when I get back...I'll post again before I leave for the trip!

Bis spaeter!

Busy Week

I'm so happy it's finally Friday. This week has been busier than most because I had a presentation, an extra three-hour class session, a Student Council meeting, and an essay on top of the usual schedule. It was also Fasnacht here in Freiburg, which is the annual carnival that ends on Ash Wednesday. I put up the link to my photo album, but in case you missed it, here's one picture to give you an idea what it's like:

So glad they threw the furry helmet on my head at the last second...

While I'm with my American friends and some random Germans in this picture, I attended Fasnacht with my tandem partner. IES set up a system where students in the program can meet with local German students to practice speaking German and English together. We all got our partners last week at a big meeting, but now it's up to us to decide how frequently we meet and how much time we spend practicing in either language. I have two partners who study at the university here. They're both really nice and their English is excellent. It will definitely be good for me to practice my German, although I do get in a fair bit of practice with my flatmates.

As for an update on the living situation, I have no complaints whatsoever. Even when one of my flatmates had two guy friends living here for two weeks (bringing the total number of guys I live with up to seven), it was totally fine. I get along really well with three of them and am friendly with the other two, although one is never here. We've seen him maybe two or three times all semester, and one of the others raised the concern that he might be planning to kill us all in our sleep because "he's never here and when he is, he's just too quiet. It's just not right." Wow, thanks for that pleasant thought! Here's hoping we all emerge from this semester unscathed.

I'm going to Basel, Switzerland early Monday morning (as in 1:30 am) for Morgenstreich, which is the Swiss version of Fasnacht. It's supposed to be pretty wild - the parade itself starts at 4 am. All I know is that there will be costumes, music, wine, and good times to be had. I'll post an update when I can, although next week looks like it will be even busier than this last one.

Bis dann!

More Alps Pictures

Here are some more pictures from my friends. Jumping was clearly the theme of the day, but there was no other way to express the excitement.

This is the hill we started down. The bank on the right is where my friend crashed and where I only narrowly escaped the same fate.

Our exhausted, dehydrated, and ecstatic group

Also, check out my pictures from dinner with my friends and Fasnacht!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=155250&id=599810215&l=f6ffc1ceaf

Strasbourg, France and the Swiss Alps

I'll start at the beginning with our trip to Strasbourg last Wednesday.

We left around noon for Strasbourg, France, which is a city in the Alsace-Lorraine region near the border with Germany. It is also home to the European Parliament, which was our destination for the day. As a debater, I was naturally very excited to witness the plenary session and see some real lawmakers in action. We got to the city and discovered that it was ridiculously cold (not as cold as Berlin, but nothing could ever be). Even still, we went on our tour with a funny French guide who explained various features of the town's main cathedral and guided us around the Petite-France section of town. I unfortunately didn't take many pictures because of the cold and the fact that we only had an hour, but it was great to walk around and see lots of half-timbered houses and little inns (very European).



We then headed over to the European Parliament building. This is pretty much the only major EU institution that isn't in Brussels, which means that Parliament has to travel back between Strasbourg and Brussels every month with documents, translators, and aides in tow. France didn't want to lose the Parliament seat and invested in a multi-million Euro new building to ensure it wouldn't move away. Now, "Parliament's monthly road show" annoys a lot of EU citizens, and some consider it representative of the general inefficiency and bureaucracy they see in the EU.

Regardless, the building was beautiful and we went straight inside to witness the current debate. That day, it was about SWIFT, which is legislation that is basically designed to allow the U.S. to continue access bulk banking data for anti-terrorism efforts within this worldwide banking network. The U.S. and the EU had had an interim agreement about the issue before, but the EU is now much more concerned about EU citizens' privacy rights and how they are basically ignored when the U.S. can access all of their banking data. It was fascinating to see the debate for about an hour, and by the time we left, it was unclear whether the resolution would be delayed to allow "more time for discussion" or whether the vote would take place as planned the following day. The next day, it was rejected, which obviously didn't make the U.S. very happy.

During the debate, some parliamentarians had stated that the U.S. didn't make any concessions to the EU when it asked for agreement on accessing the data. I was curious to see what this meant, so when we had a chance to sit down with Mr. Elmar Brok, a German MeP and member of the Christian Democratic Union and European People's Party, I decided to find out. One of my friends and I always sit in the front row during our academic sessions (we're "those people"), but it turned out to be a great idea since Mr. Brok spoke really quietly. The people in the back couldn't even hear when he first announced, "I'm too lazy to make a speech - I'll just take questions." OK then. I asked the second question: "During the session we just witnessed, it was often said that the U.S. failed to make any concessions to the EU. What type of concessions is the Parliament looking for, and does it consider the U.S. a willing and equal partner in the fight against terrorism?" While Mr. Brok ignored the second half of my question, he said that the U.S. failed to cooperate on any privacy measures for average EU citizens and insisted on accessing ALL data. That pretty much doesn't fly in the EU and was the central reason for the no vote the following day. It was really fascinating to hear about the balance between security and rights from a non-U.S. politician, and it was even better when he had to leave to go give a major speech involving the Ukraine. IES is pretty good about getting us into meetings with important people and it's always fun to see them go about their official business when they're done with us. We read about the no vote in the paper next day - wish I could have been there to see that! Some of us are interested in heading back there sometime this semester to spend more time watching debates on different issues. Even though any of the EU's 20 official languages can be spoken at any time, there are hundreds of translators who translate every word into English (or whichever language). It's a huge expense for the EU, but it's fascinating to see the translators in their little boxes and to hear the different options on the headsets.

After that, we went out to eat as a massive group at a Flammkuchen restaurant. Flammkuchen looks like pizza, but it uses whipped sour cream and bacon as the base instead of cheese and tomatoes. It was all-you-can-eat and we were starving, so there was very little concern about the massive amount of calories it must have contained. It was delicious and a great way to wrap up the day.

The real highlight of the week was our trip to the Swiss Alps yesterday. We all made dinner at my flat on Friday night and then went to bed early(ish) to prepare for the 5:50 am departure time. I woke up with a really sore throat, but there was no way I was missing the trip. We had a relatively uneventful bus ride to Grindelwald, Switzerland, which is where we dropped off the skiers in our group. I would have liked to go skiing, but it would have been extremely expensive since I didn't bring my own gear. Plus, sledding in the Alps sounded like an absolute blast. The rest of us headed over to Bussalp on the bus, which is the sledding area with a magnificent view of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. We were super excited when we got off the bus partway up and saw how beautiful the whole area was. It was a perfect sunny day, too.

Can you tell how excited we are? I'm in the jeans in the middle.

We got there and learned that sledding in the Alps is not like in the U.S. where you repeatedly climb a short hill and sled down on a saucer. Here, you hike for three hours to the top of a 2,600 m mountain and then sled down a crazy steep and winding path on a sled that looks like a luge. And oh yeah, the path is 12.5 kilometers long (longest in the world!). We began the hike in earnest, but unfortunately, none of us made it the whole way to the top in our limited time frame. Perhaps it would have helped if any of us had had the foresight to bring water, but that didn't happen. We relied on eating snow (which of course doesn't help) and sucking on icicles.

Here we are after about 45 minutes of hiking. We started in jackets and ended up in T-shirts.

It probably would have taken us another hour to reach the top by the time we stopped, but we unfortunately had no more time. Plus, we were excited to finally start sledding. One of my friends and I went first, but it soon became apparent that we had NO IDEA what we were doing. We started in a really steep area and quickly learned that we didn't know how to stop or slow down. We were literally flying down this narrow course and trying (but failing) to steer. After a mere two minutes, my friend somersaulted off her sled. I somehow managed to stop and help her pick up her stuff, but then our other friend ran into us. It was a total fail moment, but it was so exhilarating at the same time.

After we got going again, I felt like I was beginning to get the hang of steering. That all changed around the corner of death. There was this one sharp switchback turn, and for some reason, the trail leading down to it had become extremely choppy and bumpy. I was sledding on the verge of control and ended up flying off the edge. I bailed on the sled before I went too far, and when I looked up, I saw at least three other people also digging themselves out of the snow and a group of Germans/Swiss clapping and cheering for us. It turned out that NO ONE was making that turn, so the Germans decided to camp out there and cheer whenever anyone crashed and boo when anyone (rarely) made it. It ended up being hilarious instead of tragic as we all wiped out into waist-deep snow. I was covered in snow and ice by this time, of course, but we still had many kilometers to go and we were too excited to care about being freezing.

I finally learned how to steer and made all of the remaining turns. I unfortunately don't have any pictures of the sledding itself, but it was truly fantastic to race down a course, sometimes up to 35 mph, and see the view the whole way down. We made it the bottom and returned our sleds a little late and soaking wet, but we were all euphoric nonetheless.

To sum up, I returned home exhausted, still with a sore throat and with sore muscles, soaking wet, sunburned, severely dehydrated, covered in bruises, and looking like death. It was one of the best days I've had in a long time.

Here's a link to my Alps photo album. I'll post others that my friends put online when I get a chance. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=155005&id=599810215&l=c93311591c

Quick Update

This is just a brief note to say that I'm still around - it's just been super busy here and I haven't had time to blog. I have an exam about the EU tomorrow (it's no more specific than that) and then I'll be in the Alps all day Saturday. Can't wait! I'll come back and post more about the trip to Strasbourg that took place yesterday. I'll just say now that it was incredible. If anyone is reading the news in the U.S. and saw that the European Parliament rejected SWIFT today, just know that I was there watching that debate yesterday! It was amazing to see the democratic process in action.

Bis bald!

Picture

This is a picture of about half the IES kids at the Czech Ministry for European Affairs. I'm in the second row near the middle. That presentation was only okay, but we had a great time being in such an important place and feeling all fancy in our business clothes.

(Photo: ZP)

Weekend Summary

Well, it's Sunday night and I'm a little sad the weekend is over. It was so much fun and I have 9 am class tomorrow...

The last week of school was average. My classes are going to be okay, but only German and my EU Seminar seem like they'll be really good. By Friday, I was definitely ready for a break. We ended up doing dinner a friend's place on Friday night. She and one other girl cooked while the rest of us supplied bread, salad, and drinks. It was great to just relax and hang out with good people. We saw some other IES students while we briefly checked out the scene at Vaubar (neighborhood of Vauban + student bar = Vaubar). I didn't end up staying out super late, but that was more than fine since we were getting up to go hiking the next day.

We took the train into the Black Forest to go hike the Feldberg, which is the tallest mountain there at about 1,500 meters. You can also ski and snowshoe there, but since we're all being cheap and hiking is fun, it was the best way to go. We had a fantastic time and got some good pictures, which you can find here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=153601&id=599810215&l=ffff0835eb

Here's a shot that we took with a timer:


I'm definitely not the shortest one in the group, but some of us are knee-deep in snow. It's been a big snow year for Germany and there were untracked fields of powder all over the place.

After the hike, we decided to get ice cream. Germans are really big on ice cream and toppings and there's a cafe devoted to it right near the main train station in Freiburg. I had some delicious Spaghettieis, which you can see near the end of my photo album. The indulgence was totally worth it. Afterwards, we went back to our rooms with plans to meet up later. We hung out for a while that night and then went dancing at a place in town that plays 90s rock music. It was a good time, although it seems like one of my flatmates had an even better night. He went to a Fasnacht (carnival) celebration and ended up covered in purple body paint and drunk on traditional carnival Gluehwein. It seems that the time of year for crazy drunk German festivities has nearly arrived. Fasnacht is happening in Freiburg soon and I will be sure to take pictures of the costumes (truly a sight to behold).

This week, we're going to Strasbourg to visit the European Parliament. This should be a fantastic trip, and I'm especially excited because we get to visit the Debating Chamber. I do miss debate here in Germany and watching parliamentarians in action should help with that problem. Then, on Saturday, we're going to the Swiss Alps for some sledding fun. Can't wait.

All for now - bis spaeter!

A Difference Between Germans and Americans

In the U.S., it's pretty standard to do the "Hi, how are you?" and expect nothing more than "I'm fine, and you?" We do this automatically, and it's assumed that the small talk won't go any further than that.

It is not the same with Germans. I learned about this from my professor last semester. Instead of saying "I'm fine", Germans will unleash a hellfire of complaints, gloomy predictions about the future, and pessimistic discontents about politics, work, their love lives, or the world at large. It's not uncommon to bring up the apocalypse. Case in point:

I was walking back from class this morning and ran into one of my flatmates outside our building. This already had the potential to be awkward since I'm not really pals with this one. I let him in and asked him, in German, how he was.

Even though I knew that Germans treat this question differently, I still expected a general you're-my-American-flatmate-so-I'm-going-to-keep-this-short-and-sweet kind of deal. This was not the case. Instead, the conversation went like this:

Me: "How are you?"
E.: "I'm awful. I have too much work, too much stress, it's too cold outside, I have exams in two weeks, and life is going to be completely horrible until then."
Me: "...........................well, it IS cold today."

We descended the remaining 60 stairs in silence. It was completely awkward.

Now, I think I'll try to gather all my grievances into a couple of handy sentences to use on my flatmate when he asks me how I am. No more "I'm fine" - I'll be complaining about my schoolwork, the weather, my finances, German washing machines, my friends, American politics, anything and everything. Let the fun begin!